Friday, January 26, 2007

Small Steps by Louis Sachar

This is a roller coaster of a story. I am completely exhausted after reading it. And for the record, if I lived in Austin, Texas:
1. I would not cross the road if I encountered Armpit on the sidewalk.
2. I would not ready my phone to dial 911 because Armpit was walking with a little girl and I thought she was kidnapped.
3. If I found him sitting in my seats at a concert, I would not alert security and have him wrestled to the ground and arrested if it took him more than a millisecond to find his tickets.
4. I would call him Theodore because he is starting a new life and would prefer to leave 'Armpit' behind.

Most of the story I just felt so bad for the guy. Nobody but the person reading his story (the reader), and Jenny the 10 year old girl with cerebral palsy respected him or gave him the chance of day. It was maddening! But I suppose if you've spent a year at a camp for juvenile delinquents, you'd have a bit of a reputation to shake.

Anyway - Cailin - I have some questions for you.
The Rules:
No googling or consulting with parentals and/or older and wiser siblings.

1. Who is Janis Joplin?
2. Is she dead or alive?
3. If you've heard of her, name one thing you know about her.
4. Who are the Beatles?
Bonus Question:
1. Who sang 'Blame it on the Rain?' (Ok. This has nothing to do with Small Steps, just something that came up at work recently.)

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Inexcusable by Chris Lynch

Wow. Eerie. A great example of an unreliable narrator. For a few pages, I believed him. He's a good guy. A football player. When he tackled that guy and crippled him, he was just doing his job. Right? And then the case against him started building. I wanted to believe him, that the demolished statue was the doing of another group of hoodlums that arrived after his friends did a little vandalism for fun. He was a lovable, good guy. People liked him.

The book opens with the rape scene. And at first, the reader doesn't really know what happened. Gigi is saying she was raped, and Keir is telling her she is wrong. He seems to really believe that a rape did not occur. They're good friends, he loves her. And I wondered why, after she was raped, she was still in a room alone with her rapist, discussing whether or not the encounter was consensual. As the story continues, and you learn more about Keir and just how deluded he is, you begin to understand. It is truly frightening. And it makes me worry about my sisters.

And, I'm pretty upset because my dog decided to break into our closet, seek this book out and read it himself. So, I'm sorry Cailly - we'll have to buy you your own. But, it is worth it. It's a fast read, mostly because you find yourself burning through the backstory pages to figure out what exactly happened to Gigi. But, the brilliance in writing is all in the backstory. Little by little you start to see who Keir is, and what his family is truly like, and by the end you are feeling very scared for Gigi, and by the last scene - everything makes sense.

Monday, January 08, 2007

SPAWL

Hubby and I made our first-family-spawl this Christmas and it was quite the event. The original recipe involves 18 pounds of meat, preferably as many different kinds as you can possibly find. Roadkill is of course frowned upon in present times, although from stories I've heard, it may not have always been. Lots of onions and potatoes and dough and a mixture of secret spices that can only be divulged under one condition - those of interest must participate in the making of spawl by cutting up the number of onions required without breaks (which is a terrible task bordering on impossible). It was hubby's job this year. Some would say all of his crying was due to the onions, but I would argue he cried tears of joy for making his first spawl.

After all the cutting, layers of dough and meat and spice are added to a large pot (our spawl was half the size of an ordinary family spawl).



It's kind of like a large fruit parfait, except you substitute the fruit for an array of meat, the granola for raw dough, and the yogurt for potatoes and mystery spices.


The morning after: Spawl bakes in itself for 12 hours. It goes in the oven at night, and must be checked to make sure it's doing okay at least once at 3am. When you wake up, groggy from all the spawl preparations the night before, you smell cinnamon and other things that can only be described as Spawl. If you are hubby, you leap out of bed for your first taste of the masterpiece. In order to partake, you have to punch a hole in the thick crust (the top and bottom crusts are not to be eaten), and spoon out a hefty helping for breakfast.



The finished product. Do not let the gray hue of the masterpiece discourage you from digging in. At this point, the pot of spawl may be taken out of the oven. Do not worry about reheating, spawl is an exothermic reaction and remains at temperature for 24 hours at least, if not the entire month.



I do not eat spawl. But, I do like the smell of it. I have to say it smells a bit like Christmas, cinammony and nutmegy. In fact the smell is so potent, if you go visiting after making spawl, some will say 'Hm. You smell like spawl. Have you made spawl recently?' And then you can feel good about yourself because you smell like Christmas.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Ida B. and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World

This was the cutest funniest book I have read in a long time. I was so sad when it ended, I just might have to read it again. It's the best example of a middle grade novel that I have found since I read Polly Horvath's Everything on a Waffle, or at least the kind of middle grade books I like to read. The humor was so well written (natural, not jokey) and Ida B was such a unique character.

Ida B's life is perfect in her mind until her mother is diagnosed with cancer and they are forced to sell off a portion of their land. Ida B has to go to public school after being homeschooled her entire life. She is deeply betrayed and the book takes a swift turn from light and funny to dark and angry, although much of the humor still remains.

I should stop reading reviews of books, because I'm pretty upset to find a lot of people (mostly adults) felt the book was contrived and a cheap knock-off of Because of Winn-Dixie. I agree that I would categorize Ida B and Winn Dixie together, but I never would have considered one a knock off of the other. Another person was annoyed that nobody has noticed Ida B, Walk Two Moons, Winn-Dixie, and Everything on a Waffle are all the same story. I agree they have similarities: they target the same age group, involve the death/abandonment or possible death of a parent, and are written in the voice of a middle grade girl, but they each take up their own space on the book shelves. I think each of the narrating girls are as different as four 10-12 year old girls you'd stumble upon in real life. They each have their own story, and tell it in a different way.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Vegan, Virgin, Valentine

I know this book has been out for quite awhile, but I just re-stumbled upon it and decided to take it along on my 10 hr drive up north for the holidays. I limited myself to three books only (The Lightning Thief and Schwa was Here) because my bag of books have begun to outweigh my bag of clothes, and I never do as much reading as I'd like while visiting family. Anyway - I finished it on the drive. Usually I'm out like a light by Baltimore, but I was fully conscience all the way to Boston, Massachusetts this time. I've read her two previous books, but for some reason this book really gripped me. Not to mention the first few pages completely and totally shocked me to the point I had to read them aloud to my hubby. I think he now has a new respect for YA authors...

The characters were so realistic - V, the crazy over the top wild one, and Mara, the repressed over achiever. Mara's life is thrown upside down when V (Mara's niece, although she is only one year younger) comes to live with her family. Her first week there, V hooks up with Mara's ex-boyfriend - at school - with witnesses, thoroughly infuriating Mara (who is far from over the break-up). The girls clash through the rest of the book. Although V was the bad guy in the beginning, she becomes more three dimensional as the story continues, and I found myself feeling as attached to V as I was to Mara.

While I was reading about this book, I found an interesting thread from a vegan weboard about how terrible this book is, and how poorly veganism is portrayed. Vegan may be in the title, but this book is certainly not about veganism. It is about the delicate balance of self-control and indulgence - repression and letting go. Mara chooses to become vegan because she needs something to obsess about other than her ex-boyfriend. She needed something else to control in her already too-controlled life. It made complete sense to me.

Anyway - Cailin I think you'll love this book too. (I forgot to leave it at home for you...I'll send it to you after you finish Octavian Nothing...)

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Yay for new books.

I received two glorious gift cards to Barnes and Noble. Usually, I have a very hard time choosing which books to buy - it is a big decision. There are far too many books I want to read. My husband doesn't understand it. I could spend three hours in a bookstore and not buy a single book. It's a disease I tell you. If someone gave me a bookstore shopping spree I think I would be paralyzed with the pressure. Therefore, as I clearly have a problem, I have vowed in this new year to get-over-it.

Yesterday I left the bookstore with THREE gleaming new books.
1. Inexcusable by Chris Lynch
2. Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet by Lola Douglas
3. Enna Burning by Shannon Hale

Erin