One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories

One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It took me a while to warm up to Novak's style, but once I did, I really enjoyed most of these stories. The first few felt a bit cliche, like he was trying too hard to be quirky, but eventually, the stories settled into an interesting rhythm. Some of them were short, some were long, but all felt like just the right length. Most of them I liked in general, but I definitely have favorites, and there were a few I didn't like at all or get. Luckily, you were quickly (usually) on to the next one, and there was a good chance I would like that one. I was listening to this one on audio in my car, so it was hard to take notes, but I went and found a print copy so I could at least make lists of the stories I did and didn't like.

My favorite:
Sophia (title of book comes from this story, incidentally)

A few of the stories were interconnected, though that wasn't obvious at first:
All You You Have to Do VVVV
Missed Connection: Grocery spill at 21st and 6th 2:30 pm on Wednesday

Stories I Liked:
Short ones like Kindness Among Cakes & If You Love Something & Romance, Chapter One
No One Goes to Heaven to See Dan Fogelberg
The Something by John Grisham
The Girl Who Gave Great Advice
The Ambulance Driver
The Man Who Invented the Calendar
MONSTER: The Roller Coaster
Kellogg's (or: The Last Wholesome Fantasy of the Middle-School Boy)
Wikipedia Brown and the Case of the Missing Bicycle
Bingo
Constructive Criticism
J.C. Audetat, Translator of Don Quixote

Stories I Either Didn't Like or Understand:
One of These Days, We Have to Do Something About Willie
Dark Matter
'Rithmetic
Walking on Eggshells (or: When I Loved Tony Robbins)
The Ghost of Mark Twain
Kate Moss

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Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later

Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later by Francine Pascal
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I was a Sweet Valley fan as a teenager, so I was looking forward to picking up this book and seeing where the girls and company had been over the last 10 years. Unfortunately, I was mostly disappointed.

I found this book to be cliche, with no depth to the characters. We're told they have changed, but when we don't see that change happen, it's just not believable. The over the top language and imagery, like bodies leaning with passion, made it laughably ridiculous. In addition to the plotting and character flaws, the constantly switching narrator made things hard to follow. It was one thing when it kept switching between Elizabeth and Jessica, noted by their location, but then suddenly we were hearing other people's thoughts and feelings, with no transition. If your narrator is an omniscient observer, that's one thing, but this wasn't that. This was just poor writing. The flashbacks were also a little frustrating, though less so than the narrator issue.

The characters also changed feelings too quickly. For the amount of rage Elizabeth claimed to have felt, it seemed like she forgave Jessica pretty easily. Not that she shouldn't, it just seemed too sudden of a change. Also, for someone so serious, her feelings about men changed really suddenly: from attraction to friends with benefits to just friends with Will, then from friends to lovers with Bruce. By the way, I HATE the word lovers. It's the 21st century. Pick a different word.

In addition to the previously mentioned writing issues, there also seemed to be a plot problem -- the timeline was all screwed up. Was the wedding only a week after the party? It seemed like it should be longer, but then at one point it referenced "the party a week ago." The resolution of conflict felt rushed and sudden as is, but then when compressed down into the space of a week, it was excessively unbelievable.

In the end, I think I figured out the primary source of the problems while listening to the author interview at the end of the audiobook. Francine Pascal says, "I am the god of Sweet Valley and I can make these characters do whatever I want." And that she wanted to shock people by having characters do things they'd never done before. It's because the author was throwing the characters around at her whim that they were so inconsistent and unbelievable.

I honestly would have a hard time recommending this to anyone other than the most diehard Sweet Valley fans.

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King Dork

King Dork by Frank Portman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I recently saw Dr. Frank play when he was in Seattle, and hadn't realized before that night that he was the same Frank Portman that wrote this book. I love his music and clever songs, and immediately bumped King Dork to the top of my to-read list.

Now I never was a teenage boy, so I'll give the benefit of the doubt that this is really how boys think, especially about girls. I was quite a bit turned off at first with how Tom viewed and treated Fiona at the party. He kept going on about her body, and not really focusing on the other stuff he liked about her. He couldn't even recognize her face if he saw her again.

Fortunately, good parts of this book mostly made up for the bad. I loved Tom and Sam's rotating list of bands, and their commitment to being in a band, even if it wasn't always a real one. It's hard to believe saying you're in a band has this effect on women, but I guess it's true.

I read a lot of reviews talking about how the girls in this book are sluts and how this book is completely sexist. First of all, who has the right to call a girl a slut for being open with her sexuality, especially as a teenager? If Deanna and Celeste did anything wrong, it was cheating on their boyfriends, but you can't be mad at them for being with multiple guys if that is their choice. If anything, these girls are a sign that the book isn't actually sexist. Sure, Tom ends up with 2 girls he's "seeing" and doesn't tell them about each other, but they each have multiple guys they are also "seeing," so the sexual revolution goes both ways, I guess. The biggest thing to object to is mostly how Tom and the others talk about these girls, not in their actions themselves.

The most interesting part of this book to me was Tom's search for the truth about his dad, and his research into the C.E.H. library. He had obviously not come to terms with his Father's death, especially with all the mystery surrounding it. Finding these books, and a mystery that he could possibly unravel about his father's teenage years, gave Tom a chance to connect with the father who was gone on another level. Of course, we are frustratingly left with no real conclusion to Tom's search, but isn't that how life normally is? Not every mystery gets solved, especially when people are sticking to multiple, different stories. Whether Tom's dad's death was a suicide, accident, or murder, it's likely we'll never know. It goes along with the idea that every narrative is subjective. Tom mentions at one point that Holden Caulfield is an unreliable narrator, and it made me think that it's possible Tom is unreliable as well. Were these girls really that into him? Nobody knows but him.

All in all, I was left thinking this book was pretty good, and despite the rocky start, I was glad I finished it, if only for the awesome glossary at the end, with both correct and incorrect pronunciations and hilarious definitions. I also dislike Jimmy Buffet, by the way. It's very important you know this about me.

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The Midas Flesh Vol. 1

The Midas Flesh Vol. 1 by Ryan North
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The premise of this comic is fantastic, and I don’t blame Ryan North for working on it for 10 years, just to find the right way to tell it. We all know the story of King Midas, who was both blessed and cursed with the ability to turn things to gold with a single touch. But what if that golden touch was transmuted through objects as well, turning everything that touched an object Midas was touching into gold as well, including air? It wouldn’t be long before the whole planet is covered in gold, everything dead and frozen, all turned literally into gold.

That is exactly what happens in this book, but the story doesn’t end there. Centuries after the Midas “miracle”, another race of people (that look remarkably like humans) happen upon the planet, realize what is going on, and quickly erase the planet from their maps and database, to hide the potential weapon from the rest of the universe.

Oh, you didn’t realize this was a weapon? Well, in the planetary war we are thrown into, an all-powerful Federation is in control, and a few rebels who stumbled upon long-lost information about the golden planet are trying to fight back to rescue their people. A team of three (Joey, Conner, and Fatima) travel to the gold planet to try to figure out a way to weaponize whatever caused the golden epidemic, because if they can harness that power, they can use it to stop the Federation. Instead of a mechanized weapon, though, what holds the power is literally Midas’ flesh and blood. And they quickly discover possessing the Flesh isn’t the same as being able to use it.

So far, I love the characters and find the plot really intriguing. So far, we’ve seen a little bit of Conner the dinosaur’s backstory (Did I mention there were dinosaurs? THERE ARE DINOSAURS!!), but I can’t wait to hear more about Joey and Fatima’s motivations. It’s easy to see why Conner is fighting back – his wife was murdered and his people destroyed by the Federation. He either runs and lives in hiding his whole life or fights back at this point. But Joey and Fatima both appear to be humanoid somehow, so I haven’t quite figured out why they are on the wrong side of the Federation.

There are a few things so far that are rather curious. First, that humanoid beings could possibly develop somewhere other than Earth is pretty far-fetched. Also, all the aliens of all species seem to speak English, which is pretty much not just improbably, but impossible. At least North acknowledges the unlikelihood of this when he has them able to read the crown that says “MIDAS” and argue over the likelihood of being able to read the language of a foreign planet. That made me laugh, and I understand that simplifying the language and cultural barriers makes it easier to focus on plot. I’d rather have interesting, well-written story and characters that just happen to speak the same language.

Last but certainly not least, I love Shelli Paroline & Braden Lamb’s artwork. The style is simple and engaging, and I appreciated being able to read in the back about not only North’s process of creating the comic, but the artists’ process of visual conceptualization, from establishing a visual style to the collaborative process. The more cartoony style of art really suits the subject matter well, and I can imagine the art style appealing to not just adults like me, but also to kids.

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Black Widow, Volume 1: The Finely Woven Thread

Black Widow, Volume 1: The Finely Woven Thread by Nathan Edmondson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've had a vague fondness for Black Widow, aka Natasha Romanov, since the Avengers movie, but I've never really known too much about her. I've heard, though, that they'll be diving more into her backstory in Avengers 2, so I thought I'd read up a little more on her.

This book is just fantastic. It's full of adventure and emotion without detailing everything in Natasha's past. I know enough about her to sense her regret and understand why she lives the way she does now. No matter what she's done in the past, who she is now is someone to admire and look up to, whether she believes she is worthy or not. Also, she has a adorable black cat just like me.

Phil Noto's artwork is perfection. I love the way he draws Natasha, strong and beautiful but not over-the-top bombshell. She's a fierce super spy, not someone there just as eye candy. There is something about Noto's art that is almost watercolor-like. It's very fluid and loose, graphic without being hard lines and block shapes. I am clearly not an art critic, as I try to explain why I love this art so much. I just do.

Though different in style, this book feels much like Fraction's Hawkeye book, an expose on what Avengers do when they're not saving the world as part of a super-team. Like Clint Barton, Natasha is one of the few Avengers without anyone super powers or magical suit, so it feels a little more down to earth. They are just humans like us, after all. In a way. And I loved the little scene with Clint falling out of a building behind Natasha, and her lawyer saying "That looks bad." HA! Hawkeye reference FTW! I'll definitely continue to follow this book, and look forward to the next trade publication, whenever that may be.

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I'll Give You the Sun

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Gorgeous and moving and heart-breaking and hopeful, all at the same time. The writing is so transcendent and descriptive, it often felt like I could see the action taking place in front of my eyes. I loved the narrators alternating between Noah at age 13/14, telling the story of what broke them, to Jude at age 16, telling the story of how they were healed. The more we lived inside each of their heads, the more we loved each of them, and truly felt both their agony and ecstasy.

I loved living inside Noah's head because everything was vivid Technicolor, full of life and felt with deep passion. His brilliance both connected him with and disconnected him from the world around him. When we finally got inside Jude's head, she was so locked up with guilt, she was being strangled by it. If she hadn't met Oscar and Guillermo, if she hadn't fought to free herself from her stone prison, if the secrets hadn't come out, she would have eventually imploded.

Most of the time, when teens fall in love and talk about forever and soul mates, the cynic in me rises up and rolls her eyes and says, "yeah, sure." Despite my natural cynicism, though, I found myself truly believing in the emotional connections between these characters, in the whole idea of split-apart souls, and people who are meant to be together. It doesn't mean I don't think there's anyone else out there that Noah and Jude could be happy with, other than Brian and Oscar; it just means I believe in the strength of their connection, their passion to be together. Who knows what will happen down the road, but for now, they have each other, and they have happiness.

I love how interconnected everyone was, the impact each person had on the twins and each other. Noah and Jude both knew Oscar, but a different version of Oscar. Noah and Jude both knew Guillermo, but a different version of Guillermo. Noah and Jude both loved their mother, but knew a different version of her. The accident was no one's fault, and changed everything; but somehow, still, nothing was changed. The twins' mother is a hard character to deal with because she has such a strong pull on their lives, and the power to make them delirious happy or ridiculously miserable. I truly believe that she loved the twins' father, so it's heartbreaking to see their relationship fall apart.

Most of the time, when books wrap up happily (or as happily as they can), as much as I desire happy endings, part of my can't help but think, "well, that was convenient." Not so this time: this ending felt happy in its own way and perfectly perfect, and this is definitely a book I'd recommend.

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In Real Life

In Real Life by Cory Doctorow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A great story that is completely relevant to our current culture and economy, where online games are real life are closely interwoven. I loved Anda's journey as she built up her self-esteem as a girl gamer, figured out the ins and outs of social justice, and defended her friends. Jen Wang's art is fantastic, as well. This is one book I'd happily hand to my nieces once they're a little older.

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