frozen characters

Archangelsk by Elizabeth H. Bonesteel

Rating: 2.5 stars (out of 5)

Genre: science fiction

Review: How do you take the remnants of a generation ship and keep humanity alive on a frozen, inhospitable planet?  It turns out to involve not just a fair amount of technological ingenuity, but also a healthy dose of myth-making and autocratic government (think, iron fist in velvet glove).  And then, how do you hold the society you've made together 200 years later, when your far-distant cousins from Earth show up and basically say "hey, we didn't actually destroy ourselves like you thought!"?  For the governor of Novayarkha, it turns out the answer is, not very well.

Which is all all well and good for plot purposes.  Every book has to have dramatic conflict and all that.  However, every good book also needs well-rounded characters who have realistic reactions to the conflict.  Both of those were lacking here.  Across the board, characters behaved in ways that weren't understandable based on the information given to the reader.  It's hard to relate to characters when you don't understand why they're acting the way they are.  It's a shame that this book was sunk by poor character development, because the premise was quite interesting.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

limited narrative

Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung
Rating: 2.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Review: At the outset, this book seems to be about a fairly ordinary Korean-American family.  Although the younger sister has left town without telling her family where she's gone, her actions seem like an understandable act of rebellion (as opposed to the mystery the jacket-blurb would have you believe).  In point of fact, she is relatively easily found and returned to the family fold, although the real reasons she left are frustratingly left un-fleshed out.

Soon after we meet this family, however, it seems as though the book is really about cruelty.  There are acts of cruelty perpetrated by the government, by spouses, sisters, parents, and other family members against one another.  This part of the book is very difficult to read, not just because of the descriptions of cruelty, but because they were so unexpected after the book's opening, and because I never really understood why we were presented with so much cruelty.  It doesn't seem to help us understand much about how the family interacts during the father's illness and decline, which takes up much of the book.  Yet even here the story seems insubstantial and can't support the weight that the author seems to be trying to give it.

There might have been more to this story if it had been told in multiple perspectives.  But because it is told in the first-person of the older sister, a character who doesn't seem to grow or change, the book itself stagnates.  By denying us the insights of any of the other characters, the author limits what the reader can get out of the book.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

agenda-driven

Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir From an Atomic Town by Kelly McMasters

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)

Genre: memoir

Review: Told in the form of a personal narrative, this book contains a lot of interesting information about Long Island local history, especially the East End. There's also a lot of interesting information about nuclear pollution, which might make anyone question the water they drink. Unfortunately, much of this book also reads as an indictment of Brookhaven National Laboratory, which may or may not be justified. To be fair, McMasters credits BNL for having improved their practices in recent years, but the book still comes across as being agenda-driven and biased, which undercuts the message more than a little bit.

depressing conscience

Mercury Under My Tongue by Sylvain Trudel

Rating: 2 stars (out of 5)

Genre: fiction, YA

Review: When I was a teenager, I was very into depressing books about depressing things. And perhaps if I was still a teenager, I would have liked this book too. But I'm not, and I didn't. Not only is this book horribly depressing (it's about a 17-year old boy in the hospital dying from bone cancer), but it uses one of my least favorite literary techniques: stream of consciousness. He's already come to terms with his own death, so there's not a lot of existential wrangling going on, just imaginary conversations with his family and a few glimpses of life in the hospital. And teenage angsty poetry. If you're interesting in knowing what's going on in the head of this particular fictional dying teenager, this is the book for you. But if you're actually looking for a good book or compelling writing, skip it.

vote no on judicial elections

The Appeal by John Grisham
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Review: This is a book with an agenda, one Grisham doesn't try to hide, to his credit. In his afterword, while assuring us that all the people are completely made up, Grisham also assures us that the problem he depicts is all too real. The issue is an elected judiciary and the effect that special interests can have on a judicial election.

Grisham seems to have recovered his ability to write with this book, and although none of the character are particularly well fleshed-out, this is a plot-driven book, and the plot moves along nicely.

I have to say that I wasn't altogether enamored with the ending. As things look worse and worse for the good guys, the plot takes a sharp turn, but not necessarily for the better. The turn itself is unpredictable, and makes the ending even more unpredictable, but I felt that the turn itself came from so far out in left field that it took away from the plot, which, until that point, had been running very smoothly, if somewhat depressingly.

Despite that, this is a good effort by Grisham, and one worth reading if for no other reason that than to read about a fictional, but all too possible and pernicious threat to justice and democracy that is seldom discussed.

finally done

The Widows of Eden by George Shaffner

Rating: 2 stars (out of 5)

Genre: fiction

Review: To get a real feel for what I thought of this book, please read my reviews of the two books that came before it, In the Land of Second Chances and One Part Angel. With this book, the three form what I hope will be only a trilogy telling the story of what happens when Vernon Moore pays a visit to the hopeless folk of Ebb, Nebraska.

Having established what I thought of those, it should come as no surprise that I was not impressed, to say the least, by this third installment. Here we have more of the same, although at least we are given the beginnings of an explanation of where the mysterious Mr. Moore comes from. I was not thrown a bit by the vaguely supernatural nature of the theory that the people of Ebb come up with, it just seemed forced and laid on top of the story very heavily.

This book follows the pattern set by its predecessors. There is a crisis in Ebb and Vernon Moore rolls into town to save the day. Except, rather than just addressing the problem, he has to do it in the roundabout way of convincing one of the main players to have faith. His arguments this time are a combination of the arguments he made in the first two books.

There is really nothing new here. The characters, none too interesting to begin with, have become parodies of themselves. I can only echo what other reviewers have said: if you liked the first two, you'll probably like this one. If you didn't, or haven't read the first two, don't bother with this one.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.