I'm running out of witty titles for these things

54.  The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson
Boyfriend's mom likes to lend me realistic fiction books about incredibly strange people, which always end up being highly enjoyable and balanced somewhere between endearing, amusing, and a little bit sad.  The Family Fang is no exception, although the strangeness is booted up to eleven - Caleb and Camille Fang are performance artists specializing in public disruption, and their children Annie and Buster get used as tools in their performances until they're old enough to flee into the normal the world.  The book does a lot of questioning about the nature and value of art, as well as studying the weight of family connections.  (When Annie and Buster fall on hard times as adults, they are forced to move back in with their parents - to everyone's consternation.)  I enjoyed it, although it gets pretty bleak in places; the chapters alternate between what is happening in the book's present and the Fangs' performances in the past.  Reading about the things the parents persuade their children to do in the name of art is like a train wreck: mesmerizing and traumatic.

55.  Nothing, Janne Teller
This was one of the selections on my YA Literature class syllabus that I did not get a chance to read, but after hearing from my classmates it sounded rather intriguing.  It is, but it's...rough.  Nothing is a Danish book about a class of 13 year olds, one of whom decides that since nothing matters, nothing means anything and nothing is worth doing, so he starts spending every day up in the branches of a tree.  His classmates decide to show him that there is meaning in the wold by collecting what they come to term their "heap of meaning" - a pile of things that mean the most to them.  Except it becomes obvious that no one is contributing what means the most to them, so they start picking for each other, and...things escalate quickly.  It's horrifying, watching what these kids push each other to do; the front cover flap calls it reminiscent of Lord of the Flies, which turns out to be a pretty apt comparison.

56.  Muchacho, LouAnne Johnson
Read for my advocacy class.  It's about a Hispanic high school student in New Mexico, who can fairly be described as "high risk."  He goes to an alternative school and has an incredibly bitter outlook on life, until he starts dating a girl who's smart and perceptive enough that he starts trying to turn himself around.  Gang activity, drug talk, and some pretty deep insights abound - it's a good read, but there are moments where I simply did not believe that some of these insights could have originated with the character, considering how disengaged he is and his education level.  

Goal!

51.  Americus, MK Reed and Jonathan Hill
I read this (and The Chosen One) for my youth advocacy class.  It's a deceptively simple story about a kid growing up in small-town America who loves to read more than he likes interacting with other people, and loves one fantasy series in particular.  His best friend comes from an extremely religious family, the mother of whom finds him reading the newest installment and organizes a crusade against the library to get the books banned.  Superficially, all the characters are caricatures, with the shy bookworm, the militant librarian, and the religious zealot.  Hill's art, though, goes huge lengths to show the emotional conflict in each character, and reveals more depth than the writing might initially suggest.  (Which is not to say the writing is lacking, simply that the art and writing work in concert to provide a fuller picture of the story.  You know, the way a graphic novel is designed.)

52.  The Chosen One, Carol Lynch Williams
Uggh, my heart.  This is another one I read for my advocacy class, and it was a lot like getting kicked in the teeth.  Kyra, the main character, is a14-year-old daughter to a polygamist family in a religious compound, and she's told that the Prophet has had a vision about her getting married...to her 60-year-old uncle.  The book is about her emotional turmoil and ultimate rebellion, but it's also about her family and the way they love and protect each other.  It is rough, but Williams treats these people in a very human way, and doesn't just vilify the adults in the compound (well, not MOST of them.  Kyra's mothers and father are never vilified.  The Prophet and her uncle, however...).  It's sensitive, and astonishing, and an incredibly fast read.

53. Iron Warriors Omnibus, Graham McNeill
This is actually comprised of, I think, two complete novels and some short fiction, but I'm counting it as one because I read them bound together and because I do what I want on my blog.  McNeill is fun to read as always, but I confess, reading this much fiction where the bad guys win every single time was bad for my morale.  It gets exhausting after a while, especially when the front-and-center characters are as loathsome as these Chaos Space Marines.  I just...I just need to read about some good guy victories, ok?

I hit my goal this week!  I have read 52 books in WAY less than 52 weeks.  Now to see how many books I can finish before 2013!

This post is mostly about Horror Novels

49. Bones of the Yopasi, Graham McNeill
This is the second book in the Dark Waters trilogy by McNeill, which are novelizations in the universe of the FFG Cthulhu games (Arkham Horror, Elder Sign, Mansions of Madness).  I picked up the first one, Ghouls of the Miskatonic, at GenCon 2011 and have been waiting pretty eagerly for volume two (released, appropriately, at GenCon 2012).  I know McNeill first from the fabulous work he does for Games Workshop - I've mentioned some of his Horus Heresy work right here on this blog (his books are, largely, my favorites).  It's slightly baffling to me that his work with FFG isn't as strong, but as people have noted, the Cthulhu mythos universe may just be more difficult to write within - it's got the time period constraints, being set in the '20s, which comes with a whole load of issues (dialogue seems to be McNeill's biggest problem, all his characters end up sounding like Casablanca cliches) but in general, the Dark Waters books serve up a heaping dose of Elder God weirdness and some fun action.  At the end of the day, that's all I want.

50. 11/22/63, Stephen King
This is the third King novel I've read this year for my challenge, and I think it's my favorite.  When I was about 13, I went through an intense Stephen King phase: I loved (and still love) horror fiction, in a way that surprises most people who know how terrified I am of horror film.  But reading something is different from watching it, and King is a master of the genre.  I read IT, The Shining (one of my top five books ever), Eyes of the Dragon, 'Salem's Lot, Four Past Midnight, almost everything I could get my hands on (I missed some cornerstones, like Carrie, which I'm going to get to before the film remake comes out next spring).  At his best, King writes brilliantly paced, incredibly eerie prose that descends into the stuff of shambling nightmares.

What is so amazing about 11/22/63 is that it is both completely recognizable as one of King's works, but also something totally unlike anything I've read of his before.  It's a time-travel novel, and while it carries some of the typical tropes you'd expect to find in one, it's also a haunted house novel akin to The Shining.  The characters, especially our would-be hero Jake, are fighting against a malevolent, intangible force...which is time itself, rather than a spirit or ghost or something else supernatural, as Jake tries to do the impossible and prevent the assassination of JFK.  It's also a brilliant example of the way that King can write complete lives for his characters that don't seem to be particularly relevant to the specific story he's telling, but are compelling in and of themselves until the moment you realize, gob-smacked, that EVERYTHING you've read matters.

I did smile a little at one particular moment, because King is also known for being self-referential, and there was a moment were I thought he was going to slot the total plot of a previous novel into this one.  He doesn't, and unless you've read IT I don't think it would have mattered, but having read IT gives a little more insight into the world of 11/22/63.  Because, like I said, everything you've read matters - even if it didn't happen in this particular book.

It's Been A Long August.

46.  State of Wonder, Anne Patchett
I really wanted to like this more than I did.  Patchett is a beautiful, lyrical writer, but the story in this...just didn't work for me.  There's medical research in the Amazon, and the main character has to go find out what happened to her colleague, and the doctors working in the rain forest are living and working with a tribe of native people who could hold the secret to post-menopausal fertility.  The characters are intriguing, especially the acidic Dr. Swenson (who is leading the research team and has been for several years), but everything breaks down in the face of a very uncomfortable notion: it feels like Patchett is relying far too much on colloquial stereotypes, rather than on any actual experience or research, and ultimately I don't see that she says anything new about the issues she raises (and the rain forest itself feels like it stepped right out of Heart of Darkness - I'm sure we can all agree we don't need another definitive "savage worlds" narrative).  I've heard her other books are better, so I'll give them a shot, but I was disappointed with this.

47. Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star, Brandon Mull
These books are so fun!  The follow-up to Mull's first Fablehaven book ups the ante accordingly, pulling in the mysterious and evil organization, offering plenty of action, and leaving you with a much crunchier cliffhanger than volume 1.  I don't often feel surprised by the twists in children's/YA lit, but this one kept me guessing a little longer than most.  Recommended if you enjoy kid lit fantasy.

48.  Desperation, Stephen King
Hnngh.  Overall, not my favorite of King's - but it DID have a whole lot of the creepy, weird, gross horror stuff which is basically my motivation for reading Stephen King.  Unlike a lot of his books, Desperation hits the ground running; you don't get the slow burn build-up of The Shining or Salem's Lot.  Instead, you are instantly dropped into the middle of the desert, on the highway, with a murderous cop pulling people over and dragging them back to his town (Desperation, Nevada) where he may or may not have killed every single living person.

The big reason I didn't love this one as much as others is that, while it deals with King's typical examination of evil and the relationship between good, evil, faith, and possession, it's not subtle.  David, an eleven-year-old boy, is in direct contact with God.  God sent them there.  I'm not a fan of this trope because I feel like it takes some of the tension out.  When King lets things be more subtle, when his characters are less obviously "guided by God," there's more room for uncertainty and for human error.

I do kind of love the notion that he wrote a "companion" novel, called The Regulators, under his Richard Bachman pseudonym and published the novels side-by-side (The Regulators takes place in a parallel universe, with the same characters in different positions and the same overall villain).  I'd like to check that one out, just to see the complete vision of the story.

Forty-Five is Such an Even Number

44.  Ranger's Apprentice: The Ruins of Gorlan, John Flanagan
I read this on a lark, because I run into the Ranger's Apprentice books a lot when I'm shelving at the library.  The first one was fun, a fairly standard fantasy kingdom-type tale about a couple of adolescents learning how to be heroes.  The Rangers are the covert operation in the kingdom, and Will, our main character, gets personally selected to train under one of the more notorious Rangers in the kingdom.  I appreciated that his story, about stealth and subtlety and learning how to be effective with cunning rather than strength, is intercut with that of Horace, a boy who goes to Battleschool to learn how to be a knight.  Both boys end up being preternaturally skilled at their assigned tasks (surprise), but they do still have to work at it - there are no shortcuts or easy solutions in this book. 

45.  Messy, Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
The long awaited follow-up to the effervescently clever Spoiled did not disappoint.  Heather and Jessica bring the same biting wit to their dialogue that they deploy on their website gofugyourself.com, and it hits just the right notes coming out of the mouths of sarcastic oddball Max and her nemesis-turned-business-partner, the beautiful and savvy Brooke Berlin.  Even when elements of the plot feel predictable, the Fug Ladies bring a refreshing perspective to their critique of the Hollywood Machine through blog entries ghost written by Max (as Brooke, providing the main conflict later in the book).  Plus, they managed to work in a turban AND a reference to the episode of One Tree Hill where a dog eats a guy's heart.  Perfection.

Almost done and it's only July

40.  Lockdown, Alexander Gordon-Smith
A friend of mine is reading the Monstrumologist books by Rick Yancey, which I've already read (and adored), and hearing him talk about them made me crave something dark, gritty, scary and weird.  So I looked up some title read-alikes on Novellist and pulled this title out of a pile.  It was ok - definitely not lacking in the dark and weird arena.  The story is about Alex, a teen who has the misfortune to be a small-time criminal growing up in the aftermath of the so-called Summer of Slaughter (an event in the book's history where teen gangs killed huge numbers of people).  When he gets framed for the murder of his friend, the judge locks him away for life in the juvenile detention center Furnace.  Furnace is basically hell with more nutritious food, complete with Nazi-esque body horror, some super creepy dogs that habitually tear inmates to pieces, and a geographic location a mile or so under the earth.  It turns into a pretty standard escape-from-prison story, but I appreciated the horror dressings Gordon-Smith applied in abundance.



41.  Fablehaven, Brandon Mull

I've been supervising junior volunteers at the library this summer, and they've been plying me with reading recommendations.  Fablehaven was one of these, and it turned out to be super fun.  It's young-young-adult fantasy, about a sister and brother who get sent to stay with their grandparents over summer break and find out that they're basically gamekeepers for a forest preserve full of fantastical creatures.  The fairies in Fablehaven are definitely the new breed, more inclined to harm and mischief than just being pretty, and the excitement ramps up after a pretty spooky midsummer night scene when the grandfather gets kidnapped.  I just got the second book in the series and I'm looking forward to reading more.

42.  Full Dark, No Stars, Stephen King
King's short stories are kind of hit-or-miss for me - for every Langoliers there's a Trucks, often in the same collection.  I thought that the first and the last stories in Full Dark, No Stars were pretty excellent; the middle two, not so much.  I had some trouble with one - it deals with the graphic rape and abuse of a young woman, and reeks a bit of appropriation; the other one I didn't care for was just too...boring.

43.  Age of Darkness, ed. Christian Dunn
Moar Horus Heresy.  This was fun, even the piece by Gav Thorpe (which was at least short fiction rather than a whole novel).  The big surprise for me was that the stand-out piece wasn't by Dan Abnett, Graham McNeill, or Aaron Dembski-Bowden (easily the strongest writers in Games Workshop's bull pen), but by some guy I'd never heard of named Rob Sanders.  His piece, "The Iron Within," wrecked me in a way I'm only used to from McNeill.  Good stuff.

I just really like Moby-Dick, ok

37.  Railsea, China Mieville
I like Mieville, I really do, and this was a fascinating examination of Moby-Dick through a western/dieselpunk lens.  But there are times when I feel like Mieville might be being too clever with his language.  He has some partial chapters that exist only to tell you he's not going to talk about something right at that moment.  But the story is good, and extremely interesting because while it's only superficially an adaptation of Melville's original, it explores many of the same themes and ideas.  Plus the world Mieville has imagined is utterly fascinating to me: the railsea of the title is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, in lieu of the ocean there are thousands of miles of looping, endless railroad over earth that's full of gigantic desert creatures (like the ivory-colored mole that our captain is chasing).  Interesting stuff.

38.  The Fault in Our Stars, John Green
Ugh, my heart.  Describing this one to other people is a little rough, because at its heart it's about teenagers dying from cancer.  But it's also a coming-of-age story, and a love story, and sort of an adventure story?  It's a lot of things that Green does really well, and it's tragic and heartbreaking and I think I really loved it.  Here, if Green's teenagers sound a little too clever for their age, well, I bet terminally sick children have to grow up a little faster and more sharply than other people.  Hazel, his heroine, will charm you and probably make you cry.

As a side note, I REALLY have to stop reading books like this on public transportation.  I mean REALLY.

39.  Aliens Omnibus volume 1, Various
Fun fun fun.  This is a compilation of three sequential comics, written as part of the Alien expanded universe, and they take place (I believe) between Aliens and Alien 3.  It's a cold, cynical look at how Earth would react to knowing about the existence of the xenomorphs, and we get the government, private corporations, civilians, religious groups...all over the map.  It's creepy and it's scary and it's violent, and basically everything I wanted from a comic about acid-blooded, homicidal aliens.