Book Reviews – Page 92

Why I’ve been hooked on Emily Giffin

Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
Something Blue by Emily Giffin
Book 21 of 2009- Baby Proof by Emily Giffin

I haven’t been reading as much chick lit as I used to, because in the past couple of years I’ve been pretty hard up in finding chick lit that’s worth reading.

Emily Giffin was a surprising discovery I made last year. It started when I found a hardbound bargain copy of Something Blue (I was amused at the title) for around 60 bucks at a roving booksale (Books and Mags).

I knew it was a sequel so I waited for a hardbound copy of Something Borrowed to come up on BookMooch. The US moocher had to delay my mooch for a couple months so I had to wait, but by sheer luck I found a copy — a hardbound library discard with a couple of breaks in the spine, sitting unnoticed on a bottom shelf at Book Sale, and it was only P10!

As soon as I got the book covered in plastic (call me weird, but I can never read a book that does not have a protective plastic cover), I started reading a few pages just to see if I would like it, and I was not able to put it down.

Something Borrowed is the story of Rachel and Darcy, who are best friends. Darcy is engaged to Rachel’s classmate from law school, Dexter. One night, on Rachel’s 30th birthday, the flighty Darcy is missing in action and Rachel is left to celebrate with Dex. After one drink too many, Rachel and Dex wind up in bed together, and Rachel realizes she’s been in love with Dex all along, and gasp! — Dex feels the same way about her.

You would think it’s pretty hard to feel sympathy for a girl who steals her best friend’s fiance and a guy who cheats on his fiancee with her best friend, but Giffin manages to pull it off. I knew they could have handled it better, and thinking about it makes me cringe a bit, but I was rooting for Rachel and Dex. (On a side note, I am glad my best friend and I have totally different tastes in men!)

Being privy to their secret was sinfully addictive, and I won’t say any more to keep from spoiling it, but I actually read Something Blue because I couldn’t get enough of Rachel and Dex, although the 2nd book is really about Darcy.

I can’t blog about Something Blue without any major spoilers, so let me just say that it’s from Darcy’s point of view this time around. I’m not Darcy’s biggest fan, and it was pretty hard to read a book from the point of view of a character I didn’t really like, but I was relieved that Darcy grew up a lot in this book, and by the end of the book I learned to appreciate her character.

Baby Proof is Giffin’s third novel, separate from the first two but towards the end of the book there is a remote link via one character (Ethan).

The book is about Claudia, a book editor, who appears to have the perfect (=child-free, in Claudia’s perspective) marriage until her husband Ben decides he wants them to have a baby.

Baby Proof tackles a more serious topic, raising questions that are often taken for granted: is a marriage necessarily lacking without kids? Is it okay for a person to not want to have children?

The book is a confirmation of all the things I love about Emily Giffin’s books: real people with flaws, relevant issues, female friendships, excellent introspection, and writing that just keeps you reading, and reading, and reading.

Chick lit authors are a dime a dozen these days, but Emily Giffin is one of the very few who can pull off substance with style.

Aargh. Now I want a copy of Love The One You’re With…

***
(photos from emilygiffin.com)

My copy: hardcover copy of Something Borrowed (library discard), replaced with another hardcover in better condition; hardcover copy of Something Blue, missing its dustjacket; trade paperback of Baby Proof

My rating: Something Borrowed 5/5 stars; Something Blue 4/5 stars; Baby Proof 4/5 stars

Ahh, Casablanca…

The big 2-0!

Book #20 for 2009: The Tattooed Map by Barbara Hodgson

After my first illustrated novel of the year turned out to be a dud, I was wary of reading another one, lest it turns out to be a disappointment again.

To my pleasure, I warmed right up to The Tattooed Map, a beautiful squarish book full of maps, photos, scribblings, and other ephemera.

The Tattooed Map is the journal of Lydia Usher, a Canadian traveler who explores North Africa with her friend and former lover Christopher.

She wakes up in their hotel room one day to find what she thinks is a cluster of flea-bites on her hand. Days pass and she realizes the marks have formed into a map spreading from her hand to her body like a tattoo.

Lydia suddenly disappears and Christopher takes up her journal in the hopes of finding her, or at least a clue to her whereabouts. He soon discovers that it is no prank of Lydia’s, and as he is drawn deeper into the web of mystery, he realizes there are strange forces at work.

I really liked this book because it was the right blend of travelogue, art and mystery. Lydia leads such an enviable life. Her research takes her to exotic places, she takes off at a moment’s notice, and never seems to run out of pocket money. Her compulsive habit of taking scrupulous travel notes take you right there with her, and her candid observations allow you to visualize the places she goes to and the people she meets.

The other half of the journal is continued by a befuddled Christopher, up until the tumultous ending that makes you want to cry out “Sequel! Sequel!” after reading that last sentence.

For a first novel, The Tattooed Map doesn’t disappoint, and I am eagerly adding Barbara Hodgson to the list of authors whose works I am collecting. It’s good I have one more book of hers in my TBR: Hippolyte’s Island. I think I’ll save that for a time when I’m in dire need of a good read.

***
My copy: hardcover, about P140

My rating: 4.5/5 stars

Picture books make me smile

Books 18 and 19 for 2009

Got two new books for my picture book collection – I Hate to Read! by Rita Marshall, illustrated by Etienne Delessert, and the 1991 Caldecott Medal awardee Black & White by David Macaulay. I tell myself I collect them for reference in illustration, but I can’t deny I have fun reading them too :)

I mooched I Hate to Read! from fellow Flipper akaShy because the title was intriguing, and the illustrations appealed to me.

The story is about Victor Dickens, a kid who hates to read. One day, as he pretends to read a book so that he could watch TV, characters start jumping out to invite him to read: a crocodile in a white coat, a field mouse, a peg-legged parrot, a white rabbit wearing black boots, a frog with a broken feather in his cap, and many more.
And then his visions get stranger and stranger until he felt sad that all the characters’ stories would be lost if nobody read them.

The story didn’t quite work for me, as it didn’t build up sufficiently to the conclusion. Victor’s transition from non-reader to reader was abrupt and confusing, and so it’s not very convincing.

Etienne Delessert’s illustrations, however, save the book from being just another picture book. The watercolor illustrations have a whimsical quality that charms from the get-go, and breathes life to comical characters. I especially love the field mouse with a cat in its backpack (it’s like the Totoro Catbus with mouse headlights!)

Check it out on google books

The second book in this selection is David Macaulay’s Black and White, which I’ve been in search of for some time now (I am collecting the Caldecotts).

It’s a po-mo picture book that was given so much thought to that it boggles the mind.

The title page greets you with a cryptic note: “This book appears to contain a number of stories that do not necessarily occur at the same time.”

Then, each spread is divided into four frames that tell what appear to be four different stories, illustrated in different styles: wash, comic, inked watercolor, and chunky paint.

The first story, on the upper left hand, is “Seeing Things,” depicting a boy on a train, whose trip is interrupted by a long delay. On the lower left is “Problem Parents,” showing a family’s life turned upside down when the kids’ perfectly normal parents come home wearing newpaper clothes. On the upper right, the third story is “A Waiting Game,” where a crowd of commuters waiting on the train platform get bored and decide to have fun with some newspapers. Finally, on the lower right, “Udder Chaos” follows an escaped convict hiding within a herd of cows.

The overlapping elements reveal that the four stories are part of another story — the convict hides in the cattle, which cross the tracks and cause the train’s delay, which the boy witnesses. At the station, waiting for the train makes the crowd desperate for entertainment, causing them to play with the newspapers. Among those in the crowd are the parents, who come home wearing newspapers, to the surprise of their children.

It’s not easy to decipher, and who’s to say these are the only interpretations of the story, as it depends on the reader’s imagination. I love how the book makes you think and pay attention to detail. In “Waiting Game” there is even a hidden story of a squirrel (smaller than my thumbnail) who joins in the merrymaking.

It’s an amazing effort, and a very nice way of opening up your mind to various possibilities.

***
My copies: I Hate To Read, hardcover, no dustjacket – mooched from akaShy. Black and White, rummaged at Book Sale for P95.

My rating: I Hate to Read, 3/5 stars; Black and White, 5/5 stars

2009 Newbery Medal: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

I would be the first to admit that I’m no Neil Gaiman fan (I find his books to be an acquired taste), but The Graveyard Book is one of the best books I read last year, and I’m glad it won the Newbery Award.

The story unfolds in a house at the foot of a hill, where a family has just been murdered. The cold-blooded killer methodically executes the sleeping family, except for one – the toddler, who manages to escape his family’s fate as he crawled out of his crib, up the hill, and into an unlikely refuge: a graveyard.

The book pays tribute to Kipling’s The Jungle Book, where Mowgli is raised by wolves in the jungle. In a similar fashion, The Graveyard Book tells the story of finding love and family in an unexpected place: the toddler, who grows up to be Nobody “Bod” Owens is raised by the graveyard ghosts and the mysterious caretaker Silas.

Bod finds plenty of room to grow within the graveyard, but the soon longs for the the world of flesh and blood. Little does he know that his life is still in danger, as the man who killed his family has been waiting thirteen years to finish the heinous task.

The book is a bit like a slightly more sinister version of Eva Ibbotson’s books, which usually have ghosts in them. I loved the characters in this book: they’re quirky and humorous and endearing. Other than Bod, my favorites are Silas (who reminds me of my favorite HP character Severus Snape) and Miss Lupescu, who turn out to be more than meets the eye.

The highlight of the book for me was the danse macabre, because it perfectly expressed the book’s major theme: the juxtaposition of life and death, and the celebration of both.

Of course, Dave McKean’s two-tone illustrations deserve special mention, underscoring the eerie atmosphere they helped create for the entirety of the novel.

Neil Gaiman announced on The Today Show that a film adaptation is in the works; that should be something to watch out for.

Perhaps I shall read another Gaiman book after all. I do hope this has a sequel.

***

(images from www.thegraveyardbook.com)

My copy: US trade paperback (harr, the UK edition looks much better)

My rating: 5/5 stars

My best book for 2008

2008 was a landmark year for me and my books – my books tripled in quantity (thanks to BookMooch), my to-be-read stack (TBR) reached crazy heights (now I have a separate shelf for TBR) and was able to read a total number of 230 books.

This month, my book club, Flips Flipping Pages discussed our best and worst books for 2008.

It was challenging to pick out my best book, as I had a lot to choose from, including:

Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Ptolemy’s Gate by Jonathan Stroud
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (reread)
The BFG by Roald Dahl
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Daughter of Venice by Donna Jo Napoli
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

After much deliberation I decided to choose a book that blew me away:
The Arrival by Shaun Tan.

From the moment I held the book in my hands, I was awed by how beautiful it was, and how it seemed to elicit from me a sense of reverence as I turned the pages. Turning the book on its back cover, the critical acclaim is staggering – it is all praises from an all-star roster of authors and illustrators: Art Spiegelman, Marjane Satrapi, Jeff Smith, Jon J. Muth, Brian Selznick, Craig Thompson, and David Small.

You might be surprised to learn that my best book for 2008 is wordless – The Arrival is told entirely in pictures, in a series of breathtaking pencil sketches that silently convey so much emotion.

The Arrival depicts the story of a man who starts a new life for himself and his family in a foreign land. Tan perfectly captures the emotional roller coaster ride the character goes through: sadness at leaving his family behind; the stress of a long journey; the relief of reaching the destination; the bewilderment towards a new way of life; the slow acclimatization to a different culture; and the joy of being reunited with family.

Surrealism isn’t ordinarily my thing (see my review for The Republic of Drea ms), but I loved how it is used in this book, especially in the new country. Everything is strange and outlandish– from the landscape to alphabet, alien creatures (the origami birds remind me of the paper birds chasing Haku in Spirited Away and the pet-like animals remind me of daemons in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy), food, customs, and transportation – and creates a perfect metaphor for the immigration experience. It also makes a grown-up theme simple enough for a young reader to understand without making it childish.

The book exemplifies the power of imagery – it’s pretty hard to “read” this book and not feel the emotions wash over you, and its cinematic quality makes you feel you’re watching the events unfold right before your very eyes. It made me smile and laugh and sigh, and as I turned the last page, I wanted to burst into applause.

This is definitely a book to treasure, and a must-read for illustrators.

***
(The Arrival images from www.shauntan.net)

My copy: hardcover

My rating: 5/5 stars