Tag Archives: 100 novels

Books Thirteen, Fourteen and Fifteen: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay

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Okay, whoa.

I picked up The Hunger Games because I kept hearing how fantastic it was, both from adults and (second-hand) from my spouse’s grade six students. And while I don’t normally go for young adult fiction anymore (and mostly didn’t even as a young adult) I found by about page five that I couldn’t put this book down.

So then I figured, well, if you’re going to read a book so compulsively, you’d better figure out what it is that’s making you do it.

It came as no surprise to me to read that Suzanne Collins wrote for television before she became a novelist. The Hunger Games is perfectly plotted – it follows the three-act format so often touted in how-tos for screenwriting (and now for novel-writing, too). There’s nothing extraneous here. We meet Katniss Everdeen and her family on the day of the reaping, we’re introduced to Gale Hawthorne and see how he and Katniss defy the laws of the Capitol – by hunting – to save their families. And then boom, we’re faced with Katniss’ first big choice, when she steps up to take her sister’s place in the Games.

After that, all bets are off. You just have to let the plot take you where it will, and where it takes you is a pretty wild ride (from YA standards, certainly).

Of course, once I finished the first book I had to run out and buy books two and three. I found them both at the supermarket, beside an empty space for the first instalment. I snapped them up and have promised to donate them to Wildwood Elementary’s grade six class, for whom apparently two copies of everything is not enough.

I devoured the second book just as quickly as the first. Same reason – great plotting, plenty of tense moments. Bloodshed. Good doses of Peeta and Haymitch, some nice tension with Gale. I finished the last page of Catching Fire definitely wanting to dig into Mockingjay and find out what had happened to Twelve.

And then – well. Mockingjay lost me a bit. I took a longer time finishing it. I can’t explain why, exactly. I desperately wanted to find out how the revolution unfolded, but where I’d shed tears (yes, I did) over Rue in the first novel, some significant characters were done away with rather perfunctorily (I am not going to say who, in case you haven’t read it). They were nicely crafted and then discarded in an instant. I know not everyone can have a lovely death scene with flowers and singing – nor should they, because this is war – but I sometimes felt cheated. Plus, I’m on Team Peeta, and he wasn’t quite the same (I mean, obviously) in this instalment.

That said, if I look at the entire trilogy, the story arc makes complete sense. The Hunger Games had that nice build-up of excitement, then what felt like a reasonable resolution before Catching Fire got you all worked up again and left you panting for the third book. So after those two, Mockingjay is a resolution of sorts. And while there are loose ends left hanging, none of them were game-changers for me. I still came away from the trilogy with a strong appreciation for Collins’s sense of story.

And I still have no trouble understanding why the eleven-year-olds fight over the copies in their class library.

Book Twelve: Saint Maybe

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Book 12 was really supposed to be Vanity Fair, but I stopped reading partway through to dive into Anne Tyler’s Saint Maybe, which I picked up at the Calgary Reads book sale last week. I often have more than one book on the go at the same time. I like to mix it up a little, especially when I’m reading classics.

I had only read one of Tyler’s novels before – Ladder of Years, which I picked up whenever it was a nearly-new novel. I couldn’t get into it for some reason, and after that tended to avoid her books. Which is why I was so surprised when a friend in my critique group said my writing reminded me of Tyler’s. After reading Saint Maybe I consider that a massive compliment. She is, as one reviewer put it, “drawn to small-scale domestic dramas.” This can be taken as either praise or criticism of her work, I suppose, but there’s something about her writing – the plain-spoken rhythm of it, the well-drawn characters – that transforms the everyday into something much more significant. I realize some people want big adventure and splashy escapism when they open a novel. I do, too, sometimes. But I’m often struck by how well some writers can tell stories rooted in the everyday. Anne Tyler is one of those writers.

The novel begins when Danny Bedloe brings his wife-to-be home to meet his family. He introduces her as “the woman who changed his life,” but Lucy quickly comes to change all their lives, especially that of Danny’s younger brother, Ian. Through a series of twists and tragedies Ian becomes the guardian of his nieces and nephew, the older two of whom were Lucy’s from a mysterious, previous  marriage. The story focuses on Ian’s quest for forgiveness, which leads him to drop out of college and attend The Church of the Second Chance, whose followers dedicate their lives to absolving their sins in practical, meaningful ways (like raising their brother’s three children, for example).

There is a scene later in the book where Ian visits the reverend of the church, and he brings along onion dip and potato chips. The reverend has always wanted to know how to make onion dip but has never learned, and so Ian teaches him (yes, soup plus sour cream) and they eat the potato chips and talk about the future of the church. I found this scene fascinating – Tyler weaves together the mundane and the significant so deftly the scene is wonderfully revealing. What does not knowing how to make his mother’s onion dip, which is really just onion soup mix and sour cream, say about a person? His relationship with his mother? His relationship with the person who shows him the recipe?

I read so often about how to craft scenes that do more than one thing, and it’s brilliant to see it laid out on a page. It has given me something to aspire to, that’s for certain.

Book Nine: The Book of Negroes

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Okay, not really. It’s probably book 25, but I’ll have to fill in the list backwards.

I’d had my eye on this book for a long time. I bought a copy for my sister and mailed it off to England, and promised myself I’d buy my own copy soon, only I never got around to it.  Then my mom had a copy from the library at the seniors’ centre where she volunteers, and she lent it to me. So. Finally.

It’s obvious that Lawrence Hill has done a metric pantload of research in order to write this book, and as a result he creates a narrative that takes us back to the sights, sounds, and smells of the mid-1700s. Animata’s story is full of compelling, descriptive prose – the kind that lets your brain work overtime as you try to comprehend how awful things must have been.

For the most part, I couldn’t put the book down. Once I started the story, I was hooked. This is basically what you want in any novel, right? So three cheers for that. But every now and then I had to pause and think. You know when you read a book that’s truly epic, that spans a pivotal time in history when major changes are afoot and major people are involved, and every last thing of significance happens to one character before she turns 25? It’s a syndrome often seen in Oprah Book Club picks, and Animata had a nagging case of it. It didn’t make me like her less as a character, but now and then it pulled me out of the story a bit and I’d think, “Aha, so she’s a conduit for telling me about this Major Event. Well, okay. I guess this could all happen to one person.” And really, I’m sure much of it did. I’m sure there were many men and women who were stolen and traded as slaves who had lives that would make our jaws drop. So I’m not going to hold it against the character, not at all.

Besides, I was too busy having my mind blown by all the horrible things that happened to everyone, which was the point of the story. The Book of Negroes definitely made me think about a dark part of Canada’s history. Nicely done, Mr Hill.

Book Eight – East of Eden, by John Steinbeck

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I swear, I have read more than eight books this year. I’m discovering that it’s not so much the reading of the books that takes me so long as it is the writing about the reading of the books. If that makes any sense. I should really start making comprehensive notes, but that would mean being organized, and as if.

I’ve had East of Eden on my list for a long time. Back in high school, like almost every other kid, I had to read The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. I enjoyed Mice but found the tale of the Joads lacking in some way (maybe, because as my grandfather put it, The Grapes of Wrath is “such a downer“).

Anyway. Here I am in my thirties with that essay about the dusty Depression and the Joads’ journey to California far behind me, and there is East of Eden sitting on my bookshelf. And I’m going to admit that I was hooked right from the first page.

I don’t really understand why we think The Hills provides us with plenty of drama when there’s something as well written as a Steinbeck novel to fill the necessary quota of lying, cheating, whoring and murder. I mean, seriously, this book has it all, plus some Biblical allegory (I’m not giving anything away when I say “Cain and Abel”).

The story begins with Adam and Charles Trask, two brothers from different mothers, who spend their growing-up years, respectively, trying to dodge and trying to attract their father’s attention. Of course some resentment simmers – really simmers – and eventually Adam leaves the farm to wander the countryside, join the army, do time in jail, and other things.

No sooner does he come back to mend fences than Cathy enters the picture, and tears the two brothers apart again. Cathy’s not the type of girl you really want to get involved with, for various reasons I won’t go into here, but that doesn’t stop Adam, who marries her and takes her out to California to start a new life. Also, to get away from Charles, who thinks the whole Cathy situation is bad news.

Turns out Charles is right, and Cathy is bad news. And in the end, Adam ends up raising his twin sons, Aaron (sorry, Aron) and Caleb (Cal) on his own, with the help of his Chinese, um, manservant, Lee. Of course Cal and Aron have a contentious relationship, too, so the whole Biblical situation repeats again, only without anyone swinging a hatchet at anyone’s head this time. And as they’re growing up, Adam makes a fortune and loses it, and the boys find out some pretty unsavoury things about their mother (though we learn all the really unsavoury things, and they just learn one or two of them).

So, see? Drama, cheating, lying, murdering. And in the midst of it all are some really fantastic characters, like the Trasks’ neighbour, Samuel, who likes philosophical discussions, and Samuel’s wife, Liza, who’s as practical as they come. And Lee, who hides his brilliant intellect and perfect English behind a stereotypical facade, speaking in pidgin English and wearing a queue. Suffice it to say that thanks to the plot and all these interesting people, I couldn’t put the book down. I devoured it. And if you pick it up, I promise you will, too.

Book Seven – The New Yorkers, by Catherine Schine

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I picked this book up because one of my favorite things about being a dog owner is going for a walk every day. I’m continually astounded at how many people you meet when you’re following a small animal on a leash (yes, following. Not leading, like Cesar Millan always tells everyone. I was definitely being walked, not the other way around).

Dogs and dog ownership is pretty much what unites all the characters in this book. Jody and her white pit-bull mix, Beatrice. There’s Polly and her brother George, who find an abandoned puppy in Polly’s new apartment (vacated in that most New York of ways, when the previous tenant commits suicide). There’s the restaurant owner and his puppies. There are Doris and Everett, who don’t care much for dogs at all but find their lives transformed, indirectly, because of contact with them. And Simon, a reclusive social worker who lives down the street, who enters into a complex relationship with Jody.

The New Yorkers isn’t a deep read, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t enjoyable. I did enjoy it, very much. Some of the stories were heartwarming and funny, and others made me bust out bawling. The Amazon listing for the book cites a Seattle Times reviewer who says that if The New Yorkers ever became a movie, it’d be directed by Nora Ephron, and everyone would be wearing fuzzy sweaters. Sometimes that’s not so bad. Sometimes, that’s exactly what you want in a book: a good laugh, and a good cry.

I’m not going to pretend to be a literary snob with this list. Ultimately, I like a good book, and good books are good for any number of reasons. There are plenty of books I’ve read over the years that make me savour every word, to linger over sentences and dissect how the writer put it all together. There are others that do nothing more than offer escapism, with colourful characters and diverting plots. The New Yorkers was one of the latter, and that’s fine with me!