Review: "H Is For Hawk" by Helen Macdonald

The sudden death of her father shatters Helen Macdonald. Aching and angry, she throws herself into a new project that will occupy the empty place in her heart: the training of a young goshawk.

Since her earliest memories, she has been captivated by birds of prey. But the small raptors she has worked with in the past are nothing compared to either the enormity or the single-minded ferocity of the goshawk. Macdonald's bird, named "Mabel," does not require training so much as the complete sublimation of self. Soon Macdonald, rather than recovering from her loss, withdraws from human company altogether--much to the dismay of her friends and family.

Macdonald contrasts her experience with Mabel against that of T.H. White, author of The Once and Future King, who also sought to expunge his human agonies by hawking. Memories of her father merge with White's unsettling memoirs as Macdonald seeks to make amends.

***

H Is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald (2014)

3.5 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 4/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 3/5
Logic of Plot Development: 3/5
Evocation of Setting: 4/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 4/5
Resolution of Conflict: 4/5
Emotional Engagement: 3/5
Mental Engagement: 3/5
Memorability: 3/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: fail
Content Warning: animal abuse, child abuse, homophobia, self-harm
Overall Response: Beautiful, even if I wanted more.

***

More Thoughts: H Is For Hawk has been winning awards left and right since its release last summer. Fittingly, the number of "holds" on the book at my local library is well into the double digits. I waited months to get my hands on it. Now, my challenge: to finish writing this review in time to return the book before the library closes today, at which point, the Book Police will no doubt beat down my door and confiscate it.

Two-For-One Review: "Doc" and "Epitaph" by Mary Doria Russell

"He began to die when he was twenty-one, but tuberculosis is slow and sly and subtle. The disease took fifteen years to hollow out his lungs so completely they could no longer keep him alive. In all that time, he was allowed a single season of something like happiness.

"When he arrived in Dodge City in 1878, Dr. John Henry Holliday was a frail twenty-six-year-old dentist who wanted nothing grander than to practice his profession in a prosperous Kansas cow town. Hope--cruelest of the evils that escaped Pandora's box--smiled on him gently all that summer. While he lived in Dodge, the quiet life he yearned for seemed to lie within his grasp.

"At thirty, he would be famous for his part in the gunfight at the O.K. Corrall in Tombstone, Arizona. A year later, he would become infamous when he rode at Wyatt Earp's side to avenge the murder of Wyatt's brother. To sell newspapers, the journalists of his day embellished slim fact with fat rumor and rank fiction; it was they who invented the iconic frontier gambler and gunman Doc Holliday. That unwanted notoriety added misery to John Henry Holliday's final year, when illness and exile had made of him a lonely and destitute alcoholic, dying by awful inches and living off charity.

"The wonder is how long and how well he fought his destiny. He was meant to die at birth. The Fates pursued him from the day he first drew breath, howling for his delayed demise."

***

Doc by Mary Doria Russell (2011)

4 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 5/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 3/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 3/5
Resolution of Conflict: 3/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 4/5
Memorability: 5/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: character deaths, racism, misogyny, mention of child abuse, mention of sexual assault, chronic illness

Overall Response: I bought a copy immediately.

***
More Thoughts: Here I break my rule about writing my own summaries. Russell's opening paragraphs convey the sense of the novel better than anything I could scribble. Doc doesn't follow the classic novel format with a central conflict, confrontations, and all the rest; instead, it is a character piece. And not just one about Doc Holliday. It is a portrait of a time and a place, and about the types of characters that inhabited it.

The words "character piece," uttered about a lesser book, would ordinarily make me run in the opposite direction. Trust me, dear reader. Presumably, I have been right about a book a time or two before, or you wouldn't still be here.

Review: "Memoirs of an Invisible Man"

When Nick Halloway accompanies Anne Epstein to the MicroMagnetics lab, he isn't interested in either their cutting-edge research or on the anti-nuclear protesters demonstrating outside: only in a day out with a beautiful woman. It is only by the merest chance Nick is still inside the lab when the bomb goes off. But instead of being obliterated, Nick--as well as a small spherical chunk of New Jersey--is rendered invisible.

The novelty of being undetectable to the human eye quickly wears off. Ogling women unseen is one thing, but he can hardly show up to work and draw a paycheck these days. Procuring food is no longer as simple as walking out of a grocery store, bags in hand. Cars clip him at seemingly empty crosswalks.  And, of course, the shadowy government agency investigating the MicroMagnetics accident is very interested in talking to him.

Perhaps Nick shouldn't have lit the invisible lab on fire when he fled. Or shot one of the investigators with the invisible gun, however accidentally. Colonel Jenkins is convinced that Nick must be captured, for public safety as well as scientific inquiry. And unlike the rest of New York City, Jenkins and his people know what they're (not) looking for.

***

Memoirs of an Invisible Man by H.F. Saint (1987)

3 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 3/5
Strength of Characterization: 2/5
Logic of Plot Development: 4/5
Evocation of Setting: 3/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 4/5
Resolution of Conflict: 3/5
Emotional Engagement: 1/5
Mental Engagement: 5/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: fail
Diverse Cast: fail
Content Warning: animal cruelty, sexual assault, misogyny

Overall Response: A creative thriller, if you can stomach the loathsome protagonist.

***

More Thoughts: Although H.F. Saint's Memoirs of an Invisible Man is not a good book, and deserves no more than the three stars I grant it, I recommend it to those looking for a fun and unusual thriller for the summer.

Series Review: "Foreigner" by C.J. Cherryh

Humans and atevi are incompatible: That is the message everyone learned from the War of the Landing, when human refugees from the spaceship Phoenix tried to settle on atevi lands. For peace to exist on the planet, the two races must be strictly segregated.

Bren Cameron is the paidhi, the sole translator between the atevi mainland and the surviving human contingent on the island of Mospheira. It is an unglamorous and steady job: signing off on cargo shipments, perhaps writing a dictionary entry or two. But when the long-lost Phoenix returns after two centuries of silence, the fragile peace maintained by Bren's predecessors is shattered.

Half of the human population sees this as their chance to return to power. More than half of the atevi see it as evidence of a centuries-long human plot to betray and exterminate the atevi. Suddenly Bren, the maker of dictionaries, must stand in the gap between the species--and negotiate with powers who consider assassination a perfectly acceptable legal recourse.

***

Foreigner (series) by C.J. Cherryh (1994 & onward)

3 to 4 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 4/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 4/5
Logic of Plot Development: 3/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 3/5
Resolution of Conflict: 4/5
Emotional Engagement: 4/5
Mental Engagement: 5/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass (in later books)
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: description of torture (first book)

Overall Response: It's not for everyone, but if it's for you, it's SO FOR YOU.

***

More Thoughts: Dear reader, this once, I'll have to spoil plot developments in order to give this series my recommendation. C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner books are so dear to my heart--and so familiar--that I forgot how unsteady it is at the start. I recommended it to certain of you without preface, and was disappointed when the series didn't arrest you as it did me. I wondered how other readers could not have delighted in gauging alliances based on number theory, or in lethal applications of the word "finesse."

Then I reread it myself, and remembered that the first book is a bit... impenetrable.

Review: "If I Fall, If I Die" by Michael Christie

Diane Cardiel used to be an acclaimed filmmaker, but now she is a hermit, imprisoned in her own house by her severe anxiety. Her young son Will sees himself as her protector, the one who makes the phone calls and answers the door for the grocery deliveryman. But even Will won't set foot outside. The world has myriad ways to destroy a small, fragile human body, as Diane well knows.

When Will not only steps outside, but returns unharmed, his small world is shattered.

As Will strains against the leash of his mother's neuroses, Diane's fear worsens. The industrial squalor of Thunder Bay has already stolen the rest of her family. And Will's ravenous, unsuspicious curiosity about the world beyond the walls of their house is leading him into danger.

***

If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie (2015)

3 out of 5 stars

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 3/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 3/5
Evocation of Setting: 2/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 3/5
Resolution of Conflict: 2/5
Emotional Engagement: 4/5
Mental Engagement: 2/5
Memorability: 3/5
Bechdel Test: fail
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: anti-Native racism, gang violence, sexual language

Overall Response: Forget Will's generic coming-of-age, tell me more about Diane!

***

More Thoughts: I have rarely seen mainstream popular literature deal in any depth with mental illness, especially not something so unglamorous as anxiety. If I Fall, If I Die, Michael Christie's novel about a mother and child and the long-reaching effects of the disorder, is both vivid and humane in its portrayal. 

And the plot itself is almost memorable!

Review: "The Star of Kazan" by Eva Ibbotson

As a baby, Annika was abandoned in a mountain chapel. She loves her adoptive family--the servants who found her and the three eccentric professors they work for--and life in beautiful, peaceful Vienna. But she always dreams that her real mother will come find her.

Then, one day, her dream comes true.

Without warning, Annika is whisked away from the warmth and cheer of Vienna into a cold house of strangers. Her love for her long-lost mother wars with her sense that all is not well. These aristocrats eat worse than peasants, and creditors beat on their door in the middle of the night. Her new brother plays soldier and ties fireworks to his dog. The gypsy stablehand, Annika's only friend, is accused of theft. 

Meanwhile, the Viennese community she left behind investigates their own robbery--the stealing away of Annika by someone who could not possibly love her like they do.

*** 

3.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed

Cheryl Strayed's name is no accident. At twenty-six years old, she has lost both father and mother, ended her marriage with her deliberately self-destructive habits, and struggled with the siren call of heroin. When she sets foot on the Pacific Crest Trail for the first time, she is nothing more than a stray.

Cheryl believes that hiking the PCT--from California through the Mojave Desert and across the Sierra Nevada into Washington State--will bring her insight and peace. But this stray has nothing but an oversized backpack, an outdated trail map, and determination to carry her forward. The kindness of her fellow hikers on the trail helps her onward, but not as much as Cheryl's hope.

*** 

3 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Watership Down" by Richard Adams

Hazel's brother Fiver is special--given to strange visions of the future, able to understand things outside of the ordinary rabbit's experience. When Fiver warns that the entire Sandleford warren will be destroyed, not by predators or plague but by some vast, unthinkable disaster, Hazel believes him when most others laugh. With a handful of others who either trust Fiver or chafe under warren life, they go into exile, daring the unknown.

But the English countryside is dangerous to rabbits without a safe place to run. Hunted by a thousand enemies, guided by Hazel and Fiver, the Sandleford exiles search for a safe place of their own.

*** 

3 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Thief" by Megan Whalen Turner

"I can steal anything," the thief Gen claimed--and proving it has already landed him in the king's prison. Now the king's advisor, the magus, wants to put Gen's boasts to the test.

With the magus and his apprentices, Gen is dragged across the mountains and into hostile country where discovery will mean death. The magus believes Gen can steal a sacred stone from the altar of the long-forgotten gods. With the authority of the gods behind him, the magus could dictate the future of alliances and wars for years to come.

But Gen has plans of his own. And he is is used to playing a very long and risky game to get what he wants.

*** 

3.9 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" by Stephen King

Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland only stepped off the hiking trail for a moment, just to get away from the argument between her divorced mother and her embittered older brother. That moment is enough, though, for her to lose her way back. The supposed shortcut Trisha takes leads her off into the dense wilderness of the northern Appalachian Trail.

Hours of uneasy wandering turn into days. As Trisha's hunger and her injuries mount, she finds comfort in listening to the radio, where ballplayer Tom Gordon's victories seem to predict her own rescue. But the lost girl begins to believe that she is not alone in the woods. Something is accompanying her, leaving her grisly calling cards, as if to say that she is not only lost... she is hunted.

***

3 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Elantris" by Brandon Sanderson

Long ago, citizens of Elantris were blessed by the mystical Shaod, changed into shining golden gods when the unpredictable magic took them. But the Shaod has become a plague, turning those it infects into undying lepers. When the crown prince of the neighboring kingdom falls victim, Raoden is declared dead and locked in the now-accursed city to rot--only days before his new bride arrives to marry him.

Legally bound by her vows, Sarene picks up the pieces of Raoden's quest to reform the corruption of his father's reign. But someone else has a different plan to save the kingdom: Hrathen, the high priest of an eerie religion that has swallowed up the rest of the world. Hrathen has been given three months to convert Elantris before his god's armies arrive to destroy it. He intends to save the country that hates and fears him--by any means necessary. 

Meanwhile, within the dead city, Raoden tries to solve the mystery that changed the Shaod into a nightmare plague, before he, too, succumbs to the hunger and the constant pain of his new unlife.

*** 

3 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Two-For-One Review: "Rider at the Gate" and "Cloud's Rider" by C.J. Cherryh

"Heed not the beasts," the preachers who led the human colonization of Finisterre say. The planet's native species, great and small, predator and prey, can fill a person's mind with telepathic images until reality blurs. When the most dangerous of all--the carnivorous nighthorse--comes calling for a rider, the best thing their quarry can do is go join it, before it kicks in the door and lets in the many-toothed swarm of the world.

Danny Fisher is cast out by his religious family when he becomes Cloud's rider. But the rider camp that protects Shamesey town is no safe place for a poor junior rider, either. When the only rider to show him kindness is driven out as a rogue, Danny rides into the mountains alone to help him.

Up in the snowbound heights, a real rogue terrorizes isolated villages, hunting down any truckers or riders caught outside walls. Insanity is a deadly pandemic on Finisterre, when the thoughts of a madman--or a mad horse--can infect an entire mountain range. With the wilderness full of hungry predators, and human settlements full of paranoia and old grudges, no one may survive the coming winter.

*** 

3.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson

"I was born with the devil in me. I could not help that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing."

Occasionally I have a craving for really solid narrative nonfiction. In The Devil in the White City (subtitle: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America), Erik Larson chronicles the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the serial killer in its midst. It wasn't a particularly filling "meal" of a book, but it gave me a taste of the weird and unusual history which I love.

If the 1893 Chicago World's Fair was mentioned in any history class of mine, it was swiftly overlooked. Larson's loving chronicle brings to vivid life an era and a spectacle which I find now hard to forget. The number of visitors to the park on October 9th of that year set the record for highest attendance at any peaceable event in history!

Larson splits his narrative into three paths. One follows the architects, engineers, artists, and showman who attempted to surpass the glory of France's "Exposition Universelle" in 1889 in a fraction of the time. Another tracks the mentally ill man whose delusions led him to assassinate Chicago's leading figure in his hour of triumph. The third, and most riveting, closes in on H.H. Holmes and the dozens--possibly hundreds--of women he murdered during the days of the fair.

Review: "Life As We Knew It" by Susan Beth Pfeffer

When the asteroid collision shifted the moon's orbit, Miranda thought it was no big deal. But the very next day, her mother pulls her out of school to hoard all the food they can carry out of the supermarket. Miranda thinks she is overreacting. Things can't be that bad--can they?

Instead of cute boys and test scores, she begins to worry about what they will do when the fuel runs out, or what has happened to her father, out of touch with satellites down and electrical power unavailable. Day by day, her world becomes emptier, hungrier, and smaller. The world she knew is gone forever.

The end of the world is not a single moment, but a lifetime... one which may be very short after all.

*** 

  3.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Series Review: "The Hollows" by Kim Harrison (plus bonus remarks on "The Dresden Files" by Jim Butcher)

Rachel Morgan lives on the edge. Keeping her magical kindred from breaking too many human laws in the slums of supernaturally-integrated Cincinnati is a full-time job. Being a white witch herself means that she will always be taking the job home with her, too.

Chafing under the restrictions of the Inderland Security--plus a little harassment from her vampire boss--Rachel strikes it out on her own as an independent bounty hunter. The odds of her lasting long enough to file for self-employment aren't good, though. Her former employers have put out a hit on her for breaking her contract. And that's not including the everyday dangers from werewolves, demons, gang lords, insurance agents, and her own bloodthirsty roommate.

What's the good news? Rachel lives for danger.

*** 

  3.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Dark Lord of Derkholm" by Diana Wynne Jones

Mr. Chesney's Pilgrim Tours are a dream come true for the diehard fantasy fan. Now you, too, can go on a thrilling adventure in a magical world, battle monstrous hordes, fulfill prophecies, find treasure, and--of course--overthrow the Dark Lord himself. Book your ticket today!

The Tours are viewed with less delight by inhabitants of the world in question, which is ravaged on a yearly basis by hordes of tourists wielding swords and cameras.

This year, the responsibility of playing the Dark Lord falls to the eccentric and ingenuous Wizard Derk. According to Mr. Chesney's guidebook, Derk's farmhouse must become a forbidding Dark Citadel; his wife Mara, the requisite seductive Dark Enchantress; his children, guides for the Tours. Derk himself will be killed, twice a day, by tours of Pilgrims reaching the end of their tightly scheduled adventures.

The life of a Dark Lord isn't an easy one. Derk is singed by dragons, haunted by blue demons, fined by auditors, all while stamping out a revolution he'd really rather join. Meanwhile, his marriage slowly crumbles, taking with it Derk's reason for cooperating with Mr. Chesney's demands.

*** 

  3 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Storyteller" by Jodi Picoult

The nocturnal hours of her profession suit baker Sage Singer. In darkness and isolation, she nurses her pain over her mother's death, killed in the same car accident which disfigured Sage's face.

In her grief support group, Sage bonds with elderly widower Josef Weber. But her new friend discloses a terrible secret: he was a member of the SS, overseeing a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Josef believes Sage's Jewish ancestry grants her the authority to forgive him--and the right to assist in his suicide plan.

Sage is no stranger to guilt and despair, but Josef's confession and its accompanying plea horrify her. She is convinced to endure the truth by Nazi hunter Leo Stein; by her own grandmother, a survivor of the camps; and by her lingering compassion for Josef. For the sake of the Holocaust's victims, she must see Josef's story to its end--no matter what skeletons they unearth along the way.

*** 

  3.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Blood, Bones & Butter" by Gabrielle Hamilton

 Gabrielle Hamilton has never been to a culinary institute or apprenticed herself to a professional chef. She learned to cook from the lessons taught by two sublime tutors: Hospitality and Starvation.

After her parent's divorce, Gabrielle is left behind--literally--in an empty house to fend for herself. She offers herself up to the restaurant life, relying on bravado and the cooking skills learned at her mother's elbow to hide the fact that she is only a cigarette-smoking thirteen-year-old who steals cars.

By force of will and a healthy amount of luck, Gabrielle survives her teenage years. She wanders through urban hotspots and European villages, where the alternation of desperate hunger with the generosity of strangers forms her dream of the eclectic, all-embracing restaurant she will someday own. Vagrant, dropout, activist, she toys with a dozen different identities, but in the end she always wanders back to her passion and to her gift: cooking.

*** 

  3 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Black Unicorn" by Tanith Lee

In her desert fortress, a hundred miles from civilization, the Sorceress Jaive toys with the laws of magic. The careless overflow of her powers warps the world around her--just as her neglect warps her daughter Tanaquil, raised in isolation.

Tanaquil's talent lies in repairing broken things, rather than in spells and enchantments. One night, by chance or fate, her mundane work collides with her mother's magic. The skeleton of the creature she has painstakingly reassembled comes to breathtaking, terrifying life. The black unicorn, dead for a thousand years, tears through Jaive's fortress and disappears.

Half enchanted, half desperate, Tanaquil follows the hoofprints of the black unicorn across the scorching desert. With no money, no friends, and no control over the beautiful, terrifying creature that alternately helps and haunts her, she must rely on her own wits and her own heart to guide her.

*** 

  3.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Locked Inside" by Nancy Werlin

The death of her mother, the famous singer-writer Skye, has left Marnie immensely wealthy--and intensely alone. She drifts through the ritzy private school selected for her, avoiding friendships and disappointing her guardians, waiting until the day she is 18 and can choose her own life. While she waits, she loses herself in the digital world of Paliopolis, the only place where she feels free.

Even if Marnie tries to ignore the world, though, the world has not ignored her. As the Halsett campus empties for spring break, Marnie is kidnapped. Her kidnapper has no interest in ransom--only in Marnie Skyedottir herself.

As isolated as she has kept herself, no hope of rescue is forthcoming. If Marnie will ever be set free, she will have to win her freedom herself.

*** 

  3 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***