Review: "Rose Madder" by Stephen King

In an instant of mad courage, Rose Daniels walks out of the house she has shared with her abusive husband for fourteen years. Fearful, unprepared, and desperate, she sets off for a place where Norman will never find her, where she can be Rosie McClendon once again.

With the support of other battered women, Rosie finds her footing. For the first time since her teenage years, she is free: to have a cup of coffee with her friends, to earn her own money, to close the door of her own home at night... even to carefully examine the idea of love and romance, and its place in her future.

But if the world is kinder than Rosie knew, it is more dangerous as well. Norman, a police detective, takes his wife's abandonment of him as an insult--and he is determined to repay. Every day that Rosie becomes stronger, Norman gets closer to finding her.

***

Rose Madder by Stephen King (1996)

4.5 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 5/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 4/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 4/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 4/5
Memorability: 5/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: graphic descriptions of physical and sexual abuse; miscarriage; stalking; racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs; murder of women
Overall Response: Half affirming, half screaming heebie-jeebies... in other words, King at his best.

***

More Thoughts: Of all the Stephen King novels I've read, Rose Madder is hands-down the scariest. No monster in the King of Horror's supernatural bestiary is as terrifying as an abusive husband hunting down his fugitive wife. The reader doesn't have to use their imagination for this one: the horror comes from our own everyday world.

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.

Review: "We Have Always Lived In The Castle" by Shirley Jackson

Five years ago, an arsenic-filled sugarbowl claimed the lives of the Blackwood family. The three survivors have found peace in their shared isolation: Constance, acquitted of the murder by the courts but not in the minds of the neighbors; her imaginative and slightly feral sister Mary Katherine, called Merricat; and their uncle Julian, crippled in mind and body by the poison that killed the others.

Merricat, a creature of habit and ritual, views herself as the guardian of her troubled family and the groundskeeper of the Blackwood estate. Change is a threat, and any visitor an invader. When a long-estranged Blackwood cousin makes himself at home, and Constance begins to talk of rejoining society, Merricat determines to restore order and expel the intruder by any means necessary. But Constance may no longer be her ally.

***

We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962)

5 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 4/5
Quality of Writing: 5/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 5/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 4/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: fail
Content Warning: character deaths

Overall Response: I say this very rarely, so listen up: this is a perfect book.

***

More Thoughts: I've mentioned this before: when someone recommends a book, nine times out of ten, I will put it on hold at the library without even pausing to read the synopsis. (I only write summaries for you, dear reader; on my own, I would go straight into opinionating.) Some long-ago Wikipedia binge left the impression that  We Have Always Lived In The Castle was about murder, but no more than that. When a friend praised Shirley Jackson's writing, it reminded me that I had never followed up on the book. That was all the preface that I had.

From the first page, I was hooked.

One Sentence Reviews: June

I was really certain I'd get at least Rose Madder done before the end of the month, but moving has really taken it out of me. That, and I've just read my eighty-eighth (88th!) book of 2015.

Until I get my properly grumptastic feet under me again, have some one sentence reviews for the month of June!

***

JUNE 2015

***

• The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes (2013, time-traveling thriller)
• Depression-era drifter finds a house which opens onto other times, already full of memorabilia from the murders he then feels compelled to commit. -- Like most time-travel stories, it's a fun head exercise tracking how all the pieces will fit together, but it has very little heart. 3/5 stars.
• A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman (2014, contemporary)
• Journalist's attempts to distance himself from his Jewish family fail when his grandfather enlists him to falsify his memoirs, so that he and his peers can benefit from grants set aside for Holocaust survivors. -- You know you're reading Literary Fiction when the author writes the essay for you. 2/5 stars.
• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (2006, graphic novel memoir)
• Cartoonist records accounts of her childhood in a funeral home and contrasts her coming-out experience with her memories of her closeted father. -- Well-composed and thought-provoking, at least for an afternoon. 3/5 stars.
• Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel (2012, graphic novel memoir)
• Cartoonist records the process of trying and failing to write about her mother, punctuated with Freudian dream analysis. -- I was just about clawing at the walls to get out of this suffocatingly neurotic meta-book; I can't deny that I think in similar patterns, but seeing them all laid out on the page was exasperating beyond belief. 1/5 stars.
• Tea With The Black Dragon by R.A. MacAvoy (1999, magic-realist mystery)
• Alarmed by her daughter's cryptic messages, a traveling musician enlists the help of a polite Chinese stranger to find and rescue her, unaware that he is an ancient creature looking for his own lost meaning. -- It's a comically bland thriller, but I enjoyed it for being exactly how I'd picture an encounter with a dragon in modern times to go. 2.5/5 stars.
• Rose Madder by Stephen King (1995, contemporary thriller)
• Battered wife flees to make a new life, finding courage in her recurring dreams of a labyrinth and in a mysterious painting, while her cop husband tracks her down. -- This is the scariest story King has written, but it's paradoxically one of his rare tender, affirming novels. 4.5/5 stars. (Full review here!)
• Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed (2012, fantasy)
• Aging ghoul-killer investigates a growing number of monsters while his apprentice bickers with the local shape-changer. -- There are very few books that I don't finish, given how quickly I read... but this one wasn't even worth the remaining two hours it might have taken to get to the end. 1/5 stars.
• Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu (2010, afrofuturism)
• Doubly condemned for being both female and a child of rape, a mixed-race girl fights for her village sorcerer to train her before her powerful father kills her in the dream world. -- I couldn't pull away from this fascinating and unusual story... until the halfway point, when it devolved into juvenile love triangles, and finished on a sickeningly awful note. 2/5 stars.
• Last Night at the Blue Angel by Rebecca Rotert (2014, historical)
• Apiring jazz singer chases elusive fame, while a long list of heartbroken lovers and her own daughter cling to the scraps she leaves behind. -- I liked the dichotomy between seeing Naomi as a terrible mother and the great grief of her neglected child's life, and seeing Naomi in her own narration as a brave and terrible person fighting wildly against the limitations placed upon her. 4.5/5 stars,
• Mariel of Redwall by Brian Jacques (1991, YA fantasy)
• Shipwrecked amnesiac enlists the aid of Redwall Abbey and its allies to fight the corsairs who still hold her father hostage. -- This was my first Redwall book and it still--clearly--has a place in my heart, like all stories about heroic mouse girls punching villains in the face. 3/5 stars.
• Pink by Lili Wilkinson (2009, YA contemporary)
• Resenting the categories she has been placed in, lesbian punk teen transfers to a prep school to try out being popular and straight. -- Boy, this author had a weird bee in her bonnet: "Don't accept me so easily!" 1/5 stars.
• Wildthorn by Jane Eagland (2009, YA historical )
• Forced into a Victorian-era mental asylum by unknown betrayers, aspiring female doctor strives to escape and confront the truth. -- A moderately fun historical piece, not terribly memorable. 3/5 stars,
• Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle (1999, YA ghost story)
• Sulky young American expat helps her new stepparents restore a historic (read: haunted) farm in Dorset and takes it upon herself to free the ghost she loves. -- Better on the reread than my first try, and thanks to Della for making me pick it up again; Jenny is a strikingly charismatic narrator in a tale with good twists. 3.5/5 stars.
• Rage: A Love Story by Julie Anne Peters (2009, YA contemporary)
• Young teen's attempt to support her troubled girlfriend creates a cycle of abuse instead. -- This was so much an Issue Book that I couldn't even describe the characters to you; that said, the Issues at hand were ghastly and worth discussing. 2/5 stars.
• Annie On My Mind by Nancy Garden (1982, YA contemporary)
• A chance meeting in an art museum turns into a close friendship, which turns into more. -- I knew this was a Lesbian Classic and assumed it was because the pickings were slim; I didn't realize it was because this was the sweetest, gentlest story of falling in love I've read in a long time. 4/5 stars.
• We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach (2015, YA contemporary)
• Ensemble cast of teenagers band together in the face of a potential meteoric apocalypse, hoping to make their final days count for something. -- Throughout the entire reading experience, I kept thinking "Life As We Knew It did it better." 2/5 stars.
• Empress of the World by Sara Ryan (2001, YA contemporary)
• Various characters at an intensive summer school work through various family-, identity-, and romance-related issues. -- It has a few good moments, but nothing you would regret not reading. 2/5 stars.
• Keeping You A Secret by Julie Anne Peters (2003, YA contemporary)
• Class president never thinks about diversity until a new transfer student lobbies for a lesbigay club; class president then thinks about it a lot harder, falls in love, and becomes villainized by parents, schoolmates, and former friends. -- Julie Anne Peters writes really well-developed characters in bizarrely underdeveloped relationships, but I can see why this particular one of her books gets discussed a lot in alternative YA circles. 3.5/5 stars.
• Far From You by Tess Sharpe (2014, YA mystery)
• High school senior exits rehab to conduct an investigation of her best friend's murder while battling her own crippling injuries, a painkiller addiction, and the aspects of the mystery she'd rather stayed secret. -- It starts out like the author is ticking off her research points, but develops into an emotionally mature mystery (the ending of which I sincerely did not see coming.) 4/5 stars.

Book Grumps isn't moving...

... but the grump herself is!

Let this stand as my apology to you, dear reader, for the lateness of June's book reviews. Most of the time, when I'm not at work, I'm packing boxes. Still, I'm really excited about the books in my review stack. Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming reviews of Stephen King's Rose Madder, Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death, and the Alison Bechdel's Fun Home!