Last Month in Review: May 2016

Photo credit

My reading concentration is slowly improving, so I’m a-gonna talk about the books I read last month as a  prelude to writing an actual book review.  Some of these books were amazing.  In chronological order, here’s what I read:

Mischling by Affinity Konar. Holy shit, y’all.  This is some serious stuff. Here’s the succinct blurb that I gave the publisher, else I’d just be rambling up in here tonight: It’s difficult to imagine a more horrific subject for a novel than the sadistic experiments Dr.Mengele performed on twins in Auschwitz, but debut author Konar manages to craft something magnificent from such dark origins. Pearl and Stasha tell their stories in alternating chapters, each twin doing her utmost to protect her sister in the camp, their shared history almost enough to create their belief in a shared future on the other side. Konar’s language is so fresh and inventive, even occasionally playful, that it creates a powerful and shocking juxtaposition against the narrative. This author is going places, and after reading this book, I will want to be along for the ride. Every. Single. Time. 

The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson.  This was charming.  Did you read and love her previous book, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand? If so, you would probably like this.  Did you love the first two seasons of Downton Abbey, right before and then during The Great War? Then you’d probably like.  It’s a small English village, a woman who has been scandalously hired to teach Latin to school boys, and all of the insulated gender and class restrictions of that age. This is not one of those life-changing-but-exhausting-to-read books. This is a book you’ll want to read when you want to escape a little without putting your mind entirely on vacation.

Redemption Road by John Hart.  This was an audio book I listened to, narrated by Scott Shepherd.  Pretty good.  I don’t read thrillers, by and large, but the publisher sent an advance listening copy to the store, so I nabbed it. Maybe it’s because I’m required to listen at a slower pace than I would read if I had a physical book in front of me, but there were several plot "twists" in this book that I saw coming from pretty early on. There were a few moments where listening to this book creeped me out, but I doubt anybody who regularly reads thrillers would feel that way.  I felt the ending was a bit too pat, and to me the serial killer identity was pretty obvious from the early chapters, but the writing is really solid and Hart brilliantly evokes certain parts of North Carolina with his prose.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  This was an audio book that I purchased for the specific purpose of driving home from Portland, ME one weekend.  It was the perfect length.  I figured that I would like this book and find it both moving and anger-inducing, and I was spot-on about that.  But what I wasn’t expecting about this book was the sheer lyricism of the prose.  Really beautifully written. The author reads it himself. I highly recommend this one.

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett.  This is a quiet novel, especially compared to Bel Canto or State of Wonder.  It opens on a fateful day in LA -- a community comes together for a christening, but their lives are forever changed when the husband of one family falls in love with the wife of another. We see the parents and the children across the years and the consequences and emotional fallout wrought by that first infidelity.  Very good.  Patchett often sneaks up on the reader with her writing and insights.


The Best Revenge and The Best Revenge: Time of the Basilisk by Arsinoe de Blassenville.  This is a pairing of Harry Potter fan fictions, the first of which is novel length and the second of which is a novella. They begin with the “What if Snape was the first wizard Harry interacted with?” trope and they end with events from the canon book two, but in reality, all of the action takes place within Harry’s first year.  Because of his relationship with Lily Evans Potter, Snape becomes Harry’s wizarding proxy and things turn out very, very differently. I love these stories -- they’re well written and well paced, and they show sides of both Hufflepuff and Slytherin that Rowling herself was unable to show due to the Harry filter.

Not a terrible showing. I don’t know how many pages the fanfics would be, but Goodreads tells me that my page count for all of the other items comes to 1,753 pages. Except where noted, all of the books I read were advance reading copies provided by the publisher, often at my request.

How ‘bout y’all?  What books were you most excited about reading in May?  

Last Month in Review: May 2014

I'm guessing that Garrison's favorite song is Lean On Me

Garrison Keillor's trademark red sneakers

If you've visited my blog any time in the last month, you could be forgiven for assuming that I've been trapped under something heavy. You could also be forgiven for assuming that maybe my lack of posting was because I was feverishly reading LOTS of books.  Sadly, despite the fact that I only posted once in May, and that was write the super-easy Last Month In Review post for April, I was neither trapped under something heavy nor feverishly consuming books.

I was, however, very busy with work (Garrison Keillor!).  And don't ask me why, but for some reason I felt myself compelled to watch the movie Pitch Perfect and most of season 2, and then all of seasons 3 and 4, of Glee, a tv show I stopped watching after season 1 when it became less about the musical, geeky experience and more about the flashy guest stars and musical performances never to be believed of a high school.  

I didn't even read that much in May, but here it is.  June will be better by about 200%, I expect, because I'll start my vacation some time that month, and that means READING ALL DAY.  Plus there's the mini-thon, which I'm looking forward to in a way that rivals the feelings Persephone must have looked forward to her time with Demeter after being trapped in the underworld.  Tika, I salute you for hosting it at just the right time!

1. Lucky Us by Amy Bloom.  I love this cover, and I enjoyed a lot about the book, but the author commits the cardinal sin of the epistolary form: she puts in the letters too much information that the recipient would already know, and therefore is just trying to tell the reader.  That might be acceptable in YA books, but not in literary fiction.  

          

Fan art from Goodreads

2. and 3. The Way We Get By and Drop Dead Gorgeous by Mistful.  Oh, yeah.  I also read some long Harry Potter fan fiction.  This is Harry/Draco, where they are auror partners and where Draco has many cunning plans and is the only one who can resist Harry's part-veela allures. Shacklebolt may or may not be a robot who enjoys his sexy times with house elves.  In other words, these two stories are VERY funny and really well written.  They're also really long--about 400 pages for the pair.

4. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell.  This was a re-listen of the audio book, which incidentally I seem to prefer to the written book.  Reading all of that Harry/Draco fanfiction inspired me to listen to this audio again when I had run out of un-listened-to audio books. I also fell in love with Levi again.

5. Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique.  This is one of only two actual books that I read last month.  Go, me.  It's a debut novel set in the US and British Virgin Islands, spanning from the ceding of the USVI from the Danish up through the 1960s.  I liked it a lot.

6. The Great Greene Heist by Varian Johnson.  Those of you who are on Twitter might recognize the #weneeddiversity buzz that has been surrounding this book.  A deplorably low percentage of children's  books published in the US have main characters of color, much less feature them on the cover of the books.   My coworkers at Odyssey Bookshop and our colleagues at Eight Cousins have challenged other indie booksellers to sell as many copies of this book as we can to help put it on the bestseller lists. It's super fun, a quick read, and an homage to popular heist films like Oceans Eleven. Any readers of As the Crowe Flies (and Reads) who order the book from my bookstore will get a free ARC (or two) thrown in with your order.  Just mention it when calling (413.534.7307) or going to our website.

In a nod to Alley at What Red Read, here are some stats:

Men/Women: 16%/84%
White authors/writers of color: 68%/32%
Real books/fanfiction: 68%/32%
Books for adults/books for middle grade or YA: 32%/68%

Coming up soon: my recent trip to BEA, wherein I met lots of nifty people and had encounters with a rather surprising number of celebrities.

What did y'all enjoy reading last month?

Last Month in Review: February 2014

I finished reading this book on March 1, but I read most
of it in February, so it goes here but doesn't get counted

Holy moly, I can't remember a month in my adult life when I've read fewer books than I read in February 2014.  Possibly not even in my youth, though I wasn't doing anything crazy like keeping track of the books I read each month back then. Most of that is because I had to read 50-100 pages of more than 15 books for work, so I read a *ton* of pages but finished very few of the books I started because once I read enough in one book to evaluate its literary content and suitability for my store's First Editions Club (FEC), it was time to move on to the next book. The good news is that most of the books I picked up to read were quite good.  The bad news is that I'll probably never go back now to finish them. C'est la vie.

So, let me share with you my whopping FIVE books that I've completed in February.  Bear in mind that one was an audio book and two were pieces of novel-length fan fiction. In other words, not a lot of books.

1. The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham.  This is one that I read for work and ended up finishing.  I loved the first 50 pages and thought they were quite wonderful, but then I settled into the meat of the book and found it to be okay. The thing is, though, with former Pulitzer prize winning authors, I pretty much have to read the whole book before eliminating it as a selection for our store's FEC, which is why I finished it. Do I recommend it?  Well, I definitely recommend the first 50 pages. You can probably stop reading after that point, though.

Image found here

2 & 3. Roman Holiday and Jewel of the Nile by Anna. Incidentally, I also read the third-but-incomplete installment of this trilogy, but fair is fair, so it doesn't count towards my reading goals this month. I've mentioned it before, but these pieces of Harry Potter fanfiction are quite peerless. They star Hermione (who, let's face it, deserves her own series) and her friends and various paramours. They're brilliantly plotted, extremely well written, and though there aren't many sex scenes, what IS there is pretty fabulous. If you love the Harry Potter books, and if you think Hermione is one of the best characters created in 20th/21st century literature, please consider reading Anna's work. She's one of the best fanfic writers out there (and there are millions): http://www.witchfics.org/anna/

4. Remember Me Like This by Bret Anthony Johnston. This rather haunting novel is the story of a family whose son has been missing for four years. The mother, father, and remaining son are alive, but hardly what you'd call living, when the police call them to say that they think they've found Justin. What ensues is a heartfelt look at a family reunited against all hope, the psychological fallout for each family member, and what this worst and best thing means to their small Texas community. The real kicker though? For the four years that Justin was missing, he was living just across the bay with his abductor the entire time, and that might be the one thing that nobody in the family will ever be able to get over. This book is well written, with good pacing, and I liked it very much, despite constantly wanting more from the shifting perspective of the third-person narrator. This book won't be published until May 2014.

5. The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner.  I listened to this book on audio, and while Christina Traister was a perfectly capable reader, she was not able to redeem the utter pointlessness of the story. If you're at all interested in reading my rants about the self-entitled, self-obsessed, and self-congratulatory artists and the misogynistic anarchists living in 1970s New York City, by all means, pleas check out my full review here. 

Last Month in Review: October 2013

I am a procrastinator by nature, but even I am a little ashamed of how late this monthly reading wrap-up post is.  But better late than pregnant, as they say. (Or maybe that is just my family who says that?) And speaking of procrastination, it's clearly better for me to write this post instead of an actual book review.  Clearly.

I had a short vacation in October in which I read quite a bit, but then I came home and read very little because of Life Stuff. Here in chronological order is what I read, and it's a mix of real books and ebooks.  Overall I've retained less of what I read in ebook format, but I'm pondering now whether that's the nature of the medium or more due to the content of said ebooks.

1. The Fire and the Rose by Abby and Domina. An interesting piece of Harry Potter fanfiction in which Snape and Hermione are in a potions accident and take on each other's physical appearance. Like Polyjuice but with longer lasting effects. Well-written, fun, and extremely satisfying. It totally earns its spot here because it is novel-length.

2. Ajax Penumbra by Robin Sloan. Not technically a book, more like a chapbook, this is a prequel to Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. Fun, but naturally I wanted more.

3. One Summer, America 1927 by Bill Bryson.  I'd read the book earlier this year but this time I listened to the audio, read by Bill Bryson himself.  I'm not a particularly big fan of baseball, boxing, aviation, or any number of other subjects covered in this book, but I am very much a fan when an underdog comes along and does something very well--better than anybody else who has come before--and changes the course of that history. Also, I learned that Teddy Roosevelt was the fourth president included in Mount Rushmore because he and the sculptor were personal friends.  And that Calvin Coolidge loved having his head rubbed with Vaseline at breakfast. 1927 was a pretty busy year.

4. Divergent  by Veronica Roth. I'm probably the last person in the blogosphere to read that book.  I liked it--thought it was a fascinating concept. Again I found myself intrigued by the story of a YA novel but wishing it had been given a more adult treatment and had more attention paid to the prose. I will probably read the other two books in this series eventually but I am in no rush to do so.

5. The Kept by James Scott.  This debut novel is, without a doubt, the best book I read in October. I hope to write a fuller review of this eventually, but it's a bleak novel with a bleak setting. Much violence set in relief against some really lovely prose.

6. Panic by Lauren Oliver.  Ebook, YA. I was pleased that Oliver had tried her hand at more realistic fiction, but it still seems pretty forgettable to me: high school seniors in a dying mill town in upstate New York compete in a series of increasingly dangerous situations to win big money. Add in a dash of romance, revenge, and conspiracy. You've got the picture.

7. Love and Treasure by Ayelet Waldman.  Ebook.  Apparently it's almost impossible to write a historical novel these days without intertwining it with a modern-day co-plot. Still, I enjoyed this bit of history, set in post-WWII reconstruction Hungary, even if I didn't much care for the contemporary story. And I think that Waldman is a very good writer.

8. The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore. Ebook.  Very funny but also a little skimmable. I'm still a little crushed out on him from meeting him earlier in October since he reminded me so much of the nerds and geeks folks I went to high school with.

9. The Here and Now by Ann Brashares. Ebook and YA. A high school girl recovers from a coma and leaves hospital to come home, but with a case of amnesia that prevents her from remembering the two months leading up to her near-fatal car accident.

10. The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook. Audio book. Another book set in post-WWII reconstruction, but this time in Germany. Bonus: no modern day co-plot. A British soldier, his wife, and son learn to rebuild their lives after the war while the Allied forces figure out how to rebuild Germany.

So what about you?  If you can remember that far back, what were the highlights or lowlights of your reading in October? 

Harry Potter and the I Can't Believe It's Over Readalong

More fun than a poke of Pygmy Puffs.  More tears than Fawkes can fathom. That about sums up this splendid ride that Alice has taken us all on.  Thank you, madam, for hosting this misfit band of international readers. This series contains just about everything one can want in a book, and this last section for today's discussion is the most intense of all. There really is too much but we must try...

Let's start on a happy note, shall we?  Let's celebrate Neville's return:

• But seriously: how many of you were also thinking in this first chapter, "Go on, Harry.  Tell at least Neville and Luna and Ginny what y'all are up to." Seriously, he's spent half the book being frustrated that Dumbledore never gave him the full picture, so why not rely on these most trustworthy of characters now that he knows the end is nigh?

• I *love* the Ravenclaw password system.  But it's not very practical, is it? How would ickle firsties know how to answer the questions? Or do we suppose that the eagle door knocker adjusts its questions according to the person knocking?

• Does anybody else find it strange that Harry abandons his trademark Expelliarmus for Crucio when he leaps to McGonagall's defense?  Not only is it going from a defensive to a completely offensive spell (pun intended), but going from a passive one to a very, very aggressive, not to mention illegal, one.

• "The time has come for Slytherin House to decide upon its loyalties." I have always thought that this line was completely unfair.  Yes, you'll find me to be a Slytherin apologist, so clearly I will take sides here, but when in the course of the series have we ever seen the Slytherins get a truly fair shake when it comes to Harry and his merry band of Gryffindors?  No matter whether the Slytherin students support Voldemort or not, many of them are being asked to take up arms against their family members or to leave. They are the House that the remaining three houses loathe and make no secret of doing so. They are the House whose end of year House Cup was taken away from then at the last minute by the headmaster, the very person who should be maintaining more neutrality than even the teachers. If Hogwarts itself has shown no loyalty to the Slytherins, why should they choose otherwise? We as readers know all about Harry and what he stands for and his chance to save the world, but the Slytherins themselves are not privy to such information.

• Percy's reconciliation with his family: brings me to tears every time, and oh, how I ache for them to have more time together before the Weasleys are rent asunder.
  
  
  
  
  
  

• I love Harry's flash of insight about the no wizard in living memory to figure out about the diadem.  That was very clever of him, indeed, and a major leap in intuition. However, since he saw Voldemort in his vision thinking about where his horcrux was in the Room of Hidden Things a, why didn't they just go straight there to find the diadem?

• These professors have some seriously whack ideas.  Bopping the Death Eaters on their heads with crystal balls?  That's just silly, but okay, I'll buy it.  But fighting Death Eaters with mandrakes?  Um, how is that going to work?  The Order and the students are all going into battle with earmuffs on, which is ridiculously dangerous? Otherwise wouldn't the mandrakes disable both sides with their screams?

• I call shenanigans on Ron's ability to mimic Parseltongue well enough to break into the Chamber.   It was quite brilliant of him to think of the idea, but I'm just not buying it. 

• Ooh, Fiendfyre. Very interesting.  Did anybody notice that in the film, the Fiendfyre takes the forms of the four House mascots? I did not notice that until I started looking for gifs.  
  
• And in other news, we finally see Drarry on a broomstick together.

• Okay, wow. Snape gets the most ignominious death EVER. I assumed for a long time that he would have to die to satisfy the story arc, but I really, really, really was hoping for something more badass than that. Just sayin'. 

• Frankly, Dumbledore, YOU disgust me. I have a whole essay about it here that I wrote back in 2011. But here are the most relevant parts: Like many people, including Harry himself, I was surprised to learn of Dumbledore's past, but rather than being disappointed in him, it made him far more interesting in my eyes.  Hard-won wisdom, experience, and self-knowledge make for a better character any day in my book (and make me curious what we would learn if given a glimpse of, say, Gandalf's youthful indiscretions).  It's no wonder, then, that in books 1-6 and the backstory we get there that Dumbledore comes across as powerful, wise, and good--it's because he has spent decades reflecting on his past and honing those worthy qualities in atonement.
  So why on earth does he not treat Snape with the compassion we would expect to see in those pensive memories?  After all, we've just learned that 18-year-old Dumbledore was best friends (we find out later from Rowling after the series has been published that they were probably lovers) with Hitler Grindelwald, that he subscribed to his plan for the master human wizarding race ("Muggles forced into subservience" is a direct quotation), and he was quite ready to throw over his own siblings and follow Grindelwald's hallows hunt--not to mention he possibly killed his own sister.  So it felt like a punch to the solar plexus for older-and-wiser Dumbledore to say to Snape, who in 1981 could not have been older than 21, "You disgust me."  Really, Dumbledore?  Snape disgusts you?  For wanting the only person he ever loved to be kept guarded from Voldemort?  Because he didn't automatically beg to save James Potter, the boy who nearly got him killed a few years earlier but was only given detention for it because *you* didn't want to let the wizarding world know you had allowed a werewolf into Hogwarts?  Frankly, Dumbledore, you disgust me for saying that when at almost the same age you were fucking Grindelwald, subscribing to his anti-muggle policies, and wanting to bring back your dead mother so she could watch over your younger siblings and relieve you of your adult responsibilities. To exaggerate slightly and put it more bluntly, Dumbledore was well on his way to becoming one half of a two-man Death Eater Squad team, all in the name of The Greater Good, and yet in his older & wiser years isn't able to empathize with Snape's youthful mistakes?!
  
  [sidebar: why couldn't Dumbledore have just been gay in the books instead of being outed after the last book had been published? I do not think lowly enough of Ms. I'm-Wealthier-Than-God Rowling that she was worried that she wouldn't sell as many books if a main character were gay, so what was the reason?]
  
  And as if that weren't enough, Dumbledore makes a second knife-thrust to the heart when he says "Perhaps we sort too soon." Why, Albus?  Because Slytherins are second-class citizens?  Incapable of doing good in the world?  Because only Gryffindors can be brave?  Because Slytherins, unlike Gryffindors, don't deserve a second chance when they recover from their adolescent foolery?
  
  It's not that I don't respect Albus for his teenage failings.  We all do things in our younger lives that as adults we are not particularly proud of, and we commit acts in pairs or groups that we wouldn't dream of doing on our own.  In fact, Albus's dabbling with anti-muggle policy in his youth makes him a far more interesting character in my eyes, and I admire his fortitude and redemption in later life all the more.  Which is why I cannot forgive his lack of empathy towards Snape in these pensieve memories.  If it's because Snape reminds Albus of his own teenage self, then it's all the more reason for me to want to bitchslap  ol' Dumby.
  
  
• Ahem.  I digress.  "I open at the close." Very poetic. I love the scene of Harry with his color guard on the way to his death.  I mean, it kills me, but I love it. I love it for its own merits as well as because it reminds of the scene in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where Aslan is walking toward his own death, accompanied in the cold of the night by Lucy and Susan.  And then when Harry asks, "You'll stay with me?" and James responds, "Until the very end," I totally lose it.  It's a lot like this:

• And because it just wouldn't be a Harry Potter readalong without it, I must draw attention to one of my favorite "wand" references: "He picked up the holly and phoenix wand and felt a sudden warmth in his fingers, as though wand and hand were rejoicing at their reunion." Yeah, I just bet they were. 

• Neville has his moments of awesomeness. Narcissa Malfoy has her moment, too, and though it's less awesome, I want more than ever her back story.

• That epilogue. I. Can't. Even. I know y'all are rolling your eyes at me by now, but I have a really good fanfic downloaded called Coda to an Epilogue: 20 Year Later, or the Kids Are All Right.  It's about 90 pages long, so I cannot post it, but I can email it. Let me know if you'd like me to send it to you. It's completely canon-compliant as far as I recall, and it puts closure on the wizarding world in a way that JKR's epilogue does not: Young James Potter acts a lot like his eponym, young Albus Severus gets sorted into Slytherin and becomes best friends with Scorpius, and Draco marries a tough freedom fighter from Portugal.  Plus sewers and alligators.  And lots of humor.

• I am so sad that the end is here for this readalong.  I think, above all, that is the main reason I read fan fiction--it allows me to linger in this world a little longer.  Thank you, JKR. Thank you, Alice.

• This YouTube video is a little long, but it's a good way to bid Snape adieu. 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Wowzer!

Kudos and props and ALL THE HUMMUS to Alice for hosting this read along!  It's been about three weeks since my last participation, between my skipping two weeks ago and getting a respite for BEA last week.

Oh, my goodness.  There is too much in this week's chunk.  Entirely too much. Partly because I want to draw out this readalong, partly because it's true that it's just too much (yeah, I'm repeating myself), but I think we should take the remaining reading and discuss no more than two chapters at a time.  Because otherwise it will feel like this:

Chapter 20-21: Xenophilius Lovegood. How terrible must it be to be in his position? I feel very sorry for Mr. Lovegood, and I really have no idea what I would do if my only child were being held by sadistic kidnappers. I hope I'm never in the position to make judgement calls re: the greater good when the stakes are that high. I am fairly certain that if I'd read Harry Potter as a much younger reader I would never have identified with Xeno's dilemma, but now, while I clearly want the trio to escape, my heart still aches for him a little. Which is all to say that the series is a little different each time one encounters it.  I nitpick along the way because I'm snarky I love, but I have to deeply admire the fact that somebody wrote a book that speaks as much to teenager as it does to me.

But seriously, how can he not know that that's an erumpent horn? The man can't see the forest for the trees.  And show of hands: how many people crumpled all over again when Harry saw the ceiling in Luna's room? I know I did.

found here

Two things: how did the trio not know something was up when Luna didn't immediately come to the house and welcome them? I shake my head at them. Also, how 'bout our girl Hermione's quick thinking there at the end of this chapter?  Brava!  I think in this book she really comes into her own in terms of her intelligence and wits.  Books 1-6, she relies almost exclusively on book learning and her prodigious memory, but here in book 7, she's showing a depth of creativity in the face of necessity that is both impressive and powerful. When the coming years give her the experience and maturity to match that intelligence and power, she's going to be one seriously amazing witch to reckon with.

And because no situation is so dire that we can't appreciate a little penis humor: "I've got an unbeatable wand, come and have a go if you think you're hard enough."

Chapter 22: How does the password work on Potterwatch? Do you randomly turn the dial on the wireless at random times and shout out random passwords in the hopes that Potterwatch is airing? Because that just doesn't seem plausible at all.  While we're at it, why do Kingsley and Remus think that Royal and Romulus are good code names?  River works for Jordan, as presumably most wizards aren't well-versed in biblical things.

Chapter 23: Hermione displays her quick brilliance once more by making Harry almost unrecognizable.

I'm not sure this occurred to me during previous readings, but it did this time: does anybody else find it odd that Grindelwald is still alive? Now that I think about it, I'm a little taken aback. And this little detail never stood out before, but Grindelwald lies to Voldemort about never having the Elder Wand. Dare we suggest that it's remorse that makes him say so?

I feel terrible for Draco in this chapter.  It's clear that he doesn't want to betray Harry to Bellatrix, but he's caught in an awful place, knowing what will happen to him and his parents if Voldemort learns that he was less than forthright.

And what the heck kind of dark magic makes Wormtail choke his own daylights out? Can I just say here that I was pretty disappointed how the life debt was repaid. Before this book was released, I was convinced that Wormtail would use his silver hand to protect Harry from Grayback, which I think is actually more interesting and poetic, tying it back in to the days of the Marauders.

Chapter 24: I just need to say that I have no great love for Dobby, but all the same I'm extremely moved by his death. I mourn his loss.  But unlike Dumbledore's death previously that left him adrift, Dobby's death seems to galvanize Harry and lend him insight in the infernal hallows vs horcruxes debate. I see Dobby's death as one more turning point and the real beginning of the end, as Harry's thinking becomes more intuitive, making leaps ahead of even Hermione, a pattern that will continue right to the very end of the book.

Penis subtext joke: I'm sure by this time that nobody is surprised that Draco's wand "felt friendlier in his hand."

Chapter 25: I'm not going to take a stance here, but in this chapter and the next we get most of the bases for all of those anti-Semitism essays floating around the interwebs. Griphook is an interesting character but not an entirely pleasant one.  I don't actually think JKR is actively anti-Semitic, but I do think that it's fairly careless of her to employ so many stereotypes. Oops, looks like I just took a stance.

I cannot tell how much in this chapter is JKR showing what assholes wizards can be to non-wizards and how much is JKR not realizing that her characters can be assholes.  Authorial intent, how I love thee!  To wit: why should Griphook be expected to eat the food of a different species? Presumably Fleur wouldn't feel huffy if a centaur or a mermaid were staying with them and wanting non-human food.

Why, Harry?  Why are you trying to double-cross Griphook? There's no need to be so underhanded.  Tell him that you need the sword long enough to destroy something, which will weaken Voldemort to the point that he can be killed.  Once the killing's done, the sword could be his. It's clear that Griphook respects Harry and finds him to be a wizard with extraordinary views, and I still say that would have been his best bet.

Chapter 26 & 27: This is one of those occasions when the movie is so much more fun: Helena Bonham Carter playing Hermione playing Bellatrix.

Also, that curse in Bellatrix's vault? That's crazy in wildly inventive and effective kind of way. Flagrante, indeed.  But why couldn't they just use impervio? And if anything that gets touched replicates itself, why doesn't the cup create another half dozen horcruxes?  Magical loopholes.

Chapter 28: Oh, Aberforth.  I can't tell if he's truly given up, or if he's just being a big ol' curmudgeon. How sad about Ariana. But JKR must have been playing a very long game, indeed, for all of those goat references to have worked out.  I wonder if she knew back in the first book whether Aberforth's patronus would be a goat, etc.

Also, it's about damn time that Neville is back on the scene. I am already all a-flutter about next week, in which I will have ALL THE THINGS to say about Severus Snape and Dumbledore and that infernal epilogue. But to end on, a little something funny because frankly, we need it:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part the First, In Which I Go Crazy With Wand Innuendos

Ho, boy.  It's harder than I thought it would be to coalesce my thoughts this week.  I think Deathly Hallows is a pretty good book but a pretty poor wrap-up to the series, but I'm not sure that anything could have wrapped up the series brilliantly for me--my expectations were always going to be too high. The whole time I was reading this week, I kept thinking, oh, not much longer.  Or, wow, we won't see ______ again.  I'm feeling pretty melancholy and the worst hasn't even happened yet.  But onwards and upwards.  Thanks once again to Alice for hosting the readalong, without which I'm sure I'd have got lots more reading done but had much less fun.

I think this is the first book where JKR used any epitaphs.  I am not a fan of that.  I do love the dedication, though. And it's curious to me that it looks so serpentine. Is it a subtle nod to Slytherin? Or an even subtler nod to the Mouse's Tale/Tail from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? I'd really like to know.

Chapter One: Snape is literally and figuratively Voldemort's right-hand man. Love that. But then we hear about Pius Thicknesse and methinks that JKR has grown a tad heavy-handed with her Name Symbolism once more.

She makes up for it when Voldemort and Malfoy compare the length of their wands, though.  Makes Lucius's "involuntary movement" all the more intriguing, no? And then "some of the throng sniggered." They certainly did, Jo.

Not my original idea here, but I remember reading a pretty in-depth review of DH after it came out, saying that in the first chapter, Rowling really ratchets up the fear and tension by killing off a character so beloved that...we never knew her name before now. When I first read the scene of Charity Burbage, I was pretty subdued, but every subsequent time I've read it, I can only think of what that critic said and it makes me giggle.

Chapter Two: In Memoriam.  Maybe this chapter would have been better named In FoDump.

Chapter Three: I got nothin'. I really had wanted a better reconciliation of Harry and Dudley, and there were glimmers of it, but I think there's an enormous story there just waiting for JKR to tell it.

Chapter Four: I like the action-y bits in this chapter, but it all kind of leaves me wondering why they couldn't just, oh, I dunno,  drive Harry out of harm's way instead of creating this ridiculously complicated diversion. They could have put lots of Shield Charms on the car. Dumbledore wanted Snape to still be useful to Voldemort? Dude, Snape just killed you to be useful to Voldemort. No need to get Moody killed in the process. Besides that, why not Disillusion themselves when leaving Privet Drive?  They did that when arriving there and it seemed to work just fine.

Wait, you want to use polyjuice and risk everybody's life instead of just driving away in a muggle car? Riiight.

Also, the same critic who wrote that about Charity Burbage brought it to my attention that at one point there are six naked Harry Potters in the room, waiting for clothing. Just sayin'.

I was upset when Hedwig died.  She dies a better death in the movie than in the book, though.

Chapter Five: I love the twins here. Getting an ear cursed off and still making bad jokes about it. The twins are really at their best in this book, I think.

Hole-ier than thou. 

I'm sorry, but an editor should have caught this one: "The suddenness and completeness of death was with them like a presence." In other words, it was with them like something that was with them. Yup.

Chapter Six: Anybody else surprised by the way Secret Keeping changes with the death of the Secret Keeper? I would have assumed that charm/spell/whatever would end with the death of the Keeper.

Also, Ron is at his best in this section of the book.  His humor is quick and the tone is just right and he seems to have gotten a grasp on the different ways he can be a friend to Harry vs Hermione.  I chuckle every time I re-read his "always the tone of surprise" line. And his response to Hermione's saying that if she were to drive a sword through him it wouldn't damage his soul: "Which would be a real comfort to me, I'm sure." Oftentimes in previous books Ron's humor has a bitter edge or is at someone else's expense--usually Luna's or Neville's.  But I really like Ron in these first ten chapters, and he's not a character I generally am partial to.

Chapter Seven: Twelve Fail-Safe Way to Charm Witches...about which Ron adds,"It's not all about wandwork." No, indeed, Ron.  No, indeed.  Tee hee.

Chapter Eight: Krum hadn't realized that he'd ever discussed his wand with fans before.  You cheeky Seeker, Krum!

Chapter Nine: In which Hermione is essentially the most awesome character ever but then claims never to have done any memory charms. One chapter after telling us that she's performed complex ones on her parents. Editors should have caught that, too, but like Helen of Troy's face, it's a line that has launched a thousand "ships."  (Most adult Hermione/Snape stories incorporate that line and have Snape perform the memory charm on the Grangers.)

And then Ron struggles with his wand and tells Hermione that it's no wonder he can't get it out.  With Harry standing right there and everything!

Chapter Ten: Oh, thank GOD they finally figure out who the heck RAB was. Now we know was Narcissa didn't get a star name like the other Blacks--it's because her cousin Regulus got two.  Oh, and yeah, they finally remember that locket from OotP that they mysteriously couldn't open.

Oy, my goodness, Kreacher's tale.  So heartbreaking.  One of the most poignant part of the entire series, I think. My eyes are actually welling up right now, just thinking about what I read yesterday. So emotional, so right on the money in terms of Hermione's analysis of house elf motivation and loyalties and what bastards wizards are for treating house elves the way they do.

Heckuva chapter to end on, I say. 

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Readalong

His dumblin' days are sadly numbered. I can hardly think about it.

There is so much happening in the last quarter of this book that I hardly know where to start. Except, of course, by thanking Alice for hosting this readalong.  If anything has been made clear during my participation, it is this: despite our collective nitpicking about contradictions and inconsistencies and our tendency to bicker about our beloved characters, this is a magical, magical world that JKR has created.  It is not, perhaps, world-building on a Tolkien scale, but it is still the world I most want to dwell in when I want to escape from this one.

And now, on to Chapter Nineteen: Elf Tails: it's interesting to me that Hermione is the first one to analyze the two different attacks on Katie and Ron and peg them for ultimately being the same.  She may not excel in creative magic like the twins do, but her mind is sharp and logical and she doesn't get distracted by dissimilar superficial details. It's Our Girl at her best.

Same chapter: Mr Weasley says it was a lucky day that Ron sat with Harry on the Hogwarts Express, but really, isn't it just the opposite? Would half of the Weasley's troubles exist if it weren't for Ron's close association with Harry? Would Harry have even been sorted into Gryffindor if he hadn't made friends with Ron on the train? Still, good on Arthur Weasley for being a glass-half-full kind of guy.

Same chapter: I'm sorry, but couldn't a 5th grader have found a loophole around the instructions Harry gave Kreacher? Harry didn't tell Kreacher that he couldn't tell, say, Bellatrix or Narcissa, that he (Kreacher) was following Draco.

Chapter 21: The Unknowable Room. I'm curious about Harry's and Snape's disagreement on the best way to tackle dementors.  Harry = producing a patronus and Snape = occluding? That's my hunch.

Brief detour to the Drarry sexual subtext: Draco calls Harry the Boy Who Scored, Harry later says under his breath multiple times, "I need to see where Draco Malfoy keeps coming secretly" and "I need to see what Draco Malfoy is doing inside you." Yeah, baby.

Chapter 23: Horcruxes. I wonder, not for the first time, why it's only murder that can split a witch or wizard's soul.  It's terrible, but it doesn't seem like the worst thing to do to somebody.  Seems like what Bellatrix & Co did to the Longbottoms was worse. And is it just the act of murder that splits the soul, or is that additional creation of a horcrux that does it?  And where does killing leave off and murder begin?

Chapter 24: Sectumsempra.  Does anybody else find it disturbing that in the same chapter in which Harry slices open Draco Malfoy and nearly kills him, that he finally gets Ginny Weasley? Way to reward your characters for brutality, Jo. On the other hand, the monster in Harry's chest at the end of this chapter inspired THE best pieces of fanfiction I've ever read: The Way We Get By and Drop Dead Gorgeous, by Maya/Mistful, aka Sara Rees Brennan.  If you can find them anywhere on line, I recommend that you do so.

Chapter 26: The Cave. Very cool, very creepy, but unnecessarily complicated, perhaps?  Could they have flown on brooms to the middle of the lake? Couldn't Harry have shot the aguamenti'd water straight into Dumbledore's mouth? Couldn't Dumbledore have taught Harry a quick spell to produce fire when he was conversationally telling him how they would keep the inferi at bay?

But oh, my hear melted the first time I read Dumbledore say, "I am not worried, Harry...I am with you." And then every subsequent time I read that, my heart just broke, because of course I knew what was coming next.

Tarot card: The Lightning Struck Tower

Chapter 27: The Lightning Struck Tower.  There's a lot going on here. Besides the obvious, I mean.  It breaks my heart a little bit that Draco has had such a tough year that the sympathy and praise he gets from Dumbledore mean so much to Draco. What a terrible position to be in: forced to plot your way to kill one of the greatest wizards of your time, with pain of death hanging over you--not just yours, but your entire family's.  I imagine Draco would have been in much better shape if it was only his own life on the line. Poor Snape, because the moment he's been dreading all year finally arrives. If Dumbledore is correct, then Snape believes he is splitting his soul to keep Draco's intact. Poor Harry, to be invisible and petrified the entire time.

Poor Draco

Chapter 28: The Flight of the Prince.  I don't understand how anybody who has ever read any kind of story with a red herring before could still think that Snape was evil after reading this chapter. Snape is fleeing for his life with Draco and he still is trying to teach Potter, still trying to protect him. I remember reading this chapter the first time, in the wee hours of the morning, feverishly turning pages, re-reading the scene on the tower and then this one, going back & forth between the two chapters. Comparing the "revulsion and hatred" from one scene with the "demented, inhuman" look on his face, the pain visible there compared to the pain of a dog being burned alive.

Chapter 29: The Phoenix Lament.  I'm mostly fine until I get to the scene when Fleur and Molly arrive in the hospital wing and have their moment. Then I cry and cry.  I have neither really liked nor disliked Fleur, but at this moment I love her. "What do I care how 'e looks? I am good looking enough for both of us, I theenk." Indeed you are, Fleur.  Indeed, you are. But can I just say here how much I hate the inconsistency of Fleur's speech?  Sometimes she is capable of pronouncing a"th" or "h" and sometimes she is not?

Ach, I am out of time.  But this book leaves me with an ache that the others don't, and not for the obvious reasons. No, instead I'm left wondering how and when the Snape/Harry story arc will be resolved, because in HBP, it's clear to me that theirs should have been the most important relationship in this series.  And I don't mean that just because Snape is the most interesting character, but because of all of the layers of the story that would wrap up if they came to a true reconciliation. A reconciliation between Snape and Harry is a reconciliation between generations, it's a righting of past wrongs, it would come from a place of understanding instead of blind prejudice, and oh, shoot, I really am out of time and can go no further.

I'll just say this: that if you think Snape is as interesting a character as I do and would like to read some excellent fanfiction that beautifully addresses the Harry/Snape issue, please read Theowyn's Harry Potter and the Enemy Within. It's not slash, everybody stays in character, but it's a thoughtful exploration of the student/professor relationship and, to my mind, a better story for Harry's sixth year than HBP was. 

Last Month in Review: April 2013

I saw this gif a few weeks ago while searching for the perfect Harry Potter gif for Alice's readalong. It's no more appropriate now than it was for Harry Potter, but it's so cute I had to use it.  Found it here, but I don't think it's her image, either.

April was an entirely average reading month for me: a little fiction, two works of non-fiction, some audio books, some fan fiction, and even one e-book.  I am thankful because I think my temporary reading slump is behind me. In chronological order:

1. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Excellent work of literary fiction.  Slightly disappointing ending.

2 & 3. The Way We Get By and Drop Dead Gorgeous by Maya/Mistful.  These are, without a doubt, some of the finest pieces of Harry Potter fanfiction that I've ever read.  Humorous and angsty and romantic in equal measure.  If you can find them, read them.  This is a pair of novel-length twin stories.

4. The Son by Philipp Meyer. Review here. Excellent but troubling epic set in Texas.

5. Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris.  His trademark humor.  Very good. Review here.

6. The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells byAndrew Sean Greer. The writing was good, but I never did cotton to the author's time travel justifications.

7.  A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy. I listened to this audio book in my car. Review here.

8. Anne of Avonlea by L M Montgomery. Re-read this book for the nth time, this time as an e-book. Still love this story.

9. Mom and Me and Mom by Maya Angelou. Another audio book, which I hope to review one of these days.

10. The Resurrectionist by Matthew Guinn.  Debut novel, rich with atmosphere and full of promise.  And it has a great story behind its publication. Incidentally, Matthew used to be a customer of mine when I worked at Lemuria Bookstore in Jackson, MS.

What about you?  What did you read last month that you loved?

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: Readalong Part Deux

My various Harry Potter editions:some UK, some US, some Spanish, some audios

Since I didn't do the reading this week, I planned on not posting anything.  But then I started reading Rayna's and Ally's posts and felt like it was too much fun to miss out on.  This will be very brief and slanted and mostly based on my memories of my last read-through a couple of years ago.  Thanks, as always, to Alice for hosting this read along, for it is THE BEST.

Chapter Nine: Rayna has already pointed this out, but it's one of my favorite Neville moments in the book, when Minerva recognizes Neville's worth: "It's high time your grandmother of the grandson she's got..." We've been on the Neville Appreciation Bandwagon all along; it's nice to see some textual support for that finally happening.

Parvati has a crush on Firenze, which must have inspired some truly raunchy fan fiction. Hmmm...best not to think on that too long.

Snape's introduction to DADA: The man was poetically passionate about potions, but now that he's teaching DADA, he's poetically passionate AND insinuating danger with every syllable. Makes me wonder all sorts of things, but mostly makes me wonder how the world would collectively feel about Severus Snape if this story had been told from a non-Gryffindor's POV.

Oy, clearly I'm spending too much time with this.  That's three points for the first chapter we read, and I'm not even through...must move faster.

Chapter Ten: Poor, poor Merope.

Chapter Eleven: Hermione, that confundus charm is beneath you.  It seems odd to me that she doesn't consider that explicit cheating when later in the book she's very upset when she thinks Harry used the Felix Felicis in quidditch.

Chapter Twelve: I'm glad to see that Minerva isn't ready to jump on the anti-Draco bandwagon because of the flimsy testimony Harry gives her; however the irony kills me because this time Draco actually is up to something terrible. I'm so conflicted.  Well done, JKR.

Chapter Thirteen: Speaking of conflicted, I'm generally pretty conflicted about young Tom Riddle. I think it's rather unfair for JKR to harp on that whole "it's not what we are, but our choices, that define us" angle when Tom is clearly born a sociopath. I'm not an expert on the subject, but it's my impression that the true sociopath is incapable of working within the strictures of a normal, moral society, so in this case, young Tom never had a choice, per se. How much more powerful a villain would he be, then, if Tom had not been born that way, but had chosen to become that? I don't mean to make light of the terrible things that Tom has already done in his young life, or what he will grow up to do, but I think JRK's authorial intent is a little bit misguided here.

Tom Riddle, Jr: Born This Way

Also, Dumbledore doesn't like Tom, and he has a bad feeling about him, but how on earth can it have been the smart choice to send a muggle-raised child to Diagon Alley on his own?  For the first time? It can't have been.

"The mouth organ was only ever a mouth organ." SO much homo-erotic subtext to that statement, no?

Chapter Fifteen: Unbreakable vows.  Luna's general awesomeness. Taking down the ministry via unexpected channels like gum disease.  That's like defeating the Mayor of Sunnydale with hummus.

I'm out of time now.  Can't look up more gifs, cannot respond to Ron's being poisoned. Or talk about cauldrons full of hot, strong love that need to be stirred. But it's funny that Harry remembers the bezoar from his first potions class, isn't it? Oh, and Wilkie Twycross, whose name I inevitably end up saying as either Twycwoss or Trycross. But enough for now...

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Readalong: Better Late Than Pregnant

Okay, so I've been lurking for these last four weeks 'cause work has been busy and I've had to travel to Kansas City and interview candidates for a job opening at my store. Oh, and also my computer died, which means it's hard to budge my husband off of his computer, which he uses for work, just because I want to look up Snape gifs.

All of which basically adds up to my sadness at being unable to participate in Alice's HP Readalong. But because I don't want to be the only kid not playing in the sandbox this week, I'm joining in for a belated post covering both GoF and some of the greatest HP fanfiction you've never read.

If we're going to get technical about it, I haven't read GoF for this post. I last read it a few years ago and last listened to it about two years ago, so the finer points aren't exactly fresh in my mind. Thus I will just say two things:

(1) I cried buckets the first time I read about Harry & Voldemort's duel and then I was emotionally wrung out to the point where I couldn't enjoy my visit with my then-partner.  Too bad, as he was living in Louisville for the semester and I only got to see him once every 4-5 weeks.  

(2) I read a first printing of the book, where there is a tremendous editing gaffe in the end, where James emerges from the end of Harry's wand before Lily does.  I was torn between indignation for such a terrible gaffe and wanting to believe that it held important textual significance. 

What about y'all?  Any of you read a first printing, either US or UK or Canadian or Australian? And did it totally mess you up to see Lily and James emerge in the wrong order?

Oh, wait, I have to say a third thing.

(3) Snape. Can you imagine the kind of bravery it must have taken him to go back to Voldemort two hours later, and what kind of torture he must have endured to prove to Voldemort that he wasn't the Death Eaters who had left him forever?  It makes me shiver just thinking about it, and not just because I read fan fiction. He had to have known he was facing death and that only tremendous luck and occlumency could save him. And poor Dumbledore, to know that he was asking that of Snape. I like to think that when Snape returned from his meeting with the newly-recreated Voldemort that Dumbledore did some extra dumblin'. I know I sure would have. 

Anyway...on to the fanfiction discussion.  Harry Potter fanfiction has existed almost as long as Harry Potter, but it really exploded between the releases of books four and five, a period of time known as the "three year summer." That's when I discovered fanfiction for the first time, and may I just say that in my world there has never been a better procrastination tool than reading HP fanfiction.

My very favorite pairing is Hermione/Snape.  Now, don't get all ewwwww on me. Fanfiction is about being open to the unexpected. The very best Hermione/Snape stories, IMO, are the ones penned by Anna on Witchfics: She has written a trilogy that surpasses all other fanfic I've read, with really good writing (much better writing than JKR's, actually), great plotting, and some pretty fabulous lemony bits. ("Lemony bits" is fanfiction speak for smut. Don't ask me why. Google it for yourself.)

There's also the great site dedicated solely to Snape/Hermione fic called Ashwinder.  The site ranges in quality from the terrible to the sublime, but one really fun one is called His Draught of Delicate Poison, written by Subversa, playing off the Marriage Law meme and loosely based on the wonderful Georgette Heyer novel, The Grand Sophy. It's funny and plot-filled and with some fun original characters, but not especially lemony. More like lemon-scented.

My second favorite pairing is Harry/Draco. Yeah, I've got a Slytherin thing, for sure. The very best Draco/Harry fics are no longer available on the internet.  They were penned by a woman named Maya, who is actually Sarah Rees Brennan, and once Rees Brennan published her first real book, she pulled  all of her fanfic from the interwebs. She made it available for a one time download, which I availed myself of, but my computer has since died and those stories are now irretrievable.  I would pay good money to get my hands on them again.  Seriously.  Contact me if you have these stories and I will make it worth your while.

Then there are those stories that, overall, are too wordy or meandering to be good in their entirety, but which have wholly interesting bits that I go back and read occasionally.  One of them features Harry/Snape and it's called The Mirror of Maybe by Midnight Blue--this writer created the concept of wizarding tattoos and Life Ink, and the scenes where Harry is getting inked, and later when he shares  his tattoos with Snape, are great.  Harry is also a tremendously good DADA teacher in this story.

Guess that's about it for now.  So, yeah, back to GoF:

Just kidding.  I meant back to Snape. And by that, I mean I'm finished here.  My husband needs his computer back.