Weekend, not Wednesday reading...
I've been meaning to do that meme all week but I've been shattered what with the humidity...
Books finished:
Feed by Mira Grant
This sold me on zombies without actually being very focused on the well worn zombies-as-monsters thing familiar from so many movies. The zombie state is caused by an infection that everyone has, in a dormant state. The problem happens when it goes live... now, fear of disease is something I can relate to, and with numerous real-world parallels, though the most direct comparison the book makes is not with historically feared or stigmatised conditions, but with our fear of terrorism and how that twists a society. As in a lot of good horror stories, the living humans, supposedly still possessed of their humanity, are the worst monsters.
The other two really appealing things about the book are its focus on journalists (bloggers have got more respect since the zombie rising) and the central relationship between Shaun and Georgia, the brother and sister team who run After the End Times. Their parents, journos who lost their first child early in the zombie crisis, have adopted them for what seem to be mainly cynical PR reasons, and the impact of that runs through the book. Overall, there's a lot of awesome worldbuilding, a lot of potential for future character development (there are two more books), and a screamingly tragic ending that still doesn't leave you feeling like the story's over. OH! And a really good portrayal of a disabled character. Feed? I devoured it.
Also, they're re-reading the book on
aftertheendtimes, so it's a good comm to jump onto if you're new to the Newsflesh trilogy. They use Rot13 code to hide spoilers for later in the book, but just FYI, they don't do extra warnings for spoilers on subsequent books.
Currently reading:
Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin
Max is fifteen, and the perfect, high-achieving, easygoing son to ambitious parents; the supportive big brother to nine-year-old Daniel, whose flying off the handle is beginning to be a problem at school and at home. Really, when you examine it, a lot of the family's even keel rests on Max, and he senses it. Few people know that Max is intersex, and he's been raised to believe it's no big deal. The family don't talk about it much, but that's because there's no need. Right?
But as the book progresses, it becomes apparent just how little Max has been empowered or informed regarding his own condition. When he is raped by his childhood best friend (harrowing, lengthy scene at the beginning, in case you're mentally gauging your tolerance level), who knows of and exploits his condition, Max's needs collide with those of his family.
The UK Orion Books paperback edition undersells this book, to my mind: the blurb is very short and very vague, and makes it purely about Max being a golden boy, and intersex; the fact he faces a crisis, and that the crisis affects his identity. Actually it's in multiple POVs, with the moral dilemmas of his mother and his GP very much to the fore. Regarding the GP, I like how the book highlights both a lack of professional education and the huge changes in how intersex conditions are both viewed and named in medical circles between Max's birth in 1996, and the book's present in 2011.
Meanwhile, Max's mother is battling with the fallout from her Irish mother's epic guilt trips, and how this manifests in her relationship with Max. His father is the local Chief Prosecutor, who has just begun to run for political office in the wake of their last MP stepping down due to a scandal involving his children. The central question that comes up in his parents' dealings with Max is whether they make choices to protect him, themselves or both.
So far the only POV that doesn't quite work for me is Daniel's, though I think a lot of people have trouble writing young kids wholly convincingly. There are good moments and bad moments, let's put it that way... and I'm still barely halfway through.
Reading next:
- Autobiography by Morrissey (I have the twattish Penguin Classics-liveried edition)
- idek whatever has big print
Books finished:
Feed by Mira Grant
This sold me on zombies without actually being very focused on the well worn zombies-as-monsters thing familiar from so many movies. The zombie state is caused by an infection that everyone has, in a dormant state. The problem happens when it goes live... now, fear of disease is something I can relate to, and with numerous real-world parallels, though the most direct comparison the book makes is not with historically feared or stigmatised conditions, but with our fear of terrorism and how that twists a society. As in a lot of good horror stories, the living humans, supposedly still possessed of their humanity, are the worst monsters.
The other two really appealing things about the book are its focus on journalists (bloggers have got more respect since the zombie rising) and the central relationship between Shaun and Georgia, the brother and sister team who run After the End Times. Their parents, journos who lost their first child early in the zombie crisis, have adopted them for what seem to be mainly cynical PR reasons, and the impact of that runs through the book. Overall, there's a lot of awesome worldbuilding, a lot of potential for future character development (there are two more books), and a screamingly tragic ending that still doesn't leave you feeling like the story's over. OH! And a really good portrayal of a disabled character. Feed? I devoured it.
Also, they're re-reading the book on
aftertheendtimes, so it's a good comm to jump onto if you're new to the Newsflesh trilogy. They use Rot13 code to hide spoilers for later in the book, but just FYI, they don't do extra warnings for spoilers on subsequent books.
Currently reading:
Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin
Max is fifteen, and the perfect, high-achieving, easygoing son to ambitious parents; the supportive big brother to nine-year-old Daniel, whose flying off the handle is beginning to be a problem at school and at home. Really, when you examine it, a lot of the family's even keel rests on Max, and he senses it. Few people know that Max is intersex, and he's been raised to believe it's no big deal. The family don't talk about it much, but that's because there's no need. Right?
But as the book progresses, it becomes apparent just how little Max has been empowered or informed regarding his own condition. When he is raped by his childhood best friend (harrowing, lengthy scene at the beginning, in case you're mentally gauging your tolerance level), who knows of and exploits his condition, Max's needs collide with those of his family.
The UK Orion Books paperback edition undersells this book, to my mind: the blurb is very short and very vague, and makes it purely about Max being a golden boy, and intersex; the fact he faces a crisis, and that the crisis affects his identity. Actually it's in multiple POVs, with the moral dilemmas of his mother and his GP very much to the fore. Regarding the GP, I like how the book highlights both a lack of professional education and the huge changes in how intersex conditions are both viewed and named in medical circles between Max's birth in 1996, and the book's present in 2011.
Meanwhile, Max's mother is battling with the fallout from her Irish mother's epic guilt trips, and how this manifests in her relationship with Max. His father is the local Chief Prosecutor, who has just begun to run for political office in the wake of their last MP stepping down due to a scandal involving his children. The central question that comes up in his parents' dealings with Max is whether they make choices to protect him, themselves or both.
So far the only POV that doesn't quite work for me is Daniel's, though I think a lot of people have trouble writing young kids wholly convincingly. There are good moments and bad moments, let's put it that way... and I'm still barely halfway through.
Reading next:
- Autobiography by Morrissey (I have the twattish Penguin Classics-liveried edition)
- idek whatever has big print