BASIC EIGHT, MIDNIGHTERS 2
Not similar books, really. And I know I read some others in there...the basic Suzi lament, and why I began the blog in the first place, so I'd remember what the heck I read! Oh well. About to go to Montana, where I'll read a lot more. I hope.
First was Daniel Handler's The Basic Eight. Holy sweet mother of freaky books. I mean, yikes. I mean, yargh. I mean, WTF? Reminded me of Heathers, and I am SO not providing a link to that movie because if you have not seen it, you must go get it right now ("My son is dead...and he's gay! I love my dead gay son!"). Anyway, thing is, it's a freaky, amazing book. I don't generally enjoy unreliable narrators (and I don't think I'm giving anything away in saying that Flannery is one; she admits it as she discusses editing the journal the reader is about to read), but because Handler does it in this half-removed way, giving the reader (okay, me, in this case) more insight into what's going on, it's easier. The other thing is that unlike George, say, in Paula Fox's Poor George or many more first-person unreliable and confused narrators, Flannery has a lot of self-awareness (okay, not in a couple of Big Areas, but about small things) and makes sharp comments on her past self. This is debatable as a YA book, but it's definitely fascinating as a book in general and as an example of dealing with first-person POV. (I took a fiction-writing class about first-person, and ever since then I've been much more interested in the mechanics of the thing, which has helped my reading too. I think.)
Second, whoa, Scott Westerfeld's Midnighters: Touching Darkness, or as I call it, Midnighters 2. (I'm sure that's completely original of me.) OK, spoilers ahead, by the way.
I read and walk, like so many of my compatriots in book-dom, and I almost never get distracted enough by my reading to lose track of my surroundings. Yes, I read and walk when it's hot to take my attention away from the temperature, and I read and walk when I'm tired to forget that I'm tired, but usually I'm just reading to read and keep a close eye on the sidewalk/grass/street.
Reading a particularly, um, intense part in Midnighters 2, I completely lost track of where I was and was brought up short by a change in pavement under my sneakers--yes, there WAS a street in front of me. I've read a lot of Westerfeld in a short time now, so I feel like I understand a little more what the similarities are in his books. I wonder if Madeleine (if you haven't read this yet, you'll soon find out who she is) will betray the young Midnighters? I wonder if Constanza is really Jessica's friend? I wonder if Dess is a lesbian and needs a girlfriend since the other midnighters have all hooked up? I wonder why there's a rune for Jessica if she's got a totally new power and the darklings have never seen anything like it before? I wonder why the human was thinking "Find Jessica Day" at the end of book 1 if it's really the seer who's wanted and endangered?
Favorite line: "Mom, Beth and I are old enough to know about drugs, boys, and terrorism." Thank you, Scott, for making Jessica funny there. She doesn't get to be funny often enough. And it's interesting to see how Rex and Melissa are both very, very into their power and their top-tier thing. Jessica is slowly learning to be a midnighter, I'd say. She and Jonathan have not lived their whole lives with the solitude and weird feelings that the others did, so they have more of a chance to be "normal" and hang out with "normal" other kids.
How did they explain Melissa's car accident?
Anyway, Basic Eight is much more literary and all, and I thought it was fairly tremendous, but I enjoyed reading Midnighters a whole lot more. I'm worried that this says I am Not An Intellectual, but then I reassure myself that I'm enjoying a biography of Sir Thomas Malory, the knight who wrote Le Morte Darthur, one of the main sourcebooks for Arthurian legend. And yes, I've read some to most of that, but now I'm reading a thick biography of the man, and I'm totally fascinated. Whew, Intellectualism Reassured. :-)
First was Daniel Handler's The Basic Eight. Holy sweet mother of freaky books. I mean, yikes. I mean, yargh. I mean, WTF? Reminded me of Heathers, and I am SO not providing a link to that movie because if you have not seen it, you must go get it right now ("My son is dead...and he's gay! I love my dead gay son!"). Anyway, thing is, it's a freaky, amazing book. I don't generally enjoy unreliable narrators (and I don't think I'm giving anything away in saying that Flannery is one; she admits it as she discusses editing the journal the reader is about to read), but because Handler does it in this half-removed way, giving the reader (okay, me, in this case) more insight into what's going on, it's easier. The other thing is that unlike George, say, in Paula Fox's Poor George or many more first-person unreliable and confused narrators, Flannery has a lot of self-awareness (okay, not in a couple of Big Areas, but about small things) and makes sharp comments on her past self. This is debatable as a YA book, but it's definitely fascinating as a book in general and as an example of dealing with first-person POV. (I took a fiction-writing class about first-person, and ever since then I've been much more interested in the mechanics of the thing, which has helped my reading too. I think.)
Second, whoa, Scott Westerfeld's Midnighters: Touching Darkness, or as I call it, Midnighters 2. (I'm sure that's completely original of me.) OK, spoilers ahead, by the way.
I read and walk, like so many of my compatriots in book-dom, and I almost never get distracted enough by my reading to lose track of my surroundings. Yes, I read and walk when it's hot to take my attention away from the temperature, and I read and walk when I'm tired to forget that I'm tired, but usually I'm just reading to read and keep a close eye on the sidewalk/grass/street.
Reading a particularly, um, intense part in Midnighters 2, I completely lost track of where I was and was brought up short by a change in pavement under my sneakers--yes, there WAS a street in front of me. I've read a lot of Westerfeld in a short time now, so I feel like I understand a little more what the similarities are in his books. I wonder if Madeleine (if you haven't read this yet, you'll soon find out who she is) will betray the young Midnighters? I wonder if Constanza is really Jessica's friend? I wonder if Dess is a lesbian and needs a girlfriend since the other midnighters have all hooked up? I wonder why there's a rune for Jessica if she's got a totally new power and the darklings have never seen anything like it before? I wonder why the human was thinking "Find Jessica Day" at the end of book 1 if it's really the seer who's wanted and endangered?
Favorite line: "Mom, Beth and I are old enough to know about drugs, boys, and terrorism." Thank you, Scott, for making Jessica funny there. She doesn't get to be funny often enough. And it's interesting to see how Rex and Melissa are both very, very into their power and their top-tier thing. Jessica is slowly learning to be a midnighter, I'd say. She and Jonathan have not lived their whole lives with the solitude and weird feelings that the others did, so they have more of a chance to be "normal" and hang out with "normal" other kids.
How did they explain Melissa's car accident?
Anyway, Basic Eight is much more literary and all, and I thought it was fairly tremendous, but I enjoyed reading Midnighters a whole lot more. I'm worried that this says I am Not An Intellectual, but then I reassure myself that I'm enjoying a biography of Sir Thomas Malory, the knight who wrote Le Morte Darthur, one of the main sourcebooks for Arthurian legend. And yes, I've read some to most of that, but now I'm reading a thick biography of the man, and I'm totally fascinated. Whew, Intellectualism Reassured. :-)