Tag: laurie halse anderson

Top Ten Tuesday adapted from http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceasedesist/4812981497/

Top Ten Most Frustrating Characters Ever

Posted on by Dana

Top Ten Tuesday adapted from http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceasedesist/4812981497/

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday asks who the most frustrating characters in literature are. I know I’ve wanted to shake all of these people at some point.

  1. Father Ralph de Briccasart from The Thorn Birds. He could have been really happy with Meggie, but his ambition to rise in the Church was more important than anything else.
  2. Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye. I think Stradlater said it best when he said, “Shut up, Holden.”
  3. Catherine Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights. Oh, come on. Horrible, manipulative snot. Plays on the affections of both men who love her and drove one to vengeful madness.
  4. Willa Alden from The Wild Rose. Quit being a jerk and accept that Seamus loves you. He doesn’t care about your leg.
  5. Romeo from Romeo and Juliet. Can you dial back the impetuosity? You are ruining everyone’s lives.
  6. Pip from Great Expectations. Estella does not deserve you. Quit obsessing over her. She’s horrible.
  7. Lady Bertram from Mansfield Park. Did she get off her butt once in that novel? Because I can’t remember that she did.
  8. Lia in Wintergirls. EAT.
  9. Achilles in The Iliad. Get out of the #$%&@ tent and go fight. Hector thinks Paris is a tool, but he still stands up for his country. Hector deserves more credit. If he had been Greek instead of Trojan, he’d have had it.
  10. Captain Ahab from Moby Dick. As Starbuck says, “To be enraged with a dumb brute that acted out of blind instinct is blasphemous.” Unfortunately, Ahab doesn’t listen to him, and everyone on the ship, excepting Ishmael, of course, is killed.

Honorable mentions go to Sir Walter Eliot of Persuasion, who values all the wrong things in life; Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire, who sticks with an abusive (albeit hot, especially as played by Marlon Brando) guy who rapes her sister (for crying out loud!); Ennis Del Mar of “Brokeback Mountain,” who can’t let go of his self-hatred and allow himself to be happy with Jack Twist; Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby, who is just awful; Guinevere and Lancelot in all their iterations because they just ruin everything; Tom Sawyer in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for being an ass and playing around with a man’s life for sport; Hamlet from Hamlet, who dithers for most of the play and then kills some of the wrong people; and finally, the doctor from The Boxcar Children—why on earth did he not call DFCS when he found out those kids were living in a boxcar? That’s nuts!

Related posts:

Musing Mondays—October 17, 2011
Persuasion Audio Book
Jane Austen Soap Giveaway

Catalyst, Laurie Halse Anderson

Posted on by Dana

[amazon_image id=”0142400017″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” class=”alignleft”]Catalyst[/amazon_image]Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel [amazon_link id=”0142400017″ target=”_blank” ]Catalyst[/amazon_link] is the story of Kate Malone, perfect student, driven athlete, minister’s daughter, and so dead-set on going to MIT that she hasn’t applied anywhere else. Since her mother’s death, Kate has held everything together through tightly-controlled organization. She makes she her brother has his asthma medication and that her family’s clothes are cleaned and pressed. With all this pressure, something has to give. Kate’s life starts spinning out of control when her neighbors, the Litches, lose their home to a fire and move in with her family while they rebuild their home, which means Teri Litch—the angry bully who used to pick on Kate—is now sharing her room.

Kate was not as likeable a heroine as some other characters Laurie Halse Anderson has written. Sometimes people need to be shown that their priorities are out of whack in a really harsh way, and to Kate’s credit, she gets it by the end of the book. She’s fairly typical of a lot of overachievers—driven, way too focused, wound so tight it’s a question of when not if they’re going to pop. I didn’t enjoy this book as much as Anderson’s other books, but Melinda Sordino of [amazon_link id=”0312674392″ target=”_blank” ]Speak[/amazon_link] has a cameo appearance; this novel takes place in the same school and community as Speak. The characters were interesting: they were layered and more complex than you usually see in YA (but typical of Laurie Halse Anderson, who is a brilliant writer). I just didn’t like them very much, and it was hard to root for them. Still, I would probably read anything that Laurie Halse Anderson wrote.

Rating: ★★★½☆

Full disclosure: I checked this book out of my school library.

Related posts:

Review: How to Hang a Witch Series, Adriana Mather
Those Across the River, Christopher Buehlman
Review: The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music, Dave Grohl

WWW Wednesdays: December 14, 2011

Posted on by Dana

WWW WednesdaysTo play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

I am currently reading Laurie Halse Anderson’s YA novel [amazon_link id=”0142400017″ target=”_blank” ]Catalyst[/amazon_link]. It was, incidentally, mentioned in the most recent book I read by Sherman Alexie: [amazon_link id=”0316013684″ target=”_blank” ]The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian[/amazon_link]. It’s one of Junior Spirit’s favorite books. I also recently read [amazon_link id=”0142402516″ target=”_blank” ]Looking for Alaska[/amazon_link] by John Green. You can read my reviews of these books here and here. John Green will be in Atlanta next month, and I think my daughter wants to go see him. I have also finished Stephen King’s novel [amazon_link id=”0451169522″ target=”_blank” ]Misery[/amazon_link] since I last checked in with WWW Wednesdays. My review of that book can be found here.

I am not totally sure what I’ll read next. It’ll be something from this list. I have a lot of those books already, many on my Kindle, and it seems about time for a Kindle book.

Related posts:

Reading Update: September 25, 2010
Reading Update: August 2, 2010
Musing Mondays: Young Adult
WWW Wednesdays

WWW Wednesdays: December 7, 2011

Posted on by Dana

WWW WednesdaysTo play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Wow, I haven’t played along with WWW Wednesdays in a long time.

I am currently reading several books. The main one is [amazon_link id=”0451169522″ target=”_blank” ]Misery[/amazon_link] by Stephen King. I have seen the movie, and I thought Kathy Bates was brilliant in the role of Annie Wilkes. I had never read the book, and I admit that reading King’s memoir [amazon_link id=”1439156816″ target=”_blank” ]On Writing[/amazon_link] is what prompted me to finally pick it up. I am enjoying it a hell of a lot. I’m also still dipping into [amazon_link id=”1439170916″ target=”_blank” ]The Emperor of All Maladies[/amazon_link] by Siddhartha Mukherjee. I can totally see why it won the Pulitzer for nonfiction. It’s not just an interesting subject; it’s well written. I tried reading [amazon_link id=”1613821530″ target=”_blank” ]Anna Karenina[/amazon_link] on DailyLit, but I finally had to admit I wasn’t into it when I had a huge backlog of unread book installments and no desire to even open them. I have to just say it: I’m not into the Russians. I have tried them and tried them, several times, and I have given them a fair shake. I think it’s time to give up trying to be cultured. I picked up [amazon_link id=”1466210303″ target=”_blank” ]Madame Bovary[/amazon_link] instead, and while it hasn’t grabbed me yet, I will give it more than two installments. I guess I’m also still reading [amazon_link id=”074348486X” target=”_blank” ]As You Like It[/amazon_link] when I think about it.

I recently finished a re-read of [amazon_link id=”9626343613″ target=”_blank” ]Sense and Sensibility[/amazon_link] read by Juliet Stevenson. I highly recommend her Naxos audio book readings of Austen’s works. I think the only one she didn’t record for them was [amazon_link id=”9626343567″ target=”_blank” ]Pride and Prejudice[/amazon_link]. Stevenson is a brilliant reader. I also recently finished [amazon_link id=”0142411841″ target=”_blank” ]Twisted[/amazon_link] by Laurie Halse Anderson, who consistently writes amazing books for teens that are straight out of the Judy Blume School of writing about what young people are really like and what they care about. I discovered that Laurie Halse Anderson creates playlists for her books, so given that I love creating Spotify lists, I went ahead and put her playlists in Spotify (at least all the songs that were available). Here is her playlist for Twisted. Naturally, you need to have Spotify to listen. Here are my reviews for Sense and Sensibility and Twisted.

The next book I read will be either Sherman Alexie’s [amazon_link id=”0316068209″ target=”_blank” ]The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian[/amazon_link], John Green’s [amazon_link id=”0142402516″ target=”_blank” ]Looking for Alaska[/amazon_link], or Laurie Halse Anderson’s [amazon_link id=”0142400017″ target=”_blank” ]Catalyst[/amazon_link]. I am in a YA mood right now (probably because I just went to NCTE). I also really, really want to read [amazon_link id=”0062024027″ target=”_blank” ]Divergent[/amazon_link] by Veronica Roth soon, but I don’t have it, and neither does my school library. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was recently challenged here in my home state of Georgia. My daughter, however, says I should start with Looking for Alaska, but that I’d better be prepared to cry. I think I will probably read that one first just because she wants me to and so we can talk about it.

So, what are you reading?

Related posts:

Reading Challenge Check-In
Two More Reading Challenges
WWW Wednesdays—July 6, 2011

Twisted, Laurie Halse Anderson

Posted on by Dana

[amazon_image id=”0142411841″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” class=”alignleft”]Twisted[/amazon_image]Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel [amazon_link id=”0142411841″ target=”_blank” ]Twisted[/amazon_link] is the story of Tyler Miller, a seventeen-year-old boy with a dysfunctional family, a nerdy friend nicknamed Yoda who is in love with Tyler’s sister, a crush on teen queen Bethany Milbury, and a deep and abiding hatred for Bethany’s twin brother Chip. Tyler, caught spraying graffiti on the school, is ordered to do community service and remain under probation. His community service, helping out with a landscaper and school janitors, allows him to bulk up. His new physique, coupled with his newly-acquired bad-boy reputation, attract Bethany’s attention. She talks Tyler into breaking the terms of his probation and his parents’ restrictions to attend a huge party, where something that happens that causes Tyler’s life to nearly come crashing down around his ears.

I’m not sure I liked this book as much as [amazon_link id=”0312674392″ target=”_blank” ]Speak[/amazon_link] or [amazon_link id=”B004R96SCO” target=”_blank” ]Wintergirls[/amazon_link], but I still liked it enough to devour it in about a day. Laurie Halse Anderson might be this generation’s Judy Blume. Her characters are real people, with real problems. This story has much to say about the cycle of abuse and the workings of dysfunctional families. It’s a quick read. Tyler is a likeable character. If I didn’t like it as much as Anderson’s previous books, it might be because the protagonists were teenage girls, and as a former teenage girl myself, I suppose I found them easier to relate to. There is nothing that rings false about Tyler’s character (or any of the others). If you like Anderson’s other books, you’ll like this one, too. Anderson cleverly ties together several motifs (see, Tyler? I get it) in the end in a way that satisfies.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Full disclosure: I checked this book out of my school library.

Related posts:

More Thoughts on Stephenie Meyer
Review: The Silver Chair, C. S. Lewis, narrated by Jeremy Northam
Review: Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel

Reading Update

Posted on by Dana

Snowy Wednesday Night. 8,000 visits to this photo. Thank you.

I’ve not finished many books lately. I was writing a lot as I participated in NaNoWriMo, which took up a good deal of my time, but in addition to that, I picked some books I wound up not liking much to read during the month of November. I’m giving up on [amazon_link id=”140222267X” target=”_blank” ]Willoughby’s Return[/amazon_link] by Jane Odiwe.  I am about halfway through it, and it’s just not grabbing me. There is no agreed upon style convention regarding sharing a character’s thoughts when you’re writing in third person, but I am not a fan of using quotation marks for this purpose. I think it causes confusion with dialogue or speech. Also, when I read a paragraph written in this style and rewrote it in my head to stay within third person, I knew I wouldn’t finish the book. Still, the book was instructive.

I checked Laurie Halse Anderson’s [amazon_link id=”0142411841″ target=”_blank” ]Twisted[/amazon_link] out of our school library. I figured YA would be just the thing after the National Council of Teachers of English conference, where I heard about so much new YA I need to read, and a huge writing project. Plus I have read and loved two other novels Anderson wrote: [amazon_link id=”0142414735″ target=”_blank” ]Speak[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”B004R96SCO” target=”_blank” ]Wintergirls[/amazon_link]. Laurie Halse Anderson shared the coolest picture of herself and Judy Blume on Facebook today. Blume was giving her a Defender of Free Speech award from the National Coalition Against Censorship. If anyone knows what it’s like to be in Anderson’s shoes, it’s Judy Blume. She must have been so excited to receive the award from one of her own personal heroes. I admire the both of them so much for writing the truth about kids.

I have been so out of the loop this month. What are you reading?

photo credit: Glenn Waters ぐれんin Japan now in Milano

Related posts:

Writing Updates
2018: Reading Year in Review
Day One
Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Underrated Books

Posted on by Dana

Top Ten TuesdayThis week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is the top ten underrated books. I elected to choose just books I’ve read and absolutely loved, but don’t hear much about from others, whether book bloggers, Goodreads users, or just the general populace. I don’t understand why these books aren’t more popular than they are.

  1. [amazon_link id=”0060515139″ target=”_blank” ]A Plague of Doves[/amazon_link] by Louise Erdrich (review). This multigenerational epic is one of the best books I’ve ever read, but it’s not the first book anyone thinks of when they think of Erdrich. It’s a beautiful book and would be great for book clubs. I don’t know that many people who’ve read it, though.
  2. [amazon_link id=”1400096057″ target=”_blank” ]The Commoner[/amazon_link] by John Burnham Schwartz (review). This novel is based on current Japanese imperial family. It’s an interesting look at this traditional if widely ceremonial institution. I wouldn’t have ordinarily read it, but it was mentioned on one of my favorite GPB radio programs, which convinced me to try it. Really good book, but no one I know has read it.
  3. [amazon_link id=”014241557X” target=”_blank” ]Wintergirls[/amazon_link] by Laurie Halse Anderson (review). I think this novel is eclipsed by [amazon_link id=”0142414735″ target=”_blank” ]Speak[/amazon_link], which is phenomenal, but I truly learned a lot about eating disorders from this other, lesser-known novel of Anderson’s.
  4. [amazon_link id=”193659451X” target=”_blank” ]Persuasion[/amazon_link] by Jane Austen (review). Most people think of [amazon_link id=”184317569X” target=”_blank” ]Pride and Prejudice[/amazon_link], [amazon_link id=”1843175703″ target=”_blank” ]Sense and Sensibility[/amazon_link], or even [amazon_link id=”0062085654″ target=”_blank” ]Emma[/amazon_link] before they think of Austen’s last work, but it’s my personal favorite. I love Anne Elliot’s steadfastness and good sense, the naval officers, the Cobb where Louisa Musgrove fell, Bath, all of it. What a tightly written, fantastic book.
  5. [amazon_link id=”0385739893″ target=”_blank” ]Tiger Eyes[/amazon_link] by Judy Blume. We hear a lot about her other classics, like [amazon_link id=”0440904196″ target=”_blank” ]Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret[/amazon_link], the [amazon_link id=”0142409065″ target=”_blank” ]Fudge series[/amazon_link], maybe even somewhat scandalous books like [amazon_link id=”0385739850″ target=”_blank” ]Deenie[/amazon_link] or [amazon_link id=”1416934006″ target=”_blank” ]Forever[/amazon_link], but sometimes I think people forgot about Tiger Eyes. It’s my favorite Judy Blume book, and I read pretty much all of them published up through the early-to-mid ’80’s. I was a huge fan of hers. I just loved the heroine and the setting. So many YA books in my youth were set in New York. I started to wonder if YA authors realized people lived other places. Davey lived in Atlantic City, New Jersey, but most of the book takes place in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where her aunt and uncle live. As a kid living in Colorado, it was nice to read about a state closer to home, with physical attributes (such as mountains) more like my own home.
  6. [amazon_link id=”1250000939″ target=”_blank” ]The Prydain Chronicles[/amazon_link] by Lloyd Alexander. Do kids read these books anymore? I loved them. They might have suffered from a [amazon_link id=”B003RACGZM” target=”_blank” ]really poor Disney adaptation[/amazon_link]. They are such good books, though. You just never hear about them anymore. My fourth grade teacher read us [amazon_link id=”0805080481″ target=”_blank” ]The Book of Three[/amazon_link], and I remember her telling us that just because there was a guy with a skull for a head with antlers sprouting from his, well, skull, that we girls should not be put off because it was a really good book. I was skeptical, but I gave it a shot and immediately had to read the next book in the series, which might be even better than the first. I even liked the one book in the series that my teacher said wasn’t as good as the others.
  7. [amazon_link id=”014029628X” target=”_blank” ]Girl in Hyacinth Blue[/amazon_link] by Susan Vreeland (review). Perhaps because it is one of her earlier books, it doesn’t seem to have gained the same sort of traction as, say, [amazon_link id=”1400068169″ target=”_blank” ]Clara and Mr. Tiffany[/amazon_link]. I have a real love for this book, which begins with a novel concept: tracing the ownership of a painting from the current day back to its moment of creation. Plus, Vreeland introduced me to the artwork of Vermeer before I read [amazon_link id=”0452287022″ target=”_blank” ]Girl with a Pearl Earring[/amazon_link] by Tracy Chevalier.
  8. Arthur Phillips’s [amazon_link id=”0812972597″ target=”_blank” ]The Egyptologist[/amazon_link] (review). Sometimes I think I am the only person who liked this book, but it’s chock full of some black humor that I thought was hysterical. I loved the ending, especially, which was so comically horrible I didn’t know whether to feel bad I thought it was funny, or feel good that the antihero had his comeuppance. It’s hard to feel good because of a certain major twist that makes you feel sorry for him, but still.
  9. [amazon_link id=”0385737645″ target=”_blank” ]Revolution[/amazon_link] by Jennifer Donnelly (review). How come everyone isn’t reading this one? It’s been my favorite read of the year, and I never see anything about it anywhere, even from people who read more YA than I do. It’s such a great book.
  10. [amazon_link id=”0807114103″ target=”_blank” ]I Am One of You Forever[/amazon_link] by Fred Chappell. OK, granted, this one is published on a small press, and I would never have heard of it if I hadn’t been required to read it for Southern Literature in college, but it’s an amazing book, especially if you like magical realism and Southern literature. I have described as a book that drilled a hole right through my heart when I read it.

What about you? What books do you think are underrated?

Related posts:

Booking Through Thursday: Interactive?
The Tea Rose, Jennifer Donnelly
Reading Update: July 1, 2010

Wintergirls

Posted on by Dana

WintergirlsLaurie Halse Anderson’s novel Wintergirls is the story of Lia Overbrook, whose former best friend Cassie has just been found dead, alone, in a motel room. Lia is anorexic, and her friend Cassie was bulimic. Cassie begins to “haunt” Lia after her death, beckoning her to the other side to join her. Lia begins to succumb to her disorder and descends into depression and psychosis. Lia is crying out for attention from her parents, but they don’t see her as she really is, and Lia has no one to turn to who believes her, who understands.

I didn’t read this book with a mind toward counting as part of the R.I.P. Challenge, but I am, because it is without a doubt one of the most frightening books I have read for some time. If you are the parent of a teenage girl, or will ever be the parent of a teenage girl, you should read this book. I never had an eating disorder, but I was really thin as a teenager, and I know people probably thought I was anorexic. I developed a very real complex about my body. I thought I was fairly hideous. I used to wear sweat pants under my jeans so that I would look just a little healthier and heavier. I wish I had been able to hear that I was normal and OK and fine the way I was. I never tried to harm myself, and age and metabolism eventually took care of my body image problems, but I think most girls have body image issues of some type, even if they don’t go to the extremes Lia does, and we do not do enough in our society to tell our girls that they are beautiful and strong and fine the way they are.

Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel is haunting and realistic. Her writing style is often poetic, pitch-perfect stream of consciousness that works well for depicting Lia’s descent into the maelstrom. I found myself pulling hard for her the whole time, being angry with her, being frustrated with her, and being angry with the adults in her life for not seeing her. Laurie Halse Anderson is one of the best YA writers working right now, and her messages are so important for our kids to hear, to read. It sickens me that her books have been the subject of challenges even as recently as last week. I read this book for Banned Books Week this week in honor of Laurie Halse Anderson and the important writing she does for our kids—for all of us. Those who would seek to silence writers like Laurie Halse Anderson because they seek to be honest in the way they portray us to ourselves are only hiding from the truth and hiding the truth from their children. One way or another, the truth has a way of coming out. I hope book banners’ children don’t have to become Wintergirls in order for their parents to see, and I can’t imagine how anyone who has lost a child to an eating disorder would try to keep this book out of the hands of any child. In fact, I’m pretty sure they would give anything if their daughters could have read it.

Rating: ★★★★★

R.I.P. Challenge V

This is my third book for the R.I.P. Challenge. One more book will complete the challenge. I’m also currently reading Dracula, My Love, which will count towards my challenge goal of four books. However, I also have two other R.I.P. worthy books in the hopper.

Related posts:

R.I.P. and NaNoWriMo Update
Review: Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salman Rushdie
Catching Fire

Bookish Updates

Posted on by Dana

The Christmas holidays mean I’ll have some time to read. As I indicated in my previous post, I wasn’t getting into We Have Always Lived in the Castle, so I’ve set it aside. I really have been wanting to reread Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, so I downloaded it to my iPhone using the Kindle app. I have to say, it was like magic. I clicked a button, and when I opened my Kindle app, there the book was. I have used Stanza and Classics on my iPhone, but this is my first Kindle experience, so I’ll let you know how it goes. I understand I can annotate the book using the app.

I also picked up Jasper Fforde’s book The Fourth Bear. I have enjoyed all of his books. This one didn’t grab me yet (I’m two chapters in), but we’ll see. I know some readers don’t enjoy his Nursery Crime books as much as the Thursday Next series, but I really did like The Big Over Easy.

I’m trying to decide what to do about my own book. I want to work on editing and revising over the holiday. I haven’t completed the ending.

Finally, I watched the film based on Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Speak, which I reviewed here. It’s an excellent book, and the film was very good, too, although not as good as the book, which is usually the case.

Related posts:

Summer Reading
Beach Books
Booking Through Thursday: Romantic