Book Review - The Casual Vacancy

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



JK Rowling's first foray into fiction since the Harry Potter franchise was bound to bring with it much expectation, but I tried to leave off too much forethought. A good book by a solid author is all I was hoping for - not fantasy or fabulousness. But one of the things that made the Harry Potter series so compelling DID, in fact, factor into what made this a five-star book; I would argue the most important thing - the character development.

The book begins with a death, and we meet many characters touched by that death, and some not so touched, within the small town in which it takes place. The death leaves a "Casual Vacancy" on the city board, which stirs up the sleepy town of Pagford. These characters, their ties to the deceased, to the town, to the issues facing the board, are all plumbed deeply and delicately. You see the best of some of the more distasteful characters, and the worst of some of the pristine members of society. Rowling did an excellent job (as is expected from the woman who wrote not only Harry Potter, but James Potter, Draco Malfoy, and Severus Snape) of making the point through her characters that human beings are rich, complex, often sad and wounded, but also capable of love, compassion, and heartbreak. Despite the fact that few of the characters in the book are simply likeable, you care about them. I found myself often sympathising with a character I had been sighing with distaste at only moments before.

I've begun to watch some British television lately, and it makes me think The Casual Vacancy is an extremely British book. It is not whiz-bang, flash and pop action and constant movement, in the way consumptive Americans often expect and need in order for their interest to be held (and I say this as an American myself, mind). It is subtle and delicate and rich and beautiful. It is often slow, quiet, and gentle, though there is a ferocity beneath the surface as well.

This book is not Harry Potter. It is not for children, it is not fantastical, or adventurous. But it is deeply human, and very much worth your time.

I listened to the Audible version of The Casual Vacancy, and the narration, too, was fantastic. It was not over-the-top, with voices varying just enough to clue you in to the speaker, but not so much that you flinched at the male narrator's attempt at a feminine voice. His tone was soothing but not lulling, and the pacing and articulation were spot-on.



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Book Review - The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting: Raising Children with Courage, Compassion, and Connection

The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting: Raising Children with Courage, Compassion, and Connection by Brené Brown

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



If you have children, go buy or borrow this book. Like, now.

This two-hour audiobook reads more like a workshop by author/narrator Brené Brown. Broken down into simple "guideposts" and with a very friendly, conversational tone, The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting is refreshingly optimistic and realistic. As Dr. Brown says, it's never too late for wholehearted parenting.

My favorite thing about this book is that it's not just the advice of some parenting guru. It's not a lot of theory from a psychologist with no children. It's not new-agey, touchy-feely B.S. It's solid, research-based, practical advice for creating a culture in your home and family that will allow your children the safety and the space, and the safe space, to grow into well-adjusted adults.

As Dr. Brown reiterates at the end of the book, there are many ways to be an engaged parent, and we need to stop judging and shaming one another for our differing choices. But I think whether you consider yourself a Tiger Mom or an Attachment Parent, there is much to be gained from this, and it will be two hours of your life well-spent (especially since you can listen while doing chores, like I did!).

More of my favorite quotes here. But really, go listen for yourself.



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Book Review - Shadow Puppets by Orson Scott Card

Shadow Puppets by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I used to be the sort of person who prided herself on not quitting a book. Much as I flit from one project to another, leaving things unfinished, books and movies deserved my full efforts, no matter how abysmal they might seem in the beginning.

Thanks to a run of bad novels, I've changed my mind. Life is too short to finish a book that doesn't grip you. It's definitely too short to finish a book that makes you roll your eyes, chapter after chapter.

I trudged through the first hour or two of this audiobook with little interest. A rambling quasi-love story, it kept my mind busy while I did my duties as domestic engineer. However, I rarely thought about the story after I'd put it away, and it didn't draw me back in, enticing me to do my chores the way pretty much all of OSC's other books have done. This should have been my first clue that it wasn't worth it.

Then came the preaching.

Orson Scott Card, of whose religious and political beliefs I was blissfully unaware until after my first reading of the original Ender saga, claims not to preach through his fiction, unless he says he is (as in the Alvin Maker series, which is based loosely on the life of Joseph Smith). I could give him the benefit of the doubt, but that would just mean he is painfully unobservant of the underlying messages in his own writing.

From a diatribe against gay marriage (the character given this not-so-subtle soliloquy decides that, even though he's gay, he'll marry a single mother and use his pension to support them. Seriously.) to anti-abortion rhetoric that is pounded like a nail again and again, I just couldn't stomach it anymore.

So I've given up. I've got a to-read list a mile, long, and I'm sure most of it deserves more attention than this drivel.

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Book Review - Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card

Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

No matter my thoughts about his politics, I just can't quit Orson Scott Card. I refuse to pick up his books in paper (or e-paper) form, and insist on listening to them read aloud, usually by voices I've come to know and love through repeated listenings of the Ender Saga. Since Card claims he writes with this in mind, I figure it increases the authenticity of the tale. Besides, it stops me from noticing typos and bad editing, which always pull me from a story.

I know that the Alvin Maker saga is meant to be loosely based on the life of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon religion. I can't decide if it's better or worse for me that I don't know the details of LDS history. Better, probably, because I'm not constantly analyzing the plot, trying to spot the preaching (which I do with the latter Ender books, and it always tarnishes them a little for me). Though I wonder what lovely allegories I am missing. Though not a Christian, I'm always interested in the Christian allegories I find in popular literature. So maybe they're worse for it.

Maybe it's better just to take the book as it is, a tale like so many of Card's, of a bright young boy with a fantastic talent and too much responsibility for his age. The setting of 18th century colonial America almost doesn't matter to the plot. Sure, there is a certain amount of naming convention (with kids named Vigor, Measure, Waste-Not and Want-Not, and so on) and religious fervor only rivaled by today's neo-conservatives, but really, again as most of Card's work, this is a story not about place, but about people.

I'm hoping the series will hold me over until the release of the next Mithermages and Pathfinder books. It kept me engaged, made the time slip away while I worked on my own household chores, and left me eager to borrow the next book in the series from my library's digital library. Really, what more can you ask for?

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Book Review - Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card

Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As seems typical of Card (at least lately), this book is almost more fantasy than science fiction, at least in the beginning. As the story progresses, we see more and more of the sci-fi aspect and the fantasy elements take on a different perspective.

I have yet to "pick up" a Card "book" that I wasn't immediately engaged in, which didn't keep me cleaning my house long after my feet were sore (I only listen to audio versions, and I listen only while cleaning - keeps me motivated). Pathfinder was no different. Rigg's gift, his relationship with his father, and their relationship to the land drew me in quickly, and I was eager to see where it all led.

As the story progressed, new characters were added with rapidity, yet enough was told about each to allow you to connect with them. Never did I feel I learned too much about a character, nor that Card shouldn't have bothered with one at all for what little they added to the story.

By the time the book ends, you care about every one of the characters, and if you've been paying close attention, you have figured out where it's all going. Still it is a relief to actually get there, to hear what resolution there is, and then to read the Acknowledgement section and find out that yes, you did understand it correctly after all.

I'm looking forward to the next book, and hearing what the remaining characters do with their discoveries.

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Book Review - The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card

The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I guess I'm a sucker for the worlds of Orson Scott Card (or maybe just a sucker for the very excellent narrators that tell me his tales), and the combination real/fantasy world of The Lost Gate is no exception.

Danny North lives in a world where the adults bear names like Thor and Loki. Civilization is split into factions of "families," and each faction bears a name which ties it to its history, like "The Greeks" or "The Norths" (who bear Norse heritage). Almost everyone in Danny's world has personal magic, whether it is the ability to possess a bird and bid it do your will or to encourage the plants to grow just a little bigger. But Danny has none of these magical abilities. He is drekka.

Eventually Danny runs away from his family to join the druthers, the non-magical everyday folk who used to worship the families as gods. He plans to live among them, but he has a secret of his own, bigger than his past.

The Lost Gate is a wonderful blend of fantasy and mythology, and is reminiscent of Rick Riordan's Greek (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) and Egyptian (The Kane Chronicles) series, and Michael Scott's The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel.

The characters have depth and capture your sympathies. You really care what happens to this boy, and whether or not he ever makes it to the promised land of Westil.

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Book Review - Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card

Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I wish I'd payed more attention to the chronological order of the series. After finishing Ender's Shadow, I jumped right to this (because it follows Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow chronologically), but it turns out this book references many events in the rest of the Shadow series, so those books have been "spoiled" for me. I'll still listen to them eventually.

I love listening to Ender stories, but I'm the kind of person who gets into a series, a character, and then just loves to read more about them, quality be damned, so take this with whatever grain of salt you will.

There are a few inconsistencies where Ender in Exile overlaps with the concluding chapters of Ender's Game. OSC references them in the afterword, and his explanations are sensible, but it does distract somewhat from the story when you're going, "wait, is that what happened? I thought..." That said, I like this version of events well enough.

If you go straight from EG to EIE, you will almost certainly be disappointed at the pace of this book. However, if you read the rest of the EG series and then jump back to EIE, the pace won't be anything different. It's obvious to me that, while this book follow chronologically from EG, it was written after the rest of the series, because the style is more consistent with those later books.

In all, this is, as a fill-in, a book you can skip without missing anything, but a book worth picking up if you are just hungry for any more Ender stories you can get your hands on.

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Book Review - Room by Emma Donoghue

Room by Emma Donoghue

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I wish I hadn't read the synopsis for this book before picking it up. It's impossible to talk about the book at all without giving a lot away, and I wonder how the first half would have read differently if I hadn't already known the premise.

It's not a very fast-moving book, but I found it engaging and insightful. The audio version is definitely the way to go if you can.



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Book Review - Xenocide by Orson Scott Card

Xenocide by Orson Scott Card

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I still maintain that Speaker for the Dead is the best of the Ender series and that the books get progressively "worse" after that book. That said, I enjoyed Xenocide much more this read-through (listen-through?) than I had previously, mostly because I understood and took interest in the science more than I ever had before.

Knowing what I do about Orson Scott Card and his religious and political beliefs (or at least professions) took a little of the joy out of this book, and more so than the others. I found myself frequently wondering <i>what he was trying to say</i>. Before I had been able to suspend those thoughts and get lost in the story, but they came to the forefront this time.

When I started listening to this books again (I do it about once a year), I didn't intend to read through the whole series, knowing that I could feasibly stop with Speaker and be done, and that I didn't like the other books as much. But as usual, the story drew me in, and even though I KNOW what happens in the long run, I wanted to hear it all again.

If you've never listened to the Ender books, I highly recommend it. The voice acting is phenomenal and really brings the story to life.

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My third time through, and I still couldn't just stop with Speaker. I had to finish out the series, and I'll say that I appreciated Xenocide more this third time around, and Children of the Mind was actually the story I rolled my eyes through. I guess you do get something different out of a book every time you read it (or listen, as it were). I once again applied what I know about OSC and his beliefs to the telling of this story, and while I was still irritated at times, I also found myself analyzing and questioning and being generally curious about how much of the story does align with mormonism or OSC's personal dogma.

I'll still call this a three-star book, but I am glad that I have read it again (and again), if only to see how I as the audience have changed.

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I almost didn't continue the series this year, but went ahead anyway since I didn't have any more audiobooks lined up and I like to have one going at all times. Also, I couldn't seem to leave Ender, though he features far less prominently in this book that the first two. Once again (though mostly later in the book), I found myself beset by OSC's sneaky dogmatic ideals working their way into the inner personal monologues of his characters. *sigh* Someday, I'll learn that two books is really enough, that I know the rest of the story and don't actually have to keep "reading." There are so many good things out there waiting to be listened to.


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Book Review - Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Orson Scott Card says his books are meant to be heard more than read, and the cast of narrators for Ender's Game is phenomenal.

This book has been billed as YA and it does ok in that genre, but I find I get something more out of the book (the series, really), every time I listen. And Since I first "read" (listened to) this book in 2006, I get the urge to listen to it pretty much once or twice a year, despite the way my "to-read" list keeps growing.

Ender's Game is full of emotion, politics, children you tend to forget are so young, and the war of several lifetimes. And yet, that somehow doesn't begin to describe its depth and complexity. Just pick it up; you won't regret it.

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