"Alias Grace"

As I've mentioned before, I'm a pretty big fan of true crime novels. I recently stumbled across Alias Grace, a novel by storytelling genius Margaret Atwood. While the book is a work of fiction it is based upon the 1843 murders of landowner Thomas Kinnear and his mistress/housekeeper Nancy Montgomery. The story follows Grace Marks, who was accused as an accessory to the murders and sentenced to life in prison when she was just 16 years old. Throughout the novel she recounts her life story to Dr. Simon Jordan, a psychologist trying to determine whether or not Grace is innocent. 

While the book was published in 1997 it reads like a Victorian novel, plush with detail and well-drawn characters. Atwood (from the perspective of Grace) takes her time telling the story, leaving no stone unturned. While tedious at times, the detail is important to the reader as they are put in the place of Dr. Jordan as he listens to Grace tell her side of the story. The real-life Grace Marks claimed that she did not remember the murders taking place, and in a time when psychology is just being established as a science, those who become close to Grace struggle to understand her role in the murders. 

Like any great storyteller, Atwood manages to move seamlessly through time as Grace talks about her experiences before the murders and while in prison, and across characters, as Grace and Dr. Jordan share their points of view. Atwood also includes a good deal of tension between characters, with some obvious friction between the young but worldly Dr. Jordan and his rather ignorant peers in Kingston. And although the story holds several surprises for the reader, the main question of Grace's innocence is left just as ambiguous as it was in real life. 

Overall Grade: B+

"Ready Player One"

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is one of the most engaging books I've read in some time. I have always been a borderline sci-fi fan, thoroughly enjoying the Ender series by Orson Scott Card and the mega-hit Dune by Frank Herbert, but I've never delved much deeper than these bestsellers. Steve, however, is a huge sci-fi fan and when he managed to polish this one off in only 2 days (maybe a personal best), I knew I had to check it out. The cover of the hardback edition alone is exciting, described by my friend and fellow blogger Patrick as something "straight from an 80's video game." (Okay, that was pretty loosely quoted-I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was definitely something like that.) 

Which, of course, is exactly what it's meant to look like. The premise of Ready Player One is fairly simple: the world is in a sort of pre-Apocalyptic, post-major disaster/energy crisis that makes reality fairly unpleasant. The solution? An awesome virtual reality world that allows a participant to be entirely immersed in the (made up) world around them, from sight to smell to touch. And the best part about this world, known as the OASIS, is that it's completely free for all users, which is why it is so widely used by the mostly homeless, slightly starving population of Earth. The world of the OASIS is based around 1980s pop culture, which takes the reader back in time to the days of Pac-Man and Blade Runner. Awesome. 

Okay, that's the simple part. It gets ever-so slightly complicated once you get over the fact that the majority of the human species is running around making wild hand gestures and talking to themselves for most of their lives, believing that somehow this virtual world is more important than their own crappy reality. The co-creator of the OASIS and the world's richest man, James Halliday, has died and revealed to the world that he has hidden an Easter Egg inside the OASIS. Whoever finds three hidden keys and three hidden gates first will discover the Easter Egg--and become the sole heir/heiress to Halliday's ridiculous fortune. Most of the world becomes obsessed with the search, but many fall out of the running pretty quickly. Only those who dedicate their lives to the search, people known as gunters (for some reason I can't remember), are still looking for the Egg five years later, when the readers are introduced into the plot. 

Wade Watts (known as Parzival in the OASIS) is a full-time gunter and 18-year-old high school senior who has spent the past 5 years searching for the Egg. He knows more about the 80s than probably anyone who lived during that time period. He considers himself a pretty average person, both in reality and in the OASIS, until he does what no one else in history has...he finds the first key. Suddenly, Wade is the most famous person in the world, heralded by gunters who were losing hope and hunted by those who will do anything to find the Egg. Wade must solve the rest of Halliday's puzzles before time runs out and he is dead...either in the game or in the real world. Once the action begins the story races by until the reader can scarcely believe that they've reached the end. 

Ready Player One is by far one of the best sci-fi books I have ever read, and maybe one of the top 30 books I've ever read. And the best part? It's being made into a movie...

Overall Grade: A

"Kindred"

On April 23 I had the unique experience of participating in World Book Night with the public library I work for. World Book Night is sponsored by major bookstores and publishing companies, and during the day one million books are given away across the country. This was the first year our library participated, and we were very excited about the opportunity. We chose seven titles to be given away in our community and, overall, it was a great success. We are looking forward to the event next year, especially since we got to pick out free books as well! The most popular book we handed out was The Hunger Games, but in a close second was Kindred, by Octavia Butler. Published in 1979, this author and her books have never reached my radar but were highly praised by my boss and everyone who chose to take her book. I decided to give it a try.

Octavia Butler has the distinction of being one of the few female African American science fiction writers. Having won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, she is also the best known from that category. As embarrassed as I was having never heard of her, I was anxious to start reading her book, especially after the one-line description I heard over and over again: "It's African American science fiction set around the Civil War." Huh. Never heard of that before, but sounds good to me!

As you may have guessed from my previous description, Kindred is a science fiction novel primarily set in Maryland about 50 years before the Civil War. The main character, Dana, is a female African American writer from 1976 who has the unfortunate ability to travel back in time. She doesn't discover this ability until she is 26 and suddenly appears in a creek just in time to save the life of a little boy. She later discovers that this little red-headed boy is Rufus Weyland, future plantation owner and her great-great grandfather. Dana continues to be pulled to Rufus whenever his life (and her own, as a future relative) is in danger, which happens to be a lot for this danger-loving boy. And as an African American in the Antebellum South, Dana must learn to live as a slave while she is stuck in Rufus' time. Obviously, this transition is not easy for Dana or the reader. She endures hardships that few of us today can imagine. Butler obviously did her homework before writing this novel because the historical details are spot-on, but described so simply that the reader often forgets that this world is totally new to Dana. While slave narratives are not unusual to today's reader, it is unusual to find a book that can easily discuss discrimination in both 1825 and 1976.

Kindred is an excellent find as we enter the "summer reading" phase. While a little slow to start as Butler sorts through the difficult task of introducing Dana to her new world while keeping the reader on track, the novel picks up speed as the lines blur between Dana's reality and her "past life." Introducing the idea of time travel for an African American back to one of the country's darkest periods is genius...and terrifying.

Overall Grade: B+

"Swallow Me Whole"

It's so rare for me to read something that doesn't feel like a repeat of something I've read before. Growing up as an avid reader, getting my bachelor's degree in English literature, my master's degree in library science, and planning to spend my professional life surrounded by books, I have read a lot. I even tried to pinpoint how many books I've read throughout my life, but I lost track somewhere around 400 (basically, I read A LOT). So it's not unusual for me to finish something and say, "yeah, that reminded me of *insert book title here*." The last time I really read a book that I felt was truly different from the rest was when I discovered Erin Morganstern's incredible debut novel The Night Circus. That is, until my friend and fellow librarian Patrick finally convinced me to read my first graphic novel. Patrick is our library's unofficial graphic novel/comics librarian and one of the masterminds behind the wildly popular Comics Fest in Durham (and author of his own blog: 741.5 and Then Some--gotta love Dewey Decimal jokes!) This year's Comics Fest featured award-winning author and artist Nate Powell and, after a strong recommendation from Patrick, I decided to read his Swallow Me Whole. 

I don't feel comfortable really reviewing this graphic novel because it's the first one I've ever read, and I don't know the first thing about them. However, I can tell you that it was the 2009 Eisner Award winner for Best Graphic Novel, and it was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. And I finished reading it in about 2 hours, which tells you I liked it enough to not put it down until the end. I had trouble when I first started with the text bubbles, (Which order do I read them in? Who is speaking now?) but I got over that quickly enough. I did not grow up reading comics as a child so I'm also not used to paying so much attention to the detail in the art. Once I really got going, though, I really got going. 

Swallow Me Whole is about stepsiblings Perry and Ruth. Perry has the annoying ability to see a tiny, creepy wizard who randomly appears to give him "missions," which often require him to draw for hours. Ruth obsessively collects insects and hears them speak to her at night. While Perry fights his psychological disorder throughout the novel, Ruth succumbs to her illnesses and the reader literally must watch as they overtake her life. Drawn in sharp black and white illustration with surprising emotion, this graphic novel forces readers to deal with the reality of mental illness and the death of loved ones. The words often blend into the background of the illustration so it often appears as though you're watching the story unfold instead of reading it. Powell really seems to know how to capture his audience and tease them with questions of reality. The whole concept of tiny wizards and goddess frogs is funny until the reader is forced upon the realization that those are the character's realities. 

Swallow Me Whole was a great graphic novel to begin with, and I am looking forward to reading more. Please leave me a comment if you have any suggestions for what I should read next! 

"Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper-Case Closed"

I'm sure most of you are thinking, "Great, thanks for choosing such a cheery and uplifting book to do your first book review on!" To you naysayers out there I have one thing to say: I have a thing for true crime, so get used to me throwing in some gruesome novels every once in awhile. I'm the girl who reads books about serial killers while watching Law and Order with the crime reports from the newspaper spread out in front of me. Okay, slight exaggeration. But at the moment, it's better than the unabridged journals of Sylvia Plath I was reading.

Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper-Case Closed was written by crime novelist Patricia Cornwell (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2002) after she discovered some shocking evidence about the "true identity" of infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper during a trip to London's Scotland Yard. Jack the Ripper terrorized the streets of London's East End during the fall of 1888 as he brutally murdered five prostitutes over a three-month period. London's Metropolitan Police were never able to capture the Ripper, and this serial killer has since become one of the most famous around the world. Conspiracy theorists and true crime-aholics alike have become obsessed with uncovering the identity of the Ripper, and Patricia Cornwell couldn't help but join the fray.

This book has been on my reading list for some time and after I ran across it on the shelves of the library I work at I couldn't help but check it out. I have read Patricia Cornwell's Postmortem, which I enjoyed, so I thought this book would at least keep me entertained. I really should have taken a hint from the long, awkward title Cornwell chose for her investigative report on the "true identity" of Jack the Ripper.

From the beginning this book made me roll my eyes every few pages. After studying numerous Ripper letters and the thin police reports that still exist in London's city records, Cornwell came to the conclusion that Jack the Ripper was actually Walter Sickert, a German-born actor and artist who studied under Whistler. Sickert was well-known for his wandering habits, his charm, his secret studios, and his sometimes violent paintings and sketches. Sickert also had some kind of genital defect that may or may not have left him mutilated as an adult, and all of these things somehow lead to the conclusion that Sickert was the Ripper of the East End. To be fair, I began reading this book as a skeptic, and it probably would have taken a lot to convince me. But honestly, the identity of the most famous serial killer in history has been unknown for almost 125 years and Cornwell said herself that the amount of evidence that exists from the crimes is dwindling to almost nothing. This book simply does not make a strong enough case.

Cornwell uses Portrait of a Killer to introduce some facts and inflate others. She takes reports from the doctors who examined the bodies of the victims and plays make-believe with what she thinks might have actually happened, because she obviously knows more than the ill-trained, inexperienced surgeons who were physically at the 19th century crime scenes. Granted, Cornwell probably does know more about forensic science and solving crimes than these doctors, as well as most of the detectives who worked for the Metropolitan Police in 1888. But Cornwell says herself in the book that the body is the most important piece of evidence in a homicide and without them, it appears that instead she insists on turning fact into fiction to prove Sickert was the Ripper. Cornwell also develops an annoying habit of explaining how the case could have been solved had Jack the Ripper committed his crimes in 2002. The author spends too much time distracting the reader away from the actual crimes with these anecdotes and exaggerations, and the book is not any better for it. 

Unfortunately, the book is also not any better because of writing skill or good editing. It sounds as though Cornwell sat down and started writing, and whatever she came up with they published. While there are several grammatical and spelling errors, the book just does not flow well. The chapters are mashed awkwardly together with titles that do not make sense. She jumps from one subject to another within the chapters, and as far as I can tell the only flow the book has is that she follows the murders chronologically. At best, Cornwell has managed to convince me that Sickert probably wrote a few of the Ripper letters. He also sounds like a terrible husband. Other than that, I can't say that this book has shed any more light for me on the Jack the Ripper mystery. If you are interested in a book about Jack the Ripper, The Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Philip Sugden has gotten excellent reviews. I have added it to my reading list and will perhaps do a review on it in the future, in comparison with Portrait of a Killer. 


Overall Grade: D