The Fates Will Find Their Way

The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard is the story of the contemplation and unanswered questions left behind after a person goes missing. Nora Lindell disappeared on Halloween decades ago but the mystery of her disappearance still plagues the boys she grew up with—now men with their own families. Their destinies seem to all be affected by the departure of one girl—the girl who all the boys dreamed about but were never able to speak to. The boys grow up but Nora Lindell stays the same—a sixteen year old girl whose future is unclear, making the future the boys fanaticize all too possible.

            This novel is definitely something every aspiring writer should keep on his or her shelf as a “how to.” The narration of the story is fabulous. It is told in a “we” prospective and the true narrator is never revealed. The reader learns about the names of the other boys, but never that of the narrator. In the back of your mind, you can picture what the narrator is like. He is not a single entity but that of a group. He is that group of boys you knew in high school or college who were always secretly perverted but protective, who were your friends that you could rely on.

            The novel also has a great flow. I could sit and read for hours, not realizing that I was reading. It was like being with a group of friends having a conversation in the living room. I also wondered about the unknown fate of Nora Lindell and the theories that were distributed from each character were so well thought up that it was almost haunting how much this one girl affected so many lives.

The novel also brings up a theory most books about missing people usually don’t—what happens after someone disappears? Mystery novels usually have the missing person murdered by some psycho serial killer. Other genres will have the person come back in a joyful, tearful reunion. The typical novels never question what happens when someone disappears? The narrators try to explain what happened to Nora—they picture her raising children in the desert, in Mumbai during a bombing with a lesbian lover, dying in a snow storm two counties over.

If you want to be a writer or just like a really good story, I would go buy this novel right away.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs is a young adult novel about a teenager named Jacob who tries to overcome the terror of finding his grandfather’s body the night his grandfather, Abe, died. Jacob is convinced he saw a monster that night, but it is attributed to the over-active imagination that Abe encouraged Jacob to have through the unbelievable stories of Abe’s childhood. Abe told Jacob of boys who could lift entire boulders and girls who had to be tied down or they would float away like a balloon. Jacob’s father later explained that Abe spent most of his childhood on an island in Wales in an orphanage during World War II, while Abe’s family was executed during the Holocaust.

After going through some of his grandfather’s things, Jacob decides to go to the island where Abe grew up. After much convincing from the family therapist, Jacob’s father allows the trip and even comes along. While on the island, Jacob uncovers the ruins of the orphanage and more. Something about the island makes Jacob believe that Abe’s stories weren’t fictional. And something is about to show him he is right.

I read this book in about a week, which is fast for me because I’m a slow reader. The flow of the novel is perfect. There are a lot of details that are necessary for the reader to understand about the world Riggs create and he presents them in a timely manner, while still creating suspense.

There are photographs presented throughout the novel to accompany the text. The photographs, which if you read the back of the book are all actual old-fashioned photographs that were found and not taken for the soul purpose of the book, couple well with the text and outstanding stories offered by Riggs.

This is definitely set for the young adult crowd. Jacob is a teenager going through an average teenager struggle like falling in love for the first time, hating his first job and discovering skills he doesn’t know he has. But it also like the Roald Dahl books of our childhood. In fact, I could see many aspects of The Witches and The BFG involved in this novel.

Though I won’t tell you the ending, I will say that Riggs left the ending ambiguous to a series to follow, which I will buy in a heartbeat. I give Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children five stars—don’t put this book down.

Of Bees and Mist

An evil mother-in-law with an army of bees. A mist that carries away a married man to his mistress at night. Ghosts in the mirrors. A disappearing servant. An invisible best friend. Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan converts the average coming of age events, like marriage and having children, with the not-so-average fairy tale details.

Meridia grows up in a loveless home where a strange event from her past caused her parents, Gabriel and Ravenna, to mentally battle each other for years. When Meridia meets Daniel, she thinks her life is going to change for the better—until she meets Eva, Daniel’s controlling, possessive mother who has the gift of making people pity her.

Meridia and Eva have a life long battle of trying to conquer Daniel. Eva has an army of bees that cause negativity in Daniel’s mind about Meridia. The bees ruin Meridia’s womb and almost kills Meridia’s first and only child. Eva pilfers money from Daniel and Meridia making it impossible for the married couple to move away from Eva’s home.

Meridia undergoes the natural cycle of life—getting married, having a child, losing parents and dealing with marriage after the honeymoon is over with Eva manipulating every stage with her nasty bees.

This is a book I definitely judged by the cover. Literally, the artwork on the cover was the first thing to draw me to this book. When I read the book, the supernatural aspects made me decide to buy the book. However, the supernatural features were very vague. Some of the important details were overlooked had I not gone back and reread a few passages again. The mist and the bees are just a common existence within the story, but their origin is not explained in great detail, which made the story confusing at times. I feel like more time should have been directed towards the bees and the mist, seeing as they are the title of the novel.

            The sentence structure of the novel is lacking. The sentences are simple, but not in a good way. They have the quality of children’s story, which might fit for this type of novel, since it has a fairy tale theme. I wanted more artistic sentences and descriptions, since I could barely picture the characters, but another reader might feel differently.

Some of the scenes in the story are very artistic, the result of a wonderful imagination. In one scene, Daniel and Meridia find the coffin of a fawn floating on the ocean. I don’t want to reveal too much of the scene, but I will say it stuck in my mind like gum on the bottom of a sneaker on a hot day, which is exactly what an author wants to do in his first novel.

If you like the supernatural aspects of Beloved by Toni Morrison and the fairy tale stories of your childhood, then you will like this book. However, be warned now that the language is nowhere near the fabulous quality of Morrison’s work.

I feel that Of Bees and Mist would be better read with a book club or a class in which people can actively discuss some of the vague details of the book. I give this book a good, but not great.....3 stars. 

My Horizontal Life

Chelsea Handler’s hilarious account of her sex life from the age of seven when she walked in on her parents having sex to the end of an excursion of one night stands will leave you laughing. The novel has hilarious, awkward scenarios paired with some heart-felt advice and laugh out loud musings.

For those of you who enjoy the traditional narrative voice of a piece of fiction, this novel is not for you. The story is told in a conversationalist tone, as though you are hearing a story from one of your girlfriends over cocktails. If you don’t know how you feel about this form of narration, I advise you to read this book. Afterwards, you feel as though you and Handler are best friends, or least friends like the Sex and the City girls.

Since this novel has a conversationalist tone and since Handler is first a comedian, there are no substantial descriptions. Most of the names have been changed. But this is Handler’s story, so she has creative liberty to alter names and even events if she so pleases.

There are some amazing one liners that I absolutely had to highlight in this novel, such as:

“Even if times are tough and you’re enduring a terrible heartache, it’s important to focus on a vibrator, not another person.”

“If you’re really unlucky, they’ll ask you to recite a poem at their wedding. That’s just what I want to do—monitor my drinking until I’m done with my public service announcement.”

“There are two kinds of people I don’t trust: people who don’t drink and people who collect stickers.”

This novel is very age centered. Had I read this book four years ago, it would have offended me. If I read this book fifteen years from now, I would probably also be offended. The humor is also crude and may not be funny to some people. If you are in your 20s/ early 30s and have a sense of humor, this is a good beach read.

            I give My Horizontal Life a 3.5. It was a good read the first time and I would read it again, but it isn’t one of my absolute favorites.

The Time Traveler's Wife

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is a love story suspended throughout time. Henry is born with a genetic disease that allows him to travel through time. This disease becomes both a gift and a curse at some points: on the bright side, the traveling has saved his life and introduced him to Clare. On the negative side, he knows the future, a gift his friends covet but Henry knows differently. There are rules to time traveling such as Henry is not allowed to bring anything with him to the past or future—no clothes, no guests. He only obtains knowledge. But the story isn’t about the time traveler.

Clare leads a normal life until, at the age of seven, when she is playing outside in the meadow by her house, she spots a naked man. Future Henry continues to visit Clare throughout her childhood, the visitations ending on her eighteenth birthday. She then meets him in the present when she is twenty years old and their relationship escalates quickly.  

Clare and Henry’s relationship reaches average milestones such as marriage and a child. However, their married life is plagued by long absences, the inability to conceive because the fetuses time travel, and awkward excuses to families and friends about Henry’s whereabouts. I would tell you how the story ends, but that would ruin the ending and I hate ruining endings.

If you own The Time Traveler’s Wife the movie, I want you to pick up the dvd, throw it in the trash, and go out and get the book. The movie, which I saw two years ago when it was released into theaters, does not do the story justice. There are characters, plots and substantial details that are left out of the movie to condense it into a two hour film. I bought the book right before I saw the movie, but due to being an English major, I have just gotten to the book now. It is also on my adventure through the100 Greatest Novels list that I acquired from http://www.thebest100lists.com/best100novels/ but the list has since then changed.

                                                                                                                         

The novel presents some important questions about time and fate. The two biggest questions repeated throughout are—do we really have free will or is everything determined by fate? and if we knew the future, what would we do with that information? The answers to these questions are entwined with incidents such as Henry knowing 9/11 would happen without being able to do anything to prevent it and Henry knowing the exact moment he would die and accepting it.

Niffenegger creates truly unique characters in Clare and Henry. Henry is the non-musical son of a singer and violinist who quotes poetry as well as punk rock song lyrics. He is described as, in vernacular terms, a hot librarian. Clare is a good Catholic girl from money who grows up to be an anarchy-supporting, can’t cook a meal, literally starving artist. The procession of Clare’s character is noticeable as she ages in the story. She begins as an optimistic, carefree girl and the reader can see as she grows up with an acceleration of maturity burdened with more responsibilities.

One thing I will live you with for this book review is a warning. This story is not for the saintly or children. Translation: there is a lot of sex and, if you’re only 15, you might want to wait until you are older. If you can handle the rated R, then pick this up right away. 

I give this novel 4 stars for fabulous. 

The Hunger Games

In this young adult trilogy by Suzanne Collins, Katniss Everdeen is a teenage girl in a future dystopian society located in what used to be the United States. In this country, Panem, the government enforces a cruel yearly ritual called the Hunger Games-- a televised fight to the death in which 24 young people from the 12 districts of Panem, between the ages of 12-17, are forced to face the elements and homicidal opponents. The last one living is crowned "victor."

Katniss is a young woman devoted to her family, especially her 12-year-old sister Prim. Thus, when Prim's name is called in the Reaping, the selection of tributes for the Hunger Games, Katniss volunteers to go in Prim's place. Another tribute is chosen from Katniss's poverty-striken home, District 12, by the name of Peeta Mellark. The Games present pageantry at its finest as the tributes are fitted with stylists and costumes, just to prepare themselves for death in the arena.

Katniss manages to woo the audience. With her combined with her strong abilities with her bow, some help from sponsors who deem her worthy, unlikely allies and a budding fake romance with Peeta, Katniss tries to survive the arena of the Hunger Games and escape with her life.

(I will not give a description of the next 2 books of the series, because I was dying to find out what happened and killed my own suspense by looking up spoilers).



***

This "The Lottery" meets Brave New World series made my love of dystopic novels grow, even though I thought that that was impossible. Every detail about this society is thought out and Collins leaves no questions asked, which is a magnificent feat for a writer creating a whole new world.

The names given to the characters are creative, but not so far out there that the reader doesn't question what he or she is saying. It is helpful that the names sound like vernacular words, such as "Peeta" sounds like "Peter" or "Haymitch" is two strewn together syllables that are easy to pronounce.

Though there is a love triangle, which thanks to Twilight is leaving all the tween and teen girls picking battle sides, it is not intensified to the point of Team Edward or Team Jacob. Peeta is presented as a boy who has admired Katniss for years and Gale is Katniss's best friend that, when faced with death, Katniss realizes she has feelings for. The young gentlemen in the love triangle aren't constantly ripping off their shirts, trying to prove which one is more masculine and thus more willing of love. Peeta and Gale are civilized and even form a camaraderie.

The female protagonist, Katniss, is extremely likable. She has a strong personality that seems standoffish to other characters in the books, but she becomes a female role model and epic heroine-- someone young girls can look up to when striving for strength. Katniss supports her mother and sister and cherishes her family relationships. She hunts, she fights, she is one of the guys but can alter her personality away from the masculine and into a stubborn young woman. Katniss's non-ability to fake emotion makes the triumphant efforts of bravery, honor and sincerity she puts forth genuine, an extremely noble characteristic.

As with most dystopic novels, Katniss becomes the general maverick narrator, thus allowing her to know that the conditions she lives in are wrong and she doesn't idolize the way of life the government has presented. The nonconformist point of view is usually best with dystopic novels, because it allows the reader to see the society as different from the norm of modern day society. Narrators like Mr. Savage in Brave New World, Violet in Feed or The Giver in The Giver display modern standards and values, allowing the author to demonstrate the wackiness of the situation.

I did not appreciate the amount of deaths in all three novels, but I do know what Collins is touching on. Her series advocates the effects of war and oppression and young people should understand that war means that friends die. It was very easy to get attached to the characters and feel the devastation when a character passes away.

Overall, I give the book 5 stars for DON'T PUT THIS BOOK DOWN! Not that you will feel like you need to. I read this in 3 days because I couldn't put it down.