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Review: Tricks

Review for "Tricks" by Ellen Hopkins (2009)
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

This is my second book by Ellen Hopkins. My first was “Crank,” her novel in verse about a girl hooked on crystal meth, based loosely on the life of her own daughter. Hopkins is quite a prolific YA writer, tackling many of the issues that people tend to avoid when writing for teenagers. She’s written about drug abuse, mental health issues, sexual abuse, eating disorders. I’m not so much a fan of her verse as I am her fearlessness, because I admit that I’m drawn to her books for much of the reason I imagine most people are, to see how certain issues are portrayed for a YA audience.

“Tricks” is no exception; it tells the story of five teenagers who find themselves for various reasons lost in the dangerous world of prostitution. Eden is the daughter of a conservative religious family who is sent away to a Bible camp; Seth is a farm boy who struggles with his sexuality and finds himself a Vegas sugar daddy; Whitney is a goody-goody who stumbles into the arms of a drug-dealing pimp; Ginger is from a broken home and her entrance into the sex trade mirrors her own mother’s, and Cody is a kid who sells himself to men to ease his gambling debts.

I would have preferred to read each character’s story straight through, much like a short story. Instead, Hopkins focuses on one character for while, then abruptly switches to another. The constant starting and stopping of the narrative made it hard to get to know each character and made the book as a whole hard to follow. It never really had a good sense of cohesion and gave it the feel that it was five separate stories instead of one. There was some overlap of the characters, but it was fairly minor (one character mentioning another did occur, but only in passing).

This book is also really explicit in its sexual scenes. I won’t go into detail but if you’re unfamiliar with gay porn or girl-girl-guy threesomes I would leave this book on the shelf. I’m in my 30’s and I felt uncomfortable reading it, not because I’m a prude, but for the sake of the audience it was written for. Personally I wouldn’t allow my teen son to read this unless he was super-mature, which he isn’t. The details were a little too salacious for my taste and the story got lost in the process.

There is a second story in this series that picks up where the action of this story left off. I may read it eventually, but for right now I think I’m good with this.

Review: Saint Death

I just realized that this is my third NetGalley book that I’m about to write a less than flattering review about in the past few weeks. Ya’ll know how I feel about my reviews though. Anyway, on with the show:

Review for "Saint Death" by Marcus Sedgwick (to be published in the U.S. on 25 April 2017)
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

This was a really strange book. The tone is dark and so is the subject matter, particularly for a YA book. It explores the world of Mexican immigrants, as well as a dark, spiritual world of guns, gangsters, violence, gods, and money.

Arturo is a young man living in the border of the U.S./Mexico in a shack, working for scraps at a garage and hustling card games for quick cash. Enter Faustino, a childhood friend who Arturo hasn’t seen in years who urgently needs Arturo’s assistance to get his girlfriend and their child across the border to a smuggler, who is to facilitate their illegal entry to the U.S. Together the two pray to Santa Muerte (Saint Death), and make a plan to go after some dangerous men for the money they need. Of course not everything goes according to plan and they run afoul of some gangsters in the process, and of course, there are consequences to pay.

I didn’t really like this story. It’s all over the place with the immigration plot, the supernatural elements of Santa Muerte, the narco stuff, and a couple of other subplots that I could go on and on about. I understand that the author is going for a modern retelling of the Faustian legend (if you missed it, one of the main character’s names is literally Spanish for “Faust”), but Arturo and his friend were never characters that I completely understood or related to. The action was too slow in coming and when it did come, I actually found myself skipping pages. Interspersed throughout the story were also informational factoids about NAFTA and borders and U.S. corporations, all of which could have been edited out for clarity and none of which seemed to match the tone of the story.

Even though I didn’t like this one, I don’t think I would rule out this author’s work in the future.

[Note: A free digital copy of this book was provided by the publisher, Roaring Brook Press, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

Review: Marlena

Review for "Marlena" by Julie Buntin (to be published on 4 April 2017)

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

After the bitter divorce of her parents, 15-year-old Catherine (nickamed “Cat”), her mother, and her older brother move to a trailer in a rural town in northern Michigan. It is there next door that Cat meets wild child Marlena, a beautiful, eccentric girl whose father is a meth cook. Cat quickly becomes caught up in Marlena’s life, and the two become the best of friends.

It’s apparent early on that this is a story told largely in flashbacks, with an adult Cat telling us the story of her past from her current state as a sad, functional drunk. We also learn within the first few lines of the book that it is within a year of Cat and Marlena’s first meeting that Marlena will be dead. I hate that the author gives us that critical detail on the back flap (it isn’t a spoiler), because the rest of the book becomes an interminable wait for the inevitable to happen. Even though the book is well written, there’s no suspense, there’s no surprises, and ultimately there’s no fun here. It’s a pretty depressing book and I found it unsatisfying.

P.S. – If you’re really interested in a recently written book on complex, destructive teen girl friendships I’d recommend “Girls on Fire” by Robin Wasserman, and “The Girls” by Emma Cline. Both of these books are five stars.

[Note: A free digital copy of this book was provided by the publisher, Henry Holt, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

Review: History of Wolves

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Review for "History of Wolves" by Emily Fridlund (2017)

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Didn’t like this book, which is odd because it has really high ratings on Goodreads. Did we read the same book? Or am I just being a Negative Nancy again? Hmm…

Here we have a character with three names (Linda, Mattie, Madeline) depending on what part of the story you’re reading. She’s a 14-year-old girl in a rural Minnesota town with a lot of deep thoughts, none of which left an impression on me. She babysits for a very weird couple with a young son, and a series of events occur between her and this couple that left me wondering if her relationship with the Gardners was really real at all or just some symbolism that I was supposed to be connecting to the whole ‘wolf’ theme of the book. Either way, the tone here is detached, and Linda/Mattie/Madeline is far too cerebral and disengaging for me to get into.

There is a subplot in this story involving a teacher at Linda/Mattie/Madeline’s school who’s accused of having sex with a student. This plot has absolutely NOTHING to do with the rest of the book. As interesting as this story is, it never goes anywhere or connects to the main story. Why was it here? Maybe I missed something?

Oh yeah, the ending is weird too. I’ve watched a lot of David Lynch movies, so maybe it was supposed to mean something too. I don’t know.

(*sigh*)

[Note: A free digital copy of this book was provided by the publisher, Grove Atlantic, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

Review: Mischling

Review for "Mischling" by Affinity Konar (2016)

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

First off, let me say that I’ve read a lot of Holocaust stories. This particular one sounded as if it would venture into a different territory, so I placed it on my reading list as soon as it came out. Dr. Mengele, the infamous Auschwitz “Angel of Death” was known for sending millions to the gas chambers, as well as his cruel, torturous ‘experiments’ on prisoners, identical twins, and multiples with no regard to the health or safety of his subjects. Mischling is the story of 13-year-old twin girls, Pearl and Stasha, who arrive at Auschwitz in 1944. Each twin narrates an alternating chapter, filling the reader in on the horrifying details of life inside of Mengele’s “zoo.”

I did not care for this book. The writing is not bad, but it failed to suit this story and make a real emotional impact here. Instead of a groundbreaking Holocaust story, what we get is a familiar and predictable story of this time in history that doesn’t really rise above the standard Auschwitz account. What I mean by that is that you don’t really learn anything new here other than what you already learned about the Holocaust in middle school: the separation of families, the gas chambers, heavy work and starvation, etc. Mengele’s experiments (the info I really wanted to know) through the experiences of the narrators are discussed, but the author relies heavily on metaphor to describe these events. While there’s nothing wrong with metaphor, the story got lost and it disengaged me from the novel and left me completely confused.

I regret finishing this book, as I would have DNF’d it a long time ago if it had not been for my curiosity about the end. I would have preferred a much simpler prose style here.

Review: The Last Policeman

Review for "The Last Policeman" by Ben H. Winters (2013)

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

The premise of this book is indeed an appealing one: solving a murder in a crumbling world that’s only months away from certain annihilation from an asteroid called Maia. Harry Palace is a rookie cop who encounters a insurance agent’s body hanging in a McDonald’s, quickly dismissed by his peers as another suicide, as there’s plenty of those to go around these days. Palace, however, suspects something more. He begins investigating the man’s death as a murder, and digs up far more than he bargained for.

Perhaps I expected more chaos, more action…I don’t know. What I got here was a depressing, uncompelling narrator and a ho-hum story. We understand that Palace is driven to do the right thing in a world that could care less, but I found his character unconvincing, unmovable, and just plain boring. The plot is also terribly slow, as there wasn’t enough meat in this story to keep me satisfied in waiting until the end. Then I get to the end and there’s the answer to the mystery and that’s just kinda…it. Blah.

I loved the setting of this story, which I why I won’t go lower than 3 stars here. I just wish the character here was meatier, more interesting. General curiosity draws me to the other two books in this series (this is the first in a trilogy and I’m a sucker for apocalyptic fiction) but right now I think I’ll chill on this one.

Review: Mexico

Review for "Mexico" by Josh Barkan (2017)

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Josh Barkan’s “Mexico” is a collection of short stories from people (mostly Americans) of all walks of life living and working around modern-day Mexico City. Running throughout these selections is the theme of violence, mostly from drug dealers, gangs, cartels, and other figures involved in the narcotics trade. In “The Kidnapping,” an American becomes a victim of a violent abduction by a cartel. “The Chef and El Chapo” is about a chef who is forced to cook for the infamous criminal, and “The Sharpshooter” is about a U.S. government agent on a secret mission sent to kill, well, you guessed it…a narco criminal.

Needless to say, I didn’t like this book. In today’s political climate just the mention of the word Mexico is used to connote all things wrong with immigration, the War on Drugs, the American economy, and life in general. Do we Yankees really need more scary stories about what a crime-laden, drug filled place Mexico is? I went into this volume of stories knowing that the majority of it would be about violence, but after reading it my opinion is the same. There’s nothing new here, just a lot of non-emotional storytelling about the dregs of society and the people caught in its grip. It’s yet another narrow, limited view of a multi-faceted country with beautiful and hardworking people, the majority of which are NOT a part of the narco trade.

And there was something else that bothered me…Josh Barkan is a white, Ivy League educated world traveler. The back flap tells us he lives in Mexico City, yet I’m not impressed with this fact. Although the book is titled Mexico, it’s main characters are white people in Mexico, who speak from a self-imposed position of privileged authority. The Mexicans in this volume are mere props, one-dimensional characters from which white folks learn their life lessons about the evils of world. It’s a colonialist’s wet dream, and I hated it.

Do yourself a favor and don’t read this.

Review: The Story of Vicente, Who Murdered His Mother, His Father, and His Sister: Life and Death in Juarez

I’ve been on a nonfiction reading kick lately. A little real life adventure never hurt anyone anyone, does it? Anyway, on to my next book…

Review for "The Story of Vicente, Who Murdered His Mother, His Father, and His Sister: Life and Death in Juarez" by Sandra Rodriguez Nieto (2015)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

True crime/investigative journalism book that uses the murder by a young man of his parents and sister to explore many of the issues that plague Juarez, the infamous Mexican border city that’s only miles away from El Paso, Texas. Only the first few chapters discuss the actual details of the crime and what happens to Vicente in the aftermath (he only got a measly five years in prison, btw). It’s not Vicente’s fate that drives this book as much as its overarching message: that when violence occurs in a place with impunity, it effects everyone–including a 16-year-old who decides to slaughter his family.

Nieto spends the majority of the book breaking down the rampant political corruption, cartel wars, gang conflicts, and the other cogs of the machine that are the cause of the epidemic violence that go on in Juarez. At the height of the violence in 2010, there were 20 homicides a day and 8 kidnappings. It’s pretty shocking stuff. Brutal kidnappings, dead bodies left in the street, in front of schools, in neighborhoods. Criminals that walk right out of prison because well, umm, the guards left the door open. Oops. There’s also a chapter that discusses the joke of a police department Juarez has. How does a city rack up thousands of murders in one year? It’s because they don’t even bother to investigate. Case received, case closed. Next…

I recommend this book for anyone interested in current issues, particularly in Mexico.

Review: Boy Erased

Review for "Boy Erased" by Garrard Conley (2016)

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Just finished this book. Wiping away the tears. Whew…my allergies.

This is a beautifully written book. From the first couple of pages I was completely enthralled, not wanting to do anything but turn to the next page. Garrard Conley certainly has a way with words, his beautiful sentences coming from a place of so much pain and isolation, sadness that I did not have to be an LGBTQ individual to understand, to feel in the very depths of my soul.

This story is all about Garrard, a boy growing up in a super religious Missionary Baptist family in Arkansas, the son of a pastor. From the time he is an adolescent, he knows he is gay. He tries to pray it away, to talk to God about it, all to no avail. When he is ‘outed’ to his parents by a phone call while at college, his parents suggest a ‘cure’ for his ‘problem.’ With nowhere else to turn, he attends several sessions of Love in Action, a “sexual re-orientation” program that uses ‘conversation therapy’ to change gays and lesbians to back to straight people.

This book is not a linear narrative. Scenes from Conley’s life are interpersed with his memories of ex-gay therapy, and a couple of times I found myself putting the book down and thinking to myself: do people really believe this shit? According to LIA, homosexuality is a sickness, a result of the past sins of our family members, sexual abuse, a lack of sports participation, subconscious effeminizing influences, and too much of our mother’s meddling. It’s crazy. But at no time does Conley demonize the people who clearly wronged him, he simply tells the story in a way that leaves you no choice but to listen and feel. I loved that about this book.

I’d recommend this book to people who are interested in a narrative of the intersectionality of LGBTQ identity and religion. I am a Christian, and even though I am of a progressive and inclusive mindset, I gained a much deeper understanding for LGBTQ individuals who grew up in deeply religious communities.

Review: The Postmortal

Review for "The Postmortal" by Drew Magary (2011)

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

“The Postmortal” is an interesting lil’ science fiction novel with a dystopian slant (and I’m a sucker for anything dystopian, lemme tell ya). The premise of this book is what drew me to it: a world in which a cure is discovered for aging. With an injection, recipients will never age past the day they received their “cure,” and the only death they can anticipate will not be a natural one, but a violent one that they either bring to themselves or someone else brings upon them.

We follow one character, John, as he receives the cure in the beginning of the novel, sometime in his early 30’s. The book tracks his trajectory over the next 80+ years through his journal entries (apparently being shared with us from a time even farther in the future) as the society around him pretty much goes straight to hell. The cure for old age has deleterious effects on not only society, but the world as we see the fallout from the fact that people aren’t dying naturally anymore. The world becomes overpopulated, random violence and terrorism increases, resources become scarce, and people begin doing what’s known as “cycle” marriages. Sure it’s weird, but I liked this aspect of the book. If you’re into dystopian lit, as I’ve stated that I am, nothing fascinates you more than watching the planet inch itself toward doom. Seriously.

What I didn’t like was the main character, and really all of the characters in this book. Everyone felt rather flat and as bland as dishwater. Society is crumbling around them, yet none of the characters seemed to care, going about their daily business without alarm or feeling the slightest bit scared. As a reader, you’re far more invested in their future than they are, which doesn’t make for the best reading and completely disengaged me from this book.

Once again, this isn’t a bad read, but one I wouldn’t necessarily recommend if you’re into an all-around good read.