Whether it's Fiction or Non-Fiction, Romance or Fantasy, Horror or Mystery, Science Fiction or a Day in the Life, all things literary are welcome here!
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- Chat about books, likes and dislikes!
- Drop reviews or ask questions.
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Also, feel very free to drop me suggestions too for books that you'd like to see in the Library! What new books should we have on the shelves?
The Law of diminishing returns… consider "Sunrise" as maybe one trip to the well too many…
This is going to be a controversial AND a spoiler-rich review, so read at your own peril…
Haymitch Abernathy is a central character in the original Hunger Games trilogy (OT) and as such, his story has been largely told. Maybe not every detail, but enough revealed of his life by book three of the OT (Mockingjay) that we know who he is, why he is, and what he stands for. Did we need to go back for more? Was there more to tell? Well, the answer is – not really, no.
For a prequel to work (especially one with so many known elements), we have to find a way to reframe the story so as to shed new light on events and/or to make new discoveries. Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes did this well, but we were jumping quite a bit further back, with a central character whose history was largely a mystery. Not so much with Haymitch…
The first third of Sunrise is the strongest and it’s here we are learning new things - about Hay and early life, about District 12 and its residents, and it's here we’re connecting the thread from Ballad to the ongoing thread of the OT. Good stuff right up until the Games begin, because here, with the gong, is where we get painted into a corner. Quite simply, we know how this Quarter Quell turns out, down to the final axe-throw. The Games themselves can’t carry the tension and don’t hold the stakes; we need something else to be the core of this story. And we kind of get it in the plot to “break” the arena, drawing out the circle of conspirators, seeing pieces moved into place, lines drawn, in preparation for the rebellion to come and the “One” to lead it… Sadly, it’s not Haymitch (although he’ll pay the price) and this rebel plot kind of fizzles and narratively plays itself out too soon in the book – an anticlimax that then leaves us with nothing but a series of diminishing anticlimaxes to the novel's end.
A rapid bulleting of Pros and Cons:
CONS
Not a good grip on the character – surprisingly, Haymitch never really comes to life here; he seems vague, out of focus. Too above, too casual, too removed. If the book had been set post-Mockingjay and he was retelling these events looking back, remembering than maybe… But the books actions are all present-set in the moment (with the exception of a brief epilogue) and he’s just kind of absent.
Lack of stakes – As mentioned above, we know how the Games end, so we needed something else to hook us and the rebel plot to break the arena didn't provide the umph. We end up with a lot of false starts and flat notes.
Too self-referential – I get we’re closer now to the OT, but we are still 24 years away… Wiress, Mags, Plutarch, Effie, particularly Beetee (and a son??); it’s a bit much and stops feeling organic and naturalistic and more like just name-checking. Some of these inclusions are more effective than others, but the whole thing feels a little forced.
Snow portrayed as extra-petty and cruel - Really pretty psychotic, in a way that's beyond what we’ll see in the OT. Is this meant as a reflection of his age here and relationship to personal/corrupting power? Or (and I suspect this is the case) is it a reaction to Ballad inadvertently making Snow too sympathetic/attractive? Is the author rushing to right-side her creation and remind us he is a baaad guy?
“Painting a Poster” conceit and Poe’s ‘The Raven’ over-used – these are great symbols/metaphors and initially carry a lot of emotional impact, for the tributes, for Lenore Dove. But repetition weakens this and by the two-thirds mark it was pure fatigue. Why didn’t an editor reign this in? Less is so often more…
Speaking of editing issues - the whole business with the potato light, why? Ripping Lou Lou’s drug pump from her corpse in the arena, why? Maritte’s death by squirrels, when? These feel like DVD deleted scenes, like something that was supposed to mean something or pay off at some point, but then are just left incomplete…
Things that don’t ring true:
- Beetee’s son: Ampert is more of a plot device than a legit character and a hard-to-swallow retcon (Dad Beetee must have really put him far out of mind when we met B again 25 years later in Catching Fire, faaar out of mind like he never existed before…).
- Wiress tortured into brain damage by Snow? It’s almost a throw-away line, Wiress babbling at the Victor celebration, but I guess meant to connect her to the Wiress we would meet later, but we’re back to being too self-referential and Wiress as a sane and stable mentor could have been left out entirely. Mags worked in this role much more effectively.
– District 12 forgetting Lucy Gray: I can see Snow suppressing her memory in the Capital, “officially” erasing her from history once he was in power, but I can’t see 12 just completely forgetting their first Victor, a known Covey performer, someone who had (and would have continued to have) roots in the district. 12 is distant enough to have its own folk and oral traditions, we’ve seen this; Haymitch would know of Lucy Gray. Not knowing is simply not believable.
-Lenore Dove’s death: I’m sorry but the final gumdrops idea was just poor and infuriating; Lenore Dove’s death was a given from the moment she was introduced, we all knew this, but this aspect just fails. Sure, Haymitch is in shock, he’s dazed, he’s not thinking clearly but he knows that Snow is out to get him and he knows poison lurks in everything from the Capital (he didn’t fall for the milk delivery in the arena, remember). And it’s been at least a month, if not longer, since he gave the gumdrop bag to Sid to give to LD – there is no way the bag, perfectly intact, would be just sitting there on the meadow rock for him to find, this should have raised a huge red flag; Hay is suddenly stupid because bad plotting demands he be suddenly stupid. LD was always going to die, fine, but look at the sheer chain of coincidence that would have to fall just right to get boy, girl and gumdrops all intersecting at that precise moment-baaad plotting. Better if she’d been bitten by a snake after stepping out of the Peacekeeper compound gate and died there in Hay’s arms. More fitting, more focused, all the same beats. Less poorly conceived.
PROS
Maysilee was a great character – She had all the best lines and moments, she had all the dynamism Haymitch lacked; He should have stayed with her all through the book – instead Hay keeps picking up and losing other sidekicks (Louella, Lou Lou, Ampert, Wellie) that end up feeling like filler. Given this rotating ally thing, it might have been better if the actual Games section of the novel had been told through each of these different POVs - we still would have known how things turned out but as each ally died and another took its place, we’d have had new and different perspectives and impressions on the Games and on Haymitch (maybe more individual backstories too). This would have given us the fresh frame on events we were lacking. Too late now…
Plutarch was the most effective use of character reference and foreshadowing. Despite his few scenes, he came to life here in a very interesting way, teasing out intriguing dimensions and questions. If there is going to be another book (and I think for sure there will be - Collins likely signed a three-book deal), it will probably be Plutarch’s story (and maybe Effie’s, also solid here) and I think this could work, much like Ballad did for Snow.
Now, despite the bulk of the above, this was a fine book as far as it went. It just fell short and rang a little hollow, compared to the previous four. There were powerful and touching moments here and there (Louella’s death in the opening parade, Silka crying under the tree), but for the first time in this series the passion was lacking, for the first time it felt like work for contract requirement; a little rushed, a little cooked-up on the fly.
We’ve gone back to the well and hit the shallows; maybe we should stop now before scraping the rock bottom…
DO YOU agree/disagree with this review? Have more you' like to say? Leave your comments below!
Writer Alex Segura is not only a Miami-native, but he's also an alumni of Miami Dade College! He's written mystery novels and comic books for Marvel and Archie. His latest book, Alter Ego combines both mystery, murder and comic book history. But, did ya' know, it's actually book two in a comic/mystery series?
We have both books available for check-out in the Library and here are some thoughts on the first, Secret Identity. No spoilers but not all thumbs-up…
This is my second pass at a review of this novel; the first was turning much too harsh for such a nice guy. See, I kind of know Alex Segura. We're both from Miami (obviously), went to the same college, and we worked together a little bit about two years ago on a comic-con project. So, I'm gonna sheath my claws, but still be honest:
In Secret Identity, Alex Segura serves up an okay premise in a setting with a lot of potential - the chaotic, creative, and sometimes duplicitous world of comic book publishing. Sadly, all of this is handled in a oddly awkward and insecure way, as though the author couldn't find the confidence needed to fully tell the tale.
Maybe Segura failed to get a grip on his main character (who never rises above a collection of traits), maybe he felt overwhelmed at the attempt of recreating mid-70's New York with any realism and authenticity, maybe he was swamped by so many industry anecdotes and references he wanted to pack into the story that the pressure of it all just got to him.
What we get is an unfocused, tenuous take that is over-written and self-conscious - neither Noir mystery, nor slice-of-life. Soap-opera at best, and there is a tradition of this in comics, so… shrug Ultimately, it reads like a draft that needs more polish.
It's a shame, as other writers have successfully worked this territory in recent years, from Meghan Molin's Golden Arrow mysteries, to Alan Moore's recent What We Can Know About Thunderman (included in his book Illuminations, available here in the Library!), and the history and chicanery and larger-than-life personalities that characterize comics in America are ripe for exploration. Segura clearly knows the history, as the book quickly becomes more of an Easter-egg hunt for comic fans, than a compelling piece of fiction.
I will say this - the “Legendary Lynx” is a pretty cool character; the new woman superhero that Segura's MC, Carmen Valdez is determined to get published in comics, even if it kills her (and it just might…) . I would buy this comic, particularly if set in the 70's like here in this novel and capturing the energy and "relevance" of comic books during the period. There is a gutsy, gritty vibe to the Lynx that I do like very much (there are even cool illustrated pages taken right from the Lynx comic included in the book),
But Carmen herself just never rises above 2-D - we know she's Hispanic, we know she's queer, we know she's struggling hard in a very male-dominated industry. But we never get to know her. Round about chapter 7 or so, Carmen flashes back to a writing class she attended, in which the instructor lectured on letting characters come to life, letting them become so real that they take over the story. Good advice - the irony is that Mr. Segura didn't seem to trust himself enough to take it.
Have you read this book? Get it here in the Library! Do you agree with the review above, or disagree? Share your thoughts!
Welcome to 2025!
Time for some literary resolutions! I don't know about you, but one of my goals each year is to try and read 100 books! I just crossed that finish line for 2024 with 101, whew! A nice mix of fiction, non-fiction, and graphic novels (yes, they count!).
So, how about you? What are your reading-resolutions for this New Year? (incidentally, it's also the Year of the Snake by the Lunar calendar - get hissing and rattling in your library or fav bookstore!) -
Read more fiction? (Start your Romance, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Fantasy era?)
Read more non-fic? (History is full of great stories, and all true!)
Read more Banned Books? (You might be surprised what's on the list…)
Clear that TBR stack? (Or maybe make a dent?)
Share your literary goals here! Let us encourage you and maybe inspire with some suggestions and selections. Orrrr - leave some hot recommendations for others here to pick up on!
New Year - New Book! Do it!
A journey into style over substance.
And a journey into frustration. But this isn't new for Marisha Pessl...
Read her Special Topics in Calamity Physics; liked the ideas and mood, liked the characters, completely unsatisfied in the ending after the build.
Read her Night Film, very much liked the ideas and mood! Liked the characters. Unsatisfied in the ending after the build.
Care to guess how I felt about Darkly?
You're right, but this time not so crazy about the ideas, the characters, and forget the build and that ending.
So, let's take a wander where the problem lies -
The plot of Darkly - an eccentric, secretive genius becomes a legend through unique creative output, vanishes (maybe dies) mysteriously, now being investigated with surprising/shocking revelations - is essentially just a re-skin of Night Film. Except with board games instead of horror films. Where these plot points worked for the previous novel, referencing and paying homage to real movies and real cult film-makers, it fails completely here.
Quick aside: I am a looong-time, hardcore board and role-play gamer; I've ridden the rise and fall crazes of Fantasy Flight and Dungeons & Dragons, which are probably the closest real-world approximations to the Darkly games. Heavy gamers come to look at the world, and react to things, in a certain way. If you are such a player, you know what I mean. Keep this in mind...
What Pessl sets up in Darkly is completely unbelievable right from the start, and only becomes more so as the story progresses. Sure, a writer is a god and can do whatever they want in their literary world, but for the reader if verisimilitude and suspension of disbelief fail, the writer has nothing. Shortcuts, coincidence, magical thinking, and outright cheats are how you lose the writing game - particularly if you are trying to build a mystery and sustain a slowburn of tension and atmosphere.
I'm going to machinegun these negatives rapidly and get them out of the way:
Plot - unbelievable, from premise to settings to chain of events. There is no reality here at all. It's all delirium and dream-logic, which would be fine for fantasy or a parable, but this is meant to be realistic genre fiction. From experience, games like the Darklys (which have existed to much lesser extents-see Fantasy Flight games) would be fringe/niche items, get no distribution beyond specialty stores, and die on the shelf.
Characters - thinly-thinly drawn. "Pawns" is the word, as that's what they all are. Nobody speaks or acts like a real person, and definitely not at all like seasoned gamers. They seem to exist only to give some slight contrast to MC Dia. We have no reason to care what they do or to care what happens to them (this gang of youths is even less substantial than the gang in her Neverworld Wake).
Pacing - dragging, repetitive, careless and lazy. Did anyone edit this book? Dia climbs a high chain-link fence a couple times but everyone else just drifts through it... The gang explores abandoned factories and derelict houses without power several times well after midnight, but darkness never seems to be a problem and small details are easy for them (mostly Dia) to spot in an instant... Dia is shoved by a running boy in a railroad tunnel (in the dark) and reflects that he was hiding behind a church pew(?) and then recognizes him instantly later on (after only having had a fleeting glimpse of him from behind in that tunnel)... In a flashback revelation, we learn that someone tied themselves to the outside of a boat(!) and managed an eight-hour voyage to and back through choppy seas... Poe is badly cutup by a factory machine (described as bleeding quite a lot) and Mouse is struck by a stone raven fallen from a rooftop (even a "glancing" blow to his shoulder would cause serious injury) but both are fine a page or two later... Dia flees the factory (with the high chain-link fence) and runs across the island and wakes up four sleeping people and gets them to follow her back across the island (on foot) to the factory (with the high chain-link fence) in the time it takes two other people to descend a flight of stairs in the factory... I'll stop here, but you see now what I mean about dream-logic, and once we've surrendered to that, why care at all about anything?
The ending (no spoilers) -Pessl enjoys including artefacts in her books as clues and teases, and this ergodic approach did work well in Night Film, but here just tips the gameboard - too much is telegraphed and when the "aha" moments come in the narrative, they're flat and deflated. Skip the documents and letters and things if you can; go back and look at them when you've finished the book. Personally, although I stuck through to the very end, I'd really stopped caring about anything and the cliché and coincidence stack had grown so high all I could think was "ooof course...". Very audible eye roll.
Now, given all of the above, bear this in mind - I'm not young; I am not Delacorte Press's intended demographic for this book. This shouldn't mean anything as far as the quality of the work, but for someone who is young, to whom all the ideas and techniques in this book are new, Darkly may be a very different experience. It's posable that technical issues will mean less to you than cool concepts.
Have you read this book? Get it here in the Library! Do you agree with the review above, or disagree? Share your thoughts!
It's the Season for ghosts and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night!
What are some of your favourite spooky stories to get into the shivery mood! Classics like Poe, or Stoker's Dracula or Shelly's Frankenstein? Or more modern horrors, hmm??
Two Haunted fright-faves of mine are -
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, and Hell House by Richard Matheson! Both similar in that they involve a team investigating some famously haunted houses… But what they find, and the revelations that await are very deferent (and both bring plenty of nightmares!).
Share some of your goosebump go-to's!
George RR Martin! For most now, this name means Games and Thrones and Dragons!
But he actually has another series that has been running since 1987! The Wild Cards series! Edited, overseen and mostly masterminded by Martin, this series explores an America hit by an alien virus in 1946 - killing most, twisting and mutating many (jokers), and… granting super-powers to a few (aces). It's a very different history, with real super-heroes and real super-villains at large! And let me tell you, it's not all justice league fun and avengers games - this is a gritty, violent, and intense series.
Full House is book 30 in the Wild Cards series and it's very good - but these disclaimers for the unwary:
1. This book is NOT the usual Wild Cards "mosaic novel" - it's an anthology.
2. This book is NOT new-reader friendly.
So, in turn -
1. "Full House" is a collection of ten separate short stories set within the Wild Cards continuity. In the scheme of the series, this book is numbered as volume 30, but that's a bit deceptive. Originally appearing on the publisher's website (torpublishinggroup.com) between 2012 and 2019, the stories in this book key into the various coinciding WC volumes to greater and lessor degrees, from 2009's Suicide Kings to 2016's High Stakes. This is the second WC story-collection, after 2002's Deuces Down, and like that volume, all these stories are complete within themselves and stand alone - they don't weave together, there is no over-all narrative.
The ten stories are all very good, are all solidly told, strike different tones and in just about every case give deeper insight into supporting characters (in the case of the final story, even introduce a new character). Croyd Crenson, an old fave, and Rusty Gunderson, a more recent fave, make strong appearances in two each of the ten tales, much to my happiness. I enjoyed each story, no weak points among the ten, and enjoyed the different moods and directions, from mystery, horror, humor, and emotional slice of life.
2. Full House is, in a way, a retrospective. The stories comprising the book were current to the moment when they originally appeared (2012-2019), but collected now, they reflect backwards over the past ten years of the WC series. They deal with characters and events current then, fresh then, new then. And because they are, after all, short stories, they move quickly, tell their tale and are done. Meaning - there's no catch-up for a brand new reader, no who's-who, no "Previously in the Wild Cards" recap to get everybody up to speed - you either know what's going on and what events characters are referencing, or you don't. If you don't, you will be lost. Sorry. (There are several fan websites and wikis that can get you up to speed and fill in any gaps.)
Adding to the above, oddly, the stories are not presented here in chronological order, so things are jumbled about even more continuity-wise (in one story, the character Drummer Boy suffers a serious, life-altering tragedy, and in the next, he's out on the road with his band). This particularly strikes me as a weird publishing decision - why the random shuffle, guys? Wouldn't it have made more sense and been just as easy to stack the deck in order? It wouldn't have done a lot, but it might have done a little, to help new readers have a little consistency.
In summation - Full House gives us ten really good Wild Cards stories, and makes these ten available in print-form for the first time (there are plenty more, something like 23 WC stories have graced the Tor website, so more books like this one will likely follow). Each story takes us a little bit deeper into the lives of aces and jokers from the past ten years, and illuminates some corners of the Wild Cards world. For those in the know, a nice addition. But tricky as a starting point…
Have you read this book? Get it here in the Library! Do you agree with the review above, or disagree? Share your thoughts!
Studio cheapie AIP knocked out the movie "How To Make a Monster" back in 1958, about a murderous makeup artist using chemically-treated masks and hypnosis to turn two teens into killer creatures and take his revenge on those who'd rejected him. Sound a little familiar? The author here is of an age where, like me, he could have caught this flick on a midnight "Creature Feature" TV show growing up. Now, I'm not saying he swiped the plot from this old film- there's so little plot to Horror Story, that even if he'd tried, he came away empty-handed.
What we have with this novel is a one-punchline shaggy-dog story, moving at the pace of a dragged cinderblock with no real character development, no plot to really speak of, and no real point to the story. It feels like the author was doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted and grinning at himself for being so hip and sooo meta: People with a conveniently "cursed mask" use it create a vengeance golem by making a movie about people with a conveniently "cursed mask" using it to create a vengeance golem (that goes stab-happy at one teen party and then turns on its creators, woohoo).
The novel is half first-person narration, half movie script, cutting back and forth and paralleling each other. The narrated portion is apparently an audiobook spoken by the original 1993 movie's last surviving cast/crew member (who portrayed the Thin Kid who becomes the "monster" in the film), ruminating on making the movie then, the weird things that happened, and reflecting on the current reboot. Except it's not really. Maybe it's just an internal monologue - I mean, how likely is it you're going to be recording your process of killing and eating a guy while you are killing and eating a guy? I know-I know, unreliable narrator... But you have to have some grounding to depart from or all you end up with is meaningless game-playing. Oh wait, that is all we end up with here...
I'm not clear oh how this script is to be factored in to the overall work because it's not a part of the "audiobook" even as it cuts in and out of the text and interrupts the narrative flow of the book more and more. Internal clues suggest it to be the script version posted online by character Valentina in 2008, just before TK narrates in his "audiobook" how she cuts off his pinky (again), how he then assists her in her suicide (for which admission he would likely face legal action), and then tells us how he swallows his severed digit (again). So this script is rendered "unreliable" too. Once more, if the idea was to produce the worst kind of first-year film student pretentious, over-written and meaningless pablum - mission accomplished. And may I point out - having the script itself and the characters say several times "This movie is not for everyone", and "Oh, I know this sounds pretentious", does not let the book off the hook.
So what have we got? Not characters, not plot, not meaning. We do have ideas, sure, all just kind of swirling around but failing to coalesce into anything tangible. We have a minor mystery involving how the rest of the original cast/crew died since we know ol' TK is the only one still living… But this never really pays off, because without meaningful characterization, there's no sense of tragedy or loss when these cutouts die. We have a last ten-pages reveal that just had me blinking and going “eeeh…”
I want to close with some positives and the first is about the cover - the front cover is pretty neat; good visual appeal, creepy vibe, got me to pick the book up. The second is - Horror Movie could probably work pretty well as an actual movie; in the style of a documentary about this lost film, with cut-ins of the original scenes and footage. Everything that falls flat in text would probably work in a visual medium. Lastly - some recommendations for similar novels that work this kind of material more effectively: A Child Across the Sky by Jonathan Carroll, Night Film by Marisha Pessl, and The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix.
Have you read this book? Get it here in the Library! Do you agree with the review above, or disagree? Share your thoughts!
Check out some recent Graphic Novels added to our Popular Reading/New Arrivals collection!
Do you think graphic novels count as Literature? Do these kinds of books belong in a library? Share your thoughts why yes or why no.
(Personally, I'm a big fan, but that's just me. I like the way the words and the pictures work together to communicate the story in a unique and dynamic way.)
