Review: Nation by Terry Pratchett

The beginning of Nation gripped me. I loved the alternate-reality Victorian setting that’s introduced. The narrative quickly shifts to an alternate-reality Pacific island. Mau is on a quest to prove his manhood when the tsunami strikes and obliterates his village and the prim and proper Daphne is stranded on his island. I enjoyed Daphne’s sea voyage and the entire crash scene.

Together, Mau and Daphne rebuild the Nation as they overcome their fears of one another, take in refugees and learn to work with each other. The novel became increasingly introspective as Mau reconsiders all the old ways and worship of the old gods. As the new leader, he must decide how to direct his people and as truths are uncovered he learns that letting go of the past is not the same as disrespecting it.

My interest waned significantly in the middle. I just wasn’t interested in the story anymore and the underlying ideological message of questioning “the way things have always been done” and “the things we’ve always believed” was so transparent that I just got bored. However, the serious minded teen may enjoy this thought-provoking YA novel. This book counts towards the POC Reading Challenge!

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2009    Pages: 384
Rating: 3 Stars     Source: Public Library

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is what you might call a mash-up. A mash-up in literature takes one genre and inserts elements of another genre into it.  In this case, we have a classic mashed with elements of parody and horror/pop-culture zombie elements. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is more of a spoof, a comedy aimed at poking fun at the original text, and not a scary tale. Let’s compare the first lines of each book. The original Austen: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” The Grahame-Smith version: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”  Clearly, the zombie book is making fun of the boy-crazy Bennet girls who, in the original text, spend the entire novel looking for a boyfriend/spouse. In the new novel, a girl of good repute will have renowned martial arts skills which she employs to kill zombies. The zombies appear in “slow” parts of the novel – during a coach ride or during a walk. They aren’t scary

Summary: "As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is something you'll want to read and is a great book to read along with the original."

and the battle-scenes were not what I usually expect from a scary zombie or funny zombie book/movie. I think the idea behind this novel is a great one - take a classic and make it relevant to 21st century readers. But it was hard for me to finish and left me wishing I had reread the original.

For more information on mash-ups, particularly historical ficiton YA mash-ups check out this article by blogger/librarian  Melissa Rabey.

Publisher: Quirk Books, 2009     Pages: 320
Rating: 2.5 Stars     Source: IC Public Library   

Review: A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

I fear I'm about to commit Book Blogging suicide. This book gets a lot of attention and praise so I hope that if you loved this book you'll go easy on me here... But I'm getting ahead of myself. A summary:

In 1895, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle leaves India after her mother’s untimely death to attend Spence, a finishing school in England. While mourning her mother, Gemma must also deal with snotty classmates, unnerving visions that come true and the young man who has followed her to England to “watch” her. Things spiral out of control as Gemma experiments with friendships and her new magical ability.

The story is told in first person from Gemma’s point of view and I felt she had a very authentic 16-year-old voice. She quarrels with her mother, pouts about things that are “not fair” and has a spunky sense of sarcasm that helps her get through difficult times.

The characterizations of the main girls were strong in that I felt they had distinct personalities which added to the story-line. However, I didn’t care for Gemma or her friends. They all seemed spoiled, even Ann the “charity case,” constantly whining about their situations. The uppity girls deride their classmates, including each other, and Gemma caves to their peer pressure. She doesn’t always like what her friends say/do but she doesn’t try hard to stop them either. Considering Gemma’s the one with the powers I thought it was rather weak and selfish of her to stand by friends who were so petty. Now, none of these girls’ lives are as great as they seem on the surface – no one’s is – but that’s not an excuse to treat others like dirt. Not connecting well with the main characters was a real drawback to my total experience with the book.

I wanted to know more about the headmistress, Mrs. Nightwing. Her character could have been bolder for me. I kept waiting for her to jump into the action and she didn’t. Also, the mysterious boy, Kartik – what is he doing in this story? He confuses me. If he’s going to threaten Gemma then get rough with her, don’t just leave notes on her pillow. If they’re going to fall in love then they’ll have to interact more for that to happen. It starts to happen, but more or less we’re left with Gemma’s fantasies about him (which are pretty graphic for the 12-year-old recommendation given by my library – eek!). When the book ended I still didn’t know who Kartik was or how he truly felt about Gemma’s magic abilities or her as a person.

A Great and Terrible Beauty is the first of a series so maybe the next books will address some of the issues I had with the characters. Unfortunately, I’m just not into Gemma Doyle enough to care about what happens to her to bother reading any more. Too many cliches (boarding school kids sneaking out to get drunk... this is so overworked) and obvious endings (selfish people become easy to predict).

This is a well loved novel by many and I think I must be strange for not liking this book. I think Bray’s writing is fine and dandy. She's obviously got talent. There was enough drama that kept me turning pages. But ultimately, this story was not for me.  On an aside, here's a fun interview with the author.
Delacorte, 2003       Pages: 403    Recommended Age: 15 and up
Rating: 2 Stars        Source: U of Iowa Libraries