Raven Girl by Audrey Niffeneggar

Rating: WORTHY!

Raven Girl is described as a graphic novel and was in the graphic novel section of my local library, but it doesn't fit any reasonable definition of a graphic novel. It isn't presented in comic strip form in a preponderantly graphic format with supplemental text. This is a short story with some illustrative full page pictures interleaved, just so you know! These are beautiful line drawings in sepia and green overtones executed by the author herself.

The story is about a mail carrier who falls in love with a raven - except that it's set in Britain, so he's really a postman. The two of them marry and have a raven girl child (how this is consummated is wisely left unaddressed by the author!) who grows up unable to speak anything but raven, although she can communicate in English by means of written notes. She looks just like a human, but has bird bones and so is extraordinarily light for her size.

Throughout her life, she feels out of place, but when she's in college, she meets a scientist who is doing physical augmentation on humans - giving them horns or a tail, or whatever they want. This is like an answered prayer for Raven Girl because she wants wings, so he kits her out with a functioning pair, and she learns to fly and eventually marries the Raven Prince. It's a weird story, but it was a real delight to read. Apparently Niffeneggar wrote it as a modern fairy tale for a dance company to perform.

The hardback version I got from my local library (in the graphic novel section!) was gorgeous, with grey silvery edging to the pages and a dark grey cover which in a way tells the whole story, but it seems to me that the cover tells the inverse version: the child is shown within the raven on the cover, whereas in the story, it is the raven which lurks within the child. I recommend this as a worthy read.

The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffeneggar

Title: The Night Bookmobile
Author: Audrey Nifeneggar
Publisher: Abrams
Rating: WORTHY!

This is the second of two posts today reviewing books by Audrey Niffeneggar. This one is really an excerpt from a longer work The library, so I understand, but I found it intriguing and interesting, but not stunning or brilliant. It was serialised in the British newspaper The Guardian. It's about a mature woman, Alexandra, who leads a very quiet life (some would argue: too quiet!) and adores books.

She's out quite late one night walking the streets in her neighborhood in Chicago, lost in thought after an exchange of words with her rather less than ideal boyfriend, when she comes across a Winnebago camper truck and discovers that it's the night bookmobile.

Like the TARDIS, it's bigger on the inside, but that's not even the most fascinating thing about it. On inspecting the books along the shelves, she discovers that it's really a record of everything she's ever read: all the books she has read - and only ones she has read - plus aassorted signs, cereal boxes, and so on, that she's read, too.

She eventually leaves, but when she returns later, the night bookmobile has gone. She doesn't see it again for a long time and when she does, she asks to be employed there, but she's turned down. The driver/owner/manager/librarian suggests that she find a job as a librarian in her own life, which she does, and becomes very successful in her chosen profession.

Later, she discovers that there is a way to work at the bookmobile, but it's not quite what she had expected. I liked this book. It's not the kind of book that has a beginning, a middle, and an end; it's more like a conversation with an old friend or a partner about a topic (in this case your reading experiences) which doesn't really start anywhere or go anywhere, but leaves you feeling a bit better about life afterwards anyway.