Batgirl Volume 4 Wanted by Gail Simone and Marguerite Bennett

Title: Batgirl Volume 4 Wanted
Author: Gail Simone and Marguerite Bennett
Publisher: Warner Bros (DC Comics)
Rating: WARTY!

Penciling: Fernando Pasarin.
Inking: Jonathan Glapion.
Coloring: Blond and Brett Smith.

This and the other graphic novel I'm reviewing today are probably the last DC comics I'll be reading and also coincidentally constitute the last of the graphics which I was denied a chance to read in advance review copy form. The publishers can deny you an early look, but they can't prevent you completely from reading and reviewing a book you've set your mind on!

This one beautifully presented and colored, in hardback with glossy pages and really great art work, but that's only a part of a graphic novel. The other part is story, and this one made little sense. Note that in saying that, I'm coming into this at volume four, having not read the previous three, but although this story proceeds out of the previous three volumes, it's not so obscure that you can't get into it and figure out what's been going on. While there are some notable exceptions, comic books after all, are not known for being deep!

Whenever you're reading a super hero story you have to let some things slide by or give up. Obviously there are no "meta-humans" in real life, and no vigilantes in the sense intended here, so you have to take that as a given going in. The problem isn't that per se, it's what's done with that premise which makes or breaks a good graphic story. It's for this reason that I've never been a fan of either Batman or Superman. I give the links in my blog because I think it's hilarious that the two characters are illustrated in wikipedia (as of this writing) in images showing almost exactly the same macho pose, but facing in opposite directions, like they're book-ends or like they're in confrontation depending on how you juxtapose them!

For me, these two characters make little sense at their very root, and while that lack of sense may have managed a passing grade in 1933 and 1939 respectively, it's not nearly adequate in 2015. I loved the Christopher Nolan movie trilogy, which rose above any routine issues I might have with the concept for Batman, but Superman has always failed with me, and comics have consistently failed to dig them out of their holes too.

Coming into this, and having enjoyed the Birds of Prey TV show, which features two of my favorite actors in lead roles, I was hoping for something good and cool - and different from the Batman world - especially given that the writers are female (which itself is something that's scarce in the comic book world). What I got was pretty much standard boilerplate comic book which any guy might have come up with. I was disappointed.

The story begins with The Ventriloquist, which was mildly amusing since I only just got through watching a Hercule Poirot TV show yesterday which featured a ventriloquist as the villain! There is no back-story (in this edition) for this character, and I'm not familiar with her, so while she was intriguing and interesting, she lacked substance, especially since she rapidly disappeared from the story never to be heard from again. Plus her weirdly morphing powers were rather weird to me.

That was like a prologue, I'm not a fan of prologues, but after this, the main body of the story took off with a vengeance, focusing on the angst Batgirl was facing after having taken action to save her mother which resulted in the death of her brother. Note that both Barbara Gordon and her brother are the children of the venerable police commissioner Gordon, but what Gordon doesn't know is that Barbara is Batgirl. She even tries to unveil herself to him, but Gordon, who wants Batgirl dead, turns his back, refusing to learn who she really is.

This is one of the things which made no absolutely no sense, but what makes less sense is that Gordon, who is obviously intimately familiar with his daughter's face, and who is very familiar with Batgirl's face having seen it numerous times, has failed to figure it out for himself. Barbara Gordon has long red hair and so does Batgirl, and her cowl fails to hide her eyes and the lower part of her face. How could he not figure it out?!

This is on par with no one grasping that Superman and Clark Kent are the same when the only "difference" between then is a pair of eyeglasses and a comma of hair. It's utterly nonsensical. But that's not as nonsensical as the flat refusal on the part of both Batman and Superman, to actually help the police. Both these guys, and particularly Batman, have access to technology and methods which could really aid police investigations and crime prevention if the so-called heroes were willing to share the technology and train the police, but neither of them ever does. instead they selfishly keep it to themselves, arrogantly assuming that they're the only ones fit to use it! This could be viewed as obstruction of justice!

Obviously other heroes do this same thing - for example, Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four comes readily to mind - and if they did this they'd be a lot less special in many regards - particularly Batman whose entire existence is predicated upon his superior training and technology, since he has no super powers. Again this is one of the things you must let slide if you want to enjoy the comic.

There were issues with this issue, such as the stereotypical hooligans in the mall who harass Barbara when she's out shopping (for shoes), because clearly all guys who wear spiked hair are closet rapists! There's a lot of gore and blood splatter. There's way too much angst, but that's stock-in-trade for comics books. In one instance this is hilarious because it looks like Barbara is crying ink - her tears are black! At first I thought this was some horrible seepage from her eyes caused by something which some super-villain had done to her, but it was just tears and artistic license.

The closing scenes when she and Daddy Gordon are running from super-villains (does Batman ever run from villains? I'm not in a position to comment, but it seemed odd), were simply not credible given what had come before. The interactions between them made both characters look like idiots and the whole failed "Hey dad, it's me, Barbara!" dénouement made Batgirl look weak, clueless and totally ineffectual. So overall, I can't recommend this. Aside from the art work, which was remarkable, there really was nothing heroic about this story. Marguerite Bennett's contribution was a really odd story at the end which had nothing to do with anything that had gone before. It wasn't entertaining to me.

The Egg by Andy Weir

Title: The Egg
Author: Andy Weir
Publisher: Audible Studios
Rating: WORTHY!

This is a really short story available free on-line, and also in audio form. I recommend it. It's rather hard to review though, without telling the whole story, because it is so short.

I'm not even remotely religious, so I have no skin in the game of who has the best religion; they're all clueless, and that's the joy of this story because it makes more sense than any of the other religions out there! Not that that makes it true. It's fiction after all.

The basic plot is that a guy dies and meets god, and gets an education as to how life and death really works! Of course, ultimately the story still makes no sense, but it's original and fun, and it's a quick easy read, so what's not to like?

I think those who reviewed this negatively either have a religious axe to grind or they're taking fiction way too seriously! It's just a story and a short one at that. I recommend it. Even if you hate it, you've lost only five minutes of your life and you have something new to think about to boot. If you don't like it, go ahead and write a parody of it and have some fun!

The Australian by Lesley Young

Title: The Australian
Author: Lesley Young
Publisher: LAY Books (no website found)
Rating: WARTY!

Not to be confused with The Australian by Diana Palmer (BN has 494 pages of books with 'Australian' in the title!), this is one of a series titled "The ". Another one is "The Frenchman" and appears to feature the same guy in the cover! It's a romance novel and I need to warn you right up front that I was hoping for more than merely a romance novel because romance novels to me are unappealing. They really have nothing to do with romance and everything to do with some wiltingly weak female with little self control (or self respect for that matter) being overpowered by Mr Macho. To me, that's not a story, it's author wish-fulfillment and/or pure fantasy. I can neither like nor respect any novel which depicts women as nothing more than men's toys.

I thought and hoped that this one would be different because of the undercover (and not under those covers!) aspects of it, but in the end it turned out to be precisely what I feared it would be. In the story, Charlie Sykes is a young American woman who flees Florida in the wake of her mother's death from drugs, and heads to Australia on a whim. She seems to have had an inexplicably easy time in moving there and finding herself eligible for work. In the European Union you can jump from one country to another job-hunting as though you never left your home nation, but moving from one nation to another where there are no such international ties is not usually as easy as it's depicted here!

Charlie is looking for work and unexpectedly finds a $50,000 (Australian dollars = approximately $37,000 US) job dropped into her lap. She accepts this job despite being ogled and inappropriately treated by the boss, a international hotelier who is grossly misnamed as Mr Knight. His behavior is far from chivalrous, which makes me question Charlie's mentality when she accepts. Yes, she's desperate for a job, but seriously? She does lay down the law, but the very fact that she has to, ought to tell any self-respecting woman who has any integrity at all that this is not the place she needs to be working. It certainly isn't a romantic first meeting. But I was willing, for the sake of a good story, to let that one slide.

I love reading novels set in Australia. I've read some bad ones, but mostly my experience with Australian writers/stories has been positive. Unfortunately I was also a bit dissuaded from this novel by the fact that it was first person PoV, which is the worst voice for a novel, and by the trope romantic male depicted in Jace Knight. Yes, Jace. He was tall, manly, chiseled, etc, etc. Yawn. At least he didn't have blue eyes with gold flecks in them, but that was about the only trope button which wasn't pressed here.

I found myself asking, once again, why romance writers seem so utterly and irremediably incapable of breaking away from the herd and coming up with something new, and out of the ordinary? Do they really think so little of their female readership that they believe those readers are sheep, incapable of traversing new terrain, unable to follow that road less traveled? I hope the readers aren't like that. I hope the writers do not view their readers with such disdain.

What initially kept me reading was that I was intrigued by Charlie. She's not your usual romantic female in one regard at least. She's slightly dysfunctional and socially inept - borderline Asperger’s or something, so I warmed to her quickly, but my empathy for her which had been built-up in the first chapter began to wane significantly when Charlie started in on the wilting violet routine as soon as she was in Jace's presence. This did not augur well for a really good story. It did augur well if you like uninventive clichéd romances.

I had been hoping for something better this time. I had dared to hope for a real story. Would I get one? Only reading-on would tell. I don't have a problem with romance, but when the entire story consists of nothing more than blushing, and attacks of the wilts and the vapors, there is no story. There is only one more limp female character and they are of no interest whatsoever to me. I like strong female characters: women who are smart, self-motivated, independent, and who can take men or leave them. Such women rarely appear in romance novels. It amazes me that they're still of interest to anyone in 2015. This isn't an historical romance, which would make antiquated 'rules' a little bit more acceptable; it's a modern story in a modern country, and my feeling is that we deserve better.

I don't have a problem with attraction between people, with a heart-beat speeding up, and bit of fluster here, and a blush there once in a while, with a few furtive glances. What I do have a problem with is when women are consistently represented as being the ones to whom this happens while the male characters are all macho and studly, and apparently feel nothing like that in return. I have a problem with women being depicted as inferior, lesser, and weaker.

I have a problem with stories which indicate that it's fine for women to be attracted to men who clearly have no respect for them, or who neglect, abuse or otherwise ill-treat them. I have a problem with novels depicting men as consistently strong and alpha, and women as weak and slavish. We all of us - men and women - deserve a whole hell of a lot better than that in 2015 and I hoped, by the time chapter three began, that this wouldn't be a novel like that. I wanted to like it, not despise it.

That said, there were also other issues. For instance, I don't get Charlie's obsession with how hot it was. She's from New York state which has a comparable temperature range with Sydney in the summer. Obviously they are in the opposite end of the year from we in the northern hemisphere, so if the transition took place in a New York winter it would be noticeable, but unless Sydney was suffering a major heat wave, it wouldn't be anything dramatically outside of the range Charlie was used to.

One thing which became annoying was Charlie's inability to employ contractions. For example, she would say "I hope you are right" Instead of saying, "I hope you're right". This seemed odd at first and became annoying quite quickly. She reminded me of Commander Data from the Star Trek: Next Generation TV series, and it made her seem far more robotic than ever it did human-but-dysfunctional. I would have liked her better without that.

At the point right before Charlie learns of the true identity of the improbably-named Sullivan Blaise, she panics over his behavior, thinking he's a psycho killer or something, and tries to flee her apartment, but he manhandles her to the bed, and the way this is described isn't done horrifically, which is how it would have been, but rather sexually. I didn't think that this was appropriate at all and I didn't appreciate the way it was described. I am not a fan of sanitizing violence in this way, much less of trying to make it titillating.

Obviously, I can't speak for women (I don't even play one on TV!), but my best guess is that most of them would not at all appreciate being grabbed, their mouth covered, and thrown face down on the bed under the weight of an attacker who towers a foot over their head. Even if they'd been role-playing it would be scary, but that's not what was going on here. It was at this point I really started to wonder if this author would win me back over to enjoying this novel and how, exactly, she planned on doing it.

Charlie requests more than once that Blaise leave, but he refuses. When she threatens to call the police he claims he owns the police. When she stands up he orders her to sit down. This guy is a complete jerk. Then he asks this woman (who has worked for Jace for a day or so) what she knows about him! You know, if he wanted her to spy, all he had to do was to meet with her professionally. This business of lying to her to get into her apartment and then physically restraining her is hardly the best way to go about recruiting someone who is inexplicably, but evidently vital to your operation, so he's not only a jerk, he's also an idiot!

She does have the presence of mind to demand he prove his identity to her, but all he does is show her a business card. That's hardly proof given that anyone can have a business card printed up showing anything they want on it. This jerk tells her: "Here's the thing, Charlie. I don't need your buy-in. And I don't give a shit about Interpol. You just need to do what I ask, when I ask. This is my show." Seriously? From the minute he man-handled Charlie I took a dislike to this guy. He then proceeds to blackmail her, threatening to throw her out of the country if she refuses to help.

The Charlie that I met in chapter one would have gone right ahead and said, "Go ahead and throw me out, and see if I care!", but this one cowers under the threat and gives in. I don't know this Charlie, and I don't like her either. Obviously she has to give in, in order for the story to proceed, but it seems to me the author might have gone about this in a better way - one which doesn't leave her main character looking weak and easily manipulated.

So without checking-up on Blaise to independently verify his story, Charlie takes him completely at face value, and agrees to do this spying job. She concludes, "It was fairly evident that Sullivan was who he said he was...." That's not a smart conclusion and again it seemed out of character given what we'd been told of Charlie so far.

The inevitable trope of getting any two of our three main characters undressed occurs when Jace offers Charlie an opportunity to learn how to swim. Apparently her school never taught this activity, but it does require a state of semi undress and physical proximity, so it will do. I figured that this was also where the requisite trope 'accidental' falling of female into male's arms would take place. And it did, exactly as I predicted.

Charlie gives us a detailed description of Jace's penis, ensconced as it was inside his swim trunks. She also describes herself. Again. Not only does she have an hourglass figure, she also has unusually smooth skin, lean legs, a flat stomach, and above average sized breasts. At this point I realized that Charlie really ought to have been named Mary Sue and asked myself yet again why it appears not even remotely possible to get a good story about regular people? Must they all be outstandingly beautiful, or studly, or curvaceous, or chiseled? Seriously? This is when despair set in.

Er no, Virginia - sorry, Charlie - hot water doesn't freeze more quickly than cold (not in that bald and simply-stated fashion at least). This is called the Mpemba effect. Water that has been boiled may well freeze quicker than un-boiled water (which has more air in it), but consider this: in order to reach freezing point, the hot water has to first cool down to the same temperature as the cooler water before it can then further cool down to freeze. How is it going to freeze more quickly when it first has to catch up? In some circumstances, it can, but there's a lot of issues and disagreements here so the bald claim is wrong. And no, water has neither memory nor consciousness. Now I not only dislike Charlie, I have zero respect for her intellect. I guess that just leaves the body, which is fine isn't it, because the body on the cover will match that perfectly? I mean, who needs a head (with a mind) when you can have any body?

The swimming lesson puts Charlie in her place finally - the subservient, submissive woman. Which man wouldn't want one of these toys in the closet, so they can pull it (not her) out, and play with it whenever they choose? It's said that men do not play with dolls, but they do. Those dolls are women like Charlie. Chapter six ends with the telling phrase, "...and his word was my command." It was at this point that I quit reading this novel. I cannot stand to read another novel which turns women into slaves and toys and dolls. I expected better from this and it was not delivering. I cannot in good faith recommend this novel. The liberation of women evidently still has a heck of a long way to go, I'm sorry to report.

The Girl Who Played With Fire Adapted by Denise Mina

Title: The Girl Who Played With Fire
Author: Denise Mina
Publisher: DC Comics (Warner Bros)
Rating: WORTHY!

Art by Andrea Mutti, Antonio Fuso, and Leonardo Manco.
Colors by Giulia Brusco and Patricia Mulvihill, and Lee Loughridge.
Letters by Steve Wands.

I already reviewed this novel so what's up here? Well I originally read this in print book form. Later, I listened to it in audio book form, so now it's only right that I check out the graphic novel too, right?! That's why this review is shorter than I normally write. I'm not going into any details of the plot since I've been there and done that, and you can get those from my original review. This review is all about the graphic side of things.

The graphic novel again relates Steig Larsson's original story faithfully and while there's just as much violence in this volume, there's no sex at all worth the mention. I don't know why, but the art work here didn't grab me like it did in the first two volumes. I was nowhere near as fond of the rendering of Lisbeth here as I was in the previous outing, but the art was very workman-like and got a complex job done. It just didn't leave quite the same pleasant taste the previous material did. One notable exception (illustrated on my blog) was the full page rendition of Lisbeth's dragon tattoo, which I thought was really good.

The lettering felt better in this one than in the previous volumes, and it seemed a better reading experience to me for that. Maybe I was just more used to it this time after reading two previous volumes? On this topic, I was amused where we saw one frame of a report which was actually information about a software license, but imaged with the lettering backwards! Later we get a news report, but if you look at it. It consists of the same paragraph repeated over and over again.

We do get to meet a member of the Evil Fingers punk band which is mentioned in the book, and which is now a group of female friends who are close - as close, that is, as Lisbeth would ever let anyone get. Lisbeth was never in the band since she's tone deaf, but she was part of the post-band gatherings. It doesn't specify the name of the band member who is interviewed. We know it's not lead singer Cilla Norén, unless she's changed her hair completely and lost a lot of weight, yet that's the band member whom officer Faste interviewed in the novel.

So, to sum up, I didn't like this quite as much as I liked the first book (which was in two parts), but I still think it's a worthy contribution to the canon. I am looking forward to, and hoping for, the third volume to be completed.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Part 2 Adapted by Denise Mina

Title: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Part 2
Author: Denise Mina
Publisher: DC Comics (Warner Bros)
Rating: WORTHY!

Art by Andrea Mutti and Leonardo Manco.
Colors by Giulia Brusco and Patricia Mulvihill.
Letters by Steve Wands and Lee Bermejo.

I already reviewed this novel so what's up here? Well I originally read this in print book form. Later, I listened to it in audio book form, so now it's only right that I check out the graphic novel too, right?! That's why this review is shorter than I normally write. I'm not going into any details of the plot since I've been there and done that, and you can get those from my original review. This review is all about the graphic side of things.

Again, as with volume one, I was impressed with this. Denise Mina's writing covered everything of import, but also kept the pace tight. Steve Wands's and Lee Bermejo's lettering was nothing spectacular, and a bit on the small side. Obviously you can't hide the image under large blocks of text, but for me, and especially in this era of e-comics, lettering is nearly always a too small. I was glad I read this in print form as opposed to on an e-pad. What impressed me were Giulia Brusco's and Patricia Mulvihill's colors and Andrea Mutti's and Leonardo Manco's art work which continued the same standard set in volume one. The covers were excellent in quality, but as I mentioned in the review of volume 1 thought that the cover for part 2 didn't capture Lisbeth Salander. The face was wrong, somehow. The interior artwork captured her magically.

The hilariously squeamish depictions of nudity continued. I found it curious that there were no-holds-barred when it came to violence, but that genitalia were deemed too horrific to show! One of the most important scenes - the rape of Lisbeth Salander, was glossed over a little too conveniently. We get the full gloory of the headless cat, with its bloody entrails all over, yet a central event of the brutal rape of a woman is deemed inappropriate?

Nothing overt was depicted except blood and strongly implied violence. A sheet strategically covered her butt crack afterwards. Seriously? If you're going to show the violence, then show it, don't blow it. If all you feel you can show is blood spatter, then don't show anything. This part made no sense because it robbed Lisbeth of the full horror of her torture. I didn't get the point of a graphic novel that's inconsistently graphic! Why the artist would baulk at that, and not at blood spray and cat entrails is weird to me.

That gripe aside, I really liked this overall, and I recommend it. I'm certainly going to buy it if I get a chance.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Part 1 Adapted by Denise Mina

Title: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Part 1
Author: Denise Mina
Publisher: DC Comics (Warner Bros)
Rating: WORTHY!

Art by Andrea Mutti and Leonardo Manco.
Colors by Giulia Brusco and Patricia Mulvihill.
Letters by Steve Wands and Lee Bermejo.

I already reviewed this novel so what's up here? Well I originally read this in print book form. Later, I listened to it in audio book form, so now it's only right that I check out the graphic novel too, right?! That's why this review is shorter than I normally write. I'm not going into any details of the plot since I've been there and done that, and you can get those from my original review. This review is all about the graphic side of things.

So I was very impressed with this work. It's been somewhat updated from the original novel to include smart phones, for example, but otherwise is faithful to it. Denise Mina's adaptation was sparse but covered everything that was important, and kept the story moving at a clip. Steve Wands's and Lee Bermejo's lettering was pretty much boiler-plate comic book, so there was nothing there to praise. On the downside, lettering is nearly always a little too small for my taste, especially if you're trying to read it on a screen, such as an iPad. I'm glad I read this in actual print form. It would have been annoying on a pad. What impressed me were Giulia Brusco's and Patricia Mulvihill's colors and Andrea Mutti's and Leonardo Manco's art work. Both were excellent for my taste and really brought the story to life. The covers were excellent in quality, but I thought that the part 2 cover really didn't capture Lisbeth Salander. The face was wrong, somehow. The interior artwork captured her magically.

I was amused by the depictions of nudity (and almost every eligible female gets nude in this graphic novel, even young Harriet, whereas only one guy does). The amusement came from the apparent squeamishness of the artists to depict genitals and butt cracks! I've never understood this, especially when violence is depicted without a single thought to covering it up! Are we to understand from this that our society believes that looking at something sensuous and beautiful is verboten, whereas violence is cool?>/p>

To me breasts are far more out there, provocative and 3D, than ever female genitals are, so what's with the shyness? We got mammaries a-go-go, but whenever there was any danger of a vulva heaving into view, there was always something in the way: panties, or a judiciously draped sheet reminiscent of the wispy gauze which inexplicably floated around in classical paintings of nudes. The same applies to male genitalia.

So, overall, I highly recommend this - especially if you haven't read the original. It's a great introduction to the first novel of the trilogy, but the cost, I have to say is pretty steep. It's forty dollars for both of the volumes which make up the first novel, so you might want to get this from your library before you decide to buy, or look for it used. I would definitely like to buy these two.

Pam of Babylon by Suzanne Jenkins

Title: Pam of Babylon
Author: Suzanne Jenkins
Publisher: Amazon
Rating: WARTY!

This is the start of a series, believe it or not, of which the second volume has already been released. Curiously, I’m actually starting with the first volume for a change, but I don’t plan of reading any more of this series. I;m not a series fan unless it's exceptional and this isn't.

Pam Smith is spoiled rotten, so I guess it’s hardly surprising that she’s the most placid mammal in existence. She thinks her husband is having an affair, but would rather not drop that stone into the mirror-surface of her little pond of joy. She’s rolling in money to the point where she doesn’t have to work. Indeed, she doesn’t choose to work, living a fifties house-wife existence in a luxurious beach-front house on Long Island.

Her Husband, the bread winner, is a complete slut. After he dies, apparently of a heart attack on the train traveling out to visit his wife for the weekend (she lives like a kept woman in her snazzy isolation while he travels into "the city" and do the work during the week), he apparently is robbed, yet the thieves inexplicably take everything but his phone. It’s this phone which leads to an unraveling of Pam’s life, because the last person Jack (yes, he’s another jack-ass) called on it was his mistress. Which mistress? The young one – not the kept woman who is his wife or any other of his mistresses.

I honestly cannot believe a hospital would be either so stupid or so insensitive to blindly assume that the last person a person calls has to be an immediate relative! Rather than leave it to the police or try to find contact info on the phone, what we get here is the hospital calling Sandra the Mistress, not Pam the wife, yet somehow Pam manages to show up at the hospital at the same time as Sandra and the two meet. Instead of fighting, Pam hugs Sandra and the two embark upon a friendship.

The children of Pam and Jack are evidently in college, and Pam is insensitive enough to deliver the news that dad is dead over the phone rather than get off her idle ass and go pick them up and deliver the news in person. The novel is so vague (on some things and inexplicably running into endless detail on others) that it didn’t say where the kids were, but unless they were across the country (which isn’t the impression I got), this seemed cold if not callous. From that point on I didn’t like her, and that wasn’t the only thing about her which was objectionable.

One thing which bothered me was what seemed to be Pam’s consistent 1950’s take on life. She was the stay-at-home domesticated mom who didn’t seem to have a life or any real interest in having one. She didn’t work, she didn’t seem like she was involved in any trusts, or foundations or charities, and she didn’t seem like she had ever been involved in any of the financial dealings pertinent to home-ownership and paying bills.

Her worst betrayal of feminism however, was when she sets off for the funeral and we read that her son Brent is driving the car. That was fine, but Pam’s observation about Brent was: “He was the man of the family now.” What? Pam is the adult, and she has a daughter, too, but Brent is the man of the house? Neither female need apply for any position of responsibility?

This was at odds with Pam’s protestation, earlier, that she wanted to be in charge of her destiny and that what she chose to do - and whom she chose to befriend - was none of anyone else’s business. It didn’t make any sense. It seemed like a complete reversal to me.

It wasn't he only thing which didn't make sense. Take this sentence: "She remembered her grandmother’s perfume, Cashmere Bouquet. The smell of it was so dry it brought tears to her eyes." The smell was so dry? I'm not even going to try to work that one out.

In short, this novel was tedious and not even remotely interesting. I couldn't finish it and I certainly cannot recommend the parts I did read.

Dying to Get Published by Judy Fitzwater

Title: Dying to Get Published
Author: Judy Fitzwater
Publisher: Judy Fitzwater
Rating: WARTY!

This novel sounded really intriguing from the blurb - which means the blurb did its job, I guess! The problem was that what started out as a really grabbing premise - a writer concocted a plot for a murder mystery, and is now in prison accused of the very murder she plotted. Yes, it’s been done before, most notably in the movie, Basic Instinct, but it’s always a good idea if you can put a twist or two on it.

The problem with this, for me, was that the author's idea of a twist seemed to be adding a trope romance. That might even have worked except that the murder mystery was forgotten about as we abruptly flashed-back to her romance. Even that might have worked had the new guy in her life been the villain. This brings me to the second problem - the real villain here is the main character. She's pissed off with an agent who wasn't very nice to her (but then she wasn't nice in return, either), and for no good reason decides to start sending her threatening letters. She's plotting her death and it’s not at all clear whether she's really intending to do this, or if she's just playing with ideas for a novel, if playing a little too authentically.

The romance wouldn’t have been so bad had it something original to offer, but it was so clichéd as to be pathetic. The male is tall, so the female can be rendered into a little girl rather than a woman. He has hair falling into his eyes, he's muscular, he has 'startlingly blue eyes', because brown eyes look like…well, not chocolate (so this style of authorship evidently thinks). And he's going to fix her because she's broken, and you know that every girl needs a guy to both fix and validate her. In short, it went quickly down the toilet.

This is one of a series (of seven as of this review), but detective series are really nothing more than a rehash of the original story when you get right down to it, with a few tweaks to the template in order to try and make the next story sound original when it really isn't. I have no time for writers who milk money out of readers like that while eschewing any efforts towards inventiveness or creativity. Some writers can make a series work, and they are to be treasured, but when a series gets off to a boring and clichéd start like this one, I can neither subscribe to nor recommend it.

There was some nice humor here and there, particularly in the writing group that the "detective" attended, and the novel was relatively short, but that's the best I can say for it. One wonderfully and, I assume, unintentional piece of humor was that at one point the protagonist agrees, right at the end of chapter ten, to meet someone at eleven! I loved that, but to put this in relationship terms, this book was simply not there for me when I needed it.

Daughter of the Sword by Steve Bein

Title: Daughter of the Sword
Author: Steve Bein
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Rating: WORTHY!

We have a new strong female character in town: Mariko Oshiro – and I love her! This is the start of a series, of which Year of the Demon is the sequel. I'm not a fan of series, but of this one, I could become one based on volume one. Series, too me, seem like a lazy and convenient way of milking money out of readers by offering nothing more than retreaded stories, bypassing any real creativity. Whether this series will end up that way remains to be seen.

Mariko is a Japanese detective – the only one in her elite police unit, and her life isn’t easy. Since only about 10% of the Japanese police force is female (officers and civilians) this is entirely credible. She doesn’t automatically command respect as a man would in her position, and her boss really doesn’t like her. Nor does he believe she belongs there, but there's a reason for this other than mere chauvinism. He will not cut her a break, but she gets a break in disguise when she’s moved against her will from the narcotics squad to take on the investigation of an attempted theft of a sword.

There are three known Inazuma swords extant in the world, and these are named: Tiger on the Mountain, Glorious Unsought Victory, and Beautiful Singer. One of these is owned by Professor Yasuo Yamada, an aging and almost blind scholar, and a master swordsman. Mariko isn’t thrilled by the investigation or by Yamada, but he grows on her as she learns more about him and the sword. It seems that an ex pupil of Yamada’s, known as Fuchida Shūzō, works for the 8-9-3, which is what ya-ku-za means (based on the worst hand you can get in a card game). This criminal organization works hand-in-hand with the police, the latter turning a blind eye to some of its business activities as long as the organization does not let, hard drugs like Cocaine into the country. Fuchida has other ideas and believes he can trade a deadly and valuable ancient Inazuma Samurai sword for a cocaine shipment, and launch himself into a criminal career of his own.

What Mariko doesn’t grasp to begin with - and only reluctantly comes to accept - is that there are three swords in play and each of them not only has a name, but magical qualities associated with it. She sings to him when he draws her and she wants to control him. She will not tolerate rivals. Fuchida is literally in love with her. He refers to his sword as a female and sleeps with it in his bed at night. When the drug dealers under his oversight become a bit too loose-tongued about Fuchida’s plans, the city of Tokyo starts seeing a body here and there which has evidently run through by a sword, and Mariko begins to realize there’s more going on here than a simple sword theft.

There are some technical problems with the writing. I saw "straitened" instead of "straightened" at one point, and a phrase like "Mariko’s re-read the same paragraph" which made no sense, but in general the writing was good. Also I had issues with the flashbacks. There are several of them and the first one really annoyed me. I wanted the story here and now, but the author insisted upon retreating multiple times into various points in Japanese history to tell stories of these swords.

These really brought the story to a grinding halt, and were not nearly as interesting to me as the story told in the present. It was annoying to get repeatedly torn out of a story I was really into and flung back into the past for tens of pages. After the first flashback, the others were not nearly so annoying, but rest assured you can skip them and not miss anything - with the exception of the last of the flashbacks, set in World War Two, which is important if you want to fully understand the main story's conclusion. That said, the flashbacks were intrusive and too long.

Another annoyance was the goze - a blind female "seer" - whose "predictions" were - just as with modern charlatan psychics - so useless as to be a parody. I don't mind psychics in stories where they fit (as she does here), in a fantasy story, but it's such a ridiculous cliché that they can never actually say anything clearly, that they're usually more annoying than they are beneficial from my PoV, and are practically worthless.

Those quibbles aside, I very much enjoyed the story overall, and really I liked the main character Mariko who seemed totally realistic to me. I loved the way the ending was written, so in the end, I fully recommend this novel.

The Woman in the Movie Star Dress by Praveen Asthana

Title: The Woman in the Movie Star Dress
Author: Praveen Asthana (no website found)
Publisher: Doublewood Press (no website found)
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Errata:
Page 31 “Sachem Littlefeather” should be “Sacheen Littlefeather” née Marie Louise Cruz.
Page 46 “…dishy Kennedy’s…” should be “dishy Kennedys” (it’s a plural, not a possessive).
Page 164 “It’s OK darling” needs speech quotes around it.
Page 174 “…two young women in skirts so short she could tell one was a natural blonde and the other favored dilapidation…” I got a real laugh out of that! I assume the author meant “…two young women in skirts so short she could tell one was a natural blonde and the other favored depilation…”. Of course, I could be wrong and this could actually have been intended as a joke!
Page 179 Genevieve knows who Alla Nazimova is, on page 200, a day later, she does not!

With few exceptions, I normally avoid books which sport a favorable review from Jerk-Us Reviews on the cover. Since those guys rarely negatively review, their "reviews" are completely without value. This one I had requested not knowing Jerkus liked it, and it was just as well, since I liked it too! How weird is that?!

Having favorably reviewed Diana Mclellan’s non-fiction Sappho Goes to Hollywood in December 2014, this seemed like an interesting novel to me. This novelist does almost everything right. The prologue is chapter one, which I read (I wouldn’t have, had it actually been a prologue!), and I learned of Margaret Brooks who buys (from a guy named Mel - I have no idea if that delightful juxtaposition was purposeful not!) a dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in the movie Niagara which I haven’t seen, but which has to have one of the most boring plots imaginable fro what I read here. Margaret wants to be a femme fatale, and she already has a gun. She buys the dress.

Abruptly we’re in chapter two and it’s sixty years later, making the year around 2013 (Niagara came out in 1953), and we meet Genevieve (not her real name!) Nightcloud, who now works in the same store (but now in a different location) that Mel founded all those years ago with a dress he got from Joan Crawford. The author titles the chapters mostly after actors: Joan Crawford, Humphrey Bogart, Natalie Wood, Ava Gardner, and so on and adds a quote supposedly said by the actor.

Genvie grew-up watching old Paramount movies because her dad was one of the janitors at the studio and parked his kids in the screening room watching old movies while he worked. Genvie feels like she’s caught in the middle of too many things to be anything of one thing: she’s halfway between “plain and pretty, white and brown, sassy and shy” and she’s also stuck between being a modern girl and loving those old movies.

One day, right after a new consignment of clothes arrives, which contains that red dress, a woman comes into the store hauling a kid along with her – and she buys the dress. She wants to stand out at an event, she says, because her husband has a wandering eye….

Before the three girls in the store know it, a guy shows up asking about that very consignment, claiming he’s a relative and wants to retrieve a family heirloom, but the fierce Gretchen says all those things were sold, and she refuses to divulge any information about who may have bought what despite a large monetary inducement. Good for her! This doesn’t, however, prevent Genvie from taking a growing interest in that dress, and the woman who wore it: Margaret Brooks.

One serious complaint I would make if I took book blurbs seriously, is how utterly inaccurate this one is! We all know that book blurbs are hardly the most reliable source of information about a given novel, and that the author typically has nothing whatsoever to do with the particular one which their novel is saddle, but that said, the one for this novel is about as misleading as you can get! It begins:

“A young woman comes to Hollywood to escape her past.”

No, she’s already in Hollywood (near enough)! Has been since she was a kid!

“She finds work in a vintage clothing store that sells clothes used in the movies.”

No, her father finds her the job!

“One day she discovers a way to transfer human character through these vintage clothes, and she uses this ability to transform from a lonely, insecure young woman to a glamorous heart-breaker.”

No, she notices her character changing when she inappropriately ‘borrows’ various dresses from the store, and later surmises what is happening and takes advantage of it.

“But she also discovers that with the good comes the bad as character flaws are transferred too. She begins to worry: what if one of the vintage clothes she has sold to some unsuspecting customer had been previously worn by a deeply troubled soul? One day her fears become crystallized—intrigued by a man who comes asking about a beautiful scarlet dress she has recently sold, she looks into its history and discovers a secret that terrifies her.”

No. That latter part all takes place before she starts wondering why her clothes hang her…!
(Get it? Wire clothes hanger? Joan Crawford? Never mind!)

“So begins a quest to find the scarlet dress complicated by a budding romance and the threads of her past, which intervene like trip wires. Emotions run high, and in the background the quickening drumbeat of the race to find the scarlet dress, potent as a loose, loaded weapon.”

This last bit is the only part which is accurate, if a bit melodramatic!

I have to say that despite my liking of this story, I am really not at all fond of the main character. Genvie is way too focused on (you might say obsessed with) getting herself a man – like this will solve all her problems. There is no doubt that having a reliable partner is definitely a boon (yes, I shall have it no other way, I tell you!) to a person; indeed, fans of actuarial charts (if there be such a beast) will say it’s a life-saver, but such a wish should never make itself the be-all and end-all of your life. You’re not going to be of much use to anyone else if you’re not comfortable with yourself. Clearly Genvie doesn’t get this.

She also has no qualms about borrowing expensive outfits from the store without permission and going partying in them. These are not simply expensive dresses. They're used, but they were ‘used’ by movie legends such as Marlene Dietrich, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe, Barbara Stanwyck, Elizabeth Taylor, and so on. Some of these dresses are pretty much what would be described as priceless (not that I’d hold them in such regard), but to Genvie, they’re simply tools to get what she wants, as is the peyote she stole from her dad, and she has no qualms, no guilt, no nothing about using them to get whatever she wants.

There’s a guy she meets in the story who makes a living out of murder memorabilia – objects and clothes owned by a murder victim or by the perp, especially if it was someone famous, or a famous crime. Genvie is very critical of this guy, yet she’s so very much like him, using what she calls the ‘chi’ of these clothes to get what she wants.

Worse than this is her profligacy when it comes to sex. I didn’t have a problem with her jumping into bed with a variety of partners, especially since (she thinks) it’s the outfits she wears which make her do these things. I did have a serious problem with her complete lack of birth control and disease prevention smarts.

Even if we assume that she’s on the pill or something (and nothing in this book actually even suggests that), while this would more than likely prevent pregnancy, it will do nothing to shield her from any sexual diseases. She’s actually not a very smart woman at all, and more often than not, she comes off as needy, scheming, and frankly, a royal bitch a lot of the time. On top of that she’s rather hypocritical. Not that she doesn’t have enough to contend with – a bitchy boss, a drunk father, and a violent brother.

I wouldn’t like Genvie were she a real person. Indeed, the only character I actually liked in it was Genvie’s colleague in the store: Gretchen. This business with the ‘chi’ and ‘transference’ of a person’s emotions, behaviors, and foibles via their clothing is absurd, of course. In a note at the beginning (which I almost didn't read, not being given to indulging in prefaces, introductions, etc.), the author mentions the Shroud of Turin at the start of the book – as though it’s real. It isn’t. It’s a demonstrated fake.

That said, this idea for the infusion of personality into old clothes makes a really great premise for a story. I had an idea of a somewhat similar nature for a children's story a while ago, although mine was not like this one in any of the details. I very much enjoyed the ambiguity which pervades this story, how some things are left open (is Genvie deluding herself about what's happening to her?), or which begin ambiguously, but later resolve in ways you don't necessarily expect.

So, to cut a long story (review) short, I highly recommend this novel. It’s very entertaining, well written and amusing. It’s also a bit scary, and rather gripping and unnerving even though you feel you know what’s coming (you don't!). The ending for me was a bit of a mess (like it was rushed to meet a deadline or the author wasn't sure how to tie off loose ends), but that said, it ended the right way when all was said and done.

Bennington Girls Are Easy by Charlotte Silver

Title: Bennington Girls Are Easy
Author: Charlotte Silver (no website found)
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

This novel sounded really intriguing from the blurb – which just means the blurb did its job in luring me in, but the reading of it was awful. It was one long description, and the description wasn’t even that interesting. These are girls who attended a co-ed school where clothing is supposedly optional, but which was evidently routinely worn. I can imagine some young girls relishing that prospect, but not most of them, and I can’t imagine many parents being in a rush to send their young girls to a school like that.

The girls evidently learned nothing from the school. When they graduate, they get jobs in bakeries and seem to have no interest in pursuing a career or doing anything other than sitting around and gossiping. There was nothing in this story to interest me at all. No characters to like, no one with whom to empathize, no one to root for, and nothing going on.

I don’t do covers. In fact I pay very little attention to them because my blog is about writing and unless the novel is self-published, the author has nothing whatsoever to do with the cover, but I have to say in this particular case that this cover is certainly one of, and possibly the most boring cover I’ve ever paid any attention to! OTOH, it really does, for once, fit the novel! The real problem here was that the story wasn’t interesting. It was slow and dull from the very beginning, and by chapter ten I still really had no idea of who the characters really were, who I was supposed to be paying any attention to, or where the story might be headed.

I made it through those first ten chapters (about a quarter of the way through) and I was skimming pieces of it by then. Nothing changed for that whole ten chapters: nothing got interesting, and nothing happened. This is without question one of the most boring and un-enticing novels I’ve ever read. I cannot in good faith recommend it based on what I read.

Resonance by Chris Dolley

Title: Resonance
Author: Chris Dolley
Publisher: Book View Cafe
Rating: WORTHY!

This is that one in a dozen books that makes the other eleven worth trudging through - because you know that somewhere in that doubtful dozen there's one like this just waiting to be found and enjoyed - and loved. Even if it creeps you out as you read it.

Graham Smith is the main protagonist (and bless the author for not making this first person PoV which would have ruined it). He works in the mail room in a government office in London and for all the world looks like your everyday ordinary OCD guy. But he's not, as we soon find out. There's a rational reason for Graham to do his obsessive observation of things and positioning of items, and his tightly-focused counting of paving stones on the way down his street - because the night we follow him home, his key won't unlock the door - not even after he's followed his ritual.

He's at the wrong house, and this isn’t anywhere nearly as unexpected to him as it is to me and you. He finds a note he wrote to himself in his pocket - it tells him of his new address, which is really his old address - the one he lived at six months before. When he goes there, his key fits and his home is exactly the way he thinks it should be. Once again, the world has unraveled for him.

This unraveling seems to occur often. His mom and dad disappear and reappear, his home changes places and/or becomes 'unexpectedly' redecorated. Books on his shelves disappear or reappear. The only constant is Graham himself. He never changes - he remembers how things used to be and he writes extensive notes to remind himself of what’s what. Sometimes it’s only those which keep him sane. Graham has had so many instances of saying the wrong thing that he's become all but mute, because he doesn’t want to ask any more about someone's parents who now don’t exist (or are still alive), or about a child or a pet.

Imagine how disturbed he is then to discover a girl watching him one day. He's never seen her before, but now it’s like he sees her often. One night she saves him from someone who is following him in a car, but the next time he meets her, her hair is different, she's a different age, and she disappears again. A third one, different again, but the same girl, the same age, shows up. This girl says she's psychic, and can get in touch with the spirits, but there are two hundred of those, and they're all named Annalise - the same as she is.

Intrigued yet? I was gone long before this, and by that I mean completely absorbed by this story about a world which doesn't seem to be able to absorb Graham. Even as I read and admired it, I kicked myself routinely for not thinking of it first. The story was so endearing and fascinating. Until Graham's mom reappears, but looking nothing like Graham remembers. Then it got a wee bit scary. You see, all the pictures Graham had of his mom were pictures of this new woman, and he was absolutely convinced that she wasn't his mom at all.

As much as I love this novel, I have to point out some flaws in it. In a novel like this, which digs heavily into scientific concepts, there are inevitable problems either because the author doesn’t understand science, or because they're trying to hard to make it sound scientific and simply end-up having to paper over significant cracks in it, hoping that readers don’t understand enough science to catch them out.

I think it’s a mistake, even for a writer who actually is a scientist, to try to nail down their fictional concept by larding it with two much of an explanation in an effort to make it sound scientific. I can’t speak for other readers, but I don't require that writers come-up with some new scientific precept to base their novel on. In fact, I prefer it if they don’t, because they inevitably end-up sounding like an idiot. Just wave your hand at something scientific and move on. I'm good with that. This is fiction, for goodness sake! It doesn't need to be completely rationalized in all aspects or justified up the wazoo.

The two main problems I encountered here are for one, the creationist nonsense that there hasn’t been enough time for mutations to do the work of evolution. BULLSHIT! There's been almost four billion years! Bacteria and viruses had three billion years to experiment with mutations and new genes before anything more complex came onto the scene. With some exceptions, pretty much everything since then has been merely tinkering and tweaking.

The second issue is the Single Gene Theory (to give it a Kennedy-esque conspiracy aura!). This is a popular idea in fiction, and it holds that one gene equals one magical trait. Yes, in some limited cases, one gene does equal one trait, but by far the norm is that a series of gene networks is responsible for exactly who we are and how we function, not any single gene, so when the author began ranting about an experimental "telepathy gene" in chapter 37, I felt slightly nauseated to say the least.

There was a similar feeling engendered in me when the novel turned to the inevitable discussion of parallel worlds. Parallel universes, believe it or not, are an inevitable outcome of the mathematics which help explain this universe in which we live. They're not a invention, as creationists like to lie, developed to explain a god away. Whether they're like what popular fiction portrays or something else entirely is another issue. What tripped my BS alert however, was when the author had a character talk about how there could be an infinite number of parallel worlds, yet this character baulked at the idea that some of the worlds could be so close as to be almost the same! I think he needs to seriously ponder the true dimensions of infinity!

We also got that old saw that we don’t use 100% of our brain. I see this a lot in fiction, and it’s complete nonsense. We don't typically use all of our brain at the same time, but rest assured we do use all of it. The brain is a very expensive organ in terms of energy requirements. Evolution would never have been able to develop such an organ were the bulk of it unemployed.

That aside, I loved this story and became addicted to reading it. And there were, I confess, moments of unexpected humor, such as when a character tells us that "...most worlds are more advanced than us…", but we're an average world? I know average isn't the same as median, but seriously? How can it be average if the bulk is greater? That's the same as saying that the average of 1,2,3,4,5, is one!

But a few gripes aside, this, for me was about as close as you can realistically get to writing a perfect novel. It was brilliant and beautiful, with motivated, interesting characters and lots of action. It had edge-of-your-seat moments and daring escapes, it had fun and intrigue, and it had a really kick-ass strong female character who was a full and equal participant in events, in addition to having an intriguing and captivating male lead (who wasn't even named Jack!)

I'm fully on-board with this and I'm looking towards getting my hands on Chris Dolley's entire oeuvre at this point.

Dress Shop of Dreams by Menna van Praag

Title: The Dress Shop of Dreams
Author: Menna van Praag
Publisher:
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

The title to this novel was what drew me in. It's so frivolous! In this story, Etta Sparks owns a rather magical dress shop which seems almost to repel many customers for no obvious reason, but once in a while, the right customer comes in, and Etta knows she can help them find that missing piece of themselves. The dresses tell her so. Plus she has a magical thread!

After we've met Etta, we're introduced to her granddaughter Cora. Almost a polar opposite, Cora leads a very mundane, if regimented life, following her mathematical mind's dictates, working at the lab, visiting the book store, counting things to an OCD level, early to bed, early to rise. Today, however, is her birthday and she's having a meal with her grandmother followed by a special cherry pie baked with love by Walt, at the nearby book store cum pie shop. Walt seems completely lost around Cora, who in turn seems completely unaware of him as a member of the opposite sex.

Here's a precious quote: "Then Walt stops pacing. He has an idea. An idea so different, so startling and wild, it makes him sneeze with shock." LOL! I loved that. The problem is that Walt's idea has nothing to do with Cora - whose name isn't really Cora....

One thing which felt a bit pretentious to me was the inclusion of a book store. Writers tend to do this as a substitute for intellect. 'Oh, she works in a book store, she must be smart!' or 'Oh, he reads books, he must be a treasure!" Book stores are wonderful, and librarians are every bit the figures which Evelyn Carnahan declares them to be in The Mummy, but it's almost a cliché now to include a book store in this kind of novel.

That said, the novel turned out to be pleasantly surprising. It was very layered and rather complex, with one new item after another being offered for consideration as each chapter flew by. Each of the main characters has a background which is carefully exposed and explored. I liked it a lot and I recommend it.

Walking on Trampolines by Frances Whiting

Title: Walking on Trampolines
Author: Frances Whiting
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

I know it’s a novel because it announces itself as such directly there on the cover! I am so grateful for that, because I would never have known otherwise! It's about the relationship between Tallulah de Longland and Annabelle Andrews, who met when Annabelle strutted into her life at Saint Rita's School for Young Ladies, or as Annabelle insisted upon naming it, Saint Rita's School for Young Lesbians. And no, this isn’t a LGBTQ story, not even close.

This novel is set in Australia. I usually enjoy stories set in Australia because they seem so much like stories set in Britain. That sounds like a back-handed compliment but it's really not - I feel just as much at home reading an Aussie story (though I've never been there) as I do a Brit one. Indeed, it’s even possible to forget the location sometimes, and start feeling like it is set in Britain, but then along comes a reminder, and it trips me right up and it’s a real joy to read like that, ones where you’re being frequently shaken out of your cozy safety zone.

I vacillated (yes, vacillated, I shall have it no other way) over whether to rate this positively or negatively. The story is told in three parts and had it been just part one, presented as a short story, I would have, without question or qualification rated it a winner because part one was brilliant and beautifully-written. Unfortunately, then came parts two and three, and while part two only began a gentle downhill glide, part three tipped-up and dunked the reader into a swamp of maudlin Newbery-medal-winner-wannabe material which frankly colored me green - not with envy but with nausea.

If I were rating only parts two and three, I don't doubt that I would even flushed this novel unfinished. So what to do? I think on balance I have to go negative because I can’t rate only a part of it. As I've said before, I can’t say a book is one third worth reading. It’s either worthy or it's warty. There is no in between. If you can stand the sad betrayal of a main female character, as featured in parts two and three, then you should read this. If you are willing to pay the price of a glorious part one in the currency of a miserable parts two and three, then read it. Otherwise avoid it.

The first third or so was tightly focused and brilliantly written, but then it was like the author lost the thread of it or ran out of ideas, and instead of it being about Annabelle and Tallulah, it became about anything and everything, and was nowhere near as entertaining or as engaging as the first part.

I loved Annabelle, and I liked Tallulah in the first third, but Annabelle essentially disappeared after that, and Tallulah went off in so many different directions it was dizzying, and none of that was anywhere near as engrossing.

A new character, Duncan, showed up, and although the author tried to portray him as a good guy, he was, at his core, no different from Josh-the-Jerk, Tallulah's faithless first love. The only difference was that Tallulah worked for Duncan rather than dated him, and he was older than Josh. Otherwise they were the same person at different stages in life, both equally unsavory. Whereas Josh was shown for exactly what he was, for some reason the author chose to portray Duncan as somehow noble - really a good guy underneath his faithlessness, manic cruelty, and cynicism.

Tallulah's two friends: Stella, the stereotypical (in everything save name) Catholic baby-machine, and Simone, the requisite token lesbian friend. Actually, Tallulah's whole take on lesbianism is interesting to say the least. She's convinced that a woman by the name of Maxine Mathers isn't a lesbian because she spent one night in bed with Duncan. A girl can’t change her mind? Yes, if you want to be strict and technical, that makes her bisexual, but the issue here is that Tallulah seems to be under the impression that sexuality is a binary proposition: on or off, plus or minus, yes or no, one or zero. It’s not.

The novel see-saws back and forth between past - Tallulah's almost idyllic recollections of her long teen-age years with Annabelle - and the hellish present-day which Tallulah has created (and has had created) by two major events, the second of which we learn in the very first chapter: she slept with Annabelle's husband Josh, on their wedding night!

Annabelle the younger has the mildly amusing habit of making word mash-ups such as "glamorgeous" and "tediocre". This is faintly reminiscent of Frankie Landau-Banks's behavior in the eponymous novel by E Lockhart, but that novel was better.

Annabelle's parents are artists with all that artistry brings. They're renowned but retiring, friendly, and warm, and creative, really easy-going, flamboyant and rule-skirting. They also have personal issues with each other.

Annabelle lives in a wondrous house, surrounded by trees and beautiful flowers, and the garden rolls readily down to the water, yet for reasons which only slowly become clear, she prefers to visit Tallulah's house, which is smaller and doubles as the home-base of her father Harry's plumbing business. Her mother, Rose, had a difficult childhood, running away from a disastrous home and being raised in a orphanage where she learned to be an excellent cook and dress-maker. She names her dresses with female names which Annabelle thinks is 'astoundible'. When Rose is wearing her 'Doris' dress, it means she's having a Doris day - and that's not an encouraging sign.

The two young girls become inseparable and get along famously - that is when Annabelle isn't inserting herself a little too presumptuously into Tallulah's life. Even when Tallulah hooks up with Josh - her apparently devoted boyfriend - Annabelle is still very much an integral part of their lives. Anyone a little less gullible than Tallulah might have some pause for thought at this point, but she doesn’t. Nor does she devote enough attention to the most pressing two issues she has with Josh: his desire to bed her, and his desire to travel the world immediately after they graduate. The phrase goes, 'he who hesitates is lost', but that homily, notwithstanding its wording, is not actually gender-specific.

At one point in part three, Tallulah decides to open a B&B, but she does none of the work for it - from what the author writes, that is. Everyone and their uncle pitches in to lend a hand, and Tallulah spends all of her time directing everyone in what to do. She herself, of course, has no time to work on executing her own plans because she's fully-occupied 24/7 in griping about being a bad person who isn’t meritorious of the inevitable attention from the inevitable manly man who shows in the form of outdoors-man Will Barton.

Seriously, why in god's name would any healthy girl ever want to become involved with a city gentleman? Yuck, no! If he doesn’t have a rime of bristles on his chin, a few laugh wrinkles hidden in his tanned outdoors skin, and a really gentle manner despite his rough lifestyle, why the hell would any girl be even remotely interested? Where is your thinking at for goodness sakes?! Shape up now!

Will shows up half-way through and it’s glaringly obvious from the first time his name ever appears that he's destined to bed this flighty Tallulah wench. No surprises there. The fact that he's a jerk who runs off in a huff every time Tallulah, in her self-obsessed flagellation, rebuffs him has no bearing on the matter. Trust me.

The real killer for this getting a positive rating from me was chapter twenty nine and beyond. It took the story right into the crapper. This was, coincidentally, right where I’d started skimming a paragraph here and there because it had become so pathetic and maudlin that I couldn’t stand to read the actual words one by one, so the whole thing became more like a fairy-tale than a real tale and not a good one, either.

It felt to me like the author had sat down, and cynically and calculatingly made a list of what she could do to pull every emotional string she could get her little fingers to, and it was truly pathetic where this went. It was at this point, not coincidentally that I quit reading because I really didn’t care how it ended, even though reading only a few more pages would have told me. I wasn't interested in what had increasingly in parts two and three, become nothing more than an exercise in taking potshots at the easy targets in the fairground-stall of pop-the-hear-strings.

One thing which seemed to me to be definitive of this novel was the interview with the author in the last few pages of the advance review copy I had. In the Adobe Digital Editions version which I was reading, the interview is abruptly cut off at the point where the author is asked who her greatest love was, and she answers "My greatest love would be" and the page ends right there, with no more pages to follow! Lol! It was priceless and really summed-up this novel for me. I think Annabelle might describe this as terminknackered.

When I finally gave up on this I kept asking myself how the writing could have gone from being so brilliant to becoming, as Annabelle might have put it, so tediocre in only 260 pages - pages which took seven years to write, even when writing by numbers! I have no answer to that, and in the end I don’t care. I cannot in good faith recommend this novel.

Man Eater by Gar Anthony Haywood

Title: Man Eater
Author: Gar Anthony Haywood
Publisher: Brash Books
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

This novel is an oddity at least in that the cover credits it to Gar Anthony Haywood, whereas the copyright page credits it to Dallas Murphy. Hopefully that's just because the author chose an unusual pseudonym for some reason, and not because of Murphy's law! It had a prologue which I skipped as I do all prologues. If the author doesn't think it's worth putting right there in chapter one, I don't think it's worth reading, and I've never regretted skipping a prologue.

This is set in Tinseltown, where some people are trying to cast a movie titled "Trouble Town" and the whole chapter obsesses over Brad Pitt, whom I am sure realizes that 'thusly' isn't a word. There's a difference in putting a non-word into a character's mouth and putting it into the narrative text as it appeared here. You can even get away with it in the narrative if it's a first person PoV novel, but this isn't.

Needless to say, I hope, this was the start to a novel I DNF'd in short order because I quickly realized that it was not remotely interesting to me. It was rambling and full of tedious (to me) detail that did nothing to move the story and everything to irritate and annoy me. Life is too short to spend on novels which fail to grab you from the go, so I cannot green light this project.