I love Jerry Spinelli. I have never been disappointed by a Spinelli book, even Wringer, a book whose subject matter is incredibly repulsive to me. I think the first Spinelli book I ever read was Maniac McGee. I loved it so much, and I have such a high opinion of it, that I am sure if I ever read it again I’d be disappointed. I think over the years it has taken on this almost holy aura, I have built it up to be something more than it ever was, than it ever could be. So I refuse to read it again. But when I saw Spinelli’s name on Stargirl, I knew I had to read it.
Hmm…..first, I want to point out that it’s no Maniac McGee. But it IS good. The storyteller is Leo, he’s somewhere in the 14-17 range (I already forgot!), and he tells us about a new student in his school—a girl who’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen. She has named herself Stargirl, she dresses like Little House on the Prairie, she has a pet rat, she carries a ukulele around with her, she sings Happy Birthday to strangers, she dances in the rain, etc.
To compress the entire book into a few sentences: Stargirl charms the school. Leo falls in love. They sort of date (dating Stargirl is not like dating a “normal” girl). The school turns on her. Leo tries to make her change. It fails. She eventually leaves. Leo moons over her for the next 15 years.
This is a really sweet book, but it also…..unnerved me a little. Because at times I felt that Spinelli himself wasn’t sure whose side he was on—at times you cheer her on for her uniqueness, but at other times she comes off as retarded. I’m serious: mentally deficient. She is completely unaware of her surroundings ONLY when people are unhappy with her. She just doesn’t see it. And she inserts herself into other people’s lives to the point that she goes to a stranger’s funeral and gets kicked out and STILL does not understand what was wrong about it. She can spout some really beautiful things about enchanted places, but she doesn’t get modern society’s rules at all. I like to think Spinelli did that on purpose: he’s not going to create a character that’s perfect so you’ll know “ok, I’m supposed to love her”. He creates a character that just……is. And you respond to her how you will.
With Leo…Leo is all of us, I think. He turns on her, in the end (to totally spoil it for you) but it bothers him for a long time. He never forgets her and you know that he wants to see her again. I hated Leo at points in this book. He loves her, and yet he wants to change her COMPLETELY so that the school will like her again. I wanted to shake him for that, but it’s such a human thing to do, to want to “fix” things, that I suppose I shouldn’t hold it against him.
Screw that, I’m holding it against him: Leo is an asshole.
My favorite part: mockingbirds. A character talks about how he/she thinks that mockingbirds not only mimic birds of today, they also mimic birds that lived a thousand years ago, that the songs have been passed down through the generations and that when you hear a mockingbird sing you might be hearing a bird that’s been extinct since before your great-great-great-grandmother was born. I really liked that idea.
I've got the sequel to this, called "Love, Stargirl" and I'm anxious to see how this whole Leo/Stargirl thing works out.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
This book is fantastic! It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s hopeful…it’s a lot for such a short book.
It’s about Arnold Spirit, a 14-year-old Indian boy living on a reservation (the “rez”). First, he introduces us into his life: he was born with an excess of cerebrospinal fluid in his brain, resulting in a lot of surgeries. He’s skinny, has a big head, and stutters AND lisps. He’s a pretty big outcast on the rez. However, he has a best friend, and a loving family (even though his parents have problems with alcohol and his sister lives in the basement, unwilling or unable to move on with her life after graduating high school), so he’s generally happy.
((OH and I almost forgot: he likes to draw, so the author had someone do illustrations for the book, little drawings of people and events, and some little comics, just anything that would enhance the story. The illustrations made this book more special, for me.))
However, Arnold decides to leave his school on the rez and go to another school 22 miles away. It’s mostly white, and he knows he’s going to get shit for being the only Indian there AND the people on the rez are going to think he’s turning his back on them, but he decides to do it anyway, because he sees the white school as hope, and the Indian school as hopeless. The rest of the book is about his experiences at the new school, his relationship with his best friend, and how his family deals with certain problems that arise that I don’t want to give away.
I’d recommend this book to high schools—the language isn’t exactly pretty in some places, but aside from that I think it teaches some good lessons, concerning alcoholism especially.
It’s about Arnold Spirit, a 14-year-old Indian boy living on a reservation (the “rez”). First, he introduces us into his life: he was born with an excess of cerebrospinal fluid in his brain, resulting in a lot of surgeries. He’s skinny, has a big head, and stutters AND lisps. He’s a pretty big outcast on the rez. However, he has a best friend, and a loving family (even though his parents have problems with alcohol and his sister lives in the basement, unwilling or unable to move on with her life after graduating high school), so he’s generally happy.
((OH and I almost forgot: he likes to draw, so the author had someone do illustrations for the book, little drawings of people and events, and some little comics, just anything that would enhance the story. The illustrations made this book more special, for me.))
However, Arnold decides to leave his school on the rez and go to another school 22 miles away. It’s mostly white, and he knows he’s going to get shit for being the only Indian there AND the people on the rez are going to think he’s turning his back on them, but he decides to do it anyway, because he sees the white school as hope, and the Indian school as hopeless. The rest of the book is about his experiences at the new school, his relationship with his best friend, and how his family deals with certain problems that arise that I don’t want to give away.
I’d recommend this book to high schools—the language isn’t exactly pretty in some places, but aside from that I think it teaches some good lessons, concerning alcoholism especially.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Carry Me Home, by Sandra King
Mom and I both read this, and both loved it, but we took so many opposite views on it!
For instance, in the beginning I was telling her it was hard for me to read this because it’s written from the view of a retarded 16 y/o boy, and that is distracting. Also, it has a lot of those moments where inside you just cringe, because you know just how the dude is going to mess up, and it’s almost painful to read. Mom, however, loved his view of things, and felt that he was the only character in the book who saw the truth. I eventually came around to her way of thinking.
Another example: The boy’s mother! I hated her! She treats the retarded kid so unfairly compared to his “normal” older brother and she’s always fussing at him, almost as if she is totally forgetting that he is mentally-challenged and DOES NOT understand her sometimes! This kid had to be removed from school because he couldn’t pass the 3rd grade and was getting too big for the class, so why does she fuss at him for making mistakes? Mom felt that the mother loved him and always wanted him with her, and I felt that she was a bitch who just liked harping on him. I held that view right up until the last few chapters, when the mother started to change and she got less bitchy.
Oh, synopsis: Earl/Earwig/Earlwig (he’s called all 3 by different characters) is 16 and retarded. His brother Jimmy is 21 and not. They both live with their parents, and they both work with their parents: Jimmy with the dad, and Earl with the mom. The author gives a brief look at their daily life, before pretty much destroying it for a little while. Jimmy signs up for the National Guard and ends up being sent to overseas during WWII and kept in a Japanese prison camp for a few years. The parents’ marriage nearly collapses, but Earl actually grows up a little. He gets a job outside of his mother’s store, and starts making friends with two women he works with, possibly the only friends he’s ever made on his own besides a 6 y/o boy named Eddie that he likes to play with. His other friends were all made through Jimmy and every one of them went off to the war.
Since I’m no essayist, here’s a list of stuff I liked about the book:
Besides the story, the author tries to convey what life was like during the time, with the ration stamps, and women having to go to work, and the children going through air raid drills in school. She also makes a little social commentary towards the end, when the boys come home from war and the women have to quit their jobs and go back home. This reminds me of point 2:
The father is the Voice of Reason throughout the book. He sees where things are heading before the war starts, and he’s the one trying to warn everyone of what shape the boys’ll be in when they get back home. He understands more of how the world works than anyone else in this book. He’s the go-to guy for advice, and I really found myself loving this dude.
Favorite lines:
Childbirth is as natural as taking a shit.
I hope to hell I ain’t gotta tell [---] he’s got a cute baby in there, ‘cause that sure would be a lie. (Earl got a glimpse of the afterbirth and thought it was the baby, lol)
Titty moon.
I wouldn’t have made it back if it weren’t for you, Earwig. I just kept telling myself every day, every hour, that I had to live through it to come home for you. (I dare anyone to read this book and not tear up at that part. IF YOU DO NOT GET AT LEAST A LITTLE MISTY-EYED THEN YOU ARE A ROBOT.)
There were more lines but I forgot them already. I have a new rule: I write these blogs AS I read the book, so maybe it’s less of a hodgepodge of my thoughts.
Who am I kidding, there’s no way I’m every going to put these blogs in any sort of proper form, like a real essay, HAHA.
This was funnier than I thought it was going to be, and more touching than I thought it was going to be. Except for the pretty bad language, I think this would make an excellent book club book, actually.
For instance, in the beginning I was telling her it was hard for me to read this because it’s written from the view of a retarded 16 y/o boy, and that is distracting. Also, it has a lot of those moments where inside you just cringe, because you know just how the dude is going to mess up, and it’s almost painful to read. Mom, however, loved his view of things, and felt that he was the only character in the book who saw the truth. I eventually came around to her way of thinking.
Another example: The boy’s mother! I hated her! She treats the retarded kid so unfairly compared to his “normal” older brother and she’s always fussing at him, almost as if she is totally forgetting that he is mentally-challenged and DOES NOT understand her sometimes! This kid had to be removed from school because he couldn’t pass the 3rd grade and was getting too big for the class, so why does she fuss at him for making mistakes? Mom felt that the mother loved him and always wanted him with her, and I felt that she was a bitch who just liked harping on him. I held that view right up until the last few chapters, when the mother started to change and she got less bitchy.
Oh, synopsis: Earl/Earwig/Earlwig (he’s called all 3 by different characters) is 16 and retarded. His brother Jimmy is 21 and not. They both live with their parents, and they both work with their parents: Jimmy with the dad, and Earl with the mom. The author gives a brief look at their daily life, before pretty much destroying it for a little while. Jimmy signs up for the National Guard and ends up being sent to overseas during WWII and kept in a Japanese prison camp for a few years. The parents’ marriage nearly collapses, but Earl actually grows up a little. He gets a job outside of his mother’s store, and starts making friends with two women he works with, possibly the only friends he’s ever made on his own besides a 6 y/o boy named Eddie that he likes to play with. His other friends were all made through Jimmy and every one of them went off to the war.
Since I’m no essayist, here’s a list of stuff I liked about the book:
Besides the story, the author tries to convey what life was like during the time, with the ration stamps, and women having to go to work, and the children going through air raid drills in school. She also makes a little social commentary towards the end, when the boys come home from war and the women have to quit their jobs and go back home. This reminds me of point 2:
The father is the Voice of Reason throughout the book. He sees where things are heading before the war starts, and he’s the one trying to warn everyone of what shape the boys’ll be in when they get back home. He understands more of how the world works than anyone else in this book. He’s the go-to guy for advice, and I really found myself loving this dude.
Favorite lines:
Childbirth is as natural as taking a shit.
I hope to hell I ain’t gotta tell [---] he’s got a cute baby in there, ‘cause that sure would be a lie. (Earl got a glimpse of the afterbirth and thought it was the baby, lol)
Titty moon.
I wouldn’t have made it back if it weren’t for you, Earwig. I just kept telling myself every day, every hour, that I had to live through it to come home for you. (I dare anyone to read this book and not tear up at that part. IF YOU DO NOT GET AT LEAST A LITTLE MISTY-EYED THEN YOU ARE A ROBOT.)
There were more lines but I forgot them already. I have a new rule: I write these blogs AS I read the book, so maybe it’s less of a hodgepodge of my thoughts.
Who am I kidding, there’s no way I’m every going to put these blogs in any sort of proper form, like a real essay, HAHA.
This was funnier than I thought it was going to be, and more touching than I thought it was going to be. Except for the pretty bad language, I think this would make an excellent book club book, actually.
Living Dead in Dallas, by Charlaine Harris
Damn, I love these books because they’re short and easy! In this installment (side note: I hate this title) Sookie and her boyfriend get lent to the Dallas vamps to help solve a missing vampire mystery. There, Sookie learns that shapeshifters are more prevalent than she previously thought, that werewolves do exist and they are assholes, and that you can’t trust people just because a vamp says so. She is supposed to just interrogate the humans at the last place the vamp was seen, but ends up having to go undercover into a religious super-anti-vampire cult and gets captured and all sorts of shit. Meeting Bill (her dead boyfriend) was basically the worst thing to ever happen to her. She thinks otherwise, of course, because with him she finally gets to relax because she can’t read his mind and blah blah blah they have a lot of sex, but seriously—because of him her grandmother is dead and she’s been beaten up every 10 pages by both “normal” people and the supernatural. And she is entirely too unfazed by this for my liking.
And yet, I’m still reading the books. It’s almost as if I like making myself irritated.
Oh and also the author is trying to create some romantic tension between Sookie, Bill, and Eric, Bill’s vampire boss/elder/basically he can tell him what to do. On several occasions Sookie has needed to take Eric’s blood, so now they are emotionally connected, and seeing as how Bill is a chauvinistic jealous brat things get all stupid and tensiony and crap. But, as with the other book, when the action is going on (car chases, wild demon woman attacks in the woods) I can really get into it and enjoy it.
I can see myself reading maybe 3, 4 more of these before I Cromwell/Koontz this author for good.
And yet, I’m still reading the books. It’s almost as if I like making myself irritated.
Oh and also the author is trying to create some romantic tension between Sookie, Bill, and Eric, Bill’s vampire boss/elder/basically he can tell him what to do. On several occasions Sookie has needed to take Eric’s blood, so now they are emotionally connected, and seeing as how Bill is a chauvinistic jealous brat things get all stupid and tensiony and crap. But, as with the other book, when the action is going on (car chases, wild demon woman attacks in the woods) I can really get into it and enjoy it.
I can see myself reading maybe 3, 4 more of these before I Cromwell/Koontz this author for good.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris
Poorly written, and bears some uncanny resemblance to the Twilight series, even down to the overprotective-bordering-on-controlling boyfriend. But for now, having read this book and currently halfway through the sequel, "Living Dead in Dallas", I like it. It's an easy read. Just turn off that part of your brain that says "hey, that contradicts what was written before. HEY MODERN SOCIETY WOULD NEVER ACCEPT THAT!". That's referring to the fact that vampires have "come out of the coffin" and formed some sort of weird truce with humanity. Humans pretend the vamps are really infected with a virus that makes them allergic to sunlight, silver, and garlic. Vamps who would like to become "mainstream" drink synthetic blood and file taxes and shit. However, they still think of humans as lower forms of life.....like cows. I think that the humans would pick up on that and annihilate the suckers (haha!), seeing as how no matter how super-human you are and manipulative of the human brain at night, in the daytime you are a dead body stuffed in a casket, totally defenseless if someone wants to, say, set you on fire.
Also (!) Vampire blood has healing powers and gives you energy and makes you pretty and all kinds of awesomeness, and although they mention in the book that some people trap and drain vampires, I think a LOT more people would be doing that in real life, until vamps were extinct. Even if you don't take the blood, it's easy to sell and very expensive, so it would feed whatever addiction you DO have, so imagine all the meth heads in the world realizing that they are one dead vampire away from enough crack to take a bath in.
OOH, I just found out via Wikipedia that this lady lives 2 hours from my house. This means that, theoretically, I could have show up at her house and tell her everything that's wrong with this series. HAHAH just read that she's a former weightlifter and karate student. I'M SORRY MRS. HARRIS. PLEASE DO NOT KICK MY ASS.
Quick synopsis of the book: Sookie Stackhouse: waitress and psychic, meets Bill Compton: vampire trying to mainstream (become a regular part of society). There are some murders in Sookie's little town, which are alternately blamed on her brother and then Bill. It's not really a mystery in that Sookie doesn't go all Nancy Drew, looking for clues and stuff, but she does help find the killer, and in the process gets a totally selfish and overbearing dead boyfriend in the process.
Another problem with the book: Sookie gets mad when her coworker doesn't want Sookie to watch her kids if her boyfriend will be present. My thoughts on this: SOOKIE HE IS A FUCKING VAMPIRE WHO LIVES ON HUMAN BLOOD. WHAT MOTHER WOULD BE OKAY WITH THAT???? Eventually, though, the mom is okay with that. WELCOME TO THE MOST RETARDED TOWN IN LOUISIANA.
Also (!) Vampire blood has healing powers and gives you energy and makes you pretty and all kinds of awesomeness, and although they mention in the book that some people trap and drain vampires, I think a LOT more people would be doing that in real life, until vamps were extinct. Even if you don't take the blood, it's easy to sell and very expensive, so it would feed whatever addiction you DO have, so imagine all the meth heads in the world realizing that they are one dead vampire away from enough crack to take a bath in.
OOH, I just found out via Wikipedia that this lady lives 2 hours from my house. This means that, theoretically, I could have show up at her house and tell her everything that's wrong with this series. HAHAH just read that she's a former weightlifter and karate student. I'M SORRY MRS. HARRIS. PLEASE DO NOT KICK MY ASS.
Quick synopsis of the book: Sookie Stackhouse: waitress and psychic, meets Bill Compton: vampire trying to mainstream (become a regular part of society). There are some murders in Sookie's little town, which are alternately blamed on her brother and then Bill. It's not really a mystery in that Sookie doesn't go all Nancy Drew, looking for clues and stuff, but she does help find the killer, and in the process gets a totally selfish and overbearing dead boyfriend in the process.
Another problem with the book: Sookie gets mad when her coworker doesn't want Sookie to watch her kids if her boyfriend will be present. My thoughts on this: SOOKIE HE IS A FUCKING VAMPIRE WHO LIVES ON HUMAN BLOOD. WHAT MOTHER WOULD BE OKAY WITH THAT???? Eventually, though, the mom is okay with that. WELCOME TO THE MOST RETARDED TOWN IN LOUISIANA.
Anatomy of a Murder, By Robert Traver
This is going to sound stupid, but although I thought the book was well-written, I also thought it was boring as shit. Barely read it, because I simply could not make myself interested in it at all.
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