Generation One

Pittacus Lore

Starting a new series in the Lorien Legacies world. We are post war with the Mogadorians and the Garde have won, with the help of the new human garde of course. With Loric energy infusing a new generation, we of course need to start a Professor Xavier like school in order to train the newly powerful humans how to be safe... and to control and use these powers. So we go to school, meet a few of the new human garde, not all of whom are excited to be chosen. They get restless, get into trouble, uncover a vast conspiracy, and learn a lot about themselves in the process of fighting crime and corruption. This is as entertaining as the X-files, and about as deep. In fact, I am increasingly aware of the fact that this could easily have been written by an AI trained in formulaic YA sci-fi.

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Legend

Marie Lu

Straight up YA dystopian future that follows the formula of Divergent or Matched. We are set in a North America post massive sea-level rise, and the east and west coasts of the U.S. have split. The Colonies (the east) are at war with The Republic (the west). Told chapter by chapter from the alternate perspectives of Day (Republic street kid doing what he can to be a one person rebellion) and June (Republic military prodigy). Of course, they meet and not everything is as it seems. I am sure that 5 years ago this would have been astounding. Now it seems wrote.

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Killshot

Elmore Leonard

This crime thriller follows Blackbird, a first nations man residing in Toronto, through a few weeks of his life as an assassin for the Canadian mob. We start with a "standard hit" and then Bird gets connected by chance with a punk named Richie Nix, after which Bird's standard way of looking at, and interacting with, the world change. Regular folk Wayne and Carmen Colson out of Detroit get drawn into this story as well. The explicit plot tension is between the Colsons and the Nix/Bird duo. The more interesting tension is between the Colsons, and also between Nix & Bird. That said, I was only marginally engaged throughout. The story was good, and I enjoyed reading it. But it did not pull me in and demand that I read it. One of those books that lays around on your table for a month, half read.
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Acceptance

Jeff Vandermeer

Book 3 of the Southern Reach Trilogy

I have accepted the fact that this is a bad trilogy. Book 3, I was hoping, would provide some resolution, both in terms of the mystery of what exactly Area X is, and in terms of why we care. I must say that we only find out a bit more about Area X. So the series ends with only vague understandings of what it might be. And I clearly don't care. The motivations are not developed to the point where a reader is truly invested in the characters. I was curious, but not invested. Which leads me to think about why this trilogy showed up on so many 'best book of the year' lists. It was supposed to be a character driven mystery/sci-fi novel. Was it supposed to be commentary on something? Environmentalism? Government control? In-office working relationships? Self-discovery? Or is it supposed to be a character driven, fantasy-mystery? Maybe the fact that I don't know, or couldn't tell, means that I am not the target audience for this trilogy.

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I'll Take You There

Wally Lamb

Felix is a film scholar who runs an informal movie group in the old single screen theater in town. Once a week, he screens a particularly important film in the history of cinema and then leads a discussion. Once day, while setting up of group, he is approached by a couple of ghosts of hollywood past, who are able to show Felix his life film. That is, they have his entire life on film and when he watches, he can step in to the scenes and truly experience all the emotion and drama of the events. In essence, this is a coming of age story for a 60-something man. It was an interesting road-trip listen, but I probably would not have had the patience to stick with it as a read.

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Wicked Appetite

Janet Evanovich

A new series by Evanovich. I liked the Fox & O'Hare series, and now reading this, I can see how it is also in her style, but more extreme. Set in Salem Massachusetts, a young woman (Lizzy) is approached and told that she has a special ability to find things. She is asked to help her new friend (Diesel) find some charms that will lead to finding one of seven stones that represent the seven deadly sins. The catch is that when Lizzy finds one and is near it, she starts taking on those characteristics. Hence the Wicked Appetite title when searching for the gluttony stone. Not a bad premise, but I am not the target audience for this series based on the tone. Not sure what the genre is for books, but I would characterize this as Slapstick. Goofy, wacky language, just a bit too silly to the point of being annoying... to me.
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J

Howard Jacobson

I usually enjoy novels that have won a prize. This was a Man Booker finalist, so I had hopes. While the details are never spelled out, it is essentially the story of life in a rural European town some years after World War II. The result of the war is unclear, but the effect is the suppression of Jews and Jewishness along with the Balkanization of all ethnic groups. So every little small town is an isolationist, homogenous group. Add to this mix a Jewish protagonist, and a mysterious Jewish underground working to insure the continuation of the Jewish line without upsetting the repressive/precarious balance of the status quo.  I can see how this is potentially interesting, but I was not engaged by the writing. The story was too cliche and did not provide any new insight to a post war mentality in Europe. I expect that by creating this alternate history fictional word, Jacobson will be presenting me with an intellectually stimulating point of view or new way of thinking about the specific Jewish trauma in the post war environment or the general cultural/sociological trends that lead to isolation and eventually genocide for any minority. I got neither.
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Time Warped

Claudia Hammond

A non-fiction look at the neuro, psycho, and socio-logical underpinnings for time perception. I will admit that I only read about the first third, was moderately interested and never picked it up again. Not engaging in that it struck me as not particularly ground breaking. Note that this is based only on a first-third reading, so...
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Geek Love

Katherine Dunn

A family of carnival sideshow freaks is the center of this novel. The father is apparently an amateur experimental geneticist who used radiation, chemicals and any other mutagen he could think of on each of his children when they were in utero to create the next big sideshow sensation. I am not sure if the voyeuristic nature of looking in on the family was supposed to be appealing or if trying to see the humanity in the "freaks" was the point. I was not particularly interested in the former and the later was not compelling storytelling.
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Against the Night

Kat Martin

I think the library is putting titles onto my wishlist. Either that, or my memory is bad. Well, we know the latter is true anyway, but I still think the former. I was looking for something to read and this showed up on my wishlist at the library. So I got it and read it. Hmmm... It is a formulaic offering of detective, crime thriller. An ex-special forces turned private detective takes on a client who is looking for her missing sister. The client is a mid-western school teacher who has come to LA to search for said missing sister and is working in an exotic dancing club to make ends meet while here. You get the picture. I just don't think I would have put this book on my list, even if I was looking for something in this category...

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The Man in the High Castle

Philip K Dick

Expectations are always high when reading the master of modern sci-fi. Unfortunately, this book didn't do anything for me. It is an alternate history, set in San Francisco in the 60's after the Axis victory in WWII. San Francisco is part of the Pacific States of America, a territory of Japan. The East is controlled by Germany, with the Rocky Mountain states in a semi-autonomous buffer zone. Germany has all the technology (they control hydrogen bombs, travel to Mars and offer 45 minute flights from Munich to San Francisco on their rockets). We are following several intertwined characters without any of them really rising to the role of protagonist. A dealer in American antiquities, a closeted Jew who makes fake American antiquities, Japanese trade minister, German special forces officers, etc. Throughout, Dick is painting a picture of what life might be like in this world. The novelty is in the introduction of the man of the title. He has written a book that is itself an alternate history that describes life in a world that the Allies win WWII. So alternate - alternate history. Clever. But clever in and of itself does not make an engaging book.

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Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Marisha Pessl

One of my personality traits is the inability to leave a story unfinished. When it comes to things like work projects, this is a strength since it means projects get finished. When it comes to bad films or books, I suppose it is a weakness. I continue to read a bad book, even though it is not enjoyable or fulfilling, just to get to the end. So here we have the first review of a half-book. I am intentionally not finishing it, with the full support of my bibliophile/librarian/recommender-extraordinaire friend Nora.

Here's the thing. This book is all gimmick. Our storyteller is Blue. She is a senior in high school, travels around with her itinerant professor of a single father, and hasn't spent a full year in a single school for her entire life. Her education comes primarily from her father, who seems to be an arrogant, philosopher/historian type, but whom Blue adores and idolizes. So the gimmick of the text is that every thought that Blue has is footnoted and referenced. This is a cute device, and I was hoping that Pessl would hit it heavy early on to give the reader the idea, and then taper off, banking of the fact that an occasional inline citation would remind us of the personality of the character. But I suppose to her credit, she sticks with the gimmick throughout (the first half at least). Secondly, the story is really about these Breakfast Club like characters in school. The troubled teens that band together in spite of their differences, rallying around the part-time film class teacher as mentor. But I just wasn't that interested in the characters, nor was I patient enough to see them develop. While I don't need there to be action (a la fancy car chase scene), I do need to see progression of character. 300 pages in and I don't see it... or enough of it.
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How to Survive in a Science Fictional Universe

Charles Yu

Strange. And not in a good way. Yu is describing a time travel scenario in a world where science fiction is reality. Science fiction universes can be created and he is working in one that is not yet completed. This is kind of interesting, but not used. The primary device here is a time traveling mechanic who is in effect searching for familial meaning. The time travel piece is dealt with in a straight forward way and I found myself slogging through this, waiting for it to be better. Wanting it to be better. About 2/3 through, I came across a 2 page section where Charles father is describing the theoretical underpinnings of how time travel works. Finally, this was interesting. But 2 pages does not a good book make. Sorry Charles, go back and try again.

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Beauty Queens

Libba Bray

I really liked Going Bovine so was looking forward to this. Almost as strange, but largely unsatisfying. Bray sends  teen beauty pageant contestants to a remote island after a plane crash. We have to see how they cope and adjust. I was hoping for a bit more Lord of the Flies. It is a bit too cheesy, too surface focused. We don't get to see any depth of development in the characters. We don't get substantial commentary on culture of women, war, or media (all of which are possible here). Instead, we slide along the surface with complex plot constructs that take too much time to allow us to settle in to any real thinking.

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Requiem

Lauren Oliver

Book 3 of Delirium trilogy
 Delirium - Book 1
 Pandemonium - Book 3


I had high hopes. Those hopes were dashed. This is one of the worst completions to a trilogy that I have read in quite awhile. Blue Mars wasn't great, but it had some value. This had none. No character development, no real resolution, no novelty. Really cookie cutter dystopian, teen love triangle with a cop-out ending. In the first book, Lena discovered the truth about society, in the second she discovers life outside of society. In the third, she wanders around with angst about which boy she loves. I will say that I continue to appreciate the modified biblical scriptures presented in "The Book of SHHH", as exemplified by the story of Solomon solving the problem of the baby with two mothers claiming it by actually cutting the baby in half. This is a brilliant continuation of the look at propaganda and power. But it doesn't go anywhere beyond what we have already seen. Spend your time reading something better.

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White Noise

Don DeLillo

Maybe it was that I haven't had a lot of time to read lately, but I really had to push through this book. Seen as a real statement on the effects of electronic/consumerist culture on family life, I was looking forward to reading this. Unfortunately, it did not meet my expectations. DeLillo's style consistently reminded me of a Vonnegut novel, but without the clear Vonnegut panache. Instead, I felt like I was reading someone trying too hard to be Vonnegut. And while there were some enjoyable ideas here, the execution left me flat. That said, I will highlight the one element that was worthwhile. If nothing else, get the book and read the second to last chapter. The protagonist finds himself in the ER of a local hospital run by nuns. In a conversation with one of the nun nurses, a great dialogue transpires about the role of the religious in a cultural belief system. Extremely cynical and cutting, which is probably why I laughed out loud.

Skip this one.

Oryx and Crake

Margaret Atwood

This is the prequel to The Year of the Flood. Or more accurately, the The Year... is the sequel book to Oryx and Crake, but the book's timelines are concurrent, with The Year... just a bit earlier. It is just that I read The Year... first. To be honest, having read The Year..., you don't need to read the original. There is no new information. I was expecting some back story, some interesting development to give more understanding about how the whole GMO gone wild scenario developed. I was sorely disappointed. We follow Jimmy (Snowman) after the breakdown of society and as he is "monitoring" the Crakers. We get uninteresting background, with no real new depth to Oryx or Crake. I think had I read this book first, I would never have read The Year... so I am at least glad that my order was "correct".

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Flip

Martyn Bedford

A very similar story to Switch, but the switch only happens once. More metaphysical than ghost story. Alex wakes up one day in Philip's body. He must figure out who he is, who are his friends and how to cope with daily life. He must also decide how he is going to proceed with his life. I am not sure why this is an interesting story, other than perhaps for those who spend a lot of time wishing they were someone else. If so, then this is a cautionary tale as Alex begins to realize that between his psyche (or soul) and the physicality of his neurons, something doesn't match, and will never match. Even if  he consciously decided to accept his new life, he will always be unsettled. For me, the most interesting discussion is about whether a psyche swap is even possible. If your consciousness and soul is really just the unique arrangement of neurons in you (the physical you), then the swap is not possible. But what belief about the soul would make such a swap possible. Bedford touches on this, but it is a throw away in the plot, just filler to show how strange Alex (Phillip) is by asking questions like this in science class.

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Switch

Carol Snow

This book is clearly intended for a teenage girl. Claire is a typical teen girl with typical issues. Her uniqueness comes from the fact that the spirit of her dead grandmother hangs around and that when she gets an electric shock, she switches bodies with someone else who has a birthday near hers. So this is a standard plot of switching into the body of someone in a totally different social class and finding out that they have something in common. Nothing groundbreaking. Not poorly written, but nothing to write home about.

Rating: Skip

Solar

Ian Mcewan

The protagonist (Michael Beard) is a physicist who received a Nobel Prize early in his career and is now coasting on his own coattails. He becomes involved in developing artificial photosynthesis while his true occupation is managing his hedonism. While technically this is science fiction, it isn't really very interesting or novel unless you are interested in watching a character devolve. The fact that Beard is a scientist is really just an excuse for a plot to see the guy blow up. He could have just as well been an artist or a welder. I like my science fiction to stretch my ideas of science. In effect, I like it to be fantastic.

Skip it