Movie Review: Rosemary’s Baby (1968) November 9, 2009

I love horror films, and I’d been meaning to watch this classic for quite some time.  Netflix is so good for making you finally get around to seeing movies you’ve always meant to see.

Summary:
Rosemary and her actor husband move into a new apartment despite protestations from a friend that the building has a bit of a history of odd things happening.  Their new neighbors are a friendly, elderly couple.  In fact, Rosemary finds them to be a bit too friendly, but her husband likes them and insists the friendship be kept up.  Soon Rosemary is pregnant, but there is something odd about her pregnancy she can’t quite put her finger on until it is too late.

Review:
This is the type of horror story I love.  Something sinister lurking in the background of the main character’s life.  Everyone around her telling her she’s the crazy one or that she’s paranoid with only the main character and the viewer seeing what’s really going on.  This gives such a different scared vibe than the more typical, oh we’re in a scary hotel room for one night ahhh.

The cinematography has that classic 1960s feel that I personally love.  Maybe there’s a technical term for it, I don’t know, but it’s that awkward shot.  Instead of every shot being perfectly clean cut like in modern films, the actors aren’t always in center and focused.  People are off to the side.  It gives almost a mockumentary film feeling without any of those staged interviews.

Mia Farrow’s acting is truly excellent.  Her facial expressions show the wheels turning in her head even when other characters are in the room with Rosemary.  You can see how Rosemary senses something is wrong, yet she isn’t sure what exactly.

Ruth Gordon, playing the elderly neighbor woman, also offers up an excellent acting job.  She plays to perfection that horribly annoying elderly woman who everyone else finds delightful but you just want to stop touching your throw pillows.  It may seem like an easy part to play, but it is a fine line to walk, and she executes it perfectly.

I think what kept me from loving the movie as opposed to just really liking it were the odd dream sequences.  These too have a classic 1960s feel, but not in a good way.   They feel fake, and jerked me out of the world I had been sucked into.  I think most of the dream sequences could have been done without.

There is no way to discuss the social commentary this movie makes without giving away a massive spoiler, so let me just say that women’s agency is central to the plot of this film and is one of the main reasons I liked it.

If you enjoy horror, 1960s cinematography, or subtle social commentary, you will enjoy this film.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: Netflix

Book Review: Living Dead in Dallas By Charlaine Harris (series, #2) November 6, 2009

I generally lean a bit more toward stand-alone books and trilogies, but every once in a while I get caught up in a series.  Currently, I’m caught up in two–Sookie Stackhouse Series and Dark Tower Series.  Anyway, I decided I should warn you guys if a book is in the middle of a series by placing (series, #number) in the title.  So be warned that means there will be spoilers for books preceding that book, but probably not for that book itself.  Got it? Good!  There are currently 9 books in the Sookie Stackhouse Series and 7 in the Dark Tower Series, so don’t despair! Stand-alones and trilogies will be back shortly.  Now, on to the review!

Summary:
Sookie discovers yet another murder in Bon Temps when she finds Merlotte’s cook, Lafayette, dead in the bar’s parking lot.  She doesn’t have much time to even think about the murder, though, because Eric has called upon her to fulfill her duty to the vampires.  She’s been hired by a vampire nest in Dallas to investigate the disappearance of one of their brothers.  Sookie discovers there’s more to the supernatural world–and the natural one–than she ever bargained for.

Review:
Maybe it’s because I have yet to see the second season of True Blood and thus don’t have the awesomeness that is that tv show to compare to, but I found myself liking this entry into Sookie’s escapades far more than Dead Until Dark.  The first book is much more about the murders than the supernatural world Sookie finds herself on the edge of.  Here, she is forced to confront the fact that, yes, she is dating someone from an entirely different world than hers.

This key plot element is what drives the story in a two-pronged fashion.  First, Sookie encounters far more supernatural beings than she has before–shapeshifters, werewolves, vampires, a maenad, and another telepath.  The supernatural world is far bigger and more complex than she ever imagined.  Vampires weren’t one lonely group separated from everyone.  They’re a group in an underground world that is straddling both worlds and neither seems too happy about it.   This makes the whole idea of vampires coming out of the coffin more interesting, because the other supernatural creatures have one thing in common with the humans:  they aren’t happy with the vampires for coming out.

Second, Sookie finally has to deal with the fact that, much as she loves Bill, he has his faults just like anyone does.  His just run a bit more shocking to her, because he is in fact a member of the undead.  Bill tells her at one point that he hasn’t been human far longer than he was human, and he often forgets what it is like to feel human.  There is definitely an element of Bill that is a monster, and Sookie sees that.  Bill may be trying to control it, but it’s there.  Sookie moves past the honeymoon phase of the relationship and has to decide if her and Bill really are a good match.  If the pleasure of loving him is worth the difficulties and struggles.

All the strong features and weaknesses of Dead Until Dark are found here.  The conversations are again, excellent.  I particularly enjoyed when a werewolf calls Sookie “little milkbone.”  On the other hand, the multiple storylines of many characters found in True Blood are again absent here.  I think, however, as the series progresses, it will be easier to see this as Sookie’s story and True Blood as Bon Temps’ story, and Sookie is enough of a three-dimensional character to keep it interesting.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: Bought on Amazon

Previous Books in Series:
Dead Until Dark, review

Book Review: The Gunslinger By Stephen King November 3, 2009

Summary:
The first in King’s epic, Tolkien-like Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger introduces Roland who lives in a world similar to, yet different from our own.  He is the last gunslinger, a kind of wild west type warrior.  As he pursues the Man in Black across a desert in the first of many steps toward his goal of the Dark Tower, some elements of his dark past are revealed, as are some secrets of the many parallel, yet somehow linked, universes.

Review:
I admit it.  I’m not normally a Stephen King fan, but after two people I know started devouring this series, I decided I had to know just what was so exciting.

I’m shocked to discover, I like a Stephen King book.  I’m not so shocked to discover that this is an incredibly male book.  Roland’s life centers around violence, guns, a quest, the women he beds, and taking care of a boy.  It isn’t just the plot line that’s masculine though.  The writing style is decidedly male.  Roland is abrupt and to the point.  Instead of talking about his heart fluttering, he gets hard-ons.  Instead of his palms sweating with nerves, his balls retract up tightly against him.  It’s gritty, dark, and male. And I liked it.

It reminds me a lot of watching old westerns with my father.  This shouldn’t be surprising, since in the introduction King essentially says that he set out to write the American version of an epic in the style of Tolkien. What’s more American and epic than the wild west? Oh, I know, a parallel universe version of the wild west. With mutants.

It is a bit slow-moving at first.  That’s not surprising, though, given that it’s the first in a series of seven.  Think of it as the introduction chapter, only prolonged through two-thirds of the book.  It’s not a boring introduction by any means; it just takes a while to get attached to the characters and thoroughly engrossed in the over-arching story.  That’s ok though, because King provides plenty of nightmarish scenes in the mean-time to keep you reading.

I’ve always had a bit of a tendency to thoroughly enjoy more masculine stories just as much, if not more than more feminine stories.  (I was the little girl who was excited to watch the war movie marathon on Veteran’s Day.)  If you know that you enjoy this type of gritty story, definitely give The Gunslinger a shot.  You won’t be disappointed.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: Borrowed

Movie Review: Choke (2008) November 2, 2009

I promised you guys more than just book reviews, but what can I say, I read more books than I finish movies and definitely videogames.  I play them a lot, but it takes me forever to finish.  Anyway, I’m finally keeping that by-line promise.  Here be my first movie review! (They will be much shorter than the book reviews).

Summary:
Vincent had to drop out of medical school to get a full-time job as a colonial reenactor in order to pay the bills to keep his Alzheimer’s mother in a good home for people with mental illness.  To help boost the bank account, he sometimes pretends to choke in fancy restaurants, then sues his rescuers.  Of course, that’s what he goes to meetings for.  He goes to meetings because he’s a sex addict.  When he meets his mother’s new doctor, he starts to question who he really is when he discovers that he might sort of actually like her.

Review:
I admit it.  I have a weakness for movies about legitimately crazy people finding their way through life. Particularly when finding their way involves falling in love.  Although the title implies that Vincent’s scam is the focus of the movie, in fact it is about how his random childhood with his mother and foster families made him who he is today.

For a movie based on a Chuck Palahniuk book, this isn’t very graphic.  Clearly since Vincent’s a sex addict, there are some moderately graphic sex scenes, but there is little violence and the sex is pretty normal.  I’ve seen more disturbing scenes on Entourage.

The acting is good.  It’s nothing mind-blowing, but it’s not bad either.  Setting of the scenes is done quite well.  It feels like the everyday world cranked up a notch.

What makes Choke interesting isn’t the violence shock factor that Fight Club had going for it.  Choke modestly proposes that it’s ok to be a bit crazy–in moderation.  It also dares to suggest that we can be who we decide to be instead of what society says we are as long as we’re aware enough to make that conscious decision.

If you want gratuitous sex from the author who brought us the violence of Fight Club, don’t bother with Choke.  However, if you enjoy movies about the mind and what makes us who we are, give Choke a shot.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Source: Netflix

Book Review: Dead Until Dark By Charlaine Harris October 28, 2009

Since I watched the first season of True Blood and loved it, I decided to read the book the first season is based on.  This was an interesting reversal for me, since usually I’ve read a book then seen the tv show/movie that is made from it.  Anyway, this review naturally contains comparisons between the two, so be warned there are spoilers for both Dead Until Dark and the first season of True Blood.

Summary:
Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress in a bar in a small town in Louisiana, has been wanting to meet a vampire ever since they came out of the coffin a few years ago.  She gets her chance when Bill Compton, a vampire who was made right after the Civil War, moves to her town of Bon Temps.  Bill is in turn intrigued by Sookie, because she is different from other humans–she can read minds.  They start dating, but it’s not always easy to date a vampire–especially when local women known to hook-up with them are being murdered by an unknown killer.

Review:
Charlaine Harris’s strength as a romance novelist is definitely witty conversations between our heroine and the various male characters in the books.  They are witty and come across remarkably real considering the paranormalness of the plot.   She also sets scenes well.  I’ve never been to Louisiana, but I could just feel the humidity in the air as Sookie partook in various night adventures.

Something that bothered me when watching True Blood was I just couldn’t understand what Sookie found appealing in Bill.  I find him dull, boring, and ugly.  In the book, though, it is abundantly clear that what is so appealing about Bill is that Sookie can relax around him since she can’t read his mind.  The amount she relaxes in scenes with just him is palpable.  I therefore understand why she chooses to overlook his various faults.

The book is written in first-person, and I think this was an unfortunate choice.  It limits our ability to see everything that is going on in Sookie’s world.  Most notably missing is Jason’s storyline.  In True Blood vampire blood is sold as a drug, V, and Jason becomes addicted to it.  Thus, his odd behavior with Sookie is understandable.  In the book though we only hear hints of V being used by anyone and certainly not by Jason.  Jason is just a douchebag.  This limits the levels of story in the book, and I missed the multiple storylines.

*spoiler warning*
The end of Dead Until Dark almost makes up for this though.  In True Blood the murderer comes for Sookie, and she is saved by Bill and her boss, Sam.  In the book though Sookie is left entirely on her own and saves herself.  She finds the faces the murderer alone and defeats him.  She finds her inner strength and just keeps fighting back.  The murderer even says that the Stackhouse women were the only ones to fight back (he also killed her grandmother).  They didn’t just lay back and let it happen.  That’s what makes Sookie such a great romance heroine–she is strong and independent.  She doesn’t need her relationship with Bill, but she does want it.  This makes their romance much more fun.
*end spoiler*

Finally, if you’re a romance novel reader, you might be wondering about the quality of the sex scenes.  Well, they do exist, and they are not corny.  However, they also just aren’t that exciting.  Harris keeps them short and to the point.  No witty, fun double entendres are used, either, which is one of my personal favorite aspects of romance novels.  This book isn’t one to read for the sex scenes; it’s one to read for the storyline.

If you could mash up the best parts of Dead Until Dark with the best parts of True Blood, you would have a truly amazing story.  Unfortunately, both versions have flaws that hold them back from excellence.  Dead Until Dark is worth reading if you enjoy paranormal romance.  If you just want to read the books because you like True Blood for anything but the main Sookie storyline, though, don’t bother reading the books.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Sources: I bought Dead Until Dark and Netflixed True Blood.

 

 

The Problem With the Twilight Series October 23, 2009

This week there’s been a bit of internet commentary that librarians can be a bit elitist when it comes to books.  They’re saying that librarians scorn the likes of Dan Brown and attempt to force-feed works like Catch-22 to patrons.

Now, I personally know some librarians who harbor a hatred of Dan Brown, but I also know that they bought multiple copies of The Lost Symbol for their library.  Similarly, I’m a librarian, and I read my fair share of “trashy,” easy literature.  Hell, I’m currently reading the Sookie Stackhouse series.  Given these facts, I’d prefer it if the commentators said *some* librarians try to force patrons to read what they want them to read.  There probably is one out there somewhere who does that.  What really pisses me off, though, is the people who’ve accused me of being elitist due to my loathing of one particular series.

I’m looking at you Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer.

The minute I say I hate this seriese, people accuse me of being elitist.  Judging it for being “light” reading.  They’ve even told me something is wrong with my taste when 40 million other people love it.  Well, you know what?  My problem with Twilight has nothing to do with the writing style.  Like I said, I’m reading Sookie Stackhouse.  I like romance novels, and they aren’t exactly known for their Shakespearean style.

My problem with the series has nothing to do with the writing style.  It’s the content.  I’m sure many of you have heard teen girls say how they’d love to have an Edward all their own.  The problem with this is that Edward is an abusive boyfriend.

Let’s start with the fact that Edward stalks Bella.  He repeatedly watches her sleep at night from her window without her knowledge.  This is how the relationship starts.

It progresses further.  Once they’re dating, he tells Bella who she can hang out with.  He verbally abuses her, saying things like “I’ve seen corpses with better control,” “You’re utterly absurd,” and “You are a terrible actress–I’d say that career path is out for you.”  In a health relationship, a significant other is supportive, loving, and on your side.  Even if s/he disagrees with you, s/he expresses this disagreement without attacking who you are as a person.

Let’s not forget the whole plot sequence in which Edward first threatens then attempts to carry out suicide because he claims he can’t live without Bella.  This is abusive, because people should be in a relationship out of love, not fear the other person will harm himself.

Bella doesn’t only fear for Edward’s life, she’s also legitimately afraid of him.  Some people would say this is because he’s a vampire, but that’s no excuse.  She should feel safe with her boyfriend, not afraid.

I’m not saying abusive relationships shouldn’t ever be in a book, but Meyer presents this as a good thing!  Edward is supposedly Bella’s knight in shining armor, but he is controlling, possessive, and demeaning of her.  She is afraid of him, but she loves him so supposedly that’s ok?  No.  It’s not ok, and it is not  ok that Meyer is glorifying this in her books.  Not ok at all.

The themes I hate in the book go beyond the abusive relationship being glorified, however.  When Bella and Edward break up, there are four nearly blank pages in the book.  These are supposed to represent how empty Bella’s life is without Edward.  Yes, let’s tell the teenagers reading this book that their entire life is their romantic relationship.  This is obviously an unhealthy perspective.

Meyer also demonizes sex.  I’m not saying books should swing the other way and tell teenage girls it’s cool to go suck a new dick every night, but Meyer is totally on the sex is evil side of the fence.  First there’s the fact that Bella wants to do it with her steady boyfriend (*gasp* the horror), and Edward insists they wait until they are married.  It’d be fine for them to wait until they were married, if it was what they both wanted.  However, Edward looks down on Bella’s desire to sleep with him and insists waiting until marriage is better.  No.  Waiting until marriage isn’t “better,” it’s just “an option.”  An option among many options, and one that I feel leads to impulsive young marriages and divorce or a life-time of misery, but I digress.

Then, when they finally do get married, having sex with Edward seriously injures Bella.  Apparently having sex with a vampire in Meyer’s land is like having sex with a marble statue.  That sparkles.  So now teenage girls are not only being told sex before marriage is evil, but also that sex is scary, and it really hurts!  This hearkens back to the days of old when engaged women were told by their mothers that sex with their husband was something to “be endured” for the joy of having children some day.

Speaking of children, the last plot theme that I hate in Meyer’s series is that Bella becomes pregnant with a fetus that is literally eating her alive and killing her, yet she chooses to bring it to term anyway.  This is, naturally, glorified in the series.  Because we want to tell our girls that it’s better to die giving birth than to abort and save your own life.  What the hell, Meyer?!  Making a choice like that is, essentially, suicide.  She knows she’s dying.  She could stop it.  She chooses not to.

So in one series Meyer glorifies abusive relationships and suicidal behavior and demonizes sex.

I am horrified that a FEMALE writer wrote such a misogynistic series.  I am also saddened as it is evident that Meyer has internalized the harmful patriarchal culture she grew up in.  She’s a self-hating woman and doesn’t even realize it.  Unfortunately, she’s now helping to spread that internalized misogyny to the next generation of young women.

This is why I hate Twilight.  It isn’t because I’m supposedly an elitist.  It is because I am a feminist.

Female Genital Mutilation October 21, 2009

Today while perusing links posted on twitter, I came across this story on Newsweek.  Now, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is no new topic to me.  We actually covered it in one of my sociology-type classes in high school.  This article though made it re-hit home akin to the way it did the first time I learned about FGM.

For those who don’t know, FGM is a cultural practice in which some part of a little girl’s genitals are cut off.  This can range from the least severe of “circumcising” her clitoris to the most severe where the clitoris and inner and outer labia are cut off and the vagina is then sewn closed with only a pin-sized hole left for urinating and menstruating.  To top it off this procedure is most often done in people’s homes with dirt floors by the elderly women of the community who use unsanitized knives and sometimes even shards of glass to perform the procedure.

Why is this done to these little girls?  Because their cultures perceive women’s sexuality as evil and dangerous.  Because if the woman gets actual pleasure from sex, she will be less subservient to her husband and more likely to leave him.  Mainly though, it’s that they think a woman’s genitals are evil and must be cut off.

To put it really lightly:  THIS IS FUCKING WRONG.

A basic human right is the ability to have an enjoyable sex life if you so choose, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else.  Can you imagine if you knew you were completely incapable of ever having an orgasm?  Can you imagine what an affect that would have on your relationship?  It is a scientific fact that when a woman orgasms oxycontin is released in her brain causing her to bond with her sexual partner.  These women don’t even have that opportunity.  It was cut away from them.  It gets worse, though.  According to the victims in the article, sometimes the procedure is done so poorly that the woman is left with painful scar tissue, thereby making it not only not pleasurable but also painful for her partner to touch her.  This isn’t a case of a woman making the choice to abstain from sex.  It’s a case of a woman wanting to enjoy the pleasure others take for granted, but she can’t because of what was done to her as a child without her consent.  Honestly, Sila talking about her love for romance novels being marred by the fact she couldn’t have even a little bit of the pleasure the main characters have broke my heart.

Apparently though, there is some hope for women who had this atrocity committed against them.  The Newsweek article states that there is a new medical procedure that can at least partly restore the female genitals.  According to the article, this new surgery was discovered due to the work to discover genital restructuring for gender reassignment surgery.  NATURALLY, this surgery is deemed “cosmetic” by American insurance companies, leaving these mostly immigrant, poor women having to pay for their own reconstruction surgery.  This is akin to telling a burn victim her reconstructive surgery is cosmetic.  It is WRONG.

Well, Dr. Bowers of the hospital where Sila got her surgery won’t stand for it.  Dr. Bowers knows what it’s like to feel that your genitalia doesn’t match who you are.  She is a transgendered person herself, and she performs the procedure free of charge for these women.  Dr. Bowers says, “you cannot charge money to reverse a crime against humanity.”  Dr. Bowers is a hero.

Of course in an ideal world, Dr. Bowers wouldn’t need to perform this surgery on women, because their genitals wouldn’t be mutilated to start with.  I REFUSE to kowtow to political correctness and say “it’s a part of their culture.  We shouldn’t condemn it.”  It is WRONG, and I will keep saying it is WRONG until no more little girls are mutilated.

If you would like to help a woman who is a victim of FGM, please visit the nonprofit Clitoraid’s website.

Click here for more information on FGM.

Medical Librarian Appreciation Month October 20, 2009

According to the National Library of Medicine, October is medical librarian appreciation month.  Yay!  Now, I’m not just pointing this out because I’m a medical librarian myself (*blush*), but I have noticed a dire lack of knowledge even among librarians about just what a medical librarian does all day.

A medical library, contrary to popular belief, is not just a public library inside a hospital.  It’s more akin to an academic library, but even that isn’t a fair comparison.  The medical library exists to serve doctors, researchers, lab technicians, and nurses in keeping on the cutting edge of scientific knowledge.  It also helps them practice evidence-based medicine.  When your doctor tells you that she wants you to take a certain drug because that drug has proven to be beneficial to people like you, in all likelihood your doctor found an article about a study supporting that information in her hospital’s medical library.

A medical librarian doesn’t generally deal with typical reference questions.  Although we get the “where’s the bathroom” and “how do I photocopy” just like any other librarian, our reference questions are much more often something like:

• “I found this citation at the end of this article in the current Archives of General Psychiatry.  Can you help me find the original?”
• “I’d like to set up a recurring search on PubMed for anorexia in men, how do I do that?”
• “The hospital is getting a VIP patient soon, and I need all articles in the last 10 years on handling VIP patients.”
• “I have a patient who I believe is presenting with symptoms of schizophrenia, but that is not my expertise.  Can you help me brush up on it?”
• “We have a patient presenting with delusions, tremors, and missing hair.  Can you run a search in Ovid on those symptoms and see what comes up?”

As you can see, medical librarians, likes subject area academic librarians, need to have a general knowledge of the type of medicine their hospital deals in.  Medical librarians need to speak scientists’ lingo so their patrons won’t get slowed down explaining what they mean to the librarian.  Medical librarians deal with highly educated patrons who generally think with scientific-oriented minds.  They are intelligent, but busy.  The medical librarian is a part of the hospital team.  She is one of the many cogs that exists to provide quality patient care.  She must stay up to date and trained in utilizing scientific databases, in what research is going on in her hospital, and in current medical knowledge and terminology if she is going to help her patrons efficiently.

You won’t find a medical librarian presenting a story hour, themed reading week, or a summer reading program.  You will find a medical librarian skimming the new medical journals cover to cover.   She may have been assigned specific doctors and researchers.  She knows exactly which area of medicine they specialize in and keeps her eye out for new information to forward to them.  They know her by name and stop her in the hospital halls to ask her to find things for them.  A medical librarian may be called upon to conduct a search on a certain condition in a certain type of patient asap for a patient in critical care.  Unlike a public librarian, a medical librarian’s job isn’t to encourage reading or continuing education for the pure fun of it.  Unlike an academic librarian, a medical librarian’s job isn’t to educate people on how to conduct good research.  A medical librarian’s patrons may or may not enjoy reading for fun, but that’s none of her business.  Most of a medical librarian’s patrons already know how to conduct good research.  A medical librarian’s job is simply to provide exactly the type of information her patrons need when they need it.  Sometimes even before they ask for it.  In this sense, it probably makes a lot more sense to call a medical librarian an information specialist.  Indeed, many hospitals are moving toward calling their librarians “informationists.”

I’m taking the time to write all of this simply because I feel medical librarianship is one of the many misunderstood professions.  I suppose this is fine for the general public, but if you are a librarian or a library student, you should understand what it is your medical librarian colleagues do.  Simply not having to explain over and over again that we are not like public librarians would, frankly, be all the appreciation we need from other librarians.  As for any doctors, researchers, nurses, lab technicians, etc… who might be reading this–I know you’re busy.  You may not have ever even gone into your hospital’s library yourself, but your librarian works hard.  Please take the time to tell her or him thank you.  Even if you just happen to spot her in the cafeteria.  Please tell her thank you for being part of the team.  Medical librarians truly enjoy helping you, but we really appreciate being recognized as part of the team.

Book Review: The Year of the Flood By Margaret Atwood October 19, 2009

Summary:
Toby, a spa-worker, and Ren, an exotic dancer and prostitute, have both survived the  waterless flood–a global pandemic that has killed almost all of humanity.  They also both used to live with The Gardeners, a vegetarian cult that constantly warned of the impending apocalypse.  A series of flashbacks tells how they survived the pandemic while the question of what to do now that the pandemic is mostly over looms large in their lives.

Review:
Margaret Atwood is one of my favorite authors.  I love dystopian books, and she has an incredible talent for taking the current worries and news items and turning them into a near-future dystopia.  Toby’s and Ren’s world prior to the waterless flood isn’t anything to be happy about.  Slums dominate.  Gangs run rampant.  The world is now run by a giant evil corporation (which is somehow worse than a giant evil government? *shrugs*).  It’s really the little things that makes this future world believable.  Kids wear bracelets that have live mini jellyfish in them.  Species have been spliced together to make new, more usable ones, such as the Mo’Hair–a sheep whose wool makes perfect fake hair for women.  The people who don’t live in slums live in corporation-run compounds where everything they do is monitored. What makes this dystopia wonderful is how plausible it all seems.

Really, though, all of these dystopian features are just a back-drop for the real stories.  Toby spends years hiding with The Gardeners and running because one man, Blanco, decided he owned her upon having slept with her.  When Toby defied him, he vowed to kill her.  He haunts her life for years on end.  Similarly, Ren falls in love with a boy in highschool who breaks her heart yet somehow keeps coming back into her life and repeating the damage.

This is a book about mistakes.  About how thinking we own the Earth and its creatures could cause our own demise.  About how sleeping with the wrong man just once can haunt you for years.  About how loving the wrong man can hurt you for years.

This is what I love about Atwood.  She has such wonderful insight into what it is to be a woman.  Insight into what haunts women’s dreams.  When women talk about what scares them, it isn’t nuclear war–it’s the man in the dark alley who will grab her and rape her and never leave her alone.  Toby’s Blanco is the embodiment of this fear.  She sees him around every corner.  She’s afraid to go visit a neighbor because he might find her on the street walking there.  Setting this fear in an other world makes it easier for female readers to take a step back and really see the situation for what it is.  Yes, he’s a strong, frightening man, but Toby let him disempower her by simply fearing him for years.  This is what Atwood does well.

The pandemic, however, is not done so well.  Too many questions are left.  Where did the pandemic come from?  Does it work quickly or slowly?  Some characters seem to explode blood immediately upon infection, whereas others wander around with just a fever infecting others.

Similarly, the reader is left with no clear idea as to how long it has been since the pandemic started.  On the one hand it seems like a month or two.  On the other hand, the stockpiles of food The Gardeners made run out quite early, and that just doesn’t mesh given how much attention they gave to them prior to the pandemic.

I also found the end of the book extremely dissatisfying.  It leaves the reader with way too many unanswered questions.  In fact, it feels completely abrupt.  Almost like Atwood was running out of time for her book deadline so just decided “ok, we’ll end there.”  I know dystopian novels like to leave a few unanswered questions, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to leave this many unanswered.

The Year of the Flood sets up a believable dystopia that sucks the reader in and has her reconsidering all of her life perceptions.  Unfortunately, the ending lets the reader down.  I think it’s still worth the read, because it is enjoyable for the majority of the book, and I am still pondering issues it raised days later.  If you’re into the environmental movement or women’s issues, you will enjoy this book–just don’t say I didn’t warn you when the ending leaves you throwing the book across the room.

4 out of 5 stars

Book Review: Leviathan By Scott Westerfeld October 14, 2009

Thanks to my friend Margaret for lending me her ARC of Leviathan!  I’ve enjoyed Scott Westerfeld’s other YA books, and my recent surge in curiosity about steampunk (due to love of the fashion) made me extra-curious about this new YA steampunk book.

Summary:
World War I takes on a whole new look when the Allied powers function utilizing machine-like, genetically engineered animals, and the Axis powers use tanks that walk using steam power.  In this alternate history reside Deryn and Alek.  Deryn is a teenaged Scottish girl who pretends to be a boy so she can join the air service working aboard the Leviathan–an ecosystem that resembles a zeppelin.  Alek as the son of the assassinated Austrian archduke must go into hiding in Switzerland, escaping with a few loyal servants and a walker–one of the walking tanks.  Their worlds end up colliding, as worlds tend to do in a world war.

Review:
This book should come with a warning.  “By YA we mean for middle schoolers younger than the characters, not late teens like Westerfeld’s other books.”  Although this is technically YA, it reads like a children’s book.  Some would say the lovely illustrations throughout made it feel that way, but I don’t think that’s the case.  Some adult books are full of wonderful illustrations, yet we still know they are meant for adults.  I really think it’s the storyline and the writing that came off so young this time.  Maybe Westerfeld wanted to write younger, but his publisher should have notified his fans that this is a book meant for younger people.

Westerfeld does an excellent job of explaining the Darwinist world in a subtle way to the reader.  I have difficulty even explaining the flying ecosystems to people, yet I understood them perfectly in the book.  Similarly, I had no issue picturing the walkers, even though I couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to build such a thing.  I also liked Deryn.  She is a well-rounded character–with flaws, but still someone a young audience can look up to.  Similarly, the most intelligent person on the airship is a woman, which is a feature I highly appreciated.

On the other hand, I found Alek to be a completely confusing and unsympathetic character.  At first I thought he was about nine years old, then overnight he seems to be fifteen.  Yes, I know his parents died, but I don’t think a fifteen year old would be playing with toy soldiers the night prior, regardless.  Similarly, Alek repeatedly makes stupid decisions.  I know characters sometimes make them, but he makes them so often that I just want to slap him upside the head.  There is very little that is redeemable about Alek.  By the time he makes a wise decision, I was so sick of him that it failed to raise my opinion of him at all.

Similarly, I’m bothered that all of the servants loyal to Alek are men.  Why couldn’t a single woman be loyal to him?  Deryn’s world consists of both powerful men and women, yet Alek’s is entirely male except for his low-born mother.  I know this is early 20th century, but if you’re going alternate history, why not empower a few more women along the way?

Even though there is steam power and Victorian clothing in an alternate history, Leviathan didn’t feel very steampunky to me because, well, the setting is Victorian!  Maybe I’m too into steampunk fashion, but I would have been far more impressed if all these things were true in an alternate history of the Vietnam War, for instance, or even World War II.  I think World War I is just far too close to the actual Victorian age to truly feel like an alternate, steampunk world.  I get enjoying books written in the Victorian era from a steampunk viewpoint, but current authors could be far more creative when utilizing this genre.

Finally, I have to say, I hate the ending! I know Westerfeld is a huge fan of writing trilogies, but this ending is far too abrupt.  I was left going “what the hell?” instead of feeling pleasantly teased about the second book in the series.

Leviathan isn’t a bad book.  It isn’t painful to read, and the storyline is enjoyable.  It’s kind of like a mash-up of Jurassic Park, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and your typical 21st century YA novel.  Only minus all the blood, guts, and gore.  Middle schoolers with a taste for the whacky will enjoy it.  Older teens and adults should choose more sophisticated steampunk–perhaps even the classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

3 out of 5 stars