Opens At Nightfall, Closes At Dawn

I recently finished reading Erin Morgenstern's novel The Night Circus. It is by far the best book I've read this year, and it is also HP's current book club selection.

The story centers around two illusionists, Celia and Marco, who are pitted against each other in a contest of sorts by their "fathers" when they are just small children. The rules of the contest are vague, but the fathers are determined that there will be a winner, at any cost.

When Celia and Marco are grown, through a series of events the competition becomes centered in the Night Circus where Celia performs and Marco works behind the scenes.

The circus is amazing, travelling from place to place all over the world. It is open only at night and is made up of multiple black and white tents where magical and fantastical things happen - things beyond anyone's imagination. (I can't wait for a movie of this book to be made. It has the potential to be really neat.)

Anyway, the story is too complex to explain more without giving key points away, so I'm going to stop here.

Definitely check this one out. 

Reading Round-up

I've gotten a little behind on my book reviews, so here is a condensed version of what I've read the past month or so.

Crossed by Allie Condie. This is the second book in the Matched series. I didn't like it as well as the first - it's pretty bleak and much more violent. At times (like the first 2/3 of the book) I found it tedious to read because the plot moves very slowly. However, the story is compelling enough that I will be reading the third book, Reached, when it comes out in November.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Satran Foer. I really liked this book. It is the story of an extremely precocious 9-year-old named Oskar Schell. After his father is killed in 9/11, Oskar sets out on a quest which he believes will give him some answers to the reason for his father's death. Also, entwined with Oskar's chapters is the story of his grandparents - how they met, came together, were separated, and eventually reunited. Sad and funny at the same time. Check this one out. The movie is pretty good, too.

Ten Miles Past Normal by Frances O'roark Dowell. This one had been on my to be read list for a while, but after reading it, I'm not sure why. It is the story of a young girl, just starting high school, who lives on a small goat farm. Mild teen angst abounds: making new friends, getting made fun of, disagreements with the parents, discovering boys, but nothing too remarkable or memorable happens. 

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray. I read about this one on NPR's book page where they called it a "Lord of the Flies for girls." I hated that book when I was forced to read it in 9th grade English, so I don't know why I thought this one would be any better. It's the story of 12 or so contestants in the Miss Teen Dream beauty pageant who are the lone survivors of a plane crash carrying all 50 contestants, chaperones, and sponsors on a "desert" island somewhere in the tropical ocean. This one is definitely satirical and not for the easily offended. Also, it is way too long. Skip it.

The Goodbye Time by Celeste Conway. I picked this one up at the library because I liked the dress on the cover. Kind of like Ten Miles Past Normal, it's a cutesy young-people's book about growing up where nothing too remarkable happens.

Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith. In effort to fill the void of the missing Pulitzer fiction winner, I read the book that won for poetry. I'm sorry to report that modern poetry is lost on me. I didn't like any of the poems in this collection. They are mostly dreary and futuristic with allusions to popular culture that I don't get. Meh.

What It Is Like To Go To War by Karl Marlantes. This was a pick for the Huffington Post book club. I plodded through about 2/3 of it and gave up. Not my style of book at all.



The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman by Meg Wolitzer. This is a funny young people's book based around a national Scrabble tournament. It follows three players, all of whom have different reasons for being there, and of course there is lots of self-discovery along the way. And lots of fun scrabble tips, too. And the neatest thing I learned from this book is that the word maraschino is an anagram of harmonicas. Who knew?

Blood, Bones & Butter

Last month, I mentioned joining Huffington Post's book club. Their second selection is a memoir by Gabrielle Hamilton titled Blood, Bones & Butter.

I was kind of excited to read this one since I usually enjoy memoirs, and to have one about a chef was an added bonus. However, by the end of this one, I was pretty disappointed.

It starts out well. The first third of the book describes Ms. Hamilton rather unconventional childhood. Her parents divorce when she is about 10 and more or less leave her and her siblings to their own devices. She begins working in restaurants soon after, and when she is old enough, takes off to New York City where she works as a waitress and gets involved in drugs and some criminal activity.

The second third describes her escape to Europe, college experiences, and various catering jobs before finally opening her own restaurant in New York City, which quickly becomes successful .

Up until this point, the book is decent. Hamilton gets points for being an excellent writer - some of her descriptive passages about food are quite lovely. But, I really think she should have ended the book here.

The last third takes place outside the realm of the restaurant and cooking and deals instead with her personal life. To be frank, it's not pretty. Most of her relationships are toxic and dysfunctional - a fact of which she almost seems proud. And her personality comes across as being pretty caustic and selfish. Honestly, I'd rather not have read about it.

Read this one at your own risk. A lot of people really love it. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them.

The Tiger's Wife ~ Tea Obreht

Last month, the Huffington Post launched an online book club which I eagerly joined.

The first selection was Tea Obreht’s novel The Tiger’s Wife. I don’t think I would have ever picked up this book to read on my own, but because I wanted to take part in the book club, I read it.

It’s a tough book to summarize, so I’m going to steal the summary from Publishers Weekly.

“Natalia Stefanovi, a doctor living (and, in between suspensions, practicing) in an unnamed country that's a ringer for Obreht's native Croatia, crosses the border in search of answers about the death of her beloved grandfather, who raised her on tales from the village he grew up in, and where, following German bombardment in 1941, a tiger escaped from the zoo in a nearby city and befriended a mysterious deaf-mute woman. The evolving story of the tiger's wife, as the deaf-mute becomes known, forms one of three strands that sustain the novel, the other two being Natalia's efforts to care for orphans and a wayward family who, to lift a curse, are searching for the bones of a long-dead relative; and several of her grandfather's stories about Gavran Gailé, the deathless man, whose appearances coincide with catastrophe and who may hold the key to all the stories that ensnare Natalia.”

I finished reading The Tiger’s Wife a few days ago, but I’m still trying to figure out if I liked it or not. It is quite different from the books I usually read, which may be clouding my ability to make a judgment, and the ending was not what I had hoped for, but it's worth reading for the stories of the deathless man, a fascinating character.

The novel as a whole is rather disjointed, jumping back and forth in place and time - almost like a book of tied-together short stories, but is still well-written. I won't criticize too much since the author is only 26 years old.

If you are looking for a mostly serious and gloomy, sometimes violent  book, check this one out.

And join the book club. I linked to it at the top of the page. February's selection is Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton.