June-July Book Roundup
In an odd coincidence, one of the books I read in May, A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher, recently won the Nebula award for Middle Grade SFF. I still feel the book, although charming in many ways, is flawed by its ending. Yes, the girl protagonist does work hard to save her city, but at the last moment, when all is almost lost, an adult character with even more special powers literally rides in and saves the day. Maybe the point of the story is supposed to be that it’s okay to be a normal kid who doesn’t save the day, but just gets to go back to her bakery and live off her fame, but... while being an “average Jane” is perfectly fine in life, in terms of storytelling I stand by my assertion that the protagonist should have solved the problem. Yes, the adult dies in saving the city, and if that was the true sacrifice required then of course you can’t have your MG protagonist expiring. But you could have had the same outcome if, say, the adult (a very unlikely heroine indeed) had ridden out to her death and sacrificed herself to give the protagonist one last shot to end the problem once and for all. It just felt a little too easy, even the final individual confrontation.
This also underscores a problem with MG/YA in general: your protagonist should solve the problem, but where is the line between what is realistic for a kid to be able to do, and what is beyond their scope? My answer is: they can do whatever you have set them up to be able to do. Katniss in The Hunger Games trilogy is a logical foil for the villainous political adults because of her position as a (reluctant) savior-icon that grows over the series. If she was just some kid from the sticks with no following, they wouldn’t listen, or care. Obviously if you’re writing SFF you can bend the “real world” rules quite a bit in terms of what you can get away with, much more so than in a contemporary realistic tale, unless you are writing about a Malala Yousafzai or Greta Thunberg-type character. They have to be believably larger-than life.
All that said, this month is a mega-post of books, since I didn’t do one for June after having several other book-related posts that month. If you’re looking for some reading material to round out your summer, there’s plenty here to choose from!
Fiction:
Stories of Your Life and Others – Ted Chiang. This collection is most famous for the title story, the basis for the film Arrival. This is literary speculative fiction at its best, even if sometimes you feel like you might need a PhD in one of the sciences to understand it fully. He mixes hard sci-fi elements in ways that speak to what it means to be human, to grapple with the existence of God, the limits and outer capacities of our human minds developing technologies.
The Cousins – Karen M. McManus. This is a YA story of three cousins who summoned to work on a small island pretty much owned by the family matriarch, a grandmother none of them has met, owing to the fact she disinherited all her children long ago. Over the course of a month, they slowly unravel the mystery of what happened to cause this rift. The pros: The characterizations and voice are top-notch. Each chapter is told in the point of view of one of the cousins, and some are even told in the point of view of one of their mothers, in the past. The author handles this superbly. We are never confused about where we are or whose head we are in (each chapter is in only one pov). These are all believable teens, with relatable problems and lives outside of what is happening on the island. The pacing is excellent, and the scene-setting allows the reader to see, hear, and even smell what it’s like on the island. What's the flaw here, you ask? You may well not consider it one, but the final solution rests on a ruse perpetuated for twenty-four years that, the more I thought about it, the more far-fetched it seemed. I won’t give it away, but I was doing some serious “hmmm”-ing at that, plus a few other aspects of the resolution that simply didn’t make sense to me (why the fire? And no insurance? And not investing the money???). So, A+ as a masterclass on character and point of view; but the loopy ending took away some of the satisfaction for me.
The Girl in the Picture – Alexandra Monir. Set in an exclusive prep school, this book starts with the murder of a star soccer player and moves between the points of view of his public girlfriend (the pretty and popular Lana) and the girl he really loved (the virtuoso violinist Nicole). It does keep you guessing as to the identity of the murderer, and comes together neatly as you figure out the pieces of the story as revealed through flashbacks and present-day scenes. The characters are flawed in believable (if somewhat cliched) ways; I was not as convinced by the love story between Nicole and Chace being so intense when they hardly spent any time together, and none as a couple. Also, you have to suspend your disbelief rather suddenly when Chace comes back as a ghost, conversing with both Lana and Nicole. I didn’t need his point of view and didn’t think it added much to the story, other than turning it from a reality-based story into a fantasy. But as a mystery, very well done.
Nonfiction:
Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill. This is a classic on developing the proper money-making mindset. And it does focus on money, not “success” as many modern self-help books do. Its old-fashioned diction (published in 1937) uses the rhetorical device of exhortation versus the casual chumminess prevalent in contemporary self-help, which can make it sound( preachy to modern ears, and I had to skip the chapter on “sex transmutation” because – well: hilarious, earnest, gobbledegook, other than yes, if you’re going to be a successful business titan, you can’t waste all your time and energy literally screwing around (until you get to titan status, obviously). But a surprising amount of Hill’s advice is still sound, and written decades before the neuroscience and psychology research backed it up. I referenced some of it in my blog post on 6/2 (10 Failures of Mindset that Will Keep You from Writing). Reading the book, I was more focused on what it had to say about a success mindset than growing rich; Hill himself didn’t grow rich until the enormous success of that very book, proving once again that the best way to make money is to tell other people how they can make it (the purview these days of hundreds of bloggers who make their living simply telling other people how to make a living building a business online).
Marco Polo Didn’t Go There: Stories and Revelations from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer – Rolf Potts. A collection of Pott’s travel articles over the period of a decade, this book was actually published in 2008, so it covers a period from the late 90’s to the mid-2000’s. It covers a lot of geographical ground, and these are not your typical “I went here, I did this, I ate that” travel articles. These are little nonfiction gems, that often explore Potts’ own relationship to travel itself as well as celebrating the mundane, the odd, and the adventurous. A bonus is that at the end of each chapter, he includes notes about the origin and context of the story, how he shaped it, what he left out and why, and other travel-writerly advice, making it valuable for writers. Not just travel writers, but nonfiction and fiction writers who are looking for advice on narrative structure, using description, showing vs. telling, developing characters (especially secondary characters), and so on.
Writing Begins with the Breath: Embodying Your Authentic Voice – Laraine Herring. This series of essays goes deep, combining physical yoga practices and breathwork with writing exercises to develop traits such as curiosity and empathy as well as focusing on craft elements like point of view, character, and deep revision. It’s one of those books you don’t have to read in order; you can dip into a short chapter at random and come away with a nugget of wisdom to sustain you on your writing journey.
July Book Roundup
Nonfiction
The Automatic Millionaire – David Bach. Truth be told, I skimmed this one. It was recommended to me, but nothing really new in here: become aware of what you are actually spending money on; pay yourself first; automate your savings and your payments; different types of investments; paying down credit card debt… Interesting to me because his advice to overcome the “latte factor” (the daily purchases we don’t really need that add up quickly and could be saved/invested) is the direct opposite of what other financial gurus such as Ramit Sethi say, which is to stop worrying about $3 lattes and start making decisions that are worth $3,000 or $30,000 – like how to negotiate a raise, how to start your own business, how to invest, and that buying a house isn’t automatically a great investment once you factor in the cost of maintenance, repairs, and taxes. I’m reading a wider variety of financial advice, and the biggest takeaway that everyone can agree on is that it’s better to start earlier than later, but better late than never. You’re welcome.
Friday Forward: Inspiration and Motivation to End Your Week Stronger Than It Started – Robert Glazer. A collection of 52 brief, pithy essays designed to push you to achieve more, have better relationships, and make small changes that will improve your life. These are great little stories to start your morning or end your week; you might not learn anything brand new, but they are good, inspirational reminders of the things we can do each day to be our best at work, in our relationships, and in our creative endeavors.
Grape Olive Pig: Deep Travels Through Spain’s Food Culture – Matt Goulding. Recommended to me by a fellow travel writer, this is a gorgeous journey through the food of Spain’s various regions, with mouth-watering photos and many stories of the food, the producers, the restaurateurs, cheesemongers, fishermen (and women), etc. It also gives handy tips on the dos and don’ts of eating in Spain. Part travel guide, part food bible, this will make you want to pack your bags and move to Spain (which is what literally happened to the travel writer I mentioned once she read this book). Recommended for foodies, travelers, and anyone who loves a good story. He also has a book on Japan’s food culture, Rice Noodle Fish and one on Italy: Pasta Pane Vino. Really want to read both.
Fiction
Otherwood – Pete Hautman. This middle-grade gem gets pretty existential, while telling a sweet tale of friendship, family history, secrets, and environmental stewardship. Stuey and Elly live on opposite sides of a wood that used to be a golf course created by Stuey’s great-grandfather. Both of their great-grandfathers were mortal enemies, who both disappeared one night many years ago. The secret of what really happened that night literally tears Stuey and Elly’s worlds apart, and whether their long struggle to reunite them is resolved keeps you guessing to the very end.
The Arctic Fury – Greer Macallister. I devoured this one, a fictional account of what might have happened had an all-women team been sent to find out what happened to the real-life Franklin Expedition, lost in the Arctic in the 1800s. The story weaves back and forth from the “present” timeline, when the leader of the women, Virginia Reeve (or Reed, one of the survivors of the ill-fated Donner party) is on trial for the murder of one of the group, and the timeline of the expedition itself, telling us what happened, who survived, and why so few of the women returned. The alternate timelines do a good job of building suspense – will Virginia go free? What really happened on the ice? And we see the story from several of the women’s points of view, though mainly Virginia’s. Indeed, for some chapters I wondered why they were told from another person’s point of view, unless it was to make sure all the women had at least one pov chapter. It wasn’t necessary from a story perspective, and in fact, with thirteen women, many of them failed to come alive in any meaningful way. But the characters of the ones who did were sharp, and remind us of the constraints women were under in that era.
The Glass Hotel – Emily St. John Mandel. This novel masterfully uses multiple points of view to tell the story of several characters intersecting around a Madoff-like investment schemer. It’s hard to summarize this book since it touches on so many relationships and emotions; it starts with a mystery – a woman in the ocean, as parts of her life flash by – and ends with the same woman, but now we understand her life, and how she came to be there. The writing is gorgeous, and the story engrossing.
