Yum Yum Sugary Snacks

Kalix MacRinnalch is a 17 year old runaway (who happens to LOVE the Runaways and wishes Joan Jett were her mom).  She’s clinically depressed, she’s addicted to opiates (laudanum, really), she cuts herself…and she’s a werewolf princess.

Really, Martin Millar’s Lonely Werewolf Girl shouldn’t work.  It has an unwieldy cast numbering in the dozens (with almost as many PoVs), the main character is sort of an emo-Mary Sue – she’s got this long gorgeous hair, when she’s not starving herself everyone notices how beautiful she is, she’s the daughter of the Thane [think werewolf king], she was born in wolf form on the night of the full moon while her mother was in wolf form which has given her more-than-average-wolf-strength…you kind of hate her, but can’t help loving her at the same time.

Millar pulled off the cast of eleventy billion quite well in Good Fairies of New York, but I think it’s done even better here.  You don’t get a chance to miss anyone because as soon as you think of them, it’s time for them to have another turn.  The chapters are short.  Ridiculously short (this book is ~500 pages and has over 200 chapters), but having such short chapters causes the book to move incredibly quickly.  Think of it as a Guy Ritchie film with werewolves, and you’ll understand what I mean.

[Reading that last sentence, I realize that maybe it won't make sense to some of you.  A typical feature of Guy Ritchie films would be several points of view, all of which move at a very fast pace but  leave you scratching your head as to how they're all connected until the very end.]

Lonely Werewolf Girl is one of those books that I fall into and end up reading slowly because I just don’t want it to be over.  I spent almost a week with this one (which is really slow for me, okay?), and I turned the last page sad that it was over, but happy knowing there was another book waiting for me.  I’m reading that one slowly as well, because…

Well, because Millar’s world of Scottish werewolves, fashion espionage, political treason and college relationship drama – all of which are subjects I’d normally avoid like the plague – is so well drawn that it just feels real.

I shouldn’t care about wannabe goth Moonglow and her romantic entanglements.

I shouldn’t care about whether Malveria, Queen of the Hiyasta, will succeed in her quest of being the most fashionable woman in the entire Fire Elemental realm, or if her nemesis Princess Kabachetka will prove successful at stealing Thrix’s (Kalix’s sister – a sorceress and up and coming fashion designer) designs.

I shouldn’t care what will happen between Sarapen (Kalix’s oldest brother, first in line for Thaneship) and Markus (the younger of the elder MacRinnalch brothers, incredibly handsome werewolf crossdresser).

I shouldn’t care whether Dominil will manage to get Butix and Delix (aka Beauty and Delicious) and their band on stage.

But I do.

I can see myself coming back to Lonely Werewolf Girl again and again.  Dipping in and taking small sips when I need to laugh or to cry.  I can read a few pages and come away with my thirst quenched.  A book like this is rare.

For me, anyway.

I hope it’ll be the same for you.

“The worst thing in the world is having to go back to the dark you shook off.”

I grew up on fairy tales. Wee-Amy grew up on magic and mystery and beautiful people. Wee-Amy, however, liked the dark side so much more: Cinderella’s evil stepmother being forced to dance to death in her red-hot iron shoes; little Kay, lost to the evil snow queen, scorning the love of his ever-faithful Gerda; the little boy being beheaded by his stepmother in “The Juniper Tree,” Snow White being tricked, over and over, by her jealous stepmother. Even at a young age, I knew sometimes the prince just doesn’t come, and sometimes evil wins, and sometimes you can’t fight off the dark.

I keep reading re-told fairy tales in the hope of finding some of that magic again. Some of them don’t have any and are just a cheap way for the author to make a quick buck. Some have a little, but don’t quite make it. It’s tough to live up to the originals.

Then sometimes…just sometimes…a book like this comes along.

I’ve read a few Catherynne M. Valente books, and she gets fairy tales. She gets them more than most. She does her research. She gets the tone. Best of all? She gets the darkness. She knows what lurks just outside of the light surrounding the happy couple. What’s in the shadows, and what long, claw-tipped fingers these things have.

This is Snow White set in the Old West. No, no. Don’t run away. I know. There are so many ways this could go wrong, and be campy, and be terrible.

It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Our narrator is nameless at the beginning of the book. She’s the daughter of a silver and jewel baron and the Native American woman he bullies into marrying him. Her father doesn’t parent her; she’s forced to parent herself until he marries again and his new wife moves into her home. Suddenly, the girl has a name, gifted to her by her ice-cold stepmother; the cruelest name of all, considering she’s too brown to pass in “polite” society: Snow White.

I don’t want to give away any more of the plot than this. The book is poetic in the best possible way. Some of the lines were so gorgeous I had to stop and catch my breath. The cast of characters were magical and fantastical but not in any way unrealistic. Everything you need from the story is there: you’ve got the mirror, the seven dwarves, the stepmother with her glamours and poisoned apple, the glass coffin, the hunter coming for Snow White’s juicy little heart. But you’ve got it all in a way you’ve never seen before. You’ve got it in the gritty prose of a western novel, but a western novel with poetry. You’ve got the darker side; the desire for connection, the need for a mother, how running away is never a solution, because your past always finds you in the end.

You need to read this book. You need to read this book in the dark, wanting just one more chapter and one more and maybe just one more; you need to read it under a tree smelling the spring all around you and feeling the sun on your face and the grass springing under you; you need to read this book on a bus, mouthing the words and glowing with the beauty of it while people watch you out of the corner of their eyes wondering what, exactly, you’re reading that makes you shine like you have the best secret you’ve ever kept in your heart.

You need to read this book and have the dust in your eyes and feel a horse under you and a pistol in your hand and you need to ride with a girl with no name but the one she was given as a twist in her side by a jealously cruel woman with a fist for a heart and a mirror for a soul.

You need to read this book.

Harry Potter Drinkalong the Fifth

I’m such a failure.  I haven’t re-read this book recently, and I try not to watch the movie AT ALL, so these rules are based on a vague perception I have of what I hated the first time I saw it (I’ve only seen it twice).  I hope it doesn’t make life too difficult for us.  :/

• Countdown Timer
• Remember that TweetChat isn’t working but a lot of us used SmartStream last week and it worked just fine.  You can sign up for that here.  I know you’re all aware that the hashtag is #DrunkHP but there might be MORE NEW PEOPLE so I feel it bears repeating.
• Rules:
  

  Click to embiggen!

That’s really all I have.  Hope to see as many of you as possible there (and that I can manage to stay out of twitter jail this time).

Review Haiku for Those with Short Attention Spans

I have been slaaaaaaaaaaacking on reviewing again, sorry about that.  Too many books (106 so far this year!) and if I reviewed them all, I’d have no time to read. SO!  You get a bunch of review haiku, this time without mini-reviews.  Because I’m feeling super lazy tonight.  SORRY!

Etgar Keret’s The Nimrod Flipout

Shortest shorts of all
Stories, I mean – not Nair legs
Fun funny sad weird

Philip K Dick’s In Milton Lumky Territory

PKD litfic
No aliens or mindfucks
ZEE OH EM GEE, RIGHT?

Harambee K Grey-Sun’s Broken Angels

Blah blah blah blah STOP
I actually rage quit
This book was so bad

Kim Harrison’s Ever After

It’s too late now, but
I’m going down with my ship
(Hint: It isn’t Trent)

Dakota Cassidy’s Accidentally Dead

Nine of ten women
Agreed that the word “vulva”
Does not get them hot.

Charlaine Harris’ Dead Ever After

You’re right, Ms Harris -
We all NEEDED to know what
Sookie had for lunch.

…aaaaaaaaaand, that’s all I can see unreviewed that I wasn’t planning on talking about in more depth at some point.

Don’t forget that the Order of the Phoenix drinkalong is coming up on Friday – Same BatTime, Same BatHashtag!  See you then!

“Words fell out of his mouth like cold pebbles.”

Sometimes, a book just screams, “AMY! PICK ME UP AND READ ME!”

This was one of those books. YA fantasy! Theater people! A fairy-tale aspect! Award-winning! Magic!

Sometimes, the books that have a long pedigree and sound absolutely perfect just leave me cold. It is a sad fact of life. Like pretty shoes that pinch, or cute puppies that bite your fingers.

Goblin Secrets (which won the National Book Award, so maybe it’s me that’s broken, I don’t know) is about an orphan named Rownie. He lives with a witch named Graba, who takes in orphans and uses them for her own twisted schemes. Graba has clockwork chicken-legs and can pick up her house and move it elsewhere when the need arises. (I was so pleased to see a Baba Yaga homage, as I certainly do love Baba Yaga stories.) Rownie is constantly on the lookout for his older brother, Rowan (Rownie doesn’t know his own name – his name is a diminutive of his brother’s) who was an actor in their town, Zombay, and has gone missing. See, in Zombay, acting is forbidden. Pretending to be someone other than who you are is not allowed.

One day, a troupe of goblin actors come to town, and Rownie is completely charmed by them – so much so that he joins their troupe. Only there are, as the title implies, goblin secrets. The goblins know more about Zombay than they’re letting on, and acting is more than just the putting on of masks. Why else would it be forbidden? And how much do the goblins know about Rowan? And will Graba just let Rownie go?

Sounds kind of…I don’t know, good, right? Compelling? Interesting?

And it was. Kind of. But only kind of.

It never made the leap from kind of to all-the-way. It was teetering on the edge of being awesome, on the edge of being something great, and it never quite made it. And I’m an easy sell! I’m completely the target market for things like this! I should have eaten this up with a spoon and a scoop of whipped cream on top, Alexander, so what happened?

In steampunk terminology, because this book, like so many others lately, felt the need to jump on the steampunk bandwagon – this book was a clockwork man, strutting around, looking really good on the outside, but without a heart. And without a heart, a clockwork man is all hollow inside. It’s all style and substance and no soul. And that’s sad, because it COULD have been great. The BONES of greatness were there. It just didn’t make it. And that’s why it’s sad, because lost potential is always sad, right? Having the ability to get there and then not quite make it? Depressing.

This is the first in a series, and I have no interest in continuing with the series, award-winning or not. The world is full of good books that live up to their potential, and I’ll keep reading until I find those, thanks.