The Twelve

Okay. I finished this a few days ago. I didn't want to write about it immediately - so often when I do that, I can't come up with anything to say. I had hoped to let my thoughts about this book marinate (while working on a few other books at the same time) - we'll see how it went.

I should start by talking about The Passage, which is the first book in this trilogy. If you haven't read The Passage, you should get on that, both because it is awesome, and also because most of what I say from here on out will make little sense without the context of that book. Let me be clear, there is very little attempt in The Twelve to bring new readers up to speed or even to remind old readers of what happened in the first book. It didn't really bother me - I've always hated the rehashing books in series do during the first chapters (and often skip them entirely) and I've read The Passage three times (I think). I know the story pretty well. (That said, there were a few things that tripped me up too - if you read The Passage when it came out and never again, getting back into Cronin's world might be kind of tough.) Anyway, like I said, I think The Passage is pretty delightful (if your idea of delightful involves zombie vampires). It's a great book for a long weekend, to be devoured in big gulps - if you stretch it out too long, you might start forgetting where everyone in the sizable cast of characters fits into the storyline that spans a century. This devouring isn't hard though - once you get into the story, it's hard to pull yourself away.

I suspect it would be best to read The Twelve this way, too. I didn't really do that because I was just so excited - I started it as soon as I got it home and read it whenever I could sneak it in. The Passage ends on a cliffhanger and I expected to pick up from there with this book, but that isn't the case. Instead, we get a brief check-in with Amy and Alicia, then are dumped back into the past to meet some strangers from the old days. I was surprised to find that Lila Kyle, ex-wife of Brad Wolgast (surrogate father to Amy) played such a large part in these early chapters (and, of course, in the later story) - in The Passage, she was little more than background, an archetypal character to explain why Wolgast was the way he was. In The Twelve, she is an entirely different kettle of fish. Seriously. A weird, weird duck, all the way (deliciously creepy in her delusions).

I won't try to summarize - with this sprawling cast and epic scope, it would take me all night. But I can say without reservations that I really dug this book. It's dark and creepy, with plenty of sequences that will leave you breathless; it also has moments that will bring you to happy tears. If you liked The Passage (and again, I cannot emphasize how much you need to read that before picking this up), you'll enjoy this.

Next up: Oh boy. So, I checked out three books right before I bought The Twelve - from the YALSA Top 10, Across the Universe and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, as well as James Dashner's Maze Runner prequel, The Kill Order (I have mixed feelings about this trilogy as a whole, but I frakking loved The Scorch Trials, so I have high hopes for this one). Obviously, they fell by the wayside when I got The Twelve. When I finished The Twelve, I started in on Across the Universe. Then I went book shopping (for the library - one of the best things about my job) and bought the new Lemony Snicket book, Who Could That Be At This Hour? It was irresistible. Across the Universe set aside, Lemony Snicket picked up. Also, today I got my reading list for the YA Lit class I'll be taking next semester; when the aforementioned books have been read (also, Outcasts United, another of my shopping purchases), expect to start hearing about those.

Whew!

Perks

Right now, I'm in the middle of reading Justin Cronin's The Twelve. I will for sure write about that when I'm done with it, but in the meantime I thought I'd talk about The Perks of Being a Wallflower, book and movie.

I saw the movie last Wednesday (with a friend who had never read the book). I was periodically distracted by Emma Watson's British-ness occasionally poking through, but beyond that, I thought the adaptation was good. The casting was pretty spectacular (really, if you put Paul Rudd and/or Mae Whitman in just about anything, I am likely to enjoy it), and Ezra Miller is a real find. That said, I think I'm just too familiar with the book to say much about the movie. I know things have to be cut for the sake of time and again, it's a good adaptation (and should be, given Stephen Chbosky's involvement). But. I don't think I could be truly satisfied with anything that isn't the book itself.

I actually re-read the book about a month ago and never wrote about it here. It's a book I've read more times than I can remember - actually, I don't remember when I first read it. Mostly, all of my other memories of this book are subsumed by the memory of reading it during my freshman year of college. It was spring break and I stayed on campus, so it was painfully lonely and snowing the whole time and so cold in my dorm room and I read the book twice (because I was apparently feeling masochistic). Also, I had just gotten a perm (not a gross tight one) and my hair still smelled like the stuff they use to make the curl last. I guess I remember that time so well because my mood was already so appropriately matched to the mood of the book and because I associate that bone-deep cold and the perm smell so strongly with that feeling and that moment in time. In fact, I got my hair permed at least once after that and it took me a couple of days to realize why the smell was depressing me so much. Anyway, that's what comes rushing back every time I read this book. And because I associate it so much with all of that, it's hard for me to say much else about this book and hard for me to have any critical and well-expressed thoughts about the movie.

The Graveyard Book

It's hard to find things to say about the good books. I mean, this won the Newbery a few years ago - do you even need a recommendation from me?

All I can really do is add my voice to the chorus, so here goes:

I just loved this book. It was a perfect blend of scary and magic and heart and melancholy (and yes, I know that list is poorly composed). I was wary at first because opening with a triple homicide seemed a little too In Cold Blood for a children's book, but really, I was sucked in before I had time to get too worked up about it. The illustrations were perfect, the characters fantastic...

My favorite part was a chapter called "The Danse Macabre." It pushed me over from really liking this book to kind of loving it - that chapter just cast a spell on me. I also loved the ending, which made me cry, and Gaiman's Newbery acceptance speech (in the back of the copy I was reading), which made me cry more.

This is pretty much incoherent, but I feel like I warned you at the get-go. I just can't talk about the really good books; at least, I can't be objective about them. I can sometimes talk about my experience of reading them, or identify quotes and passages that really gripped me, but I can't say much about them that is intelligent. And I'm comfortable with that. In fact, I'm downright happy that there are so many books in this world that leave me fumbling for words.

Burn for Burn

This is part of a trilogy or a series or something, right?

What a bizarre book! And a particularly bizarre ending - I kept waiting for the climax of the story to come...and I think I'm still waiting, with no more book left to read.

So, if you haven't read it, Burn for Burn is about three girls (the alternative girl, the cheerleader, and the formerly-fat-but-now-beautiful one) who make a revenge pact. Each has someone they want to get back at, so everyone pitches in to make the revenge fantasies come true. Like Horrible Bosses, but not as funny. Actually, it reminded me of The Craft more than anything, especially since Mary, the formerly fat girl, obviously has some latent witchy powers fueled by her angst.

Burn for Burn is certainly easy to read, but none of the characters are particularly likeable. On the other hand, none of the characters are particularly unlikeable either, which sort of hurts the vengeance aspect - the three targets don't really seem to deserve what's coming to them. One of them is pretty obviously a really nice guy and the victim of a massive misunderstanding, so watching the three protagonists make him an object of ridicule is painful. The other two targets are not necessarily nice people, but they're also not THE WORST.

And then there's that ending. Even if this is the first book in a planned trilogy (or series or whatever), this story should be somewhat self-contained. There should be a climax and a resolution, but this story doesn't seem to have either. It doesn't have a particularly compelling cliff-hanger either, and, as I've already said, I don't find the protagonists to be people I'm really rooting for. Assuming that, yes, there is a sequel, I'm not sure it's something I'll be picking up.

Every Day

Read in one sitting, in about 3 hours. I was freezing for most of that time, but I just couldn't put the book down, not even to facilitate some sort of warm-up. What a lovely, dreamy book.

Much as I was compelled to immediately say SOMETHING about this book the second I set it down (perhaps only that I had read it, that I had experienced it), I'm finding that really I don't have much at all to say. As I so often do when I race breathlessly through a really good book, I find myself struck rather dumb, still wrapped in the silence of reading and waiting for my brain to emerge from that stillness and recognize that the book is over.

I leave you with the assurance that this book is worth picking up (and the promise that that was a massive understatement).