Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

I have been horrible at writing book reviews. It has been so long that I’ve read these books that I can’t even begin to do a review justice. They are here mostly to remind myself that I read them.

This is the first book in a new series by Scalzi which is somewhat reminiscent of Asimov’s Foundation series if the Foundation series were written by a person with a sense of humor. It doesn’t quite have the depth and breadth of cool ideas and world building that his Old Man’s War series does, but I like where it’s going and I am looking forward to reading the next book. If I ever finish reading these stupid Dungeons and Dragons manuals which I bought out of curiosity to see how things have changed with the game system since last I played.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 3/5 stars

I have been horrible at writing book reviews. It has been so long that I’ve read these books that I can’t even begin to do a review justice. They are here mostly to remind myself that I read them.

This book is creepy. I know it’s supposed to be a love story or something like that, but it’s just creepy. 40 year old dude commits statutory rape on a 16 year old and then marries here when she’s an adult and he’s in his 30s. Yeah, time travel. Niffenegger kind of sort of broaches the whole consent thing, but mostly just to brush it aside. Much of the book takes place in Chicago, which I usually love, but it felt so forced. Different Chicago locations were constantly spat out like a name dropper trying to impress her new friends. I did enjoy looking up some of the places to see if/when they existed, though. This book made Sally cry, which is why I read it. Though, to be fair, it was on my list of books to read, but she quickly bumped it up the list. We were comparing books that made us cry. Mine was “A Prayer for Owen Meany”, which she still hasn’t read. This is the only way in which I am a better boyfriend/fiance/husband.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 3/5 stars

I have been horrible at writing book reviews. It has been so long that I’ve read these books that I can’t even begin to do a review justice. They are here mostly to remind myself that I read them.

I was pretty disappointed with this one. I think mostly because I didn’t find it at all shocking in the way that most people did. All you have to do is look around the globe and right in our own backyard to see the horrors that Atwood writes about. I guess I read too much about oppression and how it works? What I did find really cool about the book was Atwood’s afterword where she talks about the actual history from which she drew the material to write the book. That was fascinating.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 4/5 stars

I have been horrible at writing book reviews. It has been so long that I’ve read these books that I can’t even begin to do a review justice. They are here mostly to remind myself that I read them.

I recall this book of the Neapolitan Novels to be a little less good than the prior two books, but still a really good read. The relationship of Lila and Elena continues to draw you in, though in this book they are mostly apart.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Roald Dahl is such a wonderfully subversive children’s author. Darkly so. Children are the heroes, but they’re still children and do childish things. Adults are the enemy, some by motivation, some by ignorance, some by incompetence. The good adults are few and far between. Just like real life. “The Witches” is probably the darkest of the Dahl books of which I’ve read. It is a story about a boy and his grandmother and their efforts to prevent the boy from being killed by witches. Witches, you see, loathe children, which I totally get, I mean, have you met children? Witches, though, despise children to such depths that they feel the need to remove them from this Earth in dastardly ways.

There is a line of thought that says “The Witches” is misogynist, which I totally get. Witches are always female and Dahl spends a lot of time describing the female qualities of the witches while at the same time being sure to qualify it saying all witches are female but not all females are witches but at the exact same time saying that you can’t tell the difference so you should assume that all females are witches until you can prove otherwise. That is a pretty harsh lesson to be teaching children and I can see them taking that lesson to heart without an explanation as to why the world of “The Witches” is make believe. As I mentioned before, this is a pretty dark book. And this isn’t even the darkest part about it.

It comes to pass in the novel that the boy and his grandmother find themselves at a vacation resort on the coast of England which also happens to be hosting all of the witches in Great Britain for their annual conference as well as the Grand High Witch who is the leader of the world of witches. It is revealed that the Grand High Witch has a plan to destroy all the children in Great Britain. So yes, “The Witches” is a children’s book about genocide. The witches are clearly evil, though, so of course they can giddily talk about genocide. And what better way thwart the genocidal witches of Great Britain with a little genocide of your own! Wait, what? This is a children’s book, right? Who are the good guys again? The boy and grandmother’s genocidal plan works and the witches of Great Britain are no more! Hurray? Everyone lives happily ever after? Nope! The book continues! There are more witches in this world still and it is up to the boy and his grandmother to infiltrate the world of witches and kill all the witches in the world because clearly all witches are evil and must be destroyed. They do, after all, want to kill children. The book ends with the boy and his grandmother finishing the first step to worldwide genocide. And they lived happily ever after. What I find most disturbing is how, while I could find plenty of complaints about the misogyny about the book, I couldn’t find anything about the genocide. Maybe I just missed it out there, but I don’t like what that says about us as human beings to not have addressed it.

“The Witches” is the best children’s book about casual genocide that you will ever read. I mean, it legitimately is a fun book to read. And, in the right environment, I think it could be used as a valuable learning experience about how easily we as a race make people The Other and how quickly we can take away their humanity and allow ourselves to believe that The Other’s death is an acceptable outcome. Or, I guess, it would also be a great book if you’re trying to bring up baby Hitler.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars

The brutality of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels continues with “The Story of a New Name”. Lila is now married to Stephano and their marriage is brutal, just like everyone’s relationship in the book. Lenu is lost in thoughts that are brutal. Friends are brutal to friends. Business partners are brutal to business partners. This is the everyday world of Elena Ferrante’s Naples. Lila and Elena’s (Lenu) relationship continues to grow or perhaps fester in this world. They both experience sexual awakenings that are traumatizing, as every female’s awakening in this world probably is. They grow apart and come back together and love the same man and grow apart and come back together. It is a messy, complicated, beautifully flawed relationship.

The brutality is a product of upbringing and upbringing is a product of the neighborhood and the neighborhood is a product of neglect and the neglect has lasted generations. Welcome to the world of Naples’ working poor. Ferrante continues to dive into it with unrelenting indifference. There are no moments of “Oh, poor Elena” or “Oh, poor Lila”, it’s all straightforward “This is how it is”. Lila gets stuck in this world. Elena has a chance to escape. Elena finds, however, that the world follows her. She needs to change her manner, her speech, her dress, and still she gets looked down on. Both of them have a determination to not let this world they grew up in define them, though they follow two very different roads less taken.

Seeping and oozing throughout the novel is rank misogyny. It festers and corrupts everyone and everything it touches. Violence is the starting point of confrontation. Women are objects to be purchased and used and thrown away. Boys hate their fathers and run from what their fathers are only to become them. The perverted and cruel circle of life thus continues.

Elena Ferrante continues to be brilliant and the Neapolitan Novels continues to be not for everyone. There really isn’t much feel good to be found here. There aren’t even any good characters to root for. At best, there’s empathy. What this book is, like the one before, is straight, honest, and unflinching. If you don’t mind not having a good guy when you read, you should start reading Ferrante’s brilliant novels now.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars

A word of warning about “My Brilliant Friend”: This is a book best read in physical book form. The reason being there are a lot of characters and it is very difficult to keep track of who’s who and what their relationship to anyone is and Mrs. Ferrante graciously recognized this and adorned the front of the book with a cast of characters which you will likely have to consult often. It becomes unwieldy to flip back and forth when using an e-reader.

A second word of warning: This is a book that doesn’t end. I mean, there’s a last word that ends the book, but it is more of an abrupt end than an ending with any sort of closure. This is highly annoying to certain people. I think it’s worth it. So be prepared to read all four books in the series if you’re looking for actual closure. I say this not knowing how book four ends, though perhaps a hint is shown in how book one begins. I can already attest that book two opens right where book one ended so it makes sense that the others would continue and we would come full circle to the beginning of book one.

“My Brilliant Friend” is a beautiful and violent portrayal of friendship between two girls, Elena and Lila, growing up in a poor section of Naples in the 1960s. Theirs is a unique relationship formed by both differences and commonalities, by intelligence and competition, by jealousy and love. The story is told by Elena so we get to see her worries and insecurities in a very raw form and we see Lila solely through Elena’s eyes as a confident and slightly enigmatic person. It is unclear throughout whose sphere of influence is stronger, though Elena would surely say that Lila’s was and Lila would likely find it an uninteresting question. Their friendship is also tinged with deep affections and you get the feeling that, if Lila moved close and kissed Elena, a dam would break and the two would get lost in each other forever. I am certain that Lila would need to be the one to initiate it. I am less certain that Lila would feel anything if she did or if she would just do it to see what would happen. Both Elena and Lila are fascinating character studies and I found myself imagining throughout the book what the two would do in certain situations.

Many people will be shocked by the level of day to day violence portrayed in “My Brilliant Friend”. Those people likely did not grow up poor. Being poor is like Atlas carrying the crushing weight of the world on his shoulders at all times. That weight never goes away and is at times unbearable and it is in those unbearable times where the violence occurs. It is anger, yes, but it is also frustration at things beyond one’s control made manifest in the forms of kicks and punches towards those who happen to be at hand. I did not grow up in that environment, but I grew up adjacent to it and have born witness.

Ferrante is Italian and the original novel was written in Italian. Like any wonderfully written book translated from its original language to my native English, I wonder what intricacies of words, what intimacies of phrase are lost in the translation. Obviously, the translators did a brilliant job for “My Brilliant Friend”, otherwise I would not have liked it as much as I did, but I also find myself longing to read the novel in its original form so I can catch all the nuances of language that are untranslatable. If only time were infinite.

After reading “My Brilliant Friend”, I certainly know what the next three novels I am going to read are. This is just book one of a four part series called the Neapolitan Novels. Having just started book two, “The Story of a New Name”, I can already say that I am as enraptured with the second book as I was with the first. It is going to be a good couple of reading months.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

“The Poisonwood Bible” is a strange novel that would probably fit into the historical fiction genre. It starts in the Belgian Congo in 1969. Yes, Belgium still controlled the Congo in 1969. The story follows the Price family as the evangelical father, Nathan, packs up his family and moves them from the U.S. to the Congo to convert the natives to Christianity. The novel is broken up into a few sections, each of which starts with a chapter from the mother Oleanna’s point of view at a time after she has returned to the U.S. These chapters are foreboding and foreshadow horrible things to come for the Price family in Africa. The rest of each section is then told from the point of view of one of the four Price sisters; Rachel (15), Leah (14), Adah (14), Ruth Mae (5).

Much of the beginning of the book is dedicated to the Price family’s travails in adjusting to Congolese life in the village of Kilanga. It is, needless to say, distinctly different from life back in the States. This part of the book, I found mostly dull and without much interesting to say. It then moves on to the Price girls somewhat starting to fit in to the village and interacting with its inhabitants while around them the Congo is slouching towards a very messy independence. Things start getting interesting here as it dawned on me what year the novel takes place and I recognized the horrible messiness that is to come. It was more than just that, though. When the children actually start acculturating, it is a learning experience for the reader as well. This section of the book is a very enjoyable read. Then all the foreshadowed bad things happen and the rest of the book follows the girls, now women, through their adulthood. I have huge problems with how things get here. Major turning points are either unexplained or poorly explained, I am not sure which. Despite that complaint, this section is also pretty interesting as the women go their separate ways and scatter throughout Africa and the United States.

I did enjoy Kingsolver’s use of the different voices for different chapters for the most part. The Adah portions I loved with her palindromes and reading styles, though by the end it got a little stale. Adah was still my favorite character, though. Leah’s life was the most interesting to read about. Kingsolver did a pretty good job of bringing the mind of the 5-year-old Ruth Mae to life as well. Then there was Rachel whom I absolutely hated. She would use the incorrect words constantly and never learn or grow. I know there are people like that, but they rarely come from the same family in my mind. Maybe I’m wrong. Her story arc was interesting, though, despite my dislike of her character and how it was written.

It is possible that much of the book is lost on me not having grown up with sisters and thus not really understanding the sisterly dynamic. I do not think so, though. The books flaws are deeper than that. It’s still a decent read, though. Not sure I agree with all the acclaim surrounding it. That might just be the Oprah effect, though.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 4/5 stars

“The Name of the Wind” is book one of most likely three books in “The Kingkiller Chronicle” series, the third book not having been released yet. Its composition is split into two timelines. There is the present time where an older and somewhat broken spirited Kvothe recounts the stories of his youth to a Chronicler named Devan Lochees whom Kvothe stumbles upon while dispatching some otherworldly spider creatures. Then there is the past where a majority of the text takes place as Chronicler dutifully records the events of Kvothe’s youth in Kvothe’s own words.

This is a wonderfully paced book with rich and full characters. The most delightful thing about the book, and where most fantasy novels fail miserably, is that there are also a number of well written and fully developed female characters as well. Mad props to Rothfuss for accomplishing this seemingly insurmountable feat. I joke. Slightly. There’s still the token love interest, Denna, but she is far from your normal fantasy love interest, though of course, she’s those things as well. Denna is smart and talented and ambitious and making her way in this male-dominated world the best she can. But there’s also Devi, a morally questionable and powerful moneylender, and Fela, a shy and possibly crazy woman who exchanges gifts with Kvote that contain delightful, if only imaginary, wishes and dreams hidden in them, and Fela, whom Kothe kind of cruelly uses to get what he wants, There are also male characters galore, of course, and they are also well written, but they mostly play second fiddle to the women.

Kvothe is a most intriguing character. He goes from idyllic childhood (well, my idea of idyllic anyway) to tragedy to being lost within himself to rekindling that fire within himself. Throughout book one, his motivations are clear, but there isn’t a hint of how he came to be as broken as he is in the present time. There are only seeds planted of the hero that he is to become, though, we are only really told that he is a hero or a villain or somewhere in between. And that gets to one of the main themes of the book: what is truth? Who is the real Kvothe? It is made clear that there is a lot of myth surrounding him, some of it true and some of it false and some of it bordering on true. Who is to judge? Kvothe? We have to assume yes, but it is also clear that he is not quite all there anymore and has been fed the tales of his own life for an indeterminate amount of time so who knows what is capital T truth anymore? Throw Bast’s little book ending adventures into it as well and danger signs go up. Truth is likely not to be found here. I do not know at all if this was Rothfuss’ intention, but incorporating truth from fantasy in a fantasy is brilliant if it was.

My only real complaint about the novel is one of pacing. Throughout, the pacing is excellent. Then, it’s thrown a little sideways by a little jaunt that Kvothe takes. The part that ends with the draccus for those who have read the book. The conclusion of it is satisfying, but the getting there part is a bit meandering and somewhat off flow with the rest of the novel.

This is a wonderful book and I greatly look forward to reading the next in the series. And the third if Rothfuss doesn’t pull a George R. R. Martin on us. (Sorry George, I love you, please finish the next novel soon!) It is a must read fantasy for those who love the genre. It even offers a lot to those who are not the typical fantasy fans.

Good news everybody! They are making the Kingkiller Chronicle into a TV series and my pretend best bud Lin-Manuel Miranda is executive producing it! No release date yet, but it’s going to be on Showtime. Which boo, but whatever.