Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

In preparation for this review, I went back to my review of Eclipse from 2007. My same frustrations from Eclipse are all found in Breaking Dawn. I had hoped for a really rock star ending to this series, but it's really more of the same. Then I remembered what my friend Jeanna said 3 years ago: it's a romance novel. (Gail Gauthier also emphasizes this.) Still, I was disappointed in missed opportunities for blood shed and action.

By the way, spoilers abound.

I had hoped that the brouhaha over this book would be to my advantage. (If they hated it, maybe I'll like it!) After finishing the book I wasn't sure why the ardent fans were turning against it. It seemed like standard Meyer material to me. I don't take issue with Bella and Edward married and having a kid. Nor do my feathers ruffle over a perceived anti-abortion message. This was one part of the book that totally and took me by surprise and I liked it. I thought the unknown "creature" growing in Bella provided great tension and that's something that has been lacking in these books. Maybe because my own belly beast thumps and somersaults to no end that I found this part of the book to be so interesting. Overly lengthy and repetitive? Of course. It's Meyer's book after all.

Like the previous, Breaking Dawn drowns in mind-numbing, repetitive dialog. I suffered through page after page of same old same old. Here's a snippet, slightly edited for length:

"Edward"
He didn't move.
"Edward?"
Nothing. So, this would be a monologue, then.
"I'm not sorry, Edward. I'm... I can't even tell you. I'm so happy. That doesn't cover it. Don't be angry. Don't. I'm really f---"
"Do not say the word fine." [...]
"But I am," I whispered.
"Bella," he almost moaned. "Don't."
"No. You don't, Edward."

This could have come from any of the previous books. This scene is post-coital, BTW. ::shivers::

Jacob and Bella's "you're my best friend"/"I don't know why I do this to you/myself" also returns. These passages weigh the book down. It is absolutely unnecessary that this book is as long as it is. So much time is spent rehashing old events. What a waste. BTW, they're shape-shifters, not werewolves.

The biggest letdown is The Big Ending That I Believed Was Surely Coming. No luck. It ends happily for Bella and Edward and that's super. It's just the most anti-climatic climax ever.

The Volturi finally make an appearance on page 697 (of 754). Prior to that there is the preparation for their arrival which means various friends and acquaintances of the Cullens arrive to act as witnesses to the fact that Renesmee (Run-nez-may) is not a pure immortal child but half-human and therefore not the threat assumed. This gang of misfits marked another high point of the novel for me. Don't ask me names or anything because I have a hard time keeping them straight, but they were a nice addition to the story around the 570 page mark. Also, Alice and Jasper unexpectedly abandon everyone, but not before Alice leaves some clues for Bella to decipher so that Renesmee may survive. (Recall that Alice can see some of the future.) I found this little mystery super fun and a refreshing change of the storyline. Bella handles this part of the story all by herself. No way! Way.

More or less, this is how the non-climax goes down. The Volturi come with their brute force and witnesses to the baseball field clearing. Jacob stands with Bella, Edward, and Renesmee while the rest of the wolves surround the forest. The Cullens and friends face off against the Volturi Posse. Greetings exchanged. Accusations made. Explainations offered. Some vamp powers extended in a kind of bully tug-o-war pissing match. One vamp is killed! More discussion among the vamps in each group. Questions asked again. Waiting. Talking. And a final chit chat before ALL. IS. A-OK. No need for an all-out vamp-tastic battle! Stop hissing now! Just a simple misunderstanding. How civilized.

How dull. How easy.

I'm glad the series is over. It was quite a ride with some good times and some mind-numbingly lame times. Meyer certainly rocked the YA lit world and produced books that teens wanted badly. I look forward to discussing Breaking Dawn with the girls at the teen book club next week as I'm sure it will be the topic of discussion. I haven't had the opportunity to talk to teens about the story yet and I am very curious to hear what they have to say. (Although I do hope someone read Skin Hunger.)

P.S. Stephenie. Thanking just the booksellers for making your series a hit? Boo!



Must read review: Bookshelves of Doom (Schlitz was a good idea.)
Elsewhere: Twilight Moms

Cover Cage Match: Tantalize vs Ivy

How interesting!

The British cover of Ivy uses the same basic cover image as Tantalize.

I was too lazy to look up which was published first.

Ivy by Julie Hearn

Victorian England has rarely been so entertaining. Ivy is a story filled with characters. And by that I mean Characters. Almost everyone that fills this book will amuse you with their ridiculousness. There are the charity women we meet from the Ragged Children’s Welfare Association, who have a list of who is most deserving to be offered a place at their school (including "children of worthless drunken parents and children of those suitable for the workhouse but living, instead, a semicriminal life"). Luckily Ivy and her cousin Orlando meet several of the regulations and are offered a chance for an education.

Perhaps not so lucky is that Ivy wanders away her first day of class and meets Carroty Kate. A member of a not so awful band of thieves who lure children into alleys so that they can steal all their clothes.

If this sounds a bit dark and dire, it isn’t. Hearn plays everything for laughs. The setting of Victorian England is a perfect backdrop for this story where everyone is scheming, intrigues abound, and our poor Ivy is beset by everyone trading her around for a few shillings.

Interestingly enough, I was a bit disappointed by the missed opportunities for even more humor. Ivy is employed by an artist that we can only assume is not very talented. In fact, one assumes he is a grossly untalented hack with an inflated idea of his skills because his rather deranged mother pumps up his ego. At one point in the book Ivy asks to see his finished piece and he practically jumps out of his skin to keep her from seeing it. I would have loved to have seen Ivy’s reaction to the (presumed) monstrosity of a painting that she had suffered hungry pythons, cold rivers, and a variety of more potentially deadly adversaries to pose for (like the artist’s mom – hoo boy! She was fantastically terrible. One of my favorite characters).

This is a fabulous historical fiction that will have the reader laughing out loud.

Publishers Weekly Article - When YA Might Not be OK

I was reading Read Roger this afternoon and his post discussed an article in Publisher's Weekly entitled "When YA Might Not be OK." In this article the librarian said that she often gets confident readers of 10 or 11 who are wanting to read up. They want things like Twilight, or Pretties, or Gossip Girl. And she doesn't feel comfortable giving them to them, so she attempts to stear them to more suitable material. Roger said it, "gives [him] the willies." And it sort of did me too.

When a kid asks for a title specifically I do my best to locate that title. I don't feel its up to me to judge whether or not they should be reading it. I might think they aren't old enough, but I certainly wouldn't say anything. If luck has it and it isn't available (and usually even if it is) I suggest titles that I think would suit them better. As in, "and while you're at it why don't you try these titles too? I think you'll like them."

My best example is a voracious 11 year old reader that was one of my most regular patrons a few years back. She ran up to me one day and told me she had just read Candy by Kevin Brooks and had absolutely LOVED it. Never would I have thought to recommend that title to her, but after that (and with her father's permission) I started recommending all sorts of titles. After all, why not? I certainly read up at her age.

Essentially, what my reference interviews boil down to is I ask what books they have enjoyed in the past and try to recommend titles based on that. After all, the whole point is to encourage kids to read, not to stifle their interest. Nothing says, "don't bother ever coming to ask me for help again because I am not really interesting in helping you," than saying no you can't read that book because I don't think you're not old enough for it. I'm not saying don't use your judgement, but an 11 year old wanting to read Twilight? Sure bring it on.

Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher

Ruby is an ordinary 15 year old school girl from a respectable family in the 1940s. But then her father dies, her mother’s arthritis gets too painful to keep working and Ruby has to quit school to work in one of the meat-packing factories to support herself, her mother and her younger sister. Not that it supports them very well – she makes barely enough to feed them and their debts are piling up. Then she meets Paulie. A local boy with a bad reputation who tells her about another way to make money. Soon she’s swept up into a romance with Paulie and working as a taxi-dancer at a local club.

A taxi-dancer you say? Taxi-dancers worked at clubs where men would buy 10 cent dance tickets and purchase dances with the ladies that worked there. The woman would get 5 cents for each dance plus tips if she was lucky. What the job lacked in societal respect it more than made up for in money. Because the job was not considered respectable many women lied about their profession so that they could keep the esteem of their families and friends. Taxi-dancers were not prostitutes, but they did provide an “illusion” of intimacy and love so that they could earn more money.

Ruby is poor and forced to make hard and difficult choices. She doesn’t necessarily make the right decisions, but when she makes a decision she owns it. She deals with the repercussions and grows and develops as a character in ways that are completely believable. Christine Fletcher has done what is so difficult to do in a historical fiction – create a character that could actually have existed in the time period she is writing about (thankfully Ruby does not suffer from overly spunky convention breaking syndrome).

Fletcher is also able to describe the casual racism that was common during that time period. Taxi-dance halls were one of the only places Asian men could mix freely with white women. They could buy tickets just like the white men, although that didn’t guarantee them a dance, many taxi-dancers would simply pretend not to see them. There were also after hour clubs called Black and Tans where African American, whites, and Asians would gather to enjoy jazz, swing and other types of music. Ruby stars off rather horrified at the casual mixing of races and then slowly opens her mind as she gets to know people of other ethnic backgrounds. I thought that the race issue was handled very deftly and helped to show what the prevailing thoughts of the time period were.

Readers will be drawn into Ruby’s story from the first page. They will see Ruby develop from a naïve and innocent school girl into a savvy streetwise woman. The taxi-dance clubs, as well as the women who worked there make for a compulsively readable book about an era that readers likely won't know anything about. I can’t recommend it enough.

Just as an added note – Christine Fletcher has a fascinating author note where she explains how a great-aunt’s life inspired the story. Absolutely amazing. And she also has a great wealth of information about taxi-dancers on her website.

Other reviews:
Yayaya’s (Who have also compiled a slew of links.)

The Last Exit to Normal by Michael Harmon

“The decoder card to the universe wasn’t included in the box of cereal God gave humanity. At the ripe old age of seventeen, I’d at least figured out that no matter how hard you try to guess what happens next, you can’t. Life wasn’t set up that way and we don’t like it, so we spend most of our time running around like a bunch of dimwits.”

Ben’s voice won me over right from the opening sentence. He’s brash, outspoken, angry, but deep down a profoundly decent human being. It all started 3 years previous when his dad came home, announced he was gay and pretty much told everyone to deal with it. A difficult thing for Ben to understand, made more difficult by his mother packing her bag and abandoning him, and made still more difficult by the homophobes at school who kick his ass for having a gay dad.

After a few rough years, Ben’s dad and boyfriend decide to move the family to small town Montana for a fresh start. A decision that Ben is sure will equal disaster (he fears that small towns equal small minds). Of course Rough Butte is not what he expected. Sure there are plenty of rednecks, but there is also community and a surprising amount of acceptance. Add in a few subplots that allow character growth and introspection and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect.

What makes this book a step above others is that there isn’t any easy resolution to the anger and tension between Ben and his father. Ben feels that he was a mistake – born to a father that shouldn’t have had children, his dad feels as though Ben hates him because he is gay, and they don’t have the skills to communicate. Their relationship is believably strained with two flawed people who are neither right nor wrong in their positions. Very much like real life, emotions mess up any chance for a logical appraisal of the situation and they find it difficult to get past, well, the past.

This is a really solid piece of writing. Teens will enjoy Ben’s voice, they’ll enjoy that he’s smart, tough, but not infallible. I’m always happy when I read something that will appeal to boys and isn’t science fiction or comic books.

Bliss by Lauren Myracle

I love horror stories and so do the kids and teens I work with. So, I was pretty excited about Bliss. Plus I got a signed copy right after M. T. Anderson at ALA, and both he and Lauren were so nice and cool!

Bliss Cavender is a recovering hippie, raised on a commune and dropped at her elegant grandmother's doorstep when her parents escaped to Canada to avoid the draft. The rich Atlanta neighborhood, not to mention showers and television, are like a strange new world for Bliss. So, when she starts her first day at a fancy school, her main goal is to make a friend, any friend; sadly, this makes her vulnerable to the evil forces that are gathering to return the spirit of a long-dead girl to this world.

Creepy, creepy! At first glance at the proposed cover (this is an advanced reader review), you will be reminded of Stephen King's Carrie. Not sure if this is intential, but since both books are set during the 70s and both deal with girls who have been shunned by society and seek revenge, it might be. Doesn't hurt to write such a happy word (Bliss) in what appears to be blood on the cover.

Appearance-wise, I also like the black pages interspersed throughout the book with quotes from the time period. It breaks up the action, shortens the chapters, and adds to the tension. Great for suspense and for drawing in reluctant readers (many of whom love horror). Also, the handwritten journal pages on what appears to be lined paper with drops of blood definitely add to the effect, while giving you insights into the mind of the disturbed girl who wrote them. Plus, the initials S. L. L. are a foreshadowing clue....

Myracle even plays with fonts, standard print for the main story and quotes, handwritten script for the journal entries, and a creepy Chiller font for the whispers from the dead girl.....

Probably what I liked best were the quotes. I've always been a fan of good quotes in a book, and in this one they serve to both draw the reader into the time period, just as Bliss is being educated about the time and people around her, and add to the creepy effect. I mean, how creepy is it to have a quote from "The Andy Griffith Show" followed by direct quotes by Charles Manson during the Tate-LaBianca trial?

I did have a few problems with the story. For one thing, while a lot of time was spent on Bliss and Sandy, very little character development happens for anyone else. I would have liked to know Mitchell and Lawrence better. Greater character development for Liliana and Sarah Lynn definitely would have helped a few of the later plot holes.

I was also a bit disturbed by the treatment of interracial relationships. Being from the South, I grew up around people who had similar opinions about "mixing the races" as many of Bliss's friends and acquaintances; and, while that part was well done, it seemed that this aspect of the story was just tacked on, just used as an explanation of why Sarah Lynn behaved the way she did, of why Bliss didn't fit in. In many ways, most of the teens were portrayed as very superficial, especially in their opinions of racial issues. There was a small change in their view that was later destroyed. I almost wish this could have either been left out or more fully developed.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed this book and think that most teens will, also. It was decidedly creepy and had plenty of lovely unexpected twists. It is not just another horror-themed romance, nor is it an outright gore-fest. It is creepy and disturbing, and makes you wonder about yourself, your friends, and the closed-up wings of all old buildings.

Other reviews:

The Reading Zone

Reading Rants!

Oh Goodness!

After the week of Breaking Dawn angering the Masses, this comic is almost too good to be true!
From Head Trip Comics:

Thanks to Fuse#8 for the link.

The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriquez by Alan Lawrence Sitomer

Sonia is the American born daughter of Illegal immigrants. Her parents came to El Norte for opportunity – they just couldn’t make enough money to have a good life in Mexico and so have been living in the states for almost 20 years. Her beloved father works 3 jobs to take care of the family and so is hardly around. Unfortunately the rest of her family is not so dependable or respectable. Her older brother dropped out of school and his machismo is getting out of hand, her younger brothers sit around eating candy and playing video games, her pregnant mother won’t stop laying around watching telenovelas, and her drunkle (her drunk uncle) is a violent predator that has invaded their home permanently.

Sonia desperately wants to graduate high school. That would make her the first person in her family to graduate. However, Sonia is expected to put family first before anything else. That wouldn’t be anything to get upset about except that her family expects her to do absolutely everything. Cook, clean, run to the store, etc., etc., etc., while they all sit on their tushes like royalty. When she finally decides that her school work needs to come first, her mother ships her off to visit her Grandmother in Mexico eight days before the semester ends. Not an event that helps her scholastically.

Sitomer has written a story about stereotypes and how people reinforce and just as often break them. In fact, discussion of stereotypes permeates the entire story. Rasicm also factors into the story. Sonia bemoans the fact that her Mexican family holds such derogatory opinions of both Blacks and Central Americans. Unfortunately Sonia’s negative views of whites are placed into the text and are never examined. Does it seem natural that Sonia would hold these views and have deep rooted anger towards whites? Yes, absolutely. Does it seem somewhat irresponsible that Sitomer wouldn’t try to deal with them in some way? It sure did to me.

This is by no means a perfect novel. It tends to have spots where the plot slows down to a standstill as Sonia expounds on her never ending duties. It sometimes feels as though the author is using this book as a political platform. And Sonia’s love interest waxes a little too poetic for my taste. But there are also strengths. Sonia's dad, her grandmother, her cousin in Mexico. All highlights of the novel.

This is a book that is going to appeal to many Hispanic females. I believe Sonia’s problems are going to be completely relatable and that girls will enjoy reading a story about a girl who faces much of what they do everyday. I’ll definitely be recommending it to my teens despite its flaws.

This book will be published in late September.

I am Scout by Charles J Shields

I Am Scout is Charles Shields’ adaptation of his adult biography of Harper Lee entitled Mockingbird. I have not read his adult version and so can’t compare the two, but I do feel that perhaps he left out all the juicy bits in this younger version. Shields does a good job creating the setting and exploring her family dynamics before turning his eye to Harper herself.

Unfortunately, besides telling us that she’s a private person and a firecracker, there isn’t much else that Shields seems to be able to tell us about her personal life. There is absolutely no mention at all of a romantic life. Harper is, apparently, completely asexual. No girlfriends, no boyfriends, not a date to be seen in her entire life, no romance, no sordid affairs, not even any tasteful ones, absolutely nada. Surely that can’t be true?

There were interesting parts. I did enjoy learning much of To Kill a Mockingbird was clearly autobiographical. It was insightful to discover that characters in the story were based on herself, her father, Truman Capote, and various neighbors. I enjoyed learning about her and Capote’s friendship – but even that seemed sanitized. Capote is a fascinating person, and though I realize this wasn’t the place to explore him fully, it seemed as though the author cleaned him up. Left out the messy bits that he didn’t think were appropriate for younger readers.

Truthfully, I felt as though I Am Scout read a bit like someone’s college paper. All the foot notes, references, quotes to back up points that are perhaps (ok totally) superfluous as they’ve been already backed up several times before (honestly how many quotes do we need to understand that Harper was a tomboy?). There is no speculation either. Shields doesn’t seem to be willing to editorialize at all. Which is probably a good thing, but I still want more than he gave me.

If you’re looking to find out more about Harper Lee you won’t find out much personal information here. I’m sure much of the problem lies with just how private a person Harper is and has always been. Regrettably, this does make the book less dynamic - it’s just not as much of a page turner without any juicy tidbits thrown in. However, if you’re looking to learn about how To Kill a Mockingbird came to fruition this might be a book that you should pick up.

Jenn reviewed this earlier and seemed to like it more than me as well.