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Going Bovine
Libba Bray
young adult

Bray knows her characters. The medley of sixteen year old underachiever/loser guy to talking garden gnome cast she creates is a fun romp to read through. Which is good because this is a looooooooooooong book. Very long. 480 pages long.

I know. I know. I sound like a griping teenager. The target audience. I wonder if the story has enough to keep them reading. I had a hard time remaining engaged.

While I enjoyed the imagination, the characters, the dialogue, the constantly changing setting, it was, ultimately, the leap of faith I was unable to take. At about the end of the first third of the book, when Cameron has already been hospitalized and is degenerating quickly - he's suffering from Creutzfeldt-Jacob (mad cow) disease, which is incurable and deadly. He sees an angel. Not just any angel. A punker angel. Okay, I'm still with you. The weird angel has appeared before in the distance. This might work. A punker angel named Dulcie.

Lost me.

We, as readers, sign a contract to take the leap of faith. To believe in the parameters of the story. Cameron's reality. It seems to incredible to be real. Sure enough, we come to discover in a 100 Years of Solitude sort of way toward the very end (and there are hints throughout that this might indeed be the case) that Cameron's been hallucinating/dreaming the last two weeks of his life. In other words, everything, including Dulcie, is a figment of his imagination. Yet his imagined life is far more alive and real than the 16 years of his life he more or less drifted through.

It's a great ending. Gabriel Garcia Marquez genius type of ending. But will the reader get there? We aren't in Latin American mysticism but modern day Texas. Realistic setting makes the leap hard. Dulcie makes the leap even harder. Granted, we're not supposed to take the leap in the end, we realize. It was a fantastical leap to begin with. One Cameron dreamed up. But because we do not know that right away, and because the fantastical keeps getting further and further out there, it's really hard to stay engaged, leaving the reader wondering, huh? What's the point? And, um, is it coming soon?

I hate not liking a book. I hate finding stuff wrong with the writing. There is no pleasure in it for me, especially with a book so close to greatness. Ultimately, it feels as though this piece lacked a stronger editorial pen. The right external input could have turned unbelievable into fantastical genius marvelous. We authors need editors. We really really do. No matter what stage of writing we are at. And we should never forget that. Because when we do, we are doomed to repeat our own mistakes without correction over and over and over again.

Read Going Bovine for its characters. For its Garcia Marquez crafty twist on reality. But also to notice where the editorial pen would have helped. Could have tightened, condensed and lifted such promise to the next level of greatness.  

For other great reads, hop over to our fearless leader's blog - Barrie Summy Blog.

Happy reading!

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If you are thinking about ending your summer reading with a deep, diverse, moving but in tune with the up-and-coming young adult generation book, look north. Canada north. Ontario, to be exact, where Tim Wynn-Jones’ piece, The Uninvited, takes place (and where the author himself lives).

A little bit mystery, a little bit drama, The Univited is the story of three young adults, Cramer, Mimi and Jackson, ages 18 – 24, who share the same father but do not know of their common link. They discover their common link over the summer at a small house owned by their, unbeknownst to them, common father. Sitting on an island created by a side channel, a snye, off of the main river, Eden, the house and its island are “magical”, not in the fairies and demons sense but in the “getting away from it all to think” sense.

Each of the members of the trio escapes to the island to search for something different – inspiration, safety, recognition. They find their soul’s desire, albeit in ways that bind them together forever.

The aspect of this book that really mesmerized me was how Wynn-Jones deftly uses the river Eden and its offshoot, the snye, as mirror reflections of the meanderings of the three siblings as they weave in and out of each other's lives and life itself. The watery mirror intensifies the book’s emotional core like water intensifies the sun’s rays, making the book that much deeper, that much more unforgettable.

If you are a writer looking for a book that expertly reflects aspects of craft, READ THIS BOOK. If you’re just looking for an unforgettable summer novel, READ THIS BOOK. If you’ve ever wanted to read a book set in Canada because, well, because it’s there and you’ve always wanted to see it, READ THIS BOOK.

If I haven’t come up with a reason to woo you over to The Univited, well…READ THIS BOOK anyway. You won’t regret it. Scout’s honor. It’s that good.

For more compelling, zany, thrilling, or just plain fun reads, visit our fearless Book Club whiz, Barrie Summy’s, blog: www.barriesummy.blogspot.com. You won’t regret that either!

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This month for the Book Review Club, I curled up with Michael Chabon's, Summerland. I chose the piece because I'd never read anything by Chabon. Simple as that. I didn't know he'd won the Pulitzer Prize before choosing the book. I also (guilty cough) didn't know how good-looking he is. Wow. A good-looking man who can write? Compelling.

As is Summerland.

The story is about 12 year-old Ethan Feld, whose mother has died. His father, an engineer, wants to build dirigibles for a living, but as balloons that people can use individually. He moves Ethan and himself from Colorado to a small island, Clam Island, off of the coast of Washington to fulfill his dream.

His father also has another passion, baseball. Ethan doesn't share that passion, at least not at the beginning of the book. He's horrible at baseball, but plays for his father, winning himself the nickname Dog Boy because he stands at the plate waiting and trying to get a walk - like a dog - rather than trying to hit the ball.

Games on Clam Island take place on a narrow section of the island that, unlike the rest of it, is constantly sunny. Oddly sunny. Out of the ordinary sunny. Ethan soon learns why. The section of land is pleached - co-joined - with an alternate universe, The Summerlands.

The Summerlands is inhabited by ferishers - fairies - giants, sasquatsches, and the stuff of legends and old adventures. What's more, everybody in the Summerlands plays baseball. EVERYBODY. Much to Ethan's surprise, he's recruited by a strange old scout to play baseball for the Summerlands, and learns, when he journeys between his world and theirs, that it's for more than a world cup, it's for the world as we know it.

Wily old Coyote - the book is full of a rich mixture of various legends and folklore, this one being American Indian - is trying to bring about the end of the world. Ethan must somehow stop him. Coyote, however, gets a hold of Ethan's father and tricks Mr. Feld into reproducing the picofiber material that he created for his dirigibles for Coyote's end-of-the-world plans.

In the meantime, Ethan races across the Summerlands to stop Coyote. The trickster is planning on poisoning the Lodgepole, the tree, the brancehs of which both hold up and connect the Summerlands, the Middling (where we live) and the Winterlands (wher Coyote and his band of tricketers like to hang out), and the Gleaming (where spirits reside) - the alternate universes.

The tree is fed by a well, and Coyote wants to poison the well by using Mr. Feld's picofibers to transfer Nothingness down to the very roots of the tree. To get to the well, Ethan - like an hero - has to go through a series of adventures, most of them involving some form of baseball, which test his character and help him find his true strength and courage.

If it sounds rich and complex, it is. Chabon deftly uses 500 pages to introduce and bring to life this intricate and moving tale. While perhaps the greatest criticism I've both experienced and read about the piece is its slower pacing, the longer I've thought about it, the less inclined I am to mark it up as a fault of the book. Ethan's dad, Mr. Feld, says more than once that "a baseball game is nothing but a great slow contraption for getting you to pay attention to the cadence of a summer day." Chabon creates and weaves into the story steady, relaxed, even pacing, I think, to get the reader herself to slow down, to chew on the gristle of the story, and to perhaps, if one can slow down enough, relax into and get lost in the journey, rather than race pell-mell through its adventures and mishaps toward that all-encompassing climax. Of course, the book does have a climax - one that will you make smile and remember fondly your own hours spent in a game up pick up baseball - but I'd venture to say, after having traveled through Summerland at a leisurely pace, this read is a lot more about the journey being the goal, as much as the climax of the story.

So if you're up for a relaxed adventure rich with tongue and cheek as well as a smattering of the world's collection of mesmerizing folklore, that will leave you yearning for the Summerlands as much as Ethan, pick up Chabon's bases loaded, sunny day, just you and your bat against the tomfoolery of the world's oldest trickster Summerland.

Go on, pick it up....you know you want to.

For more awesome reviews, mosey on over to our fearless leader's blog, Barrie Summy, whose put up links to them all.

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