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“11/22/63″ By Stephen King

:/

I really liked this book, I loved the plot and the main character was okay for awhile. All of this stopped when Sadie was introduced. (Why are all of King’s female characters so terribly written?? It’s really not difficult to write a character, a normal, well written character, and then make them a woman. I get that he doesn’t know what it’s like to be a woman, but he’s surely met women before, right?) 

For most of the book, Sadie was meek, insecure person who relied on the main character for a lot of things. She was previously abused by her ex-husband and was later attacked and mutilated by him, which was then used as a way to make Jake seem like a better person than he actually is. (Quit using the suffering of other characters as a way to say “look he’s so nice, he can love her even though she’s ugly and fucked up”, it’s disgusting.) 

Near the end, Jake didn’t want Sadie to follow him to her death. He said “I want my Sadie and my pound cake, too”. This was disturbing, because the term he and Sadie used as a code for their sexual encounters was “pound cake”. At this point they were engaged. She should have meant more to him than that. 

Jake also seemed to find humor and cuteness in the fact that Sadie lives in the 50′s/60′s and, because of that, puts herself in “a woman’s/wife’s place” and relies on him more. 

I think the book was well written. I found it easy to see what was being described. I found the main character interesting, and liked the fact that he was an English teacher. It was okay. 

(Side note: I watched a few episodes of the show, 11.22.63, and it was terrible. They cast James Franco and he was terrible. Although, I thought it was funny that they sacrificed acting ability to make him hot. “Sadie’s” southern accent sounded so fake that it was unbearable. Worse than the book, and they couldn’t even follow the actual plot.) 

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“Duncan the Wonder Dog” By Adam Hines

This graphic novel was freaky as hell. I’m just gonna put that out there. I thought the over all idea for the plot was really interesting and creative. I’ve seen or heard the whole “what if animals become sentient/start talking” thing before, but I’ve never seen something quite like this. For something called Duncan the Wonder Dog it’s surprisingly violent and disturbing. I actually loved that about this. A DOG SAT ON A BABY AND KILLED IT. On purpose. A monkey is running a resistance and killing humans. It seems like more of a television show than a graphic novel. And, can I just say that the way the book is laid out with the pictures and words (if you’ve read it you know what I mean) is brilliant. Well done, Adam Hines. 

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“Neverwhere” By Neil Gaiman

This book was fantastic. I thought the plot was wonderland-esque, yet still maintained a new-plot. I’ve recently read others’ reviews on Neverwhere, and everyone seemed to have a huge problem with Richard Mayhew, the protagonist. “Pathetic man-child hero who is supposed to go from zero to hero, but instead goes from zero to perhaps a zero-point-five. Starts off as a worthless noodle, ends up being a worthless potato. Slightly harder, more nutritious, but basically still brainless and not worth much.” Says one Goodreads user. I actually liked how reluctant Richard was. I know I wouldn’t be all-in on some stupid fucking adventure below London when my fiancee just left me, I lost my job, my apartment is being sold while I’m living in it, and some girl named Door is trying to drag me underground. All in all, it was a good book and a good story. 

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“The Ocean at the End of the Lane” By Neil Gaiman

I went into this book thinking it was going to be the most boring thing I’d ever read. This year in speech, there was a girl who had a piece from The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It was so uninteresting. She could have literally picked ANYTHING from this book and it would’ve been amazing, one would think at least. But no, she picked the most boring scenes and piled them on top of each other. I think she actually cut out the exciting parts of the scenes she chose. She was nice, but shame on her, her coach, and her cow. 

That speech girl did this book no justice. I ended up LOVING it. The Ocean at the End of the Lane was entertaining and dark. The boy’s childish confusion about what was happening with the babysitter and his parents was so weirdly terrifying to me. I thought this book was great. I’d recommend it. 

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Stephan King’s “It”

I finished Stephan King’s It about a month ago. I really liked this book, in all of it’s disgusting, horrifying glory. It contained sexual abuse against children, racist and homophobic hate crimes, a woman beating her husband’s balls with a belt for all of the abuse he put her through (go Bevvy!), and all of the kids seemed to be in love with both Bill and Beverly. I thought the story, over all, was really quite good. I mean, I’m a fan of horror and big, long books. It fell under both categories.

*Spoilers* 

The end part where Richie insisted he carries Eddie’s body out and kisses him is the saddest shit. At least Audra survived, there was a point to carrying her out. With Eddie, he was just dead. Richie didn’t want to leave him there because he was one of his best friends, and he loved him. 

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“Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” and “The Inexplicable Logic of My Life” by: Benjamin Alire  Sáenz

In my opinion, both of these books were very good. The author told the coming-of-age of several characters in these stories, and I thought he wrote them beautifully. 

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe was an adolescent romance between two characters with differing personalities and family lives. Ari, although he loves his family, has a few problems when it comes to his relationship with them, especially when it comes to he and his father’s relationship. His father served in the military before he was born, and the after effects of his time there caused him to be silent and distant from his son. This is made worse by the fact that his older brother, Bernardo is in prison. Ari sometimes feels like his parents believe he’ll end up in the same place. Ari later meets Dante’s family, who’s very close and affectionate, and Ari is shown thinking about what would happen if his family was the same.

I really enjoyed Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. I honestly thought it was going to be yet another book featuring a young, same-sex couple where all they ever talk about is either one character having sexual fantasies about the other (very prevalent in fanfiction and books written by teenage girls online...), or hating themselves because of their sexuality. That type of shit honestly gets so, so infuriating. WHY DO STRAIGHT PEOPLE NEED TO WRITE US LIKE THAT? Gay teenagers aren’t just sex fiends, with a side of internalized homophobia. They seem to forget that LGBT people are diverse. There are other parts of our personalities and, while being gay affects our lives, we have issues that don’t have anything to do with our sexuality. There’s no “my mom got mad at me for forgetting to thaw chicken before she got home” in these novels. There are no average teenage problems. It’s always “my mother loved me so, so much before I came out. But when I told her, she beat me to near death, kicked me out of the house, and I had to sell myself for food.” (I’m exaggerating, but sometimes that example is shockingly accurate to the things people write, especially fanfiction writers.) I’m so sick of how LGBT characters and their lives are written, even by other gay and trans people, and this was such a breath of fresh air. Thank you, Benjamin Alire Sáenz. 

This post is going to be a long one, since I stupidly decided to group the author’s books into one review. I read The Inexplicable Logic of My Life, after I read and liked the former. I also really enjoyed this book. I felt that, although it also contained LGBT characters, the plot wasn’t recycled and the characters were very much their own people. It was great. I’d recommend both of these books.

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“Lolita” By: Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita is an extremely controversial story, which was meant to be an act of protest towards the censorship that authors were facing. From what I was told by another reader of the book, Nabokov was basically saying “I can’t write a book with [blank] in it, but I can write a book from a child predator’s point of view? That’s messed up.”. (Bear with me on the quote, I don’t remember the exact words they chose.) 

The entire book is about a man who meets a woman, starts a relationship with her, and later marries her, because he has an infatuation with her twelve year old daughter. Her daughter’s name is Delores (or, to him, “Lolita”). He proceeds to travel with, and rape, the child after her mother is hit by a car. Therefore, your obvious thought process is “Ew, gross. What the fuck?”. 

Throughout the entirety of this novel, I found myself horrified and disturbed.The narrator was created to be completely unreliable, and it’s easy to forget that he’s a rapist and murderer in his humor. H.H, our narrator, presented his sexual and “romantic” relationship with a child as something consensual, as something mutually wanted and misunderstood. This is why many people pin it as a “love story” and why it’s become so romanticized. 

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Rick Moody’s “Demonology”

Demonology is a collection of short stories written by Rick Moody. These stories both managed to be dark and witty, as well as extremely unique and beautiful. Moody’s style of writing struck me as enticing and entirely breathtaking. He creates a sarcastic (depressing, really) mood throughout his stories that really make them feel worth reading. 

My personal favorites from Demonology would have to be both Carousel, as well as The Mansion on the Hill. I found these in particular to be incredible. This is definitely a worthwhile read. 

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Amy Tan’s “The Joy Luck Club”

The Joy Luck Club is a book featuring the stories of eight women, four immigrants from China, and four of their daughters. It details both their stories, as well as their relationships with the others.

This book was pretty amazing. I’m not going to lie, I thought the daughters’ stories would be rather boring, you know? I thought they’d be all “la dee da, having fun in America, don’t give a shit”. Then, they weren’t. I was so surprised, pleasantly surprised, but surprised. The Daughters’ stories were just as deep as their mother’s. All of them had different struggles and they were all extremely well represented and personalized.

Again, this book was so good. I loved it, please read it.

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here’s a pug eating a watermelon

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“Mo’ Meta Blues” By: Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson

Mo’ Meta Blues is a biography of the author’s life and experience with music. Growing up with a jazz musician as a father, Questlove was around music throughout his childhood and adolescence. He discussed albums and records that were particularly important to him (or that reminded him of the time he scraped his leg on the radiator...) during the book, and I found that interesting and kind of really nice. I mean, it really humanized him and made the book more personal to hear about how he and his friend listened to a bootleg cassette tape his father didn’t like in his friend’s old car. It’s that kind of writing, as well as Questlove’s knowledge and amazing personality, that made the book as witty and personal as it was. I seriously recommend making Mo’ Meta Blues your next read. 

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Wes Moore’s: “The Other Wes Moore”

I finished “The Other Wes Moore” earlier today. It was brilliant. This was the second time I’ve read it, I was a lot younger the first time, and it was still really amazing.

So, The Other Wes Moore is an autobiography/biography about a man named Wes Moore, writing about both his, and another man by the same name’s lives. The author ended up being successful, however, the other Wes Moore ended up in prison. Both men grew up in the same place but had different experiences with family and friends. 

In the end, the author, and Wes, ask you to think about what might have affected the men to do different things with their lives. You begin asking yourself questions like: “What influenced their behavior?” and: “How did their parents’ reactions to their respective bad decisions affect where they ended up in life.”. 

All in all, I believe the author meant this to be a sort of “call out” to the people living in situations like the author and Wes’s childhood homes/neighborhoods who may think that behavior like Wes’s is acceptable and that it won’t have later consequences despite the “that’s just the way it is” that they’ve been around their entire lives.  

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Richelle Mead’s “Gameboard of the Gods”

qI finished this book a week or so ago, after picking it up off of my brother’s bookshelf. The plot itself wasn’t the most interesting thing, to be utterly honest with you. However, the (main) characters maintained the ability to be extremely relateable whilst sticking to the futuristic, science fiction theme, and managed to be well written and fully fleshed out. Although, I did feel like Leo, a side character with multiple appearances, could have a bit more personality past the “smart, calm, lies about his relationship” that the author provided. 

To me, Justin was one of the most relateable characters I’ve ever seen in a novel. He was first presented as a young man with an addictive personality, voices in his head, and an apparent neck fetish. Although he did some questionable things at times, which often made him appear to be an insensitive man-whore, he showed empathy and understanding throughout the entire book. He was one of the characters who felt very real to me. 

“With Cristobal gone, she slid over to Justin. The smile on his face was starting to hurt, but he knew that Cristobal’s guest had to be entertained. ‘Cristobal didn’t have to tell me you were trouble,’ she said with a purr. ‘A little voice in my head told me that right away.’ Justin perked up. ‘You hear voices in your head?’ She looked surprised. ‘I mean, not literally. You’d have to be crazy for that.’ ‘Right,’ Justin said flatly. ‘Of course.’” (Mead 16). That had to be one of my favorite quotes from Justin, the other, this: “‘Black Bay bourbon. Straight,’ Justin ordered. He glanced at Mae. ‘Can’t get that in the provinces.’ He turned back to the bartender. ‘You got any ash?’ She suppressed a groan, wondering if her position as a soldier of the Republic meant she should be enforcing its laws. ‘Oh, yeah, of course,’ said the man, handing Justin a small glass of amber liquid. ‘It’s good, if you want to get something for your fucking grandmother. You want some serious shit, though, you go for the gates of paradise.’ Justin scoffed. ‘You don’t have that here.’ The bartender reached down and held up a small plastic dropper, earning an exclamation of, ‘Fuck me. Hook me up.’” (Mead 139-140). 

What was really disappointing to me, was the way Tessa’s relationship with the boy she dated felt forced. It served literally no purpose than to get her in trouble and further convince me that she is, in fact, a raging lesbian. Throughout the book, and their relationship, you could tell she had literally no interest in boys further than friendship. 

I feel like Mae’s backstory was absolutely fantastic as well, especially the part about her former partner. However, I’d rather not give it away. The book itself was pretty amazing and very well written so kudos to the author.