Drums of Autumn (Outlander #4) – Diana Gabaldon
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drums of autumnDrums of Autumn picks up 2 months after the end of Voyager, with Claire and Jamie in America. There’s the most boring and un-dangerous pirate robbery EVER, where Claire decides to A) ignore Jamie being in danger and worry about an injured dog instead, and B) do something EXTREMELY STUPID that endangers Jamie even more and then not care at all. They spend some time with Jamie’s Aunt Jocasta, who never seems to mind that Jamie killed her brother, and who seems to be getting set up to be an evil manipulator, but nothing ever really comes of it. There’s a bunch of slave stuff that has no bearing on the rest of the books. Then they decide to live on a mountain and there’s lots of stuff about building a log cabin and hunting and preserving food and making friends with Indians.

This is all interspersed with super boring present-day POVs by Roger Wakefield. Blah. And, I mean, we all know what’s going to happen there, right? There’s NO REASON for them to stay in the present.

I still love Jamie and Claire and I feel like the best thing about these books is them and their character development, but the plots are starting to slow down for me. They have adventures but they seem to be so random and don’t have anything to do with anything.

I have to mention the ridiculous scene where Dr. Claire PERFORMS SURGERY (in the 1700s, remember) FOR THE AMUSEMENT OF A DINNER PARTY and it doesn’t even occur to her that people will think she’s a witch or anything. Or that maybe she shouldn’t have a bunch of dirty people gawking at her cutting open this guy’s balls. It is…well, ridiculous.

Drums of Autumn starts this new thing where Gabaldon sort of leaves plotlines hanging for a while. I guess it’s to build suspense, but I don’t like it. Example: Jamie and Claire get some visitors, some people get very ill, end chapter. Then you have to go spend a long time with Boring Roger in the present, and when you see Jamie and Clare again…the visitors are unexplainedly gone and the sickness is, I guess, all better now, even though it was a pretty serious illness. It’s very strange and happens more than once in this book. It’s like she forgot to finish the chapter and just went with it.

Also I kind of hate Bree. The whole “fiery woman whose spirit simply cannot be contained” trope is just…ugh. It usually just translates to “woman who yells at people at the drop of a hat and insists on doing stupid, reckless things because of her “spirit.”” Claire has some of that, but not usually enough to be annoying.

Audiobook notes: I have realized that while I love the accents of the narrator, one that she doesn’t do well is southern. The slaves that have speaking parts are just…really, really bad.

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Little Women series by Louisa May Alcott
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LittleWomen4

So, I loved this as a little girl, and decided it was time to try it as an adult. I was shocked to find that apparently I’d never actually read the original and instead had just read a VERY abridged child’s version. I mean, I always wanted more to the story, but didn’t really know WHY. (I guess even as a kid I hated abridged anything…I don’t like when people keep secrets from me, especially in books!) I guess I SHOULD have known, because the little pocketsized version I have is 236 pages and every other page is a drawing, so we really only have roughly 100 tiny pages of text, but still, the full version was such a surprise.

What a revelation to find out that THE MAJOR shocking moments I never was able to get over when reading it as a kid  (think dramatic moments with Beth, with Amy & Laurie, etc.) are actually not even a part of the original book! They were part of a sequel to Little Women called Good Wives and were later (and more commonly) published together with it as one standalone novel.

And all I can say now, is WTH, LMA??? What the total hell are you doing to me? I mean, in the adult version, I can clearly see that Beth has to die because she is too good and perfect to be real and has no role other than to function as a sort of angelic figure. She just hangs out in the house taking care of folks and HAS NO OTHER PERSONALITY. To heck with Good Wives, if I just read the original Little Women, sure there is a lot of moralizing, but I can leave Beth weak but alive (and under the care of a doctor, dammit) and leave Jo and Laurie comfortably flirting since they’re clearly meant to be together. NO. I just will not buy pampered but pretty Amy as a love interest when there is a firebrand with a brain, our dear Jo, around.

Anyway, I was shocked when the original Little Women ended with Beth whole but tired, Meg waiting patiently to marry John Brooke once he gains some money, and the rest just doing more of what they had been, albeit with Mr. March at home. And that is SUCH a disappointing ending! It is no wonder they combined the next part in with the original, but I still prefer my Little Women to be FOUR girls, thankyouverymuch, so I will get over the ending and just pretend that Good Wives never happened.

good wives

Good Wives: (Or Little Women Part Two)…So I have major complaints about this one (and I HOPE that it isn’t that the previously serialized Little Women got too much editing from her publisher). Mostly, I am annoyed that while they call the damn doctor when Beth has scarlet fever in the first section, apparently they do not for a daughter that has just made up her mind to die. I mean, not once, no doctor is called in, not for this EVER. BETH JUST DECIDES SHE IS GOING TO DIE BECAUSE HER NEEDLE IS TOO HEAVY AND THEY ALL JUST LET HER. She isn’t even DIAGNOSED with anything. Does she have cancer? Consumption? Apathy? What the heck does Beth even die of, Mrs. Alcott? Do you even know?

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Little Men: I never read this one as a kid, so my feelings are strong and current. I have to say, I did like that this sequel to LW allowed us to see more of Jo, but I didn’t feel like it was a satisfying story for where the March girls would end up. I didn’t want Jo to be with old Mr. Bhaer so the whole book feels wrong. I also don’t see spirited writer Jo giving up on her dreams to take care of a houseful of boys who are not her own in the house she inherited from old Aunt March (who always liked Amy better anyway). That’s too much like our Beth, and frankly, Jo is too selfish and angry for it. I mean, what happened to her weakness of being impatient and impulsive? This just doesn’t seem to fit.

So once I get past that, I get annoyed because the other characters aren’t featured much. Okay, so Beth is dead, but where is Marmee? She was so much a part of the girls’ lives, she lives just down the road, and now we never see her! And why do John and Meg let their twins come live at a school for abandoned boys? THEY have a home and parents who love them! This does not make sense. I could see them visiting often, as Bess does, but what the actual hell are you doing here, LMA? Meg wouldn’t just give up her babies to Jo because Josie was born! No way. AAAAAND then we get another mysterious death like Beth’s. John Brooke just up and keels. For no mentioned reason. And he’s apparently a beloved uncle and patron of the school, even though WE DON’T EVER SEE HIM. Really? Just no.

 

jo's boys

Jo’s Boys: I’d never read Jo’s Boys, so I guess I was expecting something ELSE. This short book took me three weeks to read because I just disliked it so much. There was entirely too much moralizing that creeps in too much in Good Wives and Little Men and the rest was just stories about the random boys Jo took in that I just couldn’t much care about. Jo’s Boys takes place ten years after Little Men and shows the Bhaer and Laurence clans the founders of a college on the site of Plumfield. Of course, most of what goes on in this book is a bunch of marriages and shocking diatribes on how to impress and deserve a “good” mate. I KNOW this is a classic and that much of the views on people’s appropriate actions will thus seem outdated. But where is Jo’s fiery nature and rebellious streak, Meg’s jealousy over other people’s money, and Amy’s selfish vanity? They’re all prim and proper housewives now and far too perfect to be believed. You’ve taken all the believable March-ness out of our dear girls and instead made them into nothing more than paper cutouts critical of bluestockings and self-made men. Not cool, LMA, not cool. Not a fan.

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The Lord John series – Diana Gabaldon
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hand of devilsThese all seem to be mysteries, which is not generally a genre I’m drawn to. I don’t entirely understand why there are so many books about Lord John, who I always considered to be a rather boring character, but Gabaldon seems to love the dude, so here we go.

It’s so weird. The storylines on these books don’t really matter to me. I can’t figure out what exactly I like about the stories themselves, since the mysteries tend to always be lacking in my opinion. But I still really, really enjoy them. The plots are so…convoluted. By the end I’m a little lost and bored and when the Big Bad is revealed I don’t even really know who he is.

Anyway, I guess all these stories are able to be read as standalone, apart from the Outlander series, but they fill the several-year gap in Voyager – there’s a point in Voyager where what we know of Jamie’s story kind of ends and is picked back up when Claire returns, and these books cover that time period. This is the recommended reading order from Gabaldon’s site, to be started after Voyager, book 3 of Outlander:

  1. Lord John and the Hellfire Club** (novella)
  2. Lord John and the Private Matter (shorter novel)
  3. Lord John and the Succubus** (novella)
  4. Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade (shorter novel)
  5. Lord John and the Haunted Soldier** (novella)
  6. The Custom of the Army (novella)***
  7. The Scottish Prisoner (novel)
  8. Plague of Zombies (novella)***

** included in the collection Lord John and the Hand of Devils
*** included in the collection A Trail of Fire, along with 2 other stories not involving Lord John and with no particular reading order

private matterLord John and the Hellfire Club: Set after the closing of Ardsmuir, this extremely short story involves the murder of a cousin of Harry Quarry, the guy that Lord John took over from as governor of Ardsmuir. The murder seems to be related to a gay/magic/murder club that exists in London at the time, and Quarry and Lord John seek to unravel the mystery. The story feels rushed and there’s no real…depth. The ending isn’t shocking or relieving because there’s just not enough time to get invested in any of these characters.

Lord John and the Private Matter: Ohhhhh yeah, this is definitely an english mystery, all right. There’s lots of amateur investigations of slums and whorehouses and Irish people, and Lord John running around postulating on things and saying “ergo…!” There’s a side mystery about a guy who’s engaged to Lord John’s cousin possibly having syphilis, and so Lord John kind of hilariously plots throughout the whole book to try to get a better look at his penis to be sure of the disease. The conclusion of the mystery was kind of lame and confusing and I didn’t really care by then.

scottish prisonerLord John and the Succubus: Lord John’s off on campaign fighting the French, and there’s a succubus loose in the camp, killing soldiers! This one seems much longer and more fleshed out than The Hellfire Club. Lord John’s falling into a pattern though, of thinking over the mystery to himself constantly: “But if blah, then blah. But then, why did blah? Of course, then blah would blah. But then we must assume blah did blah!” Pages upon pages of that. It’s getting tiring.

brotherhood of the bladeLord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade: So, I really like the dry Englishness of these stories, mostly because of the historical context. While what Lord John does might be a tad boring, I enjoy the soothing accent of the narrator, and the little tidbits here and there, a historical term that I don’t know that when looking it up gives me a little bit of interesting information, etc. However. The mysteries themselves are the most boring things ever. Example: Gray was just informed that he’s got to investigate “a sodomite conspiracy to undermine the government by assassination of selected ministers.” Ugh. I don’t even know why I should care about that. So now there’s a “company of sodomites” that Lord John must uncover, presumably roaming London in bright makeup and flashy dresses and lisp-ily calling each other Mary (no really, that seriously happened in Lord John and the Private Matter). ANYWAY, aside from the roving band of murderous sodomites, John has got a new gay step brother, and he’s very happy about it.

Lord John and the Haunted Soldier: Lord John’s under investigation because of the cannon that blew up in Brotherhood of the Blade. And it’s complete crap. I really, really hated this one. Actually I seem to not really like any the novellas in this series, but this one was just really awful. Just, so many random people thrown at me, none of whom I cared about, a pointless but coincidentally related side story about a missing baby, basically NOTHING about the haunting, and UGH. I didn’t even care who the criminal mastermind was by the end. By the way, this is about as long as both other novellas combined.

custom of the armyThe Custom of the Army: I originally forgot about this one and started reading The Scottish Prisoner, and when I realized I was missing some stuff they kept talking about I went back and started this one. So. Lord John’s sent to Canada after a scandalous duel, and there are indians. Gay ones, of course. Lord John sure does coincidentally meet an awful lot of random gay people. Really short and nothing really happens. It seems to be just a setup for The Scottish Prisoner, really.

The Scottish Prisoner: Oooooh, this one’s got alternating viewpoints from Jamie and Lord John, that’s new! This was the best of them all for me. It wasn’t so much mystery and conspiracies by old English guys I don’t care about, but more character-building between Jamie and Lord John. There was some weird mystical/magic stuff involving ancient god spirits which kind of came out of nowhere and had no bearing on the story, though.

plague of zombies

Audiobook notes: Narrator: Jeff Woodman.  He. Is. Awesome. One of the best narrators I’ve ever listened to. He does a really good job of making each character’s voice distinct (John’s cousin Olivia comes to mind, I could almost believe it was actually a woman’s voice), and he also does great on inflections. So many narrators tend to just…read the text aloud, but you can kind of tell that Jeff Woodman has read ahead and concentrated on how each line should be read, with feeling. It’s wonderful, and he’s got a bunch of other stuff that I’d like to read, like Life of Pi and several JOHN GREEN books.

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Voyager (Outlander #3) – Diana Gabaldon
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Voyager Diana GabaldonSo at the end of the last book, Dragonfly in Amber, Claire realizes that Jamie didn’t die after Colloden and so he could still be alive in the past, 20 years later. Well, I don’t really think I’m giving too much away when I say that of COURSE he’s alive or there wouldn’t be 8 books in this series!

So. It’s kind of cool that in the beginning, the story is told in alternating POVs – you get Jamie describing what happened to him after Colloden, then Claire showing what happened to her at the same time, interspersed with Roger and Claire and Brianna in the present trying to find the next clue to what Jaime’s up to. And I’m super happy to see their reunion and all, but Jamie’s kind of a jerk when they meet up again. He’s doing some boring things and then the two of them embark on a Thrilling Mystery. Except not really.

Voyager was OK. I really love C&J together, but that’s kind of the best thing about the book. The rest of it…well, it sort of falls into generic mystery territory. Not “awesome story of love and historical fiction.” It’s not bad, but it’s the weakest so far, for me. There’s a part where Jamie is tricked into deflowering a virgin in order to further the plot, and you’re just left thinking about how contrived the whole thing was. Also the Geillis Duncan and Mr. Willoughby parts were just…no.

There were lots of ships and slaves and Geillie Duncan and black magic and ships and ships and ships and a betrayer. Blah.

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Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander #2) – Diana Gabaldon
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Dragonfly in Amber Diana GabaldonSo this is an enormous series of books, and it’s got all kinds of novellas and short stories, so the author actually has a chronology on her website, which is really helpful. And for Dragonfly in Amber, she writes:

“It doesn’t start where you think it’s going to. And it doesn’t end how you think it’s going to, either. Just keep reading; it’ll be fine.”

And…yeah. There are several chapters of boringness and confusion in the beginning that you just have to get through before you get to the good stuff (Michelle couldn’t handle it, I powered through). But then…more Jamie and Claire, yay!

Basically, after the aforementioned boringness, we pick up right where we left off at the end of the last book, and follow Jamie and Claire through trying to change the past so that Colloden never happens. Except that they’re kind of bad at it. They’re in France, going to parties and meddling in politics, and it’s all very “what a scandalous red dress Claire is wearing!” and “Monsieur bslkdhfsl might secretly be friends with Duke sdjfsdkf who might be involved in magic and is secretly dating Madame dkfsldfkj who is definitely doing magic,” and I immediately forget all the French names and it’s just all very BLAH. It picks up again after they leave France though, when the war starts.

I love watching Claire and Jamie’s story continue, but the main plot of this book is largely boring. And there are a LOT of french people with unpronounceable names that I get all mixed up.

Also, this is pretty accurate for this book:

48566174Audiobook notes:
Narrator: Davina Porter, who also narrated a bunch of the Jane Austen books I read last year. Very good, very expressive. I do feel that her voice is perhaps a little bit too reedy and aged-sounding for Claire, but she does an extremely good job. She also does great accents – English, Scottish, Irish, French, German, whatever, they’re all here and they’re all good.

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Two Dorks, One Book: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
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two dorks one book

Michelle says:

So this is an enormous book in a ginormous series and I really wasn’t sure I was going to like it. Unfortunately, I was also afraid it would take me a long time to get through, so I started WAY early for book club and now, two months later, I can barely remember enough interesting things to say about it in this review. (I’ve GOT to start doing my reviews right away because I always think I’ll remember and I don’t and I suck.) So, apologies and all of that.

I’d heard SO much about this series and was sort of afraid to believe the hype. Also, it seemed too romancy and period-piecey and dammit, it has to be said, overlong. However, once I got into Outlander just a bit, I found I liked Claire…she’s a flawed heroine for sure, and I enjoy that. I don’t want to lose myself in a story about a perfect person or I’ll get bored. That’s why I like Claire; she’s not completely in love with her husband, not completely saintly in her rather altruistic job as a nurse, and not completely naive in that she traipses into her time travel by accident or anything. She is curious and adventurous and stubborn and it’s wartime, so I buy that.

I also like when necessary magic is interwoven into a book without distracting me. I mean, when I’m reading, I don’t want to be hit over the head with time vortexes and space anomalies because that will pull me out of the story. And when I’m reading, the story has to become REAL…so I don’t want the magic to intrude, you know? So, other than the initial vibrating Stonehengey rocks that pull Claire into the past, there is no magical nonsense to pull me away from the narrative. That’s a win.

At first, I was also unconvinced about Jaime as a love interest. He seemed too young and dunderheaded (You just don’t go throwing yourself into battles when already wounded, you idiot!) to be an acceptable lover for a modernish woman like Claire. He unabashedly wears a kilt, which is kinda quirky and appropriate given his background, but still! And then, I guess I begin liking him against my will (maybe it was the sex scenes that suited my own personal quirks perfectly…ahem) and then all is well and I am suddenly okay with him.

My only complaint is that the whole outlaw laird thing seems a bit convenient. OF COURSE he’s a landed gentleman who is disgraced because Claire would surely not stay in the past without hot showers or cold drinks for some nobody. And of course, even though he’s wanted, he has to go back to visit/save his land right in the middle of the Jacobite rebellions (which I really liked reading about in Susanna Kearsley, outlanderbtw). But then, once there, he is teased by his sister (which I adore) and he goes out to fix waterwheels for his people in his undies, so bravo. And when he has to hold his breath and hide under the river and then takes in a little abused boy as an apprentice, he seems like such a decent lord to his folks and a good brother and all, so I forgive him and completely start to like him after all. Darn. And I tried so hard not to because he’s just so NOT my typical leading man material.

(I would recommend this since I enjoyed it so much, although I tried immediately to read the sequel and there was no Jaime or Claire and the storyline seemed off, so I gave up.)

Kelley says:

This book is SO DAMN HUGE that I don’t even know what to say about it except that I loved it. Historical fiction with a smattering of English monarchy history…um, yeah, this is my kind of book. I could do without the sex scenes, which always prejudice me against a book and make me think of it as pure trash. That has a place, but not in my favorite literature.

Somehow, somewhere, before starting Outlander, I’d heard that Claire hooks up with her husband’s ancestor in the past. It took me about half the book to realize that Randall was NOT the hero and that I was in no danger of having to throw the damn book (my kindle) across the room when she left Jamie for him. Sometimes I am not smart.

I do want to talk about Claire’s second marriage. Claire doesn’t seem to like her husband all that much, and when she steps back in time she immediately (and inexplicably) starts insisting that her husband is dead. After only a half-hearted token protest, she marries Jaime. And wears both wedding rings. And it seems like Gabaldon knows that it’s complete bullshit, since after not really mentioning it again for the entire book, she brings in a priest at the end to absolve Claire of any wrongdoing in marrying someone else when SHE IS ALREADY MARRIED.

And now, on to the next insanely long Outlander book, Dragonfly in Amber.

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The Shadow Throne – Jennifer A. Nielsen (Ascendance #3)
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shadow throne by Jennifer A. NielsenSo sad, this is the last book of the series. Carthya is finally at war with all it’s bordering countries, and Sage must once again figure out a way to save the day (and his country). He still doesn’t share any of his plans with the reader until the dramatic conclusion, but by this time I’m wise to his tricks, so I was watching for clues. …I still didn’t know what his plan was.

The series ended on a good note and I was completely satisfied with the ending, which tends to be rare for me.

My only real problem with this book is that Sage’s story is now done. 🙁

This series is just pure joy for me and everyone should read it.

My review of Ascendance #1, The False Prince

My review of Ascendance #2, The Runaway King

 

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The Leap Year Boy by Marc Simon
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BORING. And unfortunately, that’s the BEST I can say for this one. I kept waiting for the big reveal, the big a-ha, the big so-THAT’S-what-this-book-is-about. I never got anything remotely like that, so blargh.

leap year boy

The Leap Year Boy is a (blissfully) short novel about a somewhat freakish little child named Alex Miller, born to a working class family in Pittsburgh in the early 1900s. He’s born on a Leap Day and he’s frightfully small. I guess I expected this to be one of those magical realism books I love so much…I figured he’d grow at a quarter of the normal rate or something or only on Feb. 29 or that his diminutive size would somehow have to do with his unusual birthday.

Nope. Instead he’s just weirdly small. Until he grows chimpanzee length arms. WTH? Oh, to top it off, he can read really early, he’s a master thief, and he gets manipulated by others around him at every turn (I’m not kidding…this kid is nearly sold into the circus and is surrounded by crazies). Also, people drop like flies and come in and out of Alex’s life on a regular basis (because, you know, turn-of-century life SUCKED) and yeah, that’s sort of all that happens.

Other than the weak plot, my biggest complaint is the book’s sloppy editing. I marked at least 10 typos (including punctuation, spelling, and formatting errors) in my Kindle notes before I decided to give up. I have to assume this is a self-published novel, but STILL…that’s no excuse!

I’m glad this was a library download and I didn’t pay money for it or else I’d be seriously ticked. Skip this one without hesitation!

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The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line – Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham (Veronica Mars #1)
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The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham (Veronica Mars #1)Story time! Sometimes at work there’s a birthday or a going away party or something, and someone brings in a cake. The cake is always from a bakery, and is covered with thick, fluffy white icing all decorated in swirls and prettiness. And this is always more exciting to me than it should be, because I really love buttercream icing – mine is pretty much a canned icing household. So, I wait in some sort of line and finally get my piece of delicious-looking cake. Yay! I take a bite, and – BAM! it’s actually whipped cream icing and I cry a tiny little tear.

This book is whipped cream icing.

The mystery was garbled and unnecessarily complicated, full of red herrings that went absolutely nowhere, so that sucked. But the real tragedy was the lack of humor and cleverness. When dealing with the Veronica Mars universe, I should walk away thinking about how adorable and wonderful Veronica and Keith are, but instead I was left feeling disappointed and kind of irritated (which is also how I feel when I’m tricked into eating whipped cream frosting).

And why isn’t this book written by Rob Thomas, anyway? He’s already a published author, and he seems to have written a good amount of the VM TV episodes, so…I don’t get it. Jennifer Graham did an OK job, I guess, but it doesn’t look like she’s written any other fiction, so I’m somewhat inclined to blame this book’s crappiness on her just not being able to incorporate that Veronica Mars sparkle.

Audiobook notes:
Narrator: Kristen Bell. I thought that hearing the actual Veronica Mars tell the story would help me get immersed into Neptune again. Well, it might’ve if I’d enjoyed the story. As always, Kristen’s a great voiceover actress, though her attempts at some of the male voices were maybe a little lacking. I did hear traces of Enrico Colantoni and Tina Majorino in her portrayals of Keith and Mac, though, which was kind of awesome. But Wallace, for instance, wasn’t great.

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The House of the Scorpion and The Lord of Opium by Nancy Farmer
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house of the scorpionI first read The House of the Scorpion seven or eight years ago when my oldest was in elementary school. He decided, based on the cover and blurb, that this book looked like it would be his “most favorite book ever” so he tried to check it out at the school library. This, however, started a bit of a fiasco because his school librarian wouldn’t let him borrow it because of his grade in school (not his reading ability).

Like all primary students, he was restricted to a certain picture book and short chapter book area of the library and this was considered appropriate reading only for upper elementary students. Now I don’t know about you, but I find it really annoying that any adult, particularly a librarian, would tell an INTERESTED kid what he should/should not read. Sure, you might try to steer them into something you think would be a good fit, and I do understand about reading levels, but I also feel that sometimes we are drawn to books for reasons that have nothing to do with that. Anyway, I argued, and he got his book. Granted, at four hundred pages, it took him the rest of the school year to finish it, but he plugged along at it every day and finish he did! So there, grouchy librarian lady! Because of the brouhaha at school, I decided I had better read this book too (thinking maybe it had more adult themes or something and there was a real REASON she was trying to keep it from him, you know?).

Alas, what I found was there was no objectionable content and I really liked it! It’s about a little boy named Matteo, born as a clone simply for the spare body parts he can provide. However, since he’s essentially still like any other human, he doesn’t realize he’s different and he just wants to have a regular life. That is impossible because he and other clones are valued less than livestock, so his life is not very happy. Matt discovers that the old man he’s cloned from, El Patron, is a vicious and unprincipled drug lord. He puts microchips into his workers so their brains don’t function, treats his own family members like slaves, and gets involved with some really scary guys in the midst of his drug deals. He’s used multiple clones already to replace his failing organs, and is growing Matt so he can do the same with him. Of course, since Matt reminds El Patron of himself once upon a time, he starts being kind to him and Matt feels hopeful that his life might change. Until El Patron has a massive heart attack…

The House of the Scorpion is both fast-paced and realistic for YA/children’s dystopia, but still moderate enough to be appropriate and thought-provoking for children. Although it was not a book I’d have sought out or picked up on my own, I am certainly glad I did.

lord of opium

To my surprise, while browsing in our school library a few months ago, I stumbled upon this sequel to The House of the Scorpion. It was super brand new, and I’d never expected a sequel, so yay!

Matt has discovered he is no longer considered a clone since the original human he was created from has died, and he “becomes” the Patron himself. This is troublesome for a boy like Matt who never expected to live and now worries that he will become evil and conniving like his progenitor. Part of Matt just wants to be a child who hangs out hosting elaborate parties for his friends; the rest knows he is the only one who can rid his land of the corrupting influences of El Patron and the neighboring drug lords. Matt works tirelessly to repair damage he never caused and heal those who have lost their memories to El Patron’s eejit microchipping.

This really brings up an interesting “nature vs. nurture” idea that seems somewhat groundbreaking fare in a novel clearly meant for kids. I love hard-hitting but still age-appropriate works for young readers and find that most books miss the mark. This book is perfectly balanced between grown-up and not-too-grown-up. Matt takes on the responsibilities of power while trying to avoid the tempting influences it brings.

I also really, really like this cover. The scorpion-ringed hand crushing the poppy into drug powder is just perfect for a book that features drugs but isn’t at all a book about drug use. I’d definitely recommend both of these books!
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Posted in Children's, Contemporary, Dystopian, Fiction, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment