At this stage of the game, I still have not hacked all the ins and outs of blogger

If there's an easy way to post the same post at two different blogs, I don't know how to do it.  But Stephanie sent me a present and I would have trumpeted it here but I'm NaBloPoMo'ing at my other blog and I needed blogfodder.  Go check it, it is most perfect.

The Truth About Forever - Sarah Dessen

N'yallright, given how recently I hopped on the John Green bus and how I'm still sort of hanging out by the door, I feel kind of douchey saying this: Sarah Dessen is no John Green.  But she is 9/10ths of John Green,* and it is sufficiently awesome, and that is as near as I can come to accurate.

So, backing up to the point where I talk about the plot for a minute, The Truth About Forever is the story of a girl coming to grips with the death of her dad and also meeting a dude.  And they hook up.  I am not here to disillusion you, there will be no indie-film-style-ambiguous-endings here.  I say this with the least amount of Disapproval possible, but Dessen totally picks her characters and plotlines from some file of authorial clip art.

Because ok.  Let us get out our checklists.  Macy's dad dies (tick), so Macy and her mom become OCD about life in an Effort To Control (tick).  Macy is dating this totally nice guy with no real emotions but it's sort of not his fault so that we recognize that he's not the guy for her but we don't really hate him (tick), but then he takes his safe self away for the summer and Macy accidentally Takes a Risk (tick) and makes some new friends who are a bit wildandcrazy but have good hearts (tick). There is a make-over scene (tick).  One of the new friends is this fantastic-looking dude who doesn't realize how fantastic-looking he is which makes him even hotter (tick), PLUS he's an artist (tick) PLUS he has a shady past (TICK!).  They have an emotional connection but do not date due to extenuating circumstances (tick).  Then they almost date (tick), then something goes awry (tick), Macy's mom continues to express her grief by not letting Macy be a teenager (tick), the older sister who I forgot until now gives some heartfelt advice (tick), Macy and the hot artist hook up and it is sweet (tick).

And I have zero qualms about spoilering that for you, because it isn't the story, but the MANNER IN WHICH IT IS TOLD that will win you.  Because it is sweet, AND winsome, AND clever.  There's this one girl in the pack of new, wacky friends who spends the whole book standing laconically to one side or blowing her bangs out of her face and who literally only says three things ever, and I wanted to take her home and keep her.  Macy, as a pretty teenaged heroine who underestimates her own prettiness, did not make me want to SMACK her even when she was being thick, which is Hard To Do.  All those things that sound so twee in the above paragraph, they do not twee you in the face while you are reading.  It's only later (when you are trying to describe to someone what the book is about) that you realize you are summarizing every teen movie ever made ever..

I'm saying a lot of words to try and squeeze this out.  I will read more Dessen and I will anticipate it with delight.  Chalk another triumph for the Wonderful Dare Challenge, and someone get TY a donut.

Eight and a half caterpillars.

*By which I mean, the style is similar but the dialogue is 9/10ths as zingy and the jokes are 9/10ths as funny and the heart-breakingness is 9/10ths as heart-breaking.  But Dessen has waffles and as far as I can tell, John Green has no waffles.

A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel

Dear Hilary Mantel,

I could kiss you.  Of all the books I had to read for my 18th Century Now class (which, every time I walk into that class I'm all 'SERENITY NOW!'), your A Place of Greater Safety was the longest by about 500 pages.  It was also, however, the only one that didn't make me want to throw myself off a bridge.

Not for you the overwraught symbolism of The Life and Times of Captain N.  Nor the ungainly mishmash of truth and fiction Beryl Bainbridge crammed into her According to Queeney.  No dreams about falcons mating with sexy hats.  No awkward, fumbling sex scenes.  No idiotic titles for you; A Place of Greater Safety sounds like a book I'd pick up on my own.  So, kudos and thanks.

So, how about that Robespierre, hey?  Terror and all that, eh wot?  Ok, I'll be the first to admit that anything and everything I know about the French Revolution I learned from A Tale of Two Cities (so, basically I get that there was a guillotine involved, and people did a lot of knitting?).  Mantel's novel is waaaaaay more historically accurate, and everyone dies.

I feel dumb trying to sum up the plot because I have NO IDEA what happened on the real and what Mantel yanked out of her brain.  So in the novel there's a revolution but it's sort of over there.  I mean, you're following this one particular faction that was really, really involved, but you're more often in their drawing rooms and feeling bad for their wives than in the STREETS WITH THE BLOOD AND THE BASTILLE!  VIVE LA LANTERNE!

Which, ok, if I were writing a book on the Revolution I'd be all up in the tumbrils with the doomed because I am allergic to subtlety, but I appreciate Mantel's take.  I am doing a terrible job.  If you have 700+ pages of reading time to spare and you're down with the Citizens' Republic, get up on this.

Eight caterpillars.

The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

A butler? Kazuo Ishiguro's EW's-New-Classics-book-that-everyone-loves is about a friggin butler? Like, as in a Jeeves? Huh.

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So!  Stevens is a butler in the era just after the era where butlers were hot commodities and moderate celebrities in their own rights. He comes part-and-parcel with an old British estate purchased by an American. And this chandalier is genuine Tudor, and that whatnot over there is early 15th century, and Stevens? Stevens has been bowing and scraping and 'Would sir desire a spot of tea'ing since the days of bonnie Prince Charlie.

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When the American gentleman goes on vacation, Stevens is given permission to go visit Miss Kenton, a former housekeeper from the estate's glory days. On the way there, he reflects on said glory days, as well as the general dignity inherent in butlering (butling?).

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And that's pretty well it, kids.

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But be damned if it isn't just the dearest thing! Stevens is the classic British butler, all uptight and reserved and hyperactively proper. He is so stiffly awkward whenever he's out of his element, but so skillfull and brilliant in all things silver-polish-related. Miss Kenton, with her emotions and opinions, acts as a clever foil to Stevens' composure, and I spent a great deal of time laughing and cringing and shouting whenever the two interacted.

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On the whole, this is a story of coming to terms with a changing world. Stevens spends a hilarious few moments musing about 'banter,' and boning up on his bantering skills since it seems this is what his new American employer seems to want. A couple of quips with my tea, please.  It is seriously winsome and sweet.
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Also, I definitely read and reviewed this over a year ago, but never posted it.  H'whoops!  Good thing it hung around for Dark Times Such as These, whereall of my reading is of essays composed in the wee hours that need a vicious re-shaping.
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Eight caterpillars

The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein

Alright, by now everyone's heard about this book narrated by a dog and has been all, Well that's stupid.  And it is, it's terribly stupid.  Especially when the dog is being all, Durrr, I'm a dog!  Why are these humans acting so funny after drinking that fermented drink?!  Abuhhhhhhh.  Mercifully, those parts are few and far between after the first stretch, and Enzo becomes just a regular, shaggy, balls-licking narrator.  Who can't talk to anyone else in the story.  Because he is a dog.

But then the other thing that everyone says who read it is that it was remarkably less stupid than they'd thought it would be.  And then the other other thing that everyone says is that it is just about the saddest thing.  And this is why I'm not going to be able to be objective about this book (which, alright, I'm not the Queen of Cool Disinterest on the best of days).  Because while I love me some sweet sobby things, this was too too sad for me.

And this has everything to do with where I am in my personal headspace right now and nothing to do with the book.  I year ago I probably would have eaten this shit up, and maybe in a year when I'm totally out of the woods a book about a woman who dies of brain cancer, and who you know is going to die because the dog tells you on page six so that when the humans are acting funny from the fermented drink you're all Don't do it!  Do NOT get married and have a baby, because you are going to die and it will be sad, maybe at such a time I'll be able to read such a book with the detached, vicarious sorrow it deserves.

So!  Probably the only thing I can say about this book is that it's better than you think it will be, and it has some Seriously Deep Moments, but someone with a dryer eye needs to scan it for ham-handed emotional manipulativeness.  Also, *spoiler* everything comes out Disneyfied in the end.  Like, not even just a tidy, pat finish but like EVERYONE WINS THE HAPPINESS LOTTERY!  Except for Eve, who (you may recall from page six) dies.

I don't feel like I can rate this bad boy because I am riding a Chariot of Bias.

Perfume - Patrick Süskind

Patrick Süskind has never met a reiteration he didn't like.  If there is more than one way to say a thing, you can bet your bottom dollar that Süskind will say it.  Por ejemplo: 'It all disgusted him.  The sudden eruption of renewed fear among the populace had disgusted him, their feverish joy of anticipation disgusted him.  The people themselves, every one of them, disgusted him.'  That last line is like a reiteration WITHIN a reiteration.  In sum, this 255 p book could have been about 50 p shorter and literally not lost a cent.

And, sigh.  I have put off reviewing this because I read it for the Wonderful Dare challenge, and I wanted to keep the streak alive as long as possible.  TY and I may only be fraternal brain twins after all. 

And it sounded like such a good idea!  Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is a odorless villain (because evil has no scent) with whatever the 20/20 of smelling things is and NO SOUL.  He sets out to create the ultimate perfume, for which he must kill and distill a small town's worth of virgins (so, like, 25).  And then they catch him and bring him out to be HUNG but he's wearing his virgin-perfume and then there is a town-wide orgy.  Caused by the perfume.

And if you like a sensuous novel (as in, heavy on the senses) then this will be up your alley.  Grenouille smells EVERYTHING, and you will smell it through him.  And then probably something bad will happen to you, because the boy is like a black cat and everyone who comes near him ends up falling into a river and drowning afterwards, or something else innocuously fatal.

SO!  Not my cuppa virgin-scented perfume, but probably somebody else's.  I bet the movie is unsettlingly awesome.

Seven caterpillars.

A Morbid Taste for Bones - Ellis Peters

I'm not totally sure what to say about A Morbid Taste for Bones, the first in the Brother Cadfael mysteries.  I expected it to be medieval and good...and it was both of those things!  MLIA.

So.  Brother Cadfael is that particular breed of Benedictine monk with whom people are forever sitting down with over a cup of ale (and a haunch of venison, and a trencher of bread and sundry other medival nommables) and shooting the shit, as it were.  Having come to the monk-mobile late in life as a sort of austere retirement home, Cadfael has a rich history as a doer-of-various-things-(and-women).

What with this being the first of some 20 books, it looks like Brother Cadfael's silver years will be punctuated with more than the ordinary number of murders.  Like, at least 20.  Morbid gets off to a quiet start with some young monk having visions, and a cohort of brothers hieing off to a Welsh village to collect the bones of a forgotten saint on account of said visions.  It isn't until about half-way through that the lord of said village is found murdered and his daughter's immigrant-beloved is accused but then escapes and Brother Cadfael has to put all of his pre-monkal wisdom to use sussing out the real killer so that the upstanding but landless young Saxon can return and marry his fiery sweetheart.  Awesome, right?

To be honest, this is the sort of ramble fantastic that I could read for ages.  There could have been nary a murder and I would have happily tottled behind while Brother Cadfael mediated between his relic-hungry prior and the lusty Welsh villagers.  Peters is that good.  And from the looks of things (via Colleen, who was my gateway drug into the Cadfaelia), she only gets better.

Also, choice exerpt from the back: 'Soothing, but no shortage of mayhem.' - Observer

I could not say it better myself.  Eight caterpillars.