Christina Reviews *Sleepers* by Lorenzo Carcaterra

         Sleepers is about four friends who get put in a juvenile detention center called Wilkinson’s Home For Boys after a hot dog cart incident gone wrong nearly kills a man. While at Juvie, they are tortured by prison guards and even raped. Needless to say, they emerge from Wilkinson’s as damaged young men.

         Many years later, they have the chance to take revenge on the prison guards, and they leap at the opportunity. They come up with a scheme so cunning and ridiculous that it could only happen in a movie. Or a fake memoir.

         It’s a simple story. And yet it takes Lorenzo Carcaterra 400 pages to tell it. This is because he spends 150 pages building up to the story.  It took me about four years to read the first one hundred pages.  Once I reached the hot dog cart incident, I was able to get through the remainder of the book within a week or so.  It might have taken me a few weeks to finish the book by that point.  What I'm trying to say is that the very long preamble is a nightmare to wade through.

        The boys are fresh-faced rascals who are up to no good 99% of the time, and when they’re not up to no good, they’re plotting future exploits. Once the reader reaches page 150, Carcaterra gets to the point of the book, and the story starts to move forward. The prison scenes are particularly grueling, but rest assured, none of it really happened. A lot of investigation went into Lorenzo Carcaterra’s claims and I have serious doubts that any of the story could be true.

       It does seem a bit strange that an author will write a book that he claims to be true, but he’ll change all the names and he’ll place the events in false settings so that nobody can ever verify the accuracy of his claims. If he’s going to do all of that, why not just call the book fiction?

        I’ll tell you why. The book is so poorly written that nobody would read it if they knew that it was all make-believe. And that’s the only truth you’ll find in this book.

Christina Reviews *Sing You Home* by Jodi Picoult

           **1/2

          In the beginning of the book, Zoe Baxter wants to have a baby with her husband but can’t.  After several failed pregnancies, her husband can’t take it anymore, and so he divorces her.  They still have some frozen embryos left in a fertility clinic, but he has given up.

        Not long after the divorce, the husband, Max, has a near-fatal accident and comes to know God.  The ex-wife, Zoe, falls in love with a woman and comes to know gay marriage. 

        Zoe and her spouse Vanessa want to have a child together.  More specifically, they want to use one of Zoe’s and Max’s frozen embryos because Zoe would really like to have her child be biologically related to her.   She can’t grow the baby inside her own womb any more because she had to have a hysterectomy, so the embryo would be placed inside of Vanessa.  The only problem is that they need Max’s permission to do this.  And when Max finds out, not only is he dead-set against his child being raised by lesbians, he’s determined to take the embryo away from Zoe and give it to his infertile brother and sister-in-law because another belief of his is that the embryo has a right to life.

         Picoult puts twists in at the end just for the sake of putting in twists.  There was at least one twist that didn’t amount to anything and so I don’t know why Picoult even put it in there.

         This is a book that has a sweet ending, but we arrive at the sweet ending by being forced to accept the fact that sometimes the characters who inhabit Picoult’s fictional world have no reason to behave consistently.  And most of the characters, particularly the religious extremists, are boring and trite.

         This was an OK book but nothing special.

Christina Reviews *Shutter Island* by Dennis Lehane

         Truthfully, I think that Mystic River is my favorite Lehane book.  But this one is definitely a close second.

         The protagonist, Teddy Daniels, and his partner, Chuck Aule, are sent to a mental institution on Shutter Island in order to hunt down a runaway patient.  The runaway patient is Rachel Solando, and she disappeared without her shoes, in stormy weather.

        The book is about Teddy’s investigation into the disappearance and the strange things he discovers along the way.  He becomes paranoid that things aren’t as they seem. 

        There are also several flashbacks involving Teddy’s dead wife Dolores.  The past and present come together in some interesting ways, and there's an interesting twist at the end.

Christina Reviews *The Shack* by William P. Young

“As Jesus reached the center he paused to look around. His gaze stopped on Mack standing on the small hill at the outer edge and he heard Jesus whisper in his ear, “Mack, I am especially fond of you (216).”
　
When a man’s young daughter is kidnapped and murdered while on a camping trip, the protagonist begins to question his faith. Four years later, he receives a short note in the mail inviting him to the shack where evidence of his daughter’s death was found. The note is from God. At first he is unsure if he wants to go since he can’t help but wonder if this is some kind of trap or cruel trick, but he finds that he can’t resist the urge to find out if there’s something behind the note. And if God has something to tell him, he wants to know what he is. When he arrives at the shack, he at first finds a place of horror, but not long after, it is transformed into a place of beauty beyond anything he could ever imagine. What he finds at the shack is enough to change his life and his conceptions of God forever.

I liked the way this book dealt with questions like how you can believe in God in a world where horrible things happen. I liked that God, Jesus and the holy spirit defied expectations and didn’t live up to the stereotypes. This was an interesting novel, and I think that it may appeal to a lot of different people.

Christina Reviews *The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4* by Sue Townsend

          "Thursday July 30th
           I have seen the Royal Wedding repeats seven times on television.

           Friday July 31st
           Sick to death of Royal Wedding."

              The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend
       
         Adrian Mole is a 13 year old who gets a diary for Christmas.  He spends the next year or so filling it up with the pages of this book.  As the year goes by, Adrian undergoes some changes.  For example, one thing that happens is that he falls in love with a girl named Pandora who is heavily involved in politics.  The book takes place in the early eighties.

        Adrian is an embittered cynic who tends to get overly passionate about the funniest things.  I loved this book.  It was easy to read and filled with great lines such as: "Eight days have gone by since Christmas Day but my mother still hasn't worn the green lurex apron I bought her for Christmas!  She will get bathcubes next year (1),"  and  "I am reading Crime and Punishment.  It is the most true book I have ever read (108)."

A 28 year old MFA Graduate Reconsiders Her Prior Allegiance to Ex-Hero R.L. Stine

          When I was in my early twenties, I ordered several R.L. Stine books off of Ebay and Amazon.  The reason I did this was because I used to be in love with his stories when I was in middle school, and I was going through a nostalgic phase.  What the heck, I’ll probably end up handing them over to my future niece one day.  I apologize in advance to my brother and future sister-in-law.

          Anyway, Hit and Run was an R.L. Stine book I read at the age of about 23.  It came with one of the Ebay lots.  I never read it as a kid.  I’d spent good money on it.  So why not?  I don’t know what I would have thought of it had I read it as a kid.  It had to have been one of the worst books I ever read, and that’s saying a lot.

          I was able to predict the ending maybe three pages in.  The story itself was a rip-off of I Know What You Did Last Summer by Lois Duncan, Chain Letter by Christopher Pike and probably several other nameless horror books out there that remain nameless for a reason.

         After reading the book, there was a single question in my mind.  Did R.L. Stine actually manage to write a bad book?  Or have my tastes changed so considerably in the years following sixth grade?  Maybe a mixture of both?  If there’s any consolation, it’s that I doubt R.L. Stine even wrote the book himself anyway.  It does give me comfort to know I can probably fault a ghost writer for this travesty that calls itself Point Fiction.  R.L. Stine is not to blame.

            I remember the days when Fear Street was the Forks, Washington of my generation.  Books like Cheerleaders: The First Evil were followed by the equally compelling Second, Third and even New Evil.  The evil just kept coming until whole basketball teams and cheerleading squads were possessed by ancient demons, and it was great!  Babysitters spent more time making out with their boyfriends and accepting prank calls than watching their charges and, on your average school day, you were bound to run into at least one new kid who was really a ghost.   Stepsisters were presumed to be evil and evil biological sisters were presumed to be innocent.   Teenage girls had high cheekbones and heart-shaped mouths.  They said stuff like “Smooth move, Ace” and rolled their eyes a lot.  When you aren’t allowed to smoke, have sex or even utter a curse word every now and then, there isn’t much else for you to do other than roll your eyes, I suppose.  

          Those were simpler times when it didn’t matter if the stories were well-written, or even coherent, so long as they had just the right amount of blood and just the right amount of evil.

          Just for the heck of it, I checked out the R.L. Stine messageboard on IMDb a few years ago.  There was a thread on there where several posters gave their informed opinions on who would win in a battle of the pen----R.L. Stine or Stephen King.  The victor is obvious.  Stephen King would whip R.L. Stine’s butt.  And then R.L. Stine would trot out a time machine in a closet, go back to before the fight began and forfeit.

Christina Reviews *Remember Me* by Christopher Pike

For those who didn't grow up with Christopher Pike, he was kinda like R.L. Stine, only for more advanced readers.  He was my generation's Stephenie Meyer, only his plots were a heck of a lot more convoluted.  His The Last Vampire series was ten times better than Twilight.  But I'm not going to review The Last Vampire.  I'm going to review the second book of his I ever read.  To this day, I think it may be one of his best.

           Remember Me


          "It is a wonderful thing to be alive.
           I hadn't planned on dying.
          But that is the story I have to tell:  how it happened, why it happened, why it shouldn't have happened, and why it was meant to be.  I won't start at the beginning, however.  That would take too long, even for someone like me who isn't getting any older.  I'll start near the end, the night of the party.  The night I died.  I'll start with a dream."
                                               Remember Me, P. 2

          Remember Me is about an 18 year old girl who is killed at a friend's birthday party shortly before her high school graduation.  There are those who think it's suicide, but Shari knows better.  Shari is the dead girl who also happens to be the protagonist in the book.  She narrates the story from beyond the grave as she conducts her own amateurish investigation in order to find her killer and clear her name once and for all.

        This was one of the first Christopher Pike books I ever read, and I remember it as being one of his best.

          The characters are two-dimensional at times, but I think it works.  Shari's view of the world was always somewhat black and white, and, in some ways, it remains that way even after death. I suppose that is the way things are to many teenagers. This book won't enlighten anyone about the complexities of human nature (except in a somewhat cursory way) but it is still quite an interesting read for young teens who are looking for a simple, yet unique, murder mystery that is also quirky and intelligent (well, intelligent compared to many other books of its kind). The concept was somewhat different. I don't really know how original an idea it was at the time but it certainly felt refreshing to a 13 year old me.  I hadn't seen the movie Ghost yet. 
          And then there were the characters. Shari was full of personality, and I liked her. Some of the things she said were funny. She admits that she can be a bit phony, and this makes her seem real in a world that often doesn't feel that way. Maybe this is why I didn't mind the two-dimensional characters so much. Sometimes I felt like Shari was mocking the ways in which we can sometimes focus on the things that seem important at the time but really aren't. Anyway, the characters were never boring. They were certainly memorable, in my opinion.

        The book also makes its own statement on the after-life and while it may or may not conflict with the reader's own religious views, I have to admit that it's an intriguing look at one of life's greatest mysteries---where we go when we die.
 
         Anyway, Remember Me does deal with some mature themes and, for that reason, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone younger than 13.

         It's a great book to start with if you're looking to venture into the world of Christopher Pike. But you don't really have to bother with the rest of the series unless you're interested in the spiritual questions the first one raises and want to read more on that. The other two stories have weaker storylines. They seem far more interested in the more complex questions of life and death and, I must admit, much of it went over my head.

Christina Reviews *Pierre, or The Ambiguities* by Herman Melville

          "And in the times to come, there must be---as in the present times, and in the times gone by---some splendid men, and some transcendent women; and how can they ever be, unless always, throughout all time, here and there, a handsome youth weds with a handsome maid?"

            Pierre, or The Ambiguities by Herman Melville (P. 23)



            Pierre Glendinning is a 19 year old young man who is just full of hilarity.  When the novel begins, he is intent on marrying the beautiful Lucy Tartan.  But when a strange woman introduces herself to him as his long-lost half-sister,  he decides to "marry" her instead.  The reason he does this, in case you were wondering, is because he knows his mother will never accept his father's illegitimate daughter into the family otherwise.  And this way, sister Isabel will get her share of what's coming to her.

            This is a gothic novel that is hilariously over the top and more than a little bit obtuse.

            Apparently the critics gave Melville a hard time for this one.  What do you expect?  He'd written a book so rich with meaning as Moby Dick (never read it, but I'm sure it must have been full of something), and then he had to go and follow it up with this highfalutin nonsense. 


             I am still in the middle of reading the book.  My full review will be coming soon...

Christina Reviews *Perfect Match* by Jodi Picoult

               ***

          Picoult tackles the clergy scandal issue before it was a scandal.  Perfect Match was published just shortly before clergy sexual abuse stories were making it into the headlines.

           Nina Frost is a District Attorney who knows all to well what the justice system is like to those who are victims of rape and molestation.  When her five year old son Nathaniel begins to exhibit signs of sexual abuse, she is hell-bent on bringing the abuser to justice.  And she knows it won't be easy.

          At first, she thinks that the abuser is her husband.  But she soon realizes that, when her selectively mute son signs the word "father," he isn't talking about his dad.  He's talking about a priest.

         Without going too much into detail, I will say that this is the kind of vigilante story that would be perfect for the Lifetime channel.  In fact, this book kind of reminds me of two Lifetime movies I saw years ago, as well as the Grisham classic A Time To Kill.  Only this novel has a bit of a twist.

         Picoult is known for her twists.  And my personal opinion is that she went overboard with the twists in this book.  The story was not believable at all.  There were just too many convenient plot contrivances.

          It's as if Picoult doesn't even need a reason to manipulate the plot anymore.  She just does it because it's second nature to her.  Let's just say that this is a real page-turner if you don't think about it too much and leave it at that.

          It would have also helped to have a somewhat sympathetic character as the protagonist.  Like I said before, there have been lots of stories like this.  And I can usually understand where the wronged party is coming from, even though I am not a supporter of vigilante justice in real life.  But Nina just did not want my sympathy, apparently.  She was intent on making me hate her every step of the way.

Christina Reviews *One True Thing* by Anna Quindlen

“Empathy is the one thing I never really learned,”  I said softly.  “You never taught me empathy.” 
                                                 Ellen Gulden, P. 108

         Ellen Gulden is the most fearsome kind of woman you can imagine.  In college writing workshops, her classmates were afraid of her.  They were afraid of what she would say about their work.

        To put it simply, she doesn’t have much of a heart.  Or at the very least, she was never taught to listen to it.  She is an ambitious, workaholic, made that way by her ultra-intelligent professor father, George Gulden.

        When Ellen learns that her homemaker mother Kate is dying of cancer, she is guilt-tripped into taking care of her by her father.  Her father can’t be bothered with a sick wife. 

        She is bitter at first, but soon discovers just how little she knew about her mother and just how much she was missing in her pursuit of success. 

         I really enjoyed the novel, and found it to be a moving story of a mother and a daughter.  I also felt really intelligent after reading all of the literary conversations Ellen had with her father, and even her mother.  This book spoiled the ending of Anna Karenina for me, but that's OK.  I don't mind spoilers.

        I didn't like the movie so much.  I felt that Ellen was transformed from a cold-hearted intellectual into a whiny, spoiled brat.

Christina Reviews *On Writing* by Stephen King

         I have read many books on writing, but none of them were as engaging as Stephen King’s On Writing.  He tells about how he got into writing, what his thoughts are on the craft and tips for those who are interested in doing what he does.   I think there are a few exercises throughout the book.  I know there’s at least one exercise that gets you thinking about ways in which you can take worn out concepts and make them original.   

          It's interesting to read King's views on his craft.