The Best Almost-Folk Tale You've Never Read

Bridge of Birds: A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was

BARRY HUGHART

Del Rey, 1985

Reviewed by Carol

Recommended for fans of The Princess Bride, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

 

“Nothing on the face of this earth–and I do mean nothing–is half so dangerous as a children’s story that happens to be real, and you and I are wandering blindfolded through a myth devised by a maniac.”

Bridge of Birds opens on a pastoral setting, a remote unicorn-shaped village in the peaceful valley of Cho in ancient China. Narrated by Yu Lu, also known as Number Ten Ox (the tenth of his father’s sons and as strong as an ox), it begins with a promising silk season coming to an abrupt end. A plague strikes the village’s youth and at the same time decimates the silk harvest. Number Ten Ox volunteers to run to Peking to bring a wise man back to the village. Unfortunately, all of the cosmopolitan wise men laugh at Ox and his mere five thousand copper, all except a hung-over Master Li. “Could this be the great Li Kao… who had been elevated to the highest rank of mandarin, and whose mighty head was now being used as a pillow for drunken flies?”  After a brief restorative, Master Li takes pity on Ox’s plight and determines they need to make haste back to the village. Poor Number Ten Ox. He has never met the likes of Master Li, former first place scholar among all the scholars in China (a mere seventy-eight years ago). But he has a slight flaw in his character.

“The abbot paused to consider his words…’You are a good boy, and I would not like to meet the man who can surpass you in physical strength, but you know very little about this wicked world,’ the abbot said slowly. ‘To tell you the truth, I am not so worried about the damage to your body as I am about the damage to your soul. You see, you know nothing whatsoever about men like Master Li… His voice trailed off, and he groped for the proper words. Then he decided that it would take several years to prepare me properly.”

What follows is along the lines of traditional folk tales and orphan adventures; the quest to save the children of the village, Ox as the innocent youth and Li as the wise man/guide–except Master Li’s wisdom often comes from knowing the wicked ways of human nature and his own participation in debauchery. He also seems to have read all the great tales, as his solutions sound suspiciously familiar. One of the first chapters is how Master Li tricks a rich miser out of enough gold to finance their trip (and gets Ox a night with the young concubine to boot). Their third or fourth adventure is an exceptional revenge on a selfish princess, and another one a bloody mess. Hughart is able to manage the delicate balance humorous violence requires, perhaps by invoking our earliest folk tales, such as the one where Bluebeard keeps bodies in a locked room, or the version of Little Red where the huntsman hacks open the wolf to free her and grandma. Horrific, but so clearly symbolic, so clearly not real.

Their adventures take them throughout China, and from one frying pan to another. There’s ghosts, dungeons, a tricksy duo, an evil duke, a labyrinth, an enormously rich man, a tower, treasure, fond friends, a torture chamber, redemption, gods (and there’s even a little kissing). If it lacks the R.O.U.S., it makes up for it with an invisible hand.

“The supernatural can be very annoying until one finds the key that transforms it into science,’ he observed mildly. ‘I’m probably imagining complications that don’t exist. Come on, Ox, let’s go out and get killed.’”

Writing is lovely and contains a satisfactory balance of description and action. Gentle humor abounds. There’s a motif where Li and Ox are certain they are going to die and share hopes of what they will be reborn as on the Great Wheel. Li prefers the three-toed-sloth, Ox a cloud. Later, a third company member adds another angle to their bucolic reincarnation. But Master Li is clearly the cynic of the bunch, and his comments usually provide comic relief:

“‘Well, it’s an idea, and even a bad idea is better than none,’ said Master Li. ‘Error can point the way to truth, while empty-headedness can only lead to more empty-headedness or to a career in politics.’”

It’s silly, sweet, subversive and really clever. Ox’s youthful innocence is charming and believable, and while Master Li knows much, he is clearly puzzling his way through the quest as well. The end was a lovely synthesis, satisfying both emotionally and in plotting, both immediate and symbolic. Barry Hughart clearly has a flaw in his character. The world needs more Master Li.

“‘O great and might Master Li, pray impart to me the Secret of Wisdom!’ he bawled… To my great credit I never batted an eyelash. ‘Take a large bowl,’ I said. ‘Fill it with equal measure of fact, fantasy, history, mythology, science, superstition, logic, and lunacy. Darken the mixture with bitter tears, brighten it with howls of laughter, toss in three thousand years of civilization, bellow kan pei–which means ‘dry cup’–and drink to the dregs.’ Procopius stared at me. ‘And I will be wise,’ he asked. ‘Better,’ I said. ‘You will be Chinese.’”

Time Riders

Time Riders
by Alex Scarrow

Reviewed by Sesana
Four out of five stars

Publisher summary:

Maddy should have died in a plane crash. Liam should have died at sea when the Titanic sank. Sal should have died in a tragic fire. But a mysterious man whisked them away to safety.

Maddy, Liam, and Sal quickly learn that time travel is no longer just a hope for the future; it is a dangerous reality. And they weren't just rescued from their terrible fates. . . they were recruited for the agency of TimeRiders created to protect the world from those seeking to alter the course of history for personal gain. By reliving the highly documented events in New York City on 9/11, they can closely monitor history for any deviations—large or small. When just such a change is detected, they are alerted that a threat is at hand unleashing the evil of the Nazis to wreak havoc with Earth's present and future. Can Maddy, Liam, and Sal fulfill their destinies as keepers of time to save the world from utter destruction?

My Review:

This book and I didn't have the smoothest start. It has more than its fair share of time travel cliches. Titanic, Nazis, the Kennedy assassination... Not the most original stomping grounds for time travelers. And then the character from 1912 hears somebody say "time travel" and says, "What's time travel?" And I facepalmed. At this point, I didn't have high hopes for this book.

Luckily, it all improves from there. Despite an unimaginative choice of time travel destinations, the way that time travel is actually handled is done in a way that's interesting and, to my mind, fairly original. It also seems to have been executed with a great deal of forethought. The stakes feel very real, and very urgent. And the characters themselves were done better than I'd been afraid they would be. They're all new at this whole time travel business, of course, but they're all bright enough, brave enough, and competent enough at the beginning to make it believable that they can become the time travel cops they were chosen to be. And guess what? No romance!

I have to say, I was surprised by how much I ended up liking this book, despite a less than promising start. I'm not sure yet if I'll read any further in the series, but this was a solid start.

A Double Shot of Deadpool!

Deadpool: Dead Presidents

Deadpool: Dead Presidents
Marvel NOW!
Available Now!

Deceased US presidents have been resurrected and are wreaking havoc.  To protect their image, S.H.E.I.L.D. refuses to dispatch The Avengers.  I mean, can you blame them?  You can’t have Captain America running around lopping off the heads of George Washington, Abe Lincoln and John F. Kennedy – what a P.R. nightmare!  As a last resort, they look to someone who could care less about their public image; Deadpool!  Can Deadpool defeat the former heads of state before America falls?


Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan bring the funny as the new head writers for the Marvel Now Deadpool series.  When I say be brings the funny, I mean it.  This trade was damn hilarious.  Just picture Deadpool battling the likes of Ronald Reagan, FDR and William Taft – who travels in a flying bathtub – while cracking some pretty hilarious one-liners and various witty remarks.  The story flows well and while the humor is the central focus, it doesn’t distract from the overall story.

I should also point out that Tony Moore’s artwork is perfect for the series.  It gives off a cartoony vibe to match the humor while also holding up strong for the intense violent scenes.  I can’t wait to read the next collection!

Forget that Daniel Day Lewis movie or that other flick where Honest Abe hunts vampires – this is Lincoln’s finest 2012 appearance!

Deadpool: Soul Hunter

Deadpool: Soul Hunter

Marvel NOW!

Available Now!

Selling your soul to a demon rarely has a favorable outcome. Sure, you’ll get what you need up-front but the poor saps that complete the transaction are usually only equipped with tunnel vision. They can’t see the bigger picture, the potential repercussions of their choice. That being said, I’m sure they didn’t expect to be hunted down by The Merc with a Mouth himself, Deadpool.

Vetis, the demon in question, has been spreading his powers among a select few individuals. When the time comes for him to call in his loans, he hires Deadpool to bring about their demise. Hunting them down one by one, Deadpool encounters several adversaries along the way and it’s not long before he’s at odds with Spider-Man and Daredevil.

But first, before all that stuff, we get a single issue blast from the past that takes Deadpool back to 1979 in a one-off adventure with Iron Man. Don’t let something as trivial as Deadpool not being created until 1991 get in the way of the storytelling – it’s really funny stuff. In this tale, Vetis encounters Deadpool for the first time, asking him to keep Tony Stark off the wagon. Deadpool finds a pretty brilliant way around his mission that’ll have readers laughing.

I’ve become a huge fan of Deadpool and Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan’s current run with the character is downright awesome. The character itself relies heavily on dark humor and a plethora of pop culture references so it’s easy to sometimes view the writers as “trying too hard”. That being said, you never feel that with these two. They seem to have a tight grasp on what works with The Crimson Nutcase.

I can’t recommend this series enough. I’ve been reading the trades but I may have to switch to the monthlies. My only real complaint would be his mental merger with S.H.E.I.L.D agent Preston. While it does have its moments, it often feels a little tacky and unnecessary. However, I’m pretty happy that the ghost of Benjamin Franklin appears to be a series regular.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Aimee Bender
Knopf
Reviewed by: Nancy
4 out of 5 stars



Nine-year-old Rose Edelstein discovers her “gift” when she takes a bite out of her mother’s lemon cake. This gift is more of a curse, as Rose becomes privy to her mother’s emotional turmoil that is masked by her cheerful and outgoing personality.

This quirky novel is certainly not for everyone, and I wasn’t quite sure it was for me either, but I quickly got sucked into Rose’s life as she discovers family secrets and learns more about herself. When the emotions get too overwhelming for her, Rose resorts to eating as little homemade food as possible. As Rose gets more accustomed to her talent, she experiments, explores, and grows.

Rose is a quiet girl with few friends. Her father is a decent man, but he’s somewhat distant, and her brother is a loner.

I can’t help but admire her father, who thinks of those who are less fortunate than himself.

“He made a good salary but he did not flaunt it. He’d been raised in Chicago proper by a Lithuanian Jewish mother who had grown up in poverty, telling stories, often, of extending a chicken to its fullest capacity, so as soon as a restaurant served his dish, he would promptly cut it in half and ask for a to-go container. Portions are too big anyway, he’d grumble, patting his waistline. He’d only give away his food if the corners were cleanly cut, as he believed a homeless person would just feel worse eating food with ragged bitemarks at the edges – as if, he said, they are dogs, or bacteria. Dignity, he said, lifting his half-lasagna into its box, is no detail.”

Overall, I enjoyed this very unusual novel. It was not depressing or heavy, but left me with a lingering sadness as I thought about my own childhood. 

Also posted at Goodreads.

All Hail the Humble Book!

It's a Book
Written by Lane Smith
Published by Roaring Book Press

5 Out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Amanda

Dear Amazon Kindle,

Do you know what else is portable? Do you know what else allows me to read anywhere at any given time? Do you know what else I can read on a beach or in any light? Do you know what else has crisp black and white contrast for easy reading? Do you know what else I can fit in my purse? Do you? Do you?

A book.

I'm not a technology curmudgeon (although my use of the word "curmudgeon" alone probably indicates that I'm well on my doddering way into geriatric-ville). There have been many technological advances of which I'm quite fond--just try and pry my iPod out of my cold dead hand. However, when it comes to technology, I see two categories: 1) technology that saves time and adds to the quality of my life and 2) status technology. For the most part, I think e-readers and their ilk fall into status technology. It screams "hey, look at me and my nifty gadget." Sure you can download several books within seconds, but going to a bookstore and browsing through the selections with a cuppa joe in my hand is one of my favorite things. I like walking around, basket on my arm, adding to it any item that catches my fancy. I like agonizing over which of my carefully selected books will be going home with me as I weigh my wants against what my meager bank account will allow me to have. I love the feel of books, the smell of books, the covers of books. I love turning pages. I love seeing what others are reading.

And that's why I love It's a Book. In a world of techno-abundance, it reminds the jackasses of the world that the book is already perfection.

A Pretty Package, But Empty Inside

The Night Circus
by Erin Morgenstern
Published by Doubleday

3 Out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Amanda

The Night Circus reminds me of a wedding cake: breathtakingly beautiful and intricate, with an infinite amount of attention paid to every detail. And, while you'll do the polite thing and talk about how delicious it was, in your heart-of-hearts you know that the simple homemade cake you've got waiting for you at home is infinitely better. Because a wedding cake isn't really about taste at all; it's all about flash, panache, and aesthetics. As your fork breaks through all the magic of sculpted icing, what you often find is that it lacks flavor and texture. All the effort went into the external and not the internal. That's how I feel about The Night Circus. It is unquestionably beautiful in its descriptions of the enchanting black and white Circus of Dreams and connects with you on the level of a child's awe and wonderment at encountering a world where the possibility of magic is confirmed.  However, in the final analysis what is missing is a story full of conflict, tension, and developed characters. It's certainly pretty to look at, but didn't resonate with me.

The beginning of the book is filled with promise. Celia Bowen is delivered to her father, Prospero the Enchanter, after her mother commits suicide. Prospero is initially disinterested in the daughter he never knew nor wanted, but becomes intrigued when her anger manifests itself in the movement and breaking of objects in the room around her. Like her father, Celia has a gift for magic--a gift that her father uses to make a living as an illusionist, knowing that his audiences will never suspect what they witness on stage is real and not just sleight of hand. After training Celia to control her powers, Prospero contacts the mysterious Alexander, another true magician, and the two make a wager. Prospero will pit his daughter against an opponent of Alexander's choosing in a challenge that is never clearly defined to the reader. Alexander accepts and promptly plucks Marco, a boy with a love of reading, from a nearby orphanage and begins training him.


{a few spoilers ahead; those still interested in reading the book may want to stop here}


It's at this point that the book has a lot of promise and I'm actually getting excited about the challenge to come. This is also where problems start to surface. Several chapters segue into peripheral storylines not really deserving of exploration as they take the tension out of the challenge between the two magicians. But that's okay, because there's not a lot of tension there to begin with. Celia and Marco are trained for a challenge that's never defined for them. They don't know how the game is played (nor why) and they don't know who their opponent is. Hell, they don't even know what the challenge is until they've unknowingly been involved in it for a while. This is problematic because Celia and Marco have no reason to be invested in the challenge and neither does the reader as we, too, are kept in the dark in regard to all of these matters. It turns out that the challenge is the circus itself, designed specifically as a battleground for the two magicians and the challenge is basically to create additional tents of merriment and delight. That's it. No showdowns, no dramatic monologues, no tension, no pounding of wizard staffs, no ruthlessly executed tactical maneuvers. It's just "I think I'll make a pretty, pretty ice garden" followed by "Oh, he made a pretty, pretty ice garden. I think I'll make a really nifty wishing tree" and on and on it goes, where it stops nobody knows . . . or cares. To completely suck any tension out of this scenario, the two fall in love, which only heightens their disinterest in playing out the game. Their moves and countermoves actually become hidden messages to one another, tributes to the love that will never be.

All of this is not to say that I hated the book. I liked it and I could certainly appreciate the beauty of the descriptions. Some have compared it to Neil Gaiman, which I disagree with as Gaiman would have infused the story with sinister undertones, clever word play to catch the reader off-guard, and a gothic feel. What the book really needs are two magicians who know exactly who they are fighting and why they are fighting--and both of whom desperately want to win. Without that, it's just a tower of lovely icing that leaves you hungry for more than sugar and beauty in the end.

Perdita Durango es una mala mujer. Muy mala!

PERDITA DURANGO
Barry Gifford
Grove Press, 1996
reviewed by Anthony Vacca
5 out of 5 stars

Brief, brutal, and bizarre, Perdita Durango is my kind of pulp noir, and my kind of woman. A self-proclaimed Tex-Mex (Half American, Half Mexican) Perdita is also a thief, a whore, a killer, and an all-around sociopath. Skinny, lithe, and dangerous, this novel follows Perdita's misadventures after shacking up with Romeo Dolorosa, a Mexican drug dealer who fronts his border distribution racket with a church where he serves as voodoo high priest, sacrificing goats and chickens and sometimes even people.

In a lot of ways, this novel, also anthologized in the collection Sailor's Holiday under the title 59° and Raining, is the anti-Wild at Heart in that the previous novel was about a couple that represented the idea of love being something stronger than the chaos at the heart of the Americas, but here we have Perdita and Romeo as celebrants of death, two evil souls who see killing and fucking as essentially two sides of the same coin, the only real way to prove that you're alive.

Even the roadtrip trajectory of this novel mirrors the one Sailor and Lula took in Wild at Heart but instead of goinng to California to make a chance at a life together, our two Latin-flavored killers are transporting a truck-load of human organs that are to be used in a mafia-run illegal skincare scheme. Without giving away the particular sordid and disgusting contents of their cargo, know that it certainly only adds to the over-all theme of the complete disregard of life that we children of God are more than capable of perpetrating upon one another.

Gifford is in rare form here, carrying the free-wheeling, digressive narrative along quickly enough with cigarette-smoking-cool existential back-and-forths between its characters; these are the kind of deviants and delinquents who love to tell each other stories for the pure bliss of hearing the sounds of their own voices. The action is jarring and sparesly rendered in a way that reads almost like beat poetry that doesn't suck.

This novel (or novella, if we want to split hairs) can be read in a single sitting, as the chapters are short and charged with enough sex and violence to leave a throat dry and in serious need of a refreshing cervaza. It's a hell of a story, and like its eponymous femme fatale, it's bad. Very bad.

The Truth Goes Bone Deep

What's Bred in the Bone

Robertson Davies

Penguin

Reviewed by: Terry
5  out of 5 stars

This is Robertson Davies’ best book. No, really it is. And he’s written some pretty awesome ones, let me tell you. Certainly, at the very least, I can say that this one is my favourite. It has everything I want and expect from a book by Davies: a concentration on artistic and intellectual matters, exploration into the ways in which heredity and upbringing shape the soul of an individual, characters who are both ‘realistic’ and odd, witty insights into human nature and foibles at both the individual and communal level, and a preoccupation with myth as it surfaces in our everyday lives through both obvious and not so obvious avenues; in short a heady rumination on what it means to be a sensate individual living in a difficult world coming to terms with oneself all wrapped up in a wonderful story built on well-wrought prose.

As the story opens we encounter our old friends Simon Darcourt, Maria Theotoky, and Arthur Cornish some years after we first met them in _The Rebel Angels_.  They are haggling over some problems that Darcourt is having with the inaugural work commissioned by the Cornish Foundation, meant to launch this benevolent body founded by Arthur and Maria into the world of artistic patronage. It is in fact a biography of Francis Cornish, the somewhat mysterious art collector and millionaire whose death played an important, though ancillary, role in the first volume of the Cornish trilogy. It appears as though Darcourt’s problems are two-fold: one is that there are simply too few facts for him to compose anything like the comprehensive scholarly work of biography he desires, the other is that those nuggets that he is able to intuit from the sparse facts of Cornish’s life lead him to believe that some unexpectedly provocative revelations may lie behind what on the surface had seemed a sedentary, even boring, life. Arthur wants none of it. His foundation is surely not to be launched into the world with a work whose main thesis may be that his own uncle was something of a charlatan, or at the very least a man of disingenuous aspect. Darcourt simply bemoans the fact the he is likely never to know the truth of the “rum things” that seem to lie in the background of the life and times of Francis Cornish.

Luckily for the reader Davies has Zadkiel, the minor angel of biography, and Maimas, the personal daimon of Francis Cornish himself, appear on the scene to enlighten us with the true tale of his life. We are at first treated to a view of Francis’ immediate forbears, setting the scene as Maimas would have it, for the places and people that would shape him for better or worse upon his arrival in the world. Thus we meet the premier inhabits of the tiny Canadian hamlet of Blairlogie (the “jumping off point” as some might uncharitably call it): the Senator (Francis’ grandfather James McRory), a man of humble beginnings who rises to prominence in the economic and political world of turn of the century Canada due to shrewd decisions and the ability and desire to take risks, and his comfort-loving wife, Francis’ grand-mère. There is also the sweetly draconian and pious Catholic Aunt Mary-Ben, a spinster who takes over the management of the Senator’s household ostensibly to allow his wife the freedom required to fully live the life required of a society woman, and of course Francis’ parents: the Senator’s favourite daughter Mary-Jim and her very odd husband Francis “the Wooden Soldier” Cornish…the tale of their meeting and circumstances surrounding their marriage plays an important role in the first part of the narrative and ultimately sets the scene for the boy, and man, Francis is to become. Added to these ‘main players’ are the numerous background figures and servants of the prominent household, many of whom will play a much larger role in the life and development of Francis than they, or any of their ‘betters’, might  have thought likely. With this the scene is set for Davies’ preoccupation with the twin pillars upon which our lives are built: nature and nurture.

Francis’ life in Blairlogie is lonely and often hard. Being the sensitive and often neglected son of the most prominent family in a small rough-and-tumble backwoods town is not exactly an enviable position for a little boy, especially when you get moved to a school on the other side of the tracks. Francis’ parents and grandparents are often absent, even when they are physically near him, and so his fostering is taken over primarily by his well-meaning, though strange and often misguided Aunt Mary-Ben, as well as the servants Victoria Cameron (a staunch and somewhat harsh, though caring, Presbyterian) and the kind, but unconventional groom Zadok Hoyle. All of these people strongly shape Francis’ young mind, usually in contrary ways, so that he is pulled in several different directions by the people who should be providing him with a stable life. As far as Maimas is concerned this is all to the good, for he cannot forge a great man with the small stuff of ‘normalcy’. Also, Francis is a resourceful boy (who has luckily been ‘gifted’ with his own inspirational daimon) and is thus able to take the varied and ambiguous gifts of these people and form them into something approximating a complete, though certainly fragmented, personality. From these strange roots Francis grows an intriguing crown: a profound love of and ability in art, a deep desire to find the eternal feminine that can provide him with the comfort and love that has always been so elusive to him, and a sense of charity and compassion tempered by a love of money and somewhat cynical eye. All in all it is a foundation that Francis himself describes as “A Catholic soul in Protestant chains”. There is one other shadow-figure of supreme importance to Francis’ life and development, but I will leave the discovery of his role and identity to you from the story itself.

From the small beginnings of rural Ontario Francis moves to the ‘big city’ of Toronto where he attends both Colborne College and ‘Spook’ (academic proving grounds familiar to those of us who have read more widely in Davies) before moving on to Oxford and the wider world of pre-WWII Europe. Here Francis will meet a variety of new people with whose lives and interests he will become entangled, both professionally and personally. Some will be lovers (both nurturing and destructive), others will be mentors and rivals (both very instructive roles). All of these relationships will be used by Maimas to forge Francis into the man he envisions: the ultimate work of art combining elements of both the physical and the spiritual world into an enigmatic, but complete human being. In the end Francis is led by both his interests and his connections not only into the world of art and scholarship, but also the realm of espionage and subterfuge. Ultimately he shapes himself into the skilled, knowledgeable, and supremely secretive man who is to provide such an enigmatic puzzle for the would-be biographer Darcourt.

As I said in my opening this book is great. I won’t go any farther into a précis of Francis' life, Davies details it with much more colour, wit, and interest than I could manage in a review, but I have to say that Francis Cornish is a compelling character (at least as much as that equally charming rascal Dunstan Ramsay) and the story of his life is one well worth reading. It is, I think, Davies’ tour-de-force that takes up all of his concerns and preoccupations, uniting them to the story of a life whose variety and pathos makes it both accessible and enlightening.

Definitely check it out.

Also posted at Goodreads

Young Love Done Wrong

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
2013
Reviewed by Diane K. M.
My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars



I need to state right away that YA is not one of my favorite genres: I hated the Twilight books, I'm not a fan of paranormal romance and I've been avoiding the flood of YA dystopian novels. I want this to be clear because if you like YA, then my negative reaction probably won't apply to you. You may love this book, as many others already have.

I wanted to read this novel because it received several glowing reviews and it was being compared to John Green's "The Fault in Our Stars," which I really liked. "Eleanor & Park" is set in a high school in Omaha in 1986. The titular characters are teenagers who meet on the school bus -- Eleanor dresses weird and is new at the school; Park is biracial and tries to keep his head down so he won't get picked on. The two bond over comic books and music and fall into puppy love.

My main complaint is that Rowell tried putting 10 pounds of plot into a 5-pound bag. As if the outsiders-fall-in-love story wasn't enough, she gave Eleanor a hellish home life: her stepfather is abusive, neglectful and had previously kicked her out of the house for standing up to him. Meanwhile, Park, whose father is white and his mother is Korean, feels like a "pussy" compared to his ex-military dad, who yells at him a lot. Much of this family stuff didn't ring true and it felt so forced that I had to do a lot of skimming to survive the home scenes. Of course, I also had to skim a lot of the school scenes because the dialogue of the teens was so contrived.

And then there are all the retro pop culture references -- never for a page does Rowell let you forget that the story is set in 1986. OK, OK, we get it already.

But what really made me want to heave this book across the room was the ping-pong writing style. Rowell wrote very short sections, bouncing back and forth and back and forth between Eleanor and Park's point of view. It is the perfect example of how limited the modern attention span is that writers think the only way a young person will read something is if it's in short posts. (Curse you, Twitter!)

I think "Eleanor & Park" was trying to do too much and ended up being bad at all of it. There are so many other books that do all of these elements better. For young love, I really liked John Green's "The Fault in Our Stars." For 1980s references that aren't overdone, I liked Carol Rifka Brunt's "Tell the Wolves I'm Home." For dysfunctional family, try Jeannette Walls' "The Glass Castle."

As for me, this book may have scared me away from YA for a while. I'm sticking with adult books, because I'm an adult who is getting grouchy about losing precious reading time on mediocre stories.

More Precious Stories From Afghanistan

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
2013
Reviewed by Diane K. M.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars




This is a difficult book to review. Hosseini is a good storyteller, but I have the same complaint about this book as I did with "The Kite Runner," which is that it is too precious. As in, roll-your-eyes, on-the-nose precious.

But before I focus on the negative, let me share the positive: This is an impressive story that spans generations and continents. Each chapter is told from a different character's point of view, and each section builds on the events that have come before, and by the end we have covered more than 60 years of a family's story.

The book opens with a legend about a giant who would go to a village and demand a child be sacrificed to him. A father was forced to give up his favorite son, and he was so heartbroken and upset that he later left the village to try and retrieve him from the giant. But when he arrived at the giant's house after many days of walking, he saw that his son was happy and was living a better life than he could have provided. The giant takes pity on the father and gives him a potion to help him forget his son. But did the father ever really forget?

The meaning of this legend is soon made evident when we meet a boy, Abdullah, who is forced to say goodbye to his beloved sister, Pari, who is being sent to Kabul to be adopted. In the next chapter we meet the woman who will become Abdullah's stepmother, then we meet Abdullah's uncle, then we meet some cousins who used to be neighbors of the uncle... and so on, and so on.

There are many good moments in the book, such as when a character recognizes his or her selfishness and vows to do better. Or when relatives have been reunited after a long separation because of the war. And as the story unfolds, we must ask if Pari was better off being adopted, or should she have stayed with her family in the village?

A minor complaint of mine is I think Hosseini skimped on details of the wars in Afghanistan and on the clashes with the Taliban. True, he covered this in previous books, and in this book one of the characters wrote in a letter that the wars have been well-documented elsewhere, so there's no point in describing it. But I disagree, because I think it was a bit of laziness on the author's part. This is a story about an Afghanistan family from the 1950s to present day. The war violently disrupted the country and the family, and yet here it only surfaces as background noise. (For readers who want to know more about Afghanistan during this time period, I recommend the memoir "The Favored Daughter" by Fawzia Koofi.)

For most of the book I was prepared to give it four stars, but about three-fourths of the way through I grew weary of the too precious dialogue, the characters who were just too earnest and understanding, and the seemingly endless exposition. What finally pushed me over the edge was an extended section in Greece, which I think could have been cut entirely.

I think Hosseini is a big bestselling author because he tells good stories -- and for most people, that is enough. But when I compare him to my other favorite novelists, his books leave me wanting something more.