Usually I like to talk about the book I’m currently reading on Thursdays, but I thought I’d take a look at my next read — The Taker by Alma Katsu.
I’ve been craving this book. Drooling over this book. Wondering how long I can hold out before buying this book. Then suddenly I lucked out. I’ll be getting a copy for review very soon. Like probably today. How happy am I right now? So *very* happy! So happy, I’m barely able to execute complete sentences. 🙂
The Postmortal
By Drew Magary
Penguin Group
ISBN: 9780143119821
4.75 stars
In 2019, the cure for aging is discovered. Three shots and you, barring cancer or mortal injury, can live forever. Utopia has arrived. Well, not so fast. John Farrell all of 29 years-old gets the cure. Always a bit of a self-doubter, but one with curiosity, he’s more interested in seeing if it works as opposed to thinking seriously about his actions and what the cure means for his city, state, country, or the world.
Told through John’s writings, blog posts, random thoughts, and news clips and feeds, readers are left with a unique, if sometimes, completely un-planned story and it’s fascinating. It’s so fascinating in fact it’s almost believable — to a degree. Scientific advances are made at astonishing rates and some of the scenarios in this book are not hard to buy-in to and I loved that. Some of it is hard to read and sometimes John is infuriating but either way you want to see the total destruction you know is coming. Magary ends the book in the only way possible and you want to thank him for it because you almost feel the world he created should be destroyed. Over and over again.
John is an everyman who re-invests himself to stay alive — an estate lawyer turned divorce attorney turned globe-trotter turned end specialist. Yes, he kills people for a living but not before offering them estate planning and tax advice. It’s a sweet touch, really. But John’s also a person stuck and even after his numerous years on the planet, still doesn’t know what he wants until the end. Fortunately, it’s believable from him.
Magary has one freak of an imagination and I hope he keeps running with it. The Postmortal is a true ride from start to finish but if you prefer less sociopathic behavior from characters, it might not be for you. However, all that happens here could be attainable in a world with no death, at least not the naturally occurring kind. That’s what I liked about it. He goes radical, pulls it back, and goes after it again.
Do we know everything? No. But neither does the main character so you go with it, sucked in hoping beyond hope he might find his way. I highly recommend this one.
I requested this book from NetGalley.
Becoming Marie Antoinette
By Juliet Grey
Ballantine Books
ISBN: 9780345523860
4 stars
Marie Antoinette has long been a favorite character of mine in historical fiction. The French court, the elaborate pomp and circumstance, and then there is the setting — Versailles. In Becoming Marie Antoinette, Grey takes us past the court window dressings introducing us to a young girl struggling to fit in and be someone much more French than her Austrian roots allow.
The Austrian court is a quiet refuge for a young Marie Antonia, the youngest daughter of the empress. She has a lot of freedom and never having been much of a scholar, she does her best to avoid every lesson possible. When she’s told she will be marrying the Dauphin of France, Louis Auguste, she spends her days dreaming of marriage and children. However, she fails to understand her future marriage is more than a simple arrangement; it will be the culmination of a treaty between the Austrian empress and the French king. Her days spent dreaming in the garden are over. Her mother, knowing she needs to impress not only the French ambassador but eventually the French king, his court, and the country’s people, Marie Antonia’s education begins again with a decided slant towards making her not just appear French but to be French.
Understanding for the first time the gravity of her marriage, Marie Antonia takes everything seriously from learning to endure French hair and clothing to performing the Versailles glide — a way of walking through the halls of the palace — perfectly. When her wedding plans are finally announced, the young daydreamer has been transformed into a young woman who may not entirely understand her new role, but is willing to try. Anxious to finally meet her husband, she does her best to make a good impression on everyone she meets during her journey. When she finally arrives, more changes await her, the least of which is being stripped of everything Austrian to be replaced completely with French versions including her name. She submits; Marie Antonia becomes Marie Antoinette.
Determined to be nothing if not loved, Marie Antoinette makes it her duty to impress: her husband, the king, and the court. Unfortunately, not everyone finds her alluring and especially not her new husband. A quiet man of few words, she can’t figure out how to get through to him and the rumors of a virginal marriage bed begin to haunt her. With no place to find solace in a court constantly full of gossipy, curious courtiers, she attempts to understand the man who is her husband.
What’s so interesting about this particular story is that we meet a young Marie Antoinette who has no head for academics but is able to make just about everyone love her. She’s fun and while she knows her freedom won’t last, she’s resigned to making the best of it. While the Marie Antoinette we meet isn’t the refined and glamorous woman of most historical fiction, she’s certainly a lovable character and most of that is due to her age. She’s young, incredibly young even for her age. And while you may know what’s coming her way, she seems blissful at least to a certain point. It’s when she comes to understand the difficulties that lay ahead for her, you begin to not only like her but feel for her. A foreign archduchess, she’s not looked upon kindly and realizes fast there are few she can trust in her new home.
The relationship with Louis has its poignant moments and frankly some embarrassing ones as well. But you also see two young adults attempting to figure out what’s expected of them and how they plan to live up to those expectations. Finding they love each other along the way lends sweetness to a story that can easily be trounced on by an overbearing French court. There are a few places in the story when I did wish for less information as Grey has obviously done her research but overall those moments don’t cause harm. In many ways this is a coming of age story, but it’s also full of some interesting characters you don’t want to let go of even at the end which is good because Becoming Marie Antoinette is the first in a planned trilogy.
In addition to this blog, I also do reviews for the Book Reporter website. The above review was done for the Book Reporter which can be found here. The book was provided to me by the publisher.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.
Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so other participants know what you’re reading.
I’m starting Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey today. Here’s your peek inside:
“The footmen inside the palace stood at attention, never lowering their gaze to acknowledge us. Their gold and black livery nearly shimmered in the highly polished parquet.” (pg. 16)
The Dark Enquiry
By Deanna Raybourn
Harlequin
ISBN: 9780778312376
4.5 stars
First, I have a confession. I did something I never do — I read a book out of order in a series. OK, so not a big, earth shattering confession but I felt I needed to say that for readers of this series. I’ve heard fabulous things about the Lady Julia Grey novels and have been meaning to read one for a long time. So when I saw this one on NetGalley I requested it and proceeded to read with abandon. Yes, abandon people.
I feel I should warn of spoilers since this is a series so here you have it but since I haven’t read any of the previous books, I can’t be sure that’s an accurate statement.
Lady Julia Grey is now back in London navigating and negotiating her marriage to Brisbane. While the two are very much in love, it’s Julia’s insistence on being a true and full partner in Brisbane’s life, which includes his work as an investigator and private detective, that’s causing a small wrinkle in their otherwise happy marriage. He balks but she insists, and being Julia, she wins. Brisbane does everything to keep her out of his latest case, including building her a photography studio as a distraction, but Julia manages to not only get involved but also nearly get herself killed in the process.
This book was so entertaining and if they’re all like this, I want to read them all now. Julia and Brisbane are a great couple and for as annoying as she can be, Julia’s delightful. Obviously, there’s much I missed in regard to the relationship but I didn’t feel lost which is a testament to Raybourn’s. She gives you enough to go on and lets you fill in the rest, which in a series I don’t mind and was perfectly at home with here.
There’s one more thing I need to mention — I didn’t care who the killer was. Remember, a mystery is at the heart of this story, and I don’t usually pick up mysteries because I mostly spend my time trying to figure out who did it without paying attention to characters or plot. Here, I didn’t even care who did it and I didn’t read ahead which is HUGE for me. A first actually. Maybe I finally found the right mix for me when it comes to a mystery; I need ghosts and really great characters. Also, the romance is good. I must say this because I’m pretty sure from reading this one installment that many readers are invested in this relationship too.
I probably don’t have to say this but I will anyway — I plan to go back and read the four previous books in this series. If this one was any indication of the goodness I will be experiencing, I will be a very happy reader.
I downloaded an advanced review copy of this book from NetGalley.
The Map of Time
By Félix J. Palma
Atria Books
ISBN: 97814391673097
4.5 stars
If truth be told, the idea of time travel has fascinated me for a long time, since I read The Time Machine as a teenager in a high school English class. The complicated systems, consequences, and the mechanisms by which time travel is possible are the making of stories I love dearly. Then there are the questions: can the past be changed and should it be? So much potential for a fantasy lover like me! In The Map of Time, three stories intertwine to make Victorian England the birth place of time travel with the author, H.G. Wells, crisscrossing stories to investigate instances of time travel.
Andrew Harrington is a man in mourning for a woman brutally murdered by Jack the Ripper. Years pass and yet he still can’t forget the harlot he met in the dark, dank, back alleys of London. He had hopes of bringing her home to his comfortable mansion and making a true lady of her; a dream now lost. His cousin, however, has plans to change his grieving by means of time travel. If Andrew could travel back in time, he would be able to rescue his girl and move on with his life. Game for anything that will stop his pain and possibly save the love of his life, Andrew agrees and the plot to kill Jack the Ripper is set in motion with the aid of H.G. Wells.
On the other side of London, Gilliam Murray, the proprietor of Murray’s Time Travel, an expedition taking patrons to witness a great future battle between man and automaton, is happily filling his coffers thanks to a time traveling device and fabulous marketing tactics. It is on this expedition that Claire Haggerty, a woman attempting to escape to the future and a new exciting life free of Victorian ideals, falls for the brave Captain Derek Shakleton, the man who saves humankind. But has she really fallen for a man from the future?
Pondering the affect his work, The Time Machine, has had on readers and literature in general, H.G. Wells is approached by a man claiming to be a true time traveler and a man in need of his help in order to save great works of literature from destruction. Skeptical, Mr. Wells becomes a detective of sorts to understand what and who he is dealing with — is the man a true time traveler? Can he be believed? Should he be? Can time travel really exist? Unsure what to believe, he decides to meet with the man anyway and see what his future, and fate, have in store for him.
What Palma does so well is make everything believable even for the most skeptical of his characters, H.G. Wells. He is also a master of tying up loose ends; creating an amazing web of intricate tales that all have similar elements yet are so very different. He’s a fascinating writer able to bring alive the time period of Victorian England with its fascination with new inventions as well as imagining a future world that would entrance. Each of the three stories have common themes, love being the main one, and he treats each story gently to make everything plausible — even if some of the characters are not sure of what they’ve gotten themselves into.
The Map of Time is an intricate story set in a brightly imaged Victorian England but with a fantasy subplot that causes each and every character to re-think their actions and lives. This story is a cautionary tale about the use of science and the foibles of love for his characters but above all, it’s an utterly fascinating and readable book. You won’t want to put this one down.
In addition to this blog, I also do reviews for The Book Reporter website. The above review was done for the Book Reporter which can be found here. The book was provided to me by the publisher.
Don’t Breathe a Word
By Jennifer McMahon
HarperCollins
ISBN: 978-0-06-168937-6
3.85 stars
I want to say this was a fantasy story but I’m held up by reality on this one. Did I like this book? Yes and no. Yes, in that the story was well paced, full of twists, and slightly disturbing in a way that makes you keep reading because you must absolutely know what happens and are afraid to put the book down for fear of not finding out. No, in that sometimes reality is too disturbing and you want to walk away and forget what you read and imagined and go back to a life happy without disturbing images in your head.
Lisa is an imaginative child so much so that she not only imagines but believes she has found the fairy king in the woods behind her house. Woods full of strange tales, horror stories, and dilapidated stone homes. When she goes missing, there’s more to the story of a girl and a fairy king and it’s so much more disturbing than anyone, especially her brother, may have wanted to imagine. Her brother, now a man in his twenties happy in his life and relationship with his girlfriend, Phoebe, Sam would rather forget parts of his childhood and move on but it’s not meant to happen. When a woman claiming to be his sister appears saying she’s returned from the land of the fairies, the simple life Sam and Phoebe have together is ruined.
Sometimes when you’re reading, especially a story about a young girl gone missing, you know it’s going to turn out badly and all that was at work was sad, despicable, human behavior. But sometimes you also want to believe there is another fantasy world where she could have been taken and McMahon does a good job of making you really wonder about that. Is it all an elaborate ruse to fool you and hide psychotic behavior? Why can’t there be a happy ending here? I can tell you, without ruining anything, there is no happy ending here and yes, at times you will find yourself repulsed by the characters behavior. You’ll be uncomfortable with the lies they yield and live. You’ll be utterly disgusted and disturbed by what they do. Sadly, it’s also compelling and I’ll admit I had a hard time reading and putting this book down.
That’s also what’s making me a little wishy-washy on this. Did I not like it because it made me uncomfortable? Well written books should do that to a certain extent. But ultimately, I can’t say I loved it and I don’t honestly know if it was because of the subject matter. Having a visceral reaction to something I read doesn’t mean it’s not good if my reaction was negative, does it?
Either way this book gets credit for holding me nearly hostage for several hours to finish it before my heart stopped pounding. If nothing else, McMahon knows how to get hold of a reader.
Don’t Breathe a Word will be released May 2011.
I won this book as part of the Early Reviewers Program on LibraryThing.
The Other Life
By Ellen Meister
Putnam
ISBN: 9780399151713-4
4 stars
If I knew I had another life, I would constantly wonder. Would I be jealous? Would I second guess my choices knowing there may be an alternative? Would I have the courage to try out that other life? This is what made Meister’s book so appealing to me — yes, we can all fantasize about another life but it doesn’t exist. For the main character in The Other Life, it does.
Quinn Braverman is living a happy life in Long Island with her husband Lewis and son Isaac. Pregnant with their second child, Quinn is crushed when she finds out something may seriously be wrong with the baby. Doctors can’t answer her questions and more than ever she longs to talk to her mother who committed suicide shortly after her marriage to Lewis. The simple, stable life she worked so hard for is slowly slipping away with each new day. But Quinn has a secret, one she barely lets herself think about — she has another life. In her staid Long Island home, hidden in the basement behind an old ironing board is a portal to her other life. For years she stayed away from it never even letting herself imagine what it would be like but the stress associated with her pregnancy and the decisions she and Lewis may have to face regarding their baby’s life finally weigh on her. She finds herself hovering around the portal until one day, unable to ignore it any longer, she gives in and goes through. She finds herself back in the Manhattan apartment she shared with her ex-boyfriend and even more surprising — her mother, Nan, is alive and well in this other world.
The complications associated with Quinn’s pregnancy are certainly a reason for wanting to escape, but in truth, she wants to know why her mother took her own life. While Nan always had mental health issues which Quinn understood to be the underlying cause for her suicide, she never fully accepted her death. She misses her especially now when she’s questioning whether or not she will be able to care for a possibly disabled child. She keeps going back to her other life in the hope of understanding her mother better, but in many ways it seems she’s doing it to not just to escape a difficult situation — which her pregnancy definitely is — but she wants and needs closure over her mother’s death. But can she really leave her husband and child forever? Unfortunately, having a life with her mother in it means leaving everything she cherishes behind.
Parts of this book fascinated me and others infuriated me. Quinn is a character you can identify with. She’s any woman living a life that one day takes an incredibly unexpected turn and she wants escape or at least a way to understand why things are happening. She has that means of escape and when she uses it the first time, I felt I understood, but when she kept going back I become frustrated with her. It was almost as if she really was trying to decide whether or not to abandon her family. Fortunately, Quinn isn’t a character I stayed annoyed with for very long. She was too likable for that, for me at least. Plus, I became fascinated by what she would find each time she slipped through the portal.
In many ways this is a family story barring the other life portal which is just a means of examining the character’s life choices and her wondering if she made, and is making, the right decisions. Something we all do wonder about from time to time which makes this a particularly interesting story. Quinn is a strong character but she has her faults and I liked that she wasn’t able to do away with any of these faults simply by slipping into another world. Nan, Quinn’s mother, is another character I found myself drawn to much the way Quinn is. In the end, Meister leaves you with a bumpy road but one you’ll want to travel.
In addition to this blog, I also do reviews for The Book Reporter website. The above review was done for the Book Reporter which can be found here. The book was provided to me by the publisher.
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