September 2011 Recommended Reads, Listens and Looks

Wow, it feels like forever since I wrote any reviews.  Having spent most of September on the road, I’d hoped I’d get just a TON of reading done. While I did make a dent in my sizable TBR stack, I had the same problem I did the previous month: fatigue, pure and simple. I was just a touch more impatient than usual, and my Stephen King Rule (read 15% or so and if the book’s not giving back more than you’re putting in, chuck that sucker) revised downward a tad.  Last month, if a book didn’t grab me by the end of the second chapter, it was disappeared–and, for the first time, I actually loaded my Kindle with two word games.  Like . . . wuh?  Me?  Play games when I could be reading?  Say it isn’t so.  Similarly, I revisited some comforting TV shows and went for slightly frothier movies than usual.

I’m sure I’ll be back to my intensely Freudian self after England and Ireland :-).

In the meantime, here are the RLLs that made my cut this past month.

READS

Hirsch, Jeff; The Eleventh Plague (Scholastic Press; 2011). If Suzanne Collins recommends a book, you can bet people will sit up and take notice–and with good reason. Having had the opportunity to both meet and hang out a tad with Jeff at a recent lit conference, I can tell you two things: he’s a very nice guy and a good writer to boot. His background as a playwright means he has a good ear for dialogue and that shows here in this post-apocalyptic story that revolves mostly around finding one’s place in a new world that evokes a bit of MAD MAX. Not in a bad way, mind you: what Hirsch has done here is take what could be a big, brawling narrative and tighten the focus to the story of one fifteen-year-old boy trying to discover his place in a brutal world that would give Mel Gibson a run for his money. The story itself is pretty simple: the world’s been decimated by the Eleventh Plague, essentially a bioweapon released during a conflict between China and everyone else. With a third of the world’s population dead, things are . . . bad. At the novel’s start, Stephen’s grandfather, an ex-Marine, has died, leaving Stephen and his father to eke out an existence as scavengers. Stephen’s dad, a relatively ineffectual guy, is gravely injured; Stephen and his father are rescued by semi-altruistic folks who take them to a hidden enclave and, really, the rest of the book centers on Stephen’s discovery and then embrace of a new way of life. While the instigating incident that propels the final crisis in this book was both a little unbelievable and out of character for Stephen, it worked relatively well and also revealed the seedy underside to people who might otherwise seem too good to be true (and frequently were, but Hirsch did this to make a point). This is a spare book, easily read in a single sitting but that’s not the same as something slight and forgettable. What pleased me was the way in which Hirsch allowed Stephen both his head and heart by novel’s end.

McEntire, Myra. Hourglass (Egmont USA, 2011). This book is a bit like a well-made martini. Take a great cover; add what is essentially a YA romance with a fun premise (time travel with a twist); throw in a bit of SANCTUARY and HEROES and then shake–and you’ve got all the ingredients for a fast, very entertaining read. What seems to begin as just another YA woo-woo paranormal romance morphs into something closer to romance and sci-fi in this story of a 17 yo girl who discovers that all those ghosts she thinks she’s been seeing are really time ripples (rips) from the past. Toss in a handsome, faintly tragic guy; mix it up with another smoother, just as sexy OTHER guy–yes, classic love triangle here, complete with misgivings, doubt and all the rest–and we get to follow Emerson Cole as she comes to grips with her abilities to negotiate the past.  That she then girls-up to not only rescue a scientist-cum-father-figure but her boyfriend as well makes this something you can get behind. The love interest angle takes that little charge you feel with the right guy to a whole new level, too. My only complaint with this book is I didn’t quite buy Em as a 17yo; she read and sounded much older, but this is a minor quibble. This is a very fine debut and fast read with just enough twists and turns to make you wonder what McEntire has in store for the next installment. Here’s hoping I score an autographed copy next time around.

Roy, Jennifer Rozines. Mindblind (Marshall Cavendish Corp, 2010). I’m not a disorder-of-the-month kind of reader, and I normally steer clear of books that delve into areas with which I have a lot of familiarity. This book caught my eye, though–in an airport Hudson News, no less (I live to see my books in airports someday…), and I’m glad I gave into my impulse to pick it up. 14-yo Nathaniel has Asperger’s, but he’s a high-functioning “Aspie,” who orders his world with formulas. Oh, and did I mention that he’s a genius? Before you roll your eyes, lighten up a little; this kid isn’t a savant–or Rain Man either. He’s got a couple friends, a crush and–except for his dad–a supportive family. While the family parts fall on the side of being too good to believe, Nathaniel’s goal isn’t. While he’s got the IQ, he figures he has to make some truly memorable contribution to the world in order to qualify as a genius. So if he can only do that–and kiss the girl of his dreams–he’s set. Don’t let the math or formulae deter you: this is a little book with a very big heart.

Vaught, Susan.  Trigger (Bloomsbury Childrens, 2007).  Yet another departure for me, this book was recommended by a friend. I have to admit that deciding to give any novel about a brain-injured kid a try was–for me–a little bit too much of a busman’s holiday, kind along the lines of MINDBLIND, come to think of it. Anyway, this is really quite an interesting book. Vaught’s a neuropsychologist and she knows her stuff; this novel about a suicidal young man, Jersey Hatch, who both didn’t quite succeed in killing himself–and yet did–was very involving. Vaught perfectly captures the frustrations and limitations of a seventeen-year-old boy and his less-than-perfect family both trying to cope with the aftermath of a failed suicide while not quite sure they want answers as to why Jersey might have thought suicide was an option. Jersey’s mind and body are so damaged that you wonder if, by saving his life, anyone did him any favors. Yet Jersey is fated to live and while this book makes you work to get at the meat–the same way Jersey must, every day–it is by concentrating on this boy’s struggles in the real world while figuring out what made this kid, with everything to live for, pull that trigger that this novel finds its legs.

LISTENS

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Well, not quite true: I loved what Katy Kellgren did with my own ASHES, but waxing lyrical about that would be cheating.

OTOH, Katy did a GREAT job–enough to land the book on the Audible Bestseller list. So, that’s really something.

As for the rest . . . I listened to quite a few books–and jettisoned them all. Now it’s also true that I didn’t get to cook much this past month, and since I do a ton of listening in the kitchen, maybe that explains why nothing really grabbed me. I have a hard time listening to stories on a plane, and there just wasn’t enough down-time in hotel rooms to think about plugging in and tuning out.

But this is simply unacceptable. Next month, I got to find SOMETHING or bust.

LOOKS

Again, not a lot of time and I saw NOTHING in a theater, which just pisses me off. I revisited some TV–started re-watching Stargate Universe–which was like a nice bowl of good macaroni and cheese: comfort food for the eyes.

Still, I grabbed a couple DVDs during my travels and two movies did make the cut.

Heart and Souls (Ron Underwood, 1993). This very fun, light and fluffy comedy about a young man and his cadre of four ghosts who’ve been with him since birth was a pleasant surprise. When Robert Downey, Jr. is good, he’s very good–and he is excellent in this film. With a fine supporting cast–Tom Sizemore, Charles Grodin, Alfre Woodward and Kyra Sedgewick–I found myself actually laughing out loud and then tearing up at the end. And Downey can actually sing! My only complaint: as the love interest, Elizabeth Shue is wasted here. But that’s a minor quibble because that’s not really the focus of the story. Have fun. I did (and forgive the subtitles, but this clip is just so good, I couldn’t resist).

Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, 2010). This is a very weird little film, and I still don’t know why I like it so much, but I do. The film follows a small group of settlers following the Oregon Trail in 1845. The trail itself led through territory controlled by the Walla Walla and Cayuse; in an effort to avoid them, the historical Stephen Meek, for whom the cutoff was named, led a group of Oregon-bound settlers along an alternative route that left the main trail and bypassed both the Blue Mountains and Columbia River. Unfortunately, this meant leaving a ready source of water behind, too, and it is this aspect of the journey that the film focuses on. While Michelle Williams (Emily Tetherow) gets top billing, it is through the efforts of both Bruce Greenwood (unrecognizable with his wild beard and hair) and Will Patton as the soft-spoken but determined and highly moral Solomon Tetherow that this very quiet film finds its voice. Meek and Tetherow are opposite ends of the same spectrum–men leading women–and what impressed me most about they are perfect foils in a story that both embraces and then liberates these women from their blinkered world. This is not a perfect film, though. Some aspects were much too formulaic–you’ll see disaster coming a mile away, trust me on this–and if you’re expecting an end here, you won’t get the one you think you deserve. (I will tell you this, though: the original band consisted of about 1,000 people and 200 wagons. Many people died before finding water. This film focuses on three wagons and nine people, and no one dies–yet. But I had a really bad feeling about that canary at the beginning of the film, and I was right.)

This is also a very spare film, without a lot of dialogue, but still–a lot happens. You just have to be patient.

Now, this last choice is cheating a little because it hasn’t been released yet, but is there anyone out there who thinks that John Carpenter’s splendid remake of The Thing (1982) needed any other sort of explication.  Well, apparently someone did.  October will see the release of The Thing (Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr.), a prequel that spans the three days before the events in the Carpenter film, following the team of American and Norwegian scientists that discovered the alien in the first place.

I’ll be honest: since we all know they end up dying (or maybe they just assimilated/replicated/duplicated), do we really need this film?  The premise smacks just a little bit of those misbegotten Star Wars prequels.  Darth Vader was fine the way he was, thanks.

But, sure, I’m curious–only, please, don’t kill any more dogs! (Of course, considering that the Carpenter film started that way, this is a vain hope.)  So . . . maybe you’ll find me in a darkened movie theater, with shades on, so no one can make fun.  Or not.  Just depends on how many rotten tomatoes get lobbed at this thing.