Classically Trained Bastard

So the original plan was to review Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (which I have finished, and will review in a couple days)… but instead I went on a business trip (see previous post) and burned through OSC’s Ender’s Game (again) and this awesome little book. Much thanks to the Elder Brother Rightmire (@Rez0n8) and my sister-in-law for giving me this book.

John Green, "Paper Towns"

This is a coming of age story unlike most I’ve read. Granted, most “coming of age” stories I’ve read are along the lines of Ender’s Game, what with children facing impossible odds and spaceships and lasers. Or they’re like the Lord of The Rings, what with magic and epic journeys and goblins.

This book has no spaceships or magic. It does, however, have (nearly) impossible odds and epic journeys. You might even be able to say it has goblins.

This the story of an awkward high school senior, a band geek who’s not even in band, his obsession with a girl who suddenly goes missing after a night of shenanigans, and of course discovering a great deal about himself, the girl, and how people relate to each other in general. Especially people’s perceptions of others.

Fair warning, at times the main character – Quentin, or “Q” – waxes on philosophically, which can be blamed largely on Whitman’s poetry (if you’ve read it you’ll understand), and can be justified in the book’s world by the fact that his parents are both psychologists. Still, waxing on is waxing on, and it was a bit much.

But there are some good insights amidst it: the revelation of how you shift from the perception of a person to actually knowing a person. What that actually takes, and how you can accept a person for being less – or simply different – than your own idea of them. And that journeys are, as we all know, important in their own right.

And, in the book’s saving grace, this story is a helluvalotta FUN. The dialog in particular is witty and fast-paced. It’s the kind of dialog that any kid who wasn’t too cool for school can immediately relate to, understand, and intimately enjoy. Green did a fantastic job creating a supporting cast for Quentin, and it’s really only the periphery characters that didn’t seem believable (which happens to be authority figures… chew on that). The ending is simple and effective, a nice balance of closure and opportunity. My wife completely disagrees with me on that last sentence.

I wouldn’t recommend this book to everyone, because some people will either (a) not appreciate the relationships that are developed, and which are core to the story, or (b) will just get lost in aforementioned waxing on (much like this post, it would seem). But I would recommend this book to most everyone else.

VERDICT:
Yup, go for it. And if for some reason it’s not for you, you know someone who will love it and therefore love you even more for giving/lending it to them.

UP NEXT:
Kenneth Oppel’s Airborn, also courtesy of EBR & TM (a.k.a. my bro & sis-in-law).

 

- – Written 2011-03-04, at approximately 11pm

Here I am on the last night of my 5-day work trip, recounting the few adventures I managed to get in along the way.

Outside of work itself (which was largely boring, and TBD if it was a successful trip…though I did have the distinct pleasure of hearing the words every marketer longs for: when I asked a woman how she had heard about my company, she said “Oh you guys are out there, people are talking about you.” HindSite Marketing FTW!) (and yes, I just used parenthesis inside of parenthesis. By the way, I wonder what the world record is for longest run-on sentences inside parenthesis) I manged to fit in two trips.

1. The Udvar-Hazy Center, an annex of the National Air and Space Museum
2. Times Square

Times Square was impressive. Of course, it took me forever and a day of navigating NJ to get to NYC, and then trying to find a bloody parking garage that wasn’t on freaking 42nd  & Broadway. But eventually I prevailed and took a short subway ride into the Theater District. I emerged, was duly awed by the lights, noise, and crowds. I partook in a couple of drinks and a delicious-but-over-priced-but-probably-not-in-NYC steak sandwich, served by a good-natured Irishman, spoke a bit with said Irishman, walked around a bit more, and then got back on the subway, retrieved my car, and promptly got lost in the incredibly loopy mazes that the NJ roadways have spawned. I felt like Dashner’s Maze Runner. Seriously, you try doing that in the dark with 5% battery left on your phone, which happens to also be your GPS.

I have two regrets about Times Square. First, that I wasn’t staying somewhere off the metro so that I could have enjoyed more of the pubs I found just a block or two off Broadway, and Second, that I had no one with me to experience both the city and the pubs. My wife would have been an excellent choice . So because I was hoarse from continously talking about HindSite at shows, and my feet hurt from standing next to a table talking about HindSite at shows, I did not spend much time in NYC. But that’s ok. It’s just not my bag, baby, even if I would like to visit again someday. And where the hell did the Austin Powers reference come from!? I will say that the single element that struck me the most was simply driving into the city across the George Washington Bridge. Basically the horizon is filled with many-storied (ba-dum dum) buildings, and for the first time I sorta-kinda understood how a person could grow up truly, utterly, a “city-boy”.

Despite my sightly cynical tone regarding Times Square, it was pretty cool. However, the Udva-Hazy Center was A.Maz.Ing. Seriously cool, not just pretty cool. Again, since it was after a trade show I didn’t have much time, so I more or less power-walked the whole damn floor, snapping pictures as fast as I could. With a stupid grin on my face the whole time. A really, really big, really stupid, really grin on my face. You walk and the first thing you see is the gorram SR-71 Blackbird! And then you focus on the background and you see the gorram space shuttle Enterprise! I mean OMGWTFBBQ, that was AWESOME. Of course, the few other people walking around thought I was some kind of nutso, due to aforementioned grin. Except for the security guards and vets walking around. Yeah, they basically gave me fist pumps, they knew what was up. Right on. Solid.

Ok, at this point if you’re still reading it must be apparent how tired I am. I mean, I’m usually long-winded and random, but this is even worse than usual. So, with that, I shall now sleep, and dream of returning to Minnesota on the morrow. That’s right. Minnesota, with big highways that are more or less straight, with big road signs that give you ample forewarning, and, most importantly, with my wife and kids. Take that, Times Square.

It’s a two-for-one special! Which is just a nice way of selling the fact that this is a long post… made longer by this rambling introduction. //sigh/

James Dashner: The Maze Runner

Having finished James Dashner’s The Maze Runner about the time I posted my review for Orson Scott Card’s The Worthing Saga, and not wanting to butt up reviews too closely together, I decided to finish the second book in the Maze Runner Trilogy, The Scorch Trials. Let’s just say I burned through it (bad pun, my apologies).

Mr. Dashner, you rock. This YA sci-fi is fantastic. Both books are aggressive, uncompromising, and a helluva lotta fun. The pace is quick and sure, and Dashner is able to balance the high levels of action with the appropriate emotions (and there are a lot of them).

I can’t tell you too much about the setting of either book without giving away significant parts of the tale… unravelling just what the hell is going on is a great part of the fun.The Maze Runner begins with the main character, Thomas, appearing in the center of a massive maze, one that changes every night. The boys who live there have had their memories wiped… all they know is that they need to survive and escape.

It’s a book all about the mind: the frustration of lost memories, of new challenges, of puzzles that are almost too big, and of the will to simply survive. Dashner keeps a rigorous speed, and each time you think you’re about to get a break something new gets sprung into your lap.

James Dashner: The Scorch Trials

The Scorch Trials is the sequel (“Thank you Captain Obvious!”). Those that survive the maze must now face the desert. But where The Maze Runner was all about the mind, The Scorch Trials is all about the heart. Emotion rings true in this book. Camaraderie, hatred, determination, betrayal, and some rightly confusing love. I can’t say there are many books that have built such empathy between myself as the reader and the main character, Thomas.

My only critique is that too much is left to the nebulous powers-that-be to provide answers. I’d rather be provided more clues and given the chance to suspect some answers a bit in advance of their revelation. But, I already have two counter-points:

1. The speed at which these stories move – and the quality of writing that allows them to be read so seamlessly – doesn’t lend itself to much pondering. There are simply too many corners to turn.
2. Much of the power of these books is derived from the will of the characters to keep going in the face of incredible adversity, frustration, and utter lack of understanding. If the wicked ones didn’t hold so many secrets, their world wouldn’t be the same.

You see, every once in a while I feel bad, because I treat YA fiction in much the same way I treat “adult” fiction. I give little forgiveness just because it’s being written primarily for a younger audience (see my review of Westerfeld’s Leviathan). YA fiction should be (and, thankfully, often is) just as captivating. In fact you could argue that it should be even more so. So every once in a while I feel bad… and then I read something like these two books by Dashner.

Perhaps I’m going as easy on Dashner as I went hard on Westerfeld. But then I know Westerfeld can do better (Uglies was great, read it), and Dashner did indeed create something masterful.

VERDICT:
Buy them! And then buy the third book in the series, The Death Cure, when it comes out Fall 2011. I can’t wait.

UP NEXT:
Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I just started it, and it’s fairly massive. So don’t hold your breath for the next book review.