We have always lived in the castle, by Shirley Jackson

 Oohhh this is so good and creepy: "is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate."

It is full of innuendo and foreshadowing that makes you want to keep reading even though you get a little knot in your stomach about what may happen, but certainly that is Jackson's purpose and strength, -loved it!  The plot is simple, but mostly you don't get it till the end.  You know some weird stuff happened, because the family is tormented by the villagers because of some history between them.  Slowly the reader can guess or speculate what that event was, and whether or not the truth is being told or is it just figments of imagination on the part of the narrator, of memory or fantasy?

How Far We Go and How Fast

 

This is Leah Decter's 'fake' niece, and her debut.  I loved it but took a few starts to begin to enjoy it.  Set in Winnipeg in modern times.  It is a bit of a mystery as the main character keeps alluding to her brother who escaped, got away to the west coast.  She wants to follow him but can't quite manage to get it together.  Slowly the story of why she can't unfolds as she deals with family tragedy and her own character/self. She is musical and uses it to come to terms with her life.

The themes include family disfunction, mother daughter relationships, song writing as therapy, dealing with death.  It is appropriate for older teens. She writes well. I loved how she reveals the story, bit by bit, until the reader starts to anticipate the sequence of events as a mystery with a strong sense of foreboding.

The agony of Bun O'Keefe, by Heather Smith

 This teen fic book is a good one.  I liked the title but that was the only reason I bought it, so it was a pleasant surprise, having never heard of the author before. It is set in Newfoundland, 1986, though it could be anywhere.  Bun is a 14 year old living a very quiet and disfunctional life with her absent mom, who is a hoarder.  Bun gets the boot, and leaves to live on the street. She finds a welcoming community of young adults living communally in a house.  They function despite their differences and backgrounds and bond to keep the wolves from the door.  Here Bun is accepted but things are still tough.  She slowly comes to terms with herself, her new friends, and her mom.

Themes include emotional and mental well-being, suicide, sexual identity, sexual abuse, empathy.

William Bell, Stones

 This historical fiction book is set in Ontario, around the Barrie area.  The lead character is an interesting youngster getting ready to transition from high-school to a career as a furniture maker.  He falls in love with the new girl, and romance ensues.  She has a gift in that she senses spirits.  They find an old African Methodist church and witness the spirits, then they know some heinous crime was committed to a Haitian woman many years before.  She walks the pathway wailing for her deceased husband. She was a healer but was accused of being a witch.

It is a romance and a mystery with a social justice theme.

I really enjoyed the reading, which is at about a grade 8 level, and very well done. Bell builds the mystery carefully so that I was intrigued, as I learned about the Black history in southern Ontario, and the injustices done to the African community.

The Graveyard Book, Vol one and two

by Neil Gaiman.

I read the graphic version of this, and liked it a whole lot.  A kid grows up in a graveyard and the ghosts raise him.  They have very distinct personalities so the young lad learns about his world through the ghosts.

Ollie's Odyssey by William Joyce

Although I never read anything by Joyce, luckily I took a chance on Ollie.  I love this book!  Ollie is a toy and he is discarded and finds his way through many trials and tribulations much like Odysseus.  It is dark though, as many of his companions suffer greatly; they come from the scrap pile and even some real garbage come to life to help Ollie get back to his home and for a long time the journey is rough.  His nemesis is a disgruntled toy who turns super evil because he was not chosen by any kids to take home. They have a big war, a lot of toy on toy violence, and its quite compelling.

Comics, a plethora, some not as good

I have read a lot of comics:

Essex County, by Jeff Lemire: a wonderful touching story of small town Canadiana with hockey. In some parts I teared up a little. Destined to become a classic.

Descender, Jeff Lemire: "One young robot's struggle to stay alive in a universe where all androids have been outlawed and bounty hunters lurk on every planet."

I liked it, but not sure if it is worth buying more. This title shows Lemire's range as does every new book by him, impressive and thoughtful writing.

Sweet Tooth, Jeff Lemire: genius, creative, weird, creepy. I love comics because of series like this.

V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore: A classic!  I think Moore is the best writer for comics, since I like all his stuff.  I like V because of the art too, all tiny an ddetailed, but the style is quite different from other comics, a little watercolour but deep and rich in texture.  The historical references are nice for me as a reader interested in history.  I read it when I was teaching gr 9 SS, so the part about the War of 1812, the Overture by Tchaikovsky, Guy Fawkes, and the English Revolution are all teaching points in V.


Swamp Thing, by Alan Moore: a thoughtful and sensitive portrayal of a monster. Also a graphic classic, see above.


Stitches, by David Small:  great, painful, and troublesome.  Small has written a tender and difficult comic about his life.  Tender, because the style he chose is poignant considering the tragic nature of his life and relationship with his family.  He had cancer when he was little and lost his ability to speak, but his family never told him as he went into the operation to remove his larynx.  Stitches then, aside from the title, is a big reference to his loss, in that there are almost no words, -he can't talk.  Its very good.


Arab of the Future, a graphic memoir: a childhood in the Middle East (1978-1984) by Riad Sattouf, is a frightening look at Riad's life when his Syrian father and French mother move to several different countries in Northern Africa and the Middle East.  He witnesses the brutal nature of life in these countries as his dad takes on new work. It is worth a read for people who like real life comics, but not very happy.

Kill my Mother, by Jules Fieffer, is not worth the read despite having a famous author.

Locke and Key series, by Joe Hill is worth reading if you like weird stuff: "Subject: Tells of the Keyhouse, an unlikely New England mansion, with fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them--and home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it forces open the most terrible door of all.." 

So I liked it.


Saga series, by Brian Vaughan: I liked this one too but it is weird, with some odd alien sex and what not.

One Trick Pony by Nathan Hale: written for middle school aged kids, a very nice story about a future society where children are digging for treasure, artefacts, and useful stuff left behind by previous people, and running form some mech monsters.  One of the kids finds a robot horse.  Adventure ensues.


The Odysssey, by Gareth Hinds is a fairly thorough complete version in as much as a graphic could and should be.  I enjoyed it a lot, and the water colour art is excellent, which helps to make the story come alive.
 

The Tick, by Ben Edlund: I love all things Tic including the old comic tv show, this book and the new Amazon live action version. Fun times with super, and not so super heroes, who are mostly trying to fit in and save the world.


Rust series, by Royden Lepp is so lovely.  The sepia tones work well with this story, somehow as a time forgotten and re-told in nostalgic terms, but it is actually set in a future time. Rust may be good for younger kids, maybe gr 4 up only because there is a lot of death in it but no graphic depictions of horror or too much mayhem.  Rust is a mysterious boy with human and android features, hard working and easy to get along with while he hides his true self from the farmer he is working for.



Blankets, by Craig Thompson: this is one of those early 'best list' graphics which has stood the test of time as a classic of the genre, unlike works by Daniel Clowes and Charles Burns.  Blankets is a metaphor for things that comfort you, within relationships.  I recommend this one for adults, since younger readers may not be ready for all that soft stuff.

The Prince and the Dressmaker

By Jen Wang: also one of the Middle School graphics, but a little bigger and more substantial content wise, for me at least, than some of the others.  I recommend this one for the age group.  It has a lot of sequences with no words just images that really tell a good story.  The twist is that the Prince likes to wear girls' fancy dresses, and goes out in public with the dressmaker, who of course knows his secret.  He faces his parents who are trying to set up a princess for him to marry, and finally he comes out, although his sexual preferences end up being less obvious than at first, making the story even more interesting.

by Jason Shiga

       


Jason Shiga is a talented story teller and visual artist.  I ordered Meanwhile because it was on someone's Middle School 'best of' list for graphics.  It is super creative and interesting from a stylistic point of view, -just the way the book is put together is very nice, a great tactile experience. It is a choose your own adventure type, but you must pay attention to the story or you may get lost in the different lines of the plot.  Its good.

Demon is very very different!  It is a book which appeals to the teenage boy in some of us.  I was repulsed and fascinated, and I also laughed a lot.  I knew I could never put it out on the school library bookshelf, so I sent it back to Amazon.  The premise is that a man tries to commit suicide, but keeps waking up in someone else's body, until he realizes that he is a demon. It is a series and I really have this (guilty pleasure) desire to read more, but its too dark and dirty for me to have the book in my hands because I fear what others may think of me.  How's that for an endorsement to pique your curiosity?

Bookhunter is very cool if you are a librarian, but would probably be far less interesting if you are a civilian.  Shiga either has some background in library work, or did a lot of nerd research to get this right.  He uses terms such as Tattle Tape, which is great if you are on the inside but meaningless if not.  Is funny for me because it is a somewhat frivolous detective story about recovering a stolen rare book, with guns and cops.

Wolf by Wolf

Wolf by wolf, by Ryan Graudin: I hated the writing style of the one, but really liked the premise; the Nazis have won the war, -so what does the world look like now?  Bad, as you may have guessed.  The protagonist in this YA book is Yael and she is a Jew who was experimented on in a death camp.  The Dr. injected her with so many chemicals that she became a shape shifter and now covertly poses as other females to fight for the resistance.  The writing style is that new obnoxious. Way of using no. Sentences in order to add. Emphasis.  Please stop. Write a fang sentence so I don't puke. It works better.



"The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule. To commemorate their Great Victory, they host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their combined continents. The prize? An audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor's ball in Tokyo."

Marie Lu: Warcross

I read Lu's trilogy "Legends" and liked it.  This book is better.  Warcross is a well thought out adventure story about a girl on the outs of society, trying to get by as a bounty hunter.  She is a hacker, and gets a job hunting within the Warcross game, working for the super rich most famous guy who invented the game.  Everyone on earth plays this game Warcross, they even have a world championship.


Emika, the star, is a well developed character.  Lu does a great job with the technology and even romance!


Warcross is my new favourite mainly because of the action, oh, and also a good twist at the end, so there is sure to be a sequel.

Empire of the Sun, JG Ballard

Since seeing the film of the same name starring and introducing Christian Bale, I have been interested in this story.  I read it this summer, after realizing that I have it in our school library.

It is the story of a boy in Shanghai, as the war starts and the Japanese invade.  He is separated from his parents and ends up in a camp nearby.  It is hard to read because it is frank and realistic.  Jim is a great character, strong and resilient.  It must be the story of the author, as there are so many details that only one who has lived that particular experience could re-tell so well.  I liked it a lot, but at times wanted the war to end so that Jim could get back to his parents and to a life worth living.  Jim loved the war though, and all the weird things that happened, but the starvation and violence takes it toll on him as it does the reader.

Chew, by John Layman, Rob Guillory

Chew is fantastically weird, and great.  There is also a board game.  Tony Chu is a cop with a special power, that is he can sense and feel everything that has happened to any food.  For instance if he eats a piece of kale, he knows how it grew and was cooked, -its life story.  As a cop, this works well because he just has to taste a body part or bit of blood of the victims he finds, and he can solve the case.  Gross!  But great and darkly funny.

Mouse Guard

Mouse Guard by David Petersen is a beautifully and intricately illustrated comic for young people, simple old European themes of heroism and chivalry make it fun.

Huck

    Huck is a lovely story about a kid with special powers of kindness.  Its the first comic I have read in a while, sweet story.

My Name is Lucy Barton

This is Pulitzer Prize winner (Olive Kitteridge) Elizabeth Strout's novel of a writer who spends 9 weeks in the hospital thinking and reminiscing about her life.  When her estranged mother comes to visit, the writer remembers her upbringing in poverty.  There is very little plot or outcome, certainly not a linear story-line to recant here.  You could read this book starting at almost any point and ending whenever, well, as I did.  I started at the first page, then after about page 30, wondered aloud what was going on?  I flipped forward about 70 pages, got very interested, finished it and then went back to read it completely. I liked the book, for the small but important messages of the meaning of kindness, loneliness, relationships etc.

Summer house with swimming pool, by Herman Koch

Also heard him at the Writer's fest, really good.  What happened in this story is a big mystery to me.  If you need a tidy ending, do not read it.  The main character is a doctor.  His family go on vacation.  Events may or may not be related, but certainly someone dies, and its his fault.

A knight of the seven kingdoms: GRR Martin

I read this 3 novella set after I read the first installment, The hedge knight, some time ago.  It was a light fast paced adventure story of a young man trying to raise himself up to be a knight.  It was fun, and I did not want to get into the Game of Thrones, just because it is so big, but I wanted to read more Martin.  Now I did it and I don't have the need to read more.  There seems to be less violence, sex, and misogyny than the full set.

Walt, by Russell Wangersky

Walt is a very interesting character.  He is a custodian at a super market, reads people's shopping lists once they leave them behind or drop them, and then stalks them.  This is a cop story, but centered around Walt as the narrator.  I heard the author speak at the Writer's Fest.  I was intrigued by how each writer described the development of each character's as if they took on a life of their own.

I liked "Walt" but it may not suit everyone's pacing, or their moral centre.

Indian Killer, Sherman Alexie

I think Alexie is one of the best writers out there, but this is terrible.  I could not read it, even skipped ahead and it was just the same shallow diatribe against the state of the people in the modern world, how shitty things are, very polarized, not interesting.  1996 or there bouts, dated, not relevant.