The Stormchasers

The Stormchasers, by Jenna Blum.

But even more Karena is crying for herself. She cries because of her cowardice, because she told Charles she would come back and never did. She cries because of her selfishness, because she has turned him in not just so he could get help but so she would be free to go. She cries because of these things she has discovered in her own cold heart, and most of all she cries because there are so many things she will never be able to tell anyone, not even her best friend; because her whole life long, there will be so much nobody will ever know.

I really enjoyed this book, the second by author Jenna Blum. I wasn't sure at first if I would or not, because I don't know anything about stormchasing, but Blum creates her scenes and character very vividly, that one can't help but be pulled into the story, which follows Karena as she searches for her twin brother, Charles, whom she hasn't seen in 20 years. She decides the best way to do this is to follow the storms that he does, with a stormchasing company, and eventually she finds him; when she does, the book takes us 20 years into the past, to show how they became estranged in the first place, which I also really liked because we get to see why they lost touch.

Blum's first novel is entitled Those Who Save Us, and I will soon be adding that to my list of books to read.

4 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I received a copy of this book to review. The opinions listed, however, are my own.

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Water for Elephants

Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen.

I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other.

When you're five, you know your age down to the month.

Even in your twenties you know how old you are. I'm twenty-three, you say, or maybe twenty-seven. But then in your thirties something strange starts to happen. It's a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation. How old are you? Oh, I'm - you start confidently, but then you stop. You were going to say thirty-three, but you're not. You're thirty-five. And then you're bothered, because you wonder if this is the beginning of the end. It is, of course, but it's decades before you admit it.

Water for Elephants will be in theaters next Friday (April 22), starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon in two of the lead roles, and so I thought I would read the novel first. I'm glad I did, as it was very good.

The novel follows Jacob (Pattinson, in his younger incarnation), who is now 93 years old and living in a nursing home. A circus has come to town and has got the nursing home residents all atwitter, and he is remembering how, when he was twenty-four, he used to work in the circus. The story is told in flashbacks to this time, and it's interesting to see how the past events have helped shaped whom he is in present-day.

Jacob falls in love with Marlena, one of the horse performers, but there's one problem: she's already married, to August, one of the leaders of the circus, who is also a paranoid schizophrenic. She married him when she was 17, to escape her parents in Boston, who wanted to marry her off to the richest man they could find, regardless of his age and looks, and the circus and August, a handsome man, seemed like the ideal choice at the time. Jacob was studying to be a vet at Cornell when he finds out that his parents have died in a car crash, and he jumped on the first train he found, which happened to be that of the Benzini Brothers', a traveling circus act.

The book was fantastic and I am very excited to see its movie adaptation, hopefully next week sometime.

4.5 stars out of 5.

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The Murderer's Daughters

The Murderers Daughters, by Randy Susan Meyers.

For one mean minute, I thought about what life would be like without my sister leaning on me, the end of constant responsibility for her body and soul, but before the idea could settle in, I slapped the thought out of my head.

We were here because I'd let my father into our house. Merry had her scar because I'd opened the door. That's why we were at Duffy. Visions of my mother's body floated up from where I'd buried them. I'd let my father into our house. I'd let him hurt everyone.

This novel was excellent. It follows two girls, Lulu and Merry, as they grow up as orphans, because of an incident when Lulu was 10 and Merry was 5 and their father killed their mother, as well as stabbing Merry. Their mother told Lulu to run for help, and she did, but not before their father had wielded his knife upon Merry and their mother. The father gets sent to prison and the girls live with their grandmother - his mother - for a while, but soon she dies and they are sent to an orphanage, as no one from their mother's side of the family wants to deal with them anymore. Eventually, one of the ladies who works at the orphanage adopts them, but there are issues there as well, and the girls never feel truly satisfied with their home life.

The book follows them from the 1970s until the 2000s, and we see both Lulu and Merry grow up and how this incident, which took place so early in their lives, affects them throughout.

4.5 stars out of 5.


*Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book to review. However, the opinions listed are my own.

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Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, by David Sedaris.

From the short story "The Grieving Owl":

My next stop was the city zoo. I've heard there are some that house the animals in actual landscapes, fields and jungles and the like. Ours, I discovered, is more old-fashioned, geared towards the viewer rather than the viewed.
...
I don't know how much territory a hippo might require in the wild ... There's a pool for her to submerge herself in, and the ground around it is paved in cement. A sign in front of her display reads, LOIS, but that, she explained, was just her slave name. "I don't go by anything, not now, not ever," she told me. "It's just not the hippo way."

What struck me right off was her warmth and accessibility. You expect this with miniature goats, but hippos, I'd heard, were notoriously grumpy.

When I heard that David Sedaris had a new book out, I was very excited, as I LOVE most of his books, which up until now were memoirs. With this short story collection, he gives human characteristics to animals, but while still incorporating his trademark humor. I liked the collection, but I have to say that I like his memoirs more, and I hope that for his next novel he goes back to that genre.

There are sixteen short stories contained in this collection, and I definitely had a few favorites, although all of them are funny. "The Grieving Owl" (see excerpt above) was interesting, as was the first story, "The Cat and the Baboon," among others.

3.5 stars out of 5.

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Live Wire

Live Wire, by Harlan Coben.

The ugliest truth, a friend once told Myron, is still better than the prettiest of lies.

Myron thought about that now as he looked down at his father in the hospital bed. He flashed back sixteen years, to the last time he had lied to his father, the lie that caused so much heartbreak and devastation, a lie that started a tragic ripple that, finally, disastrously, would end here.

Coben has written many Myron Bolitar novels, but in this one Myron meets his nephew, Mickey Bolitar, who will be featured in a new novel called Shelter, out in September 2011. Myron has not seen his brother, Brad, in about fifteen years, but one night he sees Kitty, his sister-in-law, out at a club. He tries to follow her but she runs away. The reason he is at the club is that his client, Suzze T, who is also eight months pregnant, is worried about her husband, Lex, and Myron goes to the club to find him. Suzze T posted a picture of her ultrasound on her Facebook page, and someone has written "NOT HIS" as a comment; she wants Myron to figure out who did it, as the comment is false. What Myron doesn't know is that by getting involved in this, he will become entangled with his brother and sister-in-law's lives again, and if there is even a chance of reconciling with his brother, he wants to find him.

Coben writes a good mystery here, fast-paced and interesting. I have been a fan of his work for quite a while now, and I heard him speak at the Ann Arbor Borders back in 2008 or 2009 as well.
He has been writing Myron Bolitar novels since 1995, but the last one previous to this was published a few years ago. Myron is a well-rounded character who has some interesting friends, such as Win (his "muscle," so to speak), and I always enjoy reading about his adventures.

4 stars out of 5.


Disclosure: I received an Advance Readers Copy (ARC) of this novel to review.

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Jane Goes Batty

Jane Goes Batty, by Michael Thomas Ford.

This was something that nonvampires could perhaps never understand, the inherent horror of knowing that you would continue on even as everyone and everything around you turned to dust. Yes, you could turn anyone you loved. There was nothing preventing you from doing that. But there were impracticalities with that as well. For one, where did you stop? Having turned, say, your favorite sister, were you then obliged to turn her husband, or lover, or children if she had them? If you turned your mother, were you then required to turn your aunts and uncles (all of whom she would likely miss when they passed on) as well as their children?

This is the second "Jane Austen as a vampire" book by Michael Thomas Ford (the first is Jane Bites Back), and although it's not quite as inventive as the first, it still has a lot of humor in it. Jane is deciding whether or not she wants to marry Walter (who is human), but first she has to meet his mother, Miriam, who only wants Walter to marry a Jewish woman. Even worse, it turns out Miriam is a "hunter" - someone who can sniff out vampires, literally - and she knows Jane is one of the undead. Jane is also trying to learn how to harness her vampire powers (ie, she can disappear if she wants), which her friend Byron (formerly Lord Byron, also a vampire) is trying to teach her, but this is hard for her as well.

I am not a huge fan of Jane Austen's actual books, which the exceptions of a few, but Michael Thomas Ford's books are hilarious. Although Jane is a vampire, she doesn't really like having to "feed," and she does it in the politest way she can, must like I imagine the real Jane Austen (if having been turned into a vampire) would have done it. When you throw Lord Byron and also Charlotte Bronte into the mix, the novel becomes even more fantastical, but the characters live in the modern world, and it's interesting to see how they solve the problems they have.

3.5 stars out of 5.

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So Much Closer

So Much Closer, by Susane Colasanti.

Here's the thing. I could spend the rest of my life chasing that amazing feeling I had every time I even though about Scott. Physical attraction that strong is addictive. And knowing that kind of magic isn't just a fantasy makes me want to find it again. But what about being with someone who makes me a better person? What about sharing my life with someone who adores me as much as I adore him, whom I can always count on, who helps me find my way when I'm lost?

If I could find both intense physical attraction and strong emotional support with one boy, that would be perfect. But if it has to be one or the other? The choice is clear.

I devoured this book as if it were one of the famous Crumbs cupcakes from New York City with which Colasanti's characters are obsessed. I have read her books before (see my reviews for Take Me There and Something like Fate) and she usually writes about strong female characters; the lead character in this novel, however, Brooke, was even more likable than usual, and I almost wish she was real just so we could be friends.

Brooke lives in New Jersey with her divorced mother, and she has had a crush on Scott for almost the entirety of high school. When she learns that he is moving to New York City after their junior year, however, she is crushed, until inspiration strikes: her father lives in NYC and has a spare bedroom. She could move there for senior year and still be able to see and talk to him every day. She has been wanting to live in the city for a while now anyway, and so she follows her heart and enrolls in a community school there, the same one that Scott attends. She soon realizes, however, that maybe there is more out there for her, and Scott is maybe not the "love of her life" that she thought she was.

I liked the ending of the book a lot, although it's a little predictable, and although Brooke technically moved to NYC for a boy, she was able to find out more about herself and what she wanted to do with her life there than she would have if she had stayed in New Jersey. Colasanti's characters are very "real" in the way she portrays them, and if I lived in New York City, I could see myself being friends with most of the characters in the book.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

Disclosure: I was provided an ARC of this novel by the publisher to review. It will be available in stores on May 2, 2011.

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