The Knife of Never Letting Go
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The Knife of Never Letting Go is a future dystopian set on a planet named New World. At it's heart it's about people's relationships with themselves, with other people, with the world as a whole, but one of the things that I loved about this book is that it's an adventure story. Ness builds this beautiful world and then weaves together an adventure and all the feels without seeming either over the top or unrealistic. There's some obvious moral messages in the book like there are in most dystopians, but they're not forced upon the reader or directly touched on in a way that draws away from the story.
The main character Todd, is allowed his journey of self-discover in the traditional sense, while he flees some very real dangers from his hometown. Here's a quick rundown for those of you not familiar with the book. Todd Hewett's just a boy, soon to be a man according to town custom, which doesn't seem like that much of an unusual thing except for he's the last boy in a town of 146 men. Prentisstown, where he lives, has no women, just 146 men and one boy. Prentisstown also has "Noise" which is what it sounds like, lots and lots of noise all coming from inside other people's heads. In Prentisstown, everyone can hear what everyone else is thinking and, perhaps my favorite part, animals can talk. So what does a boy do with all this Noise? He finds a spot of silence in the swamp. Silence is supposed to be impossible, but it's not and as it turns out, knowing this is dangerous. Todd, the last boy in Prentisstown, finds silence and gets himself in a bit of trouble, and by a bit I mean a lot.
The adventure Todd undertakes in this book takes up the majority of story, but perhaps my favorite part is the beginning. Ness does a wonderful job of describing the world that Todd lives in: the town, the talking sheep, the farm. Yes I loved the talking sheep and the farm, is anyone really surprised? In the rest of the narrative, my favorite bit was the relationship between Todd and the concept of silence, this overwhelming unreadable thing, or absence of a thing in Todd's case. It really opens up a new way of looking at human relationships that I liked.
I also really enjoyed the pacing of the book. It's been a really long time since I've read anything that's done such a good job of scattering such heartfelt emotional moments in with the danger and other adventurous things. There was never a dull moment, but there also wasn't a moment where I wasn't feeling for or intrigued by one of the characters. Part of latter is due to the personable style in which Ness' narration spills forth from Todd. It's a boy/almost man's perspective full of conflict and fumbled spellings. The spelling particularly in the beginning grated a bit on me. My brain kept insisting that 'attenshun' wasn't a word even if Todd insisted it was. After awhile though, the spelling melted into the rest of the story and became another of Todd's quirks, another way of him expressing himself.
As for things I didn't like about the book, would it ending too soon count? I did like the ending though. I like that the journey, as it started at the beginning of the book, was completed- those lose ends were tied up, but the story continues, quite compellingly, into the second book. There's enough mystery there that I'm itching to get my hands on the second book without it being overdone.
Showtime
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book love
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At it's core, Showtime is a book about a girl named Laila, who runs away to join the circus. There's a bit of mystery and some romance mix in, but for the most part the novel centers around this well known circus troupe.
I wouldn't consider myself a circus aficionado or a circus lover. In fact if you asked me, I would reflexively say that I don't like circus books, despite the fact that I have liked every one I've ever read, starting with The Wish Giver in grade school. Partly because of this and partly because I have problems avoiding my friends' obsessions, I've been on somewhat of a circus kick lately and when I read the summary for this book I knew I had to read it. Good compelling summaries feel a bit like a lost art these days, finding one the piqued my interest was reason enough to pick up the book.
Given how compelling the summary was, I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I wouldn't go as far as to say I was disappointed, but I was expecting something a bit more engrossing. That being said, the performances definitely had me hooked. I found myself caught up in the narrative, anxiously waiting to see which parts of the show would be highlighted each time. Along with this, I absolutely love the circus life that Kayne created. There's a great attention to detail (and vocabulary) that really brings the circus, the costumes, and the performances to life. There are some places, however, where the descriptive nature of the narrative becomes a bit excessive. While it happens less frequently in the midsection of the book, this was one of the things that prevented me from being able to fully immerse myself in the story, particularly in the beginning of the novel when Laila is first introduced. Instead of setting the scene for the entire novel, copious amounts of attention is paid to the scuffle Laila finds herself in. Not only does this slow the pace of the fight, it also leads to a sense of ambiguity within sections of the narrative. There were quite a few times I had to stop and remind myself that the book was set at the turn of the century and not in an amorphic steampunk alternate universe or in some version of the near past. Being a history lover, this was quite unsettling.
The excessive description also lead to a sense of emotional detachment particularly between Laila and her boyfriend. The reader is continually shown the actions that steam from Laila's emotions instead of being able to delve into the emotions themselves. While this helps avoid many of the pitfalls of the typical modern YA young love paradox, this degrades any sense of chemistry between these two main characters.
Along with this, the mystery, while woven wonderfully into the main story line was ultimately disappointing and unsettling in the end. It felt almost as if the last section of the book was tacked on to act as a segue for the second book. While I'm not generally against this, I wouldn't mind if the book was left with more cheer, and more questions, in the end. Having the book with such brutality, particularly given the unprecedented nature of the violence, was quite frustrating.
Overall, I enjoyed the book. It's not bad for a first book, particularly one that's been self-published. And, while I'm not as enamored as I was at the start, I am looking forward to the second book in the series, which should be out some time next year.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes young adult romances, particularly those that are similar to what's found in Divergent. Circus lovers would also enjoy Showtime, although people who prefer more succinct prose, or who prefer adult fiction to YA, may be better off with The Night Circus.
The Poisonwood Bible
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Usually when I finish a book, particularly a good book, it clings to me like whispers or fading memories as I fall asleep. I'm left with streams of words and disjointed thoughts, praise and criticism. I fall asleep dreaming of the world I’ve just left. With this book, I had an entirely different experience. I was left with a hushed sense of silence. It was an eerie experience; in some ways it was disquieting, but at the same time it was comforting. Life lately has been hectic and this sudden silence, this lack of racing thoughts was something that left me more in awe of this book than anything else could have. There was a calm in the silence. It felt in a way like the humidity before a summer storm: omnipresent if not entirely welcome.
I sat with the Prince family in Africa for quite awhile after I had finished the Poisonwood Bible. That in itself wasn’t unexpected. There was a lot that went on, a lot that I had to sit with and process, to feel and think through. There’s a great sense of hindsight in Orleanna’s part of the narrative, this thread that runs throughout the book. While reading, I admired how well it bound the story together, teasing the reader with bits of foreshadowing while also grounding the story of this journey in Africa to a sense of something finite, to an ending point, and to a single voice. After finishing the book, turning the last page, and setting the book aside, I marvel at how closely that voice mirrors my experience as a reader- as someone who has in some sense lived through this journey and is now faced with the task of describing it, quantifying it in some way.
Much like the moments that Orleanna chooses to highlight, it’s the overarching themes- the big events, and the small surprises- that stick out most in my memory along with her silence. While Orleanna’s thoughts were present throughout the book, they fade away in the latter sections, until only her silence remains. As a character, she is still present, but her narrative, her experiences are told through the voices of the others. It’s as if she sits in silent contemplation of her life, these moments of introspection I had assumed were fleeting now seem less indistinguishable from one another.
Africa is the reason for her silence as it is for mine, but unlike her I’m beginning to find the words to express my experience post Africa. While my thoughts on the book are far from complete, I know eventually I’ll have something more to say than ‘Wow.’ For right now though, I’ll stick with that and add that green has never been a more ambivalent color than it is now:
Green
Jungle green
Mint green
Lime green
Bangala.
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