Category Archives: Book Review Blog

My book reviews and fun bookish news as a book blogger. All about other people’s books, and not my own. :-)

Blog Tour: Stones for My Father, Trilby Kent #SFMF #50BookPledge

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“There once was a little dikkop that had spotted wings and knobbly knees, and a tiny voice that squeaks.” So begins a story Corlie Roux tells her brother Gert and “one or two other children” at an internment camp in Kroonstad. The British have invadedSouth Africaand are driving Boer families like Corlie’s out of their farms and into internment camps (women and children) or war prisons (men). It wasn’t as if this had come out of nowhere – Boer families have lived in fear of British invasion for a while, and many Boer men, including Corlie’s father, have already died defending their land.

Corlie is a brave girl. When faced with British soldiers, she wishes she could fight with the men instead of having to hide with the women and children. She says she wants to be a pirate when she grows up. And she tells stories, indulging her imagination and delighting Gert, even as her mother warns her that a girl should focus more on household chores and less on “spinning lies.” Her Ma admonishes her to be more practical, but it is Corlie’s stories that help her and Gert deal with such a horrific situation as war. Corlie tells the story of the dikkop because “my brother and I had seen all we needed to see of human suffering, and it was the wild beasts of the veld that helped us escape into our memories.” And so she spins tales.

See, the little dikkop is thirsty, but the lake is guarded by much larger and stronger animals like hippos and rhinos. The dikkop has wings, but is too afraid to fly. Then a klipspringer comes along and offers to help the dikkop get a drink. Can the dikkop trust the klipspringer? More importantly, should the dikkop take the klipspringer’s advice and work with the hippos and rhinos rather than fear them? Like the dikkop, Corlie meets a Canadian soldier who appears sympathetic. And like the dikkop, Corlie must decide if perhaps the British aren’t so different from her after all, and if the Anglo-Boer war isn’t a simple, black and white battle of good vs evil.

In Stones for My Father, Trilby Kent tells the story of a brave young girl forced to grow up far too early. This is a good book for children ages 9 and up who are interested in historical fiction. It’s a touching look at the Anglo-Boer War from the perspective of a child, and Kent even includes a short epilogue about the war, which provides helpful background information to readers who, like me, are unfamiliar with that point in history. Stones for My Father uses the gritty realism of such details as maggots in the flour to express the need to escape into fantasy once in a while, and more importantly, the need to try as hard as you can to hold on to childhood as along as possible.

The Girl Who Was on Fire, Leah Wilson (ed) #50BookPledge

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Couple things about me:

  • I love Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. I think it’s one of, if not the most intelligent, relevant YA series I’ve ever read.
  • I am a major nerd. I actually enjoy English classes where we dissect novels and discuss the significance of the character deciding to wear a red hat.

So Smart Pop Books‘ The Girl Who Was on Fire, a collection of essays on the Hunger Games trilogy, definitely caught my eye. Most of the topics covered — reality TV, politics, Katniss’ character — may come as no surprise, but I found the essays all fascinating. Recommended reading for Hunger Games fans who enjoy debating with friends questions like: Team Gale or Team Peeta? Can jabberjays really exist? How can one teenage girl bring down a government?

Personal highlights:

(NOTE: Just to let you know, both the book and this blog post contain spoilers. If you haven’t read Hunger Games yet, I suggest you stop reading now, and read Hunger Games instead. 🙂 )

  • “Team Katniss” by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

When I read Hunger Games, I was always baffled by the Team Peeta/Team Gale debate. I really couldn’t see the romance in Hunger Games — for me, the trilogy was all about Katniss trying to take care of her younger sister. That probably says a lot more about me than about the trilogy, as will your view on what is important in Hunger Games. (For the record, I was firmly on Team Gale until Mockingjay, where I was torn between vulnerable Peeta and BFF Gale right up till Gale’s big confession at the end. Like Katniss, I wouldn’t have been able to get past that. For that, and many other reasons, I think Katniss made the right choice in the end.)

Barnes takes a similar position, that Katniss’ choice between Peeta and Gale is more about the kind of person she is than about the kind of guy she likes: “…sometimes, in books and in life, it’s not about the romance. Sometimes, it’s about the girl.” Two thumbs up, Ms. Barnes.

  • “Crime of Fashion” by Terry Clark

I love fashion, and Cinna is probably my favourite secondary character in Hunger Games. So I’m thrilled that Clark gives Cinna the props he deserves. Katniss “might be the flame,” Clark says, “but Cinna is the torch.” Using celebrities like Li’l Kim and political figures like Michelle Obama and Sarah Palin as examples, Clark discusses the power of clothing for either enhancing or debilitating a desired public image. The arts, and creativity in general, have always been powerful tools for social change, and Cinna performs this role in Hunger Games. His designs shape the public’s perceptions of Katniss, from the girl on fire to the blushing girl in love, and of course, to that magnificent bridal gown that transforms Katniss into the Mockingjay.

  • “The Politics of Mockingjay” by Sarah Darer Littman

A political columnist, Littman examines the parallels between Panem under President Snow and America under the Bush administration. This essay shows how relevant Hunger Games is, not just to our world in general, but to specific events in recent history. Littman turns the spotlight on us, the general public, who, disturbingly like the residents in the Capitol, spend more time discussing the latest elimination in Dancing with the Stars than the countless examples of human suffering around the world. It’s a very thought-provoking essay.

  • “Your Heart is a Weapon the Size of Your Fist” by Mary Borsellino

Borsellino argues, “Love when there isn’t supposed to be love is a hugely subversive political act. If it weren’t, there wouldn’t be protest marches in countries all over the world demanding same sex marriage.” Borsellino compares Hunger Games to George Orwell’s 1984 and shows how love is defeated in 1984 but is triumphant in Hunger Games.

Other topics include surveillance, genetic engineering, the illusion of authenticity in media, PTSD, and the power of community building. This book shows just how much Hunger Games can make us think about the world around us.

The Fates Will Find Their Way, Hannah Pittard #50BookPledge

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I read The Fates Will Find Their Way because at least three people insisted I should. One went so far as to say it was the best book he’s read all year. Quite a bit of pressure for such a small book, eh? My verdict: I love it, and I urge you to read it as well. Fates is a beautiful, beautifully written book. Set aside a few hours (it’s a short book), make yourself a cup of hot cocoa, curl up with a blanket and lose yourself in Pittard’s writing.

Fates begins, “Some things were certain; they were undeniable, inarguable. Nora Lindell was gone, for one thing. …For another, it was Halloween when she went missing, which only served to compound the eeriness, the mysteriousness of her disappearance.” Nora was sixteen when she disappeared, and the unnamed narrators (the boys in Nora’s hometown, identified by the collective “we”) inform us, the phone tree system spread the word. “By the time the tree had been completed, many mothers had already gotten word of Nora’s disappearance—either from us…or from Mr. Lindell himself, who’d broken phone-tree etiquette and continued making calls… It was a breach in etiquette that our mothers forgave, obviously.” The latter passage, I think, sets the tone for the rest of the book. Pittard’s writing is subtle and wry, managing to treat such a tragedy as a young girl’s disappearance with both respect and light, at times self-deprecating humour.

Still, as the narrators say later on, “But forget about Nora for now. That’s the point.” Fates is not about the mystery of Nora’s disappearance. We do not get to see detectives scrounge for clues. In fact, when a reporter comes into town years later to investigate the case, the narrators balk at the idea: “It felt like something that was ours alone, and always had been, was slowly slipping away… Who was this Gail Cumming to think she could barge in out of nowhere?” Key words: ours alone. Fates is about the neighbourhood boys, and how Nora’s disappearance has impacted their lives. Fates is about childhood, about memories and the mythologies built around them, and about how much we try to hold on to these as we, inescapably, grow up.

Pittard traipses back and forth in time, often within the same scene: “At the time it never made sense to us – Trey Stephens’ insistence that he didn’t find Mrs. Dinnerman sexy – but looking back on it, we begin to understand.” The narration is wonderfully fluid, at times, making us ache with nostalgia for the innocence of the narrators’ past, because it is so coloured by the knowledge of their adult present.

Despite the narrators’ insistence that “the point” isn’t about Nora, they are obsessed with her story. What happened to Nora Lindell? Was she abducted by a Humbert Humbert in a Catalina? Did she fly toArizonaand have children of her own? Pittard grounds these conjectures in fact, however flimsy. Two of the boys thought they saw Nora get into a Catalina the day she disappeared. A flight attendant saw a girl who looked like Nora on a plane toArizona. How much can we trust these stories? Does their accuracy even matter?

Take a childhood friend whom you haven’t seen in years. What do you think he or she is doing now? Now, think: how much does this fantasy you’ve built for your friend say about you, and about your fantasies/dreams/wishes for yourself?

Nora Lindell is gone. Like phone trees and curfews and furtive drags of pot behind the school, the reality of Nora Lindell is in the past. Her mythology however is very open to interpretation, and her storyline, as constructed by the neighbourhood boys, reveals much about these boys as they grow up. The idea of Nora falling victim to a Humbert Humbert comes with both the present-day narration of one of the men having been arrested for having sex with an underage girl, and the childhood memory of a female classmate who had been raped. The idea of Nora starting a family of her own inArizonais interspersed with scenes of the boys themselves growing up and struggling to accept their new roles as adults. And, as we read their stories, we too remember our childhoods, and understand, along with the narrators and along with their fictional Nora, just how much we’ve changed since then.

Fates is a soft, haunting narrative of growing up. Read it. Savour it. And I hope you end up loving it as much as I did.