Tag Archives: 50BookPledge2014

Review | Benediction, Kent Haruf

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17978442Benediction is a deliberately paced, contemplative read about a man dying of cancer, and the people around him. The restraint of Haruf’s prose keeps the story from becoming maudlin, and while Dad Lewis’ strength is admirable, the novel resists the easy turn towards the inspirational. Instead, what we have is a story that rings with quiet truth.

There’s a large cast of characters, some of whom are a bit difficult to keep straight, but there are many memorable figures among them. A young girl who has lost her mother to cancer, and who finds a sense of family with a pair of neighbours. A woman who lives with her mother and who is still dealing with the remnants of a love affair gone wrong. A preacher who has just moved into town, and whose interpretation of a particular Biblical passage sparks controversy in the close-knit community and division within his own family. Dad’s own estrangement from his son, and the pain of longing to see him again before death. Dad’s battle against cancer is the linchpin upon which all these stories revolve, and Haruf creates a textured portrait of a small town.

Haruf’s narration echoes the diction of his characters, and while his use of “of” rather than “have” (“We would of had it for her”) drove me crazy throughout, the language as a whole does create a measured pace that lulls the reader in. There are also some passages that are absolutely beautiful. A character walking down a street and looking into his neighbours’ houses tells a police officer he was hoping “to recapture something… The precious ordinary.” [p. 162] I love that phrase, “precious ordinary.”

The character then goes on to confess:

I thought I’d see people being hurtful. Cruel. …But I haven’t seen that. Maybe all that’s behind the curtains. …What I’ve seen is the sweet kindness of one person to another. Just time passing by on a summer’s night. This ordinary life. [p. 163]

This is a novel about death, about violence and about loneliness, but the quotes above best capture the spirit of the text. I generally dislike calling a novel uplifting, because it makes the book sound utterly precious. But in this case, uplifting works. And it’s a good book, a quiet meditation on life through the lives of ordinary people in a small town.

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Thank you to Random House Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review | The Pitiful Human-Lizard, Jason Loo

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00cover01A Toronto superhero with a dead end day job whose name would strike fear into the heart of any self-respecting bad guy… what’s not to love about Jason Loo’s Pitiful Human-Lizard? It took me a while to track down a copy of this book. I went from The Beguiling to The Silver Snail to a couple of comic book stores in Kensington Market only to find out they were either completely sold out or (in the case of the Kensington stores), they happened to be closed that day. I was having a case of Pitiful Human Lizard luck myself, it seemed, but more than that, I learned just how popular and how much a phenomenon this comic book series has become. A lesson to all of you then: if you want to get your own copy of this series, snap up a copy at your local comic book store before it’s too late. (For the record, I finally found my copy in the Toronto talent section of Silver Snail, by the Eaton Centre. There were two other copies left on the shelf when I left, and the staff member who spoke with me said she was planning to check it out herself after her shift. So like I said, snap up your copy today.)

Was it worth the wait? Absolutely. This Toronto superhero story is absolutely hilarious, an everyman loveable loser-type bundle of awesome. The Human Lizard is Lucas Barrett, an office worker who can barely afford to pay for his Brazilian Jiu Jitsu lessons and who covers up his superhero exploits by telling his mother that he’s learning to play the harmonica. He signs up for a clinical trial for a super healing drug and, well, the rest is superhero history… with a pitiful twist, of course.

I absolutely love the Toronto setting. This story features a hot dog vendor, a streetcar and an epic superhero battle in one of my favourite Toronto landmarks — the Royal Ontario Museum! A ROM security guard makes a cameo in a hilarious bit that will make other museum or art gallery workers recognize a bit of themselves in him.

Loo’s self-deprecating humour is what makes this story so fantastic, and punchlines and sight gags are littered throughout. Particularly effective are Lucas Barrett’s interactions with his parents, and the scenes where the Human Lizard joins forces with the (much more traditional superhero type) Mother Wonder.

Author and artist Jason Loo was kind enough to provide some excerpts of the book for my blog, so check these out:

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The Pitiful Human-Lizard is available at various locations in Toronto: Silver Snail, The Beguiling, The Comic Pile, and Dr. Comics. You may also purchase it online and check out the Pitiful Human-Lizard Facebook page for a schedule of upcoming events and signings!

Review | Depth of Field, Chantel Guertin

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20344869At the end of the first Pippa Green novel, Pippa had just won admission to the prestigious two week Tisch Photography Camp. Depth of Field picks up pretty much where the last left off, and some of the threads left hanging in the first book are resolved here.

The Tisch Photography Camp is Pippa’s dream come true, mostly because it’s in the same school her father graduated from. Unfortunately, while her boyfriend Dylan and best friend Dace were originally going to come to New York with her, both had to back out at the last minute. Instead of the fun NYC trip she’d planned, Pippa was stuck with the annoying Ben Baxter, who used her work to cheat his way into the programme.

Part of it may that I’m just too old for this kind of drama, but the entire time Pippa complained about her boyfriend and best friend being out of reach for the two week camp, all I could think of is that it’s just two weeks. You can survive two weeks — grow up.

Depth of Field is better than the first book — we learn a bit more about Pippa’s relationship with her father, and why photography is so important to her. The photography projects in this book were also more interesting, and I especially love the group of students who did a pigeon’s eye view series of the city. I wish the photography angle had been explored more. For an experience that had been such a dream for Pippa, we learn a lot more about her life outside the camp than about photography lessons she’d learned.

The book is written well, and a quick entertaining read. I only wish the story had been a little less predictable. For example, Pippa gets to know Ben a bit better in this book, and realizes he’s much more complex than she’d originally thought. Personally, I think his reason still doesn’t excuse his actions in the first book, and I much prefer Dylan’s witty flirtation to Ben’s complete 180 into a sensitive guy. But Dylan isn’t answering Pippa’s calls, and Ben’s turning out to be a tortured soul, so you do the math. With Pippa so adamant that Ben would ruin her Tisch experience and with Ben so bafflingly nice to her from the beginning, it seemed pretty obvious where this was headed. And normally, I may not mind, except Pippa’s cluelessness throughout just got annoying.

Beyond Ben, Pippa’s also dealing with David, her Tisch mentor and a renowned photographer with unexpected ties to her parents’ past. The truth is a bit of a surprise, though to be honest, he seemed so sleazy that I was expecting something much more sinister — a sign, clearly, that I need to stop reading/watching all those creepy psychological thrillers.

To Pippa’s disappointment, one of the most important things she learns from her mentor is that he’s unprofessional and a flake. This leads to one of the most unbelievable twists in the series yet, which, I’m sorry to say, is pure wish fulfillment. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s impossible that such a thing would happen, but it’s highly unlikely and sets Pippa up as a special snowflake type of heroine.

This is unfortunate, because when it comes to realism, Guertin is amazing at capturing depth of emotion. When Pippa wears a Tisch sweatshirt in memory of her father for her first day at Camp, for example, or when she has a breakthrough for her final Tisch project — these are all beautifully written moments, and they ground the story. Even when Pippa has a series of misadventures in various projects for Camp, it’s fun to read, and the reader can relate to the feeling of being out of your depth in a big city. And while I didn’t like the predictability of Ben’s storyline, there’s a moment when he pursues his own reasons for going to New York, and it’s sad, and I wish more had been done with it.

With both the books in the series, there’s a lot going on and a lot of real emotion being explored, and yet there’s always at least one big scene that feels completely false and takes me right out of Pippa’s world. The photography aspect is great, and I think girls who dream of becoming professional photographers themselves will enjoy reading about Pippa Greene. The ending of this book sets up for a sequel, and I’d be curious to see where Guertin takes Pippa’s story next.

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Thank you to ECW Press for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.