Book 93: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

 

I'm actually surprised I haven't read this earlier since it is a fairly well known novel dealing with the Holocaust, a topic I always tend to gravitate towards.  Perhaps it was the fact that it seemed to be very much marketed for a younger audience (not that this prevented me from reading and loving The Book Thief).  Upon completing the novel, I thought this felt like a fairy tale of the Holocaust until I flipped back to the front and noticed the title page actually read as "The Boy in Striped Pajamas: A Parable."  Boyne mixes realism with events that could maybe have happened because some crazy unbelievable things happened involving the Holocaust, but mostly feel like something that never could have taken place, at least not for a prolonged period of time.  As a result, I think adding that word parable to the title helps - Boyne isn't trying to give his readers an entirely accurate impression of the Holocaust but wants to tell a small personal story involving the Holocaust.

 

Bruno, the main character, is nine years old when his father gets a promotion, and the family has to move from their large home in Berlin to a smaller house in "Outwith."  His father has been placed in charge of a camp, and Bruno has a view of this camp from his bedroom window, where he can see lots of people in striped pajamas.  While Bruno hates his new home, the lack of friends and the soldiers that are constantly in and out of the house to speak with his father, he eventually decides to explore and walks the perimeter of the fence around the camp until he sees a boy in striped pajamas on the other side.  Bruno and Shmuel strike up a conversation, and continue to meet every day, each on their side of the fence.

 

Obviously, the idea that a young boy could go undetected while sitting next to a fence of aconcentration camp for a long period of time is the part that seems somewhat fantastical.  The other part of the book that may or may not be believable is Bruno's cluelessness about what is going on.  He has to be told that the people in the camp are Jews, and he feels a bit jealous of Shmuel being on the side of the fence with all the people.  Adult readers of course know exactly what Shmuel means when he says certain things while Bruno just doesn't get it.  He notices that Shmuel is very skinny and even tries to bring him food on occasion, but he still eats the food he brings with him while he is on his way to the fence half the time.

 

At nine, it probably is easy for Bruno to be wrapped up in his own world, which makes the silences on Shmuel's part all the more poignant for the knowledgeable reader.  Not only does Shmuel not know how to disillusion Bruno, but saying too much might very well get him into trouble since he is speaking not only with a German but with the commandant's son.  That isn't to say that Boyne leaves out all the dark moments - he simply writes them from a nine year old's perspective - Bruno witnesses some things that leave him confused and frightened but he doesn't necessarily know how to process it or how to put it in a context beyond a personal experience with a sadistic soldier.

 

While I think there are many more powerful Holocaust pieces out there, I would say this was a rather sweet story, and could be enjoyed by both children as an introduction to the Holocaust or older readers that have the ability to fill in the blanks.  It's also rather short, which works in its favor because if the novel had been much longer, I probably would have wanted more meat in the story rather than a simple story of friendship set against a very complicated and horrifying time.

Book 92: Industrial Magic

Industrial Magic (Women of the Otherworld, Book 4) by Kelley Armstrong

 

Picking up a few months after Dime Store Magic, Paige, Lucas and Savannah are living in Portland, Oregon.  Lucas continues to do pro-bono lawyer work in defiance of his father, the CEO of the Cortez Cabal (think head of the most important mob but run by sorcerers and employing supernaturals), while Paige attempts to start a coven of her own.  However, she is rather lacking in success, and part of it is due to her boyfriend being a sorcerer (sorcerers and witches are portrayed as enemies in this series) and her ward being the daughter of a witch with a reputation for practicing dark magic.

 

While Lucas has been trying to protect Paige from family politics, she gets pulled in when his father Benicio visits their apartment in Portland.  Someone is targeting the children of Cabal employees, and Benicio would like to hire Paige or Lucas to investigate, and is also concerned for their safety.  Despite initial hesitations, Paige and Lucas are drawn into the investigation, and spend a large part of the book in Miami, the Cortez headquarters.  Cortez is not the only Cabal that has been targeted, and working with the other Cabals raises some issues, especially since one of them played such a prominent role in the previous novel, and Savannah's custody case.

 

After Dime Store Magic, this one is very much action packed, and very quickly paced.  So far Armstrong has done a very good job in the series balancing between new and old characters without distracting from the plot.  Of course, I don't think this was an issue for Charlaine Harris, either, until further into the Stackhouse series, but I hope that Armstrong can keep up that balance.  As a result, Elena and Clay make small appearances as babysitters and back-up, the book gives more insight into Cassandra, the vampire rep on the interracial council, and introduces the readers to Jamie Vegas (who actually was already mentioned in an earlier novel) and Lucas's family.  Even better, while there is a lot of flirting between Lucas and Paige and implications of sex, the awkward scene from their last novel is not repeated.

 

I'm having a lot of fun with this series so far, and would definitely recommend reading the books.  Dime Store Magic was the slowest one so far, but they have all been good, fun reads and Armstrong does a very good job of expanding her universe and building on previous story lines without making it overwhelming.  The next one up is Haunted, and I think after that, there may be another Elena focused novel so I'm looking forward to that.  However, I have warmed to Paige as she has developed and matured over the last three novels, and her character just continues to improve.

Book 91: The Absent One

The Absent one by Jussi Adler-Olsen

 

I've really liked both of the Jussi Adler-Olsen novels I've read so far.  While a lot of mystery novels clue the readers in on more things more quickly than their detectives, Adler-Olsen takes a whole different approach here.  There is no question in this novel about who committed the crimes.  There may be some questions in the middle about other things that are slowly uncovered, but instead the tension comes from wondering when the various parties will figure things out, and more importantly, when and if they will be able to prove anything.  His previous novel also had a slightly different set up than the normal mystery thriller though in that case the connection was with the victim, and the reader too was left wondering who was behind the crime.

 

This novel takes place only a few months after the case from The Keeper of Lost Causes.  Carl's old partner is still in the hospital as a result of the shooting that led to Carl's placement in the Q Department, and he has suggested that something may have been fishy about that afternoon's events.  While Carl wonders about this, he doesn't investigate or act on it, instead focusing on a case file that has mysteriously appeared on his desk.  While Carl's supposed to handle cold cases, this file refers to a shut case.  Two siblings were found beaten to death in a summer cabin, and the perpetrator turned himself in nine years later.  During the original investigation, the perpetrator was part of a gang of teens from a boarding school, and the entire gang was questioned at one point.  The guy who took the fall was the least well off of the group but the rest were rich and privileged, and are now influential members of society.  Still, Carl's interest is peaked, and he begins to pursue some leads until he launches a whole new investigation, and discovers that this could very well solve several other cases on his desk.

 

Some chapters are told from the perspectives of the gang members, the three remaining members being completely despicable and horrible people.  There is absolutely no doubt of their involvement in this crime or several others like it.  Of the other former gang members one is dead, and the last one, Kimmie, who was also the only woman, is homeless and living on the street.  It becomes obvious that she is the key to this because the other three men fear her, and she is obviously plotting something against them.  Kimmie is an interesting character because she is very cunning yet also mentally unstable; she was an important part of the gang and yet parted ways with them and actively works for their downfall.  The novel slowly reveals exactly what happened in the gang to lead them to this moment.

 

When the men aren't engaging in horrible crimes against humans, they enjoy hunting so there are some graphic descriptions of cruelty against animals (because naturally, they don't so much enjoy hunting as killing exotic animals - I'm not sure how they can even call it hunting when the animal is released near them into an unknown environment about two minutes before the "hunters" show up ... at that point, you're not showing off your tracking skills because it's a disoriented and confused animal no matter how vicious or challenging it may be in its normal habitat).

 

Overall, I liked this one but I preferred The Keeper of Lost Causes.  This one was darker, and the scenes between Carl and Assad weren't quite as funny.  Adler-Olsen introduces one new member to Department Q in this one, a new administrative helper, who adds yet another level of dysfunction to the team.  I'm curious to see what happens in the next novel in the series, and hope they don't become too much darker as they go.  It was nice to read a Scandinavian mystery with some humor, even if the case itself was dark.

Book 90: The Orchid House

The Orchid House by Lucinda Riley

 

Considering how much luck I had with books at the beginning of the year, I really feel like I've been striking out lately.  I haven't read any books that I'd rate as a 1, but I've definitely had a lot more 2s in the last month or two than before.  I was actually looking forward to reading this one, expecting something along the lines of Kate Morton, and I guess technically there are some family secrets but it's just so boring.  Even when I'm getting irritated with Morton's characters, I'm still riveted with the narrative.  I just wanted to throw this one across the room when it wasn't putting me to sleep.

 

It started off decent enough, and part of it is just that I expect these types of novels to start off slowly before they dig into the past.  Julia, the main character, is a pianist, and she has shut herself off from the world for the last eight months following the death of her husband and her two year old son.  Despite her lack of interest in most things, her sister is able to convince her to attend an auction at Wharton Park, where her grandfather was once responsible for the hothouses and orchids.  Julia's mom died when she was young so she spent a lot of time with her grandparents at Wharton Park after this loss.  In the modern day, the estate has become too expensive to maintain, so Kit, the heir to the estate, must sell it off though he plans to keep the small house Julia's grandparents called home.  While doing repairs on the house, he discovers an old journal, and returns it to Julia.  Now in most Gothic fiction, Julia would become interested in the journal, read it and be inspired to look into some family history.  Julia, however, is still too caught up in her grief to do even that, though she eventually takes a trip to see her grandmother and give her the journal, assuming it was her grandfather's (that's right, she didn't even flip through it enough to realize who the author of the journal was).  Elsbeth, her grandmother, corrects her, and tells her it was actually Harry's journal, the heir to Wharton Park during World War II.

 

Her grandmother then tells her the story of Olivia, a young socialite raised in India, that comes to England shortly before World War II begins.  I actually liked Olivia.  She was smart, independent and organized.  Harry seems to get along with her, and his mother also is quite taken with her.  Olivia falls in love with Harry, and he proposes when he realizes that Olivia is only visiting his mother because of her interest in him.  Despite his mother's warning only to marry for love, he decides to marry Olivia so she can take care of the estate.  As a result, I felt absolutely no pity for Harry when he referred to his marriage as an arranged marriage later in the book because his mother didn't want him to go through with it unless he really loved Olivia, and Olivia genuinely cared for him.  Though their marriage is off to a rough start when Olivia starts noticing Harry's lack of romantic interest in her, they overcome these issues, and settle into a seemingly happy relationship before Harry leaves for the war.

 

From here, the narrative returns to Julia, and her developing relationship with Kit as she learns to live with her loss.  Kit is of course the perfect man, caring, gentle, and attentive but considering that most of the other men in this novel are scumbags, I guess it needed to balance out somehow.  Eventually, Elsbeth visits Wharton Park to share the rest of the story with Julia, which is about the time I wanted to start punching characters and throw the book out the window.

 

After surviving a Japanese prison camp, Harry ends up in Bangkok at the conclusion of the war where a friend of the family assists him.  As he recuperates, he interacts with the local population, and I'm not sure how much of the descriptions are due to Riley relying on stereotypes of Asians in general or if she was actually just being historically accurate in portraying how British men in 1945 would have thought of Asian women.  Either way, it pissed me off because I think it was more of the former.  The descriptions of one Asian woman and the constant focus on her tininess was just too much.  It seemed like the usual exoticizing and fetishizing that is done in regards to Asian women, and I feel like we should be past that.  I also couldn't help but roll my eyes when a character said something along the lines of "I'm Buddhist, I live day to day.  I take what happiness I can get today and don't worry about tomorrow."  Oh my god.  Once again, this person wasn't a character, she was a fucking walking stereotype and a manic pixie dream girl without the manic part ... the serene pixie dream girl?  Is that a thing?

 

I would have preferred more of a mystery for Julia to explore.  Instead she gets the story hand-delivered by her grandmother, and she barely even seems that interested.  Some of the fun in the Morton books are the clues that are still left behind after decades, and even if there is a character that knows the story, they only reveal it because of the protagonist's dogged pursuit of the past and inability to let ghosts lie.  Also it helps when the romantic lead is actually charming and interesting and not an asshole wallowing in self-pity who lies and takes advantage of others' trust - although I don't think we were supposed to see it that negatively.  Then again, while there are romantic entanglements in Morton, I guess they are never entirely the point - there is also the intense and important relationships between two or more women, be they sisters, cousins or friends.

 

There were also some statements about adoption in the novel that I found insulting but I would have to spoil things to get further into that part.  However, I liked the fact that Harry stayed at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok during his recovery time.  I was in Bangkok last summer, and though there was no way I could have afforded to stay at that hotel, I went there for lunch one afternoon and the hotel was indeed gorgeous (the restaurant I ate at, one of several in the hotel, had a veranda/deck by the river and the food was delicious).  In other words, considering that the only redeeming part of the novel related to a personal experience for me, I would say this novel is not worth the time or the effort.  It's not sweet, it's not romantic, and most importantly, it's not interesting.

Book 89: The Son of Neptune

The Son of Neptune (Heroes of Olympus, Book 2) by Rick Riordan

 

The novel begins with Percy Jackson being pursued by gorgons.  Percy has had a rather bad week - he can't remember anything about his past except for his name and a girl named Annabeth.  He is being hounded by monsters from mythology, and he has to get Camp Jupiter for safety.  When he finally arrives at Camp Jupiter, he still doesn't know if he's actually safe since he is met with suspicion.  His abilities clearly mark him as a son of Neptune, who isn't exactly a favorite among the Romans.  He quickly makes friends with two of the other misfits in the camp - Hazel, a daughter of Pluto, and Frank, who is still unclaimed though his 16th birthday has passed.  Hazel has secrets about her past that she is hiding, and Frank is still grieving for his mother, a Canadian soldier that died in Afghanistan.

 

Percy's first day at the camp is very eventful, and ends with an appearance from Mars himself sending Frank, Percy and Hazel on a quest.  It was actually a very funny scene, especially when one of the Roman teens insists that quests come from scrolls and prophecies until Mars finally humors him and writes it out on the spot.  The problem in this novel is that Gaea and her forces have captured and imprisoned Thanatos, or Death, which is why all their slain enemies keep returning.  The trio must go to Alaska to save Death and restore order.

 

The previous novel in this series dealt with a Roman hero suffering from memory loss in a Greek camp, and this one does the opposite.  While Riordan already used Jason to begin alluding to differences between Greeks and Romans, actually being in the Roman environment really made it hit home.  The camp revolves around the cohort and the army.  The campers are organized into cohorts regardless of who their immortal parents may be in contrast to the Greeks who are housed based on parentage.  The Romans are also more focused on discipline and duty.

 

Percy's memories come to him much more quickly over the course of the novel than they did to Jason, but that is also based on Hera/Juno's timing of their adventures.  Like all of Riordan's novels, this one is another engaging adventure with sweet characters who sometimes think they have dark secrets but learn to trust each other, and a nice mix of the modern and ancient.

Book 88: Dad is Fat

Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan

 

I am pretty sure that my first introduction to Jim Gaffigan was his portrayal as Miranda's boyfriend on Sex and the City.  Like most guys on that show, he didn't last beyond one episode, his character's major issue being that not only didn't he close the door when using the bathroom, but he left it wide open.  Since then I have seen him around randomly, and I have of course seen his Hot Pocket routine from his stand up show.  It's on YouTube - you should check it out.

 

Since I seem to be a sucker for books by comedians, sometimes even ones I don't even care about one way or the other, I of course had to get this one.  As the title implies, this book is about parenthood.  I had no idea that Gaffigan had five children, and lived in a two bedroom apartment in New York.  The book is basically a series of vignettes about having children.  It is definitely not a memoir, though it has personal stories, and in many cases reads like part of comedy stand up routine.  The vignettes and anecdotes are roughly organized by topic and chronology, so that the first parts deal with him as a man without children interacting with parents, discussions on pregnancy leading into a chapter on birth, infants and so forth.   It helps to already be familiar with Gaffigan's humor to appreciate it this, but I personally enjoyed the dry wit.

 

Some of the jokes get repetitive but I still liked them - he makes lots of remarks about how incredible his wife is, and about his laziness.  For example, there are quite a few comments about him getting tired from watching her work while he was eating on the couch, him sleeping through labor, basically going with the fat schlub persona he has used to get famous.

 

I feel like this is a book a lot of parents would enjoy as he chronicles the hardships of parenthood but he does it in a way that isn't off putting to non-parents.  Gaffigan didn't portray himself as a martyr, and simply makes humorous comments about the ridiculousness of his living situation and the every day life of parenthood.  His descriptions of family vacation simply reinforce my idea to never have children, at least not until I've visited every place I want to go.  That, or make sure my parents are ready for prolonged visits from actual grandkids, and not just an active Siamese cat.  The book is definitely good for a few laughs, and it is one of the only times I afterwards wondered how the audiobook would have been.

Book 87: The Night Eternal

The Night Eternal (The Strain Trilogy) by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

 

This is the concluding volume of The Strain trilogy.  Given the fact that the paperback copy has been out for over a year already, it is probably easy to tell that I wasn't in a rush to finish this series.  In fact, if I hadn't found a bargain copy for $4 or $5 at the bookstore recently, I probably still wouldn't have finished it.  The second book was just incredibly disappointing to me, and while I figured I'd eventually finish the series because I was already two thirds of the way through, I certainly wasn't seeking this novel out.

 

There were quite a few issues with this novel, but at least I now know how it ended.  There were parts of the plot where the action picked up, but overall the biggest problem this book, and I would say the series as a whole, had was the pacing.  It was much too slowly paced.  I think if this series had been one stand alone novel divided into three parts, it could have been great, or at least not mediocre.  It would have been easier to care about the characters because the people in book 1 were interesting.  The people in books 2 and 3 weren't very exciting even though they were technically the same characters, with the exception of Quinlan.  That was actually one part of this novel I liked, the rest of the vampire mythology and lore that is revealed, especially in regards to Quinlan.  There were a few parts of the origin story I could have done without, especially when they are presented as fact rather than myth such as the idea that the vampires are the result of a fallen angel from Sodom and Gomorrah times.  I don't mind allusions to biblical stories but straight up using the Bible?  Let's leave religion out of my vampire novels unless it's a character holding a cross to ward off a vampire.  Also, no visions!  I'm okay with revelatory dreams because it could just be sold as someone's subconscious but don't make it a vision.

 

The novel takes place two years after The Fall, and the vampires have overtaken the world.  Thanks to the nuclear bombings from the previous novel, daylight has been reduced to only 2 hours a day.  Unlike in some other vampire novels or movies, the Master thought ahead and worked out a ratio of vampires to humans.  While many humans are dead, a large part of the population is still around, allowed to go about their daily lives as long as they tolerate the fact that they are second class citizens to vampires, and sometimes people might be moved to a camp where they will serve as human blood bags.  The human leadership were among the first killed, and with the rest of the population malnourished, there is very little resistance to the new reign.  Ephraim, Nora and Fet are still fighting the good fight as well as Gus and Quinlan, the mysterious vampire like creature.  However, Ephraim is a shell of a man, and he is so annoying!  The Master kidnapped his son Zac two years ago, and Ephraim continues to torture himself about his son, using alcohol and drugs as a crutch.  I admit I have noticed in the past that father-son relationships often don't move me very much in novels unless well written, and in this case, I had very little patience and sympathy for Ephraim.  Of course, the fact that the reader knows that Zac is having a rather pampered life with the Master (at least it's pampered for this new world) and has become an asshole (yes, I know he's under the Master's influence, and it's not his fault) may be part of the reason I wasn't too concerned with Eph and Zac when compared to the fate of the whole world.

 

The other part of the novel that irritated me, and once again, this completely relates to Eph, was the love triangle.  That's right, there's a love triangle - Nora, the only woman character with anything to do in this novel, has been involved with Ephraim but has been developing feelings for Fet.  The thing is I could buy Nora's interest in Fet since he is still fighting while Eph has become a complete wreck.  I just had a hard time believing any of the descriptions of Eph's jealousy.  He has become so much of a one note character that I really couldn't believe that he cared that Nora was no longer interested in him.  Of course it was also used a plot point to show just how discontent and isolated from the group Eph was feeling.

 

As discovered in the previous novel, it takes a nuke to actually destroy one of the Ancients or the Master.  Fet has finally been able to secure a nuke, but the team has still not been able to decipher the Lumen which would reveal the location the weapon needs to be detonated.  The novel is essentially a race as the last of the resistance must figure out how to save humanity before the Master zeroes in on them, removing any chance of being overthrown and defeated.

 

It's been so long since I've read the second novel that I'm not sure if this is an improvement but there is no doubt that the first one remains the best of the series.  Overall, I would even say that the series and this book, too, have some good ideas in them but the series shouldn't have been dragged out into a trilogy, or as a trilogy, it should have focused on more or different characters.  I had a hard time (and the character Gus is with me on this one) with Ephraim as the flawed hero in this because I did not care about a single one of his issues.  It could still make for an interesting movie or two if they cut out some of the fluff, and were alright with having a two year jump somewhere in the middle of the film.  I just wouldn't want this to be turned into a film trilogy.