Patrick Ness is a magnificent storyteller and master wordsmith in possession of a vibrant imagination. His Chaos Walking trilogy is tremendously uniqu Patrick Ness is a magnificent storyteller and master wordsmith in possession of a vibrant imagination. His Chaos Walking trilogy is tremendously unique and exciting, and his A Monster Calls brought me to my knees with its merciless emotional elegance and purity of Truth.
More Than This shows glimpses of greatness, but never quite reaches that level of soul-satisfying, heart-stopping, mind-melting resolution for me. It's an existential tale of seeking -- the search for meaning, for Truth, for understanding and forgiveness and discovery of self -- where redemption and final destination are displaced for the all important journey. This is a story without a climax, a story which poses many questions and offers no definitive answers.
Is it a metaphor? An allegory? A sci-fi adventure? (view spoiler)[A Matrix re-boot with a Terminator-esque cyborg gone bad? (hide spoiler)]
The characters are great. I loved them. Especially Tomasz. I want an entire book just of that kid. Seth's back story and his relationship with Gudmund (while taking up very few pages of the novel) burns bright, so vivid, so emotional. I quickly became astonishingly invested in their story after only a few scenes, in what they meant to each other and how they expressed their thoughts and feelings. So tenderly realized. There were times I did not want to return to the "other story" going on, I so wanted to stay with these two and find out everything about them -- everything that came before and everything to come after.
Patrick Ness, you need to write a love story. I believe you have it in you to break all of our hearts.
But this is not that book. This is something else. It defies categorization, and sometimes that's a wonderful, brilliant thing. Here, I'm left feeling a little let down and yearning for more. ...more
The sun kept on with its slipping away, and I thought how many small good things in the world might be resting on the shoulders of something terrible.
The sun kept on with its slipping away, and I thought how many small good things in the world might be resting on the shoulders of something terrible. ~Tell the Wolves I'm Home
I don't know how to write a review for this book. I've made a few false starts already. It's always SO HARD to review the exceptional, the beautiful, the sincere and heartfelt. When what you've just read humbles you, when it so keenly reminds you of the raw power of storytelling -- of why we read in the first place -- it can leave you floundering without any words to describe the experience (a cruel irony if there ever was one).
I have no words, or I feel like I don't have enough, or know the right ones to use to capture the intensity and sweetness of Tell the Wolves I'm Home. Like Mozart's Requiem, it's meant to be experienced. It's the really funny joke that "you had to be there" to find funny at all.
I can tell you it's a coming of age story that hits all the right notes regarding that excruciating, confusing transition between childhood and adulthood, from innocence to innocence lost. June is fourteen and bright and funny and loveable, but also fierce and stubborn and selfish. She's prideful and lacks confidence, while at the same time marches to the beat of her own romantic drum. She's learning to love, not just perfection, but flaws and failures -- discovering that real beauty, real love, has scars and history, mistakes and disappointments.
There is so much character in this story -- not just June, but her sister Greta, their beloved uncle Finn, and his beloved Toby. Each character is whole with lives and souls to call their own. Their voices are distinct, their points of view crystalline and unique. It makes you care, it makes you feel and cry, and sigh and laugh out loud.
There's also a sense of place -- a time really -- that's so vivid it acts as a powerful subtext to the entire novel. June is growing up in the 1980's while her uncle is dying from AIDS. We remember the music, the clothes, the movies and that makes us smile. But then we remember the ignorance and fear, the prejudice and cruelty -- as much a part of the disease as its auto-immune deficiency -- and we weep. Toby and Finn, with genuine humanity, symbolize the tragic loss of so many young men in the early days of AIDS, before anyone really understood what was happening, before anyone had the courage to do anything about it when they finally knew exactly what was happening.
Ultimately, this book is about profound loss and the giant grief that accompanies it. It's about finding yourself in that loss, and then finding your way through it. If you've been there, you know. There are no shortcuts. It is what it is and it's you and it. But if we're lucky, if we're really lucky, there will be someone beside us to hold our hand, to pull us in, to catch our tears, to guide us back to the land of the living.
This is an emotional story, but it is in no way maudlin or melodramatic. It could be that book, that smacks of manipulation and exploits tragedy for the big win. Tell the Wolves I'm Home is not that book. It is the very opposite of that book. I'm going to end this review with a Hemingway quote that I would like to dedicate to June and Greta and Finn and Toby. “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places.”...more
The first time I heard about this book was when the author was pressured to withdraw its National Book Award nomination which had been given in error The first time I heard about this book was when the author was pressured to withdraw its National Book Award nomination which had been given in error and intended for the book Chime. What rhymes with Shine? Chime apparently. Good grief. Really people, you can't be any more professional than that? The author talks about the emotional whirlwind that followed, but there was a silver lining to the crushing disappointment -- the controversy brought much needed awareness to this quiet, unassuming book.
Shine isn't a dystopia. It has no post-apocalyptic cachet, there are no demons, angels, vampires or fairies. Instead, Shine is a lyrical and realistic coming-of-age portrait of a young girl living in a small backwoods Southern town. Cat is 16 and knows all about secrets. She has been carrying a dark and bitter one of her own for three years. It has caused her to wither and withdraw, and worst of all it has cost her Patrick.
Patrick is Cat's best friend but she hasn't spoken to him, not really, since "the bad thing". Patrick is set adrift without her and finds the only friends left to him are members of "the redneck posse" who tease and berate him mercilessly for being gay. One night Patrick is brutally beaten and left for dead outside of the gas station where he works. The nature of the assault has labeled this a hate crime and Cat -- fueled by guilt and anger -- becomes desperate to find out who has done this to her gentle friend. She believes it's someone she knows, and the closer she gets to unraveling the truth, the more dangerous it becomes for everyone around her, including Patrick who lies helpless in a coma.
In many ways, this has all the hallmarks of a good mystery. I love how Becky describes it in her review as:
parceled out, little by little, edging closer to the truth and the consequences and the brokenness, like a hungry mouse sneaking closer to a crumb not far from the cat's bed. The mouse knows that rushing will cause it to lose its chance, to be hurt -- but caution and stealth may win it a chance to survive. This book was like that. It crept along, building momentum, until it reached where it needed to be.
Shine isn't a gentle story -- it is a raw and honest consideration of self-acceptance, self-loathing, guilt, friendship and family. There is explicit language and vivid descriptions of violence. Despite the ugliness there is much beauty to consider as well, and Myracle's prose reminded me both of Winter's Bone and To Kill a Mockingbird.
This book has its flaws, but overall it accomplishes something wonderful. ...more
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