Calling You by Otsuichi

Genre: Short Stories/Japanese Fiction

Date of Publication: May 31, 2001

Memorable Quotation: “Hello?” “Please don’t hang up. I swear this isn’t a prank call…” For some reason, the idea of a prank call on an imaginary phone amused me.” (pg.20)

If you liked these, you’ll like this: Twentieth Century Ghosts by Joe Hill.

Lasting Impression: The three stories story in this wonderful collection are touching in their own way; each exploring the power of human relationships and what it means to feel love in its purest form.

Storyline: A+

Pace: A

Characters: A

Ending: A

Overall: A

Unlike Otsuichi’s other short story collections that include more gruesome, graphic detail, the three stories in Calling You are more lighthearted, although death is a reoccurring theme in them too. When you think about the title of this collection (which is also the title of the 1^st short story), I not only think of Celine Dion’s Song “Calling You” but also the image and emotions I feel.  I can imagine someone calling  to a lover or a friend either in happiness or in shock, the syllables of the name never sounding like poetry until that moment, and to have a title make me emotionally invested into the book before reading it is pretty good reason to think this will be a home run.

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The first short story is Calling You, which was my favorite one.  Ryo is a quiet girl who is so lonely that she creates a cell phone in her mind, wishing she had friends to call. After a while, she can see the phone clearly in her mind, as if it is real.  One day, she hears a phone ringing, and it turns out it is her imaginary one.  The caller is a boy around her age, Shinya, who doesn’t have any friends and made an imaginary phone too. 

The way they find each other and help each other cope in a world that initially rejected them is beautiful, and although the ending is heartbreaking, the twists that come out of such a short story is incredible.

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The second short story is Kiz/Kids.  The narrator, who we never learn the name of, belongs to the “special” class in school because of violent outbursts and while there, he meets a boy names Asato who has a very special gift; he takes scars, bruises, burns, and injuries from people and puts them on his so they won’t feel pain.  He is used for his gift, unfortunately, and it nearly kills him. As this happens, the young narrator gets a first hand look at why it is rare that the pure do not stay that way forever.

At first I thought it was just a “cute” story but as the characters develop and back stories come to light, I realized this was a much deeper, more painful, plot than I had first realized. I was very impressed with the story overall, especially with the ending, and how the two boys learned that with love comes sacrifice and with sacrifice comes a bond that is unbreakable.

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The final story is called The Flower Song.  The story centers around a man who was in a horrible train accident (which is only mentioned) and how he is in a hospital, recovering from emotional scarring from losing his lover in the crash.  As he wanders the hospital grounds, he comes across a clearing and sees a giant tree has fallen. Underneath it is a flower that appears to be humming.  The rest of the story centers around the narrator and his relationship to the flower.  What the narrator learns about family and reincarnation is extremely profound, and the imagery Otsuichi gives the reader when it came to the flower is amazing.

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All of Otsuichi’s stories in this collection are based around family, love, and the pain that comes when we open our hearts to love.  What makes his stories so exceptional is that he takes the pain that love can bring and transforms it into personal growth through his characters.

~Shelly-Beans

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

Genre: Inspirational/Non Fiction

Date of Publication: 1997 (No specific date could be found.)

Memorable Quotation: “I don’t want to leave the world in a state of fright. I want to know what’s happening, accept it, get to a peaceful place, and let go. Do you understand?”  I nodded. Don’t let go yet, I added quickly.  Morrie forced a smile. “No. Not yet. We still have work to do.” (pg. 107)

If you liked these, you’ll like this: The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Lasting Impression: Flavia Weedn once said, “The world knows little of it’s greatest heroes,” and in the case of Mitch Albom’s college professor/friend Morrie Schwartz, that’s exactly what he is: a hero; a man with a message about life, love, and death that should be required reading to fully understand the human experience.

Subject: A+

Delivery: A+

Pace: A+

Ending: A+

Overall: A+

NOTE:  I just realized this is the first Non-Fiction book I will be reviewing! (I’m not talking about a guide or a collection of work; I mean a true story.)  SO, my rating system will be different.  Here are the explanations for the two new rating criteria:

Subject: Was the person or event the book is about interesting?

Delivery: Was it written in a conversational tone? Was the author/subject relatable?

Thank you and enjoy the review!

If everyone could be so lucky to have such a beautiful memoir written about them, the world may be a different place.  Fortunately, Best-Selling Author/Sports Journalist Mitch Albom was able to record the legacy of Morrie, a man who continues to inspire hope even after his death.  Morrie was diagnosed with ALS in his late seventies and through his strong spirit and high hopes against the merciless disease, Mitch wind up learning about Morrie’s condition and began visiting every Tuesday; where the two talked about some of life’s most important subjects, including marriage, emotions, death, etc.

I have always been a fan of Mitch Albom but this book made me love him and his work even more because on every page, I could feel the love and admiration he had for his old professor; describing Morrie in such a way that everyone feels they had known him as long as Albom did. 

The more I read about Morrie, the more I wished I could have hugged him, thanked him for such inspirational words, told him that I wanted to be a better person because of him.  

I can almost guarantee that I will read this book again and again; when I need my faith restored in humanity or just a little hope about life, and when that time comes, Morrie will come back to life for a little longer and he will repeat to Mitch, to me, the lessons that will help us create better tomorrow for ourselves.

~Shelly-Beans

The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox

Genre: Business/Fiction

Date of Publication: 1984 (No specific date could be found.)

Memorable quotation:  “If I were to just tell you the answers I know, all you would get is an earful of advice.  But if you discover the answers for yourself, then you own those answers.  They’ll be yours to keep, and you’ll believe in them so much more because you found them yourself.” (pg. 269)                                

If you liked these, you’ll like this: Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson and The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield                                          

Lasting Impression:  This is a must read for anyone interested in/involved with economics, business, or management for the business strategies that are discussed. For everyone else, the growth and problems of Al Rogo are things that anyone can relate to.

Storyline: A

Pace of Story: B+

Characters: A

Ending: A+

Overall Grade: A

   

I recently changed careers and started a new job, in advertising (Hooray!) so my new boss recommended I read this novel to understand more about the business and how to succeed, so although this wouldn’t have been my first choice of a novel, I definitely gained perspective from it.

Here’s the premise: What would you do if your manager told you one morning that your division of a manufacturing plant has not been making money for so long time that if things didn’t pick up in three months time, your division will be shut down?  This is the situation Al Rogo is faced with, and if that isn’t hard enough to deal with, his marriage is crumbling as well.  With the help of his old physics teacher, Jonah, Rogo begins a journey of not only a re-evaluation of everything he thought he knew about business but also how to manage his time better with his family.

The book focuses on the ideas of throughput, bottlenecks, and ROI (just to name a few) and for those who feel daunted by those terms (like I did), Goldratt writes in a way that is easy to understand, even though at times I was bored by the amount of business terminology used in certain scenarios.

What annoyed me the most about the novel was how it was described on the jacket. It was stated that this would be a “thriller” and it was a “compulsive” read. For a reader like me, these words made me think of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (maybe for business people, this is a thriller) but when I read it, I had to push myself at times to get through the sections that went deep into the ethics of business.

When I was done with the book, my boss asked me what I got out of it, and I told him some of the terms I remembered and how the goal of The Goal is to make money. He nodded in agreement with everything I said but stated when I was done, “Einstein.  Albert Einstein said a very important quotation that Rogo followed unknowingly and I want you to remember it. If you do, you will be successful here.  The quote is, ‘I don’t need to know everything; I just to know where to find it when I need it.’ ” 

That's exactly what Rogo did; when he didn’t know the answer, he went to Jonah for help and soon realized that the goal of any business is what the book said, to make money, but it really is more than that. The goal is to admit you can't know everything so it is important to have the resources that can lead you to the answer.

N0S4A2 by Joe Hill

Genre: Horror/Fiction

Date of Publication: October 15, 2013

Memorable Quotation: “You look at birds all of your life without ever knowing what was a Sparrow and what was a Blackbird, but we all know a Swan when we see it. So it was with cars. Maybe you could not tell a Firebird from a Fiero but when you saw a Rolls- Royce, you knew it.” (pg.52)

If you liked these, you’ll like this: The film 'Wanted', Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and Coraline by Neil Gaiman.

Lasting Impression: As Vic McQueen takes you on a wild ride in this fast-paced story, full of secret bridges, unique characters, and the illusive Christmasland, N0S4A2 may have you look at the holiday season differently for a long, long time!

Storyline: A+

Pace of Story: A-

Characters: A+

Ending: A

Overall Grade: A

*NOTE* I am adding a new section to my reviews, “If you liked these, you’ll like this.” I say in my reviews (or at least, I write a lot in my notes) how this book reminds me of this film, that book, etc. SO, to help peak your interest more, I will be putting in a section of what the book reminds me of (if anything). Give me your feedback! In the meantime, enjoy N0S4A2’s review!

This is probably one of the most visually-stimulating books I have read in a LONG time. What I mean by that is throughout the entire book, I could see everything that was happening, like a movie in my head. Although some aspects were a bit disturbing (which is expected from Hill) and other parts heartbreaking, the story overall packs a great punch and kept me glued to the pages as I rode along with Victoria McQueen through her journey.

The story centers around Vic “The Brat” McQueen and her Raleigh Tuff Burner bicycle (later on, her Triumph) and how she can cross the “Shorter Bridge” to find lost objects.  Eventually, she meets a warm-hearted junkie/librarian/champion scrabble player, Margaret Leigh, who warns her of Charles Manx, a child kidnapper and creator of Christmasland, and his 1938 Rolls Royce through the help of her scrabble pieces that can predict various things.

Eventually, as Leigh’s scrabble pieces predicted, fate leads Vic to Manx and the trouble only begins there.  Following the travels of Vic, Leigh, Manx, and other unforgettable characters, Vic is lead to Christmasland on a rescue mission. To become victorious, Vic will need the help of those who love her most, and only then will she find the strength to face Manx directly and give him what he deserves.

Hill does a great job with this novel on so many levels. The pace was good, although it is became too fast at times, reminding me of Vic on her bikes; at times going too fast, making things feel out of control, but once they slowed down, everything evened out.  I was also very impressed by the subtle, clever elements Hill integrated into the novel, especially the title (which I won’t spoil for you, you’ll have to read the book to understand, unless you wanted to say the title quickly *cough cough*).

Everything really fell into place with this novel. There were some structural and grammatical issues that bothered me and at first, I thought the ending was going to be a disappointment but after giving the ending more time to develop, it flourished and really tied everything up nicely, like a newly wrapped gift for Christmas.  

~Shelly-Beans

October Books That "Did Not Make the Grade"

As this month comes to a close, I am sad that I was not able to review as many books as I would have liked, but I am reading one now that is sure to please for next month!

In the mean time, here are the two novels that unfortunately "did not make the grade:"

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight: I liked the concept and how the character's could easily be seen with individual personalities, but there were a few problems that left me uninterested in continuing to read.  The biggest problem was that the storyline did not hold my interest; it reminded me of the film, "Mean Girls"  but with a sadder twist.  I was hoping my mind would be changed but some of the characters irritated me and I didn't care to learn more about what really happened.

The Translator by Nina Schuyler:  To be honest, I fell out of reading this novel because I wasn't sure where the plot was going, although it was written very well.  I can definately say that I would try reading this book again, maybe when I have a little more patience in finding out where the plot leads us.

Happy Halloween (for tomorrow) and I look forward to writing more next month!

~Shelly-Beans

Relative Identity by Holly Patrone

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Date of Publication: January 15^th, 2013

Memorable Quotation: “It was Saturday night and people were jammed so closely that it would take a crowbar and a vat of petroleum jelly to navigate the crowd, and from the looks of it, half of them would have enjoyed the combo way too much.” (pg. 63)

Lasting Impression: Great humor, good characters, but sometimes a little corny, Relative Identity is an easy, enjoyable read for anyone who can relate with the curveballs life throws at the most inconvenient of moments!

Storyline: A-

Pace: B+

Characters: A+

Ending: B-

Overall: A-

When a spouse passes away, it is always hard for the survivor to live everyday to the fullest without thinking about their late significant other.  However, what if they never really left, and were always watching, for better or for worse?  That is the conundrum that April Serao faces everyday as she deals with her deceased husband Sal, now an angel after dying from a vigorous round of birthday sex six years ago. 

Not spiteful in the least, Sal watches over April, which is sweet and all but since she is the only one who can see him when he visits her, most would think she worries that her new boyfriend, Jack, and her three sons consider her crazy for talking to herself.  Things get a bit crazier, though, when April is told that her deceased husband’s identity has been stolen and only through numerous haphazard events and humorous occurrences does April find the culprit behind the theft and the real reason why Sal continues to watch over her.

The pace of the novel is nice and easy, so much so that you feel like April is one of your friends, telling you a crazy story.  The other characters are also relatable, each having their own quirk and identity to set them apart from everyone.  What I loved most about Relative Identity was the way you could really engross yourself into the Serao’s family life and relate to them as if they were your own.

Although I loved the storyline and the characters, I had two problems with the other aspects of the novel.  First, the dialogue does not always flow naturally and second, the ending is not the big bang the characters try to make it out to be.  Instead, the ending seemed forced compared to the easy flow most of the novel held.

This is a nice novel, overall; there are no deep topics to sit and contemplate, no confusing plot twists, but its simplicity is what gives it such depth.  Although some parts are overly-exaggerated for stock value, Relative Identity is a fun novel based around humor and how family should always stick together, especially in the strange, amusing circumstances the Serao family faces.

~Shelly-Beans

The Other Face: Experiencing the Mask edited by Wendy Klein and Brent Robinson

Genre: Psychology/Literature

Date of Publication: January 1, 2003

Memorable Quotation: “The mask’s purpose is not necessarily to hide the individual but to allow a particular aspect of the individual; to be communicated with greater focus and intensity.” (pg. 19, A Humanist Critique of the Mask by Sophie Rogers-Gessert)

Lasting Impression: The concept of the mask is brought to new light in this amazing collection that explains how the mask is not only a physical, but also something that wear psychologically without ever realizing it.

Accessibility: B

Content: A-

Creativity: A+

Layout: B-

Overall Grade: B+

If I have anything negative to say about this book, it is instantly lessened by the sheer fact that this book exists! It has been almost impossible for me to find anything about the mask and it’s history, meanings, and origins but while attending the NY Renaissance Faire a month ago, I was visiting my favorite booth, the Wendy Drolhma mask booth, and found this book.

This collection includes short stories, poetry, essays, and quotes about the physical mask we see at Mardi Gras, the mask that some say can be being a second skin that transforms you into a completely different person, or even a rouge for authenticity. Some of the sections about the mask are analyzations of what the mask means while others do not mention the mask at all, other than the title of the piece, but if you look unto the deeper meaning of the story, the mask does present itself.  For instance, one of my favorite stories was The Mask by Mark Sherman, in which he describes the sensation of putting on a mask and experiencing yourself as a different individual, although you have only put a mask on yourself. 

What confused me most about this collection was the layout.  The stories were not in one section while the poems were in another; everything was scattered around, making it difficult to find a rhythm throughout the book.  There were pictures of masks that seemed to be randomly inserted in places and I didn’t like how disorganized it felt. 

I must say that overall I was pleasantly surprised with this collection because I honestly was not sure what to expect.  The fact that there are so many different viewpoints of the mask is fascinating and even if there were a few things that bothered me, as I said before I am so happy that this book exists and hopefully this review can get the popularity for this book that it deserves.  

~Shelly-Beans

The Wall of the Sky, The Wall of the Eye by Jonathan Lethem

Genre: Short Stories/Science Fiction

Date of Publication: March 5, 2007

Memorable Quotation: “Hell doesn’t have a ‘before.’ Hell is stuck in time, repeating endlessly. Hell doesn’t have a past. It just is.” (From Happy Man, pg. 19)

Lasting Impression: Lethem had some very creative ideas strung throughout his stories but his decision to not give more attention to them made his work suffer. 

Overall, over the seven short stories:

Storyline: C

Pace: B-

Characters: B-

Ending: C-

Overall: C+

This was another piece of literature that was highly recommended to me that I, honestly, could not appreciate as much as my friend did.  As I said earlier, the ‘gimmicks’ Lethem strung through the stories were extremely creative but he did not focus on them like he should have, so his stories just came out being out of balance and confusing, leaving holes for the reader to fill themselves. 

There were seven short stories and only one of them I thought was successful in executing a story that was cohesive, rich with detail, and had an unusual circumstance that was consistent throughout the story.  The rest, unfortunately, each had a fatal flaw that made it difficult to read.

Before I give the brief story descriptions, you may be wondering why I read the entire collection when I said I did not enjoy most of them in the first place.  The reason is because once I get halfway through a book, there is no turning back for me (unless the story becomes excruciating).  Honestly, there was promise of real creativity in these stories, but I felt that Lethem did not let the ideas mature so he only gave the reader the scraps of what he had thought of, not giving any real dimension or originality to them. 

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To start, the first short story is The Happy Man, my friend’s favorite out of the collection.   The narrator is a man whose soul is torn between his own personal Hell and Earth and when he is in Hell, his body on Earth is a zombie; able to keep his job and bring in income for his wife but do nothing else of interest.   The man’s Hell is very creative, the characters in it are unique but the details as to how he died and why his soul is divided between the two worlds is never told.  The twist at the end is mediocre, and only brings more questions than answers so overall, I liked the story but I could not understand the hype about it.

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The next story is Vanilla Dunk.  The idea is that all of the great basketball players skills, including Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain, are passed down by imbuing them into exosuits, which are given to players in the beginning of each season but each suit is only used once.  A white player, who gives himself the nickname Vanilla Dunk, gets the coveted Michael Jordan exosuit, which causes racial tension among the players. If you are a fan of basketball, you will love and appreciate the idea behind this story but I only know the basics of the sport so I could only get into it so much as much.  The pace is slow, the story is pretty good, but the focus on the exosuits are only really discussed in the beginning and end, leaving me to read about all of these games and strategies I could care less about instead of the interesting twist that is left on the back burner. 

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Light and the Sufferer is the third story.  Two brothers are involved in a robbery over drugs, one an innocent bystander, Paul, the other a drug dealer, Don.  A Sufferer, a harmless alien that reminded me of Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, has one purpose: to follow those that are troubled and protect them, so one begins following Don after the robbery occurs.  (That may not be right but that is what I understand their purpose to be.) Everyone can see the Sufferer, but not much more detail is given about them, for the story circles around Paul’s insistance on leaving for California before things get worse.  Of course, they do, and the story just becomes violent and pointless.  Honestly, this really wasn’t much of a story, and the only reason I finished it was because the Sufferer is rather amusing and created light in this dark world.

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Next is Forever, Said the Duck, the shortest and most confusing of the seven stories, also my least favorite. From what I could understand, a couple invites their lovers from their past to a huge party as means of saying goodbye to their past the night before their wedding.  The pace is very fast and with so many characters, it is pointless to try and remember anything about anyone.  I have no idea where they were or what happened in the story because of how strange everything gets, so this is a story only those with an appreciation for the artistic and abstract can handle.

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The fifth story is Five Fucks, which I loved at first but towards the middle, everything twists into a completely different story, throwing me for a loop.  The first storyline, the one I loved and understood, followed a girl who meets a guy at a bar and spends the night with him.  The next day, when she gets home, she finds there is a Missing Persons report about her because she had allegedly been gone for two weeks, when she had only thought was one night.  After staying with him a second time and losing more of her sense of time, she files a missing persons report on herself and then things just get messy…a girl and guy wake up in dumpsters, then there are monsters and a village and I can’t even tell you what happens because I just don’t get it.  This would have been my favorite story, if it didn’t take a turn for the worst.

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Hardened Criminals is the sixth story, and definitely my favorite one.  The narrator, Nick, is sent to prison after being an accomplice in a robbery but not any prison. What makes this prison different is the prisoners that died there are put into cement and used as building blocks for the prison.  Only their backs, feet, and back ends are seen on the outside but on the inside, their heads pop out of the cement, and with chips in their brains, they can still speak.  Nick is first sentenced to the hole, a dark tower where all around are talking heads but after a week, he is taken into the regular prison where only one wall has the heads, one of them being his father’s.  The pace was good, Lethem kept with the concept of the heads, and the story was great; even the ending wrapped up everything nicely; I definately give him kudos for this one.

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The last story, Sleepy People, had an interesting concept but Lethem, once again, barely touched upon it. A woman comes home from work to find a man sleeping on her front porch to find out from a coworker that he is a ‘sleepy person’ and they are very warm individuals who help plants grow. (Yeah, that’s all of a description I got about them.) There is a military and dinosaurs and once again, I have no idea what is going on.  The plot has no direction, the characters are one dimensional, and the ending comes out of left field so sadly, I was not a fan.

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As I said before in one of the mini summaries, this is a collection for those of you who welcome a surreal landscape with the plot ready to twist at any moment. I saw what Lethem was trying to do with his concepts, and I can definitely appreciate his work, but his style and train of thought are a little much for me to handle.

~Shelly-Beans

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Genre: Fiction/YA Romance

Date of Publication: January 10, 2012

Memorable Quotation: “The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.” (pg. 312)

Lasting Impression: I laughed, I cried, I felt so much love and emotion toward Augustus and Hazel!  When I finished this novel, I needed a moment of silence to revel in the brilliance of the story. This is, by far, John Green at his finest.

Storyline: A

Pace of Story: A

Characters: A++ (Most well-rounded characters I have experienced in a LONG time!)

Ending: A++ (Best ending I have EVER experienced!)

Overall: A++

As most of you may, or may not know, John Green is another of my favorite authors.  I fell in love with his writing when I read Looking for Alaska and continued to love and appreciate his work in The Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns.  However, with The Fault in Our Stars, he really outdid himself. 

The Fault in Our Stars is about two teenage cancer survivors, Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace Lancaster, who first meet at a cancer support group.  Augustus falls for Hazel immediately and with a little time, Hazel allows herself to fall for him too.  I know this sounds like your regular love story because I thought it was just that too when I read the book jacket but once you get into it, you realize it contains so much more.

One of the best things about the story is that these characters are SO relatable. It is almost ridiculous how realistic these characters are and how involved I became in their lives, feeling like a part of their family.  As I continued reading, I loved how Green integrated the message that Cancer is just a disease for these two amazing people, it would not ruin their lives or make them look for pity as they tried live their lives they best they could.

In a novel surrounded by the sadness of terminal illnesses, it is important to have some humor in it, and the conversations Augustus and Hazel had made me laugh aloud multiple times with their rants reminding me of Clerks because of the debates they would have over the most mundane of things. (For example, Why are scrambled eggs locked into being a breakfast food?)

The characters, their interactions, and the pace make this story incredible, but the ending is what really seals the deal. What made this ending so perfect was this rare moment of love that is almost never exposed to the other person because our most secret thoughts about that person can only be revealed after we have gone, and most of the time they are never written down so they are lost when we die. This time, though, those thoughts are written down and when they are read, the person they were written about will know from the bottom of their heart that even if their love on this earth only existed for a short period of time, it did exist, and that’s all that mattered.

This is my favorite kind of book because it goes beyond any genre. I love a novel that makes me feel something, one that makes me feel like I have known these characters all my life, and I felt that and so much more as I was read The Fault in Our Stars. 

These characters accepted their fate more than I could; here I am crying when bad things happened but then one of them would say subtextually, “This is the way it is meant to be, okay?” All I could say was “Okay,” in return.

~Shelly-Beans

August 2013 Books that ‘Did Not Make the Grade’

Although I did not read as many books as last month, I still had the pleasure of reading one very original tale! Sadly, more books did not make the grade then actually make it this month. And they were:

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynna Jones:  First off, did not realize that this novel was the basis for the anime film directed by Hayao Miyazak! (I loved that movie!) Unfortunately, I was not as blown away by the novel itself, which disappointed me greatly.  The pace was slow, the character’s were not always realistic, and the procession of events did not make a lot of sense so in the case, I prefer the film over the novel.

A Twist in the Tale: Short Stories by Jeffrey Archer: I read the first short story, The Perfect Murder, and the story had good taste, good characters, and good pace. My biggest problem was the ending, which was so predictable, so unmoving that I felt no motivation to read the other stories.  It was like Archer did not care to think of a more creative ending, and if he does not have time to care, then neither do I.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan:  The story is told in alternating chapters- Levithan wrote Nick’s part while Cohn wrote Nora’s part.  I really liked Nick’s story not only because I’m a huge David Levithan fan but because he wrote with passion and great ease.  Cohn, on the other hand, was all over the place with Norah, making her sound like a valley girl and not making any sense as to what was happening.  Because this novel is told with two narrators, there was no way I could only read Nick’s part, read the entire story, appreciate everything about it. So, long story short, Norah ruined the story for me.

Thanks for all your support! I can’t wait to share more in September and a special thank you to my good friend Jess for helping me make my blog so much better!

Happy reading everyone! :)

~Shelly-Beans

Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel García Márquez

Translator: Edith Grossman

Genre: Romance/Fiction

Date of Publication: October 25^th, 2005

Memorable Quotation: “From then on I had her in my memory with so much clarity that I could do what I wanted with her. I changed the color of her eyes according to my state of mind: the color of water when she woke, the color of syrup when she laughed, the color of light when she was annoyed…” (pg. 60)            

Lasting Impression: The pace was not great, the storyline lost its gust towards the end, but experiencing the thoughts and emotions of a ninety-year old man falling in love for the first time brings a new and bold flavor to the stereotypical love story.

Storyline: B+

Pace of Story: B-

Characters: A-

Ending: C

Overall Grade: B-

Memories of My Melancholy Whores evokes a new sense of the love story everyone knows: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy fights for girl, boy and girl end up together. The end.  Although that is basically the premise, the opening line of the novel blows the ordinary love story out of the water: “The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin.”  Although this is what our protagonist intended, it was not what he received.  Instead of a night of wild love, he received a year of actual love with a woman, a girl of only fourteen to whom he only saw when she was asleep due to her exhausting factory job.  As his love for Delgadina (his special name for her) enraptures his heart, circumstances threaten to take away his sleeping beauty and only with a mixture of patience and perseverance will he be able to find her.

This was another book I read upon a recommendation from a friend but unlike The Killing Room, this novel underwhelmed me.  I found it difficult to critique a literary legend such as Márquez but since not everything can be liked by everyone, I say this was not my favorite novel of his. I liked the concept (looking past the tremendous gap in years between the lovers) but the execution throughout most of the book was poor. 

Here were my problems with the execution: There were no breaks in the pages or quotation marks to show where the dialogue began and ended (making it hard to follow), the storyline (although starting off strong) became shaky after the middle of the novel because of the inconsistent nature of facts I was given, and lastly, the ending did not bring much closure to anything. Despite all of that, I still enjoyed the book enough to finish it.

What kept me reading was my intrigue in the overall concept and the curiosity of where the lovers would end up. The man’s love for Delgadina was described beautifully, making me feel his love in my heart as he went through the motions of giving her gifts and decorating for her.  It was amazing to think how after 90 years of never feeling anything but lust for a woman, he felt this pure, genuine love bottled up inside of him, waiting for the right person to come along to express to her, and that alone made this Memories of My Melancholy Whores special.

Although I was not a big fan of this novel, I can appreciate the message Gabriel García Márquez had imbued into this novel.  It is powerful and may not be fully accepted by everyone but it is something everyone needs to hear. His message is that it does not matter how old you are or where you are from, the soul has no age or definition (look at A in Every Day) and although we define ourselves by the age of our bodies, sometimes love can transcend the gap and show us that our souls are all connected. 

~Shelly-Beans

July 2013 Books that 'Did Not 'Make the Grade’

I read four amazing books and could not get through three; I think the odds were in my favor this month! Here are the three books that sadly ‘did not make the grade’:

The Quiet Girl by Peter Høeg: The plot was interesting but his choice of 3^rd person pronouns were always ‘he’ and ‘she,’ never the character’s names, making it difficult to following the dialogue.  The pace was very slow and to top it off, his transitions between the present and the past are rough. (Whether this is due to the translation or the author’s style, I am not sure.) Either way, it did not help make the story more appealing.

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult: Although there was a fantastic introduction, there were too many characters crammed into the beginning, making me feel overwhelmed. Even more so than the amount of characters was the way they spoke and how difficult it was to take them seriously; they spoke in an unnatural manner and made me unable to connect with them.

Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins: The introduction and the pace were extremely slow and although I loved his writing style, I found myself zoning out and unable to follow the story.

Thank you again for reading and please leave a comment below! I'd love to hear what you have to say or suggest!

~Shelly-Beans

The Killing Room by John Manning

Genre: Murder Mystery/Drama

Date of Publication: May 1, 2010

Memorable Quotation: “Mr. Young,” she said, “Where is the secret?” “Here,” he said plainly. “I don’t understand.” “You will.” They stood in silence a moment. And then she saw it. The words on the wall. They were not there when they first came in. She knew that much. The words on the wall had just suddenly appeared. ABANDON HOPE. And no matter how dim the light, Carolyn could see they were written in blood. It was still wet and dripping down the wall.” (pgs. 34-35)

Lasting Impression: I read this book in one day! I just couldn't put it down!

Storyline: A+

Pace of Story: A+

Characters: A+

Ending: A+

Overall Grade: A+

Before I go into how remarkable this story was, I have to say that the description on the back of the book is honestly The Killing Room’s worst, and only, downfall. The summary on the back is very dramatic, a little too much so, reminding me of those old movies with the dramatic taglines that were supposed to draw their audiences in. Some of these phrases included, “Old houses have their secrets…but the secrets here are different. They can kill…” and “One by one, members of the Young family are chosen to die…old and young, weak and strong, no one is safe…”

Here is a better summary of The Killing Room: the Young family curse has haunted the family for 80 years.  At the beginning of each new decade, the family must congregate at the Young Mansion in Maine to partake in a ‘lottery’ in which the oldest member of the family, Howard Young, hosts to see who will be the unfortunate chosen one to go into the basement and never return.  Even though Howard hires private investigator Carolyn Cartwright to help find the cause and solution to the curse, one of the Young family members already knows how to stop it but both their pride and shame holds them back from exposing the secret, jeopardizing everyone’s lives as a result.

One of my best friends recommended The Killing Room to me, saying it was amazing and that I would love it.  Let me just say that she was absolutely right because I could not put this book down! (The only reason why I didn’t finish it in one day was because I had to sleep.) The pace is incredible, not letting up for a moment, the characters and their relationships are so personable, and the ending is well-thought out (even if a bit gruesome), closing the story and the mystery of the ‘killing room’ nicely.

The initial feel of the book reminds me of Stephen King’s The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red and 1408 because of the haunted nature of the house and the room caused by spirits.  The Killing Room is more than a haunted room, though; it is about a past that has not been reconciled. It is about the battle between the value of money vs. love. Above all, and most importantly, it is about a family that the reader sees, hears, and feels the pain of as they continue to fall apart after each death, yet somehow, under the direst of circumstances, even the most conflicting of personalities come together for a greater cause. 

~Shelly-Beans

Every Day by David Levithan

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Date of Publication: August 28^th, 2003

Memorable Quotation: “We all want everything to be okay.  We don’t wish so much for fantastic or marvelous or outstanding. We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough.” (pg. 6)

Lasting Impression: ‘A’ is a brave soul, literally.  As A embodies various teenagers for a day before taking on someone else’s life at the stroke of midnight, A learns more about life and love than anyone with a normal existence ever could imagine.

Storyline: A+

Pace of Story: B+

Characters: A+

Ending: A

Overall: A

David Levithan’s novel, Every Day, is astounding.  His idea of love going beyond our physical exterior that we unknowingly put on each other and ourselves is a very deep and personal issue he highlights so well throughout his story.

A, a soul that is not given a definite gender, goes through life waking up in a different body each day, never having a body of ‘its’ own. The novel opens with A waking up in the body of a neglectful, uncaring teenager named Justin. A winds up falling for Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon, who Justin does not treat very nicely. After giving Rhiannon the best day of her life, A continuously tries to keep in contact with her, especially after he tells her about his secret.  Things get out of control when some people begin to catch on to beings like A and A’s relationship with Rhiannon is tested by many unusual circumstances but there are solutions to be found, even if they are not the most desirable ones.

I really love and appreciate the way Levithan has A not have a specific gender so the reader must play a part in the story by giving A a gender and an overall identity.  What is also amazing about Every Day is the amount of characters Levithan uses for A to be and each teenager has such a story to tell, even if they each only get a page or two of notice before it is midnight and A goes onto the next unknown life.  The idea of A itself is incredible! The backstory to A and how it gets used to the life it must live is one of the most creative ideas I have ever heard.

Even though the characters are beautiful and the story itself is amazing, it does have a few flaws, starting with the beginning and the ending.  There is a short one paragraph introduction to A then BAM. The main scene comes up and you do not feel prepared for it.  The same thing unfortunately happens with the ending; the ending is breathtaking (I cried at the end) but it is SO SHORT, making the ending feel rushed and taking away how important this scene is to the entire story. What I frustrated me more was right after this beautiful scene, A basically says the 'world must go on' and the story ends there, leaving me saying, “That’s it?”  (Don’t worry, that wasn’t a spoiler.  You won’t understand that until you reach the ending for yourself.)

The only other facet that I wish had been paid better attention to was the pace.  I gave the pace of the story a high mark because it moved at such great speed and kept my eyes glued to the pages, continuously wanting to know what happens next. This was a bittersweet sensation because when a story slows down, as this one did, I feel out of breath and had to stop reading for a while before I could catch my breath and continue.

All in all, the small critiques I have about the structure and pace are squished by the triumph of creativity this novel gives. As we go through our daily lives, every day almost exactly the same, we are blind to what A sees and feels.  Being able to see and be so many individuals gives A an unbiased view of everyone and reminds us that love is love, and to let our souls do the talking.

~Shelly-Beans

The Big Bad Wolf by James Patterson

Genre: Suspense/Thriller

Date of Publication: October 4^th, 2004

Memorable Quotation: “A parish priest had tried to explain an eternity in hell to Benjamin’s sixth grade class. ‘Picture a river with a mountain on the other side,’ the priest had said. ‘Now imagine that every thousand years, the tiniest sparrow transports what it can carry in its beak across the river from the mountain. When the tiny sparrow has transported the entire mountain to this side of the river, that, boys and girls, would just be the beginning of eternity.” (pg. 155)

Lasting Impression: The plot was great and I was definitely afraid of the Big Bad Wolf but with small climaxes throughout the story and an unresolved ending, the novel left me feeling robbed of what should have been a complete finale.

Storyline: A

Pace of Story: A-

Characters: B-

Ending: D-

Overall: C-

“Who is afraid?” the inside jacket of Patterson’s novel The Big Bad Wolf asks and then answers, “You are,” and they were right.  For most of the novel, I really was scared of the big bad wolf, and with his identity still being unknown by the end of the novel, he kept his mystery and his fear he instilled into others, even if it was frustrating to never find out who he really was.  The Big Bad Wolf centers around one of, if not the most, famous James Patterson character, Alex Cross. He is training to be an FBI agent when all hell breaks loose; a federal judge’s wife has been kidnapped and upon further investigation shows that she isn’t the first. Men and women over the past few years have been abducted and sold as slaves to men who desire them the most by the Russian mobster only known as The Wolf.

The novel is reminiscent of the 2008 film Taken, with its plot around the same disturbing subjects of modern day slavery and prostitution and a pace that leaves you breathless and wanting more.  Unfortunately, unlike Taken, the novel’s ending is a huge disappointment.  It ends on a cliffhanger with no sign of resolution as far as Cross’ personal life is concerned and as mentioned previously, Wolf’s identity is not discovered. However, upon doing further research, you can learn the Wolf’s identity in a completely unrelated novel, London Bridges, that involves his character and is published exactly a year after The Big Bad Wolf.

I loved and hated the character development.  With some characters, I loved how Patterson inserted the smallest of details about them and gave them a specific way of speaking, helping me really get to know who they were (although I never wanted to learn about some of the perverts involved with The Wolf). On the other hand, others were given brief descriptions and just appeared to be there, just a body with a voice so to speak.

In retrospect, the best aspects to the novel were when the kidnappings happened, were reported to the FBI, and then solved.  The politics of the Russian government and the constant searching of The Wolf’s identity really took away from the main storyline, even if it was an unsettling subject. 

I am sad to say that, overall, I have read better James Patterson novels than this one, as far as delivery and endings go. The James Patterson I am familiar with delivers such a punch at the end of his novels you feel the impact and satisfaction of the twist that you never see coming.  Patterson is one of the greatest suspense writers to have ever lived, and to have published a novel that had a great plot but was brought down by poor execution makes me want to ask the question R. Shaff posted on his Amazon.com review, “Will the real James Patterson please stand up?”

~Shelly-Beans

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Genre: Contemporary Fiction/Fantasy

Date of Publication: June 18^th, 2013

Memorable Quotation: “Memories were waiting at the edge of things, beckoning to me.” (pg. 7)

Lasting Impression: Neil Gaiman’s latest work is a beautifully written novel that soared in its message of childhood and what we see as reality but fell short in terms of holes in the storyline and an underwhelming ending.

Storyline: B+

Pace of Story: A

Characters: B+

Ending: C

Overall: B

Neil Gaiman is another of my favorite authors, with 2 of his best sellers, Coraline and American Gods, being in my top 10. The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a lovely book but honestly, it did not enrapture me in the same way that his previously mentioned novels had.  The story is about a man from England, reflecting on a life-changing memory from his childhood by ‘the ocean at the end of the lane’ that has made him feel eternal regret. (The story is mostly told by his 7-year old self experiencing the memory, with only a few chapters in his adult voice.)

From the beginning, Gaiman’s storytelling gives you a great sense of comfort and familiarity, something that stays with you throughout the book.  The story starts off with a normality most fiction readers expect but when the boy meets the Hempstock women, everything changes.  They possess a magic that does not initially fit with the rest of the story, and yet it is needed to make this book unforgettable. (This is Neil Gaiman, after all, and what fun would his stories be without a hint of wonder and fantasy?)

There were two aspects of this story that frustrated me, though.  I wished he would have focused more on the Hempstocks and not so much on the boy (not to say he wasn’t important) because the brief snippets of history I was given about the Hempstocks as well a glimpse of their powers made me yearn for more, but was disappointed there was not.  The 2nd aspect was the ending.  It was not bad as it was not as strong as it could have been, bringing no closure to what happens to 2 of the 3 Hempstocks and the boy (now an adult), after the crazy events associated with the Ocean.

Overall I liked the story, especially when Gaiman revealed his twists on what his characters viewed as reality and when I was able to see the inner strength of each character but I felt there were many potholes throughout the story, fragmented things that could have been woven together to not leave me with so many unanswered questions.  If you are a fan of Neil Gaiman and/or like adult fairytales, I highly recommend The Ocean at the End of the Lane because who knows, maybe you too will be curious as to what secrets this ocean holds.

~Shelly-Beans

June 2013 Books that Did Not 'Make the Grade'

This month there were two books that were great disappointments and did not have enough to keep me reading to make the grade:

The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie (2^nd attempt): I TRIED! I tried so hard to read get through it, and this time I made it through the first 1/3 of the book!  I was beginning to have high hopes for Hugh’s novel but unfortunately, I could not understand where the story was going and the only character that kept me interested in the story was the main character, Thomas Lang.
NOTE: These were my reasons for The Gun Seller not making the grade back in November: His plot was all over the place, his character introductions were not the best and personally, I had a hard time appreciating his British humor. Everything here remains true except for the last part; the dry British humor begins to grow on you after a while.

Honeymoon by James Patterson and Howard Roughan: I am a big fan of James Patterson, but this book was a disgrace. Was it that bad? Oh yeah...it was BAD. If I had a rating system for books that did not make the grade (which I should start doing), this book would get the lowest score. Here’s what made the book so bad: the romantic scenes were so cutesy and fake they made me feel sick with repulsion and I wanted to punch the main character, Nora, in the face because of how evil and hollow she was. That's it, short and sweet.

Happy 1 year anniversary to Shelly Beans Book Reviews! Thank you so much for reading my reviews and as always, let me know what your thoughts are on my reviews, the books themselves, and recommendations of what I should read in the future!

~Shelly-Beans

Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Date of Publication: June 29^th, 2003

Memorable Quotation: “No one wants to admit we’re addicted to music. That’s just not possible. No one’s addicted to music and television and radio. We just need more of it, more channels, a larger screen, more volume. We can’t bear to be without it, but no, nobody’s addicted. We could turn it off anytime we wanted.”

Lasting Impression: Chuck Palahniuk shows the world once again how and why he is a master of his craft in another philosophically crazy rollercoaster of a novel!

Storyline: A

Pace of Story: A

Characters: A+

Ending: A+

Overall: A

When it comes to Chuck Palahniuk, you either love him or hate him; there is no middle ground. (Personally, I love him). The vulgar tone he uses when he exploits the underground knowledge of what we try to stay ignorant to makes it difficult to like him at times, but the way he creates characters full of dreams, emotions, and flaws makes the connection between the characters and the reader seamless, helping the reader turn their dislike of Palahniuk into positive reception.

The main theme of Lullaby is the culling song, a lullaby sung in Africa used to help babies sleep.  Now, the song has become more than a child’s lullaby; it has become deadly, killing not only children but adults as well when someone says or even thinks about the song.  It soon becomes the mission of Carl Streator (a journalist focusing on the mysterious “crib deaths” of babies), Helen Hoover Boyle (a savvy realtor whose specialty are haunted houses), her receptionist, Mona (a young, devout Wiccan), and Mona’s boyfriend, Oyster (an extreme vegan with a hatred for modern culture) to find the poetry books containing the culling song and hopefully prevent the world from a telepathic and verbal apocalypse.

Lullaby is not for the weak-minded or weak-hearted. It is a crazy book, especially towards the end. Let me also say this is NOT for people who have not read anything by Chuck Palahniuk before because there is so much in this novel to be appreciated, to think about after finishing it, that if you make this the first book you read by him, you will not understand what he is talking about and consider him insane.  If you have read a few others by him before reading this one, you will definitely love the unconventional family he creates as well as the metaphors he uses about everyday life. (Although I’m not sure anyone can ever get used to the way he uses his characters to dig into your soul to tell you that you could be someone better.)

A few things disappointed me in this novel. At times, the connections he made between characters or the reasoning behind background information about someone seemed to be a stretch, making the story lose its pace because of the time it took to re-read and ponder what he had said.  The biggest disappointment to me, though, was the two small chapters about Streator and “Sarge” (you will learn about him towards the end of the book).  Palahniuk either should have taken these chapters out or insert them throughout the novel to make it more consistent. It took until the next day for me to realize what those chapters were supposed to be, and I feel greatly disappointed about that because if he were to have done more with them throughout the book, it would have given the novel another dimension.

The ending is beautiful, if not in a very messed-up way that only Palahniuk could pull off. It is very satisfying, though, and raps up everything together so tightly you would think this had all actually happened. Lullaby is certainly another of Palahniuk’s masterpieces due to the way he pushes his readers as well as his characters to contemplate morality, life, and what we are really made of.

~Shelly-Beans

The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Date of Publication: June 15^th, 2010

Memorable Quotation: “So Mitch and I were…happy, yes, but happiness isn’t what people think it is. There is no synonym for ‘happiness’ that could possibly describe the entirety of a life shared by two people…” (pg. 165)

Lasting Impression: Strong concept but poorly executed, The Nobodies Album shows the story of Octavia Frost, a writer and mother trapped in the past, who must face her own personal demons when her son is accused of murdering his girlfriend.

Storyline: A

Pace of Story: B-

Characters: B+

Ending: D

Overall: C+

I became a huge fan of Carolyn Parkhurst after reading Lost and Found and The Dogs of Babel because of her great mix characters and her philosophical undertones of what it means to be alive.  The Nobodies Album, however, was so unorganized and confusing at times that the only reason I finished it was because she had a good hook of a storyline and I wanted to give an author I respected a chance to win me over again.  (Unfortunately, I was greatly disappointed and left saying, “What?” when I finished it.)

The Nobodies Album has a great opening chapter, immediately showcasing Octavia’s personality and situation: a bold writer whose life falls apart after reading a headline about how her son, Milo Frost, lead singer of the band, Pareidolia being accused of murdering his girlfriend, Bettina Moffett.  The story continues with Octavia flying to California to help prove the innocence of her son as she shares the ideas of her latest novel, The Nobodies Album, with her readers.

The novel Octavia writes is interesting because it takes the ending from each of her previous novels and rewrites them, giving her characters another chance to react differently to what happens throughout her novels.  At the end of a few chapters, Parkhurst inserts a section of one of Octavia’s novels, which at first I thought was a good idea but quickly became irritated with this notion because her endings and rewritten endings had nothing to do with the original story.

The other problem with putting these chapters of Octavia’s novel into Parkhurst’s novel was that it deters the reader from the main storyline.  The endings are focused around Octavia’s thoughts and past, which makes the original storyline, her son’s murder mystery, fall by the waste side!   If Parkhurst were to put Octavia’s chapters in an appendix at the end of the book, that would have made the story flow so much better and not made the readers obligated to read these chapters. 

There is a lot of stream of conscious thinking on Octavia’s part that, once again, I did not think was necessary because it seemed to only be taking up space and not providing any true insight into anything.  When Parkhurst did have characters interacting and the what-ifs of the murder began to arise, the story became exciting! Unfortunately, the build up of suspense was not met with a satisfactory ending, only one that was long-winded and reminded me of another murder mystery I had reviewed with the same kind of ending, The Other Woman’s House by Sophie Hannah.

I do not mean to sound like I despised the novel, because I did not. I am frustrated that such great concepts with wonderfully realistic characters were put into a story that was so unorganized that they could not be seen at their full potential. Carolyn Parkhurst is still one of my favorite authors and I do appreciate when an author takes a chance in his or her writing but it has to be organized, and unfortunately, this one was not.  If she were to have cut out a good amount of the Octavia’s stream of conscious thoughts and, as I said previously, put Octavia’s chapters in an appendix, the characters would have shined more and the murder mystery itself would have been so much more organized and suspenseful.

~Shelly-Beans

Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse by Otsuichi

Genre: Japanese Horror/Short Stories

Translator: Nathan Collins

Date of Publication: September 21, 2010

Memorable Quotation: “What are these?” “They’re shoes my friend left. He had this strange habit of saving all his shoes and never throwing them out. He died and these shoes are all that he left behind…the ones on the left end he wore as a child. The ones to the right he wore just before he died. See these guys here, the leather ones?” He pointed at a pair of small shoes near the left end of the row. “He was wearing those when we first met.” He pointed at a pair on the right. “He was wearing these when the café first opened…” History lived in that row of shoes. They were like a timeline.” (From Black Fairy Tale, pgs 263-264)

Lasting Impression: Otsuichi created three suspenseful tales, each filled with magical realism and a description of death that is almost eloquent in its execution.

*NOTE: In rating a collection of short stories, I look at each one overall and combine all of their positives and negatives into one rating, as shown below.*

Story-line: A

Pace of Story: B+

Characters: A

Ending: A-

Overall Grade: A

For those of you who looked at the title and cringed, please do not be deterred.  Although it is true that the three tales in this short story collection are grotesque at times, the idea behind each story is very creative, deserving a chance to be enjoyed.  I have always found the Japanese to be risk-takers in their writing, never having any shame or worrying that they will offend someone, like Chuck Palahniuk, which is why I love reading their literature and always looking past the obvious content to find the deeper meaning.

There are three stories in this collection: Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse; Yuko; and Black Fairy Tale.

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Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse is about three children; siblings Ken and Satsuki and their friend Yayoi and how an innocent conversation and honest confession soon turns into murder.  (SPOILER ALERT: One of the children dies.) The description of the death is graphic but the deceased child lives on by being the narrator of the events that occur (Similar to the narration of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones).  In terms of theatre, the term dramatic irony works well here because in a sense, the reader is aware of what happened to one of the children as the other two main characters try to hide the evidence, but the other characters are not aware as to why the siblings have been acting so strangely. 

Honestly, I was very disappointed with the ending until I read the epilogue. I cannot say the ending left me warm and fuzzy but the epilogue had a crazy twist that I was not expecting, almost making up for my irritation with Otsuichi for ending the story in such a way.

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The 2^nd story, Yuko, is about a young woman named Kiyone and her new position as housekeeper for Master Masayoshi and his wife, Yuko.  The couple seems ordinary until the meal ritual Kiyone must follow is set into place. As Kiyone begins to talk to the neighbors and their rumors begin to mess with her mind, things become stranger by the minute. 

At first, the story reminded me of William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, but soon different elements came into play that made that comparison not as viable as I had thought.  The twist he gives us in this story is very clever but there is a lot of explanation behind it, making the impact not as much of a ‘wow’ factor as I had hoped. Regardless of the ending, the story was brilliant.

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The 3^rd and final story, Black Fairy Tale, was the longest of the three stories but still packs a pretty good punch in the end.  The story focuses on Nami, a high school girl who loses her left eye in a freak accident and causes her to have amnesia.  Not long after she has amnesia does she get an eye transplant that brings her more than vision in her left eye; she can also see the memories of its previous owner at sporadic times of the day.  As Nami becomes more comfortable with these memories to take the place of the ones she lost, she discovers the hometown of the previous town and the secrets, both good and bad, are waiting for her.

This story has an alternating narrative, in which a writer named Miki tells us his story as well.  He has a terrible gift, one reminiscent of John Coffey in The Green Mile, in the respect that both men can prolong life or take it away.   Miki becomes a serial killer not out of thirst for blood, but out of curiosity for what the human body can become; since everyone he kills stays alive without feeling pain.  Miki and Nami eventually meet as fate would have it, but Miki is only a penname and his real idenitity comes to light as Nami’s gets involved in a situation that may be over her head.  

The best part about this story is the subtle detail in the alternating narratives; you think the two narratives are happening at the same time but as the story goes on, we see just how clever Otsuichi is when he delivers a second twist out of nowhere without skipping a beat.

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When I read a book as ‘different’ as this one, I am not expecting a huge following of people to read this.  At times it was not easy for me to read because of the gory detail and the images that came with them but I challenged myself and made it through those difficult parts to enjoy the rest. I am not asking you to have the same appreciation of Japanese Horror or ‘J-Horror’ as I do, in the same respect that I cannot appreciate the film, ‘Melancholia,’ as much as a friend of mine does.  My point is that sometimes it is nice to challenge yourself; and  if you are someone who likes Stephen King, enjoys writers that challenge the way their reader’s think, and you have an open mind towards different cultural literature, Otsuichi’s novels will be a joy to read.

~Shelly-Beans