Review: More Than This

More Than This

Author: Patrick Ness
Pages: 480
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Publication Date: September 10, 2013
Read: September 8, 2013
Source: ARC from publisher

Description from Goodreads:
From two-time Carnegie Medal winner Patrick Ness comes an enthralling and provocative new novel chronicling the life — or perhaps afterlife — of a teen trapped in a crumbling, abandoned world.

A boy named Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments, losing his life as the pounding sea claims him. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is that possible? He remembers dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he here? And where is this place? It looks like the suburban English town where he lived as a child, before an unthinkable tragedy happened and his family moved to America. But the neighborhood around his old house is overgrown, covered in dust, and completely abandoned. What’s going on? And why is it that whenever he closes his eyes, he falls prey to vivid, agonizing memories that seem more real than the world around him? Seth begins a search for answers, hoping that he might not be alone, that this might not be the hell he fears it to be, that there might be more than just this. . . .

First Sentence: "The first moment's after the boy's death pass for him in a confused and weighty blur."

Review:

After finally reading Ness' The Knife of Never Letting Go a month or so ago, I was very curious to try his forthcoming novel. What I'm sure of more than ever now is that Ness is a massive talent. I am also convinced that his books will not work for everyone, because they are daring and strange and twisty and complex. More Than This is a cinematic, philosophical confusing novel, but one I ultimately found fascinating.

I find myself rather at a loss on how to review this book, given that practically anything would be a spoiler, since this is a book that opens up, revealing new layers. For the first hundred or so pages, all you know is what's revealed in the blurb, and talking about anything past that in any detailed way would be to reveal spoilers best left in the dark. Thus, this will probably be short and vague, but bear with me.

The storytelling of More Than This has a rather unique feel to it. Though told in what might seem like a fairly ordinary third person limited narrative, there's something cinematic about More Than This. The novel unfolds like a movie before the reader's eyes, a twisty movie like Memento or Inception that people need to watch several times over to have any sort of solid understanding of what's happening. Even more fascinating is that Seth seems to have a postmodern awareness of his role in the narrative, often calling situations before they even happened, as though he is the creator of his own story.

Seth dies in the prologue, drowns in icy waters. But then he awakens in his childhood home in England, the one his family moved away from after his brother was kidnapped by an escaped prisoner from the neighboring prison. He's thirsty, hungry, and weak. And dead? Seemingly alone, he gathers what food is unexpired and searches out clothing that fits to replace the bandages that covered his body. Whenever he rests, Seth dreams of his life, of his parents who never forgave him for what happened to his brother, of his friends who abandoned him, and his boyfriend who he maybe loved.

Of course, there's so much more to More Than This, rather appropriate no? Only I can't tell you about it. I could compare it to a particular film, but that would be a spoiler like whoa. Keeping things incredibly simple, I had some questions about the worldbuilding, serious ones, but I loved the message of the story, one of looking at the beauty in life and finding your more. I'm also not convinced it really needed to be quite so long.

For such a massive book, this review feels rather ineffectual book, but the book itself serves as a sort of metaphor for life and how we take it for granted. It's a journey to be undertaken by the reader.

Rating: 3.5/5

Favorite Quote: "'I wanted so badly for there to be more. I ached for there to be more than my crappy little life.' He shakes his head. 'And there was more. I just couldn't see it.'"

Review: The Returned

The Returned
The Returned, Book 1

Author: Jason Mott
Pages: 352
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Publication Date: August 27, 2013
Read: August 18-
Source: ARC from publisher

Description from Goodreads:
Jacob was time out of sync, time more perfect than it had been. He was life the way it was supposed to be all those years ago. That's what all the Returned were.

Harold and Lucille Hargrave's lives have been both joyful and sorrowful in the decades since their only son, Jacob, died tragically at his eighth birthday party in 1966. In their old age they've settled comfortably into life without him, their wounds tempered through the grace of time ... Until one day Jacob mysteriously appears on their doorstep—flesh and blood, their sweet, precocious child, still eight years old.

All over the world people's loved ones are returning from beyond. No one knows how or why this is happening, whether it's a miracle or a sign of the end. Not even Harold and Lucille can agree on whether the boy is real or a wondrous imitation, but one thing they know for sure: he's their son. As chaos erupts around the globe, the newly reunited Hargrave family finds itself at the center of a community on the brink of collapse, forced to navigate a mysterious new reality and a conflict that threatens to unravel the very meaning of what it is to be human.

With spare, elegant prose and searing emotional depth, award-winning poet Jason Mott explores timeless questions of faith and morality, love and responsibility. A spellbinding and stunning debut, The Returned is an unforgettable story that marks the arrival of an important new voice in contemporary fiction.

First Sentence: "Harold opened the door that day to find a dark-skinned man in a well-cut suit smiling at him."

Review:

At BEA, Harlequin was really pushing The Returned. The publicists were all really excited for it and recommending it highly. While a bit interested, I was also skeptical, because, hey, they're publicists and pimping the more highly marketed titles extra hard comes with the job description. Well, in this case, they were right. The Returned is slow-moving, but elegant, graceful and thought-provoking.

The Returned is not going to work for every reader, though that's not surprising since no book does. I suppose what I mean to say is that it will be a tough read for many. The pace of The Returned is slow most of the way through, though there is some serious speed right at the end. What Mott's really digging into is the concept, so it's a very philosophical read, a brainstorming of what such a strange occurrence could result in. If you need books packed with action and excitement, The Returned will not do that for you. Sure, it's people coming back from the dead, but it's not zombies and there's no mayhem or brain-chomping.

In The Returned, Mott puts forth this concept: people who died begin coming back to life. They don't all reappear, nor do they necessarily seem to appear in the location where they died. None of them remember anything between their death and returning to life, and they are all the precise age that they were at the time of their demise. All memories seem to be intact. Scientists can find no rhyme or reason in why anyone is returning and why some do or do not return.

Using a family in the small town of Arcadia as an example, Mott depicts the spiral of society into chaos and hatred as this phenomenon occurs. As one might expect, there's a lot of discussion of what it means to be human and what the Returned really are. These people died but now here they are. Is it the same person or a different one? Should they have rights? The ethical concerns are fascinating.

Mott also looks at the possible logistical issues with regards to the Returned. Since they pop up in seemingly random places, like Harold and Lucille's son Jacob who appeared in China, there's the difficulty of sorting people back to where they belong. More of an issue, though, is what to do with all of these Returned if the formerly dead begin to outnumber the true living. The government doesn't know how to handle the situation, and the public is torn between hatred and fear of them and joy and hope at having lost loved ones back.

What this does to interpersonal relationships is my favorite aspect, of course. A situation like this begs so many questions: if a person remarried after the spouse's death and the spouse Returns, what happens? What if two teenagers were deeply in love until one of them died, and, now the dead one Returns still 16 with former love so much older? If they had sex would that be statutory rape or a whole new situation? In pretty much every way, no one has any clue how to deal with the Returned. It's scary and confusing and hopeful and worrisome.

If you're wondering whether The Returned is right for you, I point you to those hypothetical questions. Do you find the consideration thereof a fascinating enterprise or do you think that such speculation on something so utterly unlikely and illogical is pointless? If the former, read away. If the latter, probably not, I'm sad to say. The Returned lives in the hypothetical, and the beautifully simple writing likely will not be enough to save the novel for you if you simply do not care for that.

However, despite the fact that I loved the intellectual exercise, the writing, and that the ending almost made this hard-hearted reader cry in a public place, I did have a couple of issues with the book. First off, I think it's a bit ridiculous that, at least towards the start, there was never any move to put The Returned to work, except for the one famous artist. I mean, come on, if there are more people then there will need to be more stuff, so there need to be more workers. Obviously. Also, I'm not a really a fan of how the book wrapped up, which, sadly, I cannot explain without spoilers. I just felt like it was sort of a weak and anticlimactic way to do it. I get why, as that ending is more poetic, but I thought it a bit too simple.

Though I have nothing against romance novels, I am really excited to see Harlequin broadening their horizons with titles like The Returned, especially since they're doing so with such great books like this one. Patient readers who adore high concept reads that will really make them think need this book.

Rating: 4.5/5

Favorite Quote: "There is a music that forms sometimes, from the pairing of two people. An inescapable cadence that continues on."

Review: A Tale for the Time Being

A Tale for the Time Being

Author: Ruth Ozeki
Pages: 432
Publisher: Viking Adult
Source: Publisher

Description from Goodreads:
A brilliant, unforgettable, and long-awaited novel from bestselling author Ruth Ozeki

“A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be.”

In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who’s lived more than a century. A diary is Nao’s only solace—and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine.

Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao’s drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future.

Full of Ozeki’s signature humor and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.

First Sentence: "Hi!"

Review:

Generally, when I sit down to write my review of a book, I know precisely what I want to say and have a pretty good idea how I feel about the book in question. My reactions tend to be clear and summing up my thoughts is not that difficult. Not so with A Tale for the Time Being. There were parts that I loved utterly, parts that bored me, and parts I'm not sure that I quite fathom. As such, this review might be a bit meandering, so bear with me.

In subject matter, though not in characterization or overall aim, A Tale for the Time Being reminds me heavily of Jonathan Safran Foer's remarkable book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Both follow story lines in the past and the present, as a main character searches through the history of their ancestors to find meaning in life after tragedy. Both draw lines between WWII and 9-11. Both feature odd protagonists, though they are strange in entirely different ways. Ozeki does very different things with these elements, but the similarities are fascinating, and I would recommend A Tale for the Time Being to Foer fans.

The opening pages of Ozeki's tale captured me immediately. A Tale for the Time Being opens with Nao, a sixteen-year-old girl living in Tokyo. Though born in Japan, she feels American, having spent much of her childhood overseas in Sunnyvale, California, where her father was working. When he lost his job in the bursting of the Dot-com bubble, they moved back to Japan. Nao hates it there. Her father still hasn't found work, instead descending first into gambling and then becoming an agoraphobic determined to commit suicide. Nao suffers from the change to the Japanese school system as well, since she's behind academically and horribly bullied by her classmates. At the time she begins her story, she's a drop-out, a ronin, studying to take the exams to get into high school again.

What I loved about the opening, though, is how authentic and real Nao feels. She's been through so much darkness at that point, is herself intent on suicide, but there's something fresh, young, and vibrant about her narration. My favorite parts of Nao's story are always those where she loses her train of thought and goes off on a rambling tangent. Her story itself is very sad, but her tangents are where you really get a look at the real Nao and how her mind works. She's darkly funny and I was desperately hoping for her story to come to a happy ending.

Nao's story takes place within another story, Ruth's. Ruth is half-Japanese and living in a remote Canadian city with her husband, Oliver. An urbanite, Ruth does not love her life there. She hates the way the power is constantly out from the storms and she's been struggling to get any writing done, cut off from her inspiration. Out on the beach, she finds a plastic bag and plans to throw it away, afraid of what might be inside. Oliver opens the bag, and inside finds a Hello Kitty lunchbox, within which are letters in old-fashioned Japanese, a diary in French, and a copy of Proust with a school girl's writing inside, mostly in English.

Ruth's story is both a mystery, as she searches for the ending to Nao's story, and self-discovery. As she reads, Ruth also researches, trying to find evidence that this diary is in fact a true thing. She gets the diaries and letters translated and the story slowly unfolds around her, becoming more present to her than her actual life. There's an almost magical realism sort of feel to Ruth's portion of the narrative, as though there's an actual mystical connection between writer and reader, allowing Ruth to influence the story despite the distance and time between them, though everything else is couched firmly in the real, non-magical world.

Within Nao's story, there are others, as she learns about her grandmother, her uncle and her father. Ozeki's got a huge focus on family and on the importance of life. She also delves into powerful philosophical themes, like the purpose of existence and Schrödinger's cat. The title, for example, is a lovely play on words, making use of two meanings, both a tale for the moment and a tale for beings that live in time. That phrase pops up at many points in the narrative and is crucial to Ozeki's overarching themes.

Unfortunately, I don't really feel like I got this. I think I'm partway there, but I most certainly do not have everything all figured out, which I don't think you're supposed to necessarily, but I should be a bit further along. Part of my problem is that I didn't have any clue where the story was going, having falsely believed Nao's assertion that it would be a story about her grandmother, but Nao is not a reliable storyteller, which had already been established, so silly me. As such, I allowed myself to get bored in sections that didn't seem important to me, because I had a predefined idea of where I thought the story was going. My expectations kept me from paying as much attention as I should have and from picking up all of the threads needed to weave the story into a cohesive, meaningful whole in my head.

All I can leave you with is that, though this novel didn't get an absurdly high rating from me in the end, it's one I will be keeping in my personal collection. These days, I have so many books I tend to give them away once I finish, except the ones in the 4-5 range, and a lot of the 4s I pass on as well. I think A Tale for the Time Being is one of those odd books that I will have a much greater appreciation for on a reread, because I'll have a better idea of what to expect and be able to appreciate more the intricate weaving of Ozeki's story.

Rating: 3/5

Favorite Quote: "And if you decide not to read anymore, hey, no problem, because you're not the one I was waiting for anyway. But if you decide to read on, then guess what? You're my kind of time being and together we'll make magic!"

Review: Ask the Passengers

Ask the Passengers

Author: A.S. King
Pages: 293
Publisher: Little, Brown BFYR
Publication Date: October 23, 2012
Source: Gifted ARC by Bekka

Description from Goodreads:
Astrid Jones copes with her small town's gossip and narrow-mindedness by staring at the sky and imagining that she's sending love to the passengers in the airplanes flying high over her backyard. Maybe they'll know what to do with it. Maybe it'll make them happy. Maybe they'll need it. Her mother doesn't want it, her father's always stoned, her perfect sister's too busy trying to fit in, and the people in her small town would never allow her to love the person she really wants to: another girl named Dee. There's no one Astrid feels she can talk to about this deep secret or the profound questions that she's trying to answer. But little does she know just how much sending her love--and asking the right questions--will affect the passengers' lives, and her own, for the better.

In this unmistakably original portrayal of a girl struggling to break free of society's boxes and definitions, Printz Honor author A.S. King asks readers to question everything--and offers hope to those who will never stop seeking and sharing real love.

First Sentence: "Every airplane, no matter how far it is up there, I send love to it."

Review:
Okay, it's official. I think A.S. King is one of the very best YA writers out there. Ask the Passengers is only my second experience with King, but I loved it just as much as, perhaps even more than, the first one I read, Everybody Sees the Ants. Even better, King falls into that realm of authors who can do something totally new every time. She has some themes in common, but the books themselves are very different. One has a younger male teen lead, one an older female teen, and both voices come through completely authentic. I am always so incredibly impressed by authors who can vary their subject matter, style and characters so much, sort of reinventing themselves with each book.

I just adore King's writing. She is, for me, one of the most quotable authors. Her writing isn't overly complex, but it gets the feelings and the point across so incredibly strongly. There are so many lines that I wanted to read aloud to my friend on vacation with me so that she could appreciate King's brilliance, but I couldn't because I'm so making her read this book next.

Ask the Passengers focuses on the theme of belonging, of identity, of self-discovery, and of peer pressure. Astrid Jones doesn't want to be put into boxes, doesn't want to be forced to be any one thing. She just wants to be Astrid Jones, whoever that is. Why does it have to matter so much whether we're gay or straight, white or brown, religious or agnostic, male or female, wealthy or poor, popular or unpopular? Astrid struggles with everyone's expectations and perceptions, afraid to be who she is but also unwilling to pretend to be something or someone else.

These themes resonated with me, because, really, who the fuck cares about those things? I mean, COME ON, it's the 21st century and we're still so caught up in defining things one way or another and on what's right that gay marriage is legal hardly anywhere. King brings up a lot of powerful issues and looks at the issue of being a girl in love with a girl in a different way than I have yet seen, and really made me consider the issue from a new angle. Plus, I sympathized with her desire to not have anyone know her business, because that's totally how I am. Why does everyone need to know?

Of course, the book also has humor, because the best issues books are imbued with humor, because a spoonful of sugar really does help the medicine go down. The whole opening plot is about how Astrid is weighed down by all of these secrets, those of her friends, her family and herself. Her friends, Justin and Kristina, are a power couple at school, the kind to be nominated for Homecoming King and Queen. Every Friday, they go on double dates with another couple, Donna and Chad. Actually, though, Justin's dating Chad and Kristina's dating Donna. SCANDAL! The only one who knows is Astrid, who's trying to decide whether to confess that she's actually dating a girl too, Dee, who works with her. I thought the whole situation was a hot mess, but I loved how theatrical it was. This would make a fantastic indie film. Just saying.

Another thing that I loved about the book, one which I could definitely see alienating some readers is Astrid's newly developed fascination with philosophy in general and Socrates in particular. I love philosophy myself, but the frequent discussions of it could put off some people. Even more than that, the philosophy takes a weird turn, in that Astrid creates an imaginary friend version of Socrates, who she dubs Frank Socrates; he helps her out along the way, making her question her behavior and what she holds true. I thought this worked, because of how motivated Astrid was by him and just her sheer exuberance about the class in general, but I do think it's interesting that both of her MCs I've read so far have had imaginary friends. Very odd, that.

My very favorite thing, though, was the part that gave the book its title: Astrid's love of planes and their passengers. Astrid does this thing where she will lie on the ground or on picnic tables and stare up at the sky, watching for planes. When she sees planes, she sends the passengers her love, along with her questions and frustrations, in a way of trying to help other people feel more loved and comfortable than she herself does. That was awesome just in and of itself. Better still, though, were the snippets of other people's stories (though a couple were too off the wall for me), showing the effect her little bits of love sent into the universe had on someone or other on the plane. These were all incredibly touching and moving, and I loved this little dose of magical realism.

I do know that everyone probably won't love A.S. King; I suspect her books will just be too weird for a lot of people. I, however, love them and want to strongly urge everyone who liked thought-provoking, quirky, clever books to read them. From what I can tell, A.S. King does not have anywhere near the name recognition and popularity she deserves.

Rating: 4.5/5

Favorite Quote: "'All those people who are chained here thinking that their reputations matter and this little shit matters are so freaking shortsighted. Dude, what matters is that you're happy. What matters is your future. What matters is that we get out of here in one piece. What matters is finding the truth of our own lives, not caring about what other people think is the truth of us.'"

I Am Mine - Pearl Jam

Anthem

Author: Ayn Rand
Pages: 105
Publisher: Signet
Source: Own

Description from Goodreads:
Anthem has long been hailed as one of Ayn Rand's classic novels, and a clear predecessor to her later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. In Anthem, Rand examines a frightening future in which individuals have no name, no independence, and no values. Equality 7-2521 lives in the dark ages of the future where all decisions are made by committee, all people live in collectives, and all traces of individualism have been wiped out. Despite such a restrictive environment, the spark of individual thought and freedom still burns in him--a passion which he has been taught to call sinful. In a purely egalitarian world, Equality 7-2521 dares to stand apart from the herd--to think and choose for himself, to discover electricity, and to love the woman of his choice. Now he has been marked for death for committing the ultimate sin. In a world where the great "we" reign supreme, he has rediscovered the lost and holy word--"I."

First Sentence: "It is a sin to write this."

Review:
Due to the influx of shiny new dystopias into the world, this is probably the only dystopian classic I'll be reviewing this month. Actually, I have already read Anthem, ages ago, when I was in my sophomore year of high school, so long, apparently, that the yellow of my highlighting is scarcely discernible. At the time, I loathed it, as I did much of my required reading. Now that I'm older and better educated, I have a much better understanding of what Ayn Rand was up to. Though heavy-handed, there is a lot that is interesting in Ayn Rand's brief philosophical work.

Readers unfamiliar with Ayn Rand should know some things before they launch into Anthem. One thing that would be helpful to know is that she's crazy. Her ideas are incredibly radical. She believes in the power of the individual and has loathing for anything that compels a person to do anything. As such, she very much does not approve of collectivism, and that is what she is challenging in Anthem. Though written in story format, Anthem is a thinly veiled philosophical and political tract. This was just a way for her to tell you her opinions, which she will do via her character.

The dystopian society depicted in Anthem is a fascinating one, and I really wish that she had done justice to it. This story would have benefited greatly from more pages and less of the dreaded opinion hammer. In the world of Anthem, men live in the collective, raised to be entirely equal. They go from the Home of the Infants to the Home of the Students to the Home of their designated employment to the Home of the Useless. This is the life of all men. There is no individual, only the collective.

To accomplish this sense of the group, the story is told in first person plural, a very unusual storytelling method, also seen earlier in Dystopian August in What's Left of Me. In essence, this means that the main character, Equality 7-2521 refers to himself as we, because there is only the we. All his life, Equality 7-2521 has not fit in properly, because he is too clever, too curious, too tall and too aware of his superiority. As such, he is forced into a menial profession. His desire for learning cannot be quenched, though, and he finds ways to sneak around and gather knowledge, quickly surpassing the Scholars of his community.

Along the way, he becomes attracted to a woman, something entirely forbidden. He even has the audacity to speak with her and to call her by an individual name (The Golden One). Through all of his rebellion, however, his ultimate goal is to gain acceptance from his community. He wants to show them what he has discovered and to improve their lives. He just wants to be one of them, and, if not admired himself, have his invention admired.

As I said, this could be a powerful tale about the importance of language and individualism. Rand could have made her point more strongly had she shown the reader the truth of it, rather than telling us, from her lordly perch, what we should believe, a rather ironic issue. Her tale about the importance of learning for oneself and not being told what to do is trying to set the reader's opinions.

The other aspect I find rather upsetting is the role of the female character, Liberty 5-3000. She too sees something wrong in the society, as evidenced by her fearless, sharp eyes. However, the reader does not get to learn anything about her besides that and her attraction to Equality 7-2521. While he is inventing things, she continues to do her work. He thinks of her as The Golden One (which refers to her lovely appearance), while she thinks of him as The Unconquered (which speaks to his powerful spirit and intelligence). Even worse, when they learn about people having names just for themselves, he gives himself a name he finds fitting...and then he chooses one for her. Let her pick her own goddamn name. The patriarchal attitude inherent in this made me so incredibly angry, especially when coming from a powerful woman.

For anyone interested in reading dystopias, Anthem is certainly worth perusing, especially since it's so brief. Were Ayn Rand still alive, I bet she would have some choice things to say about No Child Left Behind; imagining this really amuses me.

Favorite Quote: "I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned." 

"The selfish, they're all standing in line
Faithing and hoping to buy themselves time
Me, I figure as each breath goes by
I only own my mind"

Remember: Every comment on a post during Dystopian August is an entry to win one of fourteen dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels IF you've filled out the form from this post.

I Don't Want to Be - Gavin DeGraw

What's Left of Me
The Hybrid Chronicles, Book 1

Author: Kat Zhang
Pages: 356
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: September 18, 2012
Source: Kat Zhang Signing at BEA

Description from Goodreads:
Eva and Addie started out the same way as everyone else—two souls woven together in one body, taking turns controlling their movements as they learned how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. But as they grew, so did the worried whispers. Why aren’t they settling? Why isn’t one of them fading? The doctors ran tests, the neighbors shied away, and their parents begged for more time. Finally Addie was pronounced healthy and Eva was declared gone. Except, she wasn’t…

For the past three years, Eva has clung to the remnants of her life. Only Addie knows she’s still there, trapped inside their body. Then one day, they discover there may be a way for Eva to move again. The risks are unimaginable–hybrids are considered a threat to society, so if they are caught, Addie and Eva will be locked away with the others. And yet…for a chance to smile, to twirl, to speak, Eva will do anything.

First Sentence: "Addie and I were born into the same body, our souls' ghostly fingers entwined before we gasped our very first breath."

Review:
Often, as I'm reading dystopias, I am making a list of all of the elements borrowed from a prior dystopia. Having read so many, coming across a truly original idea is a bit startling and exceedingly impressive. Kat Zhang's book is like none I have read before. What's Left of Me is a story that questions what it means to be a human, to be a soul, and to be normal.

Author Lauren DeStefano is blurbed on the back of my ARC as saying, "A shockingly unique story that redefines what it means to be human." Usually, I ignore blurbs, because they often say so little, and they're often meaningless. This one I agree with wholeheartedly. That sentence captures the essence of What's Left of Me. This dystopia takes on philosophical questions and is one of the most thought-provoking books I've read this year.

In this world, a sort of alternate universe, two souls are born into every body. At the start of life, there are two people in each human frame. As time passes and the body grows, one of the personalities takes over, asserts dominance, and the other one dissipates, gone as though never there. By the age of ten, there should be just one soul where two used to reside; they should settle. Up until that point, the two souls trade off, so that body is sometimes the one and sometimes the other.

Some souls, though, do not settle. Neither soul goes away entirely. These people are called hybrids, and they are unacceptable. Hybrids are dangerous, unstable within themselves, thus unstable in society. The United States does not stand for this, because they are sick of the wars that hybridity brings, as evidenced by the war-torn, hybrid-filled, foreign nations.

Eva and Addie never settled. Eventually, Eva faded into the background and they pretended to be an I instead of a we, an us instead of a me. Eva can do nothing but watch and listen as her sister controls their body, can converse with no one but Addie, in their mental language. What does it mean to be a soul? To be a person? Is it Addie/Eva that's broken or society?

Told from Eva's perspective, What's Left of Me is daring in its storytelling. Never have I read a book written quite this way, just as I've never considered how different life would be with two people inhabiting the one body. Most of the story is told in first person plural, even though we're in Eva's 'mind' so to speak. This writing style never ceased being odd to me, but it always made sense.

Unlike a lot of dystopias, What's Left of Me does not have a ton of action, though there is some. The joy of this novel is philosophical and psychological. There isn't much romance at all, though there are some hints. Of course, how can you have a healthy relationship when your body doesn't belong just to you? Seriously, how crazy to think about is this?

Aside from Eva, and perhaps Ryan, I didn't get a great feel for most of the characters. Eva, our narrator, is so deep within her own thoughts that she doesn't necessarily have a great feel for anyone. I really didn't get a reading on Addie, except to wonder how she became the dominant personality. I suspect Eva probably should have been and may have faded back to save her Addie's soul, but that's all speculation.

Some spoilery thoughts that you'll have to highlight to make legible: The main issue that I had with What's Left of Me was that some things were too easy. When they're all trapped in the mental institution, they get out so simply. You know why? Because the freaking doors to the rooms weren't locked, so they could have late night powwows in the halls. The furniture wasn't nailed down. What kind of institution is this? If they think hybrids are dangerous and might try to escape, they're not going to have such weak security. Speaking of, the place wouldn't almost entirely empty of staff on some nights either.

For those of you that enjoy cerebral reads, What's Left of Me is not to be missed. I am truly in awe of Zhang's mind for coming up with such a creative, astounding idea.

Favorite Quote: "I was terrified. I was eleven years old, and though I'd been told my entire life that it was entirely natural for the recessive soul to fade away, I didn't want to go. I wanted twenty thousand more sunrises, three thousand more hot summer days at the pool. I wanted to know what it was like to have a first kiss. The other recessives were lucky to have disappeared at four or five. They knew less."

"I don't have to be anything other
Than the birth of two souls in one
Part of where I'm going, is knowing where I'm coming from
I don't want to be

Anything other than what I've been trying to be lately
All I have to do
Is think of me and I have peace of mind
I'm tired of looking 'round rooms

Wondering what I've got to do
Or who I'm supposed to be
I don't want to be anything other than me
I'm surrounded by liars everywhere I turn

I'm surrounded by imposters everywhere I turn
I'm surrounded by identity crisis everywhere I turn
Am I the only one who noticed?
I can't be the only one who's learned"

Remember: Every comment on a post during Dystopian August is an entry to win one of fourteen dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels IF you've filled out the form from this post.

Twisted Nerve - Kill Bill Soundtrack

Believers

Author: Naoki Yamamoto
Volumes: 2
Publisher: This manga is not currently licensed in English
Source: Scanlation on Mangafox

Description from Mangafox:
Three members of a modern-day Japanese cult who are taking part in a "deserted island" program in which they must work together to purify and refine their spiritual essence and transform themselves into more advanced human beings. Of course, life doesn't usually work that way.

Review:
Honestly, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to review this. Since it's my policy to review everything, I considered reading all but the last chapter and then quitting, but that's lame, so here goes. I chose to give this brief series a try because the description up there sounded fascinating. Creepy cult? I am in. The story started out boring and creepy, then it got weird and creepy, which is where it stayed.

What the Mangafox description leaves out (but the Goodreads description I didn't check until later doesn't) is that this cult is built pretty much solely around renunciation of sexual desires. So, here I am, reading along and suddenly BAM fairly graphic sex every couple pages. Seriously. The first few chapters were just these three people on an island, two men and one woman, apparently following the directive of some leader. They are reliant upon deliveries for food and orders, but they don't necessarily come in a timely fashion, so they worry a bit about food.

Mostly what they do is discuss their dreams every day. This manga is trying to say something about dreams and sex, but I really have no clue what. If they have bad, impure dreams, the punishment is to be buried chest deep in the sand and left there for a while. This is all that had really happened. Then some drunkards land their boat on the island, wreak havoc and try to rape the woman. The girl runs off and the men shoot the interlopers. The 'chairman' of the island stays to cleanup the mess and the other guy goes to check on the woman, who confesses to having been turned on by her attempted rape. She is shamed. To make her feel better, he's all 'oh hey, check out my erection,' so that she'll know she's not the only dirty person around. Obviously, she feels guilty for giving him impure thoughts, so she has to give him a blow job.

And that's basically what this manga is, though it expands to include the chairman, who has all sorts of kinky purification rituals in mind. Why did I keep reading? Well, for one thing, it was really short. If there had been any more volumes of this, I wouldn't have bothered. I also really wanted to learn more about the cult. Why do they sit with their feet pressed together? How did this group get started? Why are they all here? How do they have control over this island? What's the world like outside the island? Well, thankfully, that stuff does get explained, but, seriously, I didn't get it. I feel like the manga would have benefited from a bit more balance between to the crazy and the conclusion that explained how all of this came about.

I really don't know what to make of this at all. On Goodreads, it actually has a really high rating, so I suppose there aren't too many people like me stumbling across it with no clue what it's about. This is my third seriously unfortunate manga in a row. I hope I read a good one soon. This might be up your alley if you like reading creepy, mind-bending things with lots of sex.

Rating: 2/5

Existentialism on Prom Night - Straylight Run

Tina's Mouth

Author: Keshni Kashyap
Illustrator: Mari Araki
Pages: 250
ARC Acquired from: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt via NetGalley

Brief Summary:
For her course on existentialist philosophy in her sophomore year of high school (she goes to the fanciest of schools), Tina is writing a diary to Jean-Jacques Rousseau about her thoughts regarding existentialism and trying to discover herself. Accompanying, the entries are her illustrations.

Review:
First of all, I feel the need to emphasize how much I wish I could have gone to a high school with classes specifically on existentialism and Russian literature. I went to a good high school, but not that good. Also, I am super envious of her project being to write a journal that the teacher has promised not to open and read. He must, though, right? Otherwise, I bet about half of the students who had chosen that project wrote nothing.

Anyway, I loved this. Tina was a really believable heroine, suffering through such angsty teen problems as friend breakups, boy drama and family crises. The bits on friendship were really hard-hitting and realistic, as I should know having had many such issues of my own.

Another main theme of the book is diversity and not making assumptions based on race. For example, Tina is Indian. Everyone keeps asking her stupid questions about things, particularly religion. Her crush throughout the book is even laboring under the delusion that she is a Buddhist (she's not; she's a atheist).

What really made this book pop, though, were the illustrations. I just loved them. They really do make the journal look like something a teen (a much more artistic one than I ever was or could have hoped to have been) would make. So much of her personality shines through the illustrations. I bet they look stellar in the actual book (as opposed to the e-galley).

Even though the story does not actually involve prom or prom night, I couldn't pass up the only song currently in my music library about existentialism. There may not be singing in the book, but, hey, you sing with a mouth right?

Rating: 3.5/5

"Sing me something soft,
Sad and delicate,
Or loud and out of key,
Sing me anything,
We're glad for what we've got,
Done with what we've lost
Our whole lives laid out right in front of us"

Forever Young - Rod Stewart

The Postmortal

Author: Drew Magary
Pages: 365
ARC Acquired from: Penguin

Brief Summary:
In 2019, a researcher stumbles across the cure for aging by accident while trying to figure out how to change hair color for good, because he wants to stop being a ginger. That's right. He cured aging. Of course, lots of people are really excited about this and go get the cure, even though its illegal. Others see it as the worst thing ever to happen to humanity and set out to prevent anyeone from reaping the benefits of it. One thing's for sure: being able to freeze the aging process at will has more consequences than anyone bargained for.

Review:
What an amazing book! Everyone knows I love dystopias, so imagine me doing a happy dance at finding a really great one. What I loved about this book was that Magary took such a philosophical view of the subject, considering the myriad reactions to and consequences of such a scientific breakthrough.

For example, people nowadays like to blather about the state of the family and all of that jazz, but imagine if everyone lived forever...could you make a marriage last indefinitely? When large changes happen, particularly dramatic ones, people turn to religion, so mightn't a new religion form? Because there are less deaths but the births aren't stopping, overpopulation is liable to become a huge problem. This might lead to harsher punishments for criminals, especially considering that it's one thing for the state to pay for life in prison for 60 some years and another to pay for what could be hundreds of years. Magary considers all of these issues and so many more...and I loved every minute of it.

The book starts with a frame story, a brief memo dated 2093, in which it is explained that the rest of the book consists of what are essentially diary entries by a man named John Farrell. These entries are intended to show why the cure can never be legalized. Starting the book off this way is a really interesting move, since it means that the reader has a good amount of knowledge of the ending at the beginning. This could seriously backfire, but it certainly didn't for me. Actually, the only thing I would change about it adding a brief frame story note to the end of the file as well.

I really want to see more from Drew Magary in the hopefully not too distant future, either later on in the post-postmortal society or some other fictional world entirely. If you love a book that makes you think or want something to incite some discussion in your book club, do not miss this one!

"And when you finally fly away
I'll be hoping that I served you well
For all the wisdom of a lifetime
No one can ever tell"

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor - Johann Sebastian Bach

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Author: Milan Kundera
Pages: 288
Publisher: Penguin

This is not a book that really lends itself to summarization, so I'm not going to even try (Yoda would be disappointed otherwise, and you don't want to disappoint Yoda). The best explanation of the book comes from within its own pages:

"This entire book is a novel in the form of variations. The individual parts follow each other like individual stretches of a journey leading toward a theme, a thought, a single situation, the sense of which fades into the distance.
It is a novel about Tamina, and whenever Tamina is absent, it is a novel for Tamina. She is its main character and main audience, and all the other stories are variations on her story and come together in her life as a mirror.
It is a novel about laughter and forgetting, about forgetting and Prague, about Prague and angels." (165-6)

This really does convey what The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is like. The book is composed of a series of vignettes, some obviously related to one another and others, so far as I can tell, coming out of left field. The composition of the novel is similar to the one other Kundera book I have read, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Both are told in brief snippets and focus as much (actually more) as philosophy as on characters.

The difference lies in the fact that The Unbearable Lightness of Being had a clearly defined cast, setting and plot. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting does not have any such clear cut framework. In fact, his description that the parts follow one another towards a theme, only to have sense fade into the distance, perfectly captures my experience reading this novel. Any time I started getting really interested in a particular character, journey, philosophical idea, etc, or even just started to think I knew what he was getting at, the story would inevitably leap to something else entirely, leaving me more confused and irritated than before.

He also does some weird postmodern, breaking the fourth wall stuff that really was not working for me. I have never been a huge fan of novelists including themselves as a character in their works (name and all), and this was one of those times where it did not work for me. Another thing that bothered me was the weird metaphor where death was like childhood, which also involved children raping an adult woman. That was weird and creepy, and didn't really quite work as a metaphor. And, sadly, it's not the only rape scene in the book.

Sometimes, I could tell that Kundera was getting close to something interesting here, but I don't feel like he made it. There is definitely a reason why The Unbearable Lightness of Being is the more well-known work. I would recommend reading that one first.