Brief Reviews Fall 2014 part 3

“Panic began as so many things do in Carp, a poor town of twelve thousand people in the middle of nowhere: because it was summer, and there was nothing else to do.”  Panic is a game that can change your life or take it away.  Every school day every student pays a dollar to the pot for the winner.  On the first day of summer any senior can enter the game by participating in the opening jump.  For the rest of summer, participants compete in challenges like walking on a slippery board 50 feet up with no net.  Secret judges watch their progress and eliminate the slow and the scared.  The winner walks away with enough money to change their life forever.  The losers sometimes can no longer walk at all.  But for $67,00 many think it's worth the risk.
This book was certainly gripping and kept me eagerly turning the pages.  The characters are well drawn and are perhaps best described as living lives of frantic desperation.  After all, to participate in these stunts you'd have to be pretty desperate.  This goes way beyond your average game of truth or dare.  The main character's mother struggles with substance abuse and the effect this has on her daughters is shown in an unflinching and deeply moving way.  Every participant is broken in some way and hoping that Panic will be the answer to all their problems.  Which brings me to my main (SPOILER) issue with the book--it is the answer to their problems.  The game itself is completely unethical from the way that they collect money like some high school mafia beating up kids who don't comply (a dollar a day adds up especially in a town with such prevalent poverty and the source of the money is never questioned or depicted as problematic) to the game itself where at one point they have to cross six lanes of a highway blindfolded.  That is insane.  It's mentioned that there were some deaths in previous years but there's no real consequences for any of the characters during the novel.  In fact at the end their experiences brought them all closer together so they're all coupled off, richer, and happier than they were before thanks to their participation in this immoral, illegal, and completely insane game.  There's not even any mention at the end that Panic should stop.  It seems like all the characters are content to let it continue in perpetuity and why wouldn't they?  It worked out pretty darn well for them!  If you're just looking for a quick paced read then this will fit the bill but do not try this at home. Panic by Lauren Oliver: buy it or check it out today!

 I was eager to read this story when I heard it was a retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac.  That play is very near and dear to my heart, which might have made my expectations unreasonably high, but the fact remains that I was sorely disappointed. Cyrano is the story of a noble, heroic figure with a gift for sword fighting and poetry whose disfigurement leads him to believe that his love, Roxanne, would never return his affections.  So he agrees to the nearest thing he can get--wooing her for the better-looking but less-eloquent Christian.  Christian turns out to be a heroic figure himself with some integrity and after winning Roxanne through Cyrano's letters insists that Cyrano tell her the truth because he wishes to be loved for the fool he is or not at all.  In this version Cyrano is a drug dealer and swindler who accepts payment to stalk a girl so he can help a jerky jock woo her.  Not only does the Christian figure lack the complexity of the original instead filling the usual stereotypical jock role but Cyrano's (completely serious) closing advice to a kid who wants to become popular is that he should become a drug dealer.  This story has a vague resemblance to the bare-bones plot points of the original but has very little of the poetry, complexity, or heart. Sway by Kat Spears: buy it or check it out today!

 I read this book for my book club.  It was billed to me as similar to Buffy but the comparison did not serve it well.  Buffy is both a feminist and geek icon as well as a cheerleader. Her empathy and understanding of others helps her fulfill her destiny as much as her powers.  The main character of this book meanwhile spends most of the novel judging every other character for everything from wearing hipster glasses "I mean, it’s the twenty-first century. There are fashionable options for eyewear." to when she says "--ew--role playing games." None of the characters were really sympathetic or even believable to me.  The boy who teases her (because he likes her and is apparently five) is a journalist and reads biographies of the greats and tries to take his profession seriously.  Yet he has no trouble throwing journalistic ethics out the window when it comes to printing rumors about his crush. Her boyfriend meanwhile pulls a total jerk move towards the end of the book that seems completely out of character and whose only explanation seems to be because it was convenient for the plot. Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins: buy it or check it out today!

This book was just as absurd and hilarious as the first.  It's like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for fantasy instead of sci-fi.  My favorite idea from this book was a light globe that runs off sarcasm.  If only I had one of those I'd never have to buy a light bulb again! Instead of describing the book I'll just share some of my favorite humorous quotes from it.
"The only time we get to fight the powers of darkness is during one of the kingdom’s frequent power cuts."
“If a shred of integrity fell into your soul, it would die a very lonely death.”
"'It’s complicated.' 'Love always is,' said the moose, sighing forlornly. 'I’m only a vague facsimile of a moose once alive, but I share some of his emotions. Ach, how I miss Liesl and the calves.'"
The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde: buy it or check it out today!