The Orphan Master's Son

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

This book is fiction but the author did a ton of research including traveling to North Korea for his research. I think if Kim Jong Il ever read the book, he would not have been happy about allowing this man to visit. This book does not paint North Korea in a good light. If fact, this regime needs to be eradicated some how.

This is the story of a boy raised in an orphanage. His father is the orphan master and his mother was taken to Pyonyang because she was a singer.  Like Forest Gump, our protagonist was conveniently placed in a myriad of jobs and locations so that we could really get a feel for life in the DPRK.

I highly recommend this book.

Allegiant

Allegiant by Veronica Roth

This is the third book in the Divergent Series.
This book really brought out the whole question of society and how it works or how it should work.  The expectations we lay upon members of society and in what situations do we expect less and should we expect less or more.

I found myself comparing Roth's societal discourse to that within the Hunger Games trilogy (mostly because I just saw the movie Catching Fire).  The worlds were similar in that there was a controlling government that was monitoring the activity of the controlled.  In the Hunger Games, the people of the Districts knew they were being monitored and controlled.  In this trilogy, the people of Chicago are in ignorance of the reality of their situation.  There are cities mentioned who know they are monitored and controlled and their societal structure is much more broken and dissolute than that within the walls of former Chicago.

I found this book, and the series, entertaining and thought provoking.  I think it would be a good avenue for discourse with young adults about society and the expectations that we place on ourselves and others in order to live and function within society.  This series didn't have the rated R psychological twisty-ness of the Hunger Games nor was is as violent so I think it will have a broader audience.

There is one more book in the series which is Four: A Divergent Collection. This gives us a more in depth look at Tobias Eaton aka Four and why he is the way he is.  I am fine skipping this one although I'm sure it will be an entertaining read as the others have been.  Roth also has a series of Divergent Short Stories.  I think I've lived in this world of her long enough and I'm ready to move on.

After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse

After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse by Charlaine Harris

In an attempt to wrap up the long series of Sookie Stackhouse, Charlaine Harris lists all her characters in alphabetical order and lets us know what happened after the series ended.

If you are hoping for a wrap-up novel like I was, you will be disappointed.  Had I realized what the book was to begin with, I would have been very satisfied.  It was interesting to see what Charlaine Harris envisioned for her various characters.

If you have read all the Sookie Stackhouse books, this one is a must-read.

The Dark Monk

The Dark Monk: A Hangman's Daughter Tale by Oliver Potzsch

This is the second book in the Hangman's Daughter series.  There is a third book and I will be reading it.

This is really fun historical fiction.  Potzsch began his story with his own geneology.  His ancestor Jacob Kuisl who was the hangman of Schongau in Bavaria.  His own family had many generations of hangmen from which he could draw information.

This book begins in 1648.  Potzsch has once again created a great murder mystery while combining the historical information of the area, some of the people who actually lived then and there as well as what life would have been like during that time.

At the end of the book, Potzsch lets his readers know which characters and scenes are historical and which are fiction.  He also gives us a walking/biking tour of the region and the settings in the book.  If I ever get to Bavaria, I will definitely check it out.

This Dark Endeavor

This Dark Endeavor:The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein by Kenneth Oppel

I just realized that this is the first in a series.  Book 2, Such Wicked Intent, is scheduled to be released 21 August 2012.  My copy of This Dark Endeavor (on the Kindle) included Mary Shelley's Frankenstein immediately following the end of the book.

This book is told in the voice of Victor Frankenstein, age 15.  He, his twin brother Konrad and their distant cousin are constant companions.  Elizabeth's parents died when she was young and Victor's father was loathe to leave her living in a convent rather than with family.  She has been raised as a sister to the twins.  There are also two younger brothers that are rarely seen or heard.

If you've ever wondered how Victor Frankenstein ended up trying to create life from previously dead tissue, this is an excellent supposition.  Oppel plants the seeds of possibility into the impressionable young man.  He gives us a boy who is exactly like his twin but, nothing like him.  Konrad is a very likeable boy who is at ease in a number of social settings.  Victor feels awkward with anyone who is not a close family member and never knows what to say.  School work and intense study comes easily to Konrad but Victor must work harder in order to learn but the skills of study don't come easily or happily either.

We are left with a vision of a young man who is just starting to realize how different he is from his twin and how much he resents the differences when he has always thought of them as the same.  Couple this with a new fascination in alchemy and books filled with the dark arts and you have a wonderful beginning.

I enjoyed this book and now that I know another is coming out, I think I will read it.  I am guessing it ventures into the young adult phase of Victor as well as his formal education and relationships that will form him into the man created by Mary Shelley.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell

This is an historical novel set during the Edo-era of Japan.  It begins in the year 1799.  Jacob De Zoet is a clerk for the Dutch East Indies Company.

This book alternated between very interesting and so tediously boring I wanted to scream.  The atmosphere of the era was, no doubt, extremely formal.  The island of Dejima was a man-made creation which allowed the Dutch to live and work there and not on actual Japanese soil.  Only specific Japanese officials were allowed to interact with the Dutch merchants of Dejima.  Japan for the Japanese was a very formal and restrictive place.  People could not freely travel around the country but had to carry papers of identification and have formalized reasons for their travel into different territories.  Leaving Japan was an act punishable by death for the Japanese people.  Only the people who worked as translators could learn the Dutch language.  The Dutch were not permitted to be taught Japanese.

Jacob De Zoet is a young man of promise who can read and write in Dutch and English.  He is a man of principle and honor who is assigned to work in a place where everyone is on the take.  Each person involved in a shipment is skimming some of the shipment for themselves so they may sell it and profit from it when they reach their destination.  Jacob must learn how to exist in this climate.

I haven't been able to put my finger on the specific reason that this book was so awful to get through. When I finally got to 49%, I told myself I had to keep going just to find out what happens to Jacob De Zoet.  The end of the book seemed as though a different writer had written it. One thread of the story ended and then the author rushed through the rest and wound everything up as though he suddenly had a deadline to meet. It was very odd and disorienting and rather unsatisfying as well.

I don't recommend this book unless you are desperate to read everything regarding Japan during this era.  I'm sure there must be other books that can satisfy your curiosity without having to read this one.

The Drums of Autumn

The Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon

This is book 4 of the Outlander series.  While this series is classified as historical fiction, my sister just pointed out that it is also considered a romance novel.  Admittedly the first book and even parts of the second were very romance related, I think the historical novel aspect outshines the romance.

This book takes Brianna, the daughter of Jamie and Claire back in time to search for her parents and warn them of their impending deaths.  Hot on her heels is Roger Mackenzie Wakefield who knows why she has gone but doesn't believe the past can be changed.

This book has pirates, theft, rape, the building of a house and a community. The politics of the Colonies under King George as well as interactions with the various indian tribes in the North Carolina area - some peaceful, some not.

I am enjoying this series and I plan to keep reading.  It is good escapist reading to fill in the gaps between other books.  I do with there was a bit more history although I think Gabaldon has done a good job painting a mental picture of the time and how people lived.  She makes it easy to see how people built their homesteads and farms and slowly built a life that brought in enough to feed their family for a year but also a little extra for the things they couldn't grow or raise themselves.

The Sun Also Rises

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

If my book club hadn't just read The Paris Wife, we wouldn't have selected this book and I wouldn't have finished it either.

The basic gist of the book is of a group of friends who travel from Paris, France to Pamplona, Spain for the festival of San Fermin and the bull fights. 
The bigger picture is that of a group of people who are mostly residing in Paris as expatriates (from the US and Great Britain) and they travel to Pamplona.  They are not necessarily all friends.  There is one woman who is married and trying to get divorced.  Her current fiance as well as an ex-lover/boyfriend (Hemingway's character) are on the trip.  Also there is a friend of the narrator (Hemingway) who lives in the US.  Another man tags along much to the chagrin of everyone else.  He is engaged to another woman but is hopelessly in love with the woman in the story.  He had a brief fling with her and has convinced himself that she must love him back as he loves her.

The complex relationships made this a rather difficult book to read because I just wanted to slap everyone for behaving badly and stupidly.  Also, they are drunk almost the entire book which does not help their behavior. 

There is a brief period in the beginning of the trip when Hemingway's character and his friend from the US go off fishing in the lower Pyrennes.  The descriptiveness of this part of the book was very enjoyable to read.

Once all the characters gather in Pamplona, the relationships and emotions and drunken behavior cloud the rest of the story.  The descriptions of the bulls, the corredo and the fights themselves are very nice to read.  Hemingway definitely excels in writing about action and the outdoors.  He is not very good in describing people or writing dialogue or emotions.  I found much of the dialogue unrealistic.  Perhaps the ex-pats of the time, a.k.a. the lost generation, really did speak in a forced "hipster/beat" fashion but it didn't feel real to me.

During The Paris Wife, this particular trip was described and it actually seemed much worse than the portrayal in The Sun Also Rises.  Perhaps the difference was perspective.  The Paris Wife was a novel written in his wife's voice based on her writings and correspondence.  The Sun Also Rises was written from his perspective.  Hemingway wrote the novel just after they took this trip and the biggest change he made was that he left his wife out of the book.  There is one particular situation that happened to his wife but he had it happen to the other woman on the trip instead.  Even though he dedicated the book to his wife and son, the fact that she was left out of the book must have been a huge slap in the face for her.

If you are a huge fan of Hemingway, you will probably read this book.  It is definitely not his finest work but then it is his first novel so that may also have something to do with it. 

The Worst Hard Time

The Worst Hard Time - The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dustbowl by Timothy Egan

This is a non-fiction account following about a dozen families through the "dirty thirties" and beyond. This book was very interesting and extremely readable considering the amount of factual information that was given.

I had never really understood the enormity of what has been termed "the dustbowl". I read The Grapes of Wrath but that didn't even scratch the surface of explaining exactly what life was like in the Great Plains region. It really gave me perspective on what we need in life during this holiday season.

I highly recommend this book!