Confessions of a Bookaholic

Maggie Now, by Betty Smith

First, sorry for last week.  And being late this week.  Letting myself down at the first sign of stress:  typical me.  If my one follower cares to submit a punishment for not reviewing on time, I urge them to do so.  But it was Scav last weekend and…yeah.  Excuses.  This is my pre-93 book for this month.

The premise of Maggie Now is pretty simply this:  a girl growing up, sort of middle class in Brooklyn, circa 1920.  

The main characters:  Maggie-Now, her father Patrick, her mother Mary, her little brother Denny, her husband Claude, and more.  It’s about Maggie-Now’s whole life, so there are a lot of characters, but they’re all characterized well, so it’s not too difficult to keep track of them.

POV:  3rd person omniscient.  Generally my favorite POV.

• Readability:  Very readable, but since it’s not plot driven, you’re not on the edge of your seat while you’re reading.  However, since the characters are so engaging, the story is engaging too.  Though beware, it’s a hefty 400 pages.
• Age range:  Somewhat mature content, but I’d be comfortable giving this book to a 12 year old.  The concepts are very mature and relatable, and like the cliched fine wine, they may taste better with age.  These things seem to be true of all Betty Smith’s novels.
• Plot:  There really isn’t one.  At least not in the way I think of a plot (like the way they taught us in 7th grade).  Somehow it works though.
• Language: Beautiful.  Simple, and a bit old-fashioned, but completely engrossing.  There are so many hard hit lines, like Facebook quotable lines (so you know I’m serious.  But again, this is so common in Betty Smith’s writing.

A++.  Would read again.  I might be a bit biased though, since I’ve always been a huge Betty Smith fan.

Some thoughts I had about the book/something important about waiting and love (but definitely not an abstinence speech):

It’s hard not to compare this book to Betty Smith’s most famous book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, since that is also about a young girl growing up in Brooklyn.  There are some distinct differences which turn out to be important to the novel as a whole.  For instance, Maggie-Now is somewhat less likable, at least from my perspective, since she’s not particularly independent like Francie is.  However, the thing Maggie-Now demonstrates particularly well is the frustration associated with waiting.  She waits and waits, and she’s rarely frustrated with it.  From an outsider’s view, it’s infuriating how much she’s willing to wait.  But when I really think about it, I probably spend just as much time waiting for things, and to be honest, way stupider stuff than she waits for.  While she’s waiting for her husband to come home from wherever he is, it’s not like she’s spending years of her life waiting for the commercials to be over—she’s waiting for LOVE.  Claude may seem like a good-for-nothing to me, but he’s not actively hurting her by leaving every year, so I shouldn’t have a reason to be bothered by him.  Maggie-Now loves him.

Most of the time we can’t tell why one person loves another. So we can’t pass judgment on whether it’s ok, or whether it’s worth it to wait for that person.  The bigger question is whether it’s ok to wait for love.  Whether or not Lana Del Ray can accurately say “I will love you till the end of time. I would wait a million years.”  And I think Maggie Now gives a clear answer to that: yes.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

It was inevitable that I’d have to read this one eventually, and I figured now is as good a time as any.  Of course, take this review with a grain of salt, since I saw the movie first (blasphemous, I know).  

This is my fiction book for this month.

Premise of the book:  Dystopian world.  Once a year, every outlying “district” of a nation must send two teenagers (“tributes”) to fight to the death in an “Arena” for the entertainment of the people in the “Capitol.”  Only one of the 24 teenagers each year can remain.

Main character:  Katniss Everdeen.  A strong female lead; a bit of a rebel; stern, but loves and cares for her family, especially her little sister.  She is, of course, chosen to be one of the two tributes for her district.

Other important character:  Peeta Mellark.  The other tribute from Katniss’s district.  Potential love interest.  Very charismatic.

POV:  From Katniss’s point of view, 1st person, present tense.

• Readability:  Awesomely readable, and fast too.  I’m a fairly slow reader, but I barreled through the book in about 5-6 hours.
• Approximate age range:  While I think many of the YA fiction crowd would enjoy it, The Hunger Games employs the simplicity of language that I’d normally associate with a slightly younger target.  The content is certainly PG enough, even if the concepts are a bit more grown-up.
• Plot:  The story is engaging, fascinating, and moves at a perfect pace.  In terms of plot, Suzanne Collins has a great imagination.
• Language/poeticness:  This is where the book falls short.  The plot is great, but the execution is unsatisfying.  Most sentences are boring.  Most emotions are explained rather than felt.  Occasionally, the characters do things that are surprisingly out of character, with very little explanation.

Let’s start with my general feeling about the book:  I enjoyed it.  The characters were likable enough and the story was imaginative.  I don’t think the writing was poetic enough, and it bothered me how often Katniss said things like “My anger turned to pity.”  Sentences like that never would have gotten past Ms. Klus’s unrelenting red pen*.  That made it difficult to adore the book, but no matter—it was good.

That’s on the surface level.  Let’s talk deeper.  The whole idea of a “Hunger Games” brings some interesting topics that are relevant in today’s world.  For example, it would be easy to use The Hunger Games to reflect upon how “real” reality shows and are (or aren’t).  So much of The Games is planned out by “Gamemakers,” instigated by the public’s desire for entertainment.  Compare that to our own games: Survivor, The Deadliest Catch, The Amazing Race.  We too throw suffering around as a way to entertain ourselves, though we may not condone death…yet.

The implications of The Hunger Games are much bigger than the book.  The culture in the Capitol eerily exaggerates much of modern Western culture, perhaps detailing where we’re headed.  This is what readers of The Hunger Games should be focusing on.  Sure, all that Katniss-Peeta fan fiction is lots of fun, but take a further look at the circumstances surrounding the girl on fire and the boy with the bread.  There’s more than just toast there.

*Figure of speech.  Klus actually uses a pencil.

RULES OF THE GAME.

1)  You just lost the game.  (Sorry, that was mean.  Friends?  *offers half of creamsicle*)

2)  Each book must be one I’ve never read before.

3)  Every month I will read one non-fiction book, one fiction book, one book written before I was born (pre-1993, that is), and one book off a current NYT bestseller list.  No double counting for categories (like, the non-fiction book can’t count for the pre-93 book, too).  In months with 5 Sundays, I will review a children’s book on the 5th week.

4)  Reviews will be posted (at least) once a week, by midnight (CST) on Sunday.

5)  I won’t rate books on a star system (because I think that’s a silly, one-dimensional way to rate books since all books have good and bad things about them), but I will rate them using various collections of categories like these (depending on the type of book):  Readability, character development, likeability of characters, language/poeticness, thought-provokingness, etc.

6)  Punishments for not finishing book reviews on time will be decided by my followers.  Use the submit button to suggest a punishment!  I’m not too creative when it comes to punishments, but something like having to review Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey would probably be appropriate.  Or maybe having to write some really awful fan fiction.

Better get going if I’m gonna finish the first book by Sunday!

In which I solemnly swear to do things that are good for me.

Well, one thing anyway.

Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs:  Do you solemnly swear that you’re up to no good?

Me:  Um…no.  I’m supposed to be doing something good for me.  It’s like an accountability thing.  Like when you promise to start exercising.  Except this one I’m actually gonna do, not just vow to do it after I eat all my roommate’s ice cream.

The angel on my shoulder:  You can do it, Noreen!  You can read a book every week and review it.  Take your inspiration from Ms. Klus, your high school writing teacher.  Maybe someday she’ll see this and be totally proud.

The devil on my other shoulder:  OR she’ll be all, “You used too many exclamation points and passive verbs and your characters weren’t developed enough, and also run on sentences!”  Give up now.  Do it.  Go get some more Ben & Jerry’s.  You know you want to.

Me: SHHHHH I CAN TOTALLY DO IT.  Watch me, devil.  Watch me.

I, Noreen Walls, will read and review one book every week for the next 52 weeks.  One year.  Let’s do this thing.

p.s. Ms. Klus, if you ever do read this:  I apologize in advance for all exclamation points, expletives, flowery language, and most of all, abstract and general images.

p.p.s.  I should mention that I’m tagging Nerdfighters in each review because I was inspired by them to write this.