Spoilers below:
Since I was expecting an action novel, the ploddingly slow start was confusing. The prose is not unpleasant, and the details are interesting, but there is a lot of explaining and talking without anything much happening. This goes on for more than half the book.

When I finally realized that I was going to be reading a murder mystery and a financial mystery, I pretty much knew right away what the resolutions were going to be. The set up for both story lines are pretty obvious. No, I was not prepared for the exact specifics and how disturbing the crime portion turned out to be, but those plot revelations always had to be told to us. They were not ones that we, the readers, could have figured out on our own. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is that kind of mystery.

Overall, the book was readable and fairly entertaining. I did read late into the night because I wanted to find out what happened. But I do have trouble with the questionable pacing and the lack of depth within the main characters.

I know that this was a first effort, and that Larsson died before the manuscripts ever reached an editor’s eye, but for me, it would have been a pick-up-and-put-down novel. I’m still not sure why it has just caught fire around the world. Thanks to the reputation of the series, however, I will have to give the second book, The Girl Who Played with Fire, a try.

The visuals are also so unique and created with care. I’m not usually one to linger over images within a graphic novel, but I did for this one. Janet Lee, the artist, applied a unique style, which is nicely explained in an extra spread at the end of the book, to their creation.

Her multi-layered cut-out process complemented and added to the fairy tale/parable tone of the overall story, of which the basic premise is: Anorev is a town that’s wrong. Seemingly, an 11-year-old boy and a robot girl are the only ones who can feel it.

It is an ambitious effort that is worth your time, but… the scarcity of plot details is what makes it fall short for me. The mystery rolls along well while reading but the pages will frustratingly leave out reveals and answers on purpose. We’ll pick up right afterwards to deal with the consequences.

I understand playing with genres. It’s a trend in today’s works, but for me, I still think fairy tales and satires need themes and arcs.

It felt like Jim McCann was trying to get there but even after a few days of thinking, I still don’t know if he had anything specific to say about ideas like destiny, growing up, embracing differences, and change.

There are leads and hints aplenty in the story line. I would like more resolutions, both emotional and plot-wise, to make the reading experience more satisfying.

They were just kids, and they knew they had artistic destinies to fulfill. But there were a lot of realities, such as rent, food, and obscurity, standing in their way.

The New York scene breaks, but it also provides. Guiding lights, such as Allan Ginsberg, Janis Joplin, and Andy Warhol, inspired and taught, both directly and indirectly.

I don’t think we can take this book as the whole truth because Patti Smith is writing with goals and a perspective. This book is a celebration of talent, passion… and Robert Mapplethorpe.

But the lack of reliable veracity doesn’t prevent it from being a wonderful work of art. Patti Smith strove to become a poet, and this book reads like a poet’s tribute—to a time, to the artistic spirit, to a love, to a man.

She is a moving writer, one who can say so much without a lot of words. And even as she piles credit and influence on Robert, I never lost the sense that she was anything less than an equal in their partnership. I never felt she was weaker than, less deserving, or less of an artist than he.

She’s produced a work of which she should be proud. I’d like to think that Robert certainly is.

Adam Langer wants to make Crossing California very time and place specific. The time is during the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979–1981. The place is the West Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. Within this timeframe, it means that we’re going to visit a predominately Jewish community.

The book, however, tries way too hard to establish all of this within the first hundred pages. It felt like a list of details that drowned out all the characters. There is no plot.

We know that such-and-such a place is on this street, which is crossed by that street, and this other place is next to it while somewhere else is across, and that place is known for whatever.

Horrible.

The kicker is—none of this is necessary. My enjoyment of the rest of the book was because of the characters and the fun that the author had in developing them.

I didn’t really need this time and place specificity. It feels like an editor failed him somewhere. The heaviness of the effort in this first section contrasts strongly with the rolling-ness of the remainder.

The story follows a bunch of the neighborhood teenagers through their various family, school, and life dramas. There’s a good mix with each character standing out on his and her own.

California is an avenue that marks the border between the Haves and the Have-Nots. Some of the characters live on the east side. Some are on the west.

I feel like I should explain the title, but now that I’ve started, I realize there’s nothing much to say about it because the crossing of California is only tangentially important to the book.

Everyone’s just trying to get along. The kids are striving towards their futures using the strengths at their disposals. It’s a very affirming novel because the kids are allowed to shine with their talents. One is a self-decreed master actress who is a natural leader of people. One is an aspiring drummer who is capable of great clarity of goals.

A pair of old-for-their-ages teenagers (she’s a political radical and he’s a pragmatic filmmaker) are especially endearing and engaging.

There are antics that will make you laugh and enough truth that will make you nostalgic for your own high school years. I left the book with a smile on my face and well wishes in my heart for all of these fictional characters.

I wish the author would tell me why she’s so sure that Mary Cassatt had these thoughts and feelings to the point of putting the words in her mouth. Are there letters? First-hand accounts?

How about some academic standards?

Both have a breezy and accessible feel to their writings, but there are turns of phrases and certain similes that are just delights of the language.

They also both like the absurd within the every day. Adams’s Arthur Dent is an every man, swept away on a galactic adventure. In Wodehouse’s tale, Bonds Bank is a long-standing country bank that is about to find itself the convergence point of such ridiculous (yet perfectly everyday) plans and characters.

Part of the delight in this quick read is seeing how the plot unfolds so I won’t spoil anything. But I will share that “What?,” “No way,” and “Oh, come on” were uttered during the process of my reading this book.

And yes, I had quite a number of chuckles and laughs as well.

It kind of reminded me of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, except proper British manners take the place of the rowdy and lusty Italian court.

I don’t quite know what to do with this genre of British fiction, of which I would lump Evelyn Waugh among those who confuse me, but I wouldn’t hesitate to pick another Wodehouse up at a later time.

This work, Why Moms Are Weird, I’m happy to say, hit a lot more of my expectations. Ribon’s observational writing takes the forefront. Her humor had me laughing out loud, and the plot (mostly) served instead of intruded.

That’s where the first book, in my opinion, fell short. It seemed like the complicated plot was storyboarded and even when the characters and writing didn’t allow it to fit, the structure was nevertheless kept and it made for emotional gaps.

Here, that tendency was reduced. There are still slips, but for the most part, the story stayed in the everyday—fictionalized of course.

Every so often, there would be a short section that riffs on a tangential but character-building observation about life. These, especially, reminded me of the author’s blog pieces.

Why Moms Are Weird shows the humor and the spirit that I’ve come to expect from Pamela Ribon.

Not surprisingly, his investigations lead to a lot of secrets that an adult reader will probably see coming from dozens of pages back. But that is not the point.

The point is that Christopher tells us what happens and tries to explain his perspective on things. I’m not sure what Mark Haddon‘s background is with autism, and I’m sad to say that I don’t know enough about the condition to know if this is an accurate depiction or not. But it is very interesting.

There is a lot of humor in the beginning, but then I got sad because this boy is so trapped in how his brain functions, and the world is never going to change to allow him to feel right within it. But… as Christopher tells us, we all have “special needs.” We just choose to not label everyone that way.

This is a very creative take on a mystery novel and a coming-of-age story. You won’t be able to help being utterly charmed by Christopher. And perhaps, if you are like me, feel so frustrated and guilty that you wouldn’t know how to help him either.

1001 Books To Read Before You Die list: 92 down.

It is probably the most depressing book I have ever read. Every story is about how life is miserable and that the best one can do is “manage.”

I do not like the structure, a series of short stories that are supposed to build into a novel, or Olive Kitteridge, the designated link between all these stories. I found her unsympathetic and infuriating.

Besides the idea that life is miserable and that everyone is settling, the book also takes on parents messing up their children as a theme. Man, this is a depressing read.

Elizabeth Strout is a strong writer. If I had read any of these stories in a self-contained format, I would have loved it. She builds good characters, settings, and moods. But all these stories back-to-back… all depressing and a little bit hateful. Ugh.

The editor who suggested this needs a check-down.

Demonization and Wars of Annihilation
To make people fight with the will necessary to win, the other side must be demonized, often dehumanized. We must fight them because they want nothing less than to wipe us from the face of the earth. Within such a framework, it is hard to see the other side as having honor and accept the idea of innocent bystanders. Within such a framework, logical goals and acceptable stopping points get lost.

Since “they” want to kill you, it is better for you to kill them first. The world of limited warfare gives in to the world of total war.

Civilian-Military Split

Ironically, the rise of “civilian” armies ended up segregating the “civilian” world from the “military” world. Before Napoleon, Bell argues, soldiers were civilians. The officers were the nobles of the land. The grunts were part-time soldiers. When not at war, they had to go find other jobs in order to get paid. Every person in the military, from the kings on down, was fully in the civil world.

Then, with the start of total warfare, the “military” world came to be thought of as its own sphere. It has its own rules and status. People would and could do things in war that they would not do as “regular” people. Wars became fought by specialists, by soldiers and warriors. The military became professional.

This last point is extremely interesting to me because it is the opposite of what I had previously learned.

Summary
That’s what makes total war so destructive and desperate. The line between combatants and noncombatants are blurred. Almost everyone is fair game. The levels of hatred and destruction are ratcheted up but they are compartmentalized as exceptional feelings.

These feelings and actions are not acceptable in the normal world, but in a state of war, everything is ok. The actions by “0ur” professional fighters are rationalized as necessary in a state of war when all of “them” are trying to annihilate us. The actors are excused while the targets are undifferentiated and many.

In the meantime, the other side is applying the exact same standards to us.