Warm Bodies

I thought Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion might be an interesting read, because it offered a different perspective on the zombie apocalypse.   It turns out that the zombie perspective isn’t all that interesting.

This book is the zombie apocalypse through the eyes of a zombie. “R”, as he calls himself because he can’t remember his pre-zombie name, lives in an abandoned airport with a lot of other zombies. He spends his days riding the airport automated walkway, eating humans, and listening to records in the airplane he has made into his home. One day he goes out to feed, and he sees a pretty girl that he feels like he has to save rather than eat. So he takes her back to his airplane home. Meanwhile, after eating his new captive’s boyfriend’s brain, he starts having trips through the boyfriend’s memories, and then R himself starts to develop more human-like qualities. Zombie boy falls in love with human girl, etc., etc.

I had a really hard time getting into this book. One of the major problems that I had with the book was that R is telling his story about how simple zombies are, that they don’t have complex thoughts, they have simple interactions with each other, they don’t remember their human pasts or human ways, and they basically just move around pointlessly like you would think a zombie would. But when R is supposedly explaining how simple he is, he’s doing it with pretty complex and thoughtful thoughts. I know this is a ridiculous issue to have with the book, and I don’t know why it bothered me so much. It’s not like the first couple of chapters could be all grunts and incomplete sentences. Who would read that? But if you’re going to have a zombie tell me in first person how simple he is, it’s kind of hard to get on board when his thoughts aren’t all that simple.

I also just really didn’t find the story that intriguing either. I was on a long flight recently, and the movie was one of the in-flight movie offerings. I watched about 15 minutes of the movie, which appeared to be a comedy. I did not realize that the book was a comedy. Maybe I would have appreciated it more if I had known it was supposed to be funny? I don’t know. It just didn’t click with me.

Dark Places, Gillian Flynn

I loved Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. Just the right amount of suspense and crazy. And even though I felt that the ending of Gone Girl fell a little flat, the rest of the book was so good that I still heartily recommend it to my family and friends. Enter Dark Places.

I believe that Gillian Flynn wrote Dark Places before she wrote Gone Girl. Like Gone Girl, Dark Places is full of lots of crazy. Like she must be a pretty twisted person to come up with this stuff kind of crazy. (Actually from her picture on the back of the book, she looks pretty normal. There’s no crazy creeping out of her eyes.) Like Gone Girl, Dark Places is a page turner. But, unlike Gone Girl, I don’t think the rest of the Dark Places was good enough to save the book from another flat ending. Sad panda. The ending could have been so much cooler.

Dark Places takes place in Middle of Nowhere, Kansas. As a Midwesterner who has recently returned to her Missouri homeland, I feel obligated to say that the Midwest is not full of crazies. But, alas, here we are back in the Midwest where Libby Day is the sole survivor of the Day family massacre. Libby’s brother, Ben, is convicted of the murders largely due to Libby’s testimony. Years and years after the murders, Libby is approached by a club that investigates old murders. The club doesn’t believe that Ben is responsible for the murders. They approach Libby to see if she’ll guest speak and answer questions at the next club meeting. Libby is kind of a loser and low on cash, so she agrees to go. Eventually, with the help of some more cash, they talk her into talking to other suspects, and she begins to start doubting Ben’s guilt and conducting her own investigation of sorts.

What I liked about Dark Places is that it is a fast read. The story is interesting, and you have no idea who Gillian wants you to think is responsible for the heinous crime (and it’s heinous, not for the faint of heart). Gillian also has a way of keeping you interested in the story even when the characters aren’t that likable. Spoiler alert as I talk about what I didn’t like. I didn’t like the ending at all, which means that I am about to talk about the ending. As I read the book I pictured so many different ending scenarios because I really had no idea where she was trying to take me. When I finally got to the whodunit, I was so disappointed because the endings in my head were so much cooler than the actual ending. The book was so good, and then it just left me with a “really, that’s it?” feeling. It could have had a Primal Fear-esque ending where you’re totally believing Ben didn’t do it, and then he turns out to be a Satan worshipping crazy the whole time. That would have been fun. The actual ending didn’t leave me shocked, or upset, or anything. It was just meh.

I like Gillian Flynn. She has a great writing style, but I want the end of her books to be worth the middle.

Destiny of the Republic, A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

Destiny of the Republic, A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard

I picked this book up because the cover looked cool and the title was exciting, and what I learned is that it always pays off to judge a book by its cover. What a great book. I’m not a big reader of nonfiction because, regardless of how interesting the person or event, the writing always feels like I’m reading a bunch of facts. I want to know what the people were thinking and feeling, not just what they did. Candice Millard’s writing style, however, is so effortless and gripping, that this nonfiction feels more like a story and less like a factual account of events.

I have to admit that before reading this book I knew absolutely nothing about President Garfield. Rightfully so since he only held the office for a couple of months. Now, however, I have a deep admiration for this man that was so full of character and strength. Millard paints a picture of a man that kept his wit and integrity through times when most of us would break down into self-pity and anger. Garfield’s story is told through a narrative consisting of personal letters, diary entries, and newspaper reports lending it factual credibility as well as insight into the emotions of the main characters.

The book tells the story of Garfield’s meager beginnings to his unlikely nomination for the presidency, his shooting, and fatal medical care. The portions of the book dedicated to the accounts of Garfield’s medical care are a bit difficult to read. I often found myself audibly gasping and admiring Garfield even more for continuing to exhibit such strength of character. The book also contains some very interesting side stories about the people who impacted, or had the potential to impact, Garfield’s life. Millard includes narratives from Alexander Graham Bell’s personal letters about his invention of the telephone and his attempt to create the induction balance to locate the bullet lodged in Garfield as well as excerpts from Charles Guiteau’s diary, Garfield’s assassin who was a crazy, crazy little man.

But perhaps my favorite part of the book was the quotes from Garfield’s letters and speeches. Garfield spoke so eloquently and thoughtfully that I now include him on my short list of people, dead or alive, that I would have a dinner party with if given the opportunity. For example, in a letter to his mother from college where he was working as a janitor to pay his tuition (talk about American dream, poverty to President), he wrote, “If I ever get through a course of study I don’t expect any one will ask me what kind of a coat I wore when studying, and, if they do I shall not be ashamed to tell them it was a ragged one.” Or, from a speech Garfield gave to a large delegation of African American men, “You were not made free merely to be allowed to vote but in order to enjoy an equality of opportunity in the race of life. Permit no man to praise you because you are black, nor wrong you because you are black. Let it be known that you are ready and willing to work out your own material salvation by your own energy, your own worth, your own labor.” Moving.  And, when the doctor told him he had one chance in a hundred of surviving the gunshot, Garfield replied, “We will take that chance, doctor, and make good use of it.” But my all-time favorite Garfield quote that I have even my fiancé repeating, “Of course I deprecate war, but if it is brought to my door the bringer will find me at home.”

I’m very surprised at how much I liked this book, and I’m glad this book exists to shed light on a great man that not a lot of people know about. I’m excited to read more of this author’s works. Or, maybe my next adventure in nonfiction will be to pick up a book about Vice President/successor President Chester Arthur. His part in Garfield’s tale is also pretty interesting.

11/22/63 by Stephen King

I haven’t read a Stephen King book since I started getting older and became a giant scary story pansy. Stephen King is responsible for my fear of clowns and creepy old houses and why I still often look under the bed in case a recently raised from the dead little kid with a scalpel might be lying in wait to slice my ankle. Stephen King does occasionally step out of the thriller genre to write other fantastic, non-scary books, and 11/22/63 is one of those books. Stephen King is such an amazing writer. He keeps the story interesting from beginning to end, which is no small feat because this book is a big mamma jamma. His storytelling is so good in this book that I predicted the ending about three quarters of the way through but was so wrapped up in the story that I didn’t realize I had already guessed the ending until I was thinking back through the story the next day.

In 11/22/63 (the book, not the date), Jake is summoned by his dying friend, Al, to Al’s diner where he then tells Jake of a time portal that he has found in the pantry. Al explains that every time he steps through the portal, he arrives at the exact same place at the exact same time in 1958, and, regardless of how much time Al spends in the past, when he returns to 2011, exactly two minutes have passed since he first stepped through the portal. Al then convinces Jake to step through the portal and complete the mission that Al started but never got to finish – stopping the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. The problem is that the past doesn’t like to be changed, which Jake has to learn the hard way. There’s also a weird little drunk guy that hangs out by the 1958 portal whom Al has dubbed “the yellow card man” that seems to know that Jake isn’t supposed to be in this time period and whose change in character indicates that this mission might not be such a great idea.

This book is eerie but not scary, and, even though the plot is based on the science fiction element of time travel, it never gets hokey. You kind of have an idea where the story is going, but Stephen King maintains the suspense and keeps you flipping the pages. Another fun element of the book is that the reader gets to step back into a time gone by. I didn’t live in the 50s and I don’t read many 50s era books, so it was fun to be transported back into this “simpler” time period where Jake lives for five years waiting for November 1963.

Now for the cons. At one point, I got a little nervous that Stephen King was going to introduce an actual monster into the story, but, luckily, we veered away from that path. Also, occasionally I did find myself questioning the overall mission. Don’t get me wrong, the assassination of JFK was a very tragic event, but how much difference could preventing the event really make? I think the book does contain an underlying theme that everything, including horrible tragedy, has to happen to keep the world in balance, which would maybe be an interesting book club discussion but isn’t essential to grapple with in order to enjoy the book. Speaking of book clubs, the back of my paperback copy of the book included the usual book club discussion questions but also included music and 50s diner recipes to play and make for your book club meeting, which I think is super fun and made me wish I was in a book club.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. I’ve heard rumors they might be making it into a movie, and that would be awesome as long as they don’t cast actors that veer dramatically away from how I pictured the characters in my head.

Dragonfly in Amber

SPOILER ALERT: This is a review of the second book in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. If you intend to read the first book, you probably should not read this review.

This book made me sad. Sad with disappointment. I had such high expectations for this series after reading and loving Outlander, but, if this second installment had not included an ending that left me slightly curious about what happens next, I would probably quit reading the series altogether.

Dragonfly in Amber starts in Scotland in the 1960s. Claire Randall-Fraser has returned to Scotland with two missions: 1) to tell her adult daughter that her father is really an eighteenth century Scotsman as opposed to the twentieth century history professor with whom her daughter grew up with; and 2) to discover the fate of her eighteenth century husband, Jamie Fraser, and his men in the historic Battle of Culloden, which ended the Scottish uprising in the mass slaughter of Highland warriors. The majority of the book takes places in the 1700s as Claire recounts the events leading up to the battle. It spends a significant amount of time detailing the boring exploits of Claire and Jamie in Paris as they try to thwart the heir to the Scottish throne’s plans to lead an uprising. They then go back to Scotland for a few more boring adventures. The book drags from one mildly interesting event to the next mildly interesting event with no real action. The end of the book does pick up a bit, but it still never hits the excitement and level of story-telling as the first book.

Despite my disappointment with Dragonfly in Amber, I think I will go ahead and read the third book of the series. Dragonfly in Amber left enough of a cliff hanger to pique my curiosity for what happens next. There is also a significant foreshadowing event from the beginning of the first book that still has not been explained and is driving me crazy. In the beginning of Outlander, Claire’s twentieth century husband, Frank, sees a Scotsman in traditional highland attire standing on the street in the rain and staring up at Claire through her open window. This is a very cool, eerie event in the first book, but it has never been mentioned again. It’s actually a little frustrating that Claire can remember details about battles she read in a history book years ago, but she doesn’t seem to remember this very odd event. It doesn’t even come up when, while in the 1700s, Jamie shows Claire a pin that is identical to Frank’s description of a pin that the eerie 1900 Scotsman was wearing. So clearly Jamie has been in the 1900s, and I’m going to need that event cleared up stat.