The Twilight Saga

Yes, I finally caved. I finally gave in and read Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. So I'm 8 years late? I still found the books to be absorbing and obsessing. And that may be the best thing about them. Still, let's take them one at a time.

Twilight

This first book I found to be overly lengthy, yet interesting as for plot, characters, and romantic tension. There were many things I liked about it.

1. The way the teenagers act and talk seemed realistic to me. At least, many aspects mirrored my own experience as a teenager such as: being a girl and being obsessed with a guy for no apparent reason and hating myself for it. OR the way that teenage conversation can focus on the minutiae.

2. The undead trying to "pass" for human is an interesting thing to explore. How could a vampire co-exist with humans without sucking their blood? This is something I appreciate about Terry Pratchett's Discworld as well.

3. Bella's inner turmoil seemed realistic and relatable to me.

4. The simple writing which allows for quick reading.

5. Sometimes I just need something to absorb all my attention.

So, really, I did overall like Twilight. I guess the reason I only gave it 3 stars on goodreads is because it was lengthier than it needed to be and because I don't think reading it made me a better person. That's actually rather a big downside and makes the whole endeavor a waste of time. Here are some more things I disliked about it:

1. There is altogether too much time spent describing how perfect Edward is. Really all of that description about his beauty and how alike he is to Adonis really makes him seem boring, uninteresting, and altogether unimaginable. Also, it's better to be shown his greatness than to be told about it.

2. The above also makes Bella seem moronic. What exactly is the attraction to Edward? His beauty seems too flat.

Moving on to

New Moon

The second installment in the saga dealt with more difficult human emotions than simply new/forbidden love. It dealt with heartbreak, depression, and forging a new life. The new life part gets cut short due to certain circumstances, which I think makes for less character development for Bella than I would have liked. I want to know how she would forge a new life having lost everything she thought her life was about. But Stephenie Meyer wasn't about to take such a bold chance, so we'll never know. I have to admit, I don't fully know why Bella is so determined to be a vampire. That's one thing I think is too simplistic. Giving up your humanity should be a bit more difficult than that.

Eclipse

The tension between Edward and Jacob vying for Bella's love increases with Eclipse but almost with that inevitable sense that it doesn't really matter. Except for a few moments in New Moon where Bella starts to envision life with Jacob, she never veers from her steadfast devotion and dedication to Edward. Which I have to say is irksome.

In Eclipse the threat to Bella comes from Victoria, James' mate, who wants to avenge his death by killing Edward's mate, Bella. Victoria uses "newborn" vampires to accomplish this task. In order to withstand so many new vampires, the Cullens have to join forces with the werewolves, their ancient enemies. The fact that they have to work together on this is interesting and presents some material for reflecting on how groups today might need to join together for a common cause. I wish there had been a bit more forethought on Meyer's part so that this could be a stronger cultural message for today instead of simply an interesting and engrossing love story.

Many have criticized Meyer's portrayal of native peoples in her books. I have to confess I don't know enough about it to know why or how she is being offensive. I do like that werewolves are part of a peoples' ancestry, so if there was a way to do that without being offensive I'd applaud that. It is more compelling than just it being random or coincidental that some people just are werewolves sometimes.

Breaking Dawn

This book is ridiculous for so many reasons.

1. It is over 700 pages long.

2. There isn't any threat to Bella like in the other books (vampire come to kill her) until 7/8ths of the way through.

3. Bella becomes a vampire. Really, she should have just stayed human.

4. If Bella must become a vampire why do we need the second-to-second play-by-play? Really? It's just a waste of everyone's time.

5. What's with the overly-detailed honey moon? Not interested.

I will say, as an aside, that I disagree with those Christians who had previously criticized the honeymoon parts because they portrayed sex as violent and this as a good thing. Sure, there's some violence, but it's incidental and part of the fact that Edward IS A VAMPIRE. And Bella knows the risk and goes for it anyway. And it isn't glorified because Edward is so horribly guilty about it all. Not that I think that scene was necessary anyway. It wasn't. No one needs to know that much detail about that part of their lives.

6. Again, too much detail about Bella's transformation into a vampire and her first hunt. The idea of a half-human half-vampire baby is interesting, but we really didn't need nearly the whole book to focus on that.

Another aside: I don't really mind that Jacob imprints on Renesmee. After all we were already set up for the idea of a teenage boy imprinting on a child through that other werewolf that does that. So, yeah, that doesn't bother me.

Overall there are a few things I really enjoyed about this saga:

1. The "Preface" that precedes each book is well-written, slightly vague but yet compelling and that makes me as the reader anticipate the danger Bella will inevitably get into. I find it annoying, however that Breaking Dawn has three "books" and so, three prefaces.

2. I like hearing Jacob's voice for part of the story. He's, most of the time, a compelling character and I like knowing more firsthand about his struggles.

3. I like the excitement and danger Bella is in in the first three books and not knowing exactly what will happen. The references to other literature made me think anything could happen. Would Bella and Edward both die like Romeo and Juliet? Would Bella turn out to be as selfish and sadistic as Cathy in Wuthering Heights?

One final criticism about the ending of Breaking Dawn: There's all this tension and anticipation for the final battle and it just sort of fizzles into nothing. Not that battles are always inevitable or anything, but it felt more like Stephenie Meyer was just reluctant to kill off any well-loved characters than anything else. But life includes meaningful losses along the way, and other than Bella's humanity, nothing is really lost. I think the series is lacks depth because it lacks loss.

The Rainbow Rowell Trilogy

Okay, so Rainbow Rowell did not write a trilogy. But she did write three books and I just finished "reading" them. Reading is in quotes because I listened to them on audiobook with the exception of the end of Eleanor and Park, which I will explain. Rainbow's three books are (in the order I read them): Eleanor & Park, Landline, and Fan Girl.

Eleanor & Park

I decided to read this because so many of my friends gave it high marks on goodreads. And well they should. This story follows the intertwining stories of two 16 year olds in Nebraska, Eleanor and Park. Eleanor is new and Park is just trying to get along without drawing too much attention to himself. Besides being new, Eleanor seems to love drawing attention to herself, dressing in eccentric ways and not acting like every other teenager at their high school. These two find themselves unexpectedly bus buddies and their relationship develops from there.

I found many things to enjoy about this book:
1. It portrays the awkwardness of high school in realistic ways
2. Poverty is shown as real and not easily solved
3. The characters are into things that aren't necessarily common (like Tae Kwon Do) but which I could relate to



I also really enjoyed the tension that Rowell created between the characters at various points in the story.

I feel like I'm not doing justice to the book in this review. So, just take my word for it and give it a try.

A note on the audiobook: Since the book switches back and forth between Eleanor and Park's perspectices the voice actors do the same thing. This was a neat thing to listen to. There was a problem with my version when I downloaded it and it didn't include all of the second to last track, so I had to finagle a copy to read. Thankfully there is a bookstore in the town I live in and amazingly the owner had a damaged copy she let me borrow for the day. This was a book that consumed me. So, reader beware.

Landline

Turns out Landline is not a YA book like Rowells others but is an adult book. Makes sense now that I think of it. It follows the main character, Georgie McCool as she struggles between managing her work life and giving the love and attention her family crave. She begins by announcing to her husband she will not be able to go to Omaha for Christmas this year because she has an important interview in which she can pitch her own show to a possible producer. As a TV writer she has had to write other people's stories and now is her big chance. Her husband ends up going with their daughters to Omaha without her and Georgie must decide what this means and how to deal with it. As she is figuring this out (or not figuring it out) she discovers that the old phone in her childhood bedroom at her mom's house allows her to connect with Neil (her husband) in the past. At such a crucial time she has to decide how she will use this powerful tool, if at all.

Several things I liked about this book:
1. Georgie McCool is kind of like Liz Lemon! And I've been watching a lot of 30 Rock lately, so I thought that was neat.
2. The magic time phone was treated with respect but also skepticism, so it worked even though it was the only magical part of the book.
3. There are flashbacks throughout during which you learn how Georgie and Neil got together and how various characters related and still relate including Georgie's writing partner Seth and Neil's ex-fiancee.
4. The conclusion in some ways seemed inevitable yet i wasn't sure until it actually happened that it would happen.



Some things about the book were difficult, like the marital stress, the lack of communnication, the (apparent) crumbling of a life. But while difficult to read, they are all realistic and fit with everything else that was happening.

Fangirl

Fangirl is about Cath, a twin heading off to college for the first time with her sister Wren. Yet since Wren wants to assert her indendence they aren't rooming together for the first time in their lives and Cath is already anxious about leaving home. She is obsessed with Simon Snow, a fictional world similar to Harry Potter and she and her sister had been writing fan fiction about that world and Cath continues to do so. As she encounters her roommate, fiction writing class, and a couple of attractive guys Cath has to find her place. Yet she continues to feel a lack of one. This in addition to her sister's partying habits and the relentless felt presence of a mom who abandoned them when they were 8. Sprinkled throughout are excerpts both from Simon Snow canon and Cath's fictional story Carry On, Simon.

I really enjoyed this book. I found it deals with family dynamics, particularly mental illness very realisitically and in a way that I think could introduce it to people who only have stigma to go off of. Cath grows as a character in satisfying ways. Oh and it really made me want to re-read Harry Potter. And it made me want to write.



By the time I got to Fangirl I could recognize some phrasing and plot tendencies that run through all of Rowell's writing, even in the books within the book in the case of Fangirl. This was more apparent to me than in other authors whose works I have read back to back. I don't know if this is just to be expected or if it is a flaw in Rowell's writing. Nonetheless, I greatly enjoyed her books. My order of preference is: Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Landline. Stay tuned, folks, apparently a Simon Snow book is due out this fall and supposedly Dreamworks will eventually make a film out of Eleanor & Park.

How Green Was My Valley and A Man Without A Country

You may be wondering why I have stopped writing on this blog. Is it simply that which befalls all new bloggers? There is the initial enthusiasm which wanes and all too quickly disappears? Partly. But also instead of reading I was playing a LOT of Kingdom Rush. I'm still playing, but not as voraciously. So I finally finished How Green Was My Valley and quickly read A Man Without A Country because it is short and a quick read.

This story is told from the perspective of Huw Morgan, one of the youngest children in a large Welsh family. It took my most of the book to figure out his name is pronounced "Hugh" and not "Huwuwuw". My edition had a helpful "how to pronounce Welsh names" chart in the back. 

This book was simply lovely. The imagery is delightful and interesting and there are several compelling themes throughout: 

1. unions and the attempt to negotiate fair wages

2. how to remain a family during great change and difficulty

3. the role of religion in a village undergoing great change 

4. social propriety and impropriety 

5. the effects of gossip 

6. learning and growing into an adult. 

As I list these things I am realizing that change is a rather pervasive theme throughout the book: 

1. the change the valley undergoes as coal mining increases and slag gets dumped in the valley itself 

2. the change that occurs as the valley becomes more populated 

3. the change that the Morgan family undergoes as various members marry and move away 

4. Huw's changes as he grows older, learns, fights, loves. 

I highly recommend this book, with the understanding that it mimics life and tends to be more episodic in nature.

This was my first Kurt Vonnegut book and from reading it I get a sense of the humor and wit this man possessed. I do not give this book a good review because it seems he mostly just rants about our obsession with oil and how the world is a mess and there's no helping us. 

I have heard this rant before and Vonnegut does not add anything useful, interesting, or moving to it. Toward the end he even admits that some humorists lose their humor and just become angry and maybe that has happened to him. Yes, I think it has. Nonetheless I am intrigued and will probably read Slaughterhouse Five sometime in the near future.

The Agile Church: Spirit-Led Innovation in an Uncertain Age

This book was chosen for the vestry at my church to read as the church undergoes very intentional self-study to determine where God is leading them in the future. I am not on the vestry, but I had been sitting in on meetings, so I thought I might as well read the book. I didn't dislike this book, but I didn't exactly like it either. The author, Dwight Zscheile (yeah, you thought of Nietzsche was hard to spell) comes from a background in the tech world and he brings many lessons from Silicon Valley to the church. I found this book uses a lot of different vocabulary for short periods of time throughout, which was hard for me to focus on and remember. This is not a problem in the beginning of the book, but by chapter 4 we are getting terms such as "technical problems," "adaptive challenges," "lean startups," "pivots," "disruptive innovation," "positive deviance," and "holding environment." That's all just in chapter 4. These terms are not how I am used to thinking about things and served as a barrier to me in reading. I am used to reading theology, pastoral care, Bible commentaries, and fiction. This felt foreign and it took a lot of energy to focus in order to understand all of what I was reading.

Aside from this critique, I really like this book. Zscheile is trying to get church leaders (lay and clergy) to think differently about how they lead so that all those in the church (and outside it) can listen and discern where God is taking them and already working among them. This is a book to change how one views the very concept of church-growth. It is inspiring and encouraging. It is encouraging because it takes the burden of growth off of the pastor and the lay leaders and it is inspiring because it resurrects the notion that the Spirit is the one doing the work and it encourages us to look for where the Spirit is already at work.

I like the content, but found the language and terminology cumbersome and prohibitive. At this point I would only use excerpts of this book with lay leadership, although I am curious to know how my church's vestry is reacting to it.

Not this Typist, The Other Typist

I picked up with book because I ran into someone I used to work with at the library and she told me this was the best book her book club had read in the past year. So, feeling obligated, I took down the title and checked it out. I learned something important from this: Beware of unsolicited book recommendations.

This book has been compared to both The Great Gatsby, which I enjoyed, and Gone Girl, which I hated. I find that comparison to be apt. It takes place in New York City during prohibition and features, you guessed it, a typist, as well as, well, other typists. The place of employment for these typists is a police precinct that is chosen to be an example of enforcing prohibition and shutting down speakeasies throughout New York.

This young woman, Rose Baker, is plain, observant, and isolated. When she meets Odalie, the "other typist" her life changes and she is given (and takes) the opportunity to change her style, or maybe to live her life through Odalie. As the book progresses a pivotal event occurs at which someone recognizes Odalie and tries to piece together the truth from a suspicious death years earlier on Rhode Island.

The entire book is told from the perspective of Rose and as things progress you get the distinct impression that her perspective is not entirely accurate. There are also several repeated hints that something tragic has occurred and the reader will be told all about it all in good time. At the end of the book there is a "reveal" which throws much of the rest of the book into question. However, so much is left unresolved at the end that reinterpreting the entire book in light of the ending is a tricky and maybe even impossible task. For this reason I am only recommending this book to people who enjoyed Gone Girl and who promise to tell me what they think really was going on once they finish it.

On a side note, I found the setting of a police precinct during prohibition to be really fascinating. And look at this awesome picture I found:

Apparently Keira Knightly (who I always confuse with Natalie Portman) bought the rights to The Other Typist and is allegedly making a movie out of it. So says the Internet, at any rate. I hope a movie is made because I want to know how this book will be interpreted by whoever writes and directs it.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

I found this book at a booksale and thought to myself "I've heard of this book, I should read it." Well, little did I realize it was about a mental hospital and an unruly newcomer there. I had mixed feelings when I finished it. I liked the setting because I also work in a psych hospital, so I thought the setting was interesting. I liked the way McMurphy shook things up and tried to buck the system. On the other hand there is a great deal of violence and insinuation in the book that I felt uncomfortable with, particularly near the end. The thing that disturbed me was that I wanted some of that violence to happen because I was emotionally embroiled with the characters. Apparently the movie is a bit different. So perhaps that will be an interpretation I can live with.

Lenten Devotionals

This Lent I read three different devotionals;

A Wondrous Love: Daily Lenten Meditations and Prayers by Henri Nouwen and C.S. Lewis
2015 Lenten Meditations by Episcopal Relief and Development
Show Me the Way: Readings for Each Day of Lent by Henri Nouwen

A Wondrous Love

This is a paper pamphlet that I received when exiting the Ash Wednesday service at The Episcopal Church at Princeton (ECP). I greatly enjoy the services at ECP but only usually go to the non-Sunday services since they meet at 9p.m. on Sundays and that is too late for me. This devotional was nice for a number of reasons:

1. C.S. Lewis and Henri Nouwen are BOSS. How could you go wrong with excerpts from their many writings?
2. Neat picture on the front
3. The excerpts are short so can be read easily
4. The booklet is lightweight and not a burden to add to a heavy backpack to be read on the train

A few things I wasn't crazy about:

1. After each devotional is a one sentence prayer that sometimes had nothing at all to do with the content of the actual excerpt.
2. The prayers were not written by CSL or HN and their lack of depth was obvious
3. Sometimes the excerpt didn't seem to fit the day or the bit of scripture it was paired with.

Overall a good devotional I would be happy to use again during another Lent. Since the days are listed according to liturgical time it is not year specific and this is possible.

ERD

I obtained this devotional from Trinity Church in Princeton, but I was turned on to it by a fellow student at General Theological Seminary. The theme throughout is that of social justice and Lent is divided in several sections each with a different theme summed up in an "I believe" statement. Some examples are: I believe that everyone should have access to clean water, I believe that no one should go hungry, and I believe that all children and families deserve a healthy start in life. These are statements core to the work of ERD and connected to the Millennium Development Goals. Each day begins with one of those statements, followed by a bit of scripture or other writing, and then a reflection on that. These are specific to the day, so this is particular to Lent 2015. Some things I like about this devo:

1. There are some nice reflections connecting social justice to personal piety
2. Several authors are involved so if one person writes poorly you don't have to worry about the next devo being bad necessarily
3. Since it is set up for 2015 I found it easier to find the day. Searching by date is sometimes easier than by liturgical day.

Things I did not like about it:

1. Many of the reflections have less to do with personal piety or practice and more to do with the great things ERD is up to (which gives a sense of fundraising in the guise of devotional material)
2. Sometime the scripture and reflection were totally out of sync with the liturgical day, particularly during Holy Week.
3. At the end of the booklet is an envelope in which to send a donation to ERD as "My Lenten Response." While supporting the mission of ERD may be important, I think the emphasis should be more on personal choices and actions, which most of the reflections focused on.

Overall this was not my favorite devo. There were a few reflections I found meaningful and helpful, but most were not. I would not use a devo put out by ERD again.

Show Me the Way

More Henri Nouwen! I found this on my shelf midway through Lent and decided to use it. This book contains longer excerpts from Nouwen's works, about 2-3 pages in length for each day of Lent and each one concludes with a prayer.

1. Nouwen is really great
2. The prayers were thoughtful and deep
3. The length allowed for settling into the reading instead of reading and moving on without much reflection

This review is shorter than the others because I'm tired of writing, but I really enjoyed using this book and will use it in the future.