Idol, Burning – Rin Usami

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Ahhh, fandom.

I have been a fangirl my whole life. Davy Jones. David Cassidy. Robby Benson. David Boreanaz. Ryan Gosling.

But there’s being a fangirl and then there’s making the object of your affection your whole personality as Akari, the main characer of Rin Usami’s debut novel Idol, Burning does. She ‘ships “oshi” Masaki Ueno, actor and singer with the J-pop group Maza Maza. She writes a popular blog and spends countless hours combing through social media to find everything she can about him.

The novel opens with the devastating news that her oshi has punched a fan in the face.

No details had emerged yet, but even with zero verification the story had blown up overnight.

Akari’s life spins out of control but to be fair, it’s not as though her life was ever really in control. She struggles at school; she doesn’t seem to have any real-life friends, her relationship with her mother and sister is distant; her father works out of the country. She works at a local restaurant so that she can buy her oshi’s merchandise: towels and candles and special glowsticks.

This novella essentially tracks Akari’s obsession with an unknowable public figure and for anyone who has ever “loved” a celebrity, you’ll likely recognize some of her unhinged behaviour. For me, though, I found the book a little slow-moving. That might be because it’s a translation. I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever really does.

A Death at the Party – Amy Stuart

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A few weeks ago I found myself stranded in Digby, Nova Scotia without a book. My friends Gina and John and I had booked a day-cruise from Saint John to Digby, a crossing which takes about two hours each way. We walked on (so no car) and our intention was, once on the other side, to walk into Digby (about an hour) have a poke around, have some lunch and then make our way back for the return voyage. Except, they cancelled the return voyage stranding us in Digby for the night.

Digby is a nice little spot, but there’s not really a lot to do there. There also weren’t really a lot of options for places to stay. We ended up in a motel, which wasn’t half bad. The nearest bookstore was about a seven hour walk, so I was on the hunt for something to read. Luckily, Sobey’s had a rack of paperbacks. That’s where I got Amy Stuart’s novel A Death at the Party.

Needs must.

Nadine Walsh is hosting her mother’s, celebrated author Marilyn Millay, 60th birthday party. There’s lots to be done, but it’s also an emotional day because exactly 30 years ago Marilyn’s younger sister, Colleen, was found dead in the barn. Well, actually, it was Nadine who discovered her. Nadine thinks it’s important to honour her aunt; Marilyn has more of “it’s in the past” take.

This complicates an event that is complicated for lots of other reasons and that’s one of the problems I had with this book. There’s just too much going on. There’s the fact that Nadine has cheated on her too-good-to-be-true husband, Paul, with one of his friends and colleagues, Zachery, who has since married and fathered a child with a young wife. Then there’s Isobel, Nadine’s teenaged daughter, who is is a state because her bestie, River, is in a coma and Nadine thinks that River’s father, Seymour, (another one of Paul’s friends) isn’t making nearly enough of the fact that his daughter is in the hospital. Then there’s her teenaged son, Damien, who is in a tricky relationship with the daughter of the guy who owns the corner store with whom Nadine has a “special” friendship because he knows she smokes. And then there’s her niece, Margot, who lives with them and what in the world would Nadine do without her?

So many characters; so much drama; so many strands. And I cared not one bit for any of it. Nadine was immensely unlikable and although the action of the party takes place in one day (beginning at the end with the death and then going back to the start of the day to fill readers in on how/why this death happened) it is the longest, most interminable day ever.

Not for me. Too bad, too, because I liked Stuart’s book Still Mine.

Spooky Reads for All Hallow’s Eve

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I thought it might be fun to compile of list of reads for those of us who enjoy things that go bump in the night.

10. Instruments of the Night – Thomas H. Cook

Page-turning, white-knuckling, horrifying literature.

9. I’m Thinking of Ending Things – Iain Reid

A trippy, creepy thriller that pushes lots of suspense-thriller boundaries.

8. The Harrowing – Alexandra Sokoloff

This is a book with one purpose: to scare the bejebus out of you and it works on many levels.

7. The Damned – Andrew Pyper

If you don’t mind white-knuckling it through a book, this is the story for you.

6. And the Trees Crept In – Dawn Kurtagich (YA)

If you’re looking for a creepy, compelling, well-written read-past-your-bedtime book, I highly recommend this one.

5. The Troop – Nick Cutter

Not for the squeamish. I’m talking skin-crawling, page-skimming squick here.

4. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown – Holly Black (YA)

The prose sparkles, but the vampires don’t, so it’s win-win for lovers of vampire fiction.

3. Song of Kali – Dan Simmons

Song of Kali is atmospheric, creepy and strangely affecting, but not in the ways you might expect.

2. The Lesser Dead – Christopher Buehlman

It’s interesting to read a vampire story that respects the lore, but isn’t afraid to tweak it a little.

1. Brother – Ania Ahlborn

There are no moments of levity in Ahlborn’s book; it’s as black as pitch. And that makes it sort of odd to admit that I loved it, but I really did.

Kala – Colin Walsh

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Colin Walsh’s debut, Kala, is an example of a book I started, didn’t get very far, abandoned, and then picked up again a few weeks later and fell into without trouble. It’s been called everything from “A thriller–and a lot more” (Roddy Doyle) and “A masterclass in building suspense” (The Washington Post). I think the book falls somewhere in the middle.

Helen, Mush, and Joe are childhood friends who grew up in Kinlough, Ireland. Helen, a journalist who has been living in Canada, and Joe, a big-time musician, don’t make it home very much, but Mush has never left. He works at his mother’s cafe and spends his time alone or with his teenage cousins, Donna and Marie. There used to be three other members of their circle of friends: Aidan, Aoife, and Kala.

We’re fifteen and it’s the summer of our lives–the whole town’s pure responsive to our energies.

At the end of that summer, though, Kala disappears. Now, fifteen years later, Joe and Helen end up back in Kinlough and their return coincides with the discovery of human remains.

The story is told from Helen, Joe and Mush’s perspectives as they recount that final fifteenth summer (Kala was Helen’s best friend and Joe’s girlfriend) and also examines who they are now. They have all been traumatized by that long ago event. When Helen starts to poke around, asking questions she wouldn’t haven’t known to ask at the time, it stirs up some long-buried secrets.

There are some scary people in Kinlough, including Aiden’s own father, Ger, and his gang. Everyone in town knows they are up to no good, including Joe’s father, Dudley, a member of the local Guarda. If you are going to poke a wasp’s nest, you’re bound to get stung. But Ger is not the only bad element in Kinlough; the rot goes deep.

Kala is not a page-turner, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t riveting. Each of the main characters have demons in their pasts, and Joe and Helen in particular have a fractious relationship. They were such interesting characters, never mind their connection to Kala and the town.

The writing itself is also really compelling. They sounded Irish, at least to me; the musical cadence and the vocabulary is really specific. Here’s Mush describing hanging with Kala and the other girls:

Kala and me were friendly from the get-go, like. Even when Joe wasn’t around I’d call over to hers to hang out, watch films. Girls were pure different from fellas. They lit the room with candles, got extra pillows and cushions from upstairs. Big bags of M & M’s and Maltesers. Popcorn with lashings of butter.

The book did have some real moments of suspense, and the pace picks up especially towards the end, but I think the book is mostly about family, loyalty, friendship, memory and love. It took a while to read, but I felt like it was worth the effort.

Twisted – Laurie Halse Anderson

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When I started Laurie Halse Anderson’s YA novel Twisted, I was sure that it was going to be a five star read. A few years back, predating this blog, I read this author’s award-winning book, Speak, which tells the story of a young girl who is sexually assaulted at an end-of-the-summer party and chooses to spend her sophomore year mute.

Twisted is the story of high school senior Tyler Miller. At the end of grade eleven, he gets in a bit of a pickle by doing graffiti on the school. He has spent most of his high school years as a bit geek, a video game nerd who is either ignored or bullied. But during the summer between junior and senior year, in an effort to make some money to pay for the damage and as part of his court mandated restitution, Tyler gets a job (and a new physique) doing maintenance work at the school (restitution) and landscaping for Mr. Pirelli ($). He starts his senior year a different person, on the outside at least.

…the labor had turned me from Nerd Boy into Tyler the Amazing Hulk, with ripped muscles and enough testosterone to power a nuclear generator.

Tyler has a massive crush on Bethany Milbury, the “Alpha Female of George Washington High–the most beautiful, the most popular, the Queen Bee. She was also the daughter of my dad’s boss, and the sister of the guy who had been making my life hell for years.” Still, it seems Tyler’s changed appearance is not unappealing to Bethany and suddenly it seems like Tyler’s wet dream might become reality.

Twisted is more than just the story about the guy getting the girl (plus he doesn’t actually get her in the end.) This is a story about complicated family relationships, being true to yourself, mental health, friendship, siblings. I was so sure I was going to LOVE it because Tyler’s voice was so funny in the beginning and I was really rooting for him to get his shit together.

Somehow, though, the story loses its early momentum and some of its themes feel under developed. So, while the pay off wasn’t exactly there for me, I still think Twisted is a worthwhile read and many teenagers, particularly young men, will likely find it relatable.

Thirst for Salt – Madelaine Lucas

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The twenty-four-year-old unnamed narrator of Madelaine Lucas’s debut novel Thirst for Salt is on holiday with her mother at a remote location, Sailors Beach, somewhere in southern Australia when she meets Jude, a man 18 years her senior.

When we met, Jude and I had marveled at the symmetry of our ages. Written down in my diary–24 42–they looked like a palindrome or a post code from an outer Sydney suburb. It’s hard to remember now that I was once that girl, lying in the sand in my red swimsuit and swimming late into the day.

The girl is adrift. She’s graduated from university, lives in a dumpy apartment with a couple roommates and has to travel across the city to work in a bookstore. Jude offers her something she didn’t even know she was looking for, but soon utterly consumes her.

Who is to say what love is or what it wants to be, the shape it takes, or how quickly it comes on. Love has always made a fool of time.

Soon enough, the girl is living with Jude and imagining a future with him, a life that eventually includes a stray dog they find. There’s talk of a baby. It seems that Jude offers a strange sort of stability for her, even though he actually seems sort of flaky.

We know from the beginning of the novel that the narrator and Jude are not together and that she is telling this story of this one very particular time in her life from some years in the future. She is back in Australia after some time in the States and sees Jude’s picture in a magazine. He is holding “a dark-haired little girl. Three or four years old. […] Jude’s lips. […] It was something in the way he held her–that’s how I knew she was his.”

The narrator’s predicament will be relatable to anyone who has ever loved someone deeply, and then lost them. Not acrimoniously, just a drifting away despite the love. Looking back, the narrator is able to see her youthfulness and immaturity, but also Jude’s flaws.

Nothing much happens in the book. It’s not that kind of book. It’s a book about not only “the reasons that love ends but the way it endures.” I thought it was beautiful.

Savage Ridge – Morgan Greene

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High school seniors Nick, Peter and Emmy kill their classmate Sammy Saint John. That’s not a spoiler. After the deed, the three besties go their separate ways and swear they will never return to their backwater town, Savage Ridge.

Sammy’s father, Thomas, and older brother, Ellison, never stop looking for Sammy or believing that Nick and his friends are responsible for Sammy’s death. Except no body has ever been found and the three friends have airtight alibis.

Ten years later, they’ve hired ex Detroit detective-turned PI Sloane Yo to try her luck at cracking the case. First she has to get the three friends back to Savage Ridge, and then she has to see if she can break them or, even better, if being near each other again won’t cause them to crack under the pressure.

The novel is told from a variety of perspectives: Nick, Barry ‘Pop’ Poplar, the town sheriff; Lillian Dempsey, the original investigator hired by the Saint John family; Ellison Saint John and Sloane Yo. The novel flips back and forth between then and now. Then James Saint John ruled Savage Ridge; people were afraid of the power he had to ruin lives. Now, he’s holed up in his mansion dying of cancer. The rest of the characters have their own motives and baggage, particularly Sloane who is clearly fighting some demons but is also smart and tenacious enough to get to the bottom of the motive.

Savage Ridge is a s-l-o-w burn mystery, not a whodunnit, a why-they-done-it. It takes a long time to get where it’s going and I am not really sure it was worth it once I got there. New info that comes in the final act feels a bit like a cheat and a final twist just didn’t land for me. That said, it’s worth the time for a patient reader.

Auto Buy: David Nicholls

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British novelist David Nicholls has written four of my favourite “romances”. (I don’t know, can I even call them that?) Nicholls got his start as an actor before turning his hand to screenwriting and finally to novels.

You can listen to him talk about some of his work here:

My first experience with Nicholls was his book One Day, which we read for my book club back in 2011. I said that Emma and Dexter were “beautifully realized characters, flawed and heartbreakingly fragile.” Although there was a movie, I didn’t watch it. I did, however, watch the limited series starring Leo Woodall and Ambika Mod and it is EVERYTHING!

It only took that one book for Nicholls to become an auto buy author for me, and since then I have read three more of his books.

Sweet Sorrow – “Nicholls has written a book that is both laugh-out-loud funny and also deeply moving. How we ever survive those fraught teen years, I’ll never know, but somehow we do. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the book to mature teens in my class, but this is not a YA novel. The tears I shed at the end of the book came from understanding something I could never really know at sixteen: that first love doesn’t last, but it stays with you forever anyway.”

Us – Us is funny (although there were instances when I felt it was trying just a tad too hard to get a laugh), and well-written. I loved visiting these European cities. The characters felt like real people. 

You Are Here – Trust me, it’s the journey not the destination that matters in this one. It’s filled with flirty banter, heartfelt revelations, and beautiful descriptions of the English countryside. This book will make you want to plan your own ramble and open yourself up to the possibility of love.

As a woman of a certain age, I appreciate that Nicholls writes characters with a little mileage on them (even when the book contains a backwards glance). His books make me laugh and cry, two things that make them automatic five star reads for me.

There are two Nicholls books I haven’t read yet: Starter for Ten and The Understudy. They are his first and second books, so I am not sure he had quite hit his stride, but I am more than willing to give them a go when I get my hands on them.

Claiming Georgia Tate – Gigi Amateau

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Twelve-year-old Georgia Tate lives with her maternal grandparents in Ripley, Mississippi. Her mother is dead and her father, Ray, lives with his wife, Sissy, in Florida. Let’s just say it: he is an awful human being. When Gigi Amateau’s novel Claiming Georgia Tate begins, Georgia is actually in Florida visiting her father, but it is soon clear to both Georgia and the reader that she is not safe.

Georgia’s life in Ripley is safe and happy. Her grandfather is the town preacher who takes Georgia fishing and clearly loves her. Her grandmother, while no nonsense, is supportive and loving. Georgia’s life is filled with small-town things: church, family meals, community. She can’t really imagine any other life and then two things happen in quick succession. She finds out a family secret and she is sent to live with her father permanently.

It’s hard to say much more about the book. It’s not very long and it’s not really driven by plot. This is a book about family, both the family you are born to and the family you find along the way. Georgia is lucky to meet a couple characters later in the book who end up being instrumental to her survival.

Your heart will break for Georgia Tate, but you will also be reminded of the goodness that exists in the world, and that’s a reminder we can certainly use right now.

The Way I Used to Be – Amber Smith

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Eden McCrorey is just fourteen when her older brother Caelin’s bestie, Kevin, slips into her room one night and rapes her.

I don’t know a lot of things. I don’t know why I didn’t hear the door click shut. Why I didn’t lock the damn door to begin with. Or why it didn’t register that something was wrong–so mercilessly wrong–when I felt the mattress shift under his weight. Why I didn’t scream when I opened my eyes and saw him crawling between my sheets. Or why I didn’t try to fight him when I still stood a chance.

Kevin has been an extended part of the family as long as she can remember and although Caelin is already in college, brother and sister have always been close. But she can’t tell Caelin what happened; she can’t tell anyone. Instead, she buries the trauma deep and tries to protect herself by becoming a different person. By sophomore year she has quit band, replaced her gasses with contacts, and taken up smoking.

She also meets Josh, a popular and attractive athlete in his senior year. For reasons that don’t quite make sense, Josh takes a sincere interest in her. Before he can say “Do you want to be my girlfriend?” they’re having sex. He doesn’t know she’s only 14 (about to be 15) because she has lied to him. And she keeps lying, to herself too. When their relationship goes belly-up, Eden continues to pursue mindless and meaningless sexual encounters, often fueled by alcohol and weed.

Amber Smith’s debut The Way I Used to Be follows Eden through her four years of high school. She’s a train wreck of a person, but no one seems to notice. Not her parents who are virtually absent and when they are in the picture they don’t seem to acknowledge that their sweet, pliable, and kind daughter has disappeared. Eden’s best friend, Mara, also doesn’t seem to notice that things are not quite right, but she is a teenager, too, so I think that could be forgiven. Watching Eden self destruct (and be smart enough to know that is exactly what is happening) is painful. Each bad decision leads to another bad decision.

This book could certainly be triggering for some readers, and healing for others, but it is not without its issues. My main problem was the relationship with Josh. She is so odd when he first meets her, so hot and cold, I couldn’t really understand what drew him to her. But he stays in her corner until she makes it impossible.

The opening chapter of this book is so compelling and horrifying and Eden’s journey to healing so self-destructive that this book probably won’t be for everyone, but it’s definitely worth a read.