Books 35 - 40: Six (Girls Own) Geese a-layin'.

Seasons greetings! Currently I am in an awesome mood, because a. I got some seriously awesome stuff for Christmas (although sadly few books) b. I'm on holiday until January 5, which allows for some serious reading, and c. this is the view from my deck:


Awwww yeah. I currently have no plans for New Year's, either, so I'm planning on seeing in 2010 by reading as many books as I can in one night. Dorky and socially isolating, sure, but a lot less harrowing for the liver.


35.
Title: Robins in the Abbey (1947)
Author: Elsie J. Oxenham

36.
Title: The New Abbey Girls (1923)
Author: Elsie J. Oxenham

37.
Title: Maid of the Abbey (1943)
Author: Elsie J. Oxenham

Sometimes when you begin reading a new series of books you can start anywhere and pick up what's going on and who's who. The Abbey Girls is not one such series. I started with seventh-to-last book, out of thirty-eight books, and for at least the first three chapters I had no idea what was going on. The main character, one of the titular Robins, was easy enough to grasp. She's a young heiress travelling back to Wales from New York, by ship: when she receives news that her father, also overseas, has been in an accident, she's invited home by Lady Quellyn, who lives at the Abbey.

So far so good, right? Only when she gets to the Abbey the virgin reader - ie me - is confronted with characters by the names of Joy, Jean, Joan, Jandymac and Jen, all who seem to have several pairs of twins who are all named after each other; then there's Rosamund, whose daughters are all named some variation of Rose; as well as their first names, they're all Ladies or Countesses, and Joy used to be Lady Marchwood but she's now Lady Quellyn and Jen is Lady Marchwood; oh, and then they've all got nicnames, after flowers, so they're also called Primrose or Daisy or Hyacinth or Violet and I never knew who anyone was talking about.

Even amongst all this confusion, Oxenham's strengths shone through. Of all the writer of "Girls Own" stories - a term used to describe books written exclusively for girls in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - Oxenham is probably the best known, besides Enid Blyton. Her characters, although not always incredibly complex, are still human: in Robins, the female Robin is impatient and frustrated when she realises she is in love (with a man who has the same name as her) yet she can't approach him because she's a woman, and you really get a sense of how a girl in her position must have felt. Oxenham also writes beautiful, vivid descriptions of her settings, whether it's the English Abbey or Robin's home in Wales.

The New Abbey Girls cleared up a lot of my confusion. It's book 13 in the series, and although it was severely abridged I finally got a handle on who everyone was and why they were so important. Particularly of interest were the scenes where Joy - at this point, neither Lady Marchwood nor Lady Quellyn - takes her new ward, Maidlin, to various folkdancing classes. Folkdancing seems to happen in every single book - as well as the crowning of a May Queen - but here, so early in the series, it seemed a lot more interesting and was better integrated with the story. Even if I'd never heard of any of the dances, it was still fascinating to read about. Sadly, my copy of this book was severely and noticeably abridged, which made the story jump all over the place.

Maid introduces two more characters, Anne and Belinda Belanne, who also appear in Robins. A sick Anne is invited to the Abbey along with her sister, who is delighted to find her idol, the singer Maidlin, lives there. When disaster strikes the Abbey in the form of measles, Anne takes over as cook, and Belinda become a nurse-slash-governess to Joy's twin girls. Maidlin is caught up in her own romantic drama - she's being wooed by a dear friend, but she's in love with his uncle.

The books are mostly light fare, although I'm given to understand that others in the series touch on deeper subjects, such as religion, and death and illness. Fun though, and surprisingly hard to put down.


38.
Title: Ruey Richardson: Chaletian (1960)
Author: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

39.
Title: Cornelia of the Chalet School (2009)
Author: Jackie Roberts

40.
Title: Before the Chalet School: The Bettanys of Taverton High (2008)
Author: Helen Barber

Ruey Richardson doesn't settle in easily to the Chalet School. Until recently, her and her brothers were more or less looking after themselves, and she's used to going to bed whenever she likes, doing her homework whenever she likes, and has never given much thought to the way she looks or dresses. At boarding school, things are different, and even though her idea for the school to start playing lacrosse quickly brings her new friends, she has less luck with the teachers.

This is kind of an odd book. Brent-Dyer had been writing the Chalet School series for almost forty years at the point, and she kind of makes a conscience effort to modernise her plots. Ruey and her brothers haven't just been abandoned by their father for any old reason: he's a space-mad scientist hoping to fly to the moon. I am not even kidding, it is hilarious/ridiculous. The other odd thing is the lacrosse: there is literally a chapter on lacrosse theory, and it read almost exactly like a text book on the subject. I pretty much skipped that chapter, in case you're wondering.

The other two books I read in this series were, as you can see from my handy list, not written by the original author, which is something I'm not usually super keen on. Cornelia starts off pretty badly, too - Roberts seems to be trying to ape Brent-Dyer's style, and it just feel awkward and uncomfortable to read. The writing picks up later, though, and the story becomes quite interesting - Cornelia, a former Chalet pupil, is travelling back home to America with her millionaire father, on board a ship that includes a former Nazi officer and his wife, and old school-mate of Cornelia. During the war, Brent-Dyer emphasised that just because someone was "the enemy" it didn't make them evil, and Roberts does a good job of carrying this message one. The Nazi officer openly hates Jews, but his wife confides to Cornelia that she herself would have gone to a concentration camp for helping Jewish refugees if he hadn't intervened to save her. He's undoubtedly a terrible person, and yet he is still human.

Taverton High was much more in touch with the original series as far as actual content went. It follows the school's founding family before the founding, as a poor (but not so poor they can't afford a maid!) family of siblings dealing with a lack of funds, a guardian who is kindly but out of his depths, and a very ill little sister, who is painfully close to dying. The narrative focuses both on Joey, the youngest sister who despite being constantly sick is also constantly in and out of trouble: and Madge, the eldest sister, who in the absence of her twin brother is the one who has to try and make ends meet. Among other things, it's an interesting look at English village life during the Depression that followed the World War I.

Brent-Dyer still holds a special place in my heart that Oxenham can't possibly replace, but I'm still keen to read some more of her books. I'm ridiculously close to having read every single book in the Chalet School series anyway - when I finally have, I'll have to find something else to obsess over. Oxenham may be that something!

Book 24 - A Rose for the Anzac Boys, or: "There's nothing worse than ill-fitting socks!"

Title: A Rose for the Anzac Boys (2008)

Author: Jackie French

Why this book?
Because when I was at school we learned about the battle at Gallipoli every Anzac Day, every year, and that is pretty much the extent of my knowledge of WWI and thought I should correct that ASAP - through the power of fiction! Also, I like Jackie French - she wrote one of my favourite fantasy books, Tajore Arkle, as the wonderful but sad Hitler's Daughter.

What's it all about anyway?
When the war starts, New Zealander Midge is a long way from home - in a boarding school in England, in fact, where she is learning frightfully important things like deportment and posture. Her twin brother, Tim, has lied about his age and joined up, and she's really proud of him - he's fighting for King and country, and besides, everyone knows the war won't take that long to win.

Then Midge gets a telegraph saying Tim is missing, and everything changes for her. She knows he can't really be dead - he must've been taken prisoner by the Turks - but suddenly, the war seems real. She doesn't want to just sit around knitting socks and putting together trifles to send to the soldier. That's when Ethel, daughter of a nouveau riche grocer, has an idea - why don't they start a canteen for the soliders? They won't be in any danger themselves, and with her father's help they can provide food and a hot drink for soldier leaving for and returning from the battlefield. Along with their friend the Honourable Anne, they set out for France.

Midge works harder than she has ever worked in her life; one night the girls and their helpers actually serve over ten thousand soldiers. She sees countless soldiers returning missing arms and legs, some shellshocked, others already dead. When a friendly ambulance driver is taken off the job due to septic wounds in her hands, Midge offers to take her place; and from there, somehow, she manages to meet her aunt - a nurse - and is pressed into duty in the big hospital tents where there are too many injured and not enough supplies, and where even the chaplain has been pressed into duty as a surgeon.

And through it all, two things keep her going: one, the drive to find her brother; and the other, the memory of the sheepfarm back home, the place she yearns to be more than anywhere. She meets a young Aussie soldier, a fellow sheepfarmer who knows exactly how she feels, and who gives her a rose on her birthday...

As destructive and terrifying as the war is, Midge revels in the freedom her work has given her. Can things really ever go back to how they were before the war?

The Good and the Bad
This book was kind of amazing. It's not at all subtle - Midge's naivety, the snobbery of the army officers, the pure idiocy of many of the armies' campaigns, they're all painted with a thick brush. But the boldness of French's writing makes this a very readable story - it unfolds quickly, and you can get a grasp on what's going on very quickly. The descriptions of the wounded are stomach-churning at times, but accurate - French based them on descriptions in real letters and diaries.

Midge is a great character. She's not out to change the world; at the very bottom she simply wants to help her own family, but in her love for them lies the strength to do a great many things that a great many people wouldn't. Anne and Ethel are both equally strong, and I was sad to see them drift out of the story as Midge's choices took her further away from them. Anne in particular interested me; the daughter of a Duke who clearly had no interest in being married off to the first suitable suitor who came along, but who didn't seem to have any great argument against it, either; who rebelled in quiet ways, like making friends with Ethel, even as she tried her best to get rid of her pimples to please her mother.

What I did feel weakened the story was framing it against the recent Iraq War. French's message seemed to be that ultimately, it's the soldiers who get screwed over, no matter what the circumstances, and that's true enough! But to me modern wars are a world away from those that happened almost a century ago. We no longer have the belief that this war will be the last; we've long since lost that innocence. Besides - it seemed a little odd having a whole book about women in wartime, the invisible heroes, and ending with a message about male soldiers. I don't know; it really just seemed to take something away from the book, to me. Or perhaps it was my own feelings on the Iraq War that just jolted me out of the story.

So should I read this book or what?
I'd definitely recommend it, although I was pretty much sold as soon as I knew it was about a New Zealand girl in WWI. I'd actually recommend anything by Jackie French though - she really is great!

Link of the day: I mean to pimp this earlier, but since it's still going - check out the Agatha Christie Blog Tour! Awesome.

Book 15 - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or: Millennium: not just a shitty Robbie Williams song

I had one of my wisdom teeth out on Tuesday, so I spent most of the day on Wednesday in bed, reading this book. I should have my teeth removed more often.

Image from My Good Friend Wikipedia. Thanks, Wikipedia!

Title: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008)
Originally published as Män Som Hatar Kvinnor (2005)

Author: Stieg Larsson
Trans. Reg Keeland

Why this book? Because my Mum said, "Oh, I've heard this book is quite good," and bought it for me. I can't say no to a free book.

What's it all about anyway? Mikael Blomkvist is a fairly talented financial journalist who has just been convicted on 15 counts of libel, landing him in jail for three months. To Blomkvist, this seems like the end of the road - not only of his own career, but of the newspaper Millennium which he part-owns, which will never survive this hit to his credibility.

Then comes a completely unexpected offer. Henrik Vanger wants Blomkvirst to find the truth behind the mystery that has been haunting him for forty years. Who killed his beloved great-niece, Harriet? And, since Harriet's death, who has continued to taunt him by sending him a single, pressed flower, every year on his birthday - exactly as Harriet used to do? Vanger will not only pay Blomkvirst for a year's worth of his time, but he also offers to get the Millennium back on its feet. Blomkvirst reluctantly agrees to investigate Harriet's case, and slowly finds himself being drawn into the bizarre world of the Vangers, who are more a corporate dynasty than they are a family.

As Blomkvirst is pulled deeper into the story behind Harriet's disappearance, he takes on Lisbeth Salander as a research assistant - the girl with the dragon tattoo. Salander is possibly mentally ill, definitely emotionally warped, and entirely incapable of believing that not everyone is out to get her - but she's also a probable genius and an amazingly good private investigator.

Together, Blomkvirst and Salander realise that the Vanders have a lot to hide - and some of them are willing to go to any length to keep it hidden...

The Good and the Bad I started off reading this book expecting it to be just another thriller, but it turned out to be one of the best contemporary mystery books I've read in a very long time. So often I read mysteries where the solution is so obvious that I get frustrated that the detective hasn't figured it out yet - and I also hate it when mysteries are so over-complicated that their answer is just completely unbelievable. Larsson manages a perfect balance, laying down clues that are subtle enough that the reader can see the shape that the answer is going to take without being able to put a finger on the exact solution.

In some ways this book is almost a revenge fantasy - Salander, after being sexually abused, manages to turn the tables on her abuser in a way that might be described as poetic, while Blomkvirst's revenge on the man who set him up to go to prison is so enjoyable you can almost taste it. But in neither case does the revenge seem too far-fetched; in Salander's case, it shows us that while everyone else sees her as a victim she's never really felt that way, and in Blomkvirst's the story needed it to feel properly finished.

There are two main threads running through the book: abuse of women (the Swedish title of the book translates as "Men who hate women") and criticism of big business. Overall, Larsson handles the abuse of women part very well - generally such a topic makes me put down a book, since I just find it so hard to read about, especially when it involves rape and sadism. But the only part of the story which made me slightly uncomfortable was Salander's inability to understand that not all victims can fight back - is Larsson trying to argue that all victims should fight back (which to me sounds a lot like blaming the victim), or is he trying to point out how silly this argument is by putting it in the mouth of a character who doesn't really understand how other people work?

So should I read it or what? Without being a challenging read, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is engaging and really will keep you guessing until the end. I came to love Blomkvirst and Salander dearly, and I can not only tell you that you should read this book, but I'm going to go ahead and tentatively also recommend its sequel The Girl Who Played with Fire, which I haven't actually read yet.

Unrelated link of the day: The 10 worst subjects for a pop song. "Erectile dysfunction" isn't one of them, so I guess this Times writer is a Lily Allen fan.

Book 9 - Rapunzel's Revenge, or: Punzie, your Mum's a total bi- witch.

Not particularly related link of the day: The Agatha Christie Reading Challenge Carnival. Read, enjoy, join in!

And now, to business: I know I said I was trying to keep this place manga- and comics-free, but this book is a graphic novel, which is technically different. Possibly. Anyway, I don't really care, because it was too awesome to not blog about.



Title: Rapunzel's Revenge (2008)

Authors: Shannon and Dean Hale

Illustrator: Nathan Hale

Why this book? I was looking for Wonder Women comics in my local bookstore and found this instead.

What's it all about anyway? Rapunzel lives in a grand villa with her mother, and her mother's servants. Surrounding her mother's villa is a wall so high it's impossible for Rapunzel to climb - which is just as well, as she has an adventurous spirit her mother clearly doesn't approve of. Rapunzel knows there's some kind of mystery surrounding her, and is sure that if she could just see over the wall she'd know what it was. But when she finally manages make her way to the other side of the wall, she realises her whole world is based on a lie - and her so-called mother's punishment is severe. Rapunzel gets hidden away in the middle of a magical forest, unable to escape from the high-up, empty tree trunk she is trapped in.

...Until the magic of the forest causes her hair to grow alarmingly long. Rapunzel begins to braid it, to use it to keep herself entertained - it can be a jump-rope, a swing, a lasso - and eventually, it's long enough for her to use it to escape. She makes her way to the nearest village, and instantly finds herself in a spot of trouble when she helps a cross-dressing barmaid out during a fight. The barmaid turns out to be a boy named Jack, who's hiding a secret or two as well as his real gender - like why, exactly he's travelling across the land with a goose named Goldy, and why he has - of all things! - a lucky bean.

With Jack as her guide, Rapunzel starts to make her way back towards her false mother's villa, and discovers that her name - Mother Gothel - is known and hated far and wide. Mother Gothel has become the number one cause of deforestation, tearing up the land in order to increase the size of her own empire. Rapunzel becomes intent on revenge, not just for her own sake, but for the sake of every other family that Mother Gothel has destroyed.

The Good and the Bad
This isn't just a retelling of a fairytale; this is the retelling of a fairytale as a Western! So there's tavern brawls, sheriffs, posses, quick-drawing, desert hermits, travelling thespians and unironic use of the "tarnation". I mean, I'm not exactly a huge Western fan, but what isn't there to love about turning possibly the most passive fairytale heroine of all time into a wandering, cowgirl adventurer? (Now, if only the same could be done to Cinderella, preferably without Drew Barrymore's involvement).

Rapunzel herself is wonderful: naive, but quick-witted and clever. Jack is a perfect sidekick; loyal, charming, knowledgeable where Rapunzel is not, not quite as good at scheming as she is - in fact, he's better described as a partner than a sidekick, because although Rapunzel is undoubtedly the leader of the two they have a lovely, equitable relationship. Jack is no all-conquering Prince Charming, but the Hales didn't go the other way and turn him into a damsel in distress, either. And yes, in case you need it spelled out for you, he is the Jack of beanstalk fame, out looking for gold to rebuild his house after he ran into some, er, trouble with a few giants.

The art is lovely. It's not overly stylised and it's not too cartoonish. There's still the right amount of the fantastical in it to remind you that yes, this is still a fairytale, without it becoming whimsical. I hate it when artists essentially just draw the same character over and over, with slightly different hairstyles and clothes so you can tell them apart; but Hale doesn't do that - each individual character actually has their very own facial features, which is, you know, how people actually look.

On the downside? Once or twice you're hit by an authorial message so blatantly that you might as well have had a brick thrown at your head. Particularly obvious is Rapunzel saying, after she's averted a would-be murderer:

"I was noticing how without guns in their hands most people around here turned pale."

It doesn't seem so bad out of context, but in context this line sticks out like a sore thumb - particularly since this is a Western. People are going to have guns. Yes, I'm pleased that neither Rapunzel nor Jack carry one, but I can tell when someone is not-very-subtly trying to tell me that Guns Are Bad and it really irritates the hell out of me.

So should I read it or what?
I loved it, and it's readable enough that even if you're not usually into graphic novels you'd probably enjoy it. Here's hoping the Hales team up to make another one!

Incidentally, Shannon Hale is a fairly-well established writer of young adult fantasy - check out her site here.

Book 8 - Bomb, Book and Compass, or: Scientists get all the chicks

Completely unrelated link of the day: Orisinal: Morning Sunshine is where I spend my tea breaks at work. It has a few dozen beautifully designed games, most of which are horribly addictive. My all-time favourite has to be Winterbells, where you, as an adorably cute bunny rabbit, have to jump and hit as many falling bells as possible. But I also love Floats, and Bugs, and Cats, and OK I just love everything.

The People have spoken: Colonel Mustard is the favourite murder suspect of The People, no doubt because of his colonial attitudes and suspicious moustache, and the fact that mustard is probably the worst condiment ever invented (besides barbeque sauce, ugh.) Please answer this week's poll, which asks a question for the ages: which branch of science is the sexiest?

Obviously the most suspicious thing about him
is that he has a yellow cone instead of a body.

And now, to business: I seldom read nonfiction, which probably makes me a terrible person, but in my defence my history textbooks in high school were about as dry and boring as the surface of the moon, and they more or less scarred me for life. However, every now and then my interest in something will be piqued by a movie I watch, or a fictional story I read, and then I'm forced to turn to my old foe, Nonfiction, for answers (I like to imagine Nonfiction as an olde-time villain, twirling his moustache, hiding behind his cape, and tying young, virginal women to railway tracks).

Title: Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China (2008)
US Title: The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom (2008)

Author: Simon Winchester

Why this book? What with the Olympics being held there last year and everything, it suddenly became trendy to actually have some sort of interest in China. Although, in my case, it was actually a review of this book in my local paper that made me interested to find out more about the life and times of Joseph Needham. I bought it and started reading it last year, but I never really had a chance to get stuck into it until this year.

What's it all about, anyway?
Joseph Needham (full name: Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham, awesome) was a radical scientist working at Cambridge in the 1920's. Radical in the sense of his political and social views, which were definitely a little left of the spectrum, and by a little I mean a lot, although his ideals and sentiments were not entirely unusual for an academic of his day. He studied embryology and morphogenesis, and was married to a fellow biochemist Dorothy Moyle, who was lucky enough to also be offered research opportunities at Cambridge at a time when few women were.

Joseph and Dorothy had an open relationship, and in the 1930's Needham began an affair with a visiting Chinese scientist, Lu Gwei-djen, who began to teach to write and speak Classical Chinese, and who gave him the name Li Yuese. Thanks to Lu, Needham's interest in, and passion about, China began to grow, and when, in 1944, the Royal Society offered him a chance to actually travel to China, he took it.

Officially, Needham's role was a kind of goodwill ambassador to Chinese Universities - parts of China were being occupied by Japan at this time, and as a way of demoralising the Chinese people the Japanese were closing and ransacking her universities - in at least one case, university buildings were turned into brothels. Needham traveled the country - in itself a difficult feat, what with the war going on and all - visiting Chinese academics, showing that the international community had not forgotten about them (yet). He realised that many of the scientific discoveries that the West had claimed as its own had in fact first been discovered in China - a realisation that eventually lead to him writing his opus, Science and Civilisation in China.

The Good and the Bad:
OK, I realise this doesn't sound like the most scintillating read, but Winchester has an light, racy style of writing, always finding little bits of information, picking up on the oddities of Needham's life in Cambridge and China, and going off into tangents about the other famous figures that Needham meets, most of whom are just as eccentric as he was - people like Rewi Alley and Wang Ling - scientists, archaeologists, politicians. A lot of the information comes directly from Needham's diary, too, so it doesn't feel like Winchester is interpreting Needham's life, just describing it.

Winchester clearly admires Needham, but it's probably also fair to say he neither condones nor condemns his views and behaviour. That's one of the best things about this book, because while Needham's views disn't bother me especially (although his support of Communism did bother a lot of people) his behaviour frequently did. Needham was an unabashed womaniser, and although he and his wife did supposedly have an open relationship there is no mention of Dorothy having any extra-marital affairs. In fact, both Moyle and Lu completely fascinated me, yet the information about them compared to many of the other figures in Bomb, Book and Compass seemed rather sparse. It's a great pity - these were two women that not only influenced Needham's life and passions but who both defied the odds themselves, if in a much quieter way. I would have liked to get to know them a little better.


Womanising aside, by the time I had finished this book I was half in love with China myself, and very much ashamed that I know so little about a country that is so vast and which holds so much history and so much culture (and so much science, of course.) I guess this book made me realise that, while China can be a controversial subject, there's so much more to her than political manoevering - that beyond the politics, there's a China who's really worth discovering.

Lastly, I have to say that I have no idea why the Powers The Be decided that the good people of America needed a different title to the good people of everywhere else, especially since, in my opinion, Bomb, Book and Compass has a much nice ring to it than The Man Who Loved China, which sounds a little like a James Bond ripoff. Perhaps they were worried that the word 'bomb' had connotations of terrorism? Or maybe they worried that if people bought something with the word 'book' in the title they might realise they'd actually been tricked into reading one? Or perhaps it was a push from the Anti-Compass Lobby? We may never know.

So should I read it or what? This is definitely one of the best biographies I've ever read; possibly the best. Bomb, Book and Compass is not the book to read if you're looking for light entertainment - but if you're looking for entertainment with substance you should give it a chance.

Book 4 - The Graveyard Book

I've got a bit of a love-hate relationship going on with Neil Gaiman. I mean, not on a personal level. I don't know the guy, although I've heard he's followed around by screaming hordes of young, lithe women who want to have his slightly geeky literary babies. (This might be a slight exaggeration.)

No, my problem with Gaiman is that he seems to have women issues - sometimes. My two favourite books of his are both children's books, Coraline and MirrorMask, and both have the kind of capable female protaganists that I hope to offer to my future godchildren as the people they should grow up to be like. But both stories also feature mother-figure antagonists - dark parodies of the girls' real mothers - intent on keeping the girls as their own daughter-possessions. Does Mr Gaiman have mother issues? I've had some professional training in this area (at least, I once sat in on my friend's Psych 101 class) and I'm going to go ahead and say yes.

Then there's the women in his books for adults. The three most memorable women in American Gods are a goddess who works as a prostitute, Shadow's wife, who dies will giving his best friend a BJ, and Bast, who spends most of her time as a cat, only turning into a woman at night... in order to sleep with Shadow. And let's not even talk about Gaiman's short story reimagining of Narnia (I shall never think of Aslan the same way again).

For those of you playing at home, that's a tick for "sex issues" and a tick for "mother issues". Freud would be having a field day.

Despite all that, I do enjoy Gaiman's work, and considering that The Graveyard Book was about a child-orphan-protagonist I was interested to see how he'd break from his usual Oedipal mould. I'm glad that I did.

Title: The Graveyard Book (2008)

Author: Neil Gaiman

Why this book?
I got if for Christmas!

What's it about, anyway?
A baby boy's entire family is slaughtered one night but the baby boy escapes by crawling to a nearby graveyard. The people of the graveyard - its ghosts, and other members of the, uh, non-living community - adopt the baby, naming him Nobody, or Bod, for short.

Bod has a surprisingly idyllic childhood, watched over by his adoptive ghost parents and his guardians, Silas and Miss Lupescu. He makes friends with the ghost-children, and with Scarlett Perkins, one of the first live people he has contact with. As he grows, however, he struggles with the fact that as someone who is not yet dead he can not really be part of the graveyard's world; but as a human boy growing up among ghosts he can never be quite normal to those who are still alive.

Bod's adoptive family try to shield him from the harsh realities of the world, but his own curiosity drives him to try to discover who killed his parents, and why. The words "thrilling conclusion" could definitely be used here, and entirely without irony.

The good and the bad:
For the most part, this book was what I've come to expect (and love!) from Gaiman - the story is both quirky and chilling, at times light-hearted and at times pretty dark. Bod's encounter with the Sleer, an ancient underground monster, had me on the edge of my seat, as did his imprisonment by a living store-owner. All the characters were well-drawn, from Bod himself to the schoolyard bully, to Scarlett and her mother, to the Man Jack, Bod's family's murderer. Liza Hempstock, the ghost of a witch who was not buried in consecrated ground, is a particular treat.

I raced through most of the book in an ohgodwhathappensnext manner, but its conclusion stuck out rather uncomfortably for me. Scarlett, horrified at the way Bod has dealt with his family's killer, has her memories taken from her so that she will not only not remember the events that have transpired, but will forget Bod himself. This is more about Bod than it is about Scarlett - he behaves in a way that the people of the graveyard would completely condone, but which the living find positively inhuman. But the idea of taking away someone's memories is, to me, too much like assault - they're pretty much stealing part of Scarlett's self by doing so.

Then again, it could just be that I still haven't recovered from that episode of Doctor Who where the Doctor does exactly the same thing. Just thinking about it still makes me mad. >:(

So should I read it or what?
While Coraline remains my favourite Gaiman book (and probably one of my all time favourite books, period) The Graveyard Book is a fantastic read, and I didn't notice Gaiman's Oedipal complex at all. This one is definitely with a read - but don't just take my word for it! The ALA awarded it the 2009 Newbury Award, past winners of which include Louis Sachar's Holes and the excellent Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine.