Fluke

Whales. Hawaii lingo. Boats. Marine Biology and Scientific method. Nautical political-awareness. Reunited lovers. Fictitious whale human hybrids... This book has it all.

Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings is an extremely funny novel centered around Nate the polite, Canadian, marine-biologist.  Nate is in Hawaii studying humpback whales, most specifically why they sing. I love whales, which is what attracted me to this book, and I unwittingly learned a lot about them.

As with all of Christopher Moore's novels (that I have read so far), the book starts with a logical and engrossing story. Once the majority of the characters have been thoroughly introduced and we learn fascinating little tidbits about them, the plot twists arrive in full force. I think this is one of Moore's best works.  It reminds me a lot of Coyote Blue in that it has wonderfully fleshed out (and likable!) characters, an excellent plot, a good amount of randomness all backed up by a heavy dose of research and some serious underlying themes.  I seriously considered going back to school to attain a degree in Marine Biology for at least a month after reading this.

Fluke introduces us to cetacean behavioral researchers, cooky Hawaiians, Naval "researchers", and researchers who will make the data show anything that the highest bidder wants.

Delirium

Another trilogy about a dystopian future, in the vein of Hunger Games...  Yes, I know that there is a formula to each genre, but is it too much to ask for authors to show a little bit of creativity?

I've read the first two books (Delirium and Pandemonium) in this series. They are fun to read and I finished them really quickly but I couldn't help but find the whole premise to be utterly ridiculous.  I can't imagine America embracing the idea of a nation full of lobotomized citizens blundering around.  A lobotomy is the only thing that makes sense - the author describes the procedure that prevents human beings from contracting the disease of love as a brain surgery using needles and knives.

I work in medical research. According to current research, the part of the brain responsible for the sensation of love can be somewhat localized to the pleasure center of the brain (at least partially).  However, neurotransmitters play a huge role so the fictitious preventative surgery just doesn't make sense.  People in the book lose the ability to love, hate, and feel.  That sounds like a big old scrambling of the frontal cortex to me!

Still I see the appeal of the book. Without giving too much away, there is the required love triangle between the heroine and two boys, one of whom is slightly Peeta-ish...at least his hair is...

50 Shades of Grey

  Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades Trilogy #1) = 50 Shades of Awful! Where to begin with this book...

I first heard about it on the Today show. As Hermione Granger said: the best way to get people to read something is to ban it.  [Older Sister says: several libraries in FL have actually refused to carry the book or have removed it from their collections after seeing it reviewed.] I haven't been able to force myself to actually finish this book, so this review may be unfair, but when I started reading it I was struck by how ridiculously similar it was to Twilight.  [Older Sister here again: this book started as Twilight fanfiction. If you don't know what fanfiction is, you're mostly lucky.]

A klutsy pale girl living in the Pacific Northwest has never had a boyfriend but mysteriously has plenty of amorous would-be suitors. She works in a sporting goods store. Her ethnic male best friend is obsessed with her, and he is also her mechanic. Her mother is flighty and careless while her stepfather is monosyllabic and stiff. She loves to read books and write but not actually participate in life. She finds it hard to eat around the man she desires while he is weirdly obsessed with food. She has an old crappy car and her "boyfriend" insists on buying her a new one, as well as many other lavish gifts that she is uncomfortable accepting. She finds that his BREATH smells enticing (seriously). He warns her to stay away from him, he is trouble, he is no good for her.

The "best" part: he inducts her into a messed up and seriously abusive relationship.  I didn't mind the Twilight books until my 12-year-old students became obsessed with them and talked about how they wanted a boyfriend just like Edward.  I used to tell them, "having a boy stalk you, kidnap you, boss you around, tell you what to eat, wear, drive, who to be friends with...That is not love and it is NOT healthy."

I now have several friends who adore these 50 Shades of Grey books and I just want to have them committed.  All I could think about when reading this book was, "what the hell happened to him to leave him so damaged?"  He's psychologically ill, the type of person that makes you shudder when they are up on the witness stand, confessing to their heinous crimes.  You run in the opposite direction.  You do not stick around to be strung up on their ceiling.  And if that sounds like fun to you...you either have a latent desire to become a social worker and it's manifesting itself as an interest in traumatized and psychologically deviant behavior, or there is something seriously wrong with you too.

Also, the writing is terrible.

The Help

Yuck.  I don't understand the hype over The Help.  I didn't really like any of the characters and didn't really care what happened to them, because they were so unlikeable.  The premise of the book is interesting but the author didn't do a good job of instilling the sense of fear that the reader should feel for the characters.  I don't expect many authors to be as good as Harper Lee, who expertly conveys the constant unease and fear of racial issues through a young voice who doesn't quite understand how afraid she should be herself but.... there are subtle ways (without using violent grisly details) to project these integral pieces of novels, and ......It just doesn't happen in this book.

Even if I had liked this book, the very end would have completely changed my mind.  The last little forced quip, the imagined "kids say the darndest things", meant to be trite at best were just plain nauseating. The author's note was better written and better received than the entire novel.  The author should have just published that. - Younger Sister

Older Sister: Time and time again I've had this book recommended to me. I've still only read the author's note and thought it came across as a middle class white woman's belief that creating a fictional black protagonist completely eliminated any need for actual reflection on racism. The author is still fond of her black nanny, if I remember correctly. Without acknowledging that this nanny was paid to be nice to her, the author wishes she knew more about the nanny's life, but you know, not enough to put any effort into researching the woman's past. That white people weren't nice to black people just a few decades ago is not news. A better inquiry for thoughtful readers: What can we do about the lingering racism? Both sisters are of the opinion that a rather frothy novel does little to solve problems, and perhaps even contributes to them.