The Cuckoo's Calling

The Cuckoo's Calling Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling) 3.5 / 5	Published 2013 First Sentence "The buzz on the street was like the humming of flies."
Publisher's Description: A brilliant debut mystery in a classic vein: Detective Cormoran Strike investigates a supermodel's suicide. After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office.  Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, thelegendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.  You may think you know detectives, but you've never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you've never seen them under an investigation like this.
Dear Reader, Wow, JK Rowling. That was totally unexpected! I have to say I was impressed by a mystery which misdirected me until the very end. The characters were great and they all just jumped right off the page, they were so vivid. There wasn’t a single boring person in the book, and rarely a boring moment. I thought Rowling really fleshed out Strike’s (pretty original) backstory well while also keeping focused on the mystery at hand. What a great touch that the man who hired the detective (John) did so because Strike & John’s brother were old childhood friends. I am not a huge Harry Potter fan or anything (I liked the series well enough!) but I did enjoy The Casual Vacancy, so I figured I would give the author’s mysteries a try. This was of course a lot more like her first adult novel, and much less like her young adult wizardry series. So I did like it similarly to how & why I liked TCV, and almost as much. Rowling recalled a modern day Chandler to me, which was great! - I have a soft spot for those down-and-out, hard-boiled detective types who have seen it all. One thing I didn't love was the name of the main character - I couldn't help thinking (even though his name was Cormoran and not Cormorant, which it often sounded like!) of a bird attacking every time I heard his full name! from http://www.opb.org/news/blog/ecotrope/bald-eagles-decimate-tern-and-cormorant-colonies/ I just thought that was amusing, though. But I suppose his name fit him quite well. I loved the detective despite his flaws...or perhaps because of them? He was human, much like many of those Philip Marlowe-eqsue characters. I think that is part of why I love them so much. Despite their flaws, and the subjects on which they work, they often struggle to see the best in humanity. They want to look past all the detritus and see that there is a happy world out there somewhere, even when all evidence points to the opposite. And yet, somewhere deep inside their gruff exteriors, they keep hoping. It gives me a soft spot for them.  Yours, Arianna P.S. Somewhere I saw that someone thought that Karen Gillan would play a super Robin, and now I can't stop thinking of her in that role. They are right: she'd be perfectly perfect.

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The Clarence Principle

The Clarence Principle Writer: Fehed Said Illustrator: Shari Chankhamma 5/5	Published 2007 First Sentence "I was left behind in a dream I once had."
Publisher's Description: Embark on a surreal voyage into an unconventional vision of the afterlife. Clarence wakes to the aftermath of his own suicide and a hidden message spawns his journey beyond. Follow Clarence's twisted tale, as he meets whimsical characters whose fates are destined to intertwine with his. The Clarence Principle is an astounding graphic novel by new talents Fehed Said and Shari Chankhamma.
Dear Reader, Yes, yes, yes. I love the art, the dark comedic style, the quirky characters, and almost everything about this. This was quite some Graphic Novel, completely suited to my tastes. The Clarence Principle is a little bit Anime, slightly dark and mischievous, comical and cartoony with a handful of serious topics thrown in. The main character commits suicide (trust me, this is given to you RIGHT from the first page) and journeys to this dreamscape (a la Wonderland-esque). I love dark comical depictions done in a cartoony style, very Jhonen Vasquez (JtHM). If you don't know Jhonen Vasquez, please turn your eyes to this. I fell in love with his work on Johnny the Homicidal Maniac which then introduced me to the amazing Invader Zim and my obsession with that lovable dog/robot Gir. Bah, I miss all of that. Then I read this, and I remember everything I loved about all of that. Oh wait, I just realized this was published in 2007, which probably means that style I love so much as still "IN", and here I thought this was a comeback. Sad face. The story definitely borrows from "Alice in Wonderland" and takes a very grim topic (suicide and dealing with death) but brings it into this strange dream-like world. Every question seems to be answered with a riddle or another question. The creatures and people (if you can call them that) are so far from the realm of plausibility, it makes you think really hard about what might be going on here. The story doesn't feel cheap, it doesn't seem cliche either. My only complaint would be with the ending, but I won't get into that for fear of spoilers. As much as I liked the story of The Clarence Principle, the art goes beyond just liking it, I loved it. The black and white style worked really well with this one and didn't take away from it at all. I loved the cartoony skull faces, the anime human characteristics, the overly goofy clothing and gothic feel to everything. I could go on and on and on. So yes, this is perfect for me, which means I might be completely biased with this one. I would recommend this to anyone who appreciates a dark comedy, anime and/or that gothic comic style. Happy Reading, AmberBug

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Mathilda

Mathilda Mary Shelley 3/5	Published 1819 First Sentence "It is only four o'clock; but it is winter and the sun has already set: there are no clouds in the clear, frosty sky to reflect the slant beams, but the air itself is tinged with a slight roseate colour which is again reflected on the snow that covers the ground."
Publisher's Description: But my father, my beloved and most wretched father... Would he never overcome the fierce passion that now held pitiless dominion over him? With its shocking theme of father-daughter incest, Mary Shelley’s publisher—her father, known for his own subversive books—not only refused to publish Mathilda, he refused to return her only copy of the manuscript, and the work was never published in her lifetime. His suppression of this passionate novella is perhaps understandable—unlike her first book, Frankenstein, written a year earlier, Mathilda uses fantasy to study a far more personal reality. It tells the story of a young woman whose mother died in her childbirth—just as Shelly’s own mother died after hers—and whose relationship with her bereaved father becomes sexually charged as he conflates her with his lost wife, while she becomes involved with a handsome poet. Yet despite characters clearly based on herself, her father, and her husband, the narrator’s emotional and relentlessly self-examining voice lifts the story beyond autobiographical resonance into something more transcendent: a driven tale of a brave woman’s search for love, atonement, and redemption. It took more than a century before the manuscript Mary Shelley gave her father was rediscovered. It is published here as a stand-alone volume for the first time.
Dear Reader, Did I tell you how much I ADORE Melville House for coming up with a Novella subscription service? Each month, I get two small but colorful volumes dropped at my door! Just the right size, and I get to read some classic lit mixed in with all the other books I happen to be reading. Genius! Want to be included in the fun? Check it out here! The Art of the Novella. So yes, now that I have that out the way... I can tell you ALL about how this first Novella didn't quite strike my fancy, unfortunately. Oh Mathilda, this one seemed promising but it became apparent early on that this was going to be very long-winded (even for a novella). Don't get me wrong, it was written beautifully (I mean it is Mary Shelley!) To be frank, the book started off pretty interesting but after the part with her father panned out and we met her poet beau, I found it downright dull. I can barely understand the idea behind her father lusting after her (super creepy). I mean yes, the father wasn't in her life growing up and I'm sure she looked quite a bit like her Mother when they finally met... but REALLY? To make matters worse, he made her life miserable because of his own guilt. The guy was a terrible human being, so why should I care that he met his fate tragically? I don't. It made me so angry that Mathilda succumbs to depression after he passes, she has the chance at a normal life but she is stuck under the shadow of her dastardly father. It wasn't a waste to read this though, the book is quite unique and has a very interesting background story. Apparently, Shelley and her Father shared a different kind of relationship themselves (cough, gag). When Mary wrote this novel, her father (who was sent the Novella to be published) never allowed her to do so, saying that the themes were "disgusting and detestable". This Novella wasn't published until 1959, but was written 1819. The story behind the book is fascinating and definitely gives the book a little more depth. I can't wait to check out my next Novella, and I encourage you to join me in this endeavor. Happy Reading, AmberBug