my love/hate relationship with THE MAGICIANS

the blurb on the back of this ARC (plus the pretty, pretty cover) really sold me. magic in the real world? loosely disguised Narnia? nightmares and shocking truths? yes! well, except for the phrase "coming-of-age" -- that always makes me want to not read a book. too many high-school english class connotations. but i went ahead and read it anyway.

and i loved it! it's Harry Potter plus some Narnia plus sex, booze, lies, guilt, and other actual human emotions! the beautiful thing about the Harry Potter and Narnia series, and books like them, is that they are perfectly suited to reinforce moral codes: bad people are bad, good people are good (although they sometimes may make mistakes), and when you try and fight the good fight, you know exactly which side you should be fighting for. it's what makes them great reads for children (aside, of course, from the magic). but that's also the unrealistic thing about HP and Narnia (aside, of course, from the magic): good people aren't always good and bad people aren't always bad, and sometimes what appears to be the right side is absolutely not. and sometimes you don't even want to fight the good fight, sometimes you just want to go away and have a cocktail and see who comes out on top. and no, you don't necessarily want your 10-year-old to wrestle with the reality of these things. but if you're an adult (or teenager) reading Harry Potter, don't you find yourself wondering if Harry and Ron ever snuck up to the Astronomy Tower with something a bit stronger than butterbeer to get a buzz on? or if Hermione smuggled in some caffeine pills to help her stay awake during all that Time Twisting?

i definitely wondered, and so did Lev Grossman. THE MAGICIANS really, truly, does an excellent job imagining what we'd all be like if we could actually do magic and/or get to Narnia. sure, we could make pretty lights appear out of nowhere and levitate and shoot static charges at each other from across the room, but we would also cheat on our tests, sleep with the wrong person, make friends who are not good for us, have torturous childhoods, and in general continue to be dissatisfied with our lives. in other words, magic doesn't make us any less human or angsty or damaged. if you're like me, this thought makes you giddy with the sheer audacity of the premise. if it makes you cringe, then don't read this book.

so there's the love, now for the hate. yes, reality does often involve drinking. lots of teenagers (as much as we'd like to think otherwise), college students, and many, many adults drink. some more heavily than others. but everyone, and i mean EVERYONE, in THE MAGICIANS is constantly drinking, drunk, or hung-over and contemplating their next fix. always. all the time. every waking moment. some of it "sanctioned" by the magical Academy, and some of it "extracurricular." and these are supposed to be the brightest of the bright, the creative creme de la creme, collected together for the express purpose that they have talents no one else has. and ... they're all alcoholics? why, Lev Grossman, why? i understand that it's key to a specific character's development in the story. but all of them? all the time? now really. i knew a lot of very bright, very creative kids in high-school and college, and i can assure you that while they did indulge, the frat/sorority population was far more likely to behave the way Grossman's characters behave. unless he's going with the "tortured artist" cliche, but usually artists tend to be a bit older than 18 when they hit that point in their lives. i mean, Hemingway was probably a pretty tortured teen, but it took him years to work up to the level of debauchery that THE MAGICIANS' protagonists achieve.

i would really love to hear from the author about this -- if you're out there Googling yourself, please comment! i'm also curious to see if anyone else who has read the book feels the same way -- maybe i'm out of line here? unless and until those comments come, however, i will have to just continue to be torn. THE MAGICIANS pubs August '09.

twitchy witchy

oh - my
twitchy witchy girl
i think you are so nice,
i give you bowls of porridge
and i give you bowls of ice
cream.
i give
you lots of kisses,
and i give you lots of hugs,
but i never give you sandwiches
with bugs
in.

oh, i love neil gaiman. i think it's pretty hard not to these days. i couldn't get through American Gods, i will grant you, but the Sandman Series is the reason i love graphic novels, and Stardust was magnificent, albeit too short (not to mention that the movie was even pretty good, which is more than i can say for most of the recent fantasy epics). and the above was a gem hidden in the new Coraline which, when i have tiny neices, i am determined to set to music and sing every chance i get.

what? a new Coraline?! that's right! a graphic novel adaptation no less. can our joy know any bounds? i think not! that being said, i've never read Coraline. i had a vague notion of the plot though, and so when i saw the arc for the graphic novel adaptation come in (due out late June), i snatched it up. not too hard to manage, when you're the only graphic novel enthusiast in the store, but still!

and believe you me, this does not disappoint. at first i wasn't sure i liked the style -- the art is very well done, but it's also very straight-forward, and i have been known to prefer a more stylistic approach. however, P. Craig Russell's genius was soon revealed. his straight-forward style makes the scary horrific, and the good heroic. the story, by turns funny, nostalgic, and absolutely terrifying, is brought to vivid life. fans of the original will, i think, be pleased, and those in my shoes will be yearning to read the book.

who in the what

i've admitted that covers matter to me. i dare you to find a bookseller that won't admit the same, and i also dare you to find a customer that doesn't unconsciously respond to the cover of a book. it's just psychology, i think -- if it appeals to you visually, then you will pick it up. right?

titles are important too. if they're too long, no one will remember the whole thing and people will invariably scramble the words. too short, and people will remember related words instead of the right one. even phrases can be dangerous; for example, the book The Rest is Noise is commonly referred to by customers as Everything Else is Noise. this sucks for many reasons, but mostly (if you're a bookseller) because if you look it up in your inventory under the second title, you will never ever find the first. catalogs just can't handle that kind of mental disassocation.

which brings me to the book i read last night: Ever, by Gail Carson Levine. this is a great book, handicapped by two things: the title and the cover.

i should preface with the fact tht Ever is a great read. Gail Carson Levine is a powerhouse in middle reader and young adult fiction, so that's no big surprise. the story is sweet but not saccharine, with a dark plot that doesn't pull it's punches and characters whose relationships with each other deepen the story and redeem the darkness. Kezi, the main character, is spunky (in the non-obnoxious way) and fresh, and the love story is a new take on the old theme of romances between gods and mortals.

that being said, i'm at a complete loss to explain the title. Ever what? forever? whatever? whenever? ever after? never ever? ummm ... and i wish wish wish that i had seen some imperative, overarching relationship to the plot. let's just say that there is one, but it's a pretty weak excuse for a one word title when the one word is that ambiguous.

now, book covers frequently change between the ARC and the publication. especially if you get the ARC in December, and the book isn't due out until May. i can only hope that it's the case for this one. it's one of those picture covers, of which i'm hardly ever a fan in any case, but this one is particularly irritating to me. a guy and a girl -- both very anglo, and from the setting and character descriptions of the book the characters are more middle eastern than anything else -- are staring at you. the girl seems kind of irritated that you're looking at her in the first place, and the boy (a weird young version of orlando bloom) has that stalker-ee face going. like i said, i don't like it.

i think this one would be a nightmare to market -- forgettable title, a poor cover -- if it wasn't for the name attached to it. fortunately for HarperCollins, booksellers and readers alike love Gail Levine enough to forgive.

weetzie who?

i've never read Francesca Lia Block. here's what happened: i was 12 when i discovered her. but that is WAY too young for Francesca Lia Block. or at least, when i was 12 it was. i suppose that 12 year olds nowadays are probably already watching more explicit things on HBO on a nightly basis. but anyway, i was not one of those 12 year olds. and then, by the time i was reminded of her existence, i was going through an intense Jane Austen phase and had pretty much no time for her.

but as a bookseller, i've remained very aware of Francesca. she's always on the radar, especially if you work in the teen section a lot. which i do.

which is why, 12 years after i first discovered her, i decided to pick up the ARC. also it had a pretty cover, and i am susceptible (VERY susceptible) to well-done covers. i'm glad i did.

Blood Roses didn't start off with a bang. i enjoyed the first few stories, but wasn't blown away. until, that is, i got to 'Skin Art', 'My Mother the Vampire', and 'Changeling'. 'Skin Art' and 'My Mother the Vampire' are linked, and just ... wow. really freakin' good. 'Changeling' is so sad (of course, all of them are, i don't think that she writes stories that aren't sad on some level) and so wistful and beautiful, i was stunned. whoever decided the order of these stories really knows their stuff.

so! PG13, folks, and utterly worth it. this goes on my shelf next to the other amazing gothic and girlie books.

werewolves, the musical

my favorite blurb from the ARC cover:

"Forget any reservations you might have about werewolf stories or verse novels. This is great, engaging, wonderful stuff. Sondheim should make it his next musical." --Michael Moorcock, author of The White Wolfe's Son.

let me say now that i'm not a fan of Michael Moorcock. but that's beside the point. this is my favorite blurb because not only is it completely absurd (a Sondheim musical about werewolves? and some people think CATS is bad ... ), it also encapsulates the absurdity of the book itself.

Sharp Teeth, by Toby Barlow, is a VERSE NOVEL about WEREWOLVES. excuse the capitals.

let's start with the part where it's a "verse novel". what is a "verse novel"? i was completely unaware of the phenomenon. the only thing i've read that looks similar on the page is Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf (the best one out there, for my money). but that's a translation of an actual epic poem. hence, it is in verse. Sharp Teeth is not a translation, and i wouldn't call it an epic. it's written in plain verse (or prose poetry, or whatever the heck it's called when the lines don't rhyme or match rhythmically), and i'm not 100% sure why. i honestly couldn't tell you if it would make a difference if it looked like prose -- the writing doesn't seem, to me, to benefit from being chopped up into different lines and spread out along the page. it would also save paper.

but enough about that! it's werewolves! we love werewolves, right?

well, actually, yes we do. but i can't remember the last time i read a story/book i liked about werewolves. wait, yes i can: Jacob Black is likely to go down in history as the werewolf most teenage girls would like to go to prom with, and Patricia Wrede's Book of Enchantments has a lovely short story in which werewolves feature. (the point i was trying to make is that there are an awful lot of bad/mediocre/ok/pretty good/cult classic movies about werewolves that i would watch, or at least consider watching, but i can't say the same for books.)

i wouldn't call Sharp Teeth lovely, for the same reasons i can't see it as a musical -- there is an awful lot of blood, sex, guts, suicide, murder, gang violence, and revenge. (on second thought, maybe it would make a good musical. it's just hard to imagine someone singing about gang violence without having flashbacks to my high school's production of West Side Story. which actually proves the point, now that i think about it; how much better would West Side Story have been if it was about werewolves? lots better. maybe Michael Moorcock deserves more credit than i give him.)

ANYWAY, what i'm trying to say here is that i liked Sharp Teeth, despite it's being a verse novel. having lived in Los Angeles, where the action takes place, i find it not unbelievable that werewolf gangs could attempt to stage a coup. it's a surprisingly original and thoughtful (not a word often applied to werewolf stories) take on an overdone theme. there are some fantastic beach scenes, which is one easy way to win me over. and Toby Barlow handles complex emotion remarkably well, which gave the story some reprieve from the aforementioned action. if i had to characterize it by comparing it to another author, i'd say it's Bloodsucking Fiends, minus the Christopher Moore wacky humor.

so! if you're not afraid to spend some time figuring out how to properly read a verse novel, and you like werewolves (or vampires, this is a good adult cure for post-Twilight/New Moon/Eclipse angst), then you will like Sharp Teeth, and i apologize for all the rambling it took me to get to that sentence.