Fifth Friday Flashback: Into the Wild

Were you even a kid in the early 2000s if you didn’t go through a Warriors phase? Inexplicably, it seemed like everyone I knew ended up binge reading this book series about wild clans of cats. Although I haven’t worked in a bookstore in a couple years now, when I left these books, and all the spin-off series, were still wildly popular.

Into the Wild opens with Rusty, a house cat with recurring dreams about life in the forest behind his house. He’s heard the stories about wild clan cats, but never put much stock into them, until one evening he comes face-to-face with some. What’s more unbelievable, the clan leader herself makes Rusty an offer–give up the plush life of a kittypet and join their clan as an apprentice and train to become a warrior. The work is hard and the life is dangerous. Because, though the clans have their occasional disputes over hunting territories, something much darker is on the wind. And everything the clan cats know is in jeopardy.

I think this was just as fun to read as an adult as it was to read as a young teen. The authors who write under the pseudonym Erin Hunter know how to write books that engage kids from the start. Into the Wild doesn’t pull any punches, either. From the very beginning Hunter starts laying the groundwork for a clan betrayal and doesn’t try to minimize the dark affects it may have.

As an adult I appreciated this go around how much attention to detail went into thinking like a cat (presumably). The use of words like “pawstep” instead of “footstep” or measuring distances in rabbit lengths instead of something human helps keep readers in the persona of a cat. When reading most other books, I don’t always think of who I am while I’m reading. It’s just a generic, human mindset. But Hunter went all the way to make sure that her book read as much like a cat as possible.

I don’t quite feel the need to go out and reread all the Warriors books now (I don’t even know how many there are anymore), but it was a fun flashback read and I can once again see why this series has lasted almost 20 years with a strong readership.

The Wright Brothers: The history of flight

Sometimes it feels a little overwhelming to think of all the history that is out there to learn and know, and then realize how very little of it we have the capability to retain or even learn in just one lifetime. I know not everyone is fascinated with history, but I am (as I seem to be with everything, to be honest), and there never seems to be enough time to learn everything I want to know. But books, and particularly audiobooks this summer, help me to at least make a dent in the things I want to know.

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough is, rather obviously, the story of Wilbur and Orville Wright, two brothers who committed themselves to creating a successful, manned and powered flying machine. While the names are generally familiar to most of us (at least Americans, I think), the story behind their success maybe isn’t. The brothers didn’t set out in the beginning to learn to fly, and the journey was anything but smooth sailing. They went from bicycle mechanics and manufacturers to dabbling with gliders and flying machines. And once they got things off the ground (sorry, I had to), it still took quite some time to generate enough public interest to attract the attention of government, to whom the brothers hoped to sell their flying machines. From plane crashes to patent battles and everything in between, the story of manned flight is quite a ride.

This is my first David McCullough book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it–both his writing and his reading of the book. Sometimes nonfiction and history can get bogged down with dates and minute details that cause readers to lose the larger threads of the story, but McCullough’s history of the Wright brothers (and the whole family, in some ways) maintains the larger perspective while still portraying the humanity and normalcy of the family.

I’m not a huge flying enthusiast. I like the idea of flying, but it doesn’t generally like me. So why would I be so interested in The Wright Brothers? Because of the innovative and adventurous spirits the brothers had. Because of the creativity and science involved. And because sometimes things are just interesting, even if you don’t love the thing.

I am a little sad to know that David McCullough passed away this summer. We won’t get anymore of his thorough recountings. But I am glad at least to know that I’ve only just gotten started, and there are several more of his historic stories for me to enjoy.

Book Club Review: Verity

I’ve known about Colleen Hoover for a while, but never really felt inclined to read her books. As I’m sure I’ve said before, I have a general aversion to authors who are mainstream must-reads because it just doesn’t usually live up to the hype. But I also know that Verity is quite different than most of her other books, so when it came up as a top pick for book club I thought that maybe it would live up to its reputation.

Everything is going wrong for Lowen Ashleigh. Her mother died. She’s getting evicted. She has no money. All she does have is a somewhat mysterious offer to finish Verity Crawford’s wildly successful book series after the author is in a car accident and can’t finish herself. Against her better judgment, Lowen accepts the offer and heads to the Crawford home to sift through Verity’s notes and papers before getting started on outlines and drafts. Little does Lowen know, the Crawfords are a tragic family and darkness permeates every corner of their home. When Lowen discovers a deeply disturbing autobiography manuscript Verity was writing, she is torn between protecting Jeremy Crawford–whom she is starting to be very attracted to– or revealing the dark truth about his wife that he doesn’t know.

The first thing that has to be said about this book is that it is full to the brim of semi-explicit sex. If I wasn’t the person leading book club, I’d have quit reading. As it was, I did my best to just skim through the chapters of Verity’s autobiography because it was just not pleasant to read at all. For a lot of people, this alone is enough to tell you to skip the book.

Sex aside, the storyline was pretty engaging. The woman Jeremy talks about and the woman revealed in Verity’s manuscript are at absolute odds with each other. The longer Lowen stays in the house, the more paranoid she becomes. She is convinced that everything Jeremy believes about his wife is a lie. Lowen is determined to uncover the truth, even though it will bring all the family’s trauma back to the surface.

Hoover’s big reveal at the end, though certainly probably shocking to a great many readers, wasn’t overly shocking to me. It felt a little too guided. There wasn’t really any other way she could have ended it. But it wasn’t an awful way to wrap the story up. What I liked less was that Lowen’s sleepwalking was made out to be sort of a big deal, but didn’t really factor much into anything. For all the few instances of drama it added, the story wouldn’t lose anything if it wasn’t included.

I think Hoover has the skill to write a solid thriller. She knows how to build the tension and is able to throw some unreliability into the narrative. If she chose to rely more on plot and story than sex to fill up a whole book’s worth of pages, I’d be interested to give her another try. But as it was, I just couldn’t really enjoy the story because I was trying to gather all the pieces without having to read her erotica.

New Release Tuesday: Part of My World

I took a minute to think back on my childhood and try to figure out who my favorite Disney princess was, and I don’t think any really stood out to me. Maybe Pocahontas, but most of my favorite Disney movies weren’t the princess ones. And my favorite princess was definitely Anastasia, who at the time, was not owned by Disney. Be all that as it may, when I saw that Jodi Benson was releasing a biography about her journey to becoming Ariel’s voice, I was interested because I’ve always loved Disney, even if I never thought too much about who was the voice behind the characters.

Part of My World gives readers a look into Benson’s life, from childhood through the beginnings of college and breaking into broadway. Getting into voice acting and Disney was never actually Benson’s goal, it came after she built connections with composers and song writers who gave her the chance to audition when the opportunity came up. Benson focuses on two things with her biography– her musical career, obviously, and her faith. Although singing was her life dream, over the years Benson saw her heart’s desire shift until her desire to sing was inextricable with the desire to use her gifts and talents to share her faith with others. Through the ups and downs of her life and career, Benson makes sure her readers see and know that it was faith that carried her through, and faith that carries her still.

I always enjoy reading stories of faith by people living and working in areas that can often seem contrary to faith. The entertainment industry doesn’t seem like a place where a Christian could take a stand, at least not for more than a brief minute. But Benson’s story shows that there are ways to minister and be a light.

I would have liked to get a little bit more into how Benson chose roles or if she encountered challenges where she was offered a part (or audition) for a show that she couldn’t pursue because of her moral convictions. It’s not a topic she addresses, but I think it would have given some good insight to young actors and singers who are trying to find their own balance between faith, conviction, and doing what they love.

All in all, it was an encouraging and interesting book. She didn’t hide the less flattering parts of her story and her struggles. Her honesty about her growth helps readers understand the graciousness that flows through her writing. And regardless of what her readers do for a living, Benson’s story encourages us all to take a stand wherever we are, even if it’s just through quiet actions.

Intergalactic Exterminators, Inc: a modern but classic science fiction story

This was another recent September new release, and even though it didn’t make a new release Tuesday post, it was still a really fun book to read. Ash Bishop’s Intergalactic Exterminators, Inc is a fun mix of space adventure and slightly irreverent humor.

Russ Wesley has lived the life of a nomad and has no plans to change that, even when he returns to Evanstown, Wyoming for the funeral of his grandfather. He doesn’t mean to stay more than a day or two, but the family bookstore is in a terrible state and there’s his grandfather’s collection of oddities that could be sold to generate some income and save the store. And there’s Nina, a young woman who is also unexpectedly back in Evanstown to help care for her sick father.

Things start to get really weird when Russ gets caught up in an incident involving a giant alien cat and some intergalactic exterminators. Though little to no fault of his own, Russ is suddenly something of a fugitive to the United Alliance of Intelligent Beings, and joining the Intergalactic Exterminators, Inc, may be his best and only chance at keeping himself intact.

At the risk of spoiling it just a little, readers may be surprised to find that this isn’t a story of Russ joining up with the Intergalactic Exterminators, Inc, and jaunting out into space. (Well, it is, but it doesn’t happen right away.) Primarily, it is the story of two late-twenty-somethings who are each caught in an impossible position but unwilling to give up their respective fights.

I appreciated how Bishop worked in a stance against mechanization in jobs that have traditionally been done by people (organics in his universe, since he’s got a variety of alien species doing various jobs). One of the tensions for the Intergalactic Exterminators, Inc crew is that one of their competitors is beta testing robotic exterminator teams and, in addition to doing it very immorally, the robots are quickly putting organic teams out of work (sound familiar, maybe?). Though it’s a major tension of the book, it’s not overdone and readers aren’t bludgeoned with the author’s opinions, which I find nice.

Sometimes I find science fiction challenging because I’m not a particularly visual reader. By that I mean, I don’t generally picture characters in my mind. To a degree I picture surroundings and settings, but not usually characters. This can be hard when dealing with alien species because my brain generally tends to neglect that a character isn’t human. Or, sometimes, an author will try to describe a species and my brain just kind of glazes over the description. Bishop managed to provide descriptions for his species and characters in a quick, comparing way, that allowed me to take in the description as a generally non-visual reader without getting bogged down in it.

Russ’s character doesn’t take a whole lot seriously, even when it appears to be life and death for him. This makes for some amusing antics as he behaves in a cavalier way that goes against what most of us would consider basic survival instincts.

On the whole, this was a fun book to read. It kept me engaged and didn’t force itself into a trite and tired mold. The story may take time to get to what some readers might consider the action or main storyline, but the build-up is anything but boring.

New Release Tuesday: Wild Ride

Last month had a lot of new releases that kept me busy with Tuesday posts. September has a lot as well, except that they all fall on the same release days. I plan to still be reading and reviewing them, they just won’t be “new release Tuesday” posts. Choosing which one to highlight this week was a little bit challenging, but it’s probably not surprising that I went with Wild Ride by Hayley Arceneaux. After all, we know that anything space-related makes it high on my reading list.

Arceneaux’s memoir takes readers back to her childhood and her diagnosis of bone cancer at 10 years old. With the help of St. Jude hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, Arceneaux battled and won, while at the same time deciding that she would pursue a career in the medical field and one day work at St. Jude herself. Life took her here, there, and everywhere on her quest to earn her physicians assistant degree, and although the timing seemed perfect a couple times, her dream job at St. Jude didn’t drop right into her lap. But once she finally achieved her dream, it would end up being so much more than she could imagine. Arceneaux was one of four crew members making up SpaceX’s first all-civilian space crew. And even though space was never Arceneaux’s dream, the adventurer in her couldn’t resist committing with her whole heart.

Although the book is essentially the story of how Arceneaux got to space, it wasn’t quite as space-bio as I maybe thought it was going to be. Having family history of cancer, it’s not usually a topic that I actively choose to read on. That said, Arceneaux’s biography is upbeat and full of life, as I imagine the author herself is. She doesn’t sugar coat her experiences or build them up as the greatest blessing of her life, but she recognizes how her cancer shaped the person she would become, and how that’s not something she would change.

Reading this, I can easily recognize how important this kind of biography is for other cancer warriors. And although it’s not geared toward kids (she doesn’t swear a lot, but she does drop a few expletives), I won’t be surprised at all if it ends up adapted as a picture book and/or chapter book to encourage and inspire kids who are facing the same uphill battle that Arceneaux did.

Arceneaux’s story encourages readers to believe that anything is possible. You will have to work hard for your goals, they may be dependent on other people’s timing, or they may change over the course of your pursuit. But by being open to new experiences, life is full of more adventures than disappointments.

A Man Called Ove: The story of a man looking for a reason to live

I’m gonna put the content warning right here at the top: in case you don’t know, A Man Called Ove is a story about a grumpy old man who keeps getting interrupted while trying to die by suicide. So although it ends up being a fun read, it’s definitely not going to be a good fit for everyone.

Ove is your typical grouchy old man. These days, no one has principles anymore and Ove feels it keenly. The world is nearly unrecognizable and the neighborhood is full of people who won’t keep their business to themselves, and who won’t obey the neighborhood rules. In short, there’s simply not much left to live for. And yet, Ove keeps getting pulled into the lives of the people around him. His new neighbors are utterly incompetent and need Ove to do all sorts of things– back up a trailer, drive them around, loan them tools and ladders. There’s a stray cat who, on principle, deserves a good turn because of how the cat stands up to another awful neighbor’s mutt of a dog. There’s a young man who needs a place to stay and another who needs to be taught to fix a bike and choose a car. Why it becomes Ove’s responsibility to be all things to all people he can’t say, but he knows he’ll never hear the end of it if he shows up in the next life with so many things left undone in this one.

This is the second Fredrik Backman book I’ve read, and I really enjoy his light, almost cavalier style of writing. Even dealing with a loaded topic such as trying to die and having nothing to live for, Backman does it in a way that leads readers to understand Ove’s situation and viewpoint. Backman doesn’t take a stance on whether it’s right or wrong, which I think is important, he simply uses this book to challenge readers to think about the kinds of things others might be going through, what might be driving their choices and behaviors.

Somehow, Backman manages to write a book that is both heavy with emotion, but lighthearted, too. Ove’s story comprises many hard things. But how he copes in the present (when not trying to find time to die) is amusing. Readers of all ages can understand different characteristics, such as strict adherence to the rules or customer loyalty when buying a new car.

A Man Called Ove is a fun story that shows how quickly the lives of random people become entangled. If you’re not careful, you suddenly find yourself caring for the precious annoyances around you.