Book 8: The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco

Filled with tangled and twisting plot lines, this novel is a challenge to read, but an incredibly rewarding one. The rich writing style of Eco breaths life and vibrancy into a story that would have left me cold were it written by anyone else. Much shorter than his other novels (especially The Name of the Rose), The Island of the Day Before is a tightly woven tapestry of intersecting lives, religions, cultures, and even times.

The main story, if one can really be picked out, is the life of Roberto della Griva, a 17th century Italian nobleman. After his ship sinks in a storm, Roberto finds himself floating next to a different, seemingly abandoned ship. Interspersed throughout Roberto's actions aboard the mystery ship are Roberto's memories of his childhood, the war he fought in, the time he spent in France learning about astronomy and sailing, his mission to find the International Date Line, his loves, and his fears.

This is where Eco's superb ability in storytelling turns this novel from something merely interesting into something spellbinding. Described as an Italian medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, literary critic and novelist (He really is just amazing.), the things that Eco is able to do with words are beyond description. If you love words for the sheer beauty that they can create, you absolutely must read this novel. The thing that sets him apart from other word smiths though, is that Eco maintains a compelling story throughout his amazing wordplay. In one short sentence, Eco tells us, through Roberto, the idea that gave life to this novel:

To survive, we must tell stories."

Book 7: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

I first read this novel when I was traveling around the UK several years ago. I literally did not put it down from the time I opened it until I finished it. Reading it the second time around, I found it just as compelling. If you haven't read it yet, I cannot recommend it enough.

The story is fairly dark and twisted. In an alternate version of Japan, middle school students are forced to participate in a murderous version of king-of-the-hill. The children are drugged and transported to an island. When they wake up, they are instructed about the rules of the program and given random weapons. The rules are very simply: kill your classmates, your friends. The last kid standing wins.

What makes this novel so compelling is the insight into the characters. The writing style is simple, even sparse at points. I find that this accentuates the story incredibly well. The writing doesn't get in the way of what is being conveyed, if that makes sense. Takami provides an incredibly clear and in-depth look into the characters, their motivations, their fears, their selves.

Another reason that I find this novel so compelling is that I'm a psych major. The range of reactions that the students have to the situation that they're thrust into is truly fascinating, even if you've only taken Psych 101. There are characters from all walks of life and each of them reacts in a way that makes sense based on their background and the aspects of their personalities that Takami gives them.

The other overarching theme is a political one. Through his characters, Takami discusses government corruption, western influence on eastern cultures, rebellion against an oppressive government, as well as active participation and support of an oppressive government. While this confluence of ideas could bash you in the head, à la Margaret Atwood, Takami's understated style kept me reading instead of rolling my eyes and sighing that "I get it already."

Book 6: Rachael and Leah by Orson Scott Card

When I was growing up, I went to church nearly every day. Our church was a nondenominational Christian church, Calvary Chapel. For the area, it was a pretty progressive church. Our pastor was a former drug addict and frequently used stories from that time in his life when he was giving a sermon. In general though, the members of the church were some of the more hypocritical and judgmental people I have ever known. I have seen how religion can bring out the best in people and how it can give people an excuse to exercise their most vicious tendencies.

After I was old enough to hold a job, I stopped going to church every day due to the time conflict. And I found that I didn't really miss it. By the time I was a junior in high school, I had concluded that Christianity was not for me. I explored other religions, and while I found that most of them have a lot of good qualities, those good things were usually tied to some sort of subjugation of myself that I found unacceptable. In the end, I never found a religion that fit what I was looking for. I don't feel as though I have something missing in my life, but I do sometimes feel nostalgic for the comfort I got from my church as a child.

This is where Rachael and Leah comes into play. Not many people know that Orson Scott Card is Mormon and has written many religious book and plays, but I am one of those people who falls in love with the way a person writes and goes digging for everything they have ever written. After reading Ender's Game, I continued with all of the books in that series, and then I kept going. The more I read, the more I found he had written. When I learned that he had written a series of religious fiction novels, I was apprehensive at first. But I was determined not to judge before I knew what I was talking about, so I picked up Sarah, the first book in his "Women of Genesis" series. The title of the book helped. I kept going and read Rebekah and then Rachael and Leah. It is this last novel that is executed the best of the three. Card's straightforward way of telling a story dovetails nicely with this ancient tale of sibling rivalry, love and faith.

The story is told from four points of view, the sisters Rachael and Leah, and two girls who end up as handmaids for the sisters. Their observations and interpretations of the events around them give new life to a story that many people know by rote. Card gives the characters motivations that have little to do with religion and more to do with being a young woman in a very strict culture living in a very harsh land. At the beginning of the novel, motherless sisters Rachael and Leah constantly fight and both walk all over their clueless father. When Jacob arrives, his personal faith helps the sisters reconcile and both grow up to become caring women in the seven years that Jacob works for their father.

The novel ends with the wedding of Leah to Jacob in place of her sister. This is the part of the story that I have the most trouble with. Card has the switch of the sisters play out like a slapstick comedy with Jacob as the butt of the joke. I find that it doesn't really fit with the tone of the rest of the novel. He does stay true to the original story in that Jacob ends up married to both sisters, but I feel that this conclusion could have been reached in a way that did not require Jacob and the father to become complete morons.

Overall though, while it has it's flaws, I find that reading Rachael and Leah when I feel nostalgic to be a great comfort. It reminds me of the good that religion can bring out in people, and the positive changes that it can motivate.

Book 5: Dune Prophet by Frank Herbet

I have been dreading writing this review. I did not care for this book at all. As an intellectual exercise, it serves a purpose. The universe of the book is well constructed and solid. The style of writing is one that I actually gravitate toward. But as an enjoyable read, for me it fails utterly. Everything had a sort of clinical distance to it, a sort of coldness that made it hard to relate to the characters. This was one of my biggest issues with this book. In the previous book, the characters were more relatable, more human. In this one, it's as though the author is just reporting events that happened with little to no insight into their reasoning or development. Yes, we do get an inner monologue for Paul and Alia, but it is fairly limited to their observations of the events they witness and descriptions of what their visions are like, but not much actual content. We are also told over and over that their "powers" are limited, but the only real evidence of this is what ends up happening to Chani. Granted, that was a huge blow to Paul, but I still question why it was completely out of the question to make her a ghola, aside from the possibility that she would not turn back into herself. The question of her posing a danger to Paul seemed bizarre after Paul was successful with Duncan Idaho, who posed a greater threat to Paul than Chani could.
That is a minor point though compared to my major complaint with this book. The Bene Tleilex. I mean, really. You are, in all seriousness, explaining the existence of the apparent nemeses of the Bene Gesserit, even though they did not exist at all in the first book. Where did they come from? The whole thing just screams plot device to me. And not even a good one. When you have an enemy that can change their appearance at will and create analogs of people that were dead, can even raise the dead, then you essentially have a group with unlimited power. Then you have to beat this enemy by being even more powerful.
I am a firm believer in limitations. Limitations are a catalyst of creativity. Without limitations it is very difficult to avoid a stagnant story. That's how I feel about Dune Prophet; it's stagnant. Reading it felt like I was treading water. I want a story that pulls at me like ocean tides. This was a chore to trudge through.

Book 4: Captive Bride by Johanna Lindsey

When I first figured out that I really was sick, not just hungover, I headed to the store to stock up on various medicine and cough drops and tissues and whatnot. I also came to the conclusion that all of the books that I currently had lined up to read were way too hard to concentrate on. So I did what any disease-wracked person wandering aimlessly around the drug store would do; I grabbed a trashy romance novel to distract me. My criteria was very simple: NO SCOTTISH ACCENTS! For some reason, the majority of these ridiculous books are set in Scotland, Ireland or England. Either that or The South, with horses, and yet somehow still with Scottish accents. The last romance novel I read was on some Scottish island and the characters spoke in random Scottish accents and it drove me insane. 

So I skipped over the covers with castles on them, and grabbed Captive Bride because there is an Arabian Nights sort of theme to the cover art. The back talks about how Christina Wakefield (yes, Wakefield, we'll get to that in a minute) can't resist the call of the Arabian desert and gets captured by a sheik and then falls in love with him (hello, Stockholm Syndrome). Sounds racy and totally free of anything related to northwestern Europe, right? WRONG! 

First of all, Christina is English. Secondly, her goddamn housekeeper/nanny is fucking Scottish, accent and all. If I wasn't so weak from being sick, I would have chucked the book across the room. Also, as far as romance novels go, this one is seriously lacking in the sex department. There is only one actual written sex scene. ONE. The rest of the sex is just implied, like "Phillip patiently brought her to life, snatching away her will as he did every night." That's it. That's the majority of the "sex scenes" in this stupid book. Oh, and Phillip? He would be the sheik that kidnaps her and is also English! Seriously, why is everyone English or Scottish in these damn books? 

I guess I should be sort of glad that there weren't more descriptive sex scenes, since Christina's last name was Wakefield. All I could think about whenever I was reminded of her last name was Sweet Valley High and the Wakefield twins. I mean, really, if you're going to write a romance novel, you might not want to name your character after other characters who are sort of ingrained in the minds of a likely significant portion of your target audience.