Death at SeaWorld by David Kirby

Now I ashamed to recall how much I enjoyed my first visit to SeaWorld. I totally bought the partyline about their scientific and conservation work and basically thought they were a marine life version of San Diego Zoo.

After watching the notorious Blackfish I wanted to find more information about the issue and came across this book.

Inspite of a click-bait title, the book narrative is slow. It meticulously follows vareers of two protagonists: Naomi Rose and Jeff Ventre. We see how Naomi grows from a graduate student, unsure of her thesis topic, into one of the leading researchers in the marine biology field. How Jeff goes from percieving his job as a trainer at SeaWorld as a dream come true to vocally protesting against keeping orcas in captivity.

The detailed descriptions of many trainer accidents and statistics on captive orcas’ deaths on the one side and seemingly idyllic life in the wild on the other, leave not much room for interpretation of the writer’s position against SeaWorld and associated industry.

For a casual reader with no relevant background it is not easy to check the book’s claims. However, even if just 50% of the facts mentioned are true, it is still enough to make one want to go and spit at the gates of the closest park displaying cetaceans.

 

Fahrenheit 451° by Ray Bradbury

I will not attempt to summarize the book, everyone knows it. I’m just going to talk about my own perception.

I know that this book is focused on issues of censorship and value of reading. However, the one theme that really appealed to me was the importance of mindfulness and communications. The necessity of paying attention to the world and people around us. When we meet Clarisse, it is striking how much she is curious about everything around her: the dew on the grass, the man face on the Moon. She doesn’t spend her time stuck to the TV screen (or nose in her book either!), no, she walks around, gathers flowers, even knits a sweater! Her family talk to each other, really talks, not just ask “how are you”. And this message, in my opinion, is more important right now than the value of knowledge – too often many of us (I  know, I’m guilty) are engrossed in book, lost in secondary world, forgetting about the actual one.

Apart from this theme that really resonated with me, but, alas, was secondary in the novel, the other thing I wholeheartedly relate to is the author’s disapproval of abstract art.

However, on the whole, I’m afraid I did not enjoy the novel much. The language is too flowery, full of embellishments, metaphors and similes, oftentimes rather bizarre. For example,

 

Her face, turned to him now, was fragile milk crystal

The only woman, whose face can remind of a crystal, is the sparkly mutant from X-men.

The worldbuilding is sloppy. Why people ended living like that? Why it is forbidden to read books but OK to read comics? So, Hamlet the manga is fine then? What about radio, do they not have any drama stories? What about audiobooks, are they allowed or not?

The characters behave, let’s say, eccentrically. Why the hero shows his banned books to his wife’s dumb friends? Has he no self-preservation instinct at all?  Both him, and the wife, and the friends, they all regularly turn hysterically, and following their conversations is a big effort.

It was pretty silly, quoting poetry around free and easy like that. It was an act of a silly damn snob.

I actually agree with the opinion quoted above, too bad it belongs to the main bad guy – the Captain of the firefighters. He might be the antagonist, but he behaves the most adequately of the bunch (not counting Clarisse, but we hardly know her).

The Captain also said:

You ask Why to a lot of things and you wind up very unhappy indeed.

which reminds me of the rumors that most on-campus suicides are committed by liberal sciences majors. Indeed, asking “Why” makes you unhappy.

the Captain belongs to the most dangerous enemy to truth and freedom, the solid unmoving cattle of the majority.

Problem is, the Captain does not belong to the majority in this book, less so than the hero. Captain is smart and educated. And is burnt alive by protagonist. Was it self-defense or not, the scene rather disturbed me.

The most annoying part is that the book is full of pathos. Every line contains a Very Important Thought, that you have to read carefully and analyze in detail. Because this is a Very Serious Novel. A Masterpiece.

Overall, I can see clearly why this book became a classic studied at school. But I wouldn’t read it for pleasure, not on my own accord.

The great carp escape

Don’t be fooled by a nice watercolor-like cover – the illustrations inside are made on the computer and are rather ugly. The humans faces look unattractive. The father in the story looks like a woman who decided to dress up like Jesus for some reason and glued a fake beard on her face. Seriously, real men do not look like that.

The story is OK, though. It tells about children helping wild animals (carps in this instance). The message about the acceptance of someone who might look weird is an important one. But alas, the poorly drawn illustrations really kill all the joy of the book.

Also, keep in mind that the book has a lot of references to God. I feel that either the cover or the description of the book should make it more clear that it has a religious undertone, lest it come as a surprise to the parents who bought it.

Ivy in bloom: The Poetry of Spring from Great Poets and Writers from the Past

Illustrations:

Text:

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange of an honest opinion.

For this book I simply have to assess the illustrations and the text separately. The pictures are utterly adorable. The main heroine is very cute and every page is full of joy of spring.

However, the text is barely readable. The original poem by Vanita Oelschlager is mediocre at best. The next few pages made no sense to me. Why do we have disjoint phrases? And where are the “great poets of the past” promised to me?

The answer lays in the bibliography, which tells us, that those weird disjoint sentences where actually taken from poems by such writers as H.W. Longfellow and Charles Dickens. So, why are the readers robbed of the opportunity to enjoy those poems (unless you specifically go to the bibliography section and read them in a rather small font). Why are we only presented with butchered pieces? In some cases, not even an entire line is included in the main text, few words are excluded. These are not the great poems, they are abominations.

If you are looking for a good poetry book for your child, keep looking further. If you just want a book with cute pictures and do not care about words printed in it, give it a try.

Magic words by Edward Field

This books is just so beautiful! The poem is full of magical realism, but the most important part is the illustrations. Colourful, full of details, incorporating styles depictions of humans and animals. I wish I had a printed copy, you can just peruse every picture for a long time.

 

Molly rides

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange of an honest opinion.

This book tells (in verse) a story of a sporty girl who picks up a new skill, snowboarding, excels in it, and basically has a lot of fun.

I like the idea, but have some issues with the implementation. I might be overcritical, but it’s a children book, which implies certain level of expectations when it come to quality.

The text is OK. It is quite energetic, though the rhythm is not always perfectly consistent. I didn’t like the use of specific phrases like “She skied the blues and blacks”, which are confusing to the readers who, like me, never went to an actual ski resort. However, the message about spending time and effort to learn something new is good.

On the other hand, the illustrations are a big problem. Which surprised me, because I actually like the cover, at least its tiny version on the preview. All the illustrations are computer-generated 3D. The model for the main character is not that bad, but her dog look horrible, especially the texture (or lack of) its fur. What is worse, the CGI scenes were converted into the final illustrations with many artifacts (think of screenshots of a video converted into very very low resolution). Molly’s face has clear patches of green and orange on some pages.  The lighting of characters and background doesn’t always match.

In general, the book, though having an OK story, just looks unattractive and of low quality, which is very undesirable for a picture book.

Camp midnight

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange of an honest opinion.

Having never been to a summer camp as a child, I love stories about camps. Camp midnight seems to be just like any other camp I read about: strict camp counselors (though this one is an actual witch), big bullies (though here they look especially monstrous), fast friendships (easy to be friends when there are only one other girl who looks remotely human).

The style of drawing is a bit unusual. Everything looks as if it was drawn by a child, in very bright colours. At the same time the characters are very expressive and convey emotions, mood and humour perfectly.

The message might be a little predictive – accept yourself and do not judge people by first impressions, but the story is very fun and doesn’t feel didactic a bit. I hope there will be a sequel!

Tales from Christmas wood

I received a free e-copy from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

I love picture books! I still remember clearly the beautiful illustrations in some of my childhood favourite, though I struggle to recall the plot. So I picked The tales from Christmas wood because I wanted to get some holiday spirit and because I liked the cover.

The illustrations are indeed adorable.the stories are a bit didactic. However, they nicely come up together in the end and remind us that it is indeed a Christmas story.

There are certain problems in the electronic edition I received. Some of the pictures appear in strange places, like the middle of publishing information. Also, there are illustrations where the characters appear on the solid black background, which looks a bit ugly. But I assume it is not the case in the actual printed editions.

Two of the chapters: A Burrow Full of Brothers and A Christmas Eve Adventure seem to have chunks of text mixed up, because the end of the chapter ends up in the middle and so forth. It’s rather hard yo read like that.

Overall: pretty pictures, not particularly exciting story, but brings the holiday spirit. The electronic version has design problems.

Color of distance

The book is fascinating. And reminds me of Le Guin’s Hainish cycle novels a bit.

The new alien race, Tendu, is not technologically advanced, but is capable of crazily advanced biological manipulations with living organisms. Their society is well-thought out and very interesting. Achieving such perfect harmony with surrounding world and other members of your race is unobtainable for humans, but it is nice to dream about experiencing something like that.

Tendu find a lone human female, Juna, marooned on their planet, adapt her biology to their world and take her in, first assuming her to be a mindless creature. The book presents a story of the relationship between Juna and the Tendu in charge of her, Anito, their initial conflict and developing friendship. Most of the event are shown from point of view of both characters, who often have opposite, but equally understandable opinions of the situation.

I was quite taken aback by a scene in the second chapter, where Juna recalls being gang-raped in her childhood. Probably the author wanted to contrast the imperfections of human society and harmony of Tendu, but I really wish she chose a different way to relate that.

Apart from that and some other tragic memories, most of the book is full of feeling of content and well-being. Even the conflict between the two races in the finale, which I anticipated to be quite severe, was resolved quite amiably.

Overall, it’s an interesting, engrossing story, if not particularly action-packed.

The untold tale

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley, in exchange of honest review. I apologize, if the review ended up too honest.

The book is written from the first person perspective. Of course it is, most Young adult novels are, don’t they? Certainly there are many books from every imaginable genre that uses first person point of view, but in YA it is somehow ubiquitous.

My biggest issue with this book is the characters. We have the main male character, Forsyth, who is the point of view character, and the female character, Lucy.The protagonist is a strange person. As it turns out, by design, but initially he confused me. He is a spymaster of some kingdom, lord of a large chunk of land. When you think about a head spy, do you imagine a stuttering guy, who gets very upset when he doesn’t know something, who blushes and gets lost when in the presence of a girl? No? Nevertheless, that’s our hero. And what wonderful things we find out about him instantly:

Who better for a spymaster than the man who becomes physically agitated when he feels ignorant?

Honestly, I can imaging many better men for a spymaster.

I fidget until the kettle hisses, welcoming the excuse to duck out from under her odd gaze.

The head spy gets flustered by a woman just looking at him?

I understand. No woman enjoys my touch.

Come on, why does the guy have so many issues?

The girl, Lucy, who makes our protagonist so uncomfortable, is also weird.
As soon as we met her, Lucy swears a lot, uses modern slang (“cool!”) and knows about the main guy’s secret spy work, though she is not supposed to. And instead of interrogating her to find the source of her knowledge, our guy is just mildly interested of the fact. Really! Fine head of local intelligence he makes!

At this point I began to have a sinking feeling that for the first time I encountered the American example of the infamous “popadantsy” genre, so widespread in Russian romantic fantasy – namely a story where a person (most often than not a girl in her twenties) from “our world” miraculously ends up in some magical medieval-ish society, which might or might not exist in a book. Usually she saves the world or marries a prince or teachers everyone how to “live their lived properly”. As I read further, I realized that that I, sadly, was right. Lucy was summoned from “other world” and she is a so-called Reader, having immense powers and prior knowledge of the characters. Hello Mary Sue. The protagonist is already in love with you. And you will save the world or something… Oh, bother!

Even if the intruder from our world tries to lampshade and make fun (or use) of the genre cliches in her new world, it still never ends in a masterpiece. Some of those are entertaining, so I gave the book a chance.

Over the course of next chapters I was reminded why I hate when female YA writers try writing from male POV. Granted, I am not male myself, but I have a feeling that men, especially noblemen-turned-spymasters do not swoon like teenage girls whenever an attractive member of an opposite sex smile at them or calls their names. Even Stephenie Meyer managed to spook away even her fans (who already have very low threshold of expectations, if they like Twilight) by being equally bad in writing male perspective in Life and death. OK, maybe the author was trying to make the protagonist a whiny guy, worrying about his hair, figure and looks, and full of inferiority complex as a kind of grotesque satire on the girl-centered YA books? I can only hope…

Skimming other reviews on this book on Goodreads, I found that it is supposed to be “feminist”. I am not sure why though. Because Lucy is disgusted by embroidery, saying “I don’t do that useless lady stuff”? That’s not feminist. Handcraft is not useless and shaming a woman enjoying embroidery is as sexist as telling a woman that she can’t have any other interests past “lady stuff”.  On the very next page I see the main guy thinking about “the image of trousers stretched deliciously over the plump bottom” (of Lucy’s). That’s feminist?!? Shameless objectifying of a female  by the view point character? Right… Again, maybe it is supposed to be subversive and ironic, but I’m too dumb to get it. Sorry.

I was happy to discover that Lucy was half-chinese though. Yay for diversity!

After I braved through about a quarter of the book, things peaked up a bit. At least Lucy started to make fun of how some of the characters are “written”. I guess it was an attempt at subversion after all. Problem is, it doesn’t make the main character more likable or the language better. Honestly, if I hadn’t felt an obligation to read the book and write the review, I would have never stuck around to even get this far into the novel.

Just as I began warming up to this novel, I came across the following sentence : “Maybe you’re just a frigid bitch,”. I don’t mind the swear words so much (though Lucy us dropping f-bombs left and right). Problem is,  while it’s pronounced by a character who is supposed to be a dumb chauvinistic “typical hero” of a fantasy novel, it sounds jarringly like some hateful internet comment and not kind of words the character in question might choose. It seems that the author had an aim to discuss the issue, but she didn’t manage to fit the story around the topic gracefully. Instead, the episode very obviously sticks out.

Admittedly, the fact that Lucy uncovers the in-universe gay relationship behind the usual ho-yay is rather funny.

“I’m not a maiden in distress,” Pip snarls,
“I’m a woman, and I am damn well capable of rescuing my own damn self”.

Nice sentiment, but way, way, on the head. Sounds ok in a Hercules cartoon, but not so much in a novel. Again, message us too plainly obvious.

As I read on, I realized that Lucy is less a character and more of a plot device. Someone who speaks in mottos and slogans.

It’s not right to keep you a slave here, alone and unable to communicate to others that you’re not here by choice.

People don’t talk like that!

There is hardly any chemistry between the two protagonists. For at least half of the book he behaves as a horny teenager who have never seen a girl before and she gives mixed signals, like asking the poor guy to wash her hair and then telling him that she will kiss him if he works on his self esteem, while coming across rather cold and manipulative.

As the story progresses, suddenly Lucy needs to go on a quest in order to return home. There’s no strong explanation why that has to happen, but it’s really convenient for the plot. Moreover, there’s talk about spells and summonings, which Lucy known plenty about, because she read the series of books describing the world he ended up in, but I don’t, because I haven’t and the author doesn’t explain the magic properly. It’s annoying.

Then there’s a plot development that had a potential to be interesting: instead of physically going on a quest in order to discover the identity and location of necessary magical items, the heroes just do research and infer the needed information. Problem is, we don’t see their thought process at all. We are told that Lucy went over a bunch of documents, made a table and then came to some conclusions. What happened to “show, don’t tell”?

I will not even go into the longish sex scene in the middle of the book. Definitely not something I want to see in my fantasy novel.

One plot development that really infuriated me was when Lucy realized she was mind-controlled and forced to have sex with Forsyth. Obviously she is very upset. Especially considering she was tortured previously. But wait, let’s listen to her complaints:

I have been proved wrong! Do you know what that means? I have been proved an idiot by the world I love most.

So, she is not angry and hurt by all the bad things happening to her, only by the fact she misunderstood the book she ended up in?!?

My favourite part of the book is when after yet another lecture by Lucy, Forsyth finally calls her out on it:

You are so full of self-righteous ire that you never once so how much my love for you hurt me.

And that’s true. Lucy comes across throughout as an annoying, one-dimensional bully. Forsyth actually grew on me, but he couldn’t save the book for me.