The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #2), by Douglas Adams

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: ★★★★

Published: 1980

Publisher: Pocket Books

Pages: 250

I was first introduced to Douglas Adams's series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, last summer. I read the first book, loved it, bought the rest of the series, and promptly forgot to pick it up again until last week.

Considering I read the last book almost a year ago, I experienced little difficulty getting back into the plot or characters. There were, of course, details I had forgotten — like Zaphod's third arm — but I was grateful to slide back into was Adams's terrific sense of humor and style of writing. However, I would add that I definitely recommend reading the first book (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) before picking this one up because there is a very important subplot that Restaurant spends little to no time recapping. Good news, I would say that this book and the previous one are excellent series installations in the respect that they do not end on an obnoxiously terrible cliffhanger. (I'm looking at you Rick Riordan, Suzanne Collins.)

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe picks up where The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy left off, with ex-Galactic President Zaphod, depressive robot Marvin, Betelgeusian hitchhiker Ford Prefect, and Earthlings Arthur Dent and Tricia McMillan ("Trillian") bound for space exploration on the precisely Improbable Heart of Gold spaceship.

A lot happens: time travel, rock concerts, tax evasion, and The End of the Universe, for starters. Adams reflects on the Universe (its infinite size and horrific end, to be specific), the nature of civilization (namely, what happens when a bunch of midlevel nitwits are in charge of establishing a society and "culture"), and continues to ask just what the deal with the number forty-two is.

I found this book to be immensely enjoyable. Adams's humor is a treat; his absurdity (or is it improbability?) is at the top of its game. The book's lighthearted attitude doesn't stray away from asking the serious questions (chiefly, the meaning of life, questions of civilization, etc.), which I think just adds to the "trilogy's" depth and insight. The last bit of the book was definitely more somber (or at least introspective) in tone, but I enjoyed it. I appreciated the character development that I witnessed between Arthur and Ford over the course of the book (most notably the last chapters), and am interested in seeing how they continue to change in the series's next installment (Life, the Universe, and Everything). While my first impression of this book wasn't "It changed my life! Give it five stars!" I could see my opinion changing in the near future.

If you're even remotely interested in checking out The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (based on this or any other review), I would urge you to immediately pick it up, along with the other books to the series.

When you're finished, I'll see you at Milliways.

The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson

It's been a long time since I've written a review! If any of y'all follow me on Goodreads, you'll notice that I've finished some books that I've neglected to review properly on here. Starting with this post, I'll be attempting to play catch-up. 

Genre: Nonfiction, U.S. History, Crime, Urban Studies

Rating: ★★★★

Published: February 10, 2004

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday

Pages: 464

I've been interested in reading Erik Larson's Devil in the White City for a while now; I'm interested in crime, the Columbia Exposition (aka, the Chicago World's Fair), and Chicago in general, so this book seemed like a good match for me. I was further intrigued by the connection that Larson set out to depict in the book between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the serial killer, H. H. Holmes. Larson's intentions in White City were very clear to me: to describe the cycle of creation and destruction that two men, Daniel Burnham (the leading architect and planner for the Chicago World's Fair) and H. H. Holmes influenced during the fair, and how the fair changed the course of American architecture, culture, and history.

The Devil in the White City is, first and foremost, a history book that chronicles the buildup to and the execution of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the Americas in 1492, the fair was also a chance for the city of Chicago to announce that it had "arrived" on the world's stage. In total, over 27 million people ended up visiting "the White City."

The Devil in the White City operates along two parallel story lines: the first chronicling the entirety of the fair, from its inception to its end; the second tells the story of H. H. Holmes, the serial killer operating under the protection of the fair, from his childhood to his eventual incarceration.

Despite the title, I didn't find Holmes or his crimes to be the real focus of this book; while Holmes was certainly an ominous force that Larson alluded to repeatedly, I feel like the majority of this book's action and splendor came in the descriptions of the fair.

I thought that this book was really interesting in examining American society, Chicago's history, and how the fair changed them both immediately and later on. (And example of "further down the line": Walt Disney's dad was part of the construction team; he applied what his dad told him about constructing the White City when creating the Magic Kingdom.) I think this book is good for anyone who doesn't mind sorting through multiple characters and plot lines, while also being interested in American/Chicagoan history. 

However, since there is so much exposition regarding the fair, I'd say that any other reader would have to be pretty tolerant due to the fact that there is a lot of material regarding architecture and construction. So, yeah, the book gets dry at times. But I'd say that Larson deftly deals with the unglamorous parts of the fair, crafting a narrative that is both enticing and intriguing. 

brb drowning

Believe it or not, this is "clean."

Hey, peaches. Sorry for the total radio silence for the past months, but things on my end have been so busy it isn't even funny. I joined two new organizations on campus, and one of them requires me to not only be responsible for myself, but also other people (and writing. That too.). I've been reading a lot (not necessarily books, unfortunately), and I'm writing a ton (as is fitting for a liberal arts/humanities student). Because things are winding down, I'm having to look forward to studying abroad, what I'm going to do this summer, etc. I'm ready to be gone, but I have to put a little bit more time in first.

I haven't been treating myself very well, so that's one of my main priorities right now.

I hope you are staying safe and healthy and are loving whatever it is you're doing now. Hopefully I'll have some new reviews up soon(ish).

The Name of the Star (Shades of London #1), by Maureen Johnson

Thanks for sticking with me for the last few months, guys. School has been insane, and now that it's spring break I've finally had some time to read a bit more and work on some backlogged blog entries. Anyways, all of that aside, here are my thoughts on Maureen Johnson's The Name of the Star. 

Genre: Young Adult, Supernatural

Rating: ★★★

Published: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 372

So, I've been aware of Maureen Johnson since maybe middle school? That's about six years. And in all of that time, I've only read two things by her: her short story in Let It Snow, and this: The Name of the Star (three, if you count her blog...). It isn't that I haven't been totally interested... I just don't usually find her books when I'm out browsing. I don't really read books because they're by a certain author  (unless it's Sarah Dessen, in which case my system has proved to be imperfect), so I often stumble upon books by authors that I like by mistake.

The Name of the Star came out a little over two years ago. I became aware of it sometime last year, when I started following Johnson on Tumblr. All I really remember is that some readers were messaging her, saying that now they were totally afraid of using bathrooms, or something like that. (After reading the book, I can say that I'm any more afraid of bathrooms than I was before, so...) It piqued my interest, but I quickly forgot about it. Then, this past Friday night before I left on spring break, I saw that one of my friends had a copy in her room. She let me borrow it, and I spent most of Monday reading it.

The Name of the Star is about a 17 year-old girl, Rory Deveaux, who moves to London in order to spend a year at a British boarding school while her parents teach at a university in Bristol. Coincidentally, the day that she arrives in London is the same day that a murder victim is found, the details of which mimic Jack the Ripper. While Rory learns more about her new home and slowly gets acclimated to English living, "Rippermania" takes over the city. As the body count increases, London police are left with few leads and no suspects - until Rory spots a person who could be the very killer the police are looking for. The problem? No one else can see him, and he's made Rory his next target.

I feel very...average...about this book. It reminded me a bit of Libba Bray's The Diviners in that there were supernaturally creepy murders going on, and a cracking team of juvenile ghostbusters was needed to solve the case/catch dat ghost. (Which isn't bad; gimme supernatural thrillers any day, I say!) But The Name of the Star, in my opinion, started very slowly. It took around 70 pages for me to feel like the plot was really going somewhere, and that the action had finally "started." (However, I will say that once things got moving, all of the action was ramped up and got very thrilling very quickly.) 

Johnson also did a good job at introducing facets of English life - what A-levels are, pubs being a part of regular life, "college" vs. "university," etc. - without overwhelming the reader with information. The reader learned about these things as Rory did (unless the reader is British, in which case - sorry), as she slowly became accustomed to living in London. I was pleased to note that London, as the setting of the book, wasn't blown out of proportion as some magical place inhabited by queens and Doctors and wizards. Rory lived in London without acting like a giant tourist or aggressively trying to assimilate. Her life was just very...normal. And as an American reader (with friends going abroad to study in England next year), it was nice to be able to read about Rory without being reminded over and over "Hey! She's in England! How neat is that? England England England *insert "clever" pop culture reference here*."

I also appreciated how the book's English setting continuously undermined Rory as she worked out the cultural differences between her old life in Louisiana and her new life in London. Rory was reminded frequently that she was an "outsider," and that there was some information she was not going to be privy to due to that status. (Well, at first. Obviously not everything was kept from her forever.) Her outsider status also made her a more sympathetic and interesting character. It gave me a chance to see how she responded to non-supernatural change, which I think was important in revealing parts of her character and personality.

As for some of the things that kind of bothered me as I read the book (no spoilers): 

• There were some organization issues; basically, information that could have or should have gone in the beginning of the book was added in at the end. I feel like - at least as far as character development goes - this should have been addressed in order to further develop Rory's nuances and personality.
• Halfway during the book, certain characters were abandoned as the plot kind of shifted towards ghost hunting. (Is that a spoiler? I hope not.) While I understand that Rory's priorities changed during this portion of the novel, I feel like Rory (as the narrator) could have addressed that shift better. Said characters had been kind of major up until that point, and so having them suddenly shunted to secondary status was... pretty abrupt.
• I didn't really care for the interval chapters; I felt like they interrupted the pace of the plot somewhat. While I do think they provided a "behind the scenes!" look at the murder investigation, I also feel like they could have been treated better. Maybe the characters that the interval chapters were about could have been referred to after their appearance? In the ending, to give a sense of closure?

These issues aside, I'll probably pick up the next book in the series. I'm interested where things will go for Rory post-TNotS; namely, who the villain will be. (The same friend who let me borrow this book has the sequel, so as soon as she's done with it, I'll be trying to get my hands on it.)

Has anyone else read The Name of the Star? I'd be interested in reading more books by Maureen Johnson, so if anyone has any recommendations, they can leave them in the comments.

I Love... Whodunnits

Not this Who, but close. Very, very close. Via. 

OK, here's something you should know about me if you're ever going to watch a movie, TV show, or read a book with me ever:

I hate suspense.

I don't mean "suspense" as in when an author leaves you hanging at the end of a book in a series.  It's more like the "what's going to happen next? Is there a killer in the next room? Is this character going to die?" (If what I'm watching is Game of Thrones, then, yeah, probably). It isn't that I think suspense is contrived or stupid, or whatever - I hate it because it winds me up and makes me anxious and nervous and I feel like I have to leave the room because there is TOO MUCH TENSION GUYS. WHY IS THIS STILL HAPPENING. Suspense makes me completely unable to watch or enjoy a perfectly good movie or TV show or book or whatever.

(It doesn't have to be serious suspense. Hell, when I was ten I left the room while watching The Little Mermaid 2 because yeah. I'm a baby.)

But for WHATEVER reason, a classic whodunnit mystery is one of my favorite things in the whole wide world.*

I think it what sold me on the whodunnit front, no question asked, was Agatha Christie's absolutely marvelous book, And Then There Were None. Agatha Christie is now one of my absolute favorite authors (usually for this precise reason), but then in the eighth grade, when the only thing I was reading was Harry Potter fanfiction? Oh my god it blew my mind. Agatha Christie's books are famous for being impossible to predict, and And Then There Were None is no exception.

I'm not going to spoil the ending for you, but And Then There Were None was a light in the dark. It was a lightening bolt that I needed to make reading even more active and fun than it already was.**

I moved on from And Then There Were None to other Agatha Christie books. And then I saw her play, The Mousetrap, which is like f*cking whodunnit theatre. And while I really liked what I was finding, I always felt like there should be... more.

Enter Clue.

J'accuse! Via.

I was a huge fan of the board game when I was a kid (I mean, come on, I was allowed to accuse my mom of murder, what kid wouldn't enjoy that), but for whatever reason, I had never decided to watch the movie until this past summer, when I was in the middle of a Netflix haze and decided that I might as well. What's the worst that can happen? I figured. Maybe I'll stop watching it because I hate it. That's the worst. 

Well, I didn't hate it - I loved Clue completely. (And have rewatched it at least twice because it's necessary)

I'm not going to pretend for a minute that Clue is a serious movie in any respect. It's dramatic and hilarious and homicidal, and basically had me trying to figure out the murder(s) for myself as best as I could. I failed, obviously - but it got me thinking: Why aren't there more Whodunnit movies? I've been trying to get a hold of Gosford Park for a while (I let it slip through my clutches because I suck), and in looking for lists online, the movies suggested are... well, they're old. They're old movies, and a bunch of them are just adapted from Agatha Christie books and I think that's silly. There need to be more Whodunnit movies. They're suspenseful in all the best ways, they're creative, and sometimes they're silly or overly dramatic, but I don't care! They're great!

Sorry, Wrong Number is Grade-A drama. Via.

So, this is my grown up Christmas list  reasonable request: More Whodunnits in 2k14, please. I'm looking for them as best as I can as far as books are concerned, but come on, guys - this is 2014 and we have face computers and wrist phones and we don't have more Whodunnit movies? That needs to change. Whodunnits are fun and crazy and dramatic and they engage people in ways that are pretty unique to the genre, and they're one of the few ways I like not knowing what's going to happen. They can be scary, but they're, like - the good scary I guess? (But that's more subjective) I may still strongly dislike/hate suspense, but thanks to this awesome genre of books and movies available to me, I'm able to recognize the necessity of it.



* I'm trying really hard not to swear too much. You should appreciate my restraint. 
** Or maybe it was Scooby Doo instead...

The Tiger's Wife, by Tea Obreht

Genre: Fiction/World Literature

Rating: ★★★★

Published: November 1, 2011

Publisher: Random House

Pages: 368

OK, so. This review has been kind of difficult for me to write, not because I didn't like the book or anything, but because I feel like it's kind of a hard book to summarize concisely. I got The Tiger's Wife for Christmas a few years ago from my grandma, and despite it looking absolutely fascinating - there was a tiger! And great cover art! - it sat on my shelf until I decided last week that enough was enough, and that I needed to finally read it. 

The Tiger's Wife takes place in an unnamed Balkan country picking itself up after war, where Natalia - a young doctor - finds herself compelled by the mysterious circumstances surrounding her grandfather's death. In searching for clues, she turns to the stories he has told her over the years of "the deathless man," as well as his well-worn copy of The Jungle Book. But perhaps the most revealing story is one he never told her - the story of the tiger's wife.

(Mmmmost of that description came from the back cover.)

Before reading The Tiger's Wife, I hadn't read any book set in the Balkans, and had little knowledge about it (the region). And I don't want to say that it's like, necessary, to know about the region before cracking open the book, but it certainly helped me a lot. This is a thick book, you guys. And I don't mean that it's super difficult to understand, it's just that there is a lot of history and information and myth layered on top of each other to create a very rich, very dense book. 

The Tiger's Wife is primarily about the use of myth and allegory in history, as well as the necessity of personal narratives during wartime. And when I say that, I mean taking a very complex issue that is not your own - a bombing, a war, whatever kind of event - and finding your personal story in it. Finding a way to make the events in your life - no matter how out-of-control they seem - your own. 

The use of myths and stories are used throughout The Tiger's Wife to discuss other complex issues, such as nationality, ethnicity, religion, belonging, and - ultimately - death. Because the novel takes place in the Balkans after "a war," and because Obreht is originally Yugoslavian (meaning, to me, that parts of her identity have now been reassigned to difference countries, different nationalities), The Tiger's Wife is very fluid in regards to geography, language, etc. And while a lot of books deal with war, and the realities of living in wartime, The Tiger's Wife gave me a new perspective on what it is like to life while a war is ending, when new identities are being created and old unions are being destroyed, and how families and cities can become easily estranged. 

A map for your viewing pleasure. Via.

Obreht deals with these questions of nationality as well as death by creating a narrative so intricate that, frankly, I was amazed that she was able to tie everything together in the end. She used flashbacks on flashbacks in creating a story-within-a-story-within-a-story narrative that was actually really satisfying and not as confusing as it sounds. It might have been a little slow to start, but once I got hooked, I was hooked  - I almost took the book with me to a job interview to read in the car after my meeting because I just had to know the end right then. 

I'd recommend this book to those who aren't adverse to flashbacks, or story-within-a-story structure. Because, seriously guys, there is a ton of it. I also might recommend reading the Wikipedia page on the Balkans? Or having a map or something? Because that area has been dominated forever (by the Ottomans, and then later there was the Habsburgs, and then WWI happened... you get the idea), and there is just so. much. damn. history. But don't let that stop you - The Tiger's Wife has been on countless lists as a "to-read" book. Go and find out the truth about the tiger's wife and the deathless man and see if you can maybe see the world a little differently when you're done. 

The Gardner Heist, by Ulrich Boser

Genre: Nonfiction/True Crime

Rating: ★★★★

Published: February 24, 2009

Publisher: Harper Collins/Smithsonian

Pages: 223 (260 counting notes and index)

The first time I ever heard about the Gardner Museum theft was during my senior year of high school, when I was channel surfing trying to find some adequate background noise for my homework. An old feature on MSNBC was coming up that it covered an old art theft. I love art, and am interested in crime, so it sounded like a good idea.

The "old art theft" the program covered was none other than the infamous robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. After the first line of the program, I was hooked. And, after reading Boser's The Gardner Heist, I can tell that such sentiment is not uncommon when it comes to the Gardner theft.

The Gardner Heist does more than just describe the theft itself; due to the ambiguous nature of the theft, there is still a lot that remains unknown about the theives' motives, as well as the question of what happened to the art. Because the heist itself lacks that sort of resolution, Boser's story lies more within describing his own personal investigation into the crime - meaning talking to old Boston underworld figures, private detectives, as well as FBI investigators. Taking careful stock of the facts known about the case - like, how the crime was committed - Boser picks up leads, tracks down potential sources, and eventually becomes obsessed with the Gardner theft mystery. In a way, The Gardner Heist is as much about the twisted nature of the Boston criminal underworld - with its connections to the IRA as well as political figures like John Kerry - as it is about the question of why we care and obsess over this theft.

I thought that this book was really accessible; I didn't know a lot about the theft going into it (I had forgotten most of the details from the program), but found that despite the large cast of characters, I had a relatively easy time of remembering who was who and who did what. Boser was careful not to overwhelm the reader, and at clocking in a little over 200 pages, The Gardner Heist strives for conciseness.

Boser's obsession with his private investigation eventually drives him to stop his work on the Gardner theft. He stops tracking down sources, or chasing loose ends, or following up on tips. Despite his years of work on the case, the Gardner theft remains as mysterious as ever; rather, the plot becomes more complicated, eventually leading him to conclude that "Everyone was guilty and no one was." While it was a little worrying, as the reader, to see him become more obsessed by the case and increasingly blinded by the mystery, the book ended as satisfactorily as it could have without a clear answer or solution.

The Gardner Heist didn't cover it, but: This past year, the FBI updated the public on the case, claiming that it knew who the thieves were, and that they had a good idea of where the paintings had gone over the years. (Of course, where the paintings were was another story.) It's possible that after almost 24 years, the Gardner case may finally be coming to a real end.