Geek Wisdom

When I first heard about Geek Wisdom, edited by Stephen Segal, I was more than a little skeptic. As a self-proclaimed Nerd and Geek (by my definitions, nerd = passionate about academic subjects and geek = passionate about pop cultural subjects), I've seen how geekery has become widely accepted over the past few years. Often, that means it is co-opted by brands and companies that have no idea what being geeky actually means. So I figured this quirky little sampler of quotes wouldn't necessarily mean all that much to real geeks.

Man, was I wrong. There is so much truth in this book. Each page features a quote or two from famous geek texts (ranging from Shakespeare to internet memes, with plenty of television, movies, and novels in among the mix) along with a brief discussion of why this is important to the hordes of geeks out there or what it has to say about how we geeks see our world.

That's not to say that every single brief essay in this book works. With some quotes, the author's barely touch upon the quote itself and deal with another matter entirely. The best of the essays, though, (and I'll say the majority of the essays are among the best) really touch the heart of the quote in question, distilling the ideas that geeks feel in their hearts, even if the mind can't explain it so succinctly.

For example, the first quote in the book is "With great power comes great responsibility," written by the great Stan Lee. This has become one of the tenants of geekdom (closely followed, I would think, by Wil Wheaton's "Don't be a dick"). And really, it's something we all understand without too much thought. But the authors of the book point out how this affected not just Spiderman, but also George Washington, King David, Albert Einstein, and Franklin Roosevelt (and that Paris Hilton has somehow not come to understand it at all).

Even if you don't care about the discussion, this is a great collection of geeky quotes. I kept saying to myself that a particular quote was my favorite quote, but then I'd turn the page and find one I liked even more. I just have so much love for this book! It really is the perfect gift for any geeks in your life (in fact, I'm thinking I should just buy a box to have on hand as ready-made gifts).

5/5 stars

YA Book Club: Going Bovine

Welcome to the inaugural Consider the Daffodil YA Book Club, featuring the funny and thought-provoking Going Bovine by Libba Bray. I know that some of the people who are reading this are a bit behind, but I wanted to post this anyway for those of you I don't know in real life who may have already finished the book.

Anyway...

Going Bovine is definitely not everyone's cup of tea. It's a weird fantasy adventure, a mash-up of Percy Jackson and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, that talks about physics, obscure diseases, Don Quixote, drag queens, jazz music, religious cults, reality TV, and Norse mythology. It's got a male protagonist who is such an apathetic loser, he can be hard to relate to. And most importantly, it looks death right in the face. This book shouldn't work.

And yet it does (at least for some people, and I count myself among them). Going Bovine allows teens (and everyone else, of course) to get right up into the heart of impending doom (be it our main character Cameron's life or the End of the Universe as we know it) from the safety of a bunch of words on pages.

To be frank, while I was reading the book, I loved little bits but felt overall that it dragged. There were just a few too many set pieces (CESSNAB, PUTOpia, the YA beach house among them). They all felt a little bit like the Las Vegas hotel of the Lotus Eaters in the first Percy Jackson book - yes, I see what you're doing there, but let's move things alone now, please, there's story I want to get to. That having been said, the key elements of the story - much of the discussion below - has really stuck with me, and I think Bray does a good job at confronting mortality within the context of humor and adventure. (She also manages to give an interview in a cow suit quite well.)

I'm not going to summarize the book, although you should feel free to summarize any bits you see fit. I'll post the questions first, then chime in later with my own comments. I really want to hear what you have to say! Feel free to add any of your own questions as well. Spoilers from here on out.

1)For such a funny book, Going Bovine hits on some really big questions (Questions, even). Do you think this balance worked?

2) Why is Cameron's childhood trip to Disney World and his subsequent near-drowning the happiest day of his life?

3)What's up with the snow globes and the United Snow Globe Wholesalers?

4)Did Cameron actually go on this wild adventure? Or was he in his hospital bed the whole time?

5)The "one true thing" Cam learned on his travels, as he tells Dr. X, is that "to live is to love, to love is to live." What do you make of that? How did he come to realize the truth in this Great Tremelo song that he had previously listened to only ironically?

6)The obligatory casting question: Who would you cast in Going Bovine: The Movie? (Cameron and Dulcie probably being the easiest to cast).

Texas Gothic

I have to admit, I didn't have high hopes for Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore. The description on the back included witches, cowboys, and ghosts. I started flipping through it, though, and immediately recognized it for what it was. It was like home, something comforting from my childhood.

YA wasn't a big thing when I was a teen, and probably most of the YA I read was cheesy teen horror stories by Diane Hoh, Richie Tankersley Cusick, and Christopher Pike (Pike being the high end of the bunch). If you're my age, you know exactly the books I'm talking about, especially the embossed covers with more than their share of neon colors. (Cusick's Vampire was a particular favorite of mine.) These books were easy to read and almost felt like an episode of Scooby Doo (more bad guys being unmasked at the end, less talking dogs and stoners... well, sometimes there were stoners). There was always danger, but never too much to worry about, and the main girl (it was always a girl) used a little Nancy Drew sleuthing to figure out what was going on.

And that's exactly what I found in Texas Gothic. In fact, Nancy Drew is referenced a number of times, so Clement-Moore is obviously a fan of the genre herself. And for this particular sub-genre, the book is well-written, fast-paced, and highly enjoyable. I've seen enough of Texas to understand the environment perfectly, and the Hot Cowboy Neighbor (that might as well be his name) was the right mix of annoying and attractive. I loved the addition of real magic - the main character's family are all real witches, as much as she tries to stay out of that life - gave the story a little more body than others like it.

Is this fine literature? No. But that wasn't exactly what I was looking for on a quiet beach weekend. The high entertainment value of Texas Gothic makes it fun for any horror- or mystery-loving teen (or nostalgic adult). Bonus points for this being a self-contained story as well.

4/5 stars

Inaugural YA Book Club

Welcome to the Consider the Daffodil Young Adult book club! Back in January, my friend Erin and I started a small book club for Boston-area people interested in YA books. When Erin moved across the country a few months ago, I didn't want to wrangle monthly meetings, especially when she and I made up the majority of the group. So here we are - an online book club. The best part is that we're not bound by location anymore, so I'm looking forward to a wider group of people joining in. Please feel free to spread this around to others who are interested in YA literature, and if you have any suggestions, please email them to me.

For our first (online) book, we'll be reading Going Bovine by Libba Bray. The book follows Cameron, something of a high school loser, who develops Mad Cow Disease. In order to find a cure, he goes on a madcap cross-country journey with fellow loser Gonzo. I've already started reading the book, and I've been laughing hard at Cameron's exploits. I'd describe it as Percy Jackson with a touch of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Discussion will begin right here on August 1st.

The Map of Time

The time travel continues in a much more literary form with The Map of Time. After Ruby Red, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (which is not exactly time travel but does involve traveling through time... what?), and Hourglass, I wasn't sure if I wanted any more of this genre. (And yes, I have read other things with no time travel in between that I haven't written about yet.) But this sounded so different, I couldn't wait to jump in.

"Set in Victorian London with characters real and imagined, The Map of Time is a page-turner that boasts a triple play of intertwined plots in which a skeptical H.G. Wells is called upon to investigate purported incidents of time travel and to save lives and literary classics, including Dracula and The Time Machine, from being wiped from existence." I have to be honest, I didn't read this bit from the back of the book before I started reading the book. I had been given an even briefer description - Victorian London is in a time-travel fervor after H.G. Wells writes The Time Machine - and was already sold. I'm a big fan of the steampunk sub-genre, and this hinted to having a bit of that aesthetic.

In reality, this book is not one narrative but three, although they do all intertwine and feature H.G. Wells as a main character. And the way author Felix J. Palma handles the idea of time travel in a society with far fewer technologies than our own is masterful. Whether it's the man who wants to save the woman he loved from being killed or the boy who loves a girl and wants to stop her from doing something destructive, these characters approach time travel from very real and, often, very personal perspectives. I especially liked how Palma touched upon the idea of paradoxes repeatedly, because the ideas of changing the past or meeting yourself in the past are something that have to guide the storytelling when dealing with shifting timelines.

As much as I loved this book, which is a bestseller in Palma's native Spain, I had some trouble getting into it. Specifically, the paragraphs are loooong and overly-verbose, although I have a feeling that this was done on purpose to give the book a more Victorian feel. The very beginning, especially, when there is a whole page devoted to which kind of gun a character is going to use to kill himself, can get a bit tedious. Push on,though, like I did, and you'll be well-rewarded.

As a side note, H.G. Wells is a main character throughout this book, and it is mentioned frequently that all of London is so excited by time travel specifically because of his book The Time Machine. While it's quite possible to read this book without having read The Time Machine, I'll take a moment to plug the classic. It's really very short and easy to read, plus you'll sound smart when you say you've read it.

I never read many classics when I was younger (except what was forced upon me in school), so this one had escaped me until a few years ago. Then I discovered DailyLit, which feeds you classics in tiny bite-size pieces that are easy to digest. I had The Time Machine sent to my RSS reader (but you could get them emailed to you too), and in about a month, I had read the whole thing without trying. Best part: it's free. Really, do it. Even if you don't want to read The Time Machine (but you should), give DailyLit a try.

Also, The Map of Time has one of the coolest covers I've seen in a long time.

Check out the first chapter - in text or audio - on the book's website.

5/5 stars

Disclaimer: The advance copy of this book was provided to me for free from the publisher.

Hourglass

More time travel. See? I'm betting on this being the Next Big Thing. Hourglass by Myra McEntire sounded more paranormal and less time travel on it's back cover, but I assure you, travel through time they do.

Emerson sees people from the past. Like, she's trying to walk through the front door of her apartment, and there's a real straight-off-the-plantation southern belle standing in her way. This started two years earlier, just before her parents were killed in a freak accident, and it's only gotten worse since. Thomas, Em's brother, keeps finding "specialists" to help her, but none of them actually have helped. But when Michael shows up and introduces Em to the Hourglass, she starts to fully understand what's happening to her.

**Here Be Spoilers** Emerson learns from Michael that her ability to see people from other times is actually a small part of her ability, which actually allows her to travel back in time. Michael himself can travel forward in time, and together, they make a perfect pair - like, a-love-greater-than-the-stars perfect. And Dr. Xavier's School - sorry, The Hourglass - is where all the mutants - ugh, sorry again, I mean people with the ability to manipulate time in some manner - learn to hone their skills. **There Be Spoilers**

Is this a ground-breaking novel? No. In fact, there are so many teen girl clichés in here that I got mad at myself at one point for enjoying this so much. But then I just stopped caring because, you know what? This is a fun book, and I was once a teenage girl, so I'm going to revel in the feeling of being 16 again. In fact, I'm pretty sure even if you were never a teen girl, you'll understand.

It's been a while since I was really smitten with a YA novel, but this one hit me full force and made me stay up all night to find out what happened. My only hope is that there are more books about Emerson and the Hourglass coming soon.

5/5 stars

Disclaimer: This book was provided by the publisher through my bookstore job.

What Alice Forgot

Sometimes you pick up a book and read the back and think that it's going to be a great read, but once you get into it, you realize it's nothing like what you expected. What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty was exactly like that for me.

The story sounded intriguing: a woman hits her head while at the gym and wakes up thinking she's 29, happily married, and pregnant with her first child, while in reality, she's a 39-year-old mother of three who's in the middle of a messy divorce. Her life is drastically different than she imagined it would be, and she has to work to gain her memories of the past ten years back.

The actual book was both exactly what it sounded like and completely different than I imagined. That story really is what happened, but while I imagined some great mystery as to why or how Alice's life had tumbled, I was left with fairly standard chick lit drivel about an overworked husband and a missing best friend. I guess I had rose-tinted glasses on when I looked at this book, but I wasn't expecting chick lit.

And while I've read some chick lit that I've absolutely adored (Meg Cabot's epistolary stuff is great, like The Boy Next Door), this left me wanting. Because Alice has a head injury, there is a lot (a LOT) of time spent with her saying "Why don't I know this fact about my life?" and characters rehashing past events. If the book were a hundred pages shorter, it would still have gotten the point across without me wanting to throw it at the wall. Overall, What Alice Forgot is fine as a fun beach read, but don't expect to be captivated.

2/5 stars

Disclaimer: The advance copy of this book was provided to me for free from the publisher.