Habibi

by Craig Thompson

Oh, my god, I LOVED this book! It has some rough spots (like, 99% of the book) but it has a happy ending and it is beautifully drawn. I am absolutely blown away by Thompson's artistic ability and the amount of detail that goes into each and every page. In this book in particular he uses the Arabic alphabet and art as influences and incorporates them into his drawings and the effect is just lovely.

I also admire the number of times he's able to draw naked women without making me feel like he's a pervert. There are a LOT of naked women in this book but it's almost always presented in a very matter-of-fact way. Such as in the harem when there's no one around except other women and eunuchs so they feel perfectly comfortable just lying around partially or completely naked. When the nudity is not presented in a matter-of-fact way it's there to make a very specific point and it does so effectively.

The story takes place over 15 years. Maybe more because we're never really told how much time the last few chapters cover. It's about a young girl and a young boy and how they grow up together, get separated, and find each other again as adults. It's also about slavery, race relations, sex, and religion. The two main characters are Muslim but Thompson makes a point of showing the differences and similarities between the Muslim version and the Christian version. Personally, I love that because, particularly at this time in our country's history, I love someone showing the things that make us similar rather than the things that make us different. Thompson both embraces Islam as an off-shoot of Christianity while simultaneously displaying the beliefs and practices which make it unique.

Definitely Dead

by Charlaine Harris

So after reading a George Eliot and feeling all smart and sophisticated and stuff I thought my brain deserved a vacation. So I read another Sookie book. I still love them. In general, I'm not a fan of the first person narrative. As a writer I find it too limiting and there are times when, as a reader, I find those limitations in books to be frustrating. However, I think Harris uses it pretty effectively. There's never a moment when I wish I could have seen something that happened off-screen or from another character's point of view - mostly because of Sookie's telepathic ability. Despite all of her whining about it she's always willing to use it when it comes in handy. I particularly enjoy Harris' use of first person narration in creating the tone for the books. It feels very conversational and, I might be in the minority here but, I like that.

A heads-up to those of you reading the series who haven't gotten this far yet: there's a short story called "One Word Answer" that Harris wrote about Sookie and the events in that story are relevant to what happens in this book. Harris is pretty good at recapping so I wouldn't say you have to read the short story before reading this book, but I would highly recommend it. Also Bubba reappears in the short story and who doesn't love Bubba?

Overall, I liked this book for the same reason I like all the other Sookie books. It's light and fun and easy to breeze through in a week. It's full of action and suspense (both things Harris does well) and we get a new love interest for Sookie. Personally, he's my favorite so far. I hope he sticks around for awhile. We also get a closer look at the politics of the supernatural underworld which is both fascinating and terrifying (terrifying for Sookie, fascinating for us since we're safely on the other side of the page). And we get still more of Sookie's past, which helps us to know more about her and helps her to look at a relationship in a very different way - actually two relationships but I don't want to spoil anything for people not watching the show.

Adam Bede

by George Eliot

I love George Eliot so much. Jane Austen has been my favorite author since childhood but Eliot has been giving her a run for her money for the past few years. Austen is still in the lead but not by much.

The reasons I love Eliot are because I love her characters, her dialogue, and her narrative voice, particularly her free indirect discourse. These are all things I also love about Austen but Eliot does them in slightly different ways and I can't even really put my finger on what, exactly, makes them different. Suffice to say that Eliot has her own voice and I love her for it. I particularly love the way she steps back every now and then and addresses the reader directly. It doesn't add to the story but it gives a feeling that there's a conversation going on between the reader and the author (remember, this was the day before every writer had a Twitter account). I loved this, if only because nobody does it anymore and I found it such a refreshing change of pace from what I've been reading lately (if I submitted a manuscript to an editor today that contained any passages like that, they would make me get rid of it so fast it would make my head spin).

I particularly appreciated Eliot's use of free indirect discourse to give us a look at a character suffering some serious cognitive dissonance. I loved it because this is a thing we all experience, to some extent, on a daily basis, even if we're not consciously aware of it. Giving us an inside look at this mental process makes it easy to understand the excuses the poor guy keeps making for his actions (think "I'll go on a diet tomorrow") but, at the same time, we can't feel too sorry for him when it all goes horribly wrong. He knew from the beginning that it couldn't end well and, just because we got to see that he struggled with the issue, doesn't absolve him of responsibility. I think the main lesson here is that it's not the thought that counts. Despite his actions, Arthur really did have the best intentions - but good intentions aren't enough to salvage the tragic consequences of his selfish actions and that's a lesson he has to learn the hard way.