Dark Places

by Gillian Flynn

Having fallen in love with Gillian Flynn while reading "Gone Girl", it didn't take much to convince me to read this one. A coworker read it before I did and let me take her copy. I was so excited.

As soon as I started reading it, I was reminded of why I love Gillian Flynn so much. She is a superb writer and her attention to detail is simply astonishing. Part of this book takes place in 2009 from one character's perspective while the rest takes place in 1985 from the perspective of two other characters. There are so many little jokes and sayings that pass between two characters in one chapter and then show up in another character's thoughts in another chapter. It did a wonderful job of demonstrating how we're all connected, especially to our family and how things (including sayings, attitudes, etc.) get passed down from one generation to another.

The ending actually kind of disappointed me. I saw it coming from MILES away! And I'm not good at mysteries. I'm not supposed to be able to figure out who dunnit half way through the book. I want to feel like the author is more clever than I am, but I just didn't get that here (not to say that Gillian Flynn is less intelligent than I am. The woman has sold millions of copies of her books and I haven't even published one yet). My favorite part of "Gone Girl" was how utterly shocked I was when I started reading Part II (if you've read it, you know exactly what I'm talking about). That thrilled me and I was hoping to get that again here. Instead, I think Flynn showed her hand way too early in this book. On the other hand, it's only her second book, so I can forgive her for it.

The ending was also disappointing because two characters really let me down. One of them I was pissed at for taking what I think of as the easy way out. The other sat by and did nothing in an extreme situation. I just didn't believe it. He was portrayed as a passive person throughout the book and that was supposed to be his excuse, but I didn't buy it. I'm a pretty passive person, too, but in THAT situation, you'd better believe I'd do something!

Image taken from http://moondreamin.blogspot.com/2011/04/see-through-trees.html

When the Devil Came Down to Dixie

Ben Butler in New Orleans

by Chester G. Hearn

I warned you guys that there would be a lot of Civil War books on here. I'm reading one more now which I'm hoping will be the last one for awhile. Since I'm already pretty immersed in writing my novel, I'm hoping that I've gotten most of the research out of the way by now.

I really liked this one. It amused me in addition to teaching me a lot. I think Benjamin Butler was a fascinating person and I would love to read more about him. While the book left me applauding some of the things he did, I think it did a pretty fair job of providing an objective perspective. Butler did a lot of good things but he was also extremely corrupt. He amassed huge amounts of money which seem to have appeared out of thin air.

On the other hand, he was unusually aware of the needs of the poor. He was furious with the wealthy Southerners who were fighting this war at the expense of the poor and the slaves. Seems kind of hypocritical for a man who spent his life using illegal means to hoard disgusting amounts of money, if you ask me. But hey, he did act to help the poor, which is more than the rich plantation owners ever did, so I guess he wasn't all bad.

All in all, I think this was a great book to teach one about taking everything with a grain of salt. Having finished it, I don't feel comfortable labeling Benjamin Butler as a good guy or a bad guy. He falls pretty heavily into the gray area.

Death's Daughter

by Amber Benson

So ... remember how I said that Hilary Mantel was a study in minimalist writing? Well, I'm pretty sure this book was the antithesis of that. Seriously, there were a number of places where I could have deleted three paragraphs without losing anything. The main character took way too long to figure stuff out when I was way ahead of her and just wanted to get on with the story. Also, the big twist at the end, wasn't really such a big twist. I saw it coming way before it hit.

OK, now I have to talk about what I liked. Despite being overly chatty, I did like the main character. She was funny and tough, even though she didn't know how tough she was. Also, on a side note, what is with the recent fad of heroines who are tough but don't know that they're tough? Can we please bring back the heroines who know exactly what their strengths are and play to them? Thanks

I also really liked the side characters. Jarvis was my favorite, largely because I loved the main characters' reactions to and interactions with him. Clio was also a blast and I totally want to be her bff. I particularly liked the scene where she was trying to explain physics and magic to the main character because the main character's reaction was pretty much exactly how I would have reacted to that explanation.

Ultimately, it was a fun light read. It entertained me and definitely made me want to keep reading.

Shiloh

The Battle That Changed the Civil War

by Larry J. Daniel

The research for novel #2 continues, and yes, this is the novel I was working on during National Novel Writing Month last month. I must say I certainly wished I had done more research before then, because doing research while writing 1,666.67 words per day, not to mention holding down my day job, was quite the challenge. Obviously, I'm still not done, as I just finished reading this book about Shiloh over the weekend.

Overall, I really liked the book. It included a lot of "what ifs" which I didn't think I would like, but I ended up really enjoying. Every once in a while the author would discuss a decision that someone made and how things might have turned out drastically differently if that person had made a different decision. Given that I was merely looking for information on the battle so I could continue writing my novel, the "what ifs" weren't really what I was looking for, but as I said, I did find myself enjoying them.

In the end, though, I don't think any of those decisions significantly affected the battle. Historians can blame Confederate generals or credit Union generals all they want but the fact remains that the South was outnumbered. The Union army won that battle after receiving massive reinforcements. The South could never hope to match those reinforcements and the survivors of the battle were already exhausted. I had always thought it was settled that the North's superior numbers, funds, and technology made it so that the outcome of the war was inevitable. Yes, the war had turning points, but if the Union had lost those battles, they would not have lost the war. The turning point would simply have come later. In the end, the South could not overcome the sheer numbers of the North and the battle of Shiloh exemplifies that.

That being said, it does seem to be a miracle that the generals managed to accomplish anything at all. All of the generals and politicians of both sides were so busy bickering amongst themselves that I can't believe our country has come to revere such a bunch of babies!

National Novel Writing Month 2014

I DID IT! 50,000 in 30 days! :D

I'm not sure how I feel about it, though. On the one hand yes, I got my 50,000 words. On the other hand, my story is no where near finished. I'm only half way, maybe two thirds of the way through. So, do I still win NaNoWriMo if I got the word count but didn't finish the story?

I don't know. Who cares? I didn't officially sign up anyway.

So, here I my thoughts on this little experiment. On the one hand, I learned how much I could do in one month. It took some practice and, obviously some days are better than others, but I learned that, on a good day, I can blow through 1,500 - 2,000 words in an hour. Lots of little bits of time, like half an hour, that I have throughout the day suddenly became an opportunity to cram out seven or eight hundred words. That is a really good frame of mind to get into and I'm hoping I can continue it.

On the other hand, I don't like feeling rushed. Yes, I got a lot done, but how much of that will I have to go back and rewrite or delete because it's so bad? There's something to be said for taking the time to do it right the first time. As far as I can tell, there's writing quickly, and then there's writing well. They're two different things, although I hesitate to call them mutually exclusive, they are certainly not mutually inclusive.

Whether or not I'll do this again next year has yet to be determined. I don't think I'll be able to make that decision until October 2014 rolls around. In the mean time, I am glad that I tried it and I certainly developed some good writing habits that I hope I won't lose over the holidays.

Beautiful Redemption

by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

I was actually kind of disappointed in this book. Because I absolutely loved the first three books of this series, I had pretty high expectations for this one. To be fair, this book still has a lot of the elements I loved of the first three, namely the awesome characters. Link in particular is my favorite, but I really love all of them. I love Lena and Ethan together, which is a lot of the reason this book wasn't my favorite. The two of them were separated until the very end of the book and I didn't get to see them interact with each other. When they did finally get together, their major obstacle to being together was magically solved. They didn't even bother to try to explain how that happened and I don't know if I love or hate that fact. I guess it's a little of both.

SPOILER ALERT:
Ethan died at the end of the third book. I have to admit that, given that he's the narrator and all, I wasn't expecting him to actually die. But they did it. So most of the fourth book consists of Ethan fighting his way through the afterlife to try to get back to life. It was interesting, but not as interesting as the two of them would have been if I had gotten to see Ethan and Lena together. Ethan did get to meet some interesting characters in the afterlife, but ultimately he faced a lot of this battle alone (OK, so he had a crow with him for some of the journey but, given that crows can't talk, I'm not sure that that really counts).

That's really my only complaint about the book. Ultimately, it just wasn't as packed with action as the first three books. On a personal note, I had to deal with the passing of friend while reading this book so reading someone's interpretation of the afterlife while dealing with that was a little awkward. That wasn't the fault of the authors though. From an arbitrary perspective, their take on the afterlife was actually quite interesting.

All in all, it was a good book, but I think it was the weakest of the four.

Bring Up The Bodies

by Hilary Mantel

I loved this book every bit as much as I loved the first one. Probably more.

As it turns out, the title is not quite as creepy as it initially seems. They just say "bring up the bodies" when they mean "bring in the suspects for trial" so they're not actually dead yet. Although, by that point in the story, they're as good as dead, so I guess when you think about it, that really makes the title so much more creepy than it initially seems!

Seriously, though, this was another excellent read that kept me pressing the page button on my kindle until I was surprised to find myself at the end already! My one qualm with the first book was Mantel's liberal use of the pronoun "he" when I would get lost as to who was speaking when. She still does that, but makes a point of using "he; he Cromwell, said ..." which made it much easier for me to understand and enjoy. There were still a few confusing moments but, overall, I really enjoyed this book.

I don't know if it was the author's intention but I found it really hard to believe that just a few years passed from the beginning of the book until the end. Every time they talked about Wolsey I felt like all of that was ages and ages ago. Turns out, it was only a few years. I had known that Henry only kept Anne around for a few short years but I guess I forgot. This book does a really excellent job of packing in all of the things that happened while Anne was queen, which is what made me feel that so much more time had passed than a few years.

The most impressive part of this book, to me, was the way that everything was presented. Mantel had me so convinced that I was in Tudor England (or at least that she had been to Tudor England to research this book) that I found myself thinking, "Huh, I didn't know it happened that way. I always suspected it happened some other way," before remembering that this book is fiction and relies on speculation just as much as every other book about this time period that I've ever read. Well done, Mantel! You made me forget that I was reading fiction. In a good way.

The other thing that amazed me was that just reading about all of the stuff that Cromwell does makes me feel lazy. Sometimes I get home from a full day of work and make myself dinner and do laundry and pay my bills and I'm all "Look at me and all the stuff I can do!" And then there's Cromwell who is running the country while always making it seem as though Henry is the one running the country. Not to mention staying one step ahead of his enemies so they can't manage to bring him down. He hardly seems to sleep and he never gets sick because, as he puts it, he's not "allowed" to get sick. Seriously, the guy gives "workaholic" a new meaning.