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.

Your Sense of Adventure

So Writer's Digest had an interesting writing prompt awhile back but I never got a chance to do anything with it until about an hour ago. When I was finished, I was pretty happy with what I had, but it's about 100 words too long to be submitted and it's probably too late to submit it now anyway. But I couldn't stand the thought of just letting it sit there on my hard drive. Then I thought "Hey, wait a minute! I have a blog! What else is a blog for if not posting stuff that I'm proud of that no one else cares about?" So, here it is, my vignette:

Your Sense of Adventure

A friend rings your doorbell way too early in the morning to be ringing doorbells. You answer the door in your PJs, and the friend says, “Pack a bag quickly. I have to get out of here now and need you to come with me.” You are intrigued.

            Instantly awake, you say, “Okay. Give me a minute.”

Obviously it takes you more than a minute. Your friend waits at your bedroom door, impatiently tapping her toe and constantly checking the door and the windows as you hastily throw anything and everything you might need into an overnight bag.

“Ready?” She asks as soon as you zip up the bag.

“Ready. Where are we going?”

            “West. As far away from here as we can get and as fast as we can get there.”

            You think fleetingly of the school, your students. You’ll miss them. But will they miss you? After all, they’re only third-graders. Once the school realizes you’re not coming in, the class will be assigned a substitute teacher. Some poor substitute who will now have a permanent, full-time job. You silently wish the unknown teacher all the best as you gladly throw away your job, your career, everything you have, and head to the garage with your friend on your heels.

            The Honda does not exactly have a reputation for making a great get-away vehicle, but it’ll have to do. As your friend heads towards the car you turn and start to lock the door behind you before asking yourself “Why bother?” You can’t come back. Whatever your friend is running from, it’s dangerous and, if it’s got her this freaked, she can’t ever return. You deciding to join her means you can’t ever return. With a shrug, you turn from your unlocked door and hop in the driver’s seat, your stomach doing massive back-flips as you turn the key in the ignition.

            Tires screech against pavement as you back out of your garage and head down the driveway, away from your beautiful townhouse.

            Behind you, the sun is rising. You feel as if you are running away from it. This feeling is enhanced by the way your friend continues to glance over her shoulder. Every car you encounter on the road makes her flinch.

            You get on the nearest ramp to get on the high way and continue heading west. The sun is already fully risen and well on its way upward by the time your friend starts giving you directions. You have no plan so, if she has one, you might as well follow it – this being her escape and all.

            By the time she tells you to get off the highway you realize you recognize this place. You’ve been here before. Frantically, you search your memory but your mind and body are still too full of the excitement of the moment to try and worry about the past.

            Then, as she instructs you to turn left onto a dirt road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, you remember the last time you were here. You start to slow down as you wonder just what, exactly, is going on here?

            “Sheila? When have you ever been here?”

            Sheila turns to you with a sheepish grin as she admits that the game is up.

            You reach the old, familiar cabin, with that familiar figure standing on the front porch, holding his mug of coffee. You slam on the brakes and stop in the middle of the road.

            “I’m sorry, but you never would have agreed to do this, so I had to, well, appeal to your sense of adventure.”

            “Oh, you are so dead.”

Haha! And You Thought We Were Done With Harry Potter

Sorry but, apparently, J.K. Rowling just couldn't stop writing about Harry and the world of wizards. After having finished the seventh Harry Potter book and sending it off to all the printing houses, eagerly awaiting their chance to make millions and millions of copies, she appeared to have gotten Harry Potter withdrawal because she went on to write The Tales of Beedle the Bard as well as two Hogwarts schoolbooks. Honestly, I'm surprised that's all she wrote because, judging by the number of times she references them in her other books, it sounds like she could have easily written A History of Magic and Hogwarts, A History. As it is, I will use this final Harry Potter post to discuss the remaining three books, due to the fact that they are all so short.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard
I give you fair warning: for each and every one of these books I have to discuss how impressed I am by the extent to which Rowling has built her own world. That goes for the book of fairy tales as well, of course, starting with the fact that Harry and Hermione had never heard any of these tales and Ron had never heard of Cinderella. I deeply appreciate the fact that the fairy tales bear some definite similarities to our Muggle fairy tales while retaining the obvious differences. I am also in awe of the fact that Dumbledore (in his notes on the book) mentioned some of the different versions that certain fairy tales had gone through. I love this particularly because it is so true of stories which are so old that nobody can remember where they came from or how the original went. Of course, there's also the anti-Muggle factor infused into some of these stories and that, too, is typical of any stories which have lasted a considerable amount of time. Just as we have had certain books banned over the centuries, so certain wizards decided to modify stories with a moral which doesn't appeal to them in order to preach a moral more to their liking (which, I guess, defeats the purpose of the original story). I was also grateful to finally get a distinction between "wizard" and "warlock". I had been wondering about that.

Quidditch Through the Ages
Here I give Rowling enormous credit, not only for inventing an exciting and entirely original game played exclusively on broomsticks, but also for: inventing a history of the game, including a reason for the invention of the Snitch; numerous other games played on broomsticks several centuries ago, before Quidditch gained popularity; and the invention and progression of the flying broomstick. While a broomstick was supposedly chosen as a flying vessel because it was such an inconspicuous object (easily hidden or explained in a wizard's or witch's home in the days of witch hunts) I don't see how it's any less conspicuous than any piece of furniture, such as the flying carpets that the witches and wizards of the east are more fond of. However, things like that often have an arbitrary beginning and then, after centuries of doing it a certain way, it comes to appear to be the most natural solution, so I'm okay with it. 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
I love everything about this book from the fact that she came up with, not only 75 different creatures, but also, in some instances, variations within those species. Dragons alone come in 10 different varieties and Rowling took the time to invent and describe them all. I especially appreciate the explanations provided in this book as to why Muggles are unaware of these creatures. Obviously things like dragons and unicorns maintain a presence in our folklore, but have you ever wondered why your garden isn't infested with gnomes that you need to spin around until dizzy and then throw as far away from your house as possible? I did, and this book gives a believable (as believable as a book about wizards can be) explanation for it. My favorite part of this book was the doodlings and sarcastic notes left by Harry and friends. They only help to further cement their personalities, which Rowling expertly manages to showcase, even in such a confined outlet.

And there you have it: an expertly well-crafted story, full of vivid characters that we both love and love to hate, set in an incredibly well-built world which is simultaneously fantastical and based in reality.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

by J. K. Rowling

My least favorite Harry Potter book. I'm sorry, but most of them running around in the woods looking for Horcruxes is pretty slow-moving. Also Harry whines way too much about Dumbledore not telling him every little detail about his personal life. I agree with EVERYONE when they tell Harry not to let Rita Skeeter's book about Dumbledore sully Harry's memory of Dumbledore. Harry argues that he wants to know the truth. Valid concern but, um, Harry, we've already dealt with the lovely Miss Skeeter, remember? She wrote horrible, horrible lies about you and your friends, then turned around and wrote the truth only because it was the only way to get her job back. Dude, she writes what sells and Dumbeldore The Great just died so, guess what's going to sell? A book further enumerating all of his wonderful deeds? Not so much. So how does finding out the truth have anything to do with reading anything Rita Skeeter wrote ever?

Harry also needs to give teenagers a break. His world is shattered when he sees his father bullying Snape and I do understand that, up to a point. Like I said, he idolized his parents so, realizing that they weren't always the heroic do-gooders must have been hard. When Sirius tries to explain that they were just kids, Harry points out that they were Harry's age. He does the same thing when people talk about young Dumbledore doing some questionable things. What Harry fails to understand is that he is an exceptional teenage boy. That's not to say that he's perfect or that he doesn't make mistakes. In some ways he is a perfectly normal teenage boy (please see afore-mentioned angst). But Harry has had to grow up much too fast. His parents died shortly after his first birthday, his aunt, uncle, and cousin mistreated and abused him for ten years until he got to leave for Hogwarts. Then, at Hogwarts, he discovers Voldemort who keeps trying to kill him. Not exactly a normal childhood and all of that helped make Harry into the extraordinarily brave and generous person that he is. However, most teenagers aren't like that because they haven't had to deal with any of those awful experiences. I know I did some dumb things when I was a teenager and I would hate to think that anyone would hold those things against me decades from now.

I also dislike this book because the ending is so extremely sappy it makes me want to puke. I know Rowling had been building up to that "love conquers all" cliche for awhile, but I still think she laid it on way too thick at the end. I seriously considered skipping the epilogue this time around because I hate it so much. Although, I'll admit that I'm glad I didn't because it wasn't as bad as the first time I read it.

Ok, time to talk about things I did like: MRS. WEASLEY! Mrs. Weasley popping up out of nowhere to get Bellatrix away from Ginny is classic and I love it to bits! I give her extra points for doing this immediately after having lost a son. Most people would crumble under that grief but Mrs. Weasley gets right back up and in the action. I'm sure she'll crumble later but she recognizes that there is a time and a place for that, but that is neither here nor now. Also, FRED! How heart-wrenching was that death? I could not believe it when I read it for the first time. Fred and George were both so full of life and so cavalier about everything it seemed impossible that they could die - as if their refusal to admit that this was all very much a life-threatening situation could protect them. Compared to the death of Fred, it was easy to let go of Lupin and Tonks, especially since I was so mad at Tonks for heading into the action when she had a baby to look after! I can't forgive her for abandoning her son like that and, honestly, I don't find it very believable. While Tonks's love for her husband is admirable and touching, it shouldn't be forgotten that Mother Nature has programmed us women with some pretty heavy-duty hormones once we give birth and those normally kick in so that a mother's first concern is keeping her child safe. Dad can look after himself.

All-in-all this is an excellent series and I thoroughly enjoyed re-visiting it. I'll have to make sure not to wait so long before doing so again!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

by J.K. Rowling

I have to start with the beginning of this book.  I deeply appreciated that we get a scene between the Muggle Prime Minister and the Minister of Magic.  Upon thinking about it for a bit, it makes sense that the two would need to communicate.  After all, leaders of different countries need to communicate.  But the wizarding world and the Muggle world are normally kept so strictly separate and the wizards normally stress the importance of hiding from Muggles to the point where I hadn't thought the Minister of Magic would ever tell the current Prime Minister about wizards.  I really felt for the poor guy when it turned out that everything that had been inexplicably going wrong for the past two weeks and blamed on him was not actually his fault.  Instead, it was the work of a powerful evil wizard.  The feeling of triumph combined with the knowledge that he can never tell people the truth is terribly frustrating and I think we've all felt that injustice at one point or another.

I also like the scene in which Snape makes the Unbreakable Vow.  I'm glad that we get to see a bit of how hard being a double agent really is.  Aside from Dumbledore, no one at Hogwarts really trusts Snape and, aside from Voldemort (and, apparently, Mrs. Malfoy) none of the Death Eaters really trust him.  He constantly has to come up with explanations to satisfy both sides, all the while meticulously guarding his expressions so as not to give anything away.  Mrs. Malfoy begging him to make the Unbreakable Vow would appear to force Snape to choose the side of Voldemort definitively but, of course, Snape and Dumbledore find a way out of even that, albeit not an easy way.

I must confess it had been so long since I had read this book that I had forgotten who the Half-Blood Prince really was.  I was thinking it might even have been Voldemort.  Unlike Harry, I never suspected he wasn't evil although I can't blame Harry for continuing to use the book.  If I had mistakenly ended up with a book that included all the answers I totally would have used it.  Of course Hermione wanted Harry to stop using it but, in this case, I don't think it was strictly her love of rules.  I agree with Harry when he says that she just couldn't stand being shown up in a class.  I did, however, like Hermione insisting on the possibility that the Half-Blood Prince could have been a girl. Even though it said "Prince" she refused to give up and finally found that article about the witch whose last name was "Prince".

Most of all I love this book for the background we get on Voldemort and his Horcruxes.  As a psych major I diagnose Tom Riddle, in my unprofessional opinion, as a sociopath.  He certainly has all of the symptoms.  He forms no bonds with other people and it's not just because he doesn't want to trust them, it's because he is completely incapable of forming any such bonds.  Even as a child he kills animals and frightens his classmates for fun and those are both classic signs of young sociopaths.  Then, at Hogwarts, he shapes up because it benefits him to do so.  He sucks up to the right people to get what he wants and those are also classic signs of a sociopath.

So here's my problem: I don't think Voldemort would have been able to create a Horcrux because to do so requires tearing apart one's soul and I don't think Voldemort had a soul to tear.  I realize that this can lead to a whole huge discussion on the definition of a soul and it'll never get us anywhere because there is no single definition of a soul.  In my opinion, however, a soul is necessary to form bonds with other people.  People talk about "soul-mates" and being able to see into another person's soul and I don't believe anybody would ever have been able to say that of Voldemort.  I think a person looking into his eyes would not have found anything substantial looking back at them.

Also, YAY GINNY!  I loved watching the steady progression of Harry's feelings as Ginny goes from Ron's little sister to a friend that Harry forgets doesn't hang out with them regularly, to the girl of Harry's dreams.  I also enjoy Harry struggling with these feelings as he realizes Ron will probably want to murder him if any of his fantasies were to come true.  It's a real dilemma but, of course, to the reader who's been paying attention, Ron has already indicated a desire to see Ginny with Harry back at the end of the fifth book when they're on the train from Hogwarts and Ginny has talked about ditching one boy in favor of another.  I also love Ginny for yelling at Dean when she thinks he's trying to help her through the Gryffindor porthole.  Ginny is not one for chivalry and it's one of the many reasons I love her.

Speaking of dating I have to take a moment to say I much I enjoyed Ron's "relationship" with Lavender.  It was so typical of a first relationship in that it was driven purely by hormones and nothing else, as is evident by Lavender's Christmas gift to Ron of a gold necklace.  Ron's hesitance to break up with her is also so typical of a teenage boy.  Really, what's so hard about it?  When Harry realizes he has to break up with Ginny he turns around and does it right away.  And he still likes her!

Finally.  Dumbledore.  Oh, Dumbledore.  Reading the end of this book is still heart-wrenching.  It's so hard to accept that someone who seemed like a permanent presence, an unstoppable force, is really only mortal and cannot, in fact, always be there to help you.  I honestly don't know how Harry can stand it, having watched Cedric die, then his godfather, and then Dumbledore, over the past three years.  Just putting one foot in front of the other after all that must require a monumental effort.  Rowling, of course, talks about some of this, but she brushes past it pretty quickly and I understand why.  Voldemort is still at large and she has a story to finish writing.  Harry can't stop now.