TOP TEN BOOKS OF 2015

Ever since I saw Emma Blackery’s video last Christmas, I’ve been looking forward to writing a Top Ten Books of 2015 list. (What can I say? I love lists. These are the things that excite me in life.) Finally, after a turbulent year of both excellent and awful reading, the time has arrived; below you will find my Top Ten books of 2015, plus a few honourable mentions that didn’t quite make the cut. Compiling this list was an incredibly gruelling and taxing emotional journey. I hope that effort is noticeable.  

Disclaimer: this list is composed of books I read in 2015; not all of them were released in 2015, although quite a few actually were. Of the 52 books I have read this year as of writing, these were, in my opinion, the best, opinion being the key word here. I’m not saying these are the best books ever. These are just the ones I really, really liked.

10. Seconds by Bryan Lee O’Malley

I’m a religious Scott Pilgrim fan, so when I learned this year that Bryan Lee O’Malley, my lord and saviour, had released a new stand-alone graphic novel last year, I had to get my hands on it. I loved Seconds so much, I read it in one sitting. The book follows a headstrong young woman named Katie, head chef at a successful restaurant named Seconds, who discovers a magical, mushroom-y method of fixing her past mistakes and, in her bid to make her life perfect, only creates more problems for herself. It’s fun, quirky, and brimming with typical Bryan Lee O’Malley dry humour, and while it’s no Scott Pilgrim, it’s something special in its own right. I’d recommend Seconds to anyone who loves Scott Pilgrim, dry humour, and slightly psychedelic urban fantasy, which is the only way I can think to describe the genre of this fantastic graphic novel.

9. I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

This is the contemporary that reminded me why I love contemporaries. Twins Jude and Noah, inseparable in their youth, grow apart after a tragic accident leaves their family in ruins, and by sixteen, barely know each other anymore. I’ll Give You the Sun is the gorgeously written, agonizingly soulful tale of how Noah and Jude fell apart, and their journey back to where they started. The storyline was very clever -- all the ‘throwaway’ moments eventually come back around, which I like in a novel -- and the characters were so interesting and engaging and tortured (who doesn’t love a little bit of teen angst?) that you couldn’t help falling in love with them, rooting for them every step of the way. Admittedly, I did feel that the first quarter of the book dragged a little bit, before the main story kicked in and all the minor plot points started weaving together. I also found Jude’s point of view slightly less interesting than Noah’s, but that’s only because I’m a sucker for a good gay romance. Otherwise, if you live for angst and arthouse, this spectacular novel will be right up your alley.

8. Mother Night  by Kurt Vonnegut

I inherited a second-hand copy of this book from my Year 12 English teacher after I overheard him talking about the love of my life, Kurt Vonnegut, and dropped everything to join the conversation. I had read only one other Kurt Vonnegut book when I first picked this up, and as with the first, I was completely blown away. The dude is a genius, and definitely my favourite author as of writing. His intelligence and cynicism always show through in his works, particularly in Mother Night, which follows a reluctant American secret agent who moonlights as the most effective Nazi propaganda news broadcaster in Germany and whose allegiance to the USA is kept so heavily under wraps that although he provided invaluable espionage information to the US government, only three people actually know he was a spy, so he ends up on trial for crimes against humanity. It’s poignant, it’s funny and dark, it’s Vonnegut the way I’ve come to love him this year. He’s so gifted at satire, black comedy, insight, metaphor, and impactful messages, and I just love him, okay? I love Kurt Vonnegut, and I love Mother Night.

7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I feel like I don’t need to explain the plot since this book is literally over 200 years old, but for those who don’t know, Elizabeth Bennet belongs to a middle-class family in Victorian England, and her mother’s sole wish is to marry her five daughters off to rich suitors. Drama ensues in the Bennet household when the incredibly wealthy, incredibly handsome, and incredibly arrogant Mr. Darcy moves into town with his charismatic best friend, Mr. Bingley. I’ve been meaning to read Pride and Prejudice  since I first saw Hank Green’s web series adaptation, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, about 18 months ago, and I’m so glad I finally did. There’s no doubt in my mind why this book has survived for over two centuries: it’s witty, it’s funny, it’s dramatic, it’s wonderfully characterised, plus I love Mr. Darcy and would probably die for him, to be perfectly honest. The themes of class and friendship and sisterhood and pride versus prejudice are so well done and engaging; I’m usually not a fan of 19th century classics, but this one changed my tune.

6. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

People often think I’m very highbrow, because I love pretentious indie movies and I can quote Hamlet and T.S. Eliot and I want to impeach John Key, but there’s nothing that gets me going more than a good old, gay-ass YA novel. (I’m realising that there’s a slight gay theme to this list, but really, who’s complaining?) Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, then, was just my cup of tea. Simon is developing a secret, online relationship with a boy who goes by the personna Blue, but their secrecy is jeopardised when one of their emails falls into the wrong hands, and Simon starts getting blackmailed. It sounds way more dramatic than the book actually ended up being, but I might have just been distracted by how much I adored the friendships and relationships and just the characters in general. This book was so sweet and fun, and although it does carry the drama theme really well, I just can’t stress enough how ardently I admired and loved how happy and light this adorable book made me feel. I may be highbrow, but damn, I love cute shit. Let me live, okay?

5. Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

I’ve kind of gone off book trilogies and series’ recently. It’s like superhero fatigue, but for the concept of the trilogy. That being said, No. 5 on my list is probably my favourite trilogy as of writing. I started this trilogy after YouTube personality jessethereader convinced me the first book, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, was worth my money. Straight after finishing the first book, I promptly went out and bought the second, Hollow City, and purchased the third, Library of Souls (which came out this year), online the week after. This series is pitched as a horror/thriller, so you wouldn’t think I, the girl who hates horror, to enjoy it as much as I did, but I truly loved it. Riggs’ fantasy world is rich with intricate lore and stunning characters, and the guy is a pretty talented writer, which only helped matters. I love the world, I love the characters and the narrative voice, I love the mysterious and spooky story. Highly recommended to anyone who likes monsters and magic and general weirdness -- these books have all that and more. (For those wondering: Hollow City was my favourite.)

4. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Everyone read this book in Year 10 English except me, so for a long time, I was part of a weird group of outsiders (heh): writers who haven’t read The Outsiders. (It’s a small group.) Well, now I’ve finally read it, and I can’t believe I waited this long. For all the unfortunate souls in the same boat as I was, here’s the rundown: Ponyboy Curtis and his gang of ‘greasers’, middle-class boys with little money and even less direction in life, are at constant war with the ‘Socials’, better known as the Socs, upper-class and up their own asses. The dynamic between these two social classes remains unchallenged and unquestioned until someone takes the years-old turf war to a whole new level. I know I’m supposed to be stimulated by the themes of class and friendship and loyalty, and as an English major, I really, really am, but what really captured my heart while I was reading The Outsiders was Ponyboy as a character. In hindsight, his introspection and his observation of the world remind me respectively of The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Catcher in the Rye, two excellent books and one excellent compliment. I liked how Ponyboy was really open how he was feeling, even if he didn’t really understand it  himself; it’s always interesting to see male characters be sensitive and emotional, since males are typically denied the right to portray these ‘feminine’ qualities in real life and in textual media. Obviously The Outsiders is a seventh or eighth-grade level read, so I flew through it in less than two days, but for all its simplicity, I simply loved it more. I hadn’t gotten that emotional over a book since I read the book at No. 1 on this list.

3. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

I actually reviewed this book last month, so if you want my full thoughts on it, you know where they are. This novel is about a high schooler named Greg Gaines, who makes his way through life unscathed by vaguely befriending everyone and thus slipping under the radar -- until his mom forces him to befriend Rachel, an estranged friend recently diagnosed with leukemia. It’s essentially a pity friendship that evolves into something more meaningful, which sounds really depressing, but it’s somehow not; my favourite thing about this book was the fact that it was insanely funny. I laughed out loud at almost every joke. I laughed out loud at the parts that weren’t jokes, but were just worded funny. There was just a lot of general laughter going on while I was reading this. I did have some a small issue with one part of the book, but I had such a good time reading the rest, I’m willing to overlook it. If The Fault in Our Stars made you super miserable but you’re still in the mood for a good cancer book, pick up Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. It’s still miserable, but less!

2. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Part of me feels like I should have a poignant, soulful, highbrow classic that taught me an invaluable lesson about humanity at No. 2 on this list. The rest of me is screaming, fuck it. I loved Carry On, and I want the world to know. Carry On is a continuation from Rowell’s 2013 work, Fangirl. In Fangirl, Cath Avery writes fanfiction about a children’s fantasy series about Simon Snow; in Carry On, Rowell gives Simon and his comrades, “only half-imagined in Fangirl, the story [she] felt [she] owed them”. Simon attends a magical school called Watford, which is not unsimilar to Hogwarts but also not unsimilar to a regular British secondary school, and which is threatened by this narrative’s version of Voldemort: the Insidious Humdrum. As a diehard Harry Potter fan, I should be offended by how much of Simon Snow’s world mirrors Harry Potter’s, but Rowell actually interpreted the age-old idea of ‘wizard school’ in quite a unique, modern manner -- the students carry laptops and trial for the football team, not the Quidditch one. The thing I loved most about Carry On is actually a spoiler, so I won’t mention it, but damn, does Rainbow Rowell know how to write characters, for it was Simon and Baz and all their friends and foes who really made this novel a stand-out for me this year. They were witty and funny and perfectly executed; the teenage voice in this novel was highly accurate, bitchy and petty and profane but also reaching appropriate levels of John Green-like vocabulary -- teenagers are dickheads, but they’re not idiots, and Carry On really showed this. I couldn’t get enough. Rainbow Rowell, if you’re reading this, please write me more Simon Snow. I love him so much.

1. The Martian by Andy Weir

Really, who’s surprised? Anyone who has spoken more than four words to me in their life knows I love The Martian. I’ve told everyone and their mother to read it. I even reviewed it earlier in the year -- once again, you know where to find it. I find it difficult to articulate how much I love this book; I’m a writer, and yet I adore this book so much, I can’t put it into words. This masterpiece, self-published in 2011, follows the obtusely optimistic astronaut Mark Watney, who, after a freak storm/accident leads his mission team to believe him dead, finds himself stranded alone on Mars and has to figure out how to survive with meagre supplies until the next mission team arrives… in four years. Luckily, Mark Watney isn’t the kind to lose his head in a crisis. This novel has everything. It has suspense. (I was literally sweating and shaking while reading the final act.) It has science. It has brilliant comedic value for a man whose prospects are so dire. It has SPACE. I loved everything about this book, from the characters to the amazing scientific accuracy to the storyline to the fact that it’s set in space, and space is amazing. The Martian is so funny and engaging and hopeful, delightful on every single page, and I can say with absolute certainty that not only is it, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the best book I read this year; it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read in my life. I would recommend this book to literally anyone. Please just read it. I promise you need this book in your life.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

• Yes Please by Amy Poehler
• Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
• Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
• The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
• Saga, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples

STAR WARS: EPISODE VII - THE FORCE AWAKENS

"The Force... it's calling to you. Just let it in." - Maz Kanata, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

WARNING: This review does not contain significant spoilers for The Force Awakens. It does, however, make allusions to certain scenes and the roles of certain characters. If you want to go into the movie knowing nothing about it, don't read this review until after you've seen the film. Do come back and read it, though. It's a good review, if I do say so myself. 

DISCLAIMER: This review is, first and foremost, constructed upon my personal reaction to the movie. Also, as of this writing, I’ve only seen the film once. The logician in me knows I should wait until I’ve seen the film more than once before reviewing it so I can be as critical as possible, but I JUST CAN’T, GUYS. I JUST CAN’T. I HAVE TOO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT EVERYTHING.

As someone who grew up wielding twigs as lightsabers and wearing my bathrobe with the hood pulled over my eyes so I looked like a Jedi Knight, I never thought I’d live to see another Star Wars movie be released. (Look, the prequels don’t count, okay? They’re not Star Wars. They’re something, but they’re not Star Wars.) Then, in 2012, Disney acquired Lucasfilm for $4 billion and announced that they were making a sequel trilogy to the original Star Wars films. I’m not going to lie: I was highly dubious at first – the chances of the sequels turning out as unsatisfying as the prequels was just too great – but with the release of 2014’s Christmas teaser trailer for Episode 7, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I begrudgingly allowed myself to feel something reminiscent of anticipation for the continuation of one of my favourite childhood series’. That anticipation only built as 2015 dragged itself along, degenerating into practical hysteria by the time I booked my tickets in mid-October to December 17th’s midnight premiere; needless to say, the apprehension was unbelievable. I’m surprised it didn’t kill me.

Good news: I am still alive, The Force Awakens is finally here, and it’s everything we could ever have hoped it would be.

I know, I know: I’m a book review blog, but honestly, who can blame me for bending the rules? This is not only one of the most spectacular, out-of-this-galaxy events not only of this year, but also of my life – it’s not every day you get to experience a Star Wars film midnight premiere. And lord, what a premiere it was. There’s nothing more satisfying than experiencing a film for the first time in a cinema lined with people who love the franchise just as much as you do, and, as I can now testify, there is nothing more satisfying than seeing a Star Wars film on the big screen. All doubts I may have had previously about how good another Star Wars movie could actually be were completely and utterly blown out of the water. The Force Awakens is a fantastic film, not just as an extension of the Star Wars universe but also as a punchy, fast-paced, action-packed sci-fi thriller all on its own, and although it has its obvious flaws, I can safely say that this film is truly worthy of being called a Star Wars film. It’s better than the prequels, guys. What more can you ask of it?

I loved a lot of things about The Force Awakens. I loved the female lead. I loved the witty, playful writing. What I loved most, however, was the fact that The Force Awakens felt just like a Star Wars movie – without actually really looking like one. I’ve never seen any of J.J. Abrams’ other films, but I could tell The Force Awakens was an incredibly J.J. Abrams-esque film, the same way you can tell a David Fincher film is a David Fincher film or a Wes Anderson film is a Wes Anderson film. The first six films in this franchise are all styled and crafted after roughly the same model – they all look alike, like siblings. From the very get-go, it was obvious that Abrams had abandoned this model completely. Much to my utter and audible delight, the film starts with the classic, heart-wrenching main title theme, STAR WARS emblazoned across a starry night sky, and three crawling paragraphs of exposition – and that’s basically where the cinematic similarities with the previous films end. There was a breath-taking Mad Max: Fury Road feel to The Force Awakens for me. Unlike its predecessors, which take great advantage of slow tracking shots and wide camera angles, Episode 7 was cut together at breakneck speeds, racy and lightning fast and so unique compared to every other Episode. We get catch-your-breath electrically-charged lightsaber battles that feel meatier than ever before, scenes that are nail-biting and tense while also choreographed in an uncharacteristically fun and whimsical way, we get energy – energy we just don’t see in the originals or the prequels (although not to their discredit). In terms of the craftsmanship, The Force Awakens didn’t look classically Star Wars, but that somehow made it feel all the more Star Wars anyway. Abrams brought a new method of crafting our favourite fantasy world to the table, and I’m genuinely going to miss it in Episodes 8 and 9. It was interesting and exciting, and unexpected, too, adding edge and juice to the film in places no one could have predicted.

What else is there to love about The Force Awakens, apart from, like, everything? Stand-out for me were the cast and the writing, and how well these two crucial elements integrated in Episode 7. Probably the most highly anticipated factor of the sequel trilogy was the fact that the cast of the original trilogy would be returning to reprise their old roles; nothing gets a nerd going better than some good old fashioned Han and Chewie banter. However, we were also challenged with the arrival of a new golden trio, who would be taking the place of Luke, Leia, and Han as the three main characters. Gorgeous newcomer Daisy Ridley is a feisty scavenger named Rey, the charming John Boyega appears as a defecting Stormtrooper who goes by Finn, and the love of my life, Oscar Isaac, plays the charismatic and captivating Poe Dameron, best pilot in the galaxy and damn sure of it. To my disappointment, the new trio never actually directly interact all at once in the film – I’m hoping this will change in Episodes 8 and 9 – but they did interact in pairs, and when they did, it was hilarious. Writers Lawrence Kasdan, Michael Arndt, and Abrams himself paid obvious attention to comic relief in The Force Awakens, something that just wasn’t focused on as much in earlier Star Wars films. I’m not saying the originals aren’t funny – in my opinion, The Force Awakens is just wittier and snappier than the slightly more sombre and regal original trilogy. Episode 7 is less about catchy one-liners and more about fast-paced back-and-forth dialogue, and I personally found it really engaging that our new characters had such instant chemistry between them because of this new writing style. The mixing of the old cast and the new was done extremely elegantly, without too much heavy-handedness or stuffiness that could easily have occurred – it was a great risk, shoving two all-star casts together like Abrams did, but one thing I’ve learned from The Force Awakens is that J.J. Abrams has a lot of nerve. The dude is ballsy as hell. (If you’ve seen the film, you know what I’m talking about. You know.) Once again, The Force Awakens acted in a way integrally anti-Star Wars, yet somehow felt all the more authentically Star Wars because of it. I don’t know how Abrams did it, but I truly admire it.

Obviously, Episode 7 isn’t flawless. What footage we saw in the trailers made me nervous that we would essentially be getting a carbon copy of A New Hope, and in some areas, paying tribute to the original trilogies did just look like copying – I mean, Jakku is basically Tatooine. Don’t fight me on this. They’re the exact same place. Andy Serkis’ character, Supreme Leader Snoke, reminded me a little too much of Ronan from Guardians of the Galaxy (this is not a compliment), while also emulating Emperor Palpatine a tad too strongly for it to not be considering copying, and there were some scenes that felt either under-discussed or emotionally overdeveloped, falling victim to the film’s otherwise exhilarating pace. I personally felt that while it made sense with the progression of the plot, Kylo Ren’s origin was explained too soon – we could easily have been made to wait until at least Episode 8 for it, which would have made more logical sense, but that is definitely just my opinion. Nevertheless, I was simply enchanted by The Force Awakens. Yeah, maybe I’m biased. Maybe the ten-year-old Star Wars fangirl in me who actually liked – okay, fine, loved – The Phantom Menace is determined to overlook anything that could possibly be bad about the film, but I just don’t believe that’s the case. You wouldn’t have been able to convince me it was true when the sequel trilogy was first announced back in 2012, but we’ve finally been gifted a continuation of the Star Wars trilogy that we can honestly and genuinely be proud of. I chose to blindly trust in J.J. Abrams, to follow him into this new era of Star Wars without looking first. I chose well. The Force Awakens, for all its borderline-plagiarised allusions to A New Hope, was simply phenomenal, fun and exciting and dramatic and action-packed and, most importantly, a great, great Star Wars film – something we’ve been starved of since 1983. In J.J., we were very right to trust.

ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL (2012)

“One thing I’ve learned about people is that the easiest way to get them to like you is to shut up and let them do the talking. Everyone likes to talk about themselves.” -- Jesse Andrews, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

WARNING: MILD SPOILERS AHEAD

DISCLAIMER: This review is, first and foremost, constructed upon my personal reaction to the book. I can’t forecast whether or not you, reading this, will like it yourself; I’m quite terrible at recommendations because I always assume that people will like everything I like. If you decide to read this book because of this review and end up not enjoying it, I humbly apologise. If after reading this review you come to my home and brutally murder me, I do not blame you. (Look at me, quoting the book in the foreword!) Please don’t get your hopes up if you think they might be let down. I think the book is great, but also that it has fatal flaws. A lot of people will disagree with me on that. So it goes. 

This review was in-part inspired by marinashutup's feminist review on her YouTube channel. 

AN OPEN LETTER TO JESSE ANDREWS

Dear Jesse Andrews, 

I recently read your debut novel, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, in preparation for its so-far well-received film adaption released this winter (that’s summer for you). What can I say? I loved it. It’s punchy, it’s cynical, it’s a cancer book without being a cancer book – and in a world ravaged by the Love-Interest-Has-Terminal-Cancer sub-genre of contemporary YA, a unique cancer book really is a blessing in the making. (I still love you, TFiOS. Don’t worry. I always will.) For all you unfamiliar readers out there, here’s a rundown: Greg Gaines is contemptuous but inconspicuous, a dorky but under-the-radar senior whose life, perfectly balanced between every social circle his neatly-divided high school consists of, is disrupted when his well-meaning mother guilt-trips him into befriending Rachel, an old sorta-friend who was recently diagnosed with fast-progressing leukaemia. Accompanied by another sorta-friend named Earl, Greg decides to make Rachel a film – he and Earl are amateur filmmakers, after all – and regrets this decision immediately.

Sounds fun, yeah? You’re damn right, it is. I didn’t know what to expect when I started your book, Mr. Andrews, but I adored it right from the get-go. My favourite thing about it? It’s hilarious. Like, legitimate ROFLMAO hilarious. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed out loud while reading a book as many times as I did while reading Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, because I don’t think I’ve ever found a book so incredibly funny. Sure, I may have a weird sense of humour – my idea of a good joke is a sentence without any punctuation – and this may be clouding my judgement, but it’s not only mildly amusing punctuation misdemeanours that make Me and Earl and the Dying Girl so entertaining. It’s Greg’s sharp, sarcastic wit. It’s his interactions with his friends, his family, and his sorta-friends-but-more-like-acquaintances-but-I-would-probably-die-for-you-bro. It’s how he deals with problems and confrontation. (Just as I would: by running away, or, alternatively, hiding in bed and screaming into The Void. You’ve got my number, Jesse Andrews.) I also found this book oddly inspiring, despite its obnoxiously disillusioned protagonist and unabashedly depressing premise, and for that, Mr. Andrews, I commend you. I admired your ability to write a cancer book where the lead doesn’t fall for the sick kid, to address cancer as a really shitty disease as opposed to a chance to discover yourself, the world, and your sexual boundaries (again: still love you, TFiOS. You’re the bae), to capture genuinely the screwball of emotion and confusion and hurt and uncertainty and above all, displacement that death and all its friends (not a spoiler; just a metaphor) spreads through us, weaving their tendrils between our ribs and choking out our lungs until we can no longer breathe. I don’t know if you can tell, Mr. Andrews, but I really liked your book. It made me laugh, it made me feel all the feelings, it made me wish I didn’t have a life so I didn’t have to put it down; I wanted more than anything to give it 5 stars out of 5, because in my opinion, it deserved it.

However – and it pains me to say this, because I really liked your book – I’ve got a bone to pick with you. Tell me, Jesse – and I ask this as a friend, not a foe – do you believe what Earl had to say about bisexual people? As I’m sure you recall, in one passage roughly two-thirds of the way through the book, Earl attempts to cheer Greg up by engaging him in a soliloquy about how weird bisexual people are. “I been thinking about it,” he says, “and how the fuck can somebody call theyself a bisexual… That don’t make no goddamn sense.” He then goes on to incorrectly typify bisexual people as being turned on by anything – that’s pansexual people, and only if you’re using the incredibly generalised, stupidly offensive urban dictionary definition – and continues making fun of them by listing dog shit, a Wendy’s™ double cheeseburger, and computer viruses as possible turn-ons. I mean, I get it: it’s fiction, Earl’s an idiot and a prick anyway, and characters rarely mouth off about what the writer personally believes in. Earl’s spiel is probably just a work of fiction used to fill space, kill time, and make the reader laugh, but here’s my problem: that’s probably the case. I’m a writer myself, Mr. Andrews, and I know that characters are almost never a direct reflection of the author themselves, so that’s why I’m asking a question rather than straight-up calling you out: are Earl’s views your own? I find it hard to tell.

Even if they’re entirely, 100% made-up – please, God, let that be the case – I need to make sure you understand why they’re still unacceptable to have in your book. I know, I know: I’m being hypersensitive. “Stop being so PC, Sarah! Can’t anyone make a joke these days without it pissing someone off?” First of all (and I’m not taking stabs at you, Mr. Andrews; this is a previously acquired grievance), yes, you can. Obviously. If you rely solely upon making fun of race, gender, disability, sexuality, or biological sex to fuel your comedy, you need to get out more. Second of all – and again, I’m not explicitly directing this at you, Jesse; this is, realistically, more of an opinion piece than an open letter – it’s really unfair and marginalising to make fun of people based on things they can’t change, or, moreover, to insinuate that you think these things are weird. It’s hurtful. I don’t know if you know the feeling, Mr. Andrews, since I don’t know you personally, but there’s a certain jolt in your gut one comes to associate with their sexuality being called weird or nonsensical as the punchline of a joke. It happens constantly in modern media, and it’s so alienating. You know the character is joking, and you know the writers are joking, but it’s such a slap in the face to be played off of like that. When things you love put out like they don’t love you because of who you are… I know you probably didn’t mean to be, Jesse, but it’s heart-breaking. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was getting on swimmingly without Earl’s two cents on bisexual people. Why include that shit at all? Why not stick to the rest of the book’s motto of telling relatively inoffensive, still hilarious jokes? I just don’t get it.

If you're looking at it holistically, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is fantastic. I quite honestly adored it, and I can’t wait for my copy to arrive – but I can’t just look at it holistically. I’m not the same easy-to-please reader I was two years ago. I’m left-brain oriented, man! I’m analytical! I pick things apart until they’re past the point of rational reassembly! Don’t get me wrong; this was probably one of the best books I’ve read this year, but I can’t just overlook the problems it posed. Overall, great job, Jesse – just think before you speak next time. It will save you and me a whole lot of trouble.

Best wishes, 

Sarah 

TL;DR: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was a problematic fave for me. On the one hand, it was HILARIOUS – I've never genuinely laughed out loud so many times while reading a book. There's just something about Jesse Andrews' style of writing that appeals to my odd sense of humour, and I found myself dying to continue reading as the book juxtaposed its melancholic premise with deadpan comedy and wise-cracking. It's just a fun, funny, fundamentally heartfelt and gripping story. On the other hand, the biphobia... I just couldn't ignore it. I wanted to give MEDG five stars, but there was no way for me to overlook how blatantly Greg and Earl made fun of bisexual people. Overall, a fantastic read -- I just wish I was able to give it the review it would have easily deserved, if not for the fact that I can't tell whether Andrews believed what his main leads said about bisexual people or if he just used it to make You, Reading This, laugh. Either way, it wasn't on. Read MEDG at your own risk.

ARMADA by Ernest Cline (2015)

"Well? Are you just gonna sit here and let these things kill us?" - Ernest Cline, Armada 

DISCLAIMER: This review is, first and foremost, constructed upon my personal reaction to the book. I can’t forecast whether or not you will like it, since I’m quite terrible at recommendations because I always assume that people will like everything I like. Please don't let me put you off reading this book; it's important for you to come to your own decisions about its quality. I was disappointed, but that’s a matter of opinion. Some people are liking it, as I did when I initially read it. Some people are really hating it. So it goes. 

Everyone remembers the first time they read Ready Player One. I remember it like it was yesterday, even though it’s been nearly two years. I remember the heart-gripping excitement, the edge-of-your-seat tension, the geeky I-understood-that-reference catharsis of it all -- and I remember my epic disappointment when I learned that RPO had neither a film adaption, nor any siblings. When I heard earlier this year that it was due to have both (God bless you, Spielberg), you can only imagine my excitement. I pre-ordered Ernest Cline’s second novel, Armada, immediately, and when it arrived in my mailbox, I fully expected it to be as good as, if not better than, its predecessor.

In hindsight, this was a bad idea. To compare any book to Ready Player One is already to stick a lamb in a lion cage; the little guy is going to get massacred. It was unfair of me to read Armada with such high expectations, given that RPO is truly in a league of its own. That being said, there’s a reason it took me a month to write this review: it took me that long to rid myself of the delusion that Armada was actually good. (I’m so sorry, Ernest Cline. For what it’s worth, it physically pained me to write that.) My initial rating for Armada was five stars out of five. So what? It entertained me, it made me laugh, and it’s RPO’s kid brother; I was biased and punch-drunk, and I wanted it to be good so badly. As time has gone on, however, and I’ve struggled through countless drafts of a positive review, I’ve found myself simply morally unable to go through with it, and I’ve since taken my rating down a star or two. It might even lose another. Oxymoronic is my situation: I enjoyed Armada, but I couldn’t look you in the eyes and tell you that it’s a good book. I just can’t bring myself to lie like that.

Even when I was still telling myself that Armada is good, I could recognise its plentiful flaws. The most noticeable is definitely the lukewarm characterisation. Protagonist Zack Lightman is an eighteen-year-old gamer geek with supposed IED and only one parent at home. Look at all that potential! Now watch Cline, bless his soul, totally waste it by making Zack’s IED so intermittent that he has not a single ‘rage’ throughout the entire book and never properly developing the promising dynamic between an angry almost-adult and his young, single mom. To quote Roger Ebert (albeit out of context), Armada is mostly a series of sensations, strung together on a plot. Zack’s two best friends serve no purpose other than providing crack-a-grin comic relief when it’s not needed. His ex-girlfriend has literally no use to the story whatsoever, mentioned briefly in the first chapter to show that Gamers Can Get Girls Too and then never coming up again. His beef with the school bully? Nonsensical. His fling with the manic pixie dream gamer girl? I don’t even know why she made the cast list, and her characterisation was inconsistent and clichéd to boot: just picture Jane Lynch’s character in Wreck-It Ralph, but completely useless. Not a single character was convincingly fleshed out, most were inconsequential to the storyline and only acted to withdraw some sort of mangled emotional response from You, Reading This, and none had any particularly redeeming traits, qualities, or characteristics. Zack even sounded exactly the same as Wade in Ready Player One, just incredibly more of an asshole, which ticked me off more than I care to admit. It feels almost as if Cline cast his eyes over a typical cast list for a YA novel and filled in all the blanks. Moody ex-girlfriend, gormless school bully, absent/dead father, eroticised fantasy of a dream girl, ambiguously ethnic best friend for comic relief: check, check, check, check, check x2. I’m sure Cline put a world of effort into writing these characters, and I love him for trying. His hard work just doesn’t show through.

            Something else I noticed but chose to ignore while reading Armada was the plot – or, rather, the kind-of total lack of one. Okay, so Armada did have a plot—it followed a coherent narrative with a beginning, middle, climax, and resolution – but said plot just wasn’t good. Firstly, Cline expected me to believe, and then comprehend and reasonably process, the fact that his massive story – saturated with elaborate backstory and exposition – happened over the space of two days. He condensed a modern history of science fiction, the entire concept of an MMO video game, the foundation of an extra-terrestrial war, Zack’s whole tragic life story, and the rise and fall of a myriad of terribly underdeveloped relationships, in a ‘two-day’ time period. It’s just unrealistic, and so mashed together that the coherent structure becomes unintelligible. There was also an absolute overabundance of deus ex machina usage; you just knew that none of the character’s problems would have any significant impact on the story, because oh, no! We need a passcode to enter the supercomputer! That’s okay; Zack’s useless manic pixie dream girlfriend just so happens to be a master hacktivist! Oh, no! Cline needed to justify Zack not getting asked to join the [spoiler redacted] earlier! That’s okay; we’ll just give him anger management issues that are never properly addressed, demonstrated, or worked on or with! It just felt weak, and reminded me of a problem I often face when writing: you have this great idea that will make an excellent base for a story, but that’s it. No character development, no convincing subplots, no compelling beginning and no acceptable ending. All you’ve got is this idea, and I get it: sometimes an idea can feel so good that you just roll with it anyway, because this is your baby, your passion project, and you love it so much that you’re blinded to its flaws. That’s what Armada felt like to me: Ernest Cline piggy-backing off of the success of Ready Player One to try and get his passion project off the ground. There’s just no momentum, and thus no trajectory. 

            Admittedly, Armada wasn’t all bad. It did keep me mildly entertained most of the way through, I laughed out loud more than once, and yes, there were some moments where I may or may not have gotten off on understanding-that-reference. And granted, it isn’t and could never be Ready Player One, which was so amazing that I, a writer, can’t put it into words, so unparalleled that even its author, no matter if he were Whitman or Shakespeare, could even come close to duplicating it. All that aside, however, I still can’t truthfully put a positive review out into the world. There’s just not enough for me to go on. I tried, I had an existential crisis about my moral ambiguity, and I considered it an abject failure. No matter how much I want it to be,  Armada is not a good book – but I still have hope for Cline. In the words of Ariel Bissett (her review of Armada helped me come to terms with the fact that I had to write mine – read it here), I haven’t given up on him yet. I know he can do better than Armada – the infinite praise on all sides for Ready Player One is undeniable proof of this – and I know that whatever his next book may be, I’m going to be excited for it, because the potential is there. Armada just didn’t hit the mark. That’s okay. We all have our bad days. Cline, from my point of view, is no one-hit wonder; he’s just a one-hit wonder so far.

TL;DR: I keep bringing my initial rating for Armada down, because as it gets further from my having finished it, the illusions of it having actually been good fade more and more. I wish it could have kept its five star rating, I really do, but the more I think about it, the more the underdeveloped back stories and lukewarm characterisation hurt my feelings. I'm absolutely certain Cline can do better than this. We've all seen him at work. To paraphrase Ariel Bisset and Gregory White, Armada just feels rushed and holey, and might make a good movie, but just isn't a good book. That's not to say I don't trust Ernest Cline -- clearly I do, if I went on pretending Armada was good for so long -- but I know he can do better. It's just disappointing that he's so far proved to be a one-trick pony. I'm waiting on tenterhooks for him to prove that he most certainly is not. 

GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee (2015)

"The time your friends need you is when they're wrong, Jean Louise. They don't need you when they're right." - Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman 

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

DISCLAIMER: This review is, first and foremost, constructed upon my personal reaction to the book. I can’t forecast whether or not you will like it, since I’m quite terrible at recommendations because I always assume that people will like everything I like. If you decide to read this book because of this review and end up not enjoying it, I humbly apologise. Please don’t get your hopes up if you think they might be let down. I think the book is great, but that’s a matter of opinion. A lot of people are really hating it. So it goes. 

I have to admit: I was excited, but incredibly nervous when I was first informed about Go Set a Watchman. Harper Lee hadn’t released a book since 1960, when To Kill a Mockingbird came out; what could I possibly expect from her second novel, the first in fifty-five years? Then, of course, came the terrible rumours that Atticus Finch, my humble hero, had turned on me, gone dark side (or, more realistically, white side), and become racist. Atticus Finch, racist? The world tipped off its axis. How on Earth was Lee going to pull that one off without making me want to toss Go Set a Watchman directly into the ninth circle of Hell? Thankfully, however, she managed it, and I don’t have to sacrifice my beautiful hardback to the Muses. Yes, Atticus is racist (although he does mean well; that’s no excuse, but I’ll acknowledge it), and yes, it breaks my heart to say that the former champion of civil rights would do this to me, but in the context of the story, and in the context of Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch’s narrative arc, I think it works, and I think it works well. Add on top of my begrudgingly-accepted heartbreak the keen nostalgia this trip back to Maycomb made me feel, Scout’s razor sharp wit, and the ana-chronological storyline, and you’ve got a book that makes you feel all the feelings, good and bad and somewhere in between.

This is supposed to be a book review, so I’ll start with all the things I like about Go Set a Watchman before I dive into the blow-by-blow analysis I’m simply dying to pen. One of my favourite things about Go Set a Watchman is how god damn timeless it is. Maycomb, while a bit of a dump, is so rich in interesting and diverse (at least in terms of personality) people, that to be able to visit it and them again when I never thought I’d have the chance was quite honestly magical. Harper Lee’s unique style of writing made the nostalgia hit all the more dizzying; I didn’t know I’d missed Maycomb until I began reading in Scout Finch’s classically comedic, but also newly retrospective, voice, and felt joy unlike anything I have ever experienced. (I’m exaggerating, but you get the idea.) I enjoyed how the narrative jumped from its prerogative – third person – to first person, dipping directly into Scout’s mind and mental processing for brief periods to illuminate how Scout was deciphering each moment, and I also loved and loathed in equal amounts the parts of the story that flashed back in time, giving the salivating reader a long-desired taste of Scout’s childhood after To Kill a Mockingbird (loved because how could I not?, loathed because it reminded me of a certain character in To Kill a Mockingbird who is no longer with us in Go Set a Watchman, which hurts like a knife in the chest). It’s an undeniable fact of life: Harper Lee is good at what she does. She’s good at drawing an emotional response from the reader, and while admittedly, nostalgia did a lot of the work for her, I’d argue that wielding it as a weapon was one of the smartest things she could have done.

Enough beating around the bush: it's time for analysis. Sure, Go Set a Watchman is surface-level great – timeless, funny, exciting and dramatic, it’s exactly what a Harper Lee novel should be – but it's also one of the most controversial novels I've ever read, because oh my God, Atticus is racist. Atticus Finch, protector of the Negro and do-gooder extraordinaire, is racist. This goes so heavily against the Atticus we came to know and love in To Kill a Mockingbird that when I first heard the rumours, I simply didn't believe them. How happy was the blameless vestal's lot! My blissful ignorance was short-lived: I, too, had to come to terms with the fact that I had named multitudes of stuffed animals after a pretentious bigot. Godspeed, old friends. Discovering Atticus' change of heart was the second most heart-breaking moment in the story (I won't say what took first place, but if you've read the book, you know. You fucking know), but as the book comes to a close, you realise -- and I'm not bringing anything new to the table analytically, this is all discussed in the story -- that Atticus hasn't really changed at all. In To Kill a Mockingbird, we see Atticus as some mighty crusader of civil rights, but think about it: his court case with Tom Robinson was never specifically about protecting a black man from a biased white court. It was about protecting an innocent man from incarceration that he hadn't earned: "Shoot all the blue jays you want, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." Atticus was probably racist all along; it was his sense of criminal justice that coerced him into defending Tom Robinson, not his belief in racial equality. Yet fear not, dear reader: you're not the only one who was duped. Scout was, too, and it's for this reason that Atticus actually needed to show his dark side. Half the reason readers of To Kill a Mockingbird believed in Atticus as the son of God was because Scout did, too, and since we see To Kill a Mockingbird through her eyes, we assume that she knows what she’s talking about. Atticus is her father, after all, but consider this: Scout is only a child in To Kill a Mockingbird. She’s young and naïve, and in a story constructed on bias, she’s the most biased character of all. Atticus is two-dimensional to her, and she absorbs his ‘worldviews’ like a sponge. She becomes, in short, a mini Atticus, and that’s no way to live. In the context of literary devices, Atticus needed to be revealed as someone we don’t recognise in Go Set a Watchman so that Scout could move out of his shadow and, in the words of the Buddha, become her own lamp. She had to “kill [herself], or Atticus had to kill [her] to get [her] functioning as a separate entity”. Atticus, unfortunately, didn’t change; he just let his true colours show. Scout, however, changed almost entirely. Go Set a Watchman is ultimately a coming-of-age tale, and considering how many people named their children after Atticus and are now sorely regretting it, I believe that it was long overdue.

TL;DR: I did not think that Go Set a Watchman would be a coming-of-age story, and I did not think coming-of-age stories could be written about twenty-eight-year-olds, so Harper Lee's second book in fifty-five years surprised me to no end, because it's the most cutting-edge – and cut throat – coming-of-age story I've read since The Perks of Being a Wallflower. A lot of people are giving Go Set a Watchman bad reviews – if you've read it already, you'll know why – but I couldn't help but love every second of this sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. Like its predecessor, Go Set a Watchman is smart and fun and witty and oh-so-potent in its social commentary, but with the added advantage of hardcore nostalgia: those of us who never thought we'd ever see Maycomb again can revel in how it is exactly the same, but also entirely different, for better or for worse. In short: I'll stand by you, Harper Lee, even when the rest of the world stands against us. I missed Jean Louise Finch too much to write you off, but even without the nostalgia, Go Set a Watchman earned from me five stars that I feel are well-deserved.