Book #6: A Thief in the House of Memory, Tim Wynne-Jones

[grav_ity]

Canadiana, realism, non-linear, about a boy, absent mother, coming of age.

Ugh, so you know how I've been all about female characters and stuff lately? Well, it took me three days to read a thousand pages about a girl. And about a week to read 180 pages about a boy. It got to the point where I said to myself "Okay, before you can turn on your computer again, you have to read this book." and then I decided to watch Star Trek for the second time this week. Yeah, not my best plan.

There were a few things I enjoyed about this book. Sunny, the younger sister, spoke in Random Capital Letters (except it turned out that she did so because she had a hearing problem, and once she got an aide, she stopped, which I found sad, except that the main character made a note of how it also made him sad, because she no longer sounded so excited about everything all the time). Also, it has a great title. As Amy said, it's unfair that a book I don't love have this great a title. And...it took place in Canada, which always makes things more tolerable.

However, it jumped around in time with no rhyme or reason, making it difficult to tell if the main character was hallucinating, remembering or...something else. And all the grown ups were jerks (absent mother, inattentive father who is living with said mother's best friend, who makes them move because she doesn't like their old house), and NOBODY TALKED TO ANYONE until the very end, when suddenly it all made sense. It was annoying.

I make no secret of the fact that I am not a fan of CanLit. And this book was proto-CanLit. It has Grade Nine English written ALL OVER IT, and I am so sick of books about boys. (I was told by my last high school English teacher that books about boys would ALWAYS be the mainstay of high school English, because boys won't read books about girls. Which angers me now even more than it did then.) And there were a lot of teens in this book that just seemed very...fake. Like the author googled "what kids are into these days" and then added a bunch of quirks. (I do appreciate the effort of trying, however. Even the random bit characters had personalities. They were just...strangely undimensional.

So...five out of ten. At least it was better than Twilight.

Comments

[laura-josephsen.livejournal.com]

I LOL'd at your "At least it was better than Twilight." *eyes The Stages of Book Love chart taped to computer desk*

There are so many GREAT girls in books, and I maintain that there ARE boys who read them. At least, I know boys who read them because they are GOOD BOOKS and not because it matters if they are about boys or girls.

I like that you do these book reviews. It makes me look at books I may someday read (at the stupid snail's pace that I always go nowaday), and the ones I probably want to avoid.

Fake!Teens are never fun to read about. (I remember crossing my fingers and hoping that my teenagers wouldn't come off like that in my NaNo novel.)

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

At least, I know boys who read them because they are GOOD BOOKS and not because it matters if they are about boys or girls.

When I went to see Cassie Clare, I stood in line with an eleven year old boy who LOVED the books (main character female), and had convinced his mum/co-reader to drive three hours to see her!

(I remember crossing my fingers and hoping that my teenagers wouldn't come off like that in my NaNo novel.)

Your teens are the study group I measure all others against. ;) (Trust me, I'd've let you know!)

I like that you do these book reviews.

I checked my "books" tag for 2009, and discovered that I'd only first-read EIGHTEEN books! Including "The Lost Scribe", "The Littlest Muse" and your NaNo novel! So I want to do (at least) 25 this year, and this is how I am keeping track. ;)

[melyanna.livejournal.com]

"It's better than Twilight" is what's gotten me through the last 30-40K I've written. Not that mine is remotely the same audience as the Twilight audience, but that was what I kept telling myself as I felt like my writing was going downhill.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

I've decided to use it as code for "not the worst thing I've ever read".

(My mother raised us to say "it's not my favourite" instead of "I don't like that", so when I say "it's not my favourite", I really mean it, and "better than Twilight" is an extension of that.)

[melyanna.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what my code for "not the worst thing I've ever read" is. There are things I've just been unable to get through, but they tend not to stick in my head.

[oparu.livejournal.com]

at least you got to watch Star Trek? *hugs*

books about boys are frustrating, especially when they're going all the cool things, like running around, and climbing trees and the girls aren't...

*pouts*

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

It wasn't even really that cool. It was all "My mummy left me and my daddy is cold" and the murder turned out to be totally not and completely random. It was a let down.

[oparu.livejournal.com]

I think my favourite CanLit author is Margaret Atwood, but she's a little vague and kind of post-apocalyptic. Fun though. I've also read "Stone Angel" by Margaret Lawrence. Also, a bit depressing. Maybe Canadian authors are just depressed?

Though, that doesn't seem to fit with Canadians, who seem to be lovely people. Especially Canadian scifi actors.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Hee! This is the one part of high school English that did NOT make me want to shoot myself (though, ironically, it came from my HISTORY CLASS). And it is this:

Americans have "frontier mentality". They go out and do stuff. Thus, their literary tradition is, you know, INTERESTING.

Canadians, on the other hand, have "stockade mentality. They go out, but as soon as they get there, they build a huge wall so they don't get eaten by wolves and then they stay inside a lot so they don't freeze to death. Which is why our literary tradition is so full of navel gazing and questions about the nature of humanity.

(WHY could we not have gone with pure escapism? That would have been SO MUCH COOLER!)