Political Satire and Cats

How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety is a clumsy satire of the ultra-conservative point  of view. Basically, take any fervor-producing pamphlet about guns, abortion, porn, the dangers of the internet...and replace the word 'kid' with 'cat'. Basically, this book suffers from being too much of a good thing. At first, it's very funny, bringing light to a kind of extremism that exists in our world. But it gets repetitive and ridiculous , causing me to lose interest. 

Rad Women Worldwide

This is precisely the kind of book I want to read to my future children - boys or girls. Forty succinct bios  of women who fought for a cause. I actually didn't know very many of the women featured, but I'm glad I do now. The illustrations in this book are wonderful, and the writing is accessible  to most age groups. Overall, a very inspiring book!

Disclaimer: I received this book for free in exchange for a review via Bloggingforbooks.com.

In a Different Key by John Donovan

A Rational and Unbiased History  of Autism

This book is huge, both in breadth and depth...a textbook for Autism History 101.  This doorstop of a book is worth the time investment if you have any interest in or connection to Autism. Everything, from the controversial to the cutting edge, is reviewed from a very rational, stepped back viewpoint. 


**More to come on this review after I process a bit :)

The Tsar of Love and Techno, By Anthony Marra

This novel took me a while to read. It’s a little too heavy (subject-wise) for one sitting. Marra’s novel The Tsar of Love and Techno takes place in Russia from 1935 to present day.  The setting is described perfectly -  in a way that makes you even more depressed to be there with these characters.  

And boy are there a lot of characters. Marra weaves a tangled web of a time-jumping story. I actually had to stop about halfway through the book, get a piece of paper, and draw myself a timeline/web of the characters.  Brothers, fathers, uncles, and grandmothers come in and out of the story line, and rarely do they make it easy and reveal their connections. This is what makes this book so very readable – the subject matter is grim, but the novel reads like a mystery, and you’re just waiting for the author to lead you to the conclusion.

Unfortunately, there is very little conclusion. The portion of the story that takes place in present day serves to connect some people and solve some small mysteries, but for all the time-hopping this books does, there is not a satisfying end at all. Many storylines and characters are left hanging – which is not inconsistent with the general feel of the book.  The penultimate chapter would have been a good way to end the book, with one family getting some closure and hope. But then the space-themed hallucination/dream of a dead man comes and I’m left wondering why that chapter even exists.

Overall, this was a good read. Depressing, but if we only read happy books we would be deluding ourselves.  Give yourself some time to work through this one. And feel free to skip the last chapter.

**I received this book from Blogging for Books in return for this review.**

The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova

The Historian was suggested to me in high school, but for some reason I never read it. I recently picked it up and was very pleasantly surprised. First of all, this book is long! The edition I have has pages that feel like tissue paper - they are so thin! So from the outside, this book appears to be about 350 pages. It's really 676 pages. So despite the riveting, page-turning quality of this book, I did find myself checking to see how many pages were left a couple of times.

Kostova really does her research for this novel. She especially excels at painting the scenery for us without interrupting the actual telling of the story - which is essential for any novel that is going to be a favorite of mine. She describes monasteries and villages vividly enough that you are transported there- all over ancient and modern day Europe. It really is a treat.

The book follows an unnamed protagonist and her father Paul as he recounts for her his search for Dracula - whom is alive and well - in his college days. He speaks of this in the past tense until...one day he disappears  from one of this diplomatic trips to pursue Dracula (and the love of his life) again. His daughter follows him, of course, and what ensues is one of the most satisfying endings you'll ever read. It resolves everything without being too "happily ever after" cliche.

If you like mysteries, this is for you. It has supernatural characters, history, a romantic subplot which is done perfectly, beautiful scenery, and action scenes that will get your heart racing. With all the vampire novels that have hit the shelves in the last decade, you would be doing yourself a disservice but not reading this one. The fact that Twilight has been made into a movie but this book hasn't is a bit depressing*. I'll take a cerebral vampire story any day.

*Apparently SONY bought the production rights to this book before it was even published but has done nothing since. I blame Twilight.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

The Magicians is the first book in a trilogy which has been advertised as "Harry Potter for Adults". It follows a clinically depressed protagonist, Quentin Coldwater, through a journey to discover a magical world. Lev Grossman's writing is readable and occasionally engaging, which is honestly the only reason I finished this book. 

The beginning of the story is quite boring. Quentin apathetically muses about high school, applying for college, and how jealous he is of his best friend. At this point he is a very grey, boring character. He briefly mentions the fantasy novels he rereads every year, and how he wishes he could be one of the characters in those books (which you would think would make him more interesting!).

After you slog through the set-up, you are rewarded with a trip to Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy. This is by far the best part of the novel. During this section, you can see why the comparison to J.K. Rowling's work was made. Although Grossman's writing doesn't hold a candle to Rowling's at any point, this is where it gets closest. He describes the tedium of studying magic, the friendship and competition between classmates, and the bad habits - drinking, chain smoking, and one-night stands. This could actually be what Hogwarts would be like if it were a college rather than a prep school recruiting eleven-year-olds. If you're really into the magic/fantasy genre, the book may be worth reading just for this section. Fair warning though, the other half of this book reads like an unfunny parody of the fantasy genre, written by someone who thinks he is far too cool for this genre. 

Without spoiling too much of the ending, I'll say that this entire book feels like an opportunity missed, but the ending is heartbreakingly bad. The only semi-developed character who isn't a insufferable narcissist dies, because of course she does, and Quentin sinks back into depression after realizing his dream. The book basically ends exactly as it begins, and leaves you feeling like you've wasted your time.  Instead of reading this book, pick up a book by an author who embraces the genre they write...Grossman is just too cool for school, and it kills this book. 

Elijah's Cup - Valarie Paradiz

This review is a reprint from 11/27/15. The formatting was wonky in ways that I couldn't fix, so I decided to retype it here with minor editing.

Elijah's Cup is a refreshing and enlightening book to read as a healthcare professional. Elijah's mother Valarie Paradiz accepts her son for who he is, and takes us on a journey of discovery regarding autism and it's history. As an occupational therapist, I learned a lot of academic information about autism in school. But now that I'm practicing, I realize that nothing you can learn from a fact sheet is as powerful as hearing a personal account from the individual with ASD or some one close to them.

Paradiz attempts to find a 'autism culture" for her son to take part in, and explores the history of autism. The non-judgmental nature of this book is just wonderful. You get the good, the bad, and the ugly, and you come out of it knowing so much more about autism.

I wish I could recommend this book to more parents. Often parents are told by professionals to 'mourn what is lost' or hit with baseless predictions like 'your child will never read'. I want parents to read this book and see that acceptance does not mean giving up on your child or settling for any less than YOU believe is their full potential. Acceptance means putting in the effort to understand your child's unique perspective.

On her rambling journey of discovery, Paradiz not only gives us an in-depth look at her son's formative years, she also hops on the bandwagon of trying to diagnose historical figures, works in poetry by Gertrude Stein, and takes us along as she meets celebrities of the autism world like Jim Sinclair and Temple Grandin.

If you have any interest in autism, or know anyone who has autism (which you probably do, given the CDC's recent incidence estimate of 1 in 68), you should read this book. It is a very informative book that reads like a memoir.