Books Completed in June

1. The Happy Zombie Sunrise Home, by Margaret Atwood and Naomie Alderman
2. Red, by E.J. Koh
3. The Complete Guide to Buying a Business, by Fred Steingold (DNF)
4. Hum, by Jamaal May
5. The Blue Place, by Nicola Griffith
6. Fangirl (audio book), by Rainbow Rowell
7. Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting That You’ll Ever Need, by Blake Snyder
8. Parasite, by Mira Grant
9. The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Vol. 2

REVIEWS:

1. The Happy Zombie Sunrise Home, by Margaret Atwood and Naomie Alderman

When Okie comes home to find her mother covered in blood and eating her father’s intestines in the kitchen, she quickly calls her grandmother, Clio in Canada for help. Since Okie can’t bring herself to kill her mother, Clio arranges for a transportation service to safely bring her granddaughter and zombie daughter-in-law to her home in Canada. With some rhubarb pipe, link sausages, and a little luck, they both might just survive.

The Happy Zombie Sunrise Home doesn’t redefine the genre in anyway, but it’s darkly humorous and rather fun. The story unfolds from both Okie’s and Clio’s point of view, and I really liked them both. They both have a wry sense of humor, especially Clio, who’s a no-nonsense, I-can-kick-your-ass-using-just-my-purse kind of old woman. She’s not nice or soft or comforting kind of grandmother most people would expect — in fact, she’s somewhat mean and not someone who you want to get on the bad side of — but she gets shit done and knows how to survive and I love her.

The Happy Zombie Sunrise Home is a short novel distributed exclusively on Wattpad, and is available free for anyone to read. Both Atwood and Alderman endorse Wattpad as a site for writers to share their work and gain a following, and the site works like an e-publisher with its own app. There are a few well known authors sharing snippets on there, as well as some great newbies, along with a lot of mediocre work. You kind of have to slog through to find the good stuff, but Wattpad is worth taking a look at for anyone hoping for some free reads.

2. Red, by E.J. Koh
Description from Amazon: “Spirits are about obedience. Wakes are about themselves. Sera and Azel are about neither. They could be about each other, but Sera’s only passion is revenge. And the only thing more powerful than revenge is what she could become because of it, the power deep inside her, after everything goes red.”

Red had some really great ideas. I loved how the worldbuilding was put together with the Spirits (thought of as angels by humans) being orderly and disciplined in a military-esque society on a burning, hot world on which they set fires. The world of Spirit (thought of as heaven) is actually a distant planet. The Wakes and their world (misnamed hell by humans) are also very interesting and their world is more unsettling, terrifying, and yet more comforting than the world of Spirit.

Where the book falls short for me is that I couldn’t quite connect with Sera. While she was on Spirit and an outcast of her society, I could sympathize with her. But as her journey continued, she seemed to improve too quickly and to be too sure of herself. There seemed to be no doubt in her mind as to what she should do, no questioning of her purpose, not enough temptation to pull away from her goal and choose the easy path. I kept asking myself, Why, why would she do that?

Even so, I found the writing to often be beautiful (no surprise since Koh is a poet) and the story mostly interesting. So, I pretty much enjoyed it by the end.

3. The Complete Guide to Buying a Business, by Fred Steingold (DNF)
Nolo Press in general is a great source of books that present legal concerns in layman’s terms. This book is an invaluable entry point for anyone (like me, who doesn’t know anything about this kind of shenanigans), looking into what it takes to buy a business in the U.S. It provides a general overview of the steps to take in terms of investigating the business, what kind of sale to consider, how to write up various documents along the way, and where readers should look for outside expertise to help. It took a situation that looked like a scary maze of business terms and legality and provided arrows to safely lead toward the end point.

I did not finish it, because the individual who was looking to sell changed their mind. If they change it back again, or if another such opportunity presents itself, I’ll come back to this book again to reread and follow through to the end.

4. Hum, by Jamaal May
Discussed elsewhere.

5. The Blue Place, by Nicola Griffith
“Danger is not a game. Danger is a casually violent Viking… When it sits opposite and offers you the cup and dice, you either walk away or play full throttle.”

While out for a walk one night, former police officer Aud Torvington nearly slams into a women running in the opposite direction. As the woman leaves a house explodes in a violent plume of flames. When the same woman later hires Aud to discover who set the explosion, she finds herself accepting the job, much to her own surprise.

Aud is a fascinating character. On the one hand, she’s a skilled fighter, capable of shattering bones with a thrust of her fist and comfortable with violence. Yet, she also has a cool quiet side that enjoys the contemplation of nature and the smooth honest work of carving wood or digging flower beds. In one moment, she can visualize a precise method she could kill the person she’s politely talking to (more her reflection on how easily danger can shatter someone’s life than an actual desire to act), and the next moment, she’s watching the shrews battle in her backyard.

This is not a fast paced noir, with action around every corner. I mean there is plenty of tension and action in the right places, but there is also a lot of still moments. The result of this combined mystery and character study and romance is a fantastic, compelling read that has me eager to pick up the next book in the three part series.

6. Fangirl (audio book), by Rainbow Rowell
Discussed elsewhere.

7. Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting That You’ll Ever Need, by Blake Snyder
Discussed elsewhere.

8. Parasite, by Mira Grant
In the future, humanity has achieved near perfect health through parasitic tapeworm implants (developed by the SymboGen Corporation), which boost the immune system and can disperse necessary drugs. Following a car crash, the implant even managed to bring Sal back from a coma just as her family was preparing to pull the plug. Though she has no memory of Sally, the woman she used to be, Sal is shaping a new life for herself — even though SymboGen hounds her for more tests, her family doesn’t seem to trust her, and a new sleepwalking sickness is starting to spread among the populace.

I opened page one, planning to just read a chapter or two only to look up hours later, 200 pages in, with the realization that it was almost midnight and I barely moved, let alone eaten dinner or peed. I reluctantly forced myself to go to bed at around one in the morning, only to get up the next day and polish off the second half of the book before dinner. I honestly don’t remember the last time I pulled an under 24 hour read like that (probably with the Harry Potter books).

Parasite is a compelling thriller and Sal is a sympathetic character. It’s clear from page one that just about everyone has secrets and though Sal sometimes seems hopelessly naive, this is forgivable given her traumatic brain injury and her ongoing to work to recover (she often has trouble with proper use of slang). It makes sense that she can’t quite catch on as quickly as the reader or some of the other characters in the book (some of whom mock her for it).

Also, I love the moral ambiguity. It’s not really clear who the “good guys” are, or if there are such a thing as good guys or villains. I don’t know any other storyline that could possibly make me sympathize with the plight of tapeworms. I mean, really.

Final words: I can’t wait for book two.

9. The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Vol. 2 (****)
Discussed elsewhere.