Review | Angelopolis, Danielle Trussoni

I grew up Catholic, and so have been somewhat familiar with angel mythology all my life. From the protective guardian angel of childhood to the romantic figure of books and movies in my teens (City of Angels, anyone?) and finally to the complex, deeply flawed yet sympathetic fallen angel as portrayed by Dante, angels are such fascinating figures that I’m surprised angel novels have never made it as big as vampires or werewolves. I haven’t read Danielle Trussoni’s Angelology, so I began the second book in the series Angelopolis with no idea what to expect.

Possibly because of the cover and an overheard (and unfortunate, in my view) comparison to Deborah Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches, I thought the story was going to be a romance between an angel and an angel hunter (here called “angelologists”), something of a Romeo and Juliet type tale, but with angels. To my delight, Angelopolis is light on the romance and more of a suspense thriller with an interesting mix of science and mythology.

The novel introduces us to an entire hierarchy of angels. There are far too many to keep straight, but the primary villains appear to be the half-human, half-angel Nephilim. They are dangerous to humans — not only do they delight in inflicting pain, but, like any villain worth anything, they have a master plan to take over the world. The heroine, Evangeline, is an odd angel/human hybrid who was raised as human. Her true nature isn’t completely understood, but she appears to be an especially powerful type of angel who presumably can thwart the Nephilim’s plans if she can only harness her power.

The hero, Verlaine, is an angelologist, and when Evangeline gets captured by Eno, one of the most skilled Nephilim assassins in history, he gathers a team of angelologists to rescue her. (Her capture is on the book flap and happens fairly early on, so I don’t really consider it a spoiler.) Along the way, he tries to unravel the mystery of the Faberge egg Evangeline has given him — what do these eggs have to do with angels, and how can they help him understand Evangeline’s true nature?

Trussoni has tapped into a world of unbelievably rich mythology, and I only wish she could have delved deeper into it. Instead, we get information on Evangeline’s past, and on the work of her parents, both of whom are angelologists. Trussoni does a great job in blurring the lines between hero and villain when it comes to angels and angelologists — while angels generally appear dangerous to humans, the heroine of the series is herself an angel, and even though angelologists are on the side of humanity, angelologists like Danielle’s parents are not above some really murky, Gitmo Bay type activities.

The novel presents us with some really fascinating characters — Eno for one is particularly intriguing, and I personally found her a much more compelling figure than the rather bland, colourless Evangeline. There’s also the really fascinating character backstory of Verlaine’s boss, whose desire to capture Eno is deeply personal. These are threads I wish could have been explored further, and in some ways, these secondary characters took on a life far more than the main characters did.

I’m sure Evangeline played a major part in the first book, and will again in the third book, enough to merit being the heroine of the series, but in this book at least, she was mostly forgettable, a figurehead and symbol rather than a real character, a sort of holy grail for Verlaine and the Nephilim. Worse, she did something that is a major, major pet peeve for me. Minor spoiler alert — if you wish not to read, please skip to the next paragraph: The reason she was captured in the first place, and set off Verlaine’s need to rescue her is due to a really stupid, misguided sense of ethics. As a supremely powerful angel, she actually defeats Eno in battle, then decides she refuses to kill anyone, so instead of actually dealing a decisive blow (or even knocking Eno out or tying her up or something), Evangeline surrenders. So quite frankly, later on when she is trapped in a laboratory and feeling really scared, all I could think was that she brought it on herself.

The ending was a letdown as well. It was definitely building up to something big for the third book, but events just seemed rushed, almost perfunctory. After the fascinating buildup of most of the book, the climax itself was a whimper. Given the events in the final few scenes, they should have been epic, but instead, they were just lackluster.  And at several points, many involving Evangeline, all I could do was scratch my head and think, huh? Decisions by several of the characters made no sense to me, and the final line of the book just seemed to come from nowhere.

Despite the ending however, Angelopolis is a fun, fascinating thriller. I think it works as a standalone, though perhaps if I’d read Angelology, Evangeline’s plight and the ending would have meant more to me. I do wish Trussoni had explored certain characters and plot lines further, as well as delved a bit deeper into angel mythology, and therefore into Christian mythology. I’m not particularly religious, yet I did hope to read more about god’s role in Trussoni’s take on angel mythology, mostly because that would have set the angels apart from random supernatural beings with wings, regardless of how cool those supernatural beings are. There are references to the garden of Eden and to Noah’s ark and possibly other Christian references I missed, but I guess I was hoping for a bit more of the fallen angel mythos, and their view of a god that has thrown them or their lineage out of paradise.

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Thank you to Random House of Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you as well to the publisher for the chance to meet the author.

If you’re interested in reading this book yourself, I’m giving away a copy signed by the author. Canadians only. Enter here.

Review | The Clock of Life, Nancy Klann-Moren

Jason Lee Rainey has big shoes to fill. His father was a civil rights activist who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. and later died serving in the Vietnam war. Growing up in Hadlee, Mississippi in the 1980s, Jason Lee struggles to overcome his community’s attitudes about race and the scorn he faces as a white boy whose best friend is black.

Nancy Klann-Moren’s The Clock of Life is a striking coming of age story about wanting to change the world and coming to terms with the sheer enormity of the world’s problems. While the novel can get a bit heavy handed with symbolism — the portentous tone of the title, for example, or Jason Lee’s PTSD-suffering war vet uncle coping by carving See/Hear/Speak No Evil monkeys, Klann-Moren refrains from tipping over into sentimentality.

Jason Lee is a compelling character, though I wish his best friend Samson was explored in more detail. Still, Klann-Moren makes the right choice in not making too big a deal of their friendship. While others in their community may think it wrong that a white boy and a black boy are friends, and express that view openly, Jason Lee and Samson at least act like the rightness of their friendship shouldn’t even be in question. Their relationship at least is colour blind, and it is only when other characters comment on it, or threaten to beat them up that we realize the courage it takes for these boys to be friends.

Jason Lee’s uncle is another compelling character. His memories of the Vietnam war, and his fear and anger at certain members of the community serve as a constant reminder that one can’t simply label the past as history and move on. Rather, some things are still very much a problem at the present. Klann-Moren offers us glimpses into history through news clippings and historical documents, thus integrating them really well with the present day story of Jason Lee.

Minor note that while the writing is strong, there are several typos in the book, just enough to irk me enough to mention it. [Note: The author has just informed me that a later edition of the book - after she sent me this copy - has corrected the typos.] Many of the characters are interesting, with Jason Lee and his uncle being the most explored, however I wish the villains had been less stock characters and better fleshed out.

Overall, however, Clock of Life is a compelling narrative. Klann-Moren takes on themes like racism and PTSD, and to her credit, doesn’t flinch at the violence and horror of those topics.

A note as well, that the author has just informed me that Clock of Life is a Finalist in the 2013 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Well deserved, in my view.

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Thank you to the author for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

 

Author Encounter and Giveaway | Edward Rutherfurd and Danielle Trussoni

Due to a work schedule that, over the past few months, has included evenings and weekends, I haven’t had a chance to attend many of the wonderful events that publishers treat book lovers to in Toronto. This Random House event was the first I’ve attended in a long time, and what an evening it was!

Random House of Canada certainly knows how to treat their guests. They served perogies, crepes, cheese and crackers, prosecco …and, my personal favourite, blue martinis!

And books, of course. Lovely, lovely books!

Edward Rutherfurd is an absolutely charming man. He’s on Twitter, but admits he doesn’t tweet much — his publishers supply most of his content. Referring to his novels, which usually tip the scales at almost 1000 pages each, he quipped, “When you write as I do, Twitter, as you can imagine, is a challenge.” He does however check his Facebook page regularly, and responds personally as much as he can to the people who post there.

He told us quite a few fun facts as well, for example, the Mona Lisa was stolen in the early 20th century, and Pablo Picasso was accused of the theft. I don’t know if that’s included anywhere in his novel, but I at least want to find out more about it. During the book signing, he asked each of us bloggers for our card or blog URL. “I need to educate myself about these things,” he said. I told him that my sister loved Russka, and he admitted it was a very difficult book to write. In fact, at one point, his editor came to his house, sat on his couch and told him she wouldn’t leave until he finished the book!

Danielle Trussoni spoke as well, and talked to us a bit about her book. She didn’t set out to write about angels, she said. Rather, she was doing research for a different book when she came across some fascinating information that eventually led to her writing Angelology, and then Angelopolis. She isn’t particularly religious, but she did grow up in Catholic school, so has been aware of a certain degree of angel mythology since then.

You can follow her on Twitter, @daniellemybella, “my bella” being her father’s name for her when she was a child.

GIVEAWAY! 

[Link to Rafflecopter giveaway at the bottom of the post]

Random House of Canada generously offered us bloggers a chance to grab another copy of both authors’ books to get signed and offer as a giveaway on our blog. So good news to all my Canadian readers: you can enter below for a chance to win either Edward Rutherfurd’s Paris or Danielle Trussoni’s Angelopolis! (Giveaway open only to Canadians, I’m afraid, as shipping overseas, particularly for the 800+ page hardcover Paris, will be rather costly.)

Full disclosure: I haven’t read either book, nor have I read any of either author’s other works. I did consider including the giveaway with my review, but given my current reading pile, Paris may be out in paperback by then. And I want to share these books with you now! So for information on the books, check out the descriptions on the Random House of Canada website:

Angelopolis by Danielle Trussoni

Paris by Edward Rutherfurd

Edward Rutherfurd also gave a teaser description about Paris: A woman falls in love with a Frenchman, except circumstances force them apart, so she settles for an Englishman (“always a poor second,” he quipped). Then years later, she returns to Paris and sees the Frenchman again at a party, except while she has aged, he has not, and of course, it turns out, that’s the Frenchman’s son, who happens to be a friend of Hemingway. (“Sorry,” he said. “You know I have to put things like that in.”) She falls in love with this young man, but her daughter does as well.

My impression? Paris may seem like a hefty 800+ page tome, but it sounds like a really fun soap opera read… and I mean that in a good way. Somewhat like Downton Abbey but intergenerational, and in Paris!

Click here to enter! (Canada only)

Review | Icons, Margaret Stohl

Beautiful Creatures co-author Margaret Stohl begins a new YA dystopia/fantasy series with Icons. Aliens have taken over the world, and a select group of teens have supernatural powers, though it’s unclear where the powers came from, or what the purpose of these powers are (presumably to defeat the aliens and taken back human freedom?).

As the first book in any series, the primary task of Icons is to establish its world and introduce readers to the characters. As such, it does start off a bit slow, though I enjoyed the introductory scenes of Dol and her best friend Ro in the countryside. The introductory chapters in particular have much too many parallels to The Hunger Games. Apart from the obvious — dystopian world — there’s the female protagonist Dol with hot, brooding, angsty male best friend Ro who wants to overthrow the system, they’re each the only one who really understands the other, they both enjoy spending time in the outdoors. Then, we later meet Lucas, instantly recognizable to any avid YA reader as the other point in this love triangle, who is a blond ray of light and love, connecting to Dol in a very different, much more hopeful way than Ro’s anger does, and who has a natural ability to charm people. Katniss, Gale and Peeta, anyone? Dol however does suffer in comparison to Katniss, being a much less kick ass, much more emo heroine.

That being said, it’s hard to fault Dol for being emo. The superpowers in this series are closely linked to emotions, and to anyone who has studied a bit of Spanish, Dol’s full name Doloria gives a pretty strong hint what emotion she embodies. Stohl tries to broaden Dol’s range a bit by also gifting her with a heightened sense of empathy, but really, being born with the innate capacity for sorrow must really suck. There isn’t any subtlety with Stohl’s treatment of the teens and their powers, which is unfortunate given the potential richness of the world she has created. Take for example the character names: Ro’s real name is Furo, which explains why he’s always angry, Lucas’ full name is Lucas Amare (light and love), etc. It’s all just a bit too obvious, and when it comes to predicting how characters will react to any given situation, their names pretty much say it all.

Still, the book is a fun read overall, and the story picks up when Dol and Ro are captured and sent to the embassy. Along with Lucas and a fourth teen Tima, they are monitored and their abilities tested, and while the purpose is unclear, intriguing snippets from rebel documents hint at the symbolic significance of these powers. Stohl drops just enough hints to keep the villains intriguing — the aliens’ human representative, Ambassador Amare (Lucas’ mother, which adds an interesting dimension to both characters) is as much a victim of these aliens rather than a pure villain, and the ending hints at a much more emotionally gripping sequel.

I also love that the protagonist is a person of colour, as well, that the Ambassador, probably the highest position a human can attain in Stohl’s world, is a woman, Lucas’ mother rather than his father. Even better, while these details are mentioned, Stohl doesn’t beat us over the head with them, suggesting a time when it becomes mainstream for books to have people of colour as protagonists and women in top positions of power. Given the wide range of YA books in the market as well as the genre’s popularity, these little touches make a statement, and make Icons stand out in a very good way.

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Thank you to Hachette Book Group Canada for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review | The Lucy Variations, Sara Zarr

Imagine being a has-been at sixteen. Sara Zarr’s The Lucy Variations tells the story of Lucy Beck-Moreau, a world-famous concert pianist by fourteen, who mysteriously walked away from a concert, and her music career, a couple of years later. Then her brother Gus gets a new piano teacher, Will, who befriends Lucy and encourages her to play the piano again, if only just for herself.

Lucy has faced a tremendous amount of pressure, particularly for a teenager, and her ability to deal with it is remarkable. I was a total achiever type in high school, and I can sympathize with Lucy’s need to excel, and her concern that doing something “just for fun” is a criminal waste of potential. Thankfully, my nerditude and desire for straight A’s were much more below the radar than Lucy’s concert career. Unlike Lucy, I never had to deal with hundreds of people watching me, nor did I have to deal with media outlets speculating about my reasons for an emotional decision.

So I sympathize. I remember the fear of making mistakes, the fear that each decision I make is momentous and irreversible. I never really outgrew that, but I do remember it being much more intense when I was a teenager. What if I flunk this one test? What if I choose the wrong major in university? For Lucy, her fear that walking away from a concert career means walking away from the piano altogether is exacerbated by her grandfather’s rigid stance on the topic. I can also definitely understand the appeal of Will, the piano teacher who argues that music is, first and foremost, a passion one must pursue, rather than a career. Many of us have been lucky enough to have had an inspiring figure like that growing up, who encourages us to connect with our deepest passions. So I can sympathize with Lucy’s crush on him.

The thing is, Lucy believes way too much in her own hype. She grew up as a special snowflake, Mary Sue type character, and acts like it. Can she play the piano again? Does Will like her, like like like her? Over and again, ad infinitum. At one point, another character points out that while Lucy was famous in the concert pianist circuit, that hardly translated into stardom with a general public. Yes! I wanted to say. Thank you! Again, I understand that Lucy puts a lot of pressure on herself, and I can understand the fear of playing the piano again when you know your skills have become rusty. Still, there were times when I wanted to tell her to grow up and get over herself.

I don’t think protagonists in books should necessarily be likeable, but when an author creates much more complex and interesting characters to support her, and instead chooses to focus on the protagonist’s sense of entitlement and navel gazing angst, I just want the author to shift her focus elsewhere. Quite frankly, while certainly serious, Lucy’s dilemma is nowhere near as earth shattering as she believes, which makes it all the more frustrating when she expects that her family and friends should be more concerned about her than about their own lives.

Take Lucy’s best friend Reyna for example. Reyna is going through some major family issues, and understandably needs to vent. Instead, Lucy pressures her into going to a party and staying at that party just so Lucy will have a ride. Worse, the whole point of Lucy going to that party in the first place is to see Will, a relationship with rather skeevy romantic undertones, considering the age difference and the fact that he is her brother’s teacher. At one point, Gus, who looks up to Will as a mentor and views him as a friend, pleads with Lucy to leave Will alone, so as not to ruin things. The lack of self-awareness in Lucy’s response is grating — she can’t give up Will, because unlike Will and Gus who are really just student and teacher, she and Will actually are friends, and actually do have a connection. I can understand her wanting Will as a mentor, and I can even understand her having a crush on him. But her sense of superiority over Gus — he’s the kid while she’s the mature sibling who can hang with the adults — is just annoying, as is her unwillingness to even consider something that obviously means so much to her younger brother.

The Lucy Variations is an interesting book, and Lucy’s situation is certainly one to sympathize with. Still, and particularly after seeing how much Reyna, Gus and the others around her are beyond supportive, I just want to tell Lucy to grow up and deal with it.

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Thanks to Hachette Book Group Canada for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

 

Review | Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter, Alison Wearing

When a former boyfriend meets her father for the first time, “his hands flittering around in the air like manic butterflies,” Alison Wearing smiles proudly and says, “That’s not a stereotype. That’s my dad.” [p. 9] Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter: Growing up with a Gay Dad
is a heartfelt, honest memoir about a young girl dealing with the discovery that her father is gay. LGBTQ rights still have quite an uphill battle these days, but Alison Wearing’s father had an even more difficult time of it. Among the most fascinating chapters in the book deal with the Toronto gay scene in the 1980s, including the horrific story of brutal police raids of gay bath houses. “What have the police got against cleanliness?” Margaret Atwood quips. [p. 106] While more about a family’s personal struggle than the wider social context, Wearing’s memoir has some sharp insights into gay life in Toronto, particularly from her father.

“If I’d been born ten years earlier, it’s very possible that I would never have come out at all,” he said in response to something I had asked about the timing of it, his being in the vanguard of the gay revolution. “And if I’d been born ten years later, most probably I would never have married.” [p. 162]

Wearing’s father has had a long time to think about his sexuality, and his tentative forays into accepting it wholly, even with a wife and children back home, are portrayed with sensitivity. On one hand, you can’t help but cheer him on, as he meets other gay fathers and realizes he isn’t the only man who married a woman in order to conform to social norms. Wearing writes about how gay fathers were ostracized even within the gay community, as if their marriage to women were a betrayal of the gay movement. Her father’s struggle to accept himself and his ultimate decision to live openly as a gay man are both courageous decisions, particularly in the politically charged atmosphere of the eighties, and it’s painful to read how he is rejected even by some of his closest family members.

On the other hand, and Wearing’s sensitivity to multiple points of view aids in this, her father’s decision to come out of the closet affected not just him, but his family as well. In some ways, Wearing is lucky because both her parents are very loving and have always taken care of her and her siblings. As a schoolfriend whose parents are constantly fighting points out, “So your father’s a faggot, big whoop. At least he’s not a lying, cheating, son-of-a-bitch, drunken asshole.” [p. 100] Still, Wearing’s father’s homosexuality does cause the end of his marriage, and Wearing writes with great sensitivity about her experience as the daughter of divorced parents.

It never occurred to me to hate Dad for being gay [...] What I did hate was the Greyhound bus, that long sprint on the dog’s back to and from Toronto. [...] I hated the shame my mother wore in her eyes [...] But more than anything else, I hated all the stories I needed to invent about my life, the dancing pink elephant in the room that I spent my adolescence trying to conceal. [p. 118 - 119]

A few chapters later, Wearing says that the gay part is incidental; it is the parenting part that is important. And in some ways, her experience is touchingly similar to other kids whose parents have separated for other reasons. The elephant she tries to conceal may be dancing and pink, but many families have their own elephants to hide. In this way, Wearing takes what at first seems like a very difficult experience to imagine — how would it feel to have a gay father? — and makes it familiar and relatable. When she wonders why her father “can’t keep being normal during the week and just go to Toronto to be gay on the weekends” [p. 86], it’s a poignant appeal to at least the appearance of normal family life, while still allowing her father (partial) freedom to be happy.

Possibly the most compelling figure in this story is Wearing’s mother, and to the author’s credit, she gives her mother’s less glamourous, less politically charged, story its due. Wearing even includes a few chapters with her mother’s point of view — sadly, it isn’t quite as extensive as Wearing’s own account or her father’s, but that is due more to the mother’s desire for privacy than anything. While Wearing’s father grappled with his sexuality, her mother was left to be the anchor for the children. Thus, when Wearing’s mother started dating another man, Wearing was furious: “Terrified, actually. Convinced she was going to disappear too.” [p. 124]

Wearing’s mother was the source of stability for her children, giving them something to cling on to even when their father spent a lot of time away from home. To Wearing’s credit, she is aware of the unfairness of her behaviour towards her mother.

It wouldn’t have dawned on me to create such drama over one of my dad’s departures. He had come and gone for so long, I never imagined I had any control over his whereabouts. And he had always had a social life outside the house. But if the double standard drove my mother “round the bend,” she never pointed it out to me. [p. 125 - 126]

This, too, is a form of heroism, much quieter than the courage displayed by Wearing’s father in coming out, but no less important. I only wish I got to hear more of the story from Wearing’s mother’s perspective.

Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter is a tender, often amusing memoir. Wearing’s affection for her parents, and her desire to understand them, shine through and add emotional weight to their stories. I can’t even begin to comprehend the struggles gay individuals face today, never mind in the 1980s when homosexuality was just starting to fight for acceptance. But in Wearing’s book at least, love seems to go quite a long way.

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Thank you to Random House Canada for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review | The Andalucian Friend, Alexander Söderberg

The Andalucian Friend by Alexander Söderberg is a fairly typical thriller. It is as “turbo-charged” and “action-packed” as the publisher blurb promises, yet it lacks the emotional punch that might’ve made it stand out.

Nurse and single mother Sophie Brinkmann unwittingly gets caught up in a world of crime and violence when her boyfriend Hector Guzman turns out to be a crime lord locked in a drugs/weapons trade war with a rival German group. Add to the mix a group of cops with shady methods and even shadier motives, and you have the makings of a real page-turner.

Unfortunately, you also have the potential to create a complete mess. To Söderberg’s credit, he does keep his multiple plot lines under tight control. Still, a lot of the story was just confusing and while the character list at the beginning of the book could’ve helped in keeping the characters straight, there just wasn’t enough differentiation between characters to care. Söderberg’s characters have obscure motives and engage in double dealing, which again could’ve been very intriguing, but instead there were just too many too soon, and with not enough at stake to make you care. Similar types of stories succeed by having at least one character who anchors the whole story, and whose fate keeps us glued to the pages, for example Smiley in John Le Carre’s novels or Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson’s trilogy. Presumably, Sophie was meant to anchor this novel, but even she got lost among the large cast.

The book does get better – Söderberg just takes his time to get there, but eventually we do get to know some of the characters better, they become more distinct from each other, and the twists have a bit more of an impact. Particularly strong is the subplot about Sophie’s son, and how his life is turned upside down by his mother’s connection to Hector Guzman. The final few chapters are the best part – Söderberg ramps up the adrenaline and all the various subplots come crashing together. The climax is a bit of a typical resolution scene in a shoot ‘em up TV show or movie, though the descriptions are a bit gorier than network TV.

Overall, not a bad book. The beginning is confusing and the characters weren’t well developed for most of the story. The language is also a bit clunky, which could’ve been a translation issue. It might have worked better as an action-thriller movie, where character development, particularly for minor villain characters, doesn’t matter as much, and where the high-adrenaline scenes might have had more impact. Still, the character revelations near the end of the book are interesting, the subplot regarding Sophie’s son is unexpectedly moving, and the action-packed pace did keep me reading. Andalucian Friend is an okay book, just not a memorable one.

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Thank you to Random House Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.