Plain Kate by Erin Bow

From the jacket: “Plain Kate lives in a world of superstitions and curses, where a song can heal a wound and a shadow can work deep magic. As the wood-carver’s daughter, Kate held a carving knife before a spoon, and her wooden charms are so fine that some even call her ‘witch-blade’ — a dangerous nickname in a town where witches are hunted and burned in the square. For Kate and her village have fallen on hard times. Kate’s father has died, leaving her alone in the world. And a mysterious fog now covers the countryside, ruining crops and spreading fear of hunger and sickness. The townspeople are looking for someone to blame, and their eyes have fallen on Kate. Enter Linay, a stranger with a proposition: In exchange for her shadow, he’ll give Kate the means to escape the town that seems set to burn her, and what’s more, he’ll grant her heart’s wish. It’s a chance for her to start over, to find a home, a family, a place to belong. But Kate soon realizes that she can’t live shadowless forever — and that Linay’s designs are darker than she ever dreamed.”

My take: When Plain Kate’s father suddenly falls ill and dies, she is left without an advocate in the world. Not yet old enough to belong to the guild that would allow her to serve as the master-carver for the town, she is unceremoniously evicted from her home and forced to tell anyone interested in buying her wares that there is another carver they should try first. Settling in a stall in the marketplace, she makes her bed in the drawer of a dresser and sells to those familiar with her work, who like the elegant knifework she is capable of. Yet, in a world where superstition runs strong, a girl with mismatched eyes and a long shadow who lives alone is not safe. When Linay, a wanderer, comes to town and offers to buy her shadow from her, she refuses; unfortunately, he has the magic to force her hand, causing Plain Kate first to pull in a bounteous haul of fish, then for everyone else’s fish to become inedible. When the fishermen start dying, a mob turns on her, and Plain Kate has no choice but to flee with what supplies Linay’s purchase can get her and her trusty cat, Taggle. Oh, and a gift that Linay says is her true heart’s desire.

Adopted on a trial basis by a gypsy band of horse sellers, Plain Kate at last finds a friend in Drina. But what will become of Plain Kate when Drina and her family discover her secrets? And what will become of them all as a specter of death follows in their footsteps each night in the fog?

I want to tell you that I really liked this book, which has garnered a lot of acclaim, all of it deserved. I can say I liked Plain Kate and Tag, and I liked Drina and her grandmother, and ultimately I understood Linay’s motivations. The characters were all well-written, and the plot was well thought out. However, this was, in the end, an absolutely heartbreaking book for me, and I sobbed through the last third of it, in a way that surprised me and left Rudi at odds for how to comfort me. And it’s impossible to talk about why without giving away all sorts of plot points.

In several ways, my reaction to it reminds me of how affected I was by Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake when I read it last year. It ultimately ended up on my best books of 2010 list because I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.

All I can say in the end is that it hurt me to read this book, and I can’t think of anyone I know whom it wouldn’t also pain. You may choose to read Plain Kate in spite of that (for some pain is worth pushing through, of course), and I certainly can’t say it isn’t a story worthy of your time. But know if you do, a little bit of your soul likely will break off and stay behind in the book when you close its covers for the last time.

Pages: 314

This was my fourth book for this spring’s Once upon a Time Challenge.

This week’s Weekly Geek‘s assignment:

It’s still the first week of August, but many of you, like me, may be already in the back to school mode. For us, it’s only two weeks away! So I thought I’d do a back to school edition of Weekly Geeks and ask you these questions:

• What’s your favorite bookish school memory?

There was a year or so (I suppose it might just have been a summer; I’m a little foggy on that detail) when I was in early elementary school when our town library was closed in order to move from its old building to a brand-new, freshly built one. In order to encourage students to come get library cards, one of the librarians came to my elementary school for a couple of weeks in a row and read the start of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to us.

• Did your teacher read aloud to you? Do you remember what book it was?

I have vague recollections of sitting on the rug in kindergarten and being read to, but have no books associated with the memory. I also don’t recall being read to in first grade, although I’m sure we were. In second grade, however, we used to jam both classes together and have to share chairs when we’d go into Mrs. Young’s classroom to listen to her read Amelia Bedelia books to us. I’m sure my fondness for those who take things a little too literally began then.

• Do you remember what books you checked out at the school library?

In elementary school, I was particularly enamored with Snow White and Rose Red, a fairy tale I’d been unacquainted with until I encountered near the Beatrix Potter books on the windowsill near where we’d line up to go back to class. I know I checked it out several times, probably the only book in the library to merit such an honor.

I also read every Nancy Drew book on the shelf and all the Little House books, although some of that series was definitely borrowed from the public library.

There was also a series of biographies of famous people that focused heavily on their childhood days, and I definitely read every single one about women (including Julia Ward Howe, Annie Oakley, and Clara Barton), and some of the ones about men (FDR and Thomas Edison seem likely subjects).

In middle school, I remember Gone with the Wind (probably the first time I ever had to renew a book because I wasn’t done reading it yet), Pilgrim’s Progress, and A Nun’s Story. Also, the magazines Cat Fancy and Seventeen, but that’s a different story.

In high school, our library was dismal and I don’t remember taking anything out of it that wasn’t absolutely necessary.

In college, we had a children’s book section, and I read the Harper Hall trilogy associated with Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series. Also, the Bridge to Terabithia.

• What was one of the first book reports you did for school?

Hmmm… I don’t remember. I was and remain a reluctant report writer, so clearly I’ve blocked them from memory.

I do remember in fifth grade misunderstanding the line between fiction and biography and reading Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself as an autobiography. Clearly this was just a foresight on my part into the future of memoirs, when publishing houses would come to have an equal lack of insight.

• Do you have a favorite book or author that you first heard about from a teacher or school project?

My junior year English teacher loved Tolkein and made us read the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

• Do you have a not-so-pleasant bookish memory from your school days?

Not unless you count being assigned Moby Dick. That was probably the only book I was ever assigned in school I didn’t read. At least until I got to college…

However, I do have a pleasant memory of third grade where our reading group (maybe all the groups; I don’t remember) was doing a mythology section. To celebrate the end of that section, we had a party where Mrs. Caretta had us dress up as gods and goddesses.

The Warlock by Michael Scott (Book 5 of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series)

From the jacket: “The twins of prophecy have been divided — the end has begun.”

My take: Honestly! I finished this book way back at the end of May and then couldn’t figure out a way to review the fifth of a six-book series without giving away key plot points.

Let’s just say that this mythology-driven series continues to be a strong one.

Twins Josh and Sophie, whose auras glow gold and silver respectively, turn out not to be the normal teenagers they’d always assumed they were, nor is anyone else quite what they seem. The elderly owners of the bookstore where Josh works turns out to have been Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel, two gifted sorcerers. The Flamels’ yoga instructor friend is a vegetarian vampire who (along with her twin sister) was born in Atlantis before it fell. The aunt they have been staying with while their archaeologist parents are on a dig is thousands of years old — literally.

It’s only been a few weeks since the twins’ world started falling apart, but everything they thought that they knew, that they could trust, has disappeared. Is it any surprise that the one thing they’ve always leaned on to keep them out of trouble — their connection to one another — also is tested?

If you’ve read earlier parts of the series, you’ll know where the storyline is taking us. I admit I was surprised to learn author Michael Scott would be stopping at six books, as the traditional fantasy schema would dictate seven, and he’s got an awful lot of loose ends still to pull together.

I admit that about halfway through this novel, a plot device was introduced and I groaned because it was such an obvious out for where book six would go that I couldn’t believe Scott had availed himself of it. But then, on the last page, he pulled off a second twist that I totally didn’t see coming, which immediately required that I give him credit that he may yet pull a peacock out of his top hat instead of the expected rabbit. And I read it straight through, start to finish, in one sitting, which speaks worlds of any book these days.

If you haven’t read the series, start at the beginning, because it’s a very linear story chronologically, except that it’s not linear nor is it chronological. It is, however, a masterful work of storytelling, and Scott, whom I met when he read at Politics and Prose this spring, seems both genuinely nice and remarkably knowledgeable.

And if you’re a returning reader, know you’re in for a good yarn that will keep you turning the pages.

Pages: 380

This was my third book for this spring’s Once upon a Time Challenge. Also, I reviewed books three and four on the blog as part of last year’s challenge.

One of Our Thursdays Is Missing by Jasper Fforde

From the jacket: “It’s a time of unrest in the BookWorld. Only the diplomatic skills of ace literary detective Thursday Next can avert a devastating genre war. But a week before the peace talks, Thursday vanishes. Has she simply returned home to the RealWorld or is this something more sinister?”

My take: Thursday Next — oh, no, not that one; the written one, but a darn good facsimile — has enough on her plate. She’s training a new understudy. She’s trying to avoid the advances of a fellow BookWorld resident who may not turn out to be the nice guy he seems to be. She’s working hard to keep the peace amongst her fellow cast members, who are all upset with her because the previous written Thursday ran a much looser, more fun ship. But while this Thursday was asked by the real Thursday to try to make their story more respectable, it also has meant that the books are duller and, therefore, more at risk of not being read at all — a dangerous fate indeed.

So, you see, the written Thursday already has plenty going on.

She does not need to be pulled into a coverup. She does not need to be caught between Jurisfiction and the Council of Genres. She does not need to be hunted by the Men in Plaid. She does not need to suddenly be in possession of the real Thursday’s Jurisfiction badge. And she definitely does not need to reach the conclusion that something bad has happened to the real Thursday, just as she is about to serve as an emissary to settle a boundary war between Racy Novel, Dogma, and Women’s Fiction with potential implications across a dozen genres.

And, yet, like her namesake, the written Thursday Next does not seem to have a lot of choice about the adventures that fall into her life.

If that was hard to follow, it’s because Jasper Fforde is one of the cleverest writers currently working. This is the sixth book in a series about Thursday Next, a woman living in an alternate version of modern-day London, who also happens to be able to transfer inside of books in the same way you or I might take a trip to Disney World. Jasper Fforde makes your head explode, but in a nice way, and then puts it back together again.

Here, for instance, he explains one of the side effects of the Feedback Loop, the device that allows BookWorld to be fleshed out, as it were, by readers’ own RealWorld experiences that they bring to the books they’re reading:

The Lady of Shalott was of an indeterminate age and might once have been plain before the rigors of artistic interpretation got working on her. This was the annoying side of the Feedback Loop; irrespective of how she had once looked or even wanted to look, she was now a Pre-Raphaelite beauty with long flaxen tresses, flowing white gowns and a silver forehead band. She wasn’t the only one to be physically morphed by reader expectation. Miss Havisham was now elderly whether she liked it or not, and Sherlock Holmes wore a deerstalker and smoked a ridiculously large pipe. The problem wasn’t just confined to the classics. Harry Potter was seriously pissed off that he’d have to spend the rest of his life looking like Daniel Radcliffe.

If you’ve never read a Thursday Next novel, start with The Eyre Affair, which sets the story up properly. If you’re already up to speed, I will note that while I liked this book quite a bit, I would have done well to re-read (or at least flip through) the earlier books before beginning this one, because there were some details I was a little fuzzy on when they were referred to in this novel.

All in all, though, I thought One of Our Thursdays Is Missing did a good job reinvigorating a series that was in danger of straying too far into pun for its own good. I look forward to the next tale in the adventures of Thursday Next — both real and written.

Pages: 362

If you’re a Jasper Fforde fan, you might consider checking out this podcast at Chatting Up a Storm with Claudia Cragg. I haven’t listened yet, but it’s in my queue for the iPod.

This was my second book for this spring’s Once upon a Time Challenge.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

From the jacket: “The daughter of a struggling greengrocer, Maisie Dobbs was only thirteen when she was sent to work as a maid for wealthy London aristocrats. But being bright and thoughtful beyond her years, Maisie studies her way to Cambridge, then serves as a nurse on the Front during the Great War. Now, it’s the spring of 1929, nearly ten years after the Armistice, and Maisie has just opened up her own detective agency. Her first assignment, a seemingly open-and-shut infidelity case, will reveal a much deeper, darker mystery, forcing Maisie to revisit the horrors of the war and the ghost she left behind.”

My take: How I came to this mystery is a bit of a mystery itself. Rudi and I will tell you that about four years ago we watched one in a handful of Masterpiece episodes featuring a female sleuth in London in the 1920s/’30s. It was well done and I traced it to a series of books by Jacqueline Winspear. Thing is, though, PBS and the BBC haven’t made such a series. There apparently was a tv series, but there’s only a whisper or two about it on the internet. No entry exists on IMDB. If Rudi didn’t remember watching it, too, (and if the end of the episode didn’t match the end of one of the books — I peeked to verify) I would swear I’d made the whole thing up, dreaming something based on a book review.

Anyway, the reason I finally picked the book up is when I went to pick up my copy of the newest Thursday Next novel at Politics and Prose, an author was giving the store’s daily reading. I didn’t really pay attention, focusing instead on tracking down another book I was after, so it didn’t sink in who she was until I caught her say something about “Maisie.” Oh! I turned around, tuned in, and walked right over to buy the first book in the series to get signed.

Maisie Dobbs tells the story of a young woman in London in 1929 who has just set up a detective agency with the blessing and support of her patron, Lady Rowan, and her mentor, Maurice Blanche. Her detective agency is not the usual sort, however, as she will not take a job and provide results without comment or concern for how that information will be used. If you want “just the facts,” then you’d be better off finding yourself a different detective. Maisie is a holistic detective and will only take the job if she feels you are inclined to hear her out at the end. She brings with her to the job not just the dedication, attention to detail, and reasoning you expect from any sleuth worth their salt, but also elements of psychology and physiology, as well as a quick intellect. She routinely mimics the stance of those she’s observing in order to better understand their emotions. And she finds little ways to leave people feeling better after sharing difficult moments with her.

In this book, Maisie’s first real case is an easy commission to find out if a wealthy man’s wife is cheating on him. She finds not just the answer, but also a second mystery — one involving disfigured World War I veterans and a mysterious commune — that turns out to be of great importance to Lady Rowan.

The book continues from here in two parallel veins. We get flashbacks of Maisie’s back story, from the time the motherless girl is placed by her father in Lady Rowan’s service at age 13, through her tutelage with Maurice, into her years at Cambridge, and finally landing in the muds of France as a field nurse.

At the same time, the narrative moves forward with Maisie, with the help of local handyman, Billy Beale, investigating The Retreat. It’s a commune created by and for gravely injured World War I veterans who have difficulty coping in the real world for one reason or another. But there have been some deaths of residents in recent years and there’s also the question of the money that’s deposited by incoming residents into the programs coffers. Is this a legitimate communal sanctuary for badly scarred men or is it a scam? And can Maisie adequately investigate this mystery without raising her own ghosts from the War?

Winspear offers an engaging and unusual heroine in this series and has an uncanny eye for detail, which helps to bring scenes to life as you read the words. I wholeheartedly recommend this for all mystery lovers and fans of literary fiction.

Pages: 294

I’m here still. I’m struggling with a book review for a book I really liked but seem to be at a loss to describe why, so it will appear shortly because it’s holding up other reviews for things I’ve read more recently.

I’ve been working on reknitting the second leg of my Bastille Day socks. I ripped back to the heel and got the stitches back on the needle okay, then discovered after a few inches of knitting the correct pattern on the back of the leg, that the yarn was still pooling unattractively. I was stuck on the idea that not knitting the second leg on the same needle as the first must be the problem, but couldn’t figure out why it should matter as much as it did.

Yesterday I found myself idly thinking about how my US1 needles had become my default pair when it used to be US2.5. And that’s when it hit me. In the three years since I knit the first sock, I’ve become a more confident lace knitter, causing my tension to become looser. So while a US2 had been necessary back when I knit the first sock, perhaps it was no longer the correct answer. I slipped the sock from its dpns to waste yarn so I could try it on and discovered that the new leg was much looser than the old one.

I ripped back yet again last night and put the stitches back on a set of US1.5s. Two inches up the leg and I can see that we finally have a winner. No pooling. Correct patterning. We might get a finished pair yet!