Where She Went

Where She Went by Gayle Forman (2011)

This book is the sequel to If I Stay and therefore contains pretty major spoilers.

Three years after Mia's accident she is playing the cello in Carnegie Hall. Adam, whose band Shooting Star shot to fame after he and Mia broke up, is getting ready to fly to London for a tour. But letting his band go ahead without him, he's staying an extra night in New York where, on impulse, he buys a ticket to Mia's performance. A lot has been left unsaid between them, so when they meet for the first time in almost three years, emotions run high and Adam's night in New York is a very long night indeed, full of anger, doubt, and finally hope for the future. Told from Adam's point of view, the short novel spans just a 24-hour period (much like it's predecessor) but this time it's a very different story.

There are lots of flashbacks to the time between when the two books take place, as well as some from before Mia's accident. Since this book is focused on Adam we don't know a lot about Mia's life since the accident but we learn a lot about Adam's end of the breakup with Mia, his subsequent rise to fame, his relationship with his current girlfriend, and problems within his band. He has a lot of unresolved feelings about Mia and together with his uncertain career plans, I found him a wonderfully complicated and compelling character to spend time with.

I listened to the audio and perhaps I would have loved it a teensy bit more had I read the print version. As I have mentioned before I dislike male narrators reading female voices, but since this book is from Adam's point of view, a male narrator was necessary. He was good too, just not...female.

This book received many great reviews, though I'm not sure if I think they are warranted. It didn't have the emotional impact of the first book for me, but I still found the relationship between Adam and Mia compelling. And in a way I feel this book was necessary to complete the story, an aspect of it that I found very satisfying. The writing was really nice as in the first book and I will definitely keep my eye out for more books from this author.

I'll Be There

I'll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan (2011)

Sam and Riddle have lived in a lot of places, they don't go to school, and they are afraid of their emotionally unstable father, Clarence. Sam sometimes goes to churches to get away and be alone and one day he is drawn by the music to a church where a young woman is singing terribly, but staring at Sam the whole time. He meets her only briefly, but can't forget about her. Emily keeps looking for the mysterious young man from church who she can't get out of her mind. When they reconnect, Emily's whole family becomes attached to Sam and Riddle, but inevitably Clarence suddenly decides that once again it's time to skip town, taking the boys with him. Told in alternating chapters from Emily's and Sam's perspectives, this was a well-told and - dare I say it? heartwarming - story about fate, family, and friendship.

There is much to love about this book, but I especially liked how the lives of the main characters were so incredibly different from each other, and they kept feeling thrust into unfamiliar worlds. Sam and Riddle were poor, without a real home, and their only family was their abusive father. Visiting Emily's regular middle-class household was just amazing and luxurious to them. Similarly, Emily went to dinner at the local Country Club with Bobby Ellis, a boy who liked her much more than she liked him, and she felt completely out of her element around these people who dressed up for dinner and were disappointed that they no longer had lobster tails at the Country Club, a delicacy Emily had never in her life eaten. Bobby, of course, had no idea that this was all new to Emily, just as she didn't realize how her life felt to Sam and Riddle.

Until near the end I thought that Riddle was 7 or 8 years old, and was surprised when I saw that he was twelve. Emily also came across younger than her years; her chapters were written very simplistically, reminding me of a long-ago style like Nancy Drew or the Betsy-Tacy books. She definitely had some complicated emotions, but everything was expressed in simple, somewhat formal, sentences. Whether or not this was intentional, it's quite a contrast from the chatty tones used in most young adult novels. I'm still unsure how I feel about it.

The story was very good, and there's much more to it then I've described here, but I really think you should all read it for yourselves. This is an incredibly compelling novel with a lot going on, yet is very quick to read. It is quite poignant, with many heartfelt moments and a satisfying, if not quite believable, ending. 

Sunday Knitting

I've just completed the second sleeve of my Coraline Cardigan.

Right now it just looks like a lumpy mess with various colored waste yarn hanging off it, like some sort of wool-based Frankenstein, but I assure you that someday it will be beautiful. I keep telling myself this although my gauge is off and I only have two full balls of yarn left. I also made a poor decision way back at the hem which I am now beginning to regret.

But! It's purple!

Now I need to connect all those pieces and knit the smocked yoke. I've never knitting smocking before, but I'm sure it will be easy. Just like I'm sure I'll have enough yarn and I'm sure the sweater will fit.

The spring weather may be making me delusional, but I'm enjoying this happy state of mind so I won't trouble myself with details like math and gauge and yardage.

Shiver

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater (2009)

When she was a child Grace survived a wolf attack, and since then has been obsessed with the wolves that live in the woods behind her house. There is one wolf in particular with whom she feels a kinship, a wolf that appears in her back yard every year on Christmas. But when one of her high school peers is killed by the wolves, she suddenly fears for their safety, convinced that "her" wolf was not to blame. Around this time she meets Sam, a boy with yellow eyes, and immediately recognizes him as the wolf with whom she is so familiar. Sam and Grace are strongly drawn to each other, but as Sam explains about the wolves and the pattern of turning from wolf to human to wolf again, they both begin marking the dwindling amount of time they have left together.

The tone of the novel is serious and heavy, without a trace of humor, and a bit otherworldly, like a dark fairy tale. The relationship between Sam and Grace was fantastically crafted, with all the anticipation, tension, and longing that go into any great romance. I kind of liked the wolf theme of the story, but it was their romance that clinched it for me.

There are very few faults with this book. Sam is very swoonworthy, and though his poetry/song lyrics are embarrassingly bad I suppose they are typically adolescent, so it's appropriate. Grace's absentee parents were a little unrealistic, but....so are werewolves. It was believable in the context.

The audiobook had two narrators; one for chapters narrated by Grace, and one for chapters narrated by Sam. The female narrator was exceptional. The male narrator was good, though he put heavy emphasis on certain words that made it sound a little awkward. But luckily this didn't diminish Sam as a character at all. In general the audio is quite well done and that's how I'm planning to continue the series.

I didn't expect to like this book. Although I heard great reviews I thought it was going to be a fairytale retelling, which isn't my sort of thing (and which it is not). Even when I started listening to the audiobook I wasn't so sure I was going to like it, but I slowly became more involved in the story and now there's just no question of not continuing with the sequel.

If I Stay

If I Stay by Gayle Forman (2009)

Seventeen-year-old Mia has a rising rock star for a boyfriend, hipster rock-music-loving parents, a little brother who she adores, and is awaiting possible acceptance to Juilliard where she hopes to continue playing the cello. But then, in an instant, everything changes. Her family is gone and Mia lies in the hospital in a coma. Separated from her body, she watches herself in the hospital, observes the friends and family who come to visit her, and reflects on her charmed life, now ruined. Will she ever wake up? Does she even want to?

In Mia's rock-loving family, playing the cello is almost rebellious, but her dedication to music comes through vividly. Before the accident Mia struggled with the decision to move far away to music school leaving behind her family and her boyfriend Adam. Only friends and family are important enough to compete with Mia's love for music, and as she lay in the coma she weighed the loss of her family against her living grandparents, friends, and future musical career.

With this premise, the book could easily have been melodramatic, but it's not at all. Mia was very close to her family and the loss is just staggering, but the author manages to capture it in a way that makes it completely heartwrenching while keeping it real. Many authors would not be able to do this story justice, but Forman handles it deftly and beautifully.

If I Stay is under 200 pages and is a breeze to read, despite its serious themes. The vivid images - of her dad in his bow-tie smoking a pipe, the accident scene, Mia playing Adam's body like a cello - will stick with you long after you've turned the final page. I'd normally be wary of the sequel to such a book, but Where She Went has gotten rave reviews, I think more than this first book, so I've already begun listening to the audio. I'll be posting a review soon!

Sunday Knitting

These socks should not have taken me four months to knit.

But they are kind of nice, and I'm happy to see that the legs seem to be the same length. I was worried about that as I was binding off the other night.

These are an improvised pattern, cobbled together from Sensational Knitted Socks. I used the toe from one pattern, the heel from another, and cast on the number of stitches that seemed appropriate. The stitch pattern is just a 2x2 rib.

This yarn is Cascade sock yarn, which is 25% nylon, the only way to go with socks I've decided. No more 100% wool for me. I can't darn fast enough to keep up. 

They're knit on size 0 needles, for a nice tight non-hole-wearing gauge. I used an extra strand of yarn on the heel so they are nice and firm. If this all doesn't keep the socks from getting holes, my next step is to investigate steel yarn. 

(Sorry for the crappy iphone photo. The regular camera isn't cooperating with me right now.)

The Descendants

The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings (2007)

Matt King's wife Joanie is in a coma following a boating accident. He is trying to step up to the plate in parenthood and see his two daughters through the difficult time, but he just doesn't know how to relate to them. The situation is further complicated when he learns that his wife had been having an affair, and Matt is understandably compelled to find out who the guy is and track him down.

Meanwhile, he has a tough decision to make. His family, who has lived on Hawaii for many generations and is descended from royalty, owns a huge parcel of land. They are in the midst of making a decision about selling it and Matt has the largest vote in the matter, so a lot is riding on him.

I saw the movie based on this book just a few days before I began reading. I apologize for the constant comparisons between the book and movie - I'm having a hard time separating the two!

Throughout the novel I pictured the characters as the actors from the movie, which is great since I thought it was very well cast. Aside from that, the book was better. There's just a lot going on in Matt's head, and his internal narration - which of course is missing from the movie - was one of my favorite aspects of the book. His observations are unflinchingly honest and don't always flatter him. Many of his thoughts are the sort you might be uncomfortable admitting, and at times I related, and was grateful someone else felt the same (even if he's a fictional character.)

Scottie, at ten years old, is precocious and quirky, still a child but quickly approaching adolescence and occasionally getting ahead of herself. Eighteen-year-old Alex has left behind a history of drugs and is pulling herself together though her parents haven't noticed since they sent her away to boarding school. She is strangely dependent on her seemingly dull-witted friend Sid, who Matt instantly dislikes. Sid was probably my favorite character of all, an outsider who suddenly appeared during the most difficult time the family has faced. At various times he acts as a buffer, an observer, an objective bystander. There is more about Sid in the novel than the movie, as well as a more fleshed-out background of Matt's relationship with his wife and daughters.

We knew almost nothing of the sort of person Matt's wife was before in her accident in the movie version, but in the novel she was a more complete character. Matt thought a lot about his conflicting feelings towards her and reflected a great deal on their rocky marriage, and through these reflections the reader gets to know her. Joanie was a model, an alcoholic, and from what I could tell, not a particularly nice person. I didn't know enough to care about her one way or another in the movie, but in the book I distinctively disliked her.

But it doesn't matter, because the point is that you care about the rest of the family. In both the film and novel I couldn't help but want everything to turn out ok for Matt and his daughters, and I feel pretty confident they will. Whether or not you've seen the movie, this is a book well worth checking out.