Feed by Mira Grant

Title: Feed (Newsflesh Trilogy #1)
Author: Mira Grant
Publisher: Orbit
Original Publication Date: April 10, 2010
Pages: 571


When I was looking for the a book to get back at my roots, that is fantasy and science fiction, and under science fiction the proliferating post-apocalypse, dystopia and zombie genres, I happened to stumble on the Newsflesh trilogy. I however was not transported back to my beloved roots in my reading experience of Feed.  To put it bluntly, this is a conspiracy story with zombies as plot devices rather than being the plot. And still, I was able to appreciate iyt, reading it was a breath of fresh air a person needs a looks for once in a while.

The incremental world building process and origin story was well thought out. It is convincing enough by reason of its possibility and complexity. The effort at research and study for the backbone of the story is apparent and conspicuous and it is enjoyable to know the lengths the author has gone to bring this story to life.

I've said it before regarding book in this genre, the zombie genre has suffered the inevitable saturation that proliferating genres are so susceptible of. In this case, zombie literature has been chucked out the linear narratives, stream of consciousness school and the theme of plain old survival perspectives inter alia as the standard works. This is no surprise as these mediums are traditional, accessible and appealing to the market the genre is supposedly targeting. Included in these modes is what one could call dumbing down. What is perhaps more disturbing and perhaps worrying is that this dumbing down thematics are carried out in the YA fashion. Mira Grant is guilty to some extent of this. On some instances, she rubs down and shove in certain aspects of the story, like for example the repetitive checkpoints. But then again, credit is given to Mira Grant because shed did not saturate this book with the YA dumbing down, especially with the relationship/romance story in the book that is so out of context and blatantly disjointed in some zombie books where the insertion is conspicuously forced for marketability if not acquiescence to the bandwagons.

The book had minimal zombie encounters, but it was exciting all throughout. It was good how Mira paced the story itself. I'm looking forward to reading the second part in this series.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Title: The History of Love
Author: Nicole Krauss
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Original Publication Date: April 1, 2005
Pages: 260

This is now one of the greatest novels I have read.

I would have settled with that, except that the History of Love is just too pleasing, that my terseness was rather forcibly rooted out by the book. I seldom review (if one could call them that) books that I rate with 4 to 5 stars.

I remember reading once, where I did I have long forgotten, a witty reason that justifies speechlessness. I have once tried to verify this and failed to substantiate the claim (perhaps I looked at the wrong place), though I have held on to it because of its appeal and the propensity for people to believe it, much like common myths we choose to believe in (like how taking vitamin c supposedly cures common colds).

I'm telling you this because I was literary left speechless, reeling, contemplating and pondering numerous times in the book. The fact that I am writing to you now tells you of the triumph this book has precipitated upon my centuries evolved amigdula. What it doesn't tell you however is how it won that battle.

Everything about this book is pleasing from the typesetting, the form, the plot, the characters, the message.

I mean how could have Krauss presented such depressing lives in a riveting manner? She has presented the book in such a way that I have felt that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. And that kept me going.

I think the message that the book wanted to impart, or what at least it was able to impart to me in this convoluted setting is that moving on and letting go cannot be done (or is next to impossible) in solitude, that we can only move on with the help of somebody else, whether that be another love interest, a friend, or most especially, a family member. It was a simple message carried out in a convoluted manner perhaps the aspect that could have founded of diminished the beauty of this book.

On Love by Alain de Botton

Title: On Love
Author: Alain de Botton
Publisher: Grove Press
Original Publication Date: 1993
Pages: 194

I have been having different slices of the same loaf. And I plan to continue on finishing the platter until kingdom come. After reading Fromm's Art of Loving, Alain de Botton's On Love was consequently partaken of.

At the outset, Art of Loving must be considered as a league of its own. The theorizing Fromm achieved was incomparable in that love, like any other concept in the social sciences, could be easily demystified, unraveled and explained by the use of inquiry and reason; even though what Fromm wrote in the intro that every endeavor committed to such pursuit is bound to end in failure still held true until the bitter end of his book. An aspect which De Botton's work did not tackle (and conclude with) in a  significantly different matter.

If Fromm wrote about the origins of love and how love can be successfully pursued as an art in itself in a very scholarly manner, De Botton on the other hand wrote on the inception of love and the processes it goes through, albeit ending in an unideal and rather depressing manner. For all it's worth however, On love manages to encapsulate the reader for the very personal, realistic and relatable (most especially) manner De Botton has chosen to write this book.

The book is divided in essays on particular issues connected through out a developing relationship. We are treated to numbered paragraphs under these essays. The riveting aspect of this book however lies in the manner De Botton was so successful in enlacing the theoretical aspects to the fictional aspect that objectified and so perfectly represented his theories and arguments. De Botton not only theorize love well, he presented the readers with something they can objectively relate to through Chloe's fictional love story, and in doing so, managed to humanize what was conceived in abstract. More than that, it managed to establish a connection with the reader, by a common thread of experience in the story. De Botton did not only theorize actions of love like putting meaning where there is none, holding hands, happiness, betrayal and fear of loving again and of loving again, he wrote about it through Chloe. De Botton is one great love story writer that most YA Romance novelist will ever dream of.

The sentences were beautifully written, incomparably so. I remember reading Hemingway and having the same reaction. De Botton simply writes beautifully.

If there were any limitations to this book, we have to concede that it is written in a certain perspective, a man's perspective, which sometimes arguably is guilty of permeating the objectiveness of the arguments.

Taking on the Dead by Annie Wells

Title: Taking on the Dead (Famished Trilogy Book #1)
Author: Annie Wells
Publisher: Create Space/ Independently Published
Original Publication Date: 2012
Pages: 322

I have substantially pondered the rating I would give to this book with finality. First because this is an independently published book, a fact that should always be afforded respect if not praise for it is no mystery both to writers and even to non-writers like me how hard it is to establish names in the market, more so to move beyond great names in the myriad of genres like Tolkien, Lewis or Le Guin in Fantasy, or of Asimov, Clarke or Heinlein in Science-Fiction (or of Max Brooks in the Horror-Zombie Genre?). Second is that this book has claimed (this word is most appropriate as will be discussed later) to be under the proliferating Horror-Zombie genre. However, it is a greater sin to rate this with something it does not deserve. If a book should break those veils Tolkien and the likes have unconsciously erected albeit in a successful and (portentously) ageless manner, it should be by its merits alone, and by merits alone that this two star rating is founded upon.

The Zombie Factor
I am a fan of the mindless, flesh eating, human craving zombies. Somehow, in this fictional setting, a thinking, evolving, zombie is untenable and its essence against the basic tenets of the zombie horror genre. Why? The appeal of the zombie genre has been anchored upon the story of survival of humanity, but this story of survival undeniably comes hand in hand with the zombies. This survival has two faces, the possibility of extinction on the one hand, and on the other, triumph over this fictional anathema. Put a thinking zombie in here and the balance tilts to either what is called human extinction removing the conspicuous appeal of human triumph and power or    could either be a book, meant more for humor or for the YA shelves of romance. Enter Taking on the Dead! Where there is no need for a zombie literary pundit to tell that zombies are either subplots or plot devices. It is a subplot because the book is not about survival but of personal feelings, specifically the female sexual feeling of the main character. It is a plot devices because zombies momentarily appear to further personal (sexual) relations of the female protagonist with the numerous male characters. The middle of the book is solely dedicated to romance of the female protagonist.

Character Development
I don't know how the author has visualized the main character, it turned ultimately as an in inconsistent persona. The author wanted to paint a protagonist who knows how to survive in the post-apocalyptic world by saying that she had resource materials, can jack a car and survived alone for four years since the outbreak. For all that, she turned out to be stupid, real stupidity or forced stupidity, i don't know, all that matter is she is stupid. (e.g. Who takes a bath in a lake fully naked unarmed?)

The men are all objects of the pent up libido of our main character, that is all I can say.

The supporting cast is the literary embodiment of racial stereotypes. The asian-american as practitioner of martial arts, the african-american as the street gangster/rocker type.

The Writing
The writing is, like most YAs, (drumroll) in the prevalent stream of consciousness occasionally interjected with conversations. So it is an easy read.

There are a number of awkward passages within the book. Like this:

"Ice seemed to spread through me."

Better Fit for the YA Romance than the Zombie Genre
I fault myself for not taking caution after reading the prologue:

"Sometime later, we got off the Ferris Wheel, both heated, clinging to each other, and ready for another tryst when we went off the beaten path to use the foul port-a- potties. When I think about it now, I know the outbreak began early in the day. We passed several wrecks, heard many helicopters and sirens, and probably saw a few zombies, but were too wrapped up in ourselves to notice. I blame it on being in love, but I swear to myself now if I saw a person walking down the street covered in blood or eating someone, I would have paid attention. Maybe."

The paragraph was portentous. It had the picture of a romantic, sexual, stupid oblivious makings of the book. I mean come on, who ever you are, however in love you are, you can't be oblivious to several wrecks, helicopters and sirens. That's just being plain stupid.

The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

Title: The Lover's Dictionary
Author: David Levithan
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 
Original Publication Date: 2011
Pages: 211



Belated 
adjective 
1 : delayed beyond the usual time
2 : existing or appearing past the normal or proper time

Actually took me up until letter B to realize that I was bored reading it.

Drop/Dropped
transitive verb
1 : to let fall : cause to fall
2 a : give up 2, abandon

I am putting this into my DNF shelf. I cannot simply force myself to finish this! I think my upcoming finals schedule is taxing enough. Also I forcibly placed this so that 'did not finish' could be inserted, just like how the book felt, a lot of the entries were rather conventional, if not forced. No fluidity.

Continuance
noun
1 : continuation
2 : the extent of continuing : duration
3 : the quality of enduring : permanence

So I will be enduring this, because I know it takes a lot of trees to produce copies of this book. it will be a waste and shame to the trees to simply stop at letter B.

Tree
noun
1 a : a woody perennial plant having a single usually elongate main stem generally with few or no branches on its lower part
b : a shrub or herb of arborescent form

Wasted paper. Wasted trees. The format aimed to be novel and fresh and exciting. I'm telling you now it was nothing like that but large chunks of wasted spaces. In contrast to Nicole Krauss' History of Love and Jonathan Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close which masterfully employed this minimalist aspect in type-setting, I see nothing but fragmented struggling minimal entries in paper.

Hodgepodge
noun
: a heterogeneous mixture : jumble

The dictionary entry styles barely made any sense. Interjected themes, issues and ideas where they would randomly fit through the words. At the risk of being redundant, there was no fluidity.

Honesty
noun
1 obsolete : chastity
2 a : fairness and straightforwardness of conduct
b : adherence to the facts : sincerity

I confess I only read this because I failed to find a copy of Raymond Carvers' book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.
I also confess, I never got past B. Sorry trees.

1984 by George Orwell

Title: 1984
Author: George Orwell
Publisher: Signet Classics
Original Publication Date: 1949
Pages: 328

Perhaps what makes this tale so gripping is the propensity of the imagined world to be translated in an objective observable human reality, more so as an empirical experience (not discounting that it may have been translated already). Orwell did a superb job merging a tragic romance and a corrupted political ideology. Worthy to be read beyond its years.

The Diary of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain

Title: The Diary of Adam and Eve
Author: Mark Twain
Publisher: Harper and Brothers
Original Publication Date: 1905
Pages: 112

A take on the socially constructed gender roles and biases through a narrative anchored on the belief of the creation.