NOVEL REVIEW: Poison by Bridget Zinn

            NOTE: I figured I would write this one first, so you remember that I don’t always hate books. In fact, it’s not that I hate books at all. I simply see mistakes and continuity/editing/story/character/plot/etc. issues that could be fixed if writers would buckle down, suck it up, and actually set about writing the best story they possibly could without letting their pride get in the way. And I say that not with a spirit of judgment, but with a HUGE plate of experience in that area. I wrote eight manuscripts that got scrapped because they completely sucked. You know why? My pride got in the way of what was really supposed to happen, and I could only see where I wanted the story to go. Only when I let go of myself did God give me the story He wanted me to be telling. And I’m glad He waited until I got it through my head, because I would have messed up BIG TIME.

            Anyway.

            That being said, I want to tell you about a book that rocked me with so many emotions, I’m really not sure everything I want to say about it. I don’t know if you remember, but I said in a post awhile back that I learned a valuable lesson about libraries and why one should visit them before deciding to buy a book that happens to be very expensive (and very crappy). I’m looking at YOU, Life of Pi.

            (Also, a massive shout-out to my mom for reminding me that money is valuable, and so are libraries, and the two go hand in hand for a reason.)

            I frequently cruise Amazon looking for prospective books to check out, and I ran across Poison by Bridget Zinn on there in my suggestions. Now, step one in deciding a book for me includes research. My research stopped short here, though, because the author passed away before her book got published. (Which also happens to be the point where my emotional maelstrom starts for this book.) I thought, “What? She died before it was published??? No! That’s awful! I MUST READ THIS BOOK FOR HER SAKE.”

            The description also had a couple of effects on me. At first, I thought it would be some other fantasy story that really was all, “Oh, yeah, it’s fantasy. Great.” However, it’s rare that I’ve come across a female MC that’s a potions master exclusively before being all “I’m a princess,” or “I’m a magician,” or whatever. You know, the kind of plot point that makes it mushy and crap. *rolls eyes, sighs, and sits down for an annoying ride*

            Kyra, our FMC, is a normal girl. She’s a potions master. She’s strong, she’s smart, and she kicks serious rear.

            The other fantasy point that I liked about this is that it goes into the genre without being extremely over the top. Now, I’m not talking Tolkien or Lewis; they’re worlds are purposefully built where everything interconnects, everything has a purpose, everything makes sense while remaining wonderfully abstract and fantastical. I’m talking Avatars: So This is How It Ends by Tui T. Sutherland, or Dust by Arthur Slade, or The Time Travelers by Linda Buckley-Archer. All of which are  incredibly, presumptuously full of crap. Seriously. I deleted the review for the first one because it was too snarky, and I didn’t review the other two because I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to do so.

            Poison sends them to the cleaners. Within the first chapter this book made me smile. Not an oh-hey-that’s-cute smile, but more of a this-is-terribly-promising smirk, showing teeth and all. The story moves really quickly, and while if paced incorrectly this could be bad, Poison has enough content to make everything important. Because everything is. When Kyra and Fred get caught by the witch, the scene not only clues us in to some very important points (without one, the plot never would have happened in the first place), and shows our characters to be worth their mettle.

            And speaking of characters, not only are the names fantasy-worthy and easy so as not to be ridiculous (lookin’ at YOU, The Hunger Games), the characterizations themselves stick to their trueness, even through all the growth that happens. For example, Kyra doesn’t want to be caught up in a relationship, so she ditches Fred (short for Frederick). She ditches him a lot. And every time they meet up again, you get the hint that maybe Fred’s caught on to her secret, but you can’t exactly be sure. He puts on a good show of “not knowing” when he needs to and when he finds out that ***SPOILER ALERT*** Kyra’s innocent and the princess isn’t dead, his reaction was genuinely funny. Fred’s genuinely a good guy, with a lot of great facets and nothing stereotypical. Kyra describes him as being beautiful, but that’s really the only descriptive word I found that would irritate me; not exclusively, mind you, but I recently read a book that was so clichéd I felt like I was gonna throw my Kindle across the room.

            Fred isn’t the only character that defies stereotypes. Kyra is strong and smart, and when she can take care of herself she’s not prideful to the point of being an immature little brat. She claims her independence with a bloodied flag and stands upon the hill, displaying her wounds as trophies. Rosie, her pig, is adorable beyond proper comparison, and Ariana took the tomboy princess stereotype and gave it attitude instead of trying to stand out by being aggravating and pushy.

            Sure, the villain was a bit typical, but overall I really can’t complain. The twists and turns did leave me doubling back over previous guesses, and the obvious clues I overlooked were huge hints that made me have the right guess one minute, then second-guess the next. The plot to overthrow the kingdom was expected; the way it was done wasn’t.

            Small details that needed polishing can be overlooked because this was Zinn’s first novel and the plot was really good. Her technicalities would have gotten better to the point of nonexistence had she lived to write another. I can’t in good conscience point my finger. And I can’t, anyway, because I liked this book so much, after reading it in a day and a half, the next week I bought my own copy, book-plated it, and stuck it on my shelf.

            Rarely do I find myself sitting back in satisfaction at the end of a book. If I do with restlessness, I attribute the itch not to poor writing, but to a story so compelling I yearn for the next book. (Divergent, that’s you.) However, few standalones cause me to sit back, grin, and sigh with satisfaction (like Julie Klassen’s The Tutor’s Daughter). Poison was one of these books. In fact, I haven’t even found any pictures to illustrate my points. I think the story, and the cover, speak for themselves in every way possible. I felt satisfaction and so much more.

            At the beginning of the post, I told you that this book caused me a maelstrom in my center. The center of gravity is that Bridget Zinn did not live to bring us anymore stories of such caliber. The fact that she left us so early is an ache I cannot fully describe and a grief I have encountered few times before. Her book immortalizes her, and if she was anything like her manuscript—funny at all the right moments, charming, out-of-the-box, adventurous—then the world has lost a dear and blessed soul. I want to send a thank you to everyone who helped pull this book together in her absence. You’ve done her an amazing justice. Thank you.

            Poison by Bridget Zinn gets 20 flipped pages out of 10.

TOP 10 IRRELEVANT GOOGLE IMAGES RESULTS: Heart of Flame

            Passing this up would be a crime.

            Tonight, while searching for a heart made of fire with the key words “heart of flame,” Google gave me some interesting and perplexing image results that part of me cannot fully comprehend. Seeing as the task of singling out only five became impossible, you can consider this post a bonus round. We have a Top 10!

RESULTS FOR “HEART OF FLAME”

10)       This conductor:

Perhaps the relevance came up not in text, but in passion.

This conductor has a heart filled with flaming passion for music!

9)         Someone burning at the pyre:

While I know this *technically* isn’t a pyre, it certainly looks

like neither someone burning at the stake nor some strange

sacrificial ritual. Therefore, I’m calling it a pyre.

8)         An Alpine Grim Reaper backed by a Viking face:

I’m thinking this Reaper is bringing the flame to his frozen home world

as a sort of reviving effect for the healthy people. A paradox, you say?

Well, when you live in the cold climates and you’re the only Reaper,

wouldn’t you get tired, too?

7)         A samurai helmet:

The only things I can think of are 1) I hope this isn’t real, 2) if

it isn’t, that’s an awesome custom job, and 3) Japan *is* the

Land of the Rising Sun.

6)         Ella Fitzgerald:

Explain this one to me, because I don’t know.

5)         This waterfall:

The waterfall, perhaps, symbolizes Yellowstone, and beneath Yellowstone

is the volcano, so…yes? No? (I think we’ll go with no.)

4)         The Not-Bad-Obama meme:

To explain this, I’m going to show you a Bad Translator screenshot I took myself.

Either way, I still don’t think it makes any sense.

3)         A Munsters portrait:

…?

2)         The Virgin Mary:

I don’t know if I find this result more funny or confusing. Mary’s heart

in this picture is neither a flame or on fire, so I can’t see any possible

relevance that could be taken from this in *any* way. Ever.

1)         A random banner:

So far as my research suggests, Hatfest is a music and culture festival.

That’s as far as the research goes, because I can’t see what this

has to do with my search input.

            Again, readers, I’m not sure why Google is so weird, and the Internet so labyrinthine, but I can’t honestly complain that it bothers me too much. In fact, though I run into a lot of “If it hadn’t been for my horse, I wouldn’t have made it through college” situations, more often than not they afford me a good deal of humor. Yes, there are moments when shaking my head is the only thing I can do besides weep, but in these moments a peculiar and inexplicable loveliness is found. People are weird; *I* am weird. Therefore, I am not alone.

            And neither are any of you. The ranks are open. Come join us!

Top 5 Irrelevant Google Images Results: Pickled Pigs Feet

            In my post yesterday, I told you that I’d been mulling over an ongoing serial of posts to put up every now and again: Top 5 Irrelevant Google Images Results. Currently I’m doing some concept art for a short story I want to write, and some of my searches produced…less-than-relevant results. For instance, searching Google Images for “bright green eyes” gave me something like this:

            Yeah. I, uh…I don’t know. I really don’t.

            Then, the other week, I attempted to come up with something similar to that for my first Irrelevance post. I have a permanent mental Post-It saying, “WHEN YOU TRY ON PURPOSE, YOU GET NOTHING.” And it’s true, really. Tonight I searched Google Images for a Facebook profile picture I’d like, and when I typed in “p,” I got “pickle,” and one of the suggestions below that was “pickled pigs feet.” Well…I’ve never really seen one up close or out of a jar. Curiosity took over.

            Without trying, I got my first post.

            5) This mug shot:

I’m pretty sure there was an article about sausages linked (see what I did there?)

to this picture, but I didn’t go to the blog. I’m distracted easily enough

as it is. Roaming more than I planned is a good way for me to

forget anything I had planned to do until I’m half asleep.

Cake Wrecks, you’re amazingly distracting. And I love you all.

            4) A fried pig’s head:

Not sure what this has to do with pickled pigs’ feet, but sure, Google. Sure.

            3) Armour canned pork brains (BONUS: they're in milk and gravy):

This is real. I’m not joking. Yes, it is disgusting. Eating a brain is like

eating the thoughts and memories and feelings of the person/animal

from which the brain came. I don’t savor that thought.

            2) Cats sniffing a chess piece:

I honestly can’t think of anything to say about this.

1)      The Keebler Elves:

…I…just can’t…

Maybe the Keebler Elves have an underground butchering business...?

            I can’t really bring myself to think too hard for an explanation to some of these, and sometimes I think delving too deeply into mysteries like Google Irrelevance can bring about things we regret seeing or reading about. For posts like these, I’ll take the mystery at arms’ length, thank you.

Denmark, General Mills, and Beatrix Potter

            Welcome back, readers. I was going to start my reinstatement here at the newly-designed—and named—The Complector Coterie with the beginning of a series outlining irrelevant Google Images results. Instead, I had an amazing revelation I wanted to share with you.

            Currently, I’m ill and mostly bedridden, so as I fumed that I’m unable to get up and do…anything, I started thinking for possible rabbit-character names. I always find naming animals a pain, due to the overabundance of cliché pet names. (Still not sure how they derived the chopped-up-sounding “Fido” from the beautiful “fidelus.”)

            Anyway. The animal I have the pleasure of naming is a rabbit, as I’ve said, and I wanted to pay homage to a dear children’s author I read and loved growing up. Beatrix Potter. I was thinking to myself, “Bea? Mm, well maybe. Potter sounds too much like J.K. Rowling should sue me if I use that (plus all I’ll think of is Harry), and I’m not too fond of Trix…Trix. TRIX. A RABBIT NAMED…TRIX.”

            That’s when it hit me, dear readers.

            A RABBIT named TRIX. Ring a bell?

            Now, out of a huge love of Peter Rabbit, I’m not sure whether I should be offended that this cereal is so bland when Beatrix Potter’s stories are delicious, or more shocked at myself that I never saw this until now. Perhaps we should also look at the general media altogether that they don’t give the proper recognition Beatrix Potter deserves. At the General Mills Cereal page about Trix, there is no mention whatsoever that the rabbit mascot is in some way connected to Beatrix Potter. However, the first appearance of the rabbit was 1957. Beatrix Potter passed away in 1943. I wondered if there had been some connection that could be traced through obscure links in chronology, but the year gap blew me theory out of the water. Maybe the whole thing was a shady plagiarism dealt under the table that no one could pick up on due to its overtly covertness.

            What say you, readers? Is this a huge coincidence, or some gross understatement of subliminal copyright infringement? Perhaps my analytic mind is taking the conclusions too far…again. I haven’t found any articles relating the Trix Rabbit and Beatrix Potter, or any inspiration that could connect the two, but something is definitely rotten in the state of Denmark about this.

The Re-Visit Challenge (BRING IT ON)

            I will admit right off that when I found the book Divergent by Veronica Roth, the description I read made it sound like some namby-pamby post-apocalypse that was really…well, boring.

            How wrong I was. (No, seriously, I was DEAD WRONG.)

            Anyway, where I’m going with this is that I found Veronica Roth’s blog, and I’ve been reading it ever since. I see now that she and I are really similar, kindred spirits, you might say; not only was I surprised—I expected MIO (Mainstream-Instant-Oatmeal)—but hey. Being pleasantly surprised is always nice. I found one posting she did, and may currently still doing as a series, that made me interested to start something like it myself. Here’s what she’s doing: a revisit challenge. Revisiting books she read as a child, that is. Ones that had an influence on her.

            Well, I’ve been thinking about that, too. Books that influenced me, that is. Ever since I really stopped being so up on myself and really looked hard at what God’s gifted me with (words), I’ve been seeing things at a different angle. The tilted becomes straight, the straight perfectly clear and open, and things have been transparent before my eyes, even if I have to sit back and mull through what just affected me and why. So I challenged myself.

            I’ve made a list of books I’m going to revisit, books I haven’t read in years, probably, and not only write a review, but also what I felt when rereading it: what it brought back, ways I can see that the story or author influenced me, things I still carry with me from the book that I can remember that shocked/thrilled/disturbed/enlightened/etc. me.

Lord Brocktree by Brian Jacques

Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwartz

Tailchaser’s Song by Tad Williams

The Black Stallion by Walter Farley

Vulpes the Red Fox by Jean Craighead George

Into the Wild by Erin Hunter (This one will most likely lead to me rereading the entire first series, soooooo….yep.)

Inkheart, Inkspell, and Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke

Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke

The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

The Stinky Cheese Man by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Lane Smith

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

The Unicorns of Balinor series by Mary Stanton

Dragons of Deltora series by Emily Rodda

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Dark is a Color by Fay S. Lapka

The Oath by Frank Peretti

Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

Incident at Hawk’s Hill by Allan W. Eckert

These are the books that stand out very strongly to me from my childhood. Some I read in class, some I read on my own, but each and every one of these gave me some bolt of Wonder that struck me in a certain way as to forever remain in my memory. I probably won’t really be able to recognize what struck me in particular until I read the book again, but then again, I may never know, may forever be struck dumb at the amazingness that writing is, the incredible craft that brings to life the realities only those with eyes to see, can see.

God, in so many ways, is wonderful. He will always be wonderful. And in one way, to me, He was and still is wonderful insofar as providing me with amazing things that hooked me and helped shape the Wordsmith I am today. And I will forever be thankful to Him for that.

So! On that note, here I go! As I read them, I’ll cross them off my list and get back to you. I thought of another to add to the list, but as is my brain’s custom, it got tossed from Charles Dickens’ window the minute I tried to retrieve the thought. (Woo.) However, I think I’ll leave it and continue on. So, on with the challenge!

Mostly I Scare Myself...

            My brother is so hard to scare. Really, he is. No horror movies scare him, no ghost stories chill his blood, no paranormal show makes him want to sit in a whitewashed room lit by a hundred LED bulbs and wait until morning. I can’t say I’m not the same way. I’ve read so many haunted house and ghost stories that I’m surprised I’m still a sane person. (In the broadest sense of the term.) Rarely do I find myself trembling beneath my skin and wishing I had not picked up a book filled with ghost stories. When I was in grade school, I devoured books like Scary Stories and its sequels. You know what I’m talking about, the Alvin Schwarz books designed to strike fear into the average middle-schooler’s heart and leave them quivering underneath their bedcovers, a flashlight in hand, the light on, and their eyes either jammed shut or wide open. Those stories never really scared me. Frankly, nothing really scares me. Startles, yes; the easiest way to startle me is to stand somewhere I won’t expect to see you and stare at me, waiting for me to discover you. And when I do:

            Yeah, I can’t say I’m proud of that.

            Really, though, reading something “scary” has an effect on me equivalent to a really annoying person trying to tell me a story that will “freak me out.” The type that kind of sits forward in the dark and likes to exaggerate the essentially scary parts and only succeeds at dropping a cheese bomb. Been there, done that, over it. Let’s get into the really freaky stuff. Stuff that will make my un-freak-out-able brother want to sleep in that whitewashed room. Stuff I can’t ignore as it floats around my head and asks to be written. Stuff like…

            Charles Dickens.

            DON’T LAUGH AT ME.

            No, seriously. Have you ever read his ghost stories? “The Haunted House” is a little slower and doesn’t make much sense sometimes, but that’s really the only one I’ve read that hasn’t freaked me out (too much). Just try reading “The Signalman” or “The Murder Trial” or “The Chimes” at night by yourself, tell me your organs won’t clench inward. Yeesh.

            (By the way, “The Murder Trial” has to be my favorite one. “The Signalman” runs a close second, though.)

            When you stop and think about it, today’s “horror,” today’s “ghost stories,” today’s stuff like that...well, I think it tries too hard. Let me use the movie Mama as an example. (And if you won’t let me use it, too bad; I’m going to anyway.)

            The storyline of Mama is the classic “ghost story” that we all know being told at campfires growing up. Person in some distant time had something tragic happen, something went wrong and the person died with unfinished business, this unfinished business leads the person’s ghost to attach itself to someone/something/somewhere, and some unsuspecting skeptic intrudes and eventually has to come to terms with the ghost’s existence and quest so they can help the spirit find rest. Sometimes new elements are introduced to make it “zazzy.”

            Well, the zazz has run dry. I venture to say it ran dry quite a while ago.

            Charles Dickens doesn’t follow these rules. His stories are freaky because you don’t know what to expect. The cliché got ground up by a carriage wheel in some London gutter after Dickens threw it from his window and watched it fall, laughing the whole while. He decided to take every ghost story and make it something people wouldn’t expect. Even “The Haunted House” had moments when I wanted to close my Kindle’s case and lay back in broad daylight until I had the nerve to move and not see something in every shadow, mirror, window, etc.; and THAT, my friends, is where I’m heading: prodigiousness. Unexpectedness. Unforeseeable turns of event.

            In other words, throw open the windows of your mind, and toss out the cliché.

            Let me give you an example: A story like “The Signalman” written by someone on today’s ghost story market would have the signalman be the person that gets killed by a ghost and have the ghost come after the guy who was keeping the signalman company. But in Charles Dickens’ story, the “ghosts” that the signalman was seeing were actually foreshadowing events of his own oncoming death, witnessed by someone who couldn’t see or hear any of what the signalman saw or heard, and not due to ignorance or disbelief like in today’s market. The narrator—our “someone”—simply happened to stumble into something that he had no real place in, and when he befriended the signalman he knew of the stuff despite the fact that he couldn’t see or hear it. (Which, by the way, is partly why I had a hard time swallowing when reading this one.) All these rules that Charles Dickens defied—unknowingly or not—has set a standard that I hope to follow in my own writing, no matter if I do happen to pen a ghost story or anything else.

            Hence my title of “Repudiator.”

            Like Charles Dickens, I throw open the windows of my mind and let fall every cliché we as a culture and a people have been suckered into believing as “good storytelling,” or “originality,” or anything else stupid and mundane and Mainstream-Instant-Oatmeal (MIO) and  *gag* accepted. I mean, why are they accepted??? WHY? Why must every guy be beautiful and buff and brooding-but-secretly-deep, and the women weak-but-strong-in-other-ways mice and also beautiful and annoying and whiny and—OH, I CAN’T TAKE IT.

            Anyway.

            (breathe)

            Where was I going with this? Oh, right; ghost stories and Charles Dickens.

Yeah. Like this.

            Recently my mind has established that it will not write novels for the moment

<------

            But it will manage to write short stories, which happen to be my Achilles’ heel of the Writingverse. No, let me rephrase that. Short stories happen to be my only Achilles’ heel in ALL of the Writingverse—that, by the way, is not bragging. I’m not that great at songwriting (I can’t explain that), literature and life-based fiction is completely beyond my comprehension of how to accomplish (I blame the bolt of Wonder I was hit with), articles are just now starting to form themselves for me (which is weird, seeing as I was opposed to writing journalism in any way for a long time), and I suck toaster at exegesis (I refuse to conform). Also, I fail miserably at limericks. The man from Peru shoulders no responsibility here.

            And despite all my misgivings and fear about short stories, they have a tendency of late to fill my head rather prolifically. Charles Dickens serves as a major inspiration to the ghost story that so desperately panders for my attention.

            So, despite all this talk of ghost stories, I mostly scare myself. All in the name of research, of course. At the most inconvenient time to be freaked out (alone, downstairs, in the dark), I think about something cliché from a horror story and automatically make it original. Translation: I take something predictable and scare the living nutcakes out of myself making it “original.” (Yeah, thanks, originality. Sometimes you suck.)

            All in the name of research, of course.

            And then, when my spine couldn’t possibly be tingling any more than it already is, I put the What Ifs into my head. Like, “What if a bony hand reached out from this corner and grabbed me? No, that’s cliché. Make the fingers long and thin, with no fingernails, like nasty spider legs, and gross gray. NO. PURE WHITE. And it doesn’t grab me and drag me somewhere, no. The skin is so cold I jump ten feet because the hand also went THROUGH MY ARM.”

            Or the lovely window mind-games: “What if I looked out of the window and saw something that screamed at me? No, too cliché. I wouldn’t see anything at first. What would happen is (a) the grass by the trees would rustle, something would appear and disappear like an animal, then reappear closer in shadows, then closer, then closer, and all I would see as the motion-detecting light turned on would be two white eye reflections at the edge of the shadow, where something should be able to be seen. And then, a scream…BEHIND ME.”

            And it’s all in the name of RESEARCH.

            My mind’s windows are open, but sometimes I’d like to close them. Gently, mind you. Any shattered panes would let in something…unwarranted. Like Mainstream-Instant-Oatmeal. However, if Charles Dickens taught me anything, it’s that the original, despite what anyone says or how weird it may seem to the drivel-eaters—the originality in our stories happens to be that story’s truth. And the only thing we could ever hope to convey as writers is the truth in the stories that reveal themselves to us.

            And if that truth happens to scare us white as ghosts…

            Well, so be it. Who am I to discourage creativity at its most visceral?

NOVEL REVIEW: Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

            Recently I’ve discovered that reviews rarely tell the truth about the book, especially when they come from “professionals” in the field. (Oh, yeah. I did it: quotation marks.) When I’m trying to decide whether or not to read a book, I always go to the readers for their opinions, and even then I have to be careful about ferreting out who’s telling the truth and who’s obviously bought into the media-crazed drivel surrounding “critically-acclaimed” pieces of “art.” (Let me translate: carcasses and bags of vomit dressed up with bows and little stickers. That’s right. I’m lookin’ at YOU, Life of Pi.)

            Well, I wouldn’t call Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell exactly those things, but it did push the limit into the break zone and fall into “drivel.”

Look at the cover. The insides
should deliver the implied
quirkiness the art tells of!

            The panel blurb tells the potential reader that we can expect a sort of offbeat romance between two high school misfits in 1986. And me being who I am—an exterminator and total repudiator of all things cliché—I picked up the book, brand new, and decided to give it a chance. I don’t normally dig the whole “romance” category, due to the very reason that I am a Repudiator. I wanted Eleanor & Park to be different, I really did. Unfortunately, we don’t always get what we want.

            (I’m talkin’ to YOU, Life of Pi.)

            The story starts kind of slow, with all the establishment of a normal romance. Boy meets girl (boy swears at girl because he thinks she’s drawing attention to stay hidden), they don’t necessarily click at first (he thinks she’s weird, she thinks he’s a loner on purpose, even though he’s kind of cute), they eventually find something in common (comic books, music, being misfits), which leads to mutual affection (which is slow at first because he’s worried about image and she’s worried about her douche stepdad), they have a spat that leads to a small breakup initiated by a close family member (Park’s mom), they get back together because of the same family member, then everything progresses in a kind of halting gait that stumbles upward almost like a financial chart…no, just like a financial chart.

            Only, here’s the thing. One of the “professionals” reviewed the book as “heartbreaking.” You know what happens in this book that’s supposedly heartbreaking? Eleanor moves from Nebraska to live with her uncle in Minnesota, safe and sound where she won’t be kicked out by her stepdad and doesn't get to see Park anymore. Because, honestly, in a world like we live in, living away from a bad home and a first boyfriend is SO the worst thing that could happen to us. And the reasons this bugs me are because (1) Eleanor is so much tougher than this gives her credit for. Sure she has a lot of internal thought about how her mom took her stepdad’s side, who wouldn’t have those thoughts? But Eleanor’s made out to be iron-clad, not soft like this suggests; and (2) having to move away from home for safety reasons away from your boyfriend is not heartbreaking (except in a first-world country like ours), especially with how tough Eleanor is made out to be Of course she would have tried to save her mom and siblings, but with her apparent speed of thought and quick mind, you'd think she would have found another way instead of placing herself back in such a dangerous environment. You know what would be heartbreaking? You know what would have caused the story to shoot through the roof with amazing amounts of disbelief and the feel that life truly isn’t fair, even when we think we can save someone from what’s going on in their life? If Eleanor or Park had died. Yes, I said it.

            Someone.

            Should’ve.

            DIED.

            Think about it: The book ends with Park getting a postcard from Eleanor that has three words on it (presumably, “I love you,” which she never said to his face). After 308 or so pages of buildup with Eleanor’s dysfunctional family, you know what happens? …wait for it…

            NOTHING.

Tell 'em, Merida. TELL THEM.

            That’s right; not one heartbreaking thing except that Richie is a creep and makes his “family” live in near-squalor. What would have ended the book better than a look back from a grown Eleanor or Park about how that experience of first love and what happened changed their entire outlook on life and what was important? That couldn’t have failed—if written right.

            And that’s not the only weak aspect of the book. Far from it.

            First, the issues that were presented were brushed lightly through the book instead of making it deeper and more thought-provoking than it ended up being. You have two dysfunctional families here. Park’s, which likes to sweep stuff under the rug and act like everything’s okay while tension simmers and a fight explodes and they make up and do the same thing over again; and Eleanor’s, which likes to sweep things under the rug while Richie’s around and talk about it secretly and yell at each other and simmer and never make up. Not to mention you had the entire bullying issue at the school and the self-confidence with both Park and Eleanor. Potential littered this book so heavily that it could’ve been given a citation. Sadly, the litter stayed in the gutter and was never swept up to be dealt with properly.

            Several issues were frequent and ofttimes presented major issues for Eleanor and Park both, but they were glossed over with some crap-colored veneer and left out in the blue as if to say, “THERE! I fixed it!”

No, not fixed.

Um, gross. Definitely not fixed.

...honestly? NO.

WHAT THE HECK??? STOP BEING SO STUPID!!!

            For example, the whole Tina thing. Why did she randomly stop bullying Eleanor and actually help her near the end of the book, then never inquire to Park what happened to the girl that sort of randomly disappeared from school without a warning?

            And who plugged the toilet in the gym locker room with Eleanor’s clothes, and why?

            And Park’s self-induced exile. What brought him to the point where he wanted to be out of the crowd even though he skirts around admitting he could be just as popular as the back-of-bussers, yet chooses, far before Eleanor arrives, to be an outcast? Without any given explanation?

            And why Eleanor never started to think better of herself, even at the 280-page mark, and in a book with only 320 pages, that’s a boo-boo.

NOT THAT BOO BOO.

                I mean, what? Come on. Seriously, self-confidence issues don’t last that long when you’re doused with love like Park and his family doused on Eleanor at that point, not to mention the fact that DeNice and Beebi were really, really strong pillars of support in her school life.

            And that’s another thing: Why did DeNice and Beebi never invite Eleanor out anywhere if they were such good friends? They show up in gym and lunch, disappear, and we don’t hear from them again until the next gym or lunch scene. Really, Rainbow Rowell? Really? So much for “supporting” characters; the best chances at normalcy in Eleanor’s school hours—because I guarantee you Park wasn’t always there—is stripped from her all the time. This infrequency is the equivalent of giving a blind man a cane some days and taking it away on others. (“Hey, I’m glad I gave that to you yesterday, but today, nah. Today you’re on your own.”)

            And why is the fact that Eleanor and Park are honors students so highly stressed if it never plays into a situation in the entire 320-page “smart” romance? Ever? This fact is mentioned so many times, you’re bound to think, “Hey, this is important.” Guess what? IT’S NOT. The topic is never touched on besides passing thoughts and getting Eleanor into the same classes as Park. One word:

            And Park’s obviously and overtly under-used taekwondo skills. He uses a jump reverse hook to Steve’s head while the guy’s picking on Eleanor, and Park’s dad, who’s pretty much the taekwondo master, shrugs it off like, “Hey, cool. You were in a fight and did an awesome move. Good for you.” Um, if my kid who I thought was a screw-up actually pulled off a move like this, I’m pretty sure I’d have a bigger reaction. (After being upset they started a fight, of course. But still. Who wouldn't be impressed?)

            And why Park never did anything about Richie when he, Park, found out what had happened to Eleanor and her family. He could have at least called State Troopers if the Omaha Flats-area police department cared so little. You know, Park, for an honors student you’re not quite as bright as you should be.

            Aaaand the kicker: Richie’s douchebaggery. The biggest thing about this book is that Richie, Eleanor’s stepdad, is a total ass, and we’re never given resolution. Yeah, I know, life doesn’t always give us resolution, but that’s why we don’t sit around and wait for it. We make it happen. If the person won’t listen to us, we forgive them and move on. That way it rests on that person’s head and not ours; that way our hearts are settled and theirs can stew for all we care, it’s not ours to deal with once we let it go. (To wit, Matthew 6:14-15.)

            That being said, here are my problems with Richie.

(1)   He never shows any crude or weird interest in Eleanor, so why would he have any motive whatsoever to write that stuff on her books or freak out about the stuff in her fruit box? Honestly, he goes through this book doing nothing but sitting on the couch or at the bar, drinking both places or sleeping it off, and doesn’t pay a hoot of attention to Eleanor. This. Makes. NO. SENSE.

(2)   He beats his wife, but the kids, excluding Eleanor, he treats like gold. Coming from a family with an abusive father, I know that this is very seldom the case. The abuser—my dad, in this case—abused my mom any way but physically (she warned him that if he knocked her down, he better make sure she stayed there or he’d know it) and hit my brothers (if he’d have hit me, Mom would’ve really beaned him beyond repair). Eleanor’s family-wide abuser—Richie, in that case—ignored her, was violent with her mom, and left the kids alone, even the ones that weren’t his. I’ve never seen this before in abuse cases. And, no, it’s not in the “originality vein” because “originality” for life-based fiction uses issues that are…well, life-based.

(3)   Richie kicks Eleanor out for no reason. She was typing song lyrics on a typewriter. In her room. While the TV was on in the other room. And the door was shut. I’m pretty sure that unless the inventor of the cannon had a hand in the keys’ sound, Richie wouldn’t have heard her typing. Not even a little. And besides that, this reason seems to have escalated out of nowhere, because Eleanor doesn’t give any other definitive purpose for being kicked out besides that one incident with the typewriter. How much sense does this make? In a word,

(4)   If the cops in town knew about Richie’s problems and douchebaggery, why did they shrug off Eleanor’s phone call when they would have known due to his previous character that Richie had done something to make his stepdaughter call the cops? I mean, come on. Really, Rainbow Rowell? Really???

It's...it's so beautiful!

So! Eleanor & Park ultimately served as a reminder to me, personally, that one should NEVER trust “rave reviews” and the “professionals” that give them; that readers should always be consulted before picking something up, because they are the ultimate ones to be trusted; that I really shouldn’t buy books I don’t plan on keeping anyway so I have a little extra money in my pocket. (Thank you dearly, Mom, for bringing me back down to earth and reminding me of the realm called “Library!”)

When all 320 pages have passed and all we’ve gotten is a skim-milk Romeo & Juliet redo, which seems to be an awful fashion lately, we have another addition to the pile of books never to be read. Honestly. Just don’t. Eleanor & Park gets 2 torn pages out of 10.