Review: The Butterfly Mosque by G Willow Wilson

by BiographyMemoirNon-Fiction

The Butterfly Mosque is a memoir. It’s not an autobiography because it doesn’t run a perfect timeline. Willow (I think the G stands for Gwendolyn, but don’t quote me) jumps back and forth quite a bit between using ‘I remember when…’ and ‘I was doing…’ which for me, made the story more engaging. It’s also a bit of a travel narrative as Willow spends a year immersed in Muslim culture in Egypt. This is not a book about Islam. It has lots of references to Islam, Islamic writers and the Quran* and the main character does convert to Islam within the first few chapters of the book, but it’s still not a book about Islam. It is a book about Willow, the faith and culture she embraces and the many, many contradictions she sees while being an American girl married to an Egyptian in a Muslim country.

Willow heads to Egypt after college to spend a year teaching at an English language school in Cairo. Having secretly and somewhat uncomfortably, given her atheist background and the recent events of September 11, embraced Islam, Willow arrives in Egypt with little knowledge of the culture, but ready to embrace all that it entails . She meets Omar and finds herself falling in love with a man she has never even touched. Determined to stay in Egypt with Omar, Willow officially converts to Islam and marries him. Despite being welcomed into Omar’s family and free to worship the god she has chosen, Willow finds assimilation into Egyptian culture difficult. She slowly becomes more and more accepted in her community, but there are problems when she wants to travel the Middle East and even more difficulty when she wants to return home to the States.

This book is a loving recount of a young girl’s year in Egypt. Willow speaks of her hardships and her joys in gorgeous prose and writes observations about religion, culture and humanity that are wise beyond her years. My favourites include

‘With remarkable foresight, the chancellor of BU [Boston University] kept classes in session that day, becoming one of the first to argue that if we disrupted our way of life we would be helping the terrorists.’

‘This is the heart of the clash of civilisations: not the hatred of the Other, but the self-hatred produced by the Other. This is what makes hatred so easy to propagate, and so difficult to counter even for those who question it’s authenticity.’

‘It was such a tantalizing contradiction, being a woman in the Middle East – far less free than a woman in the West, but far more appreciated. When people wonder why Arab women defend their culture, they focus on the way woman who don’t follow the rules are punished, and fail to consider the way women who do follow the rules are rewarded. When I finished an article or essay, all I got was an email from an editor saying, “thanks, got it.” When I cooked an iftar meal during Ramadan, a dozen tender voices blessed my hands.’

Doesn’t that last line just make your heart want to weep and sing at the same time? This book is challenging and engaging. It took me a long time to read and even longer to digest in order to write this review.** Read it if you are not Muslim in order to get a little bit of insight into a challenging and adoring world from the point of view of someone who is western born and educated (and therefore a little skeptical). Read it if you are Muslim for a sweet story of love and acceptance and of finding god when god was hard to find. Read it if you are atheist, change the capital g in god it a little g and you will still enjoy the story! But read it. Even if you don’t agree with everything that Willow says – I certainly didn’t, there were some very confronting parts to this book for me – you will still love the story and the writing is superb.

What have you read lately that made your heart sing? I’ve promised Richard that once I finish The Curse of the Mistwraith I’ll finally read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy***, but after that I’m wide open – give me something to read!

*There are like a bazillion ways to spell this word. Don’t bash me.

**Simple as it is.

***42 is now a running joke in our house.

Review: Shadow Prowler by Alexey Pehov

by FantasyFiction

Shadow Prowler was published in Russia in 2002 and only translated this year. I wish they had translated the whole series (from what I can gather, its quite popular in Russia) in one go, because I’m rather hooked and can’t wait to see what happens next. I found this novel on the ‘new books’ shelf at the library and grabbed it – it totally satisfies my cravings for decent, original, fast-paced fantasy and my obsession with anything Russian!

The story is about Harold, a master thief, who is commissioned by the king to sneak into an ancient tomb which has been overrun by an unnamed evil in order to recast the binding spells keeping a vengeful wizard and his rampaging army out of the kingdom. In the meantime, there seems to be a new threat arising in the mysterious Master, who has spies and minions everywhere. Harold sets out with an unlikely bunch of companions – a group of soldiers, magical elves, the kings jester and a long-dead archwizard who only exists inside Harold’s head. When the elves cast a spell in order to help Harold enter the tomb, Harold finds himself reliving memories that don’t belong to him. In order to survive the journey and the task which lays at the end of the road, Harold will have to piece together the puzzles of the past and gather every skill he has ever learned and even perhaps listen to a nonsensical prophecy sung by a tiny green man wearing a jesters bell cap.

It takes a few chapters to get used to how this book is written. It’s in first person but also completely in present tense. While this makes somethings a little hard to follow, it has the advantage of drawing you right into the story. The little flashbacks are put in chapters of their own, in italics, so it’s easy to see how they are separate from the main story, but get interwoven in. the characters are well drawn and the development of Harold and Kli-Kli and the relationship between them is just so rich and intricate, you feel like you have known them for a lot longer than one book. the mythology is fantastic, drawn partially from Russian mythology and partially from Pehov’s brilliant mind. I really can’t wait for the next installment to be translated. Andrew Bromfield has done a fantastic job and the prose is flowing and melodic throughout – I couldn’t even tell it was a translation. Some beautiful little pieces of prose make your heart sing and your mind forget that you’re reading fantasy, not high literature. Even people who don’t appreciate the fantasy genre (get OFF my blog!) will enjoy this tale – while it does have elves and orcs and shamanism, it also has brilliant renderings of tactical battles and gorgeous descriptions of landscapes and a heavy dose of breathtaking adventure.

Review: The Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

by Fiction

I always thought I’d read quite a bit by Isabel Allende. I know i’ve read City of the Beasts, because I bought it for my mum when I was younger and I always end up reading the thing is buy her. And I’ve read Daughter of Fortune and enjoyed it. But I read the blurbs to My Invented Country and Portrait in Sepia and Zorro – books I could swear I’ve read – and nothing rings a bell. I can see I’ll have to grab them from the library in the near future, along with Aphrodite and the other auto-biographical books.

Anyway, I’m glad I picked this up. I’ve heard it described as a ’sweeping’ historical novel and I think that’s an apt description. One that I’m trying hard to explain, but apt. It’s a long book – I read it over two nights and was very, very tired for both the following days. But it doesn’t get boring, it doesn’t have any filler bulking it up – you get the feeling Allende actually CUT stuff in order to fit this many pages, the prose is perfectly streamlined and exacting – and every word is brilliant. Allende doesn’t tell a story, she weaves one. Each thread is determined, examined, introduced and then entwined. The end result is a beautiful story, full of detail.

It’s the story of Zarite, a mulatto slave on a St Domingue (now Haiti) sugar plantation. Bought to care for the master’s enfeebled wife and young son, Maurice, Zarite is repeatedly raped by Toulouse Valmorain, the owner of the plantation, and bears him two children, the second of whom she is allowed to keep. When the plantation is overwhelmed by rebel forces, Zarite and her lover save the master and his son in exchange for her freedom. When they arrive in New Orleans, Zarite begs Toulouse to let her go, but he refuses, instead keeping her on his new plantation despite the aggravation of the new mistress over the existence of Rosette, the beautiful quadroon daughter of Zarite and Toulouse, and her relationship with Maurice.

Ok, so the story is impossible to sum up in short paragraphs. Just read it. Make the effort, it’s worth it!

Review: The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell

by FantasyFiction

When I told Richard that I finished this book, he asked if it was any good and the only word I could find to describe it was devastating. And then I sat at the computer for 20 minutes trying to write a review that didn’t include a spoiler. It’s still not coming easy.

This book is set in a post-apocalyptic America where zombies (the shuffling, moaning kind, not the super fast ones) attempt to feast upon the scattered living population while hillbilly mutants distill the zombies into chitin-inducing stimulants. And in the middle, a fifteen year old girl is trying to get redemption for her sins, but that redemption is following too close on her heels for her liking. And if you are not already racing off to beg, borrow or steal your own copy from that brief endorsement, then you are dead to me (with a pencil shoved into your brain via your nostril to make sure you stay that way).

The book has some quirks. Dialogue isn’t contained within quotation marks and at times it’s a little hard to tell if the main character, Temple, is talking to herself, someone else or just inside her own head. The technique adds to the ambiance of the novel however, and is worth taking the time to puzzle through. The speech patterns and dialect of the characters is also peculiar. It is how I imagine people would talk in post apocalyptic America where only the strong and ruthless survived and then spent a little too much time alone with only themselves to talk to. The only inconsistency I found was that Temple is illiterate and was raised in an orphanage and in foster care before setting out on the road, but her speech is peppered with words and ideas far above what you’d expect for her position.

The book is full of lofty ideals slightly twisted by the fact that there are zombies staggering around trying to eat people. Temple believes in God, a god “too big to need the supplication of the puny wanderers of the earth”. She believes in fate and beauty and revenge. And she tries, in her own way to live up to these beliefs, taking the mute Maury across country to find his family despite the fact that it leaves her open to danger. It’s a novel about the hope of humanity in a country fallen to ruin. And at the same time, the book is a judgment on mankind’s ability to fall back onto base instinct. The ‘slugs’ retain enough memory to hold hands, to climb aboard a still-moving carousel, to endlessly repeat actions they made while alive. They are still human, and yet not. They are driven by a hunger which pushing them forward constantly, despite threat or futility. The want to feed. The need for flesh. Mindless and craving.

The book describes my ideal apocalypse, if ever an apocalypse could be considered ideal. Slow moving zombies are only dangerous if you stay still long enough to have them mob you or if they take you by surprise. Temple has her gurkha knife, but there is no shortage of guns and ammunition left by evacuees. And she picks up 6 packs of coke in abandoned corner shops all across the country. If we must suffer a government-released zombie virus that heralds the end of the world, sign me up to be a reaper.

Review: I’m watching you by Karen Rose

by CrimeFiction

I have a confession to make. I love trashy crime novels. Something about the combination of lurid sex scenes, gore and suspense just totally does it for me. Especially if it involves a sassy-yet-secretly-damaged female lead and a gorgeous-strong-and-silent-type male. Especially if there is sexual tension for half the book and constant smooching for the rest.

It’s bad fiction. It’s an anathema to literature. And I can’t get enough.

I know that Karen Rose’s books do have a reading order, but it’s fairly loose. The books of hers that I have read have linked together in a way which makes them perfect as stand alones or in sequence – this particular novel is linked to You Can’t Hide (Aidan Reagan, Abe’s Brother) and Nothing to Fear (Dana Dupinsky, Mia Mitchell’s friend) and probably others that I haven’t read. I love the idea of coming back to characters I’ve met before, while being introduced to new ones. This technique means Rose’s books are new and fresh, but with some familiar faces and stomping grounds.

I’m watching you is the story of Kirsten Mayhew, a prosecutor who feels each loss in the courtroom keenly as she pours her whole life into her job. Abe Reagan is also a man living for his work, after the murder of his wife Debra left him hollow and angry. When a serial killers starts targeting criminals who escaped justice ay Kirsten’s hands, Abe and his new partner Mia Mitchell are put on the case. Soon Kirsten and Abe fall in love despite their best intentions, but can he protect her against the growing number of criminals crying for her blood, a vindictive reporter who will stop at nothing to get her scoop and a vigilante killer who dedicates each kill to Kirsten?

Of course he can, but you already knew that. Karen Rose’s novels do have happy endings. The characters always realize that they were meant for each other. The bad guys always end up dead or in jail. And if a few bystanders get shot or maimed along the way, well then you’ll know they wont appear in the next book. It’s crime lite and while there is gore aplenty and enough suspense to make me stay up past my bedtime in order to finish, these books do focus heavily on the romance and s-e-x. Don’t worry – the sex scenes are juicy, realistic and not overly corny. No turgid members here! This attention to detail is also put to good use in character development – Rose’s novels are filled with single mums, single dads, grandparents raising children, dedicated professional types who work long hours and mobsters who just have their families best interests at heart. The main characters and their occupations are documented faithfully, their neurosis are well researched and believable and if everything wraps up a little too neatly at the end, rather than giving up on the series, I’m more inclined to sigh and think “god I wish my life was like that. Maybe I should become a lawyer..”

January Reading List

by To Read List

I love starting the year with an ambitious reading list. 2011 is going to be such a fantastic year for books and I’m starting it off with some amazing reads.

The Secret of Lost Things
by Sheridan Hay
A book about books! And bookshops! And the main character is an Australian living in New York. What’s not to love?

Simplicity
by Bill Jensen
A book with tools and strategies to simplify and still expand business in the information age.

Behemoth
by Scott Westerfeld
The second book in the Leviathan trilogy set in a counterfactual world where Darwin not only discovered DNA, but how to use it to ‘evolve’ new combinations of creatures to help Britain win World War One. The axis forces use huge machines rather than fabricated ‘beasties’. In this book, Deryn is still posing as a boy in the British Air Services and alongside Alek (the son of assassinated Franz Ferdinand), she is now in enemy territory and must not only escape with the mysterious egg, but pull her new-found friends through as well.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
by Barbara Kingsolver
Kingsolvers famous year of seasonal eating book, which I’m finally getting around to reading!

In Defense of Food
by Michael Pollan
“In Defense of Food shows us how, despite the daunting dietary landscape Americans confront in the modern supermarket, we can escape the Western diet and, by doing so, most of the chronic diseases that diet causes. We can relearn which foods are healthy, develop simple ways to moderate our appetites, and return eating to its proper context – out of the car and back to the table.”–BOOK JACKET.

Spirit Gate
by Kate Elliot
A fantasy novel where a country being rapidly overrun by evil from the North can only be saved by a foreign military band betrayed by their superiors and forced to flee. Oh, and there are giant eagles and horses with wings. 🙂

One Second After
by William R. Forstchen
One town in America’s reaction to an EMP attack.

The Brand called You
by Peter Motoya
How to use personal branding, marketing and social media channels to build a successful business based on referrals and exclusivity.

Review: The Nature Of Jade

by AdolescentAuthor LoveFictionRomance

This is one of those books that I read in an afternoon. I sat on the couch while Avalon watched Dora and read. I stirring boiling pots and set the table with one hand while I read. I tucked Kaidin into bed absently while my eyes didn’t leave the page*. And then I poured myself a glass of wine and drank that one handed while waiting for Richard to arrive. I could not put the book down. And when I finally finished it, I felt a little undone** and a little raw and I emailed the author to thank her for writing the book, which I almost never do. It was a one line note about how it left me feeling wonder-filled and more than a little voyeuristic. And the very next day I got:

Hi Shannon –

What a sweet note! Thank you so much for writing, and for reading JADE. I’m happy you liked it. Wonder-filled… Lovely. 🙂

Fondly,

Deb Caletti

Don’t you love it when authors actually take the time to write back? So sweet.

Anyway, the Nature of Jade is about a 17 year old girl with acute anxiety disorder (one of the ones that I have) who signs up as a zoo volunteer to help care for the elephants. Through the elephants, she meets a young man with a toddler and is fascinated by him. Arranging an ‘accidental’ meeting turns into a date and then dinner and then more. Jade finds herself rapidly falling in love with Sebastian and Bo and even with Sebastian’s acerbic grandmother. But of course, what’s a relationship without it’s skeleton in the closet? Where is Bo’s mum? Why doesn’t Sebastian want to talk about it? And when it comes down to it, will Jade do the right thing and risk losing her love forever?

If Deb Caletti doesn’t suffer from anxiety then I applaud the research she has done. Yes the book does go into detail about anxiety, it’s causes and physical symptoms and why it can be so debilitating for a teenager and this detail may upset or put off some readers. But it’s so real. And I have to applaud Jade (and Caletti) for delving into an illness that is so often stigmatised and shelved into the dark recesses of society. It’s so common, at least where I live, and yet no one talks about it, especially in fiction. Especially not with such an accurate portrayal of a young girl suffering from anxiety while trying to deal with other things – end of high school, first love, parental problems. i felt quite voyeuristic while reading this book, as if I was actually peeking through a literary window into the life of a real girl.

This book is easy to get stuck in. It may be a bit of a hard read for some people who see themselves mirrored in the main characters and I’d suggest to any anxiety sufferers to make sure you are in a safe place before you dive in as some scenes may trigger an attack. But it’s worth reading – humorous, sad, real, accurate and all poured together with gorgeous writing and a character who is genuinely likable, despite her (or perhaps because of) her quirks. Track down a copy today and when you finish, move onto to Caletti’s other novels, which are all gorgeous and engaging. xx

*I know, mother of the year right? He totally understands 🙂
**Although, that could have been partially because one glass of wine turned into 3…