BARELY BEWITCHED by Kimberly Frost

BARELY BEWITCHED is the second in Frost's "Southern Witch Novel" series.  I reviewed WOULD-BE WITCH in 2009, and for more background on the series, it's best to start there.

As with my previous review of Frost's book, I offer this declaimer: This is a minor friend full-disclosure.  While I don't know Kimberly that well, we do travel in the same circles and have a lot of friends in common.  


And with this review, that disclaimer is kind of important.

When you're talking about books written by people that you know, or even sort of know, things get a little tricky.  Especially when you know them, as I do Frost, precisely because they're uber-talented.  When you have a talented writer acquaintance who has finally made the big leagues of publishing, there's sometimes a disparity between what they've actually published and what you wish they had published.  You probably sensed that a little from my review of WOULD-BE WITCH.  And it remains true for BARELY BEWITCHED.

In both books, Frost's writing sings.  Our narrator is funny and sarcastic and smart, and the descriptions and setting feel real and paint authentic Texas in your mind's eye.  But the narrator's obvious smarts are undermined by the relationships that she has.  Her ex-husband is controlling and piggish-- but somehow still attractive to her?  The budding love interest, Bryn, demeans her on one hand and lusts for her on the other.  Why would an obviously spunky, bright woman like Tammy Jo forge these kinds of relationships?

The good news is that by the end of BARELY BEWITCHED, Tammy Jo Trask seems to be headed in the right direction as a character and with her relationships. A direction that is much more worthy of her and her author.

In BARELY BEWITCHED, our hapless amateur witch has snagged the attention of the greater witching community.  It's clear now that her powers are significant, if untamed, and the World Association of Magic has sent two sketchy characters to come and train her for a test so she can join the community or... well, fail and die.  But when Tammy Jo fails an initial challenge, she's punished with a curse that unwittingly causes her to unleash pixie dust upon poor Duval, Texas, sending the entire town into an orgiastic, destructive fit of bacchanalia.  Like WBW with the invasion of werewolves, BB puts the entire town on the line.  If Tammy Jo and her cohorts can't figure their way out of this, the whole town (more?) is a ticking time bomb.

BB picks up right after WBW ends, so the entire cast of characters from Frost's debut novel are poised to help-- and poised to be the same jerks they were in WBW.  Kyle, Tammy's ex husband, is still there at the beginning of the book, so vile with doubt and machismo that he's talking about having Tammy committed for all of her chitchat about ghosts and witches and whatnot-- despite the fact that he spent the end of WBW fighting off werewolves (Yeah, he doesn't think they were real).  But by the end of BB, Kyle grows and becomes far more sympathetic, and now I'm actually intrigued to find out how his relationship with Tammy Jo will develop in Book 3.  The increasingly appealing Bryn Lyons begins BB as the savior for Tammy's damsel in distress, but as the book progresses, the two become much more evenly matched and start to take turns saving each other's hides.  By the end, we're actually not sure who's saving whom.

I devoured BARELY BEWITCHED because Frost's writing is just so darned good.  And I'm so happy to say that my sense is that this book is the stepping stone to more Southern Witch Books starring the very appealing Tammy Jo who is now really starting to be a heroine in her own right.

I happen to know that Kimberly Frost is just about as kick-ass, liberated, smart a chick as you can imagine.  And that definitely clouds my reviews of her book.  I want a Tammy Jo who's more like Kimberly.  And I think now, we're starting to get one.

WOULD-BE WITCH by Kimberly Frost

WOULD-BE WITCH needs a minor "friend full disclosure." While I don't know Kimberly all that well, we travel in the same circles. Just FYI.

A reviewer compared Frost's first novel to Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, and I totally see it. Tammy Jo Trask, Frost's "would-be witch," is sassy and funny and quick to whip out the feminine wiles to get what she needs or wants.

The Trask family isn't the only family of powerful witches in the tiny town of Duval, TX-- in fact, Duval may be to witches what Cabot Cove was to murderers. There's also the Lyons family, including hunky Bryn Lyons who may be a bad ass good guy or may be the bad guy. And werwolves. And a ghost of a witch who lives in a locket. And gay vampires. And...

The story revolves around the theft of the previously mentioned locket. As luck would have it for Tammy Jo, who didn't inherit her family's serious witch mojo-- we think--, the powerful members of her family are out of town and not due back for a while. Not only that, but she's just been fired and she's dead broke and her ex-husband is all up in her grill. So it's a bad time, but it's up to her to get the locket-- and her family ghost, Edie-- back. With the help of a truly awesome kitty cat (my favorite character in the book) and the suspicious aid of Bryn Lyons, Tammy Jo gets tangled up in a dangerous subculture (for lack of a better word) as the hidden magical world of Duval spins out of control and begins to threaten the safety (and ignorance) of the town's non-magical citizens.

Frost has an excellent sense of humor-- great comedic timing. That's the best part of this book. I'm not the ideal audience for chick lit/romance. Most of the reviewers of Frost's book, both on Amazon and on her own site, say that the love triangle between Tammy Jo, Bryn, and Tammy Jo's ex-husband Kyle is "hot." I found her damsel-in-distress-ness kind of unappealing after a while, and both men in her life made me a bit squeamish. (Especially Kyle, who is wicked pushy and alpha-male-y and doesn't even believe in the ghost in the locket or all this witch stuff-- why would she marry this guy in the first place, and why the heck is she still schtupping him??)

But this book bummed me out in the way that Christopher Moore's books sometimes bum me out. I love Christopher Moore, and I love the humor in WOULD-BE WITCH. CM's books are must-reads, but their female characters are total stereotypes more often than not. Frost's writing rocks; I just wish Tammy Jo was a character I could sink my teeth into (bad vampire pun).

WOULD-BE WITCH is the first book in a series, and my hope is that as Tammy Jo develops as a character, she'll whip out her inner ocelot and start saving herself a bit more often. (And she can start by saving herself from her jerkoff ex-husband!!)

TWILIGHT by Stephanie Meyer

Really? That's what all this fuss is about?? Sparkly bear-sucking vampires? Seriously? I'm stunned. I mean, it wasn't a BAD read. But Harry Potter it ain't, folks. I'd put that in all caps if it weren't super-abnoxious to do so. But it bears (no pun intended) repeating: Harry Potter it ain't.

I've read JK Rowling, and you, Stephanie Meyer, are no JK Rowling.

I'm kind of bummed, to be honest. Some of my favorite students are loyal Twilighters. But, freak though she is, I'll take Anne Rice and her Lestat (et al) over Meyer and her Cullens any day.

What impresses me most, though, is that these voracious teens kept reading. Some of TWILIGHT is seriously, swamp-slogging slow.

I zoomed through the book in an effort to finish it before the movie came out, and I would have made it had there not been these scenes that totally stalled out. (Another scene in bio class? Another scene in the lunch room? Oh Lordy, who ever thought teen drama could be so undramatic!?) But with the current reviews of the movie, I don't think I'll bother. First of all, the book didn't grab me. Secondly, have you seen the lead actor's eyebrows? Not what I'd call hot stuff-- I give him twenty more years before he starts to look like Robin Williams. And apparently the actress who plays Bella is even more sullen than the actual character of Bella, who is already intolerably sullen.

Will I read the other two books? Probably, in due time. I have a hard time putting down books in a series. And I have to give credit to any book that gets kids (or keeps kids) reading. But I understood Harry Potter. I adored Harry Potter. I will defend Harry Potter and the quality of Rowling's work to the end. The HP series was about so much more than just a teen wizard. I admire the Meyer story and I admire the effect she's had on teens. But I don't admire her work, thus far. TWILIGHT, however, doesn't seem much more than just a Harlequin Romance for teens.

FOOL ON THE HILL by Matt Ruff (re-read)

Still amazing even the fourth time around.

THE NAME OF THE WIND by Patrick Rothfuss

WIND represents the first book in the Kingkiller Chronicle, a trilogy in the purest sense of the word. I don’t know whether it’s the marketplace (“I have to wrap up the story of Book One because who knows if Book Two will be bought”) or just modern convention, but trilogies—even series: Harry Potter?— these days have more in common with stand-alone books than they do with their serial ancestors. But THE NAME OF THE WIND is truly a “first of three”—and as a modern reader, used to the stand-alone-ish books in a series—I couldn’t help but be frustrated.

First of all, WIND (and one can’t help but assume the entire series) is an astonishing achievement: seven hundred-plus pages of extraordinarily rich and dense fiction in the most classic fantasy style. It’s the story (oral autobiography, really) of Kvothe, the unremarkable tavern keeper, who is truly his land’s greatest hero (and sometimes anti-hero) hiding in plain sight under a false identity. When his story (which he tells for posterity to the Chronicler—Book 1 representing Day 1 of the storytelling) begins, Kvothe is living a bucolic and charmed childhood, the son of traveling players, and the apprentice to an arcanist (wizard?). His path is altered by tragedy and eventually reconstructed as a quest for revenge.

The book’s plotting is remarkable (even more so because one assumes Rothfuss is keeping many of his balls in the air until the end of the series—his website tells us that he’s “finished” Kvothe’s story, if not perfected it). Many of the minor characters are well drawn and “alive” and interesting (Bast and Auri come to mind). And frankly, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a book so “well-blurbed”—anybody who’s anybody in classic fantasy has labeled Rothfuss the Next Big Thing.

Maybe I’m just a tough sell these days. But as I read this book, it made me truly understand one of the many reasons that the Harry Potter series is truly worth every bit of love and honor that has been heaped upon it. Simply put, Harry is a real kid. Everyone, even baddies like Malfoy and Snape and Voldemort, is real. My chief complaint about WIND was my chief complaint about the MAXIMUM RIDE books. Rothfuss creates a young/teenaged Kvothe that’s as savvy, sexy, sophisticated, and smooth-talking as—well, as a ridiculously savvy, sexy, sophisticated, and smooth-talking twenty something. I don’t care if “living on the streets” is supposed to make you old beyond your years, Kvothe woos with spontaneous poetry and makes difficult choices unclouded by the fog of youth. He suffers existentially but not with the usual teenaged confusion. As I said, the plotting is excellent, and the young Kvothe’s story is appropriately messy and flawed and full of bad choices, but the character of young Kvothe processes these challenges with the sophistication of an adult with a PhD in philosophy.

Rothfuss dips his toes into post-modern meta-fiction at times, both with the multiple levels of narration and fluidity of time and with instances of self-reference. At times this is precious and clever, but at times it read as an ass-saving mood. Just when you think Kvothe’s biography is delving into long held fantasy clichés, Rothfuss-as-Kvothe interjects and says something along the lines of “I know what you expect now—young runaway finds wizened old mentor who teaches him everything he knows and then dies a shocking death—but that’s not exactly what happened.” And sure, it’s not exactly what happened, but it’s kind of what happened. No amount of winky self-awareness can dull the edge of WIND as a veritable buffet of conventional-fantasy events. Here’s the one where he fights the dragon. Here’s the one where the woman with the beautiful voice turns out to be the woman he’s had a crush on. Here’s the one where his rival destroys the one thing he’s sentimental about. Here’s the one where the crazy sage turns out to be the wisest one.

There is no doubt in my mind that this book is worthy of much of the hype when it comes to sheer accomplishment. I just can’t understand the abundance of dwarf-adults that populate fiction for or about children. It may be worth noting (as I noted in my review of the MAXIMUM RIDE books) that it appears that Patterson didn’t have a daughter and that Rothfuss doesn’t have children. As Kvothe grows, so does his humanity, and in the grand scheme of things (grand scheme = three epic-length books) my gripe may represent a drop in the bucket.

The fact that I was ticked off when I realized that I would have to wait til April 2009 for the next installment means I was more invested than I thought I was. I hope Rothfuss can maintain the momentum.

MAXIMUM RIDE (series) by James Patterson (first three books of series)

When I got sick, I figured the best way that my kids could help me out was by lending me books. The only rule was that they had to include an index card inside the book to tell me why they thought I would enjoy the book.

Knowing that I enjoy the occasional fantasy/sci-fi, a student lent me THE ANGEL EXPERIMENT, SCHOOL'S OUT FOREVER, and SAVING THE WORLD AND OTHER EXTREME SPORTS, Young Adult novels by popular best-selling author James Patterson. There is one other book out in the series, another book to come, and a movie in the works. Also, there's a huge web presence for this series and its heroine, the 14 year old Maximum Ride, anchored by the epic and frequently updated blog belonging to Max's friend Fang and the rest of her "flock."

Honestly, YA books are always a tough sell for me, even when they're written by experienced authors and authors of books that I love. Both Michael Chabon (SUMMERLAND) and Carl Hiaasen (FLUSH and HOOT) have let me down even though they rank up there in my top ten living writers.

The Maximum Ride books are similarly thin. I say similarly because, in general, all of these writers share the same fatal flaw and that's that one has to wonder how much time they spend with actual young adults.

I devoured the three books in less than two days. They were zippy reads and the plot (baddies in the science world have created and abused a series of mutant human beings) was compelling albeit deeply lacking in originality: mutant hybrid children with special abilities often derived from animals living in a School with some adults wanting to "use" them for good and others wanting to "use" them for evil. Has Patterson never seen/read/been exposed to X-MEN and TEEN TITANS?? More importantly, does his editor not have truck with this enormous comic and film phenom?

Can James Patterson write anything (and poorly at that) and get it sold? Yes. Yes he can. And he can because every single one of these books hit #1 on the Times Best Seller List.

I just can't believe that teens aren't insulted by these books, or at the very least by the protagonist Max Ride. Other characters fare better; her friend/possible love interest Fang, for example, is more nuanced and charming. Even the talking dog is infinitely more lovable than Max. Max makes me wonder if Patterson likes teen girls or merely finds them snarky and sarcastic. Max acts far older than her 14 years and she can't let three lines pass without throwing in a bitchy zinger.

It's pretty telling that Patterson appears to only have a single child, a son named Jack. Max represents the worst of teenaged girls blown out to stereotype. She's selfish; albeit the "mother" to her "flock"-- Max mothers her flock because it feeds Max's own need to be needed. She's short-sighted. She's incredibly easily irritated and moody. She's finicky and her allegiences change with the breeze. I'm not a mom of a teen girl, but I taught teen girls exclusively for 5 years and taught teen girls and boys for three additional years-- and heck, I WAS a teen girl for seven years-- and I'm terribly put off by Max (and to a certain extent the other female characters Nudge and Angel).

I was also pretty shocked by the extreme level of violence in these books. There's a great deal of blood and smashed bones and wanton murder.

But yes, I read all three books. The student who loaned me the book is an excellent kid. I just hope she saw through Max's thin persona as the creation of a man who needs a few more (young) women in his life.

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

Back in January, I vowed to not read any more books that were compared to Catcher in the Rye. Well, Catcher in the Rye is just about the only book that The Raw Shark Texts has not been compared to. I left my copy of the book at home tonight, but the cover and the inside first few pages is awash with praise, most of it by way of comparisons to (from memory alone): The Matrix, Memento, Borges, Auster, Melville, Jaws, Douglas Adams, the Da Vinci Code, Murakami, Lewis Carroll… the list, truly, is almost to the point of the absurd.

But while the comparisons between Bad Monkeys/Prep and Catcher are clumsy at best and a farce at worst, nearly all of the above comparisons to the Raw Shark Texts are, at least, plausible.

A better reviewer might be able to pinpoint where the genre emerged—the genre of “main character wakes up and has no idea who he/she is and appears to be suffering from nearly complete amnesia.” I cannot. I trace my exposure to said genre to the film Memento, the 2000 psychological thriller featuring an underrated Guy Pearce. Amnesia is not a requirement of this genre; the protagonist must only have a tenuous grasp on reality, a sense that what he or she knows of his or her life may or may not be the “truth” (hence the comparisons to The Matrix, and even to the recent Sci Fi Channel production, Tin Man).

Eric Sanderson wakes in an apartment that he soon finds is his own. He knows his name only from the driver’s license in his pocket. Leaning against the front door is an envelope addressed to him; he opens it and finds a letter directing him to call a Dr. Randle. Dr. Randle explains that Eric is experiencing a dissociative disorder. This is, according to Randle, the eleventh time Eric has completely lost his memory. It all began three years ago when he and his girlfriend, Clio Ames, were vacationing in the Greek Islands. Clio died in a mysterious accident and these episodes are how Eric has been dealing with his grief.

Simple enough, perhaps, until the protagonist Eric begins to receive cryptic daily correspondence from “the First Eric Sanderson,” correspondence that hints to the current Eric’s lack of safety and to a much deeper plot involving “conceptual fish”—creatures that inhabit a surreal alternate existence—the largest and most menacing of which, the Ludovician, has repeatedly devoured Eric’s memories.

I’m still processing my reaction to this book. I read it voraciously in a matter of two days, despite its length. That’s a good sign. As I read it, I thought “I’ve read this before and I’ve read it better,” but I honestly can’t say where or how. I do know that the tragic end of the book hit me like a stiletto to the gut. I read and reread the last two pages to try to find something hopeful or peaceful to cling to. I didn’t find it. And still, two days later, I still feel a bit despondent about it.

It was the snippets of flashback that really got to me. The current Eric Sanderson’s life didn’t affect me to the same degree that the shadows of his true life shook me. Likewise the real-time love story that emerges is far less moving and passionate than the slivers of the love story between the lost Eric and the doomed Clio.

Apparently The Raw Shark Texts was huge in England (whenever I say something like that I am reminded of Matt Dillon in the 1992 movie Singles, talking about his pathetic Seattle grunge band, Citizen Dick, “We’re huge in Belgium, man.”). But my jury is still out on this book. I can say without a doubt that I liked it but that it wasn’t quite worthy of the gushing blurby praise on its cover. It wasn’t as groundbreaking as the critics professed it was, but it broke a little tiny something inside of me. I miss the book, and that’s something.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (re-read)

Another one of Roommate's ease-into-fantasy purchases. A much better one in my opinion. A classic, in fact.

I first read Good Omens: The Nice And Accurate Prophesies of Agnes Nutter, Witch back in the mid-90's, in college, while lying on my single futon in the 6' X 8' bedroom of my fourth floor walk-up in Harlem. Ah, the good ol' days. I was working in the East Village at St. Mark's Comics and had fallen in love with Neil Gaiman's Sandman series of graphic novels. Good Omens lore-- substantiated by the authors' notes in the back of the book-- is that the story began as a short story that Gaiman started and couldn't finished; the young journalist sent it to Terry Pratchett-- already doing well as an author-- who promptly ignored it for a year. When he dug it out again, he said that he couldn't finish it, per se, but he could imagine what happened next...

This seamlessly co-authored book supposes that the Antichrist has been born, Armageddon is in a few days, and what would happen if the agents of Hell and Heaven on earth decide that they just don't feel like bringing about the end of the world?

Aziraphale (heaven) and Crowley (hell) have been adversaries for millenia, but when the End Times are just days away, they decide that it is humanity itself, and the constant struggle between good and evil, that has made life (such as it is) worth living. Should the Rapture come, the War would begin, a Victor would be declared-- where's the fun in that?

Hilarious, along a distinctly British humor/absudist vein, and stunningly well written, Good Omens exceeds any novel written by either novelist alone (and I do LOVE both Gaiman and Pratchett's works). The only complaint I can imagine is the sometimes cluttered-feeling huge cast of characters. There's Anethema, the modern witch. Adam Young, 11 year old AntiChrist. Warlock, who's supposed to be the AntiChrist. Agnes Nutter, the author of the titular prophecies. The four bikers of the Apocolypse. Several witchfinders. A bevy of rebellious children. The list of major characters takes up two full pages.

The authors notes mentions the lack of a sequel to a book that just cries out for a sequel and alludes that one may very well be forthcoming. Part of my holds my breath, and part of me worries. While Pratchett has sucessfully produced close to twenty books in the Discworld series-- all of which that I've read have been great-- and Gaiman kept the Sandman franchise fresh until the end, I was disappointed by Anansi Boys, the sequel to Gaiman's stupendous American Gods. There's nothing like holding one's breath for a sequel only to have it let you down (she says as she counts down the days to the next Harry Potter and whispers a tiny prayer for brilliance).

Storm Front (Book 1 of the Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher

I snagged this book from Roommate before he had a chance to read it. He’s not a sci-fi/fantasy fan, but he wants to start reading those genres (“on his own terms,” he says, and I’m not sure what that means). The Dresden files appealed to him because they’re urban fantasy, set in a Chicago where you can find a wizard in the phone book (although only one) and where the CPD has seen fit to create (although understaff, apparently) a special unit to investigate the more unexplainable crimes.

The Dresden Files appealed to me because I knew they’d been turned into a Sci-Fi Channel show, and with the demise of the Sopranos, Studio 60, Jericho (or maybe not) and several other “investment” shows, I have some TiVo space for a new one. And so far, I’ve had good luck with Sci-Fi.

Maybe the television show is better. I was fairly unimpressed with Storm Front, which read muddy and odd, like Butcher had a sloppy editor or perhaps one who’d read several Dresden novels and therefore wasn’t as critical of the holes in the world that Butcher created. I didn’t buy in from the get go.

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden morphs from noir-ish private eye to a Dumbledore-style wizard replete with staff and wand, and the mash-up never feels natural. He’s funny. He’s attractive in a Snape sort of way. I’d date him. But I just don’t “believe in” him. And both fantasy and noir conventions abound. The plucky (and short—always short) female copy exiled to the weirdo crimes division; Murphy’s a cardboard cut-out of the chick cop with the chip on her shoulders and a soft underbelly. Harry has a spirit helper, a pervy troublemaker named Bob, who reads like just about every bumbling Igor. Although Harry is undoubtedly one of the “good guys,” he’s misunderstood by the White Council (the magic guardians) and they have their eyes on him (in the form of the gruff Morgan), and he’s always getting in trouble. Again, is any magical hero ever understood and supported by the powers-that-be? (See another famous Harry)

Some of the plot feels fresh and interesting (a crack-like drug that gives junkies the sort of Third Sight normally only afforded those with supernatural proclivities) and some… not so much (the pizza-loving spirit informant? Too easy.)

Maybe the books get better. I’m already skeptical of TV the series. The cast looks like a Bennetton ad, even though the book creates fairly white-bread characters. Harry is wayyyyy more attractive than he needs to be, likewise Murphy (who’s Hispanic in the series and fairly Irish and stout in the book). Morgan, who has a Highlander-style sword and ponytail in the book, is black and hot. I admire Sci-Fi’s consistent attention to presenting multicultural casts; I’m more freaked by the babe factor.

There are nine books in the series. I’ll probably pick up one more before I make a final decision. There are plenty of serieses that get good a couple books in.