Going Down South by Bonnie Glover, reviewed by Julia

Going Down South: A Novel by Bonnie Glover

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a reading-group book. You can tell because it's about mothers and daughters, because it has race- and gender-based complications, and because it has Reading Group Questions at the back. Unfortunately, I don't think I found it as edifying as I was supposed to. Going Down South has a solid sense of time and place and culture, even while jumping around between them, but is weaker in plot and characterization, which make that sense of the settings more difficult to appreciate and learn from.

The first two sections of the book constitute the Going Down South itself. They use a car trip from Brooklyn to small-town Alabama as a frame for a series of flashbacks setting up the story, first from the point of view of Olivia Jean, a teenager whose unplanned pregnancy is the cause of the trip (her parents want to hide her away until the baby is born), and then of Daisy, her mother, who hasn't been back to see her mother in Alabama since she was a teenager herself and left home under unpleasant circumstances. The third section is told from the point of view of Birdie, Daisy's mother and Olivia Jean's grandmother, reflecting back on Daisy's childhood and her own as she waits for her family to arrive. This car-trip flashback structure is an interesting idea, but in practice, I found that it seriously screws up the pacing of both the reference-time story and the backstory, and I got frustrated with it very quickly.

The second half of the book is structured rather differently, with a floating point of view but a much straighter narrative thread. There are still plenty of flashbacks -- the three central characters are all working through their issues with themselves and each other, which requires much delving into the past -- but they are spaced in a more conventional fashion. This improves the pacing, and various other aspects of the storytelling improve as well. The characters -- all of whom come off as rather stock toward the beginning -- seem more nuanced and original, and the humor rings truer. (There is also less of the repetition and narratorial summaryishness that further bog down the first sections.) The ending is satisfying, if predictable, and rounds off the plot arc nicely.

As well as the book-group discussion questions, this edition of Going Down South also includes an interview with the author. Mostly nothing unexpected, but I did find one thing about it interesting: When the interviewer asked Glover to describe her characters and how she wrote them, she immediately pegged Olivia Jean as a gutsy and intelligent girl who just needs guidance, and said she didn't have any difficulty writing her or imagining her life, whereas she found her mother Daisy -- passionate, bitter, and pretentious -- much harder to understand and to write (though in the end she empathized with her more). However, from the reading side, I found Olivia Jean something of a cipher, while Daisy's inner life and motivations come through much better (at least in the second half). There may be a lesson in that, more than in what can be found in the text of the book.

View all my reviews.

Sound + Noise by Curtis Smith, reviewed by Jess

Sound + Noise by Curtis Smith

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

Curtis Smith’s "Sound and Noise" is a fascinating portrayal of two people trapped in lives of stagnant frustration. When she was younger, and felt she had everything ahead of her, Jackie used to sing backing vocals in a big rock band. Now she’s middle-aged, single, and running her own bar, with only a crazy selection of locals to hear her new songs – a far cry from where she saw herself headed all those years ago. Tom is an art teacher at the local university, a married man, but one whose wife lives in a residential home, knowing little to nothing of the world around her. Her tragic accident has left Tom unable to move forward with his life, and forced him to examine his relationship with religion.

Jackie and Tom meet in a supermarket and strike up a friendship – one Jackie thinks will turn into just another affair, until she finds out the truth about his wife. Throughout their relationship, they both begin to work out their problems and look at what the future may hold.

"Sound + Noise" is a will-they-won’t-they romance, with an undercurrent of philosophical introspection on the part of both major characters running throughout. This angle gives it one up on the average romance, and Curtis Smith hits on the doubts and regrets many people have in common, but can’t always share. Because of this, the story is very accessible.

The characters are drawn from backgrounds that aren’t privileged and much of the interest lies in what they choose to do with the natural talents they have. Despite their struggles, their story doesn’t come across as whiney and they don’t suffer from self-pity for too long.

The usual limitations of romance novels are predictable plots and unbelievable characters. The characterisation in "Sound + Noise" is realistic for the most part, with some occasional dreamy, but not sickly-sweet, observations. The plot is predictable and the ending exactly as expected, but this doesn’t diminish the quality of the story, as the anticipated ending is a satisfactory one. Smith's prose is full of quirky, occasionally beautiful, passages that I found absorbing and evocative – a good example is the pair’s first meeting:

"Jackie holds up an avocado between them, and sees another picture—the same one she used to stare at when Sunday school got boring: the unsuspecting Adam and the naked, foolish Eve, her apple replaced by that mysterious and suddenly erotic fruit, the avocado." (p.12)

This strange and awkward moment is turned into a grand event for Jackie, who has been single for far too long.

At times, I felt that Smith was grasping for something just out of reach. Tom and Jackie’s relationship could have been as touching, and even as harrowing, as the relationships portrayed in Ian McEwan’s work, which I find stylistically comparable. But although the characters have depth, Smith doesn’t push them as far as he could to let the reader see what they are really made of. It would be nice also to see more made of the supporting characters, as they are a bit too shallow for my taste.

Overall, though, "Sound + Noise" is thought-provoking and well written.


View all my reviews.

Tomato Girl by Jayne Pupek, reviewed by Julia

Tomato Girl by Jayne Pupek

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars

Tomato Girl is a fairly standard coming-of-age story, occasionally daring in some aspects, but, on the whole, rather mediocre. It covers territory that many such stories do -- parental sex and infidelity, insanity, viewpoint-character bad behavior -- but delves into them more deeply and disturbingly than a lot of adult novels about preteen girls would dare or care to, usually without losing its sense of realism.

But it's that 'usually' that makes all the difference; Tomato Girl is a thoroughly almost-good novel. On so many levels, it reaches for and almost achieves something special, but falls just short. The experience of reading this author's first published novel was, in fact, rather like watching someone play a sport they're just good enough at to have gotten onto the team; you can see so many ways they could fail, but they succeed just often enough that you still get the feeling of having your hopes dashed when they flub it. And unfortunately, being able to see the author's process so easily kept me from really getting absorbed in what might otherwise have been quite a captivating novel.

The novel begins with a prologue from the point of view of the narrator, Ellie, as an adult, then jumps in near the end of the main story arc for the first chapter, then begins at the beginning in the second chapter. I assume this time-layering and difficult, stuttery distance is supposed to give us a feeling of what it must be like to be an early-middle-aged woman trying to face the events of a traumatic childhood, but it is not skillfully enough done, and merely serves to make the book difficult to get into. Likewise, I can see why the author chose to tell the reader nearly everything that's going to happen in the story in that first chapter (Ellie's father will fall in love with a teenage tomato-grower, get sick of dealing with Ellie's crazy mother, run away with the tomato girl under unpleasant circumstances, and leave Ellie to deal with the increasingly out-of-control mother (who keeps a baby in a jar) on her own, with emotional support only from an elderly psychic with the wrong color skin) -- it gives us a sense of the narrator and her direct matter-of-factness, and a proper feeling of impending doom -- and, done right, I could see it working very well. But in this case, it merely serves to rob the book of suspense and make any foreshadowing that happens later seem irrelevant. All in all, there are just too many amateurish mistakes for the author to get away with the out-of-the-ordinary structural and dramatic choices that ought to have made this novel special and memorable.

However, there are enough good things about it to make it worth reading if you're into emotional twistiness. The narrative is reasonably evocative, if a bit repetitive, the setting is thorough, and the characters have some depth and grab. Tess, the tomato girl, is interestingly portrayed and recognizable -- even if you don't really want to recognize her -- and the narrator's unusually-but-humanly flawed parents and friend(s) make a good supporting cast. (In fact, I found Ellie to be the weakest character, though I assume she is meant to be the strongest.) Those supporting characters, along with some memorable, emotionally-charged images, are the novel's strongest points.


View all my reviews.

The Silk Palace by Colin Harvey, reviewed by kaolin

The Silk Palace by Colin Harvey

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars

Ancient gods, cultish murders, royal intrigue, and sapphic love--The Silk Palace has it all. The two younger daughters of the king of Whiterock are to be married to neighboring kingdoms: one to Prince Casimiripian (Cas) of the Karnaki Empire, and one to an Emir of the Western Alliance. Cas has under his care the linguist Bluestocking, who has been invited to Whiterock to study and translate some ancient scrolls whose meanings have been lost through both intentional and temporal obfusaction.

Bluestocking has a dirty secret that's slipped to us early on, which adds a measure of fear to her day to day existence and gives others a few extra hooks to dig into her as she finds herself more and more wrapped in conflicting threads. We're shown, towards the beginning, what would happen to Bluestocking if she were caught out--public maiming and dismemberment; followed by a slow, lingering death. And by the end, the truth _is_ made known.

Sadly, I found The Silk Palace very hard to get into--it was as if a great expository chunk had been chopped from the beginning and flung back into the flow of things without proper adjustment for what a fresh reader would understand. The characters' familiarities with each other (and lack thereof) were difficult to understand from how they acted until we were given relevant flashbacks/memories.

The writing was competent, for the most part, though I felt it over-told some things, re-told some things too often, and fell into cliche occasionally. For all the wandering about, I never really felt an understanding of the city or the people in it--or the context of it all, including armies laying siege. And while it's traditional for everything to fall on the shoulders of one character, I found there to be too many threads that disappeared as soon as they weren't being looked at--for the scope of the piece, I felt the world was under-represented.

And while the "ancient evil" storyline is given a reasonably complex context, it still felt somewhat generic in execution; the characters tell us a fair bit about themselves, but emote no real depth. Any differentiation from stereotypes was largely due to plot, rather than the plot feeling driven by character.

Still, if "ancient gods, cultish murders, royal intrigue, and sapphic love" pull you in, you'll probably appreciate the book.


View all my reviews.

Unholy Domain by Dan Ronco, reviewed by Debbie

Unholy Domain by Dan Ronco

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

Dan Ronco's "Unholy Domain" is the sequel to "Peacemaker", although for some reason publishers Kunati Inc. didn't think this worth putting on the cover. I wasn't aware it was a sequel while reading, but it might have been useful to know, as it explains why so much of the book is taken up with references to obscure events. So I pass this on to anyone who's considering this book--consider reading "Peacemaker" first!

In this post-PeaceMaker world, humanity is divided between those who consider technology to be the tool of the devil, and those who still think it has a useful role to play in our lives. The battle between these two camps is fought with deadly force. Meanwhile, David Brown, son of the man blamed for unleashing the PeaceMaker computer virus on the world, is struggling to clear his dead father's name. But both sides in the conflict have their own reasons for keeping the truth from becoming known.

There are some great moments in the book--like when David has to buy back his own car, with the 'help' of an accomplice of the thief in bargaining down the price. There are some nice twists, and the book does a good job of keeping the reader guessing about who can be trusted and who can't. It's not as fast-paced as perhaps a techno-thriller ought to be, though. It throws the reader into the action immediately, but there's a lot of faddling around before it gets to the final conflict. At least there are some surprises when we get there.

Inevitably, perhaps, the technology takes precedence, knocking characterisation into second place. The narrative tries to differentiate the characters, but they have a bad habit of turning into representations of their side of the argument, rather than into people. More show and less tell overall, but particularly with regard to David, might have drawn the reader in and made for a more exciting read.

Each chapter starts with a quote--some from the past or present, and some from the future--and collectively they illustrate the thinking behind this book. It's a great way to get the reader thinking before plunging them into the next phase of the narrative. It's clear that a lot of thought and care has gone into crafting this novel, and the ruminations on what our technological future will be are the most interesting aspect.

Thought-provoking, even if it doesn't quite live up to the blurbs on the back cover.


View all my reviews.

The Suicide Shop by Jean Teulé, reviewed by kaolin

The Suicide Shop by Jean Teule

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars

The Tuvaches, a sort of working class Addams Family, operate The Suicide Shop--a shop where anyone can purchase the equipment and/or training required to off themselves (though children can only purchase sweets that have a 50% chance of killing them).

The story is set some time after North America has been laid to waste by the Big One--but for the most part it could pass as contemporary, with the odd bit of future tech: holographic greeting cards; a solution that turn one's kiss poisonous to others; 3d semi-immersive full-sensory television.

Mishima and Lucrèce Tuvache have three children--two depressed and/or ailing, and the youngest, bright and cherubic. This latter child, Alan, is the force that changes everything.

The chapters are brief, often terse, and the story progresses swiftly--at times a little too swiftly, in that I felt the characters bounced a bit too much in mood and disposition. At the same time, the quick pace kept me turning pages.

I was somewhat disappointed by the direction of the narrative--it's described as a quirky black comedy, but I found it more comedy, verging on slapstick, and less black (until, perhaps, the end). Alan's cheer and undauntable optimism quickly infects the rest of the family (except for Mishima, the father); even suicide commandos are shown to not be able to withstand his barrage of cheerfulness (a favorite quote: "I'll only be demonstrating this to you once!").

Still, it has a definite charm, and if you are perhaps less jaded you might get a real kick out of it throughout. I could easily see it being a cult favorite in the right circles.

View all my reviews.

Stone Masters: A Vampire Reckoning by VMK Fewers, reviewed by Jess

Stone Masters: A Vampire Reckoning by V.M.K. Fewings

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars


'Stone Masters: A Vampire Reckoning' by V.M.K. Fewers is a vampire novel told from two perspectives, in the form of diary entries. Both of the main characters, Orpheus and Jadeon, start us off with an entry from June 2006 as the set up to tell the story of how they became what they are, several hundred years earlier.

Jadeon’s family history is somewhat… interesting. He and his brother, Alex, accidentally witness their father and a group of men performing a ritual over a woman they at first believe to be a witch. The brothers see the woman carried through the family castle screaming, and calling out the name “Orpheus”. Thus begins Jadeon's journey to discover the truth about his father's involvement with the group–The Stone Masters-whose duty it is to kill vampires.

I appreciate that Laurell K. Hamilton and Anne Rice can only produce so many novels a year, and that in-between times vampire fans need a fix. So, this little niche opens up for the rest of vampire fic to have its turn. Unfortuately, Stone Masters is like a skeleton of an Anne Rice novel, without the real flesh, and more importantly blood, which vampires need. Anita Blake without any of the wit, and a poor copy-cat.

Not long ago I read Gabrielle Faust’s 'Eternal Vigilance'. After reading Stone Masters I can appreciate what Faust was doing - she tried to recreate a genre that is wearing rather thin on new material by injecting as much of her own originality as she could. And as it should be. Stone Masters just doesn’t have that jolt of excitement, or even just enough good old gore-fun to keep the reader interested. There is nothing new here, however hard you look, and hope.

The movement from one narrator to the next is confusing, the diaries boring. There was one stand-out moment, which was the description of a nasty witches' ceremony. I felt excited at this point, and for just a moment relieved, because I thought I was finally going to get the dark and scary tale that was hinted at in the story up until this point. No such luck. One good chapter was not enough to save Stone Masters. Poetic prose can be a wonderful thing, but not when it is the veil used simply to cover a weak plot.

I struggled with the book, right from the uninspiring cover art, to the less than satisfactory ending. I know it is not supposed to be taken as one of the literary greats, but there has to be something–it wasn’t even so bad that it was hilarious.

View all my reviews.