I like vampire stories. So sue me. And no, I’m not one of those bandwagoners who jumped into the fold with Twilight & True Blood. I am an old school Bram Stoker-Ann Rice- Vampires are supposed to be scary vampire fan. I have written serious papers on Nosferatu. And I just brought that to a whole new level of nerdy.
So when I heard that Justin Cronin was redeeming the quickly devolving monster known as “Vampire” with his debut novel The Passage, I was more excited that you can possibly imagine. I mean Red Sox winning the World Series excited. Ok, maybe not that much.
I bought The Passage at the height of the summer. And it delivered, for the most part. I had nightmares, I couldn’t sleep, I was afraid to go into a dark room. I mean that is pretty much a successful scary story. But, as is my trademark, I noticed the flaws. And there were only a few, tiny, minor issues:
1) He clearly had Margaret Atwood’s novel A Handmaid’s Tale right by his side when he wrote it. The whole second half of the novel was ripped off right from her style and set up.
2) It was too long. It didn’t need to be that long. This wasn’t The Stand. You are not Stephen King. Even Stephen King isn’t Stephen King anymore.

3) Speaking of Stephen King, if A Handmaid’s Tale was on the left side of his desk, The Stand was on the right side. There were many echoes and allusions to King’s epic apocalypse novel. Maybe that’s why King is Cronin’s #1 fan.
4) The main character, Peter, was a little boring. But his name was Peter, I find that all “Peter”s in literature and cinema are boring.
5) The most glaring problem of all: it is the first part of a trilogy. Big mistake, big. Huge.

Here is where he succeeded:
1) Strong and interesting female characters.
2) Seriously, gloriously scary vampires. Not a redeeming one in the lot of them.
3) Great plotline.

Grade: All in all, I am going to give him a B. Just a B. But I’ll be honest, when I found out it was a trilogy, it took a nose dive to C. But, when I finished the book, it was B. I’ll leave it at B.

I do NOT recommend this book for sensitive readers, young readers, and people with a faint heart.

“The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.” – Oscar Wilde

I once participated in a group exercise where I had to pinpoint one of my strengths. I said, after only a moment’s thought, “I’m highly critical.” I can love something, but to the naked eye, my love is unrecognizable due to my critique. But I find criticism to be a very high form of praise, when coming from myself. It means I cared enough to pay attention to the details. And that brings me to today’s subject: Jodi Picoult. Criticism is my way of showing her love.

I like reading Jodi Picoult’s work because it is entertaining, enjoyable, and overall relaxing. She hands us real people, within a possible situation, and creates a portrait about humanity. I’ll be the first to admit that she can be a little melodramatic, but I’m entertained. Recently I read Second Glance and Salem Falls nearly back to back and doing so highlighted all of Picoult’s faults and assets.

Second Glance is Picoult’s first foray into the supernatural. On her part, this is a mistake. Second Glance is the tale of several characters, all at critical intersections of their lives, who all collide when a “haunted house” supposedly built on an Indian graveyard is about to be torn down. Every character, all though seemingly unrelated at first, are drawn into the mystery of who might have died at the house. The amount of melodrama and high rate of coincidence in her stories keep her novels right on the line of high entertainment value that one can still suspend their disbelief for. But there are far too many characters in this novel, more than the average reader can really keep track of, and more than Picoult herself can handle. The addition of the supernatural pushed the story of Second Glance right over that line and strains the credibility of the story, even for a diehard fan. The characters are believable and interesting enough, but the story line just becomes tired.

Salem Falls is right in Picoult’s usual vein. Jack St. Bride has been wrongly convicted of sexual assault and moves to the sleepy New England village of Salem Falls to escape his past. There his life intersects with several other characters that are also at critical junctures of re-discovery and identity. This leads to accusations and mistrust in a town that has a lot of secrets. Her usual narrative style of many different points of view, sometimes even in different timelines, is a strength in this book because there are only a few characters that she really focuses on, also a huge asset here. While she does more harm than good to some of her main characters, leaving the reader to wonder who is really good and who is really bad, Picoult creates complicated characters, with real problems.

Second Glance, too many characters, too much relies on the supernatural : C

Salem Falls, complicated characters with fascinating revelations right up until the last paragraph: B

Have you ever bought a book that you thought was going to be about one thing, and then it turned out to be entirely different than what you expected? Fresh off of my adventure with John Grisham, I was in the mood for something Southern. It isn’t warm enough out here in California to embark upon a review of my dear old friend Flannery O’Connor (does it have to be a specific time of year for you to read an old favorite?) so I kept my eyes peeled for something new. As it happened, via a Facebook post, I stumbled across Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. It claimed it was Southern Gothic. I was envisioning a modern Faulkner-esque vision of the South.

Beautiful Creatures is the tale of 16 year old Ethan Wate, who has grown up in a small town in South Carolina and can’t wait to get out. His mother has passed away recently, his father is roaming the house is pajamas, leaving only his housekeeper Amma to keep him in line. Life is ordinary and boring for Ethan until he stumbles across Lena Duchannes, the new girl in town. Lena is the niece of the town shut in, and she seems different than the other girls at school. She drives a hearse, writes poetry, and wears her Converse sneakers with dresses. Needless to say Ethan is smitten. Soon, the two find themselves in the middle of family mysteries, unraveling centuries old secrets, and learning about life and love in the process.

I didn’t read the back of the book, I had no idea what it was about. But it said it was Southern Gothic. So I got it in my head, it was an adult novel about a teenage boy growing up in the South. It was definitely a Southern Harry Potter meets Twilight written for Teens. I was a bit off.

The first hundred pages are pretty entertaining, if you are Southern. There is plenty about the Southern obsession with the Civil War, family trees, debutantes, our hatred of all things strange or different, our church going ways, and secret obsession with the occult. After that, the book introduces the “supernatural” aspect of the plot, and while trying to develop a language full of strange new terms and characters, it starts to drag. Then it continues to drag for another 400 pages. The bad guys are a mix of small minded Southerners who are afraid of anything different (and that subplot is pretty thin and cliché) and a supernatural entity (who knows more about Lena than Lena does, again pretty cliché). The characters are entertaining, but nothing new or fascinating. The plotline is also just another Romeo and Juliet fighting against fate and the supernatural, so also nothing new there.

This book is definitely just for teens, preferably older (there are some boy/girl scenes and inappropriate language, the latter of which was pretty startling). I would only recommend it for huge supernatural fans, and considering the length, only for teens who really like to read. Oh, and it’s definitely for girls.

Grade: C

Everyone has that skeleton in the closet. You know, that deep dark secret they keep stashed away, that somehow gets out after one too many cocktails at a party. Uncle Joe was in Leavenworth, you think for treason. Grandpa had three wives, at the same time. You really did buy those Uggs yourself, they weren’t a birthday present, and yes you really do love them. Yes, we all have the skeletons and we always turn bright red when admitting the truth aloud. And I will now reveal mine: I have an English Degree, with an emphasis in 19^th century British Literature, consider myself something of a book snob… and I love Twilight by Stephenie Meyers. I know, I know.

Now, before you go crazy and think this is going to be another rant about vampires that sparkle, let me explain, and I will be brief. Nick Hornby, in a recent interview with Dave Eggers, said that people believe there are only two kinds of books, Trash and those worth reading. But people don’t seem to realize that there can be books that are a little bit of both. And for me, that book is Twilight.

I am a die-hard vampire purist with the best of them (Anne Rice, Buffy, Stoker’s Dracula) and I have my credentials to prove it. So trust me when I say the whole “sparkle in the sun” bit did not go over well with me. What kept me reading the book (until 4 a.m. mind you) was that the characters were interesting (if not a little bit psychotic) and it’s a good old fashioned Romeo and Juliet story. Let’s be honest people, nothing happens in that book, nothing! The last action packed bit was a ploy on the attempt of publishers to keep it from being all out boring. Yet despite that, I liked the slow pace, the strange attraction, and the heart ache Bella endures for about two hundred pages wondering “Why does this guy hate me?” And I liked that the book was pretty clean. Most Young Adult fiction these days is toying with the notion of sex, sometimes even diving right in (I’m an old school WB girl from the Dawson’s Creek/Gilmore Girl days, pardon me if Gossip Girl is shocking), but these two kids have so much angst, they can barely hold hands. It’s practically wholesome.

That all being said, I hated the other three books. I think Meyers lost track of the characters, especially her million dollar baby, Bella, and I think she spends over a thousand pages keeping people wondering “Will they end up together?” when we know they will. Meyers also doesn’t know a good love triangle when she sees it, because the die-hard devotion to Edward does wear on the nerves by the third book. Those three really are trash not worth reading, and if you read slow, I recommend them even less. The only thing that kept was going was knowing I read so quickly, the torture couldn’t last much longer.

So no, this book is not for vampire lovers, and no it is not for literary snobs who are too jaded to remember when books were just fun. Yes, it is for you readers who just like to read, who just love senseless, wholesome romance that has no purpose. And nowadays, it is for people who are willing to put up with the snickers when they buy it, but no one will tell on you if you lie and say it’s for your niece or your friend’s daughter.

Grade: A-

Oh, Uncle Stevie. I’ll be honest, while Mr. King will always hold a special place in my heart, his later works are not my favorites. Cell, Lisey’s Story, From a Buick 8…honestly, not up to par with the King I know and love. So when my friend Paul asked me how I felt about reading his new novel, Under the Dome, I told him I wasn’t very interested. But, that was really all it took to get me interested. I then proceeded to drop subtle hints that I wanted this book for Chanukah, which went along the lines of: “Sweetie, I want Under the Dome for Chanukah.” Guess what I got?

The story is this: one sunny October day, in the hamlet of Chester’s Mill, Maine, a force field comes down over the border of the town. No one gets in, and no one gets out. In true King fashion, ten people die within moments of the “Dome” descending over Chester’s Mill.  The real bad guy, it turns out, is not just the Dome itself, but it is a man whose is stuck inside with the rest of the town, “Big” Jim Rennie. He is a small town politician who sees the Dome as an opportunity, and I’ll leave it at that. Our hero, Dale Barbara attempts to diffuse the situation and help the people get through the crisis intact.

The concept is fascinating. I mean who but King could figure out such a cool, weird way to explore the theme of the true nature of humanity. If you move past the obvious political topics he is dealing with in the novel, there is an essential question he is asking which he asks time and time again: Are humans, by nature, good or evil? And when in an extreme situation, which path will we choose? The topic fascinates me, and that is what pushed me through the novel, I wanted to follow him on this journey. To be honest, I only remembered the Dome was the problem when my friend Jason said to me, “Finish it so you can tell me what made the Dome.” At that point, I was 700 pages in and I didn’t care who made the Dome, I wanted to know what the people stuck inside were going to do to each other next. For me, that’s how effective King was in creating his two pronged enemy.

There are some obvious drawbacks to the novel. First, it is nearly 1,100 pages. Now for me this meant a week or reading time, and even for me I felt it was over written in parts. Do I feel the people are afraid to edit Stephen King, a famous criticism on him, a little bit. I think people were so surprise to get something that harked back to classic King, they were a little bit intimidated. On the other hand, I hear the first draft weight 19 lbs. Second, it is Stephen King. This means a lot of blood, gore, and adult content. Third, despite the length of the novel, the pace of the novel is remarkably fast. By this I mean, the entire book takes place over the course of a little over a week. So it strained my imagination a bit to believe that some things were happening in the time frame he sets up.

With all of this in mind, I found Under the Dome to be a return to “classic” King. While it was not a favorite of mine, it was the breath of fresh air that blew away the cocktail lounge cigarette smoke staleness I have endured in his more recent adventures. If you are a King fan, this is a do not miss. If you have never read King before, this is a pretty good sampling of what he has to offer.

Grade: B/B-

When I was a kid, I loved ghost stories. They became such an integral part of my childhood, this fascination of mine, that I was thought to be “strange” and “macabre” by adult relatives. I went on ghost hunts through the various houses I lived in through my youth, each new building a fresh opportunity to encounter the supernatural. Naturally, I developed something of a resistance to the scare factor, to a point that it took a lot to scare me. Now, as an adult, the fright factor seems to have re-emerged, ten-fold, payback for all those years I tortured my brother by making him sit with me in dark rooms waiting for ghosts to appear. So, believe me when I say I found Lovely Bones creepy, like skin crawling creepy.

I discovered the book through a movie trailer for the new Peter Jackson adaptation of it. If Jackson’s adaptation of Lovely Bones proves to be as astute as that of Lord of the Rings, I’m not so sure I’m buying a ticket. This novel will create a visceral reaction in anyone who reads it, and if it doesn’t, you are made of stronger stuff than I.

This is the story of Susie Salmon (like the fish), who is murdered one cold day in 1973. What do you do after killing off the main character a few pages in? Simple; just have her narrate the rest of the story from heaven. For the next twenty years, Susie watches over her family, her friends, and her murder in an ethereal, surreal tale. She watches them struggle with her death and their lives in the wake of the tragedy, and she struggles with all things she must miss out on because she can only watch.

At many points during my read of this book I found myself sufficiently disturbed enough to set the book down, take a break, and then resume when I was calm enough. It is an easy enough read, from strictly a vocabulary standpoint, but the book is an emotional roller coaster. From Susie’s gruesome assault and murder, to the intense emotions strangling every member of her family, Sebold does not let the reader out of her grip.

The idea of a poor murdered girl going right off to heaven and then watching over her family is a sweet one, but author Alice Sebold does not let the tale remain so simple. She forces the reader to experience the mess each living character makes of their life, Susie’s death the catalyst for it all, inspiring a tragic guilt in Susie. While most of the novel was just oddly creepy, it was a final scene in the book that was reminiscent of Ghost meets the Excorcist, in which Susie gets to live out a fantasy with a boy she always loved from heaven, that crossed into all out “Seriously?” territory.

Initially, after having finished the book, I pushed it away from me, oddly repulsed by it. Such was the intensity of my emotion towards it. I admit, even two months later, I remain undecided as to whether or not I liked the book. I do not recommend it for sensitive readers. I do recommend it for those looking to be enthralled and/or creeped out in a feminine Chuck Palahniuk kind of way.

Grade: B-/C+

I strongly believe that Stephen King is one of the greatest writers of the late 20^th century. Laugh if you will book snobs, but I’ll have you know Charles Dickens, known as a literary genius now, was considered a hack writer by the serious literati of his time. That didn’t stop people from lining up on the docks, waiting for the ships to come in with the next installment of his latest novel. Do I think that The Cell or Dreamcatcher will go down in history as classics, nope. Do I think that Different Seasons is brilliant and should be studied in school, yes.  Stephen King understands something that most writers don’t: the average Joe. And in knowing this, he is able to speak to most of the people who actually read in this country.

At twelve, when most people were discovering Bilbo Baggins, I had not been acquainted with the hobbit, and A Wrinkle in Time made a vague, weak impression on me, but I knew on which porch you could find Mother Abigail Freemantle in Nebraska. Was I too young to read The Stand? Oh for sure, so I made sure to read it again several times, both versions, to make sure I really understood it.  Upon each new reading, I became increasingly appalled I had read it at such a young age and try to remember if I even understood half of it. But something must have stuck with me, because I remember the feeling that I had discovered something amazing then, and it is a feeling that is reawakened each time I read it anew.

The story, for those who were not acquainted with it during the swine flu pandemic, is that of the end of the world. 99% of the population has been wiped out by a plague, and now the battle of good versus evil has begun for the souls of those who remain in the wastelands that were once the greatest country on earth (America, I am very patriotic). The characters range from a deaf mute to a rock star to an unassuming country boy. In that very range, King captures the variety that is humanity. They make mistakes, even being the privileged few, and make hard moral decisions that leave the reader wondering “What would I do?” (Really, I was twelve when I read this?)

It is a whopper of a book, weighing it at 1,143 pages (the original “edited” edition is 838, but I don’t think you can find that in stores anymore, only second hand). And it is Stephen King, so one can’t exactly be faint of heart to read it (again, 12, really?), but if you are made of sturdy stuff, I highly recommend it.

Grade:  A