Category Archives: The First 100 Pages

Oct 18 2010

The First 100 Pages: Her Fearful Symmetry

Sadly, I abandoned Peter Straub’s Ghost Story which I was so looking forward to reading this month.  I had cleared my entire October reading schedule just for it. It’s a book I had wanted to read for years, but 100 pages into it and I didn’t really care to pick it up again.  It bored me, and life is too short to read boring books. Sorry Peter!

At a loss as to what to pick up next, I decided on Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffennegger.  This is her second book, after the acclaimed The Time Traveler’s Wife which was just made into a movie, which I didn’t like so much. After that, I decided I wouldn’t read the book either.  Yes, I know it’s bad to let a movie dictate what you will and will not read, but this one did.  So there!  But house wives everywhere fell in love with it, which sent the book right to the top.  For her second book, not so much. All the lackluster reviews say, “I loved TTW so much, but I hate this book.”

Well, I didn’t let the reviews stop me from picking it up.  I’m just over 100 pages into it, and I must say I actually like it so far. It’s about a woman named Elspeth, whose a twin, who dies and leaves her London flat to her twin nieces.  She’s been estranged from her own twin sister for over twenty years.  She never really met the twin nieces before, but requests that they come to London and that they must live in her flat for one year before they can sell it.  And they can’t allow their parents to come inside. We’re introduced to the Elspeth’s boyfriend who lives downstairs, and an extreme OCD neighbor who also lives in the building.  And Elspeth is also still in the flat, as a ghost, when the twins arrive.

The chapters about her discovering herself as a ghost are just amazing to me.  She dances on the walls, changes clothes just by thinking about it, can’t see herself in mirrors and misses her face, and rests in an old drawer of her desk.  Unlike others who gave it a bad review, I’m actually enjoying reading this book at a nice slow pace of about 10 pages a night, or just a handful of chapters since most chapters are small anyway.

Of course, the struggle here is we want to know why Elspeth and her sister weren’t communicating all those years, and we’ll find out what the twins think of their new neighbors, I’m guessing. Oh, and did I mention the building is next door to an old cemetery?

More about it later as I hope to finish it by the end of the month…

 

Sep 26 2010

The First 100 Pages ~ First Person Plural by Andrew Beierle

Ever read a book where you wished you actually knew the characters in the book in real life? That’s exactly how I feel with the book I started last week, First Person Plural by Andrew W.M. Beierle

It’s the story of two conjoined twins named Owen and Porter. They share the same body, but have two heads. Owen controls one side of the body, while Porter controls the other.  On the inside, they each have a heart, and as Owen says, each heart is very different.

Porter is a star athlete and very outgoing, while Owen is more introverted and a bit of a nerd. However, the two become popular thanks to magazine and TV interviews, and because of their music. They make up a duo band named Janus which gets them attention after they play at the Olympics.

The major conflict at hand is that Porter is straight and his conjoined twin brother Owen is gay.  And they share only 1 penis. Though a bit humorous and definitely odd, the book explores Porter falling in love while Owen is literally forced to go along for the ride.

The book is just over 300 pages, and I just made it a third of the way through last night and I have to say the book is absolutely amazing.  I’ve been shocked; I’ve been touched, but most of all I’ve been totally hooked right from the start. Mr. Beierle must have done a lot of research and also put a lot of heart into this book.

His approach to the subject and to his lead characters, although the story is told from Owen’s POV, is very sensitive and although the twins know they are special, they are not treated as freaks but he does approach how others look at them throughout the book and the struggles they face.

More to come when I finish it…

Aug 29 2010

Ape House by Sara Gruen: The First 100 Pages

Having loved Gruen’s book Water for Elephants, I was as giddy as a little kid at Christmas for her next book, Ape House. I landed a free reviewers copy which arrived in the mail early last week and couldn’t wait to get started.  I finished the first 100 pages of the book just last night (of its 320 total pages).  While the book is not as magical and whimsy as Elephants was, I will finish it before the actual release of the book on September 7th.

It’s the story of a group of Bonobo apes that become misplaced after their home, a language lab in Kansas, is blown up by animal rights activists. So far, the first 100 pages is more about two couples, their relation to the apes, and the drama of their own lives.  There’s Isabel, the head researcher who was hurt in the explosion.  Her love of the apes and their communication through sign language shines through, as Gruen obviously as talent for writing animal relationships with humans. She’s engaged to Peter, another researcher, who allows the apes to be sold after the explosion because the university and other researchers had received threats.

Then, there’s John Thigpen, a reporter who had just visited with the apes hours before the explosion.  He returns to Kansas a few days later to investigate.  While I think John is suppose to be a key character, he’s a bit flat.  His wife, Amanda, is much more interesting.  She’s hot and turns the heads of all men who she passes.  She’s a failed novelist eager to fly out to L.A. to write a sitcom that’s been given the green flag.  And her overbearing mother is eager for grand children! Mom finding the couples sex toys, bagging them and organizing them by shape and color was a hoot!

Unfortunately, you become more wrapped up in the personal lives so far of these two couples, as the apes are treated to just a few short chapters as to the mystery of their whereabouts. If they are meant to be the center of the novel, then we’ve still got a ways to go. Had the apes been coveting a secret that could unravel the mysteries of the ages, we’d almost have a Dan Brown thriller on our hands as John races to uncover the story, and Isabel recovers from the pain – both physical and emotional – and the reader tries to discover who has the apes and what’s in store for them.

Like I said, the book lacks the magic that Elephants had.  The romance is there.  A bit of the humor is there.  Gruen has a strong fan base so the book will do well, but in the end it may just be monkey-business.  Full review to follow…

Aug 17 2010

The First 100 Pages: The Shack

On Saturday, I picked up The Shack and decided to read it next.  Strange and extreme, I know to go from reading The Crow, about a photographer returned from the dead to avenge is gay dead lover, to such a popular religious book, but I firmly believe a book choosse us when it wants to be read.  So, The Shack chose me. With over 4,000 reviews at Amazon, somebody had something to say about it.  Plus, I like a success story like this one.  The book was turned down by 26 publishers so the author (William Young) and some colleagues put all their time, energy, and finances into self-publishing the book.  They spent $300 on a nifty website for the book, and didn’t do much marketing after that.  They didn’t have to.  News of the book spread like wildfire by word of mouth and a year later the book was #1 on the NYT Bestsellers List.

At just 248 pages, I’m already half way through and will more than likely finish the book this week. I’ve read a ton of self-published books, reviewing for LLBR and all, and this one is definitely no different in some aspects.  The first few chapters were painful to read, in that the author moves the story along by “telling” you most of it, rather than actually “showing” you.  He also concentrates on minute details that grated on my nerves and almost made me want to put the book down.  But he pulls you along and finally taps into a mystery that becomes the foundation of the book.  A missing little girl.  Teasing you with just a hint of suspense, like James Patterson, I pushed forward to see how it was going to play out.

For those who might not know the premise behind the book, it’s focus is on a man who has lost his young daughter.  She was kidnapped while they were camping, and the man becomes angry at God and at himself for letting it happen.  Three years later, he receives a letter from God who asks the man to come to a shack, where evidence of the little girl was found, and the two have a long conversation together about love, life, and religion.

That’s all the details I’ll give for now, but you can expect a full review of the book this weekend when I finish.  If you are a religious zealot or devout holy roller, this book might not be for you.  But if you are like me and often question organized religion or the workings of the universe out there greater than us, then give it a try.  You might learn something…about God and about yourself.

More to come…

Aug 10 2010

The First 100 Pages: The Crow ~ The Lazarus Heart

This weekend after I finished reading Carrie Brown’s The Rope Walk, I needed what I call some “fluff.”  It’s basically a lighter beach read type book that doesn’t call for too much concentration, something more on the entertaining side.  I found it in an older book I’ve been wanting to read for several years: Poppy Z. Brite’s The Crow: The Lazarus Heart.  I landed a copy of it a few weeks ago on Bookmooch. If you’ve seen the movie with Brandon Lee, then you pretty much know the premise behind Brite’s version. It’s a mass market paperback, so three days into it and I’m actually over halfway through.  It’s just over 300 pages.  But I wanted to pause to reflect the first half.

Brite was very popular in the 90s for her Goth horror, using her hometown of New Orleans as a setting.  Working in the bookstores, I knew who she was but I wasn’t into horror then having already had my fill of Stephen King all through high school.  A few years ago I read her Exquisite Corpse.  I was both shocked and impressed. Later, I attempted Drawing Blood, and just couldn’t get into it and soon abandoned the book all together. Brite herself has abandoned horror and now writes Foodie fiction, but still has a loyal following it seems.

The Lazarus Heart is holding my attention fully. It’s the story of Jared Poe, an S&M fetish photographer who returns from the dead to avenge the murder of his lover which he was wrongly accused of.  There’s a certain element left up to the imagination, especially in the opening scene where the crow flies into a New Orleans cemetery and brings Jared back to life, but Brite’s storytelling and imagery is quite beautiful and haunting. The story takes place amongst the androgynous Goth tranny world of the Big Easy, which is being preyed upon by a serial killer obsessed with sex changes.  Yes, that’s disturbing within itself, which is what makes the book so much fun and so bizarre. Brite really visits the minds of her characters and digs deep to expose their nightmares.

I’ll leave it at that and give my final review after I finish it later this week.

Jun 3 2010

The First 100 Pages: We Disappear by Scott Heim

On Memorial Day weekend I started reading We Disappear by Scott Heim, another one of those books that had been on my Amazon Wish list for about a year so I finally broke down and bought it for myself. It’s the story of a meth addict and writer named Scott who lives in New York but returns home to Kansas to help his mother who has a long obsession with missing children cases.

She clips pictures and articles from newspapers, pasting them to her wall and keeping albums full of information. She is also dying of cancer.  She has decided she wants to start investigating cases by interviewing loved ones of the children and telling them she’s writing a book, and she asks Scott to come back to Kansas to help her.

I was memorized by Heim’s talent for writing early on.  His descriptions and scenes are haunting, and once again I found myself wanting to underline them so I could remember later. For example, here’s how the book opens on page one…

The little girls who found the body of the missing boy were not angels, although that is how the newspaper described them, the following morning, beneath the headline.  I saw the phone, after all, and the seven girls were only girls.  They had no haloes or transparent wings. They had no heavenly warmth or sweet, scarless faces kissed individually by God. What the girls did have were muddy pantlegs and boots; bright jackets buttoned against the wind of a Sunday hiking trip; name tags in crooked calligraphy made just that morning by their Lutheran youth-group sponsor. Teresa and Joy, Maura Kay, Mary Anne. Two Jennifers and a Missy.

Here’s another from page eleven…

Henry, poised beside his grandfather’s incubator, letting lamplight warm the eggs, shudder them, until, at last, some miracle evening, when a single shell cracked and the firstborn head emerged, damply dazzled thing, breathtakingly alive.

I still haven’t decided if I believe in coincidences or not, but I’d like to note that this book takes place in Kansas, and the last book I read, Was by Geoff Ryman, also took place there.  Heim also mention’s Ryman’s book in the notes at the end of We Disappear. Heim also mentions Truman Capote’s True Blood taking place in Kansas, another of my favorite books (Truman is my profile pic on Facebook). So, maybe I was meant to be reading this book right now.

Having never read any of his stuff until now, I find Heim’s writing to be “breathtakingly alive.”

More to follow…

May 21 2010

The First 100 Pages: Was by Geoff Ryman

This month I’m reading Geoff Ryman’s Was. It was first released in 1992 in hardcover, three year’s before Gregory Macguire’s Wicked.  I haven’t read Wicked, but find it unfortunate that Was just didn’t seem to catch on like Macguire’s book did in 1995.  I had not even heard of Ryman’s book till last year when I came across it on a random search on Amazon and added it to my Wish List.  I broke down and treated myself to a used copy this year for under $3.00.

I just passed the 100 page mark last night (the reason for the title of this post, and possibly a post I’ll continue in the future for other reads.)  At first, the book was moving at a very slow pace, and though tempted to put it down I really wanted to like the book so I stuck with it.  I’m glad I did.

The book follows three distinct storylines all related to the Wizard of Oz.  First, there’s Dorothy as a little girl and the events that lead her to have to go live with Auntie Em and how her new life in Kansas is.  This part has been most of the first 100 pages thus far.

There has been only two chapters so far covering a second storyline about a young man that seems to be obsessed with the Wizard of Oz and going to Kansas to find the “real” locations of where Dorothy lived.  Not much has been revealed about this part of the story so far, other than what I read on the back of the book.

The last story line follows Judy Garland.  The first chapter was about her when she was born Frances Gumm and performed with her sisters.  It was a brief glimpse into her family life, then there was another beautifully written chapter about her on the set of Oz having a discussion with her make-up artist.  It was pretty much this chapter that really got the story going and made me change my mind about putting the book down.

The book reminds me a bit of Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, a book I loved, in the way that it follows three different story lines that are loosely connected in some way whether it be historical or even just coincidence. Although a slow read in the beginning, I kind of enjoyed that because Ryman is such an interesting writer.  I feel like I have to read it slow because I don’t want to miss anything.  There are definitely quotes here I want to underline and share later with my full review of the book.  His writing his so simple, yet thought provoking.  Even haunting, despite that being a clichè I seem to use a lot lately.

Hoping to finish this one before vacation.  Not sure how much time I’ll have for reading in New Orleans in a couple of weeks, but I want to be armed with something good or buy something while I’m there to read myself to sleep at night.