Bloody Bloodiness!

I was cruising through my stores of Drafted posts that have never borne Bloggy Fruits when I realized that I haven't written anything on the Bloody Jack books yet.

*Hits self on forehead*

The Bloody Jack series, by L. A. Meyer, is a trillion kinds of awesome. Seriously.
The first book is called Bloody Jack (no surprises there), and it is about a scrawny little girl named Mary who lives in London in the 1800s-ish. When she becomes an orphan, she joins a gang of kids running around London stealing drunk peoples' clothing and fighting other gangs. THEN, her buddy is killed by Muck, a creep who sells bodies to doctors, and Mary decides to leave the gang by dressing up as a boy, joining the Navy ship The Dolphin, and renaming herself Jacky. While in the Navy, she goes through puberty (she thinks she's dying at first), falls in love, and kills pirates and child molesters.

The second book is The Curse of the Blue Tattoo, and it's actually the first one in the series that I read. You KNOW a series is good when you can read the second one, and still follow the plot and like the characters. Jacky is punted off The Dolphin and sent to the Lawson Peabody School for Girls.
That's right, this gun-toting, shiv-wielding, spitting, swearing, skinny little pirate-killer is gonna become a bleedin' lady of manners and wot-not.

I am not going to get into the other seven or so books, but suffice to say, they are also really neat reads.
My Uncle R, who is pretty into 19th century sailing and ships and boats and stuff, also says the books are both really good and fairly accurate. I just find it neat that we can both read the same book and enjoy it equally.

I am just going to say this: I have read a LOT of books with kick-ass female protagonists, and if I were going to need backup or assistance or a friend from one of those books, I would pick Jacky Faber. (Or Hermione Granger. But that comparison's really not fair, because Hermione's magic....)
Jacky is a scrawny, smart, funny, brave-but-also-cowardly, snarky, sneaky, unforgettable little con-artist of a character. She's loyal, a bit of a hell-raiser, and tries to get along with everybody, except if they are evil/mean/cruel, in which case she concocts diabolical ways to get revenge on them.

The writing in the first half of the first book is a little funky because there are a hell of a lot of run on sentences much like this one, but they actually flow really well. I don't usually enjoy Streams of Consciousness, but I enjoy Jacky's. About midway through the first book, though, she starts to talk normally (as normal as 19th century pirate killer talk on Navy ships gets) because she starts to get some schoolin' in.

The thing that really gets me about this series is that even though it reads like a teenage girl telling you what's going on in her life, the series is actually written by L. A. Meyer, a fifty-year-old-ish guy in Maine. His website (linky goodness here) actually leads to either his art gallery's page or Jacky's page. Continue to Jacky's page! He sells autographed books for $24 (US, I think) and t-shirts (he actually makes them, and they are actually cool) for $24 (US again, I think).

Also, luckily for us all, there is a new book (9th in the series, I think) coming out in September. 

Have at 'em, mates!
Captain Radical

Review: How I Live Now

How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff, is a lovely little British novel by a lovely little British lady. Despite all that lovely little Britiness, it's solidly a part of the genre we like to call War Stories.

How I Live Now (HILN) is the story of an anorexic girl named Daisy, who is punted to England to live with her aunt and cousins when her stepmother becomes too awful to bear. While there, she becomes very close with her younger cousin Piper, marvels over the strange abilities of her cousin Isaac, is largely indifferent to Oswald, her oldest cousin, and falls In Love with her cousin Edmond.

That's right.

Cousin Love.

In England.

For some reason, though, it never becomes Truly Creepy. It just hovers at Slightly Disturbing If You Actually Think About It.

Then, in the midst of all this Cousin Bonding and Non-Creepy Cousin Love, a war explodes. Basically, Britain's main army has been lured out of the country for various reasons, and now another country or organization (who is carefully never named or identified, besides as being Not British) is not letting them back in.

!!!

WHO KNEW WAR WAS THAT SIMPLE!

Not me, that's for sure.

After brushing off that stunning tactical achievement, we are presented with the Splitting Up of the cousins: Girls with girls, boys with boys.

After various physically and emotionally harrowing adventures, the book does end fairly happy, but I will warn you:

This is not exactly a feel good read.

There are mass murders. They are gory, and awful, and heartbreaking.

There is a LOT of emotional damage, also, and the book does make a pretty good case for how hard it is for people to heal after wars.

My biggest problem with the book was that it was written very freely, without a lot of grammar. So there are run-on sentences that go on FOREVER. Even when the writing is really gorgeously (or gorily) descriptive, sometimes the odd structure can make your head a little grumbly. If you could relax, it flowed very nicely, but when just reading for a couple of minutes, it was kind of distracting.

In short, it was good. Bit of a hard read, due to Murder and Bad Sentence Structure (oops, meant Free, Loose, Poetic, Blah Blah Blah).

Avoid if even the slightest whiff of incest is really disgusting to you.

Sending kissing cousins your way,

Yours truly,

Radical

A Tragic and Unavoidable Life Event

At the beginning of last year, I stumbled on a book that has been the toast of the literary town lately: The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. Katniss Everdeen, and her romantic, political, physical, and moral struggles have captivated audiences around the world, of all ages, sizes, colours, and whatever other descriptives you can think of.

This book - the entire trilogy - has been hailed as the next great series.

Hm. Yeah.

In the last coupla weeks, I've mowed through the first two books and am anxiously waiting for the last one.

I cracked the book open with a sense of trepidation and hope: the questions that run through your head as you begin a book that's been raved about.

Will this be my next favourite book?

Is this book REALLY as good as they say?

Is this the beginning of a beautiful relationship?

(Yes, I have been single for a while. But you can't deny, a new book is a lot like meeting a new Potential Paramour.)

I mowed through the first book in a couple of hours, but my initial reaction?

meh.

MEH.

Seriously, 24 kids are sent to KILL EACH OTHER, there are complex, interesting relationships and political ties between characters, and my reaction????

"Meh."

ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGH................

Look, THG is a really cool book. But I COULDN'T ENJOY IT!

The expectations! The rave reviews! The awesome covers!

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING.

The build up was just too much - no book could have been the epic personal journey that it was set up as.

Then I read the second one: Catching Fire.

That one actually DID disappoint at first, but after about fifty pages, it got pretty good (see that? That is me underselling the book. In all actuality, it got REALLY GOOD, but I was trying to save you from my Tragic Fate). Then, in a fire of uncertainty and unreasonable anger at epically long waiting lists at the library, I broke like a stale cookie in a toddler's clammy fist and peeked at Mockingjay's plot on Wikipedia.

*Cue self-loathing*

So now, I have ruined the last book for myself (heh. But I do have the power to ruin it for my [nonexistent?] readers), and I have been left with the sad realization that no matter what I do, at some point, high expectations will not be met.

Some argue that logically, the thing to do is to have the lowest expectations possible.

I have subscribed to this Train of Thought before, and while momentarily gratifying, hope is something that we shouldn't just dismiss. When we hope, we are happy. I mean, if you have been, say, single FOREVER, you could just stay home all the time and cultivate facial hair, because you're realistically never going to meet your SoulMate. But if you get up out of bed and put on some of your favourite clothing and then go out to the library or local cafe or just for a walk - your chances of meeting someone shoot through the roof. (I hate to burst someone's bubble, but a hot Jehovah's Witness is NOT just going to show up on a day when you are wearing your cute pajamas. Seriously. I believe in fairies, but even *I* know that smokin' JH's do not coincide with Cute Days. Let it go.)

So basically, to sum up this uberlong, uberwindy and bendy post:

1. DO NOT OVERSELL THINGS LIKE BOOKS. Or movies. Or TV.

2. THG books are good books. Not great. But they are interesting, and easy to read. Also, they make you think. (RRRRGH, MUST STOP URGE TO OVERSELL!!!!)

3. Don't look up plot spoilers. It makes you feel superior and trashy. Not a good combo.

4. Hope is good. Keep it alive.

5. Buy cute pajamas. Because you never know what might happen.

6. Get outside. That's right, close this window, stand up, and vacate the premises. Breath. Smile at people.

And have a nice day.

Sincerely,

AT/RR