Reviews in Review 2016

e-books sadly not included. 

Another year, and another stack of incredible books! I'm a little late on this post, but better late than never. I think I was a little too eager to put 2016 behind me (aren't we all), but I got the chance to read some really awesome books and work with some incredible artists this year. I can't let the year slip away without a bit of reflection. As well as being a bit of my "Best Books of 2016," this list serves as another look at my reviews. Feelings can sometimes change on books; some that impacted me greatly while reading become hardly memorable, while something about a mediocre book could stick with me for months.

I made a goal of reading 25 books this year, same as last year. I made it much closer to my goal this year with 19 books, and so I'm setting my goal against for 25 in 2017. I'm confident that I'm going to make it this year, and not just because of short books. (Though I'm having deja vu of saying this last year, hah.)

I found it really hard to narrow down a list this year, which I suppose is a great sign. Without further adieu, let's get this rock show started!

Most Class

Life of Pi by Yann Martel 

Nothing classier than a classic. I figured I should get the obvious choice out of the way first. Life of Pi rocked my summer reading in a way only excellent literature does. For months after I found myself flipping through passages and looking up quotes, still enamored with the story and its storytelling. One of the main reasons why I loved this read so much was because I learned a lot about writing from it. Not only about tension and execution, but as an incredible in-depth character study. The reader gets to know Pi as intimately as themselves, and that's something I haven't seen done so well before or since.

Delightfully Different

The Migrant Report by Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar

I was offered a chance to read this book in exchange for a review, and I was so glad that I did. It's one of the books that sticks out most for me this year, if only because of the rich culture and characters. Though there was a large cast of POV characters for this novel, the author balanced it well and kept each character vivid and original. I was a little turned off by the sequel baiting, but months later I'm still delighted thinking back on the characters and all their interwoven problems. It is an #ownvoices book, as it is staged in the Arabian Gulf where the author lives and writes. My only real complaint comes back to wanting more from the book, yet it's one I often end up recommending, mostly because I feel like it is an awesome story that deserves the love. 

A Bad Aftertaste

The Outliers by Kimberly McCreight

I was probably a little too forgiving in my review of this book. Then again, it's probably just that the few good parts I enjoyed have faded from memory, leaving only the bad. I call this book a bad aftertaste as it perfectly describes the feeling I get when I think of it. The main character was such an unlikable jerk, the romance was highly unbelievable, the beginning fluctuated between a "telling" backstory and break-neck tension and pacing, and the end is a string of bad fantasy tropes, all disguised in a contemporary. The main character is the "chosen one," it ends on a cliffhanger of people hunting after them, along with the reveal that we've got super special powers. It almost felt like a bait and switch of a book-- painting itself to be a contemporary story about character and growth, instead turning into the epitome of urban fantasy cliches. 

Most Warm Fuzzies of the Year

Something in Between by Melissa de la Cruz

This book delighted me from beginning to end. Perhaps it was because I read it right after an especially dark book, but the tone and writing of Something in Between was so positive, so bubbly and fun that it really lightened my spirits. It is a bit of the quintessential love story, but focused on a Filipino family and their struggle of impending deportation. The book balanced the love story with an #ownvoices look at Unites States immigration. It tackled the issues with the seriousness they deserve, but kept the story hopeful and fun right up until the end. It was such a breath of fresh air to read. 

Best Let Down of the Year

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Ah, Night Vale. After hearing about this book, I was so excited to immerse myself in the world of weird. A couple of my friends read it and encouraged me to pick it up, so I was fairly hyped up about what I was getting into. But after diving in, I found myself quickly bored of the strangeness without direction, and a plot hastily tied together at the end. There were tiny glimmering aspects of the book that I really fell in love with, which made the book even more of a let down to me. It may simply come down to personal preference, but I really felt like this book could have been so much more. It was the first book I read of the year and that disappointment still rings as strong as the day I finished it. 

Surprise Delight

Death of a Scratching Post by Jackson Dean Chase

I'm not usually one for cute coffee table books, but I picked up this poetry collection on a whim, mostly because I love cats. I was surprised and delighted by how much I fell in love with the author's prose. Yes, every poem was about a cat, but held a lot of passion and depth that I wasn't quite expecting. I really enjoyed the author's approach and even now I find myself flipping back to the poems and reading through. It's a short but sweet read and has stuck with me for longer than I expected. 

Honorary Mention: Holy Shit Technology

Between Worlds by Skip Brittenham

I felt like I couldn't go without mentioning this book. The story itself was pretty standard and didn't actually wow me-- it was the augmented reality app that did it. This is a middle grade book, and in an attempt to engage kids who might be a little too attached to their electronics, an app was constructed as a "how to" guide for all the creatures the main characters discover in the new world they're transported to. Using the phone's camera, the app projects a 3D creature standing on the book (think Pokemon Go). As you read through the book, the reader discovers more pages that show new creatures. I was impressed because I felt like the app helped to facilitate reading and encouraged the reader to get more into the story, instead of taking away from it with too many flashy add-ons.

Book Review: Life of Pi

Book Review: Life of Pi by Yann Martel 

Goodreads Description: Life of Pi is a fantasy adventure novel by Yann Martel published in 2001. The protagonist, Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, a Tamil boy from Pondicherry, explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

My Review: There’s something about reviewing classic and well-renowned books that strikes me as unnecessary. It’s like walking into a church, shaking the pastor and screaming in his face that God is real, that he must accept Him into his life. It’s announcing something people, especially avid readers (and I assume you are if you’ve been reading my reviews), already know. Some books, like Life of Pi, are gold. It’s because of that fact that I’m still pulling out my laptop, shifting through all the thoughts and feelings this book has left me with, and preparing yet another review for a book that hardly needs the promotion. Despite their classic status, I can’t help but want to put my feelings about a book like this on paper, if only for my own benefit. 

If you don’t know the tale, Life of Pi is the story of Piscine ‘Pi’ Molitar Patel, a young Indian boy who grows up on a zoo in India and relocates with the animals to Canada with his family. While crossing the Pacific Ocean, the boat sinks, leaving Pi stranded on a lifeboat with an orangutan, a hyena, a zebra with a broken leg, and a 3 year old adult Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Not only does Pi have to survive over two hundred days at sea in a lifeboat, but he has to do it while juggling the delicate ecosystem created between himself and the animals.

I began reading Life of Pi in the hospital after my best friend of over 10 years was in a serious car accident that nearly killed her. I admit, I grabbed the book in part because I knew of its religious connotations, and I was searching for some sort of comfort in an idea of something bigger than myself. After all, Pi Patel is a Hindu, Christian, and Muslim simultaneously, mostly due to an unbidden love of God and the word of Him, no matter what form it takes. I am not at all religious, but I am fascinated by religion. Pi’s take on Christianity, Hinduism and Islam was enlightening and light-hearted. At Pi’s first introduction to Christianity, he tries to understand the logic behind Christ’s sacrifice in such an innocent and non-judgemental way that it had me cracking up laughing. As well, I felt a connection to Hinduism’s spiritual side, and the fantastical reaches of its stories, to the calm, serene peace that Islam and prayer brought him. Despite all this religion, the book itself is not preachy nor does Pi have an obsessive devotion to God that would make non-religious readers uncomfortable. In fact, most of the religious moments were contained within the first part of the book, where the author goes into Pi’s backstory, how he came to all these religions, and his childhood growing up in a zoo. Once Pi hits the lifeboat, he spends very little time mentioning God or prayer or religion, really only mentioning it in passing detail. This I think was very vital in not having the religious tones overwhelm the rest of the story.

As for the rest of the story, what a story it was! It wasn’t the situational story of Pi in the lifeboat with these animals that made the book so great—it was all the set-up done in the first part of the book, establishing zoos and how they function, how zookeepers think, how life worked this boy from Piscine, to Pissing, to Pi. All this backstory involved such creative and interesting characters, from Mamiji, to his school teachers, to his religious teachers. Each piece added an integral part of the book for when Pi was actually on the lifeboat. Without all the buildup, the reader would have been unable to see how Pi’s thoughts worked while at sea. Whereas, by getting to know Pi Patel so intimately before the conflict sets in, the author didn’t even have to mention a lot of Pi’s direct thought process for us to understand why he did what he did. I was fascinated how intimately I was in Pi’s head—it’s something that I’ve rarely found, and never to such an intense level.

To the untrained eye, the first part of Life of Pi may appear to be one long info dump. After all, as writers, aren’t we warned away from dumping out a character’s entire history before getting to the inciting incident? There are three main reasons that I believe this isn’t an info dump, and why it amounted to the book’s success. For one, the tension builds throughout the first part, in the solid teasing of the sinking of the boat, and the continual hinting of Richard Parker. For at this stage, we have no idea who Richard Parker is, whether he’s actually a person or what. He is a ghostly figure that “haunts” Pi Patel, long after the story has ended. And though the mentions of the lifeboat are what propel us forward (as that is the story the reader believes they’ve come for), the mystery of Richard Parker, who he is, and why he haunts Pi, is what keeps the reader intrigued and engaged. If this book had one of these tension tricks but not the other, I don’t think it would have been nearly as successful.

The second reason to the backstory’s successes lies directly in the title. The book is the Life of Pi, and we see as soon as we get to the portion of the lifeboat, every little detail, right down to the nickname “Pissing Patel,” helps to keep him alive on the boat. He applies all these incidents in his life and what he’s learned from his parents and mentors, and it keeps him alive. The key to his survival isn’t the tiger or his wits or even dumb luck—it was the circumstances of his life that made him able to live so long. And this becomes apparent long before the book is over, meaning that the reader isn’t frustrated by all this information that’s coming to them that would appear superfluous. Because the author draws the reader’s attention back to the main conflict through little “tension teasers,” it helps to draw the reader’s quiet realization that all these rich stories are coming together and interwoven into the main conflict. Readers hate feeling like they’re wasting their time reading something that doesn’t matter to the main story, but the author kept Pi’s backstory interesting while subtly drawing back to the main issue, as to reassure readers that they hadn’t run off together on a tangent.

And finally, the true mark of infodumping is Telling, not Showing. With Pi’s backstory, the author took us on a firsthand experience, and though there was a lot to explain, he still showed us the richness of the zoo, what classes felt like, and strong memories that stick out for one reason or another. Many authors, when trying to convey as much information as possible, jump to telling, which is why their “infodumps” get scratched out in editing. Telling is boring to read. But with every chapter of Pi’s childhood, I couldn’t wait to see where we would go next, central conflict be damned.

Really, I believe this book is essential for writers. If the religious elements make you shy away, don’t fret. This book is an intellectual look at religion and faith, not one that demands your audience in church pews. The symbolism in this story is really what gets me, time and time again. For that reason alone I know it will stick with me, and will definitely be a book I can’t help but reread, time and time again.

TL;DR: All in all, 5/5 stars. Life of Pi is such an incredibly well-written tale that is so magical and whimsical while still remaining completely realistic. You won’t be disappointed.

God Is In The Rain

Only a few hours from now on this Sunday evening, it will be exactly one week since the car accident that put my roommate and best friend of nearly 10 years in the hospital in critical condition. 

It almost seems too quiet for the turmoil raging in my head. Though clouds gather over the evening sky, the air is crisp and warm as a sunset paints the world in low romantic hues of reds and gold. Out in the neighbouring province of British Columbia, hundreds if not thousands of people are picking ripe fruit to send all over Canada. It's hard, hot work, and my roommate, Josi, left with a backpack and a huge smile only a few weeks ago to join them. Previous summers, she'd left on similar adventures, so by now she knew the ropes. This Monday morning would have brought another day of work, and before dawn Josi would be the one to run through the bunk houses cheerfully singing or banging on doors, yelling, "Everybody up now, I need my coffee!" Whichever greeting it was for the day.

But the camps have been quiet this last week. 

Not only for Josi but also in mourning, for the accident took the life of a talented young musician named Max. I only arrived home yesterday evening after spending the last four and a half days with her in Kelowna. Josi was airlifted there after the car she was in flew off the road and into a ravine. Her seat belt, though it broke, saved her life. She sustained severe injuries and had to have multiple surgeries to set her bones and repair damaged organs. The list of injuries grows more upsetting the longer it gets, as the number of broken bones almost rises to the double digits. 

It's begun to rain here at home, and I can't help but wonder if it's raining over Josi too. There was a quote from V for Vendetta that always stuck with me in a weird way, as I never quite understood it. 

"God is in the rain." 

I'm not much of a religious person. Neither is Josi. We're both spiritual and we believe in something out there, God, spirits, karma, energy, the universe--whatever. We don't always know what name to put to the forces out there that influence our lives, but we have always felt that presence. One interpretation of the above quote, at least one that I really love, is that there is always something good in the bad. God is in the rain, as in even when you're caught up in storms that seem impassable, you're not alone. There is always love there with you, and God or the universe or karma has not given up on you. There is purpose in suffering, even if by our own human sense of justice, it can seem unfair or imbalanced as to who undergoes what kind of suffering. 

When I first arrived at the hospital, Josi was not conscious. She had been initially, was even awake at the scene, as she had no head trauma. One of the more severe and worrying of her injuries-- her broken back-- meant that any sort of movement was dangerous. Josi, being fidgety at the best of times, was kept sedated so she didn't try to move in a way that ended up paralyzing her. 

Breathing tubes snaked down her throat. Two monitors showed, I'm sure, every bodily function of hers possible. There were about four IV stands in the room, and probably a dozen or so tubes coming out of her. They'd admitted her to the ICU, and a nurse sat outside her room at all times to keep a watchful eye over her. 

To say I was a mess would be an understatement. If my head was a storm cloud, my tears were the unending torrent of rain. Cheesy maybe, but the metaphor is certainly apt for how I felt. Let's just say I'm glad Josi didn't have to see me bawling like a baby. I managed to gather my composure, as hospitals are sadly not an unfamiliar place to me, and pulled out the book I'd brought to read to her. 

I'd seen the movie Life of Pi and of course fell in love with the story. I knew the book would be a much more moving experience, and so Josi offered me her copy to read a few months ago. I'd hoarded the book away in my pile, and with the other books on my list I hadn't been able to get to it as quickly as I should have, considering it's a borrowed book. But the tale was both familiar to Josi while being new to me, so I figured it would be the perfect thing to read aloud to her while the drugs kept her sedated and machines reduced her life to a series of graphs and numbers. 

I didn't get far in the book, but far enough. I did end up bringing it back to the place I was staying to read, because of course once I started it was hard to stop. I brought the book for Josi, but also hoping that the words would give me some healing as well. And there was so many beautiful words to give me solace in that cramped ICU room.

"I am not one to project human traits and emotions onto animals, but many a time during that month in Brazil, looking up at the sloths in repose, I felt I was in the presence of upside-down yogis deep in meditation or hermits deep in prayer, wise beings whose intense imaginative lives were beyond the reach of my scientific probing. Sometimes I got my majors mixed up. A number of my fellow religious studies students--muddled agnostics who didn't know which way was up, who were in the thrall of reason, that fool's gold for the bright-- reminded me of the three-toed sloth; and the three-toed sloth, such a beautiful example of the miracle of life, reminded me of God." 

Josi reminded me of a three-toed sloth strapped to that belt, her arms literally tied down with bandages to keep her from upsetting her spine. As I read to her, the story of Pi Patel's life unfolding, she began to transform from a sloth back to a human, back to the dragon she was. She began to fidget and turn, and come back more and more. Even after they upped the sedation, she continued to push back to the surface. The first moment she opened her eyes and looked up at me, my smile stretched so big it felt like it would break my face.

"Are you with me?" I asked, but hell, I didn't think she'd nod! She fought her way back to consciousness just enough to squeeze my hand back. After only a few days and after undergoing three different surgeries, Josi slowly came back to herself. I asked her if she wanted me to keep reading to her, and she nodded.

 I felt like, hey, at least I can do something.

The next few days I spent with her, she recovered incredibly quickly. To the point that amazed me, and made me wonder how the heck she could be so strong. She had full mobility in her hand with her broken wrist. She can wiggle her toes and move her foot on the ankle she broke. Her abdominal injuries are healing and her back was fitted with a brace, so moving her isn't so much of a concern anymore (aside from pain).

Despite all this, Josi's spirit is incredibly strong. The first day after regaining consciousness she was singing and joking around with us. When her dad listed off the injuries she had, she shook him off and simply said, "I'm alive."

By the grace of something, that's for certain. When Josi's seat belt broke and she was ejected from the car, someone or something was there to help cushion her fall. May sound crazy to some, but I've never really cared if people called me names. Initially upon waking, Josi told me her grandfather (who had passed away when she was a child) had been there to save her. "He looked like an angel, or Jesus, and he held me in his arms and cried before sending me back, because it wasn't my time."

It's hard not to believe in God, to believe in angels or karma or even damn luck, when you're sitting in the ICU gripping someone's hand. It's hard not to question the justice in it all, or look for meaning in it, or look for something to blame. With Life of Pi as my bible, I know I was looking for God within those hospital walls. They say more prayers are uttered in hospitals than in churches, though I believe not because people are unfaithful, but because hospitals are where prayers are needed most.

We all believe in something. We can also believe in things simultaneously, things that others may think contradict each other. Like with Pi Patel, who was a Hindu, Muslim, and Christian. Someone once said to know a man's beliefs is to know the man, and that is certainly true.

I can't even begin to explain what I felt watching Josi's recovery in the time I was able to be with her. She laid in bed and told me of the beautiful yellow dragon that snaked around her room, shyly hiding his face from view, but watching over her. I told her it was her guardian spirit, there to protect her when I couldn't. I told her it must've come back with her when she went to the other side with her grandfather. Hallucination or not, she looked up at that dragon with such love and gratitude in her eyes, I couldn't help but feel like she was looking up at God.

I think I reacted the same way a lot of other people do when they get the Bad News Call. The night I received the news, shock snapped over me like a bear trap, and I argued vehemently in my head with the notion that it was even real. I called upon God, though in an unclear and ambiguous way, and questioned why this had to happen to someone so kind and compassionate. Someone who always put others first. Who in the hospital screamed the first day she was conscious, defending her friend, the driver, because he merely fell asleep at the wheel. Why did this have to happen to them and not someone else? If I was angry at anyone throughout all this, I was angry at God, or fate, or karma. 

Yet at the same time, I couldn't be more grateful. She's alive. She will walk again. Whatever fate tipped her into that accident tipped her right back and kept her alive. 

I'm not sure what I walked out of that hospital feeling. I don't know what I believe-- hell, even down to the shifting stories of events, it's like trying to piece a broken vase back together. Even if God wasn't there on that roadside, even if it came down to dumb freaking luck that she lived and Max didn't, I do know one thing for certain: 

I believe in Josi. And I believe in her strength.

Thank you so much for reading this post, if you've made it this far. I rambled, but it was to get some healing from writing, the same way I find healing in reading. If you have any pennies to spare, there has been a Go Fund Me account started for Josi. The account is to cover medical expenses and transportation and eventual physio and rehabilitation. She will have to learn to walk again. There's a lot of details yet to handle-- the forefront of which will be somehow getting her home--but that's what it all comes down to: details.