A Single Man

5 out of 5

I love how the concept of fear in media and current events has such a relevant impact on each decade and generation. It reminds me that whatever the situation, whatever the threat, it is only the current one that is the worst.

I was watching this movie and thinking to myself that the air of sadness was too strong for me to love it, truly. I had the thought that sad things are sometimes perfect in their sadness and moments later the line 'Sometimes awful things have their own kind of beauty' came up on the screen.

I am a sucker for this kind of British-influenced look at the late 50s and early 60s where a spotlight is shined on the unhappy housewife and overlooked homosexual. A Single Man is intriguing visually, not only in light of my propensity toward the genre, but the hue changes from dull to vivid each time the main character sees something he finds beautiful. I find the meaning to be that he couldn't see the beauty until the day he decided to kill himself and leave the world that is of equal parts beauty and pain.

Julianne Moore's eyeliner, college students smoking in class, chronic cocktail hour, and my least favorite era of architecture.

'I realize that everything is exactly the way it is meant to be.'

I loved it and I'll never watch it again.

Shade's Children by Garth Nix

5 out of 5

Garth Nix, a young adult fantasy writer, is easily my favorite author over the last few years. I just reread Shade's Children in an effort to sate my interest in his short list of novels. Although Nix's other books are all classically characterized as fantasy, I found this one more intriguing since it fell a bit over the line of science fiction in my opinion. I enjoy science fiction more than fantasy because it begins with a tangible basis in subjects and places I am familiar with. Fantasy can be disorienting.

I'm not sure why I'm so drawn to dystopian chronicles, but this story was exactly what I favor; featuring the the abandoned earth, after the 'Change', as a playground for otherworldly creatures. There is no human left alive over the age of 14 except for the refugees who find shelter with a resonance of human personality left in a computer by the name of Shade.

Children are the easy resource of the invading creatures and thanks to the 'Change Talents' they now possess, some escape, survive and resist. Shade is an eerie benefactor though and you get the distinct feeling throughout the story that there is no safe place.

I fell easily in love with the characters (although the underdeveloped grammar of the character Gold Eye can become tiring) and found myself physically rigid in anticipation of their safety. I was drawn in by the survivalist theme and the unraveling reasoning behind the occupation of the creatures.

All in all, I would call this book a page turner, as with everything I've read of Garth Nix. I'm not sure I can be deterred by any theme or genre Nix chooses, I just enjoy the writing too much.

The Time Traveler's Wife

5 out of 5

I absolutely loved this book. I found myself reading at times I had set aside as 'rest' times. A love story I found every bit as exciting as the Twilight saga without the teen aged ache, heroine addiction feel.

Since this book is about a man that time travels, his existence overlaps with both the woman that he loves and his own existence, in a severely random pattern. The flow of the book is chronological; each chapter begins with the date, and Henry and Clare's age or ages. In addition, there are paragraph headings to let you know which voice is currently telling the story. I've never read a novel written through the eyes of two different people in first person. The majority of the story is told by Henry, since the time traveling happens to him.

I felt a real sense of vulnerability in the descriptions of Henry's lack of control. The character equates the experience of time traveling to '...listening to a car radio that's having trouble holding on to a station.' Although he may not be able to control when and where he goes, there is a pattern to why. He finds himself visiting people and places that were, are, will be significant; including painful events.

Throughout the story, these two characters take turns being the one who knows the other intimately as their ages crisscross; old to young in most cases. Clare grows up knowing Henry as an adult, then when she reaches adulthood, she meets him in the present - before Henry is even aware of her existence. I cannot conjure the mental flowchart it must have taken to birth the concept for this story.

This love story compasses that long-forgotten brand of longing in young-hearted love, love that encompasses the realities of life, and how people persist through the craziness that comes their way. The characters contemplate quantum mechanics, Zen koans, and religious and existential beliefs in trying to decipher what causes episodes of time travel. Their chronicle was a tangent relation of danger and excitement. Heartbreak and relief. Brutality and honesty. Wanting. Energy.

My only negative comment is that in the brief moments they spoke French or German, I was left wondering things that not even Google could answer. I was, however, highly inspired to look up a lot of the musical references. If I have ever heard music while reading a book, I did while reading The Time Traveler's Wife. Two words: Violent Femmes.

Monster Island

5 out of 5

Okay, I may be a sucker for anything zombie, but this book only got better the more I read it. It sometimes takes me awhile to get the feel of a new author and though I would say Monster Island started out a solid B, it rapidly developed, leading me to read with increasing fury. It is written in first person by one character and in the third person of another character. (The protagonist telling his story and another person's story is a skill I have yet to master.)

Monster Island simultaneously follows the personal account of a living survivor and the experiences of what may be the smartest dead man alive(?) as they both find out what an invasion of the living dead means. The story goes from simple survival to the living versus the undead.

The story of the living is the redundant theme of endurance, but that's exactly what I seek these tales out for. I always wonder about the learning curve of these characters. I mean, haven't they ever seen a zombie movie? I don't think it took them too terribly long to figure out the old 'shoot 'em in the head' theory in this book. And this group of survivors had the added detriment of fighting an undead horde of varying and evolving consciousness.

The tangible concept of what it means to be the walking dead was primal and intriguing. An endless hunger, the restorative properties of eating living meat, needing to consume the life of something. Tasty, shiny life.

Without giving too much away, the author's reasoning for a zombie uprising and apocalypse was fueled by the zen koan that there is no real distinction between every thing; living or dead. That we are all the same singular being, divided into different bodies, or to be more specific - different nouns, really. The story took multiple unusual routes that I didn't expect and I really enjoyed this explanation of a collective consciousness. I mean, what does one cognizant zombie do when he discovers the ethereal thread linking him to the rest of the zombies?

The disgusting imagery of what it would be like to be one of the shambling, decaying horde did tug at my heartstrings. I'm sure I would rather be dead than one of the restless undead with such an insatiable need. And as I've said before, it's much harder to read through horror pictures. Unlike a movie, the unsavory details don't pass gratefully by with each blink. No. They linger on the page at the pace you read, making you squirm word by word.

The tempo wasn't the only thing that picked up through this book. I became invested in the welfare of multiple characters; both living and living-ish. Dark humor became more prevalent toward the end, making me chuckle a bit as I read. The style of writing even seemed to mature the further I went, keeping my attention invested in both the concept and the 'good guy's' memoir. Right down to the last line, "Please. Give me just one more minute."

I sincerely look forward to Monster Nation and Monster Planet.