Giveaway!

It's time for my first giveaway!  Would you like to win a copy of The Year of the Gadfly BEFORE it's released? Since (as I said in my review in my last post) I got a review copy, I want to give it away, to share it with more readers.

I also will give the winner a snack to enjoy it with, as there's nothing I love more than eating and reading.  Snack will be pre-packaged and is to-be-determined.

The deadline to enter will be next Monday, May 7th, at NOON.  To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post with the title of your favorite book, one you think other people ought to read if they haven't. Also include a way for me to contact you. If you don't want to post your email address, you can email me with it.

I will choose a winner randomly next Monday afternoon.

Bonus! To get multiple entries email me (holden.elizabethann@gmail.com) with a link showing you posting a link to my blog on your own blog, or on Twitter, facebook, or Google +; or use feedburner to subscribe to my blog (feedburner link is on the right side of this page).

The Year of the Gadfly

I just finished reading The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller. This was one of those books where I had to stay up late to finish it even though I was exhausted and had to get up early the next morning.  It was actually a really great Friday night. I was in a hotel, traveling for work. I laid in a huge comfy bed, ate a vending machine snack or two (Cheddar and Sour Cream Potato Chips), and read a great mystery novel.

The Year of the Gadfly is about Iris Dupont, a new student at Mariana Academy, a posh prep school not far from Boston.  Iris is recovering from recent terrible events involving her best friend Dalia, and her family has moved into the house of the former Mariana headmaster. Iris soon finds out that Mariana Academy is full of secrets, like the existence of a long-hidden group within the school called Prisom's Party. These secrets turn out to involve the new biology teacher, Jonah Kaplan, as well as Lily, the former headmaster's daughter, whose bedroom Iris is currently staying in.

I liked this a lot.  Besides the central mystery, there are a lot of thematically interesting things about moral ambiguity, fitting in, and fallibility.  It also, as books about teenagers often do, made me so glad I'm no longer in high school!

It goes on sale in a couple weeks, on May 8th.  (Yes, I got to review it ahead of time! Yay!)  Order it here: The Year of the Gadfly

Thank You Package!

Awhile ago, I posted a blog entry about my collection of Honest Tea bottles in my garage.  (Currently I've had 12 this semester.)  I put the photo and info on here and then didn't think about it.  Well, last week I got an email from someone at Honest Tea who said they saw the post and that they wanted to send me a thank you package.  Is that not totally awesome? I was shocked and excited.

It arrived today!

Here it is! What could be inside? Tea, perhaps?

Indeed, tea! Twelve bottles!

Six bottles of unsweetened green and six bottles of unsweetened black, my favorite kinds!

Also a nice reusable shopping bag and a bracelet!

Thanks, Honest Tea!!!

1Q84

I just finished reading 1Q84, Haruki Murakami's latest. It was really not very good! Not good at all! It shocked me, because I've loved almost all of the books of his that I've read so far. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles was absolutely amazing, for example.  But this--I was disappointed.

Here's my quick plot review. It's a little spoiler-y (no end-of-the-book spoilers, but some mid-book ones), so you're warned:

Tengo and Aomame met when they were ten, and then were separated. They've been basically in love with each other ever since, even as they've gone on to get jobs, sleep with other people, etc. Now they're 30, and it's 1984. Tengo is a math instructor, and just ghost-wrote a novel created by this strange seventeen-year-old girl. Aomame, besides teaching at a gym, kills abusive men in a way that makes it look like they've died of natural causes.

Both of them have somehow been transported to another version of our world, one slightly off.  Aomame names it 1Q84.  This world has something to do with Fuka-Eri (the seventeen-year-old writer) and her novel, which turns out to be true.  1Q84 has two moons, and historic events aren't quite the same.  Most importantly, it has "Little People," tiny beings that remind me of faeries (the mischievous, dangerous type). Little People crawl into the world out of dead things' mouths, and somehow control events. There's a cult built around them, a cult led by Fuka-Eri's father, who Aomame gets assigned to kill.

We'll leave it there.

I have no problem with fantasy, or even a sort of magical-realism half-fantasy.  So the Little People, the two moons, etc., were not an issue for me. What I hated was the writing itself. It was repetitive.  Like, OKAY, I've got it, Aomame is in perfect health and very fit, but is insecure about her breasts.  (I feel like writing to Haruki Murakami and saying "No real woman thinks about breasts this much!")  And I've got it, Fuka-Eri has a strange way of talking.  Every little point was just beat to death, and taken incredibly seriously.

The very beginning of the book follows Aomame as she kills a man.  It struck me as almost a typical action-y novel where the protagonist is unrealistically perfect and hot, and we never really learn what makes them tick, and they do all this bad-ass stuff.  I didn't have that impression for the whole book, but I will say, I never warmed to Aomame, and I never really felt like I understood her or Tengo.  I was told why they felt certain things (told many times) but it never felt true.

I could say lots more, but there's no need. The point is, I just read a 900-page book out of a mix of stubbornness and confusion (confusion because I've loved his other books so much).  I don't recommend it.

Infinite Jest

So. I read Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace's 1000-page monster of a novel.  I've owned it since 1997. I got my first job when I was fifteen, at little bookstore, and Infinite Jest always looked interesting to me, sitting there on the shelf. So one day I bought it.  Then I hung onto it for 15 years.

I started it last fall because a friend asked if I'd ever read it, and said it was great.  I'd been reading for a long time about how amazing David Foster Wallace is, but a recommendation from someone I knew finally pushed me into opening it up.

I'd tried to read it before, of course.  But it takes place in the near future, where the years are subsidized by companies (The Year of the Perdue Wonder Chicken, for example, instead of, say, 2006), and it switches characters a lot initially, and it was just too much.

But my friend assured me that after the first 200 pages, it got a lot more readable, so I vowed to stick with it for at least 201.  By the time I got past 200, it was still kind of tough, but I was already 20% in, so I decided to stick with it.

It's not especially readable, particularly in those first 200 pages.  At first it follows Hal, a teenager at a tennis academy, then Hal's football player brother Orin, then Don Gately, the ex-junkie and -thief, then other random characters, all mixed around.  And you don't know how their stories relate.  And there are tons of footnotes.  And you don't know if you aren't understanding references to things because you missed something, or because it will be revealed in time, or because it's the future and things are different and it's okay if you don't understand all of it.

But eventually, things settle down, focusing on Hal, Don, and Steeply and Marathe, two undercover agents having a meeting on a mountain in Arizona.  There's a video, referred to as The Entertainment, that kills people, essentially. When you watch it, you get so entranced and entertained that you lose your mind and can't function anymore.

Figuring out who made the tape, and where the master copy is, and how to get it, could be considered the main plot of the novel.  But there's a lot more to it than that.  Like Eschaton, the complicated tennis-based world-domination game played at the tennis academy.  And Madame Psychosis, a drug addict radio host who is also Orin's ex-girlfriend and also wears a veil to cover her deformities. And Alcoholics Anonymous. And Hal's relationship with his dad, and his dad's relationship with his own dad.  And all these random objects at the academy disappearing and moving on their own.  And a million other things.

I'm glad I read it.  It was intense.  It wasn't easy to read.  It didn't tie everything up in a neat package.  But I don't think I'll forget it quickly.

Norwegian Wood

I read another Haruki Murakami book last week. Norwegian Wood is the first book of his that I've read that has a linear, explicable plot.  It takes place in Japan, in 1969 and 1970. A college student falls in love with the ex-girlfriend of his dead best friend, and feels understandably conflicted about it.  She has some issues of her own.  He also befriends an outspoken, funny girl and a confident, woman-chasing man.  The cultural revolution is going on in the background.

It's great.  And I have to admit to being so relieved that there was a tidy narrative structure, with answers and everything--particularly because I just finished Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Infinite Jest took me about six months, on and off, and it was definitely not tidy or explicable.

The Marriage Plot

I read The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides a couple weeks ago.  Loved it.  Couldn't put it down.  It's about three college graduates in the early 1980s: Madeleine, Leonard, and Mitchell.  It's a love triangle, but so much more.  Mitchell travels abroad, first to Europe and then India. Leonard struggles with bipolar disorder.  Madeleine gets consumed by her relationship with Leonard. It's very real, and the ending made me happy.  It ended on a positive note but didn't seem tacked on or false.

It was the first book I read on my kindle, instead of a paper copy.  I have to admit, reading on the kindle isn't as good.  But it does have advantages. I will be going to Europe for two and a half weeks this summer; the kindle will be packed full of books, and my suitcase won't be.

"Turn the Beat Around" (homophone edition)

Homophone: 

Each of two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling, e.g., new and knew. I think you should watch my youtube video now. The less explanation, the better.

Published Again!

I meant to post information on this weeks ago!

I have a short story, "The Dog," published on Fiction365.  Fiction365 publishes a new short story every day, and then archives them.  I really like all the ones I've read there, AND it's the first time I'm being paid for my writing!  Yay!

Check it out.  Select "February 7th 2012" on their little calendar.

Go Here: Fiction365.com


I also have a short story, "Ella Hart's Mother," published on Every Day Fiction.  Every Day Fiction operates the same as Fiction365, sending flash fiction each day and archiving it, but they also have the option to send the stories in an app to your phone or tablet, which is pretty neat.  You can also vote on and comment on stories.  The author of the highest rated story each month is interviewed on their site.

Check it out.  Look for "Ella Hart's Mother" by Elizabeth Holden in the "recent stories" sidebar, or search for it in their search box.

Go Here: everydayfiction.com