Books 1-5: 2011

1. I am the Messenger
By: Markus Zusak
Genre: Technically Young Adult
Three words: slacker seeks puppetmaster
You'll find this book classified as young adult, but I found it a very sophisticated story. The same can be said for the first Zusak book I read last year, The Book Thief, a book about the Holocaust, narrated by Death Himself. The plot of Messenger follows Ed Kennedy, an underage cabbie slacker, who becomes a sort of secret-vigilante super hero when he is sent a set of playing cards dictating humanitarian missions. Beyond the general condemnation of the secrets of small town life, the novel examines how much we really know the people in our lives and how responsible we are for their happiness and well-being. It ends up surprisingly post-modern, and that's all I'll say about that angle. Overall, a hopeful book and an enjoyable read.

2. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
By: Aimee Bender
Genre: Literary Fiction, Magical Realism
Three words: whimsical, sad, metaphorical
There's been a lot of hype surrounding this book, which makes it difficult to gauge my reaction. I have trouble separating my feelings about a book from my reaction to its hype. The facts: At a young age, the heroine (Rose) discovers that she can taste her mother's despair in a piece of lemon cake. Rose goes on to discover emotions in all her foods: home-cooked meals, bakery cookies, school lunches, vending machine snacks. She learns to subsist on overly processed foods so she only has to taste the mechanic metal of the factory. Her relationship with food leads to a social ostracism that may or may not be self-imposed. Meanwhile, Rose is trying to cope with a depressed mother and brother and an emotionally detached father. Rose's talent, or curse- her relationship with food- becomes a far from subtle extended metaphor for how children can learn to cope with a difficult family life. Still, as Rose grows into adulthood, the metaphor developed a complexity, making the ending chapters more interesting than the beginning. My biggest problem with this book was that, just as Rose had difficulty making emotional connections to those around her, I had difficulty making any kind of emotional connection to Rose. I can't tell if this was Bender's intention or not.

3. The Cookbook Collector
By: Allegra Goodman
Genre: Literary Fiction
Three Words: Sisters, dot-com, food
This is a book club selection, suggested by myself. Like Sad Cake up there, it has been on a lot of "best of" lists for 2010. Unlike Bender's book, Goodman's furnished almost too many characters with which to form an emotional connection (not too many characters for me, but there have been complaints). I loved this book. Some reviewers compared it to Sense and Sensibility and, as there were two sisters- one romantic and one logical- what I really expected was a retelling of that novel. Which it was not. The Austenian comparisons remain apt if you think of Austen as someone who wittily portrays a slice of society in 3rd person omniscient. And Goodman's characters are also very concerned with money, marriage and class, so there is that.

The novel follows sisters Emily and Jessamine and the many characters orbiting their lives. Emily and fiance both run successful internet start-ups in the late nineties, so you know where this is going. Overnight they become millionaires, as do their friends and co-workers, and a lot of the book centers around how people dealt with the economic boom and the recession that followed. Jessamine is a perpetual grad student, studying philosophy, working at a used bookstore, and living with tree huggers (though she, herself, is afraid of heights). The bookstore's owner, George, is himself an internet millionaire, who got out early and uses the bookstore (and his beautiful house, cooking, and extensive wine collection) to tackle his ennui. I really wanted to have George's life problems. The eponymous Cookbook Collector comes into play when George finds a collection of antique cookbooks and hires Jess to catalogue them. Like Jess, I became fascinated with these books- a mixture of recipes sometimes delicious, sometimes archaic (sometimes both) and literary allusions. I have already spent too much space writing about this book, so to sum up: it is layered, nuanced, lovely. The book alternates between sucking you into foreign lands- the hush of a redwood forest, the challenge of the cookbooks, the bustle of an internet startup, the rituals of Jewish mysticism- and yanking you back to the real world of the nineties we all remember. Definitely worth the read.

4. Dash and Lily's Book of Dares
By: Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Genre: Young Adult
Three words: dreams, dares, diaries
I have loved Cohn and Levithan, writing either together or seperately, since I discovered Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (the book, which is infinitely better than the movie). This book was not as good, but it was a fun read. It opens with Dash finding a red moleskin journal left in The Strand bookstore, in the Salinger section. The book leads him on a journey of dares around the store. By the end, he's hooked and he sets up his own dare for the book's writer, Lily. The two teenagers spend the winter holiday sending each other on dares throughout New York City, wondering if their falling in love without ever meeting. It's a charming story, but for me it's most notable for Lily. Dash is typical Cohn-Levithan fare. Savvy, city-smart, and cynical, well-read in literature and pop culture. Dealing with an absent family. Lily, however, is an innocent, cockeyed optimist surrounded by a loving family. I enjoyed watching her adventures unfold, simple because she was such a different character for this duo to create. I also enjoyed The Strand. I miss The Strand.

5. V for Vendetta
By: Alan Moore and David Lloyd
Genre: Graphic Novel
Three words: Vigilante vs. 1984
I recently found myself at a party dicussing how I find most graphic novels disappointing because I started with The Watchmen, and it really doesn't get any better than that. So I went back Watchmen's creator...and I'm still disappointed. The Watchmen has its aloof, invulnerable superheroes, but its emotional core is Daniel and Laurie. This book was like having Rorschach as an emotional core, which does not work. I need comics I can emotionally connect with...I'm not an adolescent boy, after all. So I found V lacking. I did enjoy it for its post-apocalyptic viewpoint, as I have been reading a lot of that genre recently (mostly in young adult). And I'm still going to try some more of Moore this year.