Review: Attachments

By Rainbow Rowell
Available now from Plume (Penguin Random House)
Review copy
Read my review of Fangirl

I enjoyed both of Rainbow Rowell's new novels, ELEANOR & PARK and FANGIRL.  Thus, I was excited to go back and read her first novel, ATTACHMENTS.

It's 1999, and everyone's worried about Y2K.  Lincoln is in IT at a newspaper, reading the email messages that get caught in the filter.  That's when he becomes aware of Beth and Jennifer, whose long email exchanges are often flagged.  He keeps reading their email, even though he knows it is an invasion of privacy.  At the same time, he begins coming out of his shell, finding new friends and independence.  He's been stuck in a rut, living with his mom and working at a job he hates and not getting out except to play D&D.

Setting ATTACHMENTS in '99 gives Rainbow Rowell one big advantage: every bit of pop culture the characters reference is still well-known and respected.  There's no obscure references, no ephemeral and forgotten fads.  It also means that the technology involved is still pretty new to people.  Email is easy of course, but print journalism is still going strong.  Employees slacking off on the Internet is new.  Weirdly, no one ever seems frustrated by dial-up. 

The romance didn't entirely work for me.  I kept waiting for Beth and Lincoln to meet.  I liked reading about their individual journeys, but I was in it for the attachment.  The real love story only takes up the last 10% of the book.  At that point it's kind of awkward because of the privacy invasion.  Rowell does her best to mitigate it, but I still found it creepy, even though I really liked Lincoln.

What did work very well were all the depictions of different friendships.  Friendships between women, men, both.  Work friendships, college friendships, friendships that lasted since high school.  The friendship between Beth and Jennifer is particularly great, of course, but I also really liked Lincoln's new friendship with an older coworker.

Rowell's publishers are pushing ATTACHMENTS more now that ELEANOR & PARK and FANGIRL are hits.  It's a good move, because ATTACHMENTS has the same strong character work.  It also shares a theme of anxiety with FANGIRL.  It's a strong debut, and it's easy to see how Rowell has grown.  It also builds anticipation for her upcoming adult novel, LANDLINES. 

Two cool Kickstarters

I love going through the projects on Kickstarter.  I don't always find one I want to back, but I always find them interesting.  (Sometimes I find too many to back!)

Here are two that I thought ya'll might find interesting:

Birds of Lace 2014 Letterpress Chapbooks & Broadsides

Birds of Lace is a small publisher featuring women authors, mostly known for their poetry.  I haven't donated myself yet because I don't know what I want.  (Okay, I want the $150 everything pack but I'm gonna be realistic.)  I still have 25 days to make up my mind!  Birds of Lace has been operating since 2005, so it's unlikely they'll be unable to fulfill the rewards.

Dirty Diamonds #5: COMICS

Dirty Diamonds is a series of all-women comic anthologies.  The theme for the latest, biggest issue is comics.  This one particularly caught my eye because it features work by Alison Wilgus.  Plus, the cover is so pretty! There are 20 days to go to back this project.  Since this is the fifth anthology, there is good reason to believe the rewards will be delivered successfully.

Review: The Shibboleth

Book two of Incarcerado trilogy
By John Hornor Jacobs
Available now from Carolrhoda Lab (Lerner)
Review copy
Read my review of The Twelve-Fingered Boy

When I read THE TWELVE-FINGERED BOY, I wasn't quite sure how to take the ending.  In fact, in my review I said:

I'm not enamored with the ending of THE TWELVE-FINGERED BOY.  While Shreve and Jack to manage to accomplish something important, because the ending made the entire novel seem somewhat pointless.  I'm certainly curious about what will happen next, and at least next time I'll know that the end isn't really the end.   

Now, having read THE SHIBBOLETH, I am very glad I returned to the series.  Shreve is pretty beat down by the events of the first book, and he's lost his power on the inside.  At the same time, he's gained a more visceral power - he can go into people's heads, see their memories, puppet them.  Even though Shreve tends to me more of a good guy than a bad guy, it's a power that's easy to abuse when you're locked up with nothing to do except get bullied by the guards and other inmates.

But Shreve can't stay in juvenile detention forever.  Mr. Quincrux is trying to recruit him now.  And something is preventing something people from sleeping, and everyone is getting edgy.  THE SHIBBOLETH deepens the mythology of the series and gives Shreve a chance to define himself, without Jack, and with his new abilities.  It's exciting and scary.

Some bits of THE SHIBBOLETH feel a little like a retread of THE TWELVE-FINGERED BOY.  It starts in juvie, then there's a cross-country trip . . . but at the same time, things aren't the same at all.  The Shreve and Jack in THE SHIBBOLETH aren't the boys they used to be.  And it isn't certain whether that's a good thing or a bad thing yet.

I love how THE SHIBBOLETH has clear antagonists, but the most interesting one is Shreve himself.  He could grow up to be a great man, or he could grow up to be another Mr. Quincrux.  I'm eager for the third book, for both the final confrontation and the conclusion of Shreve's coming of age.  This unique series is truly just waiting to be discovered by all sorts of readers, particularly fans of the X-Men and Darren Shan.

Review: Mafia Girl

By Deborah Blumenthal
Available now from Albert Whitman Teen (Albert Whitman & Company)
Review copy

I have a weakness for books involving the mafia.  It started when I was a kid and wanted to grow up to be a mob boss, before I realized I didn't have a lot of the prerequisites and am ridiculously law abiding.  But it still tempts me in fiction.

Gia is the daughter of a crime boss, but she has other hopes for her future.  She's going to go to college.  And really, it's not that she wants to get out of the life.  She's sick of being worried about her father's safety, but she's perfectly happy having money and a powerful name behind her, no matter the source of that money or name.

MAFIA GIRL does follow a period of some change in Gia's life.  She gets arrested for driving drunk and crushes hard on the arresting officer.  She also decides she's going to run for class president, get something more positive on her record.  The class president plotline worked fairly well for me.  Gia's friends are pretty interesting (particularly neglected Clive) and it forced Gia to be somewhat introspective and think about what she had to offer.

The romance didn't work for me at all.  MAFIA GIRL is very clear that Gia is recently seventeen.  Meanwhile, Michael is a police officer who did a stint in the military.  So, even if he just did a four-year active term, he's twenty-two at the very least.  (Although I'd say closer to twenty-three at the least.)  It might not be so weird if MAFIA GIRL addressed the age difference at any point.  Instead, the only difficulty Gia and Michael see is her father and his line of work.  I can see Gia just having a crush on an older guy, but I never figured out why Michael reciprocated.  Because she looks good?  Their early interactions don't really make a great case for Gia's personality.  (In fact, to ensure they meet again, she employs a bit of stalking.)  And, oh yeah, she's underage and he knows it.

I wanted to like MAFIA GIRL, but it was a bit of a mess.  There was a hollowness at the core.  The romance is creepy and the ramifications of Gia's father being a mob boss are never explored.  I guess he's just one of those nice mob bosses.  I'll stick to SON OF THE MOB.

Review: The Mark of the Dragonfly

First in a series
By Jaleigh Johnson
Available now from Delacorte BFYR (Penguin Random House)
Review copy

Piper is a scrapper.  Where she lives, you survive by mining debris fields right after a meteor shower and selling what you find.  She makes a better living than most since she's skilled at repairing machines, a skill that is in high demand.

Then, she comes across a girl, the sole survivor of a group stuck in the middle of a meteor shower.  Piper takes her home to recuperate, at which point she's already gotten herself involved in something more complicated than she could ever guess.  Piper and Anna set off for the capital, because Anna bears the mark of the dragonfly - and that means the king has some interest in her fate.

THE MARK OF THE DRAGONFLY is a terrific introduction to a new middle grade series and author.  (Jaleigh Johnson has written some tie-in novels for Wizards of the Coast.)  You might not guess it from the cover, but this novel is steampunk and features an awesome train guarded by a dragon.  I don't even know why that's not on the cover, because it is the best and the people on the train are the best.  And Johnson knows how to make a train journey exciting and dangerous.

Some of the adventures in THE MARK OF THE DRAGONFLY felt like setup for future books rather than part of the current story.  For instance, there's a group of raiders just determined to get their hands on the train's young head of security.  But for the most part, the story is self-contained and completely satisfied.  I'm excited that this is a series, since I like the characters, but I wasn't left disappointed by a half-hearted ending.

There is plenty of the world left to explore.  There's tensions between the world powers and the upper and lower classes, for instance.  Certain species of people are discriminated against.  There's slavery, which is obviously bad.  There's Piper and Anna's growing friendship, a true sisterly bond.  There's Piper's potential romance, which is kept low-key for the intended audience.

I think that THE MARK OF THE DRAGONFLY will appeal to fans of fantasy and adventure stories, particularly ones with great girl heroes.