Social Media Book Tag Video

Last weeks was one of those weird, gray-area weeks.  After coming off a four day mini vacation, the 9-5 kind of sucked me of energy.  So my activities here and elsewhere have been low.  Tacked that on top of my laptop battery needing replacing, a change in Best Buy's anti-virus subscription that need my attention, the need to lower my cell phone bill, and an assortment of other things, you could consider me to gone to do too much thinking.  Nevertheless, it's Monday and time for me to get back to those 5 or 6 drafts I've started last week.  Here I introduce a fun Social Media Tag pertaining to my book recommendations and general taste in reading.  Hope you enjoy and I'm tagging you to do the same.

Social Media Tag Questions & Books
Twitter: A book you want to share with the world? The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
 

Facebook: A book you really enjoyed that was recommended by someone else? Naked in Death by J. D. Robb


Tumblr: A book you read before booktube but haven't raved much about on booktube? Chasing Destiny by Eric Jerome Dickey


Myspace: A book you don't plan on re-reading? Narcissus in Chains by Laurell K Hamilton


Instagram: A book with a gorgeous, picture worthy cover? A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki & The Shadows Inquires Series by Lyn Benedict

 

Youtube: A book you wish would be made into a movie? Mama Day by Gloria Naylor


Skype- a book with characters that you wish you could talk to instead of just reading about? Alphabetta Series (Kinsey Millhone) by Sue Grafton & The Kay Scarpetta Series by Patricia Cornwell


And that's that.  Once again thanks for reading this post, and for those of you who follow me, thank you so very much.  As always, if you've read any of these books, have recommendations, or just want to chat books, please comment below.  My last call of action is for those visiting to share this post to the appropriate (or favorited) social media platform if you enjoyed this video/post.  A link-pushing tools are believe.

Thanks!

Throwback: Glass Menagerie

Dramatic plays reveal themselves to be illustrative examples of how humans interact, and express themselves through life.  They are plays that provide understanding and meaning behind the actions of humans and their reasoning.  It is plays, such as “The Glass Menagerie,” by Tennessee Williams that provides a powerful view into the human condition.  The play employees many straight-forward lessons on life and existence through the behaviors of the characters; however, it is through William’s strategic use of symbolism and imagination that those actions blossom the true meaning behind what it means to fail an escape from reality.

One of William’s employed strategies is within his lead character.  Tom Wingfield’s memoirs assist in the driving of the story.  It is a memory torn between truth and hazy truth.  This immediately marks him as an unreliable narrator, even as he addresses the audience to his thoughts.  However, forever undependable does his actions appear child-like, and a contradiction to the story.  One moment Tom is expressive in his potential to be free, another moment his thoughts are reality based.  An example of this divide becomes illustrated by Tom’s relationship toward his mother, Amanda, and his sister, Laura.  Tom loves them; however, there are moments in which his apathy toward them is severely evident.  As the narrator, Tom’s double-sided attitude symbolizes the theme behind the play (Barnet, Burto, & Cain, pp. 1247-1288).

According to "Jahsonic: Unreliable Narrator" (1996-2007), “An unreliable narrator is a character who may be giving an imperfect or incorrect account, either consciously or unconsciously. This can be due to that character's biases, ulterior motives, psychological instability, youth, or a limited or second-hand knowledge of the events. The author in these cases must give reader information the narrator does not intend she may deduce the truth. This process creates a tension that is a central force behind the power of first person narratives, and provide the only unbiased clues about the character of the narrator.”

An unreliable narrator like Tom becomes a literary convention to the story.  Tom’s difficulty in accepting reality, and his need to escape it, only isolates him from others.  Although other characters in the play suffer from this challenge, it is Tom who is employing this fully before the audience.  Drawing into his isolation does not stop Tom from interacting with the real world, as he is, among the other characters, one who functions in the real world via his job and communication with others.  Nevertheless, Williams provide a solid piece of symbolism in Tom’s dualistic, unreliable struggle, in the form of how Tom uses different forms of music and entertainment to escape his reality (Barnet, Burto, & Cain, pp. 1247-1288).
 
Tom drinks, which furthers his unreliability as he relay his memories to the audience.  He also uses movies and dancing to relieve himself of his mother’s frustrations.  Though he uses many areas of escapism to clear himself of reality, William’s clearly portrays symbolism and pieces of imagery in Tom’s affinity for fire escapes.  This is a clear presentation of symbolism, considering Tom seeks an escape from reality.  The fire escape relates itself to smoke; however, it is also an escape when the “fire” gets hot in reality.  It is also an item used to foreshadow upcoming events, and place another reality-based issue into Tom’s consciousness in the case of leaving his family.  Tom’s mother offers her strategically placed ideal on the fire escape by stating: “A fire-escape landing’s a poor excuse for a porch” (Barnet, Burto, & Cain, pp. 1263).  This means there is no comfort in escape.

Nevertheless, it is Tom’s use of alcohol that relates him to his father, as alcohol, and the fire escape both play symbols in his father’s connection to his son after he himself escaped his own troubles.  The fire escapes allures to Tom’s desires to escape reality, just as his father did.  It becomes tempting for Tom to remove himself from his incarcerate of home and work by simply fleeing through the fire escape (Barnet, Burto, & Cain, pp. 1247).
Imagination and Escape

As an unreliable narrator does the honorable proposition and success of Tom’s escape becomes troubling, this concept done effective by Williams use of opening Tom‘s imagination toward the audience.  This reveals the moral factors that trouble Tom and his need to escape, not his physical status.  Though it becomes clear that Tom holds indifference toward his family, he remains dedicated to them.  This unreliability reveals that if Tom were to escape, he guiltily would remove himself from his dedication to his family, causing them emotional turmoil.  Williams leave Tom’s potential escape to the imagination of the readers.  Through Tom’s unreliable, sensitive contemplations can one only guess if his actual escape would prove fruitful to his desires toward freedom.  He can escape; however, he cannot escape his love for his family as guilt would make him a fugitive, following him at every turn.  Williams illustrates this at the end of the play by revealing Tom’s imagination as, “The cities swept about me like dead leave, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches.  I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something.  It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise.  Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music.  Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass--Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions” (Barnet, Burto, & Cain, pp. 1287-1288).  Eventually it appears that Tom’s only escape is via his imagination, which plays a powerful too in the meaning of William’s play.

Every reader of the play is troubled with their own unreliable thoughts as individuals seek acceptance and stability in their lives, teetering on the need to remove themselves from their comfortable reality.  It is imagination that tends to lock individuals in their realities, as other obligations assist in this prison.  William’s portrays this struggle of character effectively in Tom’s desires to be free, but yet stay loyal to his comforts.
  

References

Barnet, S., Burto, W., & Cain, W. E. (2011). Literature for composition: essays, stories,
poems, and plays (9th ed.). Boston: Longman.

Jahsonic: Unreliable Narrator. (1996-2007). Retrieved from http://www.jahsonic.com/Unreliable.html 

March Mystery Reading Madness

March Mystery Reading Madness is here, as corny as it sounds.  This month I’m not planning on buying any books!  Even as I lurk through my Amazon Wishlist, tempted to finally order Villian by Shuichi Yoshida and Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin.  And damnit I really am about ready to read Haruki Murakami's 1Q84.  But nope.  Not gonna go there!  However, what I intend to do is read the books I already have on my shelf, and it appears that I have an abundance of mystery series that I’ve either started or have yet to dive into.  These books have been on my shelf for years, some upsetting me with each glance.  Somewhere along the lines of my reading journey I’ve been distracted from either proceeding with either of these series or starting them up.  Now is the time--I‘ve decided.  Sure, my income taxes are on their way.  And it looks nice and inviting for a Barnes & Nobles spending spree.  But we’ll save that money to buy new books in April… maybe.

So on to catching up with my favorite genre.  As always, I’ll share the books I intend to read each month and as I finish them, write a post/review concerning my experience.  I have yet to decided which book/series I want to commander first, so I’ll just list them randomly at this point.  Okay, wait.  Let me backpedal a bit and be honest in stating that Sujata Massey’s third book in her Rei Shimura mystery series was the first book I grabbed.  So we’ll start there.  And as always if you are familiar with either of these series and want to share your experience reading them, I invite you to please comment and get the discussion ball rolling.

Rei Shimura Mysteries by Sujata Massey

For some reason I forgot that I have The Pearl Diver (the 7th book in the series), therefore, it’s not in the picture.  Nevertheless, the first three books read as follows: The Salaryman’s Wife, Zen Attitude, and The Flower Master.  As stated, I stopped the series at the second book and am currently reclaiming Rei Shimura with the third title, The Flower Master.  I stopped reading this series about three years ago for a simple reason: the second book [Zen Attitude] was a complete and utter disappoint, whereas the first book [The Salaryman’s Wife] was wonderful.  Let me backtrack and explain how I discovered this series.  I was doing my usual research, looking for mystery series that featured a female lead of Asian descent.  

See, while I love my Kinsey Millhone and Kay Scarpetta, I wanted to read mysteries featuring women of color.  Rei Shimura popped up rather quickly, despite her popular counterparts.  I was ecstatic; Rei is Japanese-American and the mysteries take place in Japan.  Additionally, she’s an antiques dealer before an amateur sleuth.  The first book won me over probably because of the setting and character lead.  Massey was giving me what I wanted, so I wasn’t disappointed, just enthralled.  However, the second book was extremely weak.  Besides the nods to Japanese culture and language, the mystery element seemed detached.  I hardly even remember the book.  Only something about a girl who did martial arts at a temple and Rei stuck in the rain hiding from the book’s assailant (correct me if I’m wrong).  There was just no punch.  Nevertheless, I had ordered the third book thinking the previous was a fluke.  Just never got to it till now.  And something tells me The Flower Master is going to soar, dedicating me to the rest of Rei’s journey. 

V. I. Warshawski Series by Sara Paretsky

Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton go hand-in-hand, and are probably the most admired, as well as popular, writers of the American hard-boiled P.I. female lead in the mystery genre.  Actually, the two are just great freakin’ writers altogether.  Let’s forget all of that “female” and “diversity” mess.  Still, while I have taken on a whole other level of obsession and commitment to Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Series, I found myself over the years having only read the first book in Sara Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski series, based in Chicago.  That hasn't stopped me from buying several of the books in reading advance; I knew that one day I was going to take the same obsessional shine to Warshawski as I did Kinsey many moons (and cases) ago.  I wish I could sit here and analyze exactly why I passed on Paretsky after reading the first book in her series, Indemnity Only.  Especially considering I loved it!  I should also add that it took me over a year to read said first book after I'd purchased it.  Nonetheless, there wasn’t anything in particular that I could find to explain my lack of un-abandoned enthusiasm for the series.  I could attribute a subconscious need for only one female hard-boiled P.I. series to dedicate my time to.  Or maybe I was intimidated by Warshawski, considering she had an edge consisting of a saw blade, as opposed to Millhone’s sort-of-but-not-in-fact kid-gloves approach to solving mysteries.  I really have nothing to draw upon to explain my wrench away from the Warshawski--I liked her just fine.  However, I knew I would one day pick up this series and stick with it.  Besides, like Kinsey, Warshawski’s adventures are still relevant and continuing after 30 years.  This translate to a hive of more mysteries following a female P.I. to gorge myself on.  So this month, it’s back to the gray streets of Chicago with private investigator V. I. Warshawski.

Small, small note.  I have seen the movie version (simply titled V. I. Warshawski) of the second book in the series, Deadlock.  I think that has paused me from reading the actual book, causing me to spend months (which turned to years) deciding whether I wanted to skip the book after seeing the movie first.  However, as we know, I'm not one to favor skipping books in a series.  Therefore, the progress halted.  Till now.

Aurora Teagarden Mysteries by Charlaine Harris

Charlaine Harris established herself as a cozy mystery writer and still remains so.  Can we all agree on that?  So way before her infamous Sookie Stackhouse Series (sometimes considered Southern Vampire Series), cozy mystery writing was her genre--her writing backbone.  Now that Sookie has ended, she’s starting a new trilogy of books beginning this May that will further her ability to tie cozy writing with paranormal elements.  So I’m led to believe judging by some of the talk surrounding her new series.  In any regard, that new book is titled Midnight Crossroad and I can not wait to read and talk about it here.  Advance copies are welcomed. (^_^)

Having said all of that, I am a fan of Charlaine Harris.  There are a few here or theres that I didn’t too much care for in a certain number of her books, mostly revolving around her portrayal of certain groups.  However, that hasn’t stopped me from diving into her catalog of mystery series and stand-alone books.  And once again I feel the need to strongly recommend her Lily Bard mystery series, provided that I think it's light years ahead of even Sookie Stackhouse novels.  Honestly speaking, the only thing I choose not to commit to is reading Harris’s short stories, as there are way too many spread about throughout different anthologies.  An omnibus would suffice, however.

So having explored Sookie, Lily, and up to three books in her Harper Connelly series, why have I not spent time with Aurora Teagarden?  I’ve been asking myself that since 2010 when I bought the first four books in the series.  Year after year allowed them to collect dust on my shelf.  I think I tried the first book, Real Murders, till about page 10 and passed on the rest.  No rhyme or reason, just a subconscious desire to dedicate myself to the series at the right time.  Now is that time.  Time to relish myself on another one of Harris’s small town mysteries, under the voice of her amateur sleuth being that of a diffident librarian tracking down killers.  This should hold me over till May when Harris’s new series makes it debut.

Lydia Chin & Bill Smith Series by S. J. Rozan

S. J. Rozan drew me in with her first book, China Trade, led by Chinese-American P. I., Lydia Chin.  And Rozan subsequently drew me out with Chin's somewhat a-typical leading partner, Bill Smith.  Unfortunately, that is exactly what prevented me from proceeding into the second book, Concourse.  Rozan’s sudden switch to Bill’s POV from Lydia’s was totally unexpected.  See, China Trade made for an excellent read that won me completely over, mainly because it was under the perspective of Lydia Chin, a young, somewhat developing private detective.  Additionally, we got a glimpse into Lydia’s family and their traditional nuances as a Chinese-American family.  I suppose it is interesting to have a hard-boiled series, taking place in New York's Chinatown, that follows a team duo that swaps directing their cases.  From my understanding, this shift of perspective may be bi-bookly.  

Since I loved Lydia, I managed to hold on to the three books I bought to indulge myself into the series.  I’ve held on to those books, determined to one day make it through them by getting pass the second book that’s underneath Bill Smith’s first person POV.  I can’t recall the exact impact of Smith’s role in China Trade just yet, but perhaps after reading Concourse I’ll become more welcoming to his presence carrying future books as I move forward.  In any case, I refuse to bend and completely disown S. J. Rozan’s series.  Lydia Chin is just too damn rare and valuable.

"Honorable Mentions"

These next three books are somewhat a set of “Honorable Mentions” to my cause to read my collection of mysteries in the month of March.  They are listed as:

1.  Wish You Were Here by Rita Mae Brown

2.  Death's Favorite Child by Frankie Y. Bailey

3.  Takeover by Lisa Black

Should I completely succeed, these are the books I’m moving into.  However, instead of writing about them, I’m going to let the accompany video do all the talking.  Should I get to them, there will definitely be posting about each one.  At this point, they truly deserve one.  Sorry for taking so long, books!

Read any of these?  Passionate about mysteries and women leads as much as I am?  Please share your thoughts and recommendations!

Fear Street Read-Along: First Date

What a killer way to put a spin on the [first] date from hell experience us lucky few got to partake in in high school.  I should back pedal a bit and state that I was not actually one of those lucky few I just mentioned.  High school and dating were polar opposite topics from one another.  First I had to figure out whether the person I was interested in was available (and I mean "available" beyond simply dating another).  Next I had to figure out how to take ownership of that interest--should it exist--to propose a date.  All this done under secrecy of course.  Needless to say, I never got to the ownership portion because trying to figure out whether a person was interested in me took the energy of a Hercule Poirot investigation to find a conclusion.  And said conclusion was always one of complete and utter disappointment.  Therefore, I stuck with my books as a general rule.  First Date by R. L. Stine being one of them.  No, actually, I wasn’t even thinking about dating sometime in middle school when I first read it.  

So here I am re-reading the book and my dating game hasn’t grown by anything other than a centimeter.  But that’s neither here nor there at the moment.  Staying on topic, I picked up and re-read First Date as a Booktube Read-Along orchestrated by me and another Booktuber named thefictionfairy.  I drew the book out randomly, sticking my hand in the light blue tub that I sadly keep all of my 52-Plus-Some Fear Street books today.  I need a bookshelf, naturally.  Nevertheless, First Date was what I drew out.  I frowned in a curious manner, realizing that it seemed almost coincidental that I picked this book up blindly and could not remember a single incident that took place between its 165 pages.  Like I said, it’s been years.  I stopped reading/collecting Fear Street at the end of ‘97, so it had to have been at least seventeen years since I read it.  And while I can easily pick up the majority of Fear Street titles and recall their stories, this one I couldn’t.  This led me to the realization that this might’ve been one that I read only once back in the day.  Fast-forward to 2014 and you can consider me pleased to have spent my morning reliving the nostalgia created by venturing back into an R. L. Stine thriller.  Honestly, it was like slipping into an old pair of shoes, but with a fresh pair of eyes. 

Like many of Stine’s Fear Street books, the plot to First Date is simple--as well as the writing.  Fifteen-year-old Chelsea Richards is the new girl at Shadyside High, and she also comes across as terribly unself-confident.  Seen as shy, and often self-serving nasty jabs at her weight, Chelsea is quiet and lonely; however, she has created one friend, Nina, at her new school.  It doesn’t help that Chelsea’s one friend often (but not always) disregards Chelsea's personal concerns to relish her own, particularly in the form of her turbulent relationship with her boyfriend Doug.  This bit of aloof behavior from her friend only stirs further insecurities in Chelsea.  Additionally, so does to the un-ignorable fact that Nina has a boyfriend, as opposed to Chelsea's boyfriend-less reality.  Nevertheless, high school life gets a little more interesting when Chelsea encounters a new boy named Will, who appears equally shy as her.  In chorus to the plot, a boy who goes by the name Spark converse with the shy Chelsea while she‘s on the clock at her father‘s restaurant.  Suddenly Chelsea has two guys coming for her attention.  The problem is that one of them is a neurotic murderer on the lam!

First Date was probably R. L. Stine lite, at least in my estimation.  I can recall a few gorier books where some scenes were to wild to forget.  Remember the wheelchair girl who stabbed her friend with an ice skating blade in Broken Hearts?  Or Holly strangled with her own scarf in What Holly Heard?  And let us not even forget to mention the characters that stick with you.  Of course my favorite is Corky from his cheerleader series, but also Emily from The Stepsister.  Not to mention the rich, snobby Reva Dalby from the Silent Night trilogy and Honey from Best Friend.  In any regard, the death count and memorable characters in First Date are limited, but Stine provided a strong peek into the killer’s psychology as well as that of Chelsea’s.

I can never decide which do I like most between Stine’s murder mysteries and paranormal style books.  Actually, that’s not even a legit question.  I love them all.  Well, there are a handful of Fear Street books I didn’t to much care for and one that I never managed through.  Nevertheless, what I will say is that Stine is certainly the numero uno author on my list of writing influences.  And that was evident as I read First Date.  It brought me back to days in school where I was happy for in-house suspension because I could sit at a desk all day--for a whole exciting week--writing stories similar to his.  Many of those stories I still have, both a combination of murder mystery and paranormal stories.  He is responsible for my love of the mystery genre and is probably a solid example of urban fantasy and the YA fiction of today.  Per your taste, of course.

Now I want to stick my hand in that big blue tub and pull out another one.

Did you grow up with reading R. L. Stine--Goosebumps or Fear Street?  What is your fondest memory engaging with this numerous catalog of middle grade to teen thrillers?

"Innocent Blood" by P. D. James ~ The Spoiler Edition

Having the desire to read this book for years, it did not turn out nowhere near how I expected it to.  In both a good and bad way.  So I shall warn you NOW!  I will probably spoil this entire book right here… right now!

Excuse me for stating this, but this book was on some twisted shit, and I’m not even going to attempt to go for P. J. James for this one.  I’ve read a few of her books and am slightly familiar with her psychology-thriller template.  However, Innocent Blood just had me looking sick and crazy in the end.  Okay, I’ll reframe and state that it wasn’t as radically rendering as I’m crying out to believe.  It’s not something that I won’t get over in a couple of days, to be fair.  And I’m certainly interested in reading another of her books.  Nevertheless, I dedicate this blog post to spilling a little on the summary of the book, and answering the Reading Group Guide questions that are present in the back of the book.  I thought this would be a much more interesting way of speaking about the complexities of Innocent Blood.  For me to present and answer those questions, I would have to give away parts of the book.  So be warned now!

Here we go, a condense (hopefully) summary.  First, the story takes place in Britain.  It begins with the adopted Philippa Palfrey introducing herself to a social worker.  Armed with her passport and drivers’ license, eighteen-year-old Philippa is prepared to employee the Children Act of 1975 to gather information regarding her birth parents.  In Philippa’s circumstance the passing of the Children Act of 1975 grants her further documentation of her adoption at eight-years-old; though, at one point, those documents were listed under confidential.  The social worker makes a slight show of hesitation, hinting more or less that Philippa might not like what she finds.  Naturally, Philippa isn’t discouraged.  She was adopted into a well-off family (Maurice and Hilda Palfrey), and coated with a certain level of prestige, is determined to have things her way.  Besides, she’s never felt love within her adopted family, and driven by her dreams, can only open her arms to the possibility of finding love through her biological parents.  Love in the form of identity.

Leaving the social worker’s office, Philippa is encouraged to find her birth certificate.  That will reveal the names of her biological parents.  She does so, receiving the envelope from the Registrar General soon after her visit to the social worker's office.  The first thing she notice is that she was named Rose Ducton.  The second: the address of her birth parents from the year she was born, 1960.  Philippa keeps this information from her homemaker/juvenile court juror adopted mother, Hilda, as well as from her sociology professor adopted father, Maurice.  In the meantime, Philippa makes personal plans to reach her birth home in Seven Kings, Essex.  After all, her adopted father appears to occupied to care.  A knowingness that Philippa is familiar with.  

Philippa arrives in her birth neighborhood only to find that her original home is presently vacant, yet occupied by another tenant.  Therefore, she goes to speak with the neighbors.  It's here that the news slams into her that her birth father and mother were condemned to prison years ago for the rape and murder of a twelve-year-old named Julie Scase.  Further information reveals that Philippa’s biology father died in prison whereas her mother, Mary Ducton, was coming up on a release.  Neither of the provided information cripples Philippa’s resolve to find her parents, or her mother in this case.  It only reinforces her need for common identity, so she sets forth in seeking out her mother and pulling the woman into her life.  However, before she begins, she confronts her adopted parents on the issue.  They could come up with no explanation concerning Philippa’s parents' crimes, only that it was best that Philippa realize that there was never a good time for them to have shared this information with her.  Also according to them, it wasn’t a good idea for Philippa to seek out her mother.  Nevertheless, her adopted parents do little to stand in her way, reassured that she would find what she’s looking for and return to them.

Philippa uses her adoptive parents' unhinderedness as a means to find the necessary information on her mother’s prison whereabouts.  Once discovered, she requests a visitation, driven by the romantic idea that she can take care of her mother even if she should put her Cambridge dreams on hold to do so.  And that’s what Philippa manages.  Instead of leaving her mother alone to a hostel after her release date, Philippa leases a bodega-like flat (below her is a small grocery store run by a man named Edward) and retrieves her mother for the growing experience.  After her mother’s probation officer comes to solidify the conditions, Philippa and her mother proceed to get jobs at a local diner.  All the while, they are unaware that poor Juliet Scase’s father has been tracking Philippa’s mother’s prison sentence, and subsequent releasing.  Why?  To exact revenge, of course.

Used from Archivia Caltari

It sounds straight forward, but trust me when I say that this novel is anything but straight forward.  Sure, some areas may come across as predictable once you settle into the stream of James’s storytelling, but the psychological aspects will leave you in wonder.  Let me first make it clear that Philippa isn’t the only narrative you follow as the reader.  Thankfully so.  You also follow the neurotic musings of Juliet Scase’s father, Norman.  From his beginnings as a thief, to the lost of his daughter and wife, Mavis.  His character blossoms under some psychological complexities that both harden his resolve for revenge, as well as link his abilities/skills to implement his plan smoothly.  We also get a glimpse into Maurice Palfrey and his wife Hilda Palfrey.  As Philippa’s adoptive parents, James does not let each of their mental intricacies slide.  We know who they are and why they do and live as they do.  Even as some of their most disturbing behaviors come to light, it is not without reason.  And probably one of the most missed, as well as important, narratives lie in the frame narrative (via Mary Ducton’s letter to Philippa) James uses to illustrate the psychology behind Philippa’s mother and her crime.  And as atrocious as it sounds, this piece of framed narrative is where I grew to understand Mary Ducton.  James makes matters clear concerning Mary's emotionless reasoning behind the murder.  In essence, she, herself, was abused as a child and it is terrifying upon its disclosure.

Having only read into James's Cordelia Grey Mysteries, I believe it's time I start packing the dollars to take on her whole catalog of books.  And so should you if you are behind on P.D. James.

Reading Group Questions

1.  When Philippa first learns that her mother was a murderess about to be released from prison, did you expect that her mother would be a threat to Philippa?  Were you surprised to find her a gentle, even sympathetic character?  Where does the suspense in the novel come from?

I absolutely did believe Mary Ducton was going to be a threat to Philippa.  I was sure that she would take full advantage of the clout Philippa managed to gather from the status of Maurice Palfrey.  Additonally, to the extend of his deceased ex-wife, Helena, an earls daughter.  An earl is considered a person of nobility.  

Nonetheless, I was surprised to find Mary to be gentle, but held my breathe in the thought that she was buying time before she made her move.  Now I know, once a killer always a killer.  But there seems to be no sympathy for Mary Ducton by other readers.  She has paid her price (though I thought a life term would be the court's decision), and is now living her life under the social stigma of a child murderer.  Yet, I rooted for Mary once the narrative switched to share her fated letter to Philippa, soon after the two became roommates.  Mary was trying again at life by putting her trust in Philippa.  And when it came to light that Mary gave Philippa away months before the murder of Juliet Scase, James did not relent as she shed a clear light as to why.  I mean, James dug into Mary’s psychology that I couldn't help but feel for her in the end.  I’ve seen reviews where readers claim she got what she deserved, delivered by the awfulness I come to learn that made up Philippa.  Speaking of which, I had to remind myself that Philippa was eighteen--therefore a child as the novel's events unfolded.  I stress that even more when later she goes to an even lower point to find that love she felt her mother failed to give her.  

As far as the suspense in the novel, most of that came from Norman Scase and the thrill as to whether or not he would get away with this murder he has so plotted.

2.  How does Philippa change in the course of the novel?  What does her final encounter with Norman Scase reveal about her growth?  Do you accept as true that "it is only through learning to love that we find identity"?

I believe the last line fully.  Learning to love yourself and those who show you love, but can not always express it, does blend and create an identity.  For someone to show you even a semblance of concern and care is to show you love.  It's just often shown differently.  Philippa couldn't accept the sort of callus, non-spoken love which she recieved from her adoptive parents.  Most of their love manifested in the development of her future, and further success as a respectable woman.  Now, I could point out her adoptive father's disturbing fondness for her, later expressed sexually (though legal), but I won't go there considering I felt like that was a downfall on Philippa's overall development.  

Nevertheless, the fact is that her own biological mother was a murderess, did not want Philippa because of her own troubled childhood baggage/tramua, and came across as "useless" to Philippa's journey for identity.  In doing so, Philippa gave up the battle when she learned the truth; her mother never wanted her, and can not give back that love she should have provided to Philippa as a child.  In turn, Philippa allowed Norman Scase to do as he will to her mother.  Still, poor Mary Ducton had given up on life, as she wasn't able to find her identity because she was unable to love her own child.  Had she learned to love Philippa, Mary may have kept from murdering Juliet--without much thought.  This leading to the trauma they both share, and Mary's eventual suicide.  I'm still upset at the fate of Mary and Philippa, though.

Have you read Innocent Blood or any other P. D. James psychological thriller?  Please share your thoughts or suggestions.  Should I start her Adam Dalgliesh series now?

Rhodes, Voodoo Queen and Lackluster

Jewell Parker Rhodes's voodoo mystery trilogy started out with a celebrated, spirited bang; however, it ended like a teary-eyed Toni Braxton love song.  SAD PANDA INDEED!  I still recall that dazzled-tongue dude (talking about myself here) walking into a used bookstore and happening across the first book in the series, Voodoo Season.  Here he was, between the stacks, holding back a jovial scream as the synopsis read the likes of voodoo, murder mystery, and a woman of color playing as the lead.  Damnit, what more could he ask for?  So let him hear his dreams!

Well, evidently he could have asked for much more.  Hate to say it.

I’ll be first to admit that the first book in the Marie Levant Mystery series wasn’t the best piece of fiction.  To make this quick, it introduced Marie Levant, a Chicago defect who decided to port back to the South where her deceased mother’s roots lie long underneath the stretch of the famed Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau.  Nevertheless, in doing so, Marie [Levant] becomes a doctor at New Orleans’s Charity Hospital.  This is where she runs across her first murder mystery case in the form of a seemingly dead girl wheeled into the ER.  However, this seemingly dead girl is pregnant and the baby is safely retrieved and later adopted by Marie.  As the police move in, and Marie’s fondness for the child increases, she implements herself in the case.  Marie discovers that the girl was a part of a prostitution ring and her state of zombification was brought by dark voodoo magic.  This investigation awakens Marie's own voodoo power, as well as her sleuthing skills that later go sour as the trilogy continues.

Voodoo Season had its airy moments, where swinging swirls of poetic narrative/dialogue took over the necessity for elaborating details needed to further character development and the mystery plot.  Some pages read like a James Patterson book; sparse on ink.  Nevertheless, it still contained those elements that I loved.  Marie Levant was black.  She is the ancestor of the famed and historically bona fide Voodoo Queen of Louisiana, Marie Laveau.  And while she has an appetite for sex, it doesn’t hinder her from being both an indomitable doctor at New Orleans’s Charity Hospital or an amateur sleuth.  Basically, Marie carried the book just fine for my personal taste.  Along with the other cast.  Though some are questionable, like Charity Hospital’s top dog, Dulac, and his penchant for being drunk on the job.  As well as the handsome Detective Reneaux who guides Marie on her case (or his case).  Topple in the subjects of cryptograms, death gods, ghosts, ancestral tales, and some Creole culture, and you can consider me absorbed.  Then there’s that extra layer where Rhodes demystifies some subjects pertaining to voodoo, or the Vodun religion.  The ending had a cinema exploitative reel to it, but that was actually my favorite part as Marie called on the darker voodoo gods to exact revenge for herself, the be-spelled prostitutes, and someone close to her who didn't survive.

The second book, Yellow Moon, turns its eye a little more toward the paranormal side of Marie's journey.  Citizens over the city of New Orleans are turning up dead, wheeled into Charity Hospital’s morgue in conditions mysteriously close to an immoderate case of exsanguination.  Puncture marks riddle their wrist, leading Marie, and our newly casted detective, Park, to attribute the cause of death to a type of vampiric draining.  Nevertheless, matters gather more interest for Marie as the ghost of these victims begin to haunt her, pushing her to seek their justice.  What Marie and Detective Park don’t anticipate is that an ancient, African vampire spirit called wazimamoto is behind the deaths.  Having a taste of Marie’s essence--or spirit--as the Voodoo Queen of Louisiana, the wazimamoto turns its sights on draining her to end Marie Laveau’s bloodline (can you keep up with the difference between Marie Levant and her ancestor Marie Laveau?).  As it comes to light, Marie realizes that the wazimamoto and her ancestor Marie Laveau are enemies from the past  And it’s this wazimamoto that’ll take several of Marie’s closest friends with it to death before she manages to pull all of her ancestor's powers together to stop it from taking hers.

Writing that short summary kind of made me realize that I liked the mystery of the book a lot more than that dull feeling I felt after finishing the last page.  I wouldn’t say that Yellow Moon was a complete dud, but I will say that it wasn’t as dark or swallowing as I’d anticipated.  Written much the same as the first book, it had that same airy quality of poetic prose/dialogue, however, not nearly as much.  Some events felt like an unnecessary action to the plot, including central characters’ death.  I say this mainly because it’s hard to grieve for characters that you’re expect to, yet have little awareness of them outside of their involvement with the main heroine.  In that respect, many should have survived just as Marie did, to sort of compound the trilogy and keep its character flavor.  In a roundabout way, I kind of want to blame this on how the books were released two to three years apart; Rhodes wasn't looking ahead.  However, the book did establish more of Marie’s inner struggles being a Voodooienne priestess, enough so that those struggles overpowered the hunt for the wazimamoto while exposing nuggets of information on the subject of voodoo.  Nevertheless, Rhodes made up for shuffles of plot verses complex inner monologue by introducing new themes.  Rich, authentic Jazz, African folklore, personal inner demons come manifested, and other cultural concerns were a few.  Quite frankly, Yellow Moon didn’t read like a mystery, which is the backbone of my interest in the series.  Rhodes can throw everything she can at me to tickle my interest--those are a given.  Nonetheless, I strongly, strongly need the careful sleight-of-hand of a mystery and Marie’s ability to think for herself to keep me holding on.  Yellow Moon could easily arrive on the doorstep of urban fantasy.

And that’s where my main draw with the last book, Hurricane, comes into play.  Hoping Rhodes would get back into the mystery element of the trilogy, I was let down in the final book.  From the beginning I knew something was off.  Marie is led by a vision/dream of some sort to town outside of New Orleans called DeLaire, bayou country.  An hour or two on the highway something (I emphasize “something”) causes her to pull onto the berm where she follows a path to a house.  Furthering her need to investigate, Marie uncovers the bodies of three people--it appears to be a family.  Father, mother and daughter.  Dead.  It quickly becomes obvious to Marie that they were murder, each one shot and killed as she looks closer.  Naturally, she sought the local’s police station.  There she meets Deet Malveaux, the town sheriff.  It seems that Deet was halfway expecting Marie’s presence, driven by the fact that his dying grandmother had a vision of Marie coming to save the afflicted community of DeLaire.  And those afflicted show up in droves when Deet takes Marie to his dying grandmother.  The announcement is made clear: Marie Laveau’s ancestor is there to heal the people of DeLaire.  Deet’s sheriff brother, Aaron, seems more or less impressed as he sets off to investigate Marie’s claims while she’s stuck at the Malveaux’s house attending to the line of ill towners.  Pushing medical science over shamanism for their illness upsets the desperate gathering.  Marie is mostly at a lost for their haggard cries for healing, but she deals.  Upon Aaron's return, Marie realizes through the ghosts of the murdered family that now accompanies him, that Aaron did nothing more but blaze a fire to destroy the crime scene.  In turn, concealing the murders.  The question now becomes why and what exactly is going on in the town of DeLaire?  And here I was hoping Marie would be stuck there surviving something out of a Stephen King novel where every bit of her wits are needed to find out DeLaire's secrets.

Unfortunately, it takes ages before DeLaire's secret is clear, and its unfolding is so rocky that I almost gave up.  In the end my attempt wasn’t to solve the crime before Marie.  It was to understand the crime and purpose of it.  While it later becomes clear, though nowhere near as believable or compelling as Rhodes may have hoped it would be, I still felt like there were no leads or further evidence for Marie to trace down toward the culprit of the events in DeLaire.  After the described visit, she goes back to New Orleans where she informs law enforcement there on the murders.  It’s proposed to the reader that an albino detective has his doubts, therefore, pushing Marie out of the precinct underneath an entailing fact that he is involved.  He's probably the only notable villain to the mystery, while coming across as uncompelling to the mystery.  Basically, he is not interesting as a character, and later his role provides absolutely no suspense to the already suspense less mystery.  While once again Marie loses someone close to her, it becomes evident at this point that her losing friends are a weak plot device.  I hardly gathered the feeling of despair through this lose; not as a means to sound unsympathetic, but as a means of sounding too aware of Rhodes’s techniques.  She needs to learn how to keep her characters around longer, moving and breathing well on their own before she kills them off.  And slices of back story won't do.  

With all that being said, it’s clear that above her two previous books in the series, the themes in Hurricane overrides all else without hesitation.  Here Rhodes explores not only the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but also environmental destruction and its proceeding domino effect.  She also explores racism a little more fatally here, as we later learn the township of DeLaire is paying the price of some rather ruthless others.  And where the wazimamoto played the malevolent spirit in Yellow Moon, the benevolence of an African water goddess spirit called Mami Wata helped encourage the power of Rhodes environmental theme.

In closing, I will more or less miss this series.  I give it kudos for Rhode’s proposal on exploring the subject of voodoo underneath a mystery and sassy lead.  But much of that execution did not totally win with me.  The balance between her need to unload on the reader certain interesting themes seemed to push aside the complexities of creating a profound mystery throughout each book.  And in essence, I needed that strong, powerful mystery to help fill in the desire to soak in the other elements provided by Rhodes.  So while the first bite was an unaware party on the taste buds, after awhile it didn't go down so easily.

Any thoughts on my take of Rhodes's series?  Have you read them or suggest any books piled with mysteries and voodoo spells gone wrong?  Add your comments here.

Teaser Tuesday #1

My first Teaser Tuesday video--thanks to the glorious inspiration of thefictionfairy--with a little twist.  The Youtube/booktube thing is fun, but I feel as if I sometimes hold back with all the vigor I have and wish to convey, unless I’m speaking on a book where I would wish to be clear.  Then sometimes I don't feel like people get what I'm conveying.  In any regard, this was fun because I definitely don't try to take myself to seriously.  This was an opportunity to be my usual silly, blunt self.  The purpose of Tuesday Teaser is to read two passage/quotes from a specific book that you're currently reading.  Should said passages entice the viewer, he or she may go about purchasing the book.  Nevertheless, I added a twist where I shared four books and leave it to the viewer to guess which contains the passages.  Kind of advertising/pushing the book, and kind of totally not.  Such the conundrum that makes up me.

With that said, goodbye February 2014.  You will kinda be missed.  No, actually I just prefer Spring at this point.  There is so much I want to write about concerning books and series.  I hope I manage to get to them after I tie up these last conversations.  

Thanks for stopping by.