Review: Monster by Walter Dean Myers

Monster--Walter Dean Myers
April 1999 by Amistad
288 pages--Goodreads

FADE IN: INTERIOR: Early morning in CELL BLOCK D, MANHATTAN DETENTION CENTER.

Steve (Voice-Over)Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I'll call it what the lady prosecutor called me ... Monster.

---

This is one of those novels that has won so many awards and is a staple in so many Adolescent lit classes that you wonder if the actual book can live up to its reputation.  Monster does.  I sped through the book in just a couple of days and had only three pages to go when one of my classes began and I had to spend the whole class dying to know what happened.  

Steve is on trial for murder.  Witnesses say he was the lookout for some other guys who robbed a convenience store and shot the owner.  The book is a screenplay, written by Steve, about the trial.  I liked the screenplay format.  It makes the book a quick read, and all that white space makes the book look accessible.  Some readers see this as a ploy or gimmick, but I don't.  I see it as a way for Steve to work through what was happening to him.

However, partly because of the format, we don't get to know Steven well.  The novel only centers around the actual trial, not his life before.  And despite being in his head the whole time, Steven is still a mystery to us at the end of the novel.  He is an interesting character and I would have liked more background information about him and his family.  I realize that this kind of goes against the point of the book (to determine Steve's guilt or innocence just with the limited evidence we get), but still.

I like how the book addresses the criminal justice system and the preconceived notions we have about the accused.  We forget that in the eyes of the law, a defendant is innocent until the prosecution proves otherwise.  This book also made me realize the difference between "innocent" and "not guilty."  Maybe a particular person did commit a crime, but if there is no evidence to prove guilt, the law cannot touch them.  In that light, I love how Myers leaves Steve's innocence or guilt ambiguous.  I won't spoil the court verdict, but we really don't know whether Steve participated in the theft.  Is he evading responsibility for his actions or being rightly served by justice?  

This book also forces us to look at, in a very small degree, the violence that goes on in prisons.  We tend to ignore the fate of inmates because we don't have to see them and subconsciously we think, "They broke the law, so they deserve what they get."  But even criminals don't deserve to be assaulted and beat up on a regular basis.  The novel deals with some heavy, mature subjects, but it is actually pretty light on swearing, which surprised me.

This book made me think about a lot of things. I liked it, and I think it is a book that would resonate with a lot of teens.

Review: The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict by Trenton Lee Stewart

The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict--Trenton Lee Stewart
April 2012 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
470 pages--Goodreads

Before there was a Mysterious Benedict Society, there was simply a boy named Nicholas Benedict. Meet the boy who started it all....

Nine-year-old Nicholas Benedict has more problems than most children his age. Not only is he an orphan with an unfortunate nose, but he also has narcolepsy, a condition that gives him terrible nightmares and makes him fall asleep at the worst possible moments. Now he's being sent to a new orphanage, where he will encounter vicious bullies, selfish adults, strange circumstances -- and a mystery that could change his life forever. Luckily, he has one important thing in his favor: He's a genius.

On his quest to solve the mystery, Nicholas finds enemies around every corner, but also friends in unexpected places -- and discovers along the way that the greatest puzzle of all is himself.

---

Like The Mysterious Benedict Society, The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict (Stewart seems to like long titles) is a fun adventure with some good old fashioned puzzle solving and quirky characters.  It is fun.  Not quite as much fun as the first book, but fun.

The puzzle solving is intriguing, and I was able to keep up it without the puzzles being so simple so that I had the end figured out from the beginning.  This is one of the best parts of the series; it's what we like about mysteries.  And a little outwitting of the bullying Spiders can't go amiss either.

The background information we get on Nicholas is deeper than I expected.  He goes from disillusionment and loneliness to believing in human decency and unselfishness.  However, I miss the interaction between multiple extraordinary characters.  Sticky, Reynie, Kate, and Constance made such a great team, each with their own unique personalities and gifts.  In contrast, John and Violet are rather ordinary. They are kind but not terribly interesting.  Nick solves the mystery almost entirely on his own, whereas in the other books, the kids could not have saved the day without Constance's stubbornness or Sticky's memory. 

The book also relies too much on Nick happening to be in just the right place at the right time.  I know that has to happen some, but it happened too much to be plausible.  The plot doesn't overuse Nick's photographic memory, which was a problem with Sticky's character in the rest of the series.  

It was a fun book, but it never held my attention so firmly that I couldn't put it down or I was over anxious to pick it up again.  It's great for fans of the series, but the first book was better.

Review: Death Cloud by Andrew Lane

Death Cloud--Andrew Lane
June 2010 by Macmillan
313 pages--Goodreads

The year is 1868, and Sherlock Holmes is fourteen. His life is that of a perfectly ordinary army officer’s son: boarding school, good manners, a classical education – the backbone of the British Empire. But all that is about to change. With his father suddenly posted to India, and his mother mysteriously ‘unwell’, Sherlock is sent to stay with his eccentric uncle and aunt in their vast house in Hampshire. So begins a summer that leads Sherlock to uncover his first murder, a kidnap, corruption and a brilliantly sinister villain of exquisitely malign intent . . . 

The Death Cloud is the first in a series of novels in which the iconic detective is reimagined as a brilliant, troubled and engaging teenager – creating unputdownable detective adventures that remain true to the spirit of the original books.

---

This was a fun read.  I would have eaten it up in middle school.  It moves quickly with trouble following our main character around the whole time, so there are a lot of escape sequences.  The book starts off with a bang and an intriguing prologue.  Other reviewers have noted an Alex Rider vibe, and I would agree with them.  The teen characters in the novel and powerful.  It is expected that they can save the day, and they do.

I liked the focus on deduction to solve the mystery.  I don't like when a detective solves the case by pointing out an obscure fact that no one else could know:  this ash comes from a line of cigars sold exclusively in a particular shop in downtown Singapore; thus the murder is...   Holmes usually has a particular problem with this manner of mystery solving, but not in this version.  There is a bit of Scooby-Dooing (the villain goes on a rant and explains his secret plan to the hero) (thank you Misty for the term) near the end, but for the most part we follow along with Sherlock as he puts things together.

The villain is a half-baked, simplistic, and revengeful.  Holmes needs a Moriarty, not a bumbling crook.  Granted, Holmes isn't a mastermind yet, but still, I expected more out of the villain.  One other minor issue:  Mrs. Eglantine never goes anywhere.  Mycroft makes this big deal about her not being a friend to the Holmes family, and then she does nothing.  I can understand if Lane wants to wait until later in the series to have her be a super villain, but she needs to at least shoot Sherlock a dirty look at the end so we don't forget she exists.

This is the only YA series endorsed by the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so it must be an accurate-enough-to-canon thing.  Lane writes a reasonably believable 14 or 15 year old Holmes.  He's more relate-to-able and less a sociopathic recluse than the adult Holmes, but that is necessary for a YA book.  Death Cloud is a great introduction for teens into the world of Sherlock Holmes.

Loving Sherlock but Begrudging Holmes

I seem to have a habit of not discovering TV shows until they're a couple seasons in, or I hear about them and then decide for some strange reason that I'm not interested enough to pursue them, only to regret that decision later.  Now I'm anxiously awaiting the return of Downton Abbey in January and am slowly catching up on Doctor Who.  I should just give the BBC a free pass from now on. 

I tried out Sherlock a little while ago because I've heard so much about it from other Doctor Who/Downton Abbey fans.  This was a bit of a stretch for me; I don't like Sherlock Holmes novels, blasphemy though I know that is.  They're boring--and not because they're classics, but because you have no possibility of solving the mystery yourself.  Holmes solves mysteries by pulling out a random bit of information that no one else could possibly know.  "This pipe weed only comes from a small village in northern Madagascar so the murderer is obviously...  These footprints contain mud that is from Westminster Abbey so..."  Are you kidding me?  Lame, lame, lame, lame, lame. The fun in reading a mystery is trying to figure it out before the detective reveals the answer.  But when the key to the mystery is so obscure, all you can do is sit there and wait for Holmes to condescend to let you in on the secret.  

So, with trepidation I sat down and watched the first episode of BBC's Sherlock.  And oh my gosh, it blew me away.  While Sherlock does observe things we would never notice, those things are pointed out to the audience (think Psych but more sophisticated), so we can follow along with much of Sherlock's thought process.  Since we get to play a long, the mystery is a lot more fun.

Aside from the resolution of my personal pet peeves, it's just a good show all around.  They mysteries are interesting, the stories are modernized well, and the interplay between Cumberbatch's Sherlock and Freeman's Watson is engaging.  Actually, all of the characters are well done.  Moriarty is wonderfully creepy.  Mrs. Hudson has spunk while still being quaint.  Even Mycroft has a certain annoying charm.  Each episode is an hour and a half long, so we have time for a satisfying, well developed mystery.

And now season 3 won't air until next fall, giving me time to catch up on three seasons of Doctor Who. 

Review: A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee

A Spy in the House--Y.S. Lee
March 2010 by Candlewick
335 pages--Goodreads

Rescued from the gallows in 1850s London, young orphan (and thief) Mary Quinn is surprised to be offered a singular education, instruction in fine manners — and an unusual vocation. Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls is a cover for an all-female investigative unit called The Agency, and at seventeen, Mary is about to put her training to the test. Assuming the guise of a lady’s companion, she must infiltrate a rich merchant’s home in hopes of tracing his missing cargo ships. But the household is full of dangerous deceptions, and there is no one to trust — or is there? Packed with action and suspense, banter and romance, and evoking the gritty backstreets of Victorian London, this breezy mystery debuts a daring young detective who lives by her wits while uncovering secrets — including those of her own past.

---

This is an out and out good mystery.  I haven't read a pure mystery novel (as in, not just a mystery weaved into a larger plot a la Harry Potter) in a while.  It feels a bit dues ex-ish a couple of times when a clue just falls into Mary's hands, but that is part of the genre.  The mystery is well paced.  The reader gets enough information to put things together without figuring everything out way before the characters.  But, one of the biggest rules in mysteries is to never show a gun unless you plan on that gun going off later in the novel.  So why did Yee make such a big deal about the river and then never do anything with it?  This was just a minor qualm; it did not seriously detract from my enjoyment of the book.

I like the narration from two points of view.  That's hard to carry off in a novel, especially a mystery novel, but Lee does it well.

The novel spends a great deal of time on the societal position of women in the Victorian era.  This occasionally makes the book feel too feminist, to the point of being anti-men.  Now, I'm all for strong female leads who can take care of themselves, but we don't need to take cheap shots at the entire male gender either.  So often when women are encouraged to explore options and do something in their life that they find fulfilling (a good thing to encourage), marriage gets immediately dismissed as something that a woman shouldn't aspire to, which bugs me.  This aspect of the book just didn't jive with my personal philosophy, but aside from that Yee gives us a good look of the very very very limited options of Victorian women.  Upper class:  marriage or spinsterhood.  Lower class:  marriage and work, either on a farm or in a factory.  Prostitution:  open to women from all classes.  With no choices whatsoever, many women were unhappy or dissatisfied.

What it really necessary for Mary to find a book of porn while snooping?  What was the point?  It adds nothing to the plot except perhaps to emphasize the relative societal positions of men and women.  But I felt it was unnecessary.  It's brief and not graphic, to those of you worried about content, but not at all needed.

Neither spunky nor feisty is the right word word to describe Mary.  She's forceful, quick thinking, to the point, and most definitely not demure.  She is enjoyable at times and rubs me the wrong way at others; in the end I liked her. Was her mixed heritage supposed to be a surprise?  You can't introduce your main character as "Mary Lang" and not expect your readers to put it together that she's part Chinese or at least part Asian.  And honestly, the Irish and the Chinese do not look alike.  Lame cover story.

Yee has a few show don't tell issues.  We are simply told Mary's character in a list of eight or nine traits rather than putting her character together through her actions.  And we don't see anything of the month Mary spends training to be a secret agent.  However, in this case Lee likely wanted to speed us along to the main adventure without getting distracted on side plot, but I wanted to see some spy training.  

It's the kind of series I would have really gotten into as a kid, but now it's less appealing.  I liked the novel and it was hard to put down, but I didn't connect with the characters.  Good, but not fantastic.