MOVIE REVIEW: "Ghostbusters" (2016)

The smartest move this film makes is that it doesn't try to replace the original Ghostbusters. It's not a remake: the plot is different, the characters are original, and it explores other themes. It's not supposed to be The Better Ghostbusters. It's supposed to be Hey! Great! More Ghostbusters! You could easily watch both films back to back without feeling like you experienced the same story.

This Ghostbusters is a more character-driven comedy. Abby (Melissa McCarthy) and Erin (Kristin Wiig) used to be best friends and paranormal scientists, but Erin abandoned their research and denied her ghost-hunting past to pursue academic credibility.

The sudden appearance of powerful malevolent spirits in New York causes them to reunite, and with the assistance of some awesome new friends - wild card engineer Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) and history expert Patty (Leslie Jones) - they uncover an insidious paranormal threat to the Big Apple.

It takes a delicate hand to write an effective comedy about the need to be taken seriously, but Ghostbusters pulls it off. The desire to be heard, understood, believed, and appreciated drives all four of our Busters in different ways.

Erin does this initially by conforming to thankless and ultimately fruitless standards. Her arc has such a strong and empathetic feminist streak in it as she rebels (in an increasingly hilarious fashion) against the ways in which society dismisses and disbelieves her.

McCarthy's Abby - played with her trademark sweet-and-sour delivery (with a stronger emphasis on sweet this time) - wants to stick to the science, believing objective results and personal fulfillment trump social status. McCarthy plays it pretty low-key, as the emotional rather than comedic centre of the group.

Jones' Patty - the lone non-scientist - represents the self-made, self-educated woman. She reads like a fiend, knows the city inside and out, and knows her way around people - and she soon proves that she's a worthy Ghostbuster, degree or no degree.

And McKinnon's Holtzmann? A lesser movie and a lesser actress would have just labelled Holtzmann as "the kooky one" and played her with a combination of obnoxious, unrelated comedic traits that are barely tolerated by the rest of the cast. Instead, Kate McKinnon absolutely steals the entire movie as an unorthodox, confident, wildly charismatic, and unrepentantly unfettered genius who just wants to make wild, crazy science with whomever will let her.

And, oh yeah, this movie is also funny! Alongside these four comedic powerhouses, Chris Hemsworth does an outstanding job as their Hot Dumb Blonde Receptionist Kevin, and the movie is littered with well-deployed nostalgic references that should please Ghostbuster aficionados without excluding viewers unfamiliar with the franchise.

All told, Ghostbusters is a well-written paranormal comedy that combines wit and slapstick with emotional resonance and keen social commentary. I highly recommend.
A

"Crazy Thing Called Love," By Molly O'Keefe

The Chick: Madelyn Cornish, a.k.a. Maddy Wilkins, a.k.a. Maddy Baumgarden. A popular daytime television host.
The Rub: When her show wants her to do a project with reviled hockey thug Billy Wilkins, she can't reveal that he used to be her husband without dredging up their painful history.
Dream Casting: Michelle Monaghan.

The Dude: Billy Wilkins. A violent, almost-washed-up hockey player who's lauded (and hated) for the fights he frequently starts on the ice.
The Rub: The opportunity to go on his ex-wife's show seems too good to be true - can he clean up his act and win her back?
Dream Casting: Jeremy Renner.

The Plot:

Billy: Violence solves everything! *starts hockey fight*

NHL: No it doesn't.

Maddy's show: Hey, want to do a makeover series?

Billy: Yay! Makeovers solve everything!

Maddy: NO THEY DON'T.

Surprise Niece and Nephew: Hey, our mother's dead and our aunt's abusive. Let's lie! Lying solves everything!

Billy: OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD--

Maddy: I find your total incompetence with life suddenly relatable.

Billy: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Pair of Reunited Exes
• 2 Angsty Plot Moppets
• 1 Evil TV Producer
• 1 Swarm of Paparazzi
• Several Flashbacks

The Word: It didn't take long for Molly O'Keefe to secure herself a spot as one of my favourite authors. Two books into her hockey-star (or hockey-star-adjacent) trilogy and I was hooked. Now we're onto the final book. Maddy Cornish, a daytime television host in Dallas, was a friend of the heroine from Can't Hurry Love, and freaked out when she ran into Billy Wilkins - a hockey friend of the hero of Can't Buy Me Love - at a party at the end of the last book.

Madelyn Cornish has spent the better part of a decade making a name for herself in daytime TV. She built her career from the ground up - losing weight, straightening her hair, and changing her name to distance herself as much as possible from her humiliating past.

Her humiliating past comes back to bite her in the ass when her show's producers suggest they do a "Makeover" segment on her show for Billy Wilkins, a washed-up hockey thug known more for his violence on the ice and time spent in the penalty box than his actual plays. The producers think the prospect of turning this burly, scarred toad into a burly, scarred prince could boost their ratings.

Unbeknownst to her employers, Maddy used to be Mrs. Billy Wilkins. She and Billy married extremely young, but Billy's exploding hockey career ended up sweeping all of Maddy's own emotions, goals, and ambitions under the rug in favour of Billy's. After a few miserable years of that, Maddy divorced him and fled with what little identity she had left. She's terrified that any resurgence of feelings towards Billy will destroy the independence she's gained.

Billy, meanwhile, has hit rock bottom. He's ruined his own reputation with his violent antics and now no one wants to play with him. The only light in his life is the miraculous opportunity to make things right with the only woman he's ever loved - his Maddy. Could he use this makeover to change himself into the husband she deserves?

Billy and Maddy make an interesting pair - Maddy's terrified of her feelings, while Billy is nothing but feelings - mostly rage and self-loathing. As Billy dives headfirst into the makeover segment in order to win his ex-wife back, he has to change how he sees himself (as someone worth loving rather than a human punching bag) in order to improve himself and impress Maddy. Meanwhile, Maddy has to learn how to love someone and invest in their life without sacrificing her own.

Of course, O'Keefe doesn't make this easy and drops a number of bombshell plot lines that force our couple through the emotional wringer in a number of delicious ways, slathering on the angst and the high drama with skill and gusto. The reason I continue to gobble up her books like catnip even as I lose patience with other romance writers is because of her continued commitment to meticulously-developed characters. With her gorgeous turns of phrase, she give her protagonists colourful inner lives that reveal their neuroses and fears without becoming boring and navel-gazey. So when melodramatic things happen, I find myself turning the pages faster and faster because I need to know how her characters will react.

Crazy Thing Called Love is no different. A marvellous addition to Molly O'Keefe's growing canon.
A

"Unspoken," by Sarah Rees Brennan

The Protagonist: Kami Glass. An investigative report-in-training, she's always looking for the next big story to blow wide open, in her small English town.
Her Angst: The return of the infamous Lynburn family looks like the perfect scoop - until she learns she has a secret bond with Jared, the Lynburn black sheep.

The Secondary Cast:

Angela: Kami's ornery BFF who's happy to help with Kami's adventures, so long as they doesn't involve Annoying People or interfere with her naps.

Jared: The "voice" who has conversed with Kami in her head for the better part of her life. The good news? He's real and so are his abs! The bad news - he's real, and knows all of her innermost secrets.

Ash: The cute and helpful son of Lillian Lynburn. Jared's cousin. Genuinely likes Kami, and worries about her connection to his "dangerous" cousin.

Rosalind: Jared's awful mother. Just awful. The worst.

Lillian: Rosalind's icy sister and Ash's mother. Less awful to Jared, but not exactly welcoming, either.

Uncle Rob: Lillian's husband and Ash's dad. The only member of the Lynburn family who's openly loving to Jared.

Angst Checklist:

• Racism and Xenophobia
• Class Divides
• Slut Shaming
• Rich Hot Angsty Boy Shaming (for MYSTERIOUS REASONS)
• Relationship Boundaries
• Awkward Love Triangles
• My Best Friend Can Literally Read My Thoughts and That Is Not Helpful At All
• LGBT Issues
• Child Abuse
• Jealous Sisters
• Sssssecretsssss

The Word: Kami Glass has lived her whole life in Sorry-in-the-Vale, a bucolic little English village with roots going back hundreds of years. Despite being born there, she's always been a little bit of an outcast - partly because of her Asian heritage and partly because she regularly holds conversations in her head with an imaginary boy named Jared.

Now hear me out.

More than anything, Kami wants to be an investigative journalist, and sussing out the town's myriad secrets is her life's ambition. She thinks she's hit the jackpot when she learns the town's founding family, the Lynburns (two surviving sisters, a cousin, and their respective sons Jared and Ash) have returned to Sorry-in-the-Vale after a long absence in America. They're rich and live in a mansion. Everyone in town lives in fear of them, but refuses to explain why. And the two Lynburn boys are ridiculously hot, angsty, and mysterious. Kami can't wait to interview them and find out what all the fuss is about.

Hear me out! Just give me a minute!

When Kami runs into angry, mistreated Jared Lynburn, she discovers that he's the boy she's secretly conversed with her entire conscious life. Her imaginary boy is real, and neither knows what to do about their psychic connection, or what it means with regards to the Lynburns' dark history with Sorry-in-the-Vale.

Okay, now, I can see you side-eying this review already. Instant bonds, a Love Triangle with Angsty Angry Loner Boys, a quirky heroine too nosy for her own good. The perfect ingredients for One Hot-Ass Mess of a Book.

Except.

Except this book is actually kind of ... good? Amazingly good, even. One of the best things I've read this year, if you want to be specific. Yes, Unspoken trades on a lot of popular YA tropes that have been beaten into glue by previous and less-skilled authors, but Unspoken does it in an incredibly intelligent and self-aware way.

Kami does have an instant bond with Jared, but it's not a source of fuzzy duckling feelings that eschew reality. Rather, their connection is embarrassing and unpleasant and awkward. It's one thing to believe in a "real" imaginary friend - it's an entirely different thing to discover you've placed the quotation marks on the wrong word and you have very little privacy or independence for your own thoughts. Their bond is a source of (rather than a cheap solution to) conflict.

The story is not all about the guys, either. I mean, they're important - the Lyburn boys do live in a decrepit, thunderstorm-prone mansion drenched in sssssecretssss - but the novel spends just as much time with Kami and her friends Angela and Holly. One of the more interesting subplots involves Kami re-thinking her dismissive opinion of Holly as a boy-crazy flirt - thanks, in part, to Jared calling her on her close-mindedness.

Kami is such a dynamic character. I loved her. She's confident and take charge, and refuses to lower her expectations for anyone else. I loved her righteous search for the truth - even as she learns that some truths are ugly and painful and can erode her trust in the social structures in which she's lived her whole life. Even then, she never gives up her trust in herself. Take her bond with Jared - she's fine with using it for their friendship, but it makes the prospect of a romantic relationship deeply uncomfortable to her and she refuses to give in to Jared's pressuring. Yes, she genuinely likes and trusts Jared, but she respects herself enough to set boundaries and stick by them.

In fact, Kami's strength and confidence are the reason Jared doesn't look like a complete asshole in comparison. He's a very angry, broody, demanding character with more than just a few crazy wives locked up in his attic (metaphorically speaking!). He had an extremely lonely and painful childhood thanks to an abusive father and a selfishly uninterested mother, and even his aunt and cousin don't treat him much better.

His bond with Kami is pretty much the only positive relationship in his entire life and it's entirely understandable, from a character development standpoint, why he wants to hold onto it and develop it. But he's very aggressive about the bond, and constantly pressures Kami to deepen it. If Kami had been one of those submissive, doormat characters who treat the hero's Sad Past as a free pass to be an ass (hey, I rhymed!), Jared could have been a horrific character. However, Kami is constantly fighting back with her own strength and forcing Jared to back down and rethink himself, and because of this equal balance, I was able to enjoy and understand Jared more. And even so, I felt his angry tantrums got a little repetitive towards the end.

All of these elements, brewed together, creates a delicious, seething cauldron of Gothic mystery that keeps the reader guessing. Something is definitely amiss with the Lynburns and their connection to the town. However, as Kami discovers, her town is is plenty amiss all on its own. With developed female characters, a great mystery, lots of small-town secrets, and swift pacing, Unspoken is a fantastic addition to my YA bookshelf.
A

"Anne of the Island," by Lucy Maud Montgomery

The Protagonist: Anne Shirley. Now 18, she's off to college to get her degree.
Her Angst: Everything is moving so fast - friends are marrying, dying, and having babies. Will Anne be able to hold onto anything, or should she welcome change?

Secondary Cast:

Gilbert Blythe: Anne's childhood friend who's madly in love with her. But does Anne know how she feels?

Priscilla and Stella: Anne's amazing college roommates.

Phillipa "Phil" Gordon: Another roommate, and new character, who prides herself on being a flighty flirt until she winds up falling for a minister.

Royal Gardner: A tall, dark, handsome and rich senior who falls for Anne and sweeps her off her feet. But is a wild, magical romance what Anne still wants?

Angst Checklist:

• How to Be Friendzoned without Being a Jackass About it, a Course by Gilbert Blythe
• Adulthood is hard
• Dealing with Change
• Life and Death
• The Life of an Artist
• Romance Versus Love
• How many cats is too many?

The Word: In this third book in the beloved Anne of Green Gables series, our darling Anne is bound for Redmond College to obtain her BA in English (ENGLISH MAJORS REPRESENT!), and also grow up along the way.

Like the previous two novels, Anne of the Island is more of a collection of vignettes around a common time frame that correspond with an aspect of Anne's personal growth and development, rather than a novel with a specific plot. For the four years in which Anne studies for her degree, she's forced to confront some rather painful truths about herself as she learns to accept adulthood and all the changes that transition entails - like her best friend's marriage, changes to Avonlea, and the death of a childhood friend.

One of those changes involves Gilbert Blythe. Gilbert - now a paragon of Edwardian manhood as the brilliant, handsome, pre-med captain of the college football team - divulges his full romantic feelings to Anne in this novel. A horrified Anne shoots him down point-blank, partly because she's afraid of losing their easy childhood friendship and partly because she's not ready to identify her own growing feelings for him. Anne still clings to the ideas of romantic love she taught herself from her favourite novels, but her college experiences soon teach her how to accept reality without compromising imagination.

Anne also grows as a writer during her college years. She experiences the despair of rejection, the embarrassment of being thought a sellout (when her story's accepted as an advertisement for baking powder), and the frustration of a painfully true critique. Anne is prone to too much flowery description and Gary Stu/Mary Sue protagonists - a common flaw for budding writers regardless of time period, it seems.

Anne of the Island isn't a perfect novel. A few too many things happen coincidentally - Anne discovers her dream house is being let right when she's looking for a place to rent with her roommates, and poor Aunt Josephine dies and leaves Anne an inheritance at the precise moment Anne worries about tuition. But the novel is still so heartfelt and genuine and true about what college kids still go through. A consistently good entry in a wonderful series.
A

Re-Read Rollout: "Anne of Avonlea," by Lucy Maud Montgomery

The Protagonist: Anne Shirley. Now 16 years old, she teaches the children of Avonlea while looking after her guardian, Marilla.
Her Angst: Reality won't stop intervening in her attempts to have a perfectly blissful year.

Secondary Cast:

Gilbert Blythe: Anne's friend who is totes in love with her. Has decided to give up teaching to become a doctor.

Marilla: Anne's guardian - she's not as young as she used to be, but at least she's not going blind anymore.

Mr. Harrison: A cantankerous old bachelor who is mighty set in his ways.

Davey Keith: A young orphan (and budding sociopath) who is adopted by Anne and Marilla, along with his sister Dora.

Paul Irving: A new pupil in Anne's class who is sometimes ridiculed for being too sensitive and dreamy. Just you wait until puberty!

Anthony Pye: The worst. Of course.

Miss Lavendar: An eccentric old maid who has a history with Paul Irving's widowed father Stephen.

Angst Checklist:

• Accidental Grand Theft Cow
• Secret Wives
• Dead Mothers
• Dead Husbands
• Estranged Husbands
• Isn't it really doing the world a favour if we dropped Davey down a well?
• Bringing Firecrackers to School
• Pyes are the Worst at Everything

The Word: Well, it's December - time for another month of re-reads! Since I read Anne of Green Gables last year, it makes sense that I would read the sequel, Anne of Avonlea, this year as well.

Much like Gables, Anne of Avonlea doesn't really have a plot, but instead chronicles the next two years of Anne's life in a linear chain of heartwarming or comedic episodes. Most of these episodes have to do with Anne's experiences as Avonlea's newest schoolteacher, her efforts heading the Improvement Society (an attempt by Avonlea's youth to pretty up the town), and her attempts to teach and raise two very different boys - her new pupil Paul Irving (a shy dreamer) and the irrepressible orphan Davey (who might possibly be the son of Satan).

While Anne of Green Gables is a beloved classic - I've heard that the later novels are…less classic. I've read about four books into the series and have loved all of them, but I can kind of see where the complaints come from. Sure, some of the stories may seem a little idealized - and while I love Anne's melodramatic ways, it gets a little bit cloying when she discovers and interacts with two more melodramatic dreamers (Paul and the eccentric Miss Lavendar). I mean, you can't all be crazy manic snowflakes.

And yet, despite the episodic nature of the novel, Anne grows and matures. She deals with far more responsibility in this book - not only does she have to teach the children of Avonlea, but she also finds herself in charge of a pair of orphaned siblings. Her fairy fancies are consistently tempered by the reality of her setting and her increasingly-competent interactions with such a setting. While she still gets into scrapes, it's because she's creative and impulsive, not because she's stupid. My favourite chapter is the one where Anne meets her favourite author - fangirl behaviour really hasn't changed much in the last century.

Anne of Avonlea might be episodic and linear, but it's never repetitive. Montgomery understands her characters' charms but also allows them to change and develop. I still found this book endlessly enjoyable, a real comfort read during the stresses of my trip to New York City.
A

"In This House of Brede," by Rumer Godden (2005, Loyola Press - originally 1969)

Our Protagonist: Phillipa Talbot, recently Dame Phillipa of Brede.
Her Angst: After forty-two years of being a free-thinking, powerful and successful careerwoman, can she truly fit in with the humble poverty of monastery life?

Secondary Characters:

Abbess Catherine: The newly elected leader of the monastery who discovers that along with inheriting the previous abbess' duties, she's also inheriting the possibly disastrous consequences of the previous abbess' mistakes.

Dame Agnes: A traditional, scholarly sister who distrusts Phillipa's vocation and thinks she won't last as a nun.

Dame Cicely: A recent novice with a gorgeous voice and a surprisingly powerful vocation - but how long can she keep up such perfect devotion?

Dame Veronica: A melodramatic, prideful, spiteful, and all-round terrible nun. Essentially the worst.

The Word: When I announced that I was reading In This House of Brede, one of my followers complimented me on my eclectic reading style. Well, in this instance, don't thank me - thank my mother. This is one of her absolute favourite books and a yearly re-read during Lent, so I finally decided to read it and see what all the fuss was about.

What plot there is centres (mostly) around Dame Phillipa - a woman who discovers her religious vocation at forty-two and leaves behind a brilliant career and an office full of dumbfounded employees to become a humble postulant in Brede, an English monastery. There, she is both welcomed and viewed with suspicion - how well will she be able to adapt when her fellow novices are 18 or 19 years old?

Plot isn't really too important in In This House Of Brede - most of the novel is comprised of loosely-connected episodes that help to illuminate and examine the everyday life of Benedictine nuns - as well as the vocations, doubts, conflicts, and joys involved in their lifestyle. Dame Phillipa is only one of a host of wonderful women whose stories we get to explore.

And honestly? It's surprisingly addictive and enlightening. Most of the conflict is internal, but everyone involved (with maybe one exception) is such a genuinely good person. However, they're nuns, not saints - capable of cattiness, pride, deception, and spite. The novel examines the difficulty of pursuing a vocation despite doubt and family opposition, the stresses of restrictive communal living (which can even result in romantic feelings), and how best to balance worldly needs against spiritual needs. More than anything, In This House of Brede delves into the "use" of monastic life - how "useful" is it, to lock oneself away from the world to pray?

Godden writes with a conversational word-on-the-street style that frequently bundles and compares various opinions at once. It can sometimes get convoluted with the way it jumps back and forth in time and quotes numerous different people (the prologue is particularly tangled), but once you grow accustomed to the writing style, it creates such a detailed and multifaceted view of a lifestyle that is frequently stereotyped but rarely understood.

That being said, if you're not religious, will you still be able to enjoy House of Brede? I'd like to say yes, tentatively - the way learning anything new about a rarely-explored way of life can be enjoyable. However, if you actively dislike religion or religious aspects in fiction then House of Brede will obviously not be the book for you.

However, if you've ever been curious about how cloistered nuns live, I doubt you'll find a better novel than In This House of Brede.
A

"Fangirl," by Rainbow Rowell (St. Martin's, 2013)

The Protagonist: Cather Avery, an 18-year-old writer who hopes to be able to continue writing her popular fanfiction while attending her freshman year at the University of Nebraska.
Her Angst: College is scary and unfamiliar, her sister doesn't want to hang out anymore, she's worried about leaving her unstable father alone - and she's developing feelings for her roommate's boyfriend.

The Secondary Cast:

Wren: Cath's twin sister who's excited to take chances and go on adventures in college - adventures without her sister.

Reagan: Cather's snarky, sarcastic but awesome roommate.

Levi: Reagen's permanently-cheerful adorable maybe-boyfriend who increasingly enjoys hanging out with Cath as well.

Nick: A classmate in Cath's creative writing class who starts co-writing a story with her.

Angst Checklist:

• First year at college
• Social Anxiety
• Fandoms and Fandom Expectations
• Befriending Your Boyfriend's Ex
• Alcohol Abuse
• Gay Ships
• Plagiarism
• Mental Illness
• Parental Abandonment

The Word: I'm getting worried.

I'm thinking a number of authors may be secretly spying on me. Through my laptop camera, maybe? Bugs in my bookshelf? I can't be sure. But after reading another book with a heroine I related to on a surprisingly personal level, I'm getting mighty suspicious.

Our heroine, Cather, is a fanfiction writer - an especially prolific and popular one. As younger teens, Cath and her twin sister Wren fell in love with the Simon Snow novels (Harry Potter with a dash of Twilight thrown in) and started writing fanfiction together - particularly gay slashfiction between Simon and his mortal enemy, Baz (a clear stand-in for Draco Malfoy).

However, Cath's passion for fanfiction masks a deep-seated social anxiety that surfaces whenever she's around crowds, strangers, or unfamiliar situations. When her more confident sister Wren decides to room with someone else and discover her independence during their freshman year at the University of Nebraska, Cath feels resentful, anxious and betrayed. Nevertheless, she's determined to continue working on Carry On, Simon, her Simon/Baz magnum opus that regularly receives 20,000 hits per chapter.

Thankfully, real life still has a way of dragging Cath out of her shell - especially her new roommate Reagan and her affable boyfriend Levi who decide to adopt her and correct her nerd-hermit ways. Cath slowly learns to integrate into regular college life - but she still has a bipolar father to worry about, a growing attraction to a fellow classmate to mull over, and a creative-writing professor to impress who does not appreciate the literary merit of fanfiction.

I found Cath to be an intensely relatable and authentic character. She's socially inept and adapts slowly to new situations, and her fear of change permeates the novel. Her whole life is about finding comfort in the familiar - part of the reason she loves writing fanfiction is because it allows her to remain in the world of Simon Snow long after the author stops writing about it. One of the most poignant conflicts in the novel comes from Cath's discovery that her twin sister (and former co-author) has moved on from the Simon Snow fandom and actively pursues a life without her. Some of my appreciation may derive from my own bias because I had a very similar adolescent experience - social awkwardness, comforting routines, more adventurous sisters and all.

Of course, Fangirl is also a canny examination of the creative process, as Cath has to juggle her fanfiction schedule with the original material she's expected to produce for her Creative Writing class. This cleverly ties into Cath's struggle between familiarity and progress.  She can easily churn out thousands of words a night on Simon and Baz's budding romance, but writing her own fiction, with no built-in parameters or pre-established worlds, is a much more daunting experience. Rowell wisely refuses to downplay the legitimate creativity and effort required to write fanfiction, but also shows how it can be a bit of an artistic security blanket.

Rowell deftly weaves these related themes together with a bright and deceptively light writing style. Her depiction of fandoms and fanfiction is hilariously spot-on (especially with the titles of Cath's fics, which precede every chapter) and the novel maintains an upbeat and knowing tone even when dealing with darker material (such as Cath's father's mental illness or the intrusive presence of her estranged mother).

Fangirl is a heartfelt, funny, and eerily accurate depiction of how fiction is created, celebrated, and interacted with in the 21st century.
A

Movie Review: "The Heat" (2012)

I wasn't especially excited about The Heat when I first saw the trailer, but when my sister asked me to come along, I figured - why not? I like buddy cop movies. I like Melissa McCarthy and I have occasionally liked Sandra Bullock, in movies that don't involve football. Or people in comas. It shouldn't be that bad.

Well, you guys, I saw The Heat, and I loved it. It gave me feels - and not just any feels. Feminist feels. Bechtel-Test-passing feels.

The film opens on both protagonists doing what they are best at: the tightly-laced analytical FBI agent Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) uncovers drugs and guns in a house her male colleagues have already searched and deemed clean, and wildcard Boston cop Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy) takes down a misogynistic john and a neighbourhood drug dealer.

It's that drug dealer who brings Ashburn and Mullins together - Ashburn, gunning for a promotion, has been tasked with tracking down Boston's most notorious drug kingpin, and Mullin's perp is one of his lackeys. Naturally, this means Ashburn and Mullins must work together to solve the case, and in terms of storytelling, it follows the formula of odd-couple buddy cop movies pretty faithfully - first they don't understand each other, then they bond as their partnership becomes more effective, then they royally screw up and lose their superiors' support and have to fix things on their own, and so on and so forth.

It's pretty much just like any other buddy cop movie, with a lot of really effective humour and dialogue, even if the pacing does sag a bit in the middle. And that's why I liked it.

The Heat gave me seriously awesome feminist vibes for several reasons. First off, while the film is full of jokes, absolutely none of them are about Melissa McCarthy's weight. None. Her body size isn't even mentioned, by the good guys or villains. Now, while I'll admit that I've laughed at fat jokes and even laughed at McCarthy intentionally being the butt of fat jokes, it was refreshing to be able to laugh at something else about her for a change - like how her character is a trigger-happy, fast-talking slob who is a weapons violation waiting to happen.

Second, while there is a very light flirtation between Ashburn and an adorably restrained FBI officer played by Marlon Wayans, neither heroine is overtly sexualized. There is a scene in a nightclub where Mullins tries to "sex up" the buttoned-down Ashburn's wardrobe with a pair of scissors and some imagination, but the result winds up cannily parodying the "DIY makeover" trope so common in romantic comedies.

As well, neither heroine is threatened with gendered or sexual violence. They are shot at, tackled, hit, stabbed, sure, but these are pretty standard-issue cop-movie injuries. There are no rape threats. There are no scenes where the villain sniffs the heroine's hair and says he'll have his way with her before killing her. There is a comment where a torturer who likes to use an oyster shucker asks if the subdued heroines would like "their oysters shucked," but that's the extent of it.

Lastly, both Ashburn and Mullins start out the film as pretty unpleasant people. Ashburn is a straight-laced, by-the-book character who is very aware of her own strengths, and thus comes off as condescending, detached, and abrupt in social situations. At the beginning of the film, her director admits he's not sure she's a good fit for the promotion because none of her coworkers like her. She's received dozens of complaints for arrogance and showboating.

Mullins, meanwhile, is extremely vulgar, immature, violent and crass. She lobs insults and profanities at anyone who annoys her for so much as a moment. When the FBI horns in on her case, she spends a solid ten minutes reaming out her police captain in front of the entire precinct and dumps out the contents of Ashburn's briefcase in a childish rage. She's also promiscuous - several times in the film she runs into heartbroken one night stands and she's not shy about letting them down less-than-gently.

And yet, what's awesome about The Heat is that these female characters are allowed to be unpleasant. Hollywood movies have no shortage of heroines who start out mean or nasty - but the healing power of Love and/or Friendship is quick to teach them the importance of opening up, learning to express their feelings, making friends, and smiling more. Hell, look at Bullock's resume - in both Miss Congeniality and The Proposal, she starts out as a lone wolf who does things her own way and is disrespected by her peers, but thanks to learning that Beauty Pageant Contestants are Nice People and Ryan Reynold's Abs Are Magic, she learns the error of her unladylike/ice queen ways.

Of course, both Ashburn and Mullins learn and change in this movie - they develop respect for the others' policing methods, they learn to recognize their own self-destructive behaviours, and they do end up as close friends - but they also don't suddenly become nicer people. At the end of the movie, Ashburn is still as straight laced and confident as ever - and if her hilarious stunts with the villains are any indication, she won't be giving up "showboating" anytime soon. And one of the film's final scenes shows Mullins casually pulling a gun on a nurse in a hospital so she can still talk on her cellphone.

I loved this and the fact that the movie makes us think about this. Yes, Ashburn is disliked by her colleagues for her "arrogance" and "showboating" - but neither of these complaints have anything to do with her skills as a FBI agent, just her behaviour while using those skills. Her colleagues are all men over whom she has authority and the film's first scene involves her chewing out her all-male FBI taskforce for their carelessness in searching a drug den. So her (male) coworkers hate her because she's abrasive, rude, and superior - and yet the Male Authority Figure Who Is Loud, Rude, Abrasive, and Never Satisfied is such a popular cop procedural trope that the movie Last Action Hero made fun of it. In 1993.

The fact is, when it comes to traditional storytelling, male protagonists have to be interesting, but female protagonists have to be likeable. During my time in the romance novel community, I learned that readers tended to be harder on the heroines' behaviour than the heroes' - heroes could get away with being seducers, pirates, kidnappers, convicts, even rapists; while heroines could be dismissed for being merely cold or emotionally distant.

This comes from a deeply ingrained societal expectation that women should be nice. They can do anything a man can do - of course they can - but there's nothing wrong with being polite and respectful about it! And of course men are expected to be polite and respectful, too - but when the chips are down and the clock is ticking and lives are on the line, sometimes a man has to take drastic measures!

When The Heat begins, Ashburn and Mullins are already supremely talented members of law enforcement - they're just not very humble or nice about it. And the film allows them to remain that way. They learn more about themselves, and learn more about each other, and learn to search beyond their own perspective and prejudices - but none of this results in them toning down their personalities or being more modest about their skills or being more polite to their colleagues.

Which is pretty much how their male counterparts in buddy cop movies are allowed to operate. Sure, Axel Foley learned a few things about Beverly Hills, but he never stopped being an arrogant wiseass.

So, as weird as it sounds, the best part of The Heat as a buddy cop movie was that it was just like every other buddy copy movie - with great jokes, hilarious chemistry between the leads, and a fair amount of explosions and flying bullets.
A-

"Teeth," by Hannah Moskowitz

The Protagonist: Rudy. When his parents drag him to a godforsaken island for a miracle cure for his brother, Rudy finds himself (almost) the only teenager on an island of sick people.
His Angst: He does form a bizarre friendship with Teeth, an actual merman who lives by the island - until he discovers Teeth is trying to save the very fish that are keeping his brother healthy.

The Secondary Cast:

Teeth: The result of a horrifying union between a woman and a fish (for reals), he was abandoned in the water and makes his way as best he can. Devotes his life to saving the fish from being taken by the creepy fishermen - even though his quest causes him immeasurable torment and pain.

Dylan: Rudy's little brother, who is slowly recovering on a steady diet of magic fish - but will he ever be well enough to do without them?

Diana Delaney: The only other teenage girl on the island, who is kept housebound by her mother. Loves books. She and Rudy start hanging out.

Ms. Delaney: Diana's cruel and thoughtless mother who keeps her daughter inside - and is the perpetrator of even worse crimes.

Angst Checklist:

• I'm trapped on an island of misfit toys
• Rape
• Child Abandonment
• Freedom
• The Price of Health and Longevity
• Caring for a Sick Loved One
• The Importance of Family

The Word:
Rudy used to be an only child - then his parents had Dylan. Then Dylan developed cystic fibrosis. Then Dylan started dying.

After exhausting every possible medical resource, Rudy's parents somehow discover a mysterious island that is home to a rare species of fish with miraculous, inexplicable healing properties. Desperate to save Dylan, Rudy's parents uproot them all to live on the island with its strange, reclusive community.

Three months later, Rudy's 5-year-old brother, on a steady diet of the magic fish, is recovering at a miraculous rate, but his condition is too unstable to risk returning to the mainland. Rudy feels trapped, and resentful, and guilty for feeling resentful since the fish is the only thing keeping his brother alive.

Still, Rudy cannot wait until he graduates and can leave the cold, dank, isolated island far behind. He's the only teenager apart from the strange, bookish Diana Delaney, who is kept housebound by her controlling mother.

That is, until Rudy meets a merman - an actual fishboy who's been stalking the island, whose name is Teeth. Teeth's story is not a Disney tale. There are no singing crabs or magic kisses - just an outcast, tormented boy-fish hybrid who considers himself the protector of the magic fish the islanders keep devouring. Teeth constantly battles the fishermen and wants to free the magic fish from being eaten forever.

Strangely enough, a painful, prickly friendship based on mutual loneliness builds between them - even as Rudy feels conflicted about the magic fish. He understands Teeth's desire to protect them, but they're keeping his brother alive. They're helping him get better. What is Rudy supposed to do?

Teeth is a dark, visceral, gripping read about dealing with illness and the cost of miracles. As Rudy discovers,  the island's fishermen get away with horrific crimes against Teeth because they're the only ones who know how to catch the fish. As well, the fish's healing properties only last as long as the sick person keeps eating it - which means sick people who come to the island can never leave. And can never stop eating the fish.

Is a miracle worth it, if obtaining it requires the terrible suffering of another person? Is long life still desirable if it's a long life spent trapped on an isolated, stormy island? Moskowitz's fast-paced, razor-sharp novel touches on all these questions, testing and examining them through the warped lenses of both Teeth's and Rudy's perspectives, while ultimately demonstrating how there are no real answers.

Moskowitz demonstrates a remarkable skill for quick, brilliant character building. Rudy is a terrific, well-realized character - lonely and angry and guilty, he loves his little brother Dylan even as he blames him for having to uproot his whole life. Everything revolves around keeping Dylan alive. Rudy knows he needs to protect Dylan, whatever the cost, but he's still not sure how involved he's supposed to be in his brother's life, and how much of a life Rudy is allowed to have. His interactions with his parents feel bruised and real - they clearly love him, but Dylan's life is always in the balance.

Meanwhile, Teeth is a frustrating, heartbreaking character, wonderfully realized with only a few jagged brushstrokes. Alone, abused, and abandoned thanks to monstrously selfish people who should have protected him, he's built his own family, and his own identity as their stalwart protector.

The worldbuilding is functionally minimalist, and extremely effective. I normally don't like minimalist worldbuilding, but it works for this novel - Moskowitz creates a believable island community, but one that is essentially cut off from the rest of the realistic world, the world of governments and rules and taxes. It's like being in a fairy tale, only it's an entire island community that is asleep, oblivious to its own selfish, ignorant dependence.

I raced through this book in mere days, desperate to learn more about Teeth, more about Rudy and Dylan, and how it would end, even as it hurt. In the original Little Mermaid story, every human step the mermaid took was said to have felt as if she stepped on knives - and yet she learned how to dance in order to please the prince. That is how I felt reading Teeth - even though every page hurt, even though every chapter brought more heartbreak, it just kept me reading faster and faster. This was my first Moskowitz novel, but it won't be my last.
A

"The Last Hellion," by Loretta Chase

The Chick: Lydia Grenville. A successful journalist, she's pursuing a story against a notorious pimp - all the while secretly writing a popular romance serial.
The Rub: When a boorish aristocrat interferes in her investigation - and continues interfering - she has trouble reconciling her growing feelings for him with her desire to remain independent.
Dream Casting: Scarlett Johansson.

The Dude: Vere Mallory, Duke of Ainswood. Acquiring the dukedom only after the deaths of nearly all of his male relatives, Vere refuses to handle his ill-gotten responsibilities and devotes himself to debauchery and indulgence.
The Rub: When a girl punches him in the face, he decides to follow her around in order to get back at her ... yeah, that's it... not because he's starting to like her or anything...
Dream Casting: Jared Padalecki.

The Plot:

Vere: OMFG, every dude in my family is dead and now I'm a Duke! Obviously I must drink and debauch my pain away!

Lydia: Oh no! An evil procuress is ruining the lives of prostitutes in London and no one cares! Obviously I must pursue her and write a scathing inditement of her in my paper!

Vere: Oh look, a woman driving recklessly! Hello little lady, allow me to mansplain why getting into an argument with a lady-pimp in a slum by yourself is bad idea...

Lydia: *FEMINIST-PUNCH!*

All of London: LOL! VERE GOT BEAT UP BY A GIRL!

Vere: My mansplaining powers have failed me! Why?! I know! I'll keep popping up in her life and bothering her with my devil-may-care hotness!

Lydia: Yeah right, like that'll work....

Vere: Bother bother bother bother! *shirt is slightly unbuttoned* Bother bother!

Lydia: DAMMIT, IT'S WORKING.

Vere and Lydia: *make out*

Vere and Lydia: Wow! I liked that way more than is probably good for me!

Vere and Lydia: Hey! That's my line!

Lydia: Let me deflect this sexual tension with the asinine idea of a horse race for my hand in marriage!

Vere: *gets hurt*

Lydia: FINE I'LL MARRY YOU! JUST DON'T HURT THAT BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL FACE!

Vere: Yay!

Lydia: Now let's clean up that house of yours! And deal with your grief issues! And rescue your wards!

Vere: ....less yay.

Lydia: *literally does everything* Now we can be happy!

Vere: Well that was easy! HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• Too Many Dead Male Relatives
• 1 Very Bad Dad (Deceased)
• 2 Foolish Wards
• 1 Loud, Slobbery Dog
• 1 Ill-Thought-Out Horse Race
• 1 Buttcheek Birthmark
• 1 Secondary Romance 
• 2 Prequel Bait Characters (Dain and Jessica)
• 1 Surprise Papa Drama

The Word: The best cure for a jaded romance reader is Loretta Chase.

I, much like our hero Vere, had become rather cynical of late, especially in regards to romance novels. The last couple of romance novels I'd read had been silly, stupid, and shallow by turns, to the point where I was wondering why I bothered with the genre at all outside of a few trusted authors. As it turns out, I just needed to pick up that One Special Novel to revive my love of the genre.

Vere is, indeed, the Last Hellion of the vaunted Mallory family. Born to the fourth son of the Duke of Ainsworth, Vere finds himself with the ducal coronet after a decade of family tragedies swamps the male members of the line - finally culminating in the death of Vere's beloved nine-year-old cousin, Robin. Losing Robin is the straw that breaks this angsty camel's back, and he flees to pursue a life of indulgence and debauchery, convinced that he, too, will inevitably succumb to the Mallory curse.

Meanwhile, our heroine Lydia Grenville is pursuing a brilliant career as a successful journalist - using her wit, her gumption, and her pen, she crusades of behalf of the city's poor and downtrodden, and seeks justice for those who would exploit them. Chief among those is Coralee Brees, a notoriously violent procuress. When Lydia spots Coralee abducting a young woman off the streets, Lydia leaps into pursuit - nearly running Vere and another bystander over.

Vere interrupts the inevitable confrontation in his boorish way and attempts to silence the furious Lydia with a kiss. Lydia responds with a surprising uppercut that sends Vere ass over teakettle.

Vere is both intrigued and outraged - as news of his hilarious defeat at the hands of a woman spreads all over town, he decides to pursue Lydia with the intention of humiliating her in kind and recovering his manly reputation. Lydia is none-too-pleased by this sexist pig's attempts to insinuate himself into her investigations, but neither of them count on the instant attraction that flares up between them.

Loretta Chase proves that, so long as one uses deft plotting and expert characterization, even such disparate elements as a self-indulgent misogynist hero, a career woman heroine, pimps, runaways, secret butt birthmarks, and horse races can all come together in a deliciously enjoyable novel.

Yes, our hero is a dyed-in-the-wool womanhater, convinced that females can never strive for true equality with man - but with Chase's characterization, Vere's road to enlightenment is thoroughly entertaining. Ten long years of constant grief have taken their toll on him and he sees no point in caring about the future - until he starts caring about Lydia's. As his motivations morph from trying to best her, to trying to protect her from her own fool actions, to protecting himself from the feelings she elicits, Vere grows and changes in a wonderful and believable way.

However, as a character, he still pales in comparison to Lydia. What a fantastic heroine! A righteous journalist who, despite being a woman, is not only successful in her field but respected by her peers in said field and is financially independent due to her own efforts. Who is not afraid to get her hands dirty and knows how to defend herself. While there were a few moments in the novel (particularly towards the end) that veered dangerously close to TSTL territory, Lydia consistently proves herself to be ferociously competent at nearly every endeavour she set her sights on.

While attracted to Vere (rather in spite of herself), Lydia refuses to give in to temptation because doing so would jeopardize everything she's worked so hard for. Yet as she and Vere continue to meet and clash, she finds it harder and harder to convince herself that he's as selfish and jaded as he puts out - as does Vere, who begins to realize that ignored responsibilities have a way of coming back to bite you on the ass.

While Vere and Lydia get into some enjoyable spats, Chase populates the cast with some solid secondary characters, many of whom are recurring. Dain, the Lord of Scoundrels himself, plays a major  role without succumbing to the saccharine tendencies of most Prequel Bait characters. Bertie Trent - Dain's imbecile of a brother-in-law - also makes an appearance and, in an astounding turn of events, redeems himself as a character and winds up in a secondary romance, to boot!

Honestly, nearly everything about this novel works - the pacing, the characterization, the utilization of secondary characters and backstory. I had a bit of a niggle about the villainess, Coralee Brees - sometimes it felt as if the author couldn't decide how much to play up her villainy. One moment, she'll be described as this mastermind madam who's never been caught, who cuts up her victims' faces and throws them in the river - and the next she's depicted as being too stupid and simple-minded to hatch a truly diabolical revenge scheme. Sometimes it seemed as if the story wanted to portray her as a legitimate threat but not so much of a threat that the protagonists wouldn't be able to defeat her easily, and it just came across as inconsistent.

The novel also shoehorns in a wholly unnecessary Surprise Papa Drama subplot at the end, and that plus the depiction of the villainess dips this novel just below an A+ grade. It didn't really contribute anything to the story and it just seemed to bloat the novel past the already-satisfactory ending.

Otherwise, though, The Last Hellion is an excellent and entertaining romance with one of the strongest, most competent historical heroines I've come across. I definitely recommend it.
A

"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," by J.K. Rowling

The Protagonist: Harry "Parseltongue-In-Cheek" Potter. The boy. The legend.
His Angst: As Slytherin's Heir stalks the school, Harry worries he may share more in common with the Slytherin Alumnus Who Shall Not Be Named than he originally thought.

New Characters:

Gilderoy Lockhart: A handsome, foppish celebrity wizard who just edged past Snape in the swimsuit competition to become the next Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.

Dobby: The Comic Relief Character Who Shall Not Be Named.

Colin Creevey: The first-year student voted Most Likely To Have a Creepy Harry Potter Love Shrine in his basement.

Ginny Weasley: Ron's younger sister. Currently annoying because she's too young to think about in a hot way.

Aragog: A giant granddaddy spider on loan from The Lord of the Rings central casting.

Tom Riddle: An unexpectedly hot teenage memory-ghost hidden in a magical diary he wrote himself. Remind me never to buy any copies of If I Did It from the Knockturn Alley Barnes and Noble.

Angst Checklist:

• Am I allowed to drive a flying car if I don't even have my Learner's Permit yet?
• I'm being stalked by a self-mutilating house slave
• An obsession with snakes in pipes that is exactly what it sounds like and nothing more
• Arachnophobia and why it's an entirely rational fear
• Racism
• Bullying
• The price of fame
• Being an Evil 16-Year-Old Wizard-Memory-Ghost forced to read about Girl Problems twenty-four seven, ugh! 

The Word: This is the second in my seven-part series of re-reading J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books. While I'm too close to the series emotionally and psychologically to truly review the books (automatic A, baby!), I will be presenting certain analyses about my reactions to aspects of the books as they continue.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, being an early book in the series, is significantly lighter in tone than later instalments. In the first three novels, the final victory is celebrated with a grand feast, some harmless ribbing and a nice train ride home - compared to later books, where the ending is celebrated with the death of a beloved character while fate rips out Harry's heart and pees in the hole it leaves.

That's not to say that Chamber of Secrets isn't a gripping novel that examines some pretty hefty themes.  Harry learns that society's fascination with the different and unusual can easily turn into resentment and fear. The unusual background that makes him famous in the wizarding world also leaves him a target for suspicion as students start to wonder whether he's the Heir of Slytherin who's sending a Giant Racist Snake against the mudblood students.

The importance of choice is also raised by the discovery that Harry and Voldemort share remarkably similar backstories - both were orphans raised by unloving Muggles until they were invited to Hogwarts. While later books in the series examine their similarities in more depth, Chamber of Secrets poses this interesting question first and it resonates through every following book. Does coming from similar circumstances mean sharing a similar fate?

The novel examines this in a more understated way with the characters of Hagrid and Filch, as both of their backgrounds feature into the history of the Chamber of Secrets. Both Hagrid and Filch were denied a magical education for reasons beyond their control (Hagrid was wrongfully expelled at the age of thirteen, and Filch was inexplicably born without magic), and both were forced to watch everyone else graduate around them as they worked as custodians at Hogwarts. While Filch allowed this to embitter him into a thoroughly unlikeable villain, Hagrid focused on grabbing joy wherever he could find it (and successfully wrestle it into a cage), leaving no room in his life for self-pity or resentment. Similar backgrounds, but entirely dissimilar characters.

Moving on to the concept of the Chamber of Secrets, this plotline always made me wonder - why do they still have a Slytherin house at the end of the novel? I mean, not only does Harry Potter learn that Salazar Slytherin was a crazy wizard-racist, but he intentionally smuggled a deadly creature into the school for the sole purpose of killing students!

If your school was founded by John, Paul, Ringo, and Hitler, and three hundred years later, you found out Hitler had hidden a giant Nazi snake somewhere in the school to hunt down and eat unsuspecting Jewish students - would you really want to keep Hitler's name attached to your institution of learning? Think about it. Why couldn't they rename the house after Nicholas Flamel or Cornelius Fudge or something? Who would object? The Slytherin alumni are all in Azkaban!

Slytherin House represents my biggest beef with the Harry Potter series - the fact that Slytherin has always been blatantly depicted as the "evil" house, with its highest virtue (ambition) muttered as a sly innuendo while the other three houses and their virtues (courage, intelligence, diligence) are depicted as legitimate distinctions. Everyone sorted into Slytherin is a jerk and a racist, the Slytherin Quidditch team is all-boys, literally everyone hates Slytherin except for the Slytherins, and they even have their freaking common room in a dungeon. Who wants to have their common room in a dank, dark old dungeon? Oh, right - ugly, stupid, jerky old-wizard-money racists do.

I was also troubled that the dubious virtue of the "evil" house is ambition. The drive to get ahead, to excel, to discover, to rise above one's circumstances - at every opportunity the virtue of Slytherin is tied to the corruption of power, to the empty pleasures of money and fame, to the abandonment of morals in the pursuit of superiority.

To me, however, the demonization of ambition with the depiction of Slytherin carries the whiff of the status quo, of the idea that everything and everyone has its proper place and that attempting to rise above one's destined station in life is a breach of some unspoken social contract. It's a very British idea, really. Look at the depiction of the house elves (barring one extremely irritating exception) who are bred to love servitude and duty. Are there honestly no sassy Thomas and O'Brien house elves scheming away in the kitchens of Hogwarts?

Heck, look at the Sorting Hat - a magical object whose entire job is to label people based on certain personality traits and settle them into the "proper" houses, determining their entire future identities in the blink of an eye. And not always fairly - nice job sorting the impoverished Muggle-born Snape into the house full of Old-Wizard-Money Racists, Sorting Hat. Full marks.

To be fair, in Chamber of Secrets Harry Potter represents someone who actively chooses his place in Gryffindor over Slytherin, defying the Hat's attempt to determine his future for him, but Harry also isn't a very ambitious character. He's very much of the Everyman mould - average grades, average intelligence, no real dreams or hopes for the future beyond surviving the shit Voldemort throws at him.

However, these are only my opinions with regards to the wizarding world depicted in the first three or four books - a world that is understandably idealized by Harry as he still has a dreary Muggle childhood to compare it to. As the series matures and Harry sees himself more as a wizard in his natural environment and less as a shy newcomer, he starts to realize that wizard society is just as susceptible to weakness and fear as Muggle society.

Even a slender volume like The Chamber of Secrets can inspire some pretty big thoughts. Next time - Prisoner of Azkaban!

A (a.k.a. 10 Points to Gryffindor!)

"Gone Girl," by Gillian Flynn

The Protagonists:

Nick Dunne: A laid-off writer who now owns a bar in Missouri while he cares for his ailing parents. Comes under suspicion when his wife goes missing on their 5-year anniversary.

Amy Dunne: Nick's wealthy, charming wife who hasn't adapted as well to Missouri life as Nick - and then she vanishes without a trace.

The Secondary Cast:

Margo "Go" Dunne: Nick's twin sister who helps run his bar. A loyal confidante, even as things start looking grimmer and grimmer for Nick.

Desi Collings: Amy's high school boyfriend who took their breakup extremely badly. Has remained obsessed with her for years.

Marybeth and Rand: Amy's parents - child psychologists who made their fortune off a children's series they based on their daughter, called Amazing Amy.

Rhonda Boney: One of the detectives handling the investigation of Amy's disappearance. Despite the mounting evidence against Nick, she retains an instinctive belief that Nick is innocent.

The Word: I think for the purposes of this review, I will have to divide it into a spoiler-free review and a spoiler-irific review. While I do think I can generally review the book without giving away the twists, I also want to examine my own reaction to this book and I seriously cannot do that without going into a little more detail about how completely, addictively messed-up this book is.

Spoiler-Free Review
One of my friends started reading this book and got bored halfway through. "It's not exciting enough," she said - and true enough, the book's pace is remarkably slow for a mystery.

Except, Gone Girl is not really a mystery, or a thriller, or a horror story. Rather, it's an examination of a marriage and how well two people can know each other - an examination that borrows from mysteries, thrillers, and horror stories to convey just how twisted a couple can be. People going in and reading it like a mystery or a thriller will likely expect a faster pace, more thrills, a dogged investigation, but take it from me, readers, and slow down. You'll thank me.

The novel starts out by alternating between the first-person POV of Nick Dunne and the diary entries of his wife, Amy. Nick is working at the bar he co-owns with his sister in his hometown of North Carthage, Missouri, when he gets a call from one of the regulars informing him that his front door is open and his cat is loose. Strange - since his wife should be home. Returning to check on her, he discovers signs of a struggle in his living room and no signs of Amy at all.

The police are called, they investigate. The only thing she left behind was a little blue envelope, for the romantic treasure hunt she planned for Nick to celebrate their anniversary.

Oh, did I forget to mention that Amy goes missing on their five-year anniversary?

As the investigation proceeds, Nick is asked questions he'd rather not answer - even as evidence starts to build up against him. Was their marriage happy? Were they in a good place? Nick knows the husband is always the prime suspect in a missing-woman case and is unwilling to own up to how estranged he and his wife have become. The author also hints that Nick is lying to and omitting important information from the reader, as well - such as where he was for two hours that morning.

While the frantic pacing at the start of the novel gives the book the air of a mystery, at heart, Gone Girl is an intriguing and horrifying examination of a marriage and how it can go terribly, woefully, violently wrong - especially as we read Amy's diary entries, written throughout their marriage, that paint an entirely different (and quite possibly malevolent) portrait of Nick than the one he shows to the cops and the news cameras.

Cleverly, this is used as a plot device to examine Nick and Amy's souring relationship. Who is the real Nick? Who is the real Amy? And are these the same identities they wore when they first met? Both Amy and Nick, in their respective narratives, express a dissatisfaction when the person they married turned out to be somebody else, as the identities they each constructed for their courtship fell apart after marriage.

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS
The novel, of course, takes a drastically sharp turn at the midway point, where we learn the truth: Amy engineered her own disappearance in order to frame Nick for her own murder and punish him for cheating on her. As we start to read things from her real point of view, we discover she's a far cry from the naive, optimistic identity she's put forward in her diary (which she's conveniently left for the police to find).

Instead, Amy is a phenomenally brilliant sociopath with a monstrously vengeful streak. As Nick looks into people who might have wanted to hurt Amy (a high school stalker, a man accused of date rape), he discovers Amy's past reveals a devious pattern of intricate revenges unleashed upon people who've wronged her (or people Amy's perceived to have wronged her). Nick gradually realizes that in order to lure Amy back and clear his name, he's going to have to play the game by her rules, and from then on, the novel gets even better. And infinitely creepier.
HERE ENDETH THE SPOILERS

This is not a happy sunshine book. I don't think it's even a book I'd want to read again. But it is an incredibly clever and amazingly written novel about identities - the ones people are born with and the ones they construct around their families, their romantic partners, and the media.
A

You can purchase Gone Girl: A Novel here.

Re-Review: "Private Arrangements," by Sherry Thomas

For the last post of my ReRead Rollout, I chose a very special book.

I am a huge Sherry Thomas fangirl. She is one of my absolute favourite writers, regardless of genre. She just has such a grasp of language and historical detail that lend her environments and characters a depth that most other historical writers just can't match.

But I just "didn't get" her debut novel. Everyone absolutely raved about this book when it came out - for its unconventional use of flashbacks, for its original characters, for its gorgeous language.

On my first read of this novel, I appreciated the skill that went into it, but I just couldn't emotionally connect with it. I didn't get it. I didn't dislike it, I just didn't love it.

One of my favourite personal anecdotes from my first RWA Conference was when I ran into Sherry Thomas at the Smart Bitches' Blogger Party, and exclaimed, "Oh I liked Private Arrangements!" because it was the first novel of hers that came to mind and the only novel of hers at that point that I'd read. To my mortification, she responded, "Really? Because your review said you didn't like it very much."

But a lot's changed since then. Not Quite a Husband, His At Night, Delicious and Beguiling the Beauty later, I'm totally hooked. So what better time to revisit her first book to see if my opinion's changed than during my ReRead Rollout?

I'm quite happy to say that it has. I think maybe the first time I read it, I was put off by the amount of detail, the delicious complexity she injected into her stories - a complexity that a lot of romances lack, to be honest. Perhaps because it was such a different tone from the vast majority of historicals. I was used to historicals with simplistic settings that went for the gut-punch of drama with Secret Mistresses and Tarnished Pasts and whatnot. Sherry Thomas, instead, includes the setting and the historical period and makes it all relevant to the story, rather than as a pretty backdrop.

Also, none of her protagonists are Angsty Islands whose only friends are Equally Angsty and often Sequel-Baiting chums - all of them have family members, friends, acquaintances, histories and complex connections to the outside world. I love that about her writing.

For this second read, I found I could dive into the complex marital tangle between Gigi and Camden more easily, now that I was used to (and highly addicted to) Sherry Thomas' writing style. I enjoyed so much more and remembered more about the characters this time around - how reluctant Gigi was to give up on her attachment to Freddie, because she'd come to fear the passion that made her abandon her morals as well as her good sense. How deep Camden was in denial, to the point where it took him nearly the entire book to realize he'd subconsciously started this whole mess (by demanding an heir) in order to win Gigi back from the start.

I adored how Sherry Thomas convincingly depicts both protagonists at two different stages of their lives - their heady passions and rages at 19 and 21, and their restrained but no less powerful feelings at 29 and 31. Although the flashback periods of the novel are clearly marked, the subtle differences in the characters' maturity levels also indicates which period of time the novel takes place in.

True, Not Quite a Husband remains my personal favourite of Thomas' novels, but now I can definitely agree that Private Arrangements deserves a place on my Keeper Shelf.
A

"Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," by J.K. Rowling

The Protagonist: Harry Potter. The mistreated nephew of Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, he sleeps in a cupboard under the stairs and wears nothing but cast-offs from his spoiled cousin Dudley, until he gets a mysterious letter in the mail inviting him to the magical school of Hogwarts.
His Angst: "Harry, yer a wizard." Also, everyone wants to kill him.

The Secondary Cast:

Ron Weasley:  Harry's loyal, comical BFF. From a large, impoverished, but loving family.

Hermione Granger: A persnickety, bookish, type-A personality student who quickly befriends Ron and Harry.

Dumbledore: The benevolent but mysterious headmaster of Hogwarts.

Snape: The Potions professor who holds a (possibly deadly?) grudge against Harry Potter.

Voldemort: Evil Wizard Extraordinaire. Hates Harry and goodness in general.

Angst Checklist:

• The cupboard I sleep in is full of spiders
• The magical school dorm I sleep in is full of ghosts
• The Most Evil Person In Existence keeps trying to kill me
• My parents are dead and I'm not even Batman
• Passing Potions is a bitch
• Overcoming fears
• Moving on from tragedy

The Word: I hadn't originally put this on the list for my ReRead rollout, but due to some carelessness on my part, when I went off to stay with my parents for the Christmas holidays, I packed only one book (the one I was currently reading - Ami McKay's The Birth House).

I normally never pack only one book, because I am absolutely paranoid about running out of books to read, regardless of where I am at the time.  I was a little self-conscious about how much I was already packing because I was staying with my parents for more than a week and I anticipated bringing quite a bit of additional stuff back home with me (which I will be, thanks Mum and Dad!).

So I only packed one book, which I finished about two days in. What to do, what to do? I then realized the bookshelf in my old bedroom still had the entire series of Harry Potter books on it, so what better book to add to my Rollout?

The story is already pretty well-known thanks to the series' phenomenal success - boy meets evil wizard, boy defeats evil wizard with baby love powers, boy repeatedly defeats evil wizard with increasingly higher stakes and losses.

But does it hold up when one goes back to it? Well, once you've read the entire series, it's impossible to truly go back to the first book and repeat the experience of reading it for the very first time, before you knew why Sirius Black was so important or why Snape persisted in saving Harry's bacon despite obviously wanting to bang his mum.

However, as a first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (which is its real title, none of this dumbed-down Sorcerer's Stone bull crap), does such an excellent job of conveying a fully-realized, yet whimsically absurd world. Despite its brief length (at least compared to the gargantuan later books), Philosopher's Stone conveyed an environment, an atmosphere, a community of wizards and witches that instantly hooked me. While the story was certainly interesting, ultimately it was the worldbuilding that entertained me the most about this first book and kept me coming back for more.

The worldbuilding of Harry Potter succeeds because it's a perfect combination of fantasy and familiarity. It takes the whimsical aspects of wizardry and magical objects and mythical creatures and conveys it all through the familiar framework of a year at an English boarding school with houses, dorms, prefects and professorial politics. Rowling also imbues the story with an emotional honesty that transcends the fantasy setting. Harry falls into the world of wizardry not because of an innate curiosity for magic but because it is a world into which he is welcomed, for the first time in his life.

In this first book, he is still a little unsure of his place in this world, as indicated by his experience with the Mirror of Erised. In the mirror he sees himself surrounded by his biological family, and becomes obsessed with this impossible idea of what could have been. It takes Dumbledore to pull him free of the mirror's enchantment and show him the importance of friendships and bonds in the here and now. I've always seen this as a message to the book's readers as well. Harry's past and that of his parents and their allies is a horrific tragedy, and it's easy to wonder what kind of life Harry might have had if none of this had happened, but the point of the story is that there is no going back, there is only forward.

And forward it shall be. Having read the first book, I don't think I can just walk away without reading the entire series over again. Not all at once, mind - I'll still read other books on my TBR, but I'll alternate with more of Harry Potter's adventures.

Unsurprisingly, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone merits an
A

"The Birth House," by Ami McKay

The Protagonist: Dora Rare. When local midwife Miss B asks Dora to help her with her practice, Dora is hesitant to render herself even more of an outcast in her tiny, conservative Nova Scotia town.
Her Angst: Both Miss B's livelihood and the health of the women in Scots Bay are threatened by the arrival of a high-handed, condescending obstetrician who wants to rid the town of midwives for good.

The Secondary Cast:

Marie Babineau, a.k.a. "Miss B.": The elderly local midwife. Despite the fact that she's personally caught most of the babies in town for decades, many of the residents superstitiously avoid her - when they don't currently require her services.

Aunt Fran: Dora's wealthy and narrow-minded aunt - however, Dora learns firsthand that overly righteous Fran doesn't always practice what she preaches.

Dr. Thomas Gilbert: A condescending, malicious, and misogynist doctor on a mission to mansplain the process of childbirth to everyone he possibly can. Most definitely not related to Anne Shirley's Dr. Gilbert.

Bertine, Sadie, Mabel, and Ginny: The four town women who befriend Dora and support her as she takes over Miss B's practice.

Archer Bigelow: Dora's crush and eventual husband. Not a Good Man.

Hart Bigelow: Archer's older brother - shyer and more reserved, he continues to look out for Dora even after she marries Archer.

The Word: I had to read this novel way, way back in university for a Comparative Literature - Women's Studies course, and I enjoyed the novel so much that I held on to it. I always planned to read it again, in a setting where I didn't have a deadline, but I never got around to it - that is, until I read Ami McKay's second book, The Virgin Cure, and was less than thrilled with it.

So, for my ReRead Rollout, I decided to go back and try McKay's debut novel that I'd loved so well to see if it held up as well outside of the classroom. Thankfully, it did!

The Birth House takes place in the early years of the twentieth century, in the tiny little Nova Scotia town of Scots Bay. Our teenaged protagonist, Dora Rare, gets roped into helping the town's midwife, Miss B, who starts teaching her the ways of herb usage and folk medicine as they help the town's expectant mothers. The two are threatened by the arrival of Dr. Thomas Gilbert, a fancy, high-handed obstetrician who opens an expensive maternity home in the area.

Dr. Gilbert is a pretty nasty character who looks down on Miss B's "quackery" and promotes the superiority of male-dominated medicine for childbirth. He markets his services like a product, one that's all the better for being "official" and expensive, and pretty soon many of the oblivious husbands in the area begin to insist their wives have their babies at the maternity home instead of coming to Miss B and Dora for help. Dr. Gilbert's arrival sets off a furious, quiet war between the women and men of Scots Bay.

Part of the reason I enjoyed this novel so much is that it offers powerful, thought-provoking themes along with well-realized characters and human drama. Too many "lit fic" novels let their message take over the story, transforming the characters into passionless ciphers who behave in ways that support the message rather than in recognizable human ways. Here, I felt for all the characters at the same time I was entertained by the novel's central theme.

Dr. Gilbert is very obviously depicted as the novel's villain, and his maternity home is a cold, clinical, impersonal place where babies are "extracted," still wheezing from the chloroform administered to their mothers. This is contrasted sharply with the communal, comforting nature of the homebirths Miss B performs.

Ami McKay takes a risk with this depiction since, in this day and age, hospital births are fairly common. However, she wisely focuses the novel on the gendered aspect of the contrast. It's not so much that obstetricians are worse than midwives - rather, it's about how Dr. Gilbert presumes to enforce how women have children when he clearly has no respect for women, and how that symbolizes the oblivious male attempt to control an event that is innately feminine. Dr. Gilbert repeatedly endangers his patients by mistaking their legitimate fears and concerns for "hysteria" - if he cannot find a scientific explanation on hand for it, then clearly the female is being silly and male science must save the day.

This bleeds over into the general theme of women's reproductive rights as Dora treats a wide spectrum of women - from exhausted women whose husbands want another baby to survivors of repeated sexual abuse. This message is conveyed all the more potently thanks to the vivid characterization and gorgeous writing style told from Dora's point of view as she comes to learn more about the women of Scots Bay.

I enjoyed this novel fully as much as I did the first time. Stellar characterization, excellent historical detail, and pertinent themes wrapped in a rich, evocative writing style. If you're a fan of historical fiction that still maintains a contemporary relevance, look no further than The Birth House.
A

You can purchase The Birth House here.

"Days of Blood and Starlight," by Laini Taylor

The Primary Cast:

Karou: A teenage girl as well as the resurrected soul of Madrigal, the chimaera who dared to love a seraph, Karou has now rejected that love and lives in shame of it. She's become the chimaera rebels' new resurrectionist to atone for her crimes - even as she starts to doubt their new, ultra-violent tactics.

Akiva: Horrified at his complicity in the destruction of the chimaera (done in wrong-headed revenge for the death of his chimaera beloved), he knows Karou will never forgive him - but he'll still do whatever he can to protect the chimaera from the seraph emperor's forces.

The Secondary Cast:

Zuzana: Karou's awesomely cool human BFF. With rain or shine, or burning Moroccan deserts,  or possible man-eating monsters, or evil angels ... she'll still be there to have Karou's back!

Mik: Zuzana's totally smitten violinist boyfriend.

Thiago: The glorious leader of the chimaera's surviving rebel forces - and the man who initially murdered Madrigal when he caught her and Akiva together. Although he acts like he'd like to kiss and make up. Awkward.

Ziri: A former friend of Madrigal's, he becomes Karou's ally. More than a little in love with her, when he gets the chance to prove his undying loyalty, he takes it - in a spectacularly surprising fashion.

Liraz: Akiva's half-sister and fighting partner. Initially a loyal soldier to the cause, with Akiva's help she comes to see that their emperor cares nothing for their lives if it means more glory for himself.

Hazael: Akiva and Liraz's humorous and light-hearted brother. A comic relief who can actually hold his own in a fight.

Jael: The seraph emperor's creepy, bloodthirsty, scar-faced, super-rapist general brother. Well that sounds promising.

Angst Checklist:

• War
• Genocide
• Sexual Assault
• I'm totally responsible for the massive genocide of my people so I'm not allowed to be happy or have nice things, ever.
• How to Make Friends and Influence Seraphim
• My boyfriend is willing to cross deserts to marry me, how can I best use this to my benefit?
• Wolfheaded Bitches Be Crazy
• I have to Friendzone my former murderer, how awkward is this going to be?
• Flying is still awesome
• Promoting Peace and Hope during Wartime
• Recovering from Grief
• Forgiving Transgressions

The Word: Previously, in Daughter of Smoke and Bone...(which I highly recommend you read first)

Karou was a teenager studying art in Prague by day and collecting teeth for her loving family of monsters by night. While she'd grown up knowing her horned father-figure Brimstone loved her, he refused to tell her anything about her heritage or the mysterious tattoos on her hands.

In the novel, she wound up stumbling upon a millennia-spanning war between monsters (chimaera) and angels (seraphim). She discovered that she had, in fact, been born a chimaera named Madrigal, but had been murdered for falling in love with Akiva, a seraph. As it turns out, Brimstone had secretly resurrected her into human form with his magic, in order to preserve the hope that monsters and angels could one day give up their war and live in peace.

However, before Akiva and Karou could figure out who she really was, the seraphim armies (using Akiva's inside information) stormed the chimaera capital of Loramendi and razed it to the ground - with all of Karou's family (Brimstone included) inside.

And now, for Days of Blood and Starlight...

Karou is devastated by the annihilation of Loramendi and her chimaera family, and tormented by her unwitting culpability in it. To atone, she puts her Brimstone's training to good use by becoming a resurrectionist for the remaining chimaera forces, a person capable of collecting a dead chimaera's soul and reattaching it to a new body. She spends her days slowly rebuilding rebel leader Thiago's soldiers into newer, stronger bodies - using her own physical pain to summon the powerful magic.

The Karou in this book is a much darker, sadder creature than the protagonist of Daughter of Smoke and Bone. For the first several chapters, she's so deeply mired in guilt and self-hatred that she can't even bring herself to reach out to her former chimaera friends, who now suspect her as a traitor, or question Thiago's increasingly brutal tactics. While she hasn't entirely forgotten Brimstone's ultimate dream of peace, she has no idea how to breach the topic without confirming everyone's suspicions that she's an angel-loving traitor.

For the first half of the book I wondered if we would ever see a glimmer of that fierce, clever Karou again, but Laini Taylor doesn't let us down. Karou's character development parallels that of the land of Eretz - after so much suffering and death, can anything as brave and beautiful as the idea of peace bloom again?

And without spoiling too much, let me just say, thank God for Zuzana and Mik. This book would have been hideously depressing without them.

Akiva, meanwhile, rotating on his own guilt rotisserie for his complicity in the destruction of Loramendi and his unwitting betrayal of Karou/Madrigal, returns home with his siblings, Hazael and Liraz, with the intent to stir rebellion against the seraph empire from within. While they attacked him in the previous book for his pro-chimaera ways, Akiva's siblings slowly start to realize that the seraph Emperor's thirst for conquest will not be satisfied by the extinction of the chimaera, and there's no telling how many more seraph lives he'll gladly funnel into the war machine to get what he wants.

While this book maintains the gorgeous use of language and original world building of its predecessor, Days of Blood and Starlight does suffer a little from Middle Book Itis. Things are almost unrelentingly bleak and difficult for our protagonists from beginning to end, the pacing drags in places, and while it does further the storyline and set up an excellent plotline for the next (final?) book, when all is said and done, not too much physically happens in this novel until the very end.

That's not to say that nothing happens, but Days of Blood and Starlight is a more introspective novel. Our characters spend more time analyzing and reacting. Akiva and Karou now fight for opposing sides, and as each side tries to up the stakes in bloodier and more horrific ways, our protagonists wrestle with the gruesome and conflicting ethics of war, and wonder if either side even thinks about peace - or only about victory.

As you can probably tell from reading this review, Laini Taylor has written an incredibly dense fantasy epic. The lavish settings, the mythology, the expanding cast of characters, the world-building, the backstories and character histories and drama - even in a book where "not too much physically happens" there is still so much going on that you can't help but be dazzled by it. Days of Blood and Starlight is an intricately-developed, gorgeously written follow-up that carries the story forward and promises even more to come.
A

You can purchase Days of Blood and Starlight here.