# 9 - The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland

It seemed pretty simple at first. Middle aged guy working a dead end job at Staples (Roger) befriends co-worker, a gothy young adult with no direction (Bethany). So they're both fucked up, Roger, an alcoholic going through divorce and Bethany, just not knowing what to do with herself and her life.

But their friendship is told through letters and journal entries, first between Roger and Bethany, then later on, expanding to include Bethany's mom, Roger's ex wife and their co-workers. Also included are excerpts of a novel that Roger is working on. So there's that element of a novel within a novel, WITHIN a novel, since Roger's novel includes an excerpt of a novel of one of the characters. Confused now?

So the letters and the novel provide insight and some historical background to the characters. The novels within the novel uses aspects and details of the Roger's "real" life. The novel follows the characters as they grow, or have they really grown? What i remember most (since this review is really really late) is that somewhere in the book, someone says that something happens to you, and you think it's going to change you. But it really doesn't. You're still the same person you are before that event. This book could make a case for that particular way of thinking, but I think the characters do change, albeit not through some huge event, but slowly, as like growing up.

This book just follows some people, trying to cope and deal with the modern word. Maybe trying to better themselves a little bit, or at least trying to understand themselves.

It was an entertaining read and I was invested in the characters, even though I usually get irritated at mopey characters, and characters who can't just get over it. Well, these people I actually liked and i wanted them to feel better. The only thing that puzzles me about the novel was the last entry. I thought it was a bit Inception-y, or maybe I'm just dumb. I mean, was it all a novel within a novel, within a novel, within a novel???!!

#8 - The Inner Circle by T.C. Boyle

I keep reading the T.C. Boyle writes biting satire but the two books by him that I've read so far (this and Drop City) certainly don't give that impression. Or maybe I just don't get it. Well, I actually enjoyed Drop City very much bit didn't really find it bitingly satirical. I thought it was an earnest and realistic look at all that hippie goodness. But that's another book, one that isn't part of the Cannonball.

I've finished this quite a while ago but only got to writing the review now. Anyway, it's about this young student who got involved with Alfred Kinsey and sex research. AND sex research, if you know what I mean ;) (that's a winkey smile, people!) The books follows John, a sort of bland corn-fed American as he slowly becomes immersed in Kinsey's research and in Kinsey himself. There's a lot of sex between everybody, male and female. The inner circle, was after all, the vanguard of sexual liberation. Sex was merely physical, biological and should be indulged in whenever one felt the urge. But at the same time, the members of the inner circle of researchers had to appear respectable in order to give an appearance of professionalism and to look all scienc-y. The book narrates how this sort of lifestyle affected John's marriage with a girl that he truly truly loved.

I found the book to be a quick read, however, I cannot get over how creepy the Kinsey character was. He was very sexual harassy and controlling of every facet of John's life. Stuff he should have butt out of. That was the actually John's main dilemma, in that Kinsey was his idol, and he would do practically anything that Kinsey asked, sexual or otherwise, while his wife just wanted Kinsey to mind his own goddamn business.

That's bout it.

# 7 - I Am Legend (And Other Short Stories) by Richard MAtheson

That is an one ugly book cover. More so considering how much i was enraged, ENRAGED!, I tell you, when I realized how much they changed the ending of the film. It was, however, the cheapest copy I could find and I was really impatient to find out what the difference between the book and the movie was. So, I had to make do with Will Smith.

I saw the movie before I read the book and I actually quite enjoyed the movie. But that was before I knew that the book was really quite awesome. I mean, the movie was ok and all, but why didn't they just make another movie completely not based on the book? Changing the ending and even some details (like there are dead vampires and alive vampires, and that hello! they are sentient!) completely change the essence of the book.

Enough ranting about the adaptation and on to the book itself. It was good. Neville is the last man left on earth. All the other have been infected by a horrible disease that turns them into bloodsucking monsters. The first part was basically just about how Neville lived his daily life, in the face of vampire apocalypse. Surviving and protecting himself. It also tells his past, which is heartbreaking, through flashbacks. We stay with Neville as he goes through depression and excessive drinking (who wouldn't be driven to drink when faced with a nightly onslaught of scary-ass vampires) and eventually just deals. He tries to learn all he can about the origin of the plague and tries to find a cure. In the day, when the vampires are helpless, he goes out and systematically kills all that he can find.

All the "action" happens at the last third of the book when he finds a seemingly uninfected woman and takes her in. Eventually, he starts to suspect that she is infected, and that part for me was really thrilling. Like Neville, I constantly wavered between believing she was normal and thinking she was infected. And this propels the story until the end when Neville, in the final seconds of his life, realizes that he is legend.

The book, in making the vampires sentient creatures, elevated the book from being just a regular zombie apocalypse movie (like the movie version) and presents some thought provoking ideas on how human beings evolve and adopt. In having Neville as a SOLE survivor of the human race, it presents a compelling portrait of loneliness. Being truly alone.

So I gathered from research (wiki. shush.) that this book was the first time that vampirism was "explained" through science. That is, that it had a scientific, instead of a supernatural cause. It is also, I guess because of the whole wiping out humans stuff, the inspiration for modern zombie films. However, I think it is totally different from most zombie films, as I already mentioned. The fact that the monsters were sentient and are trying to build a new society is totally different from the zombies who just want to eat everybody.

Oh, there were other short stories included in this book, thus making it elegible for the cannonball read. The stories were ok, some twisty and scary, some were forgettable. Ultimately, none reached the depth Matheson reached in I Am Legend.

# 6 - The Killer's Cousin by Nancy Werlin

The Killer's Cousin is the story of a teenager (David) who had been tried for the killing of his girlfriend. Although he was acquitted, life was not, and could never be the same. David moves to Massachusetts to live with his mother's semi-estranged brother and his wife and daughter to escape the constant scrutiny and persecution in his home town. To give him a new life, so to speak. But life is anything but good in his new home. He is lonely, his aunt and uncle don't talk, and his 11 year old cousin Lily is uber creepy.

So, is Lily a budding sociopath or just a weird lonely kid with issues? Was David rightly acquitted or did he really kill his girlfriend. Some questions are answered and some not, but one thing is certain, this is one creepy book. Lily can get quite scary for an eleven year old, and I was always scared that David would snap and do something horrible.

But the end is quite surprising. I was expecting it to be the typical "evil kid"/bad seed sort of thing, but it was actually quite touching and unexpected.

The Killer's Cousin is about guilt, and forgiving one's self. And the importance of family and having someone there for you. i quite enjoyed the book. Thrilling and unexpected. It did, however, seem very YA and the adult reader may not enjoy it as much as its intended audience.

Huh?!

I just noticed that my first three reviews have the word girl on the title of the book. the fasting girl, a girl named zippy and lucky girls. Huh. What is up with that? Well, that will change when my Corrections review is done.

# 5 - Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is a weird one. It has a typically sci-fi premise, however, the story feels more like a period book, very old-fashion-y.

These kids live in what seems like a typical English boarding school. Only, they've lived there their whole lives and their future is certainly bleak. There is a "twist" if it can be called that, but it hardly matters. It's not all Shyamalan where the twist is the only thing there is. In fact, the twist isn't presented in a shocking manner at all. Rather, the truth slowly dawns upon the reader as they read the book. Actually, I already knew what the twist was before I read it and I wonder if the experience would have been very different had I not known the premise before hand. I think it would have enhanced the experience, but not by much. The book is much more than the twist. It's a mediation of friendship and love, and coming of age, only made much more urgent by the expiration date of the characters.

The book is narrated by Kathy, one of the lead characters, telling the story of her friendship with another girl, and a boy she loved. The narration is very matter of fact and over-analytical, seeming to find meaning in every little occurrence. Kathy is very slow and steady and loyal, while Ruth is fiery and manipulative at times. Tommy is a basically, a nice boy. I have to admit that I really hated Ruth. I hated her manipulation and her lies.

I really loved this book. It is so my thing, with the melancholy and the heartbreak. It is haunting and very engrossing.

#4 - Lucky Girls by Nell Freudenburger

It was raining and I had a huge ass fight with the hubby. I was just feeling so angry and down and wanted to get away. So at 11PM, with the babies sleeping soundly, I grabbed the first book I found, put on my hoodie and walked and walked til my feet got tired and I got to a Mcdonalds around 3 km from my place. And I read.

This was my state of mind and emotions when I read this book, and as it turns out, the accidental book choice was very apt. Lucky Girls is five stories about girls, (except that one, or maybe two stories aren't really about the girl) living in India and Southeast Asia, or whose lives have been affected by the area. They are Americans, expatriates and tourists who have been seduced by our awesomeness (SEA reprezent! hah).

The stories and the characters are seemingly different. An American woman living in India to be with her married Indian lover who recently died. A couple in the process of divorcing visiting their daughter in Bangkok who has fallen under the spell of her no good Thai boyfriend. An author with depressive tendencies going back to the land of her childhood, India, to be with her failing father, and maybe to learn more about her depressed mother. A girl being tutored for the SATs by an American educated Indian. A letter about a girls relationship with an author who famously writes about Vietnam.

What ties these stories together is its melancholy. These women are at the cusp of great change in their lives. Most, concerning love. A divorce, her first time, a death of a lover, a pregnancy scare. There are no plot twists. Just these girls, living life at the most exotic of places. Not really belonging but so affected and influenced by the places. Oh and the places! I can just feel the humidity of the South East Asian jungle, the lush foliage, the noisy markets. Well, maybe because I live here. It was exotic to me, yet also so very familiar.

I was mesmerized by the book. It perfectly matched my mood when I was reading it and it was good to read about girls like me. Just living life in a crazy place. Though I'm a local and they're foreigners, the feelings of being lost and falling in and out of love, is universal. And then I went home. And I am lucky.

*finished never let me go and the killer's cousin

*currently reading i am legend + short stories

*working on that the corrections review