CBR IV # 16 - A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

I hated the Invisible Circus. I thought I would love it because of all the hippy 70's stuff, but I truly did not like it. It was so whiny. I only picked this book up because I had heard such good reviews and thought why not give it another try? A few pages in to the book, I thought it would be more of the same. Whiny white women who really have nothing to whine about, when you think about it. But after the first chapter, I started to really get into it.

The book structure.. Going into it, I didn't know what to expect and was initially a bit confused, expecting a more or less conventional narrative like The Invisible Circus. The book is actually thirteen (?) short stories about people who are interconnected. The chapters jump from person to person and from the 70's up to a New York in the near future. Sometimes the connections between the people in the stories are merely passing, a one night stand in one case. In some cases the connection is deep and lifelong. These characters recur throughout the book, and somehow, you get an idea of the arc of their life. Sometimes it takes a little time to orient yourself since the stories aren't chronological, but you end up getting who is who and what happened to whom.

At first, I though it was going to be another whiny white lady book like The Invisible Circus, but I was pleasantly surprised. Egan was very good at writing pretty much horrible people (or maybe just horrible flawed ones) and making them sympathetic. At times they are beaten down by the time and life and you always want them to have some sort of happy ending. It was an interesting read. A bit melancholy, but rightly so.

CBR IV # 15 - Snuff by Chuck Palahiuk

I'm so sorry Chuck, you lost me on this one. I am a huge Chuck Palahniuk fan, but I just couldn't get into this one. It felt very rote and seemed to shock for the sake of shock.

Aging porn star Cassie Wright has set out to break a world record. 600 men in one movie. So 600 men of all sizes and ages wait in the waiting room for their chance to be part of porn history. The story is told through 3 men who are waiting for their turn, referred to by their numbers, 600, 72 and 237, as well as through Cassie's personal assistant Sheila.

Through these characters, we learn how Cassie became a pornstar, that she had a child she had to give away (which she claimed was a boy), what she really plans to achieve (really just a world record) and just random stuff about everything. There is, of course, a sort of twist and the ending is explosive, as per Chuck.

I didn't like the book. I thought it was icky and just pointless. The characters aren't fleshed out and none of them were relateable in any way. I mean, who couldn't relate to the narrator, right? But this one was just full of unlikeable (maybe except for 72) misfits who aren't really that interesting. They are crazy for crazy's sake, for shock value, not to further characterization or plot. The plot itself is pretty thin and just, no. Color me disappointed Chuck. For once, i didn't enjoy what he wrote :(

CBR IV # 14 - Fevre Dream by G.R.R. Martin

After the strain, another vampire novel for me! I have not made a secret my intense love for ASOIAF and naturally, since the next installment is soooo far away, needed another GRR fix.

Abner Marsh is a tugboat captain who has fallen on some hard times. A mysterious stranger, Joshua York, approaches him wanting to invest in his company, but with some very strange and secretive requests. York turns out to be a vampire who needs a boat to unite all vampires for the good of human and vampirekind. They however, run into some trouble when they meet the bloodmaster, Julian, an evil and possible crazy old vampire based in New Orleans.

I'm sorry, I am horrible at summarizing plot. Anyway, holy vegetarian vampire!! Now this here is a true vegetarian vampire. Joshua York is a vampire who grew up amongst humans, and as such, are sympathetic to us. He does not like to kill for blood, and so , he created a potion that suppresses the blood lust that vampires feel. As I said in previous posts, I am very much interested in the mythology that each author makes for the origin and characteristics of their particular brand of vampires. In this case, the vampires were the same, but also very different to the classical vampire. They died by sunlight and fire and drank blood. That is where the similarity ends. For these vampires aren't contagious! They were born vampires and could not make others like them. They were truly a different specie of animals. I think this is the first time that I've read vampires being imagined that way.

Another unique characteristic with these vampires is that they can actually eat and drink normal food. Their bloodlust only comes approximately once every month and it is only then that they feel the very string urge to drink human blood.

I liked the book because at the start, you are never sure if Joshua is really a vampire or not. You don't know if he is good or evil. Like the good Captain, you are also kept in the dark about the real nature of this stranger. I mean, he eats real food!!

The story is long and it spans many years. I like books like these but some might find it tedious. It really focuses on the friendship and trust between Abner and Joshua, two very different men. Hell, they're not even from the same species.

GRR has once again, failed to disappoint.

CBR IV # 11, 12, 13 - The Strain Trilogy by Guillermo del Toro and Chuch Hogan

I find different versions of vampire (and zombie) stories really interesting in that the mythologies always differ from each other. Whether they be made sparkly, or with long tongue/stinger, authors always make their vampires just a little bit different from the template.

This here is a trilogy by director Guillermo del Tori and co-author Chuck Hogan (whose work I'm not really familiar with). Perhaps because of this, the book is very visual and cinematic. You can really imagine it happening up on the screen and the pacing feels like a good horror/suspense movie.

The first book, The Strain, sets up the situation. An airplane lands at JFK. All the lights are out and everyone is dead. Infectious disease is the first theory and CDC doctor Dr. Ephraim "Eph" Goodweather is assigned to the puzzling (and creepy) case. In other places in the city, the players are being prepared for what is to become, by the second book, a full blown epidemic.

By the second book, most of the characters have met and the origin of the vampires are slowly being revealed, mostly through the scholar Abraham Setrakian, who has tangled with the creatures before in his long life.

The third book is the endgame. What was a vampire novel has now turned post apocalyptic. Humans are farmed for blood and our heroes are fast running out of options to destroy the vampire menace.

As I said, the mythology is what I find most interesting about vampire literature. In this case, vampirism has a biological basis. It is parasitic in nature, and contained in capillary worms that can burrow into a human body. Once it is the bloodstream, it changes the host to make it more hospitable, shedding of necessary things such as hair and fingernails and growing a long stinger which is used as a weapon and as a way of extracting blood from the victim.

However, there is also a mystical side to the story wherein there are 7 ancients, the original vampires, whose blood worms seem to have become sentient and can transfer their consciousness to another body when one is destroyed. They can only be completely destroyed by nuking their birth places.

The series is action packed, exciting and a pretty interesting take on vampires.

CBR IV # 10 - Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

I have to admit that all I know about cooking (which is admittedly not much), I learned from Top Chef. I also have to admit that Top Chef is where I first saw Anthony Bourdain when he guest judged that one season. I got to know him a little better when I watched the Philippines edition of No Reservations, where he came to our tiny island in the middle of the archipelago and ate "THE BEST PIG EVER!" I'm not sure what my point is, but I think its that I didn't really know that much about him except for a few episodes on TV. I knew he was a chef and that's about it.

Kitchen Confidential is about Bourdain's love affair with the restaurant kitchen. Sure, its a dysfuntional, co-dependent love affair, but he loves it. He tells of how he first experienced food and how he fell into cooking. He is very open with the horrible stuff that they do at restaurants, as well as the horrible stuff that he did. His addictions and his rise and fall and rise again in the restaurant industry.

You learn a lot in the book. There are a lot of tips about eating out and cooking in and it gives you a view of how it might work at the back of the kitchen. It really grossed me out a little bit, to be honest. All that talk of sweat and drugs and skin diseases. Ugh. It presents the kitchen staff as a group of misfits and outcasts. Of course, it would be a bit of a mistake, I think to believe that all kitchens are like Bourdain's. Even he acknowledges at the end that he is presenting the kitchen as he knows it. There might be other kinds of experiences in other restaurants. But one thing is for sure. Cooking is NOT for the weak.

But aside from the actual content of the book, it was a good read. Bourdain's voice is funny and acerbic. Sarcastic and self-depreciating. He knows his good and bad sides and isn't afraid to present all of it. He is quite a personality. Now please come back to Cebu so we can eat delicious pig and drink some San Miguel Beer.

CBR IV # 9 A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard

I was reading another book when I saw a review on this book by another Cannonballer. I immediately felt the urge to read this book. Morbid curiosity, I guess. It's just so amazing to me that someone lived through that and it's so far from my life (thank Dog!) that I want to know what that's about. I've read Room, of course, but that's from the view point of the kids. And it's fiction.

Anyway, I'm sure most Americans are familiar with this case. Jaycee Dugard disappeared when she was just 11 years old. She was found 18 years later and it was discovered that she was abducted and kept all that time in a backyard complex of a sick, sick man.

There are harrowing details, of course, which have been reported by the media. The constant sexual abuse, the inadequate living conditions, the two girls born in the backyard and so much more. And it's all really bad, but when I read it, like Jaycee, who goes off into her own world when she is being abused, I also seem to go off and make like its fiction. Otherwise, I would be bawling the whole time. But it's not all about the horrible stuff. One is really amazed by the strength, the stubborn survival streak Jaycee has in her. Really, I can't imagine going through something like that and it not breaking me. Jaycee isn't broken, she is looking towards the future with no hate in her heart.

There is a lot of shit on the internet about how she should have ran away, or shouted, or tried to have contact with her mother through the internet. I used to think that a little bit too. When I read the book, I realized, she was just a little girl when she was taken. It wasn't until after years and years of brainwashing, manipulation and abuse that she was given access to the computer or was taken out of the compound at all. I can totally believe how she would believe that there was nothing outside for her.

The book has interludes or reflections she has in the present day as well as journal entries of her time there. It is really interesting how although she was suppressed (she wasn't allowed to say her name), she was still the same deep inside.

CBR IV # 8 - Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

If one has read as much Isabel Allende as I have, one comes to expect several things from her. There will be a strong woman, usually passionately in love in a dramatic backdrop of war or poverty. There will be a madwoman, a male semi-villain. There will be birthings and tragedies. But despite knowing all these things, I am rarely not sucked into her world.

This book is set in Saint Domingue before it became independent Haite. The primary character is the slave Zarite and from her story flows a turbulent family saga. There is war, rape, incest, love and dancing. The story follows Zarite and her master from Haiti then to Cuba and New Oleans as they escape the slave revolution.

Like all other Allende's, there really is no plot aside from following the growth, the heartaches, loves and happiness of this family and their friends they treat as family. The master is the villain but his villainy is mild. In fact, he better than most slave owners but not good enough to overcome the ideas ingrained in him that slaves are not human.

I enjoyed this particular book much better that the last Allende I read. The characters and interesting and likable, plus I get to learn stuff about Haiti. It is in many ways, typical and expected, but still engrossing and enjoyable.