Review: Eleanor & Park

Whenever there is a lot of hype and publicity surrounding a book release, I've found that it rather suits me to wait a few months and let the dust settle a bit before I actually pick up the book.  This tends to prevent the dreaded book-disappointment-due-to-inflated-expectations syndrome, a horrible situation I've fallen prey to more than once and largely caused by over-exuberant marketing departments making promises they simply cannot keep. (Remember Night Circus? Ahem, case in point. I'm still waiting for my money back on that one.)

And so I've learned patience.

No way was I running out and grabbing the new Rainbow Rowell novel everyone was talking about early last spring. Nope. Not me.

Eleanor & Park was released back in February of this year to a wildly enthusiastic young adult audience. While this novel easily fits the genre, now that I've read it I would suggest that it easily transcends genre boundaries and belongs in the adult literature category as well.

Eleanor is a new transfer student to the local high school in Omaha, Nebraska and it is abundantly clear to Park - and everyone else - that she is never going to fit in with her odd fashion sense and the huge chip on her shoulder. Furthermore, Eleanor couldn't care less what people think of her. They can all go to hell in her estimation. Her anger with the world might be easy to write off as typical teen angst, but Eleanor has a very good reason to be furious with the world. Poverty, abuse, and neglect form the foundation of her home life and it is this dirty little secret she is determined to hide from the world.

Enter Park. A normal teenager, if ever a word could be applied. As an Asian-American growing up in what is quite possibly the whitest city in America, Park is no stranger to feeling like an outsider. Perhaps this is where he finds common ground with Eleanor. Or perhaps he is simply the first person who has ever treated her with a modicum of respect. Whatever the reason, Park and Eleanor fall in love. And if you dust the cobwebs off your memories of that time in your life, I'm pretty sure you will recall the intensity of that first love.

And now we get to the heart of the story. Because at this point, Eleanor & Park could have been just another teenage love story in which the author manages to capture the intense, yet predictable emotions on paper rather well. In other words, just another John Green novel. This novel, however, takes your reading experience much, much further. Take away the predictability of that John Green book you love so well, but leave the emotions laid bare. Now throw in an uncomfortable, but necessary, examination of societal mores and values (think: Lionel Shriver) and the end result is a novel that is a contender for one of the best of the year, if not one of the best young adult books ever penned.

Yes, I said that. Ever penned.

Because Eleanor & Park is not simply a story about first love. It is about acceptance, it is about choices, it is about the hell adults inflict upon our children, it is about poverty, it is about abuse, it is about bullying, it is about shame. It is about all of these issues - and more - laid bare for all of us to see. This is why we read books. And if we are very patient, every so often a novel like this comes along to reward us.

Eleanor & Park is one of those stories that, with just a few different choices by the author, would have been just another mundane book sitting on the shelf next to a hundred others exactly like it. Instead, a brilliant young woman turned this story into an unforgettable stamp upon the reader's conscious. Buy it. Borrow it. Steal it. Whatever. Just get your hands on a copy at some point. Okay?

Title: Eleanor & Park

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Publisher: St. Martin's

Date: 2013

Pages: 336

Source: Library Audiobook Download

Rating: 5 Stars. And then some.

RIP: Shutter Island

Title:  Shutter Island
Author:  Dennis Lehane
Publisher:  Harper Collins
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Narrator:  Tom Stechschulte
ASIN:  B001NJ5XM2
Length:  9 hours, 38 minutes
Source:  Personal Copy
Grade: A






A Reader's Respite came close to missing this gem of a thriller.  Why?  Because some idiots out in Hollywood decided that Dennis Lehane's novels make good movies (well, based on Mystic River, they're probably right).  But while we didn't see Shutter Island on film, we did see the movie trailer, which presented the tale as a scary, scary horror-type movie.  A Reader's Respite was just turned off, Leo or no.

Is it just us, or does he still look like he's 12 years old?  (a 12 year old with a beard, that is)

So now it's time to set the record straight:  Shutter Island is NOT a horror story in any way, shape or form.  It is, however, a fabulously executed thriller that gets the old heart pumping.

The time?  The 1950s.

The place?  Shutter Island, a small government island in Boston Harbor.

The set-up?  Two U.S. Marshals are sent out to Shutter Island - where the government runs an asylum for the criminally insane - to investigate the disappearance of a female patient.  Not all is what it seems to be at Shutter Island and things go very much bump-in-the-night as the two marshals get caught up in a creepy mystery and a hurricane descends upon the Eastern Seaboard, effectively cutting off Shutter Island from the rest of the world.

Sandy recommended this on audio and she was spot on, as usual.  Our narrator is pitch-perfect and Dennis Lehane hits another one out of the ballpark.

Highly, highly recommended!

A Reader's Respite Creep-O-Meter:

Is it safe to come out?

A Reader's Respite has been in hiding for the past week or so.  With Book Blogger Appreciation Week inundating blog-world, we thought we'd do you the huge favor of not contributing to your over-flowing feed reader this past week.  So go ahead and appreciate that.  You're welcome.  (Do we get an award for that?)

It appears that a good time was had by all and since that is the entire purpose of BBAW, we can safely declare 2010 a success.  Congratulations to all the winners this year!

And if you subject yourself to the random and bitchy musings left on Facebook by A Reader's Respite, you'll know that there was another compelling reason for our absence.....

Yes, we decided to allow a mad scientist the opportunity to shoot laser beams directly into our eyeballs just for kicks and giggles.

Okay, so it wasn't a scientist, it was really a board-certified opthamologist and he wasn't really mad (just a tad cranky).  And it wasn't just any old laser beams, it was LASIK surgery.  And he transformed our vision from this:

into this:

Technically speaking, the mad opthamologist gave us 20/15 vision, but we won't quibble over details.  Anyhoo, we have needed this past week to recuperate from having our eyeballs lasered into.  Recovery has included no television (not a problem), no computer usage (tad bit of a problem), and no reading.  (GASP!)

So how did we spend our time (besides cheating on the computer thing here and there....shhh, don't tell my mad doctor)?

Audiobooks.  We knew we'd have to download about a bazillion of them in order to make it through.  We remembered a recommendation written a couple of weeks ago by Reader for Life which extolled the virtues of Danish author Christian Moerk's novel, Darling Jim, and this was #1 on our list.

Audiobooks are really, if the truth be known, two reviews rolled into one.  At one end of the spectrum is a review of the actual content of the book itself....plot, characterization, dialogue, etc.  At the other end is a review of the presentation, or the narrator. 

A Reader's Respite has always found it amusing that while a good novel cannot recover from a bad narrator, a bad novel can certainly be redeemed by a good narrator.  Darling Jim is blessed with both a good story with good narration. Two narrators, actually. 

Stephen Hoye, a prolific audiobook narrator whose credits include Flags of Our Fathers and The Book of Air and Shadows reads the main of the story here, in which an Irish postal worker accidentally discovers the diary of a notorious murderess who was later herself murdered under horrific circumstances.

Stephen Hoye, winner of 13 Earphones Awards and 2 Audie Awards

The narrator chosen to read the discovered diaries - for more are discovered throughout the novel - was Justine Eyre, who has lent her lilting voice to The Historian and most recently to Dracula, My Love.  Eyre won an Earphones Award (her second!) for her performance in Darling Jim.

Justine Eyre

A Reader's Respite thought Eyre's voice one of the most beautiful, enchanting ever piped over the airwaves, making us feel as if we were sitting in a small pub in Ireland, listening to a local tell us the story.  Hoye's narration was a tad more dramatic (you can go here to listen to a sample of his narration in Darling Jim), with a tendency to draw out the last syllable of each sentence, but compelling nonetheless. 

All nuances of narration aside, author Moerk is simply a damned good story teller.  This tale of gothic suspense, set in a small Irish town, requires the reader to suspend disbelief, as do all good yarns.  And an old-fashioned story is what this is, keeping you on the edge of your seat just dying (no pun intended) to find out what happens next. 

If you're looking for a good creepy gothic-ish tale complete with a handsome, dastardly stranger who mysteriously appears in town only to insidiously destroy an entire family, all wrapped up with a special twist, you'll likely enjoy reading (or listening) to Darling Jim this Halloween.


Title:  Darling Jim
Author:  Christian Moerk
Narrators:  Stephen Hoye and Justine Eyre
Unabridged Audiobook, 10 hours 31 Minutes
ISBN:  978-1400111985
Source:  Purchased from Audible
Grade:  A

Audiobook Redemption

After our last audiobook disaster, we were a tad leery of starting another one. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice....well, you get the drift.

So for a change of pace A Reader's Respite went a-huntin' for a good piece of fiction on audio. With only a slight hesitation (picture our finger hovering uncertainly over the "click to purchase" button on Audible), we bravely downloaded The Book of Unholy Mischief, by Elle Newmark, narrated by Raul Esparza.

We've had our eye on this one for quite some time. Not sure if any of you out there remember this, but Newmark's book, after failing to find an interested publisher, was originally self-published in 2007 under the title of Bones of the Dead.

Now if you review books on a regular basis, A Reader's Respite is pretty confident that you've read your fair share of self-published novels. 99% of the time there is *ahem* a reason they are self-published and not put forth by a publishing house. Suffice it to say that those publishers know their stuff and if they don't think a book will find an audience, they are usually right.

Every once in a while, however, one slips through the cracks and Newmark's novel was the exception to the rule. Through sheer tenacity, talent and audacity, she managed to get the attention this novel so richly deserved.....and a seven-figure deal from Atria in the process.

Suffice it to say, this book is FABULOUS! How on earth did it get ignored by publishers the first time around?

The year is 1498 and the place is Venice. The Renaissance is about to dawn and a young street urchin named Luciano is taken in as an apprentice to a master chef. The chef, however, is not what he seems. Outwardly an esteemed employee of the doge of Venice (think: governor), the chef eventually reveals himself to be one of the Guardians, a keeper of ancient wisdom passed down secretly through the ages. Wisdom, it should be noted, that the powerful Pope in Rome -- Rodrigo Borgia, aka Pope Alexander VI -- would rather keep hidden from the masses.

Borgia perfecting his evil little look of corruption

The mere possession of this knowledge is a very dangerous preposition indeed. Especially once the doge and the Pope become aware of it's existence and begin the deadly hunt for it's acquisition.

Narrator Raul Esparza (you sexy thing, Raul!) more than does this riveting story justice....his accents and voices are absolutely spellbinding. Truly, A Reader's Respite would have been very happy indeed had the story gone on forever.

Now if you want to get technical about the historical aspects of the novel, you'll find a few tidbits out of historical place and time. Easily forgiven, in our opinion.

So if you haven't taken a gander at this novel, consider the audio format. You won't be disappointed!




Obligatory FCC Disclosure: this audiobook was bought and paid for with our very own blood, sweat, and tears. Okay, so maybe not our blood. But definitely sweat and the occassional tears. Hey, who said earning a paycheck was easy?

(Mis)Adventures in Audiobooks

A Reader's Respite is a big fan of Audible.com. We subscribe, so we get to download an audiobook once each month (which, coincidentally, is about how long it takes us to get through one unabridged book).

We try to switch it up a little and alternate fiction with non-fiction and last month, it was time for a non-fiction book. So after browsing the Audible site for at least an hour (who said decisions like this were easy?), we settled on Alison Weir's Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England. We thought it might be interesting to delve into some non-fiction about England's King Edward II and his French wife Isabella, who along with her lover Roger Mortimer, wrested the throne of England away from Edward in 1327.

Oy vey.

About the only good thing we have to report is that the narrator, Lisette Lecat, has a pleasant voice.

The problem was Weir. In all honesty, A Reader's Respite has never come across a work of historical non-fiction so biased, so slanted as to be almost untenable.

Here are Weir's salient points:

• Edward II was evil.
• Isabella was a saint.

Really, those are the points made over and over and over and over. Now we're no expert, but we're pretty certain that any historical portrait should be a tad more balanced to be taken seriously.

Unless it's about Hitler.

That's pretty much our only exception.





A Reader's Respite Complies with New FCC Ruling:

We did not receive this awful book in audio format for free. We paid damn good money for it and probably would have gotten more pleasure from flushing the cash down the toilet instead where it could join the 3 Matchbook cars and 1 Christmas ornament my kids have already flushed down there.

Review: Columbine

Review: Columbine, by Dave Cullen

A Reader's Respite is lately addicted to our Ipod. Actually, we have an entire laundry-list of neuroses and addictions, but that's not important right now. The one we are talking about here is our newest obsession with listening to non-fiction on audiobook.

To be completely honest, A Reader's Respite doesn't really have any music on our Ipod anymore. We have audiobooks instead. And the newest neurosis to manifest itself around here is that we simply cannot fall asleep at night without a good non-fiction audiobook. That's not to say that non-fiction is so boring as to put us to sleep. Rather, it has become a ritual as comfortable as a favorite blanket.

Audiobooks have a lot of pressure on them: not only does the writing have to be good, but the narration does as well. There's been more than one excellent book out there that has been ruined by perfectly horrid narration. But when you find a good book told by a good narrator, well that, my friends, is priceless.



So it is to the non-fiction review blog Letters on Pages that A Reader's Respite owes our heartfelt thanks for recommending Dave Cullen's new book, Columbine, fabulously narrated by Don Leslie. (If you haven't checked out Adam's non-fiction reviews, you're missing out!)

For those who need a quick refresher: in 1999, Colorado teens Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire in Columbine High School, killing 13 students and faculty before turning the guns on themselves. The tragedy dominated the national news for months and the public was fed an enormous amount of mis-information, thanks to a botched investigation, gag-orders and grossly eroneous media reports.

Harris and Klebold, the little shits

Ten years later, Dave Cullen finally gives us the definitive story of the Columbine massacre, brilliantly written and illuminating. It was gratifying to finally learn the real story behind the tragedy: the victims, the motives, the history that led up to this horrific event. Don Leslie's narration is so compelling as to be almost addictive....you will not want to stop listening to his voice!

The unabridged version (and we'll just tell you right now, if A Reader's Respite ever catches you listening to anything abridged, we'll break your kneecap) runs a glorious 43 hours and 34 minutes. It is available on CD, but we highly recommend downloading it from Audible.com if you have an MP3 player ($15 a month gets you one free audiobook download each month...a steal!).

This is a highly recommended book in whatever format you prefer...read it.