Fire

Fire is a graphic biography of Zora Neale Hurston, an African American writer in the early twentieth century best known for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston challenged the norms of what was expected of an African American woman. She was the fifth of eight children from a Baptist family in Alabama. Her writing ability blossomed while she was a student at Howard University in Washington DC and then at Barnard College where she was the only black student. When she arrived in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance she found herself surrounded by peers such as poet Langston Hughes. Hurston later became a noted folklorist and critically acclaimed novelist. Despite her achievements, in order to make money she frequently had to resort to becoming a maid. Hurston was largely forgotten by the end of her life in 1960.

Let me say right off the bat that many people will not like, or even approve of this comic because the author has used dialogue that was the black slang common in the American South at the time of Hurston's life. Peter Bagge may have decided to use this type of language because Hurston was a folklorist whose books used this type of slang in her writing. I don't know specifically why he chose this route. Hurston made several anthropological trips throughout the South gathering information for her book and used this language in her book on folklore. I found it difficult to accept the dialogue and some of the illustrations, given the political correctness of our day.

That said, the book gave an in depth perspective of Hurston's life. She had plenty of ups and downs, many of which were due to Jim Crow laws. However, she had an indelible spirit. Nothing kept her down for long. She had a stick-to-it-iveness that helped her persevere over several years to get an education. I think many people would have given up but Zora relentlessly pursued her goals regardless of societal rules. 

Peter Bagge included forty pages of notes concerning his sources at the end of the book detailing every fact he presented in the comic. It is interesting reading and helps the reader to obtain context of the era in which Hurston lived. 

Yellow

Yellow is the latest installment in a series by Michel Pastoureau on the history of colors. Previously he has written about red, blue, black and green. The book was a bear to get through. It has been written like a textbook, quite scholarly. My interest in the book was peaked because I am an artist. However, when I bought it it was wrapped in plastic so I was unable to preview its pages. Had I seen how difficult it is to read I would have passed it up. That said, reading each section several times was helpful. I was able to remember many facts about my favorite color.

The book is divided into three sections. We initially have a section devoted to yellow's usage as a beneficial color, i.e., from ancient times to the fifth century. Next we see it as an ambiguous color, or it's usage between the sixth and fifteenth century. Finally, the color is seen as an unpopular one which is how it has been viewed from the fourteenth to the twenty first century.

As a beneficial color we read which plants or metals were used to create the color as well as how it was used in early cave drawings and clothing. Yellow was seen in nature in fields of grain and from the sun. Dressing in yellow was seen as feminine as it still is today. As an ambiguous color, yellow was seen as an important color when it was seen as gold. When yellow was shown as an ordinary yellow, its importance in heraldry and religious texts was much lower than red, blue or green. However, blond hair was always viewed as more favorable than other hair colors, especially on women. The section on yellow as an unpopular color states that the color was never used on clothing by the nobility because it was viewed as not being very modest. Artists viewed it negatively too. While in a bright light yellow is a happy color. When the light becomes dark, it no longer looks pleasant but rather dirty and ugly. Thus, the color ceased to be used in daily life. 

The book is a fine treatise but it is not for the light hearted reader. Obviously, someone interested in art history should read this book. It would be helpful for artists too but I believe there are other books on color that would be more helpful for the studio artist. 

3 out of 5 stars.

The Fire Thief

The Fire Thief is set on the Hawaiian island of Maui. It begins with the discovery of the dead body of a surfer who had washed up on shore.  The first few pages are about the murder. However, the story quickly switches to a ghost story and then a theft story. Hawaiian lore is used to tie them all together.

The publisher's summary:

"Under a promising morning sky, police captain Walter Alaka’i makes a tragic discovery: the body of a teenage surfer bobbing among the lava rocks of Maui’s southeastern shore. It appears to be an ill-fated accident, but closer inspection reveals something far more sinister than the results of a savage wave gone wrong. Now that Alaka’i is looking at a homicide, he solicits the help of his niece, Detective Kali Māhoe.

 

The granddaughter of one of Hawaii’s most respected spiritual leaders, and on the transcendent path to becoming a kahu herself, Kali sees evidence of a strange ritual murder. The suspicion is reinforced by a rash of sightings of a noppera-bō—a faceless and malicious spirit many believe to be more than superstition. When a grisly sacrifice is left on the doorstep of a local, and another body washes ashore, Kali fears that the deadly secret ceremonies on Maui are just beginning. 

 

To uncover a motive and find the killer, Kali leans on her skills at logic and detection. But she must also draw on her own personal history with the uncanny legends of the islands. Now, as the skies above Maui grow darker, and as she balances reason and superstition, Kali can only wonder: Who’ll be the next to die? And who—or what—is she even on the trail of?"

While I enjoy reading about my favorite state, the book did not have a cohesive plot. The author should have decided what type of story she wanted to tell. I thought the murder would have been the best storyline to go with as the body was found with a shark's tooth imbedded in the head but no signs of a shark attack. The howdunnit and whodunnit would have been an interesting read. We don't really learn how the murder was done. The identity of the killer is revealed at the end but with no twists, turns, or red herrings. Nothing. The ghost storyline carried most of the pages and was minimally related to the murder. The theft of solar panels was not connected to the murder other than the thief being related to the killer. 

The Walter and Kali detective team are a great pair. They both have distinctive personalities that the author fleshed out well and I can see them investigating crimes together in the future. However, the author needs to come up with a better plotline if she wants to have a series to write. This is her first book so perhaps she will surprise us in years to come.

2 out of 5 stars.

Peaches and Schemes

Peaches and Schemes is the third book in the Georgia Bed and Breakfast Mysteries by Anna Gerard. This is a cozy mystery series featuring amateur sleuth Nina Fleet. The story takes place in Cymbeline, Georgia and opens with Nina taking a booth at the Veils and Vanities Bridal Expo in order to tap into the destination wedding market. This twice-yearly event is sponsored by the town's two wedding pros: Virgie Hamilton, the sixtysomething owner of Virgie's Formals, and Roxana Quarry, a Generation X event planner and Nina's new friend. Of course, everything goes wrong during the expo's fashion show when Roxana comes tumbling out of an oversized wedding cake apparently strangled to death by a scarf. Virgie is arrested for the crime after Nina gives a statement to the police about having overheard the woman accusing her partner of embezzlement. The situation becomes more tense when Nina's nemesis and tenant Harry Westcott tells Nina that her ex-husband is engaged to be married again. Believing that Virgie's only offense is her bad temper, Nina decides to begin an investigation into Roxana's murder. 

Peaches and Schemes is your traditional southern cozy and it provided a great escape for me on a lazy Saturday afternoon. While it is the third novel in the series, it is a standalone novel for those who are new to the series, such as myself. Some southern stories can be saccharine sweet but this one had so many twists and turns to taper the sweetness down a little bit. The plot was advanced on just about every page so there was some suspense too. The author wrote a little humor into her dialogue too which added to my enjoyment of the book.  The one thing that I didn't like was Nina telling others to pronounce her name as Nine-ah. I thought this was annoying and not something a southern belle should or would do. Other than that, Peaches and Schemes is the perfect cozy mystery. 

5 out of 5 stars.

The Secret Keeper of Jaipur

The Secret Keeper of Jaipur is book two in the Jaipur trilogy by Alka Joshi. The trilogy began with The Henna Artist. The action in this story begins in Spring 1969 with heroine Lakshmi, now married to Dr.Jay Kumar, directing the Healing Garden of Shimla. Her protege Malik has just finished his private school education and at age 20 he has also just met a young mother named Nimmi and has fallen in love with her. When Malik travels to Jaipur to be an apprentice at the Facilities Office of the Jaipur Royal Palace in order to work on a state of the art cinema, he must separate from Nimmi. Malik soon finds that not much has changed in Jaipur since his last visit during his childhood. Power and money still hold sway and favors flow from the Palace, but only if certain secrets remain buried. When the cinema's balcony collapses on opening night, blame is placed where it is convenient. Malik, however, suspects something far darker is hovering over the city and sets out to uncover the truth. 

I LOVED this book!  In my mind, you can't get a better book than an Indian fiction novel. Malik is featured more prominently than Lakshmi in this installment of the trilogy. It's not that Lakshmi doesn't get a good amount of pages, it's just that Malik is the person solving the crime in the story. Of course, I loved everything about the Shimla and Jaipur settings. These two cities are complete opposites. Shimla is in the mountains and the weather is cool most of the time. Jaipur instead is excruciatingly hot. Wherever the characters are located, the reader is treated to the Indian culture. While I am sure that poor Indians who had labor intensive jobs were not as thrilled with their lot as the wealthy folks, I have romanticized this servant/master relationship. It seems dreamy to have someone always available to get you a cool drink or cook a meal when you come home. Most writers of Indian fiction show the servants as happy and agreeable but I know this must be a fallacy. 

We learn alot about the Nimma character. When she is introduced to Lakshmi she is described as having dark skin with rough hands and wearing cheap clothing. Nimma hails from a tribe that roams the mountains shepherding sheep. The women in the tribe had other duties and Nimma's was to gather flowers and herbs for healing. While her personality is quite different from Lakshmi, both women look for flowers and shrubs that can be used in healing. Lakshmi knows more about the flowers that she can find in the Jaipur area and Nimma knows more about those that can be found in the mountains. They make an ideal pair for Lakshmi's healing garden. 

Much is written about family here. Malik has no idea who his parents are or even when he was born. He was a street child who did odd jobs for Lakshmi before she brought him in to her home and raised him. He has no biological family to speak of. Lakshmi only has one sister whom she also raised but Radha has moved to Paris. Nimma is a widow with two kids. Emphasis is placed in the story on finding friends who become a substitute for family. These ties are bound just as tight as to those whom you are biologically related.

The Secret Keeper of Jaipur is a fantastic read. Historical fiction fans are going to want to read it. 5 out of 5 stars.

Book of the Month: July

July was a lucky month for reading. I read four books that could have easily been the best book of the month. The Perfect Daughter, The Bombay Prince, Gone, and Revolutionary Mothers. I am selecting Revolutionary Mothers as my favorite book for July. I read it on July 4 which gave it a special significance. The Bombay Prince was a close second.

Revolutionary Mothers is a history book about the founding mothers of the American Revolution. It categorizes them into chapters on wives of patriots, wives of loyalists, general's wives, camp followers, Native American women and slave women. Their contributions before, during and after the war are brought to life by the author.

What was most interesting to me was that if the patriot ladies had not followed the leads from their husbands, the war may have been lost to the British. When the men decided to refuse tea and other products from Britain, they expected that their wives would make it work for their families. Had the ladies not handled the shortages well, I doubt that the war would've begun. The ladies made do for their families and proved that America could survive without the British. The men made the decisions but the women made everything possible.

Go ladies!

Red Team Volume 1

Volume One, Season One contains parts 1 through 7 of Garth Ennis' Red Team comic. It is an engaging murder mystery that also portrays police corruption. Red Team is the story of four members of a Major Crimes Unit in the New York Police Department. Eddie Mellinger, Trudy Giroux, Duke Wylie and George Winburn have been very successful catching drug lords and other crooks with their meticulous surveillance.  However, they have been unsuccessful for two years in their pursuit of drug dealer Clinton Days. In the process they eliminated most of Days' competition. When the team finds out that Days has arranged the murder of a fellow NYPD cop, they decide to kill him. After the murder, the group meets and decides to continue killing suspects but only the worst ones in the city. These are the criminals who would probably kill many other people.

Red Team is a good book for sitting back and unwinding after a busy day. The story pulled me in from the start and kept me reading until I was finished. With the suspense level ratcheted up in each section, the pace was exceptionally fast. The reader does not get to know the characters much as the plot action takes precedence over character development. It is, simply, a great crime fiction story.

Cop story lovers will want to read this. 5 out of 5 stars. 

Pound for Pound

Underground MMA fighter Dani Libra fears nothing except her recurring blackouts that obscure her bloody past. She is an immigrant from Mexico but when her sister is kidnapped, Dani must return there in order to find her. In the process she must shine a light on the darkness in her mind from the blackouts and keep her demons at bay long enough to save her sister.

Pound for Pound is a fantastic crime thriller with plenty of twists and turns. Dani is a badass woman with a zest for winning. She gets herself involved in many violent fights in order to get what she wants.  Dani is a great character. Her blackouts are primarily obscuring a violent crossing into the U. S. from Mexico that was undertaken when she was young. Her parents passed away in the crossing and Dani and her sister were luckily adopted by a stranger. 

This emotion filled story is complimented by the artwork. The reader can see Dani's emotions when she tenses her face, arms and legs and also when she has tears and blood flowing out of her mouth after being struck. The punches during the fights are also accentuated by the drawings as well as with the words "crack," "ugh" and "whack." 

There is some politicking here on the issue of immigration from Mexico into the U. S. that I don't think added much to the story. The main point of the comic is to tell a crime story. With several villains in Mexico featuring in the plot, the reader picks up enough about the current thoughts on Mexican immigration that we do not need narrative or dialogue on the subject.

Pound for Pound is a great read!  5 out of 5 stars.

Snow Angels Seasons One and Two

Snow Angels is a 10 part digital ebook by Jeff Lemire which is still continuing to be published. I have read Season One and Season Two of this post-apocalyptic story of survival in a harsh winter wilderness area. The area is called The Trench. It is an endless canyon carved into the ice where a few people have survived. However, the residents all know that something awful will happen if one of them leaves the trench. The inhabitants of the Trench do not know how they were settled there and they have survived by never leaving it. The plot follows the activities of two girls, Milliken, 12 and her younger sister Mae Mae. When their father took them on an overnight skate down the trench for a coming of age ritual to teach them how to fish in the frozen river and how to show respect to their gods, The Colden Ones, he woke up The Trench's deadly defender, the Snowman.  During a fight with the Snowman, their father was killed and the girls found themselves on their own.

I found the plot to be mediocre. It was hard to maintain interest in the comic but because I paid for it, I was determined to finish it. While the setting was magnificent, I did not connect with any of the characters. Neither of the girls interested me.  The father was the most compelling character because he carried the secrets of The Trench.  I wanted to know what those secrets were but he did not tell most of the secrets himself. After his death, the girls wandered and eventually discovered what all of the secrets were but this came at the end of the story just about on the last page. There was no lead up to the discovery which could have created some suspense. It fell flat. The illustrations were good and reflected the icy conditions of this wilderness area.  Illustrator Jock added iciness to the pages of the comic by the use of dark, dreary blues that really looked like ice and complimented the setting.

These stories are either hit or miss.  This one was a miss for me. 2 out of 5 stars.

Double Walker

I found Double Walker confusing while I read it. The author states at the end of the book that is a story based on his fears and anxieties. The story opens with Cully and Gemma, a couple who are watching their carefree, childless days coming to an end. Gemma is pregnant with their first child. They decide to take one final trip before the birth and travel to the Scottish Highlands where a bizarre string of murders is occurring. What was confusing for me was the plethora of Scottish fairy tales discussed among the characters. It was hard to tell what was myth and what was really happening. The residents of the island spoke alot about the fairies as real people and the fairies taking babies away so that they can replace them. After I read a few reviews of the comic I understood the plot premise better and reread the book. It then made sense.  

My feelings for the book are mixed. Once I understood what was happening I liked it but the fact that I had to go online to figure this one out is a big negative for me. It's horror, fantasy and myth combination is not what I typically read, hence my confusion. However, I know that many comic fans are going to love it so I am not going to rate this book. You either like this genre or you don't. I will let you, the reader, decide.

What Makes a DNF Book?

What makes a "did not finish" (DNF) book? I try to finish every book that I am reading, mainly because I paid for the book and don't want to waste money. Some books are just too dull to finish though. I usually give a book 50 pages to get me interested and then I will reassess it.  If I took the book out of the library then I have no predicament. I stop reading. 

So, what makes a DNF book? Sometimes I am not in the mood to read at all and just want to work on my art. Other times my mood prefers a light read such as a cozy and other times my mood wants something different. Assessing how you feel can help a reader determine whether the book should be saved for another day. 

The next issue is whether to review the book or not. I try to be fair but have been known to write punishing reviews on occasion. If a book is not in a genre that I like, I will review the book and state that I don't like the genre. I will also say what type of reader will enjoy it and give an "objective" review of the plot and characters. If there is anything about the book that I like, I will add that to my review.  I know that many bloggers do not review books that they don't like. I think it is more fair to your readers to know your true feelings.  Folks who read your blog do so because they have the same reading interests that bloggers do. I believe they will respect your views on a book that you do not like.

How do you handle those DNF books?

Sentient

Sentient is a science fiction story set in a comic book format. It is the story of the U. S. S. Montgomery, a space ship with both adults and children on board. The ship is traveling from an earth that is almost uninhabitable due to climate change to a colony located somewhere in deep space. One of the adults is secretly a separatist and she kills all the adults on board in a surprise attack. The separatists are a group that want the new colony to be completely disassociated from the earth's government. When the children find out that they have been left to finish the mission, they rely on their AI Valarie to learn new skills so that they can fly the ship to its expected destination. The kids have just barely learned their new skills when they are confronted with a dangerous force that threatens to doom them. They need to rely on Valarie in order to fight these forces but Valarie has only been programmed to complete minor tasks.

This is an awesome story. It has all the tension and character development that you would see in a novel length book within its 163 pages. The pace was fast and the plot premise was fascinating. The main characters are Val and the two oldest kids, Lill and Isaac. All three have tremendous growth in the story. Val becomes more of a parent than a machine but her machine capabilities allow her to learn the particular language that the kids speak. Lill is the most stubborn character and she gets the group into some trouble when she wants to leave the ship to explore a docking station where the Montgomery stops to refuel. Isaac is a tech prodigy who learns more and more about how the ship operates as the needs of the space ship develop as each day goes by. 

Great comic!  5 out of 5 stars.

Sara

In the cold winter of 1942, the second winter in the siege of Leningrad, Soviet sniper Sara and her seven female comrades are fighting against the Nazi invaders. At this point in the war the Russians are losing the battle. As the fighting intensifies, Sara's squad wonders if they can survive the turbulence of war. As women they know what will happened to them if they are taken prisoner and all of them vow not to be taken alive. The women try to make headway in the war by effecting one kill at a time. Sara is the undisputed best sniper. She has become a legend in the minds of the Nazis, which the sniper team learned about from a German prisoner of war. The Germans say she has killed over 300 soldiers but Sara disputes the number. 

This is a classic war story told in comic book format. The book combines six issues of a comic by the same name and it is based on a true story. We see the horrors of war here with our heroine booby trapping dead Nazi soldiers with grenades. When the Nazis find these bodies they will turn them over, activating the grenade and killing themselves. It's an easy way for Sara's kill numbers to rise.  We also see the Sara character changing as the war continues during the year.  When the village that her family resides in is destroyed by the Nazis, she becomes totally focused on killing as many of them as she can. She becomes a ruthless and efficient killer. We also see Sara talking to herself as she focuses her gun on the Nazi soldiers that she plans on killing. She takes her time before firing to ensure that her position is not spotted by Nazi snipers and becoming a target herself. 

Sara is an impressive narrative of soldier's lives fighting for survival on the Eastern Front in WWII.  5 out of 5 stars.