kurtwombat's Reviews (902)

 Mildly disappointing. Read this in small part because I’m a Kareem fan and in large part because I am generally mesmerized by all things Holmes. I knew going in Sherlock would only be tangentially involved—the disappointment comes from the inconsistent quality of the writing and because Mycroft isn’t even quite Mycroft yet. His Sherlock like deductive skills are on display but often feel like flourishes or afterthoughts versus integral to the goings on. I did enjoy the broadening of the Holmes universe to include Mycroft’s best friend being a Trinidad native (well crafted)  but the fiancé angle – the book would be better if her whole existence were excised. That time and emotion would have been better devoted to Holmes and his friend Douglas. That is a solidly created relationship that nicely reflects the unique perspective of the author. Secondary characters get very little flesh though there is some nice historical detail. I thought the central mystery perhaps a little too heavy (globally) for an intro to this character and this series—though ultimately it was interesting and dramatic (but what exactly happened to the 2 million dollars? Unclear). In the books favor,  there was one haunting image that will long linger in my imagination—the believably set up and well executed use of a human being to trigger a bomb. Despite my feelings I plan to read at least the first part of the next book in the series. We’ll see if that one frees me from my mesmeric trance or deepens it. 

 There is Fantasy to escape and there is Fantasy to step outside to better look back upon ourselves. TO SHAPE A DRAGON’S BREATH takes a serious approach within the young adult fantasy genre to reflect the failures of our world. A thinly veiled but richly imagined alternative history of earth with enough sign posts to keep you on track—an indigenous culture clashes with a European white culture. Dragons happen to be the sticking point here but as with all such clashes, the dominant culture will always find something. I quickly became engrossed in the characters and indigenous cultures are my soft spot so the 500 pages immersed and swept me away.  This avoids the nonsensical romantic fawning prevalent in young adult lit—instead tenderly sketched relationships mesh together people who care about each other. The world will not end if hearts are broken—the stakes are indeed much higher than that. For which I am immensely grateful. Would love this tale of a non-white non-superhero young girl taking on the world so far with only her wit and guile to gain more traction. Appreciate that a series spotlighting dragons dared to have an entire first book with a dragon too young to fly. That is confidence in your story telling—when you don’t have to rely on something flashy to bail you out. You may be surprised how little happens over 500 pages but more surprised by how much you don’t mind. Waiting for the next. (I should also mention that it is LGBTQ friendly in fantastic and non-patronizing ways) 

I cannot prove this was the intent, nor can I rule it out but this little absurdist 1920's sci fi play struck me as equal parts H G Wells and Marx Brothers. (The fact that this was originally conceived as a play is enough to blow my mind.) Famous for coining the term "robot", it has also served as a template for robot themed story arcs up to the present. Not just that robots in one form or another (see AI) will ultimately seek to take over, but also the anthropomorphic application of human traits upon robots (Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars, etc.). In fact, spoiler alert, making the robots more human is what dooms mankind. Is our fear of robots just projection--if robots created mankind (and who says they didn't) wouldn't we seek to take over? Gets a little wonky and dated in the last third  but still deals with important themes-responsibility, dignity and capitalism. The image of one character attempting to buy his freedom from the robots ("for half a billion I'll be safe") only to be killed by a human engineered booby trap--delicious. 

This kind of reads like a war correspondent reporting from the front lines of autism--constant battles and adjustments to a world that didn't naturally jive with her programming. That autism is not behavioral, but that behavior is a symptom of what is going on underneath was a fascinating discovery. Grandin does a solid job of laying out the forms and terms of autism in a very readable if sometimes dry way. Any dryness is mostly tempered by discussion of her adapting during her childhood or her compassion for animals--a compassion that stems somewhat from a similar way of perceiving and interpreting the world as animals are also thought to think in pictures. I also like to think of this book as kind of a victory lap for having achieved professionally what Grandin has despite or because of her obstacles. In some measure she also critiques society by revealing it's structure from the outside as well as having an interesting take on her flirtation with religion. Like Grandin, I was particularly drawn to her relationships with animals and look forward to reading her ANIMALS IN TRANSLATION. 

 

This book has two tropes I find regrettable. Often each by itself is enough to make me want to pull out my bookmark and look for something else. 

So with these opposing forces—how was the book? 

 I had some concerns beginning this book. It’s been an overwhelming election year—practically an election decade—and I was afraid this book would just add to that stress. Somewhat amazingly it managed to do the opposite. Evangelicals were no longer a monolithic mass all voting mindlessly one way but instead a complicated mosaic of people at odds with each other over the direction of their church (which is likely in the process of becoming two separate churches). The history of this schism does not go that far back—pretty much born out of the Reagan era—so stemming from politics & power and not religion & faith. Deep research and dozens of interviews synthesized through the author’s personal life in and out of the church create a fantastic overview and detailed analysis of the Evangelical Church and how it became what it is. 

 

 

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” ― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass 

 The problem for any memoirist—who am I. Whitman famously pointed out we are all many things. Different moments may call upon us to be one self or another. But at any given moment, we are mostly one thing. Otherwise we are madness—self contradicting. Reading DO SOMETHING I felt caught up in contradictions and frankly was somewhat mad about it. Mad because there is a lot of interest here that could have been quite compelling. Opportunity lost. 

 There are two books here. There is the family memoir of tragedy and pain and there is the search for selfhood in 1970’s New York amidst the “Glitter & Doom” alternative families centered around drag, fashion and art. The cover and promotional push of the book is focusing on the “Glitter & Doom” portion of the book—and admittedly why I entered and won my copy from a Goodreads Giveaway. The author’s heart however is clearly with the family memoir. The “Glitter & Doom” portion almost feels like bait to get the publisher interested—and it feels like there was pressure to push that part of the book closer to the beginning than it should have been. In the early part of the book the author foreshadows the trauma of his mother’s death and when she ultimately does die—we suddenly cut to another world without a moment to feel the loss. The whole book feels oddly cut and pasted like all the paragraphs fell on the floor and then were hurriedly put back on an available page. There are no chapters. Few natural transitions. The narrative felt like someone else writing your biography based on the random conversations you’ve had over time. 

This structure is confusing enough—then throw multitudes of dizzying run-on sentences and constant throw backs and forwards (WHAT I DIDN’T KNOW THEN, LATER WE WOULD KNOW, BUT THAT’S A STORY FOR LATER) and it all starts to blur. People come and go with some getting mini biographies but many barely remarked upon. I still don’t know who Paula was and he apparently lived with her for many years (was it one or two or ten who knows). I had a similar experience where I left a family that had kind of just dissolved and transitioned to a new diverse found family. I knew at the time and certainly know now in retrospect what was happening. This may have been referenced once late in the book as a throwaway but certainly is not the spine of the book as it could/should have been. I loved meeting all his glam friends and feeling the world they lived in but it all felt episodic and disconnected. 

Maybe this book was whittled down to its slim 240 pages. That would explain passages like his discussion of working at Andy Warhol’s InterView magazine and saying he never became close to Warhol but of course he wanted to. This made me scream, “what do you mean of course?” He had barely spoken of Warhol specifically before that or after so there is no context for such a statement. I know there is a certain flightiness of youth—flitting from one thing to the next but that shouldn’t be reflected in the narrative discussing that youth. 

At the beginning of the book a lot of time is put into setting up the recovery of some family photos as if these would be referred to throughout the book. There are photos throughout the book, would have loved more, but only a couple are from this cache. One more disjointed aspect of the book. It’s as if the stories are stones that the author is skimming on the water from the shore. Some stories go straight into the water never gaining air. Others skip along the surface, some for quite a while, taking the reader along but all ultimately sink at the hands of a sudden transition or confusing dead end.