Book Review: Catalyst

Title: Catalyst

Author: Laurie Halse Anderson

Published: 2002, Penguin Books

Rating: 4/5

Kate Malone has two personalities: good Kate and bad Kate. On the outside she is the smiling, hardworking daughter of a minister who sees to her family’s needs in place of her dead mother. Then there is bad Kate on the inside, the one who views her world partly as a nuisance and herself as a slight bitch. Kate is sure she is going to get into MIT and that her world is smooth sailing after she gets an acceptance letter.

Yeah, right.

The Litchs’ house burns down and Kate is forced to share her room with her childhood nemesis and Teri’s baby brother, Mikey. Unbeknownst to the football players and cheerleaders who heckle Teri, her life has been a living hell. Carefully hidden in her private world, Teri has shouldered more hurt and responsibility than all the 4,000 + students in her school.

Good Kate and bad Kate melt into one as her relationship with Teri evolves and she learns the truth about Mikey's parentage. 

Anderson's sarcastic and quirky style created yet another fantastic novel. With realistic teen struggles, young readers will be able to identify with Anderson’s characters. Although, they may like to seem invincible, all adolescents know, they are riddled with faults like any other human.  

Book Review: Horse Tales from Heaven

Title: Horse Tales from Heaven

Author: Rebecca E. Ondov

Published: 2010 Harvest House Publishers

Rating: 5/5

In this memoir written through a collection of short stories, Ondov shares her life working with horses and humans on pack trips. Ondav’s memoir is also a devotional work of art as well where her relationship with god manifests through her relationship with horses. Her rich descriptions ground the reader in the breathless landscape of the west. Strong images will form in the readers’ minds as they see a foal born and another horse tragically die from an accident. This is one of those rare books where after every chapter, the reader is forced to sit and reflect upon their own life. This novel is a must read for anyone who honestly believes horses have changed their spirit and relationship with god.

Personal Side Story: I read this novel on my way home on the airplane from LA after my interview. Although I am not Christian, I understood Ondav’s relationship with God and how she often felt him around her when she was with horses. As a spiritual person, I believe horses have always influenced my life and helped mold who I am. Stories about horses made me want to be a writer. Being a writer makes me want to explore the world of horses and everything connected to them for the rest of my life. This makes me want to write about them. This is one of the many reasons I am determined to go to Japan and experience the culture and the horses. While I feel prepared to teach English and face the challenges of being a gaijin (foreigner), I am not sure if I feel prepared to write the novels. Why? I am not sure if I can do justice to the spirit of the horse sometimes in my writing. All I can hope is some of my future non-horsey readers will come to respect the horse through my writing. 

Book Review: Wintergirls

Title: Wintergirls
Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Published: Viking Juvenile, 2009
Rating: 5/5

Unable to live and unable to die Lia is frozen. With the death of her former childhood friend Lia's already self-destructive actions and mental state plummets into freezing conditions. Anderson's vivid and poetic writing will make her readers feel the crippling disgust Lia feels every time she eats, every time she counts a calorie and every time she cuts. Unable to see how much her actions are hurting her perplexed family, Lia drags them down until she touches the bottom of her icy cage. Anderson's complex characters and beautifully disturbing realism will bring her readers to the tragic reality of Lia's mind.

Book Review: Water for Elephants

Title: Water for Elephants
Author: Sara Gruen
Published: 2006, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Rating: 5/5

During the Great Depression, a young man who seems to have lost everything all of sudden has a reason to live when he falls in love with a married circus performer. Jacob Jankowski and Marlena soon finds themselves threatened with the darker side of show business from her husband and his henchmen. Researched to the hilt, Gruen pulls her readers into the world of the old-time circus where men worked for little and animals hoped for kindness. Gruen builds the tension with each page and readers will not be disappointed with the explosive climax.

Book Review: The Housekeeper and the Professor

Title: The Housekeeper and the Professor
Author: Yoko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder)
Published: 2003 in Japan, 2009 in America, Picador Publishing
Rating: 5/5


Ogawa created a world of nameless characters, except for the nickname of the housekeeper's son, "Root". Although, the story is told in first person through the intimate thoughts of the housekeeper, Ogawa keeps her readers at bay outside of the intimate circle of characters. The effect is successful as the reader is unable to completely inhabit the three main characters' sphere of life. Ogawa's ability to create deep, dimensional characters allows her readers to accept their nameless identities. The story itself is episodic and bittersweet about how friendship and loyalty can come in unexpected ways. The deep impressions such events have on humans is captured in the spirit of Ogawa's story. Ogawa's subtle writing style will leave her readers reflecting on human psychology as her characters strike a chord in each reader’s view of humanity.  

Book Review: The Bad Queen

Title: The Bad Queen: Rules and Instructions for Marie-Antoinette

Author: Carolyn Meyer

Published: 2010, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Rating: 5/5

Carolyn Meyer set out on a mission to tell the story of Marie Antoinette, whom history has painted as a selfish and shallow woman. Combining her in-depth research and her historical fiction writing talent, Meyer presents a stellar narrative of a young princess who is expected to be perfect. Masterfully written in first person, readers are allowed into the private thoughts and feelings of the Queen who history has horribly misunderstood. Meyer leaves her audience with a much different opinion about the character and psyche of the last queen of France. Readers will find themselves contemplating what they would have done if they were put in the position that Marie Antoinette found herself in.

Check out the other novels in the Young Royals series:

Cleopatra Confesses (Just Released!)

Mary, Blood Mary

Beware, Princess Elizabeth

Patience, Princess Catherine

Doomed Queen Anne

Duchessina: A Novel of Catherine de' Medici

SNHU MFA Summer Residency

On June 18, 2011 several of my classmates will  be graduating from the MFA program, and all of them have become an important part of my life and have been very supportive. That is why I love this program. We all supportive of each other's goals and aspirations. Our goals to become better writers and eventually to become published and share "human truths" through our stories, essays and poems. We are all writers, and in each of us we have seen our ability to express our view of the world through the beauty of words.

Today, Melanie Cecka who works for Bloomsbury told me that I had better write about horses next. She said my whole face lit up when I talked about writing about horses in Japan. That is all I want to do now; that is is now an obsession. I have started applying to companies to teach English in Japan and many of my friends here are encouraging me to go for it. Several people have asked me when I am leaving, and I told them as soon as I can secure a teaching position and get a work visa I will be going.

I am ready to be a teacher. I am not merely going to Japan just for my own writing purposes. I love knowledge  and teaching is a way for me to make use of my knowledge of the written language. Of course, I will learn more human truths from living in Japan. I will learn about the culture, their traditions, the people, their wildlife and their language. I know I will be a good teacher because of everything horses have taught me. I will be a good teacher because of what the people in my MFA program have taught me, both the mentors and the other students. 

On Sunday we leave for Star Island for a week. Last year I did not want to go. Just the thought of being trapped on a small island made my heart skip a beat. This year though, it is different. By going there part of my soul is freed from everyday society. All of us while we are there, can reflect on humanity and its relationship to the rest of the world. We are forced to look at ourselves as writers and all that we wish to convey.

I am grateful to everybody that has helped me. I am grateful to all the mentors and students. I am grateful to my friends at home. I am grateful for Skye, because I did not start to truly live until the moment she came into my life.  I am grateful to someone who made me realize I can't be afraid to live, even though he will no longer talk to me. 

 "Water in the river flows without cease, besides there isn't original water" - From the Hojoki