Tag Archives: Adult Summer Reading

Escape the Ordinary – Staff Pick

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Will’s life consists of two worlds: Outside and Inside. Raised by an eccentric and fiercely agoraphobic mother, Will has never stepped foot Outside—that is, until he can no longer contain his curiosity. Armed with only a helmet, Will finally steps out of the house and winds up befriending Jonah, who teaches him the thrills of skateboarding. But life Outside turns threatening when a boy goes missing, and Jonah and Will decide to investigate the mystery themselves. Suddenly Will finds himself thrown into a dangerous underworld, leaving his mother to face her greatest fear: will she be brave enough to save her son?

Thunder Bay is a long, long way from southern Ontario. Almost 1000 km sit between it and Toronto, and the difference between the two is something author Michael Christie is very familiar with. Christie was born and raised in Thunder Bay, and his portrait of it always feels entirely authentic, if quite unflattering. The city is not the focal point of If I Fall, If I Die but it permeates every chapter, every scene: the abandoned grain silos that punctuate the city’s geography, the seedy bars and strip malls, the concrete and empty streets that serve as a skateboarder’s playground, the list goes on. The economic decline of the city sits like an oppressive weight over everything, like the heavy snow that falls and hardens into a layer of ice.

Facing all of this for the first time in his life is Will, who has spent all of his eleven years living “Inside”, what he calls the interior of his house. Will is believably innocent for a boy who’s never stepped Outside, and he forms a quick attachment to the first peer he meets when he steps out of the house. The friendships Will makes highlight the tensions between First Nations citizens and everyone else, as he befriends first Marcus and then Jonah, both First Nations boys. Will is brazen in his newfound freedom, and wants Jonah to be too, but everything Jonah does is tempered with the knowledge that the cops are just waiting for him to mess up. At school and around authority, Jonah stays silent, refusing to give anyone fuel for discrimination.

What Christie does best is weave his nuanced characters into a firm sense of place. Will is slightly too fearless to be fully believable—for someone who’s never experienced danger, he’s remarkably calm after being attacked by a wolf—although Christie makes it work for the story. Jonah, elegant and careful, feels more real. But it’s Diane, the agoraphobic mother of Will, that really stands out. Christie chronicles her growing anxiety that keeps her locked in her home, and he does it honestly.  Diane never seems pathetic (except through her son’s eyes) because Christie makes her fear seem real.

Personally, I wish Christie would have stuck with this character-driven mode of storytelling, but halfway through he switches the focus onto the disappearance of Marcus, and the book loses much of its depth in favour of a contrived mystery, like a darker version of the Hardy Boys. There are gangsters and presumed-dead uncles and trained wolves, and suddenly the book feels less like an exploration of mental illness, race relations and economic despair and more like a Hollywood movie. The mystery didn’t grip me as much as the characters did. I liked the novel, but I think I would have loved it had the mystery stayed in the background.

If you enjoy Christie’s writing, check out his previous work of short stories, The Beggar’s Garden.

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Some questions to consider about If I Fall, If I Die are:

1. The Irish Times calls the novel “an allegory of the rampant anxiety of the modern age.” Do you agree with this? Why or why not?

2. Will encounters serious criminals, wild animals, and has his life threatened several times. But at the end of the novel, he “still loved the Outside so intensely that he worried he could die of it.” Is this realistic?

3. Consider the skateboarding motif. Will describes the activity as “mastery — a seizure of control, not a loss. That the board did their bidding — danced or flipped or spun successfully beneath them — afforded the most sublime pleasures of their short lives.” How is this true for Will? For Jonah?

Escape the Ordinary – Brilliant Debut Authors

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What does money do to relationships, and what happens to our ambitions over the course of time? While the Plumb siblings are trying to use the inheritance left from their father to solve their self-inflicted problems, this tender and entertaining debut explores the power of family, the possibilities of friendship, the ways we depend upon one another and the ways we let one another down. – HarperCollins Canada

The Nest

The Nest, a debut that has become an instant bestseller – I can see Sweeney’s ambition in this novel, and I am impressed by her confidence and composure exhibited throughout this novel. In my opinion, this debut has not only offered captivating narratives but also demonstrated power and depth.

I admire Sweeny’s skillful maneuver of the English language. The engrossing narratives are presented in vignette sort of style, rapidly moving from one scene to another, producing a cinematic trailer of the New Yorkers’ colourful life. Or you can say Sweeney is trying to weave an impressively complex tapestry about New Yorkers’ lives. Many characters are involved in this book and they all have different professions, marital statuses and personalities. You will find some of these characters intersecting each other in certain points of their life paths, but some others simply passing by each other on two parallel tracks. On top of the most important theme about inheritance and how money affects our relationships, various timely topics have been explored in this book, such as gay and lesbian, the aftermath effect of September 11, and even the use of the smart phone technology. At times dark and comical, this novel is full of sharp observations and brave comments that detect the subtlest nuances, for example, Stephanie’s equal desire for solitude and Leo, and Bea’s unaccomplished feeling towards her career while she’s eavesdropping the previous Glittery Girls’ gossip.

I did occasionally find it slightly frustrating when the scenes jumped too fast and the story got too choppy, however, the outcome of this approach is actually an even more realistic story and setting – New York is indeed a vast, dynamic and complicated city, so as its people’s lives.

I must point out what I appreciate the most from this book is the powerful message that Sweeney tries to deliver closer to the end of the book. Our flawed characters in this book don’t seem to be appealing, but under their resentful surface, they demonstrated the most humane side of themselves when they started to see everyone in the family gradually falling apart – they finally came together to support each other as a family and presented to the readers the most heartwarming moments. However, Sweeney didn’t attempt to paint this imperfect world into a perfect one with illusion. The ending and the choice made by our most charismatic character, Leo, is indeed thought provoking.

Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity to draw your attention to an equally comical and thought provoking title Mount Pleasant by Don Gillmor – it’s also about inheritance and family, but sets in Toronto.

                                                                                                                                                                                         

Some discussion questions from LitLovers:

  1. Just how dysfunctional is the Plumb family…and why? Why do the siblings allow Leo to have such power over them? If you could advise any or all four of them, how would you counsel them about living their lives?
  2. Melody, Beatrice, Jack and Leo all have behaved somewhat (or very) irresponsibly. Is there one of them with whom you sympathize more than the others? Or are they all caught up in a sense of their own entitlement? What about the secondary characters and the roles they play in the story: the grandchildren, Jack’s husband, Melody’s husband, Leo’s girlfriend, and Bea’s boss.
  3. Ultimately, this book is about defining ourselves as individuals within a family (or even a career). How does each character learn who he or she is and what ultimately makes for a fulfilling life?

Escape the Ordinary – Books to Movies/Shows

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After a motorcycle accident, Will Traynor’s life is turned upside down: no more travelling, no more extreme sports. He’s wheel-chair bound and miserable. When Louisa Clark–simple, ordinary, and Will’s complete opposite–takes a job working for him, tensions arise from Will’s sour mood and Lou’s tough love. But when Lou learns about Will’s plans, she decides to prove to him that life is still worth living, and soon the two find themselves falling into a heartbreaking romance.

There’s a lot to be said for hype; in most cases, it’s better to experience a novel with a fresh mind and a blank slate. Waiting until the book is already a blockbuster and has a film adaptation might lessen its impact, once you already know other opinions and—in my case—the ending. This is what happened to me with Me Before You, a hugely beloved book that I finally got around to reading. So, did I cry? Well, no, but I can see why people did.

Me Before You explores the changes two vastly different people can encourage in each other. Will and Louisa’s crossed paths spark something in both of them: Will wants Louisa to experience life beyond their little town, and Louisa wants to pull Will out of his depression. Their commitment to improving each other’s lives leads them in a sweet progression from lukewarm acquaintances to friends to something more. This description might make it seem like Me Before You is a paint-by-numbers love story, but the relationship never feels forced, and Moyes gives both characters such a solid background that the story never veers into cheesy Nicholas Sparks territory.

One of the best aspects of the novel is author Moyes’s treatment of Will. It would be easy to make the wheelchair-bound protagonist a martyr or a saint, making his disability his defining quality. Instead, Will is a fully realized man who happens to be in a wheelchair. It’s because of this treatment that Will naturally feels like a viable love interest for Lou, even without the use of most of his body. Will isn’t a pet project for her to fix; he’s her equal and she wants to see him happy. Hopefully this novel marks a trend towards a new way of seeing disability.

That said, the topic of disability is a tricky one in Will’s case. As a quadriplegic, Will has no use of his limbs except for some minor movement in his hands. He requires almost 24 hour care. As a thrill-seeking, high rolling adult man, this sudden change of circumstances is unbearable to Will. In fact, as Louisa notes, he is essentially on suicide watch. There are some seriously sensitive issues brought up, particularly euthanasia and the right to die. Will believes that choosing to end his life is the last bit of control he has left. But despite Moyes’ fair representation of disability, some readers might glean a rather pessimistic message from Will’s struggle. It’s a subject that’s highly debatable and highly subjective; Moyes handles all sides of the argument deftly, not necessarily settling on any side of it but presenting it fairly and realistically. At the very least, Moyes rejects the “love conquers all” romantic fantasy in favour of opening up a dialogue about euthanasia, disability, and trauma. And it’s a dialogue that is ripe for discussion!

If you’d like to keep reading about Louisa Clark, pick up a copy of After You at your local branch!

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Share your thoughts on the novel in the comments! Some questions to consider:

1. Discuss the various reactions to Will’s decision to go to Dignitas. Do you think they were fair? Do you agree with Lou’s mother’s reaction to Lou’s involvement?

2. How do you feel about the ending? Would you have been more satisfied with a happily-ever-after? Or do you prefer the one Moyes wrote in the novel?

3. If you’ve seen the movie, how does it compare to the novel? What changes did you like or dislike? What did you think of the casting?