The Accidental Alchemist

The Accidental Alchemist by Gigi Pandian  360 pp.

You don't think of alchemists as particularly sympathetic or compassionate people but Zoe Faust is not a typical alchemist. In fact, she doesn't want to be an alchemist at all but circumstances have forced her to renew her talents in that area. The appearance of a living stone gargoyle named Dorian in one of her moving crates and the dead man on her front porch mean she must dust off the old crucibles and get to work to save the dying gargoyle and prevent a new friend from being wrongly convicted of murder. And she is trying to keep a troubled local teen from getting in more trouble. On the plus side, Dorian is a gourmet chef who is happy to keep Zoe fed while she works on the problem of his impending demise. This is a light read with fun characters set in a crunchy-granola Oregon town Zoe has moved to in an effort to escape her past. It is the first book in a series and I just might go on to book two.

The Instructions

The Instructions/Adam Levin 1030 pages.

I've risked personal injury carting this book back and forth to try to finish it before the end of the month and despite all of trouble I've received from certain co-workers, I want to clearly state that I like this book. HOWEVER, and lets face it, any 1030 pg. book is going to have a "however" pretty early in the review. What the heck Adam Levin...you need to make friends with an editor who lives by the "less is more" credo.

Gurion ben-Judah Maccabee may be the messiah and/or he may be a violent sociopath. I'm not sure that we really find out what makes Gurion tick but we do know he is relegated to the CAGE program at Aptakisic Jr. High, a program that seems to leave no alternative to the students but to nurse their rage and hatred against the system and the evil monitor. Like prisoners of war, they develop a communication system and partake in acts of civil disobedience. The good news is that conditions like this can lead to strong relationships being forged, so much so, you can unite together and start a war. I would say that things get a little out of hand but no one in the book seems to think so, not Gurion or his rag-tag group.

Glad I read it but also glad that I'm done with it. This book has dominated my reading for a month...it is difficult to hold while petting your cat and my cat doesn't take no for an answer.

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The Instructions by Adam Levin

The Instructions by Adam Levin, 1030 pages.
This is a big, crazy book. It doesn't seem crazy when you're reading it, only in retrospect, the same way that all of the characters are totally believable when you are reading their stories, but then between sessions you start to doubt that any 10-year-old could talk, or plan, or think the way that Gurion ben Judah Maccabee does, or the act the way that Benji Nakamook does. Maybe Gurion is the Messiah, though. He's not really saying, or he's not really sure. But he does have several hundred middle-school-aged scholars from Hebrew schools all across the northwest Chicago suburbs willing to believe in him. And he does have all of the kids in the lockdown "cage" program at Aptakisic Middle School willing to join with him on the Side of Damage, protecting the downtrodden, and the Israelites. It is a wonderful read up until the end when it all . . . well, read it and find out, though it was, for me, a little hard to take, and hard to figure out exactly what happened to everyone. There is so much packed in this book, from critiques of slapslap and Marx Brothers' films, to wonderful moments with Philip Roth as a character. Gurion, Benji, Vincie Portite, Eliza June Watermark, and all of the rest are great characters, and this is a great book. I forsee brisk sales of "Side of Damage" and "We damage we" T-shirts among the cool kids.

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