The Girl from the Garden / Parnaz Foroutan 271pp.

I am generally wary of novels with fruit on the cover.  They tend to be heartwarming family sagas, for which I reached my quota in about 1994.  But this story was something darker and stranger than its cover or title would anticipate, centering on an early 20th-century Jewish-Iranian family, and told through the recollections of one family daughter living in contemporary Los Angeles.   Asher marries Rakhel, but they fail to have a child, while Asher's brother Ibrahim and his wife happily await their first.  Asher's and Ibrahim's choices following the grief of the couple's infertility set up a twisted, dark revenge scenario, oddly believable and braided with strands from Old Testament greatest hits: the wisdom of Solomon, Abraham's sacrifice, Sarah and Hagar, Rachel and Leah.  Foroutan is skilled and compelling, but this is one bleak landscape.  The moral of the story: hug a gynecologist today! (A pat on the back to a psychiatrist and a suffragette would not go amiss, either.)

What pet should I get?

What pet should I get? / Dr. Seuss 40 pgs.

This gem was discovered in the papers of Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) just a couple of years ago even  though he passed away in 1991.  In this book, a pair of siblings are allowed to choose a pet but only one.  They find many options at the pet store and it is difficult for them to choose.  Of course there are the standard types of pets and also some very special Seuss creations as well.

Wonderful for all fans of Dr. Seuss.

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Fables 21 & 22

Fables, vol. 21: Happily Ever After by Bill Willingham and Matt Sturges, art by a whole pile of people, 194 pages

Fables, vol. 22: Farewell by Bill Willingham, art by a whole pile of people, 160 pages

What can I say about these final two volumes in the epic Fables series? Willingham wraps up his huge series with plenty of fanfare and fighting, and quite a bit of death (and Death, whose appearance makes for a hilarious highlight in the final volume). To be completely honest, I feel like the series itself went on longer than it should have, and the last volume DEFINITELY did. The main story line was peppered with final bows from characters, in two-to-three page tales: "The Last Grimble Story," "The Last Beauty and the Beast Story," "The Last Three Blind Mice Story," etc. I get wanting to say goodbye, and yes, some of the stories were good, but Willingham was milking it. 

That said, I never would have read all the way through to the last page if this wasn't a fantastic series. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in trying out graphic novels.

Challenge year totals and new wild cards!

The official Missouri Book Challenge year has finished, and we're now 9 days into the next challenge year. Here are the final totals for the year, which ran Sept. 1, 2014-Aug. 31, 2015:

Amy  52/15,411
Christa  113/31,784
K  6/1,305
Kara  87/24,038
Karen  84/25,864
Kathleen  57/18,271
Linda  46/16,169
Marilyn  12/3,338
Natalie  1/192
Patrick  95/33,591
Rob  1/430

Grand total: 554 books/170,393 pages/11 bloggers

No, these aren't the wild Cards we're talking about.

2014-2015 wild cards: 
12 books originally published more than 100 years ago
27 books told from an animal's point of view
6 bloggers who have worked here for 5 years or more

****NEW WILD CARD CATEGORY ANNOUNCEMENT****

During the 2015-2016 challenge year, we get extra points for books that feature diseases or medicine; books that have been translated from another language; and for bloggers who were born outside of Missouri. Please tag your posts with "disease" or "translated" if your book applies!

The Seven Good Years

The Seven Good Years / Etgar Keret 177 pgs.

The seven good years are those between the birth of his son and the death of his father.  Like Keret's fiction, this book is a series of short essays that are broken up into "years".  Some essays are about his family, some about very random events, all are pure genius.  He tells of his trip to Europe as a kid and the thing that left the biggest impression that he was given a tiny can of Coca-Cola and a mini box of cornflakes on the airplane. He doesn't want to brag but he has managed a special status among parents at the playground because he is a man who is hardly ever working.  When asked by his mother about the game Angry Birds, he learns the slightly distressing fact that his wife that she plays because "I love killing things."

Keret has become one of my all time favorites.  I have Kathleen to thank for introducing him to me.

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The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly

The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician's First Year by Matt McCarthy, 323 pages

In The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly, McCarthy documents his intern year as a medical resident, starting with his first shaky, uncertain days and carrying through to the competency he feels at the end of a rough, sleepless year. And he recalls it in such an easygoing, sometimes-humorous, sometimes-horrified style that the story just sucks you in. As weird as it may sound, I loved reading about his mistakes and the very human ways in which he responded to them (second-guessing himself, freaking out). Doctors can seem robotic in their interactions, particularly when they have so many people to see in such a short period of time, so it's good to see the experiences of the first year, where they're scared and worried (but still under strict supervision). A great book, well worth checking out.

Fairest vol. 5

Fairest, vol. 5: The Clamour for Glamour by Mark Buckingham, art by Russ Braun, 160 pages

Focusing on the Fables' Farm creatures and their wish for transforming spells, this is the last installment of the Fairest spin-off, which is supposed to feature the women of Fables. Problem is, this volume (like the one before it) doesn't. Instead, our narrator through the glamour lottery is a grouchy male sunflower; a second story line focuses on Reynard Fox, whose glamour was the root of all the transformation-related problems at the farm. These wouldn't be bad story lines for Fables, but Fairest is not the right place for them, particularly when there are so many female fables who deserve for their own stories to be told. I'm not too sad that this series has come to an end.

Double Whammy

Double Whammy by Carl Hiaasen  320 pp.

This is an early novel by Hiaasen but the premise is similar to his other Florida based stories. Detective/photographer R.J. Decker is hired by a wealthy to investigate cheating in the world of bass fishing competitions.  The prime suspect in the corruption is the star of a fishing show produced by a big religious television network run by The Reverend Weeb, a not-so-pure evangelist. When a body is found connected with the tournaments Decker finds himself deep in a murder investigation after first being a suspect. With the help of his ex-wife and Hiaasen's recurring character, the Everglades hermit/former Florida governor known as Skink, the story gets even more convoluted and funny while more dead bodies appear. Of course, Skink is the hero of it all. And as an added bonus, devoted Hiaasen readers learn how Skink lost his eye.

The Book of Speculation

The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler, 339 pages

The son of a carnival mermaid and brother of a tarot reader, Simon Watson is a reference librarian who's about to get laid off (damn budget cuts) when he receives an old, mysterious book in the mail. It's the log book and diary from a traveling circus dating back to the 1770s, and a rare books dealer has sent it to Simon because Simon's grandmother is mentioned. As he starts digging into the book, Simon realizes that the women of his family have all died in the same unlikely manner... and on the same day of the year. Alternating with the chapters about Simon and his dive into history, Swyler presents the story of Amos, a mute wild boy-turned-tarot reader whose story is told in Simon's mysterious book.

The story took a while to get going, but once it did, I really enjoyed it, particularly the historical chapters (I had trouble suspending disbelief when it came to Simon's assertion that a reference librarian has no need to be a "people person."), though once Simon's sister Enola and her electrically charged boyfriend Doyle show up, the modern chapters get a bit more interesting. Well worth the read though, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else Swyler has up her sleeve.

In the unlikely event, by Judy Blume

I hadn’t read any of Blume’s adult fiction before, but this was well-reviewed and is based on actual events in her own life.  Probably not the very best selection to read on a longish plane trip as it revolves around not one but three planes crashing into Elizabeth NJ, where Blume grew up, within a few short months of each other beginning in December 1951.  Part of its charm, for many of her generation, will be the evocation of that time through ads, jingles, and other current events besides the plane crashes.  It also brought back to me the concept of a “non-sked” airline, a term I hadn’t heard since my father worked as an airlines schedules analyst for United Airlines at that time.  A truly terrifying concept – cheap fares on ill-maintained planes which make up their own schedules pretty much on a whim.  Whatever you may think about the trials of air travel today, at least in this country it’s no longer the Wild West out there.  Miri, at fifteen, witnesses two of these crashes and is intimately involved with several people whose lives are changed by these tragedies.  She also experiences her first real love, learns secrets about her single mother, and deals with the loss of close friendships.  A good read but never rises above a middling YA novel.  402 pp.