Hold On

Sacred by Dennis Lehane

This was different from the first two books in the series. For starters, Kenzie and Gennaro had to be brought out of semi-retirement for the case. The two of them are different people than they had been in A Drink Before the War and Darkness, Take My Hand. One of the things I love most about the series is that Kenzie and Gennaro are affected by their experiences. Their cases damage them emotionally and, as a result, we see the result of these changes book by book.

This time around, the two detectives travel up and down the Atlantic coast on a twisted case that makes no sense to either of them. The only thing that does make any sense to them is each other.

Once again, I praise Dennis Lehane for the way he writes his characters. Patrick and Angie continue to be real, which becomes a more difficult task the longer one writes about the same people. The characters introduced in Sacred, some of whom are old to Kenzie and Gennaro while being new to us, are fleshed out in such a way that we get to know them to a point that we can believe and understand their actions. There is nothing worse than being forced to take a characters personality at the word of the author; it makes his/her actions fake to some degree. Not so in Sacred. Had Lehane failed in this, the entire novel would have been a failure. There are so many twists and turns--even the detectives say, "black is white...up is down"--that the reader must fully buy into the characters in order for the story to be at all believable.

What this book is really about, though, goes back to the second paragraph of this review. This book is about two people, the love they share, and what they can and will do for each other. This book is about how man cannot survive alone, but is meant to live with others. Sacred is the story of togetherness over individualism. Patrick and Angie have shown throughout the series that they will stop at no ends to save each other. It is only that level of commitment that allows them to survive this case.

I love these stories. They are multi-layered, fast, and fun.

B+

Delving Into Darkness

Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane

It is easy to see Dennis Lehane's growth as an author while reading Darkness, Take My Hand. All of the characters are much more fully developed than in A Drink Before the War. Their relationships with each other have grown. One of the pitfalls of many series is that the authors develop one or two relationships as the series progresses, but all relationships change over time. Lehane did a masterful job of developing and changing all of the relationships between Patrick, Angie, Bubba, Devin, and Oscar. In this novel, these people are very real.

In Darkness, Take My Hand, the author delves deep into dark moral depravity and pure evil. This novel was very much what I had thought and hoped The Dark Knight would be as a film. This book succeeded where that movie failed.

Lehane's writing is intense. There are no down times. Instead, there is a good mix of action with mental tension. Even though the entire novel is written in the first person from Patrick's point of view, we are able to get into all these people's heads and see who they really are, what they are really about. This seems to be Lehane's greatest strength as a writer.

Also, this novel was able to explore homosexuality in a very real way. Much like he handled race and racism in A Drink Before the War, Lehane was able to put the characters into positions that forced them to deal with and acknowledge thoughts and emotions that normally never rise above the subsconscience. This is a quality that makes him stand out among many other writers.

There were two things, though, that diminished the novel in my eyes. Ironically, the first is the result of Lehane putting us into his characters' heads. I figured out the identity of the killer less than halfway through. I thought it was too obvious, and every clue thereafter only confirmed what I already knew.

The other was worse; it was a bad decision that I do not feel the character would have made. It wasn't The Talented Mr. Ripley bad, but it was bad nonetheless. Without spoiling, I can say that photos of unidentified people found in a suspect's dwelling would have been shown to Patrick and Angie. That was a big mistake. Darkness, Take My Hand, would have been an A- or B+ book without it.

C+

A Drink Before the War

A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane

Last night I read a review on Goodreads that stated the racial references in A Drink Before the War were outdated. What a ridiculous statement. There is no statement on race in America that is outdated except, maybe, slavery. While Dennis Lehane's debut novel has received much praise, misguided thoughts like the one referenced above probably had a great deal to do with it not receiving even more. Race, more specifically, racial imbalance and misunderstanding, are at the heart of this novel. Lehane, much to his credit, does not skirt around the issue. Instead he deals with it in a very real and mature way, but better than just about any White author I can recall.

There is no perfection here. Everyone in A Drink Before the War is severely flawed. Thinking about it now, I do not think there is a single character I would like to know in real life. But I do know many of them in real life. This appears to be the author's greatest skill.

I love the relationship between the two main characters, Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. I feel them, and I root for them. I get angry at them and sometimes want to shoot them. But I'm with them.

The technicalities of the case leave a little to be desired. This was not the best technical story, but the emotion of the case and the racial tension that is never hidden make it worthwhile. You will not want to put the book down (it arrived at my door via UPS less than 19 hours ago).

All in all, a great book.

B

The Luckiest Man

Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig by Jonathan Eig

This was a great biography, but the deeper into the story I got, the more difficult the book was to read. That is the result of superb writing. Jonathan Eig did as thorough a job as possible of getting into the details of Lou Gehrig's illness and physical deterioration. The muscular atrophy, search for diagnosis, loss of motor skills, and search for answers are painful to read.

Most biographies are of people who are no longer with us, and we know the ending going in, but rare are those whose deaths are so agonizing to witness. Eig's research and writing take you right there with Lou and his wife, Eleanor, as the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis destroys the man's body. The subtitle of the book is The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig; the back of the book is all about the death. It is not pretty and romantic and nostalgic like the clips we have all seen from July 4, 1939. This book is full of the real.

The rest of the book, though, is full of the slugger's life. I have said before that I am a fan of exhaustive research; Eig's pays off into the story of a man about whom baseball fans should know a great deal more than we do. Gehrig was a quiet and unassuming giant who bridged the Yankee gap between celebrity behemoths Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio. As Eig points out, the Iron Horse was never truly appreciated until he was gone, first from the Yankee lineup then from the earth.

This book is a pleasure for any baseball fan.

A

Fly, Woman, Fly

Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith

I thoroughly enjoyed Flygirl. It was fast reading, and the author, Sherri L. Smith, does a good job of keeping the pace quick without sacrificing any of Ida Mae's emotion. At no point in the novel does the reader leave Ida Mae's head; as a result, we never lose her perspective. In other first person narratives, there are times when the text is strictly describing action without providing the narrator's feelings on what he/she is witnessing. Smith, however, gives us everything in the context of Ida Mae's feelings.

In truth, her feelings are what this book is all about. Only tangentially is Flygirl about WASP or World War II or even the opportunity for a woman of color to fly airplanes. This is a story of struggle, both internal and external, as well as the choices and sacrifices one must make in order to accomplish a goal. It is the story of every woman of color who felt she could only fight one war at a time, be it versus racism or versus sexism. Flygirl is the story of a battle with one's self.

The author also did an excellent job of briefly bringing up issues that would not have affected Ida Mae directly but were critical nonetheless. For example, there is a scene during which Ida Mae and Lily remark how young the soldiers had become. Overall, there is a very authentic feel to the novel. It is a mostly untold and, to the masses, unknown story of Twentieth Century American history.

I loved it.

The only hiccup comes in Chapters 20 and 21, when there is a little timeline mix-up. No big deal, just an editing mistake that takes nothing away from the story.

A-

A Worthy Conclusion

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

I was pleasantly surprised. After reading The Battle of the Labyrinth, I had serious doubts that Rick Riordan would wrap up the series suitably. The Last Olympian was a worthy conclusion.

There were a few moments that were too hokey for me to place it on the same level as The Titan's Curse, but this was a very good book. The action starts right away. The first four books of the series began with two or three pages of fluff before really getting started. Not this one. The first sentence is, "The end of the world started when a pegasus landed on the hood of my car." No buildup here.

The Last Olympian also features Riordan's best job of blending the action with the relationships while avoiding filler. As a result, The Titan's Curse's biggest flaw does not exist here.

While there was some stupid (gods to not need war strategy advice from a teenager who has proven on multiple occasions to be a bad war strategist himself), most of the storylines developed and wrapped up in a logical and satisfying fashion. I have previously praised Riordan for his ability to write the teenage girls well, but he managed to step his game up this time. I was happy with what he did with Annabeth and Rachel and Clarisse and Silena. His writing of Nico di Angelo was much better this time around. In general, all of the characters are better written in The Last Olympian than they were in The Titan's Curse.

This was, in my opinion, the series' second-best book. I couldn't put it down.

One thing that did bother me was the curse of Achilles. There are many references to it, but even after Percy completes the process, there is never any mention of what dangers he may face because of it. There is a great deal of hype about it, but there is no substance behind it. That keeps the book from being as good as it could have been.

B+

Trapped in the Maze

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan

The Battle of the Labyrinth was a huge disappointment to me. It did not get good until halfway through. The first half of the book was action-packed like the first three books of the series, but the action was, for lack of a better term, dumb. At the start of the series, Percy Jackson was twelve. Throughout The Battle of the Labyrinth, he was fourteen. The book was written as if there was no mental development or personal growth during those two years. Percy behaves as if he had learned nothing. He constantly makes the same mistakes and is still surprised that things are mystical or immortal or just plain not normal. He is the son of Poseidon; his persistent surprise and disbelief are unrealistic to me. A little of it is fine, but this book was filled with way too much.

I knew it would be hard for this book to please me as much as The Titan's Curse did. Three of my four favorite characters from that book do not appear in The Battle of the Labyrinth. That fact combined with the thoughts I had while reading this book helped me to realize by problem with Rick Riordan's writing: he writes battles well and relationships well and teenage girls very well, but he is pretty crappy at writing from the mind of a teenage boy. The best parts of this book were the times when Percy interacted with girls, specifically Annabeth, Rachel, and Calypso. Everything else was rushed and, to a certain extent, nonsensical.

After reading The Battle of the Labyrinth, I feel as though hours of my life were wasted on the search for Pan. The resolution was not bad, but the execution of it was. It was rushed. A scene that could have been developed and brought forth great drama was quick and, ultimately, disappointing. It, like much of this book, was a letdown. The climax ended too quickly, too perfectly. Events that should have been filled with tension and drama instead came and went like the snap of a finger. It was very much like the climactic scene of the No Country for Old Men film--you waited for it and waited for it, but it never really happened. The only difference here was that The Battle of the Labyrinth gave it to me on four separate occasions.

It was a necessary book in the series, and the plot was not at all bad. Poor execution hurt it. Despite that, it is not difficult to get through. It still builds the reader's anticipation for the series finale, The Last Olympian.

C-

Stepping It Up...

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan

Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first: (1) there is still too much of Percy being surprised at magic or that something seemingly innocent could be dangerous and (2) the Greek name is Heracles, not Hercules.

Aside those two things, I loved this book. This is easily the best of the first three novels of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series. We are really moving now, and I cannot wait to get through the final two books. I am into this story.

Yes, The Titan's Curse is mostly predictable. It is a children's book. Predictability does not have to be bad. In the end, everything comes down to execution. This is where The Titan's Curse succeeded.

Rick Riordan did an excellent job of pacing the story and aging the plot. The cartoonish violence of The Lightning Thief has grown into real violence. Hormones are recognized and acknowledged now. The most impressive thing about the story, though, is the way Riordan wrote the relationships and interactions between the young characters. They all seem real to me, especially that between Percy and Annabeth.

I was pleasantly surprised by the development of Thalia's character arc. I loved everything about the way Riordan handled Artemis and her Hunters. That could have very easily been messed up--and it seemed it was heading that way in the beginning--but he developed them nicely into real beings.

My fear is that the greatness of The Titan's Curse will not be carried over into the next book. But, boy, am I hoping it does.

A

The Hero's Life

Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life by Richard Ben Cramer

Excellent biography. The only nitpick--and it is a minor one--is that the thirty years between Marilyn Monroe's death and the 1989 San Francisco earthquake are ignored. Reading further, though, let me know everything I needed to know about those years. This as thorough an examination of a somewhat reclusive enigma as you will ever read.

Richard Ben Cramer must be commended for his research. It is clear the author truly loves and admires his subject, but he did not hide the negatives from the reader. He gives you all the gory details about Joe D. Cramer carefully connected compartments of DiMaggio's life: family, love life, fame, baseball. The result is a full story of a full life.

I highly recommend this to anyone who loves baseball or just wants to learn a little more about America around the era of World War II. The Hero's Life is a keeper.

A

Sea of Monsters

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

This was a much different--and much better--book than The Lightning Thief. Finishing The Sea of Monsters, the second book of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, gave me the sense that the first book exists for the sole purpose of introducing readers to the characters. Nothing in The Lightning Thief seems important to the overall arc of the series. This is a good thing.

The Sea of Monsters really gets things going. Of course there are a few paragraphs here and there that rehash things for readers who did not read the first book, but that is to be expected in a series. What I liked best about The Sea of Monsters is that it is a lot less hokey than its predecessor. The action begins right away and does not stop until the end. It is a quickly moving plot.

One major drawback is the high quantity of moments during which someone acts wary or concerned and Percy reacts with an attitude of What can go wrong? Everything is normal. I realize that the Percy of The Sea of Monsters has only just completed the seventh grade, but the kid isn't stupid. He knows who he is and what's going on around him; these moments were not at all believable behavior. I hope these moments die down as the series gets deeper, Percy gets older, and Riordan becomes a better writer.

The most disturbing trend about the series thus far is the propensity to make everyone with any type of disability a mythical creature. I find it very patronizing. The demigods are all dyslexic because they are hardwired to understand Ancient Greek. They all have ADHD so they can be more keenly aware of everything around them. The stupid kid turns out to be a monster. This kind of writing belittles those who do suffer from these afflictions. Some is not a problem; all is.

The main arc has me, though. I shall keep reading.

B-

Just the Start...

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

First, I must say that the Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief novel is much better than the movie. The book is much more adventurous and violent. There are encounters with mythical creatures at every turn, which makes the story fun.

Prior to reading this, I hadn't read a children's book since I was a child. I don't know if all children's books are overly simplistic at times, but I was a little put off by all the exposition and rehashing. Not much thought was required to read the text, but it is a children's book. It was a fun read, though.

The most bothersome thing was that the only two characters we are specifically told are not White are Medusa and Charon. What is that? That's what we get in modern America.

It's just the first of a series, so I don't have too much to say about it. I'm sure my feelings will form more fully after another book or two.

C+