The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation

Whenever I hear the term “mind-blowing” I immediately think of that horrendous period of time after Inception came out in theaters, and it was literally the only adjective used in any conversation ever.

“Aw man, that movie blew my mind” “Wait, it blew your mind? It blew my mind!” “BLOOD BROTHERS!”

Sigh. Remember that?

After that horrific phase, I have tried to replace the hated term with some more creative alternatives whenever I can.

But in the case of this M.T. Anderson novel I cannot.

Because, guys, I’m not kidding around here, this book blew my freakin’ MIND!

(I don't necessarily mean that in a good way).

You see, I opened this expecting to find typical young adult angst, typical young adult characters, and, most of all, typical young adult vernacular. So I opened up the book and I found THIS:

“My mother was surrounded always by admirers: scholars, poets, painters, bucks, and blades. She let them all pay homage; for though she was now in low estate, she had been bred for the court, and was accustomed to the crush of supplicants. She hearkened little to the insinuations of flattery or the curtseys of obsequiousness, but returned all idle, pretty chatter in its own coin.” (page 34).

HOLD THE PHONE.

This is how the entire BOOK is written. And let me tell you, this book is no “oh I’ll just stow it in my purse and carry it around” kinda book. This is a full fledged, “I hope you’ve reinforced your bookshelf, because I will do all that I can to make it collapse” kinda book. And the whole thing is written like that.

This type of writing may not seem so shocking to those not familiar with the genre of young adult fiction, but let me tell you. This is trippy. I am not used to this.

M.T. Anderson…WHO ARE YOU?

"My spectacles do be perched in a marginally askew manor upon my cunning visage, as an inebriated navy man may abandon his practiced upright stature to lean precariously upon his vessel’s mast. I know what obsequiousness means!"

After my initial bafflement by the sheer ridiculousness of the narration (I mean, obsequiousness? Really? That shouldn’t be a word. It sounds like some sort of dancing sequined octopus king and that really should never be given it’s own word. Now what was I saying? I got distracted by the dancing octopus in my mind.) Oh right, the elegant wording of the narration put me immediately on guard.

You see children, (or adults, tweens, humans, pirates, whatever best describes you), in my extensive experience, when it comes to young adult literature, there is a big difference between good writing and good plot. The best young adult books have a healthy balance, (and there are many that fit this bill).

Example:

Or: A very short man gets totally peer pressured into highly dangerous activities for cash.

And, unfortunately, there are many young adult books with both terrible plot and incredibly shitty writing.

Example: I Am Number Bullshit.

Now, in general, I think that good plot is more important than good writing. In fact, I think plot could kick writing’s whiny ass any day of the week. I don’t enjoy books where nothing happens. If someone tells me that a books is “beautifully written” I run for the hills because that is not the way a book should be described. Is it thought-provoking? Is it engaging? Is it entertaining? Those are the three golden questions. If your answer is “no…but the writing is just so lovely” then, I’m sorry, but your book does not have the Shannon Stamp of Approval, a thing that is necessary for respectable existence.

Without this you are nothing.

And so, although my mind was completely blown by the stunning imagery and turns of phrases in this book, I was still left unsatisfied because not that much happened.

"This book is a wild, wild ride."

I also didn’t feel connected to Octavian at all because his speech was always so formal. It kept a distance between him and me. And I don’t like that. I like to be up close and personal with my characters. I like things to get uncomfortable. They try to back away but I persist, and very, very slowly, they learn to accept that I am here to stay, and they quietly succumb to the inevitable.

Oh goodness. You probably think I’m really weird now don’t you.

Needless to say, Octavian and I do not have a bond.

But I’m not totally discounting this book. I do recommend it for people willing to put in the effort of looking up the word “obsequiousness”. It’s a fascinating, and beautiful read. It takes place during the American Revolution, and I can’t know for sure, because I’m not very good at history and I really don’t feel like spending time looking this up, but some of the things that happen in the book are probably historically accurate. Which is pretty flippin’ sweet. And if not, it’s still an interesting look at race relations during that period.

So this is neither gem, nor anthracite. It’s somewhere in between. Howsabout….bronze? I’ma gonna go with bronze.

This is also bronze.

And so my noble quest continues. Oh dear readers do not fret, for I have not tired from my search yet. Continue to have hope and blah blah blah you get the point I'm going to bed.

I Am Number Four

I apologize in advance for letting my hipster side show, but I definitely knew about I am Number 4 before it was popular. I stumbled across this book in a young adult section of a book store (where I spend an embarrassing amount of my time) and I thought it sounded AWESOME!

This was me upon finding this book:

This was me after reading the first HOLYFREAKIN’EPIC chapter:

This was me after discovering that the main character is just a boring whiny teenager:

This was me after finishing the book and realizing that I’ve been taken for a fool:

That’s right people. Pittacus Lore thinks that his readers are idiots. He dumbs down every concept in this book so that what promised to be like this:

Actually turns out like this:

Woah woah woah is the author’s last name really Kirk? That’s like if a frycook’s last name was Lagasse.

Being an intelligent human being, I was pretty insulted by the dumbassness of this book, and I was pretty angry at the author, Pittacus Lore. Except here’s the kicker: Pittacus Lore is a pseudonym. I have no idea who actually wrote this book but it was not Pittacus Lore. How do I know this? Pittacus Lore is a character in his own freakin’ book. Now, this has the potential to be cool (check out Lemony Snicket in A Series of Unfortunate Events) but in this book it fails. It fails with a violent fury. It crashes and it burns. And then it explodes. And then dies of natural causes.

You know why it fails? Because this book is written from the perspective of the main character, John (oh, by the way, the protaganist’s name is John Smith. The originality astounds me.) How can Pittacus Lore be a character in his own book, claim to have written the book, and then have the book narrated by some shit-for-brains teenager who can’t even recognize that his dog, who’s dumbass name is Bernie Kosar, has unusual powers?

“I leave Bernie Kosar in the dust. I look behind me and he is running as fast as he can, yet I am pulling ahead of him. The wind through my hair, the trees passing in a blur. It all feels great. Then Bernie Kosar bolts into the woods and disappears from sight. I’m not sure if I should stop and wait for him. Then I turn around and Bernie Kosar jumps out of the woods ten feet in front of me.

I look down at him and he looks up at me, tongue to the side, a sense of glee in his eyes.

‘You’re an odd dog, you know that?’”(page 195).

Now that right there just doesn’t make sense.

I also take issue with the name of the planet that they are originally from. It’s called Lorien. This name is sooooo original for a coupla reasons:

1) The author’s last name is Lore. So….what? You thought of a cool word and decided to use it for everything? Get yourself a goddam baby name book and think of some different names. J.K. Rowling practically invented an entire dictionary. You can think of a few good names if you actually put any sort of time into it.

2) Lorien is already a place. And it is not a dying planet billions of lightyears away. It is this:

It will always be this, and stealing from J.R.R. Tolkien is one of the least cool things a writer can do. Yes he was brilliant, but using his material does not make you brilliant.

So as you can probably tell, I didn’t enjoy this book. I do not recommend it. Even the battle sequences were predictable and just plain stupid.

You're a fool.

The worst part was that the novel ended with a cliffhanger. His guardian left him a very important letter, explaining why he is on Earth and other really important, intriguing things, and John goes “Oh, I’ll read it later”, pockets it, drives away into the sunset, and the book ENDS. It ENDS.

........

WHAT?!

I understand that for the purposes of writing a sequel, you want at least some sort of cliffhanger but that is just the sleaziest thing I have ever heard. It’s a cliffhanger because he decides not to read a letter? In my definition, the cliffhanger needs to be something completely out of the protaganist’s control. Maybe his girlfriend gets kidnapped? An old man appears and tells him everything will be explained if he follows him to his secret lair? A bad case of heartburn threatens to ruin his day? ANYTHING other than choosing not to read a letter immediately. It’s obvious to me that Pittacus doesn’t give a shit about this story, he just wants to insure that he has a steady income.

That Pittacus. Besmirching the name of Young Adult Literature.

For SHAME!

And so I rate this the lowest of the low.

I Am Number Four is not a gem of the genre. It is ANTHRACITE.

Is there any hope for young adults? Do these gems I am searching for exist? Stay tuned to find out!

Welcome!

As an English major, I am often required to read the ol’ classics we all know and love.

Charles Dickens:

“Hello I am Charles Dickens, and this is my beard, Tiny Tim.”

Emily Bronte:

Her eyes could toast raw bread where it lay.

George Eliot:

“Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope”

And so on and so forth.

And though I adore these authors and their works, (those earlier taunts were taunts of love), I don’t often read them in my own free time. I spend my idle hours with a different genre altogether.

Yes, you noble surfers of the internet, it’s true.

I am obsessed with young adult fantasy.

Now before you cover your eyes and your ears and recite Faulkner loudly to drown out my words, I need to give you a little disclaimer:

I hate Twilight.

Ok? ... Does that make it better?

I’m not one of those girls who becomes obsessed with a book because Edward Cullen is cute. Nor am I one of those girls who will hate a book just because it’s fashionable to hate it. I’m an English major. I am well read. I read with a critical eye.

In short, I know my shit.

Unlike a lot of Twilight haters out there, I have actually read the entire series. And I have formed a very educated thought-out, detailed, opinion about the franchise:

Twilight sucks.

HAH! GET IT?! VAMPIRES?

…

Anyway, Twilight is horrible because of the messages it gives to young girls.

Sucky message number 1: It is perfectly acceptable for a man to withhold sex from you in order to bribe you into marrying him.

"If you wear this 3 and a half pound ring on your finger for the rest of you life, I will do dirty dirty things to you."

Sucky message number 2: If a man creeps into your driveway in the dead of night and steals the engine out of your car to insure that you don’t go anywhere, it is a sign of love, and should be rewarded. (But not with sex. Remember, he’s withholding that from you.)

No sex! No driving!

Sucky message number 3: If you get dumped, just put yourself into a lot of incredibly dangerous situations so that he’ll have to come back and save you. These include, but are not limited to, walking provocatively past a group of men who have claimed that they would like to rape you, riding a motorcycle for the first time eighty miles per hour down a winding road, and jumping off a cliff.

Actually, maybe he would love her better if she's dead. Isn't he dead? He's just the perfect boyfriend isn't he?

Sucky message number 4: Babies eat their way out of your stomach.

"Re...nes...mee!"

There are more problems I have with this book (Bella is the most boring character I’ve ever encountered in my life) but I’m not going to go into them here. I was just using this to gain your trust. Do you trust my opinion now? And how!

So this blog will mainly consist of me reviewing young adult books that I have read. My mission: To weed out the awful Twilight-esque books that are soiling this noble breed of literature and to find the gems of the young adult fantasy genre (heeey! That’s the name of the blog!) If you have any requests of books you would like me to read and review please comment! And now LET THE GREAT EXPERIMENT BEGIN!!!!

(That was an Arrested Development reference. See? I’m cool.)

And for all you Twihards out there: Really? You’re excited about this trailer? Because this made my eyes bleed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Vd-x0FVIs