Grip of the Shadow Plague

 It takes a really good writer to make the reader cry for more than five pages over and over again and when you think you've got a handle on your emotions just to get kicked in the emotional teeth again. Thanks Brandon Mull. I needed a salty shower just on my face this morning. 

Kendra and Seth are still at their grandparents house for the summer. It is too risky to send them home yet because the Society of the Evening Star is still out to get them. And now it seems that even Fablehaven isn't safe anymore. Now creatures of light are turning dark from this unknown plague and they don't know why. Kendra has also been issued an invitation to join the Knights of the Dawn and help them retrieve more artifacts. Kendra and Warren go down to Arizona with other members of the Knights of the Dawn. The others at Fablehaven have found that not only has this dark plague attacked the creatures, but it can also turn human's into shadows that now only Seth can see. More and more creatures at Fablehaven are being infected and there are very few sanctuaries left for anyone. 

This was a very good book. There were times when I most defiantly didn't want to put it down and I wanted to read on even if my son wasn't too thrilled about it. (Yes I might have dragged him to the book against his will, but I really wanted to know what was going to happen.) It was well written with good pacing that kept us well engaged. There was a part that I pretty much knew for sure what was going to happen (which I was right), but it didn't stop the emotions from flowing over their banks. Well done Mr. Mull.

I've come to very much love these characters. I still have my suspicions about one or two of them, but I'm very intrigued to see what will happen to them in the future. All of them have their own personalities that they stick to and are endearing. I loved the development of new characters that we got to interact with, specifically a mustached twirling gent whom I like very much. 

I very much am excited to read the next book and will probably try to make my son listen to some of it during Christmas break even though "reading is just before we go to school, mom!" We'll see, my son, we'll see. 

Reserevation Blues

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie is a book that I had to read for my Native American Literature class at my University. While I can understand that Sherman Alexie is a well known and much enjoyed author and presenter, I have some qualms with his story.

While it didn't jump around back and forth between past and present time like other Native American Literature I've read, this book still jumps a lot between abstract ideas and concrete ones. There is the constant question of: What is going on here? Characters, who were real people in history, appear and are part of the story, but then at the same time it is a blatant critique on the situation that many of the Native American's are in on reservations.

I know this post was short, but over all I didn't much care for the book. It was more of a political statement than good storytelling. I won't be reading it again (most likely ever).

If someone were interested in learning more about the Native American people and their situation, I'd point them in another dirction, away from this book.

Ceremony

The novel Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko is actually an assigned reading that I had to do for my Native American Literature class in college. It is defiantly a different type of book and one that raised a lot of questions for me about the type American Indian.

The novel is a third person presentation of the mind of Tayo, a World War II vet who was able to finally return home from the Pacific Theater after the war was over. However, do to the loss of his cousin and uncle in the war suffers from "battle fatigue" or more commonly known today as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He has a hard time dealing with his PTSD and the family matters that accrued from before and after the war.

In trying to cope with what is happening, Tayo is instructed by his grandmother to go see a medicine man to see if he could be healed that way--the white Army doctors were able to help him stop feeling like "white smoke" and invisible, but they haven't been able to help out much more than that. He goes to two medicine men and they end up helping him through the ceremonies and stories they provide.

Tayo's presentation of the world is extremely skewed. This novel is the definition of a non-reliable narrator. The narration of the novel constantly jumps back and forth in time, so much so that it is disorienting and rather confusing.  His flashbacks can last anywhere from a small paragraph of five sentences to pages. There are also no chapters, just paragraph and page breaks to separate what is happening to our narrator. 

This book, in my opinion, is good for anyone who is looking for insight into the life of any vet who suffered from PTSD as well as a look into the traditions of the American Indian. Some people may think that Silko is simply portraying a stereotype of drunk Indians who have nothing better to do with their time, but she says in her preface that she saw many of the vets that returned from the war act the way that many of Tayo's friends do. They go to bars to get drunk and to "remember the good old days" when the white women would throw themselves at them because of the uniform they wore. 

Over all, it was an interesting read. One that opened my eyes to the culture that I had never known before. One of my classmates, who is Navajo, said that it was a fairly accurate depiction. He had been to a few of the places mentioned in the book (Gallup in particular) and said that the world portrayed in the novel was very accurate--which is really scary sometimes. I particularly found the story of how whites came to be as eye opening. 

I would recommend this book to someone who was looking for more information about the Indian people, or who were looking for information about PTSD and how it effects the people who have it.