Book Report Monday: Gold by Chris Cleave

Title: Gold

Author: Chris Cleave

Genre: Fiction

Synopsis: If your dreams pull you in one direction and your heart in another, which should you follow? This is the question that haunts Kate Meadows, a world champion athlete whose eight-year-old daughter Sophie is battling a recurrence of childhood leukemia just as Kate is about to compete for her last chance at an Olympic gold medal. For years, Kate has sacrificed everything for her family and watched her best friend and closest rival, Zoe Castle, conquer the world stage. Kate has never won gold and will have to go through Zoe - who has everything to lose - to get it. Now her child is facing a life-threatening illness, and the stakes are higher than ever. How can she do what is right for her daughter without abandoning all of her dreams?

(from Goodreads)

Why did I pick it up?: I read Little Bee by Chris Cleave several years ago and immediately put him on my "Must Read Everything By These Authors" list.

My Review: Gold is a different kind of book than Cleave's prior Incendiary and Little Bee, both of which were shorter, first person narratives dealing with issues that are not only political but deeply heart wrenching. Gold focuses on Olympic athletes, not quite on the same level as terrorism, which is at the core of Incendiary. Still the writing is solid and the conflict is clear even if it's not a global hot topic.

After years of training and competing together Zoe and Kate have become friends in addition to being rivals. It's a tough place to be with no middle ground, particularly when only one of them can go to the Olympics. Meanwhile Zoe continues her downward spiral of self destruction and Kate juggles her career with her family life as her daughter has a recurrence of cancer. Sophie, the little girl struggling with leukemia, is obsessed with Star Wars and I enjoyed all the references.

Since the  main characters are elite cyclists preparing for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, I felt that I learned a lot about Olympic athletes and cycling especially. Don't be deterred if you're not interested in those topics. It was never forced or boring, rather the educational tidbits wove in and out of the story naturally. I appreciated that.

I read this before the Winter Olympics in Socchi and whenever I heard about athletes who shared coaches and training facilities competing against each other, I remembered Zoe and Kate.

My Recommendation: Do you know someone who keeps telling you to read Jodi Piccoult's latest Tearjerker? Give them this. Also anyone into cycling should check it out.

For Next Week: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Book Report Monday: The Last Werewolf

Title: The Last Werewolf

Author: Glen Duncan

Genre: Adult Fantasy

Synopsis: Meet Jake. A bit on the elderly side (he turns 201 in March), but you'd never suspect it. Nonstop sex and exercise will do that for you--and a diet with lots of animal protein. Jake is a werewolf, and after the unfortunate and violent death of his one contemporary, he is now the last of his species. Although he is physically healthy, Jake is deeply distraught and lonely.

Jake's depression has carried him to the point where he is actually contemplating suicide--even if it means terminating a legend thousands of years old. It would seem to be easy enough for him to end everything. But for very different reasons there are two dangerous groups pursuing him who will stop at nothing to keep him alive.

Here is a powerful, definitive new version of the werewolf legend--mesmerising and incredibly sexy. In Jake, Glen Duncan has given us a werewolf for the twenty-first century--a man whose deeds can only be described as monstrous but who is in some magical way deeply human.

One of the most original, audacious, and terrifying novels in years.

(from Goodreads)

Why did I pick it up?: Sometimes books just won't leave you alone. I first added The Last Werewolf to my Goodreads "To Read" list when I saw it on the New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2011. I kept hearing about it and finally got it from the library.

Favorite Lines:  "There are beautiful women in Manhattan who would have married me on the spot for the charm I had over their mutts."

"Just live in it and let it bring what it brings."

My Review:  I was hooked by the opening scene. It wasn't the devil may care, intelligent, snarky tone of the narrator, Jake Marlowe-werewolf, womanizer, scotch drinker. Though all of that played a part, it was more personal. Jake was relaxing with some fancy booze and a Camel filter while his friend smoked a Gauloises. Fortunately, for my lungs and lifespan, I quit smoking years ago. But while still full of bad habits, I enjoyed both brands.

I started smoking heavily during my semester in Italy because, well do I need to explain? I tried Gauloises because they were recommended by a cute bartender. They're a French brand, not sold in the States. I figured if you're going to smoke, it might as well be French cigarettes and if you're going to have the hots for a bartender, he should be infuriatingly aloof and Dutch.

Marlowe is a werewolf James Bond...who eats people. This isn't a monster with a morally-instituted Vegan diet. Make no mistake about it every month when the moon gets full, Marlowe gets an appetite for a human being. Nothing else can satisfy him. Despite this, I was rooting for him to find his will to go on living another 200 years, to kill and eat thousands of people.

From a fantasy standpoint, it was refreshing to read a werewolf-centric story. Too often they are bit players in  the vampire show.

Duncan walks the line of werewolf mythology pretty closely. He addresses how one becomes a werewolf and the effects of silver and wolfsbane. He makes a few alterations as well. Most notably that a werewolf not only eats people but consumes their life. The description reminded me of vampires who absorb memories of their victims through blood.

After centuries of monthly feasts, he carries thousands of lives with him, giving dual meaning to his pronouncement, "I just don't want any more life."

Recommendation: Not for the faint of heart. Some scenes are as bloody and scandalous as an episode of True Blood. In my opinion, the novel would appeal to non-fantasy readers who enjoy smartly written and/or darkly comic novels.


Next Week: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

Book Report Monday: Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon

Title: Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Burton & Swinburne #3)

Author: Mark Hodder

Genre: Steampunk

Synopsis: It is 1863, but not the one it should be. Time has veered wildly off course, and now the first moves are being made that will lead to a devastating world war and the fall of the British Empire.

The prime minister, Lord Palmerston, believes that by using the three Eyes of Naga—black diamonds possessing unique properties—he’ll be able to manipulate events and avoid the war. He already has two of the stones, but the third is hidden somewhere in the Mountains of the Moon, the fabled source of the Nile.

Palmerston sends Sir Richard Francis Burton to recover it. For the king’s agent, it’s a chance to redeem himself after his previous failed attempt to find the source of the great river. That occasion had led to betrayal by his partner, John Hanning Speke. Now Speke is leading a rival expedition on behalf of the Germans, and it seems that the battle between the former friends may ignite the very war that Palmerston is trying to avoid!

Caught in a tangled web of cause, effect, and inevitability, little does Burton realize that the stakes are far higher than even he suspects.

A final confrontation comes in the mist-shrouded Mountains of the Moon, in war- torn Africa of 1914, and in Green Park, London, where, in the year 1840, Burton must face the man responsible for altering time: Spring Heeled Jack!

Burton and Swinburne’s third adventure is filled with eccentric steam-driven technology, grotesque characters, and bizarre events, completing the three-volume story arc begun in The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack and The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man

(from Goodreads)

Why did I pick it up?: I read the series at the behest of Jason, my Steampunk writer friend.

Favorite Lines: "Good grief! It's 1918 and that's still considered unconventional? Has the human race not evolved at all since my time?"

"I haven't a clue! I'm just a poet! But you'll find a way."

My Review: There were parts, predominately in the first half of the story, which were all about the African journey. I'm more interested in the characters driving the plot than the foliage and the heat and the way of the African landscape shimmered and blossomed in all its wild glory around Captain Burton. Though many people would undoubtedly enjoy being taken on a safari, I was distracted. And as a result the first half dragged a bit. The main plot was touched upon, but only just. I trusted Hodder to get there eventually but if there has been a little more to keep me curious I would have turned the pages faster.
That wasn't an issue for me in the first two books which were page turners from start to finish. The second half was character driven and I finished it in a few long reading sessions. I enjoyed the culmination of the bifurcated timeline. I thought it merged seamlessly.

One of my favorite things about the series were the geneticists, scientists who alter the genetic make up of plants and animals. That's how they move technology and industry forward. They turn dogs into mail carriers, breed swans big enough to ride, make a pistol out of a cactus, etc. Yet all these inventions come with a hilarious design flaw. The messenger parrots are my favorite. You recite your message, the bird memorizes it and flies off to repeat the message to the recipient. Handy for the 1860's, no? Or it would be but the parrots interject their own colorful language into the message, insulting the message recipient with inventive verbal abuse.

Recommendation: The series as a whole is a great for anyone interested in Steampunk.

Next Week: The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan