The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

This book is: a raucous yarn.
Other elements: elephants, communism, hijinks, bibles, murder, explosives, centenarians, crime, politics, atom bombs.
Read it: if your brain wants a treat.
Overall rating: 8.75/10

He was on the run from his own birthday party, another unusual thing for a 100-year-old, not least of which because even being 100 is pretty rare. (Page 8)

I was having a rough week when I happened to download this book onto my Kindle and give it a go, and it was exactly what the doctor ordered. I took it up to my roof deck with a blanket and a big glass of wine, and it was the ideal kickoff to my spring.

First, credit where credit is due: it was Publisher’s Weekly who first referred to this book as a “raucous yarn” and I haven’t been able to think anything else about it since. Thank you, PW, for calling this book exactly what it is. I hereby borrow your phraseology.

What makes The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared (I’m not going to repeat the title every time) such a success is its tone. The premise and plot of the novel are both extraordinarily complex and completely absurd, and the only way to pull them off would have been to write the book in exactly the right way. Luckily for us, Jonas Jonasson did write it in exactly the right way. Major props also to Rod Bradbury, who translated the novel from Swedish into English.

Chief Inspector Aronsson ended the evening with a gin and tonic, and while he drank, he sat there feeling sorry for himself and fantasized about pulling out his service pistol and shooting the pianist in the bar. (Page 202)

My one criticism is that I think this book would have benefited from being the tiniest bit shorter. Cutting one or two of the less brilliant scenes would have allowed to let the rest of the novel shine more brightly. I found myself tiring of the characters for about 20 pages 2/3 of the way through – and then something amazing happened, and I was in love with everything again. But I would have preferred to avoid the loss of momentum, if possible. I read very quickly, however, and that can make it easier to overdoes on a distinctive voice.

As a child, Allan had been taught to be suspicious of people who didn’t have a drink when the opportunity arose. He was no more than six years old when his father laid a hand on his little shoulder and said:

–You should beware of priests, my son. And people who don’t drink vodka. Worst of all are priests who don’t drink vodka. (Page 135)

Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and if you like dark humor, absurd situations, and improbable coincidences, you will too. I actually think it feels somewhat like a Mel Brooks movie, except that, rather than feeling like one long joke, the book takes itself seriously and all of the events that transpire just happen to be ridiculous.

The Assassin’s Curse (The Assassin’s Curse, #1) by Cassandra Rose Clarke

This book is: the opening of a intriguing YA fantasy series.
Other elements: pirates, magicians, pirate gender roles, supernatural islands, aspiring lady pirates.
Read it: if the draw of a burgeoning 17-year-old lady pirate sounds awesome enough to get you through a slow-starting story.
Overall rating: 7/10

I chose this book for two reasons: first, because of the beautiful cover (I know, that’s a faux pas), and secondly because the protagonist is a lady pirate and that’s awesome. That, and it was one of my prize options when I won Glipho’s Strange Chemistry book review contest! Thanks, Glipho and Strange Chemistry!

This book is going to be hard to review because of how much it feels like just the first part of a story. That’s not a bad thing, because it really is the first part of a story, and there are sequels to come.

The story opens with the introduction of pirate captain’s daughter Alanna of the Tanarou’s introduction to her future husband. She knows she’s being traded away as collateral for future inter-clan relations, and she doesn’t like it. At 17, she already has dreams of captaining her own ship, but she knows that the only realistic dream for a girl in her situation is marriage. At the last minute, Alanna sees a chance for escape and takes it. However, her bid for freedom seals a price on her head and sparks a war between families. When her attempt to defend herself against an assassin sparks an unlikely magic curse and binds the two former enemies together, Alanna and her new companion find themselves facing a set of impossible tasks that are their only chance to break the curse.

I know that sounds like a whole plot summary, but I promise that’s less information than you could read on the back of the book.

I absolutely love the idea of a sassy, rebellious lady pirate, but Alanna of the Tanarou doesn’t really come into her own within the confines of this book. She’s 17 and she’s a young 17. She says herself that the longest she’s ever been away from her parents is three weeks, and that was only one time. She has a lot of growing up to do. This really isn’t a problem, since this is the beginning of a series, but it would have been more satisfying if it felt like the main character grew at least a little during the first installment of her series. By the end she still feels as naive and childish as she did at the beginning.

Part of that might be the way that the character is written. She speaks slightly in dialect, but it’s used inconsistently and the overall effect is jarring. Grammatical inaccuracies appear every few sentences, but the same character also is known to speak beautifully, using sophisticated syntax. The dialect feels very forced and it makes it hard to get a feeling for the character. Here are some examples:

The tent’s shadow seemed to be shrinking, burning up in the sun. Sand blew across my feet, stuck to my legs.  – Page 103

“What! This ain’t us stopping for the night?” – Page 103

I hadn’t even realized the hope for what it was until it got dragged away from me and I felt its absence in my heart. I couldn’t let go of that old vision of my future life and the thought of what it was going to be like now. – Page 155

…my voice turning into light. Ain’t no way that was me. – Page 37

Those were all narration or dialogue from the same character. It made it really hard for me to get a handle on her personality, and harder still to get absorbed into the story. But even so, I became used to the dialect about halfway through and stopped feeling jolted out of the novel every time I encountered a weird speech pattern.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and if I happen across the sequel, I’ll give it a chance. I’d be interested to see what’s next for this aspiring lady pirate captain and her assassin.

Tell the Wolves I’m Home: A Novel by Carol Rifka Brunt.

This book is: quiet, eerie, beautiful.
Other elements: growing up, sisters, art, alcoholism, AIDS, family secrets, being a teenager, music, being an outsider, the sacredness of objects, Mozart’s Requiem.
Read it: if you can identify with a young girl who likes to hide in the woods alone so that she can pretend to be in the Middle Ages.
Overall rating: 9/10

Watching people is a good hobby, but you have to be careful about it. You can’t let people catch you staring at them. If people catch you, they treat you like a first-class criminal. And maybe they’re right to do that. Maybe it should be a crime to try to see things about people that they don’t want you to see. – Page 4

I really liked this book. I thought it was written in absolutely the perfect tone. Every time I picked it up, I was absorbed immediately. I never had to stop myself from skimming or hurrying as I read it – the book’s events unfolded perfectly in their own soft pace and I was content to let them wash over me as I read.

I don’t mean to say that this book is slow or lacking in action; that’s certainly not the case. This book gave me the feeling that I get when I’m inside wrapped in a blanket and it’s raining or snowing out.  It’s sweet and sad and wonderful.

All my parents’ music came from greatest hits albums. It was like the thought of getting even one bum track was too much for them to handle. – Page 76

The jumping off point of this novel is a traumatic event: a young man named Finn has died of AIDS and the reader witnesses as the protagonist, Finn’s 14 year old niece June, and the rest of her family renegotiate their lives after his loss. June is a dreamer and a bit of an odd duck both in her school and in her family – her Uncle Finn was her closest friend.

One of the elements that resonated most with me was the relationship of the protagonist, June, and her older sister, Greta. Sister relationships are complicated, especially when the girls in question are anywhere near high school age. Brunt did a marvelous job of capturing June and Greta’s complicated dynamic: the inside jokes, the vicious fights, the taunts, the frustration, the desire to be close some days and hurt each other on others – all of it underlined by the bone-deep certainty that they would always have each others’ backs when things are serious, no matter what. I put down this book more than once after a scene with Greta and June to give my own sister a call.

By the end of the book the reader is also treated to a foil of June and Greta’s relationship: the relationship of their mother and her brother, the late Uncle Finn. The relationship of June’s mother to her brother and how it has affected the whole family’s lives is one of the main factors that helps June to grow during the course of the story. It’s learning more about her mother’s past that helps June starts to see both her mother and her uncle as fallible people who have lived lives of their own.

I sat on a bench and my mother stood in front of me, looking down at the track. Her hair was cut short, and because it had turned gray when she was twenty-three, she always had it dyed a deep chestnut brown. It was that color all over except for a super thin strip at the top of her head, where the gray showed through. Sometimes I wanted to touch that place on my mother’s head, that thin crack where her real self had forced itself through. – Page 164

Also, how great is that cover? And I love the title. Mysterious and appropriate.

This is a wonderful book. It’s on the sad side – most of the Goodreads reviews call it a tearjerker, although I didn’t feel that way – but beautiful and full of meaning.