Book Review: Chalice

Title: Chalice

Author: Robin McKinley
Year Published: 2008

Genre: Young adult, fantasy

Mirasol is a beekeeper and the newly appointed Chalice of the demesne. Inexperienced and untrained, she attempts to perform her duty while finding her place in the Circle, for as Chalice she holds the most important office of the twelve members. The story begins with the arrival of the new Master – a Priest of Fire who is drawn back home only because of the death of his brother. The demesne is suffering, and Mirasol tries her best to assist the Master, bind the Circle, and soothe the land.

The world that McKinley has created is a strange but compelling one. The magic and the governing structure of the Circle aren’t your typical fantasy clichés, and what is revealed of them throughout the book only leaves you yearning for more. Each tidbit about the world was revealed naturally and gradually, as morsels to be rolled around the mouth and savoured. However, this can be frustrating at the same time – you never find out, for example, what all the members of the Circle do. I’m not really sure how I feel about this: on the one hand, it’s annoying, but on the other, it’s kind of nice to be left wanting – the wonder and the mystery is preserved.

Not much happens, I’m afraid. What does happen happens very slowly, with a lot of ‘action’ taking place in the past and a lot of passages focusing on the bees and honey that form part of Miraol’s identity. Mirasol’s relationship with the Master is one of the key parts of the book, but at the same time, it feels underdeveloped. Strangely, you wonder how that can be. What they have is gentle, sweet and slow, and you can easily interpret their relationship as a platonic one. The ending is where everything happens, and it’s almost too sudden – despite the whole book leading up to it, I felt that there was not enough build up.

While not particularly exciting, Chalice is still a pleasant story, good for when you want to relax and wallow in something quiet and girlish. It’s the sort of book I’d classify as a comfort read – fantasy with a domestic feel and a gentle sort of atmosphere that lulls you. It’s not my favourite Robin McKinley, but it is very McKinley-esque.

Alex’s Rating: 3/5

Book Review: The Goldfinch

Title: The Goldfinch

Author: Donna Tartt
Year Published: 2013

Genre: Drama, Crime, Contemporary fiction

Recently named winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, The Goldfinch tells the story of Theo Decker, a boy who survives the bombing that takes his mother’s life. In the chaos that follows, Theo is taken in by a posh New York family and, well, suffice to say that a painting of a bird is involved, and things don’t get easier for our teenaged hero.

Tartt has a gift for language and detail – based on her descriptions, I find myself wanting to see New York in real life. From the very beginning, when Theo and his mother are caught in the rain through to Theo’s time spent alone in Hobie’s furniture store, you can almost believe you’re there with Theo himself. Theo’s remembered places and experiences are both dreamlike and solid at the same time; they feel real even when they’re unrealistic. Despite its heft, the book is easy to read; there’s a cushiony feel about the prose that makes it easy to sink in to; it’s almost comforting in a way.

Any yet, there were many times I found it hard to immerse myself in his story. Why? Multiple reasons, really. Perhaps dumbest of all is the whole business with the timeline. When is the book set? It’s not clear. Such a simple matter, and yet so irritating. We start with Theo as a grown man in Amsterdam before the narrative segues into his childhood. I had thought that this meant that the Amsterdam stuff was happening present-day-ish, but then aspects of Theo’s adolescence felt too modern. Instead of concentrating on Theo’s story, I found myself distracted by thoughts like: So the accident happened after 9-11? Is the Amsterdam stuff happening in the future then? When did Unleashed come out? Isn’t that kind of text-speak outdated? Why is there old digital clock font in a modern-day text? What?

Similarly, other aspects of the writing threw me out of the story. Particularly during the accident at the start, I wasn’t sure if Theo was retelling a story or if we were living it with him in real-time. This might seem trivial, but it does change how you interpret events. Another issue I had was with Theo himself. He’s meant to be a teenage boy, but there’s something about his observations that make him sound like a mature, well-to-do white woman. It’s more than precociousness (and boy is he precocious); I mean, improbable art history expertise aside, what thirteen-year-old boy recognises when someone is dressed in Valentino and knows that the lipgloss stick thingy is a “wand”? It would seem that this book was written by someone even more out of touch with today’s youth than yours truly, and that’s a worrying thought.

Another aspect of Theo that felt unrealistic to me was his ordeal with drugs. I can’t place my finger on it, but something about the casual but meticulous way things are described feels very researched and calculated. It’s as if the author’s trawled Internet forums about substance abuse and included her findings in the book as something ~edgy. Now, I know nothing about the author and her history. For all I know, she’s had experience dealing with substance abuse and knows what she’s on about. As a reader, however, something about it just did not feel genuine.

So too did the parts of the book dealing with art and art appreciation. The detailed and technical art discussions sounded like excerpts from someone’s essay rather than actual thoughts or experiences of actual people. Unfortunately, I got the impression that the author wanted to show off how cultured she was – which is sad, as I suppose the intent here was to inspire.

Other than the style, I also found the plot and characters a little unsatisfying. I am fine with the whole concept of this being one of those direction-less, that’s-how-life-is sort of books, but what I did not expect was for the narrative to jump from setting to setting and genre to genre. On the one hand this was exciting. You got new characters and drama and action and humour and a bildungsroman crime caper all in one – the book was never boring. On the other hand, it was also frustrating. Every time I thought the author was going to go deeper into a relationship or situation, things moved sideways instead. As a corollary, many of the characters never rise far above their stereotypes.

I’ve complained a lot, but a lot of this comes from how good the book is. I was so captivated by Theo’s experience that it became really noticeable when things felt unnatural and wrong. And here, I guess, I come to the controversy that is the ending. Feel free to skip this paragraph now, but I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that there is no ending. In the last chapter, Theo engages in some navel-gazing that does nothing to wrap up the plot. To me it felt like a cop out. It’s as if the author couldn’t or wouldn’t decide how she wanted things to go, so they didn’t go anywhere at all. Instead, we get a discussion on the book’s ~themes~. The worst part of this is that Theo’s undergraduate introspective philosomaphising isn’t even riveting, though I may have been blinded by anger at this point. The words sound pretty though.

The Goldfinch is a richly detailed account of one troubled boy’s life, tenderly and lovingly drawn. However, I find it hard to recommend: it annoyed me too much with its pretentiousness, its implausibility and its failure to provide narrative closure. In short, The Goldfinch a good book, but it’s not great, and you can probably find something better. Then again, what’s my opinion worth? There’s only one Pulitzer winner here and it sure as hell ain’t me.

Alex’s Rating: 3/5

Book Review: Fooled by Randomness

Title: Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (2nd edition, updated)
Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Year Published: 2005; first edition 2001

Genre: Non-fiction, Economics, Philosophy

So the two take-home lessons from this book are:

1. People underestimate the role of chance in their lives; and
2. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is smarter than you.

Of course, there are more nuances involved, but that’s the general gist of it. Fooled by Randomness basically tells us about the role of probability in life, how people perceive this role, and how they are wrong. The author posits that people tend to see patterns where there are none and attribute to skill what has happened by luck. The book explores a number of interesting logic concepts, including that of hindsight bias, survivorship bias and a number of others whose technical names I don’t know. These ideas are generally associated with how people construe “success” and are usually explained in the context of trading.

Now, in matters of probability, finance and philosophy, I am about as knowledgeable as Jon Snow; I don’t have an interest and I really only read this book because my brother recommended it. As such, I’m probably not the target audience here and I can’t (won’t) assess how “sound” the author’s ideas are, especially when he discusses theories made by people I’ve never ever heard of, and especially when he doesn’t explain said theories fully. To give you an indication of my level of knowledge (or ignorance), I had to look up what “bullish” and “bearish” meant, and was slightly disappointed to discover that the terms had little to do with animals.

For me personally, the most interesting ideas were the concept of “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over” – you can’t judge a thing until it’s done – and how the time frame you take as a reference point alters the significance of any event. The only explicit bit of “financial” advice I could spot was in the author’s musings over the “black swan event” – the rare but disastrous random event – and how he prefers to guard against this while being accepting of other smaller losses. So if you’re reading this to get rich then, well, good luck. Anyway, that’s how I interpreted it all, though what would I know? I mean, what you’re reading now are essentially the thoughts of a peasant.

The writing has a distinct style that reeks of the author’s personality. You may like it, you may hate it. I was surprised at how dense the prose was, right from the get-go. The author, who has had a long career as a trader (I don’t even know what that means), fancies himself an intellectual who is above those other, lesser, money-grubbing, MBA-holding kind of traders. He comes across as arrogant, self-indulgent and pretentious, and adds so many philosophical/classical/historical namedrops and references that at times I found it impossible to understand what he was on about (but then again, I am a peasant). Even so, Taleb has a certain charm; he’s interesting and funny and he writes to the reader as if to a fellow comrade-in-arms – as if you, like him, are one of the intelligent elite (unless of course, you’re a journalist, have an MBA and/or are a liberal left-wing “pseudothinker” – then he despises you). At the same time, you get the feeling that if you ever met him in real life, he’d probably think you’re an idiot.

As mentioned, the author discusses a number of interesting concepts. However, the problem for this idiot is the way these concepts are presented and how the style and structure of the book affect them. Taleb occasionally spells them out, but most of the time they’re couched in anecdotes and blend into other messages or ideas. It’s a bit like going to a lecture where the speaker goes off on tangents, but due to the alien nature of the topic, you’re not really sure when and if he’s getting to some important point or if he’s just gone rogue. You can try to learn but the guy does not make it easy. Some ideas are very clearly explained (like the Monte Carlo engine – always wanted to know what that was), yet at other times, everything gets muddied. The author often sort of mentions something only to change the topic without having fully explained it. If this helps at all, Fooled by Randomness is the sort of book where (a) chapters don’t necessarily delineate topics (for example, the “it ain’t over” idea is sort of explored in dribs and drabs here and there); and (b) the author may occasionally veer into rants about a particular journalist he hates.

I can’t shake the idea that this book could have been much, much shorter. The author makes the same point again and again but in slightly different ways, as if unable to decide which way he likes best. Unfortunately, this just makes everything harder to understand. In the end, I was also left with the impression that nothing had been explored in very much depth, despite the fact I read an entire book. As interesting as Mr Taleb’s ideas – and personality – are, the end result is not very accessible to the average idiot reader. To someone with a background in finance or philosophy though, this book will undoubtedly hold more value.

If you’re looking to learn, you’d be better served reading a bunch of Wikipedia articles on logic and reasoning. If, however, you’re after an evening of interesting conversation with a clever, bookish, finance-y guy, then Fooled by Randomness is probably just the thing for you. 

Alex’s Rating: 3/5

Book Review: The Book Thief

Title: The Book Thief
Author: Markus Zusak
Year Published: 2005
Genre: Historical fiction, Young adult

Set in Nazi Germany, The Book Thief tells the story of Liesel Meminger, a German girl who goes to live in the fictional town of Molching after being fostered to new parents. It’s a Holocaust bildungsroman that’s proven massively popular, so much so that it’s now also a movie, coming soon to a cinema near you.

The first thing you notice about the book is the writing style. Death serves as the narrator, and in addition to the story proper, we occasionally get Death’s commentary, which comes in the form of asides.

~* An Illustration of what I mean *~

This is what Death’s commentary looks like in the book.
Passages like this interrupt everything and they’re everywhere.

Just everywhere.
Is ‘commentary’ even the right word?

Extensive use of imagery pervades the novel and the prose itself can be rather stylised. For the most part, it’s very readable, but now and then you get the feeling that words and phrases were carefully chosen and polished for maximum poetic effect.

~* A Sample of Mr Zusak’s Writing, taken from Page Fourteen *~

“For hours, the sky remained a devastating, home-cooked red. The small German town had been flung apart one more time. Snowflakes of ash fell so lovelily you were tempted to stretch out your tongue to catch them, taste them. Only, they would have scorched your lips. They would have cooked your mouth.”

It’s a very quirky style and it demands to be noticed. Its popularity with readers is understandable: it’s unique, it’s lyrical and it has that lush quality about it. However, I personally was put off by the self-consciousness of it all; it just wasn’t to my taste.

~* Heck, here’s another, this time from Page Three Hundred and Eighty-two *~

“At times, in the basement, she woke up tasting the sound of the accordion in her ears.”
There are more like this, but I can’t be bothered finding them.

You get the gist.

Most of the time, the style is relatively simple and neutral, but every so often some particularly ~poetic phrase comes along and takes you out of the story and into the mechanics of the writing. In these cases, the language and format feel particularly clumsy and childish, kind of like something a teenager would write (no offence to the Rimbauds out there). For these reasons, I also wasn’t entirely convinced by Zusak’s portrayal of Death as an entity. Having Death narrate your story is a brave choice, but I’m not sure it’s one the author pulled off.

~* Oh, and the German *~

Another minor problem I had was with the use of German words. They were sometimes translated into English and sometimes not. This just left me confused as to whether I was supposed to know the meanings of all the German words to properly read this book.

For a novel entitled The Book Thief, I expected more books and more thievery than what there actually is. Instead, the main concern of the book is Liesel’s day-to-day life, full of childhood adventure, schoolyard fights and nostalgia. We have the kind father, the shouty but loving mother, the boy who loves you and the enemy neighbour. They’re the ingredients for a slice-of-life sort of tale, and while there is nothing wrong with this – indeed, I liked it  – I believe that the title and blurb of The Book Thief give the impression that the story is a lot more epic than it actually is. So if you’re after an ‘exciting’ Holocaust novel, this probably isn’t the book for you.

On that note, one thing that irked me was the somewhat facile treatment of the historical context. Now, perhaps it’s because the first pieces of Holocaust fiction I read were The Reader and Maus, but I found this book to be almost insultingly simple. While this may all be very well for a middle grade or (young) young adult reader (a story where Germans are the good guys? woah!), I would have liked more complexity all around. The characters are all pretty much either good or evil and what little exploration of moral issues there is seems rather shallow. For example, consider ‘The World Shaker’ (which, bizarrely, is printed in tiny, hard-to-read font), a book that features within The Book Thief. Written and illustrated by the persecuted Max, it includes an illustration of a man in The Führer Shop (page 475) selling containers of “FEAR”, “HATRED” and “small moustaches ½ price”. Now, if this isn’t the stuff of Year 8 Art projects, then I don’t know what is. I know this is classed as a young adult novel, and perhaps I’m being unfair, but I expected, well, more. Like an emo teen’s poetry on the livejournal of yore, The Book Thief isn’t nearly as deep as it wants to be.

~* The Reader and Maus *~

are both excellent books, by the way

(or at least, they were when I read them some ten years ago, wow, crap I’m old.

They’re by Bernhard Schlink and Art Spiegelman respectively.

I’d recommend The Reader if you want a bit more of an exploration into the ‘German side’ of things and I’d recommend Maus (which is a comic) generally, but also as an introduction for those just starting to learn about the Holocaust).

In addition to the pretentious style and the simplification of the context, another thing that irritated me was the ending. Now, we all know that this tale won’t end with flowers and sunshine, but still, it was so sudden and abrupt to the point where it felt almost like laziness. It’s as if the author thought, hmm, crap, how do I end this? Oh, I know! And yet I found myself getting teary-eyed even in my annoyance.

I know this review reads like a litany of complaints, but I did enjoy this novel overall. It’s hard not to feel for – or at least like – Liesel and her family and the other ‘good’ characters. Her coming-of-age in a small town was, as odd as it sounds, a pleasure to read. It’s warm and bittersweet, with a healthy dose of charm. Her relationships, and especially that with her father, shine with a real humanity and sense of love. All in all, there’s such a bright-eyed earnestness about The Book Thief that I couldn’t help but be moved despite all my problems with it.

~* One Last Thing *~

Happy New Year!

Alex’s Rating: 3/5

Book Review: The Study Series

Title: Poison Study, Magic Study and Fire Study

Author: Maria V Snyder
Year Published: 2005-2008
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult

Yelena is a convicted murderer. On the day of her execution, she is given a choice: take the noose or become food taster for the Commander of Ixia. Naturally, she chooses the latter. At the palace, she is trained to taste for poisons by Valek, the Commander’s loyal and mysterious Chief of Security. To prevent Yelena’s escape, Valek poisons her with Butterfly’s Dust – from then on, she must return to him for a daily dose of the antidote or else face a painful death as the Butterfly’s Dust takes effect.

So begins Poison Study, the first book in Maria V Snyder’s Study Series (also known as the Yelena Zaltana Novels). It’s an interesting premise, rife with potential. As Yelena adjusts to her new life, she meets General Brazell, father of the man she killed, and a magician from the neighbouring country of Sitia, who senses Yelena’s magic – magic being outlawed in Ixia. How can she stay safe? Who can she trust? There’s a lot of tension in this novel, which gives it an enjoyable, exciting sort of mood.

Still, the lack of poisons in a book called Poison Study is disappointing. There is only a brief period of poison taster training before the narrative drifts into Yelena learning to fight, Yelena being suspicious of General Brazell and Yelena taking baths. There isn’t much “plot”; the action, as it is, is mostly character-driven. That brings me to Yelena herself. She’s an Action Girl, and I’ll admit I didn’t like her at first – I felt she had a modern, misplaced sense of entitlement, which was bold considering she’s easily replaceable. However, over time, I came to appreciate her good qualities – she’s strong, frank, hard-working and wants to help people.

One of the best parts of the book is the romance. It’s not a surprise that Valek becomes a love interest, and the captor/captive dynamic makes it a bit more interesting. Thankfully, there’s no insta-love, so it was good to see their relationship actually develop. Valek himself is painted as a devoted and manly badass, and despite his curly shoulder-length hair (wat), he was probably my favourite character and I’m sure many of you will swoon for him (even though he's a pretty shady guy when you think about it).

While Poison Study works as a standalone, its sequels, Magic Study and Fire Study do not. The plot from Magic Study doesn’t even finish, meaning you’ll have to read Fire Study for closure. Spoiler alert: at the end of Poison Study, Yelena lives. She decides to go to Sitia to learn to control her magic. Like its predecessor, both Magic Study and Fire Study lack actual study of magic or fire. Instead, the books are mostly about how Yelena hunts down an evil magician who rapes, tortures and murders girls to steal their magic.

Like many others, I felt that the series weakened with each book. The key issue is the matter of the plot. While the first book deals with Yelena’s struggle to survive, the next two have her playing detective, justice-meter and all-round hero, since no one at all competent exists in her world other than Valek. Yelena’s rape and torture in Book #1 are harrowing, formative events. In Books #2 and #3, rape and torture are used almost gratuitously as drama-adding plot devices. The events of Book #3 are also especially repetitive, with a lot of people travelling around, getting captured and stabbing or being stabbed with the paralysing substance Curare. What makes it worse is how – perhaps due to a lack of personal stakes for Yelena – the antagonist feels like a Monster of the Week, rather than a Big Bad, even though their storyline stretches across two books. Also, while some characters are likeable (eg. Ari and Janco), others are annoyingly one-dimensional (Roze) and one character is outright spin-off bait (Opal Cowan, now featured in The Glass Series).

I had hoped that the world would be built up a bit more, since there are so many interesting concepts at play. It’s not often you read a fantasy set in a socialist military dictatorship like Ixia, but other than a bunch of colour-coded uniforms, you don’t get much exploration of the way it works. The capitalist democracy(?) Sitia, on the other hand, gets a bit more depth in terms of the plains nomads Sandseed clan and jungle tree-dwelling Zaltana clan – but that’s only in terms of their lifestyle, so to speak. You don’t really see how the Sitian government works; we only know there is a Council and that it takes them a long time to make decisions. The only virtue of this, according to Yelena, is how it means that no one person shoulders the blame for mistakes. Also, beggars apparently do not exist in Ixia. Mmm… okay then. It’s a bit too simplistic for my liking, but what can you do?

I think another reason why the sequels aren't as loved is because there is less Valek. Valek and Yelena's romance is one of the highlights of Poison Study and there’s less of that in the sequels. Their relationship also doesn’t seem to develop beyond the stage of becoming a couple. I would have liked to see Snyder explore how their previous captor/captive relationship colours their current one, or maybe something about how Yelena feels conflicted about Valek being an assassin of magicians (ie. people like her). But no. Instead we have one (1) token fight where she calls him out on his murderous ways and she’s portrayed as being in the wrong. Otherwise, every time they meet, they just banter for a bit before their clothes fall off. FYI, after disrobing, the sex scenes comprise, at most, of a vague paragraph about how Yelena feels Valek inside her and how their souls bond. In other words, these scenes adhere to the Twilight school of sexytimes writing, to give you an indication of what they’re like.

Yelena also falls victim to Mary Sue-itis. Big time. She goes from showing magic potential in Book #1 to gaining more and more super special snowflake abilities with each book. Worse is how she seems to disbelieve all the things people say about her. Beautiful? Me? Powerful? Me? Soulfinder? Me? I rolled my eyes so hard and so frequently they almost got stuck at the back of my head. Yelena also makes decisions that don’t seem to make sense, but of course it works out in the end because of course it does. She flip-flops on matters of trust and she only wants to help people if it’s done her way. However, she’s the only character with actual thoughts, so of course she solves all the problems, no matter how nonsensical she may be. The prime example of dumb that’s stuck with me is how she chooses her horse. So she’s just discovered she can talk to a horse (they think in English, apparently, only without auxiliary verbs and without the word “I”). So... how does she think she should choose a horsey companion? Why, by colour of course! It’s like she’s not even trying. And of course she gets the most special horse there is.

The writing in this series is simple. The style is easy-to-read and conversational and the chapters are short, with a tendency to cliff-hang at the end. It’s also the only reason I see for classifying this book as “Young Adult”, since Yelena is already nineteen years old (and Valek’s in his early thirties) and there’s a lot of dark material here (namely, the brutal rapes, tortures and murders). While it’s the sort of prose that’s easy to gobble up, it also felt lazy in parts. Some things I could forgive for being part of Yelena’s thought processes (such as a garment being called “skirt/pants” and Valek wearing a “sneak suit”), but other words and phrases jarred. The language is modern, with “Mr.” and “occupational hazard” being terms I did not expect to see in this world of swords and horses. The most striking instance of this is when Moon Man exclaims “wah-lah!”, which I can only assume is a bastardised form of the French “voila!”. I literally could not believe it and had to read the sentence a few times before it sank in. One last pet peeve is how Valek takes to calling Yelena “love”, using the word at the end of almost every sentence. Rather than sounding romantic, this just reminds me of kindly old British groundskeepers, because I’ve learned from TV that that’s how they speak, innit, love?

The Study Series starts off well. Poison Study is an easy, addictive read with a tantalising romance and tense mood. However, the sequels are less captivating. Yelena becomes a Sue, the romance stalls and the world isn’t as complex as it needs to be. The main conflict is not uninteresting, but the repetitiveness and dumb are really frustrating and sap the life out of things. To sum, the books aren’t unpleasant, but they’re not particularly great either. Still, the glass magic mentioned toward the end sounds interesting, so I may yet get sucked into reading the author’s next series about Opal.

(Note: newer editions of these books include a map at the start. There is also a sequel series for Yelena in the works.)

Alex’s Rating: 3/5

Movie Review: Life of Pi

Title: Life of Pi

Director: Ang Lee

Year Released: 2012

Running Time: 158 minutes

Classification: PG-13 (M)

Genre: Drama, Magic Realism

Life of Pi tells the story of a boy who survives a shipwreck only to find himself sharing a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. A tad unbelievable, perhaps, but that's the whole point. This is meant to be an epic, spiritual journey – one, which we are told, will make us believe in God. Now, I couldn't help but have high hopes for this film, given its celebrated director, prize-winning book, stunning trailer and great reviews, and I was ready to be a sucker and *~believe~*. Unfortunately, I walked away feeling slightly but distinctly unsatisfied.

Things start off well enough. The visuals are stunning from the get-go, with a vivid palette and adorable HD zoo animals. But as I saw more and more of the writer (Rafe Spall) and adult Pi (Irfan Khan), I felt myself deflate. The use of the interview as a framing technique seemed to work well enough in the book, but here it felt limiting and more than a bit contrived – rather than letting the story speak for itself, we are told, on no uncertain terms, that we are about to embark on a ~journey of faith~.

Perhaps it's because I sat in a bad spot in the cinema, but what ensued was not especially captivating. The early discussions on religion are superficial but heavy-handed and the acting somewhat stilted. As such, the retelling of Pi's childhood seems to drag on (get to the tiger already!) and I failed to connect with the character and his beliefs.

Things get better once Pi is played by Suraj Sharma and the ocean voyage begins in earnest. His plight is terrifying yet so absurd that it isn't so much frightening as it is surreal. The vast expanses of ocean and sky only accentuate the dream-like atmosphere. Speaking of, the visuals live up to the hype. They are, simply put, very spectacular; the tiger looks very life-like and the scenery is gorgeous. It's possibly the most beautiful movie I've ever seen and is worth watching for the graphics alone. Pi's strange adventures on the ocean are easily the best part of the film – in survival mode, Pi becomes easier to relate to and you get a sense of his joy, his awe and his despair. As a bonus, everything looks magnificent, but I think I may have mentioned that already.

At the end we're confronted with the question of what to believe and the answer, supposedly, will affirm our faith. At this point, my good spirits withered away. Especially given the shallow treatment of faith and religion at the start of the film, I found this turn of events to be somewhat of a let-down and a reminder of the things I should have felt but didn't. Where I had previously enjoyed this as a story about a Boy and his Tiger, it all now felt a bit hollow. I can't quite remember feeling this way with Yann Martel's book, so I'm not sure whether the problem lies in the tale or its telling.

Many have found Life of Pi to be marvellously uplifting, but I'm afraid I hold with the less favourable reviews. Certainly it is impressive on a technical level and certainly it is a unique tale to have been brought on screen. Pi's adventures with the tiger are indeed wondrous, but alone, they are incapable of carrying the whole narrative. The film's key flaw is that it fails to give substance to its own spiritual aspirations – but clearly, it seems, many would disagree entirely.

Alex's Rating: 3/5

Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Title: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Director: Peter Jackson
Year Released: 2012
Running Time: 169 minutes
Classification: PG-13
Genre: Fantasy, Action/Adventure

This was probably the movie I was most looking forward to in 2012. Nothing has matched Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy since its release a decade ago and if something were to come close, this would be it. I watched the production videos, read the kerfuffle about The Hobbit becoming three movies rather than two and heard tales of nausea caused by the newfangled 48fps. So yeah. Whatever the reviews were going to be I knew I'd be watching this regardless.

A prequel of sorts to LOTR, The Hobbit tells the story of hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), who finds himself on an unexpected journey with thirteen dwarves setting out to reclaim their mountain home. Compared to LOTR, the scope is a lot less epic; it's an adventure story, essentially, though other material has been inserted into the original story to beef it up. As a result, the movie manages to be some three hours long and is comprised largely of set-up for the next films.

There's a lot in the way of action, not much in the way of story progression. A good half hour or so into the film and we're (probably) still in the Shire. The pacing is very slow and I literally almost fell asleep. Orcs attack, trolls attack, elves talk and dwarves walk. Stuff happens but we don't really get anywhere. Some scenes are genuinely riveting, the highlight for me being the appearance of the delightfully creepy Gollum (Andy Serkis). The film does improve as it goes along, which is just as well or I would have left the cinema quite unhappy. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the dwarves don't get to reclaim their mountain home in the end – not in this movie anyway. Consider yourselves warned.

Half of my enjoyment of this film came from the nostalgia brought on by revisiting Middle Earth – from hearing the familiar score and from seeing Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and everyone else, including Figwit (Bret McKenzie). Like LOTR, the film looks fantastic; the scenery and the design of the locations are simply majestic. Even the costumes and make-up are works of art.

My only disappointment – in terms of visuals – lies with the dwarves. First, I had been hoping to see some dwarven women in the flashbacks (because beards), but alas no (as far as I know). Second, and I am probably alone in this complaint, but Thorin (dwarf leader Richard Armitage) and Kili (hot dwarf Aidan Turner) were too attractive. Don't get me wrong – I liked the both of them, but they just looked like men and only strangely shortish men when standing next to Gandalf. Given that the film is largely populated with monsters and comical looking dwarves, I suppose you can see why they'd want to insert some eye-candy. If you compare The Hobbit with the LOTR films, Thorin is like a more formal/sombre/angsty version of Aragorn and Kili, if you squint, is a rugged kind of Legolas. A key criterion of both LOTR roles is, of course, the ability to explode ovaries at twenty paces. So there you go, we have ourselves some hot dwarves.

As for the new 48 frames per second technology, I just thought it made things really really clear, sort of like when we made the transition to HD or when you upgrade your glasses after a trip to the optometrist. I can't decide if I like it. Sometimes everything on screen looked really stunning and beautiful, sometimes I felt that I was looking at a movie set, and I can't pinpoint why. I personally didn't find it nauseating at all, but then again I have always been fine with 3D and so on.

I liked so much about this movie: the visuals, the characters, the music – but it was just so darned slow and I wanted them all to hurry up and get to the mountain already. I've found that my enjoyment of the Lord of the Rings movies is increased when I watch them all in close succession and I hope the same will be true of The Hobbit trilogy. For now, however, I can only feel vaguely underwhelmed and wait for the next film.

Alex's Rating: 3/5

Movie Review: Breaking Dawn Part 2

Title: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
Director: Bill Condon
Year Released: 2012
Running Time: 115 minutes
Classification: PG-13
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Romance

In the final instalment of the Twilight series, we say goodbye to Jacob's abs, Edward's sparkles and Bella's... Bella. At this point, no one's going into this film expecting cinematic brilliance, and indeed you'd be wasting your money if you had hoped this film would be “good”. For “fans”, of which I am one, Breaking Dawn Part 2 holds a number of delights/horrors; there's a big battle sequence, creepily CG'd Renesmee and Aro's laugh to look forward to. All in all, the quality here is fairly similar to the previous movies, and after four others, Breaking Dawn Part 2 gives us a sweet finish to the whole ordeal.

Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011) ended with Bella (Kristen Stewart) being turned into a vampire by Edward (Robert Pattinson) after almost dying giving birth to human/vampire hybrid demon child Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy). We also saw Jacob (Taylor Lautner), the loser of the love triangle, “imprint” on Renesmee (kind of like falling in love, but without the creepiness, honest, because he'd never do anything like that at least not until she's legal).

In Breaking Dawn Part 2, Bella becomes an awesome vampire filled with awesome (and Kristen Stewart does look good in this movie, if you're into that), and then there's some stuff about not-telling her father, and some stuff. A vampire sees Renesmee and thinks she's a vampire, and since making children vampires is illegal, said vampire runs off to report the “crime” to the Volturi (powerful Italian vampires). As the Volturi are coming, the Cullen family recruit a bunch of X-men (only some of whom are racially stereotyped) to act as “witnesses” to prove their innocence.

The plot is pretty ridiculous and the first half or so of the movie is incredibly boring. It doesn't seem like anything is really happening, just a bunch of people standing around having conversations and it drags. Yet incredibly, it also feels rushed; we jump from scene to scene and Bella's narration is used to bridge them in a way that feels like lazy storytelling. At least the scenery looks good. I guess.

And then there's Renesmee.

(Now, there has been many an internet rant about the issues here, so I'll just stick to the movie problems.)

First, there's the whole skeevy imprinting thing mentioned above. Bella's outrage upon discovering it is pretty much token and it's the only objection that comes up in the movie (hey, it's what happens in the book). On the plus side, Jacob and Renesmee's relationship is never overtly depicted as “romantic”, unless you count the flash-fowards and some meaningful looks shared between the two that can so easily be (mis)interpreted (in my cinema, there were groans and awkward laughter during these moments, so there you go).

Second, Mackenzie Foy's face is CG'd on every actress that plays fast-growing Renesmee. And it's like.... why? Why would you do this? Why? It was creepy as hell, especially since it wasn't done very well (picture a CG-d face, semi-floating on another head, drifting slightly – just slightly – to give the impression of occasional no-chin and uncanny valley realness). Considering how well they CG'd Bella during her pregnancy and how people aren't idiots and can tell when a character is the same character despite changing actors, I just don't understand. On the plus side, it was so off-putting that it kept me awake throughout the sluggish first half.

The creepiness isn't helped by the fact that Renesmee has no discernible personality. I suppose this isn't really her fault: she doesn't really get to do anything and is often just in the background. The way she “communicates” - that is, by touching people and flashing images in their minds – comes across as some kind of brainwashing technique, and to me, she could've just as easily been an innocent child as an evil demonic creature in the guise of an innocent child. But hey, this made me enjoy the film more rather than less.

So things pick up in the last part, when the Cullens & co. confront the Volturi and their cronies. If you've read the book, you'll know how anticlimactic the climax is, and the movie manages to put a twist on it that is, dare I say, rather clever. Though it's not as epic as its soundtrack would lead you to believe, it is action-packed and unexpectedly violent. I was riveted the whole way through. It's easily the best part of the movie, barring Aro's strange laugh (see below), and for me it was totally worth watching the first half to get to this.

I can't see this movie being enjoyable for someone who isn't invested one way or another in the Twilight franchise. If you're not a fan, don't bother; if you are fan, you'll be seeing this film regardless of its reviews. Breaking Dawn Part 2 is arguably the best of the lot, but that's not saying too much. The story is what it is, the acting is so-so and the quality of the CG varies. Still, I was surprised by the whole battle sequence and I must admit that the movie overall was pretty entertaining, even if for the wrong reasons. It's certainly not a great series of films, but I couldn't help but feel a pang of nostalgia when the credits rolled, reminding us that non-Charlie humans once existed in the Twi-verse. And now, as the franchise comes to a close, everyone has the happy ending they were waiting for.

Alex's Rating: 3/5

(for non-fans, probably 2/5)

Book Review: Florence & Giles

Title: Florence & Giles

Author: John Harding

Published date: 2010

Genre: Historic, Gothic, Horror

The cover of Florence & Giles resembles the raven in Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven. Just like the poem, it successfully delivers the same eerie gothic vibe to the reader.

1891. In a remote New England mansion lives 12 year old Florence and her younger brother Giles. Florence spends her time reading in secret, against her uncles’ will. At night she sleep walks the dark old corridors and has a recurring dream where a mysterious woman threatens her younger brother.

What thought to be dream becomes a reality to Florence who begins to witness strange phenomena when the children’s second governess, replacing the first who died a terrible death, arrives. She becomes certain the mysterious woman in her dream is the new governess and must find a way to protect her brother from harm.

The best word to describe Florence & Giles is eerie. It flows throughout and makes friends with horror. This book is narrated by Florence. The author did well in translating a protective 12 year old thoughts and actions into words. Simple language is used with made up words only a 12 year old would create.

The first couple of chapters explain the closeness of the siblings and Florence's talent for hiding when reading. The eeriness does not start till Florence’s dream is explain by the appearance of the new governess. Florence starts to see things she can’t explain and no one will believe her.

This novel is a good read. It has the perfect mixture of horror without gruesomeness. It is much more than a straight forward child verse evil governess.

From the beginning, there is no doubt the governess is hiding something but nothing out of the supernatural. Nothing to fear. But the further I read, the more the governess scares me.

There is a battle between Florence and the Governess, good versus evil until the end. The end is when everything makes sense. It explains why the governess is there, why she wants to harm Giles and why Florence is the only one who sees the truth.

The end is when the horror is realized and is, I think the scariest part of the novel. Then again I don’t read horror or gothic books. I get scared easily when it comes to the supernatural. There is nothing bad I can say about this novel. The pace was perfect, the characters written well and the depth of Florence belief is solid.

Florence & Giles is worth a read. It is a horror, gothic novel and will scare you and maybe even make you see things in the mirror that are not really there (or are they?). The twist in this novel might be typical, but it is still captivating enough to hold attention and provide indication that horror comes in different forms. 

A must read.

Terri's Rating: 3/5

Movie Review: Holiday in Handcuffs

Title: Holiday in Handcuffs
Director: Ron Underwood
Year Released: 2007
Running Time: 86 minutes
Classification: Unrated
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Drama, Family (?)


Though its title is suggestive of a buddy crime caper (or kinky sexytimes, if you will), Holiday in Handcuffs is actually a romcom produced for TV by ABC Family. Now, while I am quite tolerant of happy crappy Christmas movies (and indeed enjoy them much more than I should), this film has the distinction of being the silliest Christmas movie I have ever seen. Ever. It's utterly ridiculous and makes absolutely no sense. And yet, if you can manage to bring yourself down to its level, you'll find that it does quite nicely as a brainless fluffy diversion.

The plot is basically this: waitress Trudie (Melissa Joan Hart) gets dumped by her boyfriend on the eve of a family Christmas trip, so she kidnaps David (Mario Lopez), a random handsome customer, so that she can present him to her family as her boyfriend. Just let that sink in. The premise is so dumb and so unbelievable that you have to wonder how it got past the development stage. I mean, they try to insert some level of realism, having David protest his kidnapping and all, but the reasons for his failure to escape are very contrived: Trudie's family believes his “help me I've been kidnapped!” thing is all a joke and (spoiler alert!) when he somehow manages to get a phone, he calls his horrible snobby girlfriend (of course) instead of the police. Further, unlike a real person, David accepts his predicament all too easily – it would not have been hard for him to overpower his petite female captor, take her car, whatever. His objections are token at best. It's almost like he wants to be kidnapped or is otherwise unusually dim. So yes, the whole basis of the movie made no sense whatsoever.

Even so, it's possible to enjoy the movie even while raging at its stupidity. This can be mostly attributed to Sabrina Melissa Joan Hart as a very 90s-styled Trudie. She's the unglamorous loser of the family and it's easy to identify with and root for her. Add to this her painterly aspirations and I was totally on her side. She's such a hot mess that you can almost buy the the fact that she'd kidnap David in the throes of a nervous breakdown, so props to her for that. David, on the other hand, is a bland and smiley sort of fellow who's just there to do whatever the plot requires of him, and since the plot requires him to be a dumbass, he's not particularly believable as a successful human being.

Still, Hart and Lopez look cute together, and since this is a “family” movie (there's a bit of sexual innuendo, albeit decipherable only to corrupted adult minds), the troubling nature of their relationship is blatantly ignored in favour of a “bickering couple” dynamic. Further, Trudie is so harmless and likeable that David's continued imprisonment becomes more and more implausible as time goes on. Normally, one might assume that the film is trying to do something clever here, like explore the nature of Stockholm syndrome and so on, but no. The movie doesn't deserve the credit of your analysis, so don't waste your time (and yes, I realise the irony of saying that as I type my review).

The latter half of the movie treads more familiar romcom territory, with the leads bonding and Trudie's “perfect” family revealing how dysfunctional they really are. Sure it's a bit cliched, but I was always entertained (...perhaps in no small part because I often thought about what I would do if I were in David's place). Overall, the film is funny and highly watchable, ultimately delivering on the happy ending that you watched it for in the first place.

Long story short, if you're looking for a pleasant and brainless Christmas movie, you can do far worse than Holiday in Handcuffs. Despite its absurd premise, it has that warm, comfy quality that you get from hot chocolate and a soft blanket. I can see myself rewatching this when I get into a Christmas mood. Make no mistake though: Holiday in Handcuffs is too silly and too stupid to be a “good” movie, but also too charming to be written off completely.


Alex's Rating: 3/5