19th Meet Up - September 2015 (Pt. 2)

It was fun to talk through "Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" with Carole.

I wish we had a bigger turnout to see what you all thought of it, too.

I am glad Courtney wants to start being more actively involved again!

I hope to see a bunch of you at our Halloween themed meet-up in October!

(Don't mind our sass.)

 

Sam Review's "Hard-boiled Wonderland & the End of the World" by Haruki Murakami - September 2015

Sam's Notes Taken Along the Way

Chapter 1:  Elevator, Silence, Overweight

This character is so weird, counting money the way he does, and "taking classes in lip reading".

The part where he's thinking to himself about "inconsequential fat women" and "young, beautiful, fat women" made me confused.  I couldn't tell if he was being rude, or if he was being complementary.  If he was saying "a young, beautiful woman shouldn't be fat" or if he (like me looking for the least attractive man in the room when I'm in a position to look) is looking at her in a way of "she is attainable to me and so now I'm thinking of attaining her".

Chapter 2:  Golden Beasts

Are the "beasts" just horses or unicorns?  Their coats are black, white, gray, or brown in the Spring, and in Autumn they are gold.  They have blue eyes and a single white horn.  They have hooves and are herded.

It does seem strange that they let the beasts "out" at night but bring them "in" during the day.

Chapter 3:  Rain Gear, INKlings, Laundry

I would have been freaked out by the random closet that led to nothingness and water, too!  And there's a part of me that hates the vagueness, like what is this "job", I'm sure we'll find out but I hate waiting to figure it out!  I also hate the jumping POV or whatever the jump is, I'm not sure if it's a different narrator or just different area.

Maybe I'm crazy but I could almost feel the anxiety and pressure the main character was feeling subside as soon as the "roar of the river was now the babble of a brook".

It's kind of terrifying but also kind of awesome to think about the ability to pull memories out of our bones or our brains.  I mean, in the idea of "no need for torture cuz the truth is in their bones" is a negative spin, but imagine being able to pull the memories out of someone you lost.

Also, I love how the main character, amidst the scientists babble about his research and how valuable it is, the narrators concern is how he could get in trouble for being here since he was called on in an irregular way.

I don't really understand the "old man's" experiments, and I also am kind of glad such thing isn't real because the ability to affect sound and speech seems like an awful lot of power to have in even the best of circumstances.

Chapter 4:  The Library

I am beginning to believe this is almost like parallel universes.  One is obviously more fantastical than the other, but for some reason the memories of the realistic world seep into that of the fantastical.

I wonder if the author was writing the Old Man's Accent as an American.  Cuz reading it as an American I'm imagining a typical Southern Accent but it could also just be a Japanese's interpretation of American Accents as a whole.

Again with threatening a noise free world, I don't think I could take it.  I mean, I guess if I had to loose a sense I probably wouldn't mind losing hearing as much as seeing, tasting, touching, and smelling.  Then again I'd rather loose smell than sound.

During the scene where the narrator is complimenting the granddaughter's sandwiches and the old man responds with "It takes a special someone to appreciate the child" I kept imagining "sandwiches" as a euphemism for "fat ass".

The scene on the way to the elevator is so awkward, but of course, sadly reminds me of myself in high school.

Chapter 5:  Shadow

Aha!  So it is unicorns!

The statement made about "I called the System to check my schedule" reminds me of 1984 where everything is set a specific way.  Same with the "One person, one job" thing.

Chapter 6:  The Colonel

The idea of having a relationship with your shadow is bizarre.  I don't think I pay attention to my shadow nearly as much as an adult as I did as a kid.

Gastric dilation.  I'm curious as to how that should sound, at first I thought it was a polite way to say bulimia but then she said she doesn't gain weight.  Is this an actual thing or fictional for the book?

Chapter 7:  The Wall

When describing his shadow he says there are "Ill-humored folds about his eyes", which doesn't make sense.  Shadows don't have features.  I let the "talking shadow" go without comment because things can speak in their own way without a mouth, but certainly shadows don't have eyes that you can see.

Finally part of the book title is starting to make sense.  Still not sure about the hard boiled part.

He was stupid to think Junior and Big Boy (a little confused as to who they are) were going to leave his most loved items alone.  But, at least he had taken care of the skull.

Chapter 8:  Woods

Always seems to be in stories like this (fantasy type) that woods are where the bad natives live and town is where the good new people live.

I can't imagine how it would feel to have everything in your place, in your life, overturned or destroyed as precisely as Big Boy went through the narrator's place.  It makes my skin crawl with anxiety just thinking about it.

Chapter 9:  The Coming of Winter

When the Librarian talks about her shadow living in the world beyond and becoming something apart from her, it makes me think of Kingdom Hearts and the dark versions of people and the Nobodies.

Chapter 10:  Dreamreading

I wasn't expecting the Narrator to be so important as to be one of twenty six people to survive the operation and training to be a Calcutec.

Chapter 11:  The Death of the Beasts

The scene of how the Beasts die depresses me, and the number of Bests that die each winter depresses me, too.

Chapter 12:  Gray Smoke

The "old dreams" thing confuses me.  Is he literally pulling dreams from the minds of unicorns, or are the skulls just like external hard drives that the Town puts information into?  Either way, what is he pulling from the skulls that is so important?

The idea of growing up and now knowing what singing is, is scary and depressing to say the least.

Chapter 13:  Shadow Grounds

Even with the Professors's explanation, I am so confused about the procedure the narrator went under and how he has 3 pathways in his brain and how he got sucked into The End of the World.

Chapter 14:  Power Station

So if I'm understanding this correctly, the End of the World is just a perception of the world we are in now.  So it's almost like he's becoming schizophrenic or something where he's seeing unicorns where the rest of us see something else.

And when the Professor says that the narrator's mind won't die, is he implying that this "circuit" that he and the System created is actually going on forever, even when the narrator dies and is buried in the ground, he'll still keep living in this unicorn filled, walled in world?

Chapter 15:  Musical Instruments

I wonder what the Caretaker is supposed to symbolize. His statements about appreciating items for what they are, not for their uses, must mean more than face value.

Chapter 18:  Accordion

I don't understand how the accordion fits in the narrator's pocket.  He says it is a fold-able accordion but I still don't see it fitting in a coat pocket.


Overall, I liked the book.  It was tough to read two very unique and complicated books back to back like this, but I did enjoy the story.  About 60% of the way through I started to understand Carole's "Edgar Allen Poe of Japan" analogy because it was a freaky concept without necessarily being a scary story.  However, I don't full understand everything and so I seriously hope the rest of you can give me some insight on, How the two world's existed, and What exactly happened at and after the end?

--||--

Quotes Worth Mentioning

Chapter 1;  Elevator, Silence, Overweight

"Maybe I'd gone up twelve stories, then down three.  Maybe I'd circled the globe.  How would I know?"

(In describing the elevator) "Antiseptic as a brand-new coffin."

Chapter 2:  Golden Beasts

"'We do it that way,' he says, 'and that is how it is.  The same as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.'"  - I feel like I read something like that somewhere else recently, like, just because that's the way we've been doing it forever doesn't mean there isn't a better way.

Chapter 3:  Rain Gear, INKlings, Laundry

"'Got the whale and elephant in the storeroom downstairs.  Take up a lot of space, they do,' said the old man.
"'Well, I guess,' I said.  A few whale skulls and there goes the neighborhood.

Chapter 4:  The Library

"Tell her the Town told you to come read old dreams."  --  This is an interesting line, and I am intrigued, but still aggravated by the vagueness and not knowing what the character's purpose is (or are).

"There's no such thing as happy evolution."  --  Agree or disagree?  Initially I want to say disagree but then again, if you believe that we evolved from microorganisms, wouldn't it also be fair to argue that we were better off that way because there weren't wars and such?

"I withdrew a flex-metal document cache from a pocket behind my left knee, inserted the data list, and locked it."  --  Okay, confused.  Does he literally have a pocket in his pants that is actually a document holder?  Is he a robot and the pocket is part of his robot body?  Is this just a really unfortunate misuse of word(s)?

Chapter 5:  Shadow

"When I came to this town, my shadow was taken away."  --  Curious.  Makes me think of Peter Pan, curious to see where this takes the story.

"By evolution, you wouldn't be referring to the evolving over millions of years kind of evolution, would you?  Excuse me if I misunderstand, but why then do you need things so quickly?  What's one more day?"

Chapter 6:  The Colonel

"No one tells you anything in this Town," says the Colonel.  The Town has its own protocol.  It has no care for what you know or do not know."

"Aesthetically, I remembered reading, the flaccid penis is more pleasing than the erect."  --  Thoughts?  I completely disagree with this statement.

I found the descriptions of the two types of unicorns to be interesting as neither of these are the images that come to mind to me personally.
Greek:  "His body resembles a horse, his head a stag, his feet an elephant, his tail a boar; heloweth after an hideous manner, one black horn he hath in the mids of his forehead, bearing out two cubits in length:  by report, this wild beast cannot possibly be caught alive."
Chinese:  "It has the body of a deer, the tail of an ox, and the hooves of a horse.  Its short horn, which grows out of its forehead, is made of flesh; its coat, on its back, is of five mixed colors, while its belly is brown or yellow."

Chapter 8:  Woods

"Nobody would win a war if they stopped to calculate the costs."
"It's not my war."
"Whose war don't matter.  Whose money don't matter.  That's what war is."

"To have all the building blocks of your life in place by that age [15 years] was, by any standard, a tragedy.  It was as good as sealing yourself into a dungeon.  Walled in, with nowhere to go but your own doom."

"When microorganisms die, they make oil; when huge timbers fall, they make coal.  But everything here was pure, unadulterated rubbish that didn't make anything.  Where does a busted videodeck get you?"

Chapter 9:  The Coming of Winter

"Kindness and a caring mind are two separate qualities.  Kindness is manners.  it is superficial custom, an acquired practice.  Not so the mind.  The mind is deeper, stronger, and, I believe it is far more inconstant."

Chapter 10:  Dreamreading

"I stopped to take a last look at my scrap heap of an apartment.  Once again, life had a lesson to teach me:  It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy.  Sure, I'd gotten tired of this tiny space, but I'd had a good home here."

"But that, as they say, was none of my business, opec would go on drilling for oil, regardless of anyone's opinion, conglomerates would make electricity and gasoline from that oil, people would be running around town late at night using up that gasoline."

"Why do you drink so much?" she wanted to know.

"It makes me feel brave," I said.
"I'm scared, too, but you don't see me drinking."
"Your 'scared' and my 'scared' are two different things."

"Grand father says schools are too inefficient to produce top material.  What do you think?" she asked.
"Well, probably so," I answered.  "I went to school for many years and I don't believe it made that much difference in my life.  I can't speak any languages, can't play any instruments, can't play the stock market, can't ride a horse."

"Everyone must have one thing that they can excel at.  It's just a matter of drawing it out, isn't it?  But school doesn't know how to draw it out.  It crushes the gift.  It's no wonder most people never get to be what they want to be.  They just get ground down."

Chapter 12:  Gray Smoke

"[the operation done on my brain to give me shuffling faculty] They had shoved memories out of my conscious awareness.  They had stolen my memories from me!  Nobody had that right.  Nobody!  My memories belonged to me.  Stealing memories was stealing time.  I got so mad, I lost all fear."

Chapter 13:  Shadow Grounds

"You got to know your limits.  Once is enough, but you got to learn.  A little caution never hurt anyone.  A good woodsman has only one scar on him.  No more, no less.  You get my meaning?"

Chapter 15:  Musical Instruments

"Genius scientist or not, everyone grows old, everyone dies."

"Wasn't much of a life anyway.  Wasn't much of a brain."
"But didn't you say you were satisfied with your life?"
"Word games," I dismissed.  "Everyone army needs a flag."

Chapter 17:  Skulls

"I never trust people with no appetite.  It's like they're always holding something back on you, don't you think?"

Chapter 18:  Accordion

"I located a Schick razor and a can of Gillette Lemon-Lime Foamy with a dry sputter of white around the nozzle.  Death leaves cans of shaving cream half-used."

Chapter 19:  Escape

"Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations.  Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase.  From snails to hardware stores, to married life.  Maybe no one finds it, or even misses it, but fairness is like love.  What is given has nothing to do with what we seek."

18th Meet Up - September 2015 (Pt. 1)

Even though it was a small turnout I had a good time.

Thank you for hosting us, Donnia, and letting us see your adorable place.

I hope the rest of the group gives "Still Life with Woodpecker a Try" because it was definitely a unique book that was worth reading.

It's looking like our second meet-up this month is gonna be a small turnout, but I hope to see more of you in October.

Sam Review's "Still Life with Woodpecker" by Tom Robbins - August 2015

Sam's Notes Taken Along the Way

Gotta love a book that starts out with a drinking author.  My favorite kind of character.

Are the parts of the book called "phases" to represent the four primary phases of the moon?

I really love the story of Gulietta and Prince Charming.  Up until this point I was having a difficult time putting all the names and characters together but this set of chapters helped me out.

The bit where the princess is explaining how no birth control works for her, and how she was beginning to feel that the world's attempt to prevent what is natural (child birth) almost feels like it is also taking away from the romance that is love and sex - made me think of Jessica so much.  Just up until the Princess decided celibacy was the perfect life choice.

I went through a phase like the Princess did, trying to be overly mature as if to prove something.  Didn't work well for me - I expect it won't work well for her either.

Is it true that you can't bring anything to Hawaii that might affect the natural ecosystem?

I find it funny that a Blonde was telling a Redhead that Redheads are evil and get their read hair from sweets and lust.

I feel like I read to fast to appreciate the turns of phrase and wit that are in this book.  At least, I think it's meant to be funny.  The language reminds me of Alice in Wonderland, kind of hard to grasp English humor.

I am both impressed and deterred by the honestly blunt sex scene on the boat.

Boo to killing to dog.  Not just the act but also the how.

I love the idea of the blackberry ceiling over Seattle.  I don't know how realistic it would be, but if it could actually be something I think every city should find a bush plant like that and invest in it.

The Princess is crazy.  I don't think I could ever love someone enough to imprison myself in my own home until they were released.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Gulietta was the King's half-sister and ended up taking over the throne.

Is the idea of being a "genuine" human such a big thing?  Is it the opposite of "basic"?  Cuz this is the second book that hangs on that phrase.  The first being Casual Vacancy.

Is the only reason they didn't try to blow up the door on the first day because they wanted to spend time together?  To make up for the time they'd lost?  Even though they didn't plan to be together after?

I find it interesting that the Princess says "I found a way to make love stay," in reference to sacrificing herself for him.  Because, it's true, it's substantially harder to move on from someone when they've died, especially if you are the cause of that death.  Not to mention our tendency to romanticize a person once they're gone regardless of our relationship to them.

I do believe that 2 people can have the same exact dream.  I've had it happen at least once, Jessica and I and the Coo Coo Flumes.

I'm glad The Princess and Bernard ended up together, it wouldn't have made sense otherwise.  Even if I feel like I didn't comprehend half of this story, I'm glad that part of it ended the way I wanted it to.

I love the ending.  Maybe if had written the story in shorthand he wouldn't have lost me with all the weird jokes and turns of phrase and unique way of spelling things.  I wholeheartedly concur with the idea that love is not what we crave buy mystery, something new, and if we stand still and stop finding mystery in our lives, that is when people crave the mystery of other/new people.  So we must always search for the mystery in ourselves, in our partner, and in our life to keep us from looking at strangers, in order to make love stay.

--||--

Quotes Worth Mentioning

"IN THE LAST QUARTER of the twentieth century, at a time when Western civilization was declining too rapidly for comfort and yet too slowly to be very exciting..."

"...the last quarter of the twentieth century was a severe period for lovers. It was a time when women openly resented men, a time when men felt betrayed by women."

"Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.
"Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.
"There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay?
"Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.
"Answer me that and I will ease your mind about the beginning and the end of time.
"Answer me that and I will reveal to you the purpose of the moon."

"...'an American house, a house without frills,' and got just that. It was a barn, a box with a peaked roof."

"Leigh-Cheri eventually named it Prince Charming after 'that son-of-a-bitch who never comes through.'"

"As Queen Tilli put it when Max asked her what she thought their only daughter wanted out of life,
"'She vants to buy zee vorld a Coke.'
“'Well,' said Max, 'she can’t afford it. And the world would demand Diet Pepsi, anyhow. Why doesn’t she buy me a martini, instead?'”

"Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature."

"...how can men be such lummoxes, such wads of Juicy Fruit on the soles of our ballet slippers and still feel so good?"

“Who does have a love life anymore? These days people have sex lives, not love lives.
Lots of them are even giving up sex. I don’t have a love life because I’ve never met a
man who knew how to have a love life. Maybe I don’t know how, either.”

"If smiles had addresses, Bernard’s would have been General Delivery, the Moon."

"we can never alter the ratio of good to evil. All we can do is keep things stirred up so neither good nor evil solidifies."

“I no longer know what love is. A week ago I had a lot of ideas. What love is and how
to make it stay. Now that I’m in love, I haven’t a clue. Now that I’m in love, I’m
completely stupid on the subject.”

"...to approach sex carelessly, shallowly, with detachment and without warmth is to dine night after night in erotic greasy spoons. In time, one’s palate will become insensitive, one will suffer (without
knowing it) emotional malnutrition, the skin of the soul will fester with scurvy, the teeth of the heart will decay."

"The Red Beards would have been a lunar people—mystic, occult, changeable, feministic, spiritual, pacific, agrarian, artistic, and erotic. While the Yellow Hairs would have been solar: abstract, rational, prosaic, militaristic, industrial, patriarchal, unemotional, and puritan. It’s a conflict that goes all the way back to the riff between Lucifer and Jehovah. The sun is Jehovah’s, but Lucifer rules dat ol’ debil moon.”

“Don’t let yourself be victimized by the age you live in. It’s not the times that will bring us down, any more than it’s society. When you put the blame on society, then you end up turning to society for the solution. There’s a tendency today to absolve individuals of moral responsibility and treat them as victims of social circumstance. You buy that, you pay with your soul. It’s not men who limit women, it’s not straights who limit gays, it’s not whites who limit blacks. What limits people is lack of character. What limits people is that they don’t have the fucking nerve or imagination to star in their own movie, let alone direct it.”

“The most important thing is love,” said Leigh-Cheri. “I know that now. There’s no
point in saving the world if it means losing the moon.”

“'I’ll follow him to the ends of the earth,' she sobbed.
"Yes, darling. But the earth doesn’t have any ends. Columbus fixed that."

"She did know that once tattooed one could no longer expect to lie for all eternity in an orthodox Jewish cemetery. They wouldn’t even bury women with pierced ears. A strange theory of mutilation from the people who invented cutting the skin off the pee-pee."

"Smoking cigarettes is as intimate as we can become with fire without immediate excruciation. Every smoker is an embodiment of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and bringing it on back home.  We smoke to capture the power of the sun, the pacify Hell, to identify with the primordial spark, to feed on the marrow of the volcano ... Does that mean that chain smokers are religious fanatics? ... The lung of the smoker is a naked virgin thrown as a sacrifice into the godfire."

“Once in Hawaii, before I hardly even knew you, I thought you’d been arrested, and for some reason I went running to your boat in a panic. Tonight, I thought you were dead. There wasn’t any boat to run to.”

"Somewhere between champagne and tequila is the secret history of Mexico, just as somewhere between beef jerky and Hostess Twinkies is the secret history of America."

"It's always there, somewhere, a world on the other side of the mirror (or the Camel pack), a promise in the next pair of eyes that smiles at us.  We glimpse it when we stand still."

Sam Reviews "The 5th Wave" by Rick Yancey - July 2015

Sam's Notes Taken Along the Way

Part One:

I was instantly hooked from the first paragraph.  One of the major bonuses to "action-type" books.

Okay science-people:  give me the true definition of a star; because I pretty much think of Pumba's explanation from The Lion King.  In the book the narrator says the stars are suns.

I find it funny that both of Tyler's book choices have been "end of the world" "clearly written for boys" however "narrated by a girl".

Has anyone else heard of the "Grandfather Paradox"?  Whether you have or not, have you read "All You Zombies"?  If not, you should - it's a short story.  In fact, I might share it on the group page and the blog here since it's brought up here.  And if you find the short story interesting, then you should certainly read Chuck Palahniuk's book "Rant".

I hate the silence.  I never realize how used to the Hum I am until we loose power at the apartment and it's deafening.  I remember the first time it went out without a reason (no storm) it was later at night and I opened the door to the hallway and the complete darkness and complete silence made my brain go into panic mode like I had just opened the door to let in demons or something.

I think it's interesting how the "matter of fact" style of this book makes me more interested in it.  There isn't pages of description but I feel so enthralled and intrigued with the story, and it makes the book go by faster.

Wouldn't the sudden "technology" make you leery of thinking good things?  Like was there not one piece of technology that the "camp" had that they could have checked on to see if it was working?  Just reading through the part where they saw the helicopter and then the buses, it just makes sense that the aliens were lulling you into a false sense of security.

The part where Sammy tells Cassie to make sure she doesn't forget and leave his teddy bear behind definitely pulled at my heartstrings.

When Cassie is looking back at the moment when all the "military men" had the guns, she's calling her dad an idiot for not figuring it all out sooner.  But did she know at the time?  If she did, why did she rat out Crisco?

It's awful, but also really clever, to have Crisco's character be so obsessed with the treasures and then to have him die in the ash pit.

Part Two:

I'm not a fan of jumping POV without explanation.  If you're going to jump narrators throughout "Parts" then you should introduce them somehow so the reader isn't confused.

Was there a "1st Wave" book?  I feel this book explains what happens well enough that you wouldn't need previous books.  But if there are other books, why did Tyler have us start with the 5th?

I think it's sick that they made the narrator in this part kill his friend, Chris.  Even if Chris was always a puppet to The Others, they could have had someone else kill him.  But I guess that's war.

Okay, so Ben Parish is the narrator for part two, now I'm a lot more intrigued.  I guess that's a type of literary technique - to keep you obsessed with the unknown so by the time you figure out who you're reading about you're so hooked it doesn't hardly matter.

Also, I appreciate the parallelism that both of these kids / teens have lost younger siblings they cared about.  But of course, that also makes me sappy and want them to find each other and heal each other's wounds.

I am very confused as to if the people that are about to train Ben are "good guys" or "bad guys" or just "better of two evils".

Part Three:

I find it funny how the first bit of this book is all about how "we got it wrong" with all of our "fluffy alien movies", and yet in this chapter you're hearing the thoughts of an "Alien" who is "not like the others" and "for some reason can't do what he was put here to do - kill this female human".

Why aren't the "Aliens" concerned about the animals?  Is it because animals are actually essential to the ecosystem of the earth while humans aren't so much?

Did anyone else get some "Host" deja vu when talking about The Awakening?  Or is it just me?  Is this a common theme in Science Fiction stories, where 95% of the Aliens are anti-human but the other 5% are either sympathetic or the human's the inhabit are just too strong to be overpowered?

Part Four:

I'm glad Evan Walker explained the possibility of the humans working with the aliens under certain circumstances.  I still find it dumb because the chances of the aliens stabbing humans in the back doesn't seem too far fetched.

I'm glad Evan Walker is hopeful, yet smart.  I didn't like how cynical Cassie was, how you couldn't trust anyone - even if you can't.  I'm glad Evan actually does still have his humanity intact, not just pretending to.

I really love the Evan Walker bit.  I love that he brings her back to reality and that she's not the only one with loss.  I love that he accepts her "purpose for life" as his own and make a plan to help her, even if it ends in their deaths.  I'm glad The Others didn't get to him before Cassie met him.

Part Five:

Just curious, since this part is narrated by Sammy, did you guys ever have a specific thing as a kid that made everything better?  I remember, I had Duckie - this off brand beanie baby duck that I took with me everywhere.  And one time we had a really bad tornado and I was pretty sure I had left him outside and I cried and cried until my dad left the crawl space to go get him for me so I would relax.

Part Six:

"Zombie" is a super lame nick name - especially when you're referring to yourself, Ben Parish.

Correction - all of the soldier names are ridiculous:  Flintstone, Tank, Dumbo, Poundcake, Oompa, Teacup, and Nugget.

Okay, now I'm upset.  Why would they take kids younger than 10 to train for battle?  I don't remember how young the Hunger Games went but I know there was a cut off.  Although it does make sense to finally tie the multiple narrators together, now Sammy is with Ben Parish.

Since Vosch is apparently a "good guy" then I don't fully understand why they killed everyone in Camp Ashpit.  They didn't test them for "green or red" to see if they had aliens in their brains, they just took the youngest kids and blew up the rest.  Is it simply that they assumed the adults would rebel against "the man" while the kids would not?  And, even if that is the case, Ben and Cassie were the same age and so it doesn't make sense that Ben/Zombie was taken to Camp Haven and Cassie was left behind.

I love that the "code" for a soldier going rogue is "Dorothy" or "off to see the wizard" or "on the yellow brick road".

What's up with the "vivid description of something physical on a person" followed by the phrase "not that I'm noticing these things" in both Cassie and Ben's POV.

Was Ben 15 when Cassie was 16?  Is that why Cassie was sentenced to die?  Or was it just a matter of them being in different places where different people called the shots?

I love and hate the parallelism of "“No matter what happens out there, I’ll come back for you,” I promise him."

Part Seven:

I can definitely relate to the feeling of being able to tell when a certain person is walking around - and hoe unsettling it is when that person walks or sounds different than normal.  Used to happen all the tie at my mom's.  And even now, in my apartment, I can usually tell who's here by the heaviness of their steps outside in the hall.

I'm a total dunce for not putting it together than Evan might be The Silencer.

Part Eight:

I know that a part of what makes the book good and interesting is that it twists and turns but I hate feeling like I don't understand what is going on.  I agree with Ringer, that it makes more sense that the infested are actually the ones running the Boot Camp Base while the non-infested are running around being gunned down by trained alien pods.  Green light and red light - which is actually the enemy?  Ringer is Green after getting her Wonderland Pod removed.

That's awful that the Wonderland program goes through every single memory, not just key ones.  Although I guess the memory of realizing the truth would be pretty key.

Part Nine:

Weird that Cassie told Evan that she suspected something less than good about him.

I agree with Cassie, Evan shouldn't have burned the house down, to keep hope alive.

Did Evan end up killing the squad Ben left behind?  Or a squad sent to find Ben's squad?

That seems really torturous to have Sammy be in boot camp for damn near 3 years while other people are only in for 6 months.

I agree that it does seem way more realistic that aliens are really just a "concept" more than a physical being that's going to appear in front of us one day.

So Cassie must not have been infected if Evan was able to "enter" her.  But then she glowed red.

Part Twelve:

I love that Evan (I'm assuming) hacked the system and made the "kill" button read "oops" instead.

I think it's great that Evan knocked the cockroach corpse through the grate and that was what Cassie noticed and proved that Evan was alive.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this novel.  I always say I hate Science Fiction but this book club has proven that I'm just picky.  The story was swift but still not predictable which is great.  I don't like the jumping narrator, even if it did make sense at the end, I don't prefer it.  I'm a little unsure how I feel about the end.  I want to know if Evan made it, I don't really want Cassie and Ben to be too friendly, and I want to know what the next step in the story is.  But, I guess that's the sign of a good book because I want to go look up the next book in the series (if there is one).

--||--

Quotes Worth Mentioning

Part One:

"My parents didn’t know the first thing about that myth. They just thought the name [Cassiopeia] was pretty."

"It’s been a long time since humans were prey animals. A hundred thousand years or so. But buried deep in our genes the memory remains: the awareness of the gazelle, the instinct of the antelope."

Part Two:

"One in ten? And here I was thinking the plague was a death sentence. I couldn’t be happier."

“God doesn’t call the equipped, son. God equips the called. And you have been called.”

Part Three:

"A moment comes in war when the last line must be crossed. The line that separates what you hold dear from what total war demands. If he couldn’t cross that line, the battle was over, and he was lost."

Part Four:

"Are pervs only pervs if you don’t find them attractive?"

Part Five:

"All that he has experienced, all that he remembers, and even those things that he can’t remember; everything that makes up the personality of Sammy Sullivan is pulled and sorted and transmitted."

Part Six:

"It isn’t up to me to break his heart; that’s time’s job."

"...he [Tank] will be consumed in fire, his ashes mixing with the gray smoke and carried aloft in a column of superheated air, eventually to settle over us in particles too fine to see or feel. He’ll stay with us—on us—until we shower that night, washing what’s left of Tank into the drains connected to the pipes connected to the septic tanks, where he will mix with our excrement before leaching into the ground."

Part Seven:

"I touch his knee, then pull my hand back quickly. After the first touch, touching becomes too easy."

"“I think that’s the way it is,” he says after a minute. “When you love someone. Something happens to them, and it’s a punch in the heart. Not like a punch in the heart; a real punch in the heart.”"

"Watching him step lightly off the back porch and trot toward the trees, heading west, toward the highway, where, as everyone knows, fresh game like deer and rabbit and Homo sapiens like to congregate."

"In every creepy movie ever made, the barn is the prime nesting ground for the things you don’t know you’re looking for and always regret finding."

Part Eight:

“I lit up after you pulled out the implant. The eyepieces don’t pick up infestations. They react when there’s no implant.”
“They lit up on those three infesteds. Why would the eyepieces light up if they weren’t?”
“They lit up because those people weren’t infested. They’re just like us, the only difference being they don’t have implants.
"Take us in. Tag and bag us. Train us to kill. Anyone who isn’t tagged will glow green, and when they defend themselves or challenge us, shoot at us like that sniper up there—well, that just proves they’re the enemy, doesn’t it?  Until we’ve killed everyone who isn’t tagged. Ben, we’re the 5th Wave.”

"It’s a lie. Wonderland. Camp Haven. The war itself.  How easy it was. How incredibly easy, even after all that we’d been through. Or maybe it was easy because of all we’d been through.  They gathered us in. They emptied us out. They filled us up with hate and cunning and the spirit of vengeance.  So they could send us out again.  To kill what’s left of the rest of us.  Check and mate."

Part Nine:

"A flower to the rain."

Part Eleven:
"If the world breaks a million and one promises, can you trust the million and second?"

Part Twelve:

"Here, in this place. A thousand years later and a million miles from the halls of George Barnard High School. Here, in the belly of the beast at the bottom of the world, standing right in front of me.  Benjamin Thomas Parish."

"Ben like a doctor. Me like a soldier. Like two kids playing dress-up. A fake doctor and a fake soldier debating with themselves whether to blow the other one’s brains out.  Those first few moments between me and Ben Parish were very strange."

""The minute we decide that one person doesn’t matter anymore, they’ve won.”
Beneath a sky crowded with a billion stars. I don’t care what the stars say about how small we are.  One, even the smallest, weakest, most insignificant one, matters."
--Makes me think of the Doctor Who Quote "900 years of time and space and I've never met anyone who wasn't important."

16th Meet Up - June 2015

I had a great time with you all!  

Kudos to Aly for picking such a fabulous book that we all seemed to live.

And a special thanks to those who were able to bring a little dish to pass.

Can't wait to get together in July, and hopefully go see Paper Towns together, too!

Sam Review's "Where She Went" by Gayle Forman - April 2015

Sam's Notes Taken Along the Way

So after the way "If I Stay" ended I was definitely not expecting to jump into the POV of Adam - who, by the way, seems like a total asshole when he's talking about himself and his life.  I'm almost disappointed that I even picked up this book after reading through Chapter One.  And, while it is somewhat of a relief that this story didn't turn out "perfect" and feel like a short story arc in a TV show, I'm disappointed that Mia appears to be alive and well and yet she and Adam aren't even in a "complicated long distance relationship" and instead he's just hanging loose with his band and Bryn.

I'm glad they made a point to discuss how some people don't freak out over trauma.  I know a part of that is because Mia had "known" all about the loss for a while, but I also feel it's true.  I know people look at me like a robot when I don't get terribly upset about my dad and other loses, but people all process things differently.

I guess it makes sense, realistically, that once Mia got away to New York, to Julliard that she got lost in herself and her emotional, mental, and spiritual healing, and just never came home.  And, the author did make a point to have Adam say that to her, "I'll let you go if you need to, if you'd just stay."

I really hate how Adam doesn't just say what he wants to say; especially after Mia tells him the story of the rude professor who told her to basically suck it up or be smothered.  I hate how drawn out all the "feelings" are when this is a no lose, no win situation where he could get the feelings off his chest and not really have any consequences.  Additionally, I don't understand why he took out all his bad feelings on his band, and how he doesn't even treat them as civil friends anymore.  That is just super unfair to them, and they're not even characters I'm terribly invested in as people.

I can honestly say I've never heard my dad's voice in my head.  I don't even have very realistic memories of what he sounds like.  Sometimes, I'll hear is laugh but that's about it.  I wonder if it will be different when I have more loss.  Because now, I can kind of talk to my mom and she can tell me what dad would probably say, and I believe her, so my brain doesn't really have to sit and ponder on what or how my dad would say something.

I'm glad there's finally some explanation regarding his "standoffish behavior" around Mia.  That he treated her as wounded after the accident, and just never stopped, even after she left him.  It makes more sense, and I can understand Mia hating it, because I hate reading it.

Over all I didn't like this part of the story as much as I liked "If I Stay".  I think part of it is that the "for the love of music" idea is lost on me, personally, and so I just wanted to skim through the "rock and roll lifestyle" bits and just jump to the raw emotions and dialogue with Mia.  However, I'm glad I finished the story, and I'm more happy with the ending of this book than I was with "If I Stay", even if they didn't seem completely linear at first.

--||--

Quotes Worth Mentioning

"It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would."
Excerpt from “Love is not all:
it is not meat nor drink.”

"I saw how Mia went from being a very talented player to something altogether different.  In the space of five months, something magical and grotesque transformed her.  So, yes, it was all related to her "tragedy," but Mia was the one doing the heavy lifting.  She always had been."

"I don't know why I'd expect it [her voice] to be different except that everything's different now."

"I’ll be your mess, you be mine
That was the deal that we had signed
I bought a hazmat suit to clean up your waste
Gas masks, gloves, to keep us safe
But now I’m alone in an empty room
Staring down immaculate doom."
"Messy"  Collateral Damage - Track 2

"When Bryn said that, [Mia leaving Adam by choice instead of dying with the rest of her family], uttered out loud the thing that to my never-ending shame I sometimes felt, I’d fallen in love with her a little bit. And I’d thought that was enough. That this implicit understanding and those first stirrings would bloom until my feelings for Bryn were as consuming as my love for Mia had once been."

"Except even at the start, when we were in that can’t-get-enough-of-you phase, there was like some invisible wall between us. Then I justified it. This was just how adult relationships were, how love felt once you had a few battle scars."

I gesture toward the statue. “It’s like she has some kind of secret. The secret to life.”
"So ask her for it.”
“Ask her?”
“She’s right there. No one’s here. No tourists crawling around her feet like little ants. Ask her for her secret.”
“I’m not going to ask her.”
“You want me to do it? I will, but it’s your question, so I think you should do the honors.”
“You make a habit of talking to statues?”
“Yes. And pigeons. Now, are you going to ask?”

" “A grief club that I can’t join?”
I expect her to tell me no. Or that I’m a member. After all, I lost them, too. Except even back then, it had been different, like there’d been a barrier. That’s the thing you never expect about grieving, what a competition it is. Because no matter how important they’d been to me, no matter how sorry people told me they were, Denny and Kat and Teddy weren’t my family, and suddenly that distinction had mattered.

"Letting go. Everyone talks about it like it’s the easiest thing. Unfurl your fingers one by one until your hand is open. But my hand has been clenched into a fist for three years now; it’s frozen shut. All of me is frozen shut. And about to shut down completely."

"All I can think to do is keep playing because for the first time in a long time there’s nothing more I want to do. And I’m scared of what happens when the music ends."