Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman? by Eleanor Updale

Montmorency is a thief.  A common criminal, doing time in one of Victorian London's notorious prison in 1875. But what makes him a different than many criminals is that he's very smart, and that he is lucky enough to have a benefactor of sorts -- a brilliant doctor who saved his life.  While fleeing the police after a robbery attempt, Montmorency he crashed through a factory skylight and landed on an enormous machine, and would have died from his injuries if an ambitious young doctor hadn't wanted to use him as a test case.  A year after his accident, following multiple painful surgeries, the thief who is known as Montmorency (from the name on the bag of tools he was clutching as he fell) is routinely trotted out for meetings of the Victorian scientific community.   He's prodded and poked like a laboratory animal, while the upper-crusties are treating him like some kind of rare zoo exhibit, Montmorency, a bright young man with an excellent memory, is actually studying them, and storing away all sorts of useful information.  He's not stealing valuables items any more -- just valuable ideas.

After one such exhibition, Montmorency absorbs up a very interesting piece of information:  a map of the newly renovated London sewer system.  Montmorency realizes that this would be the perfect escape route for a thief, and for the rest of his incarceration, he begins planning.  He will use his burglary skills and newfound knowledge to reinvent himself as a gentleman.

I really enjoyed this book.  Of course, I'm currently fascinated by the Victorian period, but this book was both well-written historical novel and an exciting adventure/crime story.  Though I personally would never have the nerve to burglarize, it's fun to imagine -- I do love heist movies and crime capers, so there you go.  I think Upland did a good job imagining any plot holes and figuring out plausible explanations as to how Montmorency is able to pull off a double life as a Victorian gentleman (a trick in itself) and a thief that spends his nights in the slimy sewers of London without getting caught.  He does encounter all kinds of setbacks and dangers. 

I do wish that Updale had given more details about the actual burglaries -- once it's established that he's a thief, she doesn't give many examples of the crimes, just the fact that he's a burglar.  Also, she doesn't flesh out too much of his character -- Montmorency is so busy trying to reinvent himself, yet the reader learns next to nothing about his history, not even his real name. A little more detail would have been great.  Since this is the first in the series of four, I suspect the reader will get more information in the later volumes. 

While I do recommend Montmorency, I have to point out that there is extensive discussion, especially in the beginning, about the filth of the London sewer system and everything that's in there -- and fairly explicit descriptions of the sanitation systems of Victorian prisons. If you have a weak stomach, you might want to skim those chapters.  I like to read while I eat, but I would not recommend this book for mealtime eating until you get past about Chapter 13. 

It's short, only 233 pages, and a fast read. This volume of the Montmorency series is also available on audiobook, narrated by the wonderful Stephen Fry (aka Wooster from PBS' Jeeves & Wooster).  I've already put Monmorency Book #2 on hold at the library.  Sadly, though there are several copies of the first book in my library system (which has 24 branches) they only own one of each of the remaining books in the series.  It's too bad this book isn't more popular. 

This is book #4 for Our Mutual Read challenge.

A Girl of the Limberlost

Since I'm always on the lookout for an overlooked classic, I was eager to read this book.  It came highly recommended by a friend (the same one who was shocked I'd never heard of E. Nesbit) and it was mentioned in the introduction of my new favorite, Daddy Long-Legs.  But again, it's not nearly as widely read as great coming-of-age stories like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (which I also love). However, that suggests a question -- can it be considered a classic if it's not widely read?  And why isn't anyone reading it anymore?  In this case, I think there's a pretty good reason.  This book started out with such promise and ended so disappointingly -- with a whimper, you might say.

The setup:  set in the early 1900s, teenaged Elnora has grown up in the Indiana countryside, on the edge of the Limberlost Swamp -- a virtual nature preserve.  It's her first day of high school in the big city, and of course, she's dressed all wrong, has no friends, and no money for the books and tuition which she owes because she lives outside the district.  Her grumpy, distant mother is unsupportive, and had hoped Elnora would quickly be discouraged from such upstart notions and stay on the farm where she belongs, since there is no ready cash to pay for such foolishness.  Though her widowed mother owns acres of land with valuable trees, she's clinging to it, symbolizing her lost love for Elnora's dead father, who perished in the swamp when she was an infant.  They're so cash-poor they can't afford the taxes, much less school. 

But hark!  Elnora can pay her own way -- the Bird Lady, (a local botanist/collector of moths and other flora, fauna, and historic artifacts) will pay good money for the treasures that our heroine can collect from the swamp. So it looks like Elnora will spend the rest of the nearly 500 pages learning about life and love from her benevolent naturalist patroness, and somehow reconnect with her embittered mother, possibly learning more about the story of her lost father.  All will end well.  Right?

But sadly, this story sort of went downhill about halfway through. [WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!] Quite a few plot developments are just waaaay too convenient.  Elnora and her mother reconcile seemingly overnight, characters like the beloved neighbor couple and an orphan boy essentially disappear, and the second half of the book is dominated by a plot about Elnora's true love and his evil fiancee, which drags on forever.  Finally, Elnora is aided by some friendly characters who were mysteriously mentioned earlier but never explained.  When Elnora first starts collecting moths etc. for cash, she refers to someone called Freckles, without any explanation or backstory.  Later, the Bird Lady suddenly refers to someone called Swamp Angel.  Who the heck are these people?  It turns out A Girl of the Limberlost is actually a sequel to another book called -- wait for it -- Freckles. There is no mention of this previous volume on the book jacket, and none of the characters are included in the list that precedes the first chapter. Yet, [SPOILER!!!] Elnora suddenly takes off from Indiana, take a train ALONE to Michigan, and goes to meet these people -- complete strangers -- in chapter 23!!  Who, of course welcome her with open arms.  Riiiight.

It also really annoyed me that this is sort of two stories in one, a detailed story setting up Elnora and all the hardships she's going to overcome, then, without minimal transition, the book just jumps forward in time three years to set up the scenario in which she meets her true love Philip. Seriously, the book reads,

So the first year went, and the second and third were a repetition; but the fourth was different, for that was the close of the course, ending with graduation and all in attendant ceremonies and expenses." 

Hold the phone, what happened in those three years?   Not one thing worth mentioning the rest of her high school career -- up until the point at which Elnora is valedictorian and a star musician.  How convenient!  It's as though the author had some really good ideas about the setup of the character, and a couple of major events in her life, but couldn't take the time to expand the rest of her life. Doesn't she have a single sweetheart in high school?  A nasty teacher?  Doesn't her character develop at all in those years, or the relationship with her mother?  And some foreshadowed events never take place -- in the beginning, there's a whole setup about how dangerous the Limberlost is at night, full of robbers, bandits, etc., and it appears in the first couple of chapters that Elnora's being stalked -- yet, there's no payoff as these characters and plot elements simply disappear.  Ooops!  Forgot about that, never mind. 

The ending of this book digressed so much that I stopped reading it with less than 20 pages to go.  Seriously, I put the book down and did not care how it ended.  I finally picked it up again last night so I could force myself to finish it --  frankly, I just didn't care any more, but I didn't see how I could post a review without actually finishing it.   And, sadly, the ending is just horrible, unbelievable and preachy. 

The final message of this book (which is about as subtle as a sledgehammer): "Everyone should be just like Elnora, who is perfect!"  I honestly don't think she had a single flaw.  In retrospect, I wonder how I made it through this book.  I did like the first half; I was really rooting for her, and it's not a difficult read.  I got through a lot of it on an airplane (it was just easier than rooting around in my carryon for another book) and in the shuttle to my hotel.

Would I have liked it when I was fourteen?  I guess parts of it are a little romantic, since Elnora is a sort of a Cinderella figure.  But aside from the structural flaws (which I probably wouldn't have noticed as a YA), the writing is pretty stilted, it's sentimental, and really preachy. I'm really not surprised nobody reads this book any more.

TTYL by Lauren Myracle

Banned books week!

I was inspired by a display at my library to include TTYL by Lauren Myracle. All I knew about this book was that it was a book written in IMs (so I guess it's epistolary fiction) and that it must have offended someone at some point. Also, the author has written a series of juvenile books that my daughters enjoy (Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen); at some point, they're going to want to read another book by this author, so I thought I'd better check it out first.

A small note of explanation regarding banned books: many of the books found on banned books lists haven't actually been banned, just challenged, which is slightly different. Challenged means that someone has gotten his or her knickers in a twist about a book and complained about it to a library or school; banned means that the book has been successfully removed by said challengers. Many, many books are challenged unsuccessfully. And hooray to all the librarians, teachers, and school administrators for standing up for literary freedom. Frequently, the book-challengers have never even read the books in question. Should I be shocked? I know I shouldn't, but it never ceases to amaze me that people jump on the banned-books bandwagon without completing the entire literary work.

OK, rant over. Back to the review.

TTYL is the story of Zoe, Maddie, and Angela, three 10th graders in suburban Atlanta. The entire story is told in the form of Instant Messages. The book was published in 2002, but I'm sure if it had been written today it would have been all text messages or tweets, so it might have been even more difficult to read for an adult. I admit it, I am a texting snob. I do text, but I can't help it, I write in complete sentences, and I do punctuate and capitalize. Unless I'm being ironic. I did find it really irritating that these girls can have these long conversations but can't take the time to write out the word "you," "you're," and "night." Ironically, I read this book on National Punctuation Day.

However, if you can get past the grammar and IM-speak, this is actually a decent story. I did sometimes get the characters confused (the characters are differentiated by font and typeface color, which helped), but I was sucked into the story pretty quickly. Basically, the girls are dealing with the usual 10th grade stuff: cliques, crushes, strict parents, getting a driver's license. The girls are worried that their friendship will suffer from the usual growing-up high school angst. However, these girls have some serious problems that emerge: shy Zoe gets a lot of attention from an English teacher that attends her church, and things get a little nebulous. Maddie's new hip friend posts something really embarassing about her on the Internet -- these are real problems that could happen to a lot of kids, and teen readers should be aware of them.

I knew this book was banned/challenged because of the language and adult content, but some of it really did surprise me. In fairness, [mild spoiler alert!] the girls are just talking, no action. It really isn't any raunchier than most of the episodes of Sex and the City, but those characters are thirtysomething women, not teenagers. On the one hand, I'm well aware that teenagers talk like this all the time, so it's probably fairly realistic talk. I know teenagers are curious about sex, but some of it did make me pretty uncomfortable. It's a little icky.

Also, I do think that the sexual content of the book detracts from some good material about the more serious issues. Yes, the girls are somewhat stereotyped -- Angela is the pretty girl, Zoe is the good, religious girl, Maddie is the wild party animal -- but there are some topics included that parents should discuss with their kids.

Of course, this is probably just ironic because the parents who should discuss this stuff with their kids are the ones who aren't paying attention to what their children read anyway. Like the typical parents in most YA lit, the parents in this book seem to be clueless and uncaring; for example, there's a subplot about the girls planning a weekend camping trip virtually unsupervised. Who are these idiots? In this day and age when most parents won't let their kids walk to soccer practice unsupervised, how is it possible that they'd allow this? It is implied that Maddie's father has a drinking problem -- these are the parents that give their newly licensed daughter a car and let her drive around at all hours of the day and night. No wonder naked videos of this girl are posted on the Internet.

Basically, I'd really recommend this book for parents of teenagers to read -- they really need to be aware of what's going on with high schoolers, and talk with them about it. Maybe that's the underlying message that most librarians (and teachers, probably) want to pass on: pay attention to what your kids are reading, and why they're reading it. Don't stick your head in the sand and pretend that if you ban books like this, kids won't read them. Nothing will make a kid want to read something more than telling them that it's bad and that they shouldn't. I'd like to pretend that my twelve year old daughter won't want to read books like this, but she probably will. Hopefully when that time comes we can even talk about it.

Story Time by Edward Bloor

This is one weird book. Unfortunately, not weird in a good way.

This is not a book that had been recommended by anyone, or was on my to-read list, or even one I'd heard of. Lately, I've been trying to stick with my vast collection of unread books (which currently number more than 100), or books from one of my book groups, or even one of the hundreds on my Goodreads list. But this morning I was volunteering in the library and while I was shelving, Story Time just caught my eye in the Young Adult section (there's a funny little drawing of a demon on the cover). I thought I'd be spontaneous and started it right away. Sadly, it was not an undiscovered treasure, but a disappointment.

This book has a really interesting premise -- George, 11, and Kate, 13, have been accepted into the prestigious Whittaker Academy magnet school, which boasts that its students score highest on standardized tests than any other school in the country. George is eager to attend, since he doesn't fit in at the middle school -- he's smarter and smaller than everyone else in his grade. Kate is reluctant since she's a shoo-in for the lead in the school play, but agrees to go with him.

The school, which is in the basement of the an enormous historic city library, is sort of a cross between 1984 and Lemony Snicket's school from hell, The Austere Academy. In fact, I'd say this book was definitely influenced by The Series of Unfortunate Events -- the Whittaker family that administers the school are so horrible and surreal, they don't make sense, and there's no accountability by say, law enforcement or child protective services. But this book lacks the sly wit and clever wordplay of the Snicket series, and Kate and George aren't as endearing as the tragically funny Baudelaire siblings.

The book is labeled as a satirical, comedic look at the education and the growing emphasis on standardized test scoring, as the students at Whittaker aren't taught to learn or think, just to do well on the test. But this part of the story is quickly bypassed in favor of a plot development in which volumes of the rare book collection are harboring mischievous and murderous demons. Things continue to get weirder and more confusing as Kate and George explore rumors of mysterious deaths in the library. Then there are even more confusing and undeveloped plot elements, such as Kate's missing father, her agoraphobic mother, a librarian who speaks only in nursery rhymes, and a military death-ray. The whole thing gets wrapped up, sort of, during a disastrous visit from the First Lady.

I didn't find this book particularly amusing -- most of the characters are really nasty and mean-spirited, the subplots are too undeveloped, like the demons/ghosts -- and there were some violent and grotesque deaths. I found it just confusing, unsatisfying and oddly unsettling. There's just too much stuff packed into this story, and none of it is resolved very well. It's more than 400 pages, and it's not a difficult read, but I feel like I've wasted my time. bviously, there's a reason I hadn't heard of this book. Next time I'll disregard the clever artwork and stick with my to-read list.