Stuff As Dreams Are Made On…

Eighth Grade Bites (Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, Book 1) by Heather Brewer
2007
182 Pages
4/5

While thirteen year old Vladimir Tod’s friends drink their fruit juice boxes at school, he has his own bag of red drink….blood. Vladimir is what he thinks is the last of the vampires, the spawn of a human woman and his father, a vampire. He’s the first vampire to ever be conceived this way. And he defies traditional views of vampires. He can go into the sun as long as he has his sunblock on. He doesn’t drink blood from it’s source, but rather from his caregiver, Nelly. Well, not exactly FROM Nelly, but she brings him “blood bags” home from her work at the blood bank. He attends school with all of the other teens, though he’s less than popular and has to make sure to hide his fangs when he becomes angry.

His best friend is Henry, the only person in the world aside from Nelly to know that he is a vampire after he bit him during play when he was 8 years old. Vlad’s mother and father were killed mysteriously when he was younger and since then, Vlad has felt like an outsider. As much as Nelly and Henry try to make him feel normal and treat him as a human, he knows he is something else, a vampire. Things suddenly take a turn for the bizarre though when his english teacher goes missing and is later pronounced dead. Vlad starts to think that he may not be alone. Replacing his lost teacher is a bizarre man named Otis Otis.

Mr. Otis is a fun teacher that everyone seems to like except for Vlad. Otis teaches the class of various mythological and folklore creatures. Witches, zombies, ghosts, werewolves…and vampires. And he always seems to have his eye on Vlad. When he tries to enter into Vlad’s life more than a teacher is welcomed, Vlad grows worried. And he soon notices a mark on his teachers arm that is similar to the one that his father once wore, the same mark that is on a book of vampire secrets that his father left him. Combined with the discovery of his father’s journals, he soon begins to think that he may not be as alone as he once thought he was.

This first book in the Chronicles of Vladimir Tod was SO MUCH FUN! I really loved it. It’s not great literary writing by any means, but it’s a truly fun, fast paced, and relevant story. Brewer makes a lot of fun puns throughout the novel. Of course there is Vlad’s name…there’s also a kid named Edgar Poe who goes by Eddie. There’s a town nearby called Stokerton. A villian named D’ablo. You get the picture. But the novel isn’t all fun and games. Sure there are the moments that make you snicker, but the majority of the story is a well thought out tale of a kid trying to find himself while in a very strange world. Think of it as a YA coming of age novel with a twist thrown in.

Brewer “gets” teens and I think this bodes well for her books. This is a book that I would feel comfortable giving any kid that said “I hate reading.” (such horrible words). Want to know what I did as soon as I finished Eighth Grade Bites? Ordered Ninth Grade Slays Can’t wait to continue with this series! And the third book comes out this month! And one more thing…these books have the best covers! I want Vlad’s hoodie!

Starfinder: Book One of the Skylords by John Marco
2009
326 Pages
4.5/5

Skylords. Beautiful yet sinister beings with wings like angels and the power of gods, sworn to patrol the skies of the land beyond the Reach. Mermaids who enchant any human who crosses the reach. Fairies with a sinister heart. Giant pink jelly-fish like creatures with fifty eyes. Centaurs, the bravest of the good guys beyond the Reach. Redeemers, slaves to the Skylords, once human, now winged beasts. And Dragons…beautiful dragons. These are the inhabitants of John Marco’s amazing novel, Starfinder. At least these are the inhabitants of the lands beyond the Reach, a vast valley of fog and mist separating the humans of the city of Calio from the enchanting yet dangerous lands that lie beyond.

In Calio, humans dream of flight. Governor Rendor has made that dream a reality, creating ships called Dragonflies that enable humans to venture into the skies. One of his star fliers is a young man named Skyhigh and one of his friends is a peasant boy named Moth who dreams to one day control the Dragonflies as Skyhigh does. Moth lives with a man named Leroux who was once friends with Governor Rendor during their days as Eldrin Knights, protectors of the sky. But he is now known as an eccentric with a beautiful kestrel named Esme. The night before Leroux dies, he tells Moth that Esme is actually a Skylord who was changed into a kestrel for defying the other skylords and choosing a life of peace. He tells Moth that he must cross the Reach and bring her back into her beautiful glory as a Skylord. He also tells him of the Starfinder, a device that has the power to rule the skies and a device that the Skylords will fight to the death to obtain again.

Moth ventures into the lands beyond the reach with his companion, Fiona, the daughter of Governor Rendor and come upon a land that they never knew existed. They will soon be followed by Governor Rendor who wants the Starfinder as bad as the skylords. They venture towards a wizard known as Merceron, with the help of the Starfinder. Merceron is an old friend of Leroux’s. Merceron is a dragon. And possibly one of the most amazing dragons I have ever seen in a book. Here’s a description of him when we first meet him:

“It sat alone in a darkened room, paging through a book with it’s taloned fingers. Rings of smoke spiraled from it’s pipe, clenched between pointed teeth. Amazingly, the thing wore spectacles. They were the kind of glasses old people wore, perched on the edge of it’s nose. Occasionaly, the dragon ran a tongue across it’s lips as it turned the page, sipping from a teacup.”

This dragon, Merceron, becomes an ally to the two as they search for a way to bring Esme into her true self. From here the story explodes into an adventure that begs the reader to continue turning the page, inviting you into an amazingly addictive fantasy world. The final battle scene brings to mind passages from Tolkien and Lewis, harkening back to a golden era of fantasy literature.

Starfinder is epic fantasy on a personal level. The scope of it’s inhabited world is huge, yet the story is a very character driven one that quickly makes a place in the heart for it’s characters. I instantly fell in love with Moth, a young boy on a quest to become a man and to fulfill his dreams. And then there are the fantasy creatures that Marco has a true gift in creating. I can’t wait to see what he does with the rest of this series. It was a true privelege to visit the land beyond the Reach.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for giving me the chance to review this one. It’s one that I hope gets lots of exposure…it certainly deserves it!

Music Mundays will resume next Munday since I’d like this book to have a full day on the site as the top post.

That Neil Gaiman fellow has a new book out that’s illustrated by that Dave McKean fellow. It’s called Crazy Hair. And it’s crazy good! Like The Day I Swapped My Dad for a Goldfish and Wolves in the Walls, Crazy Hair is a picture book collaboration between these two brilliant men. The story spins a hairy tale of a man with “crazy hair”….hair that is filled with lions and tigers and bears along with carousels and other wonderful and mysterious things. He hasn’t cut his hair since he was a small boy, and a universe of it’s own has tangled itself in it. It’s a fun little story of imagination, curiosity, and mysteriousness that I enjoyed quite a bit! And the illustrations by Dave McKean are just to die for as is nearly everything he does. I love his use of color in this book. It’s just fantastic! Highly recommend this one to add to your Neil Gaiman collection! If you have small children, they’ll love it, if you don’t, you’ll love it.

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So I had a fun little idea a while ago that I forgot about and was reminded about last night on Twitter. I was talking to Amy of My Friend Amy who is currently at Book Expo America! She mentioned that she’ll be stopping by the table that has ARCs of Catching Fire, the sequel to The Hunger Games! So of course I told her how jealous I was :p And then she did the sweetest thing! She said she wouldn’t mind sending it to me when she was done with it and then I could send it along to someone else! I’ve been wanting to do this. So here’s what we’re going to do. The book I’m offering to send out to someone is Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest. Why? Because it’s amazing and I think everyone should read it! I’ll put my name in the cover and maybe write a little note or something. The person who gets the book from me should write a little note in it (or drawing, or whatever) and send it along to someone else! You can also write comments in the book as you’re reading…whatever you’d like! It’ll become like a little scrapbook almost is what I’m hoping of wonderful thoughts.  And it will keep being sent on around the globe. Kind of like bookcrossing I guess. It would also be really cool if you blogged about it when you received it or mentioned it in your review so we could all follow it’s progress. If you would like to be the first person to get this book from me, just leave me a comment here in this post and I’ll draw a name on Sunday. And if you want to send your own book around the world, please do!! That would be fantastic The more the better!!

Finally, to all of our blogging friends who are at BEA, HAVE A GREAT TIME!!! I’m saving my money starting NOW to go next year

Voodoo Season by Jewell Parker Rhodes
2005
275 Pages
4/5

I found a book tent this year at Jazz Fest and knew that I had to go visit it. It was filled with nothing but New Orleans authors or authors who wrote about New Orleans. Yeah, I was like a kid in a candy shop. My eye was immediately drawn to the voodoo section as I’ve always found voodoo to just be fascinating…maybe it’s because I live in the voodoo capital of the world, who knows. On the shelf was a book by an author I had never heard of, Jewell Parker Rhodes. She’s an african american woman who seems to wrtie a lot about voodoo! Couldn’t pass that up. Especially when I found a fictional account of the great granddaughter of Marie Laveau, Voodoo Season.

Voodoo Season is a fascinating book. It’s the story of a young doctor named Marie Levant who is doing her residency at Charity Hospital. Marie has always noticed that something was a little different with her….a little strange. She has a seemingly sixth sense. She knows things about people without knowing how she knows them, she takes in lovers that show such passion. But when one of those lovers turns up dead at her hospital, things take a turn. Not only has her lover turned up dead, but so are numerous young women. And they all have crosses on their heads. When Marie has an intuition that one of the girls is pregnant, she performs a C-Section and forms an instant attachment to the child. She wants it to be hers. She searches for the babies grandparents and in doing so falls into the world of voodoo.

There’s a myth that voodoo is an evil religion. It wasn’t started that way and it’s not an evil religion. But like all religion, there are those that use it for evil purposes. These are some of the people that Marie runs into as she begins to come into her own and begins to realize that Marie Levant, her own name, is a transformed version of Marie Laveau. She is a direct ancestor of Laveau and it is she that holds the ability to be the next voodoo queen.

I feel like I’m doing a horrible job of describing this book, but take my word for it…it’s damn good. Jewell Parker Rhodes is another author that captures the essence of southern Louisiana perfectly. The city of New Orleans, the swamps further down south, the madness of Charity hospital, it’s all there. She awakened a fascination with this part of the city that has lay dormant in me for a long while and I’m anxious to scoop up all of the information I can now on Marie Laveau. I’m also dying to read the rest of her books. The prequel to this one is Voodoo Dreams and is a telling of the tale of the actual Marie Laveau, a woman who is to this day still shrouded in mystery. There are also two sequels to this book that further the storie of Marie Levant.

The only slight problem I had with this book was the ending. I was happy with the way it ended but it felt so rushed. I don’t know if she was given a page limit by the publisher or what, but it would’ve been much better I think if it had been a longer novel. Everything seemed to happy to quickly and a little too conveniently at the end, but that’s ok I guess :p The scenes of Marie performing her voodoo rituals for the first time more than make up for that. Read it!

About the Book:

Taken from Barnes and Noble:

In the opening pages of Jamie Ford’s stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families,left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.

This simple act takes old Henry Lee back to the 1940s, at the height of the war, when young Henry’s world is a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While “scholarshipping” at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship–and innocent love–that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept.

Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko. In the hotel’s dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family’s belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice–words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.

Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable duo whose story teaches us of the power of forgiveness and the human heart.

My Thoughts:

I loved this book when I started it. I thought it was a beautiful story that was told so delicately and thought it would be like another Time Traveler’s Wife for me. But then I went into a sort of reading funk. And I don’t think it had anything to do with this book. I really can’t give this book a fair review because of that. It’s told at a slow place. It’s not an adventure story, it’s a story of love, acceptance, grief, discovery…and though the language was beautiful, it’s not what I was looking for at the time. It’s also told between two different time periods which sort of kept me distracted from each story individually. I usually don’t mind this type of format, but I had problems with it with this one. But like I said, this is a book that I think I may read at a later date and absolutely love. So I’m going to hold onto it for that reason. There are many more wonderful reviews out there that do this book much more justice. Here’s a link to the Google Book Blogs search so that you can read a less biased review.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
2009
320 Pages
3.5/5

Kailana and I are pairing up for a review of this one. I really love this format!! If anyone else wants to do this with me, just head on over to my LibraryThing page, click on the TBR tag and pick anything you want that you plan on reading and we can review it together!!

The Forest of Hands and Teeth is a fantastic read. If you’re a fan of YA books, zombie novels, philosophical novels or all of the above, this is definitely one to pick up. It’s not often that you can put those three categories together :p The Forest of Hands and Teeth is a dystopian novel. The world as we know it has been destroyed by a virus. A virus that has turned the inhabitants of our world into zombies, or the Unconsecrated as they are called in this novel. But there is a small camp of people who live in a commune type setting surrounded by a fence in the middle of the forest of hands and teeth, a forest where the Unconsecrated live. Mary is one of the inhabitants of this village. After not being spoken for by a boy who she thought would speak for her at the marriage ceremony, Mary is forced to join The Sisterhood, a group of religious women meant to protect the secrets of the Unconsecrated and care for the small town. But Mary’s mind does not allow her to turn a blind eye to the goings on of the sisters, and she’s fallen in love with her betrothed’s  brother.

Everything changes when there is a breach in the fence and the Unconsecrated reak havoc on the town, killing most of it’s residents, turning them all into Unconsecrated as well. But Mary is lucky enough to escape with her life along with her new fiancee, Harry, and the boy she truly loves, his brother who is engaged to Mary’s best friend (also with them). Yeah, there’s a complication there. The book is a truly terrifying novel that leaves you totally creeped out and weeping at the sadness of it all at the same time.

1. What was your immediate reaction after you turned the last page of the book? (without giving anything away of course

I was so so sad Not that the ending is one of total desperation, but the book is an emotional rollercoaster…going downhill. I’m always amazed when an author can evoke such strong emotions in me, and Carrie Ryan did just that. I really can’t wait to see what she comes out with next! If it’s half as good as this one, we’re in for a treat. Truthfully, when I put the book down after reading it, I didn’t want it to end. I was left with one of those “wow” moments where I really just had to sit back and let it all sink in.

2. How did you feel about the main character, Mary? Did she surprise you, were you annoyed by her, did you think she was a strong character, weak, etc?

I was up and down about Mary. I think she’s an extremely strong character, but at the same time, I think that the same attributes that make her strong may make her weak. She’s extremely headstrong, which comes in handy at times, but at other times it seems to be her detriment. I think Mary is someone who is still trying to find herself throughout this novel…still trying to learn who she is. She’s sort of all over the place. All that being said, she was probably my favorite character and I felt for her.

3. The film rights to the book have just been sold. Would you be interested in seeing a movie made out of this novel? Do you think there are things they’d have to change?

I would definitely be interested in seeing this made into a movie! It was one of the most vivid novels I’ve read in a long time. It reminded me quite a bit of The Village by M. Knight Shyamalan actually. That’s the reason it lost half a star to be honest. I thought that it was somewhat of a rip off of The Village at the beginning. Same basic concept….a town where you’re taught to be afraid of what’s outside the walls, you don’t ask questions, a few chosen people know the truth, traditions that have been developed…all of that’s there. But it evolves into much more eventually and I think it would make a great movie. That being said, I think they would have to change a few things to not make the movie look like a rip off of The Village.

4.  What did you think of the secondary characters in this book?  Who was your favourite?  Anyone that you didn’t like?

I liked the secondary characters for the most part. I thought everyone was developed really well. Some of them annoyed me at times, but they were supposed to annoy me, so that was ok. I think my favorite secondary character in the novel was Harry. He never really gave up on Mary, despite the fact that she gave up on him. He was always there to protect her and you could tell he really cared. I also really liked the character of her fiancee, Harry’s brother Travis. There’s one scene with Travis that just tore my heart apart. If you’ve read the book, you know what I mean. I didn’t like Cass at all. That’s Mary’s best friend…I kind of thought she was a bitch for a best friend.

5.  What did you think of the title?  As you got to know the setting that the book was named after, did you think it was a fitting title?

This is one of those titles that I wish I would’ve thought of :p It perfectly captures the feel of the book….creepy as hell! I LOVE LOVE LOVE the title of this one and I love the cover as well. I thought it was an extremely fitting title. It defines the book, it defines the feel of the book, and most of the action takes place surrounded by the forest itself.

6.  What did you think about the zombies?  Was this your first zombie novel?  Did you find them realistic?

The zombies rocked! In a very creepy sort of way. I thought they were extremely realistic. Real enough to creep me out. She wrote them perfectly. Imagine sitting in a path with two feet on either side of you with zombies clawing at you, trying to get to you. Scary stuff. These weren’t funny zombies…they were just downright creepy…like 28 Days Later zombies :p I think the creepiest of all of them was Gabrielle, the zombie in red…the “fast one”. This wasn’t my first zombie novel. I’ve read quite a few others, but not in a while! The most recent one I read was Cell by Stephen King. A lot of people were disappointed with that one, but I really liked it!

Other views and opinions:

Book Zombie (of course :p)
YA Fabulous
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Becky’s Book Reviews

Glass Houses (Morganville Vampires, Book 1) by Rachel Caine
2006
256 Pages
3.75/5

Fun fluff. That’s how I would describe this book. And that’s not a bad thing. Not at all! I love this type of reading actually. There’s no deep hidden message here, there are no real touching moments (though some come close), and there are no existential dilemmas. But there is a LOT of good storytelling going on here. I was hooked pretty much from the beginning. I love vampire novels. Always have…You could call me a “pre-twilight” vampire fan :p But I thank Stephanie Meyer for writing Twilight actually, because it brought back the vampire genre….gave me new series to read. I like this new YA/horror genre that’s arising. I just finished the Forest of Hands and Teeth which is a zombie/YA book and now I have a vampire/YA book

The book is set in a town called Morganville, TX. Morganville is a strange little town as Claire, a new student in the city, soon finds out. It’s populated by vampires. Not only vampires. There are some living people there, mostly students, and a few other still breathing people, but there are a LOT of vampires. A truce has been made in the town though. Many people have protection from the vampires due to a bracelet with a symbol that they wear. The vampires don’t typically bug humans unless they’re really hungry…then they may take a student or two.

Claire has gotten on someone’s bad side, though. The girl’s name is Monica and you can say she has friends in high places. When Claire calls Monica out on her stupidity, Monica and her gang of girly-girls beat the living crap out of Claire and make it their life’s mission to destroy Claire’s life. Claire knows she needs to get out of the dorms and turns to an old house in the area called The Glass House. Michael, the mysterious guy; Shane, the fun/joker guy; and Eve the goth girl take Claire in after a few fleeting thoughts of it not being the greatest idea. And it turns out that it wasn’t the greatest idea. Claire soon learns that if you piss off the wrong people, it’s not pretty in a town like this and the whole town is turned upside down in this first installment of The Morganville Vampire series.

Did I enjoy it? Oh yeah! Will I be reading the sequels? Oh yeah! Like I said, it was action packed with really fun characters. It’s one of those novels that keeps you on your toes, keeps you catching your breath going “ohnoohnoohno!” And it’s edgy…I always like edgy

The Screwed Up Life of Charlie The Second by Drew Ferguson
2008
263 Pages
5/5

What a brilliant book. The Screwed Up Life of Charlie the Second is one of the best coming of age stories I’ve read. Really. At the beginning of this book, I kind of thought that Charlie was just this sarcastic mouthed pessimist and he kind of annoyed me. But the more and more I read, the more I liked Charlie. And I realized that this book had a lot more depth than what it first showed. But what’s it all about, you ask?

Well, it’s about the screwed up life of Charlie the Second to put it simply. Charlie is seventeen and like every seventeen year-old male, he’s confused and horny as hell. Charlie’s just been outed by his parents and it’s now known by everyone that he’s gay. His best friend Bink is a little freaked by it at first but comes to terms with it quickly and is supportive. He has the added stress of writing his college essay, thrown onto him by his sometimes overbearing father, and speaking of the parents, they’re getting separated. But there’s one thing that’s keeping him happy right now and that’s Rob, the new guy on the soccer team that quickly becomes Charlie’s newest crush.

I never thought that I’d identify so much with a gay character, but Charlie goes through what every adolescent boy goes through, gay or straight. He’s confused, horny, and challenging his views of the world. He doesn’t censor his thoughts either. The book is told through a series of journal entries that Charlie writes. When talking about his sexual fantasies and habits, he’s blunt about it. It was actually refreshing to see this in a novel. Sexuality is usually either toned down and ignored in YA novels, or it’s there just for shock value. But it serves neither purpose here. It serves only to show an honest view of Charlie and his emotions.

The book was surprisingly touching at times. I didn’t see that coming from the beginning of the book and in those moments when it took on a more serious note, I was taken aback. I actually found myself getting a little choked up. Ferguson tells a story that’s addictive and always engaging. I found myself unable to put this book down and I was so upset when the book was over. I was even more upset to find that this is his first book and nothing else has been published yet! But I’m sure there will be much more to come from Ferguson, and when it does, I’ll be first in line to pick it up. Oh, and Renay..you’ll love this one

Other Views and Opinions:

Becky’s Book Reviews
Bookshelves of Doom
Shooting Stars Mag

The Eternal Smile: Three Stories by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim
2009
170 Pages
4.75/5

The Eternal Smile arrived in my mailbox yesterday and I quickly zipped through it. I fell in love with Yang’s work instantly after reading American Born Chinese and knew that he would be one of those authors that I’d follow throughout his career right away. He’s a master of the modern graphic novel. His stories tend to be moving, comical and extremely relevant. These are no exception.

The Eternal Smile tells three different stories, yet they all have a uniting theme. Searching for an answer, looking for a better way of life, hoping for a way to cure life’s woes. We’ve all been there at times and Yang empathizes with us through these three unique stories.

The first story is Duncan’s Kingdom. This story tells the tale of a young boy who is living in a fantasy world where he must bring back the head of a frog in order to avenge a princess’ father’s death and earn her hand in marriage. But there is something that distracts him along the way which eventually leads him to discover the true meaning of his quest. This is perhaps my favorite type of story…a tale that tackles the subject of emotional trauma through the escape of fairy tales. As Yang did with American Born Chinese, he surprised me with the ending. He does that with the next story as well.

Second story is entitled Gran’pa Greenbax and The Eternal Smile. This story centers around a frog that has a hunger for money. A hunger that is insatiable. When he gets all of the money in the world, he still isn’t satisfied…he just wants more. And it doesn’t matter to him what he does to get it or how it affects those around him. He’s run out of ways to make money until his assistant finds something beautiful, an eternal smile. It’s a smile that sits in the sky in the desert. The frog finds a way to make money off of this wonder by opening “the church of the eternal smile” and soliciting donations through his evangelical ways. But he is soon to learn that all of the money can’t make him a happy person. Another fantastic story.

Finally, we have a story told through delicate art that is just so beautiful called Urgent Request. In this story, a young girl is unhappy at her job. She dedicates all of her time to her job but when she asks her boss for a raise and promotion, she is denied it and dismissed. She goes back to her desk and gets one of those spam emails from a “prince in Nigeria” who wants her to just send her banking information so that he can transfer $350,000,000 into her account. And she may be the only person in the world who falls for it. But in doing so, she makes friends with the sender of the emails and gets lost in a dream world that offers her every wish. This was a sad little story, but I rather liked it.

All of these tales are wonderfully told with the help of Derek Kirk Kim. The art in the book is truly amazing. Each story has a very distinct art style and I truly LOVED the art in Urgent Request. The use of soft colors and mini characters really made the story have that much more of an effect on the reader. I can’t wait to see the rest of the blogging world discover this treasure of a book. I smell Printz possibilities again!

The Tale of One Bad Rat by Bryan Talbot
1995
136 pgs.
4.5/5

The Tale of One Bad Rat is a touching and painful story of a young girl named Helen who has been sexually abused by her father. After years of abuse, Helen has run away from home taking with her only her beloved Beatrix Potter books and her pet rat. The memories of the molestation continue to haunt her and deny her the willingness to become close to anyone else. She meets strangers throughout the way and while some are more welcoming than others, she has a hard time growing close to anyone anymore. Aside from her pet rat.

Bryan Talbot tackles this issue perfectly through the graphic novel format. Talbot has a real gift when it comes to telling unconventional tales in the format of the graphic novel. With Alice in Sunderland, he gave a history of Lewis Carroll and with this amazing, but shorter, graphic novel, he’s expertly tackled the subject of sexual abuse and it’s long term effects on children.

Helen shows all the signs of past abuse…she blames herself for what happened, diminishes herself as a person, cuts her hair off to make herself less attractive to men, and shies away from any form of love, even genuine love that has no alterior motives. This book is a gift to humanity. I think that it would be so well received in the hands of someone who’s lived through abuse of any kind. He tackles the issue in an honest way yet in a very approachable manner. Another one that I wish I didn’t have to give back to the library…

Other Views and Opinions:

Books of Mee
Things Mean A Lot
The Hidden Side of a Leaf