Book Review: Gmorning, Gnight! little pep talks for me and you written by Lin Manuel Miranda, illustrated by Jonny Sun

 

Gmorning, Gnight!

little pep talks for me and you

written by Lin Manuel Miranda, illustrated by Jonny Sun

This is one of those little books you didn’t know you even wanted until you received it. I believe Miranda began writing these little pep talks to himself then sharing them with people on Twitter. They became so popular that he collected some into a book which was illustrated by Jonathan Sun.

It’s funny, how something that you know wasn’t even written for you, can be just what you needed to hear at the moment. Miranda has a knack for conveying comfort and motivation. 201 pages, with one page for morning and one for night, generally. I tried to read one pairing a day, to start the day and end it. Of course, there were times I would forget and go on my way, or feel too rushed to do so. But it was a delightful way to start and end the day.

The illustrations are done as simple line drawings that are usually quite lovely. The back cover shows a mug of coffee for morning and a cup of tea for evening. The cover has a bed that looks very cozy and an old-fashioned microphone. The spine even has a little sun and a little moon.

Unfortunately, some of the illustrations don’t really live up to the sayings, at least for me. There’s one that shows a pie of some kind but seems to have pizza toppings, like pepperoni and mushrooms. In the second drawing, it’s dripping something. Maybe it’s supposed to be cheese but it just looks gross to me. 

One of my favorite illustrations is a set of keys with a cloud for the key chain, with Miranda saying, “Gmorning. Check your pockets. Got your keys? *waits* Okay, let’s go!” On the next page, a line drawing of clouds hints at a car and Miranda says, “Gnight. Check your brain. Got your dreams ready? *waits* Okay, let’s go!”

Sun definitely has a talent for conveying something with a simple selection of thick lines, curving and/or straight, partially by combining known elements in an unusual pairing or setting. One shows someone putting socks on over their shoes and toothpaste on the wrong end of a brush.

Overall, the words and drawings are whimsical and delightful, conveying humor and motivating comfort. I loved receiving this as a gift, and I would highly recommend it as one.

Book Review: You Are Here: An Owner’s Manual for Dangerous Minds by Jenny Lawson

 

You Are Here: An Owner’s Manual for Dangerous Minds

(Crayons & matches not included, but recommended.)

by Jenny Lawson

I received this book as a gift from my husband because we both love Jenny Lawson’s candid memoirs. (If you haven’t read Furiously Happy yet, I highly recommend you pick it up post haste.) She is utterly transparent about her experiences with mental illness and writes vividly, and humorously, about events in her life.

This book is a little bit different. It includes some of her writing, her thoughts, and a few anecdotes, but mostly her musings, and things she has done to help herself, along with beautiful pen and ink drawings that she created herself. Many of the drawings incorporate a thought or musing in writing that meanders around the lines of the drawing. Almost a meditation. They can be treated as coloring pages, if the reader wishes, though they are beautiful just to contemplate as drawings. I’ve found this book very relaxing just before bed.

One of my favorite pages, though I haven’t even done the exercise yet, asks the reader to write down five outrageous things that they’ve done, along with at least one that is a lie. Maybe she uses a bit of hyperbole and interesting word choice to describe hers, but that’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from Jenny — a colorful reframing that brings humor to the situation. For example –

“One time I made a human without even using an instruction manual. Like, hair, fingernails, all that jazz. It was a tiny human, but still, it was like making a clone except I did it inside my body where I couldn’t even see anything. Science!”

Many of the musings are incredibly poignant.

“Not all pain is visible. But not all love is visible either, and that doesn’t make it any less real. We believe the pain because we feel it, but we often forget how much we’re loved because it doesn’t always present itself in ways that make you physically gasp. It’s real, though. And you’re soaking in it.” P93

Another beautiful book from Jenny Lawson. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Book Review: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

 

The Haunting of Hill House

My book club’s theme this month is “Gothic” so I went in search. I’d never read The Haunting of Hill House, but I was interested in a solid literary story so I thought I’d give it a try.

This was a fantastic work of fiction that far surpassed my expectations. When I write, I too often find myself giving in to the most logical sequence of events or dialogue, but Jackson moves beyond that. Perhaps it’s a product of her times, but I was constantly amazed and enthralled by the level of her prose, the surprise of what people chose to do and say, and the events. The level of characterization and the manner in which it was done, as well as the slow building of psychological tension and the bizarre but believable events made for a perfect Halloween read.

Dr. Montague decides to study Hill House and very carefully chooses a few people to accompany him. One has to be from the owner’s family, a young man named Luke, and one is the housekeeper, Mrs. Dudley. The other two are chosen for the events that occurred when they were young — Theodora and Eleanor. Eleanor had stones falling on her house after her father died, which seems like a fairy tale element to me, but would fit right in with magical realism. Indeed, for three quarters of the book, there didn’t seem to be anything of horror about the book. It is a very slow building of dreadful anticipation.

In the beginning the tension seemed to be very lax, but the prose carried me along with evocative descriptions. Then the characterization really kicked in, with the outrageous, dismissive bickering between Eleanor and her sister, plus her sister’s husband, over whether she could use the car they had bought together. Eleanor, it appears, is a late bloomer. She has been caring for her recently deceased mother for 11 years and now lives with her sister’s family. It seems dreadfully old-fashioned, but now Eleanor is finally escaping! Will she regret that decision? 

It becomes apparent on her drive to Hill House that Eleanor is rather fanciful, which might not bode well in a haunted house. Later, when she sees her room, it becomes apparent, this is a rocky start. 

“. . . this is where they want me to sleep, Eleanor thought incredulously; what nightmares are waiting, shadowed, in those high corners – what breath of mindless fear will drift across my mouth . . . .”

She seems horribly susceptible to the atmosphere. In fact, as time goes on, she and the others seem to destabilize. Eleanor has more and more violent thoughts and erratic tendencies. Was she always like this or did she become unhinged by the house itself or some kind of phantasm?

There are wonderful bits of humor throughout the story, such as when Luke jokes that he wouldn’t expect Mrs. Dudley to murder him for oil, that it should at least be Uranium.

Mr. Dudley and Mrs. Dudley, the caretaker and housekeeper at Hill House, are a strange and yet humorous couple. In an old Scooby Doo cartoon, they’d be running some side scam and be unhappy with people arriving because it might foil their plans. For most of the book, in fact, they just seem rather one dimensional, until Dr. Montague’s wife arrives and we overhear a conversation with Mrs. Dudley. Then she appears in a new light.

We are kept guessing throughout the book – are the events at Hill House real, caused by some spirit, the house itself? Are they all the in minds of some highly suggestible people? The fact that some experiences are seen by more than one person makes it more likely that they are actually taking place. Do different events have different origins? The uncertainty greatly adds to the atmosphere of the book where everything is kept off kilter, like the house itself.

After reading the book, I tried to watch the Netflix series and it's okay, but completely different with a lot more modern horror elements, like flashes of scary images that don’t seem to fit with the novel. I'm not sure whether I'll continue or just get an older film that's more of a period piece and true to the novel. However, I highly recommend the book.

Book Review: The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller

 

Widow of Rose House

by Diana Biller

Once again I was searching our Overdrive catalog for anything with a “Gothic” theme to read for my book club in October when The Widow of Rose House caught my attention.

Alva Webster is planning to restore a Hyde Park mansion in 1875 New York. Unfortunately, her dilapidated mansion comes with a ghost, or so the people she hires to do the work believe. Professor Sam Moore also seems to believe it.

This seemed a like a light gothic romance, a ghost story when I picked it up, but as the story progressed I found something more. The story seemed deceptively simple at first. Outcast widow and brilliant scientist meet. There’s an attraction. Plus, she has a haunted house and he is very interested in those. He has created some of the first ghost hunting equipment that can sense electrical currents. (I have no idea whether what she wrote regarding the equipment is plausible in the least, but it seemed plausible enough for me to suspend disbelief.)

The writing was simple and quick moving. To be honest, the romance moved a little too quick for me, but that may be my only quibble with this story. I’m never exactly sure how much we writers end up applying modern sensibilities to older times and, vice versa, how much we cleanse the past of its’ grit and reality.

As I read, some deeper themes came to light. Alva left her first husband before he died, because he was abusive. Sometimes things like this are glossed over – the character is known to have left because of it but then they just soldier on, the worst over. In this story, though, that abusive past has had a deep and lasting impact on the character. It affects the character and her reactions to a good man, Professor Sam Moore, and the ghost in the house.

Sam is a little bit too good to be true, idealized hero, everything a woman could look for – gorgeous, a genius, and wants to fight for the woman he has fallen head over heels for, but also willing to step back and let her take the lead. He’s lovely but there’s not much reality there.

This is a solid romance with a fun but sad ghost story, that offers an interesting read, not too complicated. It has some very witty repartee between the characters. It is sexually explicit but that is confined to a couple episodes if you prefer to skip over them. It was a quick, easy read between heavier material for me.

I was impressed with this first book from Diana Biller and would definitely read future books from her.

Book Review: Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

 

Once Upon a River

by Diane Setterfield

Diane Setterfield is masterful at weaving the shimmering threads of a simple tale, richly told, into a complex and beautiful tapestry. There is a saying, variously credited in different places, that easy reading is hard writing. I suspect that is very true of Setterfield’s stories.

Her writing, in its’ pacing and richness of language, reminds me very much of Neil Gaiman, and though it is in a gothic vein, there is a touch less horror to it. There is both the fantastical but also the scientific here.

This story opens in the local drinking house of a village on the Thames, where a stranger appears, broken nose and eyes nearly swollen shut, carrying the body of a 4-year-old girl, who is generally acknowledged to be dead. His burden discharged, the stranger collapses and the local nurse, Rita, is sent for. A few hours later, the little girl returns to life, or so it seems. But who is she? No less than three different people claim to know who she is, but are any of them correct?

Helena Vaughn believes it is her daughter who was kidnapped two years before, but her husband is woefully certain it is not. Robin Armstrong claims she is his little girl, who he has not seen for a year, and whose mother attempted to drown the little girl then took her own life, a week before. His stepfather, Robert Armstrong sets out to learn the truth. Lilly White, the housekeeper for the parsonage, is certain she is Ann, her little sister, but Lilly is middle aged and her sister disappeared when Lilly was a child herself.

Who is this child? And why does she not speak and tell them? Was she fished out of the river by Quietly, the boatman who it is said haunts the river, fishing out the drown and carrying those in need to either their rest or back to the living?

Rita, the nurse, and Daunt, the photographer who arrived carrying the girl after his own mishap, are both enamored of the child and brought together by their interest in seeing her safe. Rita has her own scientific theories and barters with Daunt to help her in testing them in exchange for sitting for photographs.

Setterfield gives us the action but also gives us scenes which illustrate the backstory of the main characters in detail then sets about bringing them all together. It is a rich and engrossing tale told masterfully by a writer at the height of her abilities. I cannot recommend this story more.