Scaredy Cat Reads Night Film

Wow.  I just wrapped up a book last night that had me racing up the stairs after I flipped the light switch.  Full disclosure is that I’m pretty easily scared; I’ve got an active imagination, guys.  So let me tell you a little something about this book, Night Film.

Marisha Pessl weaves quite the story here.  Reflecting on it last night, I was overwhelmed by how much detail went into this book.  Even though it was set in modern times and the world as we know it, it was as though Pessl still had to create an alternate world – one with Stanislas Cordova and his dark creativity interlaced throughout it.

In the novel, we follow Scott McGrath, a journalist who fell from grace after dogging Cordova – delving into his personal life, driven to discover if life truly does imitate art.  Five years after his very public humiliation, something happens that pulls McGrath, like a magnet, back into his investigation: Cordova’s 24-year-old daughter, Ashley, commits suicide.

Along the way, he picks up two unlikely side-kicks, Hopper and Nora.  Both have encountered Ashley to some extent and been haunted, so to speak, by her ambiance.  Enchanted by the young, mysterious woman, the three begin to tear into her last days on earth and hope to bring her justice.

This is a long, long book.  Somewhere near 600 pages, if not over. But it’s so interactive, it doesn’t feel quite as heavy.  Pessl has done something I’ve not experienced with a book.  She has interwoven things we encounter daily: newspaper articles, websites, official documents, interviews, magazines, all of these things are in her book, interspersed throughout so when McGrath is reading an online slideshow about Cordova’s life, you are too.  When he gets his hands on official police documents, you do too.  Further, I came to the end of the book and was met with the concept of even more interactive bonus material found on Pessl’s website.  Audio clips of music, interviews, stories; documents pertaining to the story – all fabricated to fit in with this Cordova-enriched world.  It makes it so real, like something that could believably be “ripped from the headlines!”

You will probably get bogged down from time to time.  I’m sure this depends on the format you read in as well.  For this one, I had the print copy (my favorite way to read) but this was a book my husband and I were reading together.  When we read a book, it always starts out as a car book.  Let me explain, we travel a lot.  Our families are both at least an hour away from us and we visit them often.  So when we travel, I read aloud (he will too, but it’s not as often – I like controlling the pace and tone of the book, if I’m being honest).  Usually, though, what starts as a car-only book eventually infiltrates into our home the more enraptured with the story we become.  So by chapter 93, Alex and I were staying up late after E went to bed, reading, racing through the text as fast as my mouth would allow.  At the beginning though, we weren’t itching to continue the story in any particular hurry – it was good, but not quite captivating to begin.

I’m left pondering this one over.  ****Spoiler Alert**** The ending is ambiguous.  You may not achieve that feeling of satisfaction when at last you press the book closed.  I’m not sure what I think of the ending – I don’t dislike it, I’m not quite angry, but I feel a sense of unmoored-ness (sure, we’ll pretend that’s a word).  I’m floating around between theories, at one point sure I’ve the answer and just as quickly second-guessing myself back to square one.  I’d love to interview Pessl and ask her what the real answer is – does she think he’s guilty or innocent?  And then, would her response convince me, or would I still allow myself the privilege of making that decision on my own?  (Ask me about Veronica Roth’s Allegiant, sometime).

I’m not sure, but I do know, I will continue to think about Scott McGrath, Ashley and Stanislas Cordova, Nora Halliday, and Hopper for a while longer.  I anticipate them popping into my memory from time to time in the future, as well.  It seems like they’ll stick with me.

If you like suspense, a bit of eery, well-researched and planned, epic stories, this one will do it for you.

 

Book Buying Ban 2018

Guys… do you ever just sit down because you got an email about a Goodreads Giveaway for a book on your TBR and then start perusing the giveaways page.  And then enter around 80 giveaways during your son’s nap instead of getting in some quality reading time, or cleaning, or work on your home business?

It can’t be just me, right?

I refer to this lovingly as the Goodreads Black hole but it can just as easily happen with Litsy.  I have to set reminders to STOP browsing and do something productive!

So my post title.  Have I mentioned I’ve implemented a self-imposed book buying ban?  Originally it was until I read all the books I own and haven’t read and then I felt that was a bit extreme so I came up with I have to read at least 60 (this would be the equivalent of trekking Mount Kilimanjaro on the Mount TBR Challenge) before I can indulge in some book buying.

And then my husband told me he had to go to the city of the school up north (did I get that right? I think so… Ohio State fans out there, help me out – my husband will be so proud if I remembered this little nickname correctly).  Anyway, that means Ann Arbor, MI.  I HATE being at home by myself.  Being a stay-at-home-mom already feels pretty isolating most days so I quickly suggested that Ethan and I tag along.  This was great for many reasons.

1. We’re currently reading Night Film by Marisha Pessl and this drive meant we’d get a decent amount of uninterrupted reading time.  I read out loud to my husband guys, I’m his personal audiobook.  I read in the car, you see and was given an ultimatum one drive: either read out loud a book we’re both going to like or please stop reading.  Fair enough.  It’s been really fun finding books I think he will enjoy too.  Sometimes I mention this to people and I can tell by the look on their faces they think we’re weird or that Alex is humoring me.  It works for us – it’s fun, it’s a way to get my husband to read more, and it’s something we can share.
2. After my son went to bed that night I knew I’d get some personal reading time in while my husband was at his meeting.  No excuses – no dishes to clean, laundry to do, couldn’t watch television.  No, I had to be quiet and enjoy a book.

The next day after we arrived, my husband had a few more meetings so Ethan and I got dropped off at Ann Arbor’s Hands On Museum.  Wow.  I highly recommend stopping here if you have children and are in the area.  We killed HOURS here.  We got there right when the opened and headed up to the preschool room first.  It was great – no older kids (great for toddlers who don’t watch where they’re going), a massive water station for splashing and play, some sort of giant Rube Goldberg-type machine that circulated colored balls that kids could interact with (trust me that was a rough explanation – it’s sponsored by Toyota and all about encouraging interest in engineering), a few play stations with slides and tunnels, an infants area, and tons of blocks and Legos and things to build with.

This is where we encountered our first problem.  My son decided to wake up for the 3rd day in a row at 5 AM, so nap time was a wildcard.  11:45 and he was a GRUMP, laying on the soft blocks in the infants area and jonesing for a nap.  I had to go somewhere I could get him a bottle and at least a quick nap.  I was planning to go to a bookstore and just hang out, maybe buy a gift or two.  I couldn’t get that far because it was pouring when we stepped outside.  Luckily the Tea Haus was right around the corner with delicious tea and cookies and a car I could seat myself in while the little man caught some z’s.  A special thank you to the owner and employees who were so helpful and friendly and didn’t seem to mind a girl reading a graphic novel on her phone while she awkwardly held her 14 month old and devoured cookies.

It was back to the Children’s museum after this but this is how I ran into the second problem.  I had already researched book stores in the area and I could not bring myself to leave Ann Arbor without checking them out.

But that book-buying ban.

Okay.  I’d just buy someone a gift.  An obvious solution.

First bookstore: Literati a beautiful bookshop with three compact levels of books and a coffee station on the top floor.  We grabbed some coffees here but I didn’t buy anything.  I could have easily – they had a great selection of plenty of new and old titles.  I loved the details, like the staff blurbs stuck below new releases or favorites.  But, we had a 14-month old with hot coffee in our hands and not much space in the store so we headed out.

Only one more and I was in the clear. Could I do it? This was the bookstore that had really caught my eye in the few minutes we drove around downtown Ann Arbor. Aunt Agatha’s.  This was a treasure trove, I was sure of it.  And as soon as I opened the door and saw the glorious floor-to-ceiling bookshelves PACKED with books in every which way.

The prices.  The prices were so delicious.  I had spent more on coffee the past two days than it would cost me to buy 5 books here.  The used selections seemed to be between $3.50 and $5.50 and the new selections were market price.  Okay, who needed a gift? And who needed a gift of a book that I could pick out relatively easy without spending time perusing their Goodreads shelves?  And that’s when I decided that my sweet husband who never even complains about all the books I buy and don’t read and how long I take in the library or a bookstore, he needed a book.  Sure he hasn’t read the past 5 books I’ve bought him BUT he did just read Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff quickly and voraciously.  All of that combined is deserving of a reward, surely.

He likes true crime, mystery, thrillers, and non-fiction the most (according to him at least) so I was confident I could find something he would genuinely want and that it wouldn’t be just to secretly buy myself a book (I will obviously read his books as well as mine but they are also definitely his – he has his own spot and everything).

I found this guy: 

Kill the Irishman. Apparently also a “major motion picture” with what looks like a pretty popular slew of actors but I’d never heard of it.  True Crime. Set in Cleveland. Ding! Ding! Ding! This rings all of my husband’s bells.

So, mission accomplished! I came, I saw, I supported small businesses, and I didn’t break my ban.

Well, at least I don’t think so.  What do you think?  Let me know in the comments. Are there any other Ann Arbor bookshops or attractions I should make a note of for the next trip?  What is your favorite small-town bookshop?

 

 

The Lying Game Series

I, like many others, ate up the Pretty Little Liars series when it first debuted.  I got to the end of book 8 (Wanted) in 2012 and loved it.  Then… another book came out… and then SEVEN more. That is a lot more.  I had to take a break and I haven’t picked them up again (yet).  But I got caught up in the tv series when it premiered as well.  And FreeForm, then ABC Family, premiered it’s new TV series: The Lying Game – also based on a book series from Sara Shepard.  I remember catching the first few episodes but feeling like I couldn’t commit to getting wrapped up in another lie-laden tv show/book series.

One of the girls in our loose-ruled book club recently read the series and wanted us to get on board.  So I checked them out on Overdrive (have we talked about this app?  Because if not.. I may need to devote an entire post to my love for it) and dived into it trying to get a quick read in before the end of the year.  [My yearly goal was 160 but I didn’t come close to that, I cinched up the year with a solid 85 though so here’s hoping for a more prosperous 2018].  I was able to wrap up the whole 6-books series within 18 days – so for anyone interested in a quick, captivating read this should scratch that itch.

The series centers on Emma Paxton, a foster girl living in Las Vegas with yet another scuzzy foster-family.  Right at the start of the book Emma is confronted with a video of a girl that looks JUST like her getting choked.  Does she have a twin out there that she didn’t know of?  A quick Facebook search pulls up Sutton Mercer – a rich it-girl living in Tucson, AZ and from the profile picture… it’s pretty obvious they’re twins.  Emma tentatively reaches out, sends Sutton a message.

This will sound crazy, but I think we’re related.  We look exactly the same, and we have the same birthday.  I live in Nevada, not too far from you.  You’re not by any chance adopted, are you?  Write back or call if you want to talk.

And a few hours later, Sutton and Emma had plans to meet. Well, at least Emma thinks so.  Little does she know her sister’s ghost has been hanging around with her since her untimely death, floating, invisible and tethered to Emma.

Over the series Emma is flung into a lifestyle she struggles to navigate.   A lavish life filled with designer clothes, icy comebacks and insults, and friends and family she isn’t entirely sure she can trust.  At every turn she has to second guess what she knows.

We, as the reader, get an inside look into Sutton’s own memories that come back to her in flashes triggered by people and things Emma encounters and piece by piece we learn the details of Sutton’s last night alive.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

From learning her adoptive “parents” are really her biological grandparents, to finally meeting her birth mother, to learning she had a twin, Sutton’s last night was literally jam-packed with an overload of details and emotions.  To imagine going through that many emotionally-charged events all before her murder, is enough to make your own heart pound with adrenaline.

Each book zeroes in on another potential suspect.  Emma is being forced to assume Sutton’s identity by Sutton’s killer and she can’t be sure who that is.  Is it her sister?  Did Sutton getting the guy Laurel has a crush on (Thayer Vega) push Laurel over the edge?  Was it her best friends Madeline Vega and Charlotte Chameberlain, sick of being put in their place by the queen b?  Could it have been Thayer?  Garrett, her ex-boyfriend?  Her dad? Emma can’t be sure and has to tiptoe around asking questions and prying without overstepping or alerting her killer that she is continuing to dig in to Sutton’s murder.

The final book in the series “Seven Minutes in Heaven” gives us the ending we’ve been craving after five novels of anticipation and anxiety.  We’ve learned the good guys and the bad guys, Emma has pieced together missing tidbits from Sutton’s night and her life before Emma took over.  This is such a glossed-over summary guys, there is SO much that happens [Hello?! Am I not even going to mention Nisha’s murder?  Nope, I’m not.  This isn’t a book report].  This is what I want to get to though.

I KNEW not to trust Ethan.  I knew it from the first day Emma stepped foot into Tucson when Ethan figured out before anyone Sutton was actually close with that he had murdered her.  I didn’t figure on him being a true sociopath or that he had murdered before but that was definitely an interesting twist. I was also surprised by the “Mercers are the twin’s grandparents” twist.  Nicely done, Ms. Shepard, nicely done.

Overall this series captivated me.  Last night as I was finishing the final book I couldn’t put it down and lost myself in the pages zipping through the ebook.  There are also two novellas in the series “The First Lie” and “True Lies” both take place before Emma slides into Sutton’s stilettos and are from Sutton’s POV.  I can’t say these add much to the story or Sutton’s character but it is interesting to learn the history of how Sutton began her relationship with both Thayer and in the second novella, Garrett – I’m at least beginning to understand the Garrett situation better.  However, I feel like Sutton’s voice is kind of off, almost forced.  Further, I feel like the Sutton in these novels is too self-aware.  She seems to know why she doesn’t get close with her friends, why she worries about appearance and reputation and I’m not convinced that Sutton could really understand the reasons behind her actions before she died.  Hindsight is 20/20, right?

I often find hindsight is exactly what makes novellas within a series flawed.  The author is going back and it isn’t as organic.  Sometimes, I wonder if the addition of mini stories may even be forced just to add hype to a series or keep the publisher bringing in money.

So, now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go binge watch the TV show and nitpick it to death with all of the skewed details.  Let me list what is wrong up until ONLY episode three.

• Sutton and Emma find each other three months earlier than August 31
• Mr. & Mrs. Mercer supposedly know that Sutton has a twin (although this is just Sutton’s opinion, I’m not convinced they know).
• Thayer is Madeline’s older brother.
• Thayer is “missing,” but he’s actually with Sutton while she searches for Sutton and Emma’s birth mother.
• Ethan is Sutton’s secret boyfriend.
• His last name is also Whitehorse and his brother is essentially Quinlan’s character.
• As for other name changes – Emma’s last name is Becker in the show, not Paxton.  Sutton’s pseudo-boyfriend (Garrett in the book series) is named Luke and he is found in the first episode “cheating” with Nisha.
• Laurel has stumbled across a new guy in school she is interested in named Justin, and turns out Charlotte is interested too.

It’s interesting to see how this will take a completely different turn than the series.  Of course, I’m going to keep watching to see how it all plays out!

Maybe I’ll have to pick up Pretty Little Liars again now…