Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff

This is a Ryan recommendation. I've read Matt Ruff before and his books are stunningly diverse. With most writers, there is a definite feel to their work that links it all together. Each book of Ruff's that I've read, has had a unique writing style. This isn't a bad thing, but it does mean that you never know what you'll get picking up one of his books.

Bad Monkeys is a strange book. Part of it is that I'm reading a lot of YA with a lot of very young protagonists, Jane Charlotte is in her 40's. Most of it is that Jane Charlotte is an unreliable narrator and a not terribly likable one.

This is a psychological thriller. The story begins with Jane Charlotte in the psych ward attached to a prison. She's guilty of murder and being evaluated by a psychologist. During this evaluation, she tells her story. The plot then alternates chapters between the psychologist and the events of her story.

Jane Charlotte insists that she is part of a secret society guiding human culture. She's part of the unit that eliminates irredeemable members of society, those that cause widespread harm. Before long, she encounters a group with the opposing purpose to cause widespread chaos and harm.

Clearly, these groups are in conflict.

It's rare to read something that creeps me out so completely. That's a compliment actually. I believe that any book that can cause a strong emotional reaction is by that factor alone a good book. So by that metric, this was a very good book.

I will never be reading it again.

Monster by Walter Dean Myers

Walter Dean Myers has been writing YA Literature since the mid 80's and so he's part of my childhood. I was definitely familiar with his name. However, what he writes tends to be oriented to a more male audience. Monster is the first of his books I've read. I became aware of the title through a NCTE reading list on culturally diverse literature.

Monster is amazing. It won a ridiculous number of awards including the Michael L. Printz Award and the National Book Award Honor for Young People's Literature. Awards aren't everything, but I'm really beginning to trust the Printz award. Everything I've read that won that award is just amazing.

So. Monster is about Steven Harmon, 16 years old, and his experience on trial for felony murder. The writing alternates between journal entries and a hypothetical screenplay of Steven's experience written by Steven. It's an incredibly powerful strategy the effectively conveys this kid's terror of his experience of prison (the journal entries) in contrast with his weird dissociation of his experience at trial (the screenplay.)

Here's a kid who, despite being very different from me, I could see myself in. I remember being that age and wanting desperately to seem tough, or worldly, or something indefinably adult. I think it must be a pretty universal experience, however, many of us stay clear of actual legal repercussions. So, it's easy to sympathize with this kid who clearly just got sucked into something way over his head.

By the way, felony murder is a death that happens as a result, direct or indirect, of the commission of another felony. So, if a guy drops dead of a heart attack during a bank heist, everyone involved in the heist in any way is suddenly on the hook for murder. This is something we actually teach our kids once per year because LD/ADHD kids are higher than normal risk for impulsive decisions that lead to this kind of thing.

Steven's trial, for most of the book, leaves it pretty unclear just how involved he actually was. However, his ruminations on responsibility and human nature are very mature without being overly cerebral.

Excellent, quick read.

Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit

Ok, so this is another book that Ansley handed to me... and then got pretty feisty with me until I read it.  (And I thought I was a demanding promoter of lit, sheesh) I have to admit the girl has good taste in literature.

A few years back I got a little done with what I've been calling Holocaust Lit. It's not that I think it's overrated, or bad, or even boring. I just don't enjoy reading it. I can handle sad tragic lit. I love a good cry when I'm not crying over me. The Holocaust though, is on a completely different level from run of the mill tragedy. The reality is that most human tragedy is caused by the people/victims involved. Their choices, while ultimately flawed, make sense to us which is the source of the pathos.

The Holocaust was not tragic in that sense. Nothing those people/victims did warranted or invited what happened to them. It was a senseless reminder of how close to mindless beasts we still are. People talk about it like it couldn't happen any more, but I look at our current political situation here and I feel that we are all too close.

I'm getting off point.

Anna and the Swallow Man is set in Poland right after the Nazis rolled in and carted off all the intellectuals. Anna's father is an intellectual. A linguist to be precise. Anna, as his daughter, already speaks five or six languages by the time she is seven and her father simply disappears. Now a seven year old alone in Nazi Occupied Poland shouldn't stand a chance of survival, but a chance encounter with a strange spindly man with chameleon like powers of adaptation leads to an informal adoption. The pair tramp around the Polish wilderness living off the land and gently swindling people into giving them what they otherwise need. A moving target is hard to find, after all.

The Swallow Man is a vaguely sinister figure. While it is clear that he truly cares of Anna, I never find myself feeling comfortable with their relationship. Perhaps that's the point. Under those circumstances, what does trust really  look like.

I haven't really absorbed the ending yet. I'm not sure what Savit was getting at with it, but the book as a whole is a worthwhile read. Even with my issues reading Holocaust Lit, I found myself drawn in enough to finish it in a an evening.