Born On A Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet (4 stars)

This insight into a savant's brain is fascinating. Daniel is unique in that he has the talents of a savant (e.g. memorising 22,514 digits of pi in a few days), but is capable of leading a relatively normal life, being in a relationship, and even writing about all of it in an autobiography.

The high point of the book for me was seeing a graphical representation of a string of numbers from pi as visualized by Daniel. He has synesthesia, a neurological 'union of the senses', which in Daniel's case means he perceives numbers and words as having particular colours and shapes. He shows a painting of his visualisation of the same sequence of numbers in this TED talk. The idea that someone's brain is so different that they can see the number "1" as a bright light, when I just see a 1, is really pretty amazing.

Daniel's Asperger's means he struggles with many of the things, particularly interactions with other people, that most people can accomplish without any conscious thought. It was fascinating watching the David Letterman interview after reading Daniel's behind-the-scenes account. He seems completely calm and collected on stage, but it was actually a very challenging thing for him to do.

Daniel also meets Kim Peek (the real "rain man") as part of the "Brainman" documentary, and while they share some savant talents there is a stark contrast between Daniel's high functioning autism and Peek's need for full time care.

I found some parts of the novel less interesting: such as lots of details of who he talked to in Lithuania, and the occasional side track into neurological research. But overall I enjoyed it, and this book left me intensely hoping that Daniel can move beyond simple demonstrations of his impressive talents and use his abilities to change the world. I wish him all the best.

4 stars

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (4.5 stars)

After reading Ruth Graham's literary snobbitribe on slate, and infuriated counter arugments, I immediately went out and bought The Fault In Our Stars to see what all the fuss was about.

My first observation while reading this novel was that the line for Young Adult seems to be extremely fuzzy. Is just having a teenager's POV enough to make it YA? What if said teenagers have a better vocabulary than most literary critics and razor-sharp acidic wit?

Kaitlyn, you're the only person I've ever known to have toe-specific dysmorphia

But of course there is always a hamartia and yours is that oh, my God, even though you HAD FREAKING CANCER you give money to a company in exchange for the chance to acquire YET MORE CANCER

...but he didn't die and now here he is, a full-grown adult in a church basement in the 137th nicest city in America, divorced, addicted to video games, mostly friendless, eking out a meager living by exploiting his cancertastic past, slowly working his way towards a master's degree that will not improve his career prospects, waiting, as we all do, for the sword of Damocles, to give him the relief that he escaped lo those many years ago when cancer took both his nuts but spared what only the most generous would call his life.

These words are unlike any I have heard come out of the mouth of a 16 year old, but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief on that account and swallow the line that two teenage literary, sarcastic geniuses were thrown together by fate, because the result is fascinating. According to Graham, the thing that makes YA is presenting:

...the teenage perspective in a fundamentally uncritical way. It’s not simply that YA readers are asked to immerse themselves in a character’s emotional life—that’s the trick of so much great fiction—but that they are asked to abandon the mature insights into that perspective that they (supposedly) have acquired as adults.

While that makes complete sense when talking about something empty-headed like Vampire Academy, it seems much less obvious here. In any case, defining YA is going to remain complicated, especially when some presumably respectable pundits consider LOTR to be YA.

In any case, meta-discussions aside, this is a fantastic book and I'd recommend it to all adults and teenagers alike. The dialogue is brilliantly written, savagely sarcastic and ironic, and a joy to read. The cancer isn't central to the book, but requires the characters to drop all of the normal teenage concerns and pursue a really interesting journey together, including a realisation that ultimately they may make little to no mark on the world.

A minor point but something I found annoying was Van Houten's strange appearance in the final act of the novel. It was completely out of character for Van Houten and implausible. Perhaps Green felt the need to show that Hazel had moved past her obsession with the novel, trivialised in the face of the recent events?

I have no idea what having a terminal illness is like, but the experiences of the "cancer kids" and their families rang true to me. I really liked Gus and Hazel, even if they sounded a little like male and female versions of the same person.

4.5 stars

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead (1 star)

There's few books on the Dymocks top 100 I haven't read, and this was one of them. I put it on my list with some trepidation, knowing I was likely to hate it, but also knowing that writing a scathing review is kinda fun too. There's a movie coming out so I decided it was time. Worst case it's another Twilight, best case it's a Sunshine.

It's been so long since I read Twilight I can't say for sure that this is worse, but it's definitely just as bad. Being inside the decidedly empty head of a shallow image-obsessed teenager during the height of teenage he-said-she-said-you-stole-my-boyfriend-lets-spread-rumours is nauseating. This is basically an insipid high-school drama about looking hot, getting boyfriends and backstabbing, with a very light dusting of what could have been an interesting vampire world.

Rose at least has more backbone than Twilight's Bella, but she's a boring follower. Despite her supposedly rebellious outlook she never questions the obvious oppression and servant class status of Dhampirs, and whether the Moroi she loves so much are actually the good guys.

I know I'm not the target audience, but there is far better YA fiction to be had.

1 star

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (3.5 stars)

The first half of this book is great. Reading about the birth of cell culture was really interesting, and Henrietta's personal struggle was moving and very sad. I'd heard a few radio interviews about this book, and read some articles, so I didn't really learn much about the HeLa cells themselves. However I was shocked by the history of unethical human experimentation mentioned, including the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and Southam's intentional injection of HeLa cancer cells into unsuspecting patients and prison volunteers.

If the book ended with the medical non-fiction history being caught up to roughly the current day I would have been very happy. But the author then inserts herself into the story and turns it into a extended familial biography. The whole second half of the book feels like it is about her personal difficulties in dealing with the modern-day Lacks family members.

I think Skloot's intention here was to show how Henrietta's famous cells had changed their lives, and how they struggled to come to terms with the media attention and lack of any financial compensation. But it doesn't read that way. It feels like Skloot is pointing out just how hard her job was: aren't I just the best journalist ever? Look at all the stuff I put up with!

The Afterword gets back to the core ethical questions posed and gives a good overview of recent legal battles, and the applicable laws, regulations, and codes of conduct. None of which would require informed consent to make a HeLa-like collection of body tissue and sell it today. This is a strong finish to a book that lost its way in the middle.

3.5 stars.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (2.5 stars)

This novel reads like Strout was given a university assignment "develop a character through a series of short stories".  The writing is undoubtedly masterful, but I wasn't impressed with the novel.  It feels more like an exercise, a talent demonstration, a resume filler, than a novel that will be loved and recommended by readers.  In this regard it was obviously successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize.

There are 13 vignettes, which give us some insight into the central character Olive.  In some stories we learn quite a bit, while in others Olive seems to be merely a passing reference, barely noticeable at all.  I found myself forging bonds with many of the incidental characters, only to have them broken at the end of the vignette, never to re-appear again.  But such is the nature of the homework assignment.

For me the most memorable story was the one where Olive displayed a purely vindictive and petty streak, by performing a series of mean-spirited pranks on her son's new wife, who she disliked.

It does not help much, but it does help some, to know there will be moments now when Suzanne will doubt herself.  Calling out, "Christoper, are you sure you haven't seen my shoe?"

Overall I found it to be a completely forgettable story about an abrupt, unsympathetic old lady, told from 13 disconnected and depressing viewpoints.  But the words are very pretty.

2.5 stars.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (3.5 stars)

This feels like the True History of the Kelly Gang for Iceland. It is historical fiction based on the fate of Agnes Magnúsdóttir who was charged with murder and was the last person to be executed in Iceland in 1829. As a debut it is very impressive. The writing is outstanding, at times lyrical, and it provides a powerful portrait of the hardship of rural Iceland. Agnes grabs your attention from the very first sentence, this is the opening:

They said I must die. They said that I stole the breath from men, and now they must steal mine. I imagine then, that we are all candle flames, greasy-bright, fluttering in the darkness and the howl of the wind, and in the stillness of the room I hear footsteps, awful coming footsteps, coming to blow me out and send my life up away from me in a gray wreath of smoke.

The research undertaken by Kent for the novel must have been enormous: not only into the details of the murder case, trial, and execution, but also covering the lifestyle of rural Iceland in the 19th century. I enjoyed reading interesting and detailed accounts of wheat harvesting, sheep butchering, sausage making, etc. It was made abundantly clear that life was hard for pretty much everyone, and female servants not only worked hard in terrible conditions, but were the subject of much abuse with very little prospect for improvement. Winter was a physical and mental prison for many months of the year.

Despite all that praise I didn't find myself particularly invested in this novel. As best I can tell, this comes down to the character development because the writing was great, the setting was interesting, and the plot moved along nicely. Agnes-the-character wasn't nearly as interesting as Agnes-the-story, which was largely portrayed as a wrong-place wrong-time kind of affair. Natan seemed interesting as a character - conflicted, manipulative, and intelligent, but he is barely present in the story, just flitting in and out of Agnes' POV. I liked this quote:

Natan did not believe in sin. He said that it is the flaw in the character that makes a person.

An interesting read, and well-written.

3.5 stars

Divergent, Allegiant, Insurgent by Veronica Roth (3 stars)

One of many, many attempts to write another Hunger Games, the Divergent series is very entertaining but horribly flawed. First take the hunger games, remove the world-building, get the Hogwarts sorting hat to carve the world up into houses, and add a splash of Ender's game training montage.

This young adult fiction got me through a few bad days of being stuck at home while sick, and I'm grateful for the entertainment, but I'm just going to review these quickly and do all three together because they are nothing amazing.



The good:

• It's a dystopia (I'm a sucker)
• No love triangle! One starts to appear at one point but it gets killed off (pun intended) quickly and fairly dramatically.
• Female and male protagonists aren't breathtakingly beautiful, perfectly proportioned goddesses and gods (I'm looking at you Twilight). Roth goes out of her way to point out imperfections and emphasize that Tris and Four are not at the top of the prettiness pecking-order on a number of occasions.

The bad:

• The world building is almost completely absent, and where it exists it doesn't make sense. Why do Abnegation perpetuate this horrible caste system that keeps the Factionless opressed when their main goal is to look after the Factionless? What does everyone do exactly - i.e. the Dauntless. What are they guarding the fence for? Why don't people try to escape the fence? Who is forcing everyone to obey the Faction system? The Salvation Army-like Abnegation running the government may be the least plausible governmental system I have ever imagined.
• The serums are a crutch. Roth comes up with some imaginative virtual reality scenarios in the Dauntless training, but it becomes clear that all the Dauntless training to overcome fears is actually pointless. If you wanted them to do something scary you could just use the mind control serum.
• There's a fairly disturbing anti-intellectual thread running through the series.
• Tris is actually a really boring POV. She is hopelessly caught up in trying to get accepted into her faction, and doesn't care to question the status quo. Her outlook gets a little more interesting in later books.
• The Tobias POV is horrible. It reads with an identical cadence to Tris, like they were the same person inside, and provides absolutely no significant insights or differences in perspective. I found myself often having to flick back to see which POV I was reading.
• The Bureau and genetic purity backstory is really weak and just not that interesting.

3 stars.