Book Reviews

Note: This is an adult book. Discretion advised.

Primarily I read and review non-fiction books.  While I like to read fiction, fiction tells a story and its strength is its ability to allow you to see life through someone else’s eyes.

Radically different lives give you a view of a different world.  Several studies have shown that reading fiction helps to build empathy and actually by itself, helps to build interpersonal skills.

Fiction in the Christian world often has a couple problems.  One, it often is oriented toward ‘nice’ stories that end well, that show people that are too easily changed by the message of Christ or where there is not actually any real conflict in the book. So I rarely read fiction published by Christian publishing houses.  But second, there is a distrust of fiction in the Christian world that I find problematic.  That distrust seems to be rooted in the fiction of the tale.  There are Christians that are uncomfortable with stories as a means of conveying truth.

Kushiel’s Dart will not be mistaken for a Christian novel.  It is about a girl, sold into indentured servitude by her mother as a young child, raised to become a prostitute.  She becomes a courtesan to the wealthy, one that specializes in the darker sexual appetites.  This book is fairly explicit.  The sex is throughout the book.  Bi-sexuality, bondage and torture are described, the main character views her job as what might be called a temple prostitute, a way for others to reach out to their god.

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Takeaway: Explores the idea of whether a person can really change, and what it takes to motivate them if they can change.

I first heard about this book, as I do so many, from Books and Culture magazine. John Wilson, the editor, named it one of his personal books of the year and it was also discussed on the B&C podcast.

I was pushed into buying it when it dropped to just over $2.00 in kindle format (back up to normal price now).  What actually moved me to read it was a malaise with my standard non-fiction fare.  I just needed something different.

Once I started, I was hooked.  I finished the book in three days (pretty unusual for me since I usually read a half dozen books at a time.)

Identity Man is an anti-hero book.  I like the concept of anti-heros.  Or at least this version of anti-heros.  Those that are on the wrong side of the law most of the time, but have a real sense of honor, pride and understanding of the lines that they will not cross.  Usually I see this in spy fiction or in fantasy or superhero fiction.

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I am way behind in my 2012 reading goals.  I am reading about the Trinity this year.  I started out with this book to read with some friends in a little informal email reading group.  Because we all graduated from Wheaton College and Ryken is the current president of Wheaton we though we would read this book together.

After 3 months we are only half way through (and probably won’t really finish).

This not a bad book, but there are several theological and editorial decisions that I disagree with and make it so that I would recommend this only as a supplemental book on the Trinity.  On the good side, it is only $1.99 for Kindle.

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Summary: Some of the ramifications of Artemis’ past life of crime (and his guilt) come back to haunt him.

This is the penultimate book of the series and it is clear that the disparate stories line of the previous books are coming together.  But I have no idea how they are going to wrap up in just one more book.

In this book Artemis is going mad.  He has (probably in part because of exposure to magic) has developed a fairy mental illness.

Again, the fairy world is in danger and this time Artemis does not seem capable of helping because he is in danger of going mad himself.

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Summary: Basic ideas of the trinity in a short pamphlet form.

One of my reading projects this year is to read about the trinity.  I am currently (very slowly) working through a book on the trinity with some friends.  And I have several more lined up when that is done.

But this book came up free last week, and it was short, so I thought I would read it.  It is part of a series, about half of which have been temporarily offered for free, but they are all currently $2.99.

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Summary: Artemis’s mother is sick.  And some how she has a magical sickness that can only be cured by a now extinct lemur.  Artemis’ 10 year old self was responsible for killing that last lemur.  He has to go back in time and stop himself.

Time Paradoxes are always fuel for science fiction.  The fact that you can in your future change something in your past both is an interesting idea, but also something that we all would like to do.

Artemis is continuing to mature in this series.  Because he gets to see himself as a 10 year old he has a chance to really evaluate where he has come from and his changing values.

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Summary: In book two of this young adult romantic dystopian novel, Cassia is looking for Ky, who has been shipped off to the outer provinces as a decoy in the secret war of rebellion.

This trilogy by Ally Condie is a unique take on the dystopian novel.  It has all of the traditional elements: a society that has re-built itself out of the ashes of our current world, a tension between the totalitarian elements that want to prevent another societal meltdown through social engineering and those that rebel against the power of the society, and a utopian undercurrent that believes that if only we can do it a bit better.

But in Condie’s novels much of the action is internal to the characters.  The violence of the Hunger Games is absent.  There is plenty of tension.  But it is a psychological and romantic tension.  Not a tension caused by physical violence and political intrigue.

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