Three Dystopians and an Egyptian

In case you're curious, I thought I would tell you what I thought about the books I just finished. I know I love to know what other people think and I have more to say than can be contained in a coherent Facebook post! The links I use are the same as I linked in my previous post.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

This is the book I actually sought out and requested online from my local library. (The rest of them I grabbed off the shelf upstairs in YA fiction as I had a rare moment to myself in the library.) It is dystopian in the way that it creates our world in extreme conditions. The author divides the populace into 5 distinct factions. You are raised in one faction and then, after a test, choose a faction to live the rest of your life in. We follow Beatrice through her choices and watch as she comes into her own, bending a lot of rules along the way.

I really liked this book. The writing didn't make me pause and have to re-read or mentally correct things. I loved that she was a reluctant rebel in that she wasn't really seeking to be different, she was just discovering how she was inherently different. I loved, loved, loved the Bonus Materials added at the end of this book! She included details about each faction, writing tips, the music she liked to listen to while writing that inspired certain scenes or characters, a Q & A interview, and (my favorite) an essay about Utopian worlds. She talks about how Dystopian novels really start out as Utopian. She created what she believed was the structure for a perfect world. And then she put in characters who are imperfect and let them go! I really loved getting a glimpse into her mind.

Cleopatra's Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter

I apologize for this link taking you to Amazon. The only true-looking link I could find was to her blog and it wasn't specific to this book, or rather the link there for this book was broken. It's a good place to learn more about the author if you so desire. She writes very close to historical fact.

In this book, we follow the true story as close as the author can paste together the facts of Cleopatra VIII Selene. She was the daughter of Cleopatra VII and Marc Antony. Her descriptions of ancient Egypt were breathtaking. I felt like I was there. She really knows her stuff when it comes to accuracy and keeping things in line with what really happened. Yet she injects a lot emotion and passion into her characters so that I really got to know them well. Cleopatra Selene and her two brothers are taken to Rome after the current leader of Rome (and the whole world as they knew it) took over their kingdom. They are forced to live in his house and are raised with his family. She keeps a fierce loyalty to her kingdom and does everything she can to get back there, including some well planned romantic tactics.

I'm sure it was all part of the accuracy thing, but there were parts that were a little racy for me. Not crossing into pornographic really, just more graphic than I like to let into my brain. I loved at the end where she explained what was known to be fact and what she took creative license with.

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Incarceron is the name of a prison to end all prisons. We follow Finn and his friends inside the prison and his counterpart Claudia outside of the prison. Claudia's father is the Warden of Incarceron and so she walks a delicate line as she learns more than he wants her to about the prison. The world inside the prison is amazing and about as far from what Claudia has been told about it as it can be.

There is a lot of manipulation and secret keeping. The prison, almost by definition, is ruled with dark hearts, gore and lots of oppression. They do find friendship and trust also. All in all, it wasn't an uplifting book and I didn't love the ending, but it did have its interesting parts and Finn does have a heart of gold.

Matched by Ally Condie

I don't know how this book got on my shelf. I think someone may have lent it to me. I should really find out who, so I can return it.

In this version of life on earth, the Society is who is in charge. Not the people as a whole, but the government. They rule everything right down to the divided out portions that everyone eats. Life really begins at their Matching Ceremony where they are shown who they are to marry and spend the rest of their lives creating a perfect family within the Society's guidelines and rules for such things. But what's a girl to do when a mistake is made and she finds herself actually having to make a choice between 2 males her age to be matched with?

I liked the tone and writing of this book. It is close to my own, I think. Other than the first person. (What is the fascination with that these days? It's so hard to write that way and can be very distracting, if you ask me.) She is, of course, a bit of a rebel and I surprised myself by wishing she would accept the natural and Society-planned fate over the more rebellious one. I wanted to know more about her original match Xander, not just the "bad boy" Ky. As it turns out, the opening of the next book included at the back, implies that they actually both fight for her and that intrigues me. I love that it's not just her choice, but that they actively go after her. Who doesn't want a couple of boys to compete for your affection?

I also like how she uses the Society's rules to be rebellious. She doesn't cause a whole lot of alarm. She fits what she's doing into their parameters at first. It's not out and out rebellion, it's thoughtful and calculated, but not resentful because she doesn't want to hurt her family. I will probably seek out the other books in this trilogy, but I wouldn't have if it seemed like it was all up to her to choose 2 boys who don't really try. That's one thing that bothered me about a certain vampire tale. They compete a little, but she stubbornly sticks to the more unhealthy relationship of the two. I want a heroine that really has a tough time deciding and then makes a healthy, enduring choice. We'll see how this one pans out.

Have you read any of these? I'm curious to know what you thought!

Dear Jennifer,

May I call you Jenni? I have lots of friends named Jennifer, which mostly go by Jen. I have one friend that goes by Jenny and I used to have a dear friend named Jenni that I have sadly lost contact with. Not that you are taking her place, of course, but it is already a dear name to me and I expect that we will be dear friends. I must confess that I only know you as well as a member of the audience can, looking up at you through the footlights. I have this inkling, however, that if we were ever to have a conversation... a real conversation... that we would be friends right away.

I must admit, the first time I thought I liked you was because you are tall and have dark hair. I am both of these things, too. Well, I AM tall and I HAVE dark hair, but you get my point. I once saw a picture of you in your band uniform and that also made me smile... very big. I, too, was a band nerd. I marched and did concert band along with 3 other clarinets, about 6 flutes, 3 trumpets, a french horn, a saxophone and a few percusionists. Our band teacher usually played the tuba when we marched. I think music and working together as a group is such a great thing to learn in your youth.

If we ever went out to dinner, you would bring your husband and 3 beautiful kids and I would bring my husband and 5 crazy wonderful kids. We'd need to go to one of those big, loud restaurants that has crayons on the table. And our girls would talk about everything and my boys wouldn't be all that interested because they're little and all they care about are chicken nuggets and super heroes. I'm not sure if our husbands would be able to relate very well, but they are both kind, funny, really funny guys and I'm sure they could find things to talk about even if it's to tease us just to make us laugh. You and I could start out talking about our kids and raising them in the world we live in. Beyond that, I'm not entirely sure what you might be interested in, so we'd try crafting or reading or maybe even writing. Maybe your town is different than mine, but I can never find clothes that fit and my girls are well on their way to being just as tall... statuesque, that's a great word, right? Maybe we'd even get into faith or integrity or charity... the way we live so that our children grow up to be valuable adults.

The tags on our clothes might say different words and the cars we drive might not have driven out of the same lot, but I think we could be great friends because I don't care about what the tags say on people's clothes and I don't care which lot the car drove out of, and I think you probably care about some of the same little things that I do. I think you probably find joy in caring for, playing with, crying with, teaching and loving your children, just like I do. I think you love your husband fiercely and that you must work really hard at it to have stayed married for this long, just like me. I love the way you do what you are good at and really have a ball doing it. I love the good and kind things you do for others in a big, organized way, the same way I do things on a much smaller scale. Every time I see a picture of you, I smile because I think we would be friends if given the chance. I wish for you all the best things in life!

Your Friend,
Diana

P.S. I really wish the paparazzi would leave you guys alone! I love to scroll through red carpet pictures, when you know your picture is being taken and you're ready for it. I really think it's rotten when I think of them following people around and popping out of bushes, etc. I wish people were raised better than that!

The Quest

"Oh, hey," I say, my voice filled with trepidation. "How's it goin'?"

"Oh, you know," the small man shrugs his already hunched shoulders. "Same as usual."

I sit down next to him perched on the edge of a large sectional couch, sipping my drink awkwardly. "That good, eh?" We both chuckle humorlessly. Across the crowded room, a racous laugh cuts through all of the other conversations. We look up together. Somebody has just said something funny to the biggest group in the room. The laughter is echoed by other groups, no one wanting to look like they were left out of the joke.

My companion rolls his eyes and sips his drink. He mutters under his breath, "They think they're all that..."

"Hiya!" A trio of girls giggle in chorus as they smile and toss their hair at my friend and I. "We're Rachel, Sarah and Tiffany," they say, each girl giggling on cue. "Do you wanna come over and hang out with us?" We glance at the corner that they point to with their shiny manicured nails. My friend strains in his seat, trying to get a good look.

"Nope," he says, watching his ice cubes float.

As the girls teetered away on their flamingo legs in high heels, another man takes a seat on the coffee table facing us. "Hey."

"Hey," we say back.

"Fun party." It's not a question. It's not a conviction. He just says it and it lays there like a squashed bug we're all staring at on the carpet.

More laughter makes the three of us look over again. Practically everyone in the room is trying to work their way into the inner circle of the big group. Not us. We're still sitting here imagining what our toes look like in the ends of our shoes. We watch for a minute, our fingers wet from the condensation on the outsides of our glasses. I hear a small gasp from my friend on the end of the couch that makes me look over at him.

His eyes are wide open and his mouth is hanging slack. He sits his drink down on the table next to the other guy and stands up as if he's being pulled by an invisible string. His eyes never leave her. What he sees in her, I'm not sure. She kind of looks like the female version of himself. She's rooted to the spot, staring. He hasn't yet taken another full breath. Suddenly he's talking to her with his face, his hands and even his feet moving. They've obviously hit it off because she's responding in the same fashion. It's like a weird dance to watch them connecting like they're long lost school mates or something.

The other guy and I look at each other, wishing we could find a soulmate that easily. In the game of Scrabble, there's not much hope for an X and a Z. Once the Q finds his U though, he's set for life.

Emily and Amber; A Fairy Story

I wrote this story as a gift for my daughter Emily.

Outside, the snow dazzled and sparkled. Inside, it warmed the back, shoulders and dark hair of a beautiful nine year old girl. The pleasant feeling was coupled with the joy she was feeling while reading her favorite book. Her body may have been sitting on the window seat in her sister’s room, but her mind was worlds away…

“Emily, are you coming? Hurry up!” Amber called to her best friend in the next tree over. “We don’t want to be late!”

“I’m coming! Just one more paragraph and I’ll be done with this chapter!” Emily called back, not looking up from her book.

Amber sighed impatiently, tapping her foot so that the leaves on the branch she was standing on trembled to the beat. “It’s not like it’s not her third time through this book,” she muttered to herself.

“Okay, done! I’m coming!” Emily tucked her book safely in the hollow of the tree and stood up. She smoothed out her purple petunia dress and looked around for her shoes. She always kicked her shoes off while she read, which meant she was always looking for her shoes when she was not reading. “Have you seen my…”

“Shoes?” Emily looked up at Amber who was dangling her shoes from her fingers. Emily gave her a sheepish grin as she gracefully lifted herself from her branch with her wings and silently glided to Amber’s branch. “Shanksh,” she said through closed teeth. Amber rolled her eyes with a smile.

Both fairies ascended into the dappled sunlight glinting through the foliage of their forest. They dipped and swirled through the air giggling. As they flew, they were joined one by one by other fairies their age. They waved and greeted many of their friends. “Hi, Cherry!” “Leela! Did you finish that killer math assignment?” “Hey, Chad!” An exceptionally cute fairy by the name of Charles winked at them and set them off into another gale of giggles.

As they approached the wide, tall Oak tree, they slowed in their flight. Mrs. Wood smiled at her class as they alighted on the front steps of the Greenwood School for Young Fairies and ran on tip toes to their seats. “Welcome, Everyone! I trust you had a wonderful weekend.”

She was greeted by lots of nodding heads and murmured, “Um-hmm”s.

“I hope you were all able to finish your homework,” she said brightly. A few people bit their lips and looked down because they had obviously forgotten. “Not to worry,” she said pleasantly. “We will only have time for a few of you to report today, so those that aren’t finished have another day, but please be prepared to present your findings tomorrow.” Several sighs and relieved expressions could be heard throughout the room. “Now, who would like to be first to present today on something in the forest that changes?”

Charles looked around and then sat up straight and raised his hand. “Charles!” Mrs. Wood’s voice held surprise. “Please stand at the front of the classroom and tell us about your findings.”

Charles stood and shuffled to the front of the classroom in his moss green shorts and short sleeved shirt. His sandaled feet made no sound on the grass that grew like carpet on the floor. He ran his fingers through his sandy colored curly hair. His blue-green eyes were still looking at the floor when he reached the front of the room and turned to face his classmates. He smiled as he looked up. “When I was flying home from school on Friday, thinking about this assignment, I decided to fly over the lake and take the long way home. I didn’t want to get eaten by a jumping fish or anything, so I stuck close to the edge of the lake and flew around and around it. After about the third time around, I decided to stop and get a closer look at a moving cloud I had noticed under the water. I landed on a cattail and peered down into the water. As I watched, the cloud moved and shifted around and I could see that it was made up of a whole bunch of really tiny critters. I kept watching and I could see the ones on the edge of the cloud and I realized they were little tadpoles!” Charles grinned and held his fingers up to show how tiny they were. Even to a fairy, who are much smaller than we are, these tadpoles were pretty small.

“So, anyway, as I sat there swaying on that cattail, I realized that these little guys used to be eggs and pretty soon, they’ll be frogs. Pretty cool change, right, Mrs. W?”

“Yes, Charles. Great job! Later today, we’ll be starting to write about our findings about the change around us. Really great.” Mrs. Wood leaped (with the help of her wings) to the front of the classroom and wrote ‘Tadpole to Frog’ on the sanded wall of the tree with her pollen chalk. She turned around as Charles took his seat again. “Anyone else?”

Emily tentatively raised her hand. Looking timid, she went to the front of the room when Mrs. Wood smiled at her encouragingly.

“Well,” she started softly. She glanced at Amber who winked encouragingly and mouthed “Speak up!” Emily laced her fingers together behind her back and stood up straight and tall. Taking a deep breath, she started again, “On Saturday, my sisters Becca and Grace and I discovered an unopened chrysalis hanging outside our bedroom window. Last week, we noticed that a caterpillar had been chewing the edges of the leaves around our house. I guess she picked our branch to build a chrysalis because it is nice and sunny, and sheltered from the wind. She just sort of hooked herself on there, hanging upside down. The chrysalis is grey and it looks like layers and layers of paper wrapped around her long body. My mother said they stay in their chrysalis for about 10 days and I figure she’s been in there for about 8 days.”

“You know, Emily, that sounds like a great field trip for our class if we could watch your butterfly emerge. How does that sound?”

Emily nodded vigorously without speaking. Mrs. Wood chuckled. “Alright, we’ll have to see about that. Good work, Emily! Sounds like you’ve got the makings for a great write-up, too! Good luck!” Emily flitted to her desk while Mrs. Wood wrote ‘Caterpillar to Butterfly’ underneath Charles’ project name.

Amber was practically dancing in her seat, bouncing up and down and waving her arm in the air. “Yes, Amber, would you like to be next?” Mrs. Wood smiled.

Amber jumped out of her seat and skipped to the front of the room. She loved having all eyes on her and she began to talk so fast, Mrs. Wood had to stop her and remind her to speak slowly and distinctly. She started again.

“I was flying through the forest with my brother, Mikey and my Dad and we flew farther than we had ever been before.  My Dad was telling us all about what the forest looked like when he was a kid. He said it went on and on without ever ending… or at least as far as he knew. He said he never thought it had an edge. Right after he married my Mom, though, there was this huge fire!” Mrs. Wood nodded sadly, remembering. “It burned, like, EVERYTHING! It almost got all the way here to our small town. Everyone was getting ready to move as it got closer and closer.

“Then he told us about how the whole town, every single fairy there was, went out and combined their magic and stopped the fire. He said it was like a wall of magic that wouldn’t let the fire pass. He said it took all of their energy and they stayed there for, like, a whole day, just keeping up their magic wall. When the fire finally died, they were all so exhausted, they just dropped to the ground right there and slept. As they slept, the plants underneath them grew up around them and kept them safe while they slept. When they woke up, they were laying where it was plush and green, but right in front of them everything was black an charred. Everything had been killed and burned. He cried a lot when he told us about that part.”

“Amber, I hate to interrupt your fascinating story, but I was wondering if you could tell us about the part that made you think about the assignment. What was the change that you wanted to document in your project?” Mrs. Wood said kindly.

“Well, when we stopped at the edge of the forest on Saturday, it wasn’t black anymore. There was green stuff draped on everything that used to be black. There aren’t any tall trees there anymore, but there are baby trees and lots and lots of green stuff growing everywhere!” Amber was making big gestures with her arms and jumping around to show just how much green there had been there.

“Amber, that is a very ambitious project you’ve got in mind, there. But I think you can do it. Wonderful idea!” Mrs. Wood added ‘Forest after Fire’ to the list on the board. “I think we’ve got a great start for our projects, Class. I want you all to keep thinking about what you’d like to learn more about and write your project on. For now, let’s take a break at recess. Please clear your desks and enjoy your break!”

“Emily?! Emily, where are you?”

Emily became aware of the sun again on her back. “Huh?” Carpet was on the floor instead of grass. She shrugged her shoulders to be sure there were no wings fluttering behind her. Next to her on the window seat, Amber smiled her same smile. Was that a wink? Emily looked again at her favorite doll. “Did you just wink at me?” she whispered.

“Em? Come to the living room for Family Home Evening!” called her mother. Emily shoved her bookmark in her book, grabbed Amber and trotted off to spend time with her real life family, with a big grin on her face.