The Rosie Project VS The River of No Return: Dubuque Tournament of Books, Round One

This week we'll be posting the judges' decisions for the first round of the 2nd Annual Dubuque Tournament of Books. To see an overview of the judges and contestants, check out this blog post.

Judge: Sue

Nicholas J. Schrup Library, Clarke University

The Rosie Project is a humorous romance written from a male character's point of view by Graeme Simsion. It seems rare to encounter a romance story from a male perspective. Professor Don Tillman (Australian) is  extremely intelligent genetics professor, but has a hard time with personal interactions. It is not really spelled out for you in the book, but Don has Asperger's Syndrome which makes it harder for him  to pick up on verbal and facial social clues. Most of the story revolves around Don's inept behavior with women as he searches for a wife. He decides to make a questionnaire to filter out unsuitable women in his search, and calls it the Wife Project. When he meets Rosie, a bartender who contacts him for genetics advice in tracking down her biological father, he agrees to take on a new task--the Father Project. Rosie does not meet the requirements of his questionnaire, but he has the best days of his life when he's with her.

I found myself thinking about Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory and Spencer from Criminal Minds throughout the book. They are both lovable characters and so is Don.

I think one of the reasons the story is so appealing is that it's written by a man, from a man's perspective.
This wasn't a traditional romance novel, but I enjoyed the romantic aspect of this story quite a bit. There was also a fun and interesting journey with Don and Rosie gathering dozens of samples of DNA to determine who might be Rosie's biological father. It made me laugh quite a few times!

The River of No Return by Bee Ridgeway was an interesting time-travel book with a romance at the heart of the story. Lord Nicholas Falcott is about to be run through with a sword on a Spanish battlefield when he is hurtled two hundred years into the future. He wakes at the mercy of The Guild, a seemingly benevolent organization that supports people who find themselves displaced in time.

In this story, time travel wasn't just an excuse to get a modern person into a previous century or vice versa, but rather a concept that was used throughout the whole book. The purpose of the time travel is what kept me drawn in through-out the story, a hope to save the world. Not only was there time-travel, but also stopping time, and manipulating time. That was all very interesting, but at times hard to follow.

So, I chose The Rosie Project over The River of No Return because The Rosie Project was ultimately more readable for me and kept my attention.  There were "slow spots" in each book but fewer of them in Rosie.

Eleanor & Park VS Me Before You: Dubuque Tournament of Books, Round One

This week we'll be posting the judges' decisions for the first round of the 2nd Annual Dubuque Tournament of Books. To see an overview of the judges and contestants, check out this blog post.

Judge: Becky

Charles C. Myers Library, University of Dubuque

Dear Me Before You,

It’s not you, it’s me. I promise I went into this with an open mind. I knew before I even started you weren’t my typical book.

You had everything going for you: an adorably British, refreshingly quirky female character, attitudinally challenged quadriplegic male lead, a love story, a castle, ethical questions, interesting family dynamics, a fabulous cover design AND you brought me to tears. How could I not love Lou? She shows character growth and just the right amounts of compassion and sassiness when dealing with the understandably melancholy Will. And Will. A differently-abled character that isn’t set up to evoke pity, or sorrow. He’s angry, frustrated, and just done dealing with people. The set up is fabulous. The narrative plays that delicate balance between saccharin and tart. And did I mention the tears? You broke my heart in the best way possible.

By all calculations, you should have won this battle. And I’d like to think that against most other books you would have. You just happened to be up against an even better book. I’m sorry. I really am. Don’t think of this as a break up. I truly enjoyed our time together, I just have to go with Eleanor & Park. But call me when you’re in town again and we’ll grab a drink.

Hugs,
Becky

                                                                                                            

My dearest Eleanor & Park,

You knew all along you were going to win this round, didn’t you? You’re sneaky like that. You tell us right off that Eleanor is gone. And that Park is heartbroken enough that he sees her everywhere she is not. You’re upfront about the fact that this won’t end well. And yet, somehow you draw me in. And make me cry. And come back for more. I thought maybe the second time that magnetic quality might be diminished. It wasn’t. It was actually stronger.

Eleanor’s reality, though bleak, is compelling and complex. Too often main characters are one-dimensional. Or given a singular hurdle or defining characteristic. Eleanor is large, poor, red-headed, and has a difficult home life; all without being stereotypical. Park, while seemingly better off, is still a bit of a misfit: a Korean-American boy who is a little too feminine for his father’s taste. On the outside they have very little in common, but somehow over music and comic books begrudging understanding happens. Soon, friendship is forged and finally romance blooms at the back of the bus.

Just like Eleanor and Park, I can’t explain why I like you. Scenes I can’t divulge are like a punch to the gut. And those few beautiful moments like the first time they hold hands shouldn’t be enough to make the rest of the story bearable. This isn’t your boy meets girl and they live happily ever after tale. It’s so much more than that. Reminding us that love isn’t always enough, or everything, or even easy. But it’s worth it; and so are you Eleanor & Park. So are you.

Yours forever and for always, (or at least until the next round),
Becky

The Ocean at the End of the Lane VS Tenth of December: Dubuque Tournament of Books, Round One

This week we'll be posting the judges' decisions for the first round of the 2nd Annual Dubuque Tournament of Books. To see an overview of the judges and contestants, check out this blog post.

Judge: Bob

Dubuque 365Ink

The Tenth of December is a collection of short stories by George Saunders who is regarded by a lot of people as the best writer of short stories alive. Someone, I don’t remember who, referred to the stories in this collection as “little joy bombs.” For the most part they are but laced with a goodly amount of sadness, horror and a little twisted humor thrown in to good effect.

“Victory Lap” is about a young boy, Kyle, who is faced with a life and death dilemma. He sees his former friend, Alison, get kidnapped and he has to decide whether or not to get involved no matter how scared he is.

“The Tenth of December” is a story about a man who is trying to kill himself by freezing himself to death. He sits outside on the 10th of December. He is interrupted in the middle of things. This is one of and maybe the best story in the collection.

Another story vying for best in collection is “Escape from Spiderhead.” It is a kind of Science Fiction Horror story. Jeff has been sent to an experimental prison, the inmates of which are at the beck and call of a sadistic warden named Abnesti. The warden develops pharmaceuticals and tests them out on the inmates. The type of drug and the experiment left me slack- jawed and wide-eyed with my socks going up and down. It’s not the kind of story you “like” because of what happens at the end but I tell you it is absolutely riveting.

Up to this point The Tenth of December was, certainly, one of the best books I read all year. That is, until I read Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It might be unfair to try and compare these two books because one is a novel and the other a collection of short stories. I have a preference for longer forms of fiction so Mr. Gaiman had the edge there. It was the story that did it for me. The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a much stronger story than any of the stories in The Tenth of December.

Mr. Gaiman’s novel is spellbinding, almost literally. There being a few spells cast here and there. It concerns a man who is about 40 years old. He goes back to his home town to attend a funeral. He has some time to kill so he takes a ride around town coming to rest at the place where he grew up. He starts to have these memories of the extraordinary women who lived up the lane from him when he was a kid. There was a grandmother, a mother and a daughter. He starts to remember an astonishing adventure he had that involved all three of the women but especially the daughter. As the afternoon progresses he has reverie after reverie remembering minute details of his adventure, particularly the horrific scary parts. You’ll get no spoilers from me on this one. Go and read The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It will amaze you. I don’t ever use the word awesome (to inspire awe) to describe anything because it’s overused so I’ll use a simile. The book is breathtaking and that is why I chose it to go on to Round Two in the Tournament of Books.

And the Mountains Echoed VS The Girls of Atomic City: Dubuque Tournament of Books, Round One

This week we'll be posting the judges' decisions for the first round of the 2nd Annual Dubuque Tournament of Books. To see an overview of the judges and contestants, check out this blog post.

Judge: Marie

River Lights Bookstore 

 

Spanning more than six decades and covering three continents, And the Mountains Echoed primarily tells the story of a brother and sister whose love for one another more than made up for what they lost, and the repercussions of great sacrifice in the pursuit of greater good.  Khaled Hosseini proficiently draws the reader into the lives of each character, evoking empathy in even the most trying of situations.  His reputation as an amazing storyteller is well-earned.

The Girls of Atomic City, written by Denise Kiernan, is a retelling of the lives and efforts of a select group of women during World War II.  These women traveled from homes all across the United States to take part in a secret government project.  Not allowed to discuss their work, not even with one another, they were left in the dark about the true effect and risks of the work they were undertaking. Ms. Kiernan took pains to capture the voice of the era and this, more than anything else, is what shines through.  Coupling recounted stories are photographs, both of the principal players during present day and, as they were when they worked in Oak Ridge. 

Perhaps I should not have read And the Mountains Echoed before The Girls of Atomic City, but that action cannot be undone.  I could not imagine, after finishing Khaled Hosseini's latest novel, how any other work could best it, and The Girls of Atomic City certainly did nothing to persuade me otherwise.  While the subject matter of The Girls of Atomic City is one that fascinates me, I found Ms. Kiernan's writing so colloquial and simplistic as to be off-putting.  The feeling of the book was that of an historical fiction and not as an in depth recording of past events.  And the Mountains Echoed, on the other hand, was masterfully written.  While the core of the novel is the relationship between a brother and sister, the adjacent story lines are just as enthralling and necessary.  I wish I could expound further, but it seems a Sisyphean task to try to contain a full review of this magnificent book in such a small amount of space.