Late Review: Tell the Wolves I'm Home

Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“I used to think maybe I wanted to become a falconer, and now I'm sure of it, because I need to figure out the secret. I need to work out how to keep things flying back to me instead of always flying away.” --Tell the Wolves I'm Home

When I finished this novel, I didn't know what to say. I loved it. It crushed me. It elated me. It took the top of my head off in the very best way possible. It shocked me to no end it was a first novel. It reminded me of the death of my mother's closest friend to AIDS in 1992, and how his death shattered me into tiny pieces in ways I didn't understand for years and years.

The narrator feels very real to me, and she takes me back to a time that AIDS was on the nightly news every night. On the cover of Time magazine, complete with a story that speculated that AIDS was mutating so fast that it could become airborne, and then we'd really be screwed. I read that issue at the allergist's office at age 9 or so (I was a weird kid), and eyed everyone in the waiting room suspiciously until they called me to get my bimonthly shot. This book perfectly captures what it's like to be a kid during that time in the late 80s when the adults were all going crazy and no one knew what to think.

I know it's not for everyone. I would have said it wasn't for me either. I love sad songs, but I like my books to have happy endings. This book, by its nature, must end in some measure of tears, but I found myself coming back to it again and again. Finally, I opened it to get an idea of the prose, and I never put it down willingly again.

Try it. Even if it's not your thing. It might just transport you to your own childhood, and a time that you were figuring out who you were and who you loved.

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The Princess Bride by William Goldman

The Princess Bride by William Goldman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This movie, and the book, occupied a central place in my childhood. It was the selection for my bookclub for June, and my copy is in storage in Oregon, so I requested a copy from the library, which I just finished.

I find, distressingly, that while the story remains charming in broad outlines, there's a disconcerting and constant thread of sexism running through the entire novel that kept smacking the adult me in the face each time I tried to slip into a beloved book from childhood.

Peripheral female characters are silly: Goldman's author-narrator is forced to edit away pages and pages of accounts about their clothing, their hat collections, their packing and unpacking. Buttercup's principal virtues, in an adventure story, are her beauty and her faithfulness. In the book, unlike in the movie, Westley (as the Man in Black) actually strikes Buttercup, instead of just threatening it, as he does in the movie. She is entirely without agency, and in many instances is portrayed as being more than a little stupid. But that doesn't matter! She's the Most Beautiful Woman in the Word, preoccupied with an exercise routine that will render her pudgy wrist thinner, and her bony wrist more plump!

The one time that she takes any initiative, it's to jump in the water to get away from her kidnappers. This, of course, cannot be the correct course of action: she requires rescuing from sharks immediately. There are no other, competent women to take the onus off of Buttercup carrying a banner for all women in story, and that she is the only option makes me sad for the little girl I was, reading this story, and for any little girl who reads it today.

It's still as charming as ever, in places, but this time around the sexism was enough to spoil the read for me. I can't quite bring myself to downgrade it like I would if it were a new read, but it's not the perfect novel I once thought it.

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Sharp Things by Gillian Flynn

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Here is a book that left me a little conflicted, if only because the last 40 pages or so felt a little underdeveloped. I cared a lot about that loosely sketched ending because I had enjoyed the book SO MUCH up to that point that even a hint of rushing to the conclusion was frustrating. That said? I still can't bring myself to deduct a full star for that.

Gillian Flynn is a better writer as of her third book, but even her first book is head and shoulders above most of what is being published right now.

This will be the last of the Gillian Flynn for me, until she publishes something new. I have enjoyed every last one of them as dark and twisty as they all can be, in their individual ways. They have the same sort of edge to them that a lot of Stephen King does, but without even a hint of the supernatural element that King cannot resist including, most of the time. These are just small town Midwesterners acting badly, and it feels really true, even when the plot takes a dark or even shocking turn.



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