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I started reading the much-anticipated The Year of the Flood before the Giller shortlist was announced and the blogs and papers started buzzing in shock at this grand dame’s exclusion from our most lucrative literary award. But after completing the book, I can understand why this venerable Canadian scribe was left out in the cold.

I’m not saying  it’s a bad book. Atwood has earned her reputation, and the prose is riddled with the usual dark humor, clever wordplay and striking imagery (a few pages in she compares the unruly bushes to frayed hairbrushes — perfect). The characters are fully realized, and I delighted in Ren, though admittedly, Toby was a little drab. I found reading the book over two days on the thanksgiving weekend easier than digesting dinner, and perhaps that’s the problem.

But first, a small synopsis: YOTF takes us back to the world presented in Oryx & Crake, where the majority of the population has been wiped out by a virus, and only a smattering of humans remain. YOTF focuses on two of these humans, Ren, a young sex worker, and Toby, an active member of a religious sect, the God’s Gardener’s. Ren and Toby’s stories have two threads: the present (how they survived “the flood,” how they continue to do so) and the past, in which both lived with a group of radical luddites and environmentalists who respect the sanctity of all life. We learn a great deal about the God’s Gardeners through their hymns and the monologues of their leader, Adam One. And while their way of life was interesting, these periods lack momentum. Eventually, the end of YOTF meets the end of Oryx & Crake, and we now get another perspective on a familiar scene.

Now, back to my principal reservation about the book: I feel like I’ve seen all this before. Okay, it’s a prequel (or a simultanuel as Eileen points out in the comments), that’s fair, you say, but the problem is, I don’t feel like YOTF added anything of significance to the world Atwood already created, which should be the idea behind a prequel. It’s neat to be back in Atwood’s dystopia, but all of the features of that world have lost their edge, the shock of novelty and Atwood’s audacity.  YOTF is a character-driven narrative rather than a novel of ideas.  It lacks some of the more profound conclusions that O & C offered up. It’s an up-close study of a cult, and the hypocrisy therein, but that’s hardly surprising, and strangely I found O & C’s commentary on religion far more startling and profound: the Crakers, those supposedly designed to have no religion, are making their own Gods.

Perhaps there is a more sophisticated interplay between the two novels that I missed;  I didn’t re-read Oryx & Crake prior to taking on YOTF.  Atwood says it’s a standalone novel, and so I treated as such (rereading seems such an impossible luxury anyway).  Perhaps YOTF is richer if O & C is fresh, so if you read them both, please feel free to add your additional insight. I will say it’s amusing to see characters from Oryx & Crake make appearances in the YOTF narrative — like crossover episodes on popular television shows — though for me, a different perspective provided no real additional insight into those characters.

So yes, I have some criticisms, but it is still a fine novel,  though perhaps not as thought-provoking as Oryx & Crake, or as terrifying at The Handmaid’s Tale. As a reader, this dystopia feels almost too comfortable. It’s a novel which, unlike its predecessor, doesn’t take any chances, and that could be just what kept this Lady Oracle off the Giller shortlist.

Except My Love For YouA review of “Except My Love For You,” a novel by John Hodgert

“Except My Love For You” by John Hodgert tells the story of a 45 year-old man named Gordon from Winnipeg, Manitoba.  The novel begins with Gordon’s dramatic decision at the peak of his career to set aside his business and his marriage to explore the simplest way a man of his age can live ‘comfortably’ in the city.  Guided by an underlying poetic structure and full of flashbacks and unexpected twists and turns, Gordon’s journey through this changing time in his life with nothing but a few possessions and a handful of friends to call his own is a difficult yet beautiful one.

While the appeal of “Except My Love For You” for the baby-boomer generation is clear, what is surprising is the way in which all readers are moved to journey alongside Hodgert’s protagonist and easily swept up in the questions his life poses of ours.   Questions like: what do we idealize in life and should we idealize these things?  What would it feel like to simplify our day-to-day and what would be the consequences of this change?  Where will our choices lead down the road?  How are our parents dealing with their life choices, how are they processing things in this phase of their lives?  The way these questions linger in our minds and in our hearts well after we’ve finished reading the book is Hodgert’s greatest accomplishment and fine praise for his debut novel.

Hodgert’s narrative style is dense, however, and at times can seem impenetrable, especially on first reading.  The many private jokes, alliteration and witticisms can sometimes leave the reader focused on the wording rather than the story.  Although such wordplay in a short poem or scattered throughout a novel can be insightful, the high compression language in “Except My Love For You” can leave the reader grappling to really understand the characters.  But, if one perseveres through the adjectives, one is rewarded as these characters are full, varied and outright charming.  Indeed, Hodgert’s cleverness is spirited and holds promise for future writing.

The novel is enhanced with an accompanying CD of the author reading extracts of the book as well as performing songs composed for the novel.  It is a delight to listen to as the world of the novel jumps off the page, and Hodgert’s love of the way words mix and mingle together shines through.  It is our opinion that the novel, with it’s cinematic unfolding of story and character, would work well as a film

“Except My Love For You” is a love song to a specific generation that evokes timeless questions for all readers.

For more info on the book and to listen to the original song recordings visit: http://www.exceptmyloveforyou.com/

Written on behalf of ‘The Cool Club’ book club in Toronto, Ontario.

It’s a running joke that there’s never any food in my parents’ house. My mother lacks the foresight necessary for adequate grocery shopping, although even when my mother was at her most Hubbard, I never had to eat exclusively grapes for three weeks or pick through other kids’ discarded lunches in the bathroom garbage so that I could eat that day.

Sound like the makings of an Oprah special? Absolutely. But thankfully, The Glass Castle doesn’t read this way. This absolutely captivating memoir isn’t about self-pity or finger pointing, but simply documents an extraordinary childhood at once rich in imagination and adventure and bitingly impoverished.

Of course it is Jeannette’s parents who created this bipolar existence for their children. She has a brilliant and charming, but alcoholic father who took his daughter inside a leopard cage or demon hunting in the desert, but also wouldn’t hold a job and stole his daughters’ meager savings to finance his addiction.  Her mother is a free-spirited artist who appreciates learning and beauty but who disdains regular work and domestic duties.

As we follow Jeannette from the age of three through her teenage years, we watch as the Walls parents lose their magical glow, and the children are forced to fill the vacuum of responsibility their parents have created. It would be tempting to cast the parents as villains here, but Jeannette takes care to present all sides of her conflicted parents with a critical eye and a compassionate heart.

Though the Walls children are bullied, hungry, and poor, Jeanette never complains, instead illustrating the creativity and courage which they depended upon to survive. And while their parents neglected them, they also taught their children important lessons about the value of learning, mastering their fears, avoiding conformity, and relying on their wit and imagination.

Walls is a journalist by trade, and shows both tremendous restraint and an eye for detail, making the writing a pleasure to read. Combine that with a series of events right out of a Miriam Toews novel and you can see why this memoir has received so much praise.  Start to finish I was hopelessly ensnared in this extraordinary tale of a childhood I’m thankful to experience second hand, but wouldn’t for a second want to miss.

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