Vacation Reading

I read ten books over Christmas vacation, because that's what I do since I don't have kids. Who am I kidding, it'll probably still be eight books when I do have kids. I'll find the time. In order from least favorite to most favorite, these are the books I read.

10. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard

Stoppard's play reimagines the story of Hamlet through the eyes of its bit players, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Claudius and Gertrude ask these two to check on Hamlet and try to find out what's wrong with him. That's basically their entire purpose in the play, and Stoppard rightly fixes on the humor in that. When they aren't with Hamlet, speaking in iambic pentameter, they are alone together or with the "Players" who perform in order to guilt Claudius and Gertrude into admitting what they did to Hamlet's father. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern turn out to be a lot like Godot's friends, and they spend a lot of time talking about nothing. It's funny, but not for long. And as with a lot of postmodern literature, I felt like a lot of it was going over my head, and that made me feel stupid.

9. The Hero's Guide to Being an Outlaw, Christopher Healy

This is one of four young adult books I read during vacation, and it was my least favorite. That was partially because it started out so promising. It features a cast of familiar characters: a variety of Prince Charmings, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White, and others that are variations on fairy tale tropes. The story is meant to be a humorous take on these tropes, and it succeeds in the first chapter. I really enjoyed the originality and the jokes. But then I got to the second chapter and realized it was going to be the same stuff for 500 more pages. Five. Hundred. Cute story, but no substance, and way too much funny-recycling.

8. Maus, Art Spiegelman

This is a two-volume biography of the author's dad, a Holocaust survivor. What makes it unique is the graphic novel format and the fact that Spiegelman casts his characters as different animals: Jews are mice, non-Jewish Poles are pigs, Germans are cats. Mostly I found this innocuous; they talk like people and act like people, so they may as well be people. It works best when the different races interact with one another, especially in Auschwitz. Seeing the cats prey on the mice simplifies the dynamic in a powerful way. But I guess I didn't need that simplification. The Holocaust was a horror. There's no two ways about that. Making the sufferers into mice didn't change that. This was still a worthwhile read, though, if only because everyone who survived deserves to have his or her story told and heard as many times as possible. Vladek Spiegelman was fortunate to have a talented son to tell his.

7. North River, Pete Hamill

I've read several of Hamill's books, and my favorite thing about him is that he's a reliable chronicler of life in New York City. I feel very protective of how the city is portrayed since living there for six years myself, and it's easy to spot a faker. Hamill's a native, and he knows his home. My favorite book of his is a memoir, Downtown, which is basically just a description of places he likes in the city. It's one of the best love letters to a place I've ever read. I also like him because he reminds me a little of Mark Helprin, the writer of my favorite novel Winter's Tale. In fact, Forever, another of Hamill's novels, shares a lot of similarities with Winter's Tale, and North River could be a cousin to Helprin's In Sunlight and In Shadow. But a comparison to Helprin always hurts a writer for me. I'm just reminded page after page that this guy isn't him. North River's plot isn't really relevant to that, but part of that bugged me too. The whole thing builds to the main character getting together with his grandson's nanny, but it totally misunderstands how women feel about sex. All women. Just trust me on this one.

6. Sing Them Home, Stephanie Kallos

This was a sprawling book, even a bit longer than Hero's Guide, but much better. Kallos has a gift for language, and her prose was delightful to read. I also enjoyed her characterization. She is great at showing instead of telling, and I felt like I understood her main characters very early because of the things they did and the conversations they had, which is much preferred to the writer just explaining who her characters are. I thought I was going to like this book a lot, but in the end it did not earn its length. I wanted it to build toward some grand climax that tied all the threads together. It tried to, but it wasn't quite grand enough for me. Also, the love stories. They weren't quite as ridiculous as North River's, but they were predictable.

5. Facing the Music, Jennifer Knapp

I've been looking forward to reading this for a while. Jennifer Knapp is my favorite singer, and this book is the closest I could get to sitting down and having coffee with her. I do feel like I understand her much better now, and I really appreciate that. But I also feel disappointed. This book was supposed to explain how Knapp left Christian music, discovered she's gay, and then came back to the music industry. It does do that. But what I wanted was for her to say, here's why everything I've done is acceptable in light of the gospel. And she does not do that. In many ways, her story is very sad. She's been mistreated by a lot of Christians who didn't understand the difference between God's law and their own preferences. She's been asked to represent Christianity to an inappropriate degree. And when she was burnt out and needed to take a break, the only person who was there for her was the woman who ultimately became her lover. The church turned its back on her when she needed it most. Knapp presents as a woman who has been deeply abused by Christians and never recovered. I'm glad she's back in music. It's not my place to judge her choices. But nothing about her book made me think those choices were made in a healthy frame of mind, or convinced me that the Bible condones what she's doing.

4. Church: Why Bother?, Philip Yancey

I love Philip Yancey. He is one of my favorite Christian writers, and I think the one who is probably most like me in personality. Of course I can't know that without knowing him personally, but the way he writes suggests to me that we share the same desire for order and structure, need to know the truth, and sense of wonder and amazement at the grace of God. He makes it easier to believe that someone like me could actually make a difference in the world. This is a little book, one I've read before. It tells Yancey's own journey away from and back to the church and why he thinks it matters to believers. It's a convincing argument coupled with a lot of great quotes from other writers. Yancey is both a gifted writer and a gifted curator of others' writing.

3. Stargirl, Jerry Spinelli

This is a favorite young adult book of mine, and I read it every December right before my birthday. It's the story of Stargirl, a unique young woman who makes her high school classmates uncomfortable with all her differentness. She falls for a boy named Leo, who eventually has to choose between her and the respect of those same classmates. The story itself is very simple, but I love it, and I've loved getting to read my students' reactions to it as many of them have read it too. I like how it makes teenagers rethink what it means to be "normal" and whether we should be thinking about that at all.

2. Wonder, R.J. Palacio

I did not imagine that any of the books on my vacation list would bump Stargirl from #2, but this is one of the best young adult books I've read in years. It's the story of Auggie, a ten-year-old boy with a facial deformity who goes to school for the first time. The first section, told from Auggie's point of view, didn't impress me that much, but then Palacio switches perspectives to that of Auggie's older sister, Via. Suddenly I understood Auggie in a whole new way, and that's when I knew I was reading a talented writer. The difference between this and Sing Them Home is that this one did build to a beautiful, poignant moment that moved me and inspired me. Sorry to be cheesy, but Wonder is a wonder.

1. Love, Stargirl, Jerry Spinelli

The real reason I read Stargirl every year is so that I can read this book on my birthday. The whole book is a year-long letter that Stargirl writes to Leo after she moves away. She is such a fascinating character, and her interactions with the other people in her town are beautiful and real. I wish I knew them in real life, and that's a test that's both very important and difficult to pass. The climax of this book takes place on the Winter Solstice, which is my birthday, and it makes me feel amazing about being born on the darkest day of the year. If you don't like darkness or winter, and/or if you do like great stories with great characters, read this book.