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Showing posts from February 21, 2010

Candor

Candor is a book that is similar to The Stepford Wives . Instead of telling what happens on the outside of the town, it delves deep into the inner workings of a town based on control. Part of what makes Ira Levine’s Stepford Wives so horrifying is that you never really know what is happening to the women of Stepford, you just know that they are changing. Candor by Pam Bachorz uses the exact opposite approach. From the beginning Oscar tells you all the lies and deception that comprise the city of Candor . People, very rich people, sign up to live in a town where they are covertly fed messages 24/7. The concept was created by Oscar’s father. He is a very meticulous and controlling man. He uses the messages to create the kind of life he wants for himself. He thinks that Oscar is oblivious to it all and just going along with the ride. But Oscar is trying to subvert his father every step of the way. Part of the effectiveness of his willing to appear that he is under the influence ...

The Silver Child by Cliff McNish

The Silver Child is the first book in a fantastical dystopian trilogy. The series is called The Silver Sequence and tells the story of a group of children with unique powers. This aspect of powers is what drew me into the book when I saw it at the library. I read the jacket flap and I was really pulled into the potential of the book. “Six children are changing, and no one knows why….All six are drawn to Coldharbour, a wasteland of garbage dumps. The children sense the approach of a sinister enemy. What is it? How will they face their strange shared destiny?” The book starts off slow and then crosses into creepy. One boy is peeling off his own skin and another is caressing strangers with his “beauty”. This beauty expands into some weird, almost orgiastic situations leaving me weirded out and confused. As i reached the conclusion of the book I actually started to enjoy it more, and then it occurred to me, the whole narrative structure of the book is completely backwards. The w...

The Sunday Salon – Failing Goals As Progress

Do you ever set your goals too high knowing that you won’t achieve them but also knowing that you will do better than if you set the bar lower? I try to do this for myself and it is a fine line between disappointing myself and achieving more than I would have been able to do otherwise. Yesterday I set a goal of reading four books. I actually think this was an achievable goal because they were all short books. But just because you can read 4 books in a day doesn’t mean that you feel like finishing 4 books! But, I did finish two books! And considering how slowly I have been reading, that has been a great accomplishment! I have been having a hard time recovering from both my cold and my sprained ankle. And even though I am feeling much better I am definitely not up to full strength.  Yesterday I decided to go work in the library. I packed up all my stuff and got there and started coughing. I posted a quick post, looked at the stack of work I intended to work on and headed back home....