Marmee's Girls

Hola, are we all ready to be done with the holiday's and back to our (sort of) regularly scheduled programming?  Great.  To get back into it I'm gonna ramble about one of my favorite old school books.  Little Women by Louisa May Alcott has been a favorite of mine for a long time and I read it as a bit of a counter balance to all the snark and weirdness I was into this year.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

This book is about the March family, a family in the New England region during the Civil War era.  Marmee (the mamma) has four girls.  The oldest is Meg, who is beautiful, practical and longs for the finer things in life.  Next comes Jo, a wild girl who when younger wishes she could have been born a boy, is creative, impetuous and loves her family dearly.  Beth comes next and is as sweet and fragile as they come, she is musically and domestically talented and is beloved by all.  Finally the youngest Amy, a fair and pretty girl with artistic talent, a wee bit of pretension and dreams of being a proper lady.  These girls are the main focus of the story and we watch them grow from teenagers into women and follow their lives, dreams, challenges, heartaches and eventual futures.  The book was origanally two separate books, Little Women and Good Wives, but has been published as one book forever.  Lets start with the first half (There is WAY too much stuff going in to put in every detail, but I'll try and give you the highlights).  The girls and their Marmee are trying their hardest to live their live in a greatly reduced state while their father is off being a chaplain for the North during the Civil War.  The are encouraged by their mother to continually improve themselves for the sake of others.  Each girl is continually featured dealing with their own particular flaws, getting into some sort of scrape because of it and becoming better for learning their lesson.  All of this is enhanced by the presence of the neighbor boy Laurie, who has his own good points and bad as well.  Meg continually struggles with her want of nice things, she wants to be comfortable and often over extends herself to the point of foolishness to obtain them.  She is called on it more than once by Laurie who prefers Meg to just be content with her natural beauty and charm.  Meg is the first to grow up and is won over by a man who while poor is honorable and loving.  Jo is continually either up or down, she is constantly frustrated at trying to constrain herself to the ideals of a female in polite society.  Lucky for Jo, her family understands her and gives her great leeway in finding herself.  She and Laurie are very close and run around getting into all sorts of shenanigans, enjoying themselves immensely.  Unfortunately, Jo's mouth and temper are getting her into all kinds of scrapes, some with significant consequences.  She is the most distraught when her sisters start to grow up and have lives of their own, as she is torn between wanting everything to stay the same, and the urge to turn life on its head.  Beth has very few flaws, other then being incredibly shy.  She is sweet and docile and just wants life to be smooth and happy for her little family.  Her giving nature leads her to fall ill with Scarlet Fever, an illness that she never fully recovers from.  Little Amy tries very hard to be good, and usually succeeds...even if she tells everybody just all about the nice things she has done.  Her burden is her desire to be a little lady and accepted in society, even if it means going against her upbringing.  Of all the girls she probably does the most growing.  The second half of the book deals with the girls as they become women and show how the hard work they put in growing up eventually pays off.  Meg marries, John and has a pair of adorable babies.  She works hard at being a good wife and mother and entertains the reader as as she tries to balance the two and her never far desire for the finer things in life.  After a heart breaking decision regarding her relationship with Laurie (she can only see him as a brother and he wants more) she leaves to New York to work on her career and eventually finds her future in a German professor by the name of Behr and a school she founds for the boys of the town.  Beth continues to serve her family and breaks all of their hearts when she can no longer fight her illness and dies.  Amy goes abroad and learns to be a gentle and devoted lady and is rewarded when she and Laurie fall in love and marry.  At the end everybody returns home, watched over by the spirit of Beth and do their best to try and live the best lives they can.

Whew that was a chunk of synopsis and it does not even got into any real detail, and the detail is where the charm lies.  I have always enjoyed this book starting the first time I read waaaaaay back in the second grade.  I think most of it comes from the fact that, especially when I was younger, I very much identified with the March family.  There were four kids, I come from a family of four kids.  There are lots of sisters in the book, I have two sisters.  Laurie reminds me very much of my own adventurous, mischievous brother.  Mamma and Daddy March tried their best to raise decent, thinking kids, with love and acceptance being the main mode of operation, the same at our house.  All of this combined with all the little episodes and going ons of the girls and Laurie made me feel like I was part of the family as it so closely resembled my own.  Now that I am older I appreciate the struggle of many of the characters to just become better humans,  They all have flaws that most humans have, but instead of glorifying them, or vilifying them, the author used them to create very realistic and constantly growing characters.  Now all that being said, the book can very preachy and moralizing, but never in a judgmental way, but more in a gentle "hey maybe not be so selfish so everybody can be happy" sort of way.  All the girls are realistic, with not any one being better then the other, and even little angel Beth had her moments of self-pity and little rebellions.  I also like how all the characters grew and improved, but still struggled with their own particular problems, none of them magically going away, but constantly being worked on.  Jo was always my favorite, with her boyish and bold personality...and since I have been accused of having a big mouth on more then one occasion understand the struggle.  I have read this book so many times that I rarely read the whole thing cover to cover anymore, perfering to flip to the bits and pieces that best suit my mood and situation at the time.  Overall it is a great read for anybody who likes early American fiction, great characters and/or an overall timeline that can be read in small stories.  I give it 8 out of 10 limes and will probably read it several more times.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Kick-A** Girl Power In All Forms

Getting excited for the National Book Festival coming up next weekend!  One of the things I am most excited about is the possibility of meeting Tamora Pierce, one of my favorite authors.  I have to admit it took me a while to get into this authors works, my baby sis had actually read her Circle of Magic books and tried to get me interested, but it wasn't really my thing right then.  Later I picked up the Song of the Lioness quartet and then promptly kicked myself for not getting into them sooner.  There are a zillion reasons to love the works of Tamora Pierce, her world building, characterization and plot are all wonderful, but what I want to talk about in this post is how she writes her heroines.

I know you have heard me gripe before that most heroines come in two forms, either SUPER AWESOME KICK-ASS ALL POWERFUL SUPER SKILLED WHO CAN SHOOT A GUN BETTER THEN ANYBODY RUN FASTER THEN ANYBODY FIGHT BETTER THEN ANYBODY ALL WHILE MAINTAINING A 'TUDE!!!! Yes I had to put that in all caps because that is what it always feels like when you read these characters.  The other heroine is the sweet, lovely, perfect, obviously special girl that everybody falls all over themselves for, you know the type that looks at you with big blue eyes and just can't thank you enough for letting her cut class for the zillionth time with out getting into trouble.  These two types actually do have there place in some stories, but let me tell you they get old very quickly.  This leads me to why I love Tamora Pierce so much, her heroines are as varied as a box of chocolates (the good kind from Godiva, not the stale ones you get from the drug store) and while they all have special skills it is balanced out by plenty of flaws and insecurities.
Let us go heroine by heroine and I will show you what I mean. (Warning, there may be minor spoilers ahead that are unavoidable so read with caution...but I don't think it will be to bad)
Lets start with the Tortal series:

Song of the Lioness
Alanna-Our heroine for this first quartet makes the bold move of disguising herself as a boy to become a knight.  She is great because while she is probably one of the more outgoing and feisty of our girls, she also comes with some of the most identity issues.  Aside from wanting to become a knight, our girl also wants to be...well a girl.  One of the best scenes shows Alanna in the guise of Alan waiting upon the Prince as he dances with girls all decked out in there finest.  Alanna struggles with jealousy that they can freely act like women, while at the same time refusing to give up her dream of becoming a knight.  This struggle continues all the way through the series, even after she is revealed as female and no longer has to hide it.  She has numerous romantic liasons, controlling her own sexuality and clearly stating her intentions of never being tied down.  She is loud, tempermental, stubborn, determined, spirited, confused, and oh yeah she does have magic that also gives her amazing amounts of trouble.  See along with trying to balance her need to be free and violent with her desire to be seen as a female, she also has to balance her magic (and her reluctance to use it) with her need to prove herself aside from the Gift as it is called in Tortall. Again numerous things to love about this first series, but I think what I would want people to get out of it the most is the fact that you don't have to choose to be one thing or another.  If you want to be a tutu wearing knight go for it, if you want to wear fatigues while you whip up a souffle I say more power to you.  This book really showed me that it was ok to indulge my girly for a while and then go hop on my ambulance or fire truck without feeling conflicted.

The Immortals
Daine-Our heroine in this series reminds me a bit of the old fashioned Caddie Woodlawn type main character.  She is spunky, fun, loyal and motherly.  After reading about our warrior princess in the previous series, Daine more innocent views are refreshing.  Intially thought to be insane because of her little understood brand of magic (she can talk to, heal and even eventually transform into animals) she learns to not be afraid of her magic.  Daine is a bit of the super special trope of heroine, she finds out eventually that she is the daughter of a minor god, but it is handled really well and is just one more piece to our girls story.  This series also highlights the importance of depending on your friends, not always having to go it alone.  A lot of times our heroines have this crazy urge to prove themselves by doing every thing on there own, making themselves closed off and cold in an attempt to prove how bad-ass they are, and it is only after some poor sop has broken down those walls...blah blah blah, our girl has absolutely none of that, she loves her friends with a ferocity of a mamma bear and will do anything for them.  In return she believably has people willing to help her out, again not because she is a sweet, perfect girl, but because she has already proven her loyalty to them.  Daine is also one of the most open minded heroines I have seen, able to put aside her initial feelings and prejudice to try and understand other people and creatures.  This makes for some interesting questions and answers about prejudice against groups as a whole and how an individual may or may not further that.  What I would want people to get out of this book is that being loyal and open minded will get you much further in the world then being a close minded blowhard.  It is ok to change your mind about people, and the whole Lone Ranger thing is not as cool as you think.

Protector of the Small
Keledry-This is where I really started to notice how different all of these girls are. Kel has decided to try and become the first sanctioned Lady Knight in hundreds of years, after Alanna broke the gender barrier, the King declared any female who wanted to train as a knight would get the chance.  Enter Kel our quiet, determined, justice seeking, hights fearing heroine.  At first glance she is almost the exact opposite of Alanna, tall, reserved, calm, only sharing the trait of determination.  As time goes on we see our Kel put these traits that most authors would never write into a knighted heroine to good use.  We see that her nature actually lends itself to becoming one of the best knights ever, and not just for a girl, but for anybody.  She deals with a lot of the same am I a woman or a knight issues that Alanna did, but her approach to dealing with it is much different then Alanna's was.  Being a loud mouth myself I found it fascinating to read about this quiet dignified girl who pushed through the ranks of brash and loud naysayers, to not only achieve her dreams, but to save a country as well.  What I would want people to get out of this story is to quit discounting the people who don't have to make a lot of noise.  In our culture it seems the louder and brasher you are, the more people seem to think you are the top banana, but let me tell you as one of those loud people, a lot of the times it is really the quiet people standing behind us who are getting the real work done, and if given the chance will astound you.

Trickster
Ally-This series is about Ally, Alanna's teenage daughter and I love it for so many reasons (hm this seems to be a theme here).  Right off the bat I love the interaction between mother and daughter, how they are similar in some areas and completely different in others, causing them to butt heads more often then not.  It explores what I am sure is every parents biggest issue, balancing what you want for your kids, with what your kid wants, with what you want your kid to want.  Ally takes after her dad is more impulsive and fun loving then her mother, she does not think of consequences on a regular basis and would rather spy with her dad, then fight as a knight.  After Ally's capture by pirates and is eventually sold to a family far away with a completely different culture, she uses her skills of observation and trickery to help protect the family she serves.  Ally is probably the most "fun" character to read, she has the most relaxed and natural rhythm of any character and seems to be the most comfortable in her own skin.  Her greatest challenges come from having to on occasion suppress her natural tendency to speak her mind at any time and learn when to use her powers of observation vs her powers of persuasion.  She also comes to appreciate her parents and the differences between them, instead of seeing the differences as flaws, she see's how each person needs to use there own way to solve problems.  What I would want people to get out of this book is to learn to feel comfortable with yourself, regardless of what other people want you to be.  If your a girl, it is just as ok to want to be at home and raise your children as it is to want to go out and become the first female presidant...or both. If you are a guy you can dream about becoming an NFL player, or the worlds best RN...or both.  It doesn't matter what other people tell you what you should want as long as YOU are happy with your choices.

Provost's Dog
Beka-Beka is a different sort of heroine, she lives hundreds of years before the other series when it was still ok for females to be knights and warriors so her struggle is vastly different then the other heroines in this post (I love how women's rights actually went backwards over time as the nobility "refined" itself, very interesting concept).  Beka is mostly on her own, earning a living as a Dog, which is essentially a police officer.  While most of our other heroines spent their time at court or in noble houses, Beka patrols, lives, and plays in the more slummy part of the city.  Our girls biggest issue is her shyness, she can barely speak in front of people she does not know which hinders her ability to give testimony in court...a big part of her job.  She is able to overcome it with some difficulty and is able to do her job.  Beka is shy, quiet, generous, and resourceful. She never forgets where she comes from and is constantly helping out people less fortunate then she is.  She also has the ability to talk with ghosts that ride with pigions, giving her an eccentric crazy bird lady vibe which suits her perfectly.  What I would want people to get out of this is that you don't have to be a big bad knight, or a super duper magic wielder to be a hero.  It is the people who get out of bed and go to work to provide for their families, or protect the common folk, or answer the individual call for help that really makes the world go round.
Wow this is getting super long, so I will save the girls from her other books for another time, but needless to say they all have there own personalities and kick ass as well.  Hopefully this long rambling ode to the females in Tamora Pierce's books gives you an idea of why I love her so much!

What female hero is your favorite?  What traits do you think often get overlooked when writing heros/heroines?  Is the ability to read anywhere at any time a super hero trait?

Falling Into Deja Vu

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver is a book I have been back and forth about reading for a while now. It falls into the teenage angst category and I usually can only take so much of that, but I had heard a lot of decent reviews on it by some reviewers I trust, and it had the added bonus of being a daily deal cheapo ebook, so on the list it went.  I wanted one last "summer" read before I got into my more broody fall books and in general books about teenage girls fall into my summer reading category so that is how reading it came about.  I am glad I did, it was definitely full of teen angst, and if you have seen the movie Groundhog Day you will have a basic idea of the hook, but I thought the over all book was a good look at how one see's themselves.  Ok here we go, quick convoluted synopsis, as always SPOILERS AHEAD! (Also big kid language and some not so child friendly situations)

Samantha is dead, yep no real mystery or suspense, our main character is dead (not a bad start to a teeny-bopper book right!).  The story is about how she died and what comes after.  After we learn Sam is dead she goes on to tell us how it happened.  I will break up this synopsis the way she does 'cause that will be the most effective.
Day 1-Sam gets ready for Cupid Day, a pre-Valentine ritual day at her highschool where students dressed as some form of Cupid hand out roses with notes attached to them to the students from other students.  It is kind of a popularity contest to see who gets the most roses.  She gets a ride from her loud, beautiful, brash friend Lindsay, who is the ring leader of this group of popular seniors.  Also in the group is Ally, a talented cook with body image issues and Elodie a sweet, fun loving girl.  They arrive at school and steal the last close parking spot, causing another girl to be late (details like this are important to the over all story).  They go to class and Sam cheats on a chem pop quiz, flirts with her math teacher and gets several roses from her friends, including one from her old friend Kent (whom she rarely speaks to anymore as he would put a dent in her popularity) and one from her hot and popular boyfriend.  She meets her friends for lunch and they

viciously tease a girl named Juliette, calling her Psycho and singing rude songs.  Sam's boyfriend Rob meets up with her and reminds her that they are going to have sex for the first time that night after a party at Kent's house.  The girls go to Ally's house and get ready for the party, hitting the vodka pretty hard before they even leave.  At the party Rob (already drunk) paws at Sam, again reminding her of there "special" night later.  Sam and her friends continue to drink until Juliette shows up at the party and calls each of the girls a bitch.  In retaliation the girls push Juliette around and dump their drinks all over her.  Eventually they are ready to go and Rob has had so much to drink he passes out.  Disgusted Sam decides to go home with her friends.  The all pile in the car and go driving into weather that has turned wet and slick.  Sam notices little things about each of her friends, and especially the state of Lindsay who is driving, which is to say she is not sober at all.  All of a sudden a white flash appears and the car goes off the road, slamming into a tree.  There is light, noise and pain and then the sensation of falling.
Day 2- Sam wakes up...to Cupid day.  She is understandably confused and tries to figure out what happened.  She finally decides it is a cross of deja vu and a weird dream and continues with her day.  Since she made them late, they do not get there parking spot and have to park further away from the school making them late.  As the day goes on Sam realizes that she remembers everything that has happened,

except for a few minor changes.  The day pretty much progresses as before ending in the car crash.
Day 3- Sam wakes up again on Cupid day, realizing that she has to find a way to make things happen differently she convinces her friends to stay in that night and have a slumber party instead.  We get to know a bit more about there friendship, and it is actually pretty sweet to see four teenage girls this tight.  Later, after everybody is asleep and Sam if feeling pleased that she has not died in a car crash the phone rings.  It is somebody calling to tell them that Juliette (the girl they have been mercilessly teasing) has shot her self in the head.  Everybody reacts to the news differently.  Ally and Elodie feel guilty about all the teasing, but Lindsay brushes it off, stating it is not there fault, that Juliette made her own choice.  Later Sam goes through old year books and finds out that Juliette and Lindsay used to be best friend.  She goes to sleep and wakes up...
Day 4-Cupid day again, apparently not dying the night before did not change anything and she has to go through the day again.  Angry, tired, sad and frustrated she takes the day to do all kinds of crazy stuff.  Making out with her hot math teacher, cutting classes, pissing off her friends on purpose, feeling trapped by this never ending time loop. She ends up hanging out with people she normally does not hang out with, and learns a lot about how her and her friends actions are effecting others. She also finds herself caring what other people think, even knowing nobody will remember any of this when the day repeats itself. The day ends with Kent putting her to bed at his house and her realizing that she likes him way more then Rob (who is kind of a jerk).  She goes to sleep and wakes up to...
Day 5-This is the day she decides to do something different every day, since she is stuck in the endless cycle anyways.  She makes a list of everything it is possible to do in a day.  This day she decides to stay at home with her little sister Izzy.  We learn a lot of Sams history in this chapter, that she used to be unpopular until Lindsay decided to be friends with her.  She tries to impart as much as she can to Izzy and spends the evening with her parents.  She also runs into Juliette's younger sister and decides to try again to stop Juliette from killing herself.  She ends up at the party, talking with Juliette in the woods by the side of the road.  As hard as she tries she cannot stop Juliette from throwing herself in front of a car zooming down the road.  Turns out the car is Lindsay's and it causes the accident that was supposed to kill Sam, but kills Elodie instead as she was the one in the front seat.  Sam stays at Kent's house as he consoles her as best he can and she finally falls asleep.
Day 6-Sam wakes up and decides to try and fix everything, thinking maybe if she can save Juliette she can save herself and life will finally continue.  She sends Juliette a dozen roses for Cupids day, is nice to Kent, dumps Rob, scrubs off the mean sayings they wrote in the bathroom, just tries to fix everything in general.  She goes to the party and tries to talk to Juliette.  Again she ends up at the edge of the road, trying to convince Juliette that things are going to be better, but it is still in vain.  This time Juliette jumps in front of a semi truck.  Sam drives her friends home (at this point she has learned to stay sober) and takes Lindsey home last, finally learning about how she put the blame on a bed wetting at camp back in the fifth grade on Juliette, nicknaming her Mellow Yellow even though it was Lindsay who wet the bed.  This was the point where Lindsay became popular and Juliette became shunned.  Kent takes Sam home and they kiss.
Day 7-Sam finally realizes what she needs to do to move on.  She treats the day like any other, only making small adjustments from before.  Putting a single nice note on Juliette's rose, dumping Rob, not cheating on her chem test.  Little things, but important.  The biggest thing she does is arrange for other rides for the girls at the party, telling Lindsay that driving drunk will only get people killed.  The girls finally agree and get dropped off at the party.  Kent comes and picks up Sam to take her to the party and she apologizes for being a jerk and kisses him.  She catches up with Juliette, again trying to convince her to not kill her self, again she fails. This time though when Juliette jumps, Sam jumps after her and pushes her out of the way, getting killed herself.  In the epilogue Sam tells us that once you accept your death it isn't bad.

That synopsis does not really sum up what I liked about this book.  There was a great arc to Sam's understanding of her actions and her friends actions, and even the consequences of their inaction's leading up to the point of her death.  It is a pretty brutal look at the current state of teenagers (and humans in general) today.  There is a lot of drinking, smoking, sex, and all around destructive behavior, but unfortunately from some of the calls I have run, this is not an abnormal thing.  This book examines not just the teenagers, but other factors that influence there actions.  Parents and their lack of control or knowledge about there own kids, teachers who have there own questionable motives on occasion, peers, jobs, money, status all of these things go into how a person acts and reacts.  I think one of my favorite parts about this book was how at the start Sam really did not understand how her words and actions affected other people.  The hierarchy of popularity was one she accepted, calling it preparation for the real world of haves and have-nots. Even when she realized that there may be consequences, she still believed that it was not her problem and it was the others that should deal with it.  She comes to realize that popularity is pretty arbitrary and has very little to do with reality and more to do with luck and the willingness to let it be the status quo. She also realizes her earlier assumptions about people, including her own friends was usually completely wrong.  This leads to her trying to "fix" things through out her repeating day, but even this does not always work as she is still working on her own assumptions.  I have to say I love that even after understanding her friends flaws, and knowing that there way of doing things is wrong, at the end the four girls are truly friends, not letting anything, not boys, money, or issues come between them.  It is nice to see (as convoluted as it sometimes is) a story where friendship between females, a fierce loyalty we usually only see in military bro stories take center stage.  This book reminded me about everything I hated in high school (and I actually had it pretty good) and made me very glad that I am no longer dealing with that shit for lack of a better term.  This book was not perfect, it had its cringe-worthy moments and the angst was definitely present, but over all I would recommend this book.  I would especially recommend it to anybody who has to deal with teens, has a teen or pre-teen, or just wants something to think about.  I give it 7 out of 10 Cupid Roses.
How do you feel about books set in high school?  What "group label" did you get stuck with?  Did you ever sneak a book into your textbook like I did?