The Mercy Thompson Series by Patricia Briggs.

The Mercy Thompson books are an urban fantasy series set in Washington State, specifically in the Tri Cities area of Washington state. Since this series is five books long and growing, I'm not going to do a series of entries dedicated to each book. I'll hit on some minor plot points here and described the characters.
It was a little weird for me to start reading this... I'm usually not a fan of "This Kind" of book. I don't read Laurell K. Hamilton (though I have in the past) and I haven't even finished the Sookie Stackhouse books of TrueBlood fame. I don't like chick lit or supernatural romance or lots of gore and sex. I actually rarely read anything that describes much sex at all, if you're gonna be picky. But this series is different. I can relate to the characters more and I really like the way the first couple are written. I've had issues with the second to last book, Bone Crossed, because it struck me as a the most chick lit-y of the series, but Silver Borne made up for it, in my eyes. This series isn't about showing off how well-versed in literature I am or anything but just enjoying a well-crafted storyline and characters you can really get care about, as much as you can for fictional characters. And for me... that's a lot. The names of the books in order are:
Moon Called
Blood Bound
Iron Kissed
Bone Crossed
Silver Borne

Mercedes Thompson, known as Mercy, went to college to study history and literature. Natrually, she's now a Volkswagon mechanic with her own shop. She's sarcastic, kind, fair, logical, open-minded, snarky, poised, responsible and a score of other adjectives that sound like lip service when you make a list like this. She's also a Native American shapeshifter, meaning she can turn into a coyote at will. This kind of shapeshifter is known as a Walker, and differs from werewolves in several important ways: her transformation is painless, voluntary and is not affected by the moon's cycle. She's also presumably not sterile, which is how she catches the eye of Samuel, one of the sons of  Bran, the leader of the North American werewolves. Mercy was raised by werewolves when her mother, who gave birth at the age of sixteen, came home to find a coyote pup in her daughter's crib. Bran agreed to take in her and raise her, giving her protection under the name of The Marrok, which is his title as leader. It's taken from the name of one of King Arthur's knights who was apparently a werewolf. As of the first novel, the werewolves have not yet come forward and revealed their existence although it isn't too far into the series before they feel the need to take that step, as the Fae did before them.

You see, in Mercy's world, the supernatural is fairly commonplace, even if it's not widely accepted. The Fae population of the world came out of hiding sometime in the not-so-distant past, a decision made by the Gray Lords (a sort of Fae ruling class). The term fae is a broad one used to describe a variety of pleasant and unpleasant supernatural creatures of myth, legend and fairy tale that are European in origin--everything from selkies, brownies and actual fairies to ogres, child-eating monsters and  other uncomfortably powerful creatures. It was deemed that the Time of Hiding was at an end when it appeared that the science of DNA and forensics threatened to reveal the supernatural creatures in hiding, whether they wanted to be revealed or not. Mercy actually purchased her garage from Ziebold Adelbertsmiter, known as Zee, a kind of fae known as a metalzauber or metalsmith because he knew that it would be impossible to continue running it once he was revealed to be fae. He's also fairly famous in the myth sense and one of the few fae that can stand iron.
 Most of the fae were driven from Europe by a combination of newly forged iron and in the wake of Christianity. They moved to the new world to escape, slaughtered a whole host of indigenous supernatural creatures on this continent and then iron and Christianity followed them over here anyway.

Since purchasing the garage, Mercy fixes a number of cars free of charge for the local vampire seethe, as she can't afford to pay them the protection fees they usually receive. It's sort of like paying the mob, because what they protect you from is mostly themselves; incidently, the vampires also haven't come out of hiding... there's really no way to put a positive spin on the fact that they drink human blood. Her contact within in the seethe is Stefan, a very pleasant, honorable, chivalrious vampire who almost painted his van black because of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He ended up painting it to match The Mystery Machine because "even the Slayer is no match for Scooby-Doo." He reports directly to the Mistress of the Seethe, Marsilia, who has it in for Mercy for a variety of reasons. (SPOILER ALERT: the vampires are a big part of the reason Mercy is one of or possibly the only remaining Walker left in the United States.)

At the start of the story, Mercy was living a quiet unassuming life, mostly free of interaction with werewolves and any fae or creature who would cause her trouble until a very young werewolf named Mac showed up, ignorant of how to live as a wolf, half starved with a sad story that helped reveal a lot of corruption across the United States. Pack law is naturally brutal and not something to be ignored, so Mercy took it upon herself to help Mac, as her closest neighbor is the local pack Alpha, Adam Hauptman. After Mac is murdered and left dead on her porch, Mercy ends up reconnecting with Bran, Samuel and forming closer bonds with Warren, the only gay werewolf in Adam's pack, his boyfriend Kyle and Jessie, Adam's daughter. Meaning only to help Mac, Mercy ends up becoming more and more involved in the magic, rules and dangers of the world of the Fae, wolves and vampires. As of the fifth book, it's pretty much fair game as to who wants her dead the most.  She's killed or caused the death of both wolves and vampires, been raped, kidnapped, learned too much about the Fae, and eventually even becomes part of the werewolf pack. Like the coyote with the trickster spirit and too much bravado for such a little body, Mercy just can't seem to stay out of trouble.

Like I said, especially during Bone Crossed, the romantic aspect of this got to be a little too much for me. I like the actiony parts of the story much more than I like any of the parts concerning her attraction to Adam. It doesn't ever get explicit or explore the boundaries of sexuality or really even get beyond just general quasi romantic and intensity. It's never overtly Anita Blake-esque. I just don't really much care for mush or sex in my science fiction. It also is awesome but sucky at the same time that Patricia Briggs has gained such notoriety. This guarantees more books, but also means her books now come out in hardcover first, which equals 'spensive. I also fear the possiblity of a Mercy Thompson movie... which would be absolutely awful unless handled perfectly. Yeah. Like THAT happens.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Fat Charlie Nancy isn't fat. All the stories are Anansi's. Don't talk to spiders, unless it's something you really mean.
Oh, and Neil Gaiman's still incredible.


These are the lessons I take away every single time I read this novel. It's probably my favorite of Gaiman's books--including any of the Sandman series. I know, I know, American Gods is incredible, but this is my favorite. And hey, it's in the same storyline anyway. So, shush, naysayers.

The story is about the two sons of Mr. Nancy, Fat Charlie and Spider. Before his father died, you see, Charles Nancy, nicknamed "Fat Charlie" by his father, didn't know he had a brother. And after he finds out, well, he can't wait to believe he's an only again. And that the world is as logical and boring as he'd led himself to believe, and that magic doesn't really exist.

Turns out Mr. Nancy is really the modern incarnation of Anansi, the West African spider god, the trickster. And he's not lost  a bit of his trickster ways though he's become a somewhat modern man. Fat Charlie was subjected through a variety of embarrassments at the hand of his father as a child. Like the time Mr. Nancy told him that for President's Day, all the kids picked their favorite president and dressed up as them for school that day... so Fat Charlie showed up all decked out in his presidential finery. And he was the only one. Then there was his father's habit of taking him "mermaid watching." There weren't any mermaids. Mr. Nancy was also fond of performing what he referred to as the "miracle of the loaves and fishes."


"He loafs and he fishes and it's a miracle that he makes a living."

But the most embarrassing moment was his manner of death. During a particularly fine round of karaoke, singing directly at a group of sunburned tourists, Mr. Nancy had a heart attack, fell gracefully from the stage and managed to pull the top completely off the blondest tourist.

After Mr. Nancy's death, Fat Charlie is told he's got a brother by his neighbor Callyanne Higgler, (who's in fact responsible for the fact that Fat Charlie and Spider were separated to begin with). And all he has to do to meet him is pass a whisper to a spider. But when Spider shows up, he takes over Fat Charlie's life. He steals his fiancee. He impersonates him at his job and blackmails his boss (who's legitimately up to no good). He even turns the tiny spare bedroom of Fat Charlie's apartment into a window into an alternate space with a hot tub, giant TV and tropical scenery. To get rid of him, Charlie ends up making a deal he never should've made with one the god's from his father's world, who is in league withe his father's oldest enemy. In exchange for her word and a feather, he ends up offering her Anansi's bloodline if she makes his brother go away. Turns out though, Anansi's bloodline includes him. So he has to step up and find out how much he really is his father's son to save the day.



As usual I said a lot without saying much at all. What it wraps up to is this: I love Gaiman's odd humor. I like how overtly British everything is.  I also like that it's one of the first non-Southern books I can remember reading where it's made pretty clear that none of the main characters are white. That's something I missed the first few times I read it, honestly. I don't know HOW, but I did. And I love all the stories about Anansi. I love the way he always ends up getting his, in the end. I love how matter of factly the stories are told. I love the descriptions of Tiger, so dark and bloodthirsty. I also like the casual references to American Gods throughout the narrative. And frankly, any book that has people having to flee in the face of hundreds of homicidal flamingos and then later homicidal penguins is pretty worthwhile right there.

Gaiman always seems to deal with unusual family situations, where it becomes abundantly clear that loving your family in spite of what you may view as their faults is infinitely better than losing them to something that wants to kill and/or eat them... or kill and/or eat you, depending on which you're reading. I like that. I like that his characters are often outsiders who can find a place to belong. And who hasn't felt that hope in their heart when they can't help but think there's no where in the whole wide world where they fit in?

Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland.

I've read this book around fifty bajillion times, so forgive me if this is a little less... objective... than I tend to be about most of my selections.

I love this book. I don't care that it's the sort of ninties hopefully-sappy-yet-cynical that defines most angst literature/the gen-x mentality. I love it. I am unashamed to enjoy it, though I'm the first to admit that plot is kinda 'eh' and the end seems cheap.

It's about a woman named Liz Dunn... and as the title suggests, she is lonely. Isn't everyone? But that's besides the point. She describes her life through a series of current moments and much reflection. Liz's life is both lonely and filled with exceptional moments. The novel begins in the 'present' (which is terribly outdated now) when Liz finds a piece of meteorite and flashes back to when her son, Jeremy, first came into her life.

Jeremy is not a normal kid. He's 20, he's dying of multiple sclerosis and due to the disease's penchant to fry the nerves and misdirect electrical impulses in the brain and his history with his foster families (plural), when his sudden entrance into Liz's life is like an explosion. She has to reconnect with every aspect of her life as Jeremy serves as just enough of a catalyst to destroy the friction that ordinarily buffers her from interacting with her home, her co-workers and even her family. She tells the story of how she returned from a completely uncharacteristic trip taken to Rome pregnant with no memory of how such a thing could occur--Liz Dunn was fat as a child, and remains fat as an adult, with curly red hair.... this makes it plain to anyone who lives with any conception of the world that it's strange that this happened to her.

She has her son, he's adopted and years and years later, has tracked her down. His foster history has led him to feel that without his mom in his life, he's a write off. He has her information down as his emergency contact, a fact Liz is completely unaware of until one day when he ODs on "some lame party drugs" while attending a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Liz has a crash course in parenting and, cheesy as it sounds, in facing the reality of what day to day connection is like. It's pretty average, but the slight strange (and Canadian?) way they look at the world makes it stand out.

Jeremy's visions are probably my favorite part of the entire book. He gets these sudden impulses, sudden visions--everything with him is sudden. I guess when you're dying it's all that way, isn't it? I'll paraphrase my favorite:
Two lovers pass each other on the street. They had an ugly break-up. Their punishment is that every time they see each other, they rust a little, like robots. At the end they rust frozen in front of each other, forever.

Jeremy also has a series of recurring visions that serve to parallel both his life and Liz's problematic loneliness. They're visions of farmers and their wives, who've given up on the world, who believe that it is time for the end. They've destroyed their winter stores, they've accepted the end... only, a woman's voice tells them that this is not their path. They have made their decision and chosen wrong. The world isn't emptiness that's filled by relying on the end of destiny to create a point. You have to decide while you're alive what you fight for and if you want God to be a presence in your every day life.

The story ends after Jeremy's death, with Liz going to meet Jeremy's father and while doing so, shuts down the odd airport and ends up being imprisoned. You know, the usual.

Turns out the meteor isn't really a meteor... it's a chunk of a satellite. How much stuff can happen to this one woman, honestly? But the end gets a little Lifetime in that she falls in love with Jeremy's father and you can kinda guess how it goes from there. It seems like I left nothing to the imagination, but there's far too much going on for me to have covered it all... yet the book never feels overwhelming or overinvolved.

So, while this isn't the best book I've ever read, it has a place firmly in my heart.

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides

I first read this novel at my first bookstore gig, Borders, back in 2005. Nothing has changed. No matter how many times, I read this novel, I come to the same conclusion: I don't get it.

I don't even know what it is I don't get. It is just the story of a group of five teenage sisters in the 1970s who through chance, genetics, circumstance or whathaveyou are all suicidal. By the end of the novel, none of them are alive. That's it, exactly what it says on the tin. But maybe it's the wistful almost distant way it's written, maybe it's the topic itself. I'm not even sure if I want this book to be about something more or something less.

The story is told through the eyes of a group of boys, personified by an anonymous first person plural narrator, who grew up in the same neighborhood as the Lisbon sisters. The writing takes places years and years after the girls' deaths. The 'evidence' they collected about the girls and their lives (most importantly, their deaths) is presented in a pseudo-detective sort of fashion, with evidence such as Exhibits numbers 1-98, witness and interviews with neighbors and people who knew the girls. It's a strange piece of voyeurism, honestly. The girls seem at times to be hyper aware of the fixation people have with them, other times its as if they retreat or simply don't care. It's as if understanding the Lisbon girls and why none of them chose to see her twenties becomes a metaphor for understanding the loss of innocence these men experience in their middle ages. Maybe it's sort of modern Greek tragedy. But where is the hubris? Where is the tragic, fatal flaw of the Lisbon girls? Maybe it's supposed to be about the death of the American dream personified by these suburban girls or specifically a "poignantly sharp and critical portrait of the suburban American life experienced by the baby boom generation," as Wikipedia suggests. I'm not sure.

And I have a feeling that like much like the narrator(s), I'm going to keep visiting this story again and again. I'm going to keep digging, keep searching for meaning, be it personal or universal in the girls' story. Because I can feel it in there, I just can't dig it out. Like the boys who spent their lives playing custodians, biographers, curators and keepers of the memories of the Lisbon girls, I too find I am haunted by the names and lives of Cecilia, Lux, Bonnie, Mary and Therese. Maybe one of these days, I'll be able to find whatever it is I'm looking for. As for now, I just don't know.

[Incidental note: This is one of the few times where I think I'm going to watch the movie to try to understand the book more. I've heard mixed reviews, but after all, it IS Sofia Coppola and I tend to enjoy her work.]