DEATH MATCH: Fight Song vs. Damascus

Posted by lucysfootball — February 15, 2013

Has it really been a year since I did a death match? Sorry. A DEATH MATCH? Forgive me, my most beloveds, life got in the way of life. Or at least of reading. It wasn’t you, it was me. And when I say that, I’m not even using it as a cop out like your last bad boy- or girlfriend did. It totally was me. No, seriously, who would ever blame YOU? You’re as lovely as a spring daisy, you are.

Two books enter. One book leaves.

Today, our contenders: two novels by a very talented writer, Mr. Joshua Mohr. Who will prevail? Will it be, IN THIS CORNER, a book about a group of lost souls just looking to belong and connect to someone, anyone, in a seedy, down-on-its-luck bar? Or, IN THIS CORNER, a book about a man pushed to the very limit, who is also looking for something – or maybe a whole lot of somethings? This is an epic battle of battered barflies versus a man on the edge! Who will prevail, WHO WILL PREVAIL?

Book: Fight Song

Author: Joshua Mohr

Published: February 2013 by Soft Skull Press; 252 pages

Read: January 2013

First Line: “‘Way out in the puzzling universe known as the suburbs, Bob Coffen rides his bike to work.’”

Genre: Literary fiction

Bob Coffen is your average Joe: a wife, two kids, a none-too-challenging job for a man he disdains at a computer company. Even his last name is indicative of where he’s headed, possibly sooner than the rest of us. Until one day, his neighbor, the ebullient and possibly slightly touched-in-the-head Schumann, runs him off the road with his SUV. Something inside Coffen snaps. Landing in the oleanders is his wakeup call that things need to change.

I am a fan of books where the lead character is pushed to the edge and that’s when you see his or her true colors. I like to watch what happens to someone at their breaking point; what they’ll do to keep it together, whether they’ll change or do anything they can to have things stay the same. I liked Bob Coffen. I liked the characters he came across when he left his safe and staid beaten path. I liked seeing how he created his own road-less-traveled-by, and the people he chose along the way to help him carry his load. I said when I read Mohr’s first book back in March that I was looking forward to reading more of his work; I’m glad I was right that he would just continue getting better.

Book: Damascus

Author: Joshua Mohr

Published: October 2011 by Two Dollar Radio, 224 pages

Date Read: March 2012

First Line: ”Let’s start this one when a cancer patient named No Eyebrows creeps into Damascus, a Mission District dive bar.”

You can read my full review for Damascus here, which I wrote earlier in the year. It was my first Mohr book (and I knew it wouldn’t be the last.) Mohr has a deft hand with characterization; his characters are real, and you know this because they often screw up. Colossally. And say and do stupid things. But you know what? *I* often say and do stupid things. And I like reading about characters that also do, because they’re real. And they’re relatable. And, to me, it shows a writer has been paying attention to life. Because, SURPRISE, in real life? People don’t walk around in white or black hats and have either the purest or the most dastardly intentions. They, mostly, are just trying to get by. Just trying to do their best. And I like reading about people like this, because when they succeed, it gives me hope for myself, and when they fail, I understand, because I’ve been there.

Now. Are you ready? It’s time for…DEATH MATCH.

The rules of DEATH MATCH are simple. THERE ARE NO RULES. No, sorry, that’s not true, there are totally rules. The rules are: I will score the books on an arbitrary system and, at the end, ONE BOOK WINS. What does the book win? YOU SHALL SEE.

Today’s DEATH MATCH shall be scored with: crazy bamboo uncomfortable-looking barstools, as there are bars in both books.

Fight Song:

Characters as real as anyone you might run into on the street (well, if you lived in a really kooky town): 2 barstools
A magician who can’t stop crying: 1 barstool
A very funny video game about…um…well, I won’t tell you, but just keep your pets inside, ok?: 1 barstool
A scene at an aquarium (I’m an easy sell, as I love marine life): 1 barstool
A love story that was realistic and sweet and down-to-earth and an organic part of the story: 2 barstools
Schumann messing with poor Tilda’s heart a little: -1 barstool
A scene near the end that made me cry, and oh, do I love to cry when I’m reading: 2 barstools
A number of sentences that were so beautifully written that I actually laughed out loud (or sometimes “ooh”ed): 2 barstools

Rating: 4.5/5 plaques that are also a clock (hereafter known as “plocks”) that don’t really tell the time, and are always stuck at midnight

Damascus

The characters, which Mohr is so good with that I kind of want him to script my life: 2 barstools
Shambles the prostitute who works at the bar, who is so broken she breaks your heart: 1 barstool
No Eyebrows’ backstory, which, when revealed, breaks your heart again: 1 barstool
The knowledge that Mohr understands that, when it all boils down to it, all we want is to connect with someone else, really connect, just once, before we die: 2 barstools
Owen, the bartender, who wears a Santa suit so people won’t make fun of him for other things he has going on: 1 barstool
Fish murder: -1 barstool
The ending, which didn’t seem fully thought-out: -3 barstools

Rating: 4/5 live catfish nailed to paintings of dead American soldiers in a work of performance art

I’m going to tally the votes. While I’m doing that, here’s something to think about: once, I was driving home and it was very dark and snowy and I thought I hit a cat? So I pulled off the side of the road and was all “cat? CAT?” and I was crying and crying and couldn’t find it and then I called BFF when I got home and he was all “calm down, it was probably not a cat, plus what if a car hit you, it’s like 11pm in the night.” And the next day there was a piece of wood there so probably I hit that in the dark and it wasn’t a cat, or the dead cat turned into a piece of wood, and that is the story. THE END.

AND! THE WINNER IS! With a total of 10 barstools to 4 barstools:

FIGHT SONG!

Hooray hooray for you, Fight Song! Please collect your prize! Today’s DEATH MATCH prize is:

A DVD of Falling Down with Michael Douglas, which I think Robert Coffen might enjoy because Michael DOUGLAS was ALSO pushed to the edge! However, he didn’t handle his crisis in such a panache-filled fashion, oh no no he did not.

Thank you for playing, and come back again for our next round of DEATH MATCH, where we will pit two more equally worthy adversaries against one another until the BITTER, BITTER END!

Death Match: Battle of the Street Urchins, Oliver Twist vs. Gavroche from Les Miserables

Posted by GuestBookslut — February 13, 2013

Today’s guest post is brought to you by Katie from Words for Worms: An Irreverent Book Blog for the Masses.

Welcome to the DEATH MATCH (insert terrifying announcer voice here). This is my first Death Match post, and I’m going to start out by breaking the rules. Instead of placing two books head to head, I’m throwing two characters into the cage. Dun dun dun!

Two enter. One leaves.

Today’s contenders are two of literature’s favorite street urchins. Who will prevail? IN THIS CORNER, Oliver Twist from the Dickens novel of the same name. A wretched orphan, Oliver possesses a goodness of heart that cannot misery cannot quench. IN THIS CORNER, we have Gavroche, a minor but beloved character in Hugo’s Les Misérables. Gavroche is thrown into the streets by uncaring parents to become the pluckiest pickpocket in Paris. Let’s get ready to rumble!

Character/Book: Oliver/Oliver Twist

Author: Charles Dickens

Published: 1838 by Richard Bentley

First Line: “Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.”

Oliver Twist is orphaned as an infant and left in the care of the local workhouse. He is subjected to unbearable cruelty at the hands of the state, and as punishment for asking for another helping of gruel, he is apprenticed out to a cruel undertaker. Oliver eventually flees to seek shelter of the streets of London, and immediately falls in with a gang of ne’er-do-wells who make their living picking pockets. Despite Oliver’s upbringing in horrifying circumstances, he possesses an infallible moral compass and a gentle heart no maltreatment can harden.

I went into Oliver Twist without having any background on the story other than having seen a production of the musical as a child. The only conclusion I’d come away with was that I would have been a better choice to play Oliver than the little boy who did. (I was unaware at this juncture in my life that I cannot, in fact, carry a tune.) I found Oliver’s tale to be heart wrenching–I was appalled at the cruelty of society and the poverty of the downtrodden. In spite of all his hardships, Oliver’s good heart is unshakable. Rather than participate willingly in activities he knows to be wrong (even if they might fill his concave belly), Oliver resists temptation and does everything in his power to remain on the up and up.

The Character/Book: Gavroche/Les Misérables

Author: Victor Hugo

Published: 1862 by Charles E. Wilbour

First Line: “An hour before sunset, on the evening of a day in the beginning of October, 1815, a man travelling afoot entered the little town of D—.”

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo is a behemoth of literature. It may seem unfair to put Gavroche’s story head to head with that of Oliver Twist, considering that Oliver got a whole book whereas Gavroche is a fairly minor character in the epic that is Les Misérables. However, given that Hugo is (perhaps unnecessarily) verbose, our competitors have comparable page counts. Gavroche is the unwanted son of the novel’s villainous Thernadiers. Because they are poverty-stricken and care only for their daughters, the Thernardiers turn Gavroche out into the streets. Undaunted by his predicament, Gavroche sets up house inside the statue of an elephant and scrounges through somewhat morally-questionable means to keep himself alive. Despite having to hustle for his own well being, Gavroche occasionally takes in other abandoned children to show them the ropes of being a successful street urchin. He also moonlights as an informant for politically motivated protest groups.

Les Misérables is a long book, but I went into it having the musical’s soundtrack ringing through my brain, and I quite enjoyed the journey. I found Gavroche to be positively delightful. His zeal for taking down “the man” is infectious, and his desire to help his fellow “gamin” endearing. He’s impulsive to the point of folly, but it’s tough to resist an underdog as jolly as little Gavroche.

deathmatch2

Now that the groundwork has been laid, it’s time for the DEATH MATCH. The rules of this DEATH MATCH are completely arbitrary and assigned by moi. Today’s DEATH MATCH will be scored with: Chimney Sweeps! What better occupation for a street urchin?!

johnny_automatic_chimney_sweep_silhoutte

Oliver:

Has his story made into a successful Broadway musical: 1 Chimney Sweep
Has the good grace to be extremely grateful to the few kind souls who help him along the way: 2 Chimney Sweeps
Beats the crap out of the annoying kid who bullies him at the undertaker’s: 2 Chimney Sweeps
Remembers his sickly orphan friend Dick once he finds a better life: 1 Chimney Sweeps
Keeps a firm grasp on his morals despite difficult situations: 2 Chimney Sweeps
Overall is a whiny, mewling wretch of a boy: -2 Chimney Sweeps

Rating: 3/5 Artfully Dodged Wallets

Gavroche:

Has his story made into a much better musical than Oliver!: 2 Chimney Sweeps
Creates a mesh within the elephant statue to keep himself from being devoured by rats in the night: 1 Chimney Sweep
Cares for a pair of abandoned children (without even knowing they’re his biological brothers): 2 Chimney Sweeps
Outs Javert as a spy to the marauding students at the barricade: 2 Chimney Sweeps
Eternal optimism and moxie: 2 Chimney Sweeps
Gets himself shot while brazenly scavenging for bullets: -1 Chimney Sweep

Rating: 4/5 tattered French flags

I’m going to tally the votes. A little musical aside while I tally. “The Chimbley Sweep” by the Decemberists is the perfect song to have playing while you read this post. I probably should have mentioned that earlier. Sorry.

AND! THE WINNER IS! With a total of 8 Chimney Sweeps to 6 Chimney Sweeps:

Gavroche! Do you hear the people sing?!

Today’s DEATH MATCH PRIZE is…

annie

The original cast recording of Annie. The sun will come out ”Tomorrow,” boys. Seriously, y’all. I couldn’t have a literary Broadway-off without inviting Annie. “It’s a Hard Knock Life,” people!

Come back again for our next round of DEATH MATCH, where we will pit two more equally worthy adversaries against one another until the BITTER, BITTER END!

Katie Kelly is a voracious reader whose day job has nothing to do with literature and everything to do with charts and graphs. Frustrated with the limitations of professionally pithy emails, she started Words for Worms: An Irreverent Book Blog for the Masses. When Katie isn’t working, reading, or blogging, she is hanging out with her husband as they exchange horrendous puns based on obscure pop culture references. She also enjoys penguins, windup toys, and writing about herself in the third person.

DEATH MATCH the Fourth: Varamo vs. Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico

Posted by greengeekgirl — February 3, 2012

Blogger’s note: An advance reader copy of Varamo was provided by New Directions.

Welcome to another rousing edition of DEATH MATCH! Miss Amy usually brings you this segment, but I happened into a duo of books that I wanted to put head-to-head, so here I am, bring you my very first death match and hoping to hell that I don’t screw it up.

Two books enter. One book leaves.

Today’s contenders are both novelettes by Spanish-language authors, César Aira and Javier Marías. Who will prevail? Will it be, in this corner, The Prolific Penman of Argentina, with a book weighing in at a hefty (well, more hefty) 89 pages*? Or, in this corner, The Linguistic Spaniard, with a work weighing in at a mere 55 pages? Stay tuned, book fans, for the thrilling conclusion!

(Amazon says that Varamo is 144 pages. The edition I have in my hands is 89. There may be additional material that I don’t have.)

Book: Varamo

Author: César Aira

Published: 2002 by Editorial Anagrama, S.A. (in Spanish); 2/22/12 by New Directions, translated by Chris Andrews; 89 pages (in English)

Date Read: January 27, 2012

First Lines: ”One day, in 1923, in the city of Colón (Panama), a third-class clerk, having finished work and, since it was payday, passed by the cashier’s desk to collect his monthly salary, left the Ministry in which he was employed. In the interval between that moment and the dawn of the following day, ten or twelve hours later, he completed the composition of a long poem, from the initial decision to write it up to the final period, after which there were no further additions or corrections.”

Genre: Literary fiction

Varamo tells the tale of the title character, who starts his day as an ordinary clerk and finishes as the writer of one of the most celebrated poems in Central America. No one would peg Varamo as a likely candidate for literary brilliance; a middle-aged bachelor, he lives at home with his mother, whose grip on reality is tenuous at best; in his spare time, creates amateur (but enthusiastic) works of taxidermy. The Ministry pays him two hundred pesos a month, and, to his dismay, he has somehow been paid this month in counterfeit bills. In his quest to relieve himself of the bills and gain genuine currency, Varamo has a series of adventures that lead him to the inevitable conclusion of his extraordinary authorship.

I enjoyed this book–indeed, reading Varamo got me out of my post-holiday reading slump. (Yay!) The book started off a humorous read, but the hilarity of it didn’t click for me until halfway through, when I found myself cackling as the narrator described how, exactly, he had come by his information about Varamo to write the book. (I won’t spoil it, but oh, how I laughed.) Aira also has a knack for plunging you directly into the scene as a participant rather than an observer. The book covers only one day in the life of Varamo, but in all likelihood, this day was the only day that mattered; Aira distills and concentrates the story, giving you a perfect bite without leaving you wanting.

You may have noticed above that Varamo has not yet hit the shelves; don’t worry, my Booksluttians, you will be able to get your hands on a copy in less than a month. By that time, you’ll be able to have read our next selection, and you can compare them for yourself!

Book: Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico

Author: Javier Marías

Published: 1996 in Spanish; 1999 in Granta magazine, translated by Esther Allen; 2010 by New Directions, translated by Esther Allen

Date Read: First read, early 2010; again 2/1/2012

First Lines: “No one knows what it is to be hunted down without having lived it, and unless the chase was active and constant, carried out with deliberation, determination, dedication and never a break, with perseverance and fanaticism, as if the pursuers had nothing else to do in life but look for you, keep after you, follow your trail, locate you, catch up with you and then, at best, wait for the moment to settle the score.”

Genre: Literary fiction

The back of Bad Nature reads, “It all happened because of Elvis Presley.” Are you intrigued yet? Because I was.

Bad Nature is a day-in-the-life-gone-wrong tale that, like Varamo, follows the narrator through the most life-changing day in his existence. Bad Nature, though, is a darker tale with brilliant flashes of humor, rather than a witty ride through the absurd. “Roy Berry,” the name American coworkers gave the narrator to replace the hard-to-pronounce Ruibérriz, has been hired as a language coach for none other than Elvis Presley, who is to star in a film entitled Fun in Acapulco. Elvis, apparently, has decided that he wants a Spanish accent, a classy European accent, rather than a Mexican accent, and Elvis gets what Elvis wants. Roy, being from Spain, is tapped for the job, which includes six weeks in Acapulco alongside the King. This job sounds like heaven; unfortunately for Roy, things take a terribly wrong turn one night when a member of the Elvis entourage offends a Mexican gangster in a bar with some salacious (and hilarious) dancing. Roy is forced to translate the proceedings for both parties. The words “fat faggot” may or may not come into play.

Marías blends fact and fiction to create a tale that reads like a tell-all about one of our most beloved icons. He dives into the world of celebrity, painting a noble (if flawed) portrait of The King through the eyes of a narrator who, although an admirer, has a certain distance that comes from being born outside of America. The book, though, isn’t about Elvis, and Marías doesn’t let us forget that; in the end, we’re left alone with Roy, as the sun rises to end the most turbulent and disturbing night of his life.

To read Marías is to make a study of language; Marías uses language oh-so-deliberately and often expounds on the subject of translation. Bad Nature is no different, with the narrator himself being employed as a translator. We come to see in the story how translation is not necessarily a process of exchanging words from one language to the other; indeed, there is a wider context to be considered, and sometimes, just sometimes, it may be more necessary to shoot the messenger than the original sender. (That doesn’t mean I’m saying that Roy gets shot. Like I’d give you that kind of spoiler.)

As Amy says, “The rules of DEATH MATCH are simple. THERE ARE NO RULES. No, sorry, that’s not true, there are totally rules. The rules are: I will score the books on an arbitrary system and, at the end, ONE BOOK WINS. What does the book win? YOU SHALL SEE.”

Today’s DEATH MATCH will be scored with: taxidermied animals displayed behind a car that Elvis used to drive. Yes, this really does exist:

Varamo:

Varamo’s quest to create a tableau of a fish playing a piano, only to find out (too late) that the fish has no arms: +3 taxidermied animals
My own intense relief when Aira described the feeling one gets when a noise that has been invading your consciousness suddenly stops: +2 taxidermied animals
A somewhat removed air that doesn’t let you get too close to the characters: -1 taxidermied animal
The Góngoras sisters: +1 taxidermied animal
A hobo who emphatically claims everyone owes him money and harasses people until they pay him: +2 taxidermied animals
A humorous send-up of writing, publishing, and literary criticism: +2 taxidermied animals
Secret spy stuff that causes a hilarious misunderstanding: +1 taxidermied animal

Rating: 5/5 accidentally-embalmed fish dinners

Bad Nature or With Elvis in Mexico:

Elvis: +5 taxidermied animals
Sentences that, while gorgeous and appropriate, are the most run-on of run-on sentences forever: -1 taxidermied animal
George McGraw’s dancing: +2 taxidermied animals
Sentences that were in Spanish, and me having forgotten enough Spanish that I had to guess at them: -1 taxidermied animal
Seamless merging of fact and fiction: +2 taxidermied animals
The dark twist at the end: +1 taxidermied animal
The fact that it takes place in Mexico, and I love Mexico: +3 taxidermied animals

Rating: 5/5 green silk scarves stolen from mafiosos

The winner of today’s DEATH MATCH, in the lead by a hair (or a hare) with 11 taxidermied animals to 10 taxidermied animals:

Bad Nature!

Congratulations, señor Marías! Today’s prize is:

A bowl of bacon! Congratulations! Elvis would be so touched. And he would totally want to share your bacon. My husband told me that, because Elvis always had a bowl of bacon at the ready, one of his pianos at Graceland actually had clear ivory keys, because the bacon grease had somehow magically made them transparent. I cannot verify this story, so it may be completely made up.

Come back again for our next round of DEATH MATCH, where we will pit two more equally worthy adversaries against one another until the BITTER, BITTER END!

DEATH MATCH the Third: Geek Love vs. The Night Circus

Posted by lucysfootball — December 31, 2011

Editor’s note: I’m totally sorry if you got notification spams for this post. I accidentally published it a year ago while trying to schedule it for tomorrow, thereby ripping open the space-time continuum and causing everyone to get emailed, then possibly again when I re-scheduled it for today (since the cat was already out of the bag–why do people put cats in bags, anyway? what sadistic pet owner made up that saying?). Insatiable Booksluts: Now with 58% more time travel! — GGG

Well! Hello to you, my lovely Booksluttians, and welcome back to DEATH MATCH! I know, it’s been a while. Life happened while I was making other plans, you know? I’m so sorry. Please forgive. I’d send you flowers if I knew where you all lived and I wasn’t like the poorest person you’ve ever met.

Two books enter. One book leaves.

Today, our contenders: two novels about one of my favorite places in the world: the circus. Who will prevail? Will it be, IN THIS CORNER, a book about a family of genetic mutations? Or, IN THIS CORNER, a book about a magical circus and two people whose lives have been fated to cross since they were young? It is a battle of the sideshow versus the three-ring circus; faded posters versus classy showmanship! Oh, my, who will win?

Book: Geek Love

Author: Katherine Dunn

Published: March 1989

Read: 2000 (I think? Eep)

First Lines: “‘When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets,’ Papa would say, ‘she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing.’”

Genre: Literary fiction

Al Binewski and his wife, Crystal Lil, run a traveling carnival. They want it to be the best. So they – as anyone would, really, right? – take a lot illegal drugs and expose themselves to radioactive material of all shapes and kinds before conceiving their children. The outcome? Their five children: Arturo, who has flippers for hands and feet; Electra and Iphigenia, beautiful conjoined twins; Olympia, a hunchbacked albino dwarf; and Fortunato, their one failure: the boy who seems to be normal.

Geek Love is just amazing. Honestly, I was torn whether to include this book here, or do one of our IB Favorites for it, as it’s one of my all-time favorites. I’ve read it more times than I can count. I recommend it to anyone who seems like they might be even the slightest bit interested in anything outside the norm. The story unfolds along two time periods: the circus, and the children’s lives growing up in it, and Olympia’s life in a boarding house as an adult, writing and recollecting her story for her daughter, Miranda, who also lives in the house, and is unaware that the hunchback living down the hall is her mother who gave her up for adoption as a child. You learn to love the characters. The descriptions of circus life are so vivid, you feel like you’re living with the Binewskis. And when the bad things start to happen? Because you know they’re coming? They are so spectacularly plotted you just marvel in the mastery on the page.

Book: The Night Circus

Author: Erin Morgenstern

Published: September 2011

Read: December 2011

First Lines: “The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.”

Genre: Literary fiction/fantasy

In Victorian London, the circus arrives without warning. It is only open at night. It casts a spell on anyone who enters; they move amongst the tents as if in a dream, each tent holding something more fantastic than the next. What the patrons don’t know is that there is real magic in the circus, as they cannot see what is right in front of them. Prospero the Enchanter and Mr. A. H- have been raising their children – Celia and Marco – to face one another in a magical duel to the death, to take place in this very circus. But what Prospero and Mr. A. H- did not count on is how the human heart has magic of its own.

I DEVOURED The Night Circus. I’m somewhat programmed to love books with magic and circuses and enchantments and the like, but this had everything. Romance. Secrets. Magic. Kittens. Poetry. Fashion. Even the layout of the book was beautiful – the endpapers and pages between chapter breaks mirror the black and white scheme of the circus. When I finished the book, I was almost mourning the loss of it. It reminded me of the quote by Paul Sweeney – “You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.” I did. I felt the loss of the circus as if I’d lost my childhood home.

Now. Are you ready? It’s time for…DEATH MATCH.

Today’s DEATH MATCH shall be scored with: Bags of Caramel Corn. (Appropriate for both books.)

Geek Love:

Use of the word “geek” in the title used to mean an ACTUAL carnival geek: 1 bag of caramel corn
The beautiful, evocative names of the Binewski children: 2 bags of caramel corn
Olympia’s clear, heartbreaking voice throughout the book: 2 bags of caramel corn
Descriptions of the circus, the children, the crowds and the life they lived so vivid you could smell the chlorine of Arturo’s pool water: 3 bags of caramel corn
Bad things happening to characters I grew to love: -1 bag of caramel corn
Going to any length to protect those you love, no matter the cost: 3 bags of caramel corn
Poor, sweet, misunderstood Fortunato: 2 bags of caramel corn
Arturo, who was supposed to be an evil villain, but who I loved anyway: 2 bags of caramel corn

Rating: 4.5/5 stillborn siblings on display in glass jars for all to see

The Night Circus:

The lush, poetic descriptions of the circus, which made me fall in love with it and want to go there immediately: 3 bags of caramel corn
The love story, which I will not spoil, but one line, which you will know when you come to it, was possibly the most beautiful line I’ve read all year: 5 bags of caramel corn
Poppet and Widget, my two favorite born-in-different-years magical twins of all time: 3 bags of caramel corn
The heartbreaking secret the contortionist keeps: 2 bags of caramel corn
Bailey, who knows magic when he sees it: 1 bag of caramel corn
The ice garden and the tree of wishes: 2 bags of caramel corn
Isobel’s sad slow stupidity: -2 bag of caramel corn
The fact that it ended, dammit: -1 bag of caramel corn

Rating: 4.5/5 dresses that change color, depending on who you’re talking to and what mood you’re in

I’m going to tally the votes. Here’s a story about voting: I love it more than anything in the entire world. I think when I go to vote, the people manning the polling station think I’ve been released from the mental institution, so crazy are my eyes with the love of getting to cast my vote. LOVE IT.

AND! THE WINNER IS! Wow, seriously, this was a close one! As it should be, they are both wonderful, and honestly? YOU are the winner, because you could, technically, go out and get both of these and read them! Ahem. With a total of 14 bags of caramel corn to 13 bags of caramel corn:

GEEK LOVE!

And there was much rejoicing!

Geek Love, please collect your prize! Today’s DEATH MATCH prize is:

A somewhat creepy clown music box that may or may not come to life while you are sleeping and suck your soul out through your eyeballs! I figured, Geek Love, since you grew up in the circus, you’d be down with clowns. No? What’s that? This is a horrible prize, no one’s down with clowns? Good point. Sorry. Sorry.

Thank you for playing, and come back again for our next round of DEATH MATCH, where we will pit two more equally worthy adversaries against one another until the BITTER, BITTER END!

DEATH MATCH the Second: Heart-Shaped Box vs. Horns

Posted by lucysfootball — November 28, 2011

Hello again, Booksluttians, and welcome again to DEATH MATCH! It seems you all liked the first Death Match enough that I am back for another Death Match! I couldn’t be more tickled. Well, I guess I COULD. But tickling’s really torturous, so stop it.

Two books enter. One book leaves.

Today, our contenders: novels written by the same man, both, also, with horror as their theme. Who will prevail? Who will come up the victor in this match to the death, starring, IN THIS CORNER, an aging rock star and, IN THIS CORNER, a man who may or may not be the devil?

Book: Heart-Shaped Box

Author: Joe Hill

Published: February 2007

Read: March 2007

First Lines: “Jude had a private collection. He had framed sketches of the Seven Dwarves on the wall of his studio, in between his platinum records. John Wayne Gacy had drawn them while he was in jail and sent them to him.”

Genre: Horror

Judas Coyne, an aging death-metal rocker, collects items of the macabre. So when he sees a dead man’s suit go up for sale on the internet, he of course purchases it. Unfortunately, it comes with the dead man’s ghost – and the dead man is the stepfather of one of Jude’s discarded groupies – who has it in for Jude. Jude, his girlfriend Georgia, and his dogs find themselves haunted by a ghost with an insane, murderous agenda, who will stop at no lengths to get revenge.

Heart-Shaped Box is a brilliant horror novel. Joe Hill – who is Stephen King’s son, although he does nothing to capitalize on this, which I think is admirable (and honestly, he doesn’t need to – the amount of genetic talent in this family is mind-blowing) – knows how to slowly ratchet up the terror until you’re jumping at shadows. The characters are very three-dimensional – even the pets are three-dimensional. And I’m a total horror buff, so I’ve read more than my fair share of really, really bad horror. When a good horror novel comes along, you kind of want to sing. When I found Joe Hill, I was singing Hallelujah (the Jeff Buckley version, of course) to the top of my lungs. And listen, I CAN’T CARRY A TUNE. He’s amazing.

Book: Horns

Author: Joe Hill

Published: February 2010

Read: March 2010

First Lines: “Ignatius Martin Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke the next morning with a headache, put his hands to his temples, and found something unfamiliar, a pair of knobby, pointed protuberances.”

Genre: Horror

Ig Perrish has a beautiful girlfriend, a best friend who’d do anything for him, and a family who loves him. But, as things do, it all starts to go very wrong. Someone murders his girlfriend Merrin and Ig is blamed. His family pulls away from him, as does his best friend. Ig, lonely and bitter, a year after losing Merrin, gets very drunk and wakes up the next morning with horns growing from his head. The horns seem to make everyone around him tell Ig their darkest secrets. Secrets Ig has no interest in knowing. Secrets that blow what happened to Merrin wide open.

Horns is wonderful. Hill is a deft touch when it comes to characters. There are no two-dimensional characters in his novels, and that’s a rare find in a horror novel, where most of the characters could be blown over by a stiff breeze. Ig is a great character, but I have a very soft spot for his brother, Terry, who maybe isn’t as strong as he’d like to be, but he’s very, very human, and struggling with things we all are, from time to time. Your heart bleeds for Ig, and poor doomed Merrin. And you start thinking, would you want to know the deepest secrets of the people you love? Would you really?

Now. Are you ready? It’s time for…DEATH MATCH.

Today’s DEATH MATCH shall be scored with: Implements of Destruction. (Appropriate for both books.)

Heart-Shaped Box:

Use of a Nirvana song title as book title: 2 Implements of Destruction
Characters that didn’t seem as flimsy as bookstore standups: 3 Implements of Destruction
Animals as major characters in the plot: 3 Implements of Destruction
Bad things happening to said animals: -1 Implement of Destruction
Romance that actually seemed honest and unforced: 2 Implements of Destruction
Genuinely frightening moments not stolen from other horror movies or novels: 3 Implements of Destruction
Character names based on where the character lived (aka, Georgia was from, yes, Georgia): 1 Implement of Destruction
An unexpected ending: 2 Implements of Destruction

Rating: 4/5 Evil Ebay Auctions

Horns:

The character of Terry, who I alternately wanted to take home and mother and make out with until my face was sore: 5 Implements of Destruction
A love story that seemed a little too love-at-first-sight-y for me because I’m totally bitter and twisty inside: -2 Implements of Destruction
A badguy who was so amoral I wanted to take a Silkwood shower: 2 Implements of Destruction
Fantastic use of metaphor and symbolism: 2 Implements of Destruction
Characters that didn’t seem as flimsy as bookstore standups: 3 Implements of Destruction
Tears that happened out of the blue until I had to put the book down: 2 Implements of Destruction
Violence against women that made my stomach hurt: -1 Implement of Destruction

Rating: 4/5 golden crosses on chains in the sunlight winking out secret messages to the boy you have a crush on

I’m going to tally the votes. Want to hear a funny story while I tally? My dad hates Jeff Probst more than anyone in the world. I know! It’s the oddest thing. He also thinks his dimple is surgically implanted. If you want to make my dad rant, mention Jeff Probst. It’s fun.

AND! THE WINNER IS! With a total of 15 Implements of Destruction to 11 Implements of Destruction:

HEART-SHAPED BOX!

And there was much rejoicing!

Heart-Shaped Box, please collect your prize! Today’s DEATH MATCH prize is:

A gigantic carnival animal that no one EVER really wins and they hire people to walk around with to tease you with! That is AWESOME, Heart-Shaped Box! Congratulations! Well-done! Just don’t put it in the washer. I did that once and my mom was SO MAD because it split open and all these little foam peanuts fell out and got all over. So messy. But this is pretty big. Probably your washer isn’t big enough for this.

Come back again for our next round of DEATH MATCH, where we will pit two more equally worthy adversaries against one another until the BITTER, BITTER END!

DEATH MATCH the First: Ready Player One vs. John Dies at the End

Posted by lucysfootball — November 16, 2011

Hola, lovely readers and booksluts. Today, I am pleased and proud to present to you not only a brand-new Insatiable Booksluts segment, but the very first post by Amy! Yeah! Yeah! Amy normally blogs over at lucysfootball.com but I totally ~~conned~~ encouraged her to contribute to our blog because she’s like my long-lost sister. You know, the kind of sister you’ve never met and you find on Twitter when you’re almost 29 years old. Which is better because you don’t have any growing-up drama to put behind you.

But I digress. I present to you, Amy! — GGG

Welcome to DEATH MATCH.

Two books enter. One book leaves. (Which is totally an awesome book-related play on words that I came up with just for my first post here. As they have leaves. Rimshot! Rimshots don’t really come across well in writing, do they.)

Today, our contenders: novels of a future where things have gone, or are going, very, very wrong. Who will prevail? WHO WILL PREVAIL. Only time will tell, my little bookworms. Time, and my very, very stringent and hard-to-crack rating system.

Book: Ready Player One

Author: Ernest Cline

Published: August 2011

Read: September 2011

First Lines: “Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest. I was sitting in my hideout watching cartoons when the news bulletin broke in on my video feed that James Halliday had died during the night.”

Genre: Dystopian Sci-Fi

The year is 2044. The world is controlled by the OASIS, an all-encompassing virtual world, in which you attend school, visit with friends, have sexual liaisons, amass fortunes, build homes and sanctuaries, go on quests, and live your life. When James Halliday, co-creator of the OASIS, dies, he sets the world on a quest. The person who solves the quest wins control over the OASIS, and, therefore, becomes the most powerful person in the world.

Wade Watts, a underprivileged high school student, has been questing since he was young. When he lucks into the answer that will solve the first step, he finds that his lifelong dream of winning the quest – which he always knew wouldn’t be easy – might also be dangerous as well. But an obsession isn’t easy to drop. The next clue is right ahead. And the other players are on his tail.

Ready Player One is a complete geekgasm of a book. There is no denying this. If you grew up between 1970 and 1990, and had even the slightest interest in geek culture or pop culture, you’re going to be jazzed by the constant barrage of references to our collective media past. Atari. War Games. Dungeons and Dragons. Arcades. Chuck Taylors. Back to the Future. The list goes on. The characters are realistic and you actually care about what happens to them, which is nice – they’re geeks, but ironically, in a book about virtual reality, they’re the most real geeks you’ll ever meet. The book reads quickly, and you don’t want to put it down – once you start, you’re playing the game along with Wade, and you want to see what the solution to the next puzzle is, and get to the next level. And side note, if Hollywood doesn’t screw it up, this will make a spectacular movie.

Book: John Dies at the End

Author: David Wong (a pseudonym for Jason Pargin, the senior editor of Cracked.com)

Published: September 2010

Read: November 2011

First Lines: “They say Los Angeles is like The Wizard of Oz. One minute it’s small-town monochrome neighborhoods and then boom – all of a sudden you’re in a sprawling Technicolor freakshow, dense with midgets. Unfortunately, this story does not take place there.”

Genre: Dystopian Sci-Fi/Horror

John and David are bandmates and best friends, a couple of slackers who work in a video store, going nowhere, doing – well, not much of anything – until one night a party goes very wrong and they take a drug (John purposefully, David accidentally) that gives them a heightened form of reality. After that, things get very weird very quickly. They see creatures from another world. Reality starts changing. People they know get possessed, get killed, and then disappear from existence as if they were never there. Dogs drive cars and jellyfish attempt to have sex, mid-air, with chandeliers. So they do what anyone would – they start a paranormal investigation agency to make money from the occurrences only they can see and only they can solve.

Listen, John Dies at the End is screwed up. In a good way. In a “I stayed up all night and the colors are all starting to bleed together and I’m really tired and I think I saw something over there is it really there I AM SO TIRED” kind of way. John and David are enjoyable characters, if a bit cartoonish at times. They’re Kevin Smith-style slackers, lovable but a little two-dimensional. The book is well-written, and you want to keep reading if only to figure out what the hell is going on.

Now. Are you ready? It’s time for…DEATH MATCH.

Today’s DEATH MATCH shall be scored with: Boom Boxes. (They seem appropriate for both books.)

Ready Player One:

Intelligent use of the iconic geekery of my childhood which formed me into the amazing geekette I am today: 5 Boom Boxes
Use of deus ex machina more often than I would like, when I think the author might have been stuck for a better way to get his characters out of a jam: -2 Boom Boxes
Strong female characters that I loved who didn’t need men to save them: 3 Boom Boxes
Positive LGTBIA message: 2 Boom Boxes
Strong message about the power of real-life friendship vs. the power of online friendship, even though online friendship is a nice way to start: 2 Boom Boxes
A totally cheer-worthy ending which I won’t spoil for you because I’m not a douchecanoe: 5 Boom Boxes

Rating: 4.5/5 flying Chuck Taylor All-Stars

John Dies at the End:

The character of John, who made me laugh so hard I snorted fruit punch up my nose: 5 Boom Boxes
A dog: 2 Boom Boxes
Bad things happening to said dog: -1 Boom Box
A character named Amy (automatic points, TAKE NOTE AUTHORS WHO WANT A LEG UP IN COMPETITION): 1 Boom Box
A title that I am totally and completely confused by: -3 Boom Boxes
Two cool twists, one about halfway through and one near the end, that I did not see coming at all and were written very well: 2 Boom Boxes
A funny bit about the healing power of kittens: 2 Boom Boxes

Rating: 3.5/5 mysterious dead bodies wrapped in tarps in the shed behind the house

I’ll just bring the bin over here and tally the votes, Probst-style. The loser might have to throw his or her bandanna into the fire. I haven’t decided yet.

THE WINNER IS! With a total of 15 Boom Boxes to 8 Boom Boxes:

READY PLAYER ONE!

And there was much rejoicing!

Ready Player One, please collect your prize! Today’s DEATH MATCH prize is:

The Dalmatian that I always wanted back in the old days when they got to shop for prizes on Wheel of Fortune! That is AWESOME, Ready Player One! Congratulations! Well-done! I am totally jealous.

Come back again for our next round of DEATH MATCH, where we will pit two more equally worthy adversaries against one another until the BITTER, BITTER END!