Book Reviews!!!

I just finished two books, called Tricks and Pygmy. Both were enjoyable, but coming from my favorite authors, that's expected. I really do enjoy anything written by Ellen Hopkins or Chuck Palahniuk. They are just both so incredible.

Pygmy is unique, as it is an epistolary novel, and in very very broken English. It's about a young male (on the lower end of his teen years) coming to America, under the guise of an exchange student. His actual objective, however, is some unexplained (until deep into the novel, but I would just ruin it if I said what it was) act of unspeakable horror. The members of the group rarely speak in America, and call one-another 'comrade'. The country they come from isn't explicitly discussed, but is a fictional mashup of most communist countries. Pygmy's name is never revealed, as Pygmy is a nickname derived from his smallness; he simply refers to himself as "Operative Me". He is referred to by his communist counterparts as 'Operative 67'; everyone in America calls him Pygmy.
Pygmy is a gripping novel, taking you through Pygmy's journey to the capitalist greedy pig-dog nation of America. Hate softens, people grow, and things are learned. This is not the hero's journey... this is the anti-hero's journey. And I could barely put the book down along all the turns of this journey.
I would go into more depth about the plot, but this isn't SparkNotes. It isn't even an important book review, it is a cop-out so I don't have to discuss my boring life



Alright, so Tricks was a pretty good book, too. It's written in Ellen Hopkins' signature prose style, visually appealing and almost lyrical. It has five separate narrators, which seems a little tricky (no pun intended, please) but is very easy to adjust to. This could be me, as I am used to her other novels (most of which have multiple narrators). It takes a while to get to really 'know' the characters, but once you do you really FEEL for them. Sensitive people may be drawn to tears by this book. It is very gripping and emotional, tinged with a bit of dry humor, and a whole lot of genuinely good writing.
The plot, as the name implies, shows how each of the five characters found their way into prostitution. The characters (by the way, two males and three females) are all quite separate in the beginning of the novel, but all end up in the same place and a similar situation. They interact together, although minimally, but in a brilliant and intricate way. It makes them just seem all the more real.

Anyway, both those books were successes, and I am now reading 'The ABORTION Myth: Feminism, Morality, and the Hard Choices Women Make' by Leslie Cannold. I suppose I should get into a nonfiction book or two before I go on to read some Hunter S. Thompson or other fiction. It only seems fair.