Fables: Volume 1 and 2

Fables 1: Legends in Exile 

by Bill Willingham 

★★★★ 

The premise of Fables is pretty well known at this point, not because of the graphic novels themselves, but because of the TV show Once Upon a Time. They are not the same thing, but Fables (which came first) shares the same basic story. Fairy tale characters have been transplanted from their home world into our world. They have no way of getting back and have to make it here without their fortunes and castles, etc. 

I've been hearing about this series for a while and I'm so glad I finally checked it out. The fable characters live in a secret society of sorts in New York City. The Big Bad Wolf runs the community's security. Old King Cole is the Mayor and Snow White serves as the Deputy Mayor. This volume deals with the disappearance of Snow's sister Rose Red. 


The characters are snarky and fun. I love the way they play with the assumed ideas about them, like Prince Charming, who is a womanizer in Fables instead of a hero. Yes, the art is definitely stereotypical comic book style. Maybe we can one day have good female characters who aren't ridiculous caricatures of what a woman actually looks like, but it's a small complaint when the story is this fun.  

BOTTOM LINE: So far I love the series and I can't wait to read more.  


Fables Vol. 2: Animal Farm 
Bill Willingham 
★★★★ 

Volume two picks up exactly where the last one let off. Rose Red and her accomplice/boyfriend are working off their community service hours for their antics in Vol. One. Red’s sister Snow White is about to make a trip to The Farm, where the non-human fables live, and she decides Red needs to come along for the ride. At the Farm, the sisters quickly realize something is wrong. A revolution is happening and they’ve arrived at the worst possible moments. In the midst of the chaos we meet Goldilocks, the three little pigs and a slew of characters from The Jungle Book.  

The second volume is less about introductions and more about developing the established relationships, especially between the two estranged sisters. Their history is a complicated one and makes more sense with each new revelation. I particularly love the fact that from these first volumes, the author doesn’t rely on romantic relationships to drive every story. The two strong women at the forefront of the story are interesting enough on their own and the author trusts the reader to appreciate that. 

BOTTOM LINE: I’m sold. I think the series is so well done. I love the variety of characters that are featured. It could rely completely on the novelty of such characters in each new volume, but instead it takes the assumptions that we have and tosses them out the window. Each character is given new life in the Fables series and I’m excited to see what happens next. 


Two other great reviews of the series at You've GottaRead This and Iris' blog. 

Also, Kailana wrote a great post about the order of the series. I'll definitely be referring back to this as I read more of the volumes. 

Last thing, I found a Wikipedia just for Fables! I won't be reading any spoilers on it, but it might come in handy for fans of the comics.  

The Irregulars and Gods in Alabama

The Irregulars
Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington
by Jennet Conant
★★★★

As a huge Roald Dahl fan, both of his children’s books and adult short stories and memoirs, this nonfiction piece was a no-brainer for me. After being injured during his stint as an RAF pilot Dahl is sent to America to insinuate himself into the political society in Washington D.C. He’s been recruited to work for an obscure British intelligence agency that gathered information in America during World War II. 

Conant tells of Dahl’s liaisons with a gossipy intimacy that makes the book read like a novel. He was a bit of a rake, unfettered by marriage and able to find friends and lovers wherever he went. A wealthy publisher, Charles Marsh, took Dahl under his wing and helped him along in the publishing world, which eventually led to Dahl’s career as an author. Fellow spy and friend Ian Fleming went on to write the James Bond novels.

I love that this book fills in an important gap in Dahl’s life. It picks up where his first two memoirs, Boy and Going Solo, leave off. It explains how he became a writer while also giving the readers fascinating details about his work as a spy.

BOTTOM LINE: A must for fans of Dahl, Fleming or spy novels in the style of John le Carré. It’s not an action packed story, but a look at what went on behind-the-scenes during WWII.



Gods in Alabama
by Joshilyn Jackson
★★★★

For some reason I thought this book was the basis for a Melanie Griffith movie (Crazy in Alabama in think,) so for years I avoided it. It wasn’t until I finally took Sandy’s recommendation and picked it up that I realized the two were completely unrelated. Instead of finding some kooky story about a wannabe actress, I found a thoughtful tale of woman who rebuilt her life after a childhood trauma.

Lena Fleet left her small town home in Alabama after high school and never looked back. After a horrible thing happens to her as a teen, she makes a promise to God and she believes that if she holds up her end of the deal He will too. Lena lives in Chicago and the story of her past is slowly revealed throughout the book as she journeys back to Alabama with her African American fiancée. 

I was so impressed with Jackson’s ability to deal with heavy subject matter; racism, rape, jealousy, abuse, and regret and yet maintain a sense of humor throughout the book. Lena’s relationship with her aunt and her farfetched reasoning behind some of her actions work well because we feel like we know her. We make allowances for people in our lives because we understand that everyone is flawed. Lena is the same, we take her actions with a grain of salt, understanding all the while that there is a bigger story that we don’t understand yet.

Burr, Lena’s boyfriend, is one of my favorite characters in the story. He knows how to push her just far enough without making her shut down. He wants what’s best for her, but he has priorities too and he won’t let me get away with as much as others will. Her Aunt Florence is the same; both individuals are good for Lena because they love her enough to push her.

BOTTOM LINE: I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. It’s a great piece of southern fiction, entertaining, with well written characters and a fast-moving plot.  It reminded me quite a bit of The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.

“God gave us crying so other folks could see when we needed help, and help us.”

The Nobodies Album

The Nobodies Album
by Carolyn Parkhurst
★★★★☆

A widowed author, a rock star son, a murder mystery, unresolved family issues, this book kind of has it all.

The story bounces back and forth between the main plot, which follows author, Octavia Frost, whose adult son, rock star Milo, is arrested for murder of his girlfriend and a secondary plot. Those portions are chapters from the author’s novels and are part of a collection called The Nobodies Album, which contains the rewritten endings of her books.

At first it was jarring (at least on the audio) to switch between the fictional stories and the author’s life, but after awhile you get into each of the stories within the larger story. It’s really beautifully told. I found myself forgetting that Octavia isn’t a real author and I wanted to read some of her books, particularly The Human Slice.

Part of me, the cynical side I suppose, thought maybe this was a way for the author to fit a bunch of ideas for books into a single book. But even as I say that, I realized that it still worked. It doesn’t feel forced, it just feels like an author reflecting on her books, her “children.” These things that she created and now wishes she could change. It’s about so much more than changing books though; it’s about living a life of regret and realizing you can’t change what’s already happened.

I’ve never read anything by Parkhurst before, but I kept thinking about what an engrossing voice she has. I went back and forth on my rating, because though I really enjoyed it while I was reading it, I think I’ve grown to like it even more in the past few weeks. I keep thinking about new elements of the story and how they say so much more than they seem to at first. It’s almost like the book is just trying to tell a story, but it can’t help but be profound. It was an incredibly satisfying read.

"Why do we think that knowing the events of someone's life gives us insight into the person they are? Certainly we react to the things that happen to us, we are not unchanged by them, but there is no format to it. You may know that a cascade of water can wear away stone, but you can't predict what shape the rock will take at any given moment."

Check out Sandy’s review, which convinced me to read this one in the first place.

Book Bloggers are Awesome

(Sandy and me at lunch)

What's the best thing about book blogging?

That's right, the bloggers! I love so many things about having a book blog, but by far my favorite thing is the community of fellow bloggers. You people give me amazing reading recommendations. You point out things I might have missed in books and start great discussions. You encourage me to try books I may never have picked up. All-in-all I love you guys.

So last week when I had the chance to get together with one you you I jumped at the chance. Sandy, who writes You've GOTTA read this, was swinging through my stomping ground and we had a chance to meet up. We had lunch at one of my favorite Mexican dives and hit it off immediately. That's the thing about book bloggers, even if we have nothing in common, we share a love of reading and books, so there's never a shortage of things to discuss.

Luckily for us, we did have lots of other things in common as well. We went to the same college, we both love to travel and we have an obsessive love of audiobooks, etc. Sandy's blog is one of the first I found when I started The Avid Reader's Musings and I was thrilled to find out that her great sense of humor and bubbling (in an awesome way) personality are the same in real life as they are one her blog. If I hadn't of had to head back to work, I think we could have talked all afternoon.

Meeting Sandy (and my meet up last year with Jeanne at Necromancy Never Pays) reminded me how grateful I am to have a platform that introduces me to so many great people and fellow readers. I could go my whole life without meeting some of you, but thankfully, the internet allows us to take our collective shared interests and find each other sprinkled throughout the world. It's so wonderful to know that there are people out there who think "listening" to a book is amazing, who love the smell of old books, who stress out about what books to pack when you go on vacation and who often close a book and find themselves bursting with the desire to talk about it.

*Photo by our waitress