The Fiery Cross, Outlander book 5

The Fiery Cross, Diana Gabaldon

It didn't take me quite this long to read book 5, but sometimes it felt like forever. Still, I've found a moment to write about this one.

If you don't know about Outlander, it's hard to describe. It is a mix of historical fiction, war, romance, fantasy/sci-fi, and ladyporn. Each novel is really long. There is a LOT going on in this story, and Gabaldon does a fine job of weaving a very intricate tale.

Back when I read A Book That Scares Me, I mentioned an incident with my friend. I'd been reading the first three installments of the Outlander series and I told her that, frankly, I was tired of all the rape. So I was going to take a break and pick up a new series. Unfortunately, it was the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series, so *spoiler alert* more rape.

Well, when I came back to book 5, really the books are good but you can't just plow through the whole series, I told the same friend that I was starting it. I said something about how the title sounded like something about the Klan not clans (in fact there is a book about the history of the KKK with the same title) but wasn't. Well ... there aren't any white sheets involved, but it does lay the historical groundwork for what would become the white supremacy group we all love to hate.

The story- how many ways can colonists barely escape death? That could be the subtitle of this one. Fortunately for pre-Revolutionary mountaineers, Claire has brought her modern medical expertise back and is brewing some form of penicillin, making luxurious soap, and birthin' babies all over the Carolinas. At least no one kills a bear with a knife in this one.

I don't want to give it all away, but just as I was about to shelf Cross and turn to something else, BOOM! She tries to kill one of the main characters! You know when Jamie and Claire are going to die (or do we?), but there are children and grandchildren and tenants that are still a mystery. And let me say, it isn't an accidental misfire. Dude is hung as a prisoner of war. Well, that got my attention and I dove right back in.

This is not the kind of series where you can pick up any. You need to start at the beginning (a very good place to start). If you're like me, you'll start googling historical events you never learned in school, like the Jacobite rebellion. And, honestly, one thing I enjoy about the series now that they are in the Carolinas is that I'm familiar with the places and the names. If that's your thing, too, then keep at the series. If not, I can probably summarize seven bazillion pages for you over a cup of coffee.

The Fiery Cross runs along my other Outlander recommendations of four Marias.

Chapter 31: A Book With a Love Triangle

Drums of Autumn, Diana Gabaldon

I have a love-hate relationship with the Outlander series. Years ago, I was at a Mommies Network event and someone handed me a copy of Outlander that she had won. She had a whole box of them and knew I like to read. It sat on the shelf until a night of insomnia and no new books. I'm still not sure whether I should be thanking that woman or sticking pins in a voodoo doll. For now, I'm going with thanks.

Drums is the fourth installment of the preposterous tale of Claire Randall-Fraser, a war-time nurse who stepped through a gap in stones and ended up in the middle of the Jacobite Rebellion. After cheating death time and again, she goes back through the stones to spend time with her modern-day husband, Frank. When he dies, she goes back to her historical husband, Jamie. So two of the points of the triangle don't even exist in the same century. Confused yet?

In this episode, Jamie and Claire have been blown to the Colonies by a hurricane and are looking to start a homestead in North Carolina, where Jamie is technically not allowed to own land because of his involvement with the Rebellion. But rules of physics and man really just don't apply to these people. It's funny, I can suspend disbelief about time travel and many of their narrow escapes, but I found Jamie surviving a bear attack and killing it with his hands utterly ridiculous.

The first three books ended with a big cliffhanger. I quickly picked up the next to find out what was going to happen. I'm quite happy that I could stop at Drums, even though there is more story to be told. It was very satisfying to feel that I can pick up the next one when the mood strikes me, instead of needing to know right away.

So. What I loved about this book- North Carolina. I lived in this state longer than anywhere else in my life. It's beautiful, interesting, and home to some of the best people I have ever known. I loved reading about people for whom many places in the Tarheel State are named. (But go Devils! because I'm no UNC fan.) Imagining the colony from the point of view of the Scots who settled in the mountains, where there are still annual Highland Games, was fascinating and believable. There also isn't a whitewashing of relations with the Native Americans in the region. There's no kum-ba-yah scene where they share a meal in peace and decide to remain loyal friends. There's just a tenuous understanding between the lone settlers and the travelers through the lands.

What I don't love about this book/series. I've mentioned this before, but seriously everybody gets raped. Or almost gets raped. It's exhausting. It happens, yet again, in this one. Though not as graphic and repeated as earlier stories, I find myself wishing that Gabaldon would come up with some other type of danger for her characters.

With that warning, I do recommend the series to people. It's engrossing, entertaining, and a little bit of several genres- historical fiction, fantasy, romance. Plus, Starz produced it as a series and the theme song, a variation of The Skye Boat Song, is beautiful. My friend just bought a Mitsubishi Outlander, and every time I see it, I start singing.

I'll probably keep these books so I can lend them out to friends, but I doubt I'll read them again. Maybe. Drums is probably my second favorite of the four I have read, but this isn't the kind of series you can hop around. I'll give it three and half Marias.

Chapter 18: A Nonfiction Book

The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson

I typically enjoy historical fiction. The Constant Princess from Philippa Gregory's Tudor series is one of my favorite books. What Larson has done here is take samples of actual communications from a historic period and written them into something unique. It reads like fiction but is all true. Nothing is conjured or imagined. The result is a bit magical.

It's hard not to go on and on about tiny details that make this book so interesting, how certain famous people's paths crossed or almost crossed. Reading many passages, I was excited to recognize people and events. That it covers both a city I love (Chicago) and a topic I find endlessly fascinating (serial killers) is almost icing on the cake. I learned new things, experienced the city in a different era, and found my insomniac hours filled with Wikipedia research.

So the main story is that of the World's Fair preparations in Chicago during volatile times (are they ever not?) This section focuses on the processes of designing and building the fair, the decadence and struggles of the creators, the emergence of new architectural art forms, and an appearance or two by Chicago's darling Frank Lloyd Wright. I say this is the main story because there is much more time and detail about the goings on of the fair. However, the parallel story of H.H. Holmes and his hotel of terror ticks right alongside it.

Now, if you are looking for details about Holmes- his methods and peculiarities- you will not find them here. I find Harold Schechter's research and analysis of serial killers to be well written and insightful. So check that one out if you want a more intimate portrait of Holmes. But, Larson does a decent job of putting Holmes into the context of labor unrest, financial panics, and the irresistible draw of an international display. After the fair ends, Larson turns to the pursuit and capture of Holmes but stops short of trial, conviction, and death. If you don't handle gore well, you don't have to worry about encountering it here.

 I found this book ... not exactly enjoyable, but still very readable. Perhaps fascinating is the right word for it. I am also very intrigued by others who have liked it, not people who I would expect to rave about murder, especially true crime. I won't be keeping it in my library. In fact, I've already packed it to pass on to my mom, who will pass it on to someone else. And I won't read it again. Still, Devil gets a solid 3 Marias for readability and interesting content. I'll even tack on an extra half for it's original format and writing.

P.S. If you like this one, I also recommend Shadow Divers for its storytelling style of nonfiction.

Chapter 11: A Book That Takes Place In Your Hometown

Neanderthal seeks Human,

Penny Reid

I'm only 11 entries in and I'm already fudging a little bit. The nice thing about being a nomad for the majority of your life is that you can claim a number of places as home. Lucky for me, I had a kindle book set in Chicago and I once had an address in the City of the Big Shoulders. Because, let's be honest, there are not a lot of interesting books taking place in Tupelo, MS or LaPorte, IN. Yet. And there are too many titles in Los Angeles. I did once read a mystery set in High Point, NC, but I'm not ready to re-read for this journal. Yet. So, I opened up this one that I got as a freebie.

I'm not even sure how or why I got this one for free, but it is much better than many other freebies I have read stared at. I think calling it a smart romance might be a stretch, but that is far more accurate than calling this series "Knitting in the City." The main character doesn't even knit! She goes to her friend's knitting group three times in the whole book, mostly just for girltalk. There is brief mention of projects-on-needles and a ball of MadTosh, but if the rest of the series is about Janie, the publisher should seriously reconsider the series name. Maybe Awkward Girl in the City.

We meet Janie on the Worst Day of Her Life. She broke up with her cheating boyfriend, got fired, and now has nowhere to live (see cheating boyfriend). She takes her meager possessions to her friend's apartment for alcohol and ice cream. They talk about the most important event of the day- riding in an elevator with a hot security guy. Like many overzealous crushes, this one has been knighted Sir (Something-Something) Hotpants. Really, it's so dumb I can't be bothered to remember or look it up. But these are young, single women and I can't pretend I didn't suffer my own boy crazy phase.

Except Janie is not really the boy crazy type. She's a Curator of Fact with a dysfunctional mental/verbal filter. She doesn't recognize obvious flirting and innuendo. She is not social. She also repeatedly talks about how ugly and monstrous she is. Yeah. Big boobs and long legs are gross. Despite all this, her friend takes her to an Outrageous night club where people are fornicating in glass cages. I'll let you guess who happens to be working security there, too. It's Hotpants. Are you gobsmacked? Janie sure is.

From here, all other characters are peripheral and we watch a bizarre courtship between the two. So many things make no sense at all. It is so incohesive and implausible. I kept waiting for The Thing that brings it all together, but it never appeared. And then the resolution (if that's even the right term) comes out of nowhere and ends abruptly. I am still so disoriented, that I have no interest in reading more of the series because I do not care about any of the characters. Plus, THERE'S NO KNITTING!

What did I enjoy? Hotpants (whose name is Quinn Sullivan and can never be separated in my mind from this guy)



sends Janie nerd jokes via text. I chuckled at the binary one. I also found some of the facts Janie blurts out at inappropriate times to be interesting, although I still need to check some of them. (Here is where I'd like to point out that being able to recite things from memory is not exactly the same thing as smart. It can be if one can then apply it to appropriate situations, but Janie can't.) And I like that, despite having some sparky bits, it doesn't go into detail about all the humping. Which brings me to a tangent.

At one point, Janie's friend (I'm sure she has a name, but she's totally forgettable) says that she knows Janie didn't like sex with her ex-boyfriend because she never talked about it. This has been running around in my brain for days now. Maybe it's the difference between married and singles sex. Maybe it's an age thing. Maybe my friends and I are all prudes. But I just don't witness many conversations about sex. I'm not really interested in grabbing a margarita with a gal pal and exchanging play by plays of our most recent romps. This leads me to believe that I'm not really the target audience for this series. There are worse things in life, I suppose.

So I've been trying to come up with a rating system for this journal- a way to quickly see what I liked and didn't, what I recommend you pick up or burn. So far nothing has really been quite what I am looking for, but a friend suggested this.

So until I come up with something better, which I may never do, I give Neanderthal  2.5 Marias. It was easy to read, didn't take much time or gray matter, didn't make me fall asleep, nor did it make any sense. I won't read it again or continue the series, but I don't hate myself for reading the whole thing, and I won't be sending glitterbombs to the author.

Chapter 3c: A Trilogy

Allegiant, Veronica Roth

I did it! I finished this series! After forcing myself to get through the second installment, I was kind of dreading this one. Turns out, the finale was better.

Anyone who has read the series this far would be brain-dead to not suspect nefarious plots outside the fence. Fortunately, we aren't subjected to repeated shock-takes from our ragtag group of characters. They basically get the news, make their decisions, and act. No wishy-washy sparkly vampires here. And I gotta say, I really appreciate that Roth does not waste a lot of time rehashing what has already happened. A reader invested in a series does not need to spend chapter after chapter catching up on what they already know. But I have an admittedly spotty memory, so it took me a few passages to remember who a few of the newer operators were. No biggie. I can catch up.

So after suffering through the I-want-to-dies of Insurgent, we now have I-want-to-survive-and-kickass Tris. She's realizing that good and bad are not as black-and-white as the factions led her to believe. She's also realizing that she has her own moral compass and she plans to act on it. This is the hero that I enjoyed in the first book

The plot of the final story is fairly formulaic for this genre. Outsiders are doing evil things to unsuspecting victims. Experiments take place. Institutional racism prejudice, class warfare, government overreach, blah, blah, blah. Not new themes, but ones that clearly still are worthy of discussion. I'm not going to write off this series just because it doesn't bring anything new to the conversation. In fact, I value that it continues bringing these subjects up. Silence as consent and all that jazz.

Overall I liked reading Allegiant. It was fast, easy, and kept me focused. Tris is faced with a major decision and her choice is foreseeable, but also reasonable. Roth could have ended it in a variety of ways that may have left a more warm, fuzzy feeling, but this is the right ending for the story.

Now the nitpicking- As much as I hated being in Tris' mind for all of Insurgent, hopping between her and Tobias every chapter was annoying. I'm sure this was a difficult editorial decision given the actual plot, but I'm not sure it was the right one. I feel like a third person narrator could have done as well without the jarring transition from character to character. The addition of Tobias' voice is already incongruent with the previous books and it doesn't really add anything we couldn't get through other means. This is by far my biggest gripe with the book. Not bad for a wildly popular YA trilogy finale.

I've been coming around to the fact that a book doesn't have to be literary or highbrow or even wonderfully written to be valuable. If I can justify watching trashy television for the sake of entertainment, then I can apply the same to books. I'm going to make a pointed effort to be open to books I normally would ignore. If I get lost in a story for a few hours, it's worth it.

Happy reading, friends.

Chapter 3b: A Trilogy

Insurgent, Veronica Roth
I should call this discussion No Surprises. So here's a list of the Things That Did Not Surprise Me about this book:

• The second book of the trilogy is not as interesting as the first.
• The language has become repetitive. Every single time Tris gets injured, her vision goes black around the edges.
• Some of the Bad Guys are kind of Good Guys.
• Some of the Good Guys are kind of Bad Guys.
• The twists. I find it hard to believe anyone with a functioning brain stem did not see these coming. There's a fence around Chicago and you don't think there are people living outside that fence? Come on.

What did surprise me? The first person narrative of Divergent that pushed that story forward, drags this one down. 384 pages of Tris not wanting to live, wanting to die, wanting to sacrifice herself. 384 pages! And then when she has the chance to do just that, she changes her mind. One of the qualities that makes her the hero is that she stubbornly does things, even when she doesn't want to, even if it means hurting someone she cares about, if it means saving the world. As a Divergent, she has flexibility of character, but this sudden and major change is more like Sybil.

Editorially, I think this story could have been whittled down a lot. It seems that what could have been a handful of scenes has been stretched out into a whole novel. The war is beginning. Book One was enough of a buildup to the big battle. Here, we have more buildup, but without the emotional pressure and anticipation, and then the fight itself is glossed over and anti-climactic.

Part of me wants to grab Allegiant and be done with this series. Part of me needs a break from Roth. Here's hoping the final installment is better than this one.

Chapter 3a: A Trilogy

Divergent, Veronica Roth

Post-apocalyptic Chicago is now home to four factions: Abnegation, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite. The fifth faction, Amity, lives on a farm outside the fence, raising food for all citizens. Children are raised within their parents' faction until age 16, when they undergo a screening process and then choose which faction to join. If they survive initiation, they officially join their faction. If they fail, they are doomed to roam factionless, homeless, and jobless.

Beatrice never feels fully comfortable in Abnegation. Her test results are inconclusive, so she shocks everyone and joins Dauntless. From here, we follow "Triss" through initiation and her discovery of a plan of violent revolt by one of the factions.

Aside from the Harry Potter series, I'm not usually a big fan of YA novels. Divergent is decent, and I am interested to see where the story leads. Even though it follows the basic coming-of-age saga formula, it's written well enough to keep me turning the pages. It's not challenging or particularly original, but I still recommend it for some good, mindless reading. It's dark, so probably not a beach read, but suitable for a snowed-in weekend. I can definitely see why it is so popular, and I do like that the hero is a girl (sorry, heroine just sounds too druggy).

So far in the trilogy, the writing is still fresh. Despite the regular reminders that Dauntless wear black and have tattoos and piercings, I didn't find myself rolling my eyes at overused phrases. At least she uses new ways to convey the same information. And while the novel itself is not challenging, it could lead to some deeper thought and discussion of virtue.

Since each faction is based on a single virtue, Roth plants at least one member in each who uses that characteristic for evil instead of good. Here one could argue that the bad guys don't truly belong to their faction. Or perhaps any virtue can be used for malicious purposes. Throw the Divergent- those who have more than one virtue- into the mix and you add many shades of gray to a black-and-white world.

My major annoyance with the novel is quite petty. I don't like the names of the factions. Why? Because they are not synchronous. I know it sounds silly, but I would like them all to be nouns or all to be adjectives. The mix of both rubs some part of my brain the wrong way.

The next post will not be Chapter 3b. I'm going to have to split the trilogy up and weave some other reading in between. So stick with me and check back to see what else I'm poring over.