It Chooses You – Miranda July

In It Chooses You Miranda July is at her best – shining a light on the underexposed aspects of human life to reveal humour and heartbreak in unexpected places. The book was compiled as a side-project while she wrote (or avoided writing) her second film. July set out to interview thirteen individuals who placed advertisements in the Los Angeles newspaper the Pennysaver , hoping to find out about the lives behind the funny little ads for tadpoles and  large leather jackets.  She took photographer Brigitte Sire with her, and the result is a book filled with the stories of the interior lives of ordinary people, accompanied by thoughtful portraits of the people and their homes.

July’s style is tender and understated. Her interview questions are gentle and respectful, allowing her subjects to weave their own narratives . Her subjects are from all walks of life – a nervous teenage boy, a strong immigrant mother, a remarkable transsexual woman. The anecdotes they tell are in turn funny and sad, often at the same time. It’s amazing what people will reveal to you if only you ask, and that’s one of the key themes of July’s work here – in a big city it is easy to remain isolated from the people surrounding you, but it only takes a little effort to see the richness in a stranger’s life.

It Chooses You is a beautifully put together book filled with touching stories from ordinary people. I’ll never look at the Trading Post in the same way again.

Laura M.

The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

In a dystopian future, an oppressive regime has the power to keep 12 districts in line from a single gleaming capitol city.  To display their power, as punishment for a failed rebellion and simply for their own entertainment, the capitol demands one male and one female teenager from each district every year.  These tributes compete against each other in a televised battle to the death.

I resisted reading The Hunger Games for a long time.  The premise above really didn’t appear to have much room for depth, but I read the first few chapters of my mother’s copy when she was visiting one weekend and reserved a copy for myself the next day.

It’s well written.  Right from the start the protagonist, Katniss, is a believable and likable character, but more importantly, the tension between the capitol and the districts is obvious.  Katniss is a hard and sometimes cold character, but she’s inherently good.   She loves her sister and looks after her family any way she can, but Katniss is headed for the barbarism of the Hunger Games where only one tribute can survive.  While many of her opponents there are vicious killers there is also Peeta, the male tribute from her home district who’s act of kindness towards her years earlier has Katniss feeling indebted to him and Rue, the youngest competitor in the games who reminds Katniss of her own sister.  

Katniss enters the games with her life and her humanity, and while we can foresee ways for her to survive the games with one, surviving with both seems impossible.

Michael L.

Fated – S. G. Browne

Fate is a real, his name is Fabio.  It’s his job to determine the fates of most of the human population and it’s a job he is completely sick of.  He’s sick of his humans consistently choosing paths that lead to unfortunate and often early ends, and he’s jealous of Destiny, whose humans are chosen for great deeds.  Many other immortal beings such as, Death, Karma, Lady Luck, Truth, Honesty, all the seven deadly sins, and many more also exist and this setup immediately had me associating the book with Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, which I absolutely love.  Unfortunately for me, Fated is a very different beast.

Many characters are introduced throughout Fated, mostly other anthropomorphic personifications of various human traits, but very few make repeat appearances and unfortunately even the main characters are one dimensional.  Browne does very little world-building either, and if you look too closely at what there is it often seems either contradictory or simply not explained deeply enough to understand how it’s all meant to work.

What seems to make or break this book is the humour.  It’s meant to be black humour, and while I did laugh at a few of the jokes, I found the tone and pacing of the book too inconsistent to truly enjoy it.  Looking online however, many people laughed all the way through this book and it was often awarded 5 stars by those that did.

The last thing that needs to be mentioned about Fated is the ending.  It’s weird.  After finishing the book, I suddenly had to re-evaluate the entire story to try to make sense of the ending.  I couldn’t.

Michael L.