Leverage by Joshua Cohen

Leverage by Joshua Cohen
"The football field is a battlefield

There's an extraordinary price for victory at Oregrove High. It is paid on-and off-the football field. And it claims its victims without mercy-including the most innocent bystanders.

When a violent, steroid-infused, ever-escalating prank war has devastating consequences, an unlikely friendship between a talented but emotionally damaged fullback and a promising gymnast might hold the key to a school's salvation.

Told in alternating voices and with unapologetic truth, Leverage illuminates the fierce loyalty, flawed justice, and hard-won optimism of two young athletes."- summary from Amazon

This is one REALLY intense book. Like, for reals intense. I had to actually put it down several times because I just needed a breather from it all. Cohen pulls no punches in this 400+ page novel. It's realistic, raw, heartbreaking as well as uplifting (well, in the end), and insanely intense.

If you know me at all, I am not a football fan. Yeah, I have teams I root for (Redskins and Steelers) but that's only based on familial loyalty (Mom is from Pittsburgh) or geographical proximity (I grew up outside DC). So I never really understand why people get so worked up over football- the people playing it, the coaches, the parents. It's just a GAME, not a life or death situation here. What Cohen shows here is a raw look into how far people will go to win and be "strong". Strong is in quotes because what I like about this book is that the football people only view strength in one way- being bulky and huge, winning all the time, being what they deem to be manly. But Cohen shows there is strength in so many other ways, like in different sports (Danny is a gymnast, a sport football looks down on) or even having the courage to speak up when something is seriously wrong.

In the summary, steroids are mentioned. In this story, it's one of those things where people have an idea that it's going on, but don't really care as long as it works and the team wins. Some of the football players take it, but not all. The three who do take it are COMPLETELY messed up in the head and almost become like animals at times. It was interesting for Cohen to really show that in the story and just how these characters were kinda shaped. It felt like they were always kind of like that and the steroids just brought it out more. What bothered me a lot was that the Coach was actually GIVING this stuff to his players. The Coach is a whole other story though- he runs his football team like it's a war zone (he actually calls them "soldiers" several times), and he makes fun of them a lot when they're maybe slacking a tiny bit (calling them ladies and that they need to be wearing dresses). This is where all the problems start- the Coach is making them think they own the school and are gods. The parents aren't much better; one scene later in the novel sticks out to me prominently. Calm the eff down and just have some fun. Football is not THAT important, nor should it be.

I really enjoyed the dual perspective of this novel- it was utilized in such a good way and just really worked for this story. Both characters were exciting and interesting to read, and the secondary characters are mostly fleshed out well. The story was really compelling, and the ending was simply a work of art. I literally didn't put the book down for the last 100 pages. It was amazing. I do wish there had been a bit more but I can live with how it ended.

Overall, a really amazing, realistic, intense debut novel and one I think everyone should read, even if you don't like football (this may actually give you more of a reason to hate football, lol). Although let me say that there is some graphic content in the book (and lots of swears) so keep that in mind when deciding to read this book or when giving it to someone else.

Wednesday Comics Hardcover by Various

There's a scene in Seinfeld where Kramer goes on a book tour to promote his coffee table book, which, coincidentally, is about coffee tables and also has pop-out legs so it can double as a coffee table. That's kind of the way I feel about DC Comics' Wednesday Comics hardcover. This is a gargantuan book - at 11"x18" it's unlikely you've seen a graphic novel like this before. And while it doesn't have pop-out legs, I'm sure you could probably use it as a lap desk comfortably.

The good thing about this particular size is that, while it does make for some unwieldy reading, it also perfectly simulates the original publishing format of this material. Wednesday Comics was a weekly experimental format tried by DC in the summer of 2009 to emulate the style of Sunday color comic strips. Each of the twelve issues was published on newspaper-sized newsprint and featured a selection of stories by top comics creative talent. I raved about it when it first started right here on GuysLitWire, so take a look at that early preview if you want more details about the original format.

While the newsprint version of Wednesday Comics definitely harkened back to an old style of print media, the hardcover screams the merits of high tech publishing. The colors and bold lines of the original were striking, but they are now rendered with amazing clarity on high-quality paper. And, while it was nice to read weekly installments of each of the anthology stories, it's better still to read them all in one sitting to get the full effect intended by the writers and artists (and fortunately DC decided to publish each story in its entirety before moving to the next one, rather than emulating the original anthology format).

Speaking of which, don't expect amazing, earth-shattering stories here. It's clear from the get-go that this is a project aimed at emphasizing the artwork, and it does that very, very well. Most of the stories are fun, quickly-digested bits of trifle with maybe a cliffhanger or two thrown in for good measure. The exceptions to this are Neil Gaiman and Michael Allred's bizarrely-Clutch Cargo take on Metamorpho, the Element Man and the almost-obscenely perfect Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth story by Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook. Most of the others are exciting eye candy - not that there's anything wrong with that. Just give a quick glance at Kyle Baker's Hawkman story and you'll marvel at just how good an artist the man actually is.

At its best, the Wednesday Comics hardback is an explosively eye-catching art book, filled with some of the best the comics industry has to offer. At its worst, well.... for a fan or even a rabid, comics-reading kid, I just don't see a downside. I just wish I could still pick up great stuff like this for a quarter at my local Red & White.

The Fourth Realm Trilogy

The Golden City, the last of John Twelve Hawks Fourth Realm Trilogy books is now available, concluding the series that begins with The Traveler and continues with The Dark River. The story centers around two brothers, Michael and Gabriel Corrigan, who discover that they are each "Travelers," people with the ability to separate their souls from their bodies in order to travel to other realms. Pretty much all of the great thinkers and leaders, especially those with a mystical or philosophical bent, were Travelers. Jesus was a Traveler as were the Buddha and Plato. Many of the revolutionary ideas these figures brought to humanity were learned from their voyages to these parallel realms.

Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History by Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson

When we think of history and history changers, we often think of people. Maybe laws, like Brown v. Board of Education, or devices, like the computer. Molecules generally are not the first thing that come to mind.

Maybe they should be.

Just as metals have changed the course of history (gold, bronze, iron, anyone?), so have molecules. In Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History, authors and chemists Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson delve into seventeen groups of molecules, explaining their historical importance and chemical makeup.

Take spices like pepper, nutmeg, and cloves. They were so important to Europeans, and so expensive, that kingdoms launched fleets of ships searching for their source and new trade routes. What made them so desirable? In chapter one, Le Couteur and Burreson breakdown both the historical and chemical reasons for this, as well as how the world changed as a result.

One side effect of long journeys over the open ocean was scurvy. (Well, perhaps "side effect" is not a strong enough phrase, since scurvy could be lethal.) Scurvy is caused by a deficiency of vitamin C, ascorbic acid--the subject of chapter two. It turns out that most vertebrates produce ascorbic acid in the liver. Since primates--including humans--do not, we must ingest it in some way as part of our diet, whether from oranges or industrially manufactured pills.

(Let me tell you, as someone who used to watch James Burke's Connections² and Connections³, and is a fan of microhistories, I love reading about these kinds of relationships.)

We are then introduced to rest of the molecules first by their historical context--why is it so important in terms of world history?--before Le Couteur and Burreson examine its chemistry. In addition to describing how different molecules are bonded, they include diagrams of chemical structures, which helps readers spot similarities between them. Considering each chapter is around 20 pages long, they pack a lot of information into the book while keeping it very readable. The historical sections clearly detail their rationale for inclusion, and while the chemical explanations are at times complex, overall, it's enough for laypeople to get the gist of the hows and the whys.

The authors acknowledge the choice of which molecules to include were personal ones and that the "book is not about the history of chemistry; rather it is about chemistry in history." As such, it omits major figures like Humphry Davy, who would certainly appear in books "about the history of chemistry." Depending on your personal interests, you may find some chapters more fascinating than others, and some chapters were heavier on the chemistry than the rest.

As for the title, it comes Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. One theory to explain the French army's failure is that tin buttons were used on their uniforms to fasten trousers, jackets, and greatcoats. In cold temperatures, tin disintegrates into powder, which obviously would not keep clothes fastened and therefore increased the soldiers' exposure to the cold. There are several problems with this theory, though, one of them being that “the disintegration of tin is a reasonably slow process.” (If it's elements that you're interested in, pick up Sam Kean's The Disappearing Spoon, recommended by another Guys Lit Wire blogger last year.)

Book source: public library.

Cross-posted at The YA YA YAs.

The Secret Journeys of Jack London Blog Tour

Are you ready to take a journey into the wild?

Bestselling authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon have teamed up to create THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON. Jack certainly lived a wild life, which inspired Golden & Lebbon to create this new book series based on his real-life travels. They've taken his true stories and his fiction and mixed in urban legends and myths of the time. While THE SECRET JOURNEYS series is fiction, not biography, the books are extremely well-researched, and spooky elements add another level of intrigue to the richly detailed stories.

The first book, THE WILD, will be released on Tuesday, March 1st. When seventeen-year-old Jack London travels to Alaska to join the Klondike Gold Rush, the path he treads is not at all what he expected. Along the way, he encounters kidnappers, traders, traitors, and a mysterious wolf. Jack must face the wild head-on in order to survive.

The buzz for THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON just keeps getting louder. 20th Century Fox has acquired the film rights to the series. Garth Nix, author of the Abhorsen Trilogy, declared: "A masterful mix of gold, cold, supernatural creatures, and dread magic makes this a great action adventure story." Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy, calls THE WILD "A great old-school adventure novel and the best use of the Wendigo legend I've ever read."

Authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon will launch a blog tour the day before the book's release, beginning at Bildungsroman http://slayground.livejournal.com on Monday, February 28th and traveling through the blogs of YA/kidlit bloggers who are also teachers, librarians, and/or adventurers through Tuesday, March 8th. Each tour stop will offer an exclusive piece of art from Greg Ruth, whose stunning illustrations give life to the characters, locations, and beasts throughout the book.

Being a fan of both Jack London's classic works and Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon's collaborations, I'm quite excited to be heading up this blog tour. Here's the full schedule:

Monday, February 28th
Little Willow at Bildungsroman

Tuesday, March 1st
Kiba Rika (Kimberly Hirsh) of Lectitans

Wednesday, March 2nd
Kim Baccellia from Si, Se Puede! and Young Adults Book Central

Thursday, March 3rd
Melissa Walker, author of Small Town Sinners

Friday, March 4th
Justin from Little Shop of Stories

Monday, March 7th
Rebecca's Book Blog

Tuesday, March 8th
Martha Brockenbrough, author of Things That Make Us [Sic]

Learn more about the book, the series, and the authors, and download the electronic press kit for THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON.

A Tale Dark & Grimm

Once upon a time, someone decided that fairy tales were just for babies, and everyone suffered as a result. Recently, thanks to writers and scholars like Neil Gaiman and Jack Zipes, we have had breakthroughs in getting fairy tales back to their morbid, non-cutesy beginnings.

In A Tale Dark and Grimm, Adam Gidwitz’s first book, readers are provided with a relatable guide through a macabre world that some guys might feel that they’ve outgrown since shedding their final pull-up diaper. Luckily, the Brothers Grimm had a few tricks up their sleeves all those years ago. Gidwitz replicates some of them here including an electrifying sense of creepiness and blood…lots of blood.

Of course you have the gingerbread house and the trail of bread crumbs, very well tread territory. But with each chapter, readers will be undoubtedly exposed to more obscure, though equally captivating tales with sinister figures and magical moments. Every chapter is a different story, but they all manage to create a single thread. The book kicks off with the tale “Faithful Johannes” where people turn into stone and a couple of severed heads lead to, believe it or not, a happy ending where everyone is safe and sound.

Those heads belong to the young Hansel and Gretel (of bizarre child culinary fame). Even though everything ended well for them post-decapitation in the first chapter, something does not sit right with the fact that they were the ones to lose their noggins. They travel the world looking for some responsible adults who will take good care of them. What they find, unfortunately, are a lot of horrid people who want to hunt them, murder them, cook them, eat them…not always in that order though.

UNBROKEN by Laura Hillenbrand

I read a lot of history. I have a passionate desire to know the past. When you read about our history as a country, a world, and a species, you get a sense of many things. I gain a better understanding of how we got here, how the world works and doesn’t work, historical empathy for the past and its people, and a better appreciation for my own fortunate life. I also see this: the world has been filled with many extraordinary people, and that human beings have the capacity to commit unimaginable acts of horror on other people.

Specific parts and images of these books remain inside me, silently haunting deep recesses of my brain. I read Philip Gourevitch’s book on the Rwandan genocide, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families; I read Jonathan Glover’s “Moral History of the Twentieth Century,” Humanity; I read Dee Brown’s classic of Native American history, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee; and I have read young adult novels, such as Ben Mikelson’s Tree Girl, about the brutal Guatemalan Civil War. And now I have read Laura Hillenbrand’s remarkable biography of Louis Zamperini, Unbroken. You should too.

As a kid, Louis Zamperini was trouble. He had trouble with his parents, the police, and his neighbors. His brother saved him. He convinced Louie to take up running and eventually Zamperini became a world-class runner. At 19 years old he ran in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. He didn’t win – he didn’t really expect to win being so young – but he ran the last lap of the 5000 meter in such an astonishing 56 seconds, that Hitler called him over and shook his hand. Little did Zamperini know how ironic that handshake would turn out to be.

Zamperini’s best race was the 1500 meter, and he expected to run it and win it at the 1940 Olympics in Tokyo. Needless to say, a World War got in the way. Louie joined the Air Force and became a bombardier on a B-26. Hillenbrand’s account of one his bombing missions will leave you breathless and full of wonder: How could they possibly survive that? When their plane landed it had 594 holes in it.

Another one of their flights did not end so well. In fact, they went down in the Pacific Ocean. Zamperini and two other crewmembers survived. The three of them were in two plastic life rafts in the middle of the Pacific. They had very little water and a few chocolate bars. They survived in those rafts for an unbelievable 47 days. How they did it, and what they encountered, has become the stuff of legend. But Louie’s story does not end there.

They were rescued near the Marshall Islands, then occupied by the Japanese, and became prisoners of war. Most people know of the inconceivable madness and terror the Nazis perpetrated in their concentration camps. But most people have no idea of the brutality of the Japanese during World War II. (You can get the horrifying picture of that in Iris Chang’s book, The Rape of Nanking). Being a prisoner of war under the Japanese in the Pacific was nearly a death sentence. Hillenbrand offers this statistic near the end of her book: during World War II about one percent of Americans in German and Italian POW camps died, but in Japanese POW camps 37 percent died. Being a famous Olympic athlete meant Louie was singled out by his Japanese overseers. He received years of beatings, torture, starvation, and humiliation. Nothing I write here can come close to expressing what Louie endured as a POW. Yet, he survived. Louie is alive and well at 94.

Hillenbrand’s book is not without fault. The story is amazing, and once you are inside it, you will be sucked along. Her writing, however, gave me some pause. The book is very well written, but in a very “just the facts” manner. In the entire 400 pages she quotes Louie exactly once. For some reason, Hillenbrand chose to not include Louie’s voice in the book. And while it has been widely reported that she interviewed Zamperini 75 times, Hillenbrand (who also wrote the best-selling Seabiscuit) suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome and rarely leaves the house. In fact, Hillenbrand and Zamperini have never met face to face. Another reviewer of this book made a very salient point: you learn more about a person when they are sitting in front of you than when they are on the other end of a telephone or computer. Because of this there is a certain odd distance in the writing of Unbroken and along with it an uncritical perspective from author to subject.

But let’s be crystal clear: Unbroken is a great and important book. I will add it to my list of books that opened up the past, helped me to appreciate my present, and really do make me a better person. Reading history – and this remarkable story of the perseverance of Louie Zamperini -- can aid us all in shaping a more humane world.

High Literature meets Graphic Novels: Kill Shakespeare and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Graphic novels are a great format for exploring mash-ups and re-worked classic stories. Here are a couple of interesting examples of recently released graphic novels based on classics.

Kill Shakespeare by Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col is an inventive comic in the vein of Bill Willingham's Fables. It is centered initially around Hamlet who mistakenly kills Polonius while attempting to avenge his father's death. As he flees his homeland, a pirate attack results in Hamlet being the "guest" of King Richard III. Richard is imploring Hamlet to join with him find and destroy the powerful wizard or god named William Shakespeare.

Richard and his men think Hamlet may be the Shadow King that is fated to kill Shakespeare. Shakespeare, however, has a horde of fanatical followers and there is much more at stake here than Hamlet realizes. Kill Shakespeare gathers some of the bard's most popular heroes like Othello and Juliet and faces them off against Richard III, Lady Macbeth and others.

Readers of Shakespeare will enjoy a lot of the literary references and the flurry of alliances, backstabbing and dramatic turns, but you don't have to be a fan of the source material to enjoy this. Kill Shakespeare is heavy on the action and Anthony Belanger's illustrations are as vibrant and colorful as the plot.

Fans of the graphic novels Castle Waiting and Fables will also enjoy this title.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: the graphic novel is a new version of Seth Grahame-Smith's take on the Jane Austen classic. There has been a lot of talk about these classics being re-worked to include zombies, androids, sea monsters, vampires and other fun oddities. Last year, the author released his second such novel with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

I love it when comic versions of novels that I should read, but will probably never fit in my reading schedule, are released. In this work, England is being overrun by zombies, or "unmentionables" as they are known, and it is up to citizens like Elizabeth Bennet to become warriors. As in the classic, Elizabeth and the pretentious Mr. Darcy flirt and banter continually with each other, though they also they fight zombies.

I haven't read Graham-Smith's novel, but Tony Lee's version of the plot seems to flow well without the awkward transitions you sometimes find in adaptations. The illustrations by Cliff Richards are in a different style than I expected and I would appreciate more detail, but the sketchy, black and white style works fairly well in this context. I grew a bit tired of the pattern of some romance then some zombie attacks which repeated over and over, but I imagine fans of the novel expect exactly this. I found it a light, enjoyable read, which was not really special in any way.

Besides the obvious zombie and Jane Austen books, I would recommend this to fans of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

The Dead-Tossed Waves

The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan may not at first glance seem the ideal book to be reading in the dread middle of February, when everything is grey and dark and cold and the snow (if you've got any) has turned black with grit. Like you need any more bleak right now, right? As it turns out, Ryan's novel is a love story and a survival story, and really, what else is February about? If love and survival don't interest you, I'll just add one more thing that might convince you: zombies.

This novel is a companion to Ryan's hugely popular debut, The Forest of Hands and Teeth. (Such a great title, yes?) If you haven't read that one yet, you do want to start there, because a great part of the impact of The Dead-Tossed Waves comes from the way that Ryan continues to add richness to the world she began developing in her first book. You can read a review of her debut right here at Guys Lit Wire). The Dead-Tossed Waves begins years after where things left off at the end of The Forest of Hands and Teeth. Gabry lives with her mother in Vista, a seaside town kept safe behind the Barrier. They live in a lighthouse and it is Gabry's mother's role to go down to the beach at high tide and kill any Mudo (zombies) that wash up onto the beach. Gabry knows little of her mother's past, but she knows that the Forest was part of it. While Gabry is curious about the past, and wonders about the precariousness of the future, she is mostly happy to live safely inside her protected town. Then one night she sneaks over the Barrier with a bunch of her friends and disaster strikes. Her mother disappears into the Forest and Gabry must follow her. One reckless choice changes her future forever and forces Gabry to do things she never imagined.

While I don't think that this companion novel is ultimately as successful as Ryan's debut, I think that it will satisfy most of the fans of the first book. In my opinion, Gabry is not as complex and believable a character as Mary (her mother in this book / the main character in Forest of Hands and Teeth). I thought Gabry's reactions to her situation were predictable and not particularly well-explored. I'd have liked more detail on the Soulers (freaky zombie worshippers) and a lot more related to the Recruiters, the military force responsible for keeping the Mudo (and disobedient citizens) in line. The love triangle didn't fully work for me. I kept feeling that Ryan was going for a Katniss - Peeta - Gale thing, and not quite making it work. In places I found it a little over the top and unbelievable that there would be quite so much lusting going on in the midst of all those moaning zombies.

There are many great aspects to the novel. Ryan has a strong sense of pacing. Things happen and keep on happening. Things get worse and then even worse. On her website, Ryan describes her writing process this way: "I sit down and think: "what's the worst thing that can happen?" Well obviously she's pretty good at this, because that method leads Ryan to a compelling story. The themes around hope, loss, and self-discovery interweave nicely and are presented with enough depth to inspire some discussion. The writing is often vivid but isn't heavy or overdone.

Carrie Ryan's third book in this collection, The Dark and Hollow Places, will be out in March, so you won't have long to wait to find out what happens next in this dark, well-crafted series.

B.P.R.D.-- a team of heroes against mythical horrors

Many readers may be familiar with Hellboy, Mike Mignola’s cigar-chomping, son-of-the-devil supernatural detective. There have been two Hellboy movies and nearly a dozen volumes of his self-titled comics—not to mention novels and resource guides and art books. There’s even been a review here on guyslitwire not too long ago. There was also a review of the Lobster Johnson novel, and that points to a lesser-known aspect to what is informally known as the “Mignola-verse”—Hellboy may be the biggest character in his world, but he’s by no means alone. He occupies an entire history or mythology of human (and otherwise) contact with the mysterious, the horrific, and the unknown.

In the world of Hellboy, Lobster Johnson was a 1930s pulp-hero, similar to Doc Samson or the Shadow. There’s also the Victorian-era supernatural detective Edward Grey, also known as the Witchfinder, a title he shares with the Puritan era Witchfinder Henry Hood. Each of these characters has fought demons and monsters in the pages of Hellboy, but there is one set of characters that have as many volumes of comics out as Hellboy: the brave heroes of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, or the B.P.R.D.