Alice in Zombieland by Lewis Carroll and Nickolas Cook
Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel and Brent Cardillo
ISBN: 9781402256219
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Release Date: March 2011

FTC disclosure: Review copy provided by publisher

I had a lot of fun reading this. You may not. It depends on your sensibilities and expectations.

First of all, this is a humor book. The reader is asked to lighten up and go along for the ride. To have fun and not to dwell too heavily on the fact that there is little originality to the story except for the characterizations and some of the settings.

As some reviewers have noted, and criticized Cook for, is the sense that he did not make this work his own as much as Seth Grahame-Smith did with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

It’s obvious from the beginning that he took Carroll’s work and merely altered it.

Either he did not feel the need to reinvent, or this is a slapped out, bandwagon jumping effort to take advantage of the success of the types of books I listed above.

Even the publisher acknowledges this in an offhand way:

“A fresh and hilarious new zombie mash-up, bringing the hottest format on the humor shelf to a beloved classic, complete with zombie-fied updates to the renowned illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. Sure to be a major hit with humor, Alice and zombie enthusiasts everywhere!”

Uh, I’m not sure about that last part.

Yes, people who spend time in the humor section of the bookstore will like this book. Zombie enthusiasts should like the tack Cook takes with the story. But diehard Alice fans? I’m not so sure. From what I’ve seen around the web, not all were thrilled with Cook’s efforts.

I made it easy on myself and just read expecting nothing more than to have a giggle at Alice’s adventures through a dark and disturbing world. It was a fun read, but challenging at times.

The review copy I received was very raw. The errors in this unfinished product got to me, especially toward the end of the book. This however is the nature of the beast when dealing with an uncorrected proof. So I cannot fault the writer or the story heavily for things that should be fixed by the time this review is published.

If you are expecting something along the lines of what Grahame-Smith as done, forget it. Not even close.

If you are expecting a light, fun, humorous and horrifying read (especially the last chapter as it gets gory) – you will like this.

I do have a problem recommending it, because when it comes to humor, you can’t please all the people all the time. What tickles my funny bone, won’t necessarily do the same to others.

It was dark, disturbing, creepy, and humorous and I will be passing it around at work as there are a few who asked to read it once I was finished.

Here are some other reviews so you can see for yourself if this is a book for you:

• Amy J at My Overstuffed Bookshelf
• CelticLady’s review
• Angela Renee over at Royal Reviews
• Review at My Guilty Pleasures
• Alternative Worlds review by Harriet Klausner

 Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen (2008)
 Fiction, 256 pages
 First Picador Edition, May 2009
 Published by Picador

 Read for Picador Book Club:
 Picador’s Twitter Account
 The discussion of this book
 Note: Due to some technical difficulties, not all participants, including myself, were recorded by Twitter.

“Last December a woman entered my apartment who looked exactly like my wife.”

So starts the story of Dr. Leo Liebenstein and his search for his “real” wife Rema. However, it’s not that easy.  As the reader comes to discover, reality is in the eye of the beholder. Is Rema really an imposter? Or is Leo having a crisis such that he can no longer recognize what he once took for granted? That what he has known all along is no longer the same. People change. But in his eyes, she is so different, she has to be another person altogether.

This book has received mixed reviews, and I can understand why. It isn’t for everyone. But…and there’s always a “but”, the mixed reviews come from readers like me who understand many works of literary merit, but not at the level of a professor or professional critic.

In the New York Times and some Lit-Fic blogs, it was received extremely well. And let me tell you, reading those reviews intimidated me about as much as the book did.

Although she has intellectualized and mystified her subject, intentionally obscuring it in a dry-ice fog of pseudoscience, the emotional peaks beneath her cloud retain their definition. — Liesl Schillinger, New York Times

This is a first for me.  Dostoyevsky hasn’t done it. Kafka’s come close. I’m not even going to attempt Proust. I know my limits. Yet in reading the book, and some of those reviews, I felt like “I” was the problem. If I were only more educated or intelligent, I would feel the same as these learned folk.

Which is crap. No one should read a book and be left feeling inadequate.

As I’ve said before, probably more than once, the reader brings to each book their own voice, the one in their mind that reads the narrative and deciphers its meaning. It is a voice schooled by life experiences as much as academia. And mine, apparently, isn’t up to the task of having to work as hard as I did to try and get through this book.

That doesn’t mean this is a poorly written book with a dismal plot and undeveloped characters. On the contrary, this book cannot be faulted for any of those reasons.

On simple terms, this is a story about relationships: one between a husband and wife and the other, of the person we are and the person we are expected to be. It is about what happens when these relationships break down and how, if not reconciled, we deal with the resulting fall out of loving someone we thought we knew – but didn’t, not completely.

As time passes, I will begin to wonder how far my collaboration with the simulacrum might, or could, or should, or shouldn’t go. Perhaps we’ll eventually find ourselves wholly making believe as if she is the original Rema, as if nothing has happened. That is perhaps what we were meant to do. Be partners in solving a poorly defined crime. Appear normal.

Rating this book is hard because I’m unsure of it being tarnished by the fact that I’m not cerebral enough to make this book work for me as it has for others. Also, it could be, that I just don’t have the right mindset at the moment to give this book a fair shake.

But this is my blog. This is where I share with you my opinions about the books I read. Thus, according to my rating system, it is getting 2 out of 5 stars. I cannot say I “barely” finished the book – it wasn’t that much of a chore. But it was a struggle.

To be fair, I am linking below other reviews of this book that should give you more insight than I have. Please base your decision to read Galchen’s novel based on the overall impression gleaned from all of these opinions — not just mine:

By other bloggers: (2 positive, 1 negative)

Review of Atmospheric Disturbances by Michelle over at 1morechapter.com
Another review by Raych at Books I Done Read
And one more by Tim over at Baby Got Books
What’s being said over at LibraryThing about this book
(not a blog, but many bloggers and regular readers post here)

By magazines/newspapers (All positive)

As reviewed by Jonathon Gibbs at The Independent.co.uk
Who Do You Love? by Liesl Schillinger, New York Times
She’s Not Herself by James Wood, The New Yorker
A Relative Stranger by Ron Charles, The Washington Post

Rivka Galchen is a writer and physician. She is currently an adjunct professor in the writing division of Columbia University’s School of Art.

Her essay on the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics was published in The Believer, and she is the recipient of a 2006 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Atmospheric Disturbances is her first novel.

I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti by Giulia Melucci
Scheduled Release Date: April 8, 2009
Non-Fiction (Memoir), 288 pages
Grand Central Publishing

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by:
Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Synopsis:
Giulia Melucci tells her story of romances gone bad and recipes done well. Along the way she shares mouthwatering recipes and her musings on why she is so good at something she loves while not so good at love itself.

I would’ve used the synopsis off the back cover, but I didn’t particularly care for it. I know the publisher is trying to get the reader to open her up, go for a test drive, and buy the book, but on this occasion it was a bit much. For some reason Billy Mays’ voice kept leaping into my head each time I read it.

To be honest, I had a hard time writing this review. I kept wondering if the issues I had while reading this were strictly mine, the format, or the tone. I’ve come to the conclusion it’s a little bit of all three.

Not that this is a bad read – it really isn’t. However the flow of the story is continually interrupted by the placement of recipes. Every time the author remembers one from her childhood, or when trying to impress or de-stress, it was inserted immediately into the narrative. It’s very distracting.

There were also some style issues. The author writes well: however in the beginning, and in a few instances later on, the writing is a bit clunky and not well formed. Of course, this being an ARC, it is entirely possible these items will be smoothed out in the finished book.

But there are some gems:

Though my perception of Kit throughout the four years we were together remained as distorted as it was the day after our first date, when it came to putting distance between us, he met me halfway.

Even with statements like this, she never garnered much feeling from me. Not that this is the goal of the book. She just didn’t share anything in her remembrances or insights that resonated strongly with me. More often than not, I just wanted to shake some sense into her. I have to say though, I did enjoy her sense of humor, especially when naming some of those recipes – and the directions given for them.

When I finally finished, I was left with an undecided attitude about whether or not I really liked what I’d read. It’s so strange to feel this way. I don’t hate the book, but I can’t say it thrilled me all that much either.

At the time of this post, there weren’t many reviews out there for me to determine if I’m much off the mark about my feelings for this memoir. From what I was able to find, most have given this the same rating I had decided on before doing any research.

Thus, I am giving it 2 Stars as it did need a little effort to finish due to the constant breaks in the narrative. However, at only 288 pages, this would be a good book to take on a weekend retreat. Maybe a spot with a well equipped kitchen as I can tell you, some of the recipes are very tempting.