Title: Why We Broke Up
Author: Daniel Handler
Illustrator: Maira Kalman
Publisher: Little, Brown Books
Published: December 2011
Where I got the book: Review Copy from Publisher

From the back cover:

This is the box, Ed.

Inside is everything.

Two bottle caps,
a movie ticket from Greta in the Wild,
a note from you,
a box of matches,
your protractor,
Joan’s book,
the stolen sugar,
a toy truck,
those ugly earrings,
a comb from the motel,
and the rest of it.

This is it, Ed.

The whole store of why we broke up.

Review:

Let’s see how long I can go without mistakenly referring to Daniel Handler as Lemony Snicket. Oh damn, I just did it didn’t I? I might as well get this out of the way then. Yes, Handler and Snicket are the same person. However, in terms of writing style, they are vastly different. Why We Broke Up, Handler’s third book released under his real name, lacks the wit and sharpness found in the Series of Unfortunate Events series, yet We We Broke Up does have its own merit and is worth considering.

Why We Broke Up is a love story told in hindsight. Minerva, Min for short, and Ed had a relationship that ended (i’m not spoiling anything, just rephrasing the book’s title). This book is written as if it were a long letter from Min to Ed explaining the events of their relationship that caused Min to end it.

Min is a geeky film fanatic who falls in love with Ed, co-captain of the high school basketball team. When they first meet, it’s clear that these two characters are not meant for each other; they are complete opposites. For some reason, they hit it off and decide to give it shot. Ed and Min try to become more involved in the actives that interest the other, Min going to his games and Ed seeing weird, arty films. There were points where Ed drops his jock personality and appears to be actually interested in the things Min is into. In those moments I believed that there might be a future for their relationship.

Since Min is the narrator here, it’s impossible to tell if she is retelling the events as they actually happened, or if she’s putting her own personal, spiteful spin on them. For most of the book I didn’t think Ed was that bad of a guy. If anything, I thought Min’s stubbornness might be the real reason they broke up and not all the items she lists. Mayhaps she was adding spite to the letter just to hurt Ed’s feelings as he reads it.

By the end of the book, when the big reason why they broke up is revealed, it’s one of those moments that could only be described as ‘anti-climatic’. The final reason made perfect sense as to why they broke up, but it also makes all the other reasons that came before it less impactful. I mean, really, a toy truck is one of the reasons they broke up, oh, and that big thing too. I understand from a literary stand point that Handler had to work up to the climax of the book, but when it hits, it makes all the other reasons (and the 300+ pages spent explaining them) seem kind of moot.

We We Broke Up is a sad story about a couple that shouldn’t be together. The reader knows it, and they’re waiting for the moment for it to dawn on Min or Ed. This book does a really good job at being unique compared to all the other YA novels about two teenagers who fall in love and it worth checking out if the initial premises sounds like something you would like.

Closing Thoughts: I liked this book, but it was a bit of a downer. Also, are high school students really this annoying/stupid?

Question: Can we get some more Lemony Snicket books please? A Series of More Unfortunate Events?

Second Opinions: 
The Story Siren
Muggle-Born.net
Reading Vacation

The short film below was nominated for Best Short Film for the upcoming Academy Awards. Since it’s centered around Mr. Morris Lessmore and his love of books, I figure it was worth posting here. Enjoy!

It’s 2012. It’s been 2012 for the past two weeks now and it’s been nearly four years since I started this blog. Originally, I started this blog for two reasons. The first was that I wanted a venue for me to talk about the books I read. I read a lot of books so, in my mind, it wouldn’t be too hard to simply write a few words about each book I read and post it on here. I, of course, was wrong. Do you know how hard it is to post about everybody you read immediately after you read it? Damn near impossible for a procrastinator like myself. As much as I hate to admit it, there is sometimes the period of a month in between me finishing a book and me posting the review. I’m a terrible book reviewer. I’m working on accepting that about myself.

The second reason I started this blog was because I am an aspiring writer. Granted, I haven’t been published and my novel is in a perpetual state of “work in progress”, but someday I hope to get it to a point where I am comfortable with other people reading what I’ve wrote. That “someday” will be in 2012, or else. “Or else” what I do not know. This blog directly relates to aspiring writing career. I know times are changing and self-publishing your own e-book is becoming more and more common for authors. Just ask author Jonathan Selwood (I greatly enjoyed his first novel,The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse) who self-e-published his second novel, Die Like a Girl
. I’ve been brought up on the belief that being a successful author means landing a book deal with a major publisher. Yet over these past four years as I’ve watched the book industry evolve, I have been forces to accept the fact that I may never see any of my books in print, only in digital formats. I’m fine with this. I believe you can be a successful self-e-published author.

I got a Kindle Fire for christmas. It seemed like the time to jump on the e-reader bandwagon and the Fire appealed to me. I’ll properly review the Fire later on (you know, in about a month), but after playing around with it, I’ve become more OK with books moving to digital. I don’t believe print is going anywhere anytime soon. There will still be books and authors that I must have a hard copy of. But there are also books that I am fine only having a digital copy of.

Getting back to the second reason, this blog is marketing tool for my brand. I am my own brand: Colin Matthew, the book pirate. Aside from here I also have my twitter (@thebookpirate) and that’s it. I don’t particularly enjoy trying to market myself, but it’s become a necessity for all authors with the exception of Stephen King or John Grisham.

Now long ago I was contact by a representative from ooshirts.com pitching the idea of expanding my brand to include t-shirt. While I have nothing I personally wanted to put on a shirt, it is something I could see other authors doing to strengthen their brand. Artists in particular could benefit from featuring their art on shirts and selling them. With writers it’s harder since we focus on words, but we’re nothing if not creative and it would be possible to make some cool book-related shirts. In fact, in my closet I have a bunch of t-shirts that could be described as “literary” and I frequently get compliments on them when I wear them to Powells. I took ooshirts.com up on their offer to give them a try and had them print up a t-shirt featuring the artwork of Terry Blas (with his permission of course). The final result can be seen below. Overall, I like the quality of the shirt and the way it turned out.

The only other thing I can think of that I might make as a self-marketing tool is bookmarks. Everybody needs bookmarks! Well, unless you’re reading on a Kindle Fire.

Anyway, to sum up, 2012 will be interesting.

Title: Making Money
Author: Terry Pratchett
Read By: Stephen Briggs
Publisher: HarperAudio
Published: September 2007
Where I got the book: Audible

From the back cover:

Postmaster general Moist von Lipwig, former arch-swindler and confidence man, has exceeded all expectations in running the Ankh-Morpork Post Office. So it’s somewhat disconcerting when Lord Vetinari summons Moist to the palace and asks, “Tell me, Mr. Lipwig, would you like to make some real money?”

Vetinari isn’t talking about wages. He’s referring to the Royal Mint of Ankh-Morpork that has run on the hereditary employment of the Men of the Sheds, who do make money in their spare time. Unfortunately, it costs more than a penny to make a penny, so the whole process seems somewhat counter-intuitive.

But before Moist has time to fully consider Vetinari’s question, fate answers it for him. Now he’s not only making money, but enemies, too; he’s got to spring a prisoner from jail, break into his own bank vault, stop the new manager from licking his face and, above all, find out where all the gold has gone—otherwise, his life in banking, while very exciting, is going to be really, really short . . .

Review:

I feel that i’ve dabbled enough in the Discworld series to safely state that Moist von Lipwig is my favorite central character. Death would come in a close second. The downside of Moist is that he’s only been featured in two books so far, Going Postal and Making Money. Both books focus on an industry that is just completely messed up and it’s up to Moist to turn them around and make them both functional and profitable.

In Making Money, Moist “accepts” as position as head of the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork and the Royal Mint. Naturally, things are a bit chaotic there. The biggest challenge he faces, aside from bank shareholder’s not trusting him, is the face that people’s believe in order for a bank to function, it must have gold. With his past success at the Royal Post Office (in Going Postal), Moist implements a few tricks he learned and introduces paper money to the citizens of Ankh-Morpork much to their confusion.

One of the things that I really liked about this book is how timely it is. It tackles modern day issues while still taking place in the fantasy setting of Discworld. It’s a delicate balance that Pratchett manages to pull off well in this book.

The audiobook version was ready rather well by Stephen Briggs who has narrated all the Discworld audiobooks that I’ve listened too. He does a fantastic job with all the characters and now can not imagine listening to one with somebody else reading it.

Closing Thoughts: Overall, I would have to say Making Money would be my favorite Discworld book so far. It’s funny, the characters are interesting and the overall story shared parallels with today’s society.

Question: Who is your favorite Discworld character(s)?