Downtown Owl Review

Downtown Owl is Chuck Klosterman’s first novel. I have been a fan of his non-fiction writing for some time now, and when I discovered that he had penned a novel I decided to put it on my must-read list. Downtown Owl is sold as a snapshot of a small town, and while this is basically true, it made for a very uninteresting read.

Downtown Owl is told through three different perspectives: Horace, Julia and Mitch. Horace is the typical widower who goes to the coffee shop at the same time everyday and talks with other men about the people who live in town. Janet is new to Owl and has come to teach history at the public school. She soon becomes the object of every single man’s desire and therefore spends the evenings getting drunk on the free drinks that they buy her. Mitch is a, somewhat, typical high school kid who spends time with his friends and plays football. The only strange thing about Mitch is that he is obsessed with his football coach/English teacher.

I believe that Downtown Owl has the basis for a good story, but unfortunately Chuck Klosterman doesn’t really flesh out a plot. Nothing actually happens in this book until about 20 pages before the end. There is a lot of remembering things that happened in the past, but nothing actually happens. There also isn’t any character development at all. All three characters start and end in the same way, but I guess that is what happens when you don’t have a plot. In the end you read these three perspectives on life in a small town and in the end it all seems pointless.

I will say that there were some things that I enjoyed. For the most part I liked Klosterman’s writing style. Sometimes it seems a little bit to “flowery” or pompous for a novel, but it did seem like he at least knew about the subject that he was writing about. I grew up in a small town and from time to time the situations in the book felt familiar, however, I don’t believe that is enough to make this book readable.

I the end I was disappointed by Downtown Owl. I high expectations for a novel by Chuck Klosterman and I feel like he let me down. It was a struggle to actually finish this book. I wanted to find out if the book was going anywhere and it didn’t. While Downtown Owl did paint a good picture of small town life it didn’t have a plot or character development. I don’t recommend this book to anyone; even if you are a fan of Chuck Klosterman’s other writing.

BEDA - Day Thirty

Well, I made it through April and BEDA. I can’t believe that today is the last day and that tomorrow I don’t have to write a blog if I don’t feel like it. It has been an interesting month, but I’m really glad that BEDA is over. It’s really hard to think about things to write a decent blog about every day.

Out of all the blogs that I have written over the month my favourite are book reviews. I love to talk about books, and writing reviews really helps to get the urge out. Whenever I finish a book I always sit back and think about the book as whole, this is how I determine whether or not I actually liked the book. I think about the characters, the plot, the writing and how much I enjoyed reading the book. Writing about these points really helps me to wrap my head around my thoughts on the story, and usually by the end of the review I can tell if I will recommend the book or not. I guess that it could be the English major part of me but I will always like to think about books critically after I read them, even if I don’t go quite in-depth English essay in a review.

I also really love to write about music, and the couple of times that I wrote about music during BEDA have been really fun. I always have music playing, and I can’t stand to have my apartment to quiet. I love to listen to lyrics and to discover how I relate to them. I love the emotion that an artist can convey through instrumentation and how a certain song can make me feel. I also love to spread the music that I love around to other people, and writing about what a song means to you is a really good way to do just that.

I’ve written at least one movie review during the month, but I don’t think that I’ll get into that. I enjoy movies, but I don’t really enjoy writing about them. Movies have always been a way to relax and to veg out, I feel like if I try to write reviews about movies it will ruin movies for me.

I’ve written a bit about my personal life, and things that have happened during the month, and while that is a good out let, I don’t think that I’d want to do it all the time. It can be difficult to write about your personal life because you don’t want to share too much and at the same time you want to keep it interesting, it can be a fine line. I’m sure that I will write about my life from time to time, but I don’t think that it will be the bulk of my blogging.

I guess that what I am saying is that from now on I will be blogging about books, and music. I think that suits me fine. They are two of my favourite things, and it will keep my blog fun for me. So, let me say a big thank-you to those of you who have been reading my blog this month, it has been fun! I can’t believe that I have written every day, well I did miss two days but with almost 17,000 words under my belt I’d say that I won this challenge!

BEDA - Day Twenty-Nine

Alright BEDA, I am going to stop procrastinating and write…something. The problem with writing a blog every day is that some days I can’t think of anything worth writing about. Sure I have had ideas go through my head, but there has been nothing really good. So, today I am going to try out a tip that writers say to do when they have writers block which is, surprise surprise, to just write.

 My brain just went straight to the Gilmore Girls episode when Lorelei is trying to write a character reference for Luke and her stream of conscience ends with the words “monkey, monkey, underpants”. And I think that if I were to take that approach that the result would be similar.

I keep starting to type and then realize that I have already written about what I am typing, so I delete and now I am starting over.

I had fun with Hannah last night, we went dancing. I never thought that I would enjoy going out dancing, but I do. OK, we didn’t go to cluby club we went to this place called the Boat were they play good music. It’s all stuff that has a beat but I know and like. I’m so glad that I can go dance somewhere and not have to groan and roll my eyes as they start to play someone like Ke$ha. I love hanging out with Hannah, we always laugh a lot, and talk about important stuff. We also get into shenanigans that are always awesome in a “you had to be there” sort of way. I wish I got to see to see Hannah more.

After a late night out all I felt like doing way lying around watching TV, which I did for part of the day, because I feel sleepy. I think that I am really starting to get old. I get tired a lot easier these days then…in my hay day? I don’t really know when my hay day was, but apparently it is over. Aww, that makes feel a little sad.

Well, on that note. I think that I have more movies to watch and an early bed time to get too. Sorry about this blog, I know it wasn’t my best effort. Only one more day and then BEDA is done.

BEDA - Day Twenty-Eight

Lately I have been really into walking, there is nothing like picking a route and seeing where you end up. Living in the city I have been able to go for walks and never see the same thing two days in a row. I love discovering different parts of the city that I have never been too, and it is also a great way to get to know the area that I live in.

Today I decided to walk down to a park that I have driven by many times but had never been too. As soon as I started across the sweeping lawn that was part of the park I could smell it, the lake. I don’t think that I can describe the smell of a lake, but it is one smell that I really love. As soon as the breeze blew across my face I was relaxed, it reminded me of home. I know that might sound strange but the truth of the matter is that Lake Ontario smells like the lake that I grew up on, and also Georgian Bay which is where my small town is located.

As a smile started to spread across my face I found a place to sit down and look out on Lake Ontario. It wasn’t the best day weather-wise, but it was nice enough that I was enjoying being outside. I noticed some airplanes taking off, and could help but smile wider at the sight of them. If you remember I have a special place in heart for airplanes, and I couldn’t help but think that maybe something good was going to come my way soon. (If you don’t remember why I love airplanes you can read about it my post titles “Counting Airplanes”).

I put on the song Empty Threat by Kathleen Edwards and leaned back where I sat enjoying the day. Airplanes kept taking off in the distance, and I watched the runners and bikers pass by on the trail. I think that this is just what I needed today. I came home and have stew bubbling away on the stove almost ready for me to eat, what more could I ask for?

BEDA - Day Twenty-Seven

Across the Universe by Beth Revis is about a seventeen year old girl who is cryogenically frozen so that she can go on a mission to new earth with her parents 300 years into her future. The girl, Amy, gets reanimated 50 years to early and is thrown into the world that exists on the spaceship that she has been traveling on. Amy meets the future leader of the people who lives on the ship named Elder and together they begin to discover that the society that has been created within these steel walls isn’t what it should be.

Across the Universe started out pretty good, the first few chapters drew me into the story and I was interested in the characters. Unfortunately, about half way through the book there was a turn of events that turned me off and I didn’t really enjoy the book from then on. The incident, which I won’t describe in case someone wants to read this book, seemed unnecessary and I feel like the same effect could have been achieved in a different way. I think that the reason that I didn’t like the incident was because it was too graphic for a young adult novel. I could have done without this certain part and I wish that Beth Revis had written it differently.

The characters were alright in this book, there really were only five characters in the entire story. The chapters are divided between the two main characters Amy and Elder and I’m not sure how much I liked either of them. Amy seemed weak to me, she emerged into this completely different world from the one she knew and started to notice things that were right. However, she doesn’t really start to talk about those things until after the incident, when it directly affected her. After Amy noticed how things were different she never really tried to explain why things on the ship weren’t right, she just said that were right. Never once did Amy do something heroic or out of character, it seemed like her only purpose on the ship was to stir things up.

Elder had lived on the ship for his entire life and just started to realize that the way things were being run might be corrupt and even after his realization he still often agreed with the corrupt side. I did like Elder better then Amy because he was acting out of turn and was trying to get answers, he had a rebellious side. The thing that I really liked about Elder is that he seemed to put everyone else’s well being ahead of himself. It was right at the end of the book that I ended up not liking Elder as much, he did something that made me think about the story completely different. It was the one thing that ruined Elder for me and also ruined the book a bit as well.

The other characters are hardly worth mentioning, they are the stock people that you expect in a story of this sort. There was the best friend, the bad guy and the bad guy’s henchman. Other than that there was the mindless masses that had no idea that anything life changing was happening. The characters were a bit predictable, and not at all interesting.

The writing was ok, but near the end it seemed to be overly emotional. I feel like that whole feel of Across the Universe is that it started out good and then it end really bad. I’m not sure that I want to continue reading the rest of the books in the trilogy. To me I can’t see where the story could possibly go after this; I honestly can’t believe that there are two more books written about these characters.

I gave Across the Universe a three out of five because I really did enjoy the beginning of the book, but I really did hate the end of the book.

BEDA - Day Twenty-Six

This weekend my Dad gave me a sample of Palmer’s Coco butter which is said to reduce the appearance of scars. I think that now is a good time to write about my scars. For those of you who don’t know, or haven’t realized, I have scars on 100 percent of my body. It’s not something that I talk about a lot, but I feel like writing about it now.

When I was 18 months old I got the chicken pox. Most people think that the chicken pox aren’t really a big deal, you spend some time with red blotches on your skin trying not itch them, but for me it was a huge deal. I had an extreme case, I was in the hospital for two weeks and they didn’t know if I would die or have brain damage, and I am now in medical journals. My Mom told me that I was pretty vacant for those two weeks, I didn’t do anything except lie there, she told me that one day when she shook a rattle at me and I smiled was the first day she that she knew that I’d be OK. I don’t remember any of this time of my life, but my Mom tells me that when the chicken pox scabbed over it was like Rice Crispy’s were falling off me every time someone picked me up. I’m glad that I don’t remember what I went through, but I know that those weeks were the ones that made me who I am today.

People often talk about the chicken pox like they are nothing to really worry about, and I hate that. People make fun of the fact that there is now a chicken pox vaccine, but I think that it is a great thing! The vaccine doesn’t prevent the chicken pox, but it makes it so that no child ever has to go through what I went through. I think that a parent would be stupid if they didn’t vaccinate their child against chicken pox, I know that my Mom has said that if they would have had the vaccine when my brother and I were kids she would have done it. I’m fine, but who is to say that someone couldn’t die.

The other thing that sometimes gets to me is when people talk about their scars. People will count scars and tell stories about how they got them, but the thing that really gets me is when people complain about their scars. Nothing bugs me more then when some person says something about some ugly scar they have somewhere on their body, honestly, I want to smack them. I always feel like people don’t have the right to complain about something like scars. You might think that is selfish of me because I have the most scars ever, but the thing is that I don’t want to complain about my scars. My scars are a part of who I am, and I believe that there are so many other more important things that people can complain about then the very few scars they have. Whenever people bring up scars in front of me I just sit back to see where it is going, and when they start to complain about them in way that is ridiculous I look at them and say “really”? I hope that they clue in to what I am getting at, and sometimes they do, but usually I just end up shaking my head at them.

When I was kid I was sometimes bothered by the fact that I looked different from everyone else. I often would have kids come up to me on the playground and ask what was wrong with my face, sometimes my friends would defend me with “nothing, you idiot”, but most of the time I just felt bad about it. Just like any other kid, I didn’t want to be different. My friends growing up never treated me different, they knew what my scars where and the liked me anyway. The kids in my grade were so used to how I looked that it never really became a problem, and I am go grateful for that because by the time I got to high school my scars weren’t really a big deal anymore. I made new friends in high school and when I trusted them enough I told them about my scars, and no one made me feel bad about them. Everyone accepted me for who I am, and I feel really lucky to have the friends that I did.

Growing up in the way I did, with the people that I did, made it easier on me. I rarely ever think about my scars, and most days I forget that even have them. My scars are a part of who I am, but they are only a part. Sometimes I wonder about what people think when they first meet me because it is obvious that I have scars, but I never worry about it. If someone doesn’t like me because I have scars then that is their problem.

I am happy with the way I look, and I wouldn’t trade in my scars for perfect skin any day.  Because of my scars I know that I am fighter who can win, and I know that I am unique. I have never met someone else who is scarred in the way that I am, and it is cool to think that I am the only person who looks like me. I know that I was made this way for a reason, and I’m not going to mess with it.

BEDA - Day Twenty-Five

Divergent by Veronica Roth is set in Chicago during a dystopian future. Something has happened that has shut the city off from the rest of the world, and the people have created five factions which each have a different purpose in governing the city. At the age of 16 a test is administered to see if the faction that you were born into is the faction you should stay a part of. This is when we meet the main character Beatrice, and the story follows her through her choice.

I really enjoyed Divergent; I read half of it in one sitting because I couldn’t put it down. The writing really draws you in and I wasn’t able to figure out what was going to happen next, it was always a bit of a surprise.  I found the idea of different factions where you are raised to believe a certain thing, and to act a certain way really interesting. The idea of factions make you think about society and how it works, and why it works.

I loved the characters in Divergent. The main character Beatrice is awesome; she is so brave and kind. I like the journey that she takes and it is fascinating how she continues to have an internal struggle even after she makes her decision about which faction she belongs in. Beatrice seemed too real to me, like her thoughts and feeling could be exactly what someone would actually have, and it made her more believable. I wish that more female heroes were written like her.

The male lead, named Four, is completely swoon worthy and I’m not talking in an Edward Cullen sort of way. Four really cares about Beatrice, and works really hard to make sure that she gets through all the hard ships she encounters. The thing about Four that is really cool is that he doesn’t coddle Beatrice, he helps her, but in a way that makes her able to deal with things better on her own. Four never once tries to save her from pain, because he understands that it is part of life, and he never puts her up on a pedestal.

I gave Divergent a four out of five on Good Reads, and if you enjoyed The Hunger Games you will definitely like this book.  It is a dystopian novel, where the world is different and the government is bad, but I enjoyed Divergent and would recommend it to anyone.