Once Dead, Twice Shy by Kim Harrison

"My name is Madison Avery, and I'm here to tell you that there's more out there than you can see, hear, or touch. Because I'm there. Seeing it. Touching it. Living it."

Once Dead, Twice Shy by Kim Harrison is the first full length novel in the Madison Avery series. I had previously been introduced to Madison when I read a short story "Madison Avery and the Dim Reaper" by Kim Harrison in the Prom Nights From Hell collection which turned out to be the prequel to Once Dead, Twice Shy. At the time I wrote that the story had "more potential which instead of fulfilling she saved for her actual novels" so when I had the opportunity to listen to the first novel on audio book and find out if that was the case, it seemed like the perfect way to spend my walk to work.

When Once Dead, Twice Shy begins, Madison is adjusting to life as a dead girl after being prematurely killed on her prom night by a Dark Reaper. The only thing keep Madison from vanishing is the amulet she stole from her killer. The Light Reaper Barnabas is trying to teach her how to use her amulet to communicate with him through thoughts, but despite all the nights they've spent practicing- Madison doesn't need to sleep now that she's dead- it's just not happening. When Madison has a run in with a Dark Reaper, she learns the reason she can't get her amulet to work is that the guy she stole it from wasn't a Dark Reaper at all but a Dark Time Keeper. While Barnabas and the Light Time Keeper go off to petition to allow Madison to keep the amulet anyway, she's assigned a guardian angel who speaks mostly in limericks. Madison and the guardian angel who she names Grace, are also trying to protect Josh, the guy Madison ditched at the prom the night she was killed. From that point forward the book is mostly an effort in keeping Josh alive and Madison from having her soul taken, and it takes place over only a couple days.  

Although I didn't originally think it was necessary, once I got into Once Dead, Twice Shy I was extremely grateful I'd read the short story first, as the world Harrison has created is extremely complicated with guardian angels and reapers and time keepers, and it's hard to keep track of at first. That said my biggest issues with the novel weren't with the paranormal world Harrison has invented but rather with the human one. Madison is supposed to be a rebel girl, because, as Harrison points out every few sentences, she has purple tips in her hair and wears skull and crossbones on her clothing. These repeated descriptions seem as if they are attempted to make Madison seem cool and hardcore, but instead it comes across as dated as Define Normal by Julie Anne Peters did but at least that book had the excuse of having been published a decade ago, Once Dead, Twice Shy is from 2009! 

It's not just the clothing that comes across as dated though, I appreciate the attempt to write a "clean" book but Madison repeatedly uses made up swears like "son of a dead puppy" which sound even more ridiculous when listening to them on audio book. It's just unbelievable that any teen, especially one so rebellious she was sent to live with her father by her mom for being out of control, would speak the way Harrison writes. That said, I actually did enjoy the audio book reader Mandy Siegfried with the exception of when she did this rasping voice for the female Dark Reaper, Nakita, which was a bit strange. I found Siegfried enjoyable to listen to, and young enough sounding that it she worked well as a teenage narrator.

I was actually really excited going into Once Dead, Twice Shy despite my normal aversion to paranormal. Not only does the book feature a heroine with a backbone, but it's also not all focused on gushy romance both of which are aspects I found really refreshing. Unfortunately, Harrison inability to create believable teenage characters as well as the overcomplicated paranormal world results in Once Dead, Twice Shy being a book I will definitely not be picking up twice.

Release Date: July 1st, 2009
Pages: 256 (6 h 3 min)
Overall: 2/5
Source: Audio book
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Film Feature: Atlas Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged is a book I read about half of after loving The Fountainhead in high school but got distracted and never managed to finish. With the trailer for the upcoming film, part 1 of 2 that will are based on the book and from what I can determine follow the storyline pretty closely, just released I have an even bigger reason to finally dig into this tome. The film Atlas Shrugged stars Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart and although I have only seen Schilling in the television program Mercy, she looks like she'll do a good job. I believe the movie is fairly low budget, and it is the director's first full length film, but the trailer has me hooked.
If the film has peaked your interest or you're just looking for an opportunity to read a little Rand, Allie over at A Literary Odyssey is hosting a readalong of the book for March-April; perfect timing for seeing the movie! Click here to sign up.

In My Mailbox (February 6th-12th 2011)

{For Review}

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua (TLC Tours)
Minding Ben by Victoria Brown (ARC) (Voice) (Unsolicited, as far as I can tell, no idea how I got this one...)
Delirium by Lauren Oliver (Harper Collins Canada)
The Spot by David Means (D&M Publishers Inc)
Invisible by Paul Auster (Picador)
Eight White Nights by Andre Aciman (Picador)
The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves by Siri Hustvedt (Picador)

My mailbox was (slightly) more empty than usual this week, but then Friday three awesome books from Picador arrived. I was really excited about Delirium, which I've already read and there will be a review later this month. A random thing I learned today from a friend after getting these books is that two of the authors- Auster and Hustvedt- are actually married to each other. I may have to do a battle of the sexes at some point. I was also thinking I could compare Krauss VS Foer- anyone else know any awesome married author couples?

All the books sound great and I am looking forward to reading them. The second half of this week was pretty slow reading-wise for me as I've been dealing with some health issues that make me feel pretty gross but I've got a great stack of books lined up for next week and I'm excited to dig into them.

How was your mailbox this week?

Author Interview with Eleanor Brown

Eleanor Brown's debut The Weird Sisters was recently released and after having the chance to read and review it, she was kind enough to take the time to answer a few questions for In The Next Room.

Where did the inspiration from The Weird Sisters come from? Do you have any sisters yourself?
I am the youngest of three sisters, which definitely sparked my interest in birth order and family roles, one of the themes I knew I wanted to write about. After that, pieces just started to come together to create the story of The Weird Sisters - the family obsession with Shakespeare, the collective first-person narrator, the struggles over what it means to become an adult. It was like holding a magnet and watching little scraps of ideas cling to it until it became a novel!

Do you see yourself in Cordy, Rose or Bean?
I see myself in all three of them, and I hope others do, too! Their conflicts are ones I have felt and have seen others experience - the struggle to find a place to call home, feeling torn between a life of adventure and a life of safety, the difficulty in becoming truly independent, and trying to figure out who you are outside of the role your family places you in.

The Weird Sisters quotes a lot of Shakespeare plays, did you reread his whole canon before you wrote the novel, or just used quotes that came to mind?
I definitely did not read all of the plays, but I read and saw a number of them! I did have a list of quotations I wanted to use, but I found I couldn't write scenes just to use them, so I ended up having to go back to my poor, dog-eared Collected Works a great deal in order to find the right quotation for the situation. Other times there was a play or a character I knew I wanted to reference, so finding something to use there was far easier.

Do you have a favourite Shakespeare play?
I don't think I could pick one! I do love the snappy dialogue between Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, and since Macbeth was the first play I ever really loved, I have kind of a soft spot for it (Lady Macbeth is such a great character!). But since I far prefer to see Shakespeare performed rather than read it, I think I have favorite productions rather than favorite plays - a great version of Much Ado set in a USO, performed by the University of Miami, a terrific take on The Tempest at The Globe Theater in London, an awfully sad version of Othello by the Folger Theater in Washington, D.C. I love to see the creativity directors take with Shakespeare and the way a great actor can bring the language to life.

Where do you do your reading and writing?
Wherever I can! I read anywhere and everywhere - my greatest fear is being caught in a line or a waiting room without a book. I have an office at home with a comfy chaise lounge and a treadmill desk, and I've written in both locations, but I'm not picky - I'd write during an aerobics class at the gym if the muse struck me!

What did you do when you found out The Weird Sisters had been sold?
I called my sweetie, J.C. Hutchins, who is also a writer and we celebrated together. Then I went back to work. Clearly, I am not a good celebrator.

Now that you've published this awesome debut, what are you working on next?
Wow, thank you! I'm kind of superstitious about talking about works in progress, but I will say I've been doing a lot of thinking about love and marriage and divorce and how they all fit together. We'll see what comes of it!

Born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area, Eleanor Brown has lived in St. Paul, San Francisco, Philadelphia, South Florida, and Oxford, London, and Brighton, England. She lives in Colorado with her partner, writer and new media superstar, J.C. Hutchins. Eleanor’s writing has appeared in anthologies, journals, magazines, and newspapers. The Weird Sisters, her first novel, will be published by Amy Einhorn Books on January 20, 2011.

Thanks so much to Eleanor Brown for her time, and I fully recommend the warm-hearted The Weird Sisters. Click here to read a review of the novel on In The Next Room. To learn more about the book, visit Eleanor's website http://www.eleanor-brown.com/

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

"There's no problem a library card can't solve."

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown tells the story of Andreas sisters, Cordelia (Cordy), Bianca (Bean) and Rosalie (Rose) who grew up in a small college town where their Dad teaches Shakespeare. When the girls got older they went their separate ways but a series of events beginning with their mother getting breast cancer means that all three girls end up back at home under the same roof- a situation just begging for trouble.

I had been looking forward to The Weird Sisters for quite some time, featuring it in a Waiting on Wednesday post last October, so when I received the book I was eager to find out if Brown's debut lived up to my expectations. Thankfully, it did. The novel is clever and engaging, and although it took me a little while to get used to the first person plural ("we") narrator, I came to appreciate it as a way to show the connection between the sisters, even when they bicker and fight sometimes. As a girl with a twin sister and two stepsisters myself, I appreciated that the relationship between the Andreas sisters was not all sunshine, but instead filled with ups and downs which felt genuine and relateable. In addition to simply being an enjoyable book to read, The Weird Sisters offers interesting insight into topics like a woman's role- the girl's mother never worked- and what family really means. Also, having personally spent the last four years in exactly the kind of town that The Weird Sisters takes place in, a little university town which is basically dead over the summer and doesn't even have a gas station, I found Brown's setting completely realistic and in fact it actually made me quite nostalgic.

There were a few awkward patches, mostly involving the conversations between characters. Brown ties in actual quotes from Shakespeare in dialogue throughout the novel and occasionally I felt that the connection was a bit tenuous. I also felt that some of the male characters in the book were weaker, and I didn't feel the same attachment to them as I did to the female ones. Even minor characters like the female librarian seemed more dimensional than Rose's fiance for example. However the sisters themselves were completely warm and real. Ultimately, I do think it'll be mostly female readers drawn to the book, and I am confident they will find a lot to love. The Weird Sisters not only fills the reader with warmth but manages to be intelligent, funny and clever as well; it is certainly worth the read.

Release Date: January 20, 2011
Pages: 336
Overall: 4/5
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Source:

This review was a part of TLC Book Tours. Click here to read what other tour hosts thought. For the purpose of this review I was provided with a copy of the book which did not require a positive review. The opinions expressed in this post are completely my own.