Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich: Book Beginning

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich, November 14, 2017, Harper

Genre: dystopian thriller 

Book beginning:

When I tell you that my white name is Cedar Hawk Songmaker and that I'm an adopted child of Minneapolis liberals,  and that when I went looking for my Ojibwe parents and found that I was born Mary Potts I hid the knowledge, maybe you'll understand. Or not. I'll write this anyway, because ever since last week things have changed. Apparently - I mean, nobody knows - our world is running backward. Or forward. Or maybe sideways, in a way  as yet ungrasped. I am sure somebody will come up with a name for what is happening, but I cannot imagine how everything around us and everything within us can be fixed. What is happening involves the invisible, the quanta of which we are created. Whatever is actually occurring, there is constant breaking news about how it will be handled - speculation, really, concerning what comes next -  which is why I am writing an account. 

Page 56:

My parents are both lawyers....Which is to say, they are shrewd as only market-based -society suspicious trust-fund liberals can be.

I was at first wary of the term "dystopian" to describe this book, as I am not a science fiction or dystopia lover,but the term "thriller" after the word dystopia sealed my interest in this novel. As does the name of the author, Louis Erdrich, whose previous books set among the Native Americans in the West I have really liked.

The narrator, Cedar Hawk Songmaker is, so far in my reading, a very intriguing personality and I am enjoying following her into her future discoveries, and into her dystopian world!

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader

It's Monday: What's in Your Mailbox?

It's Monday, What Are You Reading is a weekly meme hosted by Book Journey.
Yolanda of Notorious Spinks Talks Books hosts Mailbox Monday this month.

Received last week: This one reminds me of the real-life scandal surrounding the Bolshoi Ballet not too long ago.

Title: Dancer Daughter Traitor Spy: A Novel by Elizabeth Kiem, August 13, 2013; Soho Teen.
Book description: "A new breed of spy novel combines classic thrills, Bolshoi intrigue, and elements of the paranormal.

Marina is born of privilege. Her mother, Sveta, is the Soviet Union's prima ballerina and an international star. But Sveta is afflicted with a mysterious second sight and becomes obsessed with exposing a horrific state secret. Then she disappears.

Fearing for their lives, Marina and her father defect to Brooklyn, where Marina is a dancer at Juilliard. But her enigmatic partner, Sergei, makes concentration almost impossible, as does the fact that Marina shares her mother's “gift,” and has a vision of her father’s murder at the hands of the Russian crooks and con artists she thought they'd left behind. Now Marina must deal with her mother's disappearance, her ability, and exactly whom she can—and can't—trust." (publisher)

I have been receiving a few teen novels recently and must admit, this one does look good, as does this other from last week,

Relic by Heather Terrell, to be published October 29, 2013 is a combination of fantasy and dystopia about a "civilization built on lies and the girl who single-handedly brings it down."

Current reads include
Old Man River: The Mississippi River in North American History, "an account of how the Mississippi shaped America,"
Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd.
I finished last week:
Reese's Leap: An Island Mystery by Darcy Scott, for a book tour this week.

What are you reading and what arrived in the mail last week?

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Movie and Book: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguru

I saw the movie Never Let Me Go on TV yesterday and it's still haunting me today. Based on the book of the same name, this is dystopia, sci-fi at its best, in one sense, and its worst, in another.

Have you read the book and seen the movie, and what do you think? Should I read the book, which I have on Kindle, or will it just disturb me more? It's a great story and the movie was very well done, but.....I don't normally read dystopia!

Title: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ichiguro
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Vintage; Mti edition (August 31, 2010)
Genre: dystopia

Publisher's description:
A devastating novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss. As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.

Now, years later, Kathy is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special–and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together. Suspenseful, moving, beautifully atmospheric, Never Let Me Go is another classic by the author of The Remains of the Day.

Book Review: The End of Marking Time by C.J. West

Title: The End of Marking Time
Author: C. J. West
Paperback: 284 pages
Publisher: 22 West Books (May 22, 2010)
Source: Review copy provided by the author
Genre: Sci-fi, dystopia

Product description: Gifted housebreaker, Michael O'Connor, awakens inside an ultramodern criminal justice system where prison walls are replaced by surveillance equipment and a host of actors hired to determine if he is worthy of freedom. While he was sleeping, the Supreme Court declared long term incarceration to be cruel and unusual punishment and ordered two million felons released. The result was utter chaos and the backlash from law-abiding citizens and police departments reshaped the United States. Felons now enter reeducation programs where they live freely among the population. At least that's what they think. In reality they are enslaved to an army of counselors and a black box that teaches them everything they failed to learn from kindergarten through adulthood. Michael believes he's being tested by the black box, but what he slowly begins to realize is that everything he does is evaluated to determine whether he lives or dies. (amazon)

My comments: I expected a traditional thriller and was surprised by a dystopian futuristic novel in which felons are controlled and watched to an extreme degree by the government. The plan for rehabilitation and training sounds like a good one, but the punishment for failure to comply with the rules are pretty harsh. Be prepared for a surprise ending in this very unusual and inventive novel, as you follow the very human Michael trying to survive the minefield process of being turned into a model citizen.

Objective rating: 4 out of 5 for inventive plot and characterization.