Second Sleep

I finished reading The Brief History of the Dead, and with the exception of the last two chapters, it was really good. The story is set in a world verging on the end of humanity and takes one look at what may happen when you die. It asks the question, "If someone remembers you, are you really dead?" No science fiction drivel here, only a heartfelt look at people and the connections we don't really notice from day-to-day.

The final two chapters were annoying and irrelevant. I understand the need for closure, but the twenty pages could have been condensed to two.

Next on my book list was Sara Ryan's follow up to Empress of the World. Nothing too exciting in The Rules for Hearts, but I wasn't expecting much as Ryan's books are aimed at the young adult set. The story leaves the summer camp setting from Empress and follows Battle Davies to Portland for the summer before college. The typical family drama with a new relationship that isn't quite what Battle expected and a dog named Lucky. The game of Hearts is only mentioned in passing (thankfully) but Battle joins a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream so we're forced to compare the characters from the play to the actors in their roles.

The use of Shakespearian imagery in books is trite, so I had to cringe at times while reading Rules. (Think "Slings & Arrows" or The Wives of Bath as previous tales similar to Rules.) How many books have you read where the female protagonist dresses up like a boy to become her suitor's confidant? I understand the need to weave in a literary mainstay with your contemporary fiction to grab a reader's attention but the play-within-a-play note from Hamlet has been played so many times it is annoying. And I like Shakespeare. I read his plays and sonnets without prompting. (I was teased for reading Taming of the Shew in the van with my engineering class from university when commuting to an off campus lab. Yet another reason why I should have been an English major.) Too many writers use Shakespeare's plays and other classic novels as a crutch when writing and begs the reader to wonder if the writer has an original voice.