Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson (review by Andrew R. '17)

Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In Fortune Smiles, which won the most recent National Book Award, Adam Johnson collects six short stories that showcase both his penchant for dark, uncomfortable subject matter and his startlingly powerful ability to treat unsympathetic characters with compassion. Johnson, who has garnered laurels in the past for a novel about North Korea, repeatedly takes on apparently unredeemable perspectives—a virtual-reality-obsessed programmer in Palo Alto, a reclusive pedophile with a traumatic past, a retired and unrepentant East German prison warden—and convinces the reader to replace at least some disgust with sympathy. Certain stories, like “Interesting Facts” (about a raging cancer sufferer) and “Hurricanes Anonymous” (about a displaced delivery man in Louisiana in 2005), miss the magic ratio of darkness to compassion and spoil the effect. But then you get a piece like “Fortune Smiles,” in which Johnson turns his focus back toward North Korea to explore the lives of two defectors to South Korea and their near-suicidal impulse to re-defect back into the North. This story closes the collection, cementing the book’s diverse but complimentary themes: the irrationality of obsession, the persistence of pain, and, most importantly, the essential humanness of everyone, even those we don’t understand.

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The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (review by Andrew R. '17)

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

To call The Handmaid’s Tale a dystopian novel would be to do it a disservice: while the near-future mockery of American society in which the novel is set does, technically, fall under that category, the freedom-fighting and romantic entanglements that we’ve come to associate with the genre have no place in this book. On its surface, the story follows Offred, a young woman assigned to a high-ranking official in the Republic of Gilead and tasked with bearing him children. With birthrates falling below crisis level, Offred and the other “handmaids” of this brutal patriarchy represent the society’s only hope, but Gilead’s fanatical and fundamentalist codes of conduct force all women into submission, their lives characterized only by traumatic memories and a fervent hope for pregnancy. Atwood intends this novel, it seems, to be a thought experiment that extends systemic gender inequalities and the “family values” that perpetuate them to their most oppressive extremes, which may explain why Gilead is sometimes so hard to distinguish from the postmodern America it replaced. The novel’s dystopian conceit is so complete that its cast of characters tends to feel more like symbols than humans in their own right; still, The Handmaid’s Tale achieves a level of social-justice-minded indignation that very few other works of science fiction manage to attain.

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Damned by Chuck Palahniuk (review by Elisabeth S. '16)

Damned by Chuck Palahniuk
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Palahniuk is known for hyperbolizing his characters to accentuate their faults (and thus, by proxy, humanity or society's faults) and his gruesome, gritty imagery, as shown through his bestsellers Fight Club and Invisible Monsters. After the first few books, though, the same techniques get drier and drier until you end up with a book like Damned. Damned is tale of young adult Madison who ends up in hell after a marijuana overdose at her boarding school and of her further adventures with her unlikely "inmates." This story is made unique because of Madison's singular voice. Palahniuk's characters are the antithesis of perfect, so flawed that readers are forced to pay attention with the same sort of attention they give a car accident or train wreck. This can prove effective at times, but in this case, there was very little cogency or cohesiveness to be found in the plot, so the novel fell short. Madison became such a caricature of a normal human being that it was impossible for me to engage and empathize with her feelings about her unlucky situation, and thus the entire novel was made simply not memorable enough to matter, despite its potential in idiosyncratic subject matter. – Elisabeth S. ‘16

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Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (review by Sra. Moss, Harker teacher)

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Survival, Resilience and Redemption" read the book's subtitle. The most amazing thing about this book is that it's a true story! Louis Zamperini, now age 93, was a delinquent youth, then trained for and ran in the 1936 Olympics, survived 49 days at sea after being shot down over the Pacific in WW II and then three years in a prison camp in Japan. It was hard to imagine how things could ever get worse for this man, as I turned page after page, yet he survived it all to become an inspirational speaker and impassioned role model for troubled youth. It is only a matter of time before this is made into a movie. Hmmm, which actor will play him? He'll have enormous shoes to fill! – Sra. Moss, Harker teacher

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Captured by Erica Stevens (review by Anushka D. '15)

Captured by Erica Stevens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Aria, daughter of the head of the human resistance, is captured by members of the vampire race, she hopes for a quick death. Just as she is about to be sold to a malicious vampire, however, a member of the ruling class claims her for himself. Although she is curious as to his reason -- he has no need for a blood slave -- Aria is determined to hate him for the destruction his race has caused and for his princely title. But as he opens up to her and reveals a side that she never believed could exist in a vampire, she cannot help but fall for him even as she struggles to maintain her identity as a member of the resistance. Captured takes on a typical plotline: Human girl and vampire boy fall in love. While building a strong romance, Stevens maintains a focused, fresh and surprisingly interesting story line and fully develops her characters. Readers looking for a twist on the clichéd human-vampire love tragedy will enjoy Captured and will likely be hooked to follow up quickly with the second in Stevens’ series, Renegade. - Anushka D. '15

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Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden (review by Soham K. '17)

Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blaine Harden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A heart-wrenching and terrifying book, Escape from Camp 14 traces the life of Shin, a prisoner trapped in a “complete control center” hidden in the shadowy mountains of North Korea. His sole crime? Being the grandson of a man who fled south during the disastrous Korean War. The only documented escape and defection from a control center, Shin’s story is harrowing. Certain incidents are forever etched in my mind, such as when a starving five-year old girl, found with five kernels of corn, is brutally beaten to death by her “teacher.” Or when Shin—at age 13—is tortured when his mother and brother try to escape. Or his dramatic escape and triumphant repatriation to South Korea. Powerfully rendered through his spare prose, Harden vivifies Shin’s monumental struggles and his subsequent integration into the free world. The author’s ability to open musty doors and expose the carnage committed daily in North Korea makes Escape from Camp 14 an exposé extraordinaire. Those upset by horrific, albeit true, detail may wish to stay away. For those willing to bear witness, this is a must-read. – Soham K. ‘17

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