Secret of the Blurb

The phrase ‘Never judge a book by its cover’ is something that I mentioned a while ago and at the time I discussed how inappropriate it is when considering books. The image and the general design of a cover generally tends to be the thing that catches a person’s eye and make them stop and take another look at it. To me, a more relevant phrase would be to ‘Never judge a book by its blurb’. A little description on the back can make or break a sale if it isn't engaging or pitched to the correct person. I have written a few of my own for various projects and know how tough it can be trying to explain what the book is about without giving away any major details. But I am also a book consumer and have read plenty of blurbs, basing my decision on whether or not to actually read a book on those little descriptions on the back.

Blurbs seem to fall into a few different categories:

1.   The CliffsNotes- telling you the story in a few words.
2.  The Misdirection-telling you PART of the story without revealing that the book will go a completely different direction from what it is implying.
3. The Spoiler- a major plot point is revealed on the blurb but will not be revealed in the story until much later.
4. The Enigma- which tells you nothing.

Of course there are variations of these themes and I do not doubt that you have come across others yourself. For example, I read a book a few years ago which implied that a major plot point was going to take place and be central to the book. It happened in the last quarter and was actually not that important to the story as a whole, making the blurb a mixture of the misdirection and the spoiler.

Personally, I am of the opinion that a good blurb tells you something about the story so you can make a choice about whether the genre and the topic are something you want to pick up and read. The Enigma drives me crazy. I hate going into something completely blind, especially if I will be spending money on it. In contrast, I do enjoy the Misdirection when it comes to blurbs because it keeps things fresh and, when the twist is revealed, can come as a pleasant surprise, providing added depth to characters and plot. Of course, a lot can depend on the mood of the reader at the time and the Misdirection can seriously backfire when not handled properly in text.

Which leads me to a book I have recently re-read which uses one of these blurbs to great effect. Love Comes Tumbling  by Denise Deegan. Now, normally I would give you a vague outline of the plot but considering this blog started with a brief analysis of blurbs, I feel it is only fair to actually share said blurb with you so that you understand what I am talking about.

Lucy Arigho is not the sort of woman to be swept off her feet…

So it’s completely out of character for her to race a man in traffic…and even more unusual when they meet again and she is entranced by the driver, a writer called Greg Millar.

Within eight weeks she is seriously considering Greg’s pleas that she marry him and wondering if she can take on his two motherless children. But before she can make a decision about becoming part of Greg’s world, events plunge her right into it-at the deep end. Lucy’s careful existence is turned upside-down and she has to face the fact that she doesn’t really know the man whose life has so overwhelmed hers.

Love Comes Tumbling is a powerful, gripping and original story about what happens when the craziness of falling in love ends and the craziness of real life begins.

Hello fairly generic cover which tells me nothing beyond this might be a Misery Memoir.

A fairly standard plot, yes? So where does the ‘misdirection’ part come in?

I ran this blurb past a friend of mine (who hasn’t read it) and asked them what they thought was going to happen. Their response was to ask me if this book was a Fifty Shade of Grey clone. Which this is not.

(For a very funny exploration of Fifty Shades of Grey, please read this blog. I promise you will not regret it)

When I picked up this book (on one of my ‘I’ve run out of books I will now raid everybody else’s bookcase’ sprees) I was convinced this was going to be an incredibly cheesy piece of chick-lit. Now I don’t mind chick-lit…when it has been written well. However, I do get frustrated by the focus on the protagonists and their attempt to find a man and live happily ever after because their lives are so unfulfilled at this point. But that is a whole other argument for a whole other day.

So, what exactly is the plot and why has this book affected me so much?

Well we are told a lot in the blurb so I will try to keep this brief and without spoilers as much as possible and will warn you ahead of time if we are about to leave the ‘Spoiler free’ zone.

Lucy Arigho is a graphic designer and heads up a design business with Fint, her gay best friend in Ireland (successful woman…of COURSE she has a gay best friend). She was engaged to be married but lost her fiancé in a car accident the year before. So, of course, when she spots someone driving dangerously it pisses her off. So much so that she tells him off and then proceeds to speed up to get rid of him, not realising that she is doing the exact thing she was condemning this guy for. Ooops.

And then she realises that this guy is going the same place she is. Double ooops.

And he is the reason her company is being called in for a design job in the first place. Is it possible to just start the day over?

Greg is interested and starts pursuing her, and Lucy is struggling to remember that she is mourning the dead fiancé, especially when Greg sympathises and shares his own experiences. He is a widower and the father of two young children who he had to more or less bring up on his own (with help from a nanny).

The two date, he meets her family and Lucy is swept away by his spontaneity and lust for life. She’s happy for the first time in ages and the two get engaged.

All of this happens within the first three chapters because the bulk of this story is not about this couple falling in love, but rather about what happens afterwards, as described in the blurb. So, where do we go from here?

Lucy has to get to know Greg’s children, something that she doesn’t do until the couple are engaged. She realises pretty quickly that this was a mistake and does her best to get to know Greg’s family. His brother is pretty accepting, but the nanny and the children are not. Toby is five and the quickest to warm to Lucy but Rachel hates her.

‘Aha!’ I hear you say. ‘This is a story about her struggle to find her place in this family and the book will end with the children loving her after all of her struggles and she will think everything is worth it.’

Well…kind of. The step-parent is hardly a new phenomenon, and various films and books do talk about the struggle between children learning to accept a new family member and adults who suddenly find that they need to learn how to be parents. I’m not going to pretend that I am either a step-parent myself or that I have ever had one, but I do love how Lucy’s attempts to connect with the children are not always correct and her failures are not always because the children won’t accept her efforts. At one point, Lucy teaches Toby to ride his bike to distract him when Rachel has a friend over and she realises later that she has overstepped her boundaries. Learning to ride a bike is a milestone and she does not discuss it with Greg before doing this. There is no yelling, no argument. A big deal isn’t even made of this. Lucy just recognises Greg’s disappointment and tries to find a way to make it up to him.

But this is not the main plot of the story.

Greg starts to act strangely. His spontaneity and energy, which Lucy fell in love with, are starting to get out of control. He will enter a room and get distracted easily, forgetting why he was there or why he needed something in the first place. He will go out and party with strangers, forgetting to tell anybody where he is and do some things that Lucy considers crazy, like change his car or say something that nobody can understand. At one point, he actually frightens everyone when he does some dangerous driving along a narrow mountain road and nobody knows what is happening. The children are abandoned to the care of the nanny and Lucy doesn’t know where she fits in because she doesn’t have Greg as a buffer. She tries to balance her work and home life, but is quickly getting distracted by Greg’s strange behaviour, which escalates when he fires the nanny and disappears, leaving Lucy to take care of children who do not really want her and has no connection to, while her business partner gets more frustrated, demanding her return to work in time for a big contract.

‘Aha! So this is going to be a thriller disguised as a romance?’

Errrr…no.

When Greg returns he is given an ultimatum. Stop what he’s doing or Lucy is leaving. He does…and once again, she finds the man she fell in love with. But he’s confused. The writing he has been doing makes no sense. He cannot remember some of the things he has done and slowly becomes more and more withdrawn, leaving Lucy completely confused and stressed out.

It is Lucy’s sister who is her saving grace as both a parent and a former doctor. She is able to help Lucy cope with the children and, after hearing about Greg, suggests that there may actually be something wrong with him.

Some of you might actually recognise these symptoms but for those of you who don’t, I am going to leave the plot there because this is the point where things get interesting. Lucy has more or less been thrown into the deep end and the rest of the book consists of her trying to find her feet and, more importantly, her place in this family whose foundations have been shaken.

One of the major things going for this book is the characterisation of Lucy, Greg and the children. Lucy could easily have become incredibly whiny and ignorant but she is established as a very capable and intelligent human being who does crumble a bit under the pressure. Which is when the extended cast come into play. You get the sense of a life with Lucy. That she has friends and family to support her and who want to support her as much as they can, even if they don’t have the full story yet. Fint’s role as business partner and friend does play a big role in the middle of this when Lucy has to focus on caring for the children rather than returning to work and we see the business partner getting frustrated and angry before the friend realises that something is wrong. That is not easily portrayed when the story is being told in the first person.

The children could also have gone down the stereotypical route, but we are given the picture of two very different people who are children. Rachel, the oldest and the one who is most hostile towards Lucy, has to slowly warm up to her and most of that happens off page with her growing connection to Lucy’s family. It takes time. Toby is the youngest who has no connection to his deceased mother and therefore more accepting. They have their own personalities, their own likes and dislikes and Deegan makes it clear just how much of an outsider Lucy is and exactly what she has to do to become part of their lives and it is much harder than imagined.

At this point I would like to bring up one of my favourite things about this book. It would have been very easy to just write this book as Lucy struggling to become part of this established family, but Deegan also makes her ask a very difficult question and does not shy away from the answer or her struggle to figure it out. As we have established, something is wrong with Greg and it is something that severely affected his behaviour. Their engagement happened not long after their initial meeting, which is around the same time that these symptoms started. So does Lucy actually love him or has she fallen in love with a list of symptoms?

Again, the idea of someone not being who you thought they were is not very original but I found that the reasoning behind it was. This isn’t a case of Greg hiding himself. This is something he cannot control and doesn’t fully understand. This wasn’t a deliberate choice but Lucy still goes to his brother to ask questions and figure out how much of what she knows is the man and how much is a symptom of something far greater. His answers are very quickly brushed over but at the end of the day, Lucy has to watch and wait to meet Greg Millar long after she puts on the engagement ring. To me, that is one of the most compelling elements of the story.

Not everyone is happy with this and Greg and Lucy do encounter a lot of opposition from people for one reason or another. However, their intentions and reasons are all very understandable and you can see where they are coming from. And that is something Deegan does well here. These people are not bad or horrible or anything vaguely resembling evil. They are concerned and that sometimes leads to a bad decision.

So the blurb is right. Lucy is thrown into Greg’s world and she does struggle. But the reasons behind this struggle and the results are things that are not mentioned and remain central to the plot. If the blurb is like a guide or a map, this book is like someone taking you down a completely different road, driving you through beautiful countryside and buying you an amazing meal in a town you had never been in before.

You will still reach your destination, but the journey is a hell of a lot more satisfying.

Hunger or satisfaction?

Considering this blog was originally supposed to be dedicated to publishing, I thought it was about time I actually started talking about it in a way. Considering my job is off limits, perhaps the best way to do this should be through the review of books that I have read recently.

Yes, I know many people are doing something similar so I'm not going to be doing actual reviews per say. After all, there's only so many times you can listen to people picking apart the same things over and over again. Instead, I'm going to do something a little bit more in depth if I can and write about something that struck me because of one thing or another.

So, how is this going to work?

I will take a book (or series) and give you my own opinions regarding it. Simple enough? Yes, but I will be assuming that other people have read whatever I'm talking about and while I will try to keep things as spoiler-free as possible, I will issue warnings when this is about to take place.

And what better place to start than with the Hunger Games trilogy?

I'm a bit late to the party with these but with one thing or another, I didn't get the opportunity to read them until this summer. And I will admit, I read these AFTER watching the film so my opinion may be a bit skewed in contrast to most people's.

I assume most people know the story so I will keep this section brief. Katniss Everdeen lives in Panem, a futuristic world (possibly America) that has been ravaged by war and has been divided into 12 districts. Every year, two children between the ages of 12-18 are chosen at random from each district to be Tributes for the Hunger Games, a brutal reality show that has the participants fighting to the death until only one remains. When Katniss' sister is chosen, Katniss volunteers to take her place and must survive the Hunger Games and the anger of the Capitol.

Just a warning, some spoilers may exist for a while. If you want to avoid them, skip to the section after the picture of the note.

ABANDON BLOG!!!

The character of Katniss rather impressed me in a number of ways. One, she is a survivor, feeding her family and generally making sure that the people she cares about are looked after, following the trend of a lot of Young Adult books (growing up too soon, the ineffective parent etc). But it's not just that she is a physical survivor that struck me, it was her mental capabilities as well.

In most books, the protagonist is pulled into a battle or a cause and fights for it because they believe in it. They were not looking for the cause, but now it is there, and they are going to make things right. But Katniss REALLY is not looking for a cause. She does not want The Cause. The Cause can find someone else because all she wants is to see tomorrow and make sure the people she loves survive. And that makes her appear cold and uncaring. But I can see where she's coming from. You never know what the Capitol may make you do next so you have to guard your heart in case something happens to someone you care about. So she makes that circle as small as she can.

The issue that most people seem to have with her lies in her effectiveness with The Cause of the book...or rather her ineffectiveness.

In the climatic moment of The Hunger Games, Katniss manages to defeat the Capitol by making sure that she and Peeta both survive, instead of just one of them. She has let Peeta into her circle and she doesn't want to let him go, but her action causes ripples and the world becomes just a little more unstable because of this. She doesn't realise the full implications until someone explains it to her and even then, she doesn't know just how deep this goes until it is too late and she is in the middle of it.

For several people I've spoken to about the book, their problem is that Katniss goes from being this kick-ass survivor to a political puppet that doesn't really do anything except gripe, moan and have emotional breakdowns.

But like I've said before, Katniss was a survivor because she had to be. She had time to learn how to survive and to understand how the world worked. What she could get away with and what she couldn't. In the space of two books (about a year or two), what she knows changes drastically. People she trusts turn out to have ulterior motives, others assume she knows more than she does and her own motivations are questioned. She doesn't have time to breathe or understand this new world. She's just pushed into it. She has to be one thing or another to protect the people she cares about and honestly? She is rarely given a moment to just 'be'.

As for the people she's around, her perceptions are screwed with over and over again. People she trusts become people she has to be cautious around and vice versa. Take Gale. Her best friend in the whole world and one constant in a world of uncertainty. She has to deny that relationship to protect him but eventually, that constant becomes something she doesn't like and cannot deal with. And Peeta? Her rival in the Games to her rock during the aftermath, he is eventually taken from her and altered, leaving her floundering and trying to cope in a situation without someone that she can really trust or even trusts her to the extent she requires. She is being pushed, prodded, manipulated and shaped into a figurehead. A lovestruck teen, a beautiful rebel and an eloquent speaker. But she is none of those things. Her words are not her own. Her looks are not her own. Even her fighting abilities are not her own since her rebellion insist that she not be placed in any danger. Her very sense of self is being pushed aside and her identity is being taken away from her by people who want to use her for their own ends.

Can you honestly blame her for having several breakdowns when all of this is happening?

Even when she tries to take charge and be proactive, she isn't really allowed to. She's a figurehead, not a leader. It's not about what she does as it is about what she is supposed to represent. It doesn't matter that her actions were motivated by her own selfish desire to survive and not have to take out her friend. To everyone else, her actions were a rebellion against the system that was holding them back and gave them the courage to speak out and to stop accepting things as they were.

Let's look at another symbol of hope. Harry Potter is 'The Boy who Lived' who eventually was seen as the hope against darkness. The difference here is that his actions took place when he was a baby. It wasn't a conscious action on his part and people understood that. He was given support and opportunities to prove himself. He made proactive decisions because they were the right thing to do and he fought the darkness on his terms. When Katniss eventually does it? She loses some valuable people and nothing much comes from it. Seriously, things blow up before she can really do anything. The one proactive thing she does is ensure that the circle of dictatorship doesn't continue.

I think that is why so many people have a problem with her. Because she started as a girl and then became a symbol. A symbol she did not mean to become or was really given an opportunity to understand. Harry had about seven years to get his head around what he was and to choose to take a particular path, even when people he trusted were manipulating him to a certain extent. But where Dumbledore tried to find another way and struggled to accept what Harry would have to do, the people around Katniss are manipulating her actions based on the greater good at the expense of her own welfare.So much of what happens to her, happens in spite of her. She is defined by one moment, not a series of incidences, and unlike Harry, she is very aware that she doesn't want to be there and that someone else would be much better suited for the role.

But more importantly, the trilogy is about her. The Harry Potter series was about Harry finding his place in the wider social context because it kept finding him and drawing him into it, helping him to grow from a symbol to a leader. The Hunger Games is not about the Capitol, or the rebellion or even the Games. It's about Katniss and how she copes. It's about how she is being broken by the rebellion the same way that Peeta is broken by the Capitol. The only difference is that the Capitol used more obvious methods to get what they wanted. Yes there is a wider context but that is all background information rather than a central theme and that is an important distinction to make.  Unless you understand that, you are going to be disappointed.

It's safe now

On the spoiler-free side of things, I think the trilogy is something you should check out if you haven't already. I know many consider the last book to be the poorest of the trilogy but think of it as a study of psychology rather than judging the characters based on what you see. It's a fascinating exploration of the human mind and a sobering look at our current culture.