Hugo: A Look Back

Hugo was released six years ago. Since then its lost none of its charm. 

Hugo is a well-shot and well-acted movie that also happens to have a beautiful message.

I first became aware of the book which I always meant to read. The book is a marvelously illustrated and written by Brian Selznick.

Wonderful moments abound in this film, like Hugo hanging on to the arms of enormous clock. The scene looks like something out of the silent film Safety Last. The film honors silent films and silent film makers so this scene is so fitting.

One of the best aspects of the movie, however, is the theme.

Standing near the clear dial of the clock, which is an enormous window, Hugo realizes that the world is like an enormous machine.

If someone has lost their purpose, they are broken, just like the automaton Hugo's father found. Yet, that doesn't mean they can't be "fixed" or redeemed. 

"Are you a fixer?" Isabelle asks Hugo. Humbly, he says, "I think so."

The villain of the story and the movie has a prosthetic leg, which he needs because of a war injury.

The war has left him embittered; plus, he has had a terrible childhood. Consequently, he delights in locking up and terrorizing orphaned children.

Even this character though is "fixed," in the end, as he returns with a working leg, presumably fixed by Hugo and Papa Georges.

The Darkest Part of the Forest

In a town called Fairfolk, which lies close to the woods,  mysterious things always happened.

Things get even stranger after someone breaks into a glass coffin that holds a strange, horned boy. For years, townspeople have told stories about this local legend.

Local teens,  Hazel and Ben, have repeated those stories and even created some of their own. Other Fairfolk townspeople may have doubted that he was real--stating he was a statue.

Hazel not only knows the Prince is real but she also wants to be the one that saves him from the curse.

One night Hazel does break the spell that binds him. She can't remember that night, though, because of a bargain she had made with the Folk. 

Wanting music lessons for her brother, she gave the Folk seven years of her life. As a result, Hazel is "losing time." Disappearing in the middle of the night to do errands for them, Hazel has no memories of the events later.

Mysterious, intriguing, and fast-paced, this a wonderful YA read. Even if there are some mature themes, Hazel is a hero most girls can look up to. She save a city, her brother, a prince, and most importantly herself. 

If you like this novel, you may like Holly Black's A Modern Faeries Tale series, which includes Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside.

Humor

"Sometimes it takes time and distance to discover what is funny about ourselves...Humiliation plus time equals humor."

Lisa Yee, author of Millicent Min, Girl Genius, Horn Book Magazine, May/June 2017. 

Celine by Peter Heller

In Celine, Heller introduces readers to an aristocratic PI with emphysema. The titular character is also an excellent shot with a mind as quick as trap. 

Even though she's on the Social Register, Celine prefers reuniting birth families pro Bono. She doesn't care for any other kind of detective work, though she once worked for the F.B.I.

One of the most admirable characters in a long time is this one--gutsy and privileged Celine who sincerely cares for the underdog.

Celine is given a strange case--a woman who was abandoned twice by her own father. The woman is in her 40s now and would like to find her father so he can meet his grandchild. 

The man, a National Geographic Explorer photographer, may have faked his own death. He also may be on the run from the CIA for his involvement in political matters in South America.

Celine has her own secrets. The second mystery that unfolds is who Celine really is and what she's hiding from her "Watson," her husband, Peter, and her son, Hank. 

Based on the dedication page, it appears that Celine and Peter are versions of the author's own parents. 

Peter Heller has also written The Dog Stars and The Painter.

http://www.peterheller.net/

Fellside by M.R. Carey

Fellside is another terrifying, yet gripping story by M.R. Carey, the author of The Girl With All The Gifts. 

Jess Moulson goes on a hunger strike shortly before entering a maximum security prison, Fellside. 

Though Jess nearly dies, a young boy gives her a reason to live. Alex, the ghost of the boy whom everyone believes she killed, asks her to do the one thing she cannot refuse.

Fellside is a ghost story that reads like a riveting psychological thriller and suspenseful mystery.

Jess's relationship with Alex is complicated. She wants to protect him from everything but he is also powerful. He saved her when a nurse punctured her artery instead of her vein:

"He'd brought her back from the abyss, from the mouth of the grave. She owed him everything and he owed her nothing except arguably a life for a life and a tooth for a tooth."

  
Alex knows, however, that the fire Jess started while she was high hadn't killed him. 

The fire she set hadn't killed him because he was already dead. So who hurt him and how did he die?  

As a favor to Alex who brought her back from the blackness, Jess agrees to appeal her case and investigate what truly happened to him. 

History of Wolves

For a coming-of-age story that transcends genre, read Emily Fridlund's History of Wolves.
One of the central questions in this tale is culpability.


"What's the difference between what you want to believe and what you do?...And what's the difference between what you think and what you end up doing," Madeleine wonders.

She's a kid surrounded by adults--her parents, Mr. Grierson, the Gardners who shirk their duties and blame others for mistakes they make.The worst offender is probably Patra who blames illogically blames Madeleine for the death of her four-year-old.

Then there's Mr. Grierson, her teacher, who may be reprehensible but is not guilty of what police and Lily charge him with. Madeleine tracks him to Florida after he gets out of prison. She writes letters to him but he seems to have forgotten her.

Though Madeleine is expert at hiking and traversing the streams in her woods, she is less expert at deciphering social cues or understanding human relationships. Perhaps that is why she is fascinated by Patra and Leo's strange relationship.

However capable she is at wilderness survival, Madeleine is strangely powerless when faced  with Leo's religious obsession or Lily's duplicity.