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The 12 books of Christmas

Retail stores are decking the halls, restaurants are booking parties, and neighbours are balanced precariously on ladders, adorning their homes with strings of lights.

Retail stores are decking the halls, restaurants are booking parties, and neighbours are balanced precariously on ladders, adorning their homes with strings of lights. With the holiday season right around the corner, it’s time for savvy shoppers to start compiling that all-important shopping list, and instead of resorting to the boring old scarf or gift certificate for your hard-to-buy-for brother or dad, why not offer up a literary gift: a book. We’ve compiled a list of 12 good reads for 12 different people on your shopping list, making two suggestions each week: husbands, wives, crazy uncles and aunts, teenage boys and girls, tiny tots, the boss, your American (pro-Obama) friend, the foodie, the family nature nut and local political junkie. Happy reading!

 

For the teenage girl – Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer

 

It was with much hesitation that I picked up “Twilight” from a Chapters bookstore in mid-November. My girlfriend urged me on to it, I swear. It seemed like everyone was reading it and it was only $11 — what harm could it do, aside from forcing me to admit I was reading a novel for teenage girls?

Not a lot as it turns out. I opened the book on a Sunday and by the end of the day had devoured almost 100 pages. I hadn’t read a book that fast since The Da Vinci Code, only this one didn’t claim to be any smarter than it was.

It didn’t take me long to decide that Twilight could be the perfect Christmas gift for any teenage girl who’s been living under a rock the past few months.

The story concerns a young girl, Bella Swan, who moves from Phoenix to the small Pacific Northwest town of Forks. Mountains envelop the town on all sides and the sun never seems to shine. It’s a perfect place for the Cullens, a family of “vegetarian” vampires living in perpetual withdrawal for human blood.

The Cullens are secluded, pale-faced and eerily beautiful. Bella can’t take her eyes off of Edward, who seems like the youngest of them, after she sees him in a cafeteria one day. One day Edward notices her noticing him, and in a roundabout way the two fall in love, all the while trying to keep his Transylvanian identity a secret. Of course, that’s easier said than done when a troop of hungry vampires wanders into town.

Twilight isn’t much of a rigorous read — like The Da Vinci Code, you could probably finish it within three days, regardless of your reading ability.

It’s difficult, however, to deny the passion that rises up between Edward and Bella. The two share a clear chemistry that fuels a compelling, yet simple novel.

Reading 40 pages of two people telling each other how they love each other could be onerous if the relationship between the leads wasn’t believable. In this novel it is, so much so that the novel has some very chilling moments. It’s more than enough to spark the interest of a teenage girl looking for a good romance, and it’s just reserved enough to appeal to males.

A warning though: Edward and Bella’s relationship is best experienced on the page. It translates into a paltry film that I regret seeing.

-- Jesse Ferreras

 

For the teenage boy, Brisingr, by Christopher Paolini

 

Brisingr is the third book of the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. Brisingr also means fire in a magical language that Eragon, the dragon-riding hero of his series, is learning to speak as he grows into manhood.

In many ways this is a typical fantasy series — a naïve but good farm boy raised by his uncle ends up on an epic quest with dragons and wizards, and discovers along the way that he has powers because he’s actually the son of someone famous/infamous In many ways this is also the plot from Star Wars. (So much for the democratic idea that anybody can rise to greatness.)

But while Paolini is not a great writer, not yet, he has good ideas, and a good understanding of the genre. He may have gotten a boost out of the starting blocks by publishing his first book during the recent Lord of the Rings craze, but these days he seems happily settled into a career as a fantasy writer. And although he’s three books and tens of millions of dollars in to that career, the best compliment I can give him at this point is that he remains a promising young author who improves with every book. He wrote Eragon when most kids are still in high school, having completed his high school diploma at the age of 15.

Teens love this series and they love this latest book. Older reviewers, not so much. Although past reviews have been careful to take into account Paolini’s age, Paolini is now 25 and the gloves are definitely off.

This book was slammed, and one of the biggest criticisms is that it jumps around a lot without actually going anywhere. I have to agree. But I also tried to put myself in the shoes of Paolini, who decided he couldn’t wrap up his Inheritance series in the trilogy he originally planned and decided he needed a fourth book to fit everything in.

As a result, Brsingr feels like a bridge book where nothing is really resolved at the end, kind of like The Half Blood Prince in the Harry Potter series. The story is still enjoyable, the pace is decent and you’ll find yourself on page 784 before you know it and looking forward to the fourth book — if only to finish what you’ve started.

Also, it’s important to recognize this type of book at a time when teens are reading less. Brisingr is no literary marvel, far from it, but it’s a big book in a series of big books that teens will actually sit down and read.

-- Andrew Mitchell