The Book Review Club - Parched

Parched
Melanie Crowder
Middle Grade

Summer has come and gone so quickly, fortunately packed with a lot of amazing reads. Which made choosing this first Fall review hard! I decided to go with my fellow Vermont College friend and amazing writer, Melanie Crowder's first book, Parched. You might argue that I'll be slightly biased in my review of this work, but this story, from its inklings to final version, won a few prestigious VCFA awards, landed Melanie her agent and first book contract. It doesn't need my bias. It stands... shines... all on its own.

Very succinctly, the story chronicles the struggles of a girl surviving on the parched African savanna and a boy escaping a d(r)ying city in search of water.

In only 160 pages, Crowder develops characters and situations so powerful they have followed me throughout all of my other reads. It's a little bit magical how she does this. It's as if she discovered Hemingway's secret for parsimony. The writing is sparse but fully packed. In some ways, it's as if poetic style has been applied to prose. For that reason alone, if you're looking for tricks of the trade, Crowder's work will keep you up nights deconstructing to figure out just how she does it.

POV is used extremely deftly. Whenever the story follows either child, POV is omniscient/close 3rd. However, this is interspersed with an unusual 1st person perspective from the POV of the main hunting dog. These short chapters are like a raw, direct, honest emotional punch that jolts the reader and pulls them deeper into story.

Finally, this story itself works like a dip into the pool of all the story that is going on around the characters. Crowder shows only what needs showing, while nevertheless belying a sense of extreme depth to her characters.

Spoiler Alert: Dogs do get hurt in this book. Yes, it is another dead dog book. My kids may never forgive me for buying it for them and urging them to read it. Protest signs against parental evilness line the walls of our house. I can think of no greater compliment for Crowder. She pulled them in. She made them care. She made them mourn and KEEP READING.

Move over Where the Red Fern Grows. There is a new contender for greatness. 

For more great reads, stroll over to Barrie Summy's site. She's serving them up cool and refreshing!

You Might Be a Writer If...

Rousseau cautioned in his writings that the way to true happiness was to walk the middle path, virtu, not too much of one or the other.

I wonder sometimes if his advice was self-directed. I mean, he was a writer and a philosopher, the double whammy. The likelihood of falling down Alice's rabbithole for forever and ever is pretty big. Did he know that? Is that why he tried to warn all future writers? Beware the rabbit hole???? Or was he trying to remind himself?

We writer aren't the best at nirvana-esque living. (If you think I'm exaggerating, see - Edgar Allen Poe, Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, the list goes on and on and on ). I blame it on the chosen profession, writing.

You might be a writer if...you vacillate wildly between "did I eat today?" to "I'm regrouting the shower for the fifth time."

The writing muse is a jealous lover. When it takes hold, the world falls away and I can't remember if I've done the most basic things, like eat. I have to stop and think. My stomach isn't any help. It sort of falls away too. There's no grumbling. No hunger pains. It's like I become one with the pages I'm working on and existing physically is there only so that my fingers move over the keyboard. Until I practically pass out, that is.

Now the other extreme is when the writing muse won't come out and play. Hugh Grant said in the film "Music and Lyrics": "Inspiration is for amateurs." Yeah, okay maybe, but it's a slow grind between days when it's there and when it's not. (And yes, I am using Hugh Grant logic and Rousseau-an wisdom in the same blog. You never know where enigmatic truths will rear their elusive heads!)

So what is a writer to do? There is that tempting window just to the left of my desk that I have pondered many a time throwing my computer through.

And then there's the kitchen floor that needs regrouting, the flower beds that need weeding, the grass that needs mowing, and the eternal pile of laundry that needs washing. The household chore list is endless. You can tell when the writing "thing" isn't going so well for me because the house really sparkles. Glows even.

And my kids are outside. My mood has a tendency to head south when I'm flummoxed in a piece. Writer mood swings are a whole different "you might be" piece in itself. That and self medication for said mood swings.

But I digress.

Writers swing back and forth passionately between falling down Alice's rabbit hole to not even knowing where the hole's hidden itself. We'd love for the entrance to imagination and storytelling to be open all the time, wide open, flowing with ideas open, but it's a fickle entrance. I've heard supplicating offerings, like chocolate, help. You can use the harder stuff. Hemingway, I think, used Scotch. Whiskey even. It worked for him...until he shot himself. Yeah, like I said, writers don't tend toward the middle path. We try. If only that damned door weren't so obstinate and mesmerizing!