Legend - Marie Lu (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2011)

Eventually I will burn out on the YA dystopia novels. But until then....

This one is set in LA! Well, some sad future version of LA with giant lakes (from flooding) and plagues and such. And of course this is the Republic of America, fighting against the Patriots and others to the east who are making claims about how the whole land was once one united country and such.

But anyway, there are people! You've got a whole Romeo & Juliet thing. Death, lies, love, etc! All very exciting, and half of the people have crazy names.

This is pretty much the worst and most snarky sales pitch ever, but I did sincerely enjoy this book. Waiting for the next one.

P.D. James tries fanfic

Death Comes to Pemberley - P.D. James (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011)

I had heard some fairly negative buzz about this novel - a murder mystery set in the world of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, some years after its happy ending. But that rarely stops me when it comes to P&P takeoffs, so here I am.

And while it was not perhaps the strongest of novels, and the whodunit seemed weird at best, I then looked at James' bio and discovered that she was over 90 when the book was published. And all was forgiven. Damn, if I am around at 90 (and I hope I am) I want to be clever enough to put together this novel.

Plot summary: Elizabeth & Darcy are happily wed, and happily estranged from Lydia & Wickham. Until Lydia shows up screaming bloody murder, and then end up ensconced in a murder trial. I think I've been ruined by too much media that has to have thrilling climaxes, because for all that there's a murder and a trial and verdicts and much excitement, it all seems rather calm and (spoiler alert, I guess) neither Elizabeth nor Darcy find themselves in a showdown with the real killer, waiting for some deux ex machina rescue. Which, in retrospect, was rather nice.

James also plays homage to other Austen novels, namechecking characters from at least two other novels. If there were others, I missed them and want very much to have them brought to my attention. That was cute, although sorta silly. And I didn't much take to her renditions of some beloved characters, although I suppose her visions of them are just as likely to be accurate as my own.

All in all, it made for pleasant, if somewhat incongruous, poolside reading.

What Gatsby?

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner, 1925, 1995)

First off, this is a re-read. Once upon a time (high school) I read this book and was profoundly moved to indifference tinged with distaste. (This was typical of the books I read for my American literature class, which may say quite a bit about my teacher.) I couldn't quite figure out what to do with that when I got to college and got interested in the Jazz Age, and when I was enchanted by Tender is the Night. (On the other hand, I was totally unmoved by This Side of Paradise.) When I found a cheap copy, I bought it, figuring that eventually I would give Fitzgerald another try, this time giving him the benefit of how much I wanted to like him.

And here the assist goes to Baz Luhrmann. The story seems right up his alley, and while I haven't particularly liked  his other big films, I am newly fascinated by Leonardo DiCaprio, and have to go see this one. But I wanted to be back in the text first, even if that is likely to hurt my enjoyment of the film.

First and foremost, I was amazed at not only how short the novel is, clocking it at 189 pages, but how quick a read. I blew through it. The events of the novel take place over a single summer, and they pass as quickly as summer always seems to. Nick meets up with Daisy and Tom, meets Jordan, meets Tom's mistress, meets Gatsby, meets Gatsby's business associate, hears a variety of rumors and half-truths and straight up lies about Gatsby's origins and wealth, and watches as a series of love triangles collide. And then it mops up.

Weirdly, while I remembered lots of feelings about the book's characters (Nick is lame, Gatsby naive, Tom terrible, Daisy annoying -- and everyone made me feel vaguely uncomfortable) I had lost a lot of the plot. Like I knew the raw sketch of the climax, but not all the details. How did I lose those?

Oh, and here's what the LA Times had to say back in 1925. I'll approve, but how on earth does the reviewer get away with not only giving away the fate of the characters but what might also be one of the best lines in the whole book, when Nick realizes the truth about Tom and Daisy?