The Second Annual Sonnet87.com Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence (or, The 2007 Book Awards)

Finally, the book list awards. This year’s awards do not contain as many categories as last year’s; as a whole, the books I read in 2007 were better than 2006’s, and lent themselves less to nitpicking and outrageous categories (for example, I could’ve done Best and Worst Christopher Moore categories, but nothing would qualify as worst; there weren’t any particularly ridiculous plot-twists that made me scoff or laugh aloud). I read a total of 30 books but beyond the following basic categories I can’t really come up with anything else. Given that it’s February 2008 already, I am forgoing a review on A Thousand Splendid Suns (which is already listed in the last book list of 2007) and jumping into the awards and the new 2008 list which needs to get started.

Best Book of 2007: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. While I had previously promised that DH would take all major awards, I’ve decided to be a bit kinder to the books I read this year. However, DH still takes the top award simply because I say so. And it was a fun read—J.K. Rowling may not be the best writer, and her dialogue can sometimes be cringe-worthy, but the world she created is still vibrant and highly imaginative. It’s a blend of ancient, medieval, Renaissance and somewhat Victorian sensibilities (with the Victorian thankfully not overwhelming anything) that leaves this lit nerd quite happy. As for Deathly Hallows itself, some confusing aspects of the Hallows versus Horcruxes importance notwithstanding, it was an excellent end for the series. While the epilogue was a bit cheesy, knowledge that the Wizarding world continued to thrive intact was appreciated (if grudgingly by some people)—in the end, this was a kid’s story, and having the hero die on all his fans might have been too much. Favorite part: Harry visiting Godric’s Hollow, his parents’ residence and resting place. As the visit comes to end, he experiences all that Voldemort experienced as he was torn from his body after attacking Harry as a baby. I am still upset that my Harry Potter boyfriend Fred Weasley is dead, but I suppose one of the Weasleys had to go. I just wish it had been Percy.

Worst Book of 2007: C’mon down, Margaret George, you are a repeat in the “Worst Book” category with your stunningly bad saga, Helen of Troy. Where do I begin (and why do I do this to myself)? Perhaps Helen’s idiocy in believing that everyone would share her delight in her illicit marriage to Paris? The marginalization of the gods, who are still present in some form, but whose characters are far from developed and only serve as excuses, not the master manipulators that they are supposed to be, for Helen to act as she does? The telescoping of time done clumsily at best, with Helen repeatedly mentioning that the 10 years (years never specified, by the way) that the Greek army is camped outside of Troy seemed like a few months to the obnoxious couple (though I’m sure the Trojans disagreed)? The only thing done right was Helen’s close relationship to Clytemnestra—something that George emphasized sans ancient support, but it worked nonetheless (as the sister to a marvelous sister, when I see sisterly relationships done beautifully, I appreciate it). George’s writing is wearing thin, but who knows if I’ll be able to resist her next opus on the twilight reign of Elizabeth I? That could be a comeback for George on this list in a few years (or, alternatively, I could read her Cleopatra book). Margaret George, rock on with your fifth-generation American self that writes cheesy historical romance. Not as bad as my reading of The Other Boleyn Sister years ago, but still pretty bad.

Best Non-Fiction: The award goes to One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding; this book will go a long way to aiding me as I plan my own wedding. As someone who will probably be getting engaged this year (it has to be said, IP), I appreciate the parade of purveyors of wedding products that I don’t need and that countless people will want me to buy. As I said in my review, it’s not a prescriptive book, but it does ask you to be aware of what you want and what they make you think you want. The book, I believe, asks the reader to be self-aware enough to admit that they do or do not want this kind of hype—and that subsequently leads to asking why they would want this type of hype anyway. The question phrased simply is this: “What is a marriage for?” Talk amongst yourselves.

Best Fiction: The Kite Runner. While the book relies on an amazing set of coincidences during the last third of its story arc, this last third doesn’t defeat the amazing sadness and sharp heights of alternative despair and joy through which it dances its readers. The Afghanistan that the book is able to present so vividly is the reader’s window to a world that’s long lost and just emerging; we can never understand it, but thanks to a great writer we’re able to experience it, albeit briefly. From the somewhat liberal culture of the 1970s to the iron rule of the 1990s, we see an Afghanistan under constant, painful change. Favorite moment: the death of the protagonist’s father intertwined with the marriage of the protagonist. There was something indescribable and touching about this sequence. It presents two cycles of life, with Amir achieving enough stability—the formation of a new branch of his family—to allow his father to pass away, succumbing to the cancer that has been ravaging him.

Worst Fiction: The Witch’s Trinity. I couldn’t get over how insensible this book was; it contained an endorsement from Khaled Hosseini, but I honestly didn’t see the appeal of the book. I could not follow the progression of the story thanks to the weak narration of the protagonist; instead of falling into Gude’s uncertain mental state and waiting for the next twist, I just thought Gude was stupid and couldn’t reasonably explain anything that had happened to her. The setting of scene was poorly done—I kept on imagining the Forbidden Forest from Harry Potter and expecting Hagrid to tramp by at any moment. My empathy for Gude was nonexistent, but my antipathy for the rest of the characters was real and constant—they were caricatures of the worst medieval (transposed to the sixteenth century, mind you) stereotypes, down to the unsympathetic daughter-in-law and unenlightened churchman. Big thumbs down.

Worst Non-Fiction: Radio On: A Listener’s Diary. Not because I don’t enjoy Sarah Vowell’s writing, because I do. However, I came to this book about 10 years too late and nearly a generation removed. Radio was never my anchor, and the things she sneers at as an early-20s-something are the things that I enjoyed then and enjoy now. Vowell’s writing is still nascent at this point—the over-focus on one particular subject (cough::Kurt Cobain::cough) and the disdain for anything unGen-X is frustrating, but you can see her style starting to emerge. As a barely Generation X product myself, I can say that I get a lot of it but I don’t agree with a lot of it. The defining moments of the middle range of this generation do not apply to all of us from that generation, much less society as a whole. The desire to overlay what’s important to you onto the whole nation is a frustrating exercise that a lot of mid-Generation Xers engage in and it’s obnoxious to say the least. As talented as he was, Kurt Cobain’s death did not signify the end of anything for me—and I do wish Generation Xers four to six years older than me would stop telling me that it indeed does signify the end of culture as a whole. Please.

Best Discovery: Susanna Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and The Ladies of Grace Adieu. Talk about setting the scene; I am no fan of Romanticism but Susanna Clarke manages to make me enjoy the place for a bit. Perhaps it’s because there’s an emphasis on bringing England out of that darkness (which, honestly, seems darker in the Romantic world than the writing that flourished in the Middle Ages—but that’s my hidden medieval professor talking). While it’s still gothic, nationalistic and relies heavily on the supernatural, there’s a fight against what I see as the natural darkness of Romanticism—and it seems that it’s Clarke’s pen that’s casting all the brilliance. It appears that she’s writing a sequel to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell; I for one look forward to it.