Holding Still For As Long As Possible by Zoe Whittall

When I got around to reading Catcher in the Rye, I was already 23-ish, and I kind of hated it. But really I had the sense that I was reading it too late in life; that you can get a lot more out of it if you read it as a teenager. All those feelings of rage and isolation are so much more relateable.

I say this because while I enjoyed Holding Still, I feel like I might have enjoyed it a lot more had I read it about five years ago; and I would be hesitant to recommend it to anyone who is not in their early twenties. It captures so perfectly the feelings of those years, at least for a specific set of twenty-somethings: the drama, the sexual exploration, the sometimes self-imposed poverty, the longing to connect to something bigger than oneself.

The characters in Whittall's novel live in the neighbourhoods my friends and I live in; the downtown Toronto neighbourhoods that consist of gorgeous old buildings divided into apartments, secret gems in areas that are rapidly turning into condo forests. Gentrification is an ever-present background character in this story.

The story itself is more like a bunch of stuff that happens in the lives of some people. It's interesting and engaging, but not totally traditionally story-shaped. People get together, break up, hang out, think about going to class or work or back home to visit their parents. All the characters seem to have a very fluid sexuality, which is really cool; gender identity does not appear to be a barrier to any of their relationships. They communicate through text messages and hang out at odd hours of the night. They probably don't think that they are hipsters. Every one of them seems like someone I know.

What I really liked was how Whittall dealt with her trans character; it came up at the beginning that he was trans, and then it was not mentioned again. He had a regular life like every other character. This is positive representation: when it's not such a big fucking deal. I liked it very, very much.

The city was used well as a backdrop to the story, and I always really like reading scenes set in places that I know. The Drake came up, and the Beaver Cafe (super cool since I know a guy who works there). One pivotal scene takes place at an intersection about two blocks from my place. One character who is a paramedic works out of Toronto Western Hospital. Very very cool.

I did like the book a lot; I just found it hard to get emotionally invested in characters with problems that I already probably spent too much time and energy on in my own life just a few years ago. I do highly recommend it for people in the 19-24 age range, especially those looking to read about non-hetero people who have regular person problems and aren't tokens or designated sidekicks.

I give it three out of five CN towers.

Old City Hall by Robert Rotenberg

I picked this book from my list because it is a murder mystery, and I love mysteries. Upon reading I found that it was actually more of a police procedural - but that's ok, because I love those too! It does have a lot of revelations and cliffhangers and so on thrown in, so there's something for everyone.

The story starts with a famous (fictional) talk radio host, Kevin Brace, opening his door to his newspaper delivery person and saying "I killed her.". His lover's body is in the bathtub, stabbed to death. Sounds pretty open-and-shut, right? Well that would be a pretty short novel, wouldn't it?

Rotenberg tells the story through a number of different characters trying to solve the case: the first police officer on the scene, the detective, the Crown attorney, the defense attorney, and a handful of other characters with varying levels of involvement. There are a lot of twists and turns as information is uncovered or, more often, as characters remember a key detail or read a significant piece of paper, etc. The book conforms pretty solidly to the murder mystery beat, and that is not a bad thing.

One critique I had was that there were a few too many cliffhanger chapter endings. Because Rotenberg is looking through the eyes of many different characters, he can end a chapter on a cliffhanger and then start the next one with another character, so you don't know what that startling revelation or sudden realization was until later. Come to think of it, I can think of two that were never actually explained (although perhaps I am a less than careful reader). Anyway, I was starting to lose interest after a while.

Something I loved about the book was how bold it was about being set in Toronto. You know how you see so many movies shot in Toronto that are supposed to take place somewhere else, and then you see one actually set in Toronto and it's like, wow, that's a refreshing change! This was the book version of that. Besides the title building, the book name checks Front Street many times, the St. Lawrence Market, the Toronto Islands, and even some spots in my neighbourhood like Clinton Street, Cafe Diplomatico, etc. Even the Maple Leafs get some love, as a constant backdrop to the main story.

I think it's a very good book. Rotenberg, a lawyer by trade, obviously knows what the hell he's talking about, and he makes it compelling and accessible for the non-lawyers in the crowd. He clearly loves Toronto dearly, and makes creative use of the layout of the city. He is a master of non-overbearing symbolism, which is trickier to pull off than you might think. And he is frank and upfront about the uneasy multiculturalism of this city.

I gotta say you guys, I loved Old City Hall and I highly recommend it. Four CN Towers out of five.

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

I picked this book up at the library and read it on my commute, and that was the perfect way to do it, I think. The story is set in a future downtown Toronto decimated by poverty and riots, and there is something so totally eerie about reading it while the streetcar you're on rolls down the same streets described in the story, past protesting members of Occupy Bay Street. It hits close to home, for sure.

The story is part dystopian fiction, part supernatural thriller. It deals with a Toronto separated into the dangerous downtown and the safe and prosperous suburbs; in "the Burn", there are no police, no services, and things are run by mob rule. However, an organic community has sprung up, and a barter economy, and I found a lot of parallels between this world and the kind of society the protesters in St. James Park are establishing on a micro level.

The protagonist is a young, single mother of Caribbean descent, named Ti-Jeanne. She lives with her grandmother in the former Riverdale Farm (!) across the street from the Necropolis, which has a prominent part in the story - making me so glad that I was able to tour it during Doors Open Toronto this year! Gros-Jeanne, the grandmother, is a healer and a woman who "serves the spirits"; she is beloved by the community although her relationship with her granddaughter is sometimes strained.

How to describe this plot? In a nutshell, the premier of Ontario requires a human heart (!) and for various reasons the leader of the "posse", Rudy, is commissioned to obtain one. He orders Tony, a former nurse who was fired because of a drug addiction, to basically kill someone and get their heart. Tony is Ti-Jeanne's former lover (and baby daddy) and comes to her and Gros-Jeanne for help escaping the Burn and Rudy's long reach.

From there you need to discover for yourself, but it gets pretty intense! There are spirits and visions and drugs and people get flayed with knives! But it is also great. I like the way it is written. Almost all the characters are Caribbean and speak in that almost musical dialect: he go do this, she nah go do that, etc. The setting is perfect; it both is and isn't Toronto. I love reading about areas that are familiar to me, especially when the author describes how they have changed since the riots - those familiar with downtown Toronto will recognize Dundas subway station, the Don Valley Parkway, Allan Gardens, and especially the CN Tower where the climactic scene unfolds. This is a story that needs - and loves - its setting.

What I loved most about the book was the characterization of the protagonist Ti-Jeanne, and the unapologetic use of female characters throughout. Ti-Jeanne is flawed and roundly drawn - completely three-dimensional. She is feeling the same disbelief as the reader when the spirits first start to appear; we take our cues from her. Her sexuality and sexual desire are portrayed as completely unremarkable. Most of all I loved that the two heroes of this story are women of colour: a single mother and a witch. Amazing amazing.

Hopkinson sticks women in lots of peripheral roles as well that in most stories would probably default to men: the Premier is female, the heart surgeon is female (with a female partner), the lead street urchin (oh you better believe there are street urchins) is female, and on and on.

I have to say I loved reading this. It is a quick read (it only took me five one-way commutes) and totally engaging. It can be dark at times and I really wasn't kidding about people getting flayed with knives, but there are strong themes of hope and redemption and it is brilliantly written.

Four towers out of five.

Fables of Brunswick Avenue by Katherine Govier

I was given this book as a gift from my soon-to-be mother-in-law when I moved to Toronto. It is a collection of short stories which, if not all set on Brunswick Ave., are certainly tied to it through the author's memory of a certain time.

The stories are brief, and I don't just mean short - they seem to be deliberately set up as fragments or snapshots of their character's lives. I found them all to be well-written and evocative, but unavoidably bleak. I don't think there was one story in the collection that was happy; not even a little bit. They have the distinctive flavour of an older and wiser author looking back at a time in her life that probably seemed sweet and exciting at the time, but through a different lens, it does come out as somewhat depressing.

The stories deal with the doubts, fears and neuroses of people in their twenties, and added to the clear Toronto backdrop, they should have been totally relateable for me. But perhaps I am a couple years too old - or twenty years too young - to understand the problems the characters were facing. Or maybe I'm just not fun enough, complicated enough. I did have a hard time sympathizing with people who seemed very self-involved. The whole time I was reading it I had the sense that the author is much nicer than the characters in whom she was seeing herself.

One thing I loved was the introduction, in which Govier talks about her own time living on Brunswick Avenue and the funny encounters she had. It is frank and hilarious and honestly gave me too high hopes for the rest of the book. I can't help wondering if a non-fiction collection - of stories of her time there - might not have been a better choice.

Reading a whole book of short stories at once is perhaps not recommended. I think that if you are in the mood for something that's a bit of a downer, a story from this book would be perfect; for all the thematic gloominess, they are beautifully written stories. And for a taste of Toronto in the 1970s it is excellent. However, having read the author's full-length fiction and knowing it to be vastly superior, I have a hard time recommending this book.

Two towers out of five