Assorted Mini-Reviews

I haven’t posted in a very long time. It’s not that I haven’t been reading; well, yes it’s partly that. It’s been a busy year, the sort that results in several almost-finished projects. I have several almost-finished blog posts saved on here that have sat idle for many months now. In the interest of time, and as it is the holiday season and if you’re like me, you like to get books for Christmas, or at least spend your time off reading, I thought I would post some fast mini-reviews. I’m no good at giving out stars for anything…I can never decide what the various number of stars would represent. (Is five stars the best book you’ve ever read in your life? Or simply any book that’s passably enjoyable?) It's too much work for me. I avoid goodreads for this reason. So here is my (hopefully pretty self-explanatory) reviewing scale.

Don’t bother = Don’t.

Library = It’s worth a read, but not worth spending your own money on. (Note: This is not an empty suggestion. If you live near me, our local library has a copy of this book.)

Buy it = This is actually good enough to spend your own money on and keep in your personal library. (On my current budget ,the standard for a book of this category is very high. Higher than it might be for you if you are, say, Jessica Simpson. I once watched an episode of Newlyweds in which she and Nick were going through bags of DVDs that they had recently purchased. They had to look through all the bags before they could watch anything because they didn’t even know what they’d bought. They just like, went into Target and pulled everything off the shelves and bought it all, or something. Ok, I admit it, ever since I watched that episode, it's been my dream to be able to live that way.)

So here we go…

What I’ve read this year:

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray: Don’t bother.

Age: Teen (Definitely an older teen, though. See the themes, below.)

I absolutely loved Libba Bray’s first series, A Great and Terrible Beauty, etc., so I was excited to read this. However, it’s in a completely different genre (contemporary “humor/satire” as opposed to fantasy historical fiction) and she’s just no good at it. It’s about beauty queens and Sarah Palin and Kim Jong-Il and reality TV and feminism and boy bands and being transgendered and girl power and how you’ll know you’re self-actualized when you achieve sluthood. If that seems like a lot of themes crammed into one book, it is. And it’s unfunny and absurd and not well done at all and the satire just falls flat.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver: Buy it!

Age: Adult/Teen

I can’t even tell you how much I loved this book. It’s one of those rare finds that combines a good story with good storytelling. It’s told from the alternating perspectives of the five women in the Price family. The father, Nathan Price, is a Baptist minister who decides the family will spend the year of 1959-1960 as missionaries in a remote village of the Belgian Congo. It is an intense, tragic, eye-opening year that changes each member of the family forever. Best of all, Kingsolver manages to give each narrator her own unique and beautiful voice.

Why I’m Like This by Cynthia Kaplan: Library

Age: Adult

I read several amazon reviews of this book and the chief complaint was along the lines of, “Why would I want to read the memoir of someone who isn’t famous?” My response to this is first, “Well, but you did read it.” Second, in my opinion, unless you’re Cleopatra or something, most people’s lives are pretty much the same, at least when told in memoir form. Anyway. I enjoyed this book. I actually thought it was even funnier than Bossypants, Tina Fey’s new memoir (see below). Kaplan’s perspective on life is pretty similar to my own. We’re both kind of crazy in the same way. One caveat: the first chapter features some rather unpleasantly graphic teenage sex, leading me to believe that the rest of the book would be dirtier than it actually turned out to be. If that sort of thing bothers you, just skip it and start with the second chapter.

The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld: Library

Age: Adult

If you’re already a Sittenfeld fan, I do suggest that you read this book. It’s in a very similar vein to her other two books, Prep and American Wife, but I don’t think it’s nearly as well done. (Those two I would definitely classify as Buy!) The biggest problem I had with it is that the narrator is as socially inept as Sittenfeld’s others but she lacks any of their humanity. She’s not one of those people who assumes that no one likes her but really they do. She’s actually that unlikeable. She’s not just awkward, she’s really a b*tch. As the book progresses it becomes very difficult to muster any sympathy for her at all. If you’ve never read any Sittenfeld, you’re much better off starting with one of her other two books.

Bossypants by Tina Fey: Library

Age: Adult

I’m a huge 30 Rock fan and I really love Tina Fey. However, this book was not nearly as funny as I would have expected. The humor is more along the lines of a few witty observations here and there, not a laugh out loud on every page. It was, however, an interesting read, and it moved quickly. I haven’t made it all the way through a book in f-o-r-e-v-e-r but I read this one in a day and a half. You know those features in celebrity gossip magazines that are all like, “Celebrities…they’re just like us!” but you just don’t buy it? I’m pretty certain I have absolutely nothing in common with any of the Kardashians, for instance. Well, after reading this, I feel like there is at least one celebrity out there who is a lot like the rest of us. Tina Fey may not be as funny as I had thought (at least not in this medium) but she does seem like someone I would like to know.

What I’m reading now:

Nefertiti by Michelle Moran: Undecided (Library/Buy?)

Age: Teen

This is basically Philippa Gregory set in ancient Egypt, but also for teens so there’s much less sex. I’m undecided because I’m about halfway through and it’s moving very slowly. Nothing much happens and what does is repetitive. Also, it’s written from the perspective of Nefertiti’s younger sister, and it kind of bugs me when authors do that. It seems like Nefertiti would have a much more interesting perspective and it sometimes feels like a cop out when authors decide to write from the perspective of a less complex character. However, I do feel like it captures a sense of what life in Egypt was like at that time, and I’m enjoying that aspect of it. I started reading it right after viewing the King Tut exhibit that’s visiting our local art museum (Nefertiti was one of the wives of King Tut’s father, Akhenaten) so I’m in a very ancient Egypt mood right now.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller: Buy

Age: Adult/Teen

This is actually a re-read because I read this book for the first time when I was in high school, but it’s definitely worth thinking about if it’s not already in your library. This is the story of a group of American soldiers stationed in Italy during WWII. It’s satire done right, fantastically right (Libba Bray, you should be taking notes).

At Home and A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson: Buy

Age: Adult/Teen

I’ve been slowly working through these books for a long time now, but that’s because my husband and I read Bill Bryson out loud together so it takes a lot longer, and we have to take semester-long hiatuses every fall and spring. Anyway, they’re super fun. At Home is a history of the modern house and how it evolved over the past 200 years. Along the way it is full of lots of trivia and the history of all sorts of other things. If you’re not familiar with Bill Bryson, he’s a historian/grammarian/travel writer/comedian who has a knack for making nonfiction really really interesting and fun. A Short History of Nearly Everything is what I wish all of my middle school, high school, and college science textbooks had been. Bill Bryson actually manages to explain scientific principles in a way that make sense, instead of vaguely hinting at them and talking around them the way all of my science teachers did. This book is also full of lots of history about science…it covers what we know now and also how we got to that point and what we thought we knew before.

Dedication by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus: Library

Age: Adult

This is a novel by the authors of The Nanny Diaries. (It is actually a honest-to-goodness novel, not a satire. The characters have names and everything.) Our heroine’s high school boyfriend grew up to be a huge pop star, only every song he’s ever written is about her. She’s been embarrassed by this for the past decade but she’s never had a chance to confront him until he returns to their hometown to film an MTV Christmas special. The chapters alternate between the present and the past. I think this element of the storytelling is really well done, as each chapter reveals a new and deeper layer to their relationship. The more you learn about their shared history, the more you understand why what he’s done is unforgiveable, yet at the same time, the more you cross your fingers for them and hope for a reconciliation.

What is on my to-read list:

The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

This is the story of four Jewish women at Masada. I’m a huge sucker for historical fiction and I haven’t read anything about Masada since my high school Latin class. (If you didn’t take high school Latin and you’re not Jewish so you don’t know what I’m talking about, Masada was a fortress on top of a hill where a community of Jews withstood a siege of the Roman army before eventually committing a mass suicide rather than be captured…sorry for the spoiler.)  

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Probably all of you have read this one already, or at least you’ve heard about it. I’ve heard nothing but good things about it and I’m looking forward to it.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson

This is a new nonfiction book by the author of The Devil in the White City (about the architect who designed the Chicago World’s Fair and the serial killer who preyed upon the tourists…another book that I strongly recommend). In the Garden of Beasts is about the American ambassador to Berlin in the 1930s and seems likely to be fascinating.

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean

My husband owns this book and says it is similar to A Short History of Nearly Everything and also fascinating. It is about the stories behind the discoveries of the various elements in the periodic table. 

The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran

This is the sequel of sorts to Nefertiti. Based on the amazon reviews, it sounds like it succeeds in the areas where Nefertiti is lacking (more interesting characters, more interesting romance, etc.). I'm planning to read it when I finish Nefertiti.

Finally, I'd love to make this blog more interactive. Tell me in the comments, what were your favorite books this year?

My Name is Memory

Author: Ann Brashares

Age: Adult/Teen (It's marketed for adults, apparently, but it's not very different from most teen fantasy romances. Most good ones, anyway.)

A caveat before we begin—up until the last 80 pages or so, I thought this was one of the best books I had read in a long time. At that point, unfortunately, what had been an enchanting, rather original love story somehow (despite me screaming at it to stop!) changed before my eyes into an annoyingly generic thriller. And it turns out that it’s meant to be the first in a trilogy, which also irritates me, because “trilogy” always seems to mean a wholly unsatisfying ending to each of the first two and an unnecessarily long-drawn-out, repetitive plot. I’m really not sure how much more Brashares can do with this story line. If it were up to me (and of course it’s not), I would have thought another 100 pages or so would have wrapped up the story nicely without making the book an unwieldy length. Sigh. BUT the first few hundred pages are so good that it’s worth reading anyway, and I’m not giving up hope that Brashares has something fantastic up her sleeve for the next two.

Lucy is a high school senior who has had a crush on Daniel since he moved to her school two years ago, but he doesn’t seem to know she exists. Then they find themselves together in an empty classroom at the graduation dance. Lucy is thrilled that Daniel finally seems into her—really into her—but when he calls her by the wrong name, she thinks he must be drunk or high or maybe even deranged, and has confused her with someone else. Embarrassed and a bit frightened, she leaves.

The story follows Lucy through her college years, during which she can never quite stop thinking about Daniel. Daniel can’t stop thinking about Lucy, either, but he’s worried that he really scared her and isn’t sure if he should try to contact her again. Besides, Daniel’s a very patient man. He’s been in love with Lucy for over a thousand years.

Everyone on earth lives many lives, but most people don’t carry their memory from one life to the next, except perhaps occasionally in nightmares. (Do you have a recurring nightmare about falling? Or drowning? Or being bitten by a snake? That’s probably how you died in a previous life.) Daniel is unique. He can remember in detail every life he’s ever lived. In his first life, he was a foot soldier. He attacked Lucy’s village (only of course she wasn’t called Lucy then) and set her house on fire. Just before she burned to death, he saw her face and knew he loved her.

In every life he’s lived since then, Daniel has searched for Lucy, whom he calls Sophia. It isn’t easy. He goes many lives—hundreds of years, sometimes—without catching a glimpse of her. If they do meet, they are often the wrong age for each other. In fact, only twice between their first meeting and the present day have they been born at roughly the same time in the same geographical area. The first time, she is married to his brother, and the second, she is a WWI nurse and he is a dying soldier. Will this life finally be their chance to grow old together? Or will they be thwarted once again? For there is another soul who remembers, and he bitterly hates both Daniel and Sophia for perceived wrongs committed in previous lives.

The point of view trades back and forth between Lucy in the present day, who is alternately trying to find and forget Daniel, and Daniel, who tells the story of all the lives in which he has known Lucy/Sophia. Every girl who’s ever had a crush she can’t quite shake, no matter how improbable, will be able to sympathize with Lucy. But Daniel’s side of the story is what’s particularly fascinating to me. I love books that encompass many stories within one story, and I love historical fiction. I found Daniel’s stories interesting and unique. standard historical fiction deals with the famous figures of the era—the main character plays a significant role in history or at least manages to observe important events. But Daniel lives very ordinary lives—he’s usually a sailor or a foot solider—the sort that are almost entirely unremembered by history.

As far as the romance goes, Daniel has all the qualities that make Edward Cullen wonderfully sexy with none of the drawbacks. Because he can remember all of his lives, he is, in essence, immortal. He’s been through school dozens of times and is incredibly well educated. He’s also fantastically wealthy, because whenever he is rich in one life he invests in something durable and hides it for later. But he can also go outside in sunlight and he never feels the urge to drink Lucy’s blood. Ann Brashares has improved upon the most perfect vampire boyfriend in literature. You never even imagined that was possible. Well, now you know.

The story is interesting and the writing is decent, but what I liked most of all was that this book is the rare sort that makes you completely re-evaluate the way you see the world. At least that’s the effect it had on me. I now believe very strongly in re-incarnation. Or perhaps I always have and just didn’t realize it, because I haven’t had a change of religion or anything. Rather I’ve managed to fit it all nicely within my current faith. Now I’m not saying I believe in it exactly as it’s presented in this book (it is a work of fiction, after all), but I do believe that we have all lived at least one life before this one. It just explains so much. Nightmares (dreams are always funny things, aren’t they), and inexplicable phobias—if you can’t understand why you’re so afraid of something in this life, it’s because of something that happened to you in a previous life. And when you meet someone and you feel as if you’ve known them forever, it’s because you actually have. (I’m not just talking about cliché romance here, either; I hope everyone has at least one good friend that you feel this way about.) It also clarifies why families are so important—as Daniel explains, you are born near people who you were close to before. (One soul may be alternately Daniel’s father or son, for instance.)

I love a book that is both entertaining and insightful. This one is highly recommended! 

Recommended for readers who like: time travel romances; historical fiction; The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants; Twilight; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

 

The Overnight Socialite

Author: Bridie Clark

Age: Adult (Although...spoiler alert...nothing dirty happens. At all.)

This is pretty unexceptional chick lit. I suppose most chick lit is pretty unexceptional. But this one has really good reviews on the back! Ok, I guess people aren't going to put the bad reviews on the back of their book. But I'm sitting here looking at the back of the book right now, and these are seriously out-and-out lies. One reviewer says the book made her "LAUGH OUT LOUD" (emphasis added). I doubt that very much. Also, the characters are supposedly "endearing." Again, no.

It's sort of a modern re-telling of Pygmalion/My Fair Lady. Actually, I don't know why I just said "sort of." Most of the scenes are pretty directly lifted from My Fair Lady, but in a random fashion, so that if you haven't already seen My Fair Lady you might not understand what's going on. That's what's strangest about it, I think. The "main" characters only show up when it's time to drop in a scene from My Fair Lady. The rest of the book focuses on a bunch of other characters who really ought to be much more minor players. Like, you're reading along, and you want to know what happens next, and then all of a sudden you're dropped into a huge long scene about someone you can't even remember who was apparently introduced in the beginning of the book and is now, 150+ pages in, someone you're supposed to care deeply about. It's strange.

Supposedly, this is the story of Lucy Jo Ellis and Wyatt Hayes IV. Lucy Jo is a simple Midwestern girl with a big heart and big dreams. She wants to make it as a fashion designer in the Big Apple, but so far she's had no luck, probably because she's fat. OHMIGOSH is she fat. Of course, as soon as she starts being pygmalioned, she drops a bunch of weight and turns out to be totally hot. Because that's exactly what women need to read about. A woman who is unlovable when she's carrying a few extra pounds, and magically becomes absolutely perfect in every single way as soon as she's skinny. (a) That's just wrong, and (b) Why does it even have to be an issue? Why could the story not just be about a girl who's a little naive, a little clueless in the big city and could use some cash and a good elocution coach? Why is her weight even at all relevant? And bear in mind that this book was written by a woman (a Harvard-educated woman, at that). Ladies, why do we do this to ourselves???

Wyatt Hayes IV is a bored anthropologist with nothing to do because he's already fabulously wealthy. But he does kind of, maybe, when he thinks about it, want to be taken seriously as a scholar, so he decides to publish a book on the social experiment he's performing with Lucy--namely, taking a nobody and, in three months, turning her into Manhattan's most sought-after socialite. Of course, he doesn't tell Lucy that's his motive, so you know that's going to cause some major awkwardness when they start to fall for each other. That's not a spoiler. Unless you've never read one of these books/seen one of these movies before in your life, and if that's the case, please don't start with this one.

That sounds fun enough, doesn't it. Except that, as I mentioned before, neither of these characters gets enough page time to be really developed. A book that was just about Lucy and Wyatt and what they go through and how they become attracted to each other, that could be a cute, fun read. But this book isn't really about them at all. It's about Cornelia Rockman, Wyatt's vicious ex-girlfriend, and how she tries to sabotage Lucy and win Wyatt back, and it's about Wyatt's best friend Trip and his girlfriend Eloise and how Trip is a commitment-phobe, and it's about other various friends of these people and their own problems. And okay, maybe these would be interesting stories if these people had their own book (although I very much doubt it) but this book ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT THEM! IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT LUCY AND WYATT! I mean, when you're watching My Fair Lady, you don't suddenly want to cut from Ascot to half an hour about the third extra from the left's life, do you?

Let's take them one at a time. First, Cornelia. Okay, it is kind of fun to have someone making life more difficult for Lucy, but you can have a villainess without making the book primarily about her. Or, alternatively, you can make the entire book about her, but if you're going to do that, I'm pretty sure you ought to make her a slightly more sympathetic character. (Although I didn't go to Harvard like Bridie Clark so I dunno.) Next, Trip and Eloise. All I'm going to say about them is, ladies, if you've been dating the same man for eight years and he's never once mentioned marriage, don't just sit at home and cry about it. It's okay to bring it up yourself. If you can't even talk to someone about it, you shouldn't be considering marrying them at all! How is this not just common sense?!? Third, there's Cornelia's best friend, who's supposed to marry for money but might actually be falling in love. Okay, this would be a cute story if (a) this book was actually about her, and (b) she was actually a decent person who deserved love. Instead, she switches back and forth between snooty socialite and down-to-earth sweetheart so fast it will give you whiplash. It's hard to know which is the real girl, which makes it hard to believe she'll ever really be happy. And finally, we have Rita, Lucy's mother. There's supposed to be some sort of heart-rending subplot in which Lucy hurts her mother by being embarrassed of her humble beginnings. Or so we're told. In actuality, Rita is an opportunistic witch who wants to use her own daughter to get ahead. Apparently Clark can't see that, which is strange because she wrote the character.

All this ignoring of Lucy and Wyatt means that their story really doesn't get developed at all. Note to Clark: A character isn't charming just because you say she is. A man isn't in love just because you say he is. I think there's an entire song about this very problem in our beloved musical. Did I finish the book? Yes, although I'm beginning to think that's not such a good acid test, because I'm forcing myself to finish anything these days so I can write about it. Did I smile to myself when everyone got what they deserved in the end? Yes. On the whole, I was mildly entertained. But I wouldn't pay money for it.

Other books you might like:

For adults, about NYC society: The Nanny Diaries; Meg Cabot - The Boy Next Door, Boy Meets Girl, Every Boy's Got One; The First Wives Club; Lauren Weisberger - The Devil Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Knowing (I didn't love these last two; you'd think they'd be fun cheery chick lit but they're really about unhappy people with unhappy lives, and they're just depressing. But they are about NYC society!)

For adults, about LA society: Clare Naylor and Mimi Hare - The Second Assistant, The First Assistant (The Second Assistant comes first...if that's confusing just remember that first assistant is a promotion!); The Starter Wife (the miniseries with Debra Messing...haven't read the book); Celebutantes by Amanda Goldberg and Ruthanna Kalighi Hopper (not my favorite story but it is written by actual Hollywood insiders so it is, I assume, pretty true to life)

For teens, about NYC society: The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot; Gossip Girl (the TV show; I've never actually read the books...oh dear, now I'm forced to wonder which is worse, admitting to reading the books or watching the show?); Confessions of a Teen Nanny by Victoria Ashton

Honey, Baby, Sweetheart

 Author: Deb Caletti

Age: YA

At school, Ruby McQueen is The Quiet Girl. (I've been The Quiet Girl before, too--often I guess I still am--so I know how much it sucks.) But in the summer after her junior year of high school, she gets a chance to be someone different. Travis Becker is not only gorgeous, he's also rich, which means he goes to private school and has never met Ruby before. He's also a bad boy. Ruby doesn't belong with a bad boy, but Travis doesn't know that. Travis thinks Ruby is daring and fearless and beautiful. Obviously, Ruby falls head over heels. Unfortunately, Travis' idea of "exciting" is more like Ruby's idea of "terrifying," and Ruby starts to think that maybe being someone else isn't so great.

When it comes to love and bad boys, Ruby's mom, Ann, is a seriously bad example. She's a librarian who's still in love with Ruby's dad, Chip, a musician who deserted the family years ago to follow his dreams. Now he plays guitar in an amusement park saloon, and comes back into their lives for a few days at a time--just long enough to wreak havoc and leave Ann devastated yet again.

Ruby sees through Chip, and Ann sees through Travis, but that doesn't really help anyone. Then Ann starts bringing Ruby to the book club she runs for senior citizens. They're reading a book by the famous author Charles Whitney. Charles--and the old ladies in the book club--have some things to teach Ann and Ruby about love. That's why Ann gets the brilliant idea to reunite Charles Whitney with the woman he loved and lost in 1940s New York City. Ann, Ruby, and the book club set off on a road trip of self-discovery and healing.

When I read the summary of this book on amazon, it only talked about the gorgeous bad boy part, and I'll confess that's what interested me. Then when I got the book out of the library, and the jacket went on and on about the senior citizen road trip, I thought it sounded pretty lame. But it's not--it's so good. The old people are full of wisdom. Any girl who's ever felt like she needed a boy to complete her should read this book. As Miz June says, "Love can come when you're already who you are, when you are filled with you. Not when you look to someone else to fill the empty space."

I've read a lot of the wild-child-cautionary-tale genre of teen fiction, and this book is so much better than the usual that it's almost unfair to group it with them. Maybe I prefer this book because it's so much more relatable. I was always a good girl. No one I knew--or at least no one I knew closely--ever got raped or committed arson or shot anyone. But every girl I've ever known, including me, has at some point had a bad relationship or a bad breakup or worried too much about boys. And it's the right sort of feminism (at least my idea of what feminism should be). It's not "Down with love!" It's "Up with you! And then love!" And there is some lovely romance--even if the teenagers aren't ready for soulmates, the 80-year-olds know exactly what they want.

I also really like the narrator. Her voice reminds me a bit of Barbara Robinson's narrators--she has the same sort of openness and humor and wisdom. She even has an adorable and astute kid brother. And she's good at description--from scenery to emotions--which many writers are not.

Even if you're no longer a teenager, you probably still need to learn what this book has to teach. In fact, you may actually be more ready to hear it now.

Recommended for readers who like: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants; Barbara Robinson; The Notebook; I Capture the Castle; Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld; How I Changed My Life by Todd Strasser; Princess Ashley by Richard Peck