Thursday, December 8, 2011

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?