Tag Archive | book reviews

the frustrating and the fun

Jul16

I’ve been managing my “read 25 books this year” goal pretty well…I just finished book 15 (People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks, which I’d recommend). For those of you keeping track :-) , I am reading Sophie Kinsella’s Remember Me?, which was on my list of books I wanted to read this summer.

I wanted to talk about the two books I read, 13 and 14.

The first was the Ann Packer novel, The Dive from Clausen’s Pier. I’m not spoiling anything when I tell you the book opens with Carrie’s boyfriend Mike having a diving accident that leaves him comatose. Adding into the issues Carrie confronts in dealing with the aftermath is that she was outgrowing the relationship before the accident took place (she and Mike were high school sweethearts, now engaged). The book portrays Carrie as she deals with the accident and makes choices that affect everyone around her.

This was a weird book for me because although I liked the writing and the book, I really didn’t like Carrie very much. Not so much because of her doubts about her future with Mike, but how she treats people in general. I thought I would have more empathy, but I found her character to be flaky and impulsive in ways that tended to hurt other people. I was surprised at the fact I disliked her so much.

The second book was Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? This was a totally fun book that I read in a day, detailing Kaling’s life from nerdy schoolgirl to Hollywood medium-to-bigwig-dom. Kaling has a brilliant chapter on peaking in high school that pretty much sums up my thoughts on the subject as well (ie, it’s kind of sad if high school was the best time of your life…).

One of the things I liked so much was how “regular person”-like Kaling seems. She’s part of Hollywood, but doesn’t put on airs about what got her there. I also found it interesting reading her take on being a normal size woman in a “you must be skinny” business. She tells a revealing story about doing a “People‘s Most Beautiful” shoot with her colleague Ellie Kemper and how the only dress that would fit her “large” (size 8) frame was hideously unflattering. The other dresses (size 4, thank you very much), were beautiful, so she put her foot down and insisted that she wear one of those, much to the clothing stylist’s dismay (the dress had to be dismantled to work). I remember that issue and how pretty Kaling and Kemper looked and how I was surprised to learn they were both Ivy Leaguers (Dartmouth for Kaling; Princeton for Kemper–the section they were in was on beautiful smarties). So, it was fun to learn the back story.

Needless to say, I would totally recommend Kaling’s book as a great summer/beach read. I would recommend Dive as well, when you’re in the mood for something more serious!

Do you have a preference for light versus heavy reads, or does it depend?

before the movie, there was the book (review of The Help)

Feb11

The Help was one of those books that was totally under my radar until I realized it was everywhere one day. Even so, I had absolutely no idea what it was about (I love how the title says it all and yet I still didn’t get it). I got my copy as a present (I think…I hope it wasn’t a loan…). It had to be at least two years ago because I remember packing in a box when I moved out of my apartment.

It was when I started seeing stories about the movie that I remembered “I have that book.” The movie came, got good reviews, got nominations and awards, and suddenly I realized, “I’d like to read The Help…and I really want to read it before I see the movie” (for the most part I’m a book first kind of girl…although there are movies where I wasn’t even aware there *was* a book first).

So, now I’ve read The Help and would like to share some of my thoughts on it. If you haven’t read it and think you’d like to, then SPOILER ALERT!

I really enjoyed The Help and found myself making/finding time most evenings to get through a chapter or two, or five. I remember thinking that if Kathryn Stockett really got rejected 80 million billion times before The Help got accepted for publication, then what hope would I have if I ever wrote a novel (I don’t plan to write one, but like a lot of bloggers, I like to think that I have one in me and that this novel would earn me praise [and some cash]).

The story (for anyone left who doesn’t know) involves Skeeter Phelan coming home from college to Jackson, Mississippi in 1963 and trying to find what happened to her family’s maid Constantine. No longer fitting in with her society friends and wanting to write, she convinces Aibeleen and other African American maids to tell their stories about how they’ve been treated and what they’ve seen and experienced.

I loved the characters in the help; Aibeleen and Minny made me sad, but hopeful. Elizabeth and Hilly made me angry….Mae Mobely was adorable (and I hoped Aibeleen’s efforts worked). I rooted for Skeeter, but there was something about her character that just always felt a little more remote to me than the others.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about the ending, particularly Skeeter leaving everything behind to lead a “successful” life in New York and felt the “we’ll all be fine” conclusion for the maids didn’t quite give me enough. I would have liked to see Skeeter stay in the South and fight for change. Admittedly, there wasn’t much left for her in Jackson by the time the book’s ending came. I think I just wanted that reassurance that things *would* be all right.

I was also engaged by The Help’s portrayal of life in the South in the 1960s and how African American maids could essentially raise their white employers’ children and yet be seen as “less than.” It made me realize how much I don’t know and had never thought of (which makes me feel a bit ashamed).

So, for its good story, compelling characters, and lessons, I would definitely recommend The Help.

If you’ve read The Help, what did you think of it? Do you care about reading a book before you see a movie based on it?

top ten books I read in 2011

Dec27

This topic, brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish’s Top Ten Tuesday is right up “I love doing year in review type things” alley. Thanks for hosting, Broke and Bookish. May 2012 see you a little less broke and keeping up with the bookish!

So, unless I manage to finish another book before the ball drops, my official count for 2011 is 23 books. So, a little less than 50 percent made it in. I found I had more difficulty deciding what to include and suspect that some choices would have been different if I had read more books.

This list isn’t a ranking. Just done in the order read.  Any title that I’ve added an underline to is a link because I reviewed it on this blog when I read it. And here we go!

1. Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, by Vicki Myron and Bret Witter. This was the first book I read in 2011. I started the year with a miserable cold and thought the story would warm my heart. Dewey was left in a library book drop as a kitten on a freezing Iowa night. He became the “library cat” and grew to have many fans. As a cat person and a book person, the combination was irresistible. I really appreciated how the author took her own life and the Iowa way of life into account as she wrote about the irrepressible Dewey and his adventures.

2. Best Friends Forever, by Jennifer Weiner. This book, also read when convalescing with the same miserable new year’s cold, was fun. A take on the ugly duckling and her always beautiful counterpart, this book made me laugh, which was just what I needed.

3. U is for Undertow, by Sue Grafton. Another great book by Grafton about chasing down memories and dark moments in the past. I like how much more complex these mysteries have become over the years and I’m looking forward to V.

4. Bitter is the New Black, by Jen Lancaster.  An angry, bitter, funny voice is irresistible to me and Lancaster’s book about her travails among the unemployed (been there, done that) cracked me up.

5. Execution Dock, by Anne Perry. I rarely read an Anne Perry mystery I don’t enjoy. The latest William Monk is dark dark dark dark, but good.

6. Dish: The Inside Story on the World of Gossip, by Jeannette Walls. This was a book I picked up at a library sale. This history of the gossip industry was really fascinating. The only thing odd about it was reading it in 2011 (it was published in 2000) when more of the story had happened (reading about Michael Jackson’s relationship with tabloids, for example).

7. I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): Tales of a Loudmouth Girl, by Laurie Notaro. My other bitter girl find of 2011. I may not love everybody, but based on this book, I do love Laurie Notaro. The title story is a masterpiece of how trying to be a better person may result in a stress-induced heart attack.

8. Read My Pins, by Madeleine Albright. I sometimes find I wear a particular piece of clothing or jewelry to make a statement. Madeleine Albright’s book is a perfect explanation of what our adornments can mean.

9. The Brightest Star in the Sky, by Marian Keyes. Keyes is one of my dependable chick lit authors. I got through this book very quickly wanting to know how the characters’ lives turned out. There were some really touching moments along the way.

10. Shoe Addicts Anonymous, by Beth Harbison. More chick lit fun about women whose love of shoes brings them together in ways that work out well for all. Surprising no one thought of it before.

Feel free to share, or link to your top ten, or talk about a favorite book from 2011.

choose the shoes!

Nov28

I always feel “behind” on my reading (again, those 50ish books lying around waiting to be read…). I’m currently in catch-up mode with my magazines…I’m mostly done with my November issues and am tackling my December. I figure since I read two books in November (my goal was to read 400 pages), now is a good time to work on the magazine pile.

So, I promised a review of the second book, Shoe Addicts Anonymous by Beth Harbison.

I know, I just ran this picture last week...but couldn't resist using it again!

I enjoyed SAA and moved through it pretty quickly. The plot follows four women: Sandra (the basket case), Helene (unhappy society/political wife), Lorna (fiscally irresponsible), and Joss (a downtrodden nanny) who come together when Lorna forms a club for women who love shoes and wear size 7.5. Each has their own reasons for joining and through the course of the book, the issues that brought them there are resolved through the friendships the women form. Nothing too unusual there for chick lit…

The book moved really quickly, in fact sometimes I thought it moved too quickly. There were elements of the plot I would have like to have seen resolved or played out (trying not to give any spoilers…but there was one confrontation I would have liked to see…but perhaps it didn’t ever happen…the fact that I don’t know annoys me; and did the nanny’s boss ever find out about…..? There were also a some secondary characters that were introduced whose stories I would have liked some follow-up on). So I was surprised when the end came and I realized that was it (Has this ever happened to you? My copy of the book had a preview of Harbison’s next Shoe Addicts book at the end [from what I can tell, not a sequel]. So, I thought there were more pages to the book than there were…and when I hit the end, I was almost confused.) I’d say the other source of disappointment was that some of the characters were very “stock”–the gay buddy/boyfriend, the cheating husband, the evil boss.

But SAA’s fun elements really hooked me and I found I did want to know what was going to happen to the characters. I also actually enjoyed reading about the shoes. I had a moment of trepidation at the beginning that it was going to be lots of label dropping, but although labels were mentioned, I did understand why the women loved shoes between their own personal stories and the descriptions of the shoes.

I would recommend Shoe Addicts Anonymous if you’re looking for a good airplane/vacation/I can’t read another Russian novel right now :-) type of book! If you’re looking for a deeper book involving shoes, I’d recommend Jennifer Weiner’s In Her Shoes first, but this one also fits the bill for a shoes/female empowerment/happy endings (that’s not a spoiler if you read chick lit) book.

strivingcynic cat has no need for shoes, but he sure loves the boxes they come in

he's in there a lot!

Do you have a shoe/clothing addiction of some sort? If you’ve read Shoe Addicts Anonymous, what did you think? Would you recommend something you’ve read lately?

bitter girls speak out

Sep12

Being a cynic in a world that tells you to be positive in the face of anything can be a challenge sometimes. I often feel that the message I get from others is that my feelings aren’t “correct.” “You shouldn’t feel that way…” tops my list of remarks I cringe at even though I acknowledge that it’s often used to help me see things from an angle that will make me feel better (and to be fair, sometimes it does). But sometimes, I feel like I’m stuck not just feeling the way I feel, but feeling bad about the way I feel.

So, it’s often a relief to come across someone whose mindset makes me look like I’m glowing with positivity in comparison, which brings me to a book I finished recently, called I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): True Tales of a Loudmouth Girl by Laurie Notaro. The book is a collection of stories from her life. She comes across as an angry person, but it’s an angry funny…sort of like when you have a disagreement with someone and later realize what you should have said or done. She actually says it/does it and takes it way past where it needed to go. The sort of level of exaggeration that makes my vengeful thoughts (because they never progress beyond that) mild.

Her stories recount conflicts with dumb colleagues, neighbors, family members, school children (yes, really), and others. My favorite is the story that gives the book its main title, in which Notaro depicts an attempt to bring better things into her life by practicing a more loving behavior to others (ie, trying to rack up good karma). This practice is severely tested as she attempts to navigate a Costco, needing to get her errand done in a relatively short amount of time. As people nab her parking space, push their shopping carts at glacial speeds, and cut in line in front of her, she reminds herself of her aspirations and desperately holds on to the mantra that she “loves everybody” thus missing out what she calls “opportunities to enlighten” people about their ridiculous behavior. Notaro is tested repeatedly….and eventually gives in in ways that ensure she’s got a lot of bad karma coming her way.

And I have to admit, I laughed–out loud–quite a bit reading this book. This was another friends of the library book sale find. I had never heard of Notaro before coming across this book (which I believe was her third). Some other book titles? Her first book was  The Idiot Girl’s Action Adventure Club: True Tales of a Magnificent and Clumsy Life and her most recent is It Looked Different on the Model: Epic Tales of Impending Shame and Infamy.

Notaro’s writing reminded me of Jen Lancaster, whose Bitter is the New Black I also reviewed in this blog. Considering that Amazon.com has an author one-on-one with them, I can see this comparison has already been made. And I’m happy to know why.

Does anyone else get a thrill from reading about the (funny) bitterness of others? Are you a naturally positive person or do you have to work at it?

resonationary road

Mar29

I‘m happy to say that I met my countdown goal of reading two books this month…although I didn’t enjoy the first one (The Chocolate Bridal Bash) so much, I had a great time reading Bitter Is the New Black by Jen Lancaster.

 

Bitter Is the New Black

(Source)

I didn’t know too much about Lancaster before reading this…I had seen her blog Jennsylvania (particularly her response to the Marie Claire “fatties” post from October 2010 [if you happen to be unfamiliar with this stories, just Google "Marie Claire" and "Should Fatties Get a Room?" and you're in for lots of reading!]). Between that post and how the titles of her books (My Fair Lazy;  Such a Pretty Fat; Bright Lights, Big Ass)  make me laugh and smirk I figured chances were I’d enjoy this book.

So, Bitter Is the New Black is the story of how high-powered, extremely well-paid, me, me, me, did I mention me? Jen loses her job in the aftermath of the economic crashes after 9/11. She loses lots of things, but thankfully not her sense of humor (or outrage). Things look bleak, then they look really bleak, and start getting worse…and then….

Jen, as she portrays herself at the beginning is a little hard to take. The narcissism…the self-righteousness…the obsession with labels…, but her take on things isn’t necessarily wrong..and in a lot of ways it, um, resonates. I’ve also had the humiliating experience of being laid off from a job (well, “reduced in force”) and would go around in my unemployed haze coming across really unpleasant /unprofessional people and think, “Really? You have a job with that attitude and I came in to work one day only to be told to leave?” Yep…it stings. The passing years have made things better, but I know what a strange transition it is to go from 9-5 grinder to unemployed!

Of course, despite her harshness, Jen has some redeeming, even endearing qualities…her love for and support of her boyfriend/fiance/husband Fletch; her soft spot for the dogs she ends up taking in; her reaching out to the great world beyond by starting her website about being unemployed [and her list of companies that suck!]. She ends up somewhere very different from where she started…and with a lot more gratitude. Her story made me laugh (and shake my head, albeit with a little more empathy than I’d like to admit),

So, I do recommend Bitter Is the New Black and will be adding more Jen Lancaster books to my never ending list!

In other news…it still doesn’t feel like spring yet…but here’s a springy picture anyway…

spring 2010 at The Mount in Lenox, Mass. (photo by mr. strivingcynic)

Which writers can you relate to and why?

Are you somewhere where it’s behaving like spring yet?

 

an unrecommendation…

Mar20

Happy Spring, everybody!

flowers at The Mount (Lenox, MA), taken by mr. strivingcynic..love the color!

Friday it was above 70 degrees here…a little spring preview to give us hope.

Book review time!  So...The Chocolate Bridal Bash by Joanna Carl.

Source

What I’ve already said: I bought this at a friends of the library book sale…the title looked fun. It’s a mystery, sixth in a series  of which I haven’t read the earlier ones. And my prior “meh” assessment….it still stands.

Brief plot summary: Lee McKinney, who is preparing for her wedding learns that her mother was a runaway bride more than 30 years before (Lee lives in her mother’s hometown, but her mother never returned)….after her mom bolted, the groom-to-be turned up dead (a suicide). Lee wants to know more about what happened.

So, one of my reasons for not liking this book (and from what I saw of the reviews on Amazon which I looked at after finishing, other people felt the same) , is that Lee “malaprops” when she gets nervous. I found this annoying by the third malapropism…and there are a lot more than three. The problem is that these slips aren’t amusing, they’re just kind of there. For example…(from p. 156 and 157) “Missile, my left foot…I mean mix up! It was no mix-up. It was a delicate kidney attester. I mean a deliberate kidnapping attempt,” …and…”‘I know my mom had a narrow estate. I mean escape.”  Not very amusing. It really did nothing for me as a reader aside from make me grimace.

The other reason I didn’t like this was that despite the malapropisms, I actually thought the mystery was interesting. But to me, its resolution told you the bare bones of what happened and who did it…but I wanted to know more about exactly what happened, and why (yes, I want that level of “hand-holding”….). After following the story for more than 200 pages, I didn’t find the end very satisfying. I was sorry for that in a way because I really wanted to like this book and felt that it had elements that could have made it better for me…but it just didn’t come together.

So, I don’t recommend The Chocolate Bridal Bash…and I don’t think I’ll be looking for the rest of the mysteries.

Next book up, another library sale book Bitter Is the New Black by Jen Lancaster. I’ve never read any of her books, but I always love the titles..and I’ve only been to her blog once or twice.

And on that note, here are some more “Happy Spring” flowers…

more pretty flowers from The Mount (by mr. sc). So lovely...

What book have you read lately that you *wouldn’t* recommend? What didn’t you like about it? Feel free to recommend books, too.