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Ready Player One by Ernest Cline / Review

9 Jan

  This was not a book that I expected to like, but, as it was our January book club pick, I tried it anyway. And, to my surprise, I liked it.

Now, I would not say this is a well-written masterpiece. Or really literature. And I spent the entire book confused about whether or not I was reading a young adult novel.  But I liked it.

Ready Player One is the boy-video-gamer equivalent of chick lit. In an America of the not-too-distant future, reality has become so unbearable that the world has submerged itself in a virtual reality called OASIS. When the creator of OASIS dies, he leaves his entire fortune and empire (Willy Wonka-style) to the player who can locate a hidden easter egg located somewhere in the game.  When teenage trailer-park-resident Wade Watts finds the firt clue — after the world has spent five fruitless years searching — chaos and virtual adventure ensues.

In spite of the fact that this novel revolves around video games, I found it interesting enough to keep reading.  And I read it pretty quickly. Though I don’t think Cline meant it to be a young adult novel, it plays to that audience. If nothing else, I’m glad I read this book because I have already recommended it to several students who loved it. 

Cline certainly doesn’t need my approval — or anyone else’s. There was a bidding war among publishers for the novel, and the following day the rights were sold for a film. Before the book even hit the shelves. Amazon listed it as one of the top books of 2011.  For me, there is nothing deep or literary about this book, and it falls squarely in the domain of beach reading, but it is an interesting read.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (and Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling / Review

20 Dec

 In 2011, I discovered a new favorite genre: Memoiresque Essay Collections by Comedy Writers Who Went to Prestigous Universities.  :)

While Tina Fey’s Bossypants (she went to UVa, of course!) earned lots of press (and rightly so), I had not heard of The Office’s Mindy Kaling’s (Dartmouth College) semi-similar offering, also published this year.  I am so glad I picked it up in the annual book club Christmas book exchange! In the midst of  rocking a cranky baby, I read this book in the course of 24 hours.

Kaling’s book is equal parts hilarious and charming.  Although I’m a long-time fan of The Office, I have never liked the character of Kelly Kapoor. Don’t worry — Kaling and Kapoor are not the same. In this book, Kaling recounts stories from a “chubby” childhood, failures in showbiz, and life working on The Office.  It’s really well-written, it’s heartwarming, it made me laugh out loud more than once.

I actually liked it better than Bossypants.

Rather than bore you with recaps (because I know you’ll be picking the book up anyway!), I will share a particularly hilarious passages with you.

On why she hates the song “Jack and Diane”:

As the child of immigrant professionals, I can’t help by notice the wasteful frivolity of it all. Why are these kids not home doing their homework? Why  aren’t they setting the table or helping out around the house?  Who allows their kids of hang out in parking lots? Isn’t that loitering?

I wish there was a song called “Nguyen and Ari,” a little ditty about a hardworking Vietnamese girl who helps her parents with the franchised Holiday Inn they run, and does homework in the lobby, and Ari, a hardworking Jewish boy who does volunteer work at his grandmother’s old-age home, and they meet after school at Princeton Review. They help each other study for the SATs and different AP courses, and then, after months of studying, and mountains of flashcards, they kiss chastely upon hearing the news that they both got into their top college choices.  This is a song teens need to inadvertently memorize.

Go get this book, enjoy it now that you’ve finished Bossypants , and join me as I wait for Aisha Tyler (Dartmouth) or Amy Poehler (Boston College) to write a book soon! Fingers crossed.

Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis / Review

11 Apr

 I have not been a very good reader recently for a variety of reasons.  And I’m sorry for that. I have a huge stack of books that I really want to read and little motivation to pick them up at all.  (I am in the middle of a book that I am super-slowly savoring that one day I will finish and review.  Just so you know.)

But, in the meantime, I just needed something light and mindless to read whilst my student teacher is teaching.  Jill Davis’ Girls’ Poker Night was passed around at this year’s Book Club Christmas Book Exchange.  My friend Shannon, whose sense of humor I thoroughly enjoy, said she laughed out loud reading it! I did not.

The thing is — I’m not even opposed to chick lit on principle. Sometimes — times like now — I even seek it out. I need a reading break every once in awhile. But this book just did not do it for me. Written as a series of vignettes, Ruby Capote, emotionally crippled, details her move from Boston to New York to write a Sex and the City-esque column for a NYC newspaper.  Through therapy and turmoil, she finds herself. And she also plays poker in Wednesday nights.

Nothing about this book rang true — characters, plot, nada. At times, I wasn’t even exactly sure what happened since the vignettes jump around so frequently and without clarifying transitions. At other times, I was bored.  I’m sorry to say, even for chick lit, Girls’ Poker Night is not a winner for me.

Almost French by Sarah Turnbull / Review

22 Jan

 C’est vrai — I read a lot of memoirs about girls who move to Paris (See this, this, and this – and this is just in the last year!) I suppose it is just testament to some kind of universal dream that so many memoirs are written on the same subject, and yet I pick up all of them. To me, this is ultimate escapist reading. 

Delightfully, this was my book club’s January pick … and I didn’t even pick it (though I might have advocated for it a little bit.) :)

There isn’t too much to tell by way of sheer plot that is original –  Turnbull meets a dashing, eccentric Parisian at a dinner party in Bucharest. After a few phone calls, she agrees (with some minor reservations … like the fact that he could be a serial killer) to stay with him in Paris for a week.  Frédéric is not a serial killer, and thus one week becomes two. After a brief four-month jaunt around Europe, Sarah finds herself back in Paris permanently. While it may have been amour avec Frédéric, adjusting to the City of Lights is not quite as easy. As it turns out, living in a foreign city is very different from visiting a foreign city, and Turnbull’s first couple of years are fraught with good intentions followed by loneliness and tears.  Eventually, Turnbull finds her footing, marries Fred, and ils vécurent heureux.

Though I was pretty thoroughly engaged in Turnbull’s story, I think that may initially have been more because I am a fan of the genre and a sucker for the storyline. Parts of the narrative felt over-written (and self-admittedly cliché) to me. For example, on one of Turnbull’s first nights in Paris she recounts,

I guess the circumstances are perfect for falling in love. Every skidding stop on the motorbike, each intimate garden, every candlelit café terrace conspires to spark romance. But is it the scene, the city or the man I’m succumbing to? A combination of all three? These question don’t even enter my mind. Who cares when it’s all so much fun? Yes, I admit, I ‘m carried away on a kaleidoscope of clichés straight of out a trashy romance novel. It is magic.

The beginning left me feeling cold, rather than oh-la-la-ing. Interestingly, the tone seems to shift around chapter ten, when each chapter focuses less on the linear narrative of her transition and reads more as a series of essays on French life, culture, and the challenges of assimilation. I wondered if these chapters were bits she had published before.

Still, these essay chapters mark the biggest difference between Turnbull’s story and the others I’ve read in the genre — it turns out that it isn’t all about her. She muses — often quite fascinatingly — on well-known facets of French culture with an insider-outsider’s perspective.  French fashion, food, and politics are all analyzed under Turnbull’s lens, which is the most effective and interesting part of the book. Turnbull as love-struck foreigner isn’t nearly as compelling as the journalist Turnbull  making sense of the French.

It’s a good book — not a rave, but worth reading if, like me, this is the kind of book you like to indulge in every so often.

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell / Review

25 Dec

  So, remember when I was going to read Villette and nothing but Villette for the rest of 2010? And then I got distracted by my friend’s copy of The Forgotten Garden.

And, well, while  The Forgotten Garden isn’t exactly Bronte, it is a period novel based in England about a young woman’s coming of age.   So it seemed too muddy to pick Villette up again so close on the heels of Morton’s novel.

Then there’s the fact that my dear book club does a book exchange each Christmas. This year, I picked up Sarah Vowell’s memoir cum history text cum travel guide Assassination Vacation. My husband was in need of reading material last week, and, being a history buff, I sacrificially offered him the first reading — assuming he promised not to break the spine so that I could do it myself.

He got through a lot of it, but when I finished The Forgotten Garden I grabbed it back … you know, as a literary pallette cleanser so that I can get back to the real work of Bronte. ;)

Assassination Vacation takes a peek into the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Unlike other books in this travememistory genre (awesome word, right?), Vowell doesn’t really have a guiding principle  or question compelling her through her trip, promising a golden answer at the end. No, she is self-admittedly obsessed with death, obsessed with presidential history, and obsessed with the nuance of assassination. And that’s justification enough for her travels.

Through the book, Vowell travels to just about every single U.S. spot of significance in these three assassinations — from homes to memorials to pieces of presidential skull.   Yes, this does sound deathly boring , but Vowell’s biting humor and political commentary do a number on the dry history of little-known presidents like Garfield and McKinley. Take, for  example, her encounter in D.C., trying to locate the home of Major Henry Rathbone, company of President Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre on the night he was shot:

…I go inside, asking the receptionist to confirm if this was once the house of Major Henry Rathbone.

            “I don’t know, “ she answers. “Who’s he?”

            I tell her that Henry Rathbone and his fiancée/stepsister Clara Harris were in the box with the Lincolns the night of the assassination; that Rathbone was the first person to realize what booth had done; that when he tried to stop Booth from escaping, Booth knifed Rathbone’s arm.

            “Around here,” she says, “for someone like that, there’s usually a plaque.”

            I tell her that Rathbone never fully recovered; that he was actually blamed for not stopping Booth; that he went slowly insane; that Clara married him anyway and had his children; that when Henry insisted on moving to Germany, she agreed, hoping the change would do him good; that crazy Henry shot and killed Clara in Germany just as Booth had shot Lincoln; that he would have killed their children too if a nanny hadn’t stopped him; that by the way one of those kids lived to become a congressman from Illinois who, in 1926, introduced the bill to purchase the collection of artifacts in the Ford’s Theatre Lincoln Museum; that Henry was committed to a German insane asylum, which is where he died; and that they don’t really put up plaques about things like that, though Thomas Mallon did write a good novel on the subject called Henry and Clara.

            “Oh, that guy,” says the receptionist. “Yes, he lived here.”

I laughed out loud at least once every other page, and for a girl who does not easily laugh aloud whilst reading — this is an accomplishment indeed.

I really have no quibbles with Assassination Vacation, only curiosities. For instance, I am surprised that while JFK is briefly mentioned here or there, he, who arguably had the most famous of all presidential assassinations, does not warrant a chapter in the book. It’s curious. Does Vowell simply feel like enough has been written on JFK’s assassination? If so, then why include Lincoln, whose assassination has also been mulled over ad infinitum? Though thoroughly funny and fascinating, I often wonderered at what Vowell would consider to be the big ideas of this books — beyond “Here are three presidents. They were killed. Let’s go on a road trip.”

Still, even without an over-arching mission or sense of purpose, Vowell’s travel memoir will not disappoint even the most  reticent reader of history! For me, this was a big win. Thanks book club book exchange! :)

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton / Review

21 Dec

There are some people who can always persuade me to read a book — no matter what it is — simply because they have recommended it. Most often, these are my hardcore bookish friends whose taste I trust implicitly. But sometimes the recommendation comes from a more surprising source, and these are the books that I grab immediately.

Without a hearty recommendation from a stalwart, no-nonsense , no-frills friend, I would probably never have picked up Kate Morton’s The Forgotten Garden. Come on. The title? The cover?  And it’s 600 pages.  Of “forgotten gardens”? Seriously. I’m not one to typically hide my book snobbery, and this one sent up all of my reading red flags at once.

But the source of the rave reviews made me really curious.  Here’s the gist:

In 1913, a four-year-old girl is found alone on a dock in Australia with only a white suitcase containing a dress and a book of fairy tales. Hugh, a postmaster working the docks, notices her, waits for hours, and when no one claims her, takes her home to his childless wife. They call her Nell.

On her 21st birthday, Hugh tells Nell the truth about her mysterious origins, and her life spirals rapidly out of control. When Hugh dies in 1975, he sends her the white suitcase that he had kept ever since the first day at the dock. With the book of fairy tales as her only real clue, Nell sets off to England, her port of origin, to find out who her real parents are and why they abandoned her.

In 2005, Nell dies, and her granddaughter, Cassandra, finds out that that not only did Nell secretly travel to England in 1975, she also bought a house there, though she never returned to it. Cassandra likewise leaves for England to find out the truth behind her family’s past and the house that had been purchased but never lived in.

That’s the linear version.

In Morton’s narrative, Nell’s story, Cassandra’s story, and the story of Eliza Makepeace, authoress of the book of fairy tales Nell carried, are interwoven — jumping back and forth between the turn of the century, 1975, and 2005.  Primarily for this reason, it took me about 100 pages to really feel involved in the story. There are a lot of characters in this book, and the ways in which they are connected are complicated and unruly.

Ultimately, I liked this book. Were it not so long, it’s exactly the kind of book my book club would like.  Nothing about this book was earth-shaking or new, but it was interesting and obviously kept me reading.  Morton does give a payoff for her readers in terms of the mystery of Nell’s trip to Australia, though that, too, isn’t particularly shocking. For those who like period books, plot-driven narratives,  and generational mysteries, this is a fine read.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman / Review

24 Oct

Yes, I am still alive, and I am still (technically) literate. Finding time to read this school year has been nigh upon impossible; I never remember being this busy in September and October before! Still, in the midst of innumerable student essays, I did find time in the last month to read three books for the first time and McCarthy’s The Road for a whopping fifth time in five years with my students.

The Magicians was my new fiction in October — a book club selection — and, though I don’t like pointing fingers, part of the reason I got so little read last month.  A hefty book at almost 400 pages, The Magicians left me more baffled than entertained.

Quentin Coldwater is a mopey high school senior in Brooklyn who has never really fit in — not even with his best friends (who completely disappear from the entire plot of the book after page 200, never to be mentioned again.)  He reads fantasy books about a land called Narnia Fillory, where a God-like lion named Aslan ram named Ember reigns. In Quentin’s favorite series, two boys and two girls from Earth stumble into this world, fight evil beasts, and are crowned Kings and Queens. Alas, Quentin’s real life can never measure up.

One day, he is magically transported to Hogwarts Brakebills, a super-secret boarding school for young magicians.  There he meets a bevy of zany professors and brilliant students who sit around and play quiddich magical chess games in tournaments.  They learn spells, how to fly, and how to have fox orgies.

What?

Oh yes.

You see, on their off time, magicians at Brakebills fill the lonely hours with binge drinking, drugs, and lots and lots of sex.

But, yeah,  other than that, it’s Harry Potter.

Two hundred twenty-six pages later, Quentin graduates from Brakebills with girlfriend Alice and moves to NYC to reunite with fellow magicians Janet and Eliot. There they live dilettante lives drinking, drugging, and sexing. That is, until one day, when a former Brakebills classmate reveals that Fillory is real, and he can take them there!  The gang embarks on a (short) adventure to make meaning of their lives and bring glory to their meaningless existences in Fillory.

Here’s the thing — it  wasn’t a boring book. And the writing wasn’t bad.  I just didn’t understand what Grossman was trying to accomplish through this book, and that distracted most of my reading.  Was he trying to rewrite the Harry Potter series with drugs and sex? Prove how edgy it could be?  Kind of like adding zombies to Pride & Prejudice? (Another sacrilege I won’t dignify with comment here.)

By his constant allusions to other works of fantasy (Narnia [sort of], Harry Potter, and even Middle Earth by the end) was Grossman trying to show us he’s clever? A reader? Intertextual? Was he attempting to add meaning to other similarly themed beloved texts by connecting them in some way?  Were J.K. Rowling and the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien cool and the estate of C.S. Lewis not, so he couldn’t explicitly reference Narnia in the same way he references the other?

WHAT WAS THE POINT?

I tried to take this book on its own terms and understand it as a completely separate and entirely independent work of literature, but it was even more disappointing in that regard. The ending … just ends. It isn’t consistent with the flavor of the rest of the text. It just doesn’t make sense.

Have you read this book? What do you think? Are you Lev Grossman? Can you tell me what you were attempting here?

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen / Review

21 Jul

Once upon a time, I was a member of a magical book club — a group of smart and feisty young women who met monthly over mouth-watering meals and good wine to discuss the merits of various (often food-centered) literature. By the twinkling lights of evening, laughter and the aroma of decadent desserts lilted through the air. Friendship and books were always on the menu.

…until one terrible evening when I lied about having read Garden Spells, and claimed I loved the books and found it “enchanting” to my band of merry book-buddies. When my deceits were met with delight, I confessed. Indeed, I hadn’t read the book. I intended to, even in spite of the book club disaster known as The School of Essential Ingredients. (After which, I said I was done with food-themed books.) I picked up the book at Barnes and Noble, looked at the cover, and put it back. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. It looked like a romance novel. And, so, I was out.

But, to re-ingratiate myself to my book club, I brought a copy with me to the beach. And I read it. Every word. Cover to cover.

The protagonist of the novel is Claire, an antisocial caterer and caretaker of her family’s home and enchanted apple tree. Yep.  After eating one of the tree’s apples, the eater will see their future. If it’s happy, the eater will undoubtedly be miserable until said happy ending occurs. If it’s bad, the eater will spend their life in misery anticipating their fate. It’s a tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

However, into Claire’s Eden traipses Tyler, a local art professor, her long-lost-wild-child sister Sydney, and her young daughter, Bay. And Sydney’s abusive ex-boyfriend, David, from whom she is running.

As the two sisters seek love, peace, and happiness, they create meals around the edible flowers in their gardens — flowers that can make people fall in love, cause forgetfulness, cause humility, yadayadayada.

Truth to tell, this isn’t (by far) the worst book I’ve ever read. I finished the book in about three hours — so obviously it kept my attention. The writing is occasionally cliche (the first sentence: “Every smiley moon, Claire dreamed of her childhood.”) The whole magical-enchanted-garden thing didn’t do much for me … nor did the incessant personification of the apple tree.  The climax felt rushed and un-thought-out.

So, I didn’t love it. I didn’t even really like it. But it was okay … and, in the end, okay is enough for me to show my love to my friends & get back in the club.

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda / Review

10 Apr

 Spanning twenty-five years, Secret Daughter tells the story of Kavita, a rural Indian mother forced to give her infant daughter to an orphanage lest she be killed. Poor Indian farmers cannot keep daughters around — they are just an extra mouth to feed. Usha, Kavita’s daughter, is adopted by Somer and Krishnan,  two doctors. She is a California girl through-and-through while he is an Indian emigrant. Their differences never seem divisive until they adopt Usha (now called Asha through an accident in orphanage file-keeping). 

Meanwhile, Kavita and Jasu have their long longed-for son and move to Mumbai, seeking a better life. When college-aged Asha travels to India to work for a newspaper during a fellowship, she seeks to uncover her biological parents and the truth about her birth.

Secret Daughter has a lot to commend it; though it is Gowda’s debut novel, it is crafted with authority. It is a nice story surrounding themes of dissatisfaction, lost dreams, and family obligation. It is a fine book.

Unfortunately, to me it was only a fine book. I wanted to adore it, but I just couldn’t. For me, the time span was far too broad for the reader to feel truly invested in the characters. Twenty-five years in 350-ish pages is a lot to accomplish really well. Further,  the narrative jumps between multiple characters throughout the book. Typically, I really like this tactic, but it just didn’t work here. Again, as Gowda traverses decades and continents, crossing through the waters of each character’s soul was just too much. It couldn’t be accomplished well, and, as a result, I found myself unable to really connect to any character at all.  The reader is distanced — watching the action rather than living in the action with the characters. While Gowda attempts to tell an emotional story, the emotional connection simply isn’t there. For my taste, she just bit off too much.

  This is my book club’s April selection (and, let’s be honest, one of the better books we’ve read in a while!), and one of our members used to be in a book club with Gowda when they were at Stanford. Will I or will I not share this with Ms. Gowda when my book club Skypes with her at the end of the month? — that is the question. The answer — probably not. :) Unless, of course, she has googled herself and found this review. In which case, I am in hot water with more than just my book club. :)

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick / Review

2 Feb

 On a frigid, snowy day in 1907, Catherine Land, a self-professed “simple, honest woman”, disembarks a train in Truitt, Wisconsin to meet her husband for the first time — a man she only knows through his newspaper ad for a “reliable wife” and subsequent letters. Immediately apparent to both the reader and Land’s intended, Ralph Truitt, Catherine Land is not what she seems. But, then again, neither is Ralph. Thus begins a relationship of desire fueled by violence, madness fueled by passion, and love fueled by deceit.

 Truitt and Land quickly come to an understanding about the true nature of their marriage – after all, he advertised for a wife for “practical and not romantic reasons.” However, the dark motives that underly this arrangement prove far more complicated and twisted than what appears on the surface.

Goolrick’s first novel is a triumph. It is lyrically written and carefully, brilliantly paced. Still, perhaps most notably, this book is new to me. I read lots of books that I thoroughly enjoy, but, truth be told, I have usually read some variation of it before. Even books I really love, like The Help, have easy comparsions. Not A Reliable Wife; this book is utterly fresh in terms of both plot and style. It is beautiful, dark, disturbing, haunting; it’s even surprising, and that is something that novels do not often genuinely achieve.

This is a book so good, so thought-provoking, that I have had trouble reviewing it without simply spewing out my vast and varied thoughts about it. I’m still digesting. But trust me, you should definitely run to the bookstore and pick up this book! Better yet — run to the Fountain Bookstore (Cary Street) on February 11 at 6:30pm and let Robert Goolrick autograph one for you!!!

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