Broken (in the best possible way)

Broken (in the best possible way)

By Jenny Lawson

As Jenny Lawson’s hundreds of thousands of fans know, she suffers from depression. In Broken, Jenny brings readers along on her mental and physical health journey, offering heartbreaking and hilarious anecdotes along the way.

With people experiencing anxiety and depression now more than ever, Jenny humanizes what we all face in an all-too-real way, reassuring us that we’re not alone and making us laugh while doing it. From the business ideas that she wants to pitch to Shark Tank to the reason why Jenny can never go back to the post office, Broken leaves nothing to the imagination in the most satisfying way. And of course, Jenny’s long-suffering husband Victor―the Ricky to Jenny’s Lucille Ball―is present throughout.

Reading Broken is like looking through glasses with the wrong prescription: at first it's funny to see how weird everything looks, but after a while it just gives you a headache.  Lawson is funny in smaller doses (hence the success of her blog, and why so many of the chapters are written like blog entries) but the constant digressions and look-at-the-outrageous-hijinks-I-just-manage-to-fall-into-because-I-have-funny-anxiety-like-Larry-David style forced humor is wearying. 

Luckily, or unluckily, as it happens, the anecdotal stories are interspersed with chapters on various medical maladies Lawson suffers from, which are interesting, at least, even if the diatribe on her insurance problems goes on for way too long. And obviously, you could argue that the length of the diatribe is the result of her insurers actions, not hers, but still, there's a point at which this is basically masturbation, not art. 

I sound grumpy and it's probably harsher than necessary, but although I've found Lawson occasionally amusing in the past, it does feel like her tragicomic theatrics are worn out in this book. Maybe I'm just older and more risible. Maybe I'm expecting everyone to have aged just like me, into a sedate curmudgeonly attitude that doesn't find the mere idea of little plastic penises hilarious.

If you read and like her blog, I assume you will like this book. For better and for worse, it's all just more of the same.

 

34: A Book Written By An Author Who Is Neurodivergent

The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances

The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances

By The Oatmeal (Matthew Inman)

This is not just a book about running. It's a book about cupcakes. It's a book about suffering.

It's a book about gluttony, vanity, bliss, electrical storms, ranch dressing, and Godzilla. It's a book about all the terrible and wonderful reasons we wake up each day and propel our bodies through rain, shine, heaven, and hell. 

From #1 New York Times best-selling author, Matthew Inman, AKA The Oatmeal, comes this hilarious, beautiful, poignant collection of comics and stories about running, eating, and one cartoonist's reasons for jogging across mountains until his toenails fall off.

This one was kind of a gimme, as it's not technically about a running club, but it is very much (except for the digression on Japanese murder hornets) about running. And I picked it up as I've started running again as well and thought it might be helpful, humorous, or thought provoking. Unfortunately, I don't think I would say it's any of those three, but it was easy enough to read and inoffensive.

I'd read, and reasonably enjoyed, the book he did on Why My Cat is More Impressive Than Your Baby, but this one wasn't nearly as amusing, probably intentionally. It ends up reading more like illustrated diary entries than comics. The best part is the story about the vending machine and the hornets, but there's no punchline, just an attempt to make sense of the force that drives us to run, and that's just not what I want from The Oatmeal. 

The good news is that it was very short and easy to read, so it's not like it was a waste of time. And fwiw, people I know who love his work were also chortling at this one too, so I think we'll just chalk this up to the wrong book at the wrong time.

 

17: A Book About A Run Club

The Innocents Abroad

The Innocents Abroad, or A New Pilgrim's Progress

By Mark Twain

A detailed narrative of a long excursion with a group of fellow travelers to the Holy Land shortly after the Civil War aboard the vessel Quaker City. The humorous account covers his visits to Paris, Italy, Greece, Egypt and the Holy Land. At times irreverent, it is always entertaining.

So I finally, finally finished The Innocents Abroad. I think it took me longer to read it than it took Mark Twain to get on a steamship, sail over to Europe, tour the continent, head out to the Holy Land, visit approximately one million sights of interest, and return to the United States. It's a long frickin' book!  And it's a wee bit old-fashioned, so you sometimes get ahead of yourself if you skim too much.  And the second half is basically all biblical, which I have very little interest in or knowledge of, so that part was semi-nonsensical to me.

However, do not let that dissuade you from picking this up! I found it to be a delightful travelogue, and very comedic, a la his usual style, even if it did suffer at points from a light coating of racism and long-windedness.  To be fair, I don't think the racism was as bad as it could have been considering the time period and circumstances.  Twain is pretty cynical in general, and rarely complimentary of any ethnicity or country (with the possible exception of Russia, amusing in retrospect), and I would agree that western travelers can find traveling in eastern countries very disorienting and the begging to be unpleasant, so I didn't find it (myself) to put me off the book entirely. I mean, The Egg and I raised a lot more of my eyebrows and that was written by Betty MacDonald in 1945. 

This is one book that I would really love to read an annotated version of. From the beginning, just when he's talking about the hooded women of the Azores, and sights of Pompeii, and then going into the valleys of Damascus and Syria, and the seashell path in the Caucuses, I just really wanted to see pictures of what he describes so evocatively, and chart their path, and get historical background.  I found myself on wikipedia getting lost in the history of the tsars and looking up old black and white pictures, and color pictures and maps and just taking a thousand little trips as I joined Twain on his journey.  

It is very, very long, but it was never tiresome, and there's a tartness to it that cuts through a lot of the length. And it did feel immediate too - even early Twain was a master at pinpointing just the things which make you feel like you're there with him and his fellow "pilgrims". 

2: A Book Set on a Plane, Train, or Cruise Ship

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village

By Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper

A weekend roaming narrow old lanes, touring the faded glories of a country manor, and quaffing pints in the pub. How charming. That is, unless you have the misfortune of finding yourself in an English Murder Village, where danger lurks around each picturesque cobblestone corner and every sip of tea may be your last. If you insist on your travels, do yourself a favor and bring a copy of this little book. It may just keep you alive. 

Brought to life with dozens of Gorey-esque drawings by illustrator Jay Cooper and peppered with allusions to classic crime series and unmistakably British murder lore, Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village gives you the tools you need to avoid the same fate, should you find yourself in a suspiciously cozy English village (or simply dream of going). Good luck! And whatever you do, avoid the vicar.

I can vouchsafe that this can be read in one sitting because I did, in fact, read it all in one sitting, while I was improbably stuck without phone or kindle with a sleeping baby on top of me.  The only book within grabbing distance* was Your Guide and serendipitously, I managed to finish the whole thing without waking the baby.  

It's one of those books that I've always found a bit gimmicky, you know, one hit wonders that are charming enough to pass the time, but are more for gifting, reading once, and then putting to the side and forgetting.  That being said, it was still delightful.  I'm probably a core audience member for it, since I got really into Midsommer Murders during the first year of the pandemic** and (as you may know) am very much into country house murder books by Agatha Christie***. And if you like Midsommer Murders and enjoy the idea that these little villages are constantly beplauged by murders, you will enjoy Your Guide. It covers all the bases, the village fete ("A nice way to spend a summer's day and thin out the local population"), people who leave messages ("All messages in a Murder Village are bad news. It means someone Knows Something. Don't leave messages. Don't hang around people who do."), the Folly ("It's a small, fake temple at the far side of the pond, perfect for picnics, trysts, and casual strangulations"), the farmer ("Constantly fielding offers from city folk who want to turn the farmland into a shopping center and fielding tthose same city folk who want to turn the farmland into a shopping center.") and of course, the vicar ("When you see the vicar, run.").

There's cute in-jokes about (ironically) the same trope that Connie Willis mentions in To Say Nothing of the Dog, i.e., that the butler did it for the first fifty books and then he became the most obvious suspect, so they had to use other people. And a couple of quizzes which test your knowledge and ultimately teach the greatest lesson of all: that sometimes, [SPOILER] in order to avoid being murdered, you must become the murderer.  True wisdom.

*Untrue, I had three books within grabbing distance, because I was still in my own house, after all, but How the Word is Passed isn't exactly light reading to pass the time while a ticking time bomb is waiting to go off on your stomach at any time, and the other book was soft cover and hard to hold without using both hands.

**I still enjoy them, but lack the time to watch them, what with the aforementioned baby and all.

***Mrs. Marple is probably closer to the Your Guide vibe, but I hate Mrs. Marple.  I know I've talked about this before****, and I know I should try again as an adult, but man, it's annoying to feel like half of Christie's oeuvre is unavailable to me because of that old bat.

****Maybe I haven't talked about this before! I loathe Mrs. Marple, her allusions to things like "Oh, it reminds me of the vicar and the bookblack boy" and then you find out the vicar stole the bootblack boy's money and the bootblack boy stood up in the middle of service and denounced him and the vicar went off and became a pirate out of shame, and so that's how you know that the real killer was the cook, because the cook was also doing it out of revenge, are so obnoxious as a reader, since we DON'T KNOW ANY OF THESE PEOPLE OR SITUATIONS and it feels like a cheat to keep the clues away from the reader to avoid spoiling the mystery too soon, and also Mrs. Marple acts so self-effacing, but she's just as self-satisfied as Poirot.  Call a spade a spade, at least Poirot acknowledges his own non-humility. 

*****This doesn't have any corresponding note above, so you shouldn't even be here but I also wanted to point out that Maureen Johnson is the author of the Truly Devious series, so I'm now a real fan of hers, and Jay Cooper's illustrations have a fun, Edward Gorey-esque tone to them which greatly enhances the book.

24: A Book You Can Read in One Sitting

Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come

Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come

By Jessica Pan

An introvert spends a year trying to live like an extrovert with hilarious results and advice for readers along the way.

What would happen if a shy introvert lived like a gregarious extrovert for one year? If she knowingly and willingly put herself in perilous social situations that she’d normally avoid at all costs?  With the help of various extrovert mentors, the author sets up a series of personal challenges (talk to strangers, perform stand-up comedy, host a dinner party, travel alone, make friends on the road, and much, much worse) to explore whether living like an extrovert can teach her lessons that might improve the quality of her life. Chronicling the author’s hilarious and painful year of misadventures, this book explores what happens when one introvert fights her natural tendencies, takes the plunge, and tries (and sometimes fails) to be a little bit braver.

 

 I fell into this one because I loved the title, and the book didn't let me down.  I felt Pan's pain, as I, too, would rather not, and doing improv and stand-up comedy sounds like a terribly bad time.  It's funny, but also blends in both semi-science and tips/suggestions so that people looking to expand their social skills and friend groups could probably use this as a guidebook as well.  I don't know that the science adds very much - it feels a little shoehorned in, a little teach-y in a book which would otherwise work well as a straight memoir, but at least it doesn't detract much.  

Pan begins the book bemoaning her lack of social life, but more importantly, her loneliness.  As someone who would certainly qualify as an introvert, I sympathized strongly with both the desire for close friendships and support, but also the anxiety that comes with trying to find those people and the effort of putting yourself out there to strangers over and over.  

For all that it dealt with social anxiety and trying to overcome loneliness, it's pretty funny. Bits like this made me laugh:

When I tell other people I'm going to try stand-up comedy, they always touch my arm, furrow their brow, and say, "You are so brave," followed by, "That is my worst nightmare," just in case I was considering making them do it, too.

As far as using the book like a self-help book, I felt pretty good about myself for the first part of it. I don't have a problem talking to strangers or making presentations (although I choose not to; I'm definitely guilty of pretending not to speak English when confronted by a friendly stranger in a foreign country, but honestly? I like being alone. This is how my husband and I are different: when he comes home,  he tells me about random people he meets in bars and on planes and at races, and I am like, "That sounds awful." but he enjoys it.  He still calls himself an introvert, a term I took exception to, until reading this book.  Apparently he would qualify as a gregarious introvert or "grintrovert". I am happily still a shintrovert.) and I have less than no interest in doing either improv or stand-up comedy. It is a bit wistful though, I mean, it sounds like for all that it does sound unpleasant, Pan has a good time, in the end.  And if not a good time, then at least a good story. You have to respect someone who so boldy faces their (and my) worst fears.

And I appreciate anyone who is game for a scenario like this:

Kate goes through the order list. Vivian volunteers to go first. And then there's silence. Kate studies the rest of us.

"I need the people  who brought a lot of friends to perform last so that their friends stay the entire time. Who has no friends? I want you to go in the first half."

I put my hand up.

30: A Book with the Name of a Board Game in the Title

You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism

You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism

By Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar 

From racist donut shops to strangers putting their whole hand in her hair, from being mistaken for a prostitute to being mistaken for Harriet Tubman, Lacey is a lightning rod for hilariously ridiculous yet all-too-real anecdotes. She's the perfect mix of polite, beautiful, petite, and Black that apparently makes people think "I can say whatever I want to this woman." And now, Amber and Lacey share these entertainingly horrifying stories through their laugh-out-loud sisterly banter. Painfully relatable or shockingly eye-opening (depending on how often you have personally been followed by security at department stores), this book tackles modern-day racism with the perfect balance of levity and gravity.

This book somehow manages to be incredibly funny despite just being a horrible, awful, putrid list of racist shit that happened to Lacey (and sometimes Amber, but mostly Lacey).  And recently! It's a bit like The Witches Are Coming (and that other one she did) by Lindy West, but more intentionally funny than angry.  I showed just the first page to some people last week and they cracked up laughing, but in an incredulous way. 

Although both Ruffin and Lamar are technically co-authors, and Lamar has her own voice, Ruffin does all the heavy lifting, taking Lamar's stories and then adding a wink and a nod, like, "Can you believe this shit?!" which are sorely needed to lighten the mood.  Ruffin's career as a comedy writer clearly shows here, giving it a very conversational tone, like you're just gabbing with friends and then they start busting stories out.  (I feel like "conversational tone" gets overused, but it definitely fits here).

It defies belief that these stories happened (a) to one person (b) recently!  I cannot say enough good things about the way that Ruffin presents these stories, which are truly awful.  She manages to tread the fine line of being amusing while also being educational and not making you want to go out and kick the nearest person, which is a FEAT after some of these, I swear.  

I can't recommend this book enough. Go out and read it!

 

Ten Second Reviews

The Worst Best Man

By Mia Sosa

Left-at-the-alter wedding planner Lina is offered an opportunity to join a corporate hotel team that would alleviate her financial and business worries.  But she has to compete for the position - and her partner in the competition is the brother of her ex-fiance.

Man, I hate to be be hard on this one, since it's not that bad, but it also wasn't my jam.  It felt like it had very little substance, even though the set-up is delightfully juicy: left-at-the-altar Lina becomes unwillingly attracted to the brother and best man who convinced her ex to leave? But the book doesn't even stick to that depth, revealing in the final chapters that the brother didn't actually urge the ex to leave Lina, the ex just made it up.  And then the book sort of ends, after detonating that bomb, and I know it's years later, but uh, we're not going to explore what the hell that was all about, I guess.  Ex-fiance is let off the hook with a handwave, even though it makes him an objectively HUGE asshole, and brother is fully redeemed, even though honestly, he didn't need to be.  

Anyway, they meet, they hate, they bang, etc etc, and why does sex in modern romances feel so much more coarse than in historicals? Just me? Anyway, Lina gets the job, happy ever afters for all involved, except me, because this book talks about food and desserts a LOT, and right now I have a really bad sweet tooth except that my doctor just told me I should be eating more APPLES to avoid constipation with all the iron I'm taking. Great.   

 

Why My Cat is More Impressive Than Your Baby

By Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal)

A book of comics from the creator of The Oatmeal, and for a one-time flip through and lighthearted look at cat/dog/baby stereotypes, it was pretty fun.  I though it was amusing, but not worth buying or reading more than once.  It's a lot of " my cat is evil and mysterious but also delightful" and "babies are disgusting" so you know, pretty standard.   My husband, on the other hand, is still raving about it a week later and already bought three copies - one to keep and two to give away, so definitely there's an audience for it! To be fair, he's also particularly enamored of one of the more bodily humor based cartoons, which is not as much my jam.  To each their own!

 

 

The Iron Will of Genie Lo

The Iron Will of Genie Lo

By F. C. Yee

 

Genie Lo thought she was busy last year, juggling her academic career with protecting the Bay Area from demons. But now, as the Heaven-appointed Guardian of California, she’s responsible for the well-being of all yaoguai and spirits on Earth. Even the ones who interrupt her long-weekend visit to a prestigious college, bearing terrible news about a cosmos-threatening force of destruction in a nearby alternate dimension.
 
The goddess Guanyin and Genie’s boyfriend, Quentin Sun Wukong, do their best to help, but it’s really the Jade Emperor who’s supposed to handle crises of this magnitude. Unfortunately for Genie and the rest of existence, he’s gone AWOL. Fed up with the Jade Emperor’s negligence, Genie spots an opportunity to change the system for the better by undertaking a quest that spans multiple planes of reality along with an adventuring party of quarrelsome Chinese gods. But when faced with true danger, Genie and her friends realize that what will save the universe this time isn’t strength, but sacrifice.

Yes, the story is about a reincarnation of a metal rod from ancient chinese mythology in the body of a Californian teenager.  I know this, and I love it anyway.  Genie Lo is dry and funny and trying desperately to keep her head above water in her home life, college applications, boyfriend problems, and keeping her commune of demons from breaking out and wrecking havoc over the countryside.  

On a college visit, staying with her friend Yunie's cousin, Genie ends up getting enmeshed in several demonic and non-demonic army retreats (drawn to her aura), and joining forces with various gods, in the absence of the jade emperor, to stop the threat and potentially ascend to the throne of heaven.  Genie's got her money on Guanyin, while Quentin is backing his old buddy Guan Yu, with straight-A student type Nezha, and former defeated foe (and emperor's nephew) Erlang Shen rounding out the contenders, and Great White Planet tagging along to keep score.  

It's just a really charming book, and the characters are (mostly) trying their best. It manages to blend the mom's sudden and scary illness/college visit/mysterious absence of jade emperor and new demonic presence really well, although mom's illness got maybe the shortest shrift.  There's obviously themes going on in there about sacrifice and doing the right thing, and there's a scene which perfectly encapsulates the infuriating attitude of those born to invisible privilege. Surprisingly, I think Genie's mom nailed it at the end when she talks about how sometimes we have to accept that we can't control or guarantee the future, and all we can do is keep making the best decisions we can and supporting each other (and also the importance of letting your teenage daughter have a normal college experience, even if is she an ancient magical beating-stick).  I mean, that kind of anxiety is something I still struggle with, and I am much older and less prone to beating people up than Genie is. 

The old characters, particularly Erlang Shen, really got developed and fleshed out.  Erlang Shen become less of a three dimensional villain, what with his explanation for his earlier actions, and his relationships with some of the other characters adding a humane side to him.  As far as the new characters went,Yunie's hilariously deadpan older cousin blew everyone else away, but there wasn't a really sour note.  

The tone of the book wavers somewhere around Avatar: The Last Airbender (which makes sense, since the author's other book is an Avatar book) and Kung Fu Hustle, with the mix of martial arts, comedy, and sudden bursts of warmth and heartfelt interactions.  It's interesting how much happens "offscreen" - Yunie's adventures, and her parents' reconciliation could both have been much longer sections of the book, but we breeze past everything at a pretty good clip, and I didn't mind the recap-style overview, although others might.

The ending tag also really hit the spot for me.  I was honestly not sure if there would be a third in the series, so I was (a) glad to see how things got wrapped up and (b) COMPLETELY surprised by how things got wrapped up - the (SPOILER ALERT) time jump really tugged my heartstrings, the way that they kept working towards rescue and not giving up even years later.  I'm kind of mad though that we didn't get to see Genie in college, and all the stuff in between.  I also forgot about the three versions of the Ruyi Jingu Bang, and thought she already had the cloning power, so it's good that the rescue wasn't supposed to be more built up.  If there ever is a third one, I'm on board.   Especially since they make so many interesting allusions to what happened in the interim! A collection of short stories set in this timeframe would be perfect.

Just as a side note, um, do her mom and dad not notice that she's made of iron and has glowing eyes?  Let's make that one of the short stories!    Come on, do I have to do all the hard work here?

Ten Second Reviews

Men to Avoid in Art and in Life

By Nicole Tersigni

This was like the froth on a cup of coffee: fun to contemplate, but when it came to drinking the stuff, basically intangible.  I like the idea, but maybe it's better enjoyed on a scrolling read, rather than in book form.  There's some attempt to match topic and art, but not always successful.  Like I said, briefly enjoyed, and briefly remembered.  

Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery

Edited by Christopher Golden and Rachel Autumn Deering

Well, first of all, it's very hard to compete with the gold standard of witch stories, which is, obviously, Nine Witch Tales, by, ahem, "Abby Kedabra", published in 1968. But there's always room for second place! 

Okay, I know this is dumb, but I liked the length of the stories.  And I know, I know, that sounds like I'm damning with faint praise, but honestly, if I'm reading short stories, one of things that bugs me is when I get like, five twenty-page stories, and then like, one seventy-page story. That is no longer a story, sir, that is a novella.  Also, as much as I like shakin' things up (to wit: very little) I much prefer orderliness.  Anyway, to the actual review!

Some good ones, some not so good ones. Of the ones that stuck with me, I have to call out Sarah Langan's The Night Nurse, which is definitely NOT something I should have been reading as a pregnant person and Tananarive Due's Last Stop on Route Nine was chilling and spooky, and took me down a Dozier School for Boys hole, which is where I thought the story was going (it wasn't but it was still satisfyingly spooky).  Angela's Slatter's Widows' Walk, Hillary Monahan's Bless Your Heart, Ania Ahlborn's The Debt, Chesya Burke's Haint Me Too (which felt inspired by Beloved, at least in the beginning style), and Theodora Goss', How to Become a Witch-Queen,were all above average, enjoyable witchery stories.  

I felt a bit let down by Helen Marshall's The Nekrolog, and Kristin Dearborn's The Dancer, both of which were really great, but wrapped up without a satisfying resolution. Both felt like they were excerpts from a much larger universe, but even thought the world was interesting and well-done, I wanted something more complete in my stories.

I also feel like calling out Rachel Caine's Home: A Morganville Vampires Story, and Amber Benson (yes, of Buffy fame)'s This Skin, which were my least favorites, by far. Home was part of a larger universe thing, and I don't know if the people were more sympathetic if you read the books, but in the story, this witch comes to town, looking for a drop of blood from the vampires who murdered her and her husband in order to resurrect her husband and her murderers basically are huge assholes to her, basically being all "she's a terrible person, blah blah blah" even though they're the ones who killed her and frankly should be expecting revenge. And then she doesn't even do anything that bad to them, she just leaves once she gets the blood.  This Skin was a let down, again with a protagonist who didn't draw you in, one of those ones who thinks they're soooooooo much smarter than everyone else, and when things don't work out, it's hard to tell if it's because we're meant to believe that the narrator did get away with murder because they're just that smart, or because the narrator is an idiot and has just puffed themselves up into buying their own hype. 

Ten Second Reviews

Semiosis

By Sue Burke

Colonists from Earth wanted the perfect home, but they’ll have to survive on the one they found. They don’t realize another life form watches...and waits...

Only mutual communication can forge an alliance with the planet's sentient species and prove that humans are more than tools.

Ooo, I liked this one a lot, especially in the beginning, which is when it was really out there.  Towards the end I felt like it became more conventional sci-fi-y with a struggle against another colony, but the beginning, where you just don't know what it going to happen next??? Fabulous!  It felt really fresh too, like a whole new idea (although I'm sure that something somewhere had the same germ (haha, no pun intended) of an idea) and even when we do get to the point where they're in constant communication together and they're pretty clear that there isn't going to be another betrayal, it's a well written story.   I'm waffling on reading the second, mostly because the reviews are iffy and frankly, this doesn't need a sequel.  But on the other hand, it was a fun, fascinating world to spend time in, and even just reading about their day-to-day survival was entertaining in Burke's hands. 

The Witches Are Coming

By Lindy West

From the moment powerful men started falling to the #MeToo movement, the lamentations began: this is feminism gone too far, this is injustice, this is a witch hunt. In The Witches Are Coming, firebrand author of the New York Times bestselling memoir and now critically acclaimed Hulu TV series Shrill, Lindy West, turns that refrain on its head. You think this is a witch hunt? Fine. You've got one.

Hmm, what to say on this one? It's undeniably funny, well-written, and passionate.  But so GODDAMN DEPRESSING. Not unrelentingly depressing, or I would have stopped reading.  But notice that West had to end the book on a couple of chapters whose throughline is basically "Don't give up! The world is not a complete dumpster fire yet! There are still some nice things (trees) even though we are rapidly killing them and everyone else and heading towards total annihilation of all that we currently enjoy - oh wait, this is depressing again."  I don't know if the intent was to energize and electrify, but all it did was depress and demoralize.  It was a funny depression though.  Okay, I'm gonna be real here: I am hungover and mentally checked out on this review.  What is my review? That I liked the writing but the message was sad and I would read something else by her, and it had nice short chapters.  Honestly what I should have done was pull quotes because they're all hilarious nuggets, but obviously, I ain't doing that.  I really liked the Adam Sandler chapter, because IT IS VERY TRUE.  WHY IS HE ALWAYS SO MAGICALLY GIFTED?? HE IS AVERAGE, MAKE HIM AVERAGE.

Ten Second Reviews

A Broken Vessel & Whom the Gods Love

By Kate Ross

The second of the Julian Kestrel, regency detective mysteries, I enjoyed this one too. Although there were BY FAR too many clues, that was part of the mystery, and acknowledged by the characters partway through.  It was also entertaining how Kestrel investigated the upper class suspects, his valet Dipper managed the regular tradespeople, and Dipper's prostitute sister Sally handled the underbelly - I thought the use of each of them in their respective spheres was fun.  Kestrel is this time investigating an anonymous note which Sally stole from one of three clients, alluding to a woman in desperate trouble.  She's just died when they find her, and it quickly becomes a murder investigation instead.  Again, some coincidences, but the writing and characters still hold up - I'm checking out the third one as I write.


Aaaaand now I've finished the third, I'm checking out the fourth, and sad that the series will end soon.  Again, far, far too many coincidences (two sets of twins in this one? Not to mention that Kestrel magically lands upon the exact right madhouse by simply wandering around town, ahem) but for whatever reason, I guess I just don't mind them! These feel like dense books, since there's SO MUCH interviewing and discussion, but they're also pleasantly engrossing, especially as the clues start picking up.  I have to say though, these book jackets are driving me crazy, since all the book descriptions give spoilers about the victim and events in the book that don't become really clear until at least halfway through.  I did also guess some of the answers, but was still wholly surprised by the motives, so I'm happy both to be right and to be surprised.  Spoiler here, but I was really put off by the Jewish banker turned rapist subplot.  It felt really out of character and poorly explained how he could actually go through with it, and frankly, left the book on a pretty low note.  But onwards to numero quatro!

Predictably Irrational

By Dan Ariely

Why do our headaches persist after we take a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a fifty-cent aspirin? Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup?

Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, we consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable—making us predictably irrational.

Soooo, this was fine.  Probably my impression of it is coloured by the fact that I was trying to get my husband interested in it, and it was a complete loss.  I also felt like some of the research was kind of glossed over, in terms of, for example, the chocolate pricing one in the free chapter.  I assume that they controlled for people who came to the table and didn't buy any chocolate when it was 1 and 15 cents respectively but did just pick up a free one, right?  Like, I feel like the total numbers of people getting chocolate had to have gone up (versus those who paid even just one penny) but there isn't really an explanation as to how they covered that, aside from making the sign very small so people had to get close to see it.  But I do find the ideas fascinating, even if more broadly than specifically applicable (like, not everyone is a sucker for advertising) and the chapter on placebos oddly affecting.  Frankly, we should do more experiments with surgery (with knowledge and consent of course) because unnecessarily submitting people to the knife is awful.  But I think the message, that we're all unconsciously doing these things and in some cases, the only cure is to be more conscious, is one that's hit home.

Ten Second Reviews

Fleishman is in Trouble

By Taffy Brodesser-Akner

A satiric novel about a disintegrating marriage was probably not the best choice for a post-nuptial read.  I appreciate the wit and social commentary, but the general and specific unpleasantness of the marriage and the people in it were Too Much.  I didn't find it enjoyable, more like a duty.  After getting through husband Toby's two hundred plus pages of narcissism, sex, and whining, I really wanted to read Rachel's POV, but was disappointed to find it was only like sixty pages long, and consisted mostly of her accepting shitty behavior from everyone around her until she eventually has a full on mental breakdown.  Uplifting? No. I felt like this book ends with the equivalent of a winking-face emoji, as our erstwhile semi-narrator Libby decides she'll write about the end of a marriage, but leave it on a cliffhanger, because...? I'm not actually invested in whether these characters manage to get together at all, they clearly have fault lines going all the way down.  I just, sort of like, wanted bad things to happen to Toby and just wanted Rachel to stop giving a shit, and well, there's an audience for everything, I suppose, but not me for this.

The Egg and I

By Betty MacDonald

As all the reviews make clear, for a pretty racist semi-autobiographical version of a young wife living out on a chicken ranch in the upper Northwest, this is a real entertaining book. There's definitely some things I bet MacDonald's family regrets her putting in print now (like, for example, that she thinks taking the land away from the American Indians was a good thing because they're just lazy good for nothing drunks) but when she focuses on herself and the day to day indignities of life, like neighbors visiting at 7 the one day she's still in her pyjamas, or how her tropical plants are dying while her husband's very practical garden is blooming, she's wonderfully funny and wry.  She's aslo amusing when talking about her neighbors, including Mrs. Kettle, who lives in basically a pigsty, but keeps one room locked up and pristine for visitors.  MacDonald may have a sharp pen, but she isn't shy about her own failures and shortcoming, so it doesn't come off that mean spirited - except for all the really racist bits.   I really enjoyed this although I have to say that this is one book that censorship would likely improve my experience. 

Be Prepared

Be Prepared

By Vera Brosgol

All Vera wants to do is fit in―but that’s not easy for a Russian girl in the suburbs. Her friends live in fancy houses and their parents can afford to send them to the best summer camps. Vera’s single mother can’t afford that sort of luxury, but there's one summer camp in her price range―Russian summer camp.

Vera is sure she's found the one place she can fit in, but camp is far from what she imagined. And nothing could prepare her for all the "cool girl" drama, endless Russian history lessons, and outhouses straight out of nightmares!

This is a middle-school readers semi-autobiographical graphic novel about nine year old Vera, who, finding herself not fitting in amongst her (non-Russian) schoolmates after a disastrous sleepover, begs her mom to send her and her brother to Russian scout camp - where she unhappily discovers that there's just never a guaranteed way of fitting in and making friends.

This was going to be a Ten Second Review but - as you'll notice - I got a little expressive and the review got a little lengthy.

I really loved this book. It's beautifully illustrated, with muted colors and expressive faces, but more than that, it really gets to the heart of a common pre-teen girl (and boy) experience: beginning to compare yourself and your family to others and feeling awkward or embarrassed or just plain uncool.

I remember myself the pain of having to leave a slumber party early (god, ALL the slumber party shit.  Why do I still love the idea of slumber parties when all of my memories are of like, extreme embarrassment? WHAT PYJAMAS YOU WEAR DETERMINES YOUR SOCIAL STATUS FOR LIFE AND LET'S NOT EVEN TALK ABOUT THE DELICATE ART OF GIFT-GIVING), and the like, social minefield that is your pre-teens and early teens. Why no, I haven't been scarred at all by events that happened decades ago and I definitely don't still remember the excruciating details of another twelve year old making fun of me (with what is, in retrospect, not even good sarcasm).

And I - OH MY GOD I just remembered how much I hated bringing my sleeping bag  - which was flannel and super bulky and had to be wrapped up with elastics tied together because they had worn out and snapped - when my friend had, like, the speedo of sleeping bags - shiny, tiny, with its own cover bag to stuff it into. It was teal and hi-tech and shaped like a coffin, not a rectangle (remember that I don't make the rules about what is cool, I just know that coffin shaped sleeping bags are cooler than rectangles, or at least they were back in the mid-90s) and so fucking cool and everything my sleeping bag wasn't and I bet you my friend had not one clue that I was dying inside about her sleeping bag. She's happily married now with a really cute baby girl who slept on me for like an hour during dinner once, which was amazing and I highly recommend, and I really hope I have enough willpower not to message her and be like, "REMEMBER YOUR SLEEPING BAG FROM TWENTY YEARS AGO? I think I'm finally working out my feelings about it!"

I'm going to move on from my own traumas for like, one hot second, to reiterate that Be Prepared makes me want to, like, go back and relive my youth except now, I would be able to unclench and actually enjoy it more, having learned the hard lesson that is growing up and becoming (and loving) your own self.  Be Prepared achieves the hard balance of getting to the heart of these seemingly insurmountable embarrassments and cruelties (which are in hindsight pretty minor) without actually wallowing in it or becoming too schadenfreude-y.  This is not cringe-kink (ew, gross, I hate this word I just made up and will never use it again). 


I will definitely be reading more from Brosgol (I already have Anya's Ghost waiting for me at the library), and if you want to relive your youth, without actually, you know, reliving it, please pick this book up.  

Ironically, the girl whose slumber party I left early now leads hiking expeditions into the wilderness for young women. What a wonderful world.

Lysistrata

Lysistrata

By Aristophanes

Translation by Douglass Parker

The bravest of women, Lysistrata, determines that there is only one way to end war forever. She calls a convention for women only and makes them swear to give up love. Dressed for seduction and armed to the teeth, they beat off their men and refuse to sleep with them until the fighting has ceased.  But, no matter how strong the will, the flesh is weak, and it is impossible to keep the women from joining the men. Backsliding is an ever-present danger.

To an Athens bereft by military disaster, as to the world today, LYSISTRATA stands as an impassioned plea for peace.  With a comic realism that borders on despair, Aristophanes observes that only lust is strong enough to drive out war.

Oh my god, I did not investigate my library's selection of ancient Greek texts, and just picked whichever translation popped up first (it also had a bright pink cover, and fun illustrations which were adorable) and, well,  the translation is not bad, I mean, he's obviously tried for like, rhymes and idioms and stuff, which is why you would never guess from just reading the play that the translator is also, clearly, insane.  I mean:

Even the most rabid advocate of the wide circulation of the classics in any form must blanch slightly at the broadcast misconception that this play is a hoard of applied lubricity.  Witness its latest American publication bowdlerized in reverse, nestled near some choice gobbets from Frank Harris'  autobiography and a slick and curious quarterly called Eros now under indictment.

What in the ever-loving fuck, you may be thinking. Or who the fuck is Frank Harris? The thoughts also crossed my mind.  But I mean, what the fuck is this:

71. The ensuing reconciliation scene, with its surrogate sexuality, is one of the most curious in Aristophanes. It is not lyric; yet both its diction, oddly diffuse and redundant, and it's meter, a paeonic variation on a common trochaic dialogue measure which paradoxically makes it much more regular, seem to call for extensive choreography. I have tried to hedge my bet by stilting the English and employing any regular scheme depending heavily on off rhymes.

I feel like we're getting further away from the goal of his translation, i.e., making it so people who speak English can understand this.   

Beyond all that, the play itself (and the translation) is charming.  It's very short, and involves a lot of jokes and puns about penises, as all best plays do, although it's actually more focused on the interplay between the women and men than it is coming up with new idioms for sex (I see you there Shakespeare, Aristophanes doesn't have a patch on you).  As I mentioned before, Parker does a pretty good job making ancient Greek rhyme, sound modern and make sense, but he has this one weird thing that drove me crazy: he uses "American mountain dialect" for the Spartan characters, which has the effect of completely stopping the rhythm of the page.  For example:

Kleonike: Where did you find that group?

Lysistrata: They're from the outskirts.

Kleonike: Well, that's something.  If you haven't done anything else, you've really ruffled up the outskirts.

Myrrhine: Oh, Lysistrata, we aren't late, are we? Well, are we? Speak to me!

Lysistrata: What is it, Myrrhine? Do you want a medal for tradiness? Honestly, such behavior, with so much at stake...

Myrrhine: I'm sorry.  I couldn't find my girdle in the dark.  And anyway, we're here now.  So tell us all about it, whatever it is.

Kleonike: No, wait a minute.  Don't begin just yet.  Let's wait for those girls from Thebes and the Pelopennese.

Lysistrata: Now there speaks the proper attitude.  And here's our lovely Spartan.  Hello Lampito dear.  Why darling, you're simply ravishing! Such a blemishless complexion - so clean, so out-of-doors!  And will you look at that figure - the pink of perfection!

Kleonike: I bet you could strangle a bull.

Lampito: I calklate so.  Hit's fitness whut done it, fitness and dancin'.  You know the step? Foot it out back'ards an' toe yore twitchet.

Kleonike: What beautiful bosoms!

Lampito: Shuckins, whut fer you tweedlin' me up so? 

I hate it so much, I can't even tell you.  It's one thing for the director of the play to make the decision to have all the Spartans talk like the worst parody of a hillbilly from a Saturday morning cartoon,  but to have the dialogue be twisted and yanked and worse: written in dialect, drives me nuts.  I'd be interested to see if more recent translations would do the same, since I feel like that kind of tone-deaf writing is not in vogue anymore.

I bitch, I bitch, but there's actually very few Spartans, and you can certainly skip the preface and footnotes if you want, and the experience of reading the play is only minorly diminished by the issues I describe.  And for a dusty, centuries-old Greek play, it's actually pretty fun.

And finally, I realized I'd forgotten to mention the prompt: I went for "Women: you can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em" and although apparently this sentiment predates even Aristophanes, I felt this was sufficiently old enough to count as its inspiration!
 
49: A Book That Has Inspired A Common Phrase Or Idiom

Ten Second Reviews

Force of Nature

By Jane Harper

Five women hike into the wilderness on an executive camping retreat.  When only four return, investigator Aaron Falk is concerned that the disappearance of the fifth woman - Alice - may have something to do with her connection to him: she was about to hand over documents as a whistleblower which would have taken the company - and several people hiking with her - down.  This was my least favorite of the Jane Harper books, by a long shot.  As she's done in her other books, the narrative has two tracks: one is the timeline following the discovery of the disappearance, the other the events leading up to it.  Only at the end of both do we know what happened.  Here, the action is just super slow.  We know that Alice doesn't disappear until early Sunday morning, so following everybody from Thursday onward feels really sluggish - especially when we find out - SPOILERS! - that ultimately, the accident had nothing more to do with any ulterior motivations then that Alice was kind of a bitch and everybody was really on edge.  Plus, nothing about Beth's (or Bree's?) subsequent hiding of the body made any sense.  You thought your twin killed someone, so you hauled a corpse twenty feet off the path? That's more or less my two main complaints: very slow paced, and the ultimate solution to the mystery disappointed.  But, as ever, these are well written and Harper does a great sense of place.

The Rosie Result

By Graeme Simsion

This, like Force of Nature, was also the third of sorts, and not my favorite of the bunch.  I did like it, generally, on its own though, so in that respect it's not so similar.  It's the continuation of the The Rosie Project and The Rosie Effect, which told more or less the meeting, and eventual coupling up, of the titular Rosie, and narrator Don, who is (by the end of the third, determinedly so) autistic.   The Rosie Result sort of tracks Don and Rosie's son's progress through a new school, and the question about whether he should be tested for autism/is autistic.  It's not as funny as the first installment, not as sad as the second.  It ends, as the others did, on a very hopeful note.  Don and Rosie's relationship is sturdy and I do think it suffers from the focus being on son Hudson, who is sort of a cypher to Don (and to readers) and not as much on Rosie, who is more down to earth and whose interactions with the more literal Don create the best moments in the series. Overall, nice for completists.

I suppose this is my "Australia" reading day - I hadn't even noticed until I started putting the labels on.  These could not be two more different pieces set in Australia - one is a social comedy about current views on health, disabilities, political correctness and parenting, set in and around the suburbs, the other is a murder/crime thriller set in the bush. 

Ten Second Reviews

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride

By Cary Elwes and Jay Layden

Essentially Cary Elwes' behind-the-scenes look at his role and interactions in The Princess Bride, and, although it certainly has the benefit of a built-in, forgiving audience, it also manages to tread the same fine line of the movie, that is: it's sweet without being sappy, funny without being mean, and gentle without being weak.  It gives you the same "This world may be populated with fundamentally good people after all" feeling that The Great British Bake-Off does.  It makes you nostalgic, and definitely in the mood to re-watch the movie.  Even though it's not "juicy", there's plenty to make you feel like you were there during filming, and you do get a sense of the various personalities on set.  A lovely, nostalgic, easy read.

The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone

By Jaclyn Moriarty

Ten year-old Bronte receives the news that her mostly absent adventurous parents have been killed by pirates - and that their Last Will and Testament requires her (under pain of her town collapsing) to visit her father's ten aunts and deliver gifts to them.  But as she visits orange orchards, dragon hospitals, cruise ships, water sprites and musical kingdoms, she begins to realize there's more going on that she originally suspected. This one was delightfully plotted - although the generous hints throughout the book mean that you'll probably guess what's happening long before we get to the reveal (except one where I was completely surprised - happily so) there are so many strings and sub-plots that it's never boring.  Plus, in addition to the book-long narrative, each aunt is like a mini-adventure, including a crime puzzle, an avalanche, tidying up for depressed people, fleeing pirates, saving babies, and learning magic.  It's a real confection of a book, as Bronte's instructions include many restaurant recommendations along with travel tips, and the master spell reads like a recipe.  There's some darker points as well, which, although it makes sense there would be, given that the book is about events set in motion by the murder of her parents, does feel a little off sometimes, given the upbeat and candy-colored attitude the rest of the book has.  Given the large cast of characters, it also doesn't get confusing or crowded, and it's a pleasant and ultimately feel-good way to spend an afternoon. 

Hot Dog Girl

Hot Dog Girl

By Jennifer Dugan

Elouise (Lou) Parker is determined to have the absolute best, most impossibly epic summer of her life. There are just a few things standing in her way:

  *  She's landed a job at Magic Castle Playland . . . as a giant dancing hot dog.

  *  Her crush, the dreamy Diving Pirate Nick, already has a girlfriend, who is literally the Princess of the park. But Lou's never liked anyone, guy or otherwise, this much before, and now she wants a chance at her own happily ever after.

  *  Her best friend, Seeley, the carousel operator, who's always been up for anything, suddenly isn't when it comes to Lou's quest to set her up with the perfect girl or Lou's scheme to get close to Nick.

  *  And it turns out that this will be their last summer at Magic Castle Playland--ever--unless she can find a way to stop it from closing.

I'm doing this one out of order, because the prompt is seasonal, and I figured why not squeeze the review in seasonally too?

So although I didn't love Hot Dog Girl, I am allowing myself to be charmed by it, and I will not be too harsh.  I mean, it's just a light summer read about a girl learning about falling in love, treating your friends right, not being down on yourself all the time, and becoming a little more grown up and mature.  Not like, real mature though, the book ends in a bake sale after all, but it's a cute enough story, done with a light hand.

I gravitated towards it because I love hot dogs and wanted a book for summer that was really about summer - summer as you always remember it fondly years later with endless days and warm nights when you're able to roam the town. Mosquito bites and shorts and beaches and the smell of sun screen and bug spray and the feeling of freedom.  Adult books about summer are mostly about indiscretions on Cape Cod during a rich people get-together or "finding yourself" in a new place after your husband divorces you.  Not quite the same thing.  Summer is my favorite season, but summer as a child, not summer as an adult, where you still have work in over air-conditioned offices, and only get brief tastes of the freedom you used to feel. Although you do occasionally get to participate in hot-dog eating contests, so it's not all disappointment as an adult.

Anyway, Hot Dog Girl does have that same nostalgic sense of summer freedom and loss, in this case because the fun park she's working at is going to close, which is nicely obvious metaphor for the closing of that period in your life where you can still go home again. Everything moves on!  You grow up and visit the old haunts and realize the water slide has become a parking lot for a pharmaceutical company and you just have to deal with it.  Or like in Grosse Pointe Blank, when your home has become an Ultimart. "You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there."

Lou is a fictional character and also only like, seventeen, so the fact that she doesn't realize that her bonkers plan to fake date her best friend to get closer to this guy she has a crush on is going to end in her realizing she's actually in love with her best friend is more forgiveable.  I suppose she doesn't have access to tv tropes like the rest of us.  Or like, to Can't Buy Me Love and To All The Boys I've Loved Before.  I was so-so on this part.  It was pretty telegraphed what was going to happen, but Nick (her crush) turns out to be nice and into her, and I felt kind of bad at the end when he winds up telling her that he moved to town to get away from bullies and then he ends up alone, after both his girlfriend and his crush find new partners.  Seeley, Lou's best friend, has a more limited arc, since her role is mainly to be the ever-patient friend who's been in love with Lou forever and puts up with her shenanigans. 

But like I said, it's all done with a light enough hand, and Lou never becomes so annoying with her antics that you end up rooting against her.  They all re-partner, they don't save the park, but they raise money for the owner's sick granddaughter, and much lessons are learned about meddling, self-confidence, and friendship.  The parts about Lou's mother leaving are well done, and the mental image of her in a hot dog costume is never not funny. More hot dogs, is what I say!

44: Read A Book During The Season It Is Set In

Hey Ladies!: The Story of Eight Best Friends, 1 Year, and Way, Way Too Many Emails

Hey Ladies!: The Story of Eight Best Friends, 1 Year, and Way, Way Too Many Emails

By: Michelle Markowitz & Caroline Moss

Hey Ladies! is a laugh-out-loud read that follows a fictitious but all too familiar group of eight 20-and-30-something female friends for one year of their lives  Told through a series of email chains, text messages, and illustrations, this book takes you along for the roller coaster ride of holiday celebrations, book clubs, summer house rentals, wedding showers, Instagram stalking, brunches, breakups, and, of course, all the inside jokes and harsh truths that only best friends share.

I think this book was supposed to be funny, but it just made me sad.  Maybe I'm too close.  Maybe we're intended to just laugh at how ridiculous and over the top (OTT!) everything is, but the authors have intermittently spaced actual thoughtful conversations at various points throughout, so by the final month, when Gracie calls Ali and Jen out on making every single thing about them and the wedding, including her own birthday, all I felt was horrible that (1) everyone then turned on Gracie and (2) that Gracie didn't burn the wedding to the ground. The final email from Gracie celebrating her own engagement with these shitheels did not give me a "Haha, here we go again!" zany laugh, but the feeling of watching an abused person return to their abuser.  As I said, maybe I'm too close.

The book is a breezy and quick read, with a cute design. It's a modern day epistolary novel, using email chains, texts and some graphic pictures.  We're dealing with eight women in their late twenties.  Although it seems like a lot to keep track of, most of the women are paper thin caricatures and the bulk of the messages are between just four of them: Jen, the bride-to-be, Ali, the type-A Maid of Honor who constantly books things and asks for reimbursement, Katie, the one who keeps hanging after this shitty guy who pukes on one of them during a weekend in Portugal, and Morgan, who has no real characteristics except to be "the voice of reason" every so often when Jen, Ali and Katie are becoming extremely unlikeable again.  That happens frequently throughout, as each of them are completely self-absorbed.   

The other four are: Nicole, whose storyline basically just involves her trying to make the bridesmaid dresses and then going bankrupt, Caitlin, who is a lifestyle/diet/yoga guru who sends thinly veiled marketing emails, Ashley, who is in Connecticut and never has service, and the aforementioned Gracie, who lives in Brooklyn and has a separate life and therefore does not participate in the shenanigans.

 I think there's plenty of comic relief in the idea, but the execution left me with a bad taste in my mouth.  Partly is the unlikeability of most of the "main" characters combined with the shitty way they treat the few likeable people in the book.  Second is the limitations the format has on the action: we get the lead up and the planning each time, but almost never hear anything about how the actual party/night out/bachelorette weekend/friendervention actually went, except for one or two details or comments.  What that does is create the feeling that the friendship consists entirely of crappy emails, and not of any actual fun.  It leaves you struggling to answer the question of why these people are even friends at all, and maybe that's a point the book is trying to make, but it's not one you can really hit hard while you're also trying for laughs.  The last two pages make that very clear.  

I will definitely cop to being part of a group chain of six friends from school, but it just makes the question of why the ladies in Hey Ladies are so awful even more glaring.  There's plenty of comedy to mine without backing into clownishness. And parts of it were funny!  But it felt like they were using a hammer for the comedy - it wasn't enough to make the joke, we have to drive it into the ground - and in the process, really reiterate again and again that I could be reading House of Leaves for this prompt instead and I'd probably be less grossed out.   Much as I wanted to like this book, it just wasn't for me.  Send it off to someone who will appreciate it!  Send it to someone who can treat it right; I'm sure there's plenty of readers out there who'll love it.

46: A Book With No Chapters/Unusual Chapter Headings/Unconventionally Numbered Chapters

Comic Bonanza

Here's a round-up of a couple of kid-friendly(ish) comic books I've been reading:

Courtney Crumrin, Vol. 1: Courtney Crumrin & The Night Things

By Ted Naifeh

Courtney's parents have dragged her out to a high-to-do suburb to live with her creepy Great Uncle Aloysius in his spooky old house. She's not only the new kid in school, but she also discovers strange things lurking under her bed.

This one is why I'm calling these "kid-friendly (ish)" emphasis on the "ish".  Courtney is a somewhat darker take on the beginning witchcraft dabbler tale, both figuratively and literally.  I mean, everything is kid-appropriate, but at one point a changeling takes away a baby that Courtney is watching, and although she tries to get it back (being captured and sold herself) her uncle basically tells her in the end, "Forget about trying to get the baby back, these things happen, his parents won't even notice." And they don't!  That was a more chilling story than I expected it to be.  Anyway, these are set up as four short stories, all in black and white.  I would have loved to have them in color, but I suppose it sets the mood.  Courtney herself is an entertaining little curmudgeon.  The last story finds her losing energy, only to realize she's been replaced by a doppelganger who is living her life (and doing much better at it apparently).  In the final confrontation, you think that Courtney will let the doppelganger just take over since everyone seems to prefer it to her, but she comes out swinging hard with a "fuck everyone else, I'm a difficult and unpleasant person, and that's exactly how I want to be!" that completely saps the doppelganger.  Good on you, Courtney.  I would never want to meet you in real life, but bless your confidence. 

Goldie Vance Vol. 1

By Hope Larson and Brittney Williams

Sixteen-year-old Marigold “Goldie” Vance lives at a Florida resort with her dad, who manages the place. Her mom, who divorced her dad years ago, works as a live mermaid at a club downtown. Goldie has an insatiable curiosity, which explains her dream to one day become the hotel’s in-house detective. When Charles, the current detective, encounters a case he can’t crack, he agrees to mentor Goldie in exchange for her help solving the mystery.

This one is a lot of fun to read, colorful, bouncy, basically Nancy Drew in 60s Florida, if Nancy weren't so lily white.   Whereas Courtney was a loner and preferred it that way, Goldie has a colorful cast of supporting characters, including friends, enemies, potential ladyfriends, adults who seem to exist mainly for spoiling fun, and also: aliens!  Yes, I was really getting into the story when it took an abrupt right turn into Martian colony weirdness.  This was set up so the mini-stories merged into a longer connected story, so we'll have to see if all of the mysteries end like that.  It was a little off-putting, but I (a) enjoyed the rest of it enough to keep reading and (b) can kind of see where they're going with the 60s cold war and space-focus (one of Goldie's friends wants to be an astronaut) so I will allow it for now.

The Lost Path

By Amélie Fléchais

Three young boys set off from Camp Happiness, map in hand, determined to be the first to find the treasure before anyone else. But the shortcut they take leads to something far more spectacular and sinister! All manner of magical beasties live in these woods, and the kids find themselves caught between warring Forest Spirits. Will the three boys find their way out of trouble? Get your map and ready, set, go!

This was something I picked up and bought during my sojourn on Free Comic Book Day solely because of how beautiful it was, and that definitely panned out.  It is gorgeous, done in multiple color and drawing styles.  I would have liked something 100% in color, just because the coloring that was there was so beautiful, but, I acknowledge that (like Courtney) the black and white was an appropriate style choice for those sections - when the three boys are simply wandering in the woods.   I agree with a lot of other reviewers that felt the story-line was lacking in comparison to the illustration.  The story is good, but it felt oddly incomplete and only half explained.  We wind up in the middle of fighting forest spirits, but it was hard to tell who was on what side and why.  A crown/hat becomes a Chekov's Gun that never goes off, and when I got done, I went to look if this was intended to be a stand-alone story or not.  So far it is, which is a let-down.  Overall, a beautiful, but otherwise somewhat empty, little book. 

Tiny Beautiful Things

Tiny Beautiful Things:Advice on love and life from Dear Sugar

By Cheryl Strayed

Life can be hard: your lover cheats on you; you lose a family member; you can’t pay the bills—and it can be great: you’ve had the hottest sex of your life; you get that plum job; you muster the courage to write your novel. Sugar—the once-anonymous online columnist at The Rumpus, now revealed as Cheryl Strayed, author of the bestselling memoir Wild—is the person thousands turn to for advice.

Tiny Beautiful Things brings the best of Dear Sugar together in one place and includes never-before-published columns and a new introduction by Steve Almond.  Rich with humor, insight, compassion - and absolute honesty - this book is a balm for everything life throws our way.

Cheryl Strayed is a heck of a memorialist, but I can only say that if I had actually written in to her for advice, I would definitely have been sitting there with her answer, crumpling the paper, screaming, "Get to the point!" She takes each letter and starts off basically with a "let me tell you about a seemingly (and in fact sometimes actually) unrelated event that happened to me, and after several pages of that I will analogize it to your problem".  I was so struck by this method, I'll attempt to recreate it for this review:

I read, regularly, certain advice columns.  This has not always been the same column, as it depends on those that I can most easily access, but for the last few years, it has included Dear Prudence, which used to be written by various other people, and then was written by Emily Yoffe, and then, most recently and dramatically, it was taken over by Daniel Mallory Ortberg (formerly Mallory Ortberg of The Toast).  Words cannot express how inadequate the advice given at the beginning of Ortberg's reign was.  It was so uniformly awful that there the site moderators had to tell people (repeatedly!  They left this as a message at the top of comments for weeks!) not to make derogatory comments about Ortberg's skills as an advice columnist and ask for Yoffe to come back.  It truly was a rocky road.  (Note that Dear Prudence's overlords at Slate seem to think "terrible advice column" is a successful business strategy,  as they are employing it once again with a sex column answered by two people, who, in one now infamous example, told an older heterosexual man who was having trouble connecting with his wife to "try a glory hole".  And yes, that is how "try a glory hole!" has become shorthand acknowledgement of shitty advice on one small corner of the internet.  I think broadly speaking though, that's going to be shitty advice 99.9% of the time, so feel free to expand its reach.)

As the wheel turns, gradually Ortberg became better at the job, being less sarcastic, and has mostly stopped uniformly recommending that people having communication problems with their significant others simply break up with them (I suppose as an alternative to having a difficult conversation, but I don't think we should encourage breaking up, since it's already such a tempting way out).  He's still hot on lengthy speeches for people to give, although we're hoping to wean him off those eventually too.  When he first started he was short and snappy and kinda fun, albeit somewhat too snappy in some cases.  I think the backlash from the appearance of flippancy has made him backpedal into the quagmire of five minute explanations of why you need space from your friend, when really, all you have to (and in most cases, should) say is: "I need some space."

All of this is to say that there's definitely some columnists who set the bar low, and give you confidence that you could easily do this job yourself.  Strayed (and Dear Sugar) is not one of them.  She is empathetic, sympathetic, warm, funny, and insightful.  Now, you do have to wade through a ten year history of Strayed's life to get there, but there is a great place to be. 

I did think it was kind of hilarious early on when she does a list of FAQs (sidebar: why do we say FAQs? It's always plural. Never has anyone typed FAQ and meant "Frequently Asked Question".  And yet, I feel compelled to make it clear this is a plural situation going on here. Society's mores are killing creativity!) and one of the questions is: "Are the letters you publish really sent in by anonymous people? Most are so well written that it seems you or The Rumpus writers must be creating them." Her answer (basically, she has so many that she can choose the most well written, and yes, aren't they all lovely) is a delightful eliding over the fact that the letters all kind of sound the same, too.  "I'm not smart, but I know what love is" and "please be honest, blunt, and give me a new perspective on my multifaceted problem" and "how do I reconnect with him in a genuine way?"

I have to say that it seemed unlikely to me, too, that all these people writing in were so erudite and clear in their desperation, but it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of her answers.  Her responses are such that I found myself on the edge of tears more than once. It's not only that she gives good advice - though she does, frequently telling them not what to do, but how to decide it - but that she allows the reader to view their problems with the same compassion and generosity of spirit that Strayed sees them. What infinite patience Strayed has for the person who overheard their friends talking about them behind their back, for the woman who likes kinky sex, for the person whose father is telling them things they don't want to hear, for the high schooler whose friends are messy. 

Or for the person who is afraid to say the word love:

"We're all going to die, Johnny. Hit the iron bell like it's dinnertime."




Footnote: I don't mean to be unduly harsh on Ortberg - he really was just awful when he started, but he's gotten a lot better since!  There's very few columns now where he strikes out more than once.

10: A Book With "Pop" "Sugar" Or "Challenge" In The Title