Month: October 2012

book reviews
18 Oct 2012

Son by Lois Lowry

The Giver was my hands-down, all-time favorite book from the 4th grade up until I wrote 4 papers on it in 6 months. Thanks, grad school! Now that I have analyzed and criticized and studied it to death, it doesn’t hold the same exalted position on my personal Bookshelf of Life, but it is still one of my go-to recommendations, especially for adults who haven’t read kid lit since they were 9 and think YA is a dirty word. It’s a quick, tight read, engaging, and the issues at hand – personal freedom, human nature, eugenics, etc –  are sufficiently highbrow. I do believe it has earned its praise and position in the children’s lit canon.

Until grad school, I was very content to ignore the two companion/sequel novels to The Giver. But then they showed up on a syllabus, and grad school allows little room for righteous reading indignation. I read Gathering Blue and The Messenger with a certain level of detachment; the existence of these books wasn’t as pure as The Giver, they couldn’t possibly be held up to the same standard, The Giver was The Giver, but these were just books. And I think it worked – I was able to appreciate the two books for what they were – stories that were more like The Giver in theme than storyline, that took strange supernatural turns, that were at times pleasantly atmospheric and mythological.

But still. Just books.

I knew that Son would be different. It had been so long since The Giver and its sequels were published, it would be the final installment, and I knew it would be about a birth mother. Ms. Lowry was returning to the community where she began – Jonas’s community – and she would have to pull out some stops to both satisfy original readers as well as justify some of the wackier storylines in the two sequels.

And despite mixed professional reviews, I think Lowry did just that. The novel’s protagonist, Claire, is a very young birthmother whose birthing career is cut unexpectedly short when her first delivery is deemed unsatisfactory. Instead of returning to community life in the fish hatchery, though, Claire becomes obsessed with keeping tabs on her child – a child we quickly learn is baby Gabriel who plays such an important role in The Giver. Without giving too much detail, Claire eventually leaves the community and spends the rest of her life in the supernatural, barely-civilized, liminal world of Kira and Matty, trying desperately to be reunited with her lost son.

This is not a tour-de-force, not a book that will stand next to The Giver in my mind or in the canon. I probably won’t hand it to friends and family. However, I don’t think it’s Just-A-Book. Lowry manages to combine the realistic and the fantastic in a way that feels more fable or fairytale-like, rather than an awkward mash-up of world-building. Claire is an interesting case study in cultural conditioning vs. human instinct, of the way deprivation of knowledge can make a person, a people, vulnerable and desperate.

And of course, there is the delight in realizing that Claire’s story is being told in concurrence with Jonas’s story, allowing the reader a coveted second perspective of that fascinating community that Lowry sucked us all in with on that very first page of The Giver – the errant plane, the spinning bicycle wheels, and “NEEDLESS TO SAY, HE WILL BE RELEASED.”

Maybe that’s what I wanted from a Giver sequel all along – to be indulged.

life maintenance
17 Oct 2012

seven things i still love from seventh grade

 

In this-book-that-I-won’t-stop-talking about (aka The Happiness Project), Ms. Rubin spends a month and a chapter ruminating on what kinds of leisure activities lead to greater happiness – what hobbies she really likes. Although begins this chapter with a treatise on how, despite the fact that she is an capable, educated adult, she has this strange and inexplicable passion for (gasp!) children’s literature!, this little struggle hit home.

Do you remember when everyone and their brother was writing up 101 in 1001 lists? I wonder how many of those 101 things ever got done, and not because people are lazy and content to watch 101 episodes of television in 1001 days rather than get off the couch – maybe it’s just impossible to WANT to do that many things with enough passion to actually do them. My own 101 list was a 30% aspirational randomness I had no control over, 30% hobbies and activities I though would make me smarter or more well-rounded or some other college application bullshit, 30% travel destination checklist items, and maybe 1% things that I actually wanted to do.

How do you distill out that 1% when your brain is full of 99 things you don’t quite like. In The Happiness Project, Ms. Rubin asks a friend for advice and the answer she gets really stuck with me.

“What you enjoyed as a ten-year-old is probably something you’d enjoy now.”

The only activities I really remember enjoying at ten involve watching music videos on VH-1, watching TGIF with my sister in my parents bedroom, and buying new Beanie Babies. So I thought about seventh grade instead, when I was a bit more mature. Ahem.

So without further ado, here are seven things I loved as a seventh grader that I would be happy to do any day of my twenty-seven-year-old life.

1. Cutting and pasting pieces of paper

2. Staying home on a weekend night, doing nothing in particular, and going to bed early.

3. Making up imaginary people.

4. Reading on the couch. Has to be the couch.

5. Playing with Legos. I pretty much only want kids so I can play with Legos again.

6. Writing things down, preferably while practicing different types of handwriting.

7. Oh yeah and that reading-books-for-kids thing.

So cheers to spending weekend nights watching MTV while scribbling in notebooks, making collages, and reclining on soft pieces of furniture with books. If I’m lucky, I will be doing all this when I’m 80.

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books
16 Oct 2012

read what sets you on fire

As a born+bred, habitual, compulsive, lifelong reader, not reading for any period of time feels strange. Not wanting to read feels stranger. Like not wanting to eat.

My response to reading malaise is to meander between books: books I think I should read, books I was excited about at some point, books that have been sitting on my shelves for years, books that I’ve been halfway through for months. It doesn’t usually feel great – I force myself to finish chapters, knowing that I’ll never finish, which is painful and discouraging and I think that I will never want to read again.

Then I find a book that works. Usually something that is easy to read, which is code for books that might be considered Chick Lit or Ghostwritten or Otherwise Embarrassing and Trashy. I find myself choosing Book over Internet (!) I get really excited when I sit down on the subway and remember that I get an mostly uninterrupted 15 minutes of reading.

One or two books set a spark, and then I’m back to my regular hold-addicted, book juggling self.

Maybe I just need to stop thinking so hard and just read what gets the fire started.

 

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life maintenance
15 Oct 2012

2012: week forty-one

October 7 – October 13

Today is Day 29 of my Whole30 challenge. For those of you living under rocks, who don’t click links, or who otherwise prefer me to explain things, Whole30 is an paleo-like elimination eating plan, meant to be followed for 30-60 days.

Things you can eat:

  • Meat of all sorts
  • Vegetables of all sorts, except for white potatoes
  • Olive oil, coconut oil and milk, and animal fats
  • Some nuts and fruit

Things you can’t eat:

  • Rice, pasta, corn, quinoa, wheat, bread
  • Dairy
  • Sugar and artificial sweeteners
  • Alcohol
  • Beans

I decided to try it out for a number of reasons. Although I try to eat healthy most of the time, working many jobs really wreaked havoc on my eating habits and choices. I was eating a lot of junk, sometimes out of choice, sometimes out of necessity, but more frequently, just plain stress eating, which I didn’t realize was a problem that I’d kicked until it came back. Anywho, I thought that a prescribed, short-term plan would be a good way to remind myself that food=fuel and get back to having good habits.

I decided to coerce The Boy into joining me because I enjoy receiving text messages  that read “Can I eat XXX” and then replying “No,” and then getting a reply that says “A:@#$fin I HATE YOU,” repeated multiple times daily. Just kidding. I asked him to join me because I knew if I didn’t, every day he would eat some bread or something and then ask, very sincerely, what exactly is so WRONG about bread, and I can probably just have a little bite, right?

Anyway, I would definitely recommend a Whole30 challenge to anyone who wants to feel more in control of his or her health and food choices. It’s not as hard as it looks, and although you think you can’t live without X, Y, or Z, just take a deep breath and remember that you have lived many months and will live many more and THIS IS ONLY ONE OF THEM. Slow your roll. It is a little more expensive than normal eating, because cheap calories are cheap and real food is pricy, so be warned and budget accordingly.

I wasn’t a perfect Whole30er – I relied a bit too heavily on nuts and fruits, didn’t eat enough veggies, and may have willfully ingested some corn starch while on the quest to find the elusive crispy sweet potato fry (this recipe is the best I’ve found so far!). I also didn’t see any life changing, world-altering results… probably for those reasons exactly. However, I have felt the same general benefits I’ve felt other times I’ve given up sugar – the steady energy levels, the ability to differentiate between physical and mental tiredness, the absence of food cravings (save for the occasional dessert-related fantasy). I had fewer headaches and no stomachaches.

I generally feel more well-rested and healthy, less worried about what I eat, and more in touch with what foods are nourishing.

Also, I learned to eat olives, embraced flavored seltzer water, and had a happy/sad moment when all of the 30 dollar pairs of pants on the sale rack at Banana Republic were too large.

I will probably do this again, maybe 2 or 3 times a year, to reset.

Aaaaaaand on Wednesday, I am going to a bar after work to eat nachos and drink a beer.

 

Reading:

  • The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
  • The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler
  • Books about tuberculosis, Charles Dickens, and Frederick Douglass

Watching:

  • Just realized that both seasons of Shameless are on demand. Heck yes.
  • Tried to watch The Wire, but had a little trouble paying attention enough to follow what characters were what, and then my DVD player stopped reading the disc.
  • Tried to watch Midnight in Paris, but it was really late at night and it was silly and I wanted to go to bed.
book lists
13 Oct 2012

blog to book round-up

It is no secret that I am a diligent, obsessive blog reader. I think my blog-reading days began at the information desk at the Charles V. Park library – I had a handful of urls memorized, most of them blogs of the Mommy variety. It is somewhat disturbing to me that some of these bloggers have children then are five, six, seven years old, when I read through their pregnancies and birth stories and such. Oy vey.

Additionally, some of these bloggers also have book deals. And while I in the midst of my pre/post-graduate reading slump, I certainly read myself a lot of them.

Jani’s Journey is probably one of the single most heartbreaking blogs I have ever chanced across, and not just because the idea of raising a very young child with schizophrenia is probably the most stressful, life-altering challenge I can imagine. The truly painful part of this blog is observing the unrelenting backlash – readers who don’t believe in mental illness, who believe that Jani’s problems must be rooted in abuse, who report the family to Child Protective Services. Michael is an honest writer, laying down the realities of life with his daughter, his struggling marriage, the constant struggle to make ends meet and convince health insurance companies to pay for medications and treatments. This makes him vulnerable, but a powerful voice in the world of mentally ill children and their parents who will do anything to help them.

January First goes back to the beginning, to before Jani was born, before the blog, and follows this family through unbearable trials. I think that reading this book gives a deeper understanding of where Michael and Jani are in the blog – the bond between parent and child, the horrors of living life with astronomically high levels of stress, and what a HUGE problem health care for the the mentally ill has become. This is a book you read flipping pages madly with one hand and clutching your chest with the other.

My Favorite Roommate introduced me to Kelle’s blog Enjoying the Small Things a few years ago, and I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, Kelle is obviously a talented photographer, her kids are adorable, and her writing is fine. However, I have trouble with reading personal writing by those who live in obvious, undeniable wealth – this is likely a personal failing, but I find it difficult to empathize with how difficult life is for those who have showy personal belongings and large houses.

That being said, I liked Kelle’s book, Bloom, more than her blog. The book is more of a memoir, and it turns out, Kelle’s history really isn’t too different than anyone else’s, with low-paying jobs and such. And while I don’t have much to contextualize the experience of having a child born with Down’s Syndrome, I found her retelling of her experience quite raw and honest in a way that I imagine is likely rare. But mostly, I just liked this book as an object – well-printed, well-designed, and full of Kelle’s lovely photographs. It feels nice in your lap.

Pre-2008, Stephanie Nielson’s blog, The NieNie Dialogues, was a stay-at-home mom’s collection of sparsely narrated candid photographs of clothing, craft projects, and children, vegetarian recipes, and super-sappy love letters to Mr. Nielson. In conglomerate, I found her life inexplicably intoxicating. I spent a lot of time sifting through her archives, marveling at these small moments and wondering if my life was that whimsical and pleasing but I just lacked the perspective to see it. When Stephanie and Mr. Nielson were severely injured in a small plane crash, the content and tone of the blog changed dramatically as her abilities and perspective changed completely.

A memoir that begins with Stephanie and Christian’s courtship and moves right up to her return home from an extensive stay in a burn hospital, Heaven is Here manages to capture the fantasy-romance of the pre-crash Nie as well as the struggle – physical, mental, spiritual – that occurs when your happy-little-life is 100% derailed. I’m not saying this book (or her blog) deserves any literary awards, and those who fear heavy-handed religiosity and conservative politics might find either or deplorable, but I found this book to be quick and satisfying.

Well, that was a lot of tragedy. I didn’t realize until this exact moment that I read a lot of depressing shit. Well here’s a remedy: a delightful narrative cookbook – Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach, based on the blog by the same name. I checked this book out from the library, oh, a month ago, and I refuse to return it. I loved reading through the short, memoir-ish vignettes that follow Jenny as her relationship with cooking and food changes through single life, married-to-a-fellow-foodie life, life with little kids and life with bigger kids. There is practical cooking and time management advice – how to get food on the table fast, how to make one dish to feed picky palates, how to make a decent recipe out of any combination of meat+fat+veggies, and a collection of recipes that are right in my wheelhouse: real food with real ingredients, not too fussy or too decadent, delicious. I have been cooking out of this book like its my job, even though I am on a fairly restrictive diet! – and I don’t want to give it back, I just don’t. So there.

Other blog-to-books I have at least moderately enjoyed in years past:

book reviews
12 Oct 2012

the thief – dare me – the future of us

One nice thing about last week’s mood: I got a lot of reading done. Three mini-reviews, commence.

I probably don’t need to tell you what Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief is about because it was published in 1996. In 1996 I was too busy reading Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and Caroline B. Cooney to read fantasy. Lucky for me, The Thief was still enjoyable 10+ years later, and even luckier, it’s one of those fantasies that barely qualifies. You’re not quite sure it is a fantasy. In fact, you’re not quite sure of when or where the story is even taking place – you’re uncovering the landscape and the social structure and the culture as you read. But that is a lot of fancy-talking for a book that is, fundamentally, an exciting little adventure story starring one of the most endearing protagonists I’ve met in a long time – Gen, a feisty, braggy thief-boy who has landed himself in the King’s jail who ends up on an indentured, cross-kingdom adventure to steal something mythological.

And, hey, hey! One more summer reading book – done! That brings my total to three. Yeah, baby.

I generally like Books for Adults that feature teenage characters, even teen protagonists. However, I have seriously mixed feelings about Books for Adults that are about Teenagers and Teenage Culture. Ever see the movie Thirteen? Books for adults that expose the secret lives of teenagers always seem super sensational, inherently exaggerated. Megan Abbott’s Dare Me is full of naughty Varsity cheerleaders, content to lord over their peers, teachers, and half the world on the virtue of being young and sexy. Their parents are invisible, they cheer while hungover and in between binge & purge sessions, they run rampant and unchecked… until a new coach rolls into town and upsets the social order between Super-Popular Beth and her right-hand-man, protag Addy. The girls battle subtly, psychologically, while a murder mystery reveals itself, and Coach alternates between teaching the girls to become true, athletic, throwing and jumping and flying cheerleaders… and inviting the girls over for wine. Is this attempted reality, or shock value?

And while I will avoid spoilers, let me just say this: in stories about intense, problematic female friendships, there is a certain plotline that shows up again and again and again, and I spent the entire book thinking about Beth and Addy and saying to myself “Man, every other book would explain this by XYZ, but I’m glad that Dare Me doesn’t seem to be going in that direction.” Then, on the last 3 pages, it did. Dammit.

 

I wanted to read The Future of Us when it was published because A) Carolyn Mackler is on my perpetual Authors-To-Read list and B What a concept! Two teens discover Facebook ten years before it exists and see their future lives – as a child of the 90s,  I was sucked in. However, the book fell off my radar (as books are wont to do when you are in grad school) and if it hadn’t been a book club pick, I likely never would have read it…. and maybe it would have been better that way. This book annoyed the crap out of me. First of all, according to Mackler and Asher, the 90’s was a time and place when life looked identical to the way it does now, except every few minutes you put on a Green Day album, put on scrunchie, or noted how strange this new concept called “Caller ID” seemed to be. Basically, it read like heavy-handed faux historical fiction full of those nostalgic in-jokes we children of the 90’s love, but are probably irrelevant/annoying to all others. This book also suffers from horrible pacing (50-60 pages of the two protags trying to prove to themselves that this Facebook thing is real… the disbelief is timely for teens who can barely comprehend the Internet, of course, but THE READER KNOWS IT IS REAL BECAUSE IT IS A STORY AND WE HAVE TO BELIEVE SO PLEASE CATCH UP THIS IS BORING). Also, Emma is so, so unlikeable, but not even in an interesting way. Book club members had a point – maybe teenage girls are boring, wishy-washy, and yes, unlikeable… maybe I have outgrown the truly authentic teen protagonist? Or maybe Emma was just annoying and her character development kind of crappy.

This might be my last foray with fiction, so from here on out, look forward to nonfiction reviews aplenty. Let me tell you a little bit about tuberculosis….

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book awards
11 Oct 2012

2012 National Book Awards

It should not surprise me at all that I have not read a single book nominated for this year’s National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. I am usually lucky to have read one book on any given set of award-winning books, and the NBAs are always a titch more obscure than the rest of the bunch, including books I haven’t even heard of.

But this year’s picks seemed an especially quirky bunch. A middle grade fantasy full of unpronounceable character names. A sad-looking YA contemporary I would have probably passed over for more exciting pastures. Another book by a previously-honored kidlit celeb. The token non-fiction offering. And a book that seems to be about people and monkeys.

I’m sorry, after muddling through Peter Dickinson’s Eva, I’m not sure I can bring myself to read another book about people and monkeys without fearing that the people might turn into monkeys at any moment.

And of course, none of which I have read. Ah, well. Better luck in January!

Bomb: The Race to Build – and Steal – The World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

Goblin Secrets by William Alexander

Endangered by Eliot Schrefer

Out of Reach by Carrie Arcos

Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

 

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life maintenance
10 Oct 2012

life as a normal human: holidays

There is something civilized about holidays, especially if they are paid. Each holiday commemorates something seasonally specific, but I do not think it is a coincidence that these treasured days off appear regularly, almost monthly, like the national powers that be are aware that more than a month of working 40 hour weeks without a day off will make most folks a little nuts.

Last week was an off week, and it was certainly a comfort to think that I had a three day weekend awaiting me.

I honored the day by…

  • Waking up early-ish and trying not to play too much early-morning Skyrim
  • Spending my morning alone in a productive-ish manner – cleaning, scheduling, & running
  • Knitting approximately twelve stitches (slow but steady)
  • Doing laundry in a most pleasurable way – a cup of hot coffee at the cafe across the street from the laundromat, taken out of doors, with friends and even doing a bit of extracurricular writing.
  • Butternut squash & apple soup and the boy’s latest attempt at sweet potato fries
  • Reading a book about tuberculosis
  • Using expensive deep conditioner while washing my hair
  • Putting a blanket on top of a Rubbermaid and pretending it is a coffee table

 

assorted media
09 Oct 2012

a tale of three movies

In the three years I spent in grad school, I think I watched a grand total of three movies in the theater. Maybe four.

(All of them were arguably for children, but that is neither here nor there)

Last week I decided to make up for lost time. Or, more accurately, I decided to see one movie, then somehow ended up seeing two more in a five day span.

On Saturday, we met up with friends to see The Master. Early Oscar buzz has begun, and like always, barely any of the movies that are getting any hype are even available to watch in theaters yet, much less on DVD. The Master was, and it was showing at my favorite theater, so after digging through our car for change to fill our Brookline parking meter, we squeezed into a sold out showing.

I thought it was bizarre, ambiguous almost offensively well-acted. So basically, Oscar-worthy.

On Tuesday night, a children’s lit friend of mine joined me for a showing of The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

I was skeptical throughout most of the film, probably because I just re-read it and was feeling a little too close to the text or whatever. It seemed like a nice, tame high school flick, but was missing the kind of mounting tragedy that you can feel while reading the book. And it is difficult, I think, to portray a character who self-defines by the books he reads and the music he listens to and the journals he writes on screen. These are intimate, personal experiences that you have, right along with Charlie, when you read a close first person narration. On the screen, all you see is a stack of paperbacks, scant voice overs that seem sarcastic, and songs that blend in with any other indie soundtrack.

However, the last twenty minutes of the film punched me in the stomach. The mounting tragedy mounted quickly, and illuminated Charlie’s relationship with Patrick and Sam in a way that I didn’t get from the reading the book.

Also, Ezra Miller, who are you and where can I get more of you.

But if I have to choose a favorite flick-of-the-week, I will have to shame myself by skipping over the Future Oscar Winner and the YA Classic On Film. So sorry, guys, but my heart belongs to…

Pitch Perfect.

I’m pretty sure this movie was created expressly for me. It has all of my favorite film elements:

  • Raunchy, random comedy with extra puns
  • That campy This-is-so-bad-it’s-good feeling
  • Anna Kendrick
  • Elaborate musical numbers

Oh, and it’s about collegiate a cappella. Win. If you are a former a cappella nerd (or a close associate), you will notice A) persistent a cappella in-jokes that will make you giggle and B) a persistent poking-fun-of said a cappella nerds. One of my favorite scenes was an inter-a-cappella-group party scene, where everyone was drunk, macking upon one another with abandon, and instead of dancing, 75% of the crowd was just singing along  to the music.

Oh, a cappella, I miss you.

weekly
08 Oct 2012

2012: week forty

September 30 – October 6

Every day this week, I came home from work and became inexplicably grumpy. Didn’t want to cook, didn’t want to clean, didn’t want to do anything except play Skyrim or hide in my room and read a book.

It could be the diet. It’s been 22 days of Whole30 now, so we are on the home stretch, but I am getting a wee bit sick of chicken.  And also, everything else that I can’t eat sounds amazing. I am not sure what to make of this. It’s no fun to end a food experiment thinking “Man, glad THAT’s over! Now back to this bag of Fritos…”

It could also be the weather. It rained all week and was alternately very cold and kind of muggy. I left two umbrellas on the train. I didn’t run at all, and my hair was frizzy.

An off week. Not all weeks can be on.

 

Reading:

Watching:

  • So, I fell down the Girls well again. Good thing there are only a dozen episodes – they watch real quick.
  • I think I’ve solidified by Fall TV schedule: I’m watching The Mindy Project, How I Met Your Mother, and Call the Midwife. That’s it. I didn’t like any of the other new shows, and I never caught up with the old ones, so there we have it.