Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella

I'm sorry, Dear Blog. It's been a month since my last update and this isn't at all what I'd promised. Somehow, I'd gotten caught up in other things. (Volunteer work, Regular work, Family stuff...) But here I am! With renewed vigor! I recently found that my new library is a nice short-cut between home and work, and even stopping in for 20 minutes shaves off a lot of time from my commute (and avoids a ton of 5pm traffic!) Now that I'm finishing a few of those borrowed books, expect to hear more from me.

Sophie Kinsella, known maybe more so for her fun and trite Chick-Lit novels (mainly The Shopaholic series) tries on a new tact with her first YA novel. Audrey, her heroine, suffers from social anxiety, something Kinsella thinks is very serious. Indeed, Audrey's particular social anxiety is far more full blown than any I've ever had (but not the case for many of my friends).
Still, I feel like Kinsella tip-toed around the subject of mental illness a little too delicately and either took it too seriously or not seriously enough. I suppose that's forgivable as it would very easy to mishandle it. Still, I think I like her adult novels better because she doesn't restrain herself at all from being a goof. I, for one, have always found a very dark, bleak humor in my depression - privately singing the Kenny Loggins track "I'm Alright" during my emotional melt-downs. All the same, I'm kind of glad I borrowed this from the library instead of buying it for myself.
So Audrey has social anxiety. She can't leave the house, and wears sunglasses at all times to avoid direct eye contact. Her family is crazy, but we can all kind of relate to that. But in the midst of her family's wackiness, her brother's friend sort of helps wedge her out of her troubles,
As usual with Sophie Kinsella novels, it was light and funny - but maybe I her gimmick was a bit dark for a first YA novel. I don't know, it didn't seem a good fit.

Dune by Frank Herbert: An Impression

I don't write reviews for books that are considered classics by a remarkable group of the reading population. But there's so many books in the world, we can't always read them hot off the presses, and sometimes we get to them late. In my case, 50 years late.
Yes, I finally got around to reading the cult classic Dune. This isn't going to be a real review, obviously, because I'm not qualified. But does it stand up to the test of time? You know, I've always had pockets of friends who were a little bit, more or less, obsessed fanboys of this series. Suddenly, now that I've read the book and I'm so excited about it I can't seem to find any of them. Obviously the hype is gone, but jeebus. So that's the predicament I'm in right now. I'm overflowing with opinions and discussion questions about this book, but I can't seem to find anyone to talk about it with me! I expect if I reread this novel at another time, I'll notice more things than I had this time. This book is mammoth & daunting. I guess this is what they call a "space opera." A great deal of drama over friends and foes and secret friends being secret foes and foes being secretly friends. And some fictional politics - which kind of lost me because why do I want to talk about made-up politics that aren't going to effect me when the real deal is so depressing and not going to go away when I shut the book?
So it was a great, epic novel that was daunting at first, but I feel I breezed easily through to my own surprise. I'd always felt intimidated by it's length, but I read it fairly quickly. I'll eventually get around to reading the other books in the series, but I do want to put some breaks on reading digitally. It's all fine and dandy, but not as pleasurable and satisfying as reading real books.

Bad Kid by David Crabb

Library eBook

I've never heard of David Crabb. Apparently he's a person I should know, but I'm afraid I don't. All I knew was that this is a memoir about a now-grown man who was a gay, Gothic teenager in Texas and that sounded so unlikely that I knew it was something I needed to read. Well, maybe not "unlikely," but certainly there would have to be some good stories here, right?
It would be easy to draw comparisons to David Crabb's memoir to, say David Sedaris's. I think the important difference between them is in the tone. Yeah, Sedaris is hilarious and this might feel like an imitation to his fans, but I found Sedaris' tone really harsh, mean, and bitchy - when I read Me Talk Pretty One Day in high school or early college, I hated it. I might give it another go at some point, as I have grown into a bitter and dry adult myself. My opinion of that book is completely at odds with nearly everyone I know, which leads me to believe that in forming my early impression of him I missed something important (Sedaris has made me cry when listening to his stories on NPR, so there is that).
But in David Crabb's memoir I didn't get a whiff of bitterness at all. It was so much sweeter and really refreshing. How can you grow up gay and goth in Texas and not be bitter?! I feel like it should be expected of him, he's even entitled to it! But nope, Crabb may have one of the most mature and forgiving voices I've heard from many a gay man. The important part, I believe, is that as miserable as he probably was growing up, he was still surrounded by people who loved him, even if they didn't understand him.
It's cringe-worthy, but not at a Meet the Parents level where everything just goes wrong. You can see trouble coming, especially in early chapters, but the resolution is never as humiliating as you might have foreseen. I am a straight woman, and he made me understand what it was like to feel repulsed by other women. His high school friends made me wish that I could really have met them and hung out with them (without all the pedestrian drug use, maybe). Greg seemed like a lot of fun, Sylvia is a doppelganger of one of my own high school best friends, and Max, precious, sweet cinnamon-roll too good for this world... Oh, Max. After finishing this book, I lay in bed at night thinking about that perfect bro-mance they shared.
As a "Bad Kid," it's pretty apparent that Crabb wasn't actually a bad kid. He made a lot bad choices, but once his family caught up with him, they intervened. His father coming to terms with his gay son was painful to watch, but it was obvious it was never going to end badly.
This book was funny without ever once disgusting me. In fact, beyond my expectations, it renewed my faith in humanity. I never actually expected it to be a feel-good memoir, but that's kind of what it was. I really recommend it, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Men Explain Things To Me - a book of feminist essays by Rebecca Solnit

Kindle Monthly Deal

This book found it's way on to my Amazon wishlist and sat around there until one day I decided to take a peep at the Kindle Monthly deals (expecting to find a lot of junk I wouldn't be interested in). I certainly was not expecting to find something I was very interested in reading and made a point of paying a few visits to the library in order to find. I believe for the remainder of the month you may be able to download the ebook for $3 - and I would encourage it!
I started this book on the tail end of a vacation, which doesn't mean that it set a positive mood. Yes ma'am, this book is a bummer, but it gave me a lot of introspection to do, and the issues it's covered still niggles me.

This is a collection of essays Solnit wrote over the course of the last 5 or so years, all focused on "subtle" modern feminist issues. Mansplaining being the foremost one - but generally the little things that men don't have to deal with and so have no idea are issues that exist but women deal with regularly and are expected to just buckle down and accept. Some of them seem harmless (like men condescendingly explaining things that you may actually have more expertise in) but they tend to be a symptom of a larger, far more menacing issue. Most importantly, rape. It is 2015 and I should not have to discuss in great detail on my book review blog that rape or sexual abuse is such a problem. When a woman gets raped, there's a high chance that it will be ignored by a lot of people, including the people who are supposed to help and protect her, and this is in America. It's really disheartening!
The lengths women will go to avoid something that men don't even consider are astounding. For a personal example, I have never gone out without at least one friend present. I don't mean shopping for sundries, I mean I've never been to the downtown area in the city where I live after 5pm without a companion. Either another girl or my gay guy friend who would be described as a "bear" in the gay community. Men would typically never, ever think twice about leaving their apartment around dusk and stroll through a "bad" neighborhood to get a burger or see a movie. As a woman I would have to make arrangements with someone, or if that didn't go through, stay locked and safe in my room. Because of the risk of getting raped, mugged, or murdered, even if it's statistically unlikely, I've been conditioned to believe that it's going to happen to me if I don't take precautions. Now why is that?Because regardless of what you may think, the fact is that the playing field for genders (not just in 3rd world countries, mind you) is totally unbalanced.
It was really enlightening. If I hadn't bought it on my kindle, I'd share my copy with all my friends on the school yard until when I got it back it would be tattered and care-worn. This is an important book to read for this generation of feminists!

Remember Me? by Sophie

library

I've been a fan of Sophie Kinsella's light, witty novels since college. They're nice to turn to when you're feeling a little over-done. One of these days I'll pick up another hefty, deep novel, but lately I just haven't been in the mood for it. I needed something to read while on vacation, after-all.

Remember Me? is a rom-com, chick-lit, novel about Lexi Smart, a woman who has just woken up from amnesia. I know, Cliche City. Lexi's last clear memory occurred 3 years ago, and now that's she's awoken she's a completely different person: richer, prettier, and married. There's a lot of catching up for Lexi to do. She doesn't even know her husband, she's now a top boss at work and everyone seems to hate her, and then there's this man named Jon...
Honestly, there isn't much to this novel. It was fun and funny, but even though the main character suffers from amnesia, one of the most over-done plot devices known to man, I still think it was pretty original. I happen to enjoy trivial and trite stories like exactly like this one - like sci-fi, there's a sense of fantasy and unbelievably to it, but we can still enjoy it without taking it too seriously. I loved Lexi's character, she's flawed and totally discombobulated by the fact that she suddenly woke up in a stranger's perfect life. Except, it isn't perfect. She's slowly acclimating to it, but she knows all along that she would rather the old life she had. I suppose success does that - "the grass is always greener," as they say. She's also slowly figuring out why she ended up with the life she ended up with. What events and decisions (and mistakes) that led her to this. Yeah, this seems like a goofy book, but it's also deep in it's way.

Good Girls Don't by Victoria Dahl

Library eBook

I heard of this book (and it's series) after listening to the Smart Bitches Trashy Books podcast in which they discussed "Strong Female Characters" and how there's some inherent sexism in that role - something I very much agree with, think about a great deal, and am on the constant look-out for. The author Sarah is interviewing, Jaye Wells, suggested these books as an alternative to a mass-murdering, misogynist hunting warrior woman heroine. I was very curious to see my pet theory in action, so I immediately checked it out. (I'd rather not explain on this post what I believe a "strong female" should be like, but suffice to say that I find the idea in vogue to be flat-out scary. I would instead direct you to the link above where they can explain to you much better than I can, if you have an hour to spare.)

I actually was fairly impressed with the characters in this book! No one was impossibly sweet and perfect to the point where I wanted to bludgeon them over the head! This is my #1 problem in Romancelandia*. Sure, it wasn't perfect. In fact it was pretty trite, with it's cheesy dialogue (both internal and spoken) and a pretty mundane plot. But what kept it from being truly terrible is that it was realistic. Though the dialogue wasn't impressive, it was common enough. The author obviously had human interactions, which is problem #2 I typically have with Romancelandia - the fact that the author doesn't understand when it's appropriate for heroes and heroines to be angry with each other and when it isn't okay (example: romanticizing rape).

This is the first book in a series about 3 siblings who run a family brewery in Colorado. In this book, their little sister Tessa; sweet, perky, seemingly-innocent Tessa, falls for a misunderstood bad-boy detective. Her very protective brothers do not approve. But let's bring it back to the beginning (sorry, my brother is watching Parks & Rec in the next room and it's really distracting). So the brewery gets robbed early on, which is how we're introduced to Detective Luke and his Very Pregnant Partner, Simone. (Note - I love pregnant cops, they're literally my favorite things ever.) On one hand, one of Tessa's brothers (I really can't keep any of Tessa's brother's names straight - their names are very generic) f*cked up (literally) their chances of breaking into a huge business deal. So now Tessa is hard at work trying to fix the problem without letting their other brother find out.

It was entertaining. Not what I typically like to read, but it was as promised in the podcast. There was a reliably "strong female" who does what she must to get work done. She's not all "brains and beauty" who eventually proves to just be beauty with nothing else to back up the first claim. And she's strong without being frightening, and she's flawed because that happens! Women Men People are complicated and a whole mess of good and bad things! Sometimes the good can actually be bad; it depends on the situation! So story wise, it passed the time, but I wasn't enthralled. However, it gets high marks from me because it was still really well done and refreshing. Also, because it's a Romance novel, I should say that there was some nasteh goin' on, and it gets high points from me, too.


*Romancelandia - blanket term covering all of the Romance genre, including YA romance & Chick-Lit, but focusing on cheap paper backs, the kind one might find on a great aunt's bed side table, or yellowed and dusty in used book store shelves.

Fox 8: A Story by George Saunders

Kindle Single 99c

Hi! I crawled away from 2013 and 2014 without ever having read anything by George Saunders! Crazy, right? (I own Pastoralia, but it's sitting on my shelf until I work my way towards reading it. So, eventually!) So how did I stumble upon this short story? Sometimes Amazon knows me better than I know myself. I'm not sure what in my buying history tipped them off that I might like this, but much like the time it randomly started suggesting full-sized rubber mermaid tails, Amazon just gets me.
Fox 8 is marketed as an Amazon Single, which essentially means it's a short story Saunders chose to leave out of his collection books, and make a little spending money on the side with. It's written as letter by a fox who learns English, or "Yuman," by listening to bed time stories from outside a window. The spelling and grammar is atrocious, as expected from a fox with no formal education, and hilariously reminiscent of Pro Birds Rights, maybe a little LOL Cat. It might give some readers a headache, but I thought it was completely charming.
Fox 8, as our little "fox lee" friend is known among peers, lives in a den that is being torn apart when Yumans begin construction of a mall. We watch as the community of foxes starve and struggle against the change. Fox 8, the resident day-dreamer, has an idea to retrieve food for his friends from the mall's food court, but his plan ends badly - very badly. Basically, Fox 8 learns that "Yumans" aren't so "cul" afterall, and he goes on a journey that takes him to a new den.

I love short stories because they are so efficient. What I mean is, they can get so much done in so little time - introduce us to interesting characters and scenarios, and leave us without spoiling the magic. But short stories tend to be... really dark and edgy; Post-modern, or in my words "trying too hard." (Miranda July, take note.) But Fox 8 was such a friendly and happy short story! Very optimistic, even when it had a chance to be bitter, possibly slam it over our heads how much humans suck a couple of times. So Fox 8 learns to be less trusting, but it doesn't make him caustic. Life goes on, there's still good left in the world. I guess I shouldn't be so surprised since the story is ever so slightly childish - if you're one of those horrible people who think stories about animals should be left for children. If so, you might be a pompous ass. But if you have a heart, you should read this little story.

The Thirteenth Princess by Diane Zahler

Library eBook

This was a little book I read pretty quickly - it's intended for tween-aged girls, provided they still like princess stories (which I certainly did at that age). I read it pretty quickly, and it's obviously much, much too young for me, but it was a nice throw-back to the kinds of books I loved the best as a kid and made me feel very nostalgic.
I'll admit that I read it at all because I have a habit of reading (and adoring) any book with Kinuko Y. Craft's art gracing the cover. She largely illustrates for fantasy and some sci-fi novels, but they almost always happen to be the very specific kind of fantasy or sci-fi novel that I like, but she also does fairy tale books as well. Anyway, I'm not sure I can accurately confirm (if anyone reading this can, please leave me a message?) that this was Craft's work on the cover, but it certainly looks that way. A few years ago I read a very similar book called Wildwood Dancing in which she did illustrate, It is very, very close to this one - they're both retellings of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. It's really hard for me not to compare this book to that one. Wildwood Dancing was perfectly crafted - I would argue it's almost wasted on younger readers. While The Thirteenth Princess was well written, it wasn't the masterpiece Wildwood Dancing was, though it was cute and comforting to read.

The Thirteenth Princess is about Zita, a young girl who was raised in a castle as a servant, but only recently discovered that she is the youngest sister of the 12 princesses. Though she was kept away from her sisters her entire life, they still love her and steal away chances to spend time with her. They start a weekly tradition of allowing her to visit their massive bedroom once a week. Everything is great, until suddenly their heath begins to wane. Zita realizes that they are under a spell and as the only sister not being raised as a princess was over looked and their fore is free to rescue them.
Personally, I found Zita a trifle irritating - she's a romantic little fire brand, so I know a lot of readers will actually love her. (That's just a personal preference.) And I'm sure I'm missing a lot of information here, but I didn't dwell on this book very long to say a whole lot more. I would recommend reading Wildwood Dancing before this one, but if you know a bookish little girl (and with it being summer vacation...) this might be something good to read.

H is for Hawk by Helen McDonald

Library e-book

This book, arrrgh! *grasps chest* Thiiis Boook!! Easily my favorite book I've read so far this year. I didn't read it because it's a New York Times bestseller (what's that?) or a winner of multiple literary awards (sounds neat-o, but I don't care). I, in all earnestness, read it because I recognized that the illustration on the cover was some sort of relief print (either lino-cut or woodcut - I was a printmaking student in college). All of those honors heaped upon this book was a complete waste on me. But more importantly, I wanted to read it because I love books on natural science and I did recognize that this book was gaining popularity in the literary crowd. I love natural science, but I've never visited a popular bookstore or library where their natural sciences were well trodden. It's unusual for this sort of thing to really shoot up on the best seller's list. Even though I would have been interested in this book no matter what, I think my interest in reading it was heightened just a tad more.

I was not anticipating this book to be a sum of what it actually was - it was more than a little book about hawks. I suppose that's why it's more widely loved - if it were just about hawks it wouldn't be so popular. H is for Hawk is a memoir about Helen Macdonald dealing with the death of her father. Ever since childhood, she's been obsessed with falcons, hawks, and other birds of prey. She'd even convinced her parents to take her to a falconry hunt. Now as an adult, he's an adjunct history professor, but overcoming her father's death has sent her back to her childhood obsession with hawks to where she has decided to train a goshawk. Goshawks, she'd been warned, are incredibly difficult to train. But maybe this is just the challenge she needs to keep her from wallowing.
During any particular stage of grief, most of us are recommended to read Eat, Pray, Love to help with the coping. (I know it was overwhelmingly prescribed to me.) While Elizabeth's wisdom is very helpful in Eat, Pray, Love, how many of us would actually be able to globe trot the way that she did following a divorce? Maybe some of us can, but I can promise that a huge percentage of the readers who made her book a best seller couldn't have. We were forced to live vicariously through her, though many of us were moved nonetheless. While certainly for various reasons most of us couldn't and wouldn't be able to train a hawk in response to loss or heart break, somehow it feels (to me, at least) more accessible. In her fits of mania, I recognized myself. Though we've grieved over different kinds of loss, grief is still the same.
So, this book is about ecology, dealing with grief, a little about a woman falconer, and a brief biography on the author T.H. White who not only wrote The Once and Future King, but wrote a masterpiece of a book called The Goshawk - very influential in Helen's training of her goshawk.

This book moved me deeply and may be the best thing I've read so far this year. Not only is it beautifully written, but I get it, I get it. I get wanting to hide from humanity and retreating (almost dangerously far) into a more wild world just a step apart from the one we live in now. I get it. For that reason alone, I can recommend this book highly, but I don't know if everyone will feel what she's saying. That felt so deeply personal, it's like she read my diary from 3 years ago, plagiarized my sketch books from across the Atlantic ocean, it's like she was "killing me softly." But I know she didn't, because even though everyone deals with their grief differently, it's still the same thing.

Everything Leads to You by Nina Lacour

Kindle

I picked up Everything Leads to You by Nina Lacour because the cover is kinda pretty, though it doesn't tell you much about what to expect from the story and neither does the title. To be perfectly honest, I went in not knowing at all what to expect.
Honestly, I was kind of underwhelmed. It started off okay, but about mid-way through I had the ending figured out, but had already invested enough into it that I'd might as well see it through.

Set in LA, Emi is a very lucky teenager indeed - though she may only be an intern, she's barely out of high school and already has her dream job: designing sets for major movies. She's an incredibly talented intern, and as such (and this is that part that's pure fiction) the paid professionals actually value her in-put. She's having a little trouble navigating her feelings for her ex-girlfriend, whom she still sees regularly at work and her brother (also in the business) leaves her and her best friend Charlotte his apartment while he's out of town on the grounds that they use it to do something epic.
Charlotte and Emi visit an estate sale for a famous bachelor and discover a letter meant for his unknown daughter, but instead it leads them to a troubled girl by named Ava.

Okay, here's what I did like about this book:

1. Lesbian heroine - LGBT themes in YA has come a long way since I was a teenager (which wasn't such a long time ago) and I think that's so wonderful and healthy, but I still wish there was more of it!
2. Realistic (sort of) portrayal of what it's like to be a young professional. You can do your best, in other words, and still be stunned by how naive and inexperienced you still are. That part felt really true.

Here's what I didn't like:

1. Some of it felt flat. Like, I didn't feel the attraction to Ava - Emi seems like the sort of girl who will just about fall for anyone. Even though as a straight woman (so please take this with a grain of salt), I felt no chemistry for Ava, though it was totally predictable that they would end up together.
2. Sigh. Okay. I get it. Emi is a decorating prodigy. And while I actually thought her working was one of the more interesting parts of the book, I don't actually care about her spending a large sum of money on framed prints. More specifically, I don't like that there was so much significance placed on some framed prints (or the green couch), only for them to just vanish from the plot.

I'm in the minority, but I thought it was just 'ight. I can promise that a year from now I will have no memory of ever having read this book at all.

Rebel Belle

Kindle

How anyone before a certain age can read this book without thinking of Billy Idol first is probably a disparity to my supposed age. As we might have noticed, lately my taste in books is more about feminine and bad-ass ladies, and while I'll start off by saying this book doesn't touch anything I've been reading by Gail Carriger, I did really have fun with it. And at first I was disappointed with it, but it grew on me like a fungus.

Rebel Belle is about Harper Price, a pretty, popular, and loaded Southern Belle. She's a perfectionist, she's on literally every student committee in her private school, she has the perfect boyfriend, now she's the home-coming queen, yadda-yadda, you know the type. The kind of character, I'm kind of guilty to admit, is usually villainized and "mean girl'd." Actually, I expected to hate her. Until I realized she was a lot like Cordelia from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but if Cordelia was the slayer instead. Then she kind of grew on me.
So, anyway, back to where I was. Harper is an dauntingly perfect Southern Belle, and on the night she's crowned as the school's Home-Coming Queen, she's also gifted with mysterious and unlikely powers - essentially super strength. She's now a paladin and must protect a hipster boy named David Stark. She & David have been rivals since childhood and absolutely hate each other. And now that she has to spend more time with him, those feelings are getting more complicated.

Okay, so this book is silly and more appropriate for teenagers, but I had so much fun with it. I really appreciated the honesty and authenticity of all the characterization. Even the minor characters seemed like someone I might have met. Best of, I love that a lot of the gendered cliches were shot down really elegantly - actually, a lot of the cliches were handled very nicely. I may have been a little too old for this book, but I want my teenaged cousins to get their hands on this book!

Call the Midwife

Kindle

I've been a big fan of the series Call the Midwife since around the time I was still watching Downton Abbey and I'm more or less still watching Call the Midwife, so that's what you should know about me.

I've been reading this on my somewhat inconveniently sized Kindle phone app, and now an actual Kindle, for about a year because damn that was ill-planning on my part. I really liked the book, even if it felt like a review of the TV show I'm already a big fan of. However, one of the larger issues is that you really have to be in the right mood for it. I loved this book, it's really, really good. But I understand that not everyone will be up to the emotional steamroller you'd be in for. I mean it, you really have to be in the right mood for it. Don't be fooled by those sweet looking children on the cover. Though, do let me put a finer point on it. I don't know if many men will be, ahem, man enough for this book as I know of a few fine fellows who have hidden in another part of the house when their wives had the show on.

I don't know how I should elaborate this. Well, you expect certain things to come up in a memoir about a midwife. But sometimes we might forget just how bad medical practices were in the 1950's - or at the very least, the extent of how bad they were (curious about more of that? Check out the Sawbones podcast). And that's for people who could afford it. Add to that the fact that most of the patents were extremely poor, living conditions were appalling, and hygiene was probably the 5th to last thing on everyone's minds. A good nurse can only do so much. Maybe part of the reason I found this book so icky is that I instinctively know that I could never, ever, ever, ever, ever do a nurses' job. We all have our talents and I would be so utterly ill-suited for it; I would never consider it. (I owe this to my lack of feeling for human life and less about my morbid curiosity for bodily function)
What really puts your heart through the wringer is how much poverty these people suffered. And I mean poverty of all kinds, not just financial. The people who were just poor money-wise were the happiest, as you see pretty often. She interacted with some real characters, from the patients themselves, to the nuns she lived and worked with (despite the fact that she wasn't Catholic or even religious at all), to the other nurses.
There are actually 3 volumes in this series of memoirs, which is pretty unusual in the world of memoirs. This is obviously the first, and I might eventually go on to read the other two, but I have no idea when because... Christ. Emphasis on you really have to be in the right mood. If ever you're in just too good of a mood and need to bring it down a notch, these books will probably be waiting for you.

Third Daughter: First book of the Dharian Affairs Trilogy

Kindle (free!)

I have to admit, I read a review for this book on SBTB that simply raved about it. Those girls don't put up with much bull, so when they rave about something you know it's legit. It's a steampunk trilogy set in a proto-India - Not England or America? How refreshing! If I wasn't sold yet, I was when I learned that the first book is free on the Kindle (or any e-reader device, including smart phones.) You really can't say no to something like that!
Okay, it took me a good deal longer to read this than I'd have liked. (I guess I'm still adjusting to reading on my replacement Kindle) But you guys might not have ever known that if I hadn't said anything.
Third Daughter is about Princess Anari, who is as the title implys, the Queen's 3rd daughter which means that she isn't as special as the first or second daughter. But it does mean that, unlike her sisters, after she reaches a certain age she's allowed to marry whomever she chooses. But this is only after she reaches a certain age. Before that her mother could very easily make her marry whoever she chooses. Anari's birthday is in a few weeks and she knows exactly who she'll choose - a handsome courtesan. But, it just happens that her mom wants to introduce her to the prince of a foreign province which is known for it's supposed barbarism, a prince who her mother wants her to marry. There are conditions: Anari can say no outright, and she really wants to, but she shouldn't because her mother (who has often with-held a lot of affection for her daughter) promises that she can still marry who she chooses by her birthday, provided she says yes now and acts as a spy for their country. Rumor has it the prince has a secret flying machine that could be used as a weapon. Anari is a very head strong fire-brand. Maybe she doesn't always make the smart decisions - sometimes she let's her heart lead when she should really let her (actually, very sound) head do the talking. I don't always like characters like her, but then again she didn't make me want to throw things either. I like a character that knows when to shut up and butt out, which. Head strong fire-brands do not have a concept of this at all. I'm not saying it has to be a defining trait, just that, you know, sometimes it isn't always appropriate to jump down your body guard's throat for being straight up with you, even if he is unpleasant about it. That's all. But i'm getting ahead of myself.
Clearly, this is a good sci-fi with a tough female lead, romance, espionage and daring-do. It's smart and well versed. The world building is unique and really exciting, to me anyway. Anari is a bit exasperating, but she develops by the end of the book. It's a great start to the triology, which being that you're able to read the first book for free, it does entice me to pay for the next two books. Sometimes that kind of tactic doesn't always work, but it did this time. But if you'd rather not read any further it's okay too. The book has a satisfactory ending (with a small cliff-hanger). I have been advised, however, that the series does not end with "him putting a million babies inside her," which for a romance reader could be a problem.

The Feminine in Fairy Tales

Amazon Used

This isn't going to seem like a very interesting book, but I have to talk about it once I've finished it. As I've read this book in it's entirety as research for a personal project, it's not going to be much of a "review."

I would consider this book as more of an expansion of the materials you read about in Women Who Run With Wolves. I'm becoming quite the expert on particular stories and motifs (I joke that someone should just hand over my PhD any time they're ready - but we can talk about that when I scare up some grad school money maybe/eventually/never).
It does relay a lot of the same information that Women Who Run With Wolves covered, but examines it in closer and more academically, under a Jungian lens. Where Women Who Run With Wolves played more at women readers' sentiments, The Feminine in Fairy Tales asked you to examine yourself and others. Or rather, taught you how to. This wasn't a self-help book at all: it was philosophical and exploratory, but it focused more on the meanings behind the actions of common and uncommon fairy tales - not the reader. Still, it had gave me a lot to think about, personally, which is just a side effect.
It was fascinating, but not for the masses. For that, go to Women Who Run With Wolves. If, perhaps, you have a school paper to write - this makes excellent research. It can be bought on Amazon, but a quick Google search might scare up a PDF version, if you're a poor college student looking for some help.

The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis

Kindle

This is a short story by Karen Russel I'd previously over-looked while waiting for her next big release, which is easy to do - especially if you aren't much into ebooks the way I am most of the time. However, after closer inspection, you can also find this story and others in her newest collection of short stories Vampires in the Lemon Grove.
Karen Russel; while she has no relevant public social media pages - no blogs, no Twitter, no Facebook - at least, none that I've found (and I've checked). Basically, if you want news about any of her new releases you should hope for an interview on NPR's "Fresh Air." It's interesting because despite that - she makes a lot of her smaller works available online. So she has embraced the internet to her own advantage - and I can't blame her for wanting to have some privacy and staying off the grid. In fact, that's not very surprising of her, really. (What would I do with her Twitter handle if I had it anyway?)

One of the lovely things about Karen Russel is that her stories are hard to classify. Well, I think that's lovely, I love genre benders. I'm going to call this Young Adult Horror, but is it truly Horror and YA? It was probably never intended to be either, but it does feature realistically young adults - low income teenaged trouble makers - and a horrifying and surreal situation - finding a scarecrow version of a boy they loved to bully tied to a tree. It's pretty unsettling, but not outright terrifying. You do get a sympathetic view of a bully's perspective (if you've ever been bullied you might not want that); but there's that psychological retribution that drives the story. See why I love short stories? Unlike novels (which are largely plot driven) short stories are mostly character driven. Nothing has to actively happen, but the author gets to paint studies of these characters which, in a novel, would get swallowed away by the performance. With short stories, I can't really decide if what happens is really such an important part. In "The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis," we have this bully that is clearly eaten up with guilt.  Not only did he beat up this poor kid - a really pathetic slob (we all had one of these kids at our schools - kids that, even if you were really nice, you still openly despised. Woe be it unto that poor joke) He also, out of pure vindictiveness, took away Eric Mutis' one happiness. So, because he feels guilty, does that really make him such a terrible person after all? That's your decision to make after reading it.

Sleep Donation

Kindle

Sleep Donation - A novella by Karen Russel (who wrote the amazing, goose-bumping Swamplandia! and St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised by Wolves) is only available in ebook form as far as I know. I've always been a fan fan of hers, so I swept this up as soon as I saw it on the New Releases page on my Kindle. If you've never experienced a Karen Russel story yet, you should know what you're in for. One word - Surreal. Her literary fiction is so not for everyone. I really enjoy her style and crafting of plot, but I know it might well be disturbing and unsettling to some people. Take Swamplandia! for example. It was magical - like a children's birthday magic show - campy and fun make-believe at first, until suddenly Russel pulls back the curtain, shows us her bag of tricks, reveals the ugly and brutal truth. This to me speaks volumes about her ability as a writer. She's picked the right business to go into.
I enjoy Russel's stories because I can understand why they were born. I can see how, in this story for instance, wondering about what it might be like if you physically couldn't sleep. (Though, I suppose if you're an actual insomniac you might know something about this - I, most resoundingly, am not.) I can understand being curious about it's extended toll on your health. (It reminded me of something I read as a child about Napoleon having refused to sleep a full night for a long stretch of time - only to succumb after resulting poor health.) I can definitely see how insomnia seems to be more common now, one might wonder what it might be like if it had reached epidemic status. So yes. I can understand the underlying structure of thought. It does make for an enticing fictional back-drop.

As excited as I was to read this novella, it didn't have the same spark that my beloved Swamplandia! had, but honestly I'm okay with that. What can you expect from a straight-to-ebook novella, after-all? But it wasn't bad. No, nothing that sends me straight to my dictionary is bad. She had verses that had me swooning - the concept was so interesting. But the personal drama of Trish Edgewater I found less than engaging. She wasn't a very interesting lead, though her development towards the end may have resolved those issues.
I guess in conclusion, while an interesting concept, I can't help but compare it to Swamplandia! (which is one of my all time favorite books) and it doesn't compare story wise. Or if so, it's too subtle for me to see it.

How to be a Woman

Kindle App

If You're one of my friends who thought that they beat me to the bookstore and tried to recommend Tina Fey's Bossypants to me 3 years after I read it (you're cute; nice try) then allow me to counter back with a recommendation of my own.
How to Be A Woman is an entertaining, easily digestible break-down of the pitfalls of being a modern woman. This is no academic, silk-handkerchief skirted, henna haired feminism. If that's your brand of feminism, then this book will not be for you. Who this book is for - and I feel like a jackass for even thinking it - any woman who strongly self-identified with Bridget Jones. In other words, if you are a woman who feels at all self-deprecating about all the little girl things - from purses and designer shoes to family in all it's fucked-uppedness - and consider themselves a feminist, you'll probably enjoy this book. Not that this is a totally original concept. How many of these essayist memoirs have I read about the trials and tribulations of being a Thoroughly Modern Millie? From Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, Nora Ephron, and Lord Knows how many Sassy Southern Ladies - the field is well trodden.
So what makes this one special? While I really love this sub-genre - it does a great job of making me snicker and punch at the air - the target audience is usually women. Real Talk for Girls. Gents will only feel put out. But God Bless Caitlin Moran, for she doesn't skewer men. Patriarchy? A little. But she's not a man-hating feminist. I really think there are tons of men in my immediate and extended social circles who would enjoy this more than some of my lady friends. All I have to say is "if you liked Bossypants, you'll Love How to Be a Woman."

Caught in a Bad Romance: Saving Mrs. Claus

Source: Andrea B. &
Kindle eBook sharing

Remember how I said I was going to devote February - the month of Valentine's - to romance novels? Like, especially Bad ones? Well, it just so happened that my dear friend Andrea recommended and shared with me a Christmas romance novella via Kindle. I guess there is no season for awfulness. She found it on Amazon.com for free - probably because it was the Christmas holidays at time. But you know what else is free? Herpes. Luckily for you guys, now that Christmas is over, you get to pay for it!
I just want to take a little moment to mention that we live in a time when it is so easy for anyone to get their stuff out there. And that's great. The only problem is that we live in a time when it is so easy for anyone to get their stuff out there. Have no fear, fellow readers - the ebook market isn't likely to kill literature as we know it - so long as there are publishers who are willing to muck through the worst to bring us the best, we have nothing to worry about.

That said, I can't believe Andrea got me to read this. It really is as bad as you'd expect - but I'm going to be really generous and say that that's part of it's charm. In a lot of ways it reminds me of the cult classic movie Troll 2 - it's as riddled with plot-holes as a minefield is with death and distruction, the writing is so bad I'd swear that English is the author's 2nd language - either that or she sat down with a thesaurus and misused every synonym she could, and it is so blissfully unaware of it's self that it is unintentionally hilarious. This novella gave me headaches - it is a prime example of what Dorthy Parker meant when she said: "This is not a [book] to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."
So you can probably gather that this is a romance novel about the origins of Mrs. Claus. The way Andrea sold it to me - it's about a girl who is so obsessed with Christmas that she is destined to marry into the Santa family line. We all know people who are obsessed with Christmas - heck, I know of a girl who walked down the aisle to Christmas carols during her fall wedding. I know people who had rooms built into their renovated homes just to keep Christmas decorations. Apparently, this girl puts all of them to shame. But this is also set in the beginning of the end of the world. And there's only one way that Kris Kringle can convince her to marry her: that they can save the world together.
When focusing on what made it terrible, I keep coming back to the blessed Engrish it seemed to be written in, but there's more. There's always more. Take for example (I'm going to go ahead and spoil the story for you, okay) There's a mysterious character known as Apocalypse Boy. Apparently we're supposed to know all about this little fucker from childhood fairy tales. I mean - come on! You can't tell me you don't remember "Apocalypse Boy and the Four Horsemen"? Hm. Well, it was dark. Probably German. Did I mention the dragons? You think I'm kidding about the dragons. There be dragons. And by the way, I don't mind telling you this, but the only way that they can save the world is by having sex together. If only that's really how sex worked. 

I would grade this book A for Atrocious - it's a shame, because the concept is really cute and if it had been worked over a little more it could have improved it so much. This is why you never sell your fist drafts, people! I probably still wouldn't have picked it for myself - I'm not the most Christmassy. But, eh.

Bonus Cover Critique! Okay, for as bad as the story is, the cover isn't actually that bad. Someone dropped some serious moolah-kaboolah on the cover art. I can see how browsing along on Amazon someone might pick this out of a dozen poorly photo-shopped jobs. But as they say, don't judge a book by it's cover.

Take the Pledge to Give Books!

Hey All!
Thanksgiving isn't even upon us yet, but I'm sure we're all trying to force that Holiday Enthusiasm! I came across this cool little thing on Pintrest today, and I thought it needed to be shared here too! Chronicle Books has a campaign to give 10,000 books to kids this holiday season. This is something I really care about - so I didn't hesitate to participate.
They're also asking that you add books to your Christmas shopping list this year, too. Most of my family and friends (sometimes begrudgingly) have come to expect this from me already. Amazon has a time saving feature where you can send ebooks to your friends' Kindles - which I'm trying out for the first time this year. My brother, who doesn't ever read any of the books I give him for Christmas, is still going to get a book wither he likes it or not (it's become a kind of joke between us - I buy him books he won't read, he buys me video games I can't play - but we do it anyway, because it's what we're best at buying). But more importantly, I give books every year to children - my cousins and the children I babysat while I was in college. Because I understand that traditions like this are important and become treasured. I understand that it instills a love of reading and (more importantly) learning early on. AND I understand that for Christmas and birthdays, children tend to get an overwhelming amount of clothes and toys as gifts, and if anyone appreciates the change of pace, their parents do. So consider giving a book this year, people!

My Clippings: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

Today I'm going to start a new segment called "My Clipping," which basically refers to the highlighting feature on the Amazon Kindle. I noticed a while back that I'd highlighted some really awesome, funny, inspirational, and random passages in books I'd completely forgotten I'd read.  Sometimes it's just because of the way it was phrased. Sometimes, for no other reason than that it resonated with me.

In today's installment, I feature Mindy Kaling's hilarious memoir Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). I personally love this little Throughly Modern American Hindu - I love her show on FOX The Mindy Project (though my Mom doesn't share my enthusiasm because, in her words, "She talks too fast.") I think the was the first book I ever read entirely in ebook form. If you're into Female Comedian Memoirs, which I get it if you're not, and you - through some fluke of fate - haven't read this one yet, I think maybe you should. Hopefully some of these clippings will convince you.

Before we begin, I would like to do the responsible thing and mention that none of the following were mine - they are entirely that of the author's and the publisher's and anyone else who had a hand in this book's creation which is in no way affiliated with this blog. Also, there aren't any page numbers assigned because it was in ebook form, and that may not be accurate. However, I think a few of them are obviously from the same chapter because they cover similar ground. I'm hoping that we're all intelligent readers and can figure it out without having to be told. Okay, I think that about covers it. Follow the jump for the quotes now!