Beginning a review by talking about what the publisher's description says feels pointless in a way, yet I know we've all been led astray by misleadingBeginning a review by talking about what the publisher's description says feels pointless in a way, yet I know we've all been led astray by misleading publisher blurbs, so perhaps it's in this book's best interest if I do. According to the publisher, Astrid Sees All is a book for fans of Sweetbitter, Fleabag, and Patti Smith's memoirs. According to me, Astrid Sees All is NOT for fans of any of those things, unless you are ALSO a fan of books that are nothing like any of those things.
Astrid Sees All is a novel about a young woman who lands in 1980s Manhattan after graduation and becomes a fortune teller at a nightclub. It's the first "adult" novel by a YA novelist, and you can tell: Despite the "adult" goings-on (sex, drugs, Studio 54-type situations), there's nothing complex here. It's a fairly simple story, written simply.
But that doesn't mean it doesn't have its good qualities! Specifically, it's a fun, fast read, the 1980s nostalgia is amusing, and the characters are pretty vivid even if they're not that complex. Kind of like a good YA novel! I wish the publisher had been a little more realistic in what they compared this book to (Patti Smith? She's an icon, for god's sake!), because unrealistic expectations can really torpedo a book like this.
So don't listen to the publisher, listen to me: If you want to experience Fleabag, watch Fleabag. If, on the other hand, you want a light and enjoyable novel of seedy 1980s Manhattan, you could do worse than Astrid Sees All. 3.5 stars, rounded down.
I won this ARC in a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you to the publisher....more
Can’t Even is most successful as an overview of the state of work in the United States in (pre-COVID) 2020: the way so many are forced to turn to gig Can’t Even is most successful as an overview of the state of work in the United States in (pre-COVID) 2020: the way so many are forced to turn to gig work due to a dearth of decent-paying full-time jobs with benefits, the many drawbacks of said gig work, the suckiness of working at start-ups, the ever-shrinking middle class, wage stagnation, the lack of government or corporate support for working parents, the overwork and burnout, the outsourcing, the insecurity so many of us are feeling in this never-ending time of layoffs and restructuring. Petersen goes back to 1970 and explores all the forces that conspired to make things so terrible, weaving together lots of threads. Some of this is probably already familiar to many readers, but if this is a topic you’re not up on, Can’t Even would serve as a great overview.
Petersen is less successful in identifying how millennials are uniquely affected by all this. In fact, for most of the book she makes clear that all generations have it rough these days. When she tries to focus on millennials in particular, things get hazier:
*On Buzzfeed, Petersen called for millennials to share their experiences with burnout; these testimonials are threaded throughout the book, but what they mainly show is that millennials (like all generations, really) are not that easy to sum up; there’s a lot of variation in their experiences. For example, the oldest millennials are apparently much less likely to have been raised by “helicopter parents” than the youngest. This variation is to be expected, but it makes many of the conclusions Petersen tries to draw about millennials somewhat unconvincing.
*She blames some of millennials’ unhappiness on the fact that most of the “cool jobs” (at startups or websites) are too much work for too little money, but oddly this blame is mostly directed at millennials for wanting “cool jobs” in the first place, rather than at the workplaces for being so crappy—and she seems not to realize that the vast majority of millennials don’t work in these places to begin with. She also seems to think millennials want to work for nonprofits only so they will look like do-gooders, not because they actually want to do good. For both of these problems, Petersen offers the solution that millennials train for jobs like electrician or plumber, so they have steady work that they can "forget about at the end of the workday." Those are definitely valuable jobs and I would never discourage anyone from doing them, but I kept wanting to ask Petersen if she was planning to give up her “cool,” burnout-inducing job at Buzzfeed to become a plumber. Are you, Anne Helen Petersen? No seriously: are you?
*Petersen seems to think her generation was tricked into getting PhDs when the job market for tenure-track professorships is (somehow unbeknownst to them!) beyond dismal. Really? Because that job market was beyond dismal 25 years ago, back when I was considering grad school, and it wasn’t even a new thing then.
*This probably goes without saying, but she focuses almost exclusively on middle- and upper-middle-class millennials. It’s a bit hard for me to sympathize with the supposed intense pressure these people feel to go to Harvard. And oddly, although she mentions millennials’ crushing student-loan debt several times, she never once brings up the insane increases in college tuition of the past couple of decades and the reasons behind those increases—which you would think would be a great way to bolster the points she’s making.
*One of her major arguments is that millennials have it worse than older generations because, in addition to dealing with the same crappy work/economic conditions as the rest of us, they feel overwhelming pressure to make their lives seem great on Instagram. She really seems to think Instagram has some kind of magical power over millennials that they absolutely cannot resist. Just delete it from your phones, people. You’ll be fine.
The fact is, every generation thinks they have it worse than all previous generations, and in some ways they are wrong and in some ways they’re right. If you’re looking for a book that presents convincing evidence for why things are worse for millennials, my personal opinion is that you won’t find it here. But if you want to understand why things suck for just about everyone, Can’t Even is a good primer.
I received this ARC via a Shelf Awareness GLOW giveaway. Thank you to the publisher....more
True crime is not usually my thing, so I was apprehensive when the ARC of We Keep the Dead Close turned up in my mailbox. It looked interesting, but wTrue crime is not usually my thing, so I was apprehensive when the ARC of We Keep the Dead Close turned up in my mailbox. It looked interesting, but would it be lurid and sensationalistic? Fortunately, the answer is a resounding "Nope!" This was like a 400-page New Yorker article, mind-bogglingly well researched and engrossing, with a painstaking amount of scene-setting that pulled me in and made the milieu of 1960s Harvard come alive, for better and for worse.
The ick factor I typically feel for true crime writing, I realized, comes when there's a level of focus on the killer that's almost idealizing, as if murders are just a by-product of their fascinating personalities. We Keep the Dead Close avoids that particular pitfall by concentrating as much on the victim and the time and place as on the potential killer(s). And given that there's more than one suspect, all of them literally suspected by multiple people in the Harvard/archaeology community, delving into their psyches felt necessary to the process of figuring out who did it.
Because that's the other thing about this book: When Cooper started writing it, the murder was unsolved, so although the death isn't trivialized in any way, the book had a page-turning quality for me, born of the desperate need for justice to be served. Because of this, I recommend NOT googling this murder before you start reading. Let yourself find out as the author does, with the full weight of her research behind you. And speaking of the author: Cooper was obsessed with this murder for years, and she does spend some time addressing her own issues that led to this obsession. This feels necessary to the larger story, but at the same time Cooper understands that no one is really here to listen to her talk about herself, and she does an impressive job of balancing it with all the other angles she covers. Really, she juggles so many different elements in this book that it's amazing it works as well as it does.
It's true that all the research did make the book feel a bit long at times, so if I'd written this review immediately after finishing, I might have rounded my 4.5 stars down to 4. But nearly a week later, I remain thoroughly impressed with everything this haunting book accomplished, so I'm rounding up. Recommended!
I won this ARC in a Shelf Awareness giveaway; thank you to the publisher. My opinions, as always, are my own....more
Navigate Your Stars is one of those books that comes out around graduation time; it is itself a commencement speech the author delivered in 2018 at TuNavigate Your Stars is one of those books that comes out around graduation time; it is itself a commencement speech the author delivered in 2018 at Tulane. A lot of these sorts of speeches are expanded upon for the book version, but this one doesn't seem to be—it is a very small amount of text, spread out over a pretty small amount of pages. The message is also a fairly basic one: We all find ourselves in varied circumstances in life and constantly have to make choices; we should try to follow our curiosity, work hard, and persist. It's very prettily illustrated by Philadelphia artist Gina Triplett. Honestly, Jesmyn Ward seems awesome and I want to read some of her full-length books, but this one isn't really worth buying for yourself. I do think it would make a good gift for a graduate, especially if you enclose a check with it, but I always think a book is the best gift so consider the source.
I won this ARC in a Shelf Awareness GLOW (galley love of the week) giveaway. Thank you to the publisher....more
Grown Ups is one of those books that's a little hard to explain. If I tell you it's a novel about a thirtysomething blogger who's obsessed with socialGrown Ups is one of those books that's a little hard to explain. If I tell you it's a novel about a thirtysomething blogger who's obsessed with social media and how she appears on it, will you roll your eyes and assume it's not for you? Will you dismiss it as chick lit? [Side note: Why do people describe books as "chick lit" when they seem to mean that the book is stupid, or shallow, or too fluffy? Why not just say that instead of applying a gendered term disparagingly? Anyway.] The fact is that there are all kinds of people in the world and, in the right hands, most of them would be an interesting subject for a novel. This immersive tale of Jenny McLaine, the aforementioned blogger, unfolds gradually with a fair amount of smart humor, a vivid setting [must go to London one of these days], and those moments of insight that you appreciate all the more because you weren't quite expecting them. I felt like I knew all of the characters, even the ones who were really just texts at the other end of the smartphone. And as for Jenny herself, she could be annoying sometimes, but ugh, I rooted for her so much. I don't think I've read anything quite like this, and I didn't just enjoy it, I was impressed by it. Need to read more Unsworth ASAP.
I won this book in a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you to the publisher. As always, my opinions are my own....more
Stepping Stones is the completely adorable story of Jen, a girl who, after her parents' divorce, is obliged to move with her mother and her mother's bStepping Stones is the completely adorable story of Jen, a girl who, after her parents' divorce, is obliged to move with her mother and her mother's boyfriend from NYC to an upstate farm. Two stepsisters, who come to stay on weekends, are part of this new living arrangement. If you've read Knisley's earlier book Relish, the images of the farm and the farmer's market will feel familiar to you, and the book also contains some really cute pencil artwork ostensibly done by Jen (who is a thinly veiled portrayal of Lucy Knisley herself at that age). As a middle-grade read, Stepping Stones effectively and movingly portrays the hardships and rewards of "step" relationships, and I thought the whole thing was delightful. I didn't want to stop reading! I'm looking forward to passing this book along to my 10-year-old niece—I'm sure she's going to love it even more than I did.
I won this ARC via a Shelf Awareness giveaway; thank you to the publisher. My opinions, as always, are my own....more
The Third Rainbow Girl is well written and definitely kept me reading, but ultimately I'm just not comfortable with the type of true-crime book where The Third Rainbow Girl is well written and definitely kept me reading, but ultimately I'm just not comfortable with the type of true-crime book where the author takes a brutal murder (two, in this case) and makes it about herself. Eisenberg also sets herself the task of representing Appalachia more accurately than the media tends to, but she only lived there for about a year herself, and I just don't think that's long enough to truly know or be able to explain an entire region. It may be that this book just tried to do too much and didn't really do justice to any of it. I did find The Third Rainbow Girl pretty absorbing, but now that I'm done I feel uncomfortable about the whole thing.
I won this ARC via a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you to the publisher....more
When the hefty ARC of Utopia Avenue turned up in my mailbox, it immediately felt promising to me. Sure, I’d never read any David Mitchell (sorry), butWhen the hefty ARC of Utopia Avenue turned up in my mailbox, it immediately felt promising to me. Sure, I’d never read any David Mitchell (sorry), but of course I’d heard many great things, and the plot of this novel—concerning a rock band in sixties London—sounded amazing. (It didn’t hurt that both the title and the cover reminded me of my beloved Telegraph Avenue—although I have no idea if that will delight or annoy most Mitchell fans.)
At the beginning, Utopia Avenue seemed poised to live up to its promise: an immediate immersion in the streets of London and the life of Dean, a hangdog coffee-shop employee and unemployed bassist whose life is about to change for the better. It was funny and lively and vivid, with a great sense of character and place. Then the band got together and the whole thing fell apart. There’s Dean’s typical tale of a groupie-chasing musician with daddy issues. There’s guitarist Jasper, whose story of mental illness was also fairly typical until it suddenly wasn’t, devolving in a way that didn’t work for me at all. (Yes, I'm aware (view spoiler)[it hearkens back to an earlier Mitchell novel, but knowing that didn't redeem it for me. (hide spoiler)]) And there’s pianist Elf, the only female in the band and the only member whose story revolves around her relationships with others rather than her own goals, issues, and dreams. There’s also a drummer, Griff, who intrigued me but who never got his own storyline at all. Poor drummers.
As for the writing, some sections (all Elf’s, of course) were sentimental and maudlin in a way I wasn’t expecting and found excruciating. And even when these rock ‘n’ rollers were engaging in sex and drugs, the whole thing felt weirdly stodgy, even dull. The numerous encounters with famous musicians of the time all felt fake, forced, and corny, and Janis Joplin unforgivably sounded English (really hope an editor fixed that before the final publication). If I’m being honest, I found this so tedious I had to take a break midway through. I had to force myself to finish. And then I hated the ending so much I wondered if it was even worth it. Maybe my expectations were too high, but really, why shouldn’t they have been? It’s David Mitchell we’re talking about here.
I know some people are going to love this, either because they love it, or because they’re loyal Mitchell fans, or both. I really don’t want to argue with anyone. If people love it, I’m glad for them. I didn’t love it.
I won this ARC in a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you to the publisher....more
Back in the early 1970s, Dr. David Rosenhan published the results of a study wherein he and several other people (so-called “pseudopatients”), none ofBack in the early 1970s, Dr. David Rosenhan published the results of a study wherein he and several other people (so-called “pseudopatients”), none of whom had ever had mental health issues, attempted to get admitted to psychiatric hospitals by showing up and claiming they heard a voice in their head saying “empty,” “hollow,” and “thud.” All of them got admitted on this basis, most of them receiving a preliminary diagnosis of schizophrenia. Once admitted, they behaved like their normal selves, but no one seemed to notice they were actually not mentally ill. The resulting article, “On Being Sane in Insane Places,” purported to show that (1) diagnosis of mental health issues was unreliable at best; and (2) patients in psychiatric hospitals were in fact not treated in ways that might actually be therapeutic.
When Susannah Cahalan heard about this study a few years ago, she was fascinated. Girl, me too. Rosenhan’s study put me in mind of Nellie Bly’s groundbreaking undercover investigation of an asylum, which she published in the 1880s as “Ten Days in a Mad-House,” and which I was obsessed with as a kid. Bly’s investigation is detailed in The Great Pretender, but Cahalan’s own interest was based on something more personal: Her harrowing experience of having her brain inflammation misdiagnosed as mental illness. If a determined doctor hadn’t discovered what was actually ailing her, her life may have turned out very differently.
Cahalan decided to find out everything she could about Rosenhan’s study, talking to his associates and even attempting to track down some of the other “pseudopatients” who took part in it. Without spoiling anything, what she discovered was very interesting, and The Great Pretender itself should have been similarly interesting. Unfortunately, this book had so many structural problems it was ultimately much more frustrating than fascinating.
Simply put, Cahalan should have made the Rosenhan study, how it was received, and her investigation into it the main plotline of the book. But she clearly did a ton of research and didn’t want any of it to go to waste, so there are many, many detours, for paragraphs, pages, or even entire chapters, into topics that are peripheral (the history of the Esalen Institute, for example) and/or can’t be discussed adequately here (overdiagnosing; replicability issues in research; imprisoning the mentally ill). Some of these details actually undermine the points she is trying to make—for example, she wants to claim that Rosenhan’s study caused the closure of psychiatric hospitals, resulting in a lack of support for the mentally ill, but a long detour into John F. Kennedy’s efforts to “help” the mentally ill shows that this was a problem well before Rosenhan came on the scene. All of this extra information not only makes the reading experience a slog; it also dulls the impact of the discoveries Cahalan herself makes. I truly wish someone had edited this book with an eye toward making it sharper and more concise; it would have made the book a more informative and memorable reading experience.
Cahalan understandably takes issue with the vague misdiagnosing that caused the “pseudopatients” to end up hospitalized, but she seems equally opposed to the much more detailed diagnostic criteria provided by DSM volumes that have appeared subsequent to the Rosenhan study. Does Cahalan offer her own solution to these problems? In a word, no—in the penultimate chapter of The Great Pretender she rails against the psychiatry and psychology professions in a way that’s nearly incoherent, and in the final chapter she purports to offer hope for the future, but some of the “advances” she names seem like quackery and pseudoscience, and the fact that psychiatrists are making more money than ever before hardly seems like the good news she thinks it is.
The book is also sloppy with facts in a way that gave me pause. She misuses the word “metastasize,” for example, and indicates that mammograms “prevent” breast cancer (they don’t, of course). She also makes much of the fact that Rosenhan published his article in Science rather than a more specialized journal, implying that Science would be less rigorous in its review and that its quick turnaround times necessarily meant its peer-review process cut corners. This implication struck me as irresponsible; it seems equally likely that Rosenhan wanted to be in Science because it was a prestigious and popular journal, and that its faster peer-review process might be a result of its large number of resources compared to other journals. I was left with the feeling that Cahalan, a former New York Post reporter, didn’t know much about scientific publishing, and it made me wonder what else was mere speculation on her part.
Some criticisms with the presentation of the book: The Rosenhan article itself wasn’t included here; neither were the responses to the study that other researchers published. Sure, it would have cost money for the publisher to obtain these reprint rights, but it would have made the entire experience of reading The Great Pretender much more informative. Additionally, Cahalan urges readers to educate themselves on these issues, but she doesn’t include a list of recommended reading; instead readers are expected to wade through the end notes for pertinent material. None of this adds up to a satisfactory learning experience.
As I said, this topic is fascinating to me, and it saddens me that I can’t recommend this book. In short, the whole thing should have been way more incisive. The less-pertinent info should have been edited way down; Cahalan’s unfocused screeds should have been shortened and made, well, more focused; and more resources should have been provided for the reader. It seems that The Great Pretender is meant to be some kind of challenge to the field of psychiatry to do better, and while that’s a worthy goal, Cahalan hasn’t done much here besides meet their fuzzy thinking with fuzzy thinking of her own.
I received this ARC via a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you to the publisher....more
This was a fun mashup of whodunit and Harry Potter–style magic novel. I admit that less than a week after finishing, some elements of the plot are hazThis was a fun mashup of whodunit and Harry Potter–style magic novel. I admit that less than a week after finishing, some elements of the plot are hazy in my memory, but what I definitely remember is the astute insight into people this book showed. I'd read another book by Sarah Gailey. 3.5 stars, rounded up.
I won this review copy in a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you to the publisher....more
Anyone who follows my reviews knows that I don't read romance novels very often. This isn't because I'm against the idea—I would like to be reading moAnyone who follows my reviews knows that I don't read romance novels very often. This isn't because I'm against the idea—I would like to be reading more romance, but whenever I try I get frustrated by the flaws so many of these novels seem to have: mediocre writing, unlikable characters, lame "humor," the couple kept apart by implausible obstacles. The Bride Test, in my opinion, didn't have any of these flaws. The writing was good, and the characters, from the hero and heroine on down to the most minor players, were delightful and vivid. The couple were kept apart for a believable reason: One of them is on the autism spectrum, so there was no rushing their relationship. And The Bride Test was both funny and moving; I laughed to myself several times, and I got choked up twice, once at a character's plight and again at the Author's Note, where Helen Hoang explains how she conceived of the character of Esme. I'm no expert on romance novels (yet!), but to my mind The Bride Test was just about perfect. I'm excited to check out Hoang's other offerings.
I won this ARC via a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you to the publisher....more
It's always a pleasure to read a new memoir from an author whose memoirs you've enjoyed in the past—it's like catching up with an old friend. I particIt's always a pleasure to read a new memoir from an author whose memoirs you've enjoyed in the past—it's like catching up with an old friend. I particularly enjoyed Save Me the Plums because, in addition to the usual draws of a Reichl memoir (the writing and the recipes), this one was about her time as editor of Gourmet magazine. I love any kind of publishing story, really, and in this case it was so fascinating to go behind the scenes of a glamorous magazine, as many Conde Nast publications were at the time. Ruth Reichl was the perfect tour guide, because the entire magazine scene was completely new to her when she started, so she explained all the things a reader might most want to know.
Most memoirs are about the author's personal life; what's so unique about Save Me the Plums is that it's about work. It was fascinating to read about how Reichl managed the editorial transition, how she handled each of her powerful bosses, how she hired people to carry out her vision, how she convinced the powers that be to let her take chances. I loved hearing the story behind the publication of David Foster Wallace's now-famous essay "Consider the Lobster," for instance, and about the bets she placed with her bosses about which covers would succeed or fail on the newsstand. It occurs to me that this memoir, like Garlic and Sapphires, depends a lot on your interest in the profession Reichl is focusing on. Sapphires was my least favorite of hers because I don't care that much about restaurant reviewing; if you don't care much about magazine editing, be warned: there's a lot of it in here.
Of course, it's no spoiler to say this memoir ends with Gourmet being shut down and merged with Bon Appetit, and the chapters leading up to this, as Reichl takes on more and more in an attempt to save it, are some of the most honest, and also the saddest, in the book. Save Me the Plums is really an elegy for a time that's slipping away: When there were fabulous magazines full of quality material put together by smart people who really cared about doing something good. For some reason as a culture we've decided we don't want that anymore. But I was happy to have a chance to celebrate that era, and I couldn't have asked for a better companion than Ruth Reichl. Magazine publishing's loss is book publishing's gain; regardless of what Reichl decides to do next, I'll be more than happy to read her next book about whatever it is.
I won this ARC via Shelf Awareness. Thank you to the publisher!...more
Where to begin! At the beginning, I guess. Ohio is a sprawling novel that’s divided into four sections, each told from the point of view of one of fouWhere to begin! At the beginning, I guess. Ohio is a sprawling novel that’s divided into four sections, each told from the point of view of one of four high school classmates all reappearing in their hometown of New Canaan, Ohio, on a night ten years after their graduation. The first section, centering on an addict and left-wing activist named Bill Ashcraft, is one of the most overwritten things I’ve ever read. (I’ll include some choice passages at the end of my review.) The vast array of adjectives, metaphors, and similes not only made this section a slog, they eventually made me downright hostile toward the book. My patience wore thin and my eye-rolling muscles became fatigued. Fortunately, this section did finally end, and when the next sections were somewhat less overwritten, I came to understand that all of the weird imagery was (I guess?) meant to be the product of Bill’s drugged mind. This was a relief.
The second and third sections of the book, one from the point of view of a grad student who’d recently come out as gay and the other from the point of view of a veteran of three tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, were moderately less infuriating than the first, but all three sections did share one flaw: an overkill amount of reminiscing about high school. I did appreciate the way all this reminiscing from various points of view eventually revealed all the major plot points, but it was beyond tiresome to hear about their high school goings-on from three different characters. Further, the idea that all of them would still be so obsessed with high school ten years later strained credibility. I actually had to take a break in the midst of the third section because I couldn’t take the tedium anymore.
When I picked the book back up again and moved on to the fourth and final section, told from the point of view of a woman who’d stayed in the area after graduation, I finally learned what the point of the whole thing was: the woman who was the focus of this last section (view spoiler)[had been drugged and gang-raped repeatedly in high school by her boyfriend and his friends, abetted by another female student; it had all been videotaped and shown around; and no one had done anything about it. (hide spoiler)] To say I was displeased by this turn of events is an understatement. It felt like Markley needed something dramatic to hang his novel on, so, sure, why not (view spoiler)[have a character repeatedly drugged and gang-raped (hide spoiler)]? Hey, every book needs some kind of dramatic incident, so why not? Why not? Maybe because some of us are totally sick of this being used as a cheap plot point. Maybe because most of the other high school girls in the book are depicted as total sex freaks even at age 15, so I already didn’t trust this author’s portrayals of women and, by the time the fourth section rolled around, I had no confidence in his ability to handle this serious topic with finesse. And I was right. If finesse is what you want, you’re not going to find it anywhere in Ohio.
As someone who comes from a depressed, blue-collar nowheresville myself, I was really looking forward to reading this novel. Its publisher seems to see it as some kind of epic work that will explain the rise of Trump in working-class areas. But the fact is that this book is completely lacking in any kind of nuance and adds absolutely nothing new, or even particularly true, to the conversation. It reads as if Markley left his hometown, never really went back, but still sees himself as an expert in the area, capable of speaking for the people who still live there. But he isn’t. If it accomplishes nothing else, Ohio definitely proves that.
I won this ARC in a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you to the publisher.
***
As promised, here are some of my favorite/least favorite passages from Ohio:
• Page 68: An enormous mural looked out at the road: a ferocious black jaguar bursting through a wall of orange, fangs bared, grapefruit eyes gleaming with savage Darwinian murder. MURDEROUS! You know, like a grapefruit. • Page 106: Her eyes still floated in a splash of freckles like two sapphires tossed onto a white-sand beach. You mean emeralds, dude. You’ve already told us multiple times that her eyes are green. This is one of the many hazards of describing everything excessively: sometimes you get things wrong. • Page 109: The coffee table was a mess of Us Weeklys, a plate of half-finished, lipstick-red spaghetti going cold, and her inhaler, right next to an ashtray with two fresh cigarette stubs. “I need something quick for dinner tonight. I know, I’ll make a plate of lipstick-red spaghetti” is something I think we have all said at one time or another. • Also page 109: Bill patted his tender flesh the color of massacred civilians. In his defense, “lipstick-red” was already taken. • Page 153: Her boots clopped over the street like a horse with two amputations. I don’t really think… you know what, just forget it. • Page 161: The cursive script ran up the inside of her forearm from the spot where the Romans put the nails in Jesus’s wrists to just short of the elbow pit. One, just saying “wrist” would have gotten the job done. Two, what’s with always saying “elbow pit” and “knee pit”? Are those real things people say? Help me out, Ohioans! • Page 233: "My dad’s just my dad—I could probably show up with a dead hooker in my trunk, and he would beam at my resourcefulness with a club hammer." This was said by a female character to her former high school music teacher, who she’d just seen for the first time in ten years. • Page 277: The sky angled like a carnival game, deathwatch blue, while a single oil tanker of a cloud passed overhead. Someone get the WD-40—the switch on the random simile generator is stuck in the “on” position! • Also page 277: he got a feeling like only an anorexic housefly could navigate between them. There just had to have been some other way to express this. • Page 324: She took a tissue from her bedside and held it with only the tips of her fingers, delicately, as if feeling a ball of skin. A BALL OF SKIN? A BALL OF SKIN? You really could have stopped at “the tips of her fingers” and we would have gotten the point. I mean, really—a ball of skin? A ball of skin?!?
The prosecution rests.
UPDATE: October 17, 2018. A couple of days ago I spotted a finished copy of Ohio on a bookstore shelf and checked to see if the "ball of skin" passage made it into the final version of the book. It did!...more
Early in my publishing career I read a short story by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. If I recall, it was only a few pages long, but I never, ever forgotEarly in my publishing career I read a short story by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. If I recall, it was only a few pages long, but I never, ever forgot it. The voice! I never forgot it. I noticed over the years that Sycamore was publishing books, but my (long-subconscious) fear of no author living up to my first experience with them kicked in, and I never got around to any of them. Until now! When I won a copy of Sketchtasy in a Shelf Awareness giveaway, I was psyched! And when I read a few pages and realized the voice was similar to what I remembered, I was even more psyched.
Sketchtasy is a novel about Alexa, a young queer person living in Boston who's estranged from her parents, and her friends who are mainly in the same boat. Beyond that, it's a little difficult to describe. It takes place in the 1990s, so AIDS is a factor; there's a lot of drug-taking and some turning of tricks, and friendships form and lives come together, and then things fall apart and have to be rebuilt, over and over again. Alexa’s voice is humorous and casual, even gossipy at times, certainly drug-addled (which is part of the point) but there's also a lot that's sad and poignant about this book, and a lot that's emotionally astute.
This novel isn't necessarily for everyone. At times, the level of TMI approached The Pisces. But, you know, The Pisces was about a woman (view spoiler)[having an affair with a mermaid (hide spoiler)], and Sketchtasy is about things that actually happen in our actual world. Honestly, I get so bored sometimes of reading about privileged white people and their stupid problems. The whole time I was reading Sketchtasy I was acutely aware that for some people, back in the 1990s and even up to the present day, this book isn't fiction. It's a representation of a life that I have no experience with, but I was very grateful to get a glimpse of it. It's one of those books that you live along with the characters; once I was done it took a few days for me to shake it.
I was going to give this 4 stars, but the level of emotion I'm feeling as I'm writing this makes me want to bump it up. This is a wholly original work from a wholly original mind, and I'm very glad I had this opportunity to read it....more
Okay, so, this book is bonkers. If you've read the description on Goodreads or elsewhere, you may have sussed out that, after an abrupt breakup with hOkay, so, this book is bonkers. If you've read the description on Goodreads or elsewhere, you may have sussed out that, after an abrupt breakup with her longtime boyfriend, our heroine Lucy has a bit of a breakdown and escapes her home in Phoenix to house- and dog-sit in Venice Beach. (view spoiler)[Where she meets a merman. (hide spoiler)]
For me, the (view spoiler)[merman (hide spoiler)]—perhaps because I was expecting him—was not the most bonkers part of the book. The most bonkers part was being inside Lucy's head all that time. She is perhaps understandably thrown for a loop by her breakup and the general lack of direction in her life, and she also may be just a teeny, tiny bit addicted to drama, and this leads to a lot of mood swings, rationalizations, deep and intelligent-seeming thoughts followed by undeniably dumb actions, and other unpredictabilities. I thought Lucy was very inconsistent as a character; some of it was undoubtedly intentional, but some of it seemed unrealistic to me—but after a couple days' reflection, I think this may just be one of the most unique characters I've ever encountered in contemporary fiction. The fact that there's no frame of reference for her can only be a good thing.
The first half of the book moved the most quickly for me; it was unique and funny and intriguing. Oddly, it became less exciting once (view spoiler)[she and the merman actually began getting it on (hide spoiler)], perhaps because it took away some of the rollicking unpredictability. But at this point the book also became more wise, with Lucy gradually, with many twists and turns and switchbacks, getting more of a grip on her life.
I would like to give this book four stars but for some reason it gave me kind of a grimy nauseated feeling that I still haven't gotten over. But if you can handle books that are very weird and graphic, I do sort of recommend this.
I won this ARC in a giveaway of some sort, either directly from the publisher or via Shelf Awareness. Thank you to Hogarth Press for my grimy nauseated feeling....more
Many of us, as we get older, go through an experience that divides our life into "before" and "after," whether it's the death of a loved one, a healthMany of us, as we get older, go through an experience that divides our life into "before" and "after," whether it's the death of a loved one, a health crisis, a divorce or breakup, a job loss or financial failure, or some combination of these and other factors. In The Futilitarians, the illness and death of Anne Gisleson's father is the impetus for her and her husband Brad to form the Existential Crisis Reading Group (ECRG) with some friends and family members. The goal of the group is to select readings (both fiction and nonfiction) that teach the members something about what it means to be alive when darkness and catastrophe seem to be all around us, and to discuss those readings once a month at Gisleson's New Orleans home.
Gisleson's father's death from cancer, a tragedy in and of itself, is not the only crisis she struggles with in this memoir; years before, her twin sisters Rebecca and Rachel had committed suicide within 18 months of each other. At that time, Gisleson's father had told her that if she ever wrote about the suicides he would never speak to her again as long as he lived—and she believed him. It was only as she was grieving her father that she suddenly realized she was free from this prohibition, and her struggles with the two suicides become the core of this book.
As Sherman Alexie put it in his recent memoir, grief is circular; you keep coming back around to it no matter how much time goes by. That's certainly what happens here. But even as Gisleson works through her complex feelings about her sisters' suicides and her father's death, she also manages to incorporate other worthy topics. The Futilitarians is divided into twelve chapters, each corresponding to a monthly meeting of the ECRG. Using this as a framework, Gisleson talks not only about her personal grief but also about her friends' and family members' situations, the death-row inmates her lawyer father and brother represented pro bono, and, most strikingly, about life in New Orleans, its rituals and customs, what's changed since Hurricane Katrina and what has remained the same.
Somehow Gisleson is able to keep all these balls in the air. Her accounts of the ECRG meetings are always thought-provoking and expand into the other themes she's addressing without feeling forced. This is her first book but I was impressed with her writing, how it delves into complicated topics in a way I've never quite seen it done before. The book is poignant and sad, but never hopeless.
My own "before" and "after" happened about 9 years ago and it has been a long and confusing road to regain some equilibrium. I finally felt I'd done so about 4 or 5 years ago, but now I recognize that there's really no finally being done with anything. You may be sad or numb or you may be happy, but none of those states is permanent. Given the state of the world at the moment and my own particular confusion—not serious right now, but always present—I suspected this was a good time to be reading The Futilitarians, and I was right. This is one of the best books I've read so far this year. I'll be surprised if I read anything else in 2017 that tops it or that feels more relevant.
I won this ARC in a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you to the publisher....more
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