seventeen/fifty-two

I am running out of things to say about books. Wow, that's bad. I just was not built for book reviews, and I think these have gotten longer than I meant them to when I started to do little reviewlets.

Okay. Book the seventeenth. Good Grief by Lolly Winston.

Sophie's husband, Ethan, died of cancer. (Hodgkin's, another fun disease to add to my List for Hypochondriacs.) She is struggling through depression and through all the other things losing the person you were closest to in all the world will do to you.

I expected it to be hideously chicklit-y, but it was actually really good. A keeper. Funny and sad and filled with characters I could actually sympathize with and like.

sixteen/fifty-two

Oh, man. I feel bad about this one, because I've read Zoe Trope's LiveJournal every now and then, and she seems like a pretty cool person.

So I read Please Don't Kill the Freshman. It's all angsty and full of veiled meanings and deep imagery and I liked it for the first 50 pages or so. But then I should have taken a break.

It's the story of Zoe's (it's a pseudonym, in case you didn't know) freshman and sophomore years in high school. She has tons of male friends, mostly gay, she falls in love with a girl who decides to be a boi, she deals with the perils of publishing after her chapbook (also named PDKTF) is successful.

The problem I had with it was getting bored with the prose. If I had taken it section by section, broken it up into four days' worth of reading instead of one, it would have been okay, I think. But I read it too fast, and it lost its charm. For me, personally, anyway -- I know there are people who would devour this in one sitting and want more more more.

I would have loved this book when I was seventeen.

fifteen/fifty-two

Ach, I've been putting off reviewing #15 and #16.

The first one, Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, was good, actually. The only thing that bothered me was the way he used the word "rape" in describing . . . uh, stealing food or something, I don't remember exactly what it was. Sorry. I read it about a week ago. Obviously it bothered me enough that the irritation stuck with me, though. I had no problem with his constant swearing throughout the book, it seemed real to me and not just thrown in there.

As for the book's purpose, it's about how Bourdain fell in love with food, started working with it, screwed his life up with drugs, got it back together, and became a pretty damn good chef. Interesting.

I'd been wanting to read this one for about a year now; I don't know if it was worth all that yearning, but it was good for what it was.

tic tic tic

I keep forgetting to mention this: one of the things I noticed about The Virgin's Lover that really annoyed me was the repeated use of certain adverbs. Mostly having to do with speaking. It would be okay if it was throughout the book, probly not even noticeable, but these were, like, within a page of each other.

I noticed it once at the beginning, although I can't remember what the particular adverb was; but I do know that it was Amy and Robert Dudley. Then it was obvious again about two-thirds of the way through the book, when one of the characters' wife says something "shrewdly," then on the next page, that character also says something "shrewdly."

Know what I mean? I thought it was odd that nobody had caught that in the editing stage. Maybe it's only annoying to me, maybe I'm just too persnickety.

fourteen/fifty-two

I kind of liked Haven Kimmel's Something Rising (Light and Swift) and I kind of didn't. I liked the story, for the most part -- Cassie is a pool player (a really good one), and this is her coming-of-age story.

Honestly, half of the characters seemed like assholes to me. There were large chunks of the book where it seemed like Kimmel was being obscure and dense just to make her writing seem more artsy, although I'm sure that's just my own perception of it. I mean, I get that Belle and Laura (Cassie's sister and mom, respectively) are on a different plane and their brains work strangely, and I could get where their "unique" perspectives were coming from most of the time, but sometimes it felt like a bunch of words were thrown together prettily and chewily regardless of their sense-making. Aside from that, I enjoyed Kimmel's writing.

I appreciated that Cassie's coming-of-age tale was not focused on finding a man; I'm always wary of female coa stories because the boyfriend hunt usually plays a fairly major role, and it gets old after a while.

It was good enough to talk me into trying another of Kimmel's books, just to give her a fair shake, but by the end of this one I was only reading out of a feeling of duty.

thirteen/fifty-two

Now, when I said I was "enjoying" A Million Little Pieces, I didn't mean that in a frolicky springtime day way. James Frey's story of recovery (from addiction to all sorts of nasty stuff) is very, very hard to read at times. He is quite blunt about all the gross stuff that happens when you abuse your body as much as he did. Also, his writing style (as I mentioned below) is difficult to get into at first. It seemed pretentious and overly precious and annoying for the first few chapters, and it distracted me from the story (perhaps a good thing?) for a while. It starts to become kind of rhythmic after a while, though, and I think it works well with the story. (I've read somewhere [it's mentioned in the linked article above, too] that he wanted the writing to draw readers in, to help them feel what it's like to be addicted themselves, and I think it accomplishes that.)

I won't get into the whole AA good/bad debate, because I have no deep knowledge of it myself.

All in all, a good book, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's "the War and Peace of addiction," as Pat Conroy's back cover blurb claims, but it was good. Didn't glorify addiction, didn't mince words. Also, the design of the copy I have (softcover) is very nice.

a warning

I'm in the middle of James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. Have you read it yet? If you have, you probably know where I'm going here.

EVERY SINGLE TIME I've tried to write something today, I've written it, looked at it, and realized I've written it like I'm trying to be James Frey. Then I've rewritten it, because I'm not up in here writing about being an addict. (I just had to delete the capital "A" from "Addict" -- see what I mean?)

If you haven't read the book, here's a parody of Frey's writing style in AMLP.

(For the record, I'm enjoying the book a lot more than I thought I would.)

(link via TrudyJ on Chicklit's forums)

twelve/fifty-two

When Did You Stop Loving Me by Veronica Chambers, and no, I didn't leave off the question mark.

Okay, that thing that sticks with me the most about this book is the design. It's beautiful. The story's narrator, Angela, is the daughter of a magician, and every chapter begins with a few words tumbling out of a top hat. The paragraph breaks are card suits -- hearts, spades, clubs, diamonds. It could be considered cheese-licious, I guess, but I love it. Even the typeface is pretty.

The story: Angela's mom leaves Angela (age 11) and her magician dad, and they learn to cope. That's basically it. It's a good, quick read, and it doesn't feel like you wasted your time after you're done. I especially enjoyed all the popcult references (and there are many).

There's an in-depth bookreporter.com review here, if you want more details.

eleven/fifty-two

Sometimes I worry that I'm reading too much, that there's a set amount of words you can read in your lifetime, and I'm burning too fast, burning through the pages, and I'm almost done, and I need to slow down.

But then I remember that I'm a overanxious freak, and I get on with my life.

Seriously, it's been a few years since I've read this much, and I'm enjoying it enormously. The latest victim of my voracious reading habit was Ann Patchett's Truth & Beauty, the story of her friendship with Lucy Grealy, a poet (and author of Autobiography of a Face) who survived cancer as a child, which left her with a disfigured jaw. She and Ann sort of became friends in college, and this book covers everything from there until Lucy's death in 2003. It's a sad read for the most part, and there's one paragraph near the end where I sat there, read it again, and said, "Well, that's it then, that's how it's going to end, and there's no way anyone could stop it." and it was crushing but real. Real life is a bitch sometimes.

I say it's a sad read for the most part, but that may be a bit too sweeping. It's also very sweet and touching and all that stuff, it's just that when it's real life, and you know that the ending is sad, everything becomes tinted a little bit gray. But Patchett writes well, and it wasn't a mind-crushingly depressing read, please don't get that idea. A lot of it was funny, and I like that Patchett wasn't afraid to tell the truth of Lucy (or of herself, for that matter), all the bad parts along with the good parts.

p.s. Here's an article that Patchett wrote that's basically a condensed version of Truth & Beauty, if you're interested. I think I'm falling a little bit in love with Patchett's writing, it's so beautiful and perfect and everything's in just the right place.

(link via cheesedip.com)

ten/fifty-two

I first got into historical fiction back toward the end of middle school, with Ann Rinaldi's books, which would commonly take a significant historic event and look at it through the eyes of a teenage girl from that time. They were addictive. I still have one of them: A Break with Charity, I believe.

Philippa Gregory's books, I think, are my grown-up Ann Rinaldi novels. They are enjoyable to read, easy to get into, interesting and based in fact enough that they don't feel like total fluff, and as a bonus, they make me want to learn more about the history they cover.

The Virgin's Lover, which I just finished, is Gregory's latest contribution to the genre. It follows her other novels: The Other Boleyn Girl was basically about Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII's affair, The Queen's Fool about Queen Mary's rise and fall, and The Virgin's Lover about Queen Elizabeth's reign and affair with Robert Dudley (who was also a key player in The Queen's Fool).

Dudley's wife, Amy, was also a major character in this novel, and while she was painted as kind of an insane shrew in The Queen's Fool, in The Virgin's Lover, Gregory paints her as a most sympathetic betrayed woman. That was the only issue I had with the novel, although I'm sure there's a lot of playing fast and loose with facts going on in there. I don't know enough of the history to know for sure yet, and I don't mind that, because Gregory's novels always lead me to read more factual accounts. That, for me personally, is the mark of good historical fiction.

I'm tempted to read Gregory's Wideacre trilogy, but I'm not sure if it's worth it. I'll have to look into that. In the meantime, I'm looking for good books about Mary's and/or Elizabeth's England.

nine/fifty-two

Instead of watching the State of the Union address and clawing at the screen like an angry badger, I read a book Wednesday night. It was a small one, a thin little memoir. Exactly what I needed to take my mind off of all the badger-making stuff.

Ambulance Girl by Jane Stern has a blurb on the front cover that says, "How I Saved Myself by Becoming an EMT" and that pretty much covers it all. I had heard Stern's name mentioned in passing before -- in connection to different kinds of food writing, especially offbeat food writing -- but had never read any of her work. I really enjoyed this book; in it, Stern shares how she conquered her depression and anxiety by becoming an EMT in her small town's volunteer service. It was good, well written and funny and Stern isn't afraid to make fun of herself or let herself look a little bad.

And hey, it's supposedly being made into a Lifetime movie starring Kathy Bates, so how bad can it be? I think Kathy Bates is an excellent choice, actually. And even if it ends up being bad, you know, there's nothing quite as good as a disastrously bad Lifetime movie.

eight/fifty-two

Numero ocho: Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell's A Dark-Adapted Eye.

As far as mysteries go, this was pretty tame. It won an Edgar award in 1986, which I didn't know until I read a review after reading the book. (I'm glad I read the review afterward, because the cover on the book they chose to show kind of gives away one of the main plot points.)

Vine's novel is pretty mannered and the sentence structure can make it a little hard to get into (it's set in England in 1940) unless you're used to that sort of writing. The story itself was pretty good; it's mainly about two sisters, one of whom is hanged, and the reason for that is slowly revealed as you go further into the novel. I liked The Brimstone Wedding better, but this one was okay.

because I forget like a mofo

I just want to post these here because I ALWAYS forget links.

Literary Vamp.

lex's LJ.

One of these days I will get a links thingie worked out. Probly the same day I do a flat-out site redesign, ha.

seven/fifty-two

Do you remember how much I disliked David Sedaris's Holidays on Ice? How I couldn't wait to finish the damn thing and put it away? Well, I read some reviews, and overwhelmingly the reviewers recommended Sedaris's other work as a better introduction to his writing.

So I picked up Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and hoped they were right. And they were. I loved this collection of short stories. Sedaris is funny and dry and tells a good story . . . and you've probably heard this all before.

six/fifty-two

I remember reading Lorrie Moore's Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, thinking, "Okay, I know this is good, I know this is supposed to be brilliant writing and I'm supposed to be wowed, but I just don't get it. I don't like it, it doesn't work with my brain." That's the exact same way I felt reading Things You Should Know by A.M. Homes.

I know I should love this book, this should be one of those "This was a great short story collection, and I loved it because . . . " reviewlets, but I didn't like it, it didn't touch me, I didn't get it. The stories were dark and sometimes strange, bizarre things happened in them, and they all seemed to revolve around need. Sounds like something I'd like, but no. I read the whole collection, but only because they were short stories and I'd just given up on another book, and I didn't want to start a book-quitting trend.

correction

Bookslut's blog is still there, so I'm not sure why I couldn't find it a month or so (?) ago. Probably just because it's not linked from the main page.

five/fifty-two

Gave up on The Fasting Girl: Too dry for me, like a textbook without the fun.

So I reread The Time Traveler's Wife. Is this cheating? I don't care! The whole point of the thing is to READ BOOKS. And I read it. And I loved it just as much, if not more, than I did the first time I read it. I may be idealizing the book, kind of like a crush, only literary, but it is only the third or fourth book I've read as an adult that I've loved with this much fervor.

four/fifty-two

Ah, I love a good non-fiction account that draws me into an event that I normally would not give a rat's ass about.

The Devil in the White City mixes two things together: the story of the 1893 World's Columbian Expedition and the story of a serial killer who used the Fair to his advantage. Erik Larson wrote the book, and he wrote it well. The story was interesting -- a little bit melodramatic as far as the writing style goes, flowery adjectives and the like, but it was good melodrama. Pretty words.

If you go here, you can find some information about the debut (and eventual demise) of the Ferris Wheel, which I found to be one of the more interesting parts of the Fair that Larson discussed. There's also a good review of the book on that site, written by someone who has just a leeetle more knowledge than I do about the subject.

three/fifty-two

I was incredibly disappointed in this selection, so I'm not even giving it my normal smallish review space. Instead, it gets a haiku:

A book I should love:
Bill Bryson's Lost Continent.
Too dick-y for me.

I really love Bryson's other work (the books I've read already, anyway), especially A Walk in the Woods. I forced myself to finish this one, in hopes it would get better. It didn't. Snark can only take you so far, man.

But then, I am a delicate Southern flower. Hee.

two/fifty-two

Ann Patchett's Bel Canto: beautiful, brilliant, I wish I hadn't read the last two chapters. Not because they were bad, but because they broke my heart.

The story: Some rebels break into a fabulous dinner party ("somewhere in South America" -- the country is never named) and take everybody hostage. The guest list includes many people from all over the world, and one very famous opera singer. Their captors are not especially brilliant at their jobs, and eventually the whole thing becomes like one big sleepover -- with guns. I loved the way the characters were written and described; sometimes it's hard for me to imagine the way characters look, but Patchett described them so well it was as if they were sitting next to me.

This is one of those books that I think would make an excellent movie, although the characters' inner dialogues might be lost a little too much in the translation.

I'm really looking forward to reading Patchett's other work now.