Four Stars

Best for: Those looking for a quick read about complicated relationships.

In a nutshell: Frances is a 21-year-old college student who writes poetry and performs it with her best friend / ex-girlfriend Bobbi. They meet writer Melissa, and her actor husband Nick, who is quite appealing to Frances. Events transpire.

Worth quoting:
“I didn’t know how to join in their new friendship without debasing myself for their attention.”
“Realising not only that hurting Bobbi’s feelings was within my power but that I had done it practically offhandedly and without noticing, made me uncomfortable.”
“I thought of myself as an independent person, so independent that the opinions of others were irrelevant to me.”

Why I chose it: I was at a Waterstones and picked the book up (it was prominently displayed on a table). The review pull quote across the top said “Fearless, sensual writing.” I immediately put it down, because I’ve not ever found myself enjoying writing that I would characterise as ‘sensual.’ The shop manager noticed and spent the next two minutes trying to sell me on the book, and to ignore that quote. I acquiesced, and am happy I did so.

Review:
Author Sally Rooney has an interesting way with words. With this book, she is able to create characters that I don’t think we’re meant to root for or against, but to just be interested in. The book is told from Frances’s first person perspective, so the other three main characters come to us through that lens, and it’s clear that we’re meant to recognize that what Frances is telling us isn’t everything there is to know about them. And I don’t mean this in an ‘unreliable narrator’ / ‘there’s a mystery to be solved’ sort of way, just that with Ms. Rooney’s writing, I feel that she understands how little we all know about the people in our lives.

The book centers around the ideas of love and relationships. The primary focus at times seems to be romantic relationships, but I think the book also does a good job at looking at friendships as well as relationships with our families of origin. How much do we choose to share of ourselves with our partners? Our parents? How do we make those calculations? How do those relationships shape us? How much do we re-frame and reformulate those relationships as a way to help us understand ourselves?

Frances’s character develops over time, and you can see her taking more steps to get to know who she is. In some moments its easy to forget that she’s still in college and has to sort out the big life questions like ‘what do I want to be when I grow up,’ and I think that’s mostly due to Ms. Rooney’s writing. Yes, there are some eye-roll-worthy moments that those of us who have been out of college for many years might look at and think ‘awww, I remember debating that in the pub. How sweet,’ but Ms. Rooney doesn’t condescend to her characters. Frances and Bobbi are younger than I am (I’m not quite old enough to be Frances’s mother, but I could be her aunt) but they aren’t acting especially immature, at least not in unexpected ways. I think they’re relatable, even if the actions they’re taking aren’t ones I’d necessarily take.

So thanks, Waterstones bookseller. I DID like it!

Three Stars

Best for: Those looking for a quick read that’s mostly about Hillary Clinton’s run for president.

In a nutshell: This is “An Open Letter to the Women Who Will Run the World.” But it’s more a short retelling of some parts of the Clinton 2016 Presidential Campaign framed around the idea that it’s a letter to the first woman to be US President.

Worth quoting:
“I have always thought that I could do any job a man can do just as well as him. Only recently have I come to realize that I don’t want to. I want to do the job the best way I can do it, not the way he would.”
“Yes, I’m sure you loved her concession speech. Because that’s what you think is acceptable for a woman to do — concede.”
“We have no idea what beneficial qualities we might be stifling in ourselves as long as we continue to follow an outdated set of behavioral rules that were designed to permit women to play a niche role in a workplace built for men.”

Why I chose it: I heard the author speak on the Rachel Maddow show, and the excerpt shared sounded interesting.

Review:
The concept behind this book is a good one, but I’m not sure the execution worked for me. The book is 175 pages, but each page is probably half the size of a standard hardcover book, so it’s a very quick read — I started it at 9:30 PM last night and finished it just after 11 PM. It moved me, and it frustrated me, and it angered me. So in that respect, it certainly got me thinking.

But I think it’s a bit of false advertising. It’s really a short review of the Clinton campaign, with a few anecdotes from the author’s time in the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama White Houses. The author means to take lessons from the campaign and share them with readers (specifically, woman), but after sleeping on it and thinking about it more today, I think the concept wasn’t realized in as strong a way as it could have been.

There are clear nuggets of wisdom in here, and there are interesting stories that illustrate them. But I think the book would have worked better for me if there had been more concrete suggestions. Or fewer. It’s in the middle space for me, where the book is not long enough to dive deeply into this issues, but is too long to be a tight booklet with a more coherent message.

The overall idea is that we (women) need to stop looking at the way men do things and aim to be like them; instead, we need to be like us. I don’t disagree that women are judged differently (and Ms. Palmieri certainly provides loads of great examples of this), but something about this premise felt as though it were lumping ‘how women act’ into one bucket, and I’m not okay with that.

I do think the book is worth a read, and I’d be interested in reading what other women think after reading it.

4 Stars

Best for: Anyone interested in getting swept up in a bit of period drama.

In a nutshell: Two sisters deal with the loss of their father and the change in lifestyle that follows, while trying to sort out their love lives.

Worth quoting:
“I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.”

Why I chose it: The cover, honestly. This lovely cloth cover drew my attention in a bookshop a few weeks ago, and I figured why not finally pick it up.

Review:
The book was originally published over 200 years ago, but just the same … SPOILERS!

I claim on Good Reads to have read Pride and Prejudice, but I don’t think I have (odd, I know, and I’ll be correcting that). The cover of the film version of Sense and Sensibility has flashed on Netflix as I’ve skimmed through options over the years, but I’ve never watched it (until now – it’s playing as I write this review*). I share that only to say that because of that, I had Emma Thompson in my mind as I read Elinor, and Kate Winslet as I read Marianne. But I didn’t know the rest of the cast, so luckily my imagination was able to fill in the rest of the characters.

It took me a little bit to get into this; I don’t read fiction often, and I read fiction from the 19th century even less often, so the writing took me some time to adjust to. That said, by about fifty pages in, I was engrossed. Unfortunately, because I wasn’t entirely understanding what I was reading (beyond picking up that Franny Dashwood is a conniving snot and her husband is a wimp), the whole Edward-Elinor pairing completely slipped my mind. When he was mentioned again much later on (as his engagement is revealed by Lucy), I was confused why Elinor would even care. So that’s a big whoops on my part.

I did enjoy that characters were developed and shown to be a bit more complex (not always, although often) than they originally seemed. That said … I don’t understand why anyone’s opinion should be moved by Willoughby’s big confession to Elinor when he thinks Marianne is dying. Like, I guess the fact that his wife dictated the shitty letter matters, but I didn’t see anything in what he said that changed anything. Did I just miss something? Or was that whole reveal meant to just endear us even more to Elinor and her willingness to find the good in people? It just seemed unnecessary to me.

Overall, I’m glad I read it. Up next, per a friend’s suggestion, is Persuasion; after that I’ll go with Mansfield Park, and eventually work my way around to Pride and Prejudice.

*The casting in this film is BRILLIANT. I actually squealed when I saw Gemma Jones was Elinor and Marianne’s mother. AND ALAN RICKMAN JUST SHOWED UP!

2 Stars

Best for: Women interested in strength training who aren’t overwhelmed with a million (733, to be specific) options.

In a nutshell: Author Campbell provides an overview of lifting, a diet plan (boo), and chapters with body-part-specific target exercises.

Line that sticks with me:
“So whether you’re toting groceries or holding a baby, you’ll notice the difference.” Really, dude? Women use their arms for two things: shopping or children? Awesome.

Why I chose it: I’ve been consistent with my non-strength exercise for many years (running, elliptical, long walks), but haven’t really done much focused strength training in quite a while. Plus, I had a gift certificate to the shop where I found this one.

Review:
When I started this review, I planned to give the book three stars, but after considering it further, I’ve bumped it down to two.

There are components of it did like. There are workout plans, and there are detailed images. I’ve already tried one of the Back workouts (and learned that not only can I not do a chin-up, I can’t even jump to one and lower myself down) and the Quads / Calves. The latter was good. When I get back from a vacation I’m taking in a couple of weeks, I’m going to jump into the “Get Your Body Back” collection of exercises, because, as I said, I haven’t done strength training in awhile. So at the very basic level, this book is as advertised.

Now, let’s talk through what bothered me about this book.

First, every person in the book is TINY. Like, there is variety in ethnicity of the women showing the moves, but it seems as thought the person responsible for staging the photography thinks the only people who do strength training are a size 2-4 with no boobs. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that body type, but come one. There are strong women who are larger than Keira Knightly; perhaps a few of them could be featured?

Next, there are a probably too many exercise options. I fully get that I bought a book that is literally called the “Big Book of Exercises,” but there’s a difference between a dozen exercises per body area and over ninety. It’s just a lot, and it all blurs together. I think it’s possible it could have been better edited to not seem so overwhelming, but this version? Not so much.

Third, the sections on nutrition are pretty generic and a little blech. There’s even a part with a heading called “Why Diets Work.” The text below talks about why nutrition is a necessary component of changing your weight, but come on. Anyone who has read any studies knows that for the vast, vast majority of people, diets don’t do anything good, and often do very bad things. It’s disheartening to see that in a book ostensibly from a health magazine.

Fourth, the marketing of the book. The subtitle is “Four Weeks to a Leaner, Sexier, Healthier YOU!” Again, blech. I’m sexy as I am, thanks. Would it have been so hard to just replace those words with things like ‘stronger?’ Also, is it just me, or is the photo-shopping of the lovely cover woman just a bit too uncanny valley?

And finally, it bugged me that this book was written by a guy. I’m sure there are plenty of women out there who could compile a bunch of exercises, and I wish Women’s Health magazine would support those women. Also, at the end of many chapters are suggested workouts, which I appreciate, but again — full of guys. Seriously, I thought maybe I was misremembering, but I just flipped through and the one time a name stuck out that I thought might belong to a woman or non-binary person, nope. Still a dude.