Three Stars

Another book club pick, another kind of ‘meh’ book for me. It’s only the second (I think) graphic novel I’ve ever read, and while I think I like the concept of graphic novels, I’m not sure. Given that this is supposed to be one of the best ones, and I just found it to be okay, I’m guessing maybe they just aren’t for me.

The topic of the book is very interesting: it’s about Ms. Bechdel’s relationship with her father, who died when she was 20. He presented himself as a straight man, but throughout this novel we find out more and more reasons to believe that he was gay, or possibly bisexual. He also ran the family funeral (‘fun’) home as a part time job. Meanwhile, Ms. Bechdel deals with her own childhood challenges, such as not liking ‘girlie’ clothes, and eventually realizing that she is a lesbian.

The graphics are really well done, and I feel like I understand the story Ms. Bechdel is telling. I also appreciate how many literary references she includes. But one thing that bothered me a bit and led to this three-star rating was the language. It seemed overly flowery, and took more works than necessary to tell the story. I recognize that is a specific style choice, but it’s one that I don’t usually like. I found it kind of perfect that in the very beginning she talks about how her father loved restoring their home to this really ornate building, while her preference was more sleek lines, metal, modern. In terms of this book, I felt like her words were the ornateness, and I was looking for something more sleek.

Three Stars

It’s always a bit of a crapshoot when I purchase a book at the airport. This one jumped out at me because I lived in NYC for seven years, and because I find the 20s and 30s fascinating.

The book is based on the real-life Mazie Gordon, although it isn’t an actual biography. It’s fiction, a collection ostensibly based on Ms. Gordon’s journal. The author Jami Attenberg employs an interesting method to tell the story: the reader is the ‘author’, to a degree. We read Mazie’s diary entries, but we also read interviews that the author conducts to try to learn more about Mazie. It jumps around in time in that the interviews take place in the present and are interspersed, but the diary entries themselves follow a linear path.

Mazie never married. She worked her whole life in the ticket booth of a theater on the Lower East Side, and due to the money she made, she was able to offer money to those who were living on the street due to the great depression. She died in 1964; you can read her obituary here.

I think it’s a fine book. I wouldn’t say it’s a must read, and it’s not interesting enough for me to read it non-stop; I read about 1/3 then just put it down for a couple weeks. I only picked it up again because I rarely give up on a book. And I was mildly pleased with the ending.

Three Stars

As I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t read Stephen King’s work until this year, and I lucked out in starting with Mr. Mercedes, which was book one in this trilogy. End of Watch is the final book, and explores more supernatural themes than the previous two.

If you’ve read the first two: so Retired Detective Hodges is not feeling good, and we find out that has pancreatic cancer. Not a great diagnosis. He and his partner Holly are still running their private investigation business, and Jerome is at Harvard, but taking the semester off to build homes. Meanwhile, mass murderer (and attempted GIANT mass murderer) Brady is still in the forensic brain injury unit at the local hospital. But as hinted at in the last book, he isn’t in a persistent vegetative state after all – and his injury might have given him some special powers, a la Carrie.

I appreciate Mr. King’s writing, and I’m glad I finished the series. It was an interesting book, and I found myself wanting to keep reading to find out what would happen next. But even though it was handled very well, I’m still not super excited about this type of book. I don’t mind magic or supernatural, but I like it when that’s the world people live in – like Harry Potter. I’m not a big fan of mixing it into books that are ostensibly based in the real world. So while I loved Misery, maybe I’m not going to enjoy It that much.

Anyway, if you’ve read the first two books, I think it’s definitely worth finishing out the series. Not a bad book, just not my favorite.

No rating.

This is an extremely important work of Iranian fiction, written in the 1930s. It was chosen by someone in one of the book clubs I participate in. According to the introduction, it is so shocking that there are rumors that it led to people dying by suicide.

The book tells two versions of the same story – both told from the main character’s perspective. He is an artist who is either solitary or lives with his wife (depending on the telling). One version is a bit more supernatural-feeling than the other, both heavily feature sadness, loneliness, and darkness.

I missed something in this book. I didn’t get it, and that is why I didn’t give it a ranking. I feel like it’s just not something I can wrap my head around, because I can’t wrap my head around the book. It obviously is full of symbolism that I don’t get because I don’t have the shared culture that might be necessary to truly pick up on the nuance of the storytelling. I’m not even entirely clear on the purpose of the book. Perhaps is an allegory of death? I don’t know.

The author’s style keeps me from really getting into the book – the writing is fine, but it’s also a translation to English, so it comes across as fairly plain and also repetitive. There is (according to Wikipedia, which I visited immediately upon completion) a reason for this, and an art to it, but again I think a whole lot has been lost in translation.

Mostly reading this book made me angry that I a) can’t read all the languages and b) don’t understand or even have a basic understanding of the vast majority of cultures in the world.

So yay for that?

Five Stars

I’m pretty sure the first time I encountered Tig Notaro’s work was in that This American Life Story, but it might also have been when she had a role in the sweet film “In A World.” I watched her documentary, and then her comedy special, and really enjoyed both. I find her to be intriguing and unpretentious, and so had to pick up her memoir.

If you have somehow managed to not heard her story, Ms. Notaro experienced a pretty brutal spring four years ago: she went through a breakup, fought a brutal C. Diff infection, lost her mother unexpectedly in a fall, and then was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer.

Yeah.

This book is mostly focused on that time in Ms. Notaro’s life, and her recovery from it. She shares a lot of herself in a way that is genuine, sweet, and at times (but not always) funny. This isn’t a comedy memoir, but it is a memoir that will make you feel good. It made me feel good.

Not every good book is full of loud, declarative, life-altering statements that you want to immediately stitch on a pillow. Some are quietly strong, but awesome just the same. I loved this book. I can’t recommend it enough.

Three Stars

In 2013, 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots died fighting a fire outside of Yarnell, Arizona. One, working as a lookout, survived. Many children – some not yet born – were left without fathers, parents lost their sons, and in the end, a town lost its brothers.

I picked up this book thinking I’d learn a little bit more about what happened on that day, but in reality that day (despite the blurbs on the back) doesn’t seem to take up much of the book at all. Only about 30 of the 225 pages are about that day; the rest of the book focuses on providing an explanation of how wildfire fighting works, and introducing us to the men who comprised the Granite Mountain Hotshots. After the description of the fire, the author then turns to talking about how some of the families have been able to move forward with their lives.

The storytelling is great – Ms. Santos is clearly a very talented writer. But I felt that the book could have been longer and more in-depth. I appreciate that she wasn’t focused on assigning blame, but there was really no analysis of the reasons why the situation came about. She doesn’t hold back in her descriptions of some decisions, but unlike, say, Five Days at Memorial, in this book I just didn’t get the sense of strong journalistic analysis. That’s a real bummer, since Ms. Santos is a journalist, and I really feel like we all would benefit from some analysis in this book.

She does, however, at least touch on the super fucked-upedness of the majority of these men not being full-time, benefited employees (your jaw may drop at the base wages they earn), and the fact that in government, despite what some folks may say, the focus is always on trying to save more money, cut more costs, and that can come at a price – both to the individuals working for the government and the communities they are hired to protect.

This book is more like a biography of 19 people and their families, which is lovely, but not what I thought I was getting from this book. The stories Ms. Santos tells of the families are sweet and interesting, but with 19 men and their families to discuss, each one feels like it is clipped, so we don’t really get to know any of them very well.

If you find wildfire fighting interesting, and if you generally enjoy books on topics such as emergencies and disasters, I think you’ll find this a worthwhile read.

Three Stars

I read and reviewed Ms. McCreight’s previous novel in December – I read it in a day and found it to be really interesting. Similarly to the last time I found her work, I was in an airport bookstore, picked it up, and essentially didn’t put it down until I was finished.

The book is told from the perspectives of three women: Molly, a non-profit advocate turned journalist who has one daughter and experienced a stillbirth a couple of years back; Barbara, a ‘perfect mother’ who doesn’t think very highly of Molly and is married to the town’s Police Chief; and Sandy, a 16-year-old whose mother is missing. The premise? A baby has been found dead in the woods on the town University campus, and Molly is sent to cover the story.

There are twists. Some you might see coming, some you might not. The writing is interesting, and the characters are mostly fleshed out.

However, I do see this author as seeming to only be able to write about women as mothers. There’s one grown woman in this book who doesn’t have children, and it comes out it’s because of a hysterectomy. I get that most women have kids, but man, it really stands out when that is the single defining characteristic of all of the adult characters in the book.