Three Stars

It’s an etiquette book with a cute cover. I couldn’t resist.

This is a fairly basic etiquette book that apparently is targeted at those just starting out in their careers, so it isn’t fair for me to judge it based on other etiquette books. But I still will. If you’re going to get an etiquette book, and you’re a young woman who doesn’t mind the occasional f-bomb, you should get The Fabulous Girl’s Guide to Decorum, which includes this gem about breakfast after sleeping with someone: “If the sleepover occurred at your place, you really should offer him something no matter how you feel. You fucked him, you can pour him a glass of orange juice.”

However. If you’re an auntie looking for a cute graduation present for your 18-year-old niece or nephew, this isn’t a bad choice. It includes some VERY basic items, such as handshaking, making introductions, and table manners. On the subject of table manners, I actually disagree with one of the author’s subjective claims: that the European style of eating (where the knife and fork stay in hand while taking a bite) is more elegant than the American style (where you cut a piece, set down the knife and transfer the fork). I have always thought that the European practice of keeping the silverware in one’s hands throughout the bite made the person eating the food look a bit like they were waiting for someone to steal their food and thus had to shove it all in at once.

Because of my mild obsession with manners there wasn’t a lot that was new to me, but I still enjoyed learning a few things, such as the proper way to eat different foods, as well as some tips and tricks about hosting meals. It’s a brief book with some great illustrations (and while I commend the illustrator’s recognition that not everyone is white, it’d be great if the illustrator also recognized that not everyone is skinny) and useful tips for those who would benefit from a bit of etiquette education.

Oh, one last thing. One of the authors is ostensibly Liv Tyler. Yes, that Liv Tyler. She offers a few little nuggets of wisdom here and there, but it definitely reads as though Dorothea Johnson did the lion’s share of the writing.

Two Stars

Again, Spoilers. All of them.

So at the end of the last book (book two in a three-book series), Shari/Jean was pushed from a balcony by Peter/Lenny. But she survived. In this book, she’s become a best-selling author, and is about to start shooting the film version of one of her hit books. She’s still a Wanderer, and she’s still getting guidance from mystical people from Southeast Asia, so that part’s still culturally appropriative.

What else. Well, here’s the thing – there are some genuinely interesting parts of this book. And then there is another story within a story, which is totally out of place and not really what I’m interested in reading about. There are sharks and shark attacks, obvious villains, and a story about aliens attacking the Earth. Mr. Pike is trying to do too much, which ends up meaning he does none of it really well.

Also, he refers, repeatedly, to a character in a wheelchair as a cripple. Really? In what world is that acceptable?

This one, apparently. At least in Mr. Pike’s version of it. I commented on this and my husband asked when the book was written, and I at least got an answer about why this book and book two seem so much … worse, really, than the first book. The original book, Remember Me, was written in 1989. I’m guessing that there was no real plan to write a sequel; maybe Mr. Pike wanted to write something about the meaning of life and figured he’d just tack it onto this one? Unclear. But either way, book two wasn’t published until 1994; this book was published in 1995.

I really don’t think either needed to be published. As I said, there are parts that are okay, but mostly the book meanders and tries to tell more stories than the book can.

I think I’ll still seek out some of the old Christopher Pike books to see if I really was deluded in thinking they were fun, entertaining books, or if more of them have the subtle bigotry, ableism and xenophobia I’ve seen in these books.

One Star

Spoilers. All the spoilers.

This book is not good. But I read it, and I’ll read the next one.

This book continues following Shari Cooper, although now she and Peter (her dead friend who helped her navigate being dead in the first book) are trying to tell us about the meaning of life. The premise is that Shari is to return to earth as a Wanderer, joining the body of an 18-year-old who ‘dies’ (but doesn’t really – her soul just leaves) so Shari can do some good. It’s almost shocking in its simplicity, as though it were written by a ten-year-old who had somehow gotten his hands on an intro to philosophy book. But I digress.

First, let’s talk about how offensive the basic premise is. Shari, a dead rich white girl, needs to inhabit the body of a Latina from south central L.A. named Jean so Shari can help make the neighborhood better. That is some bizarrely fucked up manifest destiny shit right there. Once Shari is in Jean’s body, she comments on how the neighborhood is sad, and that no one really cares, but that she will help make it better. Like people who are economically disadvantaged are all lazy, drug users, and criminal. Good grief.

Second, during the also bizarrely offensive chapters that deal with Shari and Peter in the afterlife, we get treated to ‘Misunderstanding Eastern Philosophy 101.’ Shari’s teacher is OF COURSE a wise Southeast Asian man. It’s like Eat Pray Love for the dead. And during their sessions, her Master (yup, that’s what she calls him) makes comments about other Wanderers (apparently all folks involved in social change are Wanderers) that veer dangerously close to racism. There’s also an inexplicable knock on the Middle East.

There is one pretty entertaining moment in the book – Jean / Shari write a short story that is actually good. As in, I’d read it and enjoy it on its own. It involves a writer whose muse gets fed up with not getting any of the credit. It was a bit clever and although totally out of place, at least made up for some of the other parts of the book.

I could just stop here, but I’m kind of invested, so let’s see if we can get through the third one without xenophobia, racism, and simple tropes. I don’t have high hopes though…

Three Stars

This is the first of three books in a Christopher Pike trilogy. To be able to really review the books, I’m going to need to describe the plots, which means the next two reviews at least will likely contain spoilers.

I have been looking for Christopher Pike books for a while. I was fairly obsessed with his books when I was in high school; they weren’t horribly written, they were quick reads, and the characters (as I recall) were pretty interesting and dealt with some odd stuff. They were meant for, I believe, high school students, but they talked about things like sex and abortion. No chaste Twilight-level stuff here. At least, not that I can recall.

I found this trilogy (in one GIANT volume) at Powell’s today. 300 pages later and I’m done with book one, Remember Me. I definitely have read this before, as bits and pieces stood out as familiar.

Remember Me follows Shari Cooper. She’s dead, and everyone thinks she killed herself, but she didn’t. And she’s pissed about that, so she’s trying to figure out a way to solve her murder and essentially clear her own name. The killer could be one of many people, including her best friend or her boyfriend. In the end, her killer tries to kill Shari’s brother as well, and that sequence is a bit thrilling but also kind of weird.

There’s obviously a supernatural component to this, but it’s mostly set as much in reality as it can be. And despite the final (seemingly unnecessary) weirdness, I actually really enjoyed this book, and not just because of the nostalgia factor. The writing isn’t horrible. It’s not great, but I didn’t ever catch myself rolling my eyes. I think it helped that the book is written in the first person, so this high school student’s observations actually feel pretty true to what an 18-year-old straight rich white girl might think about her own boyfriend, her best friend, her brother’s girlfriend, the girl who might be stealing her boyfriend, and her parents. She’s superficial, but realizes it.

One thing that is a bit disturbing is how Mr. Pike addresses economic differences. All but one of the main characters comes from a well-off family, and you can imagine that the one who doesn’t is the one who becomes the biggest suspect. Mr. Pike also doesn’t seem to have the best understanding of nuance in terms of how young women relate to each other – are women always just jealous of each other because of men? That perspective is probably not the best thing for young kids to be reading.

The book isn’t ground-breaking, and at times it veers into the super weird. But I still enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to reading book two.

Three Stars

Who doesn’t want to start the year with a book about pre-WW II Nazi Germany? I mean, what better way to ease into an attempted double cannonball?

Despite the subject matter, this book is not a challenging read. I read Mr. Larson’s book about the Chicago World’s Fair (Devil in the White City) either last year or the year before and found it to be good but tough to get through. This book flowed better, although it didn’t really end. I mean, obviously, it did, but it felt more like I was reading a very long and exquisitely researched magazine article than a book with a narrative arc.

In the Garden of Beasts follows the U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 1933-1934. William Dodd was a history professor in Chicago when he was asked by President Roosevelt to serve; he brought his wife and two adult children with him to Berlin. The story follows Mr. Dodd and his daughter Martha as they navigate Nazi German, when Hitler was Chancellor and there was still a President who was ostensibly in charge.

The main point of the book is that Dodd wasn’t the typical old boys club rich kid ambassador and as such was a bit less interested in the economic issues that the U.S. State Department wanted to address and was more concerned with what was going on with Hitler, the SS, the SA and all the players who we now know were instrumental in WW II and the Holocaust. I have not read a book on WW II or the Holocaust since Diary of Anne Frank, so I can’t claim that everything in the book is wholly accurate, but Mr. Larson is known for writing truthful and well-researched historical non-fiction by telling the stories of the people involved, so I assume it is mostly correct.

I’m not sure if I really learned much new by reading the book. I suppose I learned that the U.S. government was primarily concerned with getting back money from Germany as opposed to the oppression and murder of German residents. But I wasn’t surprised to learn that. It sort of matches the priorities the political elite have always had: money first, then people – maybe, eventually, if there is time.

If you like history, and are interested in Germany just before WW II, I’m certain you could do worse than this book. Just don’t expect a real beginning, middle and end. And be prepared, if you get the non-kindle-version, to mark out the swastikas on the cover. I get not burying that reality, but damn. I don’t want to give people a heart attack while reading a book walking down the street that has a few scattered Nazi symbols on it.

Four Stars

I’ve been reading at a faster clip now that I’m actually done with the Cannonball. Or at least, it feels like it. Maybe it’s because the pressure is off. This latest book comes courtesy of that old traveler’s standby, Hudson News. Even though I have about 20 unread books on my Kindle – including that bastard book five of A Song of Ice and Fire – I always wander into this newsstand/bookstore when I’m at the airport. This book caught my eye and I’m really glad it did.

Ms. Cahalan was a reporter at the New York Post when she started acting strangely. She was paranoid, manic, and even started to have seizures. One doctor thought she was an alcoholic; she eventually was admitted to an epilepsy ward at NYU, where she underwent tests as her condition deteriorated. Was she having a nervous breakdown? Was she bi-polar? Was she sick with something that was physically altering her brain?

It is not a spoiler to say that doctors eventually figured out what was going on. But the journey to get there is fascinating, especially because Ms. Cahalan serves as both the subject as well as the author, but not in the traditional memoir way. Because she has very few memories of that time, she treats herself as the subject of a story. She pursues answers and creates a narrative the way she would a feature story; in fact the book stems from a feature she wrote about herself once she returned to her position at the Post.

The book is well-written, interesting, and compelling. The story it tells is terrifying in some respects, but hopeful in others.

Three Stars

Last week I purchased four books on sugar. Motivated by all the holiday sweets around, I remembered the last book I read last year – Good Calories, Bad Calories – and thought maybe I needed a bit of a refresher on nutrition. I searched for a few books, and I decided to start here.

The book is heavily academic, and focuses mostly on the author’s own research. Although much of it describes scientific study, it isn’t hard to read. Dr. Yudkin is interested in the effects of sugar not just as a cause of diabetes (and it’s important to note my use of the word “a” and not “the”) but as a factor contributing to the increase of heart disease and many other ailments. His research runs in direct opposition of Dr. Ancel Keys, who claims that dietary fat is the cause of heart disease, not. I have to say that Dr. Yudkin’s research is, when coupled with what I read last year in Good Calories, Bad Calories, more convincing.

Dr. Yudkin’s research is especially interesting because it focuses on sugar and not all refined carbohydrates; he is not making the argument that white bread is going to cause illness. And he backs that up with research. In many studies he compares rats fed the same diets except in one group they have added sugar and in the other they have added carbohydrates; in the former the rats have adverse reactions whereas in the latter they generally do not.

I appreciate the book because Dr. Yudkin is quite clear in his arguments that sugar is not the SOLE cause of really much of anything – and even some people who the evidence would suggest should get illnesses based on their consumption of sugar won’t because of other environmental factors. It’s interesting, because the way I read the book, it seems like Dr. Yudkin’s critics want him to only make his claims if he can show sugar is the sole cause of something, or that sugar will definitely cause it. Which is ridiculous, considering smoking is definitely a cause of lung cancer, but not everyone who smokes will get lung cancer.

The book’s last chapter is sort of fascinating, because Dr. Yudkin discusses the ways in which the sugar industry – either directly or via allegedly independent nutrition councils – has tried to discredit or silence Dr. Yudkin. It’s distressing, but it reminds me a bit of when I worked at a pharmaceutical company, and they spent a lot of time trying to discredit an author of a book critical of the industry before the book even came out. When money is involved, people get really defensive.

The main reason I don’t give this book a higher rating is because I think there are others out that that do it better. The book itself is also quite old; I believe this version is from the 80s. Based on other books I’ve read it appears his theories have been supported with evidence since then, but it seems like the best bet is to read a more recent version to have a better picture of why I really need to cut as much sugar out of my diet as possible. But probably not during the holidays. That’s just asking for failure.

Five Stars

I was listening to the radio earlier this week and heard them discussing the movie version of Still Alice, starring Julianne Moore. It sounded interesting, so I started reading it on Thursday, and finished it while at the gym today. The writing was fantastic, the story was interesting and moving, and the small world Ms. Genova created took me in from the first page.

Still Alice tells the story of a cognitive psychology Harvard professor who, at age 51, is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. She has a professor husband and three grown children, and is forced to figure out how she is going to handle this diagnosis. The book unfolds month by month, from before the diagnosis, through telling the family and as the disease progresses. What makes the story different are two things: first, that it addresses early-onset Alzheimer’s (as opposed to Alzheimer’s affecting people in their 80s), and second, that it is told from the perspective of the person with the diagnosis, not the caregiver.

The book is devastating, but not so sorrowful that I found myself depressed by reading it. I really cared about Alice and her family. In fact, I cared so much for her family that I would love to have seen the story told from multiple perspectives (Alice’s husband and her three children, for example), although at that point the book would be 1,000 pages long. But those would be 1,000 pages I’d read. The characters are interesting and flawed – not everyone acts perfectly, and not everyone is wholly sympathetic. By have the main character Alice have multiple children and a spouse, the author can show us how different people might process the diagnosis.

Beyond that, though, and most importantly, Ms. Genova slowly, throughout the book, really shows us what Alice’s experience is as the dementia gets worse and worse. From early on, when she gets lost in a place she’s been daily for dozens of years, to later on, when she can no longer follow the plot of the book she’s reading, the reader gets as much of a sense as possible of what the person with Alzheimer’s experiences.