2014 Summer Reads

I know summer isn't technically over yet, but the Summer Reading Program at my library wrapped up on Friday. The past couple of years I've only finished about 3 books during SRP, but in my defense, I was in grad school at the time. This year I was able to rack up a lot more reads by listening to audiobooks at work and in the car. My goal was twelve and I'm stupidly proud that I reached that goal.

I didn't really think too much about what books I was going to read, but I ended up with a nice mix of fiction and non-fiction, young adult and adult novels. Here's a quick run-down of my summer reads:

1- Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. 
This is a sweet romance between two outcast teenagers growing up in the '80s. I felt like it pretty accurately captures the physical feeling of falling in love as a teenager. Nothing graphic, don't get me wrong. One moment that has stuck in my mind is the first time that Eleanor and Park hold hands, and Eleanor wonders if her hand has sprouted extra nerve endings or if she has always been able to feel so much. Definitely recommend.

2- Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead. 
Astonish Me really seems to pull back the curtain on the inside world of the ballet. It's a work of fiction, but it seems very real. Rusakov has to be based on Mikhail Baryshnikov. The book is the story of ballerina Joan, who helps world-famous Russian dancer Arslan Rusakov defect. Joan later retires when she becomes pregnant and marries her high school sweetheart. Okay, my description sounds kind of boring, but the book is very good, I promise.

3- Just Kids by Patti Smith.
Patti Smith makes New York in the '60s seem like a magical place, where one could run into Jimi Hendrix in a stairwell or Allen Ginsberg at an automat. I kind of wish I had a time machine. My only complaint about this book is that I listened to the audiobook. Smith reads the audiobook herself, and I think the book could have benefited from having a professional narrator. Occasionally, Smith's emotions come to the surface and the audiobook takes on a certain quality, like you're hanging out with Smith and she's telling you stories from her youth. But for much of the book, Smith's narration barely rises above a monotone. I would definitely recommend checking out the print version of the book though.

4- Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink. 
Holy moley. This was a difficult one to get through. There was a point in the prologue where I thought "there's no way I can make it through this book." But I did make it through, and it is a fascinating story. Fascinating in the way that car crashes are fascinating. This is the true story of a hospital in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina, where everything that can go wrong goes wrong. They lose power, and with it the air conditioning. Then the generators fail. Rescue efforts are slow to materialize and inefficient. And then the doctors start euthanizing patients. YEAH. Honestly, this one was hard to get through, so I would totally understand if you want to skip it. I did recommend it to a cousin who is in nursing school, since this book is full of questions about medical ethics.

5- Stardust by Neil Gaiman. 
This is a sweet fairytale romance. I saw the movie years ago and really enjoyed it. This was a really quick read (or "listen" in my case) so I would definitely recommend this one as a nice summer read.

6- Go Down Together by Jeff Guinn. 
I first saw the late '60s film version of Bonnie and Clyde's life of crime sometime in high school. I was on an old movie kick, because I thought being into old movies made me cool. I was never very good at recognizing what made people cool in high school. Anyway, I found the movie fascinating. And then a couple years ago there was a made-for-TV movie. It struck me as odd that we're still portraying B&C in such a glamorous way. It's weird. Gritty reboots are so popular now, I thought someone would tackle the Bonnie and Clyde story in a more realistic way. Then I heard about this book, and I knew I had to read it. Honestly, I found the real story more fascinating than the glamorous version. From the societal factors that lead to Clyde's criminal career to Bonnie's deep embarrassment over the incorrect notion that she smoked cigars (photos had been discovered of her posing with a cigar in her mouth). Bonnie was more worried about people thinking she smoked cigars than people thinking she was a murderer. Anyway, highly recommend.

7- The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. 
Another fairytale novella from Gaiman. Honestly, I wish this had been longer. I would love an expanded version or a sequel where we learn more about the Hempstock women. They're fascinating characters and I would love to know more about their mythology.

8- Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein. 
This was another hard one to get through. I love love loved Code Name Verity. LOVED. This book was also fantastic, but the gritty descriptions of torture experienced in the Ravensbruck women's camp was difficult. I had to take a break from it for a little while. It gets dark.

9- Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. 
I read this book because I enjoyed Anderson's Wintergirls. Not sure which I liked more. This book describes high school freshman Melinda's slow recovery after she's raped at an end-of-the-summer party. Oh, spoilers I guess. Melinda doesn't actually describe what happened to her until about half-way through the book. At the start all you know is that she's now a social outcast for calling the cops to said party. But I knew the secret going into it, and it didn't disrupt my enjoyment of the book at all.

10- Paper Towns by John Green. 
I liked it better than Looking For Alaska. But this book is basically Looking for Alaska plus a scavenger hunt. And manic-pixie-dream-girl Margo is barely in the book, so she didn't get on my nerves nearly as much as Alaska did. So if you've read The Fault In Our Stars and you want to read more Green, skip LFA and just go right to Paper Towns.

11- Notes To Boys by Pamela Ribon. 
Oh man. If I hadn't been too shy to even talk to boys in high school, I'm sure I would have written some notes like this. The overly-dramatic, somebody-love-me-please attitude definitely reminds me of me in high school. Reading this book a single thought kept popping into my head: "I am SO glad I'm not a teenager anymore!"

12- In Between by Kate Wilhelm.
This was a weird one. It's a mystery about two ghosts who solve their own murder. Ghost detectives. Doesn't really sound like my usual thing, right? It's not. I listened to this audiobook specifically because it was only three discs long and I knew I could finish it before SRP ended. I mean, I'm sure if ghost mysteries are your thing you'd like this book more than I did. But I prefer my ghost stories to be more haunted house horror.

Catching Up

I don't know if you know this, but working full-time while also going to grad school is pretty time-intensive. Add a commute and trying to have a life and basically all my blogging time is gone. I wish I had more time to sit and write about what I've been reading, because I have a lot to say about the Hunger Games trilogy and The Great Gatsby and Chopsticks, but I just don't have the time or the brain power to dedicate to writing good reviews. If you want to keep up with what I'm reading, follow me on goodreads.

Here are some recent books I've read:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi
The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
The Walking Dead vol 1 (graphic novel)
Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony

Maybe one of these days I'll get around to writing proper reviews. Probably not.

Catching Fire mini-review

I'm planning to do a review of the whole Hunger Games trilogy soon, but for now here's a conversation I had with my cousin Morgan about the second book:

Me: I'm warning you ahead of time, what I'm about to say is really nerdy.
Morgan: Okay...
Me: I kind of feel like Catching Fire is the Empire Strikes Back of the Hunger Games Trilogy. It has the darker, cliffhanger-y ending where you have to go on to Mockingjay, just like you have to go on to watch Return of the Jedi. And Empire is my favorite Star Wars movie and Catching Fire was my favorite Hunger Games book, so they have that in common too.
Morgan: You know, you said it was gonna be nerdy, but you really outdid yourself there.

Floating Staircase by Ronald Malfi

I'm a sucker for a haunted house story. I love nothing more than curling up with a book that makes me quiver at every strange bump in the night. A marker of a good horror novel is if you have to stay up late watching sitcoms on Netflix in order to take your mind off the scary stuff so that you can get some sleep.

Floating Staircase is the story of Travis Glasgow, a horror writer who moves into an old, run-down house with his wife. Haunted hijinks ensue. Malfi truly has a talent for describing those creaks and thuds that could just be the house settling... or could be something more sinister.

Throughout the course of the book, Travis investigates the death of a young boy who drowned (or did he??) in the lake behind their house the summer before the Glasgows moved in. Through his investigations Travis also has to confront his guilt over the death of his younger brother, who drowned in a lake when they were kids. So not all the ghosts of this book are of the paranormal kind, there are the more common ghosts of human memory as well.

For the most part, I would recommend checking out this book if you're a fan of the horror genre. But, be warned that most of the best spooky stuff is concentrated in the earlier chapters of the book. At some point the book shifts away from straight-up horror to a more standard murder mystery. I would have preferred a little more intense spookiness at the climax of the book, but really, when wouldn't I prefer a little more spookiness? I liked this book, but I wish I would have just rented the library's copy, because I don't feel this is going to be a re-read a la 'Salem's Lot.

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

I wanted this book to be better than it is. When I first heard about this feminist science-fiction novel, I knew immediately that I had to read it. And, yes, I actually read the book instead of listening to the audiobook. This was my winter vacation read.

This book is a retelling of The Scarlet Letter, although I haven't actually read The Scarlet Letter so I can't get too detailed about the similarities between the tale.

In the world of When She Woke, most criminals are not kept in prisons, but instead go through a skin-dying process called chroming. Different crimes get different colors, misdemeanors get yellow, murderers get red, etc. The chroming isn't permanent, it depends on the length of the sentence. Hannah Payne is sentenced to 16 years as a red for having an abortion and refusing to name either the father or the doctor who performed the procedure. Roe v. Wade was overturned after a STI epidemic left a huge portion of the population infertile and extreme right-wing Christians had taken over the government. It cannot possibly be a coincidence that the "Sanctity of Life" laws in the book are constantly referred to as the SOL laws, an acronym that more commonly means "Shit Outta Luck." Pregnant with a married pastor's child? Sorry, you don't have any options because of the SOL laws. It's actually a quite believable plot, and except for a few incidents late in the book, I can totally see this type of future unfolding.

We follow Hannah from the time she first wakes up as a red in the Chrome ward, through her time at a rehabilitation center, then we see her try to reconnect with her family. After that, the plot starts to go off the rails a bit. There is a definite difference in tone between the early chapters and the latter. The first chapters are slowly paced, drawing you in to this story and this world. The last few chapters are really quick, and the characters start acting in ways contrary to their previous actions. I don't want to spoil much, because I would still recommend checking this book out, but I'll just say that there's a sexual relationship in the second half of the book that I have trouble believing. And the ending seems to be resolved a little too quickly and neatly. Those are my biggest complaints about this book.

If you like feminist literature and are looking for a short, quick read, I recommend picking up When She Woke at your local library. It's only 240 pages (according to my Nook), and I read it in under three weeks. And those three weeks encompassed Christmas and New Years, so that's pretty impressive. Had it been a real vacation, where I didn't have work or anything, I probably could have finished this in a day or two.

The Warmth of Other Suns

The Warmth of Other Suns makes The Help look like a piece of shit.

I finished this book the week of Thanksgiving, but with the semester wrapping up and the holidays I haven't had a chance to write about it until now. I had to read it as my "context book" for my Intro to Library and Information Science class. I had 6 options, and this was the only one available as an audiobook, so it won. I'm so glad this is the book I chose, because it is a fantastic book. Because I don't feel like writing it all out again, here's what I wrote about Warmth for my context book discussion (You can ignore the last two paragraphs if you want, that's where I had to talk about how the book related to libraries):

In The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabelle Wilkerson tells the story of the wave of Southern African-Americans who moved out of the South to cities in the North and West. Between 1910 and 1970, the African-American population of cities such as Chicago and Detroit grew by 40%. Wilkerson interviewed hundreds of people about their experiences during the “Great Migration.” She includes many stories from her various interviewees, but the majority of the book focuses on three: Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, who moved from Mississippi to Chicago in the ‘30s, George Swanson Starling, who left Georgia for New York in the ‘40s, and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, who moved from Louisiana to Los Angeles in the ‘50s. Every story is different, but there are definitely common themes. Each person in the migration was looking for better opportunities than what they could find in the south.

The Warmth of Other Suns only mentions libraries explicitly once, when Wilkerson notes that it was illegal for African-Americans to use the “White” libraries in the Jim Crow-era South. However, there are other connections to library science that can be made. In addition to the segregated libraries, Wilkerson mentions how a popular weekly African-American newspaper, the Chicago Defender, had to be smuggled into the South, because it was not freely available. Limiting the access of information by banning the Chicago Defender and having separate libraries would clearly be a violation of today’s ALA Bill of Rights.

While not nearly as significant as access to information, there is also the simple fact of changing demographics. I can’t find the exact numbers, but Wilkerson mentions that the demographics of Chicago went from around 1% African-American at the beginning of the Great Migration to 33% at the end of the migration. This is a huge change in demographics in just a few decades. Public librarians at the time would have had to adapt to provide services to a large number of patrons coming from the rural South, which was a different culture than that of large Northern cities. In the library where I work I have occasionally helped people who are new to the area find resources they need, from the best ice cream shop and playgrounds for their kids to where to find good job resources. Rural Southerners fresh to the big cities would have needed similar assistance, and a library could have been a good resource.

So that's a general overview of the book, but I guess I should explain my opening statement. Two weekends ago I watched the movie The Help with my parents (we have semi-weekly movie nights). I'd already seen the movie when it was in theaters (I took my mom and grandma to see it, because we're a ridiculously cute family). The thing that was different this time watching The Help was that I had read The Warmth of Other Suns. Since Warmth is about the migration of black Americans from the South to the North and West, it understandably contains many stories about inequality and brutality in the South to explain why so many were fleeing. Some of the stories are absolutely horrifying. I find the phrase "necktie parties" profoundly disturbing. What does this have to do with The Help? Neither the book nor the movie really gives any idea of the danger the maids were in by speaking out against their white employers. Watching the movie now after having read Warmth just makes The Help seem somewhat dishonest. The Help wishes it was as profound as The Warmth of Other Suns, but it's just a watered-down, cartoonish version of American history. The Help is designed to make you feel good because you're not racist like Hilly; Warmth makes you feel bad that your ancestors were white Southern farmers. Does that make any sense?

I don't really know how to end this review, so I guess I'll just leave you with the Richard Wright poem from which Warmth takes its title:

“I was leaving the South
to fling myself into the unknown . . .
I was taking a part of the South
to transplant in alien soil,
to see if it could grow differently,
if it could drink of new and cool rains,
bend in strange winds,
respond to the warmth of other suns
and, perhaps, to bloom”

Grammys? I thought this was a book blog!

Two of the books I reviewed this year have been nominated for Grammys. Abby may have thwarted my attempt to completely dominate the homepage with my own reviews, but she can't take this one away from me! I've reviewed 100% more Grammy nominees than she has! That may have something to do with the fact that this is a book review blog and not a music review blog, but whatever.

Between Bossypants and If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't), I'm going to have to root for Betty White. Yes, I enjoyed Bossypants so much that I listened to the audiobook after having already read the book (and then I asked for the book for Christmas so that I could read it again), but I have to be honest and say that Betty White's performance is just better. I love Tina Fey with all my heart, but all the whispering asides in the Bossypants audiobook didn't really work.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I finished The Book Thief on Saturday, and I've been trying to figure out how to write about it ever since. I enjoyed the audiobook immensely. Allan Corduner's performance is fantastic, and listening to his performance may actually have made me more emotional than had I read the paper version of the book.

I wanted to include some quotations from the book in my review, because Markus Zusak's writing is very lyrical. Some could argue that it's overly-flowery, but I think it works, especially considering our narrator. However, since I listened to the audiobook, it's hard to actually remember the quotes I liked, since it's not like I can just bookmark the page and come back to it later. I tried googling for quotes, but most of the good quotes I found were all super spoilery. So you'll just have to live without examples of Zusak's prose.

The Book Thief is told from the perspective of Death. An appropriate narrator for a book that takes place in Germany during World War II. Death is a compassionate and actually quite witty narrator. Death tells the story of Leisel Meminger, the titular book thief. The first book Leisel steals is The Gravedigger's Handbook, which she finds in the snow next to her little brother's grave. She later goes on to steal a book out of a fire at a Nazi book burning, and a bunch of books from the wealthy mayor. Books are the most important things in Leisel's life, next to her best friend and next-door-neighbor Rudy, and her foster parents Hans and Rosa.

I don't want to spoil any of the plot of the book, but should you choose to read The Book Thief, I would recommend keeping a box of kleenex nearby. I'm just saying. I know it's hard to believe, but a book narrated by Death in Nazi Germany has some sad parts.

Bossypants by Tina Fey (audiobook)

I know what you're thinking. "Wait a tick, hasn't Miranda already reviewed Bossypants? What is this, a 'Best of UBC' week?"

Yes, I already reviewed Bossypants. No, this is not a "Best of" thing, because that would pretty much consist of this because it lead to this. This is actually a review of the audiobook version of Bossypants. It was just as good as the print version, maybe even better if you take into account the fact that included is the actual audio of the Sarah Palin/Hilary Clinton SNL bit.

The only problem I had with the audiobook was with sound quality. This is the first time I've tried a downloadable audiobook from the library, so I don't know if it was this specific book or if this is how all downloaded audiobooks sound. Or maybe it's my iPod, which is almost 6 years old. Or maybe it's my car stereo, which is 10 years old. At times during the book Tina would say things sort of under her breath, which didn't really work in my situation because I was listening while driving down a loud interstate in a car whose stereo has basically no volume control. And the whole time Tina sounded a little muffled. But the book itself was great.

There was one section that I had forgot about from the print book that apparently I didn't talk about in my first review. It's the only part of the book I don't like. It's a part where Tina responds to her online critics. This section is not nearly as clever as the rest of the book and really seems kind of unnecessary.

But, all in all, this is still one of my favorite memoirs. I recommend the audiobook just as highly as I recommended the print version.

If You Ask Me by Betty White

So I still haven't gotten the audiobook copy of The Warmth of Other Suns that I ordered from another library. Hopefully it'll get here next week after I get back from my Georgia vacation. I needed something that I could listen to on my way to and from class last night, but not something that was going to be more than a couple of discs, because I don't want to have to put off listening to Warmth (I have to read it for school, and I'd really just like to get it over with). So I looked over the list of audiobooks I had on hold, and one of them happened to be just two discs (about 2 hours and 15 minutes) long: If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't) by Betty White.

If You Ask Me is a collection of stories from Betty's life. Did you realize that Betty White is 89 years old? I mean, I knew she was old, but I didn't know she was almost ninety. I guess I didn't realize she was so old because my great aunt Betty B. was about Betty W.'s age when she died, and Betty B. wasn't nearly as fun or spunky as Betty W. One of my favorite stories in the book was when Betty is talking about how she doesn't want to be a cougar. She often meets men she finds interesting but she doesn't want to go out with them because usually they're all younger than she is. "He might be only 80!"

This is the first time I've listened to an audiobook read by the author. For a memoir like this, it really adds to the story because you feel like Betty White is just talking to you, telling you stories about Saturday Night Live and her pets. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who needs a quick, fun read.

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Read by Debra Wiseman and Joel Johnstone

After my last audiobook, which was violent and difficult to listen to, I decided to pick a cheerier subject for my next listen. I picked Thirteen Reasons Why, which is about a teenage girl who commits suicide. I'm awesome at picking books.

In Thirteen Reasons Why, our protagonist is Clay Jensen. Two weeks after one of his friends, Hannah Baker, commits suicide, he receives a package in the mail (no return address) with 7 cassette tapes. When he plays the first tape he is shocked to hear the voice of Hannah Baker. Hannah made these tapes as a sort of suicide note. Each side of each cassette is about one person who directly or indirectly contributed to her decision to shuffle off this mortal coil. The first person mentioned on the tapes was the first to receive them, and when he's done he sends them on to the next person. Basically, if you receive the tapes, it's partially your fault. Well, sort of. Clay receives the tapes, but he didn't really do anything bad to Hannah. I was wondering how Jay Asher was going to keep the protagonist of his novel sympathetic after we find out how he contributed to a teenage girl's suicide. But since this is a YA novel, I wasn't really surprised to find out that Clay is a super good guy instead of an anti-hero.

It's an interesting book that focuses a lot on bullying, rumors, peer pressure, that sort of thing. There's a short discussion about what is or isn't rape that I found interesting. The phrase "victim blamer" is used at one point, which was awesome. My biggest problem with the book was the performance of Debra Wiseman, who performs Hannah's tapes in the audiobook version.

I'm not sure how it comes across while reading the book, but for several discs I had myself convinced that Hannah was punking everyone and didn't really commit suicide. I mean, it's specifically mentioned that there wasn't a funeral, so it wasn't impossible for her to have faked her death. (Yes, I was raised on Soap Operas, why do you ask?) The whole theme of rumors getting out of control actually could have contributed to my version of the story. But, no, Hannah really did die. Debra performs Hannah as being damn near cheerful on the first few "tapes," which was disconcerting when you consider that you're supposed to be listening to the voice of a girl who commits suicide just after finishing the recordings. The performance just didn't fit into what I imagine a depressed, suicidal teen sounds like. Also, she sounds kind of old. Maybe they wanted Hannah to sound like an old soul, I don't know. And she says "repercussions" in a way that sounds weird to me, and as you can imagine in a novel like this, "repercussions" is said quite often.

In case you're wondering: Audiobooks are pretty much going to dominate my posts for the foreseeable future. I'm in grad school, so all my reading time is dominated by book-learnin'. But, since I have a little over an hour commute each way to class, I can use that time to power through audiobooks for fun. I can pretty much knock out one disc each way. It's great.

Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer

The full title for this book is Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, and I really feel that the subtitle is the least superfluous subtitle in the history of books. Or at least in the history of books that I have read. If I had to choose one word to describe this book, I would have to go with "violent."

Under the Banner of Heaven tells the story of a double murder committed by two fundamentalist Mormons because, essentially, God told them to. But instead of just focusing on the murder and the trial, Krakauer delves into the violent history of Mormonism. The short history (the religion was founded under 200 years ago) of Mormonism has been colored by bloodshed, both committed by and against Mormons. I am not a Mormon, so the history of the religion was new to me. I had read the memoir of a former polygamist before, but she didn't really go in to the history of the church the way Krakauer does. I picked up this book after seeing it recommended several times in the comments section on Jezebel articles about the trial and conviction of Warren Jeffs.

Well, I didn't pick up the book. I picked up the audiobook, and that may have been a mistake. I've been in the car a lot the last few weeks, so I grabbed the audiobook to listen to during my drives. Now, I am no stranger to violent fiction. I started reading Stephen King novels when I was in 9th grade. However, listening to the description of how an 18 month old had her throat slashed to the point that she was nearly decapitated.... I almost vomited in my car. I'm not sure if it was the fact that this is a true story or if it was actually hearing the words out loud.... but it was very unsettling. I guess if I was reading the physical book I could have just skimmed that paragraph, but in the car I didn't have that option. I just turned the radio off and drove in silence until I had worked up the courage to turn it back on.

If you're not so much interested in all the blood and guts, but you are interested in legal proceedings, I would check out this book in order to read about the trials of the murderers. They truly believed they were acting out the word of God (one of the foundations of Mormon beliefs is that all believers have the ability to communicate directly with God). There is a really interesting debate on whether this kind of belief is a delusion. If the belief is a delusion, is the believer then incompetent to stand trial? Does this mean that all religious zealots would automatically be ruled incompetent? Could no person of faith be held responsible for their own actions?

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith is a great book. Check it out if it's something you're interested, but you've been forewarned: it's definitely not for the faint of heart.

Stupid History by Leland Gregory

I really feel like I need to start out this review by stating that I did not pay for this book. I downloaded it because it was Barnes and Noble's Free Friday selection a month or so ago. Sometimes you get what you pay for.

This book had real potential. Stories about people being stupid? Sign me up! However, most of the stories aren't really about people being stupid, but about how somewhere along the way we twisted history so that we believe something that isn't actually true. This book sets out to tell the truth, but I can't actually attest that it does so, because there doesn't seem to be any footnotes or sources listed by the author. He could be making all this up for all I know. I wanted to tag this review as "Non-Fiction?" but I don't think we can have question marks in tags. And I haven't actually finished the book, so maybe there is some sort of bibliography at the end. I don't know.

But the absolute worst part of this book, pardon my French:

THE MOTHER FUCKING TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. There are so many typos in this book, I can only assume the author wrote the whole book while drunk, didn't spell check, and then skipped the editing stage and went straight to publishing. I started out highlighting errors I came across, but it became too tiresome after a while.

The stories themselves are fairly amusing, but I just can't deal with the typos. I'm glad I didn't spend money on this book.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

"It's not fair! She's the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty. If our mother so important to science, why can't we get health insurance?"

Henrietta Lacks is responsible for the polio vaccine. She helped create the HPV vaccine, and numerous other medicines and cancer treatments. And she did it all after she died in 1951. While she was at Johns Hopkins Hospital receiving treatment for cervical cancer, a sample was taken from her tumor that never died. The cells are still growing and reproducing today. And her family had no idea until decades later.

Reporter Rebecca Skloot tells the amazing story of Henrietta's life, her death, and her family. While people were making millions selling HeLa cells (named for the first letters in Henrietta's first and last names) to labs around the world, her children were struggling to get by. This is a remarkable story and one I think everyone would benefit from reading. It's not just the story of one woman's incredible legacy, it's also the story of what it was like to be a black patient in Baltimore in 1951. Henrietta's cousins believed that doctors from Johns Hopkins were kidnapping black people off the sidewalks at night to do medical experiments on them. It's the story of a family coming to terms with the fact that their mother was possibly the single most important person in medical science in the last century.

For a good part of the book Skloot tells about trying to get to know the Lacks family so she can include their perspective in the book. She meets a wall of distrust from the Lackses, until she is able to befriend Deborah Lacks, Henrietta's only living daughter. Once Deborah begins to trust Rebecca, the story really starts to come together. Deborah begins to move from being angry over the fact that her mother's cells were taken without permission, to just wanting people to know who her mother was. That's this book.

Abby read this book before, but I don't know if she ever wrote about it because I couldn't find her post in the 3 minutes I looked for it before I started writing. But I picked up this book mostly because she recommended it so highly, and I'm glad she did. When we got the book in at my library I thought it sounded kind of science-y, but most of the book was focused on Henrietta's family. I would recommend this book to anyone. It's a great read, and a fascinating true story.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help is not a bad book, but it does deserve some criticism for falling into the "White Savior" trope. One of the three main characters in the book is Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, who has just moved home to Jackson, Mississippi after completing her college degree. She wants to be a writer, and eventually she gets the idea to write a book about what it's like for black women working as maids for white families. She enlists the help of her friends' maids, Aibileen and Minny, and eventually 10 more maids join. And they write the book, change the names, publish it anonymously, and everyone lives happily ever after. Well, that last part isn't 100% true.

I can see why this book became so popular with reading groups. It's a really quick read (downloaded it to my Nook from the library Thursday night, finished it this afternoon) and there's really no controversial material. I mean, it's clear who is right and who is wrong. These characters don't really have layers. The protagonists don't have any real flaws, and the antagonists don't have anything but flaws. Celia Foote probably has the most layers of anyone in the book, both good qualities and bad, and she's a tertiary character at best. The only controversy could be whether or not Minny actually put shit in Miss Hilly's pie. That is not a euphemism.

So, while it certainly wasn't a perfect book, it was enjoyable. This was Kathryn Stockett's first novel, and she clearly shows talent for pacing and an ability to tell a story. This wasn't exactly a mystery or a thriller, but there were still times that I had to keep reading and reading just to find out what happened next. However, there were some stylistic choices that grated on my nerves. The book is told from three different perspectives: Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny. Stockett writes Aibileen and Minny's chapters in a Mississippi accent, but not Skeeter's. Now I'm sure there was some dialect differences between society girls and the domestic help, but it really bothered me that the white girl apparently thinks and speaks in perfect standard English, while the black women speak like caricatures. There was also a moment in a chapter told from Minny's point of view where we get Skeeter's inner monologue. That's just sloppy writing, and something that should have been taken care of in the editing stage. She also does that thing that you see all the time in historical fiction where the writer points out something (for no reason) that was new or meaningless in the setting of the novel but has significance to the reader thanks to historical perspective. Like having Skeeter watch the news and hear about a conflict in Vietnam that probably won't last too long. Vietnam is never mentioned again and has absolutely nothing to do with the story. Writers just throw stuff like that in because they think it's clever, but more often than not it comes out clumsy.

I chose to read this book because my mom and grandma read it and really liked it, and I want to take them to see the movie when it comes out at the end of summer. It's not the best book I've ever read, but it was really good. I know I've kind of picked at the faults of the book a lot in this review, but I think it's a worthwhile read. A solid B, even a B+ in parts. I didn't live in Mississippi in the early '60s, so I can't tell you how accurate the storyline is or isn't. So if you're a nerd like me and you have to read the book before you see the movie, go ahead and pick up The Help. The trailer looks like the film will be a decent adaptation. I saw the trailer before reading, so I had the actresses' faces in mind while reading, and I think they did a decent job casting.

The Church of Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns

Well. That was interesting. I picked this book off the library shelf because I was intrigued by the title. I thought it would be a simple whodunnit serial killer mystery, but it's really not. It's more about how the suspicion infects the members of a small town, and how it escalates as each girl goes missing. Also, it's very slowly paced, which isn't normally something I would expect from a mystery novel. But I don't read a lot of mysteries, so maybe the pace isn't actually that unusual.

While the pacing does help build the suspense, I really think the book could have been fifty pages shorter. I know the author was trying to give the reader a sense of the town, but honestly, at some point you just want to know who the killer is. And it took forever. By halfway through the book only one girl had gone missing.

The book starts with a prologue describing the room in which the girls' bodies are found. It sets a gloomy mood for the rest of the book. As each of the three girls go missing, you read about the parents and town members searching and praying for the girls' return, but you know the truth. The girls are dead, tied to chairs in someone's attic, dressed in weird decorated robes, surrounded by melted candles. It's the "church" of the title, and it's a very creepy mental image. The most suspenseful part of the book is wondering if Sadie, the young girl whom the narrator lives near, is going to be one of the dead girls.

The book really spends most of its nearly 400 pages describing how the anxieties and suspicions of a small town grow and grow. At first everyone assumes that it must be someone from outside of Aurelius, because certainly none of their friends or neighbors could have done it. As each successive girl disappears, the townspeople become more and more suspicious of anyone whom they perceive as different. It's really a great examination of how a small town turns on its own members. And the big reveal in the last few pages was definitely unexpected. I found myself thinking "how on Earth did these people live with this psycho and not suspect something was up?" And then I remembered that I live in a small town where a three-year-old was stolen out of her own home and murdered, and the president of our library board was convicted of possession of child pornography in Canada. Those incidents are unrelated, btw. There are evil people everywhere, even if you don't suspect them. Terrible things happen all the time. I mean, Criminal Minds has to get its plot ideas from somewhere, right?

Bossypants by Tina Fey

"I hope that's not really the cover. That's really going to hurt sales." - Don Fey, Father of Tina fey

"Totally worth it." - Trees

You know a book is going to be awesome when even the blurbs on the back of the book are hilarious.

I've been a fan of Tina Fey for years, ever since she first started doing Weekend Update on SNL. This was back when I was young and still had the energy to stay awake past 10pm. She was a tiny, smart, funny brunette. I identified with her. I still do. She rocks the sexy librarian aesthetic by being smart and wearing glasses. I rock the same look by being an actual librarian.

The book is filled with tales from Tina's life, starting as a child growing up in Pennsylvania, through her time at Second City in Chicago (I have also been to Chicago! The similarities are endless), up to her current job as show runner and star of 30 Rock. The book is hilarious, filled with what I assume are the best stories from Fey's life. The book is really more a series of funny stories than a flat, "this happened and then this happened" autobiography, but you definitely get a sense of her life story.

Bossypants is a feminist book, because Fey is a feminists and a "woman in a man's world." Whatever that means. (Wouldn't it be nice if certain areas weren't viewed as a "man's world," but just as part of the world? I look forward to the day that a woman being the head writer for SNL is so commonplace that it doesn't get remarked upon.) Fey is living proof that feminists are not humorless, man-hating bitches. Here are her pointers for women trying to make it in a male-dominated workplace: "No pigtails, no tube tops. Cry sparingly. (Some people say "Never let them see you cry." I say if you're so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.) When choosing sexual parters, remember: Talent is not sexually transmittable. Also, don't eat diet foods in meetings." Those are wise words, my friend. I work in a female dominated workplace, but these are still applicable to my life.

Obviously, I freaking loved this book. We're getting married, and Abby has agreed to become internet-ordained in order to perform the ceremony. You should absolutely read it, it's quick, funny, smart, silly. You'll probably love it just as much as I do, but you can't marry it because I beat you to it and I'm not into bigamy.

I know I already made it quite clear that I identify with and look up to Tina Fey, but there was one passage in the book that made me feel like I might secretly be Tina Fey. While listing off her faults: "I have no affinity for animals. I don't hate animals and I would never hurt an animal; I just don't actively care about them. When a coworker shows me cute pictures of her dog, I struggle to respond correctly, like an autistic person who has been taught to recognize human emotions from flash cards. In short, I am the worst." Yup. That's me. I'm a cat person, which means I like it when my pets pretty much hate me and leave me alone until they want to be fed. I also like goldfish because they never want to cuddle. That actually explains a lot about me. I am the worst.

Finishing "Poplorica." Sort of.

This may be the first time I have ever accidentally finished a book. I was sitting there last night, Poplorica in hand, reading a really interesting chapter about product placement in movies. It might have been my favorite chapter in the book. The next chapter was about the invention of a certain golf club driver. I don't know if the chapter was as boring as it sounded, because I decided to skip it. The golf club chapter starts on page 225 of 284, so I thought I still had another chapter to read. Turns out those last 60 some pages are all chapter notes and index. I thought about going back to read the golf club chapter just so I could say I read the whole book, but the overwhelming boringness of golf persuaded me to just call it a day.

The boringness of golf leads me to the point I want to make about this book: your enjoyment of it is directly related to your interest level in the subject matter. As a Mad Men fan, I enjoyed the chapters about the birth of product-placement and market research. Reading how these now commonplace marketing strategies were started was really interesting. Also extremely interesting were the chapters about Night of the Living Dead, graphical user interfaces, and tabloids. Even the chapter about the slam dunk and how it shaped the NBA carried a certain amount of nostalgia. As a kid growing up in Chicagoland in the '90s when The Bulls were Gods, everyone liked basketball. That chapter brought back memories of watching games with my dad, watching Michael Jordan soar to the basket.

Other chapters were less interesting. Seriously, who cares about golf? (Yes, I know. Abby's husband golfs. He would probably like that chapter.) After reading Bonk, the chapter on Kinsey seemed really light. And I get where they were going with the chapter on pantyhose, but I think a chapter about bras would have been more interesting. How did we go from longline bras and girdles to modern bras? From custom-fit to ABCs? I also think discussing the invention of the birth control pill would have been fantastic. As it is the chapters that talk about women's liberation are the ones about frozen dinners, pantyhose, and disposable diapers. I know I'm biased, but I would have loved more chapters about women and society.

Overall it was a good book. It was easy to read and well researched. Definitely worth the $1 I paid for it.

Poplorica by Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger

I know it looks like I must have developed a life or something over the last few months, because I haven't posted any book reviews here since early November. I assure you this is not the case. I haven't actually finished reading anything recently, but since there's nothing I love more than procrastinating on finishing my grad school applications, I'm here tonight to post about the book I'm currently reading, Poplorica.

I picked up Poplorica for a dollar off a Borders clearance rack years ago. I had completely forgotten about it until I pulled it out of a big box of books I rescued from my old bedroom at my parents' house. I started reading it last week and so far I'm really enjoying it. It's got a great balance of history and humor. It's well-researched without being heavy and boring. I've finished the first four chapters, which were about front lawns, air conditioning, calorie counting, and Alfred Kinsey. The purpose of the book is to look at the small inventions or ideas that lead to bigger movements and are still influencing our society today. Like how a landscape design book from 1870 praising grass lawns lead to nearly every household in America having a lawn, despite the fact that most Americans hate yard work. How Alfred Kinsey's unsuccessful honeymoon lead to his research that helped fuel the sexual revolution. How the invention of air conditioning prompted a population boom in the more conservative Southern states, shifting the votes in the Electoral College for each state and therefor influencing national elections.

It's an interesting book, and the chapters are nice and short (about ten pages each). I'll let y'all know how the rest of the book was when I'm finished. The next chapter is "The Rise of Tacky Chic" and I am pumped. There's nothing I love more than a little tack mixed in with my chic.

Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips For Better Writing by Mignon Fogarty

Did you know it's grammatically incorrect to start a sentence with "hopefully?" I was writing an email to a coworker this week and caught myself making that mistake. Fortunately, I've been reading Grammar Girl so I was able to correct the sentence. Not that my coworker would have cared or even noticed, but I can't help myself. I'm a grammar nerd. I find language endlessly fascinating.

Grammar Girl's book is a great resource for hard-core grammar nerds or anyone who cares to write properly. I think it would be a great book for college students. Mignon Fogarty's writing is very accessible, much more so than the style guides I had to buy for my college English courses. She has some great memory tricks to remember grammar rules. One of my favorites was her tip for remembering when to use "whom."

It's a simple memory trick-- we'll call it the "him-lich" maneuver. It's as easy as testing your sentence with the word him: if you can hypothetically answer your question with the word him, you need a whom.

Here's an example: who/whom do you love? Imagine a guy you love-- your father, your boyfriend, Chef Boyardee. I'm not here to judge you. The answer to the question Who/whom do you love? would be "I love him." You've got a him, so the answer is whom: whom do you love?

You'd be surprised how often I've thought of that trick since I first read it. It's quite handy.

The whole book is full of useful grammar advice and tips, and it's really a fun read. I highly recommend it to everyone. The copy I read came from the library, so sadly I'll have to return it, but I've added it to my Amazon wishlist. I'm hoping someone will buy it for me for Christmas so I can have a copy at hand for all those times I need an answer to a grammar problem.