I can still read!

I really slacked off in December with books. I'm pretty sure I only finished ONE book, but considering some months I finished more than two and January I'm on track to finish at least four, I think it evens out! So I'm going to discuss one December book, and one book I read almost entirely on New Years Day (minus the two chapters I had read before)

Book #1
Everything is Perfect When You're a Liar by Kelly Oxford

This was on kindle special for $1.99 so I figured what the hell. She's a "twitter celebrity" that has somehow gained a whole lot of fame and followers. I've never been overly fond of stuff that I've read of hers, minus the very rare times she's actually pretty emotionally honest. This seemed more like Look How Cool I Am: Humblebrag edition. This is a memoir without any sense of self awareness. She comes across as very full of herself and falsely modest. (You know, when people mention that OTHER people say that I'm x, y and z but oh golly I don't know...) I liked it the most, I think, when she was talking about her childhood, though even those were tinted with various degrees of how smart and amazing she was.

This is a person that came from a good family, married very young (and very well). Her writing is full of privilege of varying degrees and I can't imagine how exhausting it would be to be around such a narcissist full time. It would be impossible to be her number one fan because that title will always belong to her. Maybe the title was more literal than first thought?

Book #2
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Okay, I have a mega crush on John Green. Gosh, he's cute! Okay, that out of the way.

The first few chapters were a little jarring. It's a book written from the perspective of a 16 year old girl with cancer. If I didn't know that this was written by a man in his mid 30's I would have assumed it was written by a young girl and the protagonist, Hazel, was a total Mary Sue. This isn't a good thing, by the way. But as the book went on I feel like he found his voice and it become more authentic and realistic. As previously noted, I read almost all of this 313 page book in a single day, having read two chapters the day before.

The plot itself, even the "twists" I saw coming from a mile away, but it was still relatively moving. It's important to keep in mind that this is, indeed, Young Adult fiction. It's a good book and a fairly quick read. It's being adapted into a movie which I will likely see, and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for the other 3 books he's written. And mooning over his youtube videos. Smart, funny, and handsome! Gosh.

Coming Clean: A Memoir

Extraneous books get their own post! Why? Because I said.

 

Coming Clean: A Memoir – By Kimberly Rae Miller

 

This is yet another memoir (I seem to be really into those these days!) and was also written by a blogger I’ve been reading for YEARS. I read a lot of blogs and hardly ever comment on them, but I think I’ve made an exception for hers before. It’s a pretty good blog that’s sort of fitness/healthy eating orientated but it has a lot of personality and slice of life stuff. She’s always seen like a relatable person and one that I would enjoy hanging out with. She fairly recently got engaged so yay to that! Anyhow, moving on.

 

This story is mostly about her childhood and what it was like living with a hoarder father and the toll it took on her growing up and the ways it still impacts her today. It was really shocking when she announced what it was about because this was something she kept very much a secret even from the people close to her. Even as an adult she was still trying to deal with this as there were many times she would have to help her parents clean/organize so they could move again or in one case when her mom got incredibly sick. These were things she mentioned in passing, almost casually, on her blog but in this book we find out about the chaos behind the scenes.

 

If you have any interest in what it’s like living with a hoarder this is definitely worth reading. Well written, eye opening, and compelling. It’s amazing what you get used to and the ways you can adapt to deal with whatever problems you’re facing. I have a lot of respect for her and the way she both chose to handle writing about this and for the incredibly love and patience she seems to still have for her parents, when some people would have just thrown in the towel. I would recommend this book to just about anyone.

 

The two books for month #2

I read two books for month #2, in addition to my bookclub book (We’re reading The Handmaid’s Tale in case you were wondering.) Here are my thoughts on them!

Book #1 The Kid by Dan Savage I saw this in my interlibrary ebook loan system so I checked it out (ha!) on a whim. It was written in the late 90s so it’s pretty outdated, but it mostly serves as a platform to provide some light autobiographical details about Dan in addition to chronicling the adoption process of two gay dads in the Pacific Northwest. It provided some interesting anecdotes and that is a process I knew very little about.

Of course, now it’s pretty likely that some of the rules and regulations described have changed but it was still interesting reading. Dan had his typical dry wit and it was a pleasurable and sometimes humorous read. I find it particularly interesting that I was reading it while I was learning about Rutherford B. Hayes and it featured a chapter called, I think, Rutherford B. Finger. Apparently Dan’s proctologist is the great whateverson of our 19th President! How funny. I thought that was an interesting coinkydink.

Book #2 Dr. Sleep by Stephen King I have two schools of thought on this book. On the one hand, I really enjoyed reading more about Danny Torrance and what he grew into as an adult. I thought making him a (recover(ed)ing alcoholic was a believable, if somewhat predictable, path to take. I loved most of the parts with him, his new life, etc etc. What I didn’t like? Well, the basic premise of the book itself. The supernatural justification for writing it to begin with. The True Knot? Felt shoehorned in, haphazard, and never once like any sort of legitimate threat. Like most of King’s books this absolutely fizzled in the last 15% or so and went out with not even quite a whisper so much as a cough.

I love King. I really, really do. But his strengths lie in his *characters*. I would have loved a 400 pages book that dealt with Danny and his life post The Shining. Just a guy, fighting his (not literal) demons and going through recovery and starting over. That’s the book I want to read. King is GREAT at thinking up grand and terrifying ideas but often the execution and especially the ending fall flat. Maybe this is why the Dark Tower are some of my favorite books of his, they have so much world building and character development that in the grand scheme of things to actual supernatural/hinky stuff take a far back seat.

Lots of Wind Up, not so much pitch

Now that I’m not ruminating on Breaking Bad, I can discuss something else.

SO. September book: The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. My tl;dr is: Not a fan overall.

The protagonist, Toru, is an interesting character. He is not what one would expect out of a stereotypical Japanese business man. To even American standards he’d be considered a slacker, by Japanese he’s downright sinfully slothful. He quits a well paying job at a law firm that offered him a good career track for… nothing? Ennui?

It starts off as an interesting examination of a man bucking societal expectations and the fallout in his life and marriage as a result of that. Had it remained about this, I probably would have enjoyed it much more. As it stands, I liked Book 1 the most and Book 3 the least. I think the book largely suffered for trying to mix the mundane with the magical. Some authors manage to do this successfully, but here it oftentimes felt like two entirely different books had been sliced together. It didn’t always flow or make sense *within the narrative* and the abrupt pacing changes were jarring.

I found it to be an easy read overall, as in I was able to read it very quickly, and it did have a lot of the lyrical prose that Murakami is known for. It does a lot to explore and examine the history behind Japan’s involvement in WW2 and all that happened well before Pearl Harbor.

The book throws a lot of questions, side plots, and nonsensical elements at you along with enough red herrings to fill an entire boat. The point of this seems to be the subvert the expectations and conventions of western detective stories and instill a sense of wonder and whimsy in readers. The lines between fantasy and reality are blurred and reason and logic do not apply to this story, much as they often don’t apply in real life.

He is mostly successful in a storytelling sense, but whether or not that makes it a welcome literary contribution is up for debate. It at times seems to defy order for the sake of it and the lack of cohesion and closure feels less like an artistic choice and more like he fell asleep at the typewriter and picked the plot back up 10 pages later.

Reading is the most fun a girl can have without lying

So. #21 on my list is to Read More. I set a goal of reading at least two books a month and last month I did just that! Here are the two books I read (sort of.)

The first book I read I'm going to be a bit vague about. It was self published by guy whose blog I follow and he's kind of a whinebag. He's been known to go on blogs "defending" his book and I don't want that all up in here. I'll say that the title is "Timmy" but with a J. Anyway, the title character is an angsty high school kid that ends up kidnapping multiple girls at his school. It was pretty terrible in multiple ways. Not because it was too gory, or too extreme, or too much for my delicate sensibilities to handle. Oh no. It was poorly written, and contrived, and I ended up skimming most of the last bit of the book because it was just that godawful.

Have you seen American History X? You know the scene where Eddie Furlong's character turns in a paper on Mein Kampf? Then, when he gets called into the (black) principal's office he sits back all smug and cocky and is all "Well, you told me to write a paper!" chuckle chuckle look at how edgy I am? Yeah. It's like that, in book form. There's a difference between shocking people in order to grant them a new perspective or understanding and shocking for shocking sake. A way to push awareness into their brain or showcase how horrible something might be. Sometimes shock is the most effective form of communication. Apocalypse Now was shocking and brutal in highlighting the horrors of war and what it does to man. This is not that. It's shocking *just* to get a reaction. The author is under the mistaken impression that a negative reaction proves that he's "doing his job right" and that obviously if you don't like his book you are just 2 square.

Except for the part where your plot, dialogue, characters, setting, and everything else were just poorly written. I couldn't find a single good thing to say about the book other than good on him for finishing it? I am  not a delicate flower. I have Seen Things and Read Things a thousand times worse. I am not offended or shocked by the events that happen in the book. I am offended and shocked by books that bore or frustrate me. It is *badly* written. That's why I don't like it.  And that's okay!

Second on the list is Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman. You've heard about this by now and probably watched the tv show. In case you haven't though, here's a brief breakdown. Yuppie girl meets Drug Runner Girl. They fall in love. Yuppie (Piper) smuggles some of the money around. They break up. Fast forward many years later Piper goes to jail for this, leaving behind her (male) fiancé. She spends a year in prison. The tv show was entertaining, but only similar on the surface.

In the book not a lot happens. She does her time and everyone she ever meet seems to love her. That's not really a criticism, just a statement. The world loves White Privilege Piper and while she seems *aware* that she views the world through that filter it still (heh) colors her writing some. I would be much more interested in learning the story of basically anyone else she did time with. It's not a bad story though, and it's a pretty quick read, but it just lacks much conflict. Something will get worked up to be a big thing and then nothing will happen. I guess that's a lesson to learn. Sometimes things aren't as bad as you expect and sometimes something that seemed like it could be life ending actually ends up quietly disappearing into a puff of mist. The is the way the world *doesn't* end. Not with a bang, but with. well. Nothing.  It was worth a read, but not a purchase. SO, thanks Library e-book lending!

I'm currently reading something for book club in addition to a Dan Savage book. Not sure what I'll read after that. Still got a few weeks to make up my mind!

you shouldn't read underwater

This ties into #22. Which one is that? Glad you asked!

22. Start a club of some sort. Book club? Movie club? Underwater basket weavers club?

Okay, I think I decided to start a book club thing. I am reading two books a month, so I will make one of those a book club selection. I really have no idea what I’m doing. But. I think I will be posting discussions on g+ but for the local people also having an in person thing? I think that’s how book clubs work. Anyway, I have a list of the books I plan to read already and I don’t want to add to that significantly so the book list has basically been decided. I know some book clubs work by each person choosing one bla bla blah but not this one!  There’s a decent selection of “heavy” reading but also some lighter fare. It’s all what one would probably consider “literature” for whatever that’s worth. Which is mostly a way of saying we won’t be reading any Mary Higgins Clark or Stephen King. (Though I do enjoy those authors!)

Okay, so the first book will be The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. I know, it’s a big one! It’s 607 pages. A whopper of a biggun. That’s roughly 20 pages a day. I know, it’s a lot! Luckily we have a 3 day weekend to look forward to. It’s also kind of a heavy read. I love Murakami though, he has some of the most lyrical and beautiful writing. Hopefully this isn’t too much for anyone, the rest of the books chosen will probably be shorter! Or, you know, not.

Any Murakami fans? I read and ADORED Kafka on the Shore, but that’s the only one of his I’ve read so far. I’m really looking forward to this one!

I really like spreadsheets

So. I made a spreadsheet. I am doing this Aug-Aug so it’s 13 months, though not really full ones! I broke some of the more nebulous ones into manageable goals with monthly “Tasks”. I have one Tab for Monthly (with a line/row for each month and activity) and a tab for the more vague activities. I have 13 things to do each month! Yikes! Luckily some of them are incredibly easy (call family, go to a new place, write a letter) and will just require that I remain aware that I need to do them.

I also created separate tabs for movies and books. I assigned myself 8 movies each month, which is about 2 a week. 13 doesn’t divide evenly into 100 so I have some wiggle room. If I have seen the movie in the last 5 years OR more than once overall I am marking it off. If time allows, however, I will rewatch those movies towards the end. I am setting a very important ground rule for these viewings. I will watch them as if I were in a theater environment. That means no cell phones, tablets, computer usage, etc. Of course, I will allow myself bathroom breaks and such! This way I don’t end up playing Plants vs Zombies for 2 hours while On the Waterfront plays. Some of these movies will be an exercise in patience. For that reason each week I will probably choose one movie I either look forward to watching or have no expectations for and one movie I don’t particularly look forward to seeing. This way, the latter half of this year won’t be loaded with all the things I avoided seeing.

Books I am going to be pretty laissez-faire about. I have TONS of books so will have no problem finding 24 to read. I do, however, want to step outside my horizons a little bit. For that, I looked up Entertainment Weekly’s recently posted “100 must read” list. There are a lot that I’ve read already, but I picked the ones I find interesting that I haven’t. There’s a pretty decent selection there of classic classics, modern classics, high literature, popcorn reading, etc. My list is complete. I have a nice selection of stuff I own but haven’t read, and stuff I have neither read nor own. I am cheating slightly by choosing a book on the EW list I already started, but I only got about 50 pages into it so I’m giving myself a little leeway.

The first two movies are Apocalypse Now and The African Queen. I’ve only seen AN once about 8 years ago? I think I may have watched part of African Queen many, many, many years ago but this was well over 15 years ago so it hardly counts. Also, it quite possibly could have been a different movie entirely. Who knows! I can’t say I’m looking forward to seeing it. It was definitely on the “ugh, really?” side of the list. Anyone see this? Feedback?

The book I’m reading this month is A Confederacy of Dunces. Since the month is half over, I’m probably only going to be reading one book. The means I need to read about 20 pages a night to finish this one, which is more than doable. I like it so far. The main character is so unlikeable (purposefully) but in a way that delights me. He reminds me of most of the people in online comments on the internet. He’s just so terrible and smug! Ahahahaha.

So far, so good. At least as far as planning stages go. Plan, plan, plan. Planning is always my favorite part of just about everything. Next up I plan (heh) on making tabs for the more nebulous of goals and brainstorming.