this was a psychological thriller with small stakes that read like high stakes. in other words, a Very Canadian thriller. the author did a great job of foreshadowing the doom so that every incident seemed fraught with an array of malice. I loved how 'Canadian' the ending was too - not a flashy ka-boom (and even an apology for not yielding a flashy ka-boom!) but a realistic description of the mundane, never-ending nuisances that must accompany the fallout from a stalker but is never portrayed in a Hollywood thriler
No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
my first thoughts: did this woman just steal anecdotes from twitter to fill her quasi-novel? although couched in poetic language I recognized so many of the useless, wavelength-like arguments seen on twitter. the periodicity of fidget spinners discourse for example: from popular to predictable backlash, to autism/able-ism protection to gotchas on the former-backlashers, then finally excavating the fidget spinner history to pre-colonial times before landing in the ever-conflict field of Israel/Palestine. And, as the author points out, all this in a span of 4 days.
but as I immersed myself in the short paragraphs and disparate vignettes - recognising blow-ups, enjoying fresh interpretations, laughing out loud at absurdities, and recoiling at sudden bursts of profanity, it became clear that the reader was supposed to experience the novel like experiencing the scroll thru social media: what starts out as random enjoyable bits of information, deteriorates to depression. and then part two hit.
wow.
whereas the first part was consumed by 'the portal' and it's distracting reverberations, part two slams back into real, tangible life with a grief so expertly written, it had to come from experience. (and in the acknowledgements, we come to see this is true)
overall I was amazed at this young author's ability to clearly see the absurdity of our current obsession with useless minutia (even while immersing herself in it). I really didn't think the foreground of social media had any value to a creative mind, but she used it as a springboard for emphasizing that life is always much closer.
The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel
this tried to be a history/memoir of Bechdel's lifelong pursuit of physical fitness (thru karate, yoga, skiing, cycling, running, and more) as a means to achieve a 'zen' mind, a calm mind. it's a calmness she rarely achieves. she has difficulty maintaining a stable routine since creativity, her profession, is not confined to a 9 to 5 schedule. In trying to sleep at night, her practise of using a mental playback of repairing a flat tire no longer works. Pills and therapy provide small bursts of relief. meandering passages about the transcendentalists seem like filler - for both the book and her mind. as time times on, she references sporadic injuries and ageing and often want to confront her impending death and yet the actual death of her father and decline and death of mother do not provide any epiphanies, or closures, or even pivot points.
in the end, I wonder if Bechdel is suffering a creative stagnation, having already plumbed her relationships with her parents (and unwilling to divulge such intimacies of her current or recent lovers) she seems left with only her self. a solitary pursuit can be interesting to the person doing the pursuit. but to uninvolved others, it's just boring.
Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney
I continue to the mystified with the public's infatuation with Rooney; this is her debut novel and it's the same impossible 'empty' descriptors that maybe masquerade as deep. (p57 I lay on the bed in my clothes and wondered if I was going to start feeling some particular emotion, like sadness or regret. Instead I just felt a lot of things I didn't not how to identify) How can I take seriously a main character that is so divorced from herself? Is that not the definition of an unreliable narrator?
As a person, Frances is ridiculously unformed. Her sexual relationship with her best friend seems like a extension of her gratitude for (finally!) having a friend. their break-up is not her choice and their subsequent platonic relationship seems entirely directed by the friend. (It is more than symbolic that their poetry duo consists of her as the writer and the friend as the on-stage performer.) She is uninterested in both her future and how she will pay for this future. Her taste of poverty when her father stops her allowance doesn't move her to confide in her friend, nor more seriously consider her future. The only person more yielding and pliable to their circumstance is the object of her new desire: the married Nick.
curiously, after she receives what she considers an edited-for-effect email from Nick's wife, it is not long after she uses the same affect when apologising to her friend for featuring her as an unflattering character in a story she's written. If this is a story of how Frances wrests control of her life from her friend, it's not doing the job it thinks. Frances is merely transferring value from the friend to Nick.
lastly, having lived in Dublin in the past, this passage was absolutely baffling (and indicative of how American oppressor discourse has infected the western world's academia): "Am I myself, or am I them? Is this me, Frances? No it is not me. It is others. Do I sometimes hurt and harm myself, do I abuse the unearned cultural privilege of whiteness, do I take the labor of others for granted, have I sometimes exploited a reductive iteration of gender theory to avoid serious moral engagement, do I have a troubled relationship with my body, yes." Since when is Ireland a hotbed of white privilege? And if this is a real concern of the author, why not feature a person of colour in the pages of the actual book?
Hate Inc: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another by Matt Taibi
written in 2019, this was an interesting exercise in political and cultural fortune-telling. the author used to cover politics with Rolling Stone so had press access to campaigns as well as copious free-time (writing monthly versus weekly or daily) with which to contemplate the showmanship of said campaigns. couple that with his years experience inside media and growing up watching his own journalist father, and it's a pretty slam-dunk analysis of how we got to this point in history. News as a hustle, as an addiction, as a consumer product, as a creator of folk devils: it's all here.
his chapter on how the news is like pro wrestling was one of the funniest political commentaries about the rise of Trump and our blindness to how we all contributed to it. you realise just how much of success is due to instincts. and we should be worried because Trump is not done. His instincts might be easily explained in retrospect, but we'll be reacting in real time when he resurfaces. our media landscape will not be ready for it.
Paying For It: A Comic-Strip Memoir About Being a John by Chester Brown
what an odd defence of prostitution and a person's choice of life habits. Chester takes takes us through his experiences with prostitutes with an honesty that is both admirable and uncomfortable. After I noticed a discrepancy in the timeline, I kept track of his encounters - chronologically - on a tally sheet, not unlike his own diaries of the events. Chester prefers young, pretty, thin, big breasted women who provide good sex while appearing to enjoy themselves. oh, and at a cheapest rate too. Is this any different for the majority of johns? it's no mistake that after visiting numerous prostitutes he had quick, 2 or 3 page chapters with women he didn't enjoy where he makes a mental note to give them a bad review; he's fully invested them as a commodity that can be summarily dismissed.
the appendix of the book is a standard push for the legalisation and normalisation of being paid to have sex throughout people's lifetimes, whether male or female, old or young, fat or thin, pretty or ugly. (please note that when this ideal world arrives, Chester will only chose one of those dualities every time.) the author posits that the current acceptance of being gay can be a blueprint for future acceptance of sex work (which explains to me why folks are lobbying for the red umbrella to be added to the pride flag). And there's the usual malarkey that consent can be purchased, and yet also renegotiated in the moment; a difficult juggle if the consent was already purchased. lastly, it is abundantly clear that sex trafficking was nowhere on Chester's radar when he started this project as he spends a lot of time in the Notes section reflecting on his conversations with various women who could, potentially, have been sex slaves. will it surprise you to know Chester was able to reassure himself every time that No, he did not engage in such a morally repugnant activity? of course not.
Florida by Lauren Groff
this collection of short stories was published in 2018 but there were a many instances where I sharply recognized a passage, though not the entire plot of each story. so it was a relief that I saw that 4 of the 11 stories had been previously published, as early as 2011, and all in The New Yorker (so likely on-line), and so very likely that I did read them before and that I'm not suffering a new kind of chronic case of deja-vu. that, and the recurring themes of survival and portent danger lurking made my reading experience one of anxiety. I can see what a gifted writer she is, but she is firmly in the pessimism camp: climate change will wipe us out and doom is our inheritance.
Groff tends to leave her characters unnamed, making their plight both more tangible and immediate to the reader but also, somehow, inconsequential to the larger world. her narrators are deeply recognizable, as least to me, a woman, a grad student, a wife, a mother. not since Alice Munro has an author so finely dissected the minutia of these little lives.
Kingdom by Jon McNaught
another reviewer said: it doesn't tell a story, it captures an experience
to that I'd add: there IS a story. a mundane, near-universal story. AND it captures the experience of that as well. It was as if Alice Munro could create a graphic novel. the details are quiet and important and contain a multitude of meaning. a teen boy testing his independence. a mother trying to recreate a beloved memory. technology at times overlaying, and at other times interfering with, tangible life.
How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa
beautiful little gems. I surprised myself with the amount of gratitude I had for stories that came from so many perspectives: women, men, young, old. it's not that wide a range but that an author, in this age of gated identities, felt the license to do so was incredibly nostalgic. what a beautiful reminder that at the heart of it all, we are all simply flawed humans.
Stone Fruit by Lee Lai
I must admit I found the drawing style alienating; everyone with flat faces and heavy, ugly bodies. except it's probably the best way to draw a story that you are supposed to misinterpret as 2 lesbians when it's actually a woman and transwoman.
there's heaviness in their family of origins, and it's heavy within their relationship. the only joy is thru the eyes of their niece which cannot sustain them. you can understand why Bron needed Ray as a lifeboat as she navigates away from her family (and I assume, transition) but not enough explanation why Ray would equally run from her family – because what you assume is her sister's homophobia toward both women ends up being specific to Bron. so transphobia.
ultimately, it's an overly vague tale that leaves our suffering characters still very much suffering.
Don't Label Me: An Incredible Conversation for Divided Times by Irshad Manji
first off, there's a prescient quality in reading a book about the culture wars (for lack of a better term) that is more than 2 years old: terms that are now loaded are freely used, terms that are currently overused are not even invented yet, and it seems there's more room to speak against 'A' without automatically being labelled as a supporter of 'B'. Or perhaps her intersectional identity as a lesbian Muslim woman of colour gives her more cover than most?
I was not a fan of her framing the book as a conversation with her dog but, at the same time, can understand it was a device to present the material in a friendly, non-confrontational way. (And maybe I can see the value of owing a dog when I am old, aimless, and lonely). as for the material, it was rarely challenging to me as I already agree with everything she wrote.
so things I liked:
right from the start she admitted her unearned identities have played an outsized role in bringing attention to her ideas. she advocates for going first, as in: if I hope to be heard by you, I first have to hear you. that taking offense is an avenue to power. the unspoken rules of allyship: listening means unquestionably agreeing with how victims perceive their situation. we should proceed as if we're right, but also listen as if we're wrong. and the final section with actionable steps for cultivating honest diversity made the book more than a mere meditation.
Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner
what a vapid waste of time. a plus sized (I guess the 'big' of big summer) woman has a boo-hoo highschool/college experience, trips her way into slight infamy, and exploits that 20 minutes of fame to pedal herself into the minor leagues of instagram influencer culture. she reconnects with her former friend/tormentor for a mutually beneficial collaboration but singsongs her praises once said friend/tormentor turns up dead/murdered. Oh then she turns into Nancy Drew. God. The very essence of an empty summer read compounded by the author's thirst to show her social justice bonafides (pg. 299 paraphrase: "don't tell me my boyfriend might be the type to insist there are only two genders?!" Um, did we meet more than two in your novel?)
Open Borders: the Science and Ethics of Immigration by Bryan Caplan
A graphic novel rationalising the move to open borders in the USA.
This is an important description because Caplan, at one point, argues that there is no reason for the US to NOT have an open border with lovely, friendly Canada (um, as we'd take our canadian money over the border and spend it all on cheaper american goods and then come home for our free health care. ie: Canada wouldn't like it) so obviously this open borders concepts is meant for the whole world to embrace if other nations aren't to be negatively affected. but how American to think a world solution originates in an american policy!
there were many spots of what I'll call optimistic logic: stating that most government spending is not population dependant (using the army as an example) when the obvious areas of health care, education, infrastructure and welfare are absolutely tied to population. As an economist, he used the GDP as a measure of global success, even going so far as to state we might enter a second industrial revolution. but how can and would this be embraced in the face of overpopulation and climate change? He argues that diverse cultures allow everyone to enjoy the best on offer (which used to be true before fear of appropriation dampened enthusiasm) . But he also, without meaning to, revealed a negative cultural practise of valuing boys more than girls when he used a graph that showed immigrants have double the number of boys than girls in the 0-4 age range.
The section on keyhole solutions was morally appalling, reinventing existing limits already imposed (or proposed) on legal immigration, like demanding money and cultural assimilation in return for admittance. Each solution would only work in a vacuum. for example, you cannot increase the number of female immigrants in response to a worry that there are too many male immigrants AND have an entry fee AND have an entrance exam. every limit proposed make
Thin by Lauren Greenfield
A photo essay literally depicting the eating disorders of women, only women. some are teenagers, some young mothers, some even in their 40s and 50s. but always and only women. Threaded thru many of their stories is body dysmorphia, sexual abuse, control issues, anxiety and depression. I couldn't help but reflect it was a natural extension of her photo essay from 4 years earlier: Girl Culture. And it made me reflect on the cycling, seemingly contagious, self abuse that girls and women do to themselves as they try to figure out their place in the world: anorexia, bulimia, cutting, and now the newly emerging insistence that they are 'born in the wrong body'. Strangely, this latter affliction is embraced as a panacea; some magic solution to rid the depression, to erase the sexual abuse, to create the perfect body thru drugs and surgery.
Godshot by Chelsea Bieker
started as a good book by throwing us into a slightly dystopian future and trusting the reader to fill in the knowledge gaps. Baptisms in pools of warm soda, neighbouring towns with names like Paradise, food -even cheeseburgers- now coming in tinned form, wildfires burning in the north AND south. All of this points to a recent past where climate change did indeed alter the usual way of life. Into this persistent drought, it is self-explanatory that hope in the form of religion, specifically a cult, could gain such power.
now the cult portion of the book was tedious and easily telegraphed that it would morph into sexual abuse. and the main focus of the novel - the feelings of a 14yo continually abandoned by her mother - was needlessly prolonged and is the main reason my affection for the book turned. But then the worst was revealed when (finally!) the now 15yo leaves the clutches of the cult and enters a state of the art hospital that shows no signs of the dystopian affect that the reader took for granted. To be clear, the author NEVER explicitly explained why this town was so backwards, but what is the reader supposed to make of a setting that is so jarring? and of a protagonist that wrestles with her belief in both God and goodness for the better part of a year? if the real world is just outside, and the real world is not consumed by natural disaster, how is ANYONE in that town making choices that should be/would be driven by desperation?
You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz
ah the easy joy of a paperback! enough people bought the book in the first place so a mass market PB was ordered up, and it did not disappoint. well, except the near ending was a tad too contrived (in-laws that didn't try to contact their grandson except for the birth? a bastard baby placed in their care without the prime suspect's wife being informed?)
but mostly this was the very definition of a summer read. I'll definitely be getting more by this author.
Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano
when the first chapter opens in an airport lounge and introduces over a dozen characters, you know it's not going to end well. thankfully, the author doesn't keep you hanging too long and the second chapter opens with the wreckage. there's one survivor and we alternate between the hours and minutes before the crash, and the continuation of life for the 12 yo boy that loses his whole family.
it felt a little John-Green-Does-An-Airplane-Crash. the ending was protracted, with too many codas, and ultimately too pie-in-sky for my tastes. as usual, i've forgotten why this novel was on my TBR list; lots of people are swooning over it and it was simply... fine.
Nine Nasty Words: English In The Gutter Then, Now, and Forever by John McWhorter
learned a lot about the history of curse words and was reasonably entertained in the process. 'Swears' (originating in the purest form of swearing to God) have evolved from a religious nature, to body form and functions, to group identity slurs. Since swearing is most effective when delivering a punch, the words keep evolving: I don't give damn slid to I don't give a shit and is now I don't give a fuck. And we particularly like the bite of a word that ends in a hard sound. Hence the current purchase of bitch, faggot and so forth.
I am usually a speller of the 'bad' words and this book really got me thinking about how arbitrary it is that I've decided which words are verboten. The author himself thinks the expression 'Not giving two shits' to be so much worse, visually, than 'Not giving a shit'. He also has a negative opinion of rabbits which merited a fellow reviewer to spend almost half her review taking issue with it! Can't we simply allow people to hold contrary opinions?
Lastly, I was already a fan of McWhorter's work at The Atlantic, his podcast appearances and his substack, but his level and depth of language expertise just floored me. Linguists really are the shit!
Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
this was a dense read involving the history, evolution, and philosophy of a movement called post modernism. It made me better understand how and why the ideas took root, but mostly made me feel depressed for our future. it seems there is no winning when you're damned if you do (ask a minority group to share their knowledge is epistemic exploitation) and damned if you don't (leaving out of a minority group's knowledge is epistemic violence). the very proliferation of post modernism into so many disciplines (and inventing new disciplines like fat studies) is another depressing reality: we've spawned a generation that almost prefers a victimhood narrative than a chance for true enlightenment, growth and happiness. some people really do think they can 'frame' their experiences and transcend reality (like biology and pathology).
I certainly had my suspicions about the power of language confirmed: it's the easiest way to manipulate change without having a public discussion (here I'm thinking about how 'sex work' wormed it's way into modern discourse which ends up legitimating an exploitation into a career path).
besides the positive notes at the end regarding Liberalism as our best strategy against all this new Theory, my highlight takeaway is a response to the Shut Up & Listen people: I will listen & consider, I will listen & investigate. But I will not listen & believe; that is not something you can mandate.
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
I know I should be embarrassed to rate this book 5 stars: it's not highbrow literature (said in a British accent) and it's not some ground-breaking story. But it spoke to my generation with compassion, it was filled with quirky observations about life, it made me laugh out loud many, many times, and it came with an extended weeping session at the end (such a cathartic experience to get a good cry out without upending your actual life) - what more could a book deliver?
I heard a paediatric doctor say on television that a generation ago, parents used to come to him and say "Our child's wetting the bed, what's wrong with him?" Now, a generational later, they come to him and say "Our child's wetting the bed, what's wrong with us?"
with lots of little insights as above, the book was conglomeration of genres: a mystery for the audience to solve, a philosophical treatise about capitalism and even a romance or two or four. It unfolded easily like a film inside my head (but would fail miserable if someone tried to make it: you NEED the character's inner dialogue to 'get' the humour and the wry insight. Please don't ruin it Netflix!!)
Sweet Tooth: Volume 6 Wild Game by Jeff Lemire
In light of Netflix releasing Sweet Tooth as a series, I realised I'd better finish the comics before they ruin it for me. Surprisingly, there was only one volume left. I re-read volumes 4 & 5 to refresh my memory, as well as my reviews of them, and then read this one.
Hm. Although I gave volumes 2-5 a '4', this one only gets a '3'. The art is still original and great, but the ending was too pat and predictable. I don't really fault the creator as endings are HARD. And a poor ending (for me) is no reason to not enjoy the bulk of a story (see I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak)
Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
I'm not a mystery reader but this one was worth the exception. The first half follows the investigation of the rape and murder of a lawyer from the DA's office as well as the politics of being re-elected to that office. Lots of interesting, behind the scenes stuff involving police procedure, etc. But the second half was the best: the trial of our narrator - a fellow prosecuting attorney now seeing and preparing a court case from the defense table and the fleshing-out of a fascinating character in the prime defense lawyer. It's not surprising that the author wrote another book, a sequel or at least set in the same time and geography, just about this lawyer.
An aside: As a old book (published in the 80s) it was a little shocking to read descriptions that, in today's ready-to-be-offended audience, would be construed as sexist or racist. to be clear, even Stephen King wrote in this manner back then and it made books interesting, colourful and memorable. Once I got over the unease of someone reading over my shoulder and tut-tut-ing me, I enjoyed the nostalgia of immersing myself so fully into the taboo world of the politically incorrect but deliciously vivid characters.
SinFest Volume 1 by Tatsuya Ishida
I discovered Tatsuya Ishida in radical feminist groups where his skewering commentary on liberal feminism (it's *empowering* -sarcasm deployed- when women choose to be reduced to sexual objects) was thrilling to see. Plus a side dish of incredulity of how men are somehow in charge of deciding what is feminism (?!). So I went in search of his older work.
This is from 2009 so much of it was tame, and maybe even quaint. could anyone have predicted how vulgar language would become?? How much religion is no longer even an issue, now that every one is an atheist?
Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism by Kathleen Stock
straight from the introduction, and with plain language and no hyperbole, Stock explains the context and history of this thing we call the Trans Debate. the first 7 pages are enough for any layman to situate himself - and that's an incredible feat given the many strands possible.
first off, I'd like to congratulate Stock on using novel terms for concepts that have been mired by political ideology; using different terms allows the reader to focus and follow the argument and not waste time reacting to the 'political correctness' of terms. Specifically, the use of misaligned gender identities, immersive fiction, and the comparison between non-trans and trans populations allows fresh eyes to step outside their usual ideology. (She is also abundantly clear about which of the 4 definitions of 'gender' she is currently using)
It's hard to narrow the strengths of the book: isolating the progression of the concept of 'gender identity' was especially enlightening, but so was the systematic breakdown of both sex and why it, as a concept, is still necessary. approaching the subject matter using philosophy allowed for straight forward analysis and minimized the usual preamble of I'm-a-good-guy-I-hate-Trump-I-vote-Liberal nonsense.
The only disappointment comes near the end when Stock inexplicable calls out a couple of individuals for criticism by name, like Julia Long and Douglas Murray. I'm not sure she needed to specifically target them. Julia Long has respected credentials and the attack on her approach to feminism and activism was strangely personal. And by specifying the plight of women prisoners sharing quarters with convicted rapist transwomen Karen White, the issue of the spousal veto, the dismissal of trans widows, the right of Muslim women to access same-sex spaces and concerns for school girls being forced to use gender neutral toilets, *after* the tirade of Julia Long's type of feminism, Stock seems to imply radical feminists don't share these concerns as well. Her continuous use of the term 'mainstream feminism' (instead of 'third wave feminism') in allowing these incidents to go unchallenged doesn't properly acknowledge that radical feminist (2nd wave) as well as gender critical feminist are challenging ALL these injustices.
As for the criticism of Douglas Murray, she says in his book The Madness of Crowds, his idea of intersectionality as a perpetually moving hierarchy is unhelpful, if not harmful. but then Stock almost proves his point to be true when, in addition to the usual race, socioeconomic class, sex, and sexual orientation axis, she also adds homelessness, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and drug addiction to the way one narrow group (incarcerated women) should be viewed. And I'm sure another 10 categories could be added before all factors are accounted for.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
a pleasant enough read, it reminded me of the semi-romances I read in the 90's - Maeve Binchy comes to mind but I might be confusing her with another author.
I did scoff aloud a few times: a young man telling a 15 yo girl about her period! the black community having the spare wealth to provide sun and sundry for her! and her unable to fathom what comes after 29 even though she has a paged bible right in front of her! Then there were ridiculous conveniences like getting $5000 for a book about shells, being called a biologist without receiving any schooling, and suddenly a lawyer straight out of To Kill A Mockingbird comes out of retirement. BUT - but I'm pretty sure Danielle Steel had also characters show up just in time to deliver a plot point and coincidental events to allow the story to progress. In fact, I'm betting alot of the love that this book got is from readers who miss those old books that just spun a yarn without trying to deliver an overt social justice message.
We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samantha Irby
categorized as 'biography', this is a collection of millennial blog posts that fit the personal essay - essays that involve an unusual amount of pooping until you find out that Irby has Crohn's disease. So maybe that encapsulates the trouble I have with a book that is supposed to the biographical, but is so disjointed that her quirks arrive ages before the explanations. For example, her concern that people are going to call her the N word (4 times) far outweighs the number of times she IS called the N word (once). Her excellent chapter "You Don't Have to be Grateful for Sex" contains the duality of being young enough to still be sucking her thumb, and savvy enough to be a champion masturbator. Ultimately, I might be too old to get any value out of this endeavor. And, as a member of GenX who understands the hyperbole that Millennials bring to the table (Dude, every day I dream of chewing my wrists open and emptying them until I'm dead) I do wonder how GenZ is going to top it.
Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
unfurling like a VH1 Behind The Music episode, this was a nice little story about rock and roll that DIDN'T go where you expected it to. And and I'm so grateful that this was a romance that took the harder, less glamourous road of stability and resolve. As a plus, it also made me realize the depth and detail required to make a truly great record, and the so-obvious-now reasons that bands like The Lowest of the Low break-up just as they hit their stratospheric high.
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
where to even start? A group of randomly drawn together graduate students who are mostly gay men, who won't eat meat at parties, who use fake personas to approximate intimate relationships with each other, who allow blatant racism to be unchallenged, who can identify their own hurts and insecurities but cannot fathom this is a universal experience, spend an excruciatingly long weekend together gazing at their navels, violating each others' privacy, getting hurt, causing hurt and gossiping. in other words: friends?
first off, the grad student aspect had lots of potential - it IS an isolated, privileged life where the money comes from grants, adolescence gets extended, and it's natural you might ponder the point of life as you watch your old cohort moving on to the next stages of their career. but the author only addresses that through a sidebar discussion with Vincent, a longterm boyfriend of one of the grad students. when the main character toys with the idea of leaving grad school it's framed as a calamity, as if an education is only of value if you finish with a PhD, as if he'd slide right back to Alabama with no prospects for his future
and there is no context as to why Wallace's faculty advisor has turned on him, no scenes of their interactions before the combative rival grad student, the one who accuses him of misogyny, arrives in his second year. this rival grad student has an oversized dislike for Wallace that the reader has to assume is based on racism (or she's batsh*t crazy, switching a protein prep kit rather than admit a setback) and yet Wallace can walk past a couple with children and remark to himself: "their parents bring up the rear, an attractive middle-aged man - Wallace has seen him on the app, he thinks - and a woman with a tight, mean face, dark hair, green eyes, lots of freckles, skin like an aging banana peel"
but ultimately it was the sex descriptions that left me cold: especially the (let's face it) rape scene near the end that was bewildering, disturbing, and somehow part of the plot's climax. the sex starts as a brutal assault which mimics Wallace's childhood sexual abuse, switches to a passive assault where Wallace essentially pretend to be a willing partner, and then moves to an actual fight with biting and punching. and then there isn't a resolution. nothing. which is also part of the plot's climax: as opposed to Miller, Wallace sees no point in talking about terrible things that happen to him because it doesn't change the fact that they happened.
and that encapsulates the novel. horrible things happen. and there's no point in going further than that. who wants to spend 300+ pages in that?
I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
So weirdly, I thought the title referenced a wish to kill themselves and didn't realize until pg 33 that it was referencing a break-up, and so I had to start the book all over again. except I was right the first time. jeez
this author wrote tension WELL. the level of unease, and even physical nausea, that I felt hasn't been matched since Blindness by Jose Saramago (there was even his style of halting the story to mediate on philosophical issues). Unrolling like a movie, the plot starts midway thru a roadtrip to meet the parents' of a boyfriend who live deep in the country, where there's no one else nearby. Things turn weird as soon as they arrive but there's no way to escape; no people to plead with. Things get progressively worse as you scream at the narrator to NOT LEAVE THE CAR! but you're trapped in the movie, and you're going to have to see it through. And yet...And yet.. if the tension is not actually real, and we're supposed to be rooting for the girl/victim, are we left caring about how it all ended? Sadly, I say: No. High points for style and atmosphere but if this is how Psycho ended - no one would have filmed it
The Walking Dead Compendium 4 by Robert Kirkman et al
Done! Finally. Surprisingly they went out on a high note, civilization resumed and all thanks to the great Rick Grimes.
I noticed a part (about maybe 2 years before the series abrupt end) that it was veering into woke territory when a scouting group meets up with a new loud-mouthed purple-haired character that announces how pleased she is that there is an arab-american, asian-american and african-amercian in the mix to add to her mexican-american presence. She follows up with her pleasure that there are only 2 men and only 2 whites, so it's not just representation she wants, it's also percent of a group. (p.s. there were 2 lesbians in there too, but purple-haired loudmouth couldn't suss that out by appearance) I did worry when rival society The Commonwealth was introduced that it would be based on white supremacy but no, it was just classic elitism. One more baddy to put down before the world was made right.
Happy to be done. If I'd know it was going to be THAT long, I wouldn't have started it
The Push by Ashley Audrain
Infinitely readable, this novel tries to reflect the upheaval that motherhood brings: impacts on the self, the couple, expectations and the myriad of judgements are all covered. The story seems to be a mediation of what went wrong between the couple after they have children, the details of their first baby mostly used as evidence of the loss of his love and her own ineptitude. Yet, her ultimate bonding with her second child, a sort of falling-in-love, was a mirror image of what happened between her husband and daughter. The author did a good job of placing primacy on her partner, using the 2nd person throughout the book, almost like an extended letter. And as her life widens to encompass her new relationship with her son, the use of 'You' drastically slips away: very much like how new boundaries are drawn after parenthood: you tell each other you won't change, that you'll stay the most important person, but things change without your control. welcome to motherhood.
But that wouldn't sell a book so we are told that Violet, the first born, is a devil in training. A biter (witnessed by the mother-in-law), a bully (evidenced by the hair clippings in her pocket), a psychopath (she *maybe* trips a playmate at the top of a slide and he falls to his death). When the narrator's second born dies, grief swallows her and you can't know if she's a reliable narrator (except for the burns the hospital treats; another giveaway) The book goes back to it's heavy use of 'You' as her husband resumes his place as her primary anchor and she acts in ways to please him, even while she distances herself from her daughter. But he's already moved on, to a new family. A terrible betrayal.
I guess this is where the book reveals its weakness. Is it about a doomed romance like the framing leads you to believe, or is it a story about mothers and daughter like the interludes of her mother and her grandmother's lives. The author uses that conflicted history to explain away all problems with Violet and the narrator finally comes to a place of understanding and compassion for her daughter. Except no. there was evidence all along the way; the evidence was never in question, the way an unreliable narrator is. The book tells you not to worry, with absolutely nothing to back that up. It's a bait and switch but I doubt anyone fell for the bait. Ultimately, We Need To Talk About Kevin did the whole motherhood intersecting with psychological drama thing much better.
Self-Care by Leigh Stein
the revolutionary 'personal essay' that overtook journalism in the aughts has morphed into the bite-sized affirmation/inspiration photojournalism found in social media. This book shows that regardless of female empowerment and the rise of women in leadership & entrepreneurial roles, the back-stabbing nature of capitalism will not be denied; we just get 'sold' new things. In this case, it's a self care social media platform. and the satire is strong: it's a radical and selfless act to care for oneself because, once properly rested and recharged, we women will emerge as game changers. ya, right.
Devin is a Gwyneth Paltrow type and spends her hours maintaining her perfect body and skin, continually aware (and labeling) all the brands. It's a sick joke but what's sicker is realizing that the current stable of influencers (and wannabe influencers) must devote entirely too much of their brain space on this. Khadijah is the obligatory POC that both provides cover for the company, and content for the website, ghost-writing for Devin. Khadijah continually projects her life as possible content topics (or at least headlines) and frames her pregnancy as a double pronged strategic opportunity: great PR to display female-friendly policies and a currently ignored market: her life as a profit generator! Maren is the workaholic algorithm master that mines trauma and authenticity for clicks and users. By the end of the book she seems to have been absorbed into the vapid culture her start-up endorses - an energizer bunny that, if picked up and moved to a new direction, will just keep beating that drum. And that's what is frustrating about the book: why does Maren morph into Devin? I echo alot of the other readers here, the book stopped too soon.
Indians On Vacation by Thomas King
a meandering sort of novel. the narrator is a thinly veiled version of King himself: a photojournalist/writer with dubious personal ties to the first peoples, an aging activist that was loud but not loud enough to achieve the revolutionary changes he pined for, an economically comfortable man who can't starve off the tyranny of illness and its inevitable end.
there's lots of anger in this book; much of it is couched in satire but is recognizable all the same: loud-mouthed American tourists, the 60s scoop, refugees, toxic masculinity, residential schools. King is willing to admit he has been complicit in the world he's earned and is angry with himself. At the same time, he creates a posse of mental-health afflictions (kindly personified with names and the capacity to converse amongst themselves) that allow the audience to forgive him; he is suffering afterall. And in this age of quick-shifting morality and ever-growing penalties for missing the 'right side of history' it feels like King is trying to shore-up his legacy.
How To Be A Woman by Caitlyn Moran
first off, this book is 10 years old and the author was 35yo when she wrote it so maybe it would have spoken to me when it was fresh and society had sort of turned their back on the need for feminism? instead, for me, it's a collection of things a woman is supposed to care about (clothes, expensive bags, unwanted hair, how to tame your breasts) but I don't. She's a columnist so it's no surprise each chapter could be a standalone article, and humour is obviously a part of her appeal. unfortunately, when humor is involved, you can reiterate topics or use lists to drive home a punch line but it's also an excellent way to extend your word count while not adding to your premise (but again, this should not come as a surprise as there's backpage recommend from Jenny Lawson and she's another one who could use an editor.)
there is a unifying structure in the first 7/8th of the book with enthusiastic titles of: I Get Fill-in-the-Blank! which is effective when it's a 13yo's lens, not so much when you're in your 20s. The final eighth of the book breaks the title pattern and tries to get serious with 3 chapters on birthing children (too dismissive of traumatic births), choosing to be childless (the most inane since she can't relate) and abortion (the strongest entry). Mostly though, it screams "Someone gave me a book deal so whatever" and she used her opportunity to spice up her childhood, brag about her dorky yet cool youth, and declare adult opinions that I'll bet have shifted alongside the culture. when you're an "It girl", you must keep up.
The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through the Culture Wars by Meghan Daum
What a snapshot in time! I read this book when it first came out (18 months ago) and already the stories it covers are almost nostalgic for me: Aziz Ansari and #metoo overreach, famed Weinstein-accuser Asia Argento getting caught with an underage boy and the whiplash of backlash, the Kavanaugh hearings, Jussie Smollett, and YA books being cancelled left right and center. It really brings home the truth that we are immersed - shallow and wide - in the present culture at the detriment of knowing deep history. Our gen is the last to have experienced analog adult life and we are obsolete before our time; the younger gen has no use for us, no wisdom they want from us. we are in the way.
Daytripper by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba
My second read (I first read this in December 2011) and I thought I somehow missed a part because the biggest takeaway for the book (the very act of procreation is admitting you will die) is not actually, specifically expressed in the graphic novel. It was such a strong message that I put it in the book. And the moment didn't happen under the tree, it was misplaced letter from the man's father telling him that when you have a child, your life no belongs to you and the child is now your master. You spend the rest of your days making sure they can survive without you. He wrote his son this letter because HE was about to have his first child and the cycle would begin again. He writes to his son: Your life is out of your hands now... just like mine has been since the day you were born. I'm writing to congratulate you... and admit that you don't need me anymore.
A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum
First off - great opening: "I was born without a voice, one cold, overcast day in Brooklyn, NY. No one ever spoke of my condition." But the first person quickly shifts to third person in subsequent chapters and loses the immediacy and charm of the opener. I should have liked this book more; it collects a myriad of ways that women are subjugated solely due to their sex: preference for male children, (near) child marriage, unpaid labor, higher expectations wrt morality, domestic violence and finally death. but maybe it's a little TOO on the nose. In fact, I'm a little surprised it hasn't been labelled as transphobic as all these pitfalls belong clearly to women, and only born women. (heck even the title of the book is a bit of a swipe at TWAW)
It was telegraphed too early that the mother-in-law killed her own babies because they were girls, and so it felt a bit of a copout to vaguely explain it was due to goat's milk (or maybe the m-i-l is still lying to herself, cause it sure seemed like she squeezed the life out of them) Also, the suitor is portrayed in a sympathetic light, even though it soon becomes obvious he thinks there's an acceptable reason to murder your wife!
but my biggest complaint is the drawn out final third of the book where the daughter wrestles with herself over commitment to her family and culture versus making her own decisions. to be fair, this is likely a cultural blind spot for me: it's an obvious choice (for me) but a truly earth shattering course of action for the character. And then when she finally declares her autonomy, there's no financial repercussions or discussions. No one can just 'go' to college; she needs real support from the purse-holding grandparents.
Putney by Sofka Zinovieff
wonderfully layered novel that explores the same terrain as My Dark Vanessa, but with greater (and more likely) reverberations. told from 3 characters' viewpoints, the nuance is build-in. also the author smartly opens with the sexual predator narrator near dying, and the now-50 yo victim narrator unable to view her childhood with an adult's perspective. lastly is girl's friend who witnesses the interactions, catalyzes the conflict, and blurs the motivations of her younger and current-day self, adding credence to the bewildering world of budding sexuality. about one-eight from the end of the novel is a scene that I think might be near-universal for girls who grew up when I did, a place where innocence, desire and agency cannot be untangled. Lolita-themed books have been around for 60 years; it's no accident.
before anyone thinks nuance is a form of blamelessness or forgiveness - of course there is an absolute truth here: adults are tasked with protecting children on pain of consequence, but once the terrible thing has happened, how and what is the best way forward? does a public spectacle serve a personal goal? (this was another good reason to have the friend, a 3rd party as a narrator) and her inclusion ends up being the biggest revelation of all. except for the very ending where an over-dramatic death neatly caps the story, I loved everything about it.
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
perfectly acceptable pish-posh, but pish-posh all the same.
I loved Eleanor & Park so much; maybe too much. She captured highschool and lust so well. This story is set in college but feels even younger than Eleanor & Park, at least for the protagonist, a Harry Potter-type obsessive who writes gay fan fiction in between her barely described (or lived) college experience. Add a cranky roommate, a way-too-perfect boyfriend, and a crazed twin sister who provides tiny glimpses of (too stereotypical) college life and you get mediocrity.
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
written in the same opaque style of Sally Rooney (another modern Irishwoman), this novel was both bewildering and instructional, for the same reasons. Young people have entire new sets of anxieties and communications now that texting and emojis and stalking-through-social-media are layered on top of real life interactions. At some point, the protagonist interprets an in-person comment that followed with a smile, as more emotionally damaging than if it had been a text, followed by a smiling emoji. The wall is so solid that she can't even reach her own emotions at times. In fact everyone was emotionally distant, especially to themselves. Growing up with the proper social-justice expectations to reject classism, colonialism and white privilege but being immersed in upper middle class society in a foreign country is living non-stop with cognitive dissonance. It must be exhausting. And lonely. No wonder this gen is anxious, depressed and suicidal.
It is only near the very end we learn the protagonist was taunted for 'appearing' to be gay in high school. Is this really her big trauma? I know Ireland is late to the game with respect to women's rights, but is being a lesbian such an earth-shattering pronouncement that she can't tell her family? Wasn't the "It gets better" video made over a decade ago? Also, she treats sex as transactional (trading it for a better place to live) and casual. She moves on to Edith without specifying that *this* sex is substantially different. Like Rooney, the intimacy that characters share is completely divorced from sex. Instead, power is the goal. Come to think of it, that's not surprising if you grow-up seeing all of life through a power differential lens. hmm.
Anyhow, even though I couldn't muster any concern for the characters, I did enjoy the author's construction of wry observations like: "the more compound adjectives describing an apartment, the higher the rent". She excelled at using Irish-English idioms as a literary device:
"The dictionary would not equip these children for Dublin. "Mind yourself" upon leaving a house was different to "Mind yourself" when using a serrated knife. "Don't mind him" meant he'd be teasing you, and "Mind him" meant either to take care of him or to take care of yourself around him. And all your minding happened in one mind, hopefully your own.
I was forever minding things in Hong Kong, but I couldn't always construe in what sense."
There were gems like that throughout. Sadly, this device can't be used in a subsequent book (without being gimmicky), so this debut might be all we get from Naoise Dolan.
Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier
my mother asked me why I'm so obsessed with this topic; what does it have to do with me? The afterword of this book made me be able to voice it: all the mothers, so in love with their daughters, confused, worried, walking a tightrope of panic and self-censorship. how can any mother turn off the concern for their child's welfare that was born right alongside that baby? So, with Shrier's last chapter revisiting all those pair bonds, it made me realize that, for me, this is a sympathetic metaphor for the fracture I felt when my own daughter hit her teens and all former traces of her disappeared...
The best parts of the book were observations that could be pulled out and applied to a more general audience, like the 'therapy language game' that frames normal emotion as illness in search of a diagnosis, and that a symptom pool leads to inflated diagnoses. The reminder that assemblies that try to curb eating disorders and anorexia just as often read like seminars on how to join-in. It is telling that in hospitals, the anorexics that live together have much slower recovery rate than the ones who are kept separate.
The worse parts of the book was when she indulged in her inner eye-roll, especially when introducing the Youtube transmen influencers. With their candor, I doubt they realized their interviews were going to be used against them and I couldn't help help but feel sorry for them and their impending groveling session before the trans community.
Becoming by Michelle Obama
An enjoyable read, I took a lot of pleasure in seeing her early life unfold in the same ways as mine, and particularly liked her adult reflections of things children take for granted like her mother or her parent's marriage. Like her, I believe a good job is an unseen/unnoticed job. coming from humble beginnings both Michelle and her brother acquired ivy league educations and high salary careers but both were unhappy with the results of being driven and successful. I couldn't help but wonder how their parents took it, having given most of their lives and resources to their children to 'swerve' to less prestigious vocations. I didn't realize that Michelle's mother went to the White House with them and was instrumental in making life there with young children possible. what a universal revelation: no woman can have it 'all' (a family and full career) without unpaid, outside, usually female, help! in retrospect, her mother deserved more focus and more acknowledgement in the book.
We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life by Laura McKowen
This woman set an impossible hill to climb when she opened her getting-sober memoir with a black-out-drunk incident where she left her 4 year old alone, in a hotel, overnight. This is pivotal moment, right? Nope, it takes another year of fits and starts before she's able to commit to a sober life. Plus the level of her selfishness (and her obtuse blindness to it) is exasperating. at some point she firmly says you need to cut anything or anyone that doesn't support the life you want but also tells the story of showing up drunk at a sober party, where a woman she's met only once before drives her and her daughter home, 45 minutes each way. What about THIS woman's life? If she had been as self centered as the author, she would never have given up a portion of her social life to practical strangers!
Honestly, I feel for her (and I'm worried. more about that later). though it takes some time to unravel her chronology, her story is someone with a compulsive, addictive personality. it's obvious that journaling was her coping mechanism; so much of the book is effusive ramblings akin to a teenager's navel gazing attempt to dissect her life (I'm sure it worked well in instagram-portion bites) After she is firmly sober, she turns to ironing out her problem patterns with men and then her finances and then her sleeping pill habit. at the end of the book, she reveals she's newly focused on food. Not the go-on-a-diet craze that is frowned upon, but the new what-you-put-in-your-body health fad, a lucrative direction for someone with a large instagram following. So my fear is her addictive personality is still thrumming and the 'high' of a book (and the letdown of after-a-book) might throw her back into her bad habits. I mean, that's a lot of pressure.
The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047 by Lionel Shriver
many times seeming like a crash course in economics, this dystopian near-future depicts the increasing ruin of one family after the USA defaults on its loans internationally and cuts itself off, economically, from the rest of the world. Four generations of varying wealth and varying entitlement soon are all equally screwed: there's no safeguard: be it stocks, savings, or gold. even farmland is nationalized when all other forms of wealth are grabbed by the government. a household of 3 plus 1 tenant stretches to 10 and then 14 as family members lose their homes to foreclosure and fire, ultimately to be turfed on the street by a gun-toting neighbor. the final quarter of the book, set more than a decade later when 'order' has been re-established, is more exciting and ultimately quite hopeful but uses a plot twist that we all saw coming and was never going to be believable.
ultimately, the book was too academic and philosophical to truly be a work of fiction. yes, it got me as scared (if not more so) than the other dystopians like The Wall or Blindness but it also bored me a bit when characters pontificated about monetary policy. (waaay too much exposition to be believed) I mostly enjoyed the embellishments like the new slang, new styles of clothing and home decor, that latinos dominated the language as well as the government, Mexico shutting *its* border and building a wall, and characters purposefully named after search engines: Goog and Bing. Shiver is great at writing many personalities and how each has to adapt (or not) to the new world order. she does a great riff on how it's easy to conclude that being raped is actually worse than being murderer
Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights by Helen Lewis
when a man marries his housekeeper, the GDP falls.
fascinating, infinitely readable, and chockful of shocking laws, some that have only been recently overturned! Lewis argues that we need to divorce admiration from love because all these feminist pioneers had plenty of warts to go around. being 'problematic' is no reason to be written out of history. air-brushing flaws through collective forgetfulness is not doing these women any favours (as role models). instead, she asks us to embrace these difficult women who were instrumental in the women's right movement. in the age of twitter and baying mobs, it's a welcome message
No Great Mischief by Alistar MacLeod
such a beautiful novel about a family in cape breton with deep ties to scotland. their clan have this mystical bond that is both enviable and recognizable. they just seem to 'know' one another when they meet - by their red or jet black hair, the colour of their eyes, their turn of phrase, and even the loyalty of their dogs who cared too much (descendants of that first dog who jumped from the shores of scotland and swam to the family's boat). i loved it as if it were my own family's history.
and it is a deeply Canadian novel, the geography and the attempts to tame it, the Wolfe and Montcalm underpinnings, the French Canadian detours that acknowledge their clans go just as deep. we are all one.
Daughter of Family G by Ami McKay
not as morbid as I thought it might be. her family has a history of specific cancers going back generations. the older sister of her great-grandmother created a huge family tree while collaborating with a physician (who believed eugenics would improve mankind by weeding out the inferior) to kick off a study of heredity wrt cancer. and yet, later on this same family history is useful in isolating the gene causing this family's cancers, proving that scientific information is neutral - what you do with it is political.
as an aside I wonder about the author's willingness to display herself and her diagnoses. she got her first big break as a storyteller doing a radio documentary on CBC that had her receiving her cancer gene confirmation live and that feels so exploitive (even if you do it to yourself). if the price of fame and success is having no privacy, I don't want any part of it.
and lastly, even though there is this huge family tree available, there aren't many strong connections outside the author's nuclear family: her mom, her dad, her sons and maybe one cousin. she makes a point of saying she and her siblings were kept connected thru their parents; that they didn't speak to each other, but kept up-to-date by news reports thru their parents. so when the parents died, they had little connection. that reality is in stark contrast to the book I'm concurrently reading, No Great Mischief, where the bonds of a (fictional) family are deep and almost mystical. I'm beyond sad that families, even in the face of a cancer diagnosis, are so easily weakened by time and geography.
The Walking Dead Compendium 3 by Robert Kirkman et al
I was reading this series when it showed up on TV - and got super popular. I figured the author would prefer to keep the money flowing and keep churning out chapters. Anyhow, I recently found out that he DID complete the thing, so I'm back to do what I like best: finish things
what to say? it's a gross, bloody story that numbs you to the violence with it's repetition; I've learned to skim thru the killings. still it was a shock to see them heads on pikes at the close of this compendium (but artistically a *very* creative way to hook it back to where they were last)
The End of October by Lawrence Wright
published in april 2020 as the pandemic shut down the world, this book about a fictious lethal influenza virus was - at times - scarier than my concurrent read, The Walking Dead. Chockful of historical tidbits, it was a pleasure to passively learn so much about disease, vaccination history, and past pandemics. On top of that, forays into government, the organization of the Haj, and life on a submarine meant this author (of at least 10 non-fiction books) did intensive research before writing this piece of fiction.
but the last quarter of the book dissolved all the seriousness of the first three-quarters. Russian plots, global war, an evil scientist, and the piece-de-résistance: the origin on this new plague can be blamed on bloody climate change. the new bogey man.
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