Review: Fight Club

2019 CHALLENGE: 1 YOU HAVEN'T READ THAT YET?! PER MONTH 06 / 12

5 stars. Fight Club is spoken about with such reverence and now I understand why. I understand why it peppers the millennial landscape. I see why it resonates with readers in such a profoundly powerful way. It literally inspires action.

It takes an entire generation’s scream and segments it into something articulate and corporeal. I’m so deeply impressed and confused and curious. What is this? What did I just read? Why do I feel like someone opened me up, poked around, and sewed me back up wrong?

It’s a short book, and written with a sharp, deadpan voice. Our narrator finds himself at the center of a male-driven cultural movement that begins with little rebellions - tampering with rich people’s food, for example, and secretly beating the shit out of each other in bar basements - and ends with total chaos.

It’s about seeking genuine connection amid the cogs and gears of the machine, it’s about returning to your roots as a human being, and it’s about eradicating the bullshit. It’s about angst, and regret, and restlessness, and masculinity.

I can’t stop thinking about something that has stuck with me over the years: first of all, hi, nice to meet you, my entire education revolved around standardized testing. Later in high school, when I was scheduled to take one the of the mandated exams - the SOLs, the AP test, maybe - I came across a news article about how students across the country were writing “THIS IS SPARTA” in the middle of their essays (this was the late 2000’s and 300 was like The Thing). I loved that idea. Harmless, hilarious, but a way to take back control, if only for one second.

Now it’s REALLY going to stick with me.

I don’t want Flight Club to be prophetic, but it may have already proven itself as such. And honestly, I found myself drawn toward Project Mayhem - nodding along with Tyler’s declarations, eager to know what’s next, feeling more alive with every sentence. It has a very prominent dude smell, which I kind of hate, but it really is incredible.

So, so happy I read this. It’s insane.

Fight Club on: Amazon | Goodreads

Retro Review: Girl Through Glass

When I started this blog, I had been posting reviews on Goodreads for about 6 months. In the interest of having all of my book writing in one place, I will post one of these old reviews every Friday. They weren't written with a blog in mind, so please forgive the lack of summary and off-the-cuff tone.

New York, summer of 1977. A young girl is accepted into the School of American Ballet and relishes the pressure it offers as an escape from her complicated family life. In the present day, a professor attempts to navigate her current life upon receiving a letter from the past.

I really liked this book. Here's why:

It was written carefully, as though every word was mulled over three times before being chosen. I think it really shows when an author puts so much effort into creating language that flows. It's impressive. It shows a commitment to the reader, and an appreciation for the aesthetics of a novel. 

It demonstrates consistent tone, sophisticated vocabulary, convincing imagery, reasonable characterizations, and a balanced plot. There's nothing more dissatisfying than a poorly-crafted story. Books can have interesting plots and boring characters, or fantastic writing and sloppy plot construction. Luckily, this book is well-balanced.

It sends a genuine message without being preachy. Somewhere between the lines there is a cautionary tale here. It's not obvious, it's not in your face (this is my interpretation - I'm sure others thought it openly glared). Yes, there is an agenda, but the author allows the story to speak for itself.

It captures a complicated aspect of life to which I can relate. I don't think it's a coincidence that Mira went into academia. Just because she stopped dancing doesn't mean she lost her quest for recognition, perfection, etc. The anxiety and effort that goes into being the best - there's nothing like it, and she went from one obsessive, competitive field to another. This book contains the most accurate portrayal of this type of competition that I've encountered. It's eerily correct in its descriptions.

This is not a happy book, but it's a fascinating one. It's dark and very thought-provoking.

Girl Through Glass on: Amazon | Goodreads

Retro Review: Fates and Furies

When I started this blog, I had been posting reviews on Goodreads for about 6 months. In the interest of having all of my book writing in one place, I will post one of these old reviews every Friday. They weren't written with a blog in mind, so please forgive the lack of summary and off-the-cuff tone.

3 stars. Well, this book is certainly memorable. It certainly has a lot to say.

The writing is unusual and strange and even harsh at times. The characters don’t behave as expected. It’s unique - which sounds like a cop-out observation, but truly, it’s different. And it accurately represents, I think, how relationships are woven - often painfully - into the fabric of your identity. The characters are compellingly grotesque and each new chapter brings a new deep dive into their utter selfishness. It’s pretty fascinating.

But Fates and Furies is also … pretentious. It’s grandiose. The symbolism is heavy-handed and the story is weighed down. Purple prose? Perhaps. I’d describe it as try-hard. Listen, Shakespeare should be referenced. He should inform modern writing. But Groff simply wouldn't let me, as a reader, forget her knowledge of his works.

I feel like I should have a lot more to say about this book than I do. Fates and Furies is interesting and affecting to a certain degree. I’m eager to see how its studied in the future. There’s a lot to unpack and a lot to appreciate. But ultimately, for me, it’s only deserving of 3 stars.

Fates and Furies on: Amazon | Goodreads

Retro Review: The Girls

When I started this blog, I had been posting reviews on Goodreads for about 6 months. In the interest of having all of my book writing in one place, I will post one of these old reviews every Friday. They weren't written with a blog in mind, so please forgive the lack of summary and off-the-cuff tone.

2 stars. This just didn't do it for me. I had really, really high expectations, and that may have been part of the problem, but ultimately it just didn't resonate. My immediate reaction: stylish but empty.

Okay, so I liked that The Girls captures a hugely important aspect of being a teenage girl. For someone so insecure and worried about being judged, Evie judges others harshly - especially men. She's hypercritical; beyond hypercritical, she's full of feral hatred and disgust. And she's struggling, flailing around, grasping at an identity that keeps slipping through her fingers. I remember that; as a teenage girl I had no idea what I was doing ... and I knew it.

And the writing is admirably grotesque, borrowing from Gillian Flynn, but the similes and metaphors are really strange and the language occasionally pretentious (sorry! I used the "p" word!). Cline's words are wild and flashy and strange and impressionistic, but they feel manipulative, like shiny wrapping paper around a mediocre gift. The purpose of this book felt murky.

I'm sorry, maybe I'm missing something. I wanted to like this and I do appreciate it on some level. I'm eager to see what Emma Cline paints next. But this a 2-star experience, for me.

The Girls on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal]

2019 CHALLENGE: 1 RE-READ PER MONTH 03 / 12

5 stars. I LOVE THIS BOOK. This was my third re-read and I couldn't put it down. It always sends tingles down my spine in the best way. Smart, accessible, darkly funny.

It essentially tells the story of a student-teacher affair through the eyes of an abhorrent, deeply unreliable narrator. Barbara Covett is her name, Covett being a clever twist on her voyeuristic, overwhelming desire to ... control, be noticed by, be consumed by, be desired by the target of her obsession. She is an arrogant, pretentious stalker who happens to fixate on the lovely and naive Sheba Hart, a new art teacher at her school. When Sheba embarks on a dangerous and elicit affair with a student, Barbara utilizes the situation to her advantage until everything explodes in a disastrous and life-altering climax.

I just LOVE THIS BOOK. It checks all the boxes for me: unreliable narrator, snappy British writing, scandalous details about a tantalizing affair, deep exploration of the female identity, comprehensive exploration of the female identify including how foolhardy and clueless and selfish and competitive women can be, repressed homosexuality, fierce and bold emphasis on appearance versus reality, crisp, page-turning prose, the list goes on. 

And Barbara, oh Barbara, what a beautiful character. So fucking critical of everyone. She's so transparent it makes me laugh, out loud. How often do you suspect that someone is a creepy hypocrite and get an unlimited peek behind the curtain to confirm? Constantly accusing others of self-deception and playing the victim and she's the worst offender. Nobody - nobody - is safe from her zingers. Actually, I tend to see a little bit of Barbara in all of us, mentally putting others down, reading and re-reading and over-analyzing and judging other people. We all take a bit of comfort building our own illusions and living in them.

(Pay close attention, because there are other little lessons like that embedded in these pages. Lessons about marriage and monogamy and children and friendship and female friendship and aging and sex.) 

I think part of the brilliance, too, is that Barbara rather honestly depicts how people react to her, and does so indignantly. Can you believe he said that? Can you believe he treated me in such a manner? As though outrage is the only acceptable reaction. Ironically, by depicting these interactions so honestly we are able to see the truth - that she's actually awful. We see this through her attempts to obscure it, through her lack of self-awareness.

I could go on and on and on. The movie adaptation is also fantastic if you're interested in a less darkly humorous version of the story. Truth be told I can't picture anyone but Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench in the roles of Sheba and Barbara, even if I try. This is just a truly amazing story - an incredible character study and a genius piece of writing with a sick ending. I can't wait to re-read it again.

Clever and nasty is what this book is. Clever and nasty.

What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal] on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: Mrs. Caliban

5 stars. This was so great. Short and easy but strange, and very loud, and layered. I'm not even sure where to start, reviewing a book in which a housewife has an affair with a ... frogman ... is there a term that sounds less derogatory? A frog-like creature named Larry. That's slightly better, but no less surreal.

Mrs. Caliban is about an unsatisfied housewife named Dorothy who, while cooking supper for her husband, encounters an amphibian creature recently escaped from a scientific Institute. Instead of recoiling in horror, calling the police, or notifying her husband, she hands him food. 

And they become friends, then lovers. Larry, as the handsome creature is named, is wanted for the murders of his captors, so they must stay hidden, but Dorothy finds herself, perhaps for the first time in her life, enormously fulfilled.

For one thing, Larry disrupts her dull and quietly frustrating marriage to an unfaithful businessman. He shows interest in her, values her knowledge and opinions, even helps out with the housework. He also comes from another world, a world in which everyone is the same, a world that isn't complicated by human tendencies and instincts. He struggles to comprehend the concepts of jealousy, grief and status. More specifically, he offers her a respite from the misogyny that has blanketed her life. When compared with her husband, yeah, Larry's kind of an obvious choice.

More broadly, Larry is like a child, asking "why?" about everything. This technique is successful in the fact that it made me, as a reader, sit back and go, "wait a minute, YEAH! why?" There are some things in human society - habits, social constructs, values - that truly make no sense whatsoever. And things never change. I can’t wait to read it again so I can unpack all the subtle lessons.

I particularly enjoyed the depiction of Dorothy's friendship with Estelle. It felt very natural to me, and funny. It's a funny book, with a few really serious zingers:

“Why do you call him a monster?”
“Well, an eight-foot tall green gorilla with web feet and bug eyes—what would you call him? A well-developed frog? Not exactly an Ivy-league type, anyway.’”
“I’ve met plenty of Ivy-leaguers I’d call monsters.” 

I know there are theories that Larry's not real, and only exists as a figment of Dorothy's imagination. Maybe. I don't really care. The book is casual and matter-of-fact but sharp, sort of like a trippy episode of Mad Men. Dorothy's ability to roll with it, I guess, is refreshing. She doesn't really question herself. I liked that. It's a playful and thought-provoking exploration of being female. A must-read.

And yeah, she has sex with the frogman. I DON’T KNOW, HONESTLY, it wasn’t that weird. WHAT?!

Mrs. Caliban on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: The Virgin Suicides

2019 CHALLENGE: 1 YOU HAVEN'T READ THAT YET?! PER MONTH 02 / 12

5 stars. No surprises here. I love the movie, I loved reading Middlesex, and thematically this checks all the boxes for me. I was struck, however, by a couple of things: first, the uniqueness of the narrative voice. First person plural is rare, successful first person plural is unheard of. To Eugenides’ credit, it really works, and it was refreshing to fall into a sort of collective, shared headspace. I fell in love with the boys who fell in love with the Lisbon sisters; their quiet and honest sense of obsession and horror is totally unselfconscious.

Second, the playful and subtle way Eugenides illustrates how incapable people are at handling grief. In examining so closely the reaction to the girls’ suicides (not a spoiler!), we see people lose all sense of self-awareness. An entire community flounders and stumbles around in fear and curiosity and humor. We see an astounding lack of sensitivity from neighbors, “friends,” acquaintances. There is painfully misplaced judgment and blame. We see clumsy attempts to heal and help. The only people who truly try to understand are the narrators - and they don’t really get there. This felt very real.

Third, I thought this book would examine more deeply what it means to be female. I expected the point would be that the girls’ femaleness would inform their deaths, not necessarily the other way around. That’s not a critique, just an observation. Aside from Cecelia’s perfect explanation to her doctor, this was more about youth and tragedy than female youth and female tragedy. Being desired, desiring others, desiring more … all explored with a superficial eye. But it’s not just about the girls. It’s about the boys.

It’s about the boys’ lust and their coming-of-age in middle class suburbia; their memories and their shared reminiscence of an impactful event that changed their perspective forever. It’s about the loss of innocence and an attempt to grapple with something that simply cannot be explained. It’s about adults not having all the answers. It’s about seeing another person through a fog - or a lens - or a telescope of your own making, of your own perceptions. Or perhaps through a coating of dusk, muck, grass, smog, bugs.

I thought this would annoy me - the prevalence of the male gaze. But the girls do have agency. They’re awkward, strange, nerdy, mistake-making teenage girls and the boys (the men) later recognize this. Perhaps we would be more forgiving of girls if we remembered that. They’re not perfect, mythical, beautiful, ethereal creatures too special for this world. They’re just girls.

This was a satisfying read in the sense that I knew I would love it. But it’s not a happy book. Also …

Otter insulation? Otter insulation? EW.

The Virgin Suicides on: Amazon | Goodreads

Retro Review: The Vegetarian

When I started this blog, I had been posting reviews on Goodreads for about 6 months. In the interest of having all of my book writing in one place, I will post one of these old reviews every Friday. They weren't written with a blog in mind, so please forgive the lack of summary and off-the-cuff tone.

4 stars. Quick summary: a young woman, after having a traumatic dream, decides to become a vegetarian. In Asia, this is unheard of and provokes frustrated reactions from her family. This short book takes us into the heads of three people close to her: her strict husband, her sensitive brother-in-law, and her deeply unhappy sister as they try to change, understand, and accept her choice.

Every now and then I get an urge to read something truly unsettling. It's not that I enjoy (in the traditional sense of the word) being scared or disgusted, but sometimes I go after the books that are deliberately disturbing. It's just an urge, I don't know. It's like I want to explore how deep and dark the human imagination can take me. I want to find books out there that truly "go there." This is the one of the reasons why I loved The Vegetarian - it really, really goes there.

It's certainly nothing at all like what I expected. It wasn't disturbing in a way that I anticipated, either. Yes, there's gore, there are elements of horror, there's a sorta-kinda traditional "descent into madness," but primarily I was disturbed because it made me question ... a lot. It gave me anxiety of the most suffocating kind.

What if what we consider to be normal behavior isn't normal at all? What if we go through life thinking we know what's best for others? What if - good intentions aside - we end up condemning people to suffer in order to meet society standards/expectations?

This book made me question everything, particularly as a woman. I'm extremely fortunate to live in a "free" society that grants me privilege, opportunity, and choice. But I felt like a child after finishing -looking around, going about my day with a bell tolling "why? why? why?" in my head. Why am I doing this? Why did I eat this, why did I say that? Why am I polite? Why did I braid my hair? Am I conditioned? Am I even a good person?

Obviously there's a lot to unpack here and I have no idea if in reading this I drew the conclusions I was meant to. But that isn't a bad thing. This book will stay with me for a long time.

The Vegetarian on: Amazon | Goodreads

Retro Review: The Leftovers

When I started this blog, I had been posting reviews on Goodreads for about 6 months. In the interest of having all of my book writing in one place, I will post one of these old reviews every Friday. They weren't written with a blog in mind, so please forgive the lack of summary and off-the-cuff tone.

4 stars. I'm glad that I knew to expect a quiet book before I picked this up. I'm a huge fan of the television show - one of the gutsiest ever written - and had high expectations, for sure, but I knew going in that I likely wouldn't feel ... satisfied. Well, I guess I was satisfied, but not in a comparable way.

The plot is similar: following what appears to be some sort of rapture-like event, several residents of Mapleton, New Jersey attempt to navigate a traumatized world and learn to live without answers.

I think one of the most important things I ever learned, or accepted, is that there is no right or wrong way to grieve. Recovery is not black and white, and everyone reacts to trauma differently. You should not expect a grieving individual to react the same way you would - nor should you expect them to feel comfort from things that offer you comfort. One size simply does not fit all.

This is my preferred way to interpret this book. It's my favorite thing to draw from the story. Simply written, and almost painfully human, The Leftovers examines connected individuals of all ages, shapes and sizes, and how they react to the incredibly traumatic Departure. This book tells their stories without reluctance and without judgement - detailing messy pain and exploring how human connection helps and hurts, sometimes simultaneously.

It doesn't always feel good. It's hard to see people struggle, to witness them spiral into depression, or denial, or anger, or fanaticism. But it happens, and The Leftovers depicts this quietly, subtly. Maybe it's a warning, maybe it's a statement of the inevitable. Maybe it's a combination of both - humans are fragile and also resilient. Some things get back to normal, some things are ruined forever. Again, my favorite lesson: one size does not fit all when it comes to recovery.

The book’s version of The Leftovers is a different, less wacky interpretation of an idea. A little footnote to the grand themes illustrated by the show. It's fascinating but maybe a little less compelling. I really enjoyed it, though.

The Leftovers on: Amazon | Goodreads

Retro Review: Middlesex

When I started this blog, I had been posting reviews on Goodreads for about 6 months. In the interest of having all of my book writing in one place, I will post one of these old reviews every Friday. They weren't written with a blog in mind, so please forgive the lack of summary and off-the-cuff tone.

5 stars. This story begins in a tiny Greek village, many years ago. Our narrator describes in great detail how his grandparents came to be, then how his parents came to be, and finally tells the story of his own new romance in modern day Berlin. Throughout, he paints intimate portraits of his family, his upbringing, his confused sexuality, and various encounters with interesting people in between. The conclusion is inevitable, but these episodes prove captivating. No surprise plot twist here.

I was in the mood for something challenging, unique, and contemplative, and Middlesex is definitely all of those things. It's sprawling - easily an epic. It sweeps across time and space, touching both universal big themes (like sex and culture and religion) and universal small themes (like one's tangled, complex feelings towards his or her parents, and the frequently-written-about challenge of becoming an adult). Middlesex approaches these universal themes, both big and small, with an unflinchingly honest voice. Things considered taboo or bothersome or controversial are spoken about with no hint of shame or apology, only curiosity and honesty. In fact, this might be my favorite part about this book. The reader is not catered to in any way.

As an example, I'll point to one of the most prevalent threads in the story: incest. If this were amateur hour, following the event in question, the reader might encounter entire chapters dedicated to lamentations about the implications and the awful consequences of the act. The offenders might die tragic, torturous deaths as punishment for their crime. Supporting characters would overexplain their discomfort and place line after line under their disapproval. "It's a bomb!" says the spy on my TV screen, while the camera pans directly on what is very obviously and without a doubt, a bomb.

But Cal - our unrelenting storyteller - offers no condemnation of his own. He says nothing like, "In case you don't know, reader, this is wrong. Don't commit incest. It's sinful and disgusting." Instead, he trusts that the reader is already aware. He trusts that the reader will understand that the consequences are right there, embedded in the pages and part of his biological identity. He doesn't have to write INCEST = BAD to make the story any more complete.

In fact, Cal doesn't even try to emphasize its wrongness; he doesn't even feel the need to embed the lesson in subtext. There's nothing but maybe a faint whiff of side-eye instead of fiery condemnation. He seems to be more interested in the details - the hows, the whys, the circumstances, etc. The author is not worried that some parent, convinced that the depiction of incest automatically equates approval, will slap a banned sticker on the cover of his book. Cal knows who he is and accepts why he was born that way. He just ... tells the story. It's super refreshing!

And it's fantastic. It's fantastic, thought-provoking, complex, well-written, troublesome, enlightening, heartbreaking, funny, and more.

Although...

I have to admit that I found the length cumbersome. And occasionally - very occasionally - I could feel the author patting himself on the back for choosing such a complicated, questionable subject. I could feel his self-satisfaction as he described most intimately the scientific ins and outs of sexual biology and psychology; could very briefly glance his smug smile as he "went there." I in no way want to discourage any depiction of incestual or hermaphroditic content, nor will I ever put up my nose at the idea of something different or controversial. I simply question the author's motives, that's all. It's a difficult thing to explain, but it was slightly off-putting, for me. Maybe he was just interested in the topic. Maybe he wanted to be provocative. Maybe both?

Bottom line: Cal's story is unusual but important. My mind felt full and satisfied after reading it.

Middlesex on: Amazon | Goodreads