Booklog in a little black dress
Jan. 10th, 2010 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofone171. Eating the Dinosaur, Chuck Klosterman — This fantastic new essay collection tackles topics as diverse as time travel, laugh tracks, ABBA, and some sports stuff that went over my head. But that's the great thing about Klosterman as an essayist: even when he's writing on a topic you know nothing about, he'll draw you in, he'll make you care.
It is perhaps also worth noting that this is perhaps the only book Klosterman has ever written that didn't piss me off at some point. I know, right? Perhaps marriage has mellowed him?
172. The True Meaning of Smekday, Adam Rex — As a reader, there's a certain type of book I dream about: one that somehow manages to be smart and funny and meaningful. Adam Rex's The True Meaning of Smekday is—wonder of wonders!—just such a book. Don't feel bad if you've never heard of it, however, because it also happens to be a kids' book. But it's one that can be appreciated just as easily by adults, who are just as likely to enjoy the novel's fantastic narrative voice and sharp sense of humor, and may get even more out of Smekday's central metaphor: the story follows precocious 12-year-old Tip after aliens land on Earth and claim it for their own. The Boov then force the human population to relocate—in the case of the residents of the U.S., first to Florida, then to Arizona. (Sound familiar?) Tip, however, is separated from her mother at the beginning of the invasion, and so must travel on her own, encountering on her way one of the aliens who, in fantastic Ford Prefect tradition, has christened himself with the human name of J.Lo. Further—utterly delightful—shenanigans ensue.
Both Tip’s narration and all the characters’ dialogue are a constant source of amusement and a sly cleverness, and Tip and J.Lo’s blossoming friendship made me happy in the way that only a truly epic literary friendship can. I never wanted this book to end. Sadly, it had to, so I shall have to console myself by recommending it to as many people as I can, adults and children—and even Boov—alike.
173. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Rhoda Janzen — Too much little black dress, not enough Mennonite. I wanted to hear more about Janzen’s childhood, what made her quit her faith, how she managed to still stay friendly with her family who still practice it (there’s no big dramatic rent here), how her Mennonite upbringing affects her life in the secular world. I wanted more of all of that, and less about her failed marriage. (Come on, failed marriages are a dime a dozen!) I also would have liked a clearer picture of Janzen’s journey: she jumps around in the story so much, I could never get a clear grasp of cause and effect. Her prose is pleasantly wry, and the book is readable, but when I finished it I felt the urge to ask way too many clarifying questions. It made me wish that instead of reading it, Janzen had related this story to me at a party, so I could pour her another drink and say, “Wait, wait—back up again...”
174. Not a Star, Nick Hornby — Hornby wrote this book for an adult literacy program, so I feel somewhat bad being harsh with it, especially as I am generally such a fan of his work. Adults learning to read deserve, however, more than this slip of a narrative, obviously hastily composed: the narrator is referred to by two entirely different first names with in the space of a few dozen pages. Can I contribute something to a program for adult copy editing?
175. Will Grayson, Will Grayson, John Green & David Levithan — John Green is one of my favorite YA authors; David Levithan is...not. I still had high hopes for this collaborative effort of theirs. Sadly, it didn’t really work for me, and naturally—and unfairly—I want to blame Levithan. It’s true that it’s his half of the narrative that bugged me most at the beginning: his Will Grayson (the story follows two boys with identical names, neither of whom, I had to frequently remind myself, would eventually become Nightwing) is a singularly unpleasant person. Much of his initial angst is caused by a female friend of his “betraying” him; she’s pretty shitty to him, it’s true, but only after his is so unrelentingly and unrepentantly awful to her that my sympathy for him pretty much went out the window. Grow up, douchebag. And learn to use capital letters.
Green’s Will Grayson is more likable, in a typical dorky John Green hero kind of way. The Will Graysons end up coming together through the influence of Green’s Grayson’s best friend Tiny, a huge, gay, football-playing, musical-writing attention-suck, who starts dating Levithan’s Grayson. (Got that?) Much like William Carlos Williams’ red wheelbarrow, much depends upon the character of Tiny. He’s the glue that holds this whole story together. And, sadly—perhaps because we never get to see things from Tiny’s own perspective, perhaps not—I never really believed in him as a character, and thus I never really believed in the book. It would be nice to imagine that the populace of an American high school, circa 2010, would support and encourage a person such as Tiny, going so far as to allow and to even help him produce a gigantic musical extravaganza about his own life. It would even be nice to accept that there could be a character who would want to do such a thing, and yet still be funny and charming and someone you’d want to know. But neither reality nor this book’s depiction of it convinced me of the plausibility of these things.
Tiny, as portrayed by both Levithan and Green, struck me mostly as annoying and self-centered, and this is not something I can pin on the former, as these are exactly the qualities that irked many people about Green’s heroine from Paper Towns, one Margo Roth Spiegelman. Margo didn’t bother me, and Tiny many not bother others, but the noted tendency toward larger-than-life-and-largely-annoying characters remains notable in Green’s work. This, combined with Levithan’s unpleasant protagonist, further combined with the book’s wholesale detachment from reality, really sunk the whole endeavor for me. Parts are still charming and funny, but...I don’t know. Maybe throwing Dick Grayson in there as somebody’s cousin would have helped.
176. This Is Where I Leave You, Jonathan Tropper — Amazing what some jokes will do for you. Jonathan Tropper’s This Is Where I Leave You has a premise almost identical to Stewart O’Nan’s Wish You Were Here, in which a messed-up extended family is brought together by the death of its patriarch. (And the premise is certainly not unique to O’Nan, either.) But Tropper’s novel is about ten thousand times more readable than O’Nan’s turgid narrative, all because it’s got some humor to it. Thank god.
Nevertheless, family sagas of this type—especially those rooted in some middle-aged white guy’s neuroses and regrets about sex—will just never really be my thing. Besides which, everyone in this book was a total pill. I couldn’t help but spend the majority of my reading time thinking that they all deserved each other.
177. The Gates, John Connolly — Once again, it’s Good Omens Lite! Connolly achieves a sort of affable English—or Irish masquerading as English—good humor in his tale of the apocalypse (averted). But there’s not much there there, really. I read most of this book on Halloween, which was nice. But I’d still rather read Good Omens (again).
178. Penguin By Design, Phil Baines — Awesome, awesome book about the history and development of Penguin Books, with specific focus on its evolving design aesthetic. The images of the old covers are to die for: several times, I think, I had to wipe away the drool. The later chapters are a little depressing, however, like seeing an aging actor and thinking, “Damn! He’s really let himself go!” Penguin Books: the Mickey Rourke of publishers.
Fortunately, as with Mr. Rourke, all is not lost: despite letting the general look of its overall efforts decline, Penguin is still producing wonderful limited-edition series, like the Great Ideas series. These books are gorgeous; whenever we get new ones into the store, yup, it’s drool-wiping time again. The Wrestler could only dream of provoking such a reaction.
179. To Love and to Cherish, Patricia Gaffney — Charming, if poorly paced, historical romance. I really liked both protagonists, which made for a nice change; the highly moral, sweet, and slightly repressed Reverend Christy was especially a treat. I got the recommendation for this book from a list in Beyond Heaving Bosoms of the Smart Bitches’ favorite non-alpha heroes, which I am very grateful for; I only wish there were more romantic heroes of this type. As far as I’m concerned, all those caveman-types can go bludgeon themselves.
Less generally, I also wish that the whole middle section of this book, in which Christy and Anne angst a lot but very little actually happens, could have been a whole lot shorter. Far too much of the plot is shoved into the very beginning and the very end of the narrative. Nevertheless, I found this to be an above-average romance: I liked and cared about the characters, and I even enjoyed the little Victorian village Gaffney creates. If I come across any used copies of other historicals by her, I’ll probably snap them up.
180. Bite Me, Christopher Moore — Did I just stop finding Christopher Moore funny, or did he actually stop being funny? I still really like Bloodsucking Fiends, the first book in this now-a-trilogy about vampires and the people who love them, but its follow-up, You Suck, um, sucked. (You set yourself up there, Christopher.) Bite Me is better than its predecessor, but not by much: there are fewer blue hookers (good), but there's a ridiculous family of ancient vampire assassins who can't seem to manage to assassinate anybody, and the opening is so confusing that I began to worry that I'd unknowingly suffered some sort of head injury and forgotten how to read. No more Moore for me, I think.
Total Reviews: 180/210
172. The True Meaning of Smekday, Adam Rex — As a reader, there's a certain type of book I dream about: one that somehow manages to be smart and funny and meaningful. Adam Rex's The True Meaning of Smekday is—wonder of wonders!—just such a book. Don't feel bad if you've never heard of it, however, because it also happens to be a kids' book. But it's one that can be appreciated just as easily by adults, who are just as likely to enjoy the novel's fantastic narrative voice and sharp sense of humor, and may get even more out of Smekday's central metaphor: the story follows precocious 12-year-old Tip after aliens land on Earth and claim it for their own. The Boov then force the human population to relocate—in the case of the residents of the U.S., first to Florida, then to Arizona. (Sound familiar?) Tip, however, is separated from her mother at the beginning of the invasion, and so must travel on her own, encountering on her way one of the aliens who, in fantastic Ford Prefect tradition, has christened himself with the human name of J.Lo. Further—utterly delightful—shenanigans ensue.
Both Tip’s narration and all the characters’ dialogue are a constant source of amusement and a sly cleverness, and Tip and J.Lo’s blossoming friendship made me happy in the way that only a truly epic literary friendship can. I never wanted this book to end. Sadly, it had to, so I shall have to console myself by recommending it to as many people as I can, adults and children—and even Boov—alike.
173. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Rhoda Janzen — Too much little black dress, not enough Mennonite. I wanted to hear more about Janzen’s childhood, what made her quit her faith, how she managed to still stay friendly with her family who still practice it (there’s no big dramatic rent here), how her Mennonite upbringing affects her life in the secular world. I wanted more of all of that, and less about her failed marriage. (Come on, failed marriages are a dime a dozen!) I also would have liked a clearer picture of Janzen’s journey: she jumps around in the story so much, I could never get a clear grasp of cause and effect. Her prose is pleasantly wry, and the book is readable, but when I finished it I felt the urge to ask way too many clarifying questions. It made me wish that instead of reading it, Janzen had related this story to me at a party, so I could pour her another drink and say, “Wait, wait—back up again...”
174. Not a Star, Nick Hornby — Hornby wrote this book for an adult literacy program, so I feel somewhat bad being harsh with it, especially as I am generally such a fan of his work. Adults learning to read deserve, however, more than this slip of a narrative, obviously hastily composed: the narrator is referred to by two entirely different first names with in the space of a few dozen pages. Can I contribute something to a program for adult copy editing?
175. Will Grayson, Will Grayson, John Green & David Levithan — John Green is one of my favorite YA authors; David Levithan is...not. I still had high hopes for this collaborative effort of theirs. Sadly, it didn’t really work for me, and naturally—and unfairly—I want to blame Levithan. It’s true that it’s his half of the narrative that bugged me most at the beginning: his Will Grayson (the story follows two boys with identical names, neither of whom, I had to frequently remind myself, would eventually become Nightwing) is a singularly unpleasant person. Much of his initial angst is caused by a female friend of his “betraying” him; she’s pretty shitty to him, it’s true, but only after his is so unrelentingly and unrepentantly awful to her that my sympathy for him pretty much went out the window. Grow up, douchebag. And learn to use capital letters.
Green’s Will Grayson is more likable, in a typical dorky John Green hero kind of way. The Will Graysons end up coming together through the influence of Green’s Grayson’s best friend Tiny, a huge, gay, football-playing, musical-writing attention-suck, who starts dating Levithan’s Grayson. (Got that?) Much like William Carlos Williams’ red wheelbarrow, much depends upon the character of Tiny. He’s the glue that holds this whole story together. And, sadly—perhaps because we never get to see things from Tiny’s own perspective, perhaps not—I never really believed in him as a character, and thus I never really believed in the book. It would be nice to imagine that the populace of an American high school, circa 2010, would support and encourage a person such as Tiny, going so far as to allow and to even help him produce a gigantic musical extravaganza about his own life. It would even be nice to accept that there could be a character who would want to do such a thing, and yet still be funny and charming and someone you’d want to know. But neither reality nor this book’s depiction of it convinced me of the plausibility of these things.
Tiny, as portrayed by both Levithan and Green, struck me mostly as annoying and self-centered, and this is not something I can pin on the former, as these are exactly the qualities that irked many people about Green’s heroine from Paper Towns, one Margo Roth Spiegelman. Margo didn’t bother me, and Tiny many not bother others, but the noted tendency toward larger-than-life-and-largely-annoying characters remains notable in Green’s work. This, combined with Levithan’s unpleasant protagonist, further combined with the book’s wholesale detachment from reality, really sunk the whole endeavor for me. Parts are still charming and funny, but...I don’t know. Maybe throwing Dick Grayson in there as somebody’s cousin would have helped.
176. This Is Where I Leave You, Jonathan Tropper — Amazing what some jokes will do for you. Jonathan Tropper’s This Is Where I Leave You has a premise almost identical to Stewart O’Nan’s Wish You Were Here, in which a messed-up extended family is brought together by the death of its patriarch. (And the premise is certainly not unique to O’Nan, either.) But Tropper’s novel is about ten thousand times more readable than O’Nan’s turgid narrative, all because it’s got some humor to it. Thank god.
Nevertheless, family sagas of this type—especially those rooted in some middle-aged white guy’s neuroses and regrets about sex—will just never really be my thing. Besides which, everyone in this book was a total pill. I couldn’t help but spend the majority of my reading time thinking that they all deserved each other.
177. The Gates, John Connolly — Once again, it’s Good Omens Lite! Connolly achieves a sort of affable English—or Irish masquerading as English—good humor in his tale of the apocalypse (averted). But there’s not much there there, really. I read most of this book on Halloween, which was nice. But I’d still rather read Good Omens (again).
178. Penguin By Design, Phil Baines — Awesome, awesome book about the history and development of Penguin Books, with specific focus on its evolving design aesthetic. The images of the old covers are to die for: several times, I think, I had to wipe away the drool. The later chapters are a little depressing, however, like seeing an aging actor and thinking, “Damn! He’s really let himself go!” Penguin Books: the Mickey Rourke of publishers.
Fortunately, as with Mr. Rourke, all is not lost: despite letting the general look of its overall efforts decline, Penguin is still producing wonderful limited-edition series, like the Great Ideas series. These books are gorgeous; whenever we get new ones into the store, yup, it’s drool-wiping time again. The Wrestler could only dream of provoking such a reaction.
179. To Love and to Cherish, Patricia Gaffney — Charming, if poorly paced, historical romance. I really liked both protagonists, which made for a nice change; the highly moral, sweet, and slightly repressed Reverend Christy was especially a treat. I got the recommendation for this book from a list in Beyond Heaving Bosoms of the Smart Bitches’ favorite non-alpha heroes, which I am very grateful for; I only wish there were more romantic heroes of this type. As far as I’m concerned, all those caveman-types can go bludgeon themselves.
Less generally, I also wish that the whole middle section of this book, in which Christy and Anne angst a lot but very little actually happens, could have been a whole lot shorter. Far too much of the plot is shoved into the very beginning and the very end of the narrative. Nevertheless, I found this to be an above-average romance: I liked and cared about the characters, and I even enjoyed the little Victorian village Gaffney creates. If I come across any used copies of other historicals by her, I’ll probably snap them up.
180. Bite Me, Christopher Moore — Did I just stop finding Christopher Moore funny, or did he actually stop being funny? I still really like Bloodsucking Fiends, the first book in this now-a-trilogy about vampires and the people who love them, but its follow-up, You Suck, um, sucked. (You set yourself up there, Christopher.) Bite Me is better than its predecessor, but not by much: there are fewer blue hookers (good), but there's a ridiculous family of ancient vampire assassins who can't seem to manage to assassinate anybody, and the opening is so confusing that I began to worry that I'd unknowingly suffered some sort of head injury and forgotten how to read. No more Moore for me, I think.
Total Reviews: 180/210
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-10 11:54 pm (UTC)I have not read Juliet, Naked - last I read by him was Slam which mostly hit my kid-phobia buttons with a hammer - but I should, because generally he's awesome.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-10 11:56 pm (UTC)I never read Slam (possibly subconsciously for those same reasons), but Juliet, Naked made me very happy. So, yes!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-11 12:01 am (UTC)If you have any fear of having a kid, yeah, Slam is seriously creepy. (It also has a lot of skater-talk, which sometimes rang a little off to me but I am not a skater so it might just be that I felt that as a middle-aged and middle-class dude, Hornby might be trying too hard.) But yay new awesome Hornby!