Two Jews Reviews

I wish the lecture wasn't the last...

2008-11-05T20:14:00.000-05:00

A whole month has gone by without a book review. Arielle and I are slackers and we apologize. She is busy with business school, and I’m just lazy. But we’re going to try and revive this thing, starting with some of the books that I’ve read in the last 2 months. Yeah that’s right, 2 months. I’m way behind. Hopefully I can remember what I read!

After watching the YouTube video of Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture”, crying in front of the computer, and then reading more about him, his family, and his illness, I ran out to buy the book that he wrote, based off of the lecture.

The Last Lecture is pretty much like one of those happy little coffee table books that you buy to make you smile, like The World According to Mr. Rogers, which I LOVE. Except there’s so much more to it. Maybe because Randy Pausch isn’t a fictional character. Or maybe because what he writes is so hopeful, and just so honest, that you can’t help but to love it and feel good after reading it.

Each chapter basically touches upon what he spoke about at his lecture, with a little more detail and personal stories about his family thrown in. I remember from the lecture that he told the crowd how he didn’t want to go into details about his family, because he didn’t want to break down on stage. So instead, he chose to share his memories in a more controlled environment. The little anecdotes that Pausch shares in his book are wonderful, because they aren’t all happy little memories. In order to emphasize the points that he makes, he shares the good, the bad, and the ugly. And seems to do it with humor the entire time.

I unfortunately learned right when I read the book that Randy Pausch had finally succumbed to his battle with cancer, and I immediately thought of his wife now raising their three young children alone. But luckily, Pausch leaves such a legacy with his Last Lecture and book, that I can’t imagine his kids not knowing how their father felt about them.

And if you haven't, watch the video. It's worth it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Kids suck. Especially when you're overweight.

2008-09-21T18:28:00.001-04:00

I have a friend from college who went to work at Camp Shane one summer. You may know Camp Shane from an MTV special that they had years ago. Regardless, Camp Shane is a fat camp. Much like the one that Stephanie Klein spends her summers at in her memoir Moose.

I spent 8 years at summer camp also, and I really enjoyed Klein's honesty and abrasiveness that she used in describing her camp years. Camp was a wild time, and Klein spares us nothing. If teenage sexuality was rampant at your camp, it was certainly wild at fat camp. Which, as Klein proclaims, was most likely because the playing field was even for the first time in these kid's lives.

Klein doesn't gloss over the BS that fills a kid's life when they're forced into a situation with other kids. (School included.) Camp, although awesome, is a major drama fest, and we're spared nothing about it in Moose.

And although she got kicked out of camp for teaching other girls how to throw up (which she was taught by another camper), Klein eventually lost the weight that she needed. It was refreshing to see that Klein didn't use losing weight as a happily-ever-after crutch, because she still struggled and was honest about it.

I mean, the whole reason for this book was that she needed to gain weight for her pregnancy, and nearly had a panic attack when she was told to do so by her doctor. Luckily, she got over her fear of becoming fat again, and gave birth to her healthy twins.

Another case of parents screwing up their children...or maybe this ones the child's fault.

2008-09-07T20:56:00.006-04:00

So little time, so many memoirs. Seriously if you haven't been able to tell from this blog (when I actually remember to post in it), I am a sucker for memoirs. I probably read them more than any fiction novel, and in recent years, they've begun to fill my bookshelves. (I really should look into getting a library card again.)

I don't remember putting Who Do You Think You Are? into my Amazon cart, but once it was there I figured, why not? Alyse Myers was born and raised in Queens, the product of a working class Jewish family. She was a Daddy's Girl, even though her father disappeared for days at a time, and often fought with her mother. Never close with her younger sisters, Alyse doesn't know what to do with herself when her father dies. She understands that he had an illness, but doesn't understand who that strange woman in his hospital room was.

As time goes on, Alyse realizes that even though she loved her father more, that he was not perfect. However, she still is not close at all with her mother, a woman who she considers to be slightly off kilter, and who will dole out love only to take it back in an instant.

Alyse finally makes her escape from her family by working hard to get accepted to one of NYC's specialized public high schools, and from there goes on to City College, where she finally moves out.

It's after this time that we kind of fast forward through Alyse's adulthood, through her first post college jobs, marriage, and child. And as her mother becomes ill, it comes up that maybe her volatile relationship with her mother was something that only Alyse experienced. Her sisters say that she was a good mother, and her husband is smitten with her. Was Alyse just a horrible brat, or someone that just did not get along the same way with her mother as her sisters did?

As I came to the end of the book, I was confused to whether Alyse's mother was an outright loon, or just someone deeply affected by the relationship between her firstborn child and her philandering husband. Did she have a deep vendetta towards her daughter because she was close with the man who cheated on her, and that's why Alyse's sisters did not feel the same about their mother?

Who knows. In the end I was reminded of The Glass Castle, and the relationship that Jeannette Walls had with her parents. Both explosive, and both basically screwing up their children in one way or another.

I Could Live Without the Neuroses

2008-09-06T20:57:00.003-04:00

I've done Internet dating before. In fact, I met my boyfriend online, although not through a dating site. So this book definitely intrigued me, especially since the main character writes dating profiles for other people, when she has never done Internet dating herself. Oh but she had practice writing profiles for dogs to be adopted... that's right.

I have little patience for characters with too many neuroses, and Nora, of Five Things I Can't Live Without, is definitely one of those characters. She thinks she's stuck in her meta-life, which she has determined as the syndrome of not living in the moment, but internally commenting and questioning the experience as it's happening. I've determined it as being crazypants.

Regardless, after Nora quits her job writing profiles for puppies, she offers to write a profile for her best friend, and then decides to take it on as a career. After posting an ad on Craigslist, it's a wonder that she didn't meet any crazies. (Cause you know, that's what would have happened in real life.)

The book goes back and forth between Nora's neuroses and her trying to jump start her new found career. She also experiences a slip up with one of her clients, where she wants to kiss him, but doesn't. She still feels the need to tell her boyfriend, and after that confrontation, realizes that maybe she should stop being crazy, and start living in the now.

Holly Shumas does a good job with the storyline, and I was very intrigued by the profiles of each person that Nora creates. And even though her character was a tad annoying, by the end of the book, Nora definitely became a bearable person.

This book's title has no significance and thus I'm matching it with an unimportant title for my post

2008-09-02T16:25:00.005-04:00

The other day I decided that as much as it would have surely put me to sleep, my statistics textbook wasn't going to cut it as far as bedtime reading. So I grabbed a book from my roommate's collection, and came out with Veil of Roses, by Laura Fitzgerald.

Our heroine is Tamila, a 27 year-old Iranian girl (woman, excuse me) who has come to the United States with a mission. She has to find a husband. ASAP. She has a 3 month tourist visa and if she doesn't find a nice Iranian man to marry her in that time frame, she'll have to go back to Iran for good. Not ideal.

The story is an interesting one, as we get to see our wonderful hedonistic society through the eyes of someone who has been so far removed from even things as simple as not having to have your head covered when you go out in public. Tamila has only a basic grasp of English, and Fitzgerald uses a simple writing style to help portray this (at least I hope so - otherwise, she sort of writes like a 3rd grader but let's give her the benefits of the doubt okay? Thanks). Not only are we exposed to the United States through a foreigner's perspective, but we get an insider's view of what it's like living in a world much more oppressive than our own (and boy are we thankful we don't live there!).

The book is a super fast read, as I went through it in less than 24 hours. My main issue with it is that it is pathetically predictable. If you combined the predictability of every awful chick flick movie and every Disney animated classic, you might understand exactly how unsurprising Veil of Roses is. But hey, some people don't like surprises!

So I think I might actually mean it now when I say that I might not be reviewing any books for awhile (sniff sniff). School wears me out to the extent that I no longer need a book to help me fall asleep at night, and my free time for leisure reading is such that it is nonexistent. But you never know when I might be able to squeeze a book in, so stay tuned, any of you who are out there! (Seriously, do we even have any readers? Who knows).

Super Crunchers, to the rescue!

2008-08-31T20:42:00.005-04:00

Okay, when I said I likely wasn't going to be reviewing any other books for school, I apparently lied. Because here I am again! Super Crunchers, by Ian Ayres, was one of my summer assignments for school, and it was interesting enough for me to tell you all about it! Get pumped, if you aren't already.

The book is essentially about how more and more areas in all walks of life can be (and are being) affected by data-driven analyses. Super crunchers, as the people (mostly economists) processing the numbers are called, are concerned with being able to use information from past events to predict future ones. Not a data fiend? Does this sound boring and not even remotely applicable to your life? Think again, dear friends.

Even heard of the site eHarmony? Of course you have. eHarmony is one of the many brainchildren of super crunching. People have studied and quantified the many aspects of personality and how those aspects interact with the personalities of others. The data was then used to determine how to match people based on the information they provide to the website in the introductory survey. And while it obviously doesn't work for everyone, eHarmony does have a pretty impressive success rate.

Still not convinced? Would you believe it if I told you that a computer program exists that can, when given a list of a patient's symptoms, give a diagnosis with a higher success rate of accuracy than the average (or above average) MD? Tis the truth. Or what about a program that can beat a team of legal experts in predicting the outcome of court trials based on past information about other cases in those circuits and with those judges? I could go on and on with examples, but the fact remains that patterns exist in more areas than maybe we want to admit, and that sometimes analyzing a set of data really can tell the future in ways that humans can't.

If any of this sounds familiar, it's because you've probably read Freakonomics. This is kind of like that, only better! Freakonomics spent what I thought was far too much time on subject matter that didn't interest me (hello, sumo wrestling). Super Crunchers, on the other hand, was legitimately interesting, from beginning to end. If only the rest of my reading for school would be like this. I don't remain hopeful about that one.

This is a good ass book

2008-08-26T08:08:00.003-04:00

I won't lie to you - Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts, is an intimidating book. At over 900 pages, it's the kind of book I would tend to ignore when perusing Barnes and Noble for something to read (just to give you the feel of how large it is, I put in this extremely large picture of the cover. Are you intimidated? Of course you are). A friend recommended it to me, and because I take book recommendations pretty seriously, I reluctantly picked up the book, considering it my arm workout for the day, and began reading.

The basic premise of the book is that our protagonist has escaped from a maximum security prison in Australia and escaped to Bombay (yes, I know it's Mumbai now, but it wasn't at the time) and pretty much has all sorts of crazy shenanigans happen to him there. Whatever you could possibly want from this book, it's there. Romance? Got it. War? Check. Drug-induced haze? Oh yes. Getting thrown into Indian prison for months and never knowing why? A foreigner joining the Bombay mafia? Hugging a live bear? Complete and total astonishment at how this person is still alive despite the fact that, considering the terrible things he's lived through, he should have died about 800 times already? That's all there too.

Roberts has a true talent for characterization, and we get a great sense of the relationships he manages to build up in Bombay and the crazy people he meets along the way. Perhaps one of the most amazing things about this book is that it's a TRUE STORY. And I mean that in the way that James Frey's A Million Little Pieces is a true story. It's almost all true except there are probably a few minor details in there that are fabricated and now the book technically has to be classified as fiction.

I'm really at a loss for how else to describe this book. There are ups and downs and lefts and rights and some of it is so outlandish that you have to wonder how one person can go through so much suffering (there are good times too, of course) and still have the good humor to tell the tale. This is an absolute must-read, and those 900+ pages fly by faster than you'd like them to.

I should also note that Shantaram is being made into a movie, coming out in 2009. Johnny Depp is playing the main character and I couldn't be happier about the actor choice. You know no one other than Depp can play such a versatile person. I look forward to it, and you should too!

Should have been called "Driving Sideways Because I've Been Held Hostage by a Teenage Crazy Girl!"

2008-08-14T15:55:00.003-04:00

Driving Sideways, by Jess Riley, was cute. I was trying to think of how I would start off this review, and "cute" is basically what came to mind. It's a cute story, about Leigh, who has just gotten a kidney transplant and has decided to go on a road trip, to find herself, her long lost mom, her ex boyfriend, and the family of Larry, whose kidney she recieved, to figure out why some of her tastes and interests have changed since the surgery.

But then again, I dislike super far-fetched plots, and when she's taken hostage by a teenage hitchhiker with no weapon or cause of harm (ok, she did steal Leigh's purse), it was kind of like, "really? you had no other choice but to take her in the car with you? You could have yelled for someone, or just like, pushed her down." But she didn't, and off in the car the motley pair went.

Riley did a lot of research about PKD, which is the disease that Leigh has, and the cause of her kidney transplant. I really appreciated that effort, because I am sure that there are many books out there that mention characters with diseases, but don't really have details for you. There's also great and quirky descriptions of the stops they made along the way to their final destination (California) and Riley found the perfect medium of not being overly descriptive, but not leaving anything out.

Denise, the teenage hitchhiker, bugged the crap out of me throughout the book, and I totally saw the ending with her coming. The end of the book was sad, but also gave you hope for Leigh, and I would be happy if Riley came back with a sequel, to let us know what happens to her.

Even though I found the story to be kind of predictable, I enjoyed Riley's style of writing. Maybe it was because she's also a blogger? But in any case, if you want an easy, enjoyable read, you should definitely grab this book.

Breaking news: women sometimes don't make sense!

2008-08-05T11:47:00.003-04:00

I'm learning something. And that is that my mom likes to recommend repetitive, somewhat boring books. Not that it's her fault, necessarily. She agrees that these books are boring and repetitive, but there's always a point in there that she wants me to get. The newest mom recommendation, You're Wearing That?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation, by Deborah Tannen, is about...get this...understanding mothers and daughters in conversation! Nice.

Essentially, the point of the book is twofold. First, you are meant to understand that the relationship between mothers and daughters is different than the relationship between fathers and sons, fathers and daughters, or mothers and sons. Why? Because women like to talk a lot and they're all just a liiiiiiittle bit (or a LOT, in some cases) crazy. So when you put two women together, the crazy gets multiplied and chaos and misunderstanding abounds!

Actually, I sort of already mentioned the second point you're meant to take away from the book, which is the part about misunderstanding. Tannen talks a lot about how even a genuine compliment can be construed the wrong way and taken for an insult by an unsuspecting mother or daughter. One woman spoke at a conference in front of a very large audience, and when showing the tape of her presentation to her mother, was offended that her mother first commented not on her speech, but how nice she looked in her suit.

Though examples like these are interesting, the parts I found to be the most fascinating were the ones that spoke about the differences in interactions between men and women, not the ones that spoke about how women relate to each other. For example, it mentioned how women bond with each other through talking, which is why they value long phone conversations. Men, on the other hand, prefer activities, like playing basketball together. But even that gets a little old when you mention it 800 times. Why do people have the inability to realize that they're saying the same thing over and over? Why am I plagued with always reading repetitive books?

As with my last post, there is no need for you to read this book because I already summed it up for you quite nicely. Unless you want to read the second half and let me know if there was anything new in it. Because...I didn't read it. Whoops!

The card game is more fun

2008-07-31T10:20:00.005-04:00

This is the first, and possibly only, time I will ever review a book I have to read for school. Yes, I actually did one of my summer assignments, be proud. I assume all future books will be about accounting or other fascinating topics and I'm sure you can think of more appetizing things to do rather than read such reviews. You could stick your fingers in your eyes, for one! Just kidding. I shouldn't have such a negative outlook on business school before it even starts. But I digress.

On Bullshit, by Harry Frankfurt, is a teeny tiny book with obscenely large margins. I will all my school books would look like this! The black and pink motif in the picture above is strangely reminiscent of the Britney Spears Curious paraphernalia my sorority received en masse in college, but my copy is sadly boring in a plain tan/black combo. I really didn't know what to expect from it, since I had never read a book about bullshit before and I also had no idea what class I was even reading the book for (whoops!). When I started reading, a sense of familiarity washed over me, but I couldn't exactly pinpoint why. And then it hit me - I was smack in the middle of a philosophy book (I was a philosophy major in college - don't hate). I knew I recognized all that excess verbiage and semantic nonsense! When I got to the end of the book, I read that Frankfurt is a professor of philosophy. There ya go.

I will sum up the entire book right now. Here goes: The difference between bullshit and lies is that a liar is cognizant of the truth, yet intends to deceive someone by masking it. The bullshitter intends to deceive as well, but has no idea what the truth really is and is wholly unconcerned about it.

There you go. This book could easily have been 1 page long. Because that is ALL it says.

I would recommend that you read it if you like bullshit or philosophy, but I just gave away the ending. And the beginning. And the middle. It's a really short book but there's plenty of room for repetition here! So instead, go ponder the meaning of life. Onward!

Zuckerberg's domain

2008-07-30T09:59:00.003-04:00

You know how sometimes you'll read or hear something funny, and right as you're about to start laughing, you realize that the person totally intended to be funny and they KNOW that what they said/wrote is funny, and they're probably just THAT much more of a pompous jackass because of it, and then it suddenly ceases to be funny anymore? (If you followed that, you've clearly had your coffee today. Good job!). That's pretty much The Facebook Book: A Satirical Companion in a nutshell. You want to laugh, but you know the authors, Greg Atwan and Evan Lushing, are trying so damn hard to get a chuckle out of you that any urge to react is just stifled. And all you can do is shrug your shoulders and go, "Meh."

I've been an avid Facebook user since 2004, and remember the days before groups, wall posts, and many other current Facebook staples. Though you don't have to be a longtime FB user to read this book, you should be a user, period. Though on the surface it looks like it might be a good starter kit (chapter titles such as, "Profile of A Profile," "Facebook Etiquette," "People of the Book"), the jokes will definitely fly way over your head if you've never before set virtual foot on the site (though really, who ISN'T on FB anymore?).

While The Facebook Book is mostly a collection of bad jokes and satires so far off base that they couldn't even imaginably be entertaining, there are a few redeeming gems that make it a good way to pass the time on the subway or as you get a pedicure. One such spot is the grid that tells you what the most appropriate marital status (Single, In A Relationship, In An Open Relationship, It's Complicated, Married) is for your situation. So for example, if you're pregnant and it's mostly likely his but you never got his name, it's complicated. However, if you're pregnant and it's most likely his and you're going to turn into a werewolf in 3 days, you're definitely in a relationship.

Perhaps the thing that most bothered me about this book is that constant use of terminology that I'm pretty sure they made up exclusively for writing the book. For instance, have you ever referred to a Facebook user as a "Bookster?" No, you haven't, because that's incredibly lame. Are you going to start using it after reading it 8 million times in this book? Absolutely not.

All in all, this book is one that may give you a laugh or 2, but from a book that's supposed to be funny, that's not a great success rate. Reading this book also requires a certain amount of confidence, because people who see you reading it in public are going to assume you're not exactly the brightest candle on the menorah. But if you're okay with this, and you don't have anything better to do, then...go for it. I guess.

Chasing Better Plots

2008-07-21T16:33:00.003-04:00

Even though I was mildly disappointed with Everyone Worth Knowing, when I saw that Lauren Weisberger came out with a new book, I had to give it a shot. (She’s one of the few chick-lit authors I can tolerate… and it’s not even really chick-lit. And I keep wanting to write Chicklet, like the gum. Do they even make those anymore?)

Moving on. Chasing Harry Winston is about three college friends who at the peak of 30, decide to make changes in their life. Emmy decides to become a slut after being a serial monogamist, Adriana decides to become engaged after being a slut, and Leigh really does nothing, because she kind of sucks at life. Woo hoo!

I really don’t know why Weisberger decided to name the book Chasing Harry Winston. The only one who was chasing an engagement ring was Adriana, so it doesn’t really make sense?

The plot overall was cute, and it surprised me that Weisberger became a little more graphically sexual with this one, as opposed to EWK, and Devil Wears Prada. There was one sexual encounter that was completely unrealistic, and made me roll my eyes into the back of my head until I thought I wouldn’t be able to find them anymore.

If you read EWK after Devil, you’ll be happy to know that Weisberger smartly did not follow the same plot lines that she used for both of those books. I mean, EWK had completely different characters, but was the exact same format of Devil.

I hope that if Weisberger writes a fourth novel, that she finally finds her niche. Her writing is entertaining and very strong, but she loses herself with the plot and as someone who has read all three of her books, I’m hoping for some improvement.

A Little Crusty, With Some Warm Filling

2008-07-15T17:24:00.003-04:00

I’m a big fan of memoirs (as you may have noticed from my infrequent contributions to this blog), so I jumped at the chance to get a sneak peek at Dough, by Mort Zachter, for FREE! If you don’t already know about the Harper Collins “First Look” program, I suggest you get on that ASAP.

Unfortunately, even though the book was free of cost (which makes it automatically better than most books), I have to say that the “dough” was a little dried out for me. BWAH HA HA.

The basic story is that while Zachter’s father is in the hospital recovering from surgery, he is told to check his uncle’s P.O. Box and his mail. (His uncle is suffering from Alzheimer’s.) There he discovers that his uncle owns stocks and bonds in the name of millions of dollars. What follows is a story of outrage, followed by downright confusion, because his uncle lives like a poor hermit, and his family was always struggling to make ends meet.

Zachter skips back and forth from his childhood to the present day with each chapter. You need to know a little about Zachter’s past in order to understand the crazy fact that his uncle was a multi-millionaire, but unfortunately it wasn’t seamless, like other authors can manage to do, and I felt that a lot of it was not really relevant to anything in the story. The only relevant information was that although Zachter’s mother worked in the bakery with his uncles (one passed away already at the time of the book), she got paid nothing, and knew about the millions, but didn’t feel that it was “hers”.

And not really having anything to do with the style in which the book was written, but more of the story itself, I could not understand, for the life of me, why Zachter's parents let his uncles keep all that money for themselves, and not give any to his family! If they wanted to be eccentric hermits, fine, but his parents had a child to raise, and they could have done so much more for him. It honestly infuriated me. God bless his mother for signing that waiver that basically gave all of the money to Zachter and his wife and kids. As he mentioned, at least if he didn't have the carefree life that he could have, his kids would be able to.

All in all Dough was a good book, but I’m glad I didn’t pay anything for it! Oh, and the book comes out August 5. :)

Delicious!

2008-07-14T15:28:00.003-04:00

Do any of you have that one friend in your group who always has a truckload of ridiculous stories, each more outlandish than the next to the point where you can hardly believe that these things actually happen to some people? There is no doubt in my mind that no matter who her friends are, Sloane Crosley is that person. In her memoir-esque collection of essays, I Was Told There'd Be Cake, Crosley recounts some of the everyday hilarity from her life. and makes us wish that she were our friend with all the entertaining stories. You get the feeling that being in a room with Sloane would never, ever get boring.

Each story is well crafted and helps you get to know just what kind of ridiculous person Crosley is. From the essay about her brief volunteering stint at the Museum of Natural History's buttefly exhibit, to the terrible assistant job reminiscent of The Devil Wears Prada, to the wedding in which she was forced to wear pink plaid, she always keeps us laughing. One of my favorite essays involves the bizarre origin of her first name and the multiple laments she has over the references people make when they hear the word "Sloane."

1. Number of Ferris Bueller's Day Off jokes (included here are those specific to the dialogue when Ferris disguises himself as Sloane's father and picks her up from school): 3,567

2. Number of Sloane Square and/or Sloane Ranger jokes made by acutely observant British people: 457

3 Number of times I have almost been referred to as a man (see: "I thought you'd be a man."): 123

And so on. Sloane, every person who meets me thinks I was named after The Little Mermaid. I hear you, girlfriend.

I Was Told There'd Be Cake was a great read, and I finished it in only 3 days. Highly recommended for anyone who has a few hours to kill, or who flat out just needs to hear a really great story. Whether you're into movies, sex, or people taking a crap on your floor, there's something for everyone.

With this guide, you too can be America!

2008-06-30T11:20:00.004-04:00

I guess I'm on a "books by funny liberal TV personalities" kick. I think a fabulous follow-up to a Jon Stewart book is Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!). If you've ever seen The Colbert Report, you know exactly what to expect from this book. And that, of course, is sheer awesomeness.

I Am America tackles all the main facets of our country's culture, from religion, to higher education, to sex, and more. Each chapter contains an explanation of the basics, always replete with Colbert's patriotic values. We also get some hilarious add-ons, such as the "Stephen Speaks For Me: A Chance For Average Americans to Agree With What I Think" blurbs at the end of the chapters. In the spirit of keeping people entertained, there's also a fun zone, including various puzzles and matching games. For instance, you can match a celebrity with their pet cause or walk an old man through a maze to help him find happiness. There are hilarious comments in the margins that are reminiscent of the "Today's Word" section of the show, and a fun sheet of silver labels (see the one on the cover) that you can stick on any book that you think exemplifies Colbert Values.

Perhaps the best way to write this review is simply to provide a few quotes from the book so you get a sense of the amazingness that you're in for. I'm content to say that no description I could
provide could even begin to do it justice.

From the "Old People" chapter:

"They call this group the "AARP," which probably stands for something, but to me, sounds like the noise an old man makes when he's trying to get out of a bean bag chair."

On Sports:

"I've said it before - it's not really a sport unless there's the possibility of dislodging your intestines. Luckily, the Met-Rx World's Strongest Man Competition fits this bill. It uses a complex and indisputable formula to crown its champion. You are truly the most powerful man on earth if you can pull a semi with your teeth, hurl a keg full of lead shot over a wall, and lift at least 20 natives of the improverish country in which the event is held."

And there is oh, so much more where this comes from. So go out, buy the book, and read it. I emphasize the BUYING part, because as Colbert says, people who borrow the book "are no better than welfare queens mooching off the system like card-carrying library card-carriers."

If these were real naked pictures, it would be a different kind of book altogether

2008-06-16T16:03:00.002-04:00

Jon Stewart is awesome. Everyone knows that. Why I need to even bother introducing him or anything he's written is beyond me, but I'll do it anyway! I recently read his 1999 book, Naked Pictures of Famous People, in one sitting (it's super short). The book is a collection of hilarious essays, that, even though they were written almost 10 years ago, still have the power to entertain.

Stewart's essays primarily make fun of a wide range of famous people and provide a (fictional) look into their personal lives, hence the title. In his endeavor, no one is spared. We're treated to yearly Christmas cards from the Hanson family, Bill Gates making a deal with the devil, a day in the life of the Kennedys, and oh so much more. While some of the essays fall a little bit short (the Martha Stewart essay on vaginas, par example), most are laugh-out-loud funny. My personal favorite involved Vincent Van Gogh trying to navigate a series of AOL chat rooms, resulting in a disturbingly on-par depiction of all kinds of cyber personalities.

Naked Pictures of Famous People is an easy, quick read, appropriate for anything from early morning commute reading, before bedtime reading, to trying not to rip your hair out because the guy next to you on the bus from Boston to New York is leaning on you reading. Jon Stewart was, is, and will always continue to be THE MAN. So go forth and read!

You go girl!

2008-06-11T12:36:00.003-04:00

This book review is brought to you by my mom! Well, not really. My mom made me read this book and suggested I review it. So, here I am! The book is Ask For It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want. It sounds like the sort of book I would normally hate, as I'm not really into female empowerment propaganda. And though I didn't finish the book, for once it wasn't because it sucked horribly (it had to be returned to the library near the parentals' house in Jersey).

You can pretty much infer what the book is about from its lengthy title (seriously, I didn't realize how many books have a super-long subtitle until I started reviewing them. Can't anyone be succinct anymore?). Authors Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever legitimately know what they're talking about - they've done a crapload of research and interviews, speaking to women across the country of all ages and career paths, to hear their stories. Each chapter deals with a different aspect of negotiating, including learning to understand what you really want, figuring out your alternatives, doing the necessary background research to support your claim, and finally, how to ask for what you want - and get it.

Though the instruction is nice, what I thought to be the most helpful part of the book were the frequent anecdotes they put in the book to illustrate how their lessons can be employed in real life. Most of the stories deal with women in the workplace asking for more money or a better title, and throughout these we're constantly hit with the message that if you ask for something and have a legitimate reason behind it, you would be surprised how often you'd get it. There are a multitude of cases in which a woman finds out that her male peers are getting paid more than she was, and was immediately given a raise as soon as she asked her manager. The reasoning behind why the higher salary wasn't given to her in the first place is always, "The men just asked for it, and she didn't." There are also some non-occupational examples, such as women who struggle to balance their jobs and their housework, who even felt awkward about negotiating with their husbands to take on more responsibility at home.

While, as I mentioned, I didn't finish Ask For It, I really don't think I missed out on too much. I made it about two thirds of the way through and had already started to feel the repetitiveness of the book. And though the book conveniently neglects to mention the double standard in the workplace (a man who asks for a higher starting salary is "confident", a woman who does the same is "difficult"), I was still even able to take a few notes and hopefully apply them to my own life in the future. Definitely worth a read for anyone, male or female, who feels undervalued. Or even if you're just itching for a little more money - and really, who isn't?

Splendid, indeed

2008-05-28T19:45:00.003-04:00

As if I even really need to introduce this book. If you haven't heard of Khaled Hosseini or read The Kite Runner, you've clearly been living under a rock. Hosseini's second book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, is just as great as his first. So much so, in fact, that this review will probably suck because this book is deserving of no snarkiness. And we all know that Lacey and I are at our best when we're trying to be funny.

The book is set in Afghanistan (of course), beginning in the 1960s and ending early in the 21st century. Our main characters are 2 women: Laila, a strong-willed blonde, and Mariam, a meek woman nearly 20 years her senior. At the start of the book they lead two separate lives, yet they eventually come to live in the same household and we see how their relationship grows into that of best friends.

With the backdrop of war ever-present, there is no shortage of terrible tragedies. There are deaths aplenty, in addition to domestic violence and the complete oppression of women. Yet the wonderful thing about the novel is that it manages to speak of war, to speak of the Taliban forbidding women to work or even leave their houses, to speak of the events of 9/11 without becoming at all politicized. There is no hidden agenda, no message the reader gains from the text other than understanding how two people drew strength from each other in a time of need. Though enemies at first, Laila and Mariam work together to overcome their hardships and try to make their lives bearable. The story is well-written and unpretentious, and is truly an amazing work of fiction.

A Thousand Splendid Suns pretty much has it all - romance, suspense, violence, a poignant ending that is both tragic and joyful at once. If you haven't read Hosseini's books, now is definitely the time to start. You will get a truly unique perspective on life in Afghanistan, one that differs greatly from the impression given by George W. Bush's post 9/11 remarks, for sure. It's books like these that remind me, in my recent non-fiction kick, why I used to love reading novels. And it's books like these that prove to me that I still do.

And All That Jazzzz (Hands)!

2008-05-21T17:25:00.000-04:00

After Marc Acito friended me on Facebook, and we became BFF for life (ok not really), I was super excited to get his new book, Attack of the Theater People (I keep wanting to spell it “theatre” – cause I think I’m British or something?) The book takes off from where his first book, How I Paid for College, ends – with the main character Edward Zanni set to head off to Julliard after his high school graduation.

Pan forward and now Edward is being kicked out of Julliard, basically for being “too jazz hands” for the school. (Don’t worry, I’m not ruining anything, that part’s given away on the back cover.) He’s destitute, has no job, isn’t in school… what is a sexually conflicted boy in the 80s supposed to do??

The antics of Edward are almost as amusing as they were in How I Paid for College, where the Summer of Mischief and Mayhem was born. (That title could be incorrect; but I don’t have the book in front of me to reference.) I wish there was more Paula in this book, she doesn’t make nearly enough appearances for my liking, and without going to deep into it, I loved that Edward finally embraced and wasn’t scared of his sexual preferences in the end. (Haha - I said “going deep into it” in the same sentence as “sexual preferences” – Bwah ha ha!) There was also a little too much stock market jargon for me when Edward gets involved in that scheme, as that shizz goes right over my head. And if Edward would have punched his friend/roommate Natie square in the mouth at any point in the book, I would have applauded.

You’ll want to smack the crap out of him too if you read the book. (Which you shoud.)
The end of this book was totally kick ass, and in Marc Acito style. I can only hope for another follow up book, where maybe we see Edward starring in some random show off Broadway.

Fashion for the masses. And by "masses" I mean, "no one"

2008-05-20T11:51:00.008-04:00

Reading Anne Fogarty's book, Wife Dressing: The Fine Art of Being a Well-Dressed Wife, is kind of like opening up a time capsule. Except instead of being excited to start playing with your pogs again or looking at third grade photos, you kind of just want to rebury it and hope no one ever finds it.

Fogarty originally wrote the book in 1959, and this fact is painfully obvious. It was recently republished with a new, uninspiring introduction that does little more than quote the book so many times that you can't help but be annoyed at how many passages you have to reread later on. To be frank, had Lacey and I not been specifically asked to review this book by Glitterati Inc., I would have put the book down after the first page.

The book's title is pretty indicative of one of my main problems with it. While certainly no feminist by any means, I do take issue with the book's main theme of dressing for your husband. Sure, we all dress to please our significant others at times, but what about the slightly more current notion of feeling confident in your own skin? Why shouldn't women dress to make THEMSELVES happy? It is a sad, pathetic woman who would get pleasure out of wearing something she hated but her husband loved.

Aside from husband-worship, Wife Dressing is chock full of other annoying anachronisms. No chapter is complete without excessive mention of your furs. When it's okay to wear them, how to care for them, etc. You know who wears fur these days? Coat-stealer Lindsay Lohan (P.S. For the awesome letter that PETA wrote to the girl whose coat Lohan stole, click here). And pretty much no one else. Additionally, the phrase "white shorties" appears with alarming frequency, considering that I had no idea what that meant. After awhile I gathered that it meant short white gloves. Then I realized that I was wrong and it means short heels. I think. All I know is that every time I read the phrase, I couldn't help but hum Lloyd's "Get It Shawty" song over and over. And that having a song stuck in my head was way more pleasant than reading this book.

Further still were the fashion suggestions that, while appropriate for 1959, just don't translate into 2008. For instance, when trying to interest your husband in fashion, you should buy him a...velvet smoking jacket! I'm sure my boyfriend, who has a t-shirt with a picture of an old school Nintendo game cartridge and the words "Blow me" on it, would definitely wear aforementioned smoking jacket for a night out at the bar. Not.

In the interest of being fair, the book did contain some useful suggestions for clothing care, which was the second best thing about it. We're instructed to repair and clean clothes as it becomes necessary, not to put something away saying "I'll iron this before I wear it next time" (guilty as charged!). We're told "NO WIRE HANGERS EVER!" - in so many words. And of course, we're told to make sure our hats stay pristine by keeping them in hat boxes. You know as soon as I read that I ran to put my 5 dollar knit winter cap from Old Navy in a protective shelter. But the very best thing about Wife Dressing was that with its thick pages, large print and wide margins, it was actually much shorter than met the eye - thank God.

Losing weight never looked so good

2008-05-16T08:20:00.004-04:00

Jen Lancaster strikes again in her third memoir, Such A Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest To Discover If Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, Or, Why Pie Is Not The Answer. In this book, Lancaster returns in all her snarky glory, only this time, she's trying to shed some weight. Hilarity ensues.

Unlike many weight loss books, SAPF isn't a cheesy tale of self-discovery or a lesson in learning to love oneself. Lancaster, unlike many, always thought she looked, and I quote, "fiiiiiiine." It is only the combination of her doctor giving her a near death sentence and the selling of this book's proposal that really made her try to slim down for good. Along the way, we're given a healthy dose of Lancaster's usual insanity - frequently calling the cops on her neighbors, telling off any and everyone who might get in her way, pants falling down in the middle of Target, you know the drill.

SAPF has all the components of a good weight loss book. We have Barbie, the personal trainer, stream of consciousness digressions about the wonders of homemade macaroni and cheese and hatred of Weight Watchers meetings. Anyone who has ever been around someone obsessive about losing weight knows how annoying they can be, but with her sarcastic wit and always amusing footnotes, we love sharing this journey with Jen (though we do feel bad for her poor husband, Fletch).

The only thing that surprised me about this book is how far along into it I had to get before Jen began seeing any progress. I was probably 75% done with the book before we finally moved from "I can't lose more than 3 pounds because I keep messing up my diet with pizza and booze" to "Okay, I'm starting to love training with Barbie and all of a sudden it's just so easy to eat smaller, healthier portions." The transformation was a little too quick and I would have preferred that she stretch this part out a bit instead of spending the first three quarters of the book being gimmicky (I love her, but the stream of consciousness food-related musings get a tad less funny the more we see them).

Despite this, I loved Such A Pretty Fat and couldn't put it down (and this ISN'T because I'm mentioned - not by name - on page 256 WEEEEE). It's a unique story in that it makes weight loss funny, and there are parts of the book that anyone can relate to. I can only imagine what would have happened if Jen had actually been accepted when she tried out for The Biggest Loser - that show is a big ball of cheesy and they totally need some of her crazy up in there.

You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile! (And 19 Steamer Trunks!)

2008-05-08T17:07:00.004-04:00

A few months ago Arielle and I received an email from a publicist at Glitterati Inc, saying that she had found our book review blog and thought it was "cute and fresh". Hooray! She was contacting us to see if we would be interested in reviewing a book that was being re-released, Anne Fogarty's Wife Dressing: The Fine Art of Being a Well-Dressed Wife. Uhhh yeah, of course we'd be interested!!

Background: Fogarty was a fashion designer in the 50's who decided to write a how-to book based on her own success at being a well dressed, fashionable and successful working woman, mother, and housewife. Keeping in mind that this book was written in 1959 is a must, because certain passages in the book make you guffaw out loud. Yes - GUFFAW. However, it's super cute, and funny to realize that this is how most women truly thought in that era - that their appearance was for them, but more for their husband.

Now don't get me wrong, I know that I dress occasionally with my boyfriend in mind, thinking of what he'll like, or wearing a certain outfit I know he likes. Or when girls are on the prowl, of course we dress up with guys in mind, because we want to attract them and make them drool. :) But I didn't agree with Fogarty saying that if you wore jeans a lot prior to marriage that was fine, but once you were married you should only wear them when appropriate (doing housework, etc). Umm, if you got your husband while wearing jeans, I say it's ok to wear them when you're married too.

If you separate the actual dressing advice from the "keep your husband happy" advice, a lot of Fogarty's tips are actually still relevant today, and helpful. She gives a lot of advice on the care and maintenance of different types of materials and clothing, and other things like what's too much, too little, etc. I can't say I would take 19 trunks of clothing with me on my honeymoon, but then again, if I could get away with it, then hells yeah. Although Fogarty isn't opposed to paying extra on airlines to do so, and I am!

It was also really interesting to see how far we've changed since her era - and how dressing up is more of a rareity nowadays than it was then, where people dressed up for everything including sporting events, picnics, and even lying around the house! A bunch of other reviews went wild for the new introduction of the book, by Rosemary Feitelberg of Women's Wear Daily. Personally? I didn't think it was anything special.

Two statements that had me cracking up were regarding tourists and coordinating your funiture with your clothing. Fogarty states that:

"Shorts on a city street is ont of the worst (examples of bad taste). This shows a lack of self-respect and a contempt for the people who are properly dressed. Tourists are the worst offenders. Ill-mannered clothes are as much of an insult to a city's hospitality as they are to private hospitality."

Hah! If only she could take a look at the city streets now! And in regards to furniture:

"A good approach to coordination is: Whatever you're buying, keep a picture of the whole in your mind. If you're slip-covering a couch, think of the range of colors you might be wearing when you sit on the couch. (Nor should you forget your husband and his favorite dressing gown or smoking jacket and how they will look.)..."

Oh yes.... I'll make sure to purchase or recover my couch with my closet in mind. Ummm. No.

Wife Dressing was a cute, kitschy book, that you have to take in with humor in mind. I enjoyed how they changed it up in each chapter, and that Fogarty gave examples from her own life, both good and bad. And honestly, one of the best parts was the super cute bookmark in the shape of a hanger that comes attached!!

What you gonna do when they come for you?

2008-05-04T18:41:00.004-04:00

Whatever, don't make fun of me for reading this book. I realize it's not a page-turner novel and it's not "important" non-fiction and it's kind of weird, but I liked it! (Can you tell I've already been made fun of for reading Wild Tales From the Police Blotter, by C.J. Sullivan?).

The book is sort of what you'd expect from a book with this title. Each chapter has a different theme, and we're presented with some of the more outrageous stories from that category. There are chapters about missing persons, professional athletes-turned-criminals, animals attacking, and so on.

I have to say that this is definitely a book that starts off weak and gets better as you keep reading. One of the first chapters is the serial killer chapter, and while it gave some interesting history about some of the country's most notorious murderers, it wasn't exactly what I'd classify as a "wild tale." When I picked up this book I expected it to be the weird and unusual or at least the hilarious police blotter stories, but these were your run-of-the-mill serial killer stories, if that makes sense. However, I definitely got what I wanted as the book progressed, as they had an entire chapter devoted to criminals who made stupid mistakes and got caught because of their own ignorance.

Since the book is a compilation of true stories, they pretty much write themselves. Sullivan does a solid job of putting everything together, though considering his background as a crime reporter I was surprised at the amount of opinion and judgment that infiltrated the text (though I can't say it bothered me, just an observation). It's certainly an interesting book, and you'll definitely get more out of it than you will from your standard crappy chick lit novel. If you can handle the comments from your friends calling you a nerd for reading it, I say give it a shot. It definitely gives you a real appreciation for the ridiculousness that cops have to put up with, if nothing else.

Drugs: A Family Problem

2008-04-30T17:22:00.000-04:00

Imagine if you were James Frey's father. That's what comes to mind after reading Beautiful Boy, David Sheff's emotional recounting of his son's drug addiction.

I feel like there are two misconceptions surrounding children and drug abuse. The first that children who do (heavy) drugs are from bad homes. Well obviously that isn't true. I used to work in one of the more affluent towns in Long Island, and the drug use was rampant. The second is that somehow, the parents are to blame.

Let me tell you that in reading this book, I don't think there is anything more that Sheff could have done for his son. He was lucky enough to have the means to give his son every possible resource to fight his drug abuse, and he did. I wont go on about how many chances he gave his son, and the heartache and sleepless nights that Sheff endured, but you get the picture.

Unlike A Million Little Pieces, Sheff gives you the parents side of the story, and spares no detail. It was gut wrenching to read about how his son's drug abuse was tearing his family apart, and how he constantly blamed himself - or thought "what else could I have done?"

This isn't a light read, but on the plane ride to Israel, I couldn't put it down. Just be prepared to feel horrible for what Sheff and his family went through, and to feel let down each time his son relapses.

Why I suck at book reviews

2008-04-13T18:43:00.001-04:00

Or - Lacey is a lazy bum.

Yay!

I can promise up and down two ways from Sunday (what does that even mean?) that I'll be a better blogger, and update this more often... but that would be a lie.

Anywho, on my trip to Israel, I actually managed to read two books, one being Secondhand World by Katherine Min.

This should be called Secondhand Attempt at a Story, because it was kinda lame.

The story starts at the end as Isadora, or Isa (stupid name stupid name stupid name) is in a burn unit recovering from a fire that killed her parents. The back cover of the book explains this, and also that the story will reveal the circumstances that led to the fire.

Oh really? Cause I didn't catch that when reading the story. Yes, Min takes us back in time to explore Isa's life before the fire, but it seemed that she skipped a whole lot in going into detail about how the fire started. (We learn how the fire starts I mean, but not really the causes leading up to it.)

So Ms. Min - next time, when you say that you're going to reveal circumstances, reveal some goddamn circumstances! I'm glad I had your book to keep me occupied on my trip when I needed it, but if I hadn't got it discounted at Target, I'd be kinda pissed right now.

They don't want to be part of our world

2008-04-10T16:03:00.005-04:00

The Mole People. Sounds kind of scary, doesn't it? If you're not a New Yorker in the know, you probably aren't aware that this is the term applied to people who live underground in the subway tunnels. In fact, you're probably not even aware that people live down there, period.

Jennifer Toth writes a truly eye-opening book about the thousands of homeless people whose faces we never see and, until now, whose stories we never hear. What's surprising about her account is that these mole people aren't always the beer-swilling, incoherent, shabbily dressed hobos we see up above. While some of them certainly are, there are many who are well-spoken and educated, with Master's degrees or even PhDs. They are people who decided that life up above wasn't necessarily for them, and one way or another found themselves part of a community underground. And I use the word "community" not just to mean a group of people living in the same space - I use it to mean the same thing as the conventional meaning. Many groups living underground have ways of educating their children, of dividing responsibilities, of supporting each other. They have bedrooms and electricity and are probably a wireless connection short of what most of us would consider a liveable home.

I must admit that I didn't finish Toth's book. While the individuals' stories are compelling, the writing is often dry. I have done quite a bit of traveling over the past few weeks, and while a good book would take precedence over my iPod or even sleep, the only thing The Mole People took precedence over was complete and total boredom. This is obviously disappointing as the book could have been truly amazing if the writing had been better. As it is, the subject matter is interesting enough to stand on its own but a lot more could have been done with it. And so, though I am only 3/4 of the way through, I think I will prematurely be retiring the book to my shelf, only to be donated away at my company's next book drive. If my desription piques your interest, I would say that it's not worth purchasing at a book store, but definitely hit up the library.

I SLAVE over this review and you have the chutzpah not to read it?

2008-03-11T21:33:00.003-04:00

25 Questions For A Jewish Mother is, as the name suggests, a book that contains the responses to 25 questions asked of Jewish mothers around the country. Judy Gold and Kate Moira Ryan (her name sounds like a shiksa name because...it is) traveled across the United States, conducting interviews with Jewish mothers asking questions such as, "Do you keep kosher?" "What makes Jewish mothers different from other mothers?" and "Would you sit shiva (a tradition reserved for those in mourning) if your child married a non-Jew?" They compiled some of the more compelling answers into a one woman play.

Throughout the book, we get insight into Gold's life growing up in a Jewish household with a stereotypical Jewish mother. We learn about the hardships she faced as a six-foot-three lesbian struggling to keep her head above water in the midst of her relationship, her career as a stand-up comic, and motherhood. Unlike my feelings towards the autobiographical aspect of Once Upon A Quinceanera, I found that learning about Gold's life really helped add color to the book, as a lot of the issues and stereotypes that came out in her interviews are exemplified in her mother (you know, the excessive worrying, the guilt trips, all that jazz).

While the book isn't necessarily groundbreaking, it is interesting to have so many opinions and experiences from women of different backgrounds and sects of Judaism all in one place. We learn of the women who gave up their careers to raise families, and the ones who wished that their daughters would be content with the life of a housewife instead of having all these "ambitions." We hear of household matriachs who keep strict kosher kitchens, yet when no one is looking will sneak out for a cheeseburger. There are the women who were raised Orthodox and rejected it, the women who were raised as nonpracticing Jews but grew to become observant, and everywhere in between.

Though I would like to say that this book is for everyone, I'd sort of be lying. Though anyone might enjoy reading the anecdotes, I believe the book would really hit home for anyone who was raised in a Jewish household and would be able to see part of his or her own mother in these stories. It's a short book and a quick read, so hop to it! These Jewish mothers are going to come after you if you don't!

2008-03-03T15:52:00.004-05:00

Heat, by Bill Buford, is the only book I received from Bookswim and had a chance to read before I cancelled my membership. As we all know I was not entirely happy with Bookswim and chose to read Heat because it was the one book that arrived in decent condition and didn't look like it had been through battle. ANYWAY.

Buford randomly decided to one day leave his job (I think he was a journalist of some sort, but since I sent the book back already I'm doing this from memory - shut up) and learn to cook. He aimed to do this not by taking a cooking class, but by finding employment working as a kitchen peon at Babbo under Mario Batali. For those who don't know, Babbo = super hot NYC resturant, Mario Batali = super famous chef.

Buford's adventures take us beyond New York all the way to Italy, where he strives to learn the fine art of pasta making from those who do it best. We learn what it is really like in the kitchens of New York's finest eateries. It is a fast-paced, very hot (temperature wise), even dangerous environment as you never know when you're going to slice the tops of your fingers off or have your ego bruised by the screaming of someone higher up on the chain. There are no sick days, no real breaks, and no mercy. If the food you put out isn't perfect, too bad - do it over.

It is, over all, a pretty interesting story and is told humorously. My only problem with the book is that it goes into far too much detail. I should mention at this point that I only finished about 3/4 of the book. I blame the fact that I had to return the book when I canceled my Bookswim membership, but the real reason behind it (i.e. why I hadn't already finished it) is that the details really bog you down. I imagine someone who is well-versed in the culinary arts would find it all fascinating - but if this is to be a book for the laymen, as I imagine it is, I want to be spared some of the jargon. As an example, Buford spends a painstakingly long time discussing how he learned to make polenta. Have you ever eaten polenta? It's disgusting. I imagine that if you took the gruel that was doled out to Oliver and his fellow orphans and let it congeal, you would have polenta. And after learning how it's made, I realize that no food that unappealing is worth that much time and effort. No one cares about polenta, Mr. Buford.

If you watch Top Chef and actually understand what most of the contestants put in their dishes, you may enjoy the finer nuances discussed in Heat. If you, like me, love the show but couldn't reproduce those recipes even if you wanted to, it might be a bit over your head. At least one positive about the book is that even though it's about food, it won't make you hungry and send you running for the kitchen. I guess hearing about people's pain and suffering will do that to you.

Mind your manners!

2008-02-20T09:45:00.008-05:00

You may be wondering why I opted to read Henry Russell's The Quintessential Gentleman: An Ironic, Sometimes Irreverent Guide to 21st-Century Manners. It's not exactly your standard book choice for leisure reading. But hey, I'm a refined, classy person like that (ha!). In any case, I had never actually read an etiquette guide and thought it would be interesting. As someone who has only a mild idea of how to properly set a table, I thought it would also be useful. It was, in fact, both of these things!

The Quintessential Gentleman covers everything from tipping procedures to how to dress appropriately for any situation to [im]proper conversation topics. Much of it was common sense (on sending out a resume for a job application: "Don't make any spelling mistakes."), much of it was, in my opinion, kind of old-fashioned (on eating apples at a dinner party: "We should cut it into quarters or eighths with a knife, which is then used to remove the remaining pieces of core and the pits."), and much of it was just amusing (on do-rags: "Unless you are African American, do not even attempt to wear one of these. You are not "keeping it real." You will just look foolish and will be mocked accordingly.").

Despite the fact that there is no plot, I found it pretty easy to get through the book's 180 or so pages. Though it certainly isn't all news (I'd be quite uncouth if it was), even the most well-mannered people can probably stand to gain at least a little from this handy little guide. So if you have a big function coming up and don't know how to behave or had problems interpreting the nuances of the invitation, this could be a good place to look. It's like Emily Post, only updated and more hilarious.

Wouldn't want to be left alone with you...

2008-02-19T16:07:00.000-05:00

Dear Alice Sebold:

Hello. I want you to know upfront that you frighten me.

I've read three of your novels, each of which has been praised to the high heavens.

In Lucky, you wrote about your true story being raped in college.

In The Lovely Bones, you wrote from the point of view of a girl who is kidnapped and killed, from right before it happens, and then into her afterlife.

And now, in The Almost Moon, you write about a woman killing her mother.

WTF is wrong with you?

Seriously, you're very talented. I really enjoyed Lovely Bones, and Lucky too. But you're style of writing scared the bejeezus out of me, because your characters are so detached from the traumatic events that are taking place. Yes, killers may fall into an eery calm, or if you're dead, you might as well be nonchalant about the situation, but holy hell woman. It's creepy!

Also, not to harp on you or anything, but I got a little bored. You may have wanted to speed things up a little here and there, and possibly explain more about why the mother needed to walk outside covered in blankets? (I got that she was agoraphobic in the end, but really, explain that sh*t earlier. I would have been way less confused.)

I will thank you for not using any stupid names though, I really do appreciate it. But for next time, maybe something a little more uplifting?

(totally joking, I know that this her style of books, etc, blah blah blah.)

Caution: Emotional Baggage Ahead

2008-02-14T16:46:00.002-05:00

(How nice that I'm posting this review on Valentine's Day.)

Although I love my mother, I'm usually wary of her book recommendations. I lean more towards memoirs and funny, quirky books, and she loves sap. (I'm talking huuuuuge Jane Austen fan.) She gave me Susan Isaacs' book Any Place I Hang My Hat. The main character Amy is a journalist, I majored in print journalism...Yeah I guess I'll read it... I've got nothing else lying around!

One thing that annoyed me right away was that Amy kept referencing her last name, Lincoln. Apparently, whenever she introduced herself, or people heard her last name, they would ask if it was any relation to the president. Abraham Lincoln. Who in this day asks references like that? Wow your last name is Franklin? Are you related to Benjamin Franklin?? Your last name is Tutu? Are you related to Desmond Tutu? Like, seriously? And for some reason the author needed to play out that little joke or whatever the f*ck it was throughout the book. Thankfully though, her name was Amy and not something stupid like Dexi. (Which is totally a character in the Jessica Darling books btw... you know how Arielle and I feel about stupid names!) Oh wait! There was a stupid name in this book! Amy is best friends with a girl named Tatania, or "Tatty", from her boarding school. Ohhhh Tatty.

We're also supposed to praise Amy because although she's come from a pretty bad childhood (father in and out of jail, mother who leaves, crazy grandmother), she's "well adjusted" and "normal". She went to a private school based on scholarship, and worked her way through Harvard and journalism school at Columbia. But ohh no! She can't open up to her boyfriend, even though she thinks he's the one who can't open up, she's wary of friendships with coworkers, and she stalks her mother a few times before talking to her.

Yes, of course you're well adjusted!! It's completely obvious!

All in all the book wasn't bad, but it definitely wasn't an attention grabber. Once in awhile I appreciate those books that you can put down for a few days, and not feel upset if you can't pick it back up right away. Any Place was definitely one of those books.

And I'll say that although Amy's love life was supposed to be like the background story in this book, I definitely cheered a little at the end of the book. Without giving anything away. :)

TrimSpa, baby!

2008-02-06T20:35:00.000-05:00

I never liked Anna Nicole Smith. I thought she was dumb and worthless and when she died, it effected me as much as it effects me when I throw a banana peel in the garbage - that is, not at all. When I saw Train Wreck: The Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith at the library, I decided to read it because I thought that maybe I would learn something about her that would endear me to her, something that would make me understand why her premature death caused such an uproar. After reading this biography, written by Donna Hogan, Anna's decidedly less famous but equally uneducated half-sister, I know more about Anna Nicole than I ever wanted to, and respect her even less than before, if that's possible.

You all know the basic story - girl grows up in a bad family, girl has a son before age 20, girl becomes a stripper and Playboy centerfold, girl marries a billionaire sixty-three years her senior, billionaire dies and girl spends much of her remaining life in court, battling it out for money that should never have been hers in the first place, girl gains and loses a lot of weight, girl gets a reality show where her incoherent mumbling rivals that of Ozzy Osbourne, girl's son dies, girl dies at age 39. The end. The details in this situation only serve to make one realize how disgustingly selfish our "heroine" was, how she had a sense of entitlement she didn't deserve, and how throughout her entire life she thought of no one but herself. Anna Nicole Smith was a terrible person, hands down. But let's get to the book.

As mentioned, the book comes to us from the point of view of Donna Hogan, who constantly claims that she wanted nothing of Anna's lifestyle, fame and fortune. Despite her cries that she isn't riding her sister's coattails, she's...writing a book about her. Mhmm. I want to give this book a very important distinction: this is, by far, the worst written book I have ever read. No contest. Neither Anna Nicole (who Donna interchangeably and very clunkily refers to as either Anna or as Vickie, her birth name) nor Donna made it past the 10th grade, and it shows. There is no complex sentence structure and no real story flow. Tidbits about Anna are interspersed with Donna's opinions of her sister, her unrelated thoughts about her own life, and her constant claim that she just wanted to forge a real relationship with Anna, not make money off of her.

I could go on forever about how poorly this book is written, or how if I were Anna Nicole Smith and my half-sister wrote a book about ME posthumously, I'd be rolling over in my grave about the negative light it put me in (seriously, did she have good qualities? We don't see them here). But I'll quit while I'm ahead. If you, like me, were indifferent to Anna Nicole, don't read this book. If you loved her, don't read this book. The point is: don't read this book. Every last copy should be burned.

This is not, in fact, a book review

2008-02-05T23:16:00.000-05:00

This is a website review! Two Jews Reviews is moving into the 21st century, hoorah!

Seriously though. A friend gave me a one month subscription to Bookswim.com as a gift. Bookswim is like Netflix, only for books. Sweet, right? Yes.

The premise is pretty much the same. You add books to your queue, except this time it's called a "pool." They send you some books, and just like Netflix it has different plans. You can get 1 book at a time, 3 books, 7 books, 11, etc. When you finish books, you send them back and they give you more. Very simple.

While Bookswim is a pretty fantastic idea and I couldn't have picked out a more perfect present for a Jew(er) Reviewer like myself, I think the website could use a little help. I won't be renewing my subscription at the end of the month because of the kinks that need to be worked out, but I think once it's really up and running it will be awesome and I look forward to maybe resubscribing in the future. So, Bookswim employees, listen up! Criticisms, ahoy!

1. There is actually not that large of a selection of books, all things considered. The first few books I searched for weren't available. Sure, you can request that they buy it for you. But I've never NOT found a Netflix movie I looked for.

2. The books are completely and totally miscategorized. For instance, if I click on "Nonfiction - Travel," in addition to, you know, some legitimate books on travel, I also get some Harry Potter books. While you MIGHT be able to call HP a series about travel (WEAK), it is most certainly NOT Nonfiction. Don't get me wrong, I wish it were. Take me away to Hogwarts!

3. On the homepage, there's a list of maybe 8 or so of some of the most popular books. If you refresh the page, the list changes. But there's no way to see more popular books without refreshing (i.e. a button that says "More," perhaps). There's also no lists of popular books divided into genres, which would have been nice.

4. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the way books are presented when you click on a genre. If I click on "Entertainment" I just get a lengthy list of books. It isn't sorted by title, by author, by popularity, by anything except randomness. And you have no buttons to allow you to sort them.

5. Perhaps the most annoying thing about this website is that not all of the books you select to go into your pool are actually available. Why? I have no idea because you're not given a reason. Nor are you given a warning that your book is not available. This means that you can have 10 books in your pool and you may be super excited to get your top 3, but when you open your package you may actually have numbers 1, 5 and 6. I don't understand why a book is featured on the website if you can't send it to me. What's the difference between this elusive book and the books that wouldn't even come up in your search, hmmmm?

Anyway, this is certainly not a criticism but another reason why I won't be renewing the subscription is because I have a library card and I am a cheap bastard. However, if you don't have a library close by and prefer not to buy books, I would definitely check Bookswim out. You might have better luck with it!

Bookswim.com. A for intent. C- for effort. But I look forward to improvements! GO BOOKSWIM.

Mixin' Things Up

2008-01-23T19:46:00.000-05:00

As a white Jewish girl, I totally know what it's like to grow up biracial. Okay, undo that sentence. I actually wanted to read Angela Nissel's The Broke Diaries, which I've been trying to read for a few years now, but the library only had Mixed: My Life in Black and White, so I went with that instead. Nissel is hilarious in her account of growing up with a white father and a black mother. The situations that abound are ones that anyone will find entertaining, including those who, like me, have no idea what it means to be mixed.

Nissel manages to give an excellent mix of serious biography and amusing anecdotes. She seamlessly combines talk of her stint in the loony bin and being treated for depression with stories of her mother convincing her that David Hasselhoff was half black just to make her feel better about herself. She is often teased, beaten up or forced to deny her roots, but her outlook remains positive and she has the ability to make light of it all.

This is usually the part where I talk about what I hated about the book, but lucky me, I don't have anything to write. The book was funny, poignant, and easy to read. Nissel is currently a writer for Scrubs (possibly on strike? who knows), and after reading Mixed I absolutely understand why. And after the life she led (at one point she decides to try stripping), she deserves it. So while I really loved this book, I am still trying to get my penny-pinching hands on The Broke Diaries. And when I do, I shall report back.

Look at Me!

2008-01-22T20:49:00.000-05:00

I think now since I've got my other blog going on, I've been slackling severely over here. And I've read books! And want to write about them! So well, here it goes!

If you've read Running With Scissors, or any other Augusten Burroughs book, you know the damage bestowed upon him by his parents. You might even vaguely remember him mentioning a brother. A brother who was old enough to get out of that house before it was too late for him.

John Elder Robison takes his turn at a memoir in Look Me in the Eye:My Life with Asperger's. He wasn't diagnosed with autism until adulthood, so he spent much of his childhood and adolescence surrounded by people, but without friends. People with Asperger's lack the social skills that we take for granted, like picking up on sarcasm or sadness.

But, besides lacking social skills, people with Austism are sometimes really gifted. John Elder wound up making guitars for KISS! He also worked for a major toy company, and other places before starting up his own car restoration company.

His life was in no way as fucked up as his brothers's (whose real name is Chris? WTF?), but John Elder had a lot of funny stories about the things he used to make Augusten do when he was little, and how he used to get away with calling his parents "Slave" and "Stupid", because the doctor (from Running with Scissors) said it was ok to.

This book review sucked, and for that you have my apologies.

Have your fries and eat them too

2008-01-16T19:16:00.000-05:00

In a world where there is no shortage of fast food exposes (yet again I struggle with being too lazy to find out how to correctly accent foreign words), I wasn't sure how I was going to like My Secret Life on the McJob: Lessons from Behind the Counter Guaranteed to Supersize Any Management Style. What I didn't realize when I picked up the book was that this is hardly an expose. Jerry Newman, a Human Resources professor at the business school at SUNY Buffalo, leaves his job for a year to work at various fast food restaurants. Yet his aim isn't to find out how disgusting the ingredients are or how poorly the workers are treated. He looks to determine how management styles in fast food relate to those of other industries, and if there are any lessons that the corporate office world can learn from those who perpetually ask if you want fries with that.

I found McJob particularly interesting because I work in Human Resources and he touched upon a lot of areas I'm exposed to every day. Regardless, anyone who has ever had any opinion on his or her manager would certainly see something they can relate to here. Newman worked at 7 different fast food restaurants and had different opinions of each of his managers. Some were great at training new employees, some weren't. Some really endeavored to create a fun, congenial culture, others did not. Each chapter of the book represents a different management lesson, and we are given a few good and bad examples from Newman's experiences. The book has a nice balance between management instruction and stories from the industry.

Of course, there were 2 things about the book that bothered me. The first was that each chapter was essentially a stand alone essay. Because of this, the reader is exposed to a LOT of repetition since there isn't necessarily any connection from the prior chapters. It becomes clear early on that Newman had 2 managers that he really liked and respected, and we are frequently introduced to them as though we had never heard about them before. By the seventh time you hear about Kris at Burger King and James at Krystal (I've never even heard of this chain), you're over it.

The other thing that irked me about the book was that it was interspersed with short, 1 or 2 paragraph-long stories that exemplified the principles Newman was talking about. There were boxed off on the page and labeled as "From Behind the Counter." They were interesting to read and certainly added color to the book, but they were inconveniently placed. They always took up the top half of the page that they were relevant to, but there wasn't necessarily a break in the text to give you a chance to read them. I often had to stop mid-paragraph or mid-idea to read what was in the boxes and it threw me off to have to abandon my prior train of thought.

Overall, if you are, for whatever reason, interested in the fast food industry but are too weak of stomach to handle something like Fast Food Nation, McJob could be a great book for you. You still get the insight but are spared both the guilt and the nausea.

Feel free to think of your own witty Spanish title

2008-01-10T00:07:00.000-05:00

I must admit, my interest in quinceaneras (I'm too lazy to put the squiggly thing over the "n," and also too lazy to find out what that thing is actually called) stems largely from watching My Super Sweet 16 on MTV. Yes, my name is Arielle and I am a trashy TV-aholic. Step 1 is admitting you have a problem, okay? Okay. Although quinceaneras are actually a celebration of a Hispanic/Latino/sorry if neither of the previous 2 were the politically correct word girl's 15th birthday, if it's a big party that cost too much, MTV will feature it.

Once Upon A Quinceanera, by Julia Alvarez, gives an in depth look into the traditions and history behind the celebration. Alvarez certainly did her due diligence, as she traveled internationally, attended several quinceaneras, and interviewed countless girls and quinceanera experts in order to give the reader as much color as possible. We learn about some of the traditions such as the girl's father replacing her flat shoe with a heel at the beginning of the ceremony in order to mark her passage into womanhood, or the standard quinceanera court, consisting of 14 couples marking the first 14 years of the girl's life. We are also exposed to the history and meaning of the celebration. The former is up in the air, as some believe it came from an ancient Aztec tradition, some think it stemmed from a Mayan tradition, and some say something completely different. The latter is all too oft forgotten, particularly amongst the My Super Sweet 16 types, who get caught up in shopping for too-expensive dresses and making sure that a famous rapper is present at the party.

Interspersed throughout the book are bits and pieces of Alvarez's life growing up as a Latina and struggling to overcome the various obstacles that came her way. Though her story is interesting and poignant, I, for the most part, found myself thinking, "wah wah, I don't care, this has nothing to do with quinceaneras so please take me back to the crisis about Monica's photographer canceling last minute, thankyouverymuch." Maybe that's insensitive of me. It wouldn't be the first time. The other thing that really bothered me about the book was that Alvarez inserts cutesy little Spanish phrases far too frequently. I understand the occasional Spanish axiom or word here and there, but it seems far too forced. Julia, we know you grew up in the Dominican Republic and thus have flava and street cred. You don't need to shove it down my throat, honey.

All in all, I thought the book was really interesting, and it was especially insightful for a pasty white person like me who pretty much knew nothing about quinceaneras and had certainly never been to one. If you are a fan of My Super Sweet 16 (or even quite possibly if you're not), you will likely enjoy this book. And seriously, is there a book on bar and bat mitzvahs? Because if there is, I am all over that.

Sign me up!

2008-01-02T17:21:00.000-05:00

Though I've resolved to stop buying books since I almost never read a book twice, I had a coupon to Barnes and Noble and so of course I couldn't resist the Non-Fiction Paperback section. I found Secret Societies: Inside the World's Most Notorious Organizations, by John Lawrence Reynolds, and since my curiosity got the better of me, I had to have it.

Though it took me longer than usual to read this book, I blame that on business school applications and general exhaustion (seriously, I'm going to try to post more than once a month from now on!). Secret Societies is pretty much everything you'd expect out of a book with such a title. The material was presented clearly and engagingly (is that a word? Let's go with...yes). It deals with the more well known secret societies such as Skull and Bones and the Priory of Sion (Da Vinci Code, anyone? Oh yes) (this paragraph is chock full o' parentheses!), as well as tackling some groups that may not exactly be secret societies but are certainly kind of mysterious and secretive, such as Kabbalists and the Cosa Nostra, AKA the Italian mafia.

The overall theme of the book is that while outsiders automatically assume that any organization that hides its activities is likely engaging in crime, this is not always the case. In fact, it usually isn't the case. While many of the secret societies mentioned in the book did eventually evolve into criminal groups (the Cosa Nostra and triads as a few examples), almost all of them started out with a benevolent purpose. Many, such as the Gnostics, stayed that way, provided you don't see massive amounts of sex and orgies as crime. Reynolds also brings up many common myths about secret societies, some of them true, some of them false. He validates the belief that Al Qaeda is a group descended from The Assassins, and discusses that while Skull and Bones members do have an incredible influence on American business and politics, their influence is waning and was never quite as extensive as many thought.

Perhaps the best part of the book is that throughout all the description, Reynolds made secret societies seem inexplicably cool, hence the title of this post. With the exception of Kabbalah, of course, which has been commercialized and ruined by easy-solution-seeking celebrities such as Madonna and Paris Hilton and I was glad to see that someone was able to show the Kabbalah fad for what it is. You can't market spirituality like a trendy pair of jeans, people. But anyway. Secret Societies is a really interesting and informative book, and I strongly suggest that anyone who was ever curious about this topic read it. And if you want to start a secret society and let me in, that would be sweet too.

Are you there God? It's me, Lacey...

2007-12-31T15:17:00.000-05:00

I was going to use "You bring me closer to God", but Arielle already claimed that for one of her reviews. (Andre, you bring me closer to God. Andre?)

A few months back I learned that A.J. Jacobs had a new book coming out, about following the Bible as closely as possible, for an entire year. The book is aptly named The Year of Living Bibically:One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. In taking a look at his life, Jacobs realizes that although raised Jewish, (or Jew-ish) he really has no religious faith. He owns a Bible (that he stole from an ex-girlfriend), but beyond that, has nothing to pass down to his toddler son. So, instead of reading a little bit about his religion to become more aware, Jacobs takes the much harder path of living the Bible literally. Much to his wife's chagrin. (Like when he was reading the Encyclopaedia.)

Jacobs incorporates the Jewish version of the Bible, and the Christian Old and New testaments into his religious transformation. He does rule out certain things though, like killing magicians and other acts that would probably get him arrested.

I loved when he visited the Creationism Museum in podunk USA, cause those people are HILARIOUS. Also interesting was the visit to a Orthodox Jewish fashion show, where the models were all scantily clad.

Read the book. It was good. And on the seventh day, I rested.

20 Times a Lady - took 20 minutes to read

2007-12-24T10:05:00.000-05:00

I figured on this slow Christmas Eve at work, I would give you readers (are there any of you? really?) a book review!

Cause seriously it's boring here at work, and I've got like an hour and 45 mins before I can peace the F out of here!

Let's talk about 20 Times a Lady, by one of my favorite bloggers, Karyn Bosnak. I'm an avid reader of her blog, and I enjoyed her first book Save Karyn. So why not give her first attempt at fiction a try?

20 Times a Lady was entertaining, I wont lie. The premise was funny, and every girl has had that moment where they freak out a little about their "number". No, not you? Well then.

(liar)

Delilah Darling (ughh... we all know how Arielle and I feel about ridiculous character names) freaks out when her number reaches 20 by sleeping with her hideous coworker. So instead of being a normal person and just forgetting about it (or lying about it), she goes on a freakin cross country road trip to track down all 19 other peeps that she's done the deed with!

Now, Bosnak has a very cute style of writing. It's not sophisticated by any means, but it's easy to read, and relatable. That aside, this plot annoyed the f*ck out of me. Seriously, who would go on a road trip to track down every guy they've done it with? I certainly don't want to see some of those people again, but that's just me. Delilah's selfishness displayed throughout the book also turned me off a bit, she basically disappears on this trip, not letting anyone know what she is doing or where she is!

Moral of the story - 20 Times is a good, and I would reccommend it for a beach read, or just something to pass the time. If you're looking for some heavy, deep reading though, this is not the book for you.

Ditto

2007-12-15T23:14:00.000-05:00

I'm also going to apologize for the lack of reviews as of late. However, this is primarily because I've been spending my time working on grad school applications and not reading. I am joyful to announce that I'm in the middle of a fantastic book that I don't devote nearly enough time to but I promise, soon enough I will finish and review it! We will be back. With a vengeance.

Lazy

2007-12-14T16:51:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to post a new book review for WEEKS.

But I suck at life, so that hasn't happened. Obviously.

I promise, there will be some form of a book review in the next week(ish). This is my pledge to you, the readers.

(Does anyone read this blog??)

kthxbai

And now for something completely different...

2007-11-24T22:50:00.000-05:00

I know that this isn't exactly your standard book review, but since it's completely owned me for the past 3 weeks and I've gone through it so many times it looks like I've had it for at least five years, I had to write my opinion of The Princeton Review's Cracking the GMAT.

There's obviously no plot in this book. No characters to relate to, no themes to extol or to hate on. Just test taking strategies and practice problems. When I decided to apply to business school, I immediately went for The Princeton Review as a GMAT study guide because I really liked their GRE book that I used earlier this year (I'm just a standardized test-taking fiend, apparently). The GMAT version was just as helpful, if not more so. They provide tried and true strategies to help you through different types of problems. You won't pick up every one of them even though they insist that you do. You'll use what works for you and discard what doesn't. The book gives full details on what to expect both at the testing center and on the actual test, and leaves no surprises.

My qualms with the book are as follows.

1 ) There are an inordinate amount of typos for what's supposed to be a professional book from a professional company. I mean, a LOT of typos. Glaring ones. But fine. Everyone makes mistakes, even if the writer and all the editors make the same ones.

2) The attitude of the writers definitely attempts, and fails, to appeal to a young audience. It's somewhat reminiscent of Dr. Evil in Austin Powers going "I'm hip, I'm with it" and then attempting to do the macarena. I mean, if I want someone to speak to me like I'm 24, I'll go talk to my friends. When I want to crack down and be serious, I want to be spoken to in a serious tone. You're not fooling anyone, Princeton Review!

3) The book comes with a DVD companion which is great, except for the fact that the DVD sucks. I mean, it really just flat out blows. It has tons of practice problems and tons of assistance learning about the different question types. The only problem is that in order to view anything you need to watch one of their lame-o overly chipper "teachers" explain how to do everything. When I want to do a practice problem, I want someone to show me a problem and then let me answer it. I don't want your token-minority-teacher-who -proves-how-diverse-you-are walking me through it for 10 minutes. I threw the DVD out. For realz.

Despite these things, I'm fairly confident that had I not absorbed this book as if it were the Holy Bible and I were crazy Trisha from the Real World (man, I can't wait to find out if Parisa sends that ho home, I hope so), I would have done at least 50 or so points worse. So if you're unfortunate enough to have the GMAT coming up, get on it!

Second Helpings... of Awesome!

2007-11-11T22:23:00.000-05:00

Ok that title was kind of lame. Ok really lame. Whatever leave me alone.

I had read Sloppy Firsts by Megan Mccafferty years ago, and found it to be entertaining, in a light read sort of way. Then apparently I fell into a hole for awhile, because I was not aware that Ms. Mccafferty had written not one, but three follow up novels to Sloppy Firsts. So here we are, at Second Helpings.

Jessica Darling is perhaps one of the best contemporary fiction characters ever. (In my not so humble opinion.) While reading both novels, I felt like I was sneaking a peek into the journal of an angst ridden teenager, as Jessica's story is told from the point of view of her journal, while she pours out her frustration and viewpoints into it almost daily. Jessica's problem is that while she spends all this time writing and judging her peers (no matter how true the judgments are), she neglects to spend any time judging herself.

What's great about Jess Darling and her high school existence is that all the scenarios that take place are believable. You read about how her boyfriend broke up with her and think "OMG, that happened to me my Senior year too!" There's nothing to make you cringe and think "this does NOT happen to high school students." Instead you merely cringe because you remember feeling that awkward, out of place and unsure of yourself at some point of high school too.

Mccafferty also takes care to have Jessica talk like a high IQ, high schooler would. (Not like Dawson's Creek, where they all speak like they are freakin geniuses. Yeah, cause that's realistic.) Although Jessica is smart, she uses phrases that slightly dumb down her vocabulary when describing her peers, and has a penchant for quoting 80's Brat Pack and John Hughes movies.

Jessica Darling will make you either want to relive high school, or run further away from that time in your life. Luckily, Mccafferty chose to extend Jessica's life to clue us in on her college experience, which I can't wait to see through her eyes. Or her journal.

Takes you back a few years, doesn't it?

2007-11-02T23:13:00.000-04:00

Great works of literature are often converted into films. It is far more rare that a great work of cinema is converted into a book. Yet this is what happened with The Real Animal House: The Awesomely Depraved Saga of the Fraternity that Inspired the Movie, by Chris Miller, a tried and true Dartmouth Alpha Delta Phi and one of the writers of the movie. Just like the movie that we all know and love (and possibly tried to emulate during our college years), the book is filled with stories so ridiculous it's hard to imagine anyone being able to conceive of them let alone experience them. And it's fantastic.

For those who have neither seen the movie nor read the book, Animal House is the story of a Dartmouth fraternity that in every way exemplifies to the extreme every fraternity stereotype. The men of AD are drunk and horny and completely out of control. Yet unlike the protagonist of The Average American Male, which I reviewed a few months ago, they are utterly lovable at the same time. When Pinto, the main character and Chris Miller's house name, purposely vomits on his pledge brother's nether regions during the aptly named "Boot in Bush" portion of initiation, we rejoice that he was able to fulfill the wishes of the elder brothers. When the boys of AD party, you can't help but wish you were there partaking in the fun, knowing full well that your presence may result in coming in contact with any number of bodily fluids from any number of brothers.

The book is, of course, not entirely perfect. I found the beginning pretty slow and boring, probably because it takes place at Pinto's home town with his bland high school friends, prior to his joining AD. What was also particularly unsettling is the fact that before Pinto joins the fraternity (and so actually, before he was Pinto), the book is in the first person. When he finally becomes Pinto, the narrative switches to third person in order to allow us access to all the brothers at once. Though the author warns us of this sudden transition before the book even starts, I still found it to be clunky and unnecessary. I'm not sure why the book couldn't just be in the third person the entire time. But then again, I don't have a book published, so I lose.

I have to say, I was skeptical about this book because I wasn't sure that words could accurately portray the kind of chaos and debauchery that John Belushi and company do in the movie, but I ended up very pleasantly surprised. While my college experience wasn't quite as extreme as Miller's (be honest, neither was yours) I like to think that we all have a little bit of Animal House potential in us.

Now, I sadly must report that for the next 3 weeks, studying for the GMAT takes precedence in my life. I'm going to try and restrict my leisure reading time to zero and my studying time to...a lot. So while I may be MIA for awhile, I shall return! Hopefully triumphant.

They got "Staggering" right...

2007-10-26T13:57:00.000-04:00

I (FINALLY) just finished Dave Eggers' Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius. It seriously took me weeks, and I am known to finish a book in one sitting. (Sometimes I don't always absorb exactly what I'm reading, which probably explains my poor grades on certain tests in school... hmmm.) Friends (namely Arielle) have raved about this book, but I have to say, I wasn't super impressed.

I think part what turned me off was Eggers' overuse of the stream of consciousness technique in his paragraphs. My eyes would start to glaze over after a few run on sentences, or babble of words in a dream like sequence. Does that even make sense? No? Cause neither did half those paragraphs for me.

The story itself is extremely poignant. Eggers is left to care for his little brother, after both his parents die a few weeks apart. This gets major kudos for him, but at the same time I was annoyed by his lackadaisical (I really just wanted to use that word) approach to parenting. It seemed like Eggers had all these great ideas for taking care of his brother in his head, but they lived in filth, rarely got to school on time, and didn't eat properly, among other things.

Amusingly enough this is a memoir, but is found under the fiction shelves. Eggers blatantly explains that he mixed up conversations and where they took place with who, and instead of worrying about a lawsuit of some sort, gave his life story to the fiction section. Also smart on his part as he switches from past conversations to those I assume take place while he is writing the book, all in one breath. If you'er confused by that sentence too, then you now know how I felt while reading this book.

Apart from my confusion and dislike for the style in which this book was written, Eggers is an extremely talented writer, and your heart will melt while reading about his story, and you'll laugh at the utter stupidity he displays.

Sex and Drugs and DNA, Oh My!

2007-10-17T09:24:00.000-04:00

If you love science and hate George Bush, then Sex, Drugs and DNA: Science's Taboos Confronted is the book for you. Michael Stebbins is forthright in telling us his mission: to explain in laymen's terms some of the scientific issues that abound in society today, and to inform the public how and why they have been deceived on many of these topics. He says flat out that he has no interest in quoting scholarly resources, nor in giving the alternative view if he doesn't believe in it. His bluntness is refreshing and it sets the tone for the rest of the book nicely.

The book has a chapter on seemingly everything, from sex to the pharmaceutical industry to stem cells to bioterrorism (and a whole lot more). It truly is a catch-all of introductory lessons in science as it appears in politics. And don't get me wrong - while this is definitely a book about science, there is an unexpected amount of politics in it and an even more unexpected amount of government bashing. While I certainly didn't have a problem with it (I love a verbal bashing of any sort, after all), I can imagine that a more conservative reader might have been surprised and somewhat offended.

Actually, I retract my previous statement. I just read the summary on the inside cover of the book and there is plenty warning that Stebbins is outraged at the state of science in the government. Maybe I should have read that prior to reading the book. Did I just decide to pick it up because it had the word "sex" in the title and I'm just as easily distracted by the mention of sex as every other American? Probably.

My one criticism of Sex, Drugs and DNA is that at times it gets painfully dry. However, seeing as this IS a book about science, and while it is intended for the average person it is by no means simplistic, I think this is understandable if not expected. Overall, I found it to be interesting and informative. The book is great for anyone who is intellectually curious but too lazy to seek out the information themselves. In other words, perfect for me! And probably for you, too. Don't deny it.

Send in the Clowns!

2007-10-10T14:58:00.000-04:00

Remember how in The Notebook, Noah flashes back and forth between present day in the nursing home, and the past when he and Allie were falling in love as teenagers? Water for Elephants follows the same formula. Jacob Janowski (love the name) runs away and joins the circus when he is 21. This is not as romantic as it seems, as Jacob runs away after his parents have been killed in a car crash, leaving him with no money, and his mind shuts down as he attempts to take his vetenary tests to get his degree. Where else to turn but the circus?

A true innocent, Jacob is thrown into the world of the circusfolk, learning about social divides, ways around prohibition, and impossible love. The author, Sara Gruen, does a seamless job of flitting back and forth between 21 year old Jacob, and 90 or 93 year old Jacob, his age uncaringly tossed around in the beginning of the book.

The book is an easy read, but will tug at your heart with how cruel some of the characters can be, such as Uncle Al, the Ringmaster, and August, the animal keeper and husband to the beautiful Marlena.

I wish I had more to say about Water for Elephants, but I don't. It was a very good read, and easy to comprehend. If it hadn't been recommended to me, I'm not sure if I would have picked it up, but in the end, I don't regret reading it.

Light of My Life, Fire of My Loins

2007-10-03T10:09:00.000-04:00

Every so often I feel the urge to pick up a classic that I probably should have read in school at some point but never did. Those of you who regularly follow this blog know that I recently decided to pick up Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, after a failed attempt at reading a book that alludes to it. Though a book such as this really warrants a full literary critique that I'm not prepared to write (hey, I'm finished with school, give me a break!), I will write some basic impressions since it's been awhile since my last review.

Even if you haven't read the book, you probably know that it's about the rape of a 12 year-old girl, to put it simply. Humbert is a middle-aged man who has an obsession with "nymphets," or sexually desirable pre-pubescent girls. He becomes involved with Lolita, whose real name is Dolores Haze, after her mother passes away and he takes her into his custody. They travel around the country with Humbert publicly posing as her father, but privately bribing her for sexual favors.

Much of the controversy around this book stems from the fact that it is Lolita who first seduces Humbert, though he had obviously been entertaining thoughts of them together for quite awhile. For this reason many say Lolita is at fault for her circumstances and that she's nothing but an underaged whore. In my opinion, this view is unfair as Lolita was viewing the whole thing as a game, and when she seduced Humbert she didn't really know what she was doing. That anyone can blame a young girl for having to spend 3 sexually-involved years with a man almost four times her age is kind of sick.

At 291 pages, Lolita is about 141 pages too long. The plot is simplistic and is dragged out for much longer than necessary, with a plethora of extraneous detail and anecdotes that don't add anything other than length and boringitude. I also found Lolita's character to be slightly unbelievable, personality-wise. She has the speech of someone much older and the mannerisms of someone much younger. While I know Lolita is not your average child, the disparity between her actions and her words was too great for me. But overall, it's a book I'm glad to have read.

Stay tuned for my next review, which is (I swear Lacey and I didn't plan this) Sex, Drugs and DNA.

Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs... I Woulda Preferred Kix!

2007-10-01T11:06:00.000-04:00

How can you resist a book whose cover has a bowl filled with milk and pills on it? Eye catching I tell you...

Chuck Klosterman is a sarcastic asshole... which is probably why I think he's hilarious. In Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs* A low culture manifesto (now with a new middle), Klosterman devotes chapters to those mundane yet super important things in life that we would not get by without. Such as Saved by the Bell.

Klosterman spares no pop culture phenomenon in SD&C. Unfortunately, if you're not interested in Star Wars or 1980's pro basketball, there are some chapters that may bore you. In these cases, although extremely well written, I had to force my eyes to slow down and absorb each word, as they were begging to skim through the pages at an alarming rate.

I do, however, find it slightly alarming that someone can devote time to the comparison of Marilyn Monroe to Pamela Anderson. But however disarming this "research" may have been, it's conclusion is startlingly obvious, once shoved in front of your face. (Eyes?)

Besides the personal favorite chapter on Saved by the Bell (I <3 Zack 4 Eva), Klosterman also covers some highlights like The Real World, Guns 'N Roses cover bands, born again Christians (Kirk Cameron you've become so weird) and serial killers. Read on! And have some Cocoa Puffs while you're at it.

If I Could Turn Back Time!

2007-09-20T20:05:00.001-04:00

Pretty Little Mistakes is a mind fuck. Remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books when you were little?

"You discover the Crystal of Power is hidden in the Cave of Enchantment. It's well known that the Cave of Enchantment is where the Goddess of Sorrow lives, and she doesn't like visitors. If you enter, and try to find the Crystal of Power, turn to p. 10. If you choose to turn around and go home like a wussy loser, turn to p. 15."

Heather McElhatton has taken this childhood imagination train for a ride into the adult world. But not any adult world, a seriously complicated, screwed up one. Within the first 5 paths that I took in choosing my own fate, so to speak, I encountered these endings:

I died of a heart attack at a young age. (Was also raped)
Died in a plane crash
Died at 102, Owned a butterfly sanctuary
Was deserted on an island, died of fever.
Became a real estate mogul.

Oh good, well at least I got to be a mogul and not die of something horrible for once, right?

I found some of the scenarios described by McElhatton to be somewhat unbelievable. Without giving anything away, there's a path that involves a monkey and a lawsuit which is a stretch for any imagination.

There's actually a How-To page regarding how to read the book. You can't read it like you would a regular novel, it wouldn't make sense. It's all about the choices you take, and seeing where you wind up with each turn. And then when you're done, you get to go back to the beginning and do it all over again!

Mama's Boy!

2007-09-17T16:16:00.000-04:00

I have attempted on several occasions to get Mitch Albom's widely praised Tuesdays with Morrie or The Five People You Meet in Heaven out of the library. "Did they not have it available?" you ask. Oh contraire. Each time I read the blurb on the back of the books, they seemed far too boring for me to waste my time on them. When I saw Albom's For One More Day, on the other hand, I was intrigued. A man who gets the chance to go back and fix what he did wrong in life? Now that's a story I wanted to hear.

Charley "Chick" Benetto is a broken man. Alienated by his friends and family due to his alcoholism and general sucking at life, Chick returns to his hometown to kill himself. When he gets there, he finds that his mother, who had died 8 years prior, is alive ("alive") and well. She talks to him as if nothing was wrong, makes him food and takes him around town with her. Chick's mother did not fake her death, nor is the encounter a dream. The reader is left mystified for almost the entire novel as to what the crap is going on. (and you, my dear friends, will be left mystified until you read the book).

Overall, For One More Day is a poignant, sentimental, well-written account of a mother-son relationship being mended. Over the course of the day, Chick finds out a lot about his family history and comes to truly appreciate the many sacrifices his mother made for him (his father, for the record, left the family early in Chick's childhood). He realizes the many ways in which he mistreated his mother growing up, and sets things straight. Though I suppose this technically fulfills the "going back and fixing what he did wrong in life" idea that I was expecting, it was far more cheesy, for lack of a better word, than I had hoped. While this may be great for someone else, the only kind of cheese I like is delicious and edible.

I may end up reading Albom's other books some day, but it will likely only be in the event that I absolutely, for whatever reason, can't find something else to read.

This Book Was Slightly Pointless

2007-09-12T11:35:00.000-04:00

Self loathing people are bothersome. So are those people who spend too much time inside their own heads. That being said, The Man of My Dreams was not a fave read of mine.

Curtis Sittenfeld's protagonists in both Man of My Dreams and her (yes her) other book Prep are outsiders amongst their peers, choosing to observe their surroundings rather than participate. (Sounds a lot like Perks of Being a Wallflower.) I don't remember too much in detail about Prep, being that I read it like, a kajillion (2-ish) years ago, but the formula that Sittenfeld practices has basically remained stagnant. Akward girl, has one true friend, not understood by others, meets guy who isn't right for her, moves on.

We're introduced to Hannah Gavener right after she's been shipped off to live at her aunt's house, during her parent's messy divorce. At this early stage in the novel, Hannah seems relatively "normal" and kind of just hangs around doing nothing. Flash forward to her college years, where she's alone in her single, not trying or wanting to socialize with her classmates, and even taking cough syrup before she goes to bed to put her to sleep, since she's been so bored she goes to sleep super early.

Basically all of Hannah's relationships with people are detached, stemming from her tumultuous relationship with her father. Man of My Dreams follows her through life, meeting the nice guys who aren't right (don't you hate that?) and the hot guys who are so, so wrong. All along, she wishes for Henry, her cousin Fig's ex-boyfriend, who is "Mr. Right" in her eyes. But as she moves to Chicago to be near him, she finds out that maybe he isn't "Mr. Right" after all.

This book ends on a faily random note, with Hannah moving to a remote part of the country and starting a job in something she has no experience in. I've heard of people picking up and moving before, but there was something almost too abrupt about this ending, as if Sittenfeld didn't know where to turn with the plot. I don't necessarily feel that any of her issues were solved, but maybe that was the whole point? Some people's problems are just unsolvable...

80's Excess to the Extreme

2007-09-10T18:41:00.000-04:00

In an era of novels with self-absorbed heroines who have no real concerns in life, Fabulous Nobodies, by Lee Tulloch, could quite possibly be seen as the predecessor to them all. The book came back into print - to much fanfare - 15 years after its original publishing in 1989. Though it is certainly unique, reading this book is akin to hours of window shopping in stores so overpriced you could never even dream of purchasing anything there - that is, you are left with feelings of emptiness that only come from time spent doing absolutely nothing worthwhile.

Reality Nirvana, or "Really," as her friends call her (we all know how I feel about characters with stupid names..ahem), is a twenty year-old fashionista extraordinaire. She works the door at one of Manhattan's hottest clubs (apparently in the days where bouncers were tiny, well-dressed women as opposed to 300 pound linebacker types) and ensures that only the most fabulous of the peons in line gain access. She lives next door to Freddie, a flamboyant transvestite who shares her passion for fashion. Finally, Really has named each one of her dresses and insists that they speak to her. You heard me. Her closet is constantly rustling with the conversations of her dresses.

Fabulous Nobodies concerns itself with Really's day to day life and drama. Her problems range from deciding which outfit to wear, how to afford more designer clothes, and how to get an article written about her in the city's hottest magazine. It sounds trivial, and it is. The book's saving grace is that it remains sharp and humorous throughout. My one main complaint is that Tulloch insists on using the word "frock" instead of "dress," "outfit," or any other clothing-related word. We never see someone wearing pants or a cocktail dress, we only see them wearing frocks. Seeing as this is a novel that deals primarily with clothing, it gets a little out of control. And by "a little out of control," I mean, "excessively irritating."

For those in need of a novel to kill time on a long bus or plane ride, Fabulous Nobodies it is. It reads quickly and easily and provides more entertainment than, say, watching Britney Spears fail at making a comeback on the VMAs (zing!).

The Perks of Being a What-Now?

2007-08-31T10:38:00.001-04:00

People today have become increasingly narrow minded. I've decided this after reading Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. It's been on the summer reading list for local high schools, and parents have demanded it be taken off after realizing that there is a chapter involving date rape.

Give. Me. A. Break. First off, this scene in which the date rape takes place is so miniscule, and so discreet (it's a small memory that the main character has) that it is in no way offensive. Yes, obviously date rape is horribly vile, but the way that Chbosky portrays it is nothing that a high schooler should be sheltered from. Children today are exposed to things that are far worse than this on the nightly news, on their favorite shows, and even in school, if they're learning anything remotely close to the truth about world history. But I digress.

I picked up the book partially due to this, and partially because I had heard good things about it. I was suprised to see that it was only published in the 1990s (by MTV!), because for whatever reason I thought it was a much older book.

The main character, "Charlie", as he calls himself to his unnamed pen pal, has no friends, weird relationship with his family, and is just in his own world. Why is this kid so weird!? He has no one to talk to, so he starts mailing letters to a random person? Ever heard of a journal? Anywho...he starts off the school year with the death of a friend, who committed suicide. He then somehow winds up becoming friends with a group of older kids who are all in the cast of the local Rocky Horror Picture Show. (Sweet)

Becoming a part of this group opens up a world of drugs, heterosexual lifestyle, and raging hormones to "Charlie". However, instead of partaking in these activities, "Charlie" seems to just be a spectator, as his English teacher tells him. He encourages him to participate in life, and this is the start of Charlie experimenting on his own. I started to get pissed off at Charlie (yeah, I had enough with the quotes) soon into the book. He just wants to please everyone, so he basically becomes a doormat for his friends. They don't do anything mean to him, but he doesn't object when his friend Patrick kisses him, or when other people offer him pot brownies, etc. Finally Sam, the girl he loves, gives him a kick in the ass before she leaves for college and informs him that he needs to grow some balls and form an opinion. Thank god.

You can't put this book down. It's written in an epistolary style (new word I learned, means a novel written as a series of documents - letters, diary entries, etc.) which makes the novel easy to keep up with. I'd say I would definitely pick up another book by Chbosky.

No Longer Reading "Reading Lolita in Tehran"

2007-08-30T16:49:00.000-04:00

Just because a book deals with unique and brave subject matter doesn't mean it's good. This is the lesson I learned from Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi. This New Yorks Times bestseller had been beckoning to me from the shelves for months. I finally decided it was time to put down the breezy beach reads and pick up something of real merit. What I got instead was a story of real merit, told in a lofty, boring tone that only allowed me to ever read 5 pages at a time before falling asleep.

Those of you who know me know that I am loathe to stop reading a book before I've finished it. I am generally of the opinion that all books should be given the old college try (except, ahem, my college books, most of which I never even opened save to pull out some juicy quotes for my papers, but I digress!). I can think of only a handful of books I've ever put down unfinished, and I know I made it at least halfway through all of them. Yet every time I picked up Reading Lolita in Tehran, I was pained to see that though I felt like I had had a full Iranian adventure, I was still in the beginning of the memoir. Finally, I had to say goodbye. And I don't regret it.

In theory, it seems like this should be a good book. Azar Nafisi was a university professor in Tehran, and for two years she hosted a secret weekly class for seven women in the comfort of her home. They read and discussed forbidden literature, including Nabokov's Lolita (duh). We also learned each girl's back stories. We saw that under the dark robes the women wore bright colors and dangly jewelry that would surely get them in trouble in the outside world. They yearned to not be slaves to society, unable to exercise any free will. Sounds pretty good, right? The problem here is that each page is capital "D" DENSE. There was too much detail, too much going on, and too little that I actually cared about. Just because the story is compelling in theory doesn't mean you can write it in an uncompelling way and still expect me to care. Because...I don't!

It probably didn't help my case that there are a lot of flowery passages that talk about Lolita, which I haven't read (though because of this book I did go get it out of the library today). As you should all know, I hate flowery. On a scale of 1 to full blossomy rose garden, this was only a 6 or so. But still too much for me.

In conclusion, don't read this book. It's boring. Though if you still want to read it because, shame on you, you don't trust my opinion, you can borrow my copy. No, scratch that. You can have it.

Whine, whine, whine. Whine, whine, whine, whine!

2007-08-24T10:17:00.000-04:00

I am one of those people that constantly need something to read. If I'm home and don't have a new book available, I'll grab something I've read 30-something times (The Nancy Diaries, Summer Sisters, She's Come Undone, even A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) just so I have something to occupy my mind with.

About a month ago I was coming home from a cruise with the bf, and knew that listening to my iPod the entire flight home was not going to cut it. I purused the newspaper stand, and found The Guy Not Taken, by Jennifer Weiner. (Hehe, Weiner. Yeah, I know Arielle used that before, shut up.) It wasn't the top on my reading list, but being in a Miami airport, it was either that, or a book in Spanish.

I haven't read any other books by Weiner (hehe), so The Guy Not Taken was my first introduction to her work, besides having seen "In Her Shoes". Which is super awesome. I was taken aback by how every character is unhappy, or how they don't feel like they fit in. Did Weiner have an unhappy childhood? Was her mother a miserable sap? I also understand that many of the stories were written during her college years, or previously published. So basically this was an anthology of random stories Weiner had lying around, that she put together in a book because she was too lazy to write something new. Ok that was mean. I apologize.

One of the favorites in The Guy Not Taken is the story for which this book is named. Marlie (gotta love the cutsie names) is a new mother who is bored with her mudane life. She Googles her old boyfriend (as we all do, admit it!) and stumbles upon his wedding registry! Having guessed that Bob would not have changed his passwords in umpteen years, Marlie mischeiviously switches her name for his fiancée's! Tee hee!

After going to bed like she does every night of her life, she wakes up the next morning not next to her husband Drew, but next to her fiancé Bob! At first Marlie rejoices in her non-existant post-pregnancy belly, and her second time around with Bob. But as the day progresses, and she remembers why she left him in the first place, she also sees that her friends and family are also unhappy with her choice, and yearns to go back to the life she had with Drew. How she gets back, well, I'm not going to spoil that one for you.

The movie rights for this excerpt of the book have been optioned by DreamWorks, although how they are going to stretch this short story into a full length movie is beyond me. At least they will have the creative license to add stuff and I wont know any better unlike the movies made from Nanny Diaries and Devil Wears Prada. Don't even get me started on those! And btw, this plot line is very similar to the Nicholas Cate movie "The Family Man" where he's a single investment broker one day, and then married to his college sweetheart Téa Leoni the next morning in a parallel life. Hopefully this movie will be better!

I've Given Up My Childhood Dream of Becoming a Princess

2007-08-21T08:50:00.000-04:00

Ok who am I kidding... any dream I had of being a princess when I was little is still prevelant today. But I would not want to live the life of Katherine of Aragon, as I discovered in reading this book.

I've read books by Philippa Gregory before, ( The Other Boleyn Girl being the best) and each time have proceeded to get lost in the world of kings, queens, traitors, love and lust. The Constant Princess delivered the same, albeit for some dry parts that I *skimmed* past.

Catalina (Katherine of Aragon) has known she would become the Princess of Wales since she could remember. Gregory gives great insight on how Katherine, as a child bride, was scared, afraid and alone, but strong enough to never show these fears to anyone. Her displeasure at first with her husband gives way to a great love, which is only cut short by his sudden passing. (Don't worry, I didn't ruin the book for you... that giveaway is on the back cover!) As she promises to marry his brother in order to carry out their plans for the kingdom, Katherine has to lie to everyone around her, which ultimately leads to her untimely demise at the hands of her husband, Arthur's brother.

Ultimately this is a good book, if you're into historical fiction and royalty. I feel that sometimes there may have been some confusion to why things took place, but it's my idea that not a lot was explained to these women back in their time. They were educated in order to be confidants for their husbands, but ultimately kept at a distance when it better convenienced the men.

But go read The Other Boleyn Girl... that one's better!!!

At last, literature for chicks that isn't chick lit

2007-08-19T22:48:00.001-04:00

I'm realizing that it's quite difficult to review a book when it's not in front of you. But since a friend of mine has already borrowed the book in question, I'll give it my best shot. I was slightly nervous about reading The Bigger the Better, the Tighter The Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image, and Other Hazards of Being Female. I was afraid that, like so many other books geared toward women, it was going to foray into the land of the trite, the safe and the predictable. Yet this book, edited by Samantha Schoech and Lisa Taggart, did none of those things.

The stories that comprise TBTB are real, poignant tales ranging from the joy of breast implants to the pain of being unable to conceive. In one story, we laugh out loud as we read about a young girl whose lower spine juts outward to the extent that teams of doctors are unable to figure out what's wrong with her. Eventually, one doctor is able to tell her family the grave news: there's nothing wrong with her spine, she's just a white girl blessed with an unstereotypically (yet by no means freakishly) large booty. In another story, we hear what it's like to lose one's hair due to chemotherapy, causing the author to have to make frequent trips to the bathroom to scratch her head, itchy from her wig.

Perhaps the greatest thing about TBTB is that, as promised, these women are truly funny. Even those who write about difficult situations have managed to see the bright side of life's darker periods. and it is uplifting to think about what these women have overcome. Furthermore, any woman can relate to this book, even if they've never directly experienced anything like the authors have, just by sheer virtue of being a woman and understanding the myriad problems that can abound for the fairer gender.

This book is not meant to be inspirational. You will not walk away from reading it with a renewed desire to change your life or discover your true femininity. But you WILL walk away with pride in your womanhood (assuming, of course, that you are a woman), because it's not every day that we actually stop and think about what it means to be a woman in modern day society. In a world that expects us to be flawless yet frowns upon using unnatural means to obtain that end, where women who have had mastectomies are supposed to handle themselves with grace and poise, where any part of your body can betray you at any time, it's always nice to know that someone else has been through this, only 10 times worse. And it's even nicer to know that life always goes on, and no matter what happens, there is always a bit of humor to be found.

The Know-It-All, or Know-It-Less?

2007-08-19T20:18:00.001-04:00

A. J. Jacobs attempts to do the impossible in The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, by reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A-Z. Besides the fact that I think that the title is contradictory, (is any quest to become the smartest person in the world really all that humble?) this was a hilarious book.

Jacobs proves what I thought was true only about my study habits. While trying to take in as much knowledge as possible, he realizes that the stuff he already knew is getting pushed out of his brain by everything else he is taking in. And is he really absorbing anything? Jacobs develops the habit of skimming the super thin pages when he is tired, possibly absorbing words in general, but not knowledge.

Jacobs makes each chapter in The Know-It-All an abridged version of the chapters in Britannica. Jacobs highlights various entries for each letter, and in some cases, relates them to his life. Jacobs and his wife are trying to have a baby, and they come up with a fertility god of the week to keep themselves from going nuts while trying to procreate. One of my favorite lines throughtout the entire book is in the B chapter, under the entry for Berserkers.

Berserkers
"Savage Norse soldiers from the middle ages who, it is said, went into battle naked. Hence "going berserk." So to truly go berserk, you should take off your pants. Noted."

LOVE IT.

Along his journey to undertake the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Jacobs ventures out to test his IQ in other ways, such as joining Mensa, entering a crossworld puzzle contest, and even becoming a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The amusement in this that Jacobs uses his arch-nemesis know-it-all brother as his lifeline, and his brother gets the question wrong, thus ending Jacobs' tenure on Millionaire.

Although his IQ may not have risen, Jacobs learned some other stuff, like to not interrupt a movie with his wife with useless knowledge. (But relevant information is allowed.)

Jacobs has also written another book, The Two Kings which is a book comparing the popularity and icon status of Jesus and Elvis. I soooo want to read it, but its out of print! Doh!!!

I'm So Not Witty Enough to Pull This Off

2007-08-03T09:37:00.000-04:00

I have debt. You have debt. Your mom's probably got debt too. Yeah, YOUR MOM!

Anyway, Jen Lancaster recommended her fans to read the blog of Karyn Bosnak, who has also written a few books. One of them is a memoir (which we all know I love) called Save Karyn: One Shopaholic's Journey to Debt and Back.

When I went to purchase this book, it was in the Self-Help section of Border's! Weird. I guess it's self help-esque... it teaches you how to become seriously in debt, and then dredge your way out of it by creating a website where people can give you money! YAY I LEARNED SOMETHING! Debt free life, here I come!

From the read, it seems like Bosnak had a taste for the high life even before moving to New York. She already had credit card debt when living in Chicago, and packed it up with her belongings. She charged everything to her credit card until her job started, but didn't stop spending once the paychecks started coming! Clothes, furniture, random crap she didn't need... Bosnak had to have it all. And she got stupid, and would pay off a little bit of a bill, but then spend more! Her reasoning was that it was all for "a good cause." "Why buy cheap and have to replace it soon when you can b y better and it will last longer." "This sale is too good to pass up." "I deserve it." And it went on and on and on.

Finally she realized that she was in deep debt (and sh*t) and she lost her job. Penniless and desperate, Bosnak launched a website, http://www.savekaryn.com/. Here, she did what only homeless people think to do... she asked strangers for donations. Bosnak thankfully didn't rely soley on the kindess of strangers, but also sold almost all of her excess on eBay, learned to shop frugally, and when she did finally get a job again, she put some money toward her debt from that as well. Word of mouth spread her site around, and interview offers came pouring in, adding fuel to the fire. Within less than a year, Bosnak was officially debt free.

I enjoyed reading about Bosnak's plight, although I found her writing style slightly juvenile. Nonethless, I am looking forward to reading her other book, a tale of fiction called 20 Times a Lady, which is hysterically about a woman who realizes she has slept with 19 men, and makes it her mission to make the 20th the last man she'll ever sleep with. Hah!

Scads and scads of reviews!!

2007-08-01T17:20:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to use the word "scads" for some reason.

Anyway I just got back from vacay, and I have a bunch of books to review, so stay tuned!! We have:

Save Karyn - Karyn Bosnak
The Know-It-All - A.J. Jacobs
The Constant Princess - Philippa Gregory
The Guy Not Taken - Jennifer Weiner

There's also Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but I am SO not worthy to write a review about it. Maybe Arielle will take a stab??

You bring me closer to God

2007-07-25T21:27:00.000-04:00

Nothing wrong with taking the standard post-college-have-to-find-myself trip around the world a few years late, is there? Because that is exactly what Elizabeth Gilbert did, and she tells the story of her travels in her book, Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. It is a true story of indulgence and self-deprivation, learning and forgetting, and everything in between.

In the wake of a destructive divorce and an even more destructive rebound, Liz, who is in her mid-thirties, decides to spend a year of her life traveling the world. She has no real plan for what would happen upon her return, but hopes that everything will have seamlessly sorted itself out by the end of her trip. She decides to spend 4 months in Rome to satisfy her appetite, both for delicious food and for learning Italian. She then goes to India, spending 4 months praying at the ashram of a guru who she had been following for some time. Her final leg of the trip is spent in Bali, generally seeking balance and closure.

Liz's adventures, coupled with the fact that she is a writer by profession and thus actually has talent, make for a truly great book. The reader gets vivid portraits of the various characters that run through her life, from Richard, the goofy yet wise Texan at the ashram to Ketut Liyer, the very old and very friendly healer she spends nearly every day with in Bali. We become truly involved in Liz's life. In Italy, we delight in feasting upon the best pizza in Naples (and thus, the world). In India, we struggle right along with Liz as she suffers through the Gurugita, the prayer of 182 verses, each morning. When she finally conquers it with ease and reaches a new level of spirituality, we too feel more enlightened. In Indonesia, our hearts break for Wayan, another of Liz's new healer friends, when she learns that she will soon be kicked out of her house. Through the ups and downs we really do see Liz grow as a person, and we watch her as she begins to set right all the wrongs in her life.

My criticisms of the book are two-fold. For one, Liz has a pretty big ego (why do I find this perpetually plaguing the books I read?). She clearly thinks she's hot shit both in looks and personality. And who knows, maybe she is. But I don't need it rubbed in my face. My second criticism is not so much a criticism of the book as a disappointment in the resolution of Liz's journey. As I mentioned, her divorce was the main impetus for her taking the trip, as it severely impacted her life. We learn that she is one of those people who always throws herself full force into her relationships. She takes on the personalities, preferences and even mannerisms of the men with whom she involves herself. In a sense, she loses herself in them and every time a relationship ends, it is a new challenge to regain her sense of self. Her trip around the world was meant to strengthen her independence, and along this line she decides to be celibate for the entire year. In Bali, the culmination of the journey, Liz finally finds peace and happiness, largely in part to a Brazilian man named Felipe, for whom she abandoned her celibacy and intimacy rules. Though there's nothing wrong with being happy, it seems that she was thrown back into her old ways as she ditched her other Bali friends to hang out with him constantly. Women never change.

Despite the fact that Liz isn't the only one to ever travel the world in search of self and spirituality, Eat Pray Love seems to really accomplish a lot towards this end. In that sense, her story is truly unique. It definitely makes you want to go on your own quest for self-discovery. Though we may not all have ashrams or healers at our hands, at least we can take comfort in the fact that one day, we may find spirituality over a slice of pizza.

Hehehe, Weiner

2007-07-20T12:03:00.000-04:00

Good in Bed. Sounds like it should be the title of a trashy novel, right? In actuality, Good in Bed, by Jennifer Weiner, is one part trash, two parts journey to find one's self. Candace Shapiro, or "Cannie," (worst nickname ever, in my not-at-all humble opinion) is a woman in her twenties struggling with her weight, her love life, and her job. She is intelligent and has a sharp tongue, and is someone any woman can relate to. As we get to know her in the beginning pages, we can sympathize with her emotions and her problems. And then something goes terribly awry.

Cannie's troubles begin when her ex-boyfriend Bruce writes a mortifying magazine article about their relationship entitled, "Loving A Larger Woman." Fair enough. Weeks later, Cannie's job as a journalist takes her to New York to interview an A-list celebrity, where she ends up not only interviewing the famous Maxi Ryder (Maxi? Come ON), but having a drunken night out with her which continues into a day of shopping and luxury. Maxi and Cannie depart New York to their respective hometowns of Los Angeles and Philadelphia the best of friends. Sure, that's normal. Cannie soon learns that she's pregnant with Bruce's child, because as they were having a post-breakup rendezvous she forgets that she's gone off birth control and doesn't remember until her doctor tells her she's pregnant. Riiiight. Later, while visiting Maxi in Los Angeles, Cannie somehow ends up making out with another A-list celebrity (think the likes of Brad Pitt). She's hugely pregnant at the time, by the way. And finally, Bruce's new girlfriend attacks Cannie in the airport bathroom on the way back from LA, causing her to end up in the hospital, almost losing her baby.

Did I say one part trash, two parts finding one's self? Let's reverse that ratio.

On a more positive note, Good in Bed is well-written and easy to read. Weiner is particularly talented at character development, giving us believable, well-rounded personalities (even if the things that happen to them aren't particularly believable). Despite the outlandish circumstances our heroine finds herself in, the story is still compelling and I imagine that a reader less cynical than myself would get completely wrapped up in Cannie's adventures. Perhaps even I would have been more into the story if I hadn't been expecting something a bit more grounded.

I think another reason why I wasn't entirely thrilled with this book is because at the start, it really seems like there's going to be a lesson in the end about learning to come to terms with life's shortcomings and instead take them in stride. Though there's certainly an attempt at this, it falls a bit short and has a weak, though happy, ending.

All in all, I understand completely why Jennifer Weiner's books were recommended to me by so many people. But I don't think I'll be passing the message along.

Ladies, We're Doomed

2007-07-17T23:10:00.000-04:00

As I perused the Summer Reading tables for something to bring to Cancun, I stumbled upon something that filled me with promise: The Average American Male: A Novel, by Chad Kultgen. Though there was no description on the back, allow me to grace you with the 3 reviews that appeared there in its place.

"I can't figure out if this book is a heartfelt dispatch from the front line in the battle of the sexes or a brilliant send-up of the way the male point of view has been misrepresented by militant feminists."

"It's so primal, so dangerous, it might be the most ingenious book I've ever read."

"The most brilliant author of the twenty-first century. But enough about me, buy Chad's book. It's a blueprint of how the mind - and penis - of the typical American male works."

How could I NOT be intrigued? Doesn't every woman in this country yearn to find out what the male mind is really like? Would I finally gain insight beyond constant thoughts of sex and video games? The answer, sadly, is no. The Average American Male is everything a woman would expect out of such a book yet nothing we actually want. It's pretty much a twenty-something guy who doesn't give two shits about his girlfriend, dumps her and finds someone better. The end. And about every two sentences or so, he reflects upon whether or not he'd like to do whatever female is in his line of vision up the ass. This is primal and dangerous? The most brilliant author of the century? I'm pretty sure this point of view is anything BUT misrepresented. I was going to put in a nice little sample of his writing but it would be highly inappropriate. So I'll refrain.

Ladies, I'm afraid it doesn't get much better than this.

Not a book review, but pretty sweet nonetheless...

2007-07-11T11:43:00.000-04:00

Merriam-Webster's list of new words added to the dictionary has come out... and "ginormous" is one of them. I think this is FANTASTIC!

I can't figure out how to make the picture into a link to the article, so here's the article:

New Dictionary Includes 'Ginormous'

I WANNA ROCK! (ROCK!)

2007-07-06T16:32:00.000-04:00

Had to throw that shout out to Twisted Sister in there. After reading a book about the ins and outs of rock 'n' roll journalism, it was dually needed.

Jancee Dunn was a veejay for MTV2 before it was MTV2, when filming was done on the street without crowds of tweens en massed around the cameras. She had serendipitously landed a job at Rolling Stone magazine a few years out of college, and was lucky enough to have interviewed the likes of Scott Weiland, Barry White, Dolly Parton and the Icon, Madonna. (If you've seen the *horrible* movie Sugar and Spice, then you should have known to bow your head in respect after uttering her name.... yeah that was random... sorry!

In But Enough About Me: A Jersey Girl's Unlikely Adventures Among the Absurdly Famous, Dunn writes about how she went from an awkward girl grasping to be cool with the super permed NJ crowd to hanging out with the rock 'n' roll elite. I would have thought that having a job for Rolling Stone, that Dunn would morph into the coolest person in the world. However, like a regular person, she still felt super uncool, even with such an awesome job.

I'm one of those people that needs to be lured in by the first few pages of the book. There are many times that I have picked up a book in the store thinking it would be next on my list, and have put it down again because the first few pages weren't interesting. There doesn't have to be an explosion or anything, but I need something to grab me, shake me and say "READ THIS, IT'S INTERESTING!!" I ordered Dunn's book (too lazy to write out the entire title again) on Amazon, as usual, so I didn't have the option to skim the first pages. And at first, it was a little boring. Dunn slides back and forth between chapters of advise, and chapters of her experiences. To be honest, I think she made a mistake by starting the book with a chapter of advise. I don't want to know how to become a rock 'n' roll journalist, I want to know who she met, what they were like, what she saw, what they smelled like, etc, etc, etc. Luckily I plodded through that first chapter, because the rest of the book, instructional manual and all, is a great read.

Dunn also uses this book to make note of how the Rolling Stone lifestyle affected her away from the limelight. It was not the job itself, but the people she met indrectly through it, boyfriends namely, that rub her friends and family the wrong way. (Like the tree hugging, non-meat eating, unemployed, naked couch potato that invades her apartment for a time.)

Would I want to interview Scott Weiland while he's begging to do coke? Probably not. But getting to live vicariously through Dunn as she wrote about it was probably just as good.

I'm Still Here, I Promise!

2007-06-27T12:06:00.000-04:00

Hello wonderful Two Jews Reviews fans!

Just wanted to give a brief update and let you know that the last few books I've read are books that either a) don't need reviewing (The Picture of Dorian Gray? Unnecessary) or b) have already been reviewed and/or mentioned (Augusten Burroughs's Dry and Bright Lights, Big Ass by Jen Lancaster, she who is of such awesomeness that I shouldn't even need to mention her name).

But have no fear, I just started a new, exciting and unreviewed book and will be back. :)

Until then,
Jew #2

Bow Chica Wow Wow... Chica Chica Wow Wow!!!!!

2007-06-27T10:18:00.000-04:00

I'll be honest and admit that I purchased this book because the cover is lime green and has two ladybugs fornicating.

Hehehe.

I'm dirty minded, leave me alone.

Microthrills: True Stories from a Life of Small Highs by Wendy Spero is FUNNY. And insightful. Ever think that you were the only one who got a thrill from something completely random and insignificant? Like... the smell of a good shoe store, or, putting Elmer's Glue all over your and then peeling it off slowly after it's dried. Just me? Ok well whatever, you get the point. Spero writes about her life and these small quirky things that make her the (well adjusted) person that she is today.

Ever have that horrifying moment where your mother walks in on you "doing the deed" with your boyfriend? For Spero, this was the norm, as her mother unselfishly (is that a word?) gave Spero her master bedroom, and slept on a pullout couch. Being that this was an NYC apartment, most of Spero's mom's stuff was in the bedroom. And Spero was a sex therapist, so while she was bursting in on the teen couple trying to get it on, she was shielding her eyes while encouraging her daughter all at the same time. I would personally be mortified beyond belief, but Spero took it in stride. And also learned some great techniques from books her mother gave her, which as she mentions, made her very popular in high school.

I loved that Spero included pictures in her book, the best being the one of her grandfather, who looks like Albert Enstein but with much thicker, whiter hair, if possible. Arielle and I know from experience that Jewish grandparents are great, and dote incessantly on their grandchildren (as they should) but Spero's almost take the cake with their loud personalities and awe and amazement of their grandchild.

Spero, without intention, also leads us to believe that there truly is someone out there for everyone. Otherwise how else would she have met Amos, her boyfriend/fiance? He is someont hat not only puts up with her quirks, but embraces them. Putting stuffed animals into precarious situations for Spero to find? Done. Finger puppet shelving unit needed? No problem - he built one out of Legos for her. And I thought my boyfriend was good when I named the stuffed penguin he got me Herbert (it fits him, shut up).

Go read this book. If you get it on Amazon.com it's really inexpensive, and also, you'll constantly be laughing because half of the stuff you either went through, or can totally relate to on some level.

Now that I've stopped being a lazy ass...

2007-06-17T11:51:00.000-04:00

Here's the picture of us when we met Jen Lancaster!!!

And she yelled at Arielle for not seeing the movie "Footloose". Good job. :)

Nonesuch? Definitely. Royal? Debatable.

2007-06-12T20:28:00.000-04:00

As a twenty-something struggling to figure out what to do with the next phase of my life, how could I resist a book called The Royal Nonesuch - Or, what will I do when I grow up?. The book is the memoir of Glasgow Phillips, who found himself in his twenties with a published novel yet still nowhere to go in life. He moved to California and delved into the underworld of Hollywood. He and his friends started, among other things, a company designed to come up with names of entertainment businesses, an alternative to the Sundance Film Festival cheekily called Lapdance, and a website. It is a tale of being young and poor and trying to find one's place in the world.

Phillips's life is chock full of interesting characters. He briefly worked for Might magazine, run by Dave Eggers of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius fame. Eggers also writes a particularly hilarious review of the book and it is prominently displayed on the back cover. But I digress. He is friendly with Trey Parker and Matt Stone (Stone also has a review on the back cover of the book), and when he is down on his luck and unemployed he takes a job writing for South Park for a season. One of the other bizarre characters to make it onto the Royal Nonesuch cast is the self-named Timmy the Woodsman, who spends much of the book so high off a variety of recreational substances that he pretty much doesn't make any sense. Ever. Fun fact: it is from Timmy the Woodsman that Parker and Stone developed the Timmy character on South Park.

Though I found the book highly entertaining (I mean, really, how could I not? There are drugs and parties and weirdos - oh my!) I didn't find it to be as much of a manifesto on being young and confused as I was hoping. The entire text is pretty much one big storytelling session - and don't get me wrong, Phillips has a bounty of stories. Though the thought that he still didn't know what to do with his life often ran through his mind, it doesn't really run through the book as an overarching theme. He may say that he wasn't satisfied with his accomplishments thus far in life, but personally, as someone who hasn't a) written a novel b) gotten any kind of fellowship c) been CEO of a business, even if it's a small one that eventually dissolves or d) any of the above, I just didn't find it believable.

If you're looking to read some unique stories about strange people and circumstances you will never be in, The Royal Nonesuch is where it's at. If you're looking for a poignant coming of age tale with real, relatable yet amazingly hilarious circumstances, I would go with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Further, though this book is supposed to be quite funny, I actually found the funniest part to be Eggers's aforementioned review on the back cover. I guess to sum up my review:

Phillips: 0
Eggers: 2

Anyone Who Uses the Word "F*cktard" is My Idol

2007-06-04T11:30:00.001-04:00

I <3 (HEART) JEN LANCASTER.

No seriously. And she's reading/signing at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble on Thursday, and Arielle and I couldn't be more excited.

Jen Lancaster's new book, Bright Lights, Big Ass: A Self-Indulgent, Surly, Ex-Sorority Girl's Guide to Why it Often Sucks in the City, or Who are These Idiots and Why Do They All Live Next Door to Me?, is filled with the amusing anecdotes that make up her blog Jennsylvania. Read: you will pee in your pants reading this book.

A friend recommended Lancaster's first book Bitter is the New Black to me while I was looking for something to read that wasn't chick-lit written about a girl from London who works in publishing/public relations/etc and has guy issues to work though. Boooooooooooring. Lancaster writes in a bitchy, opinionated, self appreciative style that makes you cringe and love her at the same time. Also, her method of footnotes is awesome, whether it's just to back up a point or add another insult to someone.*

(*it's funny)

Normally, whiny people are generally not appreciated by myself. Except when maybe I'm whining. Cause its usually funny. And Lancaster is funny too. Mainly because she believes whole heartedly that she is not being ridiculous, while the reader knows that that sitting outside your house reading a friend's manuscript while drinking an alcoholic beverage in an attempt to get your gay neighbors to notice you and invite you inside to their party is just a tad bit ludicrous. And I would probably do it too.

GO READ THIS BOOK! And her first one. Cause seriously, you'll never stop laughing, and when that illicits stares on the subway from surrounding readers, we know that means it's a good book.

Hopefully pictures of Lancaster's appearance at B&N to appear soon!!

Is Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice

2007-05-29T14:14:00.000-04:00

I imagine that even if I hadn't seen the movie Everything is Illuminated before reading the book, I would still hear the main narrator Alex speaking in very heavily accented English. Jonathan Safran Foer, the author and awkward seeker in Everything is Illuminated has made Alex into a caricature of someone whose English is a second language to them. It's as if he took a thesaurus and substituted all the simple words for much more intricate ones, to make Alex's speech seem unnecessarily complex and ridiculous. (Re: "Manufacturing Z's" for sleeping, and "I am carnal with many girls" for sleeping with them. ) But alas! This works! Alex is adorably ignorant to the fact that his grasp on the English language is not as wonderful as he thinks, and only with the help of Jonathan does he begin to correct it, which actually makes you a little less fond of him. However, if you see the movie, he does sound a little like Borat, (hence the title of this review), which is niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.

To be honest, I was quite confused when I began reading this book. There are three stories taking place, with really no introduction to any. (And it didn't help that the movie cut out one story completely, so I was totally lost. But this is a book review, not a movie review... moving on!) Safran Foer moves back and forth between chapters with a little too much ease, making it confusing for the reader at first glance. There are the letters that Alex writes to Jonathan, the story that Alex tells of their journey together to find the woman who saved Jonathan's father's life, and the fictional story that Jonathan tells of his ancestry. Phew.

I really liked this book, and will probably read other books by Safran Foer. But there were some things that bothered me. First, and this translates to e-mails and IM, I HATE when people write all in capital letters!! I understand that this was done to give more depth to the rabbi in Jonathan's fictional tale, because he had a boisterous voice to spread his gospel, but lord is that annoying! I found myself skimming those paragraphs because I just couldn't force myself to read through the capital print. Trivial, but annoying.

I also began more and more to dislike Jonathan, something that I did not feel during the movie. (Sorry, couldn't help the movie reference there.) Although you never see letters from Jonathan to Alex, you know what he writes about from Alex's responses. Jonathan at times seems like a douchebag. He is constantly telling Alex to revise his story, which is truth, but takes harsh offense when Alex suggests that he makes changes to his fictional story! Stupid. I would probably rip his black framed glasses off his face and poke him in the eyes.

There was also some confusion to why certain things were taking place, because there was no explanation given by Safran Foer. You only hear about it through Alex's letters, and although he explains what happened to Jonathan, you don't really know why it happened. Gah!!!

The book was great, but I think I liked the movie more. :)

The best kind of whore

2007-05-28T22:59:00.000-04:00

As I passed by the table of new non-fiction books at Barnes and Noble, I couldn't help but pick up the book which read "DORK WHORE" in large letters across the front. After reading the synopsis of the book, the complete title of which is "Dork Whore: My travels through Asia as a twenty-year-old pseudo-virgin," I knew I had to buy it. I raced through this book at a pace uncommon to me ever since my move to New York (and thus the absence of 90 minutes of train rides every day). It never disappointed.

Iris Bahr, who you may know from her small recurring role on Curb Your Enthusiasm (I didn't), tells the story of how she finished her time in the Israeli army and promptly set out for Asia to get some traveling and some booty. Her one previous encounter with sex had been short and disappointing, and she was determined to rectify her situation. What resulted is an utterly hilarious account not only of culture shock and sight-seeing, but of sexual awkwardness. Bahr embraces the concept of the overshare, describing in vivid detail the worms in her bowel movements and the stress of her first hand job. Yet instead of being grossed out, I couldn't help but laugh out loud at her bluntness. The prose is often interrupted with amusing footnotes containing Bahr's side commentary, a tactic often employed by the unofficial Two Jews Reviews goddess and idol, Jen Lancaster (with whom the Two Jews will be having drinks next week! SWEET!). And if it's good enough for Jen Lancaster, it's good enough for Iris Bahr and certainly good enough for me.

I couldn't even go on much further about Dork Whore as it would likely turn into paragraphs of gushing about how great it is. This, Bahr's first book, is lighthearted yet intelligent, fresh and constantly funny. I was constantly darting between feelings of "I want to go there and do that right now" and "HAHA I'm so glad that wasn't me." I laughed and cringed through it in just a few short days, and never once did I want to put it down. Dork Whore is truly a unique blend of travel journal and sex gossip session, and I guarantee that anyone will find it hilarious. Who knew the awkwardness of losing your virginity could be so funny?

I don't feel very tipped...

2007-05-19T11:25:00.000-04:00

Still reeling from my foray into craptastic chick lit and the only-slightly-less craptastic anti-chick lit, I decided to pick up some highly recommended non-fiction. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference promised to open my eyes to the catalysts behind social phenomena. The tipping point is the idea that just one person, one small idea, one tiny tweak can induce great change. I delved into the book expecting to suddenly become aware of the minutiae behind social trends (which the author, Malcolm Gladwell, actually refers to as epidemics). The Tipping Point gave me compelling examples and interesting anecdotes, as well as insight into the world around me. Yet I still found the book somewhat lacking in its mission.

From the first few pages I immediately got the sense that The Tipping Point is a Freakonomics wannabe (my review of which you have of course all read, and if you haven't, scroll down to the bottom of the page ahora and click the link to our old review website). A discussion of the mysterious drop in New York City's crime rate? This reeks of the work of the Steves (the authors of Freakonomics). Though both books do, in a sense, set out to do the same thing, they attack it from different angles. The Steves search for major events that influence other major events, yet perhaps no one had previously thought to connect the two. For example, how Roe v. Wade made the rate of crime in New York go down. Gladwell analyzes that which is already there, not shocking us with radically new ideas but explaining sociologically why things work. He discusses, among other things, how a group of East Village hipsters somehow made Hush Puppies come back in style, why Blues Clues is such a popular TV show for children, and why Paul Revere's midnight ride was so much more effective than that of William Dawes, who is more or less unknown yet did the exact same thing that Revere did.

As I mentioned earlier, Gladwell provides myriad interesting stories to help illuminate his points. He has clearly done the necessary research and the stories are by far the best part of the book as they provide color to an otherwise dry analysis. The cases he studies are, in my ~~awesome~~ humble opinion, more meaningful than the ones in Freakonomics (to attempt to quote my Freakonomics review because I'm too lazy to look it up: "Oh Steves, no one cares about sumo wrestling"). It is the parts where Gladwell stops to explain the significance of the stories that the book failed for me. The writing is clear yet unimpressive and it is, for lack of a more apt description, boring. Gladwell, sometimes your book made me Sadwell. Fortunately, not often enough to make me put it down. Props.

Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of the book is the fact that it isn't really even a study of tipping points. It's a study of why things happen. Paul Revere was knowledgeable, charismatic and well-connected, which is why his ride spread the message of the impending arrival of the British much better than that of William Dawes. But is that really a study of the breaking point, the one tiny thing that sends something from good to great? No. Blues Clues does so well because the creators have done heavy studying and testing to pinpoint what does and does not appeal to kids. Is this even REMOTELY related to having a point where something is pushed over the edge and ultimately some huge change takes place? Not even close.

Regardless of these criticisms, if you enjoyed Freakonomics or otherwise think The Tipping Point would interest you, it probably will. Perhaps if you're not quite as critical as I am you'll even love it as much as those who recommended it to me (ahem, Lacey). But your life won't change for having read it.

No One's Life is this Entertaining!!

2007-05-11T17:03:00.000-04:00

I have read every Augusten Burroughs book from his one attempt at fiction, to all of his memoirs starting in chronological order from Running with Scissors to the newest, Possible Side Effects. I am amazed by this man. He can write about the most mundane things in his life, and I am transfixed. If I wrote about the love for my dog, or how I broke a tooth in a restaurant, no one would be interested. Burroughs writes about it, and I'm immediately sucked in, chuckling to myself as the subway riders near me look over in my direction with a quizzical look in their eye.

Burroughs has lead quite possibly the most interesting, screwed up life that unlike James Frey, is true! (Who gets raised by their mom's therapist?? Seriously?) The first chapter of the book is amazing, revealing his childhood fear of the Tooth Fairy, after his grandmother told him about it.

"I imagined that creepy bug woman with her devil wand, sneaking into my bedroom at night while I was sleeping, and taking my teeth and leaving things under the pillow that shouldn't be there."

What child has nightmares about the Tooth Fairy? I mean, I saw the horror movie about the Tooth Fairy, and that made me laugh! Burrough's recounting of his turbulent imagination throughout his childhood has transferred into his book and this imagination has definitely stuck with him in his writing career.

I really can't review this book for what it is. Since Burrough's memoirs are published in chronological order, the only thing I can really do for readers is tell you to go out there, and start reading his books. You'd be doing yourself a major injustice by not doing so.

Here's the order you need to go in:

Running With Scissors
Dry
Magical Thinking
Possible Side Effects

And, if you're in the mood for some hysterical fiction, then read:

Sellevision

This is not GOOD lit, either

2007-05-03T09:34:00.000-04:00

From the moment I saw it on the shelf at the bookstore, I knew I would have to purchase This Is Not Chick Lit. Its simple cover (unlike Lacey, I am too cool - read: lazy - to figure out how to put in the code to show a picture of the book), a black background with bright pink capital letters, beckoned to me, saying, "Read me! If you carry me around, everyone will know you're badass and that you don't fall for the trap of reading unintelligent chick lit drivel!" The description on the back tempted me even more. The book promised short stories from the best of contemporary female authors, with conflict that didn't involve trying to locate the perfect pair of Manolos, and love that wasn't directed at the hot metrosexual selling aforementioned Manolos. These stories were real. Poignant. Smart.

This Is Not Chick Lit certainly offers readers a wide array of writing styles and subject matters, but it sadly also offers a wide array of quality. Though each author possesses obvious writing talent, they do NOT all possess the ability to construct a believable or even mildly interesting story. One of the stories was so dry that I abandoned it after about 5 of its 20 pages. Several others seemed great up until the very end, when the authors decided to put in an ending that wasn't so much of a twist as a completely ludicrous cop-out. I equate this technique to when people tell a story to their friends, and when they realize that no one found it funny or interesting, they tack on "...and then I found 20 dollars!" to the end. Only instead, it's more along the lines of "...and then everyone got on a plane and it crashed and they died!"

It wasn't all bad, though. A lot of the stories were unique and well-crafted, and made for some truly great fiction. I will, however, lay out the following rule that all you aspiring writers should abide by if you want to please me: unless your characters are porn stars, do not name them Dolly or Lulu. And certainly do not put Dolly and Lulu in the same porn star-less story. With a non-porn star acquaintance named Pia. Just because your first name (Jennifer) is one of the most common names in this country, you are not entitled to vicariously live out your dreams of having a totally weird name through some fictional characters you created.

Even though This Is Not Chick Lit did nothing to satisfy my desire to read a decent book, it certainly does not mean that I'm going to dive straight into chick lit. It just means I'm going to shy away from short stories, particularly those that try harder to portray a certain image than to actually put forth good writing.

Good Read, Until the Author Got Bored

2007-05-01T09:20:00.001-04:00

I just completed The Girls, which I devoured until the end. I believe the best books are those that make your fingers itch the moment you put it down, and provide that relief the moment you pick it up again to continue reading. And this book was also good because it was FREE! Gotta love having connections to a publishing company!

Lori Lansens writes the story of Rose and Ruby, two sisters who are craniopagus twins. It is explained early on that craniopagus twins are those who are connected by the head. The first paragraph kind of threw me off. It's written by one of the sisters, Rose, and is slightly rhyming.

"I have never looked into my sister's eyes. I have never bathed alone. I have never stood in the grass at night and raised my arms to a beguiling moon. I've never used an airplane bathroom. Or worn a hat. Or been kissed like that."

My first thought was "Oh crap, this whole book better not be a rhyme, that'll be freakin annoying!" But alas, to my good fortune, it wasn't. The chapters alternate between Ruby and Rose, who are writing their biography. We don't find out until later in the book to why they have chosen to start writing the story of their lives. What's interesting is that Lansen chose two different fonts to represent the sisters' chapters, a generic Times New Roman font for Rose the writer, and a more simple, almost childish looking font for Ruby, the "parasitic twin", who is not a writer, and at first is cajoled by Rose into writing her part of the book.

While Rose is involved in telling the story of her life, and in turn, her sister's as well, Ruby is the one who divulges secrets first, under the assumption that Rose has already written about them. And while Rose writes her version of her life story as she imagines a writer would portray it, Ruby writes in much simpler, plain terms, telling the truth flat out. In this way, we learn the full version of the twins story, and not how one saw it. Because even though the girls are two separate people, their unvoluntary conjoinedness (real word? whatever) weaves their stories into one.

I fully enjoyed this novel until the end, where as I mentioned in my title of this review, I think the author got bored. Rose and Ruby tell their stories, wandering in and out of eachother's tribulations and triumphs, until abruptly, the story ends. It's said that they've both decided that the autobiography is finished. That's it?? I feel like Lansen didn't have the momentum to write anymore, being that this book is pretty hefty as it is, and covered it up by making her characters finished with their story. LAME. I could have read so much more about them, but this ending was a slight let down.

Besides the dissatisfaction of the (non) ending of The Girls, I highly reccommend this book. Lansen's transition between sisters is seamless, and their characteristics stay with them throughout each chapter. The world they live in is described in great length, along with wonderful character descriptions of the people they interact with. Go read it!

Ladies and (the few) Gentlemen, Start Your Ovens!

2007-04-23T19:13:00.000-04:00

I came across Cookoff - Recipe Fever in America by accident. I was looking for a book by the author Amy Sutherland that I had read about in the NY Times, and stumbled upon this one. As a self-proclaimed foodie of sorts, I was compelled to read it. Upon reading it, you soon realize that shows like "Iron Chef America" and other Challenges on the Food Network have barely touched upon the world of competitive cooking. Cookoff takes you much deeper, uncovering the lives of "contesters" and the wide variety of cookoffs across the nation, with prizes in the upwards of one million dollars.

Sutherland starts research for her book the same way I found it, by chance. Upon getting a press packet at her desk at work, she was thrust into the competitive cooking circuit. There's National Beef, National Chicken, jambalaya contests, chili cookoffs, and endless others, coming to the climax of Pillsbury Bake-Off, with its million dollar purse. (Purse being used to describe the minimal to hefty cash prize to be won.)

What caught my attention immediately is that Sutherland does not hold back in her descriptions of the contestants. First let's clarify that there are contestants, and then there are "contesters". The contestants are your every day run of the mill people, the majority of whom are stereotypically women, who enter the contests for fun, out of a dare, or for whatever other random reason. Contesters enter every contest they can, spending hours upon hours dreaming up new and innovative creations that they believe will guarantee them a win. Some have full time jobs, some are homemakers. Some have been doing contests for years, and some have just started late in life. They are mostly all friends who nuture, mentor, and cheer each other on, but what they all have in common most of all is the ferocious desire to win and be the best. But back to the harsh descriptions. It's enjoyable to read Sutherland describe contestants as overweight, growling, boyish, stocky, coarse, brash, etc. For example, "Junior is a wan man with a crew cut and fleshy bags under his eyes." Yesssss.

The chapters in Cookoff alternate between concentrating on the many different contests (the title of the chapter about the Memphis in May BBQ cookoff "Cooking is an Erection" had me laughing out loud on the subway, eliciting stares from my seatmate), and the contestants or contesters themselves. Each contest acts as a climactic buildup to the Pillsbury Bake-Off, which is every contester's dream. Sutherland goes into the homes of the contesters to see where the magic is created in their kitchens. These glimpses into their personal world flows easily into the chapters of the contests, showing how these every day people got there. And as a nice touch at the end of each chapter is a recipe, either top winning ones from a contest, or a specialty that a contester plans to enter.

This book was extremely informative and enjoyable (and it was an amazon.com bargain book!) Sutherland goes into explanations on things the oridinary non contester wouldn't realize, such as the fact that cooking contests have actually brought exotic ingredients into our mainstream recipes. She also, as a lot of us would, gets swept up into the cooking mania, and sends in one of her own recipes to a contest. Although not picked, she immediately recoups, and tries to revamp it for another... ahh a contester is born!

Should have "Something Borrowed" this book instead of "Something Bought" it

2007-04-22T21:32:00.000-04:00

In a moment of weakness, caught out and about on my way to a Starbucks date sans book to read, I went to the nearest Barnes and Noble and shamefully came out with Something Borrowed, by Emily Giffin. Despite being critically acclaimed, this book is chick lit to the M-A-X, and reading it is the equivalent of plopping down in front of the TV and getting up 4 hours later, unsure of how or why you wasted your day watching 100 Biggest Celebrity Scandals. It is generally the type of book I avoid, but seeing as my copy of This Is Not Chick Lit (yes, this is actually the title of the book on my nightstand) was at home, I was in a bind. And sometimes you just need something mindless, I suppose.

I had heard about this book from my coworkers, who were one by one being infected with Something Borrowed (and its sequel, Something Blue)-mania. They all said they same thing. "Oh, I don't usually like this chick lit crap either but I swear these are good books!" In a sense, it was. I finished the book in about 24 hours, a testament to how light and easy to read it is. Though I haven't read a ton of chick lit, I could tell that it was slightly smarter than average, which made sense when I found out that Giffin is an ex-lawyer (many of her characters are conveniently lawyers as well). But underneath the witty references to pop-culture and realistic dialogue, it was your run of the mill girl-meets-boy novel that makes you question why people think reading is by default a better way to pass the time than watching TV.

The book comes to us in the perspective of Rachel, a fairly plain and unexciting thirty year old living in the city. She is to be the maid of honor in the wedding of her childhood best friend Darcy and her fiance, Dexter (two names that, in my opinion, are more suitable for an uber trashy romance novel). After a drunken evening in which Darcy goes home early, Rachel and Dex find themselves having sex. They eventually realize that not only can they not stop sleeping together, but lo and behold, they are in love. Drama o'rama!

While the predicament here is legit, it drags on for far too long in the middle of the book. Yes, we understand that you can't keep your pants on with your best friend's hubby-to-be. Yes, WOE IS YOU that you can't help who you fall in love with and it's so very sad that you want to be with him 4eva yet the wedding hasn't been cancelled. We get it. Move along with the story. I won't reveal the ending of the book, but I will mention that it has both the element of the completely predictable as well as the utterly absurd and "Wow, that is entirely dumb and unrealistic and a really cheap way of trying to make things right."

In the back of the book, you can read the first two chapters of Something Blue, I imagine as a teaser of what's yet to come. After reading the book's opening, I imagine that I would get greater enjoyment out of reading the dictionary than this novel. It is written from Darcy's point of view, which only allows us to be more irritated by her selfishness and superficiality than we were by having third person access to her. So I will never know what happens with Darcy, Rachel and Dexter, and frankly, I don't care. If you want a mindless book to read during your beach vacation, Something Borrowed might be a good option. But if you're looking for real literary genius (or hell, even literary plain intelligence), this is not it.

This Book Is So Good My Review Doesn't Begin To Do It Justice

2007-04-15T22:42:00.000-04:00

It is a strange coincidence that I decided to pick up Kurt Vonnegut's A Man Without A Country at Barnes and Noble just a few short days before his passing. It was his final book and the one that offered the most insight into his mind - not exactly autobiography but certainly the closest he ever came. This book is by far the most refreshing book I've read in a long time. I have yet to meet someone who dislikes Vonnegut's work, and A Man Without A Country does a pretty good job of exemplifying why we love him.

Written at age 82, the book perfectly blends the wisdom of age with the sassiness of someone much younger. Vonnegut spends much of the book critiquing everything about our country from our elected officials to our foreign policy to Christianity's downfalls, yet does it without being dry or preachy. On the contrary, his ideas are illuminated in such a way that you can't help but feel that those very words were in your head all along, just waiting for someone to draw them out of you. Reading the book feels akin to having a long conversation with Vonnegut over coffee, as his style is extremely casual and he sprinkles interesting anecdotes throughout to add color to whatever he was talking about. He has an incredible gift for subtle humor and witty, punchy sentences, and at several points in the book I actually laughed out loud, a rarity for me. Also of particular interest are his insights into humor; what exactly it is that makes something funny, and the undeniable relationship between comedy and tragedy (which, if you think about it, is entirely appropriate for a book about our country, a place where we can lament the poor choices of our leaders yet never tire of poking fun at them).

Though the book often seems jumpy at times, changing subjects without warning, it only adds to the conversational tone as we all can attest that sometimes you just can't predict the direction a particularly good chat will take. Also, I cannot emphasize enough how clearly Vonnegut writes. There are no fancy words or phrases, no flowery poetry and no conceited attempts at trying to sound intelligent. And unlike Vonnegut's other works, there are no metaphors or allegories. In A Man Without A Country, he tells it like it is. His words are simple and to the point, and I could not help but be impressed with how smart he is not by virtue of how he says things, but by virtue of the things he says.

Perhaps one of the stranger things about reading A Man Without A Country is that Vonnegut references his death at several points in the book. During one chapter early on, he discusses the uncertainty of life, and how we can never really differentiate the good from the bad because, quite obviously, we're only human. He says, "And if I die - God forbid - I would like to go to heaven to ask somebody in charge up there, 'Hey, what was the good news and what was the bad news?' " I can only hope that he found out.

And You Bitch About Your Job!

2007-04-15T16:59:00.000-04:00

At one point or another in their lives, people across the nation, young and hold have looked in the classified pages for a job. Rows and rows of miniscule boxes make up two full pages of the New York Times, making your eyes glaze over and your head swim. In Iain Levison's tale of job hunting, it seems that he has applied for all of them. And worked at the worst ones.

We've all had that odd job during college for beer/liquor money, and perhaps even that odd job you had after college until you found a "real" one. (Ahem Jillians/Dave& Busters Ahem). A Working Stiff's Manifesto - A Memoir of Thirty Jobs I Quit, Nine That Fired Me, and Three I Can't Remember (LOVE IT!), captures details of some of the worst jobs I have ever heard of. Fish cutter, piracy of cable tv, line cook, etc. It's like Levison has worked the jobs that when you hear that they are, you utter "Ohh... thats nice."

Levison has a way of writing that isn't over the top, and manages to have a humble tone. His $40,000 degree in English that he keeps mentioning throughout the book, memorably as a "$40,000 fly swatter" probably helps, but when he is working the menial jobs he finds, you never get the sense that he thinks he's better than everyone else. (And everyone else is usually only a high school graduate, or an immigrant.)

A self proclaimed "modern day Tom Joad" (please, I hope you get the reference), I believe that Levison must have kept a journal chronicling his jobs as he had them, because he writes with such detail that otherwise, he must have a photographic memory. He remembers details that you or I would probably forget working at a current job. Levison notices everything around him, and is especially intuitive to the emotional states of those around him. Although he does have his $40,000 degree in English, you never get the sense that Levison feels above those he works with. He is just another hard up working stiff, lucky to have this job for however long it lasts.

What does bother me about A Working Stiff's Manifesto is that there is never a mention of close friends, family, or the life that Levison holds outside of these odd jobs. What do these people think of his lifestyle? Yes, he is gone for a lot of the time, with some jobs he acquires making him a drifter of sorts. But there has to be a mother, father, friend, ex-girlfriend, etc, who questions his life choices. Levison seems to have no one like this, only random acquaintances that he's met throughout life, and his roommate who he seems to have just met by chance. Maybe on Craigslist?

A Working Stiff's Manifesto is an easy read, coming to a close at less than 200 pages. There was amusement was in the fact that there were jobs that lasted Levison 3 days, and some that lasted months. I personally find it hard to believe that he was never able to find a 9-5 job pertaining to his degree in some aspect, and I'm more inclined to find that he is just one of those people, with wanderlust, not content unless they are doing something different every so often.

Also, he can't seem to hold onto money for his life! Every job he has seems to require him to give up almost as much money as he has made. Now there are some people with wanderlust who have the financial means to travel around aimlessly, picking up the odd job here and there. It's not having money that keeps Levison moving from job to job, and from town to town. Lucky for him that he landed this book deal...

These People Are My Idols

2007-04-14T19:00:00.000-04:00

You got it, kids. After a roughly 18 month hiatus, Lacey and I are back (and better than ever?) with a newer, fresher, ultimately more hilarious blog name. So follow us as we hone our skills in the fine art of sarcastic literary critique. My first review of this new era is below.

Most of us probably think of M.I.T. students as socially awkward geeks who will some day grow up to be the world’s top scientists and investment bankers. In a lot of cases, this is probably true. But from the campus’s nerdy underworld came a group of students who decided to use their superior math ability for an unusual purpose: to become the ultimate blackjack wizards and win big bucks off Vegas casinos. And this is precisely what they did. In Bringing Down the House, Ben Mezrich tells the fascinating true story of how the M.I.T. Blackjack Club won over 3 million dollars in two years of gambling.

This New York Times bestseller shows us how a group of ordinary students turned themselves into a well-oiled, money-winning machine. Through a vast network of card-counting, signals and secret code words, they were able to determine when the cards at the high-stakes blackjack tables would be in their favor, all while technically staying within the realm of legal activity. With the help of some wealthy investors, they came to Vegas on the weekends carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in zipper cases strapped under their clothing, all to be plunked down at the tables. In return for their large bets, casinos offered them the best of comps. From Monday to Thursday, these students went to engineering classes, ate in university dining halls and hung out at fraternity houses. When the weekend came around, they stayed in the most lavish suites at the nicest hotels on the Strip, were showered with everything from champagne to stereos and hung out at the most exclusive clubs with A-list celebrities and professional athletes.

Bringing Down the House is rife with the excitement and suspense that only Sin City can offer. From forging friendships with high-class strippers and Patrick Ewing to backroom run-ins with angry casino bosses, finding Benjamins in every nook and cranny of your Boston apartment to losing $100,000 in just two hands of blackjack, the glory of front row tickets to the 1995 Tyson/Holyfield fight to the infamy of having your picture faxed around the globe, it is a story that will make you want to keep reading and go out gambling at the same time.

While Mezrich definitely has a fluid, accessible writing style, his prose is often peppered with lame similes or other cutesy phrases that serve no purpose other than to make sure the reader knows how clever Mezrich really is (example: “Kevin’s words flashed by my eyes in Technicolor as bright as a Vegas marquee…”). Though this is his seventh book, I get the distinct impression that had Mezrich not been fortunate enough to know Kevin Lewis - the book’s protagonist – personally, and thus not had access to this amazing story, he would have otherwise faded into the oblivion as an average author who never achieved any great fame. Arrogance aside, nothing about the writing was distracting enough so as to either detract from the story or to make me want to stop reading. In fact, unless you’re sitting at home with a sprained ankle and nothing to do but write book reviews and pick apart other authors because you’re secretly bitter that you haven’t written any books let alone seven of them, you probably wouldn’t even notice any problems with the writing at all.

All told, Bringing Down the House is a great read, whether you secretly yearn for the wealth and notoriety that come with a career as a professional card-counter or you’ve never seen a deck of cards in your life. And it is definitely better than the chick-lit crap that my female friends and coworkers read all the time (sorry, you know it’s true). So get on it.

We've moved!

2007-04-14T18:50:00.000-04:00

So Arielle and I wanted to continue writing our stimulating and enticing book reviews, but blogger decided that Arielle's new google password wasn't good enough to add posts anymore, so we decided to move!

Here is the link to our old entries:

http://pintsize72.blogspot.com/

We'll see you soon!