the westing game. ellen raskin. (184)

i sub for a teacher that is the advisor for "battle of the books", a competition held by the kern county school district. for "battle of the books", students read books all year and then are tested on them at the competition.  it sounds amazing to me and i wish that it was around when i was in elementary school.  i came across the westing game in their pile of books to be read.  i had never heard of it before but the premise sounded interesting, heirs compete to win a fortune.  in fact, as i read it, i thought it sounded like the premise for a reality tv show.  i am shocked no one has turned it into one.  it would be one of these fake reality shows where everyone is an actor except one person and the storyline follows the book.  maybe the produce would give the participant a required reading list with the westing game on it and see if s/he puts two and two together.  

back to the novel, the westing game is also a newbery medal winner and this was my motivation to finally pick it up.

the westing game definitely kept me on my toes.  i assumed since it is a children's book, i would be able to read between the lines and figure it out but in fact i was not that good.  i knew that "america the beautiful" held the secret to the mystery but i was too lazy to actually do the leg work.  i had assumed that the real clues were what were missing too but again didn't try to sort it out.  i did pick up on some of the foreshadowing, the look-a-likes and weird notes but again didn't put in a deep analysis to try to figure it all out before turtle did.

i loved all of the odd and eccentric characters.  turtle of course being my favorite, even though she kicked shins.  i also loved how her nickname even ended up being a clue.  (i don't want to give much away just in case some of you haven't read it.)

again without giving anything away, i loved everyone happily ever after endings!!!

all in all, an enjoyable book and one i would have definitely loved as a kid.

lupita mañana. patricia beatty. (183)

after reading esperanza rising, i was inspired to read lupita mañana, the story of a girl who also immigrated illegally to the united states and works in the fields.  i read it in jr. high and figured, it would be a nice reread. i do have to admit that prior to my rereading, i did not recall any details from the story.  the only memory i had was how "lupita mañana" became a slang word for my high school friends and i, a new term we used instead of "wetbacks".  i know its so horribly racist but you have to give us credit for being so clever and for our literary slang.  and in our defense, i am sure the girls we called "lupita mañana" probably called us horrible names behind our backs as well, it was high school.

oh and before i go on, there was some debate as to when our teachers assigned this book.  i thought i had read it in jr. high, but when i posted it as a #literarythrowback on my instagram, some people said it was high school.  i am going to claim jr. high because from what i can recall, it was jr. high because we had to explain who lupita mañana was to our friend mona, who did not go to jr. high with us.  also i can't imagine being assigned lupita mañana and great expectations, in the same year, which would have happened if i did read it in high school.

but back to the story.  lupita mañana opened the same as esperanza rising, with the death of a father.  however, unlike esperanza, lupita's family was poor.  despite the class difference, both girls had hearts of gold, throughout the novel i was impressed by lupita's devotion to providing for her family.  i could not imagine myself being that selfless (probably because i am not).  since luptia's family was poor, the mother decided to send lupita and her older brother, salvador, to indio (all of my treks out to coachella helped me visualize the setting for the book.  also i must add my grandfather also worked in the fields in indio as well) to live with her rich sister in america.  due to their poverty, the family was unprepared to send lupita and salvador to america, they could not afford a coyote or the forged paper to help them across.  they didn't even have a car to drive them to tijuana (where they would cross the border into united states) instead they walked from ensenada (which after googling, i discovered is 89.3 miles!!!).  they travelled with only a few pesos, eggs, tortillas and bottles of water . . . and they actually made it to america.  i didn't think it would happen because it seemed impossible, especially since they were so young and inexperienced but they both were clever and by the grace of god (lupita did pray alot) they made it across the border.  it was even more of a miracle that they actually found their aunt.  today was are so reliant upon gps that i could not imagine just being pointed in a direction and told to find someone., it would be like finding a needle in a haystack, impossible, partially because it is.  

reading this as an adult, i had a lot more anxiety about lupita and salvador's traveling than i did when i was in jr. high.  the violence that did occur was appalling, the men trying to rob them in mexico, and the gringos shooting at them on their way to indio, but i was constantly worried something worse was going to happen.  even though this book is a children's book, i was scared of lupita and salvador becoming victims of sexual violence.  there were so many situations in which that could have occurred.  lupita mañana was written in 1981, when tj was still "safe" (i have family in chula vista and we would go all the time to tj when i was a kid), but today there are so many stories of violence in that city since it is a border town.  i saw every man lupita and salvador encountered as a predator.  if this book was rewritten for today, i am sure that this would have been an issue.  though i know it was not occured, i was worried lupita would be attacked at the park when she waited for salvador.  even when they arrived in colton and the man befriended them, i was sure it was to have them as part of a sex slave ring i know it could never occur in a kid's book, but still i worried.  

i even got a weird vibe from lucky.  i got the impression he wanted to be salvador's novio.  my gaydar went off with him but again that could never happen in a kid's book.

this is really horrible but i also worried about lupita falling victim to her aunt's husband.  with his alcoholism and resentment towards lupita as another person in the home, i was scared of him abusing her.  i kept on waiting for him to come into the room when she was sleeping and being inappropriate.  i know it sounds weird for me to be that paranoid but i am sure sexual abuse is an untold experience of immigration especially, illegal immigration to america.

back to the story.  i could not believe how salvador abandoned his sister and family like he did.  beatty did foreshadow his immaturity, incompetence, and disoloyalty but i hoped his behavior in mexico was to be a foil to how he rose to the occasion in america.  this did not happen.  though i guess salvador's irresponsibility acted as a foil lupita's hard work and dedication to her family.  i was impressed how she even supplemented salvador's contribution to her mother.  it was horrible how salvador wasted his money on his novia and clothes instead of helping out his family.  i know this may sound harsh but i was happy that salvador got caught by la migra and deported.  instant karma for his poor behavior.  (i must add this book also added la migra to my vocabulary.)  i also enjoyed lupita telling off lucky! 

i loved the ending, lupita understanding the importance of learning english despite the others telling her it was unnecessary.  it melted my heart that irela decided to teach her.  it was a very sweet ending to the book and demonstrated how lupita mañana's optimism helped her survive in america.  on the topic of optimism, i find it interesting how both girls esperanza and lupita mañana both had hopeful names.  esperanza meaning hope and mañana was lupita's nickname because she always believed that tomorrow, mañana, things would be better.  mañana also reminded me of the quote from on the road, 

sure baby, mañana.  it was always mañana.  for the next few weeks that was all i heard--mañana a lovely word and one that probably means heaven.

before i go on, i have to add that learning english is very important for immigrants to the united states.  i don't understand why americans are viewed as racist for expecting immigrants to learn our language.  if i immigrated to paris, i would need to learn french, or japanese, if i moved to tokyo.  learning the language of my new home is not an intrusion upon my ethnic identity but a necessity so that i can function in my new country.  people should learn the language so that they may have the best quality of life, which is why i admired lupita for her desire to learn.  living in delano, i deal with people that make no attempt to learn english and then hold me in contempt for not understanding spanish.  last time i checked, i lived in america was english was the primary language.  majority of these times, these people that expect me to speak in spanish for them, speak english and/or at least understand it.  i understand that english is a difficult language to learn, i have worked with early readers, teaching them phonetic sounds and rules and grammar rules are confusing for so many, but there is not a single good excuse for not learning the language of the country you live in.  how do you speak to 911 when you have an emergency if you don't know the language?  how do you help your child's education if you don't understand the language they are being taught in?  working in the school system, i think this should be the number one reason that an immigrant learns a language.  before i go on, i have to clarify that i am am not advocating english as the only language.  i think children should learn english while maintaining their parents' language.  i hate how my family lost my grandfather's language and my grandma lost her parents' language.  however, i do think that if you are in america, you need to speak english, and i think we need to stop catering to the needs of those who can't.  it is one thing to help them with learning the language, its a completely different thing to have a society in which knowing the english language is not a requirement.  

like esperanza rising, this book is loosely based on real people.  beatty heard the story of the real lupita and salvador from their older brother, victorio and then wrote this story as to what could have happened to them.  in the author's note at the end, does explain the immigration situation to make it digestable for kids.  again i am torn on the issues that beatty addressed.  on the one hand, being the grandchild of an illegal immigrant, i see illegal immigration as a means for a better life.  i mean i would not be here today if my grandfather did not come to america.  however, i see in delano, how illegal immigrants abuse the welfare programs that are put into place to help citizens.  i hear stories of illegals using fake social security cards to collect welfare or to collect welfare using multiple names, or qualifying for food stamps for their kids.   in the novel, we see lupita's aunt worried about losing her welfare check and not being honest in her reporting so that she does not jeopardize her check.  my frustration with this abuse of welfare programs is that these people on these programs do not contribute to the pot from which they take.  most illegals are paid in cash since they are illegal which means their money does not get taxed like the rest of us, so they do not contribute to the programs that they benefit from.  it all may seem contradictory but my grandfather though illegal never went on welfare, he slaved away in the fields to provide for his family.    i know that this might sound contradictory, but i am okay with illegal immigrants who come and do the menial work that most americans would not do, but i do have issue with illegal immigrants who come to america and abuse the welfare programs that we have.  i understand there would be no america without immigration but everyone should contribute to the country versus taking away from it.  i am sorry if this little rant offended anyone and if i come across as a racist or an insensitive bigot, but i also come from a community where i see immigrants draining our society instead of helping to lift it up.

back to the novel, i am glad i reread lupita mañana, it was an interesting contrast to the experience i had read about in esperanza rising.  hopefully schools will have students read both books to allow for two different perspectives of the immigrant experience.

the interestings. meg wolitzer. (182)

*this contains some spoilers, so if this is on your to-read list, i will tell you where to stop reading. you can read my beginning if you like.

i picked up the interestings because buzzfeed recommended it based on my love of bridge of terabithia.  buzzfeed shared

At its core, Bridge to Terabithia is about friendship, especially the kind that is strengthened by shared creativity and imagination. In The Interestings, Meg Wolitzer explores that bond — focusing on six teens who meet at a summer camp for the arts — and looks at what happens when it extends into adulthood.

sounds interesting right?  no, the book title is a bit of a misnomer.    

to be honest, i should have judge a book by its cover.  when i saw that the book title played second fiddle to the author's name, i should have known something was up.  seriously who puts their name that large on their book?  it actually does give the reader a peak into the self-righteousness they will encounter with the protagonist, jules jacobson.  (ps don't let the jeffery eugenides' blurb fool you!)

the interestings is the story of a girl named jules jacobson, she is a middle (maybe lower-middle) class girl from new jersey that befriended a group of rich kids from new york at an artsy summer camp, spirit-in-the-woods, which she attended on scholarship.  the title comes from the name the kids, ash, goodman, ethan, jonah, and cathy gave their cliqué, the interestings.  the book opens with the group as adolescents at camp in the 70's and follows through their fucked up (seriously this is the best adjective) lives as adults.

*spoilers from here on out.

the only storyline i truly found interesting belong to jonah bay.  jonah was the son of a folk singer, who sadly lost his love of music when another folk singer fed him drugs and stole his songs.  seriously i hated barry for what he did to jonah.  i also enjoyed reading about his relationship with a HIV positive partner, something the naive 90s kid in me does not imagine possible.  i even enjoyed the cult story line though i was appalled that woltizer had jonah's mother stayed with the cult, but i guess she was happy.  

i could have done without the goodman storyline.  wolitzer actually should have killed him off (i was waiting for this to happen especially since i had bridge to terabithia in my head as a point of reference, thanks to the buzzfeed article.)  regardless of cathy's neediness, i believe he raped her.  i also could not believe that the wolf family supported goodman, when he obviously had issues.  they sent him money which just fueled his drug habit.  i also can not believe that after goodman made his parents go bankrupt, they turned to ash to send him cash.  he was such a horrible character and such a drain on the book, he should have been killed off early on.  though i guess wolitzer would not have had her crazy turn of events at the end.

and though i was happy for ethan and the success of figland, i did get tried of reading about the beginning of figland so many times.  actually before i can go on, i have to complain about how this book was so repetitive.  i know it spanned like 30 years, but it was like wolitzer assumed her reader was dumb and forgot what they had read and so she repeated things but instead of jogging the reader's memory, her statements were just annoyingly redundant.  the book was 468 pages, but i am sure if you cut out all the reminders that ash was beautiful and a feminist, jonah was beautiful and his mother was a folk singer, ethan didn't love his autistic son, larkin and rory were polar opposites, or all of jules' issues, it would have been a much shorter book.  there were so many times that i read something and was like okay!  i get it!

but what made this book the most uninteresting was jules' bitching.  i could not sympathize with jacobson because she was a sad shallow individual.  i was disgusted by her jealousy of ash and ethan's life.  sure ethan was in love with her first, when they were 15, but jules didn't love him and was fine with it until he turned into a millionaire.  i also think wolitzer did herself a disservice by having ethan in love with jules his whole life, it didn't help justify jules' envy.  i was literally disgusted as i read about jules' jealousy of her friends' wealth.  ash and ethan had not even made their money and here was jules assuming they would change.  i mean money does change a person but if their "friendship" was a strong as they all thought it to be, they could handle it.  i mean money has never been an issue with any of my friends, and i am in jules' position where my friends have more than me.  my friends aren't millionaires but i can't imagine that effecting anything.  i am not friends with people based on their income.  when jules' rant came in the middle of the book, i almost stopped reading at that point.  i couldn't image having to read from her self-centered point-of-view.  instead of being happy for ethan's success, all she could focus on was how she was inferior to them because of it.  i honestly do not know how her husband, dennis didn't leave her at that point.  her rant was a red flag that the bitch was going to be unhappy with everything in life, and dennis was suppose to be the one suffering from depression.  oh and after all of her complaining, jules ended up taking the money ethan offered (as a good friend) to help pay for an apartment for them because jules and her husband had outgrown their old apartment.  i mean if jules was worried about money changing their friendship she should have not accepted that money or started to allow them to pay for all of their meals.  and don't even get me started on the kids, i can not believe how much she contrasted larkin and rory, so unfair to rory.  seriously, jules was such a disgusting person, she made reading this book quite tedious.

i was glad when dennis finally put jules in her place, after the spirit-in-the-woods fiasco.  i loved how he finally told her that all of friends are "not that interesting."  he went on to tell her that there was nothing special about the camp nor was there anything special about them:

[spirit-in-the-woods] made you feel special.  what do i know--maybe its actually made you special.  and specialness--everyone wants it.  but jesus, is it the most essential thing there is?  most people aren't talented. so what are they supposed to do--kill themselves?

the later part seems extreme, but it is true.  the issue with jules was that she wanted to be "special", she couldn't be happy with what she had.

after i was done cheering on dennis for calling jules out, i realized that maybe the interestings is wolitzer's critique of the "everyone's a winner" rending of generations.  that by telling kids (myself included, i was/am totally part of this generation) that they are special, we are just setting them for a lifetime of self-righteousness and unhappiness.  we will always be unhappy with what we have because the "specialness" of our youth has brainwashed us into believing we are predestined for greatness, but that is not how life works.  kids that are told they are winners minus the work, grow up to be adults that expect greatness without the willingness to strive for it.  this is was jules' problem, she wanted to be an actress but didn't want to work for it so she dropped it the first time she was harshly criticized.  furthermore, i think reality tv has augmented this "specialness" issue because we see talentless people become rich and famous.  again people not willing to work but ending up success. (see:  any of the kardashians).

in retrospect, i realize that jules has the same problem as one of my favorite tv characters, hannah, from hbo's "girls".  hannah is a talented writer but when she took a "corporate" job from gq magazine, she worried that it will prevent her from becoming a successful writer.  her paranoia about never being "great" led to her not only creating a unnecessary drama in her relationship but her workplace.  instead of confronting her anxiety and focusing on not, she projected upon her co-workers critiquing them for having put their careers on hold.  none of them appeared to be suffering from this decision yet hannah was brutally harsh when calling them out.  the disgust i felt when reading about jules' bitching was the same disgust i felt when watching hannah attack her coworkers.  hannah's relationship with adam even mirrored jules' relationship with ethan.  as opposed to being happy for adam's first broadway show, hannah of course has to put the focus on her.  she stressed about how being broadway would change him and their relationship, she put all of these preconceived notion about how he cheat or she would have to end her career for him into her head and ended up pushing him away.  she was the one that pushed adam away not broadway.  it was the same for jules with ethan and his money as i mentioned before.  so why do i love hannah and loathe jules?  it comes down to the fact that i have seen hannah doing coke off of a toliet and dance all night to andrew andrew, i mean the girl is fun.  i can't say the same for jules.  i also enjoy hannah's self-depreciating humor, i mean jules was kind of sad with her desperation for cheap laughs.   i will also add, hannah is still a twentysomething, and i imagine her growing out of it, however jules was in her fifties still dealing with the same issues she had as a fifteen year old.  jules lacked personal growth which is why i couldn't handle her as a character.

but back to this critique of "specialness", if that was wolitzer's goal of writing this book, then i commend her.  this generation needs to read her book and get their shit together.  however, looking back at the title, i can't help but think that maybe she is jules jacobson and the anxiety of her life came spewing out via jules.

i also have to add, boo to buzzfeed for saying that if you like bridge to terabithia, you would enjoy the interestings.  the friendship in terabithia was so much greater than the ones in interestings and it is an insult to jess and leslie.   there are better books about friendship out there, though they are young adult novels maybe john green's "the fault in our stars" or markus zusak's "the book thief", even steinbeck's "of mice and men" would be a better choice.  i haven't come across a good friendship book in a while but once i do, i will recommend it!  well if it is worthy of jess and leslie.

holes. louis sachar. (181)

i remember learning about holes when the movie came out with shia labeouf.  i didn't see the movie or read the book.  i was in high school when the book came out and in college when the movie came out, so i didn't think much of it.  i wasn't above shia labeouf, i used to love watching even stevens, it just wasn't in my realm of interest at the time.  i also was a bit sexist, a story about boys digging holes at some prison-like camp did not sound interesting to me.  however, fast forward years later when i discovered that louis sachar wrote the book!  i loved sachar's wayside school books, they were my absolute favorite growing up!  i especially loved that one chapter in the sequel that you had to read backwards!  how cool!  based on my love of sachar, i finally decided to give holes a chance.

i decided to make it a winter break read with brother bear.  it started out well but when i left to vegas for new years, he didn't keep up with his reading and when i came back, he had lost interested.  i, in fact, didn't finish then.  i also dropped by copy (it cost me 50 cents) in a puddle when moving so that didn't help with my finishing of it.  then i sat in a line for about 8 hours to see shia labeouf do this art installation (i sadly did not get in) but that motivated me to give holes a read so i could watch the movie on netflix.

so i buckled down and read it in a day and it was amazing.  i was a bit disappointed in myself for being so judge-y before.  i am now trying to get my brother to finish it.  my mom is reading it with him.  it is a great children's novel and deserved the newbery medal (i have also started this mini mission to read all of the newbery award winners).  it is a wonderful book demonstrating the importance of creating your own destiny, how sometimes you have to lend fate a hand to obtain your destiny.

without giving too much away (because you should really read it), holes is the story of a young boy stanley yelnats (a palindrome).  bearing the curse of his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather", stanley was sent to a camp, camp green lake, for "stealing"shoes.  he didn't steal them but they fell from the sky and hit him on the head, an example of that curse in action.  at the camp which is a correctional facility for boys, stanley spent his days digging holes and trying to avoid yellow-spotted lizards.  stanley befriended another boy, zero, who he taught how to read. zero and stanley then go on a random adventure which helped both boys fulfill their destiny.  seriously, the ending was great, everything came full circle.

what i enjoyed most about holes is that it also included the backstories of stanley's great-great-grandfather and town of green lake.  the historian in me enjoyed reading these backstories and seeing how they all came together in the end.  i have always loved books that allowed me to see how point a and b resulted in c.  

stanley's great-great-grandfather's backstory takes the reader to latvia, where the reader discovers the cause of the curse.  stanley's great-great=grandfather was in love with a girl.  he asked his friend, a gypsy, madame zeroni for help.  she helped him but he doesn't hold up his end of the bargain and he and his generations become cursed.

stanley's family is also tied to the backstory of green lake because his great-grandfather was robbed by the bandit, kissin' kate barlow.  camp green lake stands where the town of green lake used to exist.  green lake was not always a desert, it too was cursed.  kate barlow was not always a bandit, in fact, she was the schoolteacher of the town.  she became a bandit, after she fell in love with sam, an african-american onion seller.  since interracial relationships were not accepted at that time, the town turned against kate and sam.  i don't want to spoil the story for those who haven't read it but kate became a bandit and the city dried up.  i also want to add kudos to sachar to promoting interracial relationships in this book!

these backstories are sad, but as i mentioned before it all comes together in the end and leaves you going wow!  it reminds you of how crazy life can be and how it the end if your heart is in the right place and you try your best, it will all work out for you.  

i want to add that holes was listed in a buzzfeed post about books you should read based on your favorite childhood novel.  their suggestion was junot diaz's the brief and wondrous life of oscar wao, which i absolutely loved.  yes, as buzzfeed says 

Both Holes and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao read as modern mythology, featuring two curse-afflicted protagonists who can’t catch a break. They’re tales of misfits and survival, and the cruelty that Oscar faces as an overweight Dominican-American teen obsessed with sci-fi is just as harsh and alienating as that of Stanley Yelnats’ prison camp.

however, i feel a better fit for this book would have been joanthan safran foer's everything is illuminated.  both stories have family myths especially that pertaining to a grandfather's legacy.  both include a story with a gypsy (okay that is kinda of a loose connection.)  but i did i see parallels between stanley and zero's relatinship and alex and jonathan's relationship.  oscar was too much of longer, while stanley learned the importance of friendship.  (though i have to admit, i don't remember too much from the brief wondrous life of oscar wao, so buzzfeed is probably right, i just have to add in my 2 cents.  i mean oscar wao is a wonderful book and should be read, i was just reminded of everything is illuminated as i read.  

but back to holes, read the book!!!

turn around bright eyes: the rituals of love & karaoke. rob sheffield. (180)

i have read rob sheffield's two previous works love is a mix tape and talking to girls about duran duran.  love is a mix tape was the story of how he lost his wife at a young age to a brain aneurysm, a sad yet great tribute to her via the music they loved.  so i kind of have a soft spot for him.  however, to be completely honest i don't remember what talking to girls about duran duran was about, i do own a copy, but i am sure it was entertaining.  anyway, i like sheffield, he is a music geek and i love a good music geek.  so when i saw that he had written a book about karaoke, i immediately put in a request.  

for those of you who know me, i am pretty good at karaoke, please note i said karaoke not singing.  i agree with sheffield that karaoke is not about singing ability.  i always tell people that i can't sing but i can put on a good performance.  my training ground for karaoke was high school.  when i was in high school, mtv's say what karaoke (which i was shocked sheffield failed to mention in this book) was popular and i took the idea of their idea of random shuffle karaoke and turned it a noontime rally game (i was an asb geek).  i may have forced my high school peers to play that game too many times, oh well, my friends and i loved it. 

my first memory of doing a crazy wild karaoke performance was at an end of the year work "party" (i use the term "party" loosely because there were only like 12 of us there) from my first year at the front desk at ucla's covel commons.  we had a karaoke party and i performed a song by my vocal doppelganger, gwen stefani.  sheffield explained that everyone has a vocal doppelganger, "when you start singing you find out whose voice suits yours and who doesn't, and you don't always get to make the decision."  he goes on to share that "the voice gets into your soul and this guy means more to you than he ever did before.  your doppelganger becomes your spiritual mentor."  and it's true, gwen stefani has always been my go to girl when karaoking; i do no doubt songs ("just a girl", "sunday morning"),  i her solo stuff ("what you waiting for?" and "wind it up"----quick digression, i used to have the dj at westwood brew co, play my ipod but so that i could do those two songs because they weren't available as karaoke songs.)  but back to my first karaoke "performance", i performed "just a girl" and was so into it that i jumped off of the speakers like i was some pop princess.  i may have even done a push-up (i like to incorporate moves from music videos into my performances) but yes, i went all out, and set the standard by which i karaoked.

i have had some pretty memorable performances.  "like a virgin" at brass monkey, the first time i did it and i did it in the style of madonna's vma's peformance aka i rolled around on the ground.  i even added a little introduction to it when i would perform it at westwood brew co, i would ask all my fellow v-card holders to hold up their vs for me (my friend richard once thanked me for letting him know which girls were virgins.) in vegas, at this one karoake place my friend rolly took us to, i did a crazy rendition of system of a down's "sugar" and had some guys off the street come in to watch me perform.  there was the time i did "don't speak" and my friends tiffany, jaye and i discovered the power that is "miss cleo karaoke" (my friend and i were going through a rough patch and this song expressed exactly what i felt.)  i have also been known to do amy winehouse's verison of "valerie", and some selena (faking spanish of course).  these two i perfected in my friend cody's apt.  i don't know how it started but we would host karaoke nights at his apt.  and not like filipino machines karaoke, but literally a mike and a CD player.  you had to really know your songs.  it was a little rundown but made for some amazing karaoke nights.   i have also started to add "part of your world" from the little mermaid, i have perfected my singing of it at my friend's danny's dinner party.  

as you can see i love karaoke, and when i heard about this book, i imagined it to be filled with fun stories of random adventures in karaoke bars, similar to the ones that i have shared.  i saw each chapter as a song that pertain to some crazy night.  however, the subtitle "the rituals of love & karaoke" hinted that there would be more.  after reading the first chapter, i saw that it would also be about how karaoke brought sheffield and his new wife together.  sounds sweet, i would enjoy that, but in reality this book was not limited to just that storyline too.  in fact, it was more of a hodgepodge of stories that shared the theme of karaoke (and at times very loosely).

to be perfectly honest, turn around bright eyes felt thrown together.  i imagined his agent calling him one day, telling him "ummm, remember that three book deal you signed?  well they want that third book." and sheffield was like "hmmm i like karaoke, i can write about that!"  so he started writing this book but realized he only had so many stories about his nights out karaoking and so he decided to add in the element of his wife for length.  however, this topic only gave him a handful of more chapters.  as a last resort, sheffield started to add in anything that remotely resembled karaoke, for example, the essay on rock'n'roll fantasy camp.  seriously, i am pretty sure his logic about using this piece "hey, i have that rejected rolling stone piece, and i did sing at camp, so yeah lets add that in too for filler".  some chapters would be some music related story and then sheffield would add in a concluding paragraph with the word karaoke in it somewhere to make it fit into the theme of the book. 

i know i sound harsh, i am normally okay with a hodgepodge of essays (see:  the fact that i have read everything by chuck klosterman), but sheffield narrowed his scope with his subtitle (though i guess ritual is pretty general) and didn't deliver on it.  even with the lack of cohesion among the stories, there were some great chapters.   

i enjoyed reading about how sheffield and his new wife met.  it was adorable how he heard her voice on the radio and then stopped by to meet her.  it was sweet to see how he was so unsure how to court her and how thoughtful he was in their relationship.  

the chapters about 9/11 and post 9/11 were interesting.  sheffield lived in the financial district near the twin towers which allowed me to see that situation in a different light.  for example, i never knew that the financial district was a wasteland nor did i know there was a mall in the twin towers.  i really enjoyed the chapter 99 luftballoons, seeing how the city and people started to piece themselves back together after 9/11. what an incredible scene and how therapeutic to sing a song about bombs after a tragedy like that.

i also enjoyed the beatles chapter, though again what did it really have to do with karaoke.  

the parts about karaoke that i did enjoy;  it's history, the story about the guy that is paid to perform at karaoke bars to get the crowd going (possible side job, once karaoking in k-town in a private room with my friends, i was instructed to sing so everyone could get over those initial fear), and of course the tales of sheffield actually performing karaoke.

this book was seriously all over the place, and it's lack of cohesion, left me bored. this is the kind of book you leave in your bathroom and read occasionally like a magazine.  good but not great enough to devote a serious reading off.

journey. aaron becker. (179)

i discovered journey on npr's list of picture books that make us wish we were a kid again.  journey is a beautiful picture book of a little bored girl that uses a magic crayon that goes on a journey and ends up discovering a friend.  there is no text but none needed.  i shared it with a second grade class i subbed with and they became excited with each picture and even made predictions about what was going to happen next.  one student even said it reminded them of harold and the purple crayon!  npr made the same connection! a truly beautiful book, be sure to check it out! i will be adding it to my book collection as well.

here is a sneak peak:

mr. tiger goes wild. peter brown. (178)

i picked up mr. tiger goes wild after reading about in that npr article about children's books that makes us wish we were kids again.  i mean that cover alone lets you know you are in for a treat. also my friend fabian gave it his stamp of approval.  

mr. tiger goes wild is not only had beautiful illustrations (as you will see in this post) but it had a wonderful message about being who you are.  i also appreciated how mr. tiger went into the wild to discover his true self and then came back to the city and made adjustments to his life.  its almost like an into the wild for kids (i am assuming, i haven't read the book or seen the movie). 

here is how the story goes.  first, first mr. tiger is over being proper.

as the text shared, he wanted to be wild!

so he starts off my walking on all fours.

then he gets crazy and loses his clothes!

and ultimately runs off to be in the wild.

but then mr. tiger became lonely.

so he returns to the city and discovers that . . .

he can be back home and be himself.  hooray!!!

a wonderful story for kids of all ages and really great illustrations.  i just bought a copy for myself because it definitely needs to be in my book collection.

i will also add that i read it with my favorite little pdc brother lucas and he loved it.  so it really is great for kids of all ages, he is two and was excited each time he was able to roar like the tiger.  he also pointed out different animals i mentioned.  it has his stamp of approval, and he is the cutest kid ever so be sure to check it out!

native speaker. chang-rae lee. (177)

i picked up native son because gary shteyngart praised it i. his memoir, little failure.  chang-rae lee was shteyngart mentor and helped shteyngart get his book deal.  i also decided to check it out because lee's latest book, on such a full sea, has been receiving a lot of press and good reviews.  i figured i should read his first novel before reading his latest.

i must admit, i was a little bit weary at first.  there is no denying that lee is a great writer.  i read the book with such ease, yet the book covered very complex issues about culture, language, love, family.  the ease with which i read is a testament to lee's skillfulness as a writer.  it was deep without being too heavy.  this novel was well-written, but given it's emphasis on language and communication, it had to be.

what made weary was henry's occupation in the book; henry was a spy.  i understand henry's occupation was a device to help is examine his korean upbringing.  his culture provided him with the tools to be an ideal spy, but a spy story was not something i was expecting or could see myself invested in.  i did enjoy reading about henry's experience with dr. luzan because we were allowed an intimate view of henry.  however, i was not up for all of the double talk that came with his interactions with his co-workers and having to be suspicious of everyone.  furthermore, i was not interested in henry's assignment being politician, john kwang.  i am not one for politics, everyone involved is always corrupt, right?  in the end, i did become invested in this story line, i mean, there was a bombing, those korean clubs were you can rent women to be your companion (which i have been told of but never experienced), an affair and a drunk driving accident.  utilizing kwang as a mirror by which henry was able to reevaulate his father was interesting and allowed for henry and the reader a better understanding of henry's father and the korean culture.  it also allowed us to examine how immigrants struggle to maintain their culture while trying to manage in a new country.

what made this novel for me was the story of henry's marriage.  i think native speaker would have been a better novel if this story line was the main focus.  i think lee could have utilized lelia's upbringing and "americaness" more as a foil to henry's father, resulting in the downplay of kwang and that storyline.

the novel opened with a list of labels and descriptions created by lelia, about and for henry.  it was malicious but allowed for henry to reflect on how cold and distant a person he had became in his marriage.  from henry, we learn how they met and fell in love.  we also discovered the great tragedy they suffered which caused the distance between them.   their son mitt died in a freak accident, he suffocated being at the bottom of a dog pile of boys at his birthday party.  henry being the silent type does not seem to the suffer the same as lelia.  communication of their feelings is what lelia needed for comfort but due to his culture, henry was unable to provide her with that.  i must admit that i was sadden by the story he shared after mitt's death in which lelia created a little house out of sticks and rocks which he destroyed.  henry destroying the house seemed like a show he put on for lelia to prove he was suffering, as opposed to being able to have an open conversation with his wife.  thankfully, they were able to work through their communication problems and get back together.

before i go on i must say that i, like lelia, was disappointed by henry never knowing the woman that raised him.  i understand that both were acting in accordance with the standards set by korean culture but i can not imagine being raised by someone and not even knowing his/her name.  henry was not to blame in this situation because he went by the rules established in his home and by korean society.  also the woman did not want to be known.  this was demonstrated by the woman's resistance to lelia's attempts to get to know that her that she did not want to be none.  i, just like lelia (i am assuming this was cause for her reaction to the situation), imagined myself in her situation, to be alone in a strange country, not knowing the language or anyone, and having to raise someone's else child.  i don't know if i could survive it, but then again i do not have the same sense of duty that she did.

native speaker is an excellent account of the experience of second generation immigrants in america.  though i am fourth generation on my mother's side, lee's work allowed me a look into a different aspect of the american experience.   i was able to see the alienation of being second generation, not wanting to live according to the culture of your parents in attempt to become "american" yet not being full accepted by american society.  as edward james olmos' character "abraham" in "selena" (so maybe it was actually selena's dad) summed up this paradox best with his line "we have to be more mexican than the mexicans and more american than the americans, all that the same time!  it's exhausting!"  i am sure lee would agree with his sentiment since we saw henry struggle with this problem.  for example, henry explained how he was placed in a class to help him learn english as a child yet as an adult he is embarrassed when he mispronounced korean words.  being an immigrant to america is a challenge due to this but being second generation is even more challenging because you of the duality that comes with it, you have to be able to both your ethnic identity and american.  i guess in that sense using the hyphenation as idenfication ie korean-american, really is the best label because individuals truly are both.

another issue that is brought up within this book is multiculturalism.  race relations was a major issue for kwang's political agenda.  in the novel, korean stores are the center of the race issue, korean owners and black customers not getting along, peruvian and latino employees wanting better working conditions, jewish customers feeling entitled.  with so much diversity, how can a city like new york every be an all encompassing community especially since each ethnic group has their own set of demands for the city.  furthermore, each group blamed the other for the issues that existed.  the hate crimes in the novel (though lee never employed this term) demonstrated that perhaps the best solution was for each ethnic group to remain their own separate community.  in the end, it is demonstrated that celebrating cultural diversity is a means to a better future.  henry started to help lelia with her work as a speech therapist, she taught english as second language classes.  in these classes, henry recognized the beauty of diversity by observing the students.  he saw that by celebrating our difference instead of ignoring them, there could be peace and better race relations.

 native speaker is important novel in terms of sharing the experience of second generation immigrants, i just wish that a spy story was utilized to share it.  a good book and i look forward to reading on such a full sea.

esperanza rising. pam muñoz ryan.

i had seen esperanza rising while skimming the book racks in the kids section of the library but never thought of checking it out.  one day, mary, a teacher i sub for, recommended that i read it.  the next week while on campus subbing, the whole third grade team was shocked i hadn't read it, so gina lent me her class copy.

and what can i say other than, i am so happy they got me to read it because it is a great book.  it reminded me of one of my favorite books as a kid, a little princess (which i know plan on rereading.) it was also great to see the region that i grew up in featured.  it reminded me of grapes of wrath as well.

the book is about a young girl named, esperanza.  she is the only daughter of a wealthy ranchero in mexico.  she lived a life of luxury and privilege and was fully aware of class distinction.  she told her playmate and son of workers on her parents ranch, miguel, that they could never marry because they were on two sides of a river.  she could not marry someone beneath her.

one day, all of this changed, when her father was murdered by bandits. my theory is that her uncle's were behind it because they showed up with his belt buckle before miguel and his father appeared with his body.  in her father's will, esperanza's mother was left the house but since a woman can not land, the land was given to her tio.  this tio's planned to run for governor and proposed to esperanza's mother, because he needed a respectable wife.  esperanza's mother was insulted by the offer and refused, as a result, the tio burned down their home!  furthermore, the tio owned the bank, and esperanza's mother was unable to access her money. to avoid marriage, esperanza's mother decided to immigrate to america with miguel's parents (her servants but also friends).  since abuelita was injured in the fire, they leave her with her sisters in a nunnery until she recovered.

they immigrated to america, luckily with papers from the nuns.  esperanza experienced a culture shock, having to adjust to life as a peasant.  she looked down upon those traveling on the train not realizing that she was now their equal.  i have to admit that i was just as judgmental as esperanza was about the peasant girl wanting to play with her doll. i would have reacted the same way now as an adult.  it was the last gift her father gave her, she should preserve it.  i was even sad when she gave it away at the end of the story, though it was framed as a nobel action.

life in america was hard since they are farm workers, though it was harder for esperanza because she was not used to working, being part of the gentry.  thanks to miguel's father's brother they had work and a camp to live in (as i learned in grapes of wrath that they had the best living conditions.) esperanza helped out at the camp, but had to learn simple things likes how to sweep.  she also took care of the babies at home.  everything was going well until one day her mom got valley fever (which i swear i had gotten two years ago because i was bed ridden for a week) due to a dust storm.  to help pay for her mother's hospital bills, esperanza began to work in the fields.  

in the fields, esperanza encountered the socioeconomic issues of the field work, which was also demonstrated in grapes of wrath and which i also encountered first hand growing up in delano.  though they help feed america, farmer worker do have the worse working conditions.  they are paid almost nothing and the living conditions (outside of camps) were often inhabitable.  esperanza encountered a girl, marta, who had first mocked esperanza for her previous wealth and was at the forefront of the protestors' movement.  she wanted the workers to strike for better living conditions and pay.  marta is a complex character, on the one hand she is a foil to esperanza, the rebellious, illegal lower class immigrant that attempts to stir up trouble for her own people, but from a humane point-of-view, you can't help but sympathize with her, she simply wanted a better life for the workers.  though they are working for betterment, protestors often put the collective group at risk of job lost and deportation, so it some ways the protestors have a positive effect and/or a negative effect.  this paradox is something that esperanza faced.  she decided that it is better for her to work, she needs to provide for her mother, but towards the end of the story she is overwhelmed by the racism and discrimination she and those close to her encounter.  it's interesting because i recently had a discussion with my cousin erin about our grandfather encountering this in real life.  my grandfather was a foreman during the times of cesar chavez, but he was not active in the movement.  i assume because he saw that it was better that he worked and provide for his family.  when i interviewed him about it once for school, he did mention that they did ask him to join the movement but left him alone because he had a large family (he had 8 kids to support in addition to my grandma's brother's being in the household as well.)  though my grandfather knew it was unfair, he worked because his main priority was providing for his family.  my mother told me that though he was not active in the movement, he was grateful for the changes that was brought about by cesar chavez.  

as mentioned before, esperanza became overwhelmed by the discrimination that she and others encountered.  this combined with her mother not getting better and her abuelita's absence, esperanza gave up hope.  however, miguel saved the day!  he took esperanza's money she had saved (she at first thought he stole it) and went to bring her abuelita to america!  i was so happy reading this part that i started crying, imaging what relieve and comfort her abuelita brought to esperanza  (i also still miss my grandma bea terribly).  from that point on, things began to improve for her mother and for eserpanza.

and let's go back to miguel for a minute.  what a sweet sweet boy!  i had a total book crush on him.  he was so cute with his addressing esperanza as his reina.  he was also brave and courageous, i didn't mention it but earlier, he saved abuelita in the fire too!  he was caring and patient, he taught esperanza how to sweep!  seriously the sweetest character in this book! i really hope that he and espernza marry one day and live happily ever after!

in the author's note, ryan shared with us that esperanza was based on her grandmother, esperanza ortega.  her grandmother told her about her wealthy life in mexico and then her struggle in america.  some of the points in the story parallel her grandmother's real life, but she decided to create a fictional story of why her grandmother immigrated and what occurred to her here in america.  i thought it was great how she based this novel on her family history.  i also appreciated the setting of the story for it took place in the region that i grew up (as mentioned before) and the story is not one that i know first hand but is a story that many in this area can identify with.  and if you are from delano, please take the time to pick up this book!

the baby-sitters club. ann m. martin (174-176)

when packing up to move to my mom's apartment, i came across my claudia doll.  she was my favorite baby-sitter so my grandma bea bought her for me.

seriously she was the coolest! also i would totally wear that outfit nowadays!  (granted the 90's are back in style.

finding claudia inspired me to reread the first of the baby-sitters club series, kristy's great idea.  i had heard that the books underwent an update (ie they got cellphones) so i decided to pick up a newer version of it too.  i also decided to read the new graphic novel version.  one day while subbing, one of the students checked out claudia and the mean janine, and i made a mental note to try to check it out.  since they are short novels, i decided to read all three in one day so i could compare and contrast.

the original

what can i say, i fell in love all over again!! i want to reread the entire series now!  it really is great for tweens because it covers so many issues that tweens encounter:  overprotective parents, diabetes, having a smarter sibling, dealing with divorced parents (and having them date of remarrying), having friends that mature faster, having to deal with boy-crazy friends, having a parent pass away at a young age, having an absent father (and this is all in the first book!).  i also appreciated how the ending, demonstrated the importance of apologizing and that a good friend knows when to admit they are wrong. 

girls can also identify with at least one of the sitters: the outspoken, althetic girls can relate to kristy; the pony-tailed shy ones with mary ann, the artsy bad-spelling non-mathematicians with claudia, and the diabetic boy-crazy ex-new yorkers with stacey.  i loved (and still do) claudia as mentioned before, and i rereading infell in love with her fashion!  i really want to recreate her outfits!  i think i might dress up in her checkered yellow and black top with black pants, red jazz shoes, a bracelet made from a phone chord and skeleton earrings outfit!!! (so cute right!)

also the whole idea of a baby-sitters club is pretty brilliant.  one call and how many sitters! that sitter notebook was pretty clever as an actual tool for the baby-sitters and as a device for martin to introduce their baby-sitting adventures. 

if you loved the baby-sitter's club as a kid, you should really reread them.  for me, it was a fun little trip back in time.  

(oh i have to add, oddly enough when i read the book, i totally imagined it as the tv show, even kristy's narration was heard in that actress' voice.)

the updated version

okay so the this book wasn't updated, though it had a new cover.  i was super disappointed.  maybe the cellphones come later? i was glad that they kept the sitter's (read: claudia's) fashion the same.  the only thing i noticed was that the flyer was updated:

original-

updated-

it is safer that they don't have their numbers on flyers.  too many scary, creepy pedophiles in the world to list numbers.  i am happy for this safety update.

and quick digression about the logo.  i am glad they changed the logo, cause lets be honest, did claudia really have enough time to make that letter block logo during lunch?!?!  to be completely honest (and realistic) the graphic novel had the best logo in terms of believability:

(love that the girls got crafty with the pull offs!)

and before i move onto the graphic novel, one last thing, i thought they would have changed kristy giving watson that kiss on fondue night.  that was just awkward and creepy.  i knew my mom's boyfriend (later husband) for most of my life and never ever kissed his cheek.

the graphic novel

the graphic novel was done by raina telgemeier and her illustrations were great!!!

my favorite had to be this one of claudia baby-sitting jamie and his cousins:

quick note in the og, jaime's cousin, rob, pretends to shoot claudia dead with a gun.  since the graphic novel is post columbine, rob ninja chops her instead.  (and i forgot to mention in the original section that i loved that claudia read them where the wild things are.)

i will say that the graphic novel did disappoint me in three ways.  one, it did not capture all of claudia's great outfits for example the earrings were dangling skeletons not skulls and her red hat from the day of the flyer was not depicted.  second, i wish that kristy had on a snowman sweater that claudia made fun off, oh and that claudia said sheep were in when kristy made fun of her hairclips.  and third, in my head, watson was not so dorky, but a handsome divorcé.  

however, still a great work and a great way to attract a younger generation to a great series.  also a great way for an older generation to relieve their youth.

i had a great sunday reading these books and will definitely start reading a baby-sitters club book once a month! 

super sad true love story. gary shteyngart. (173)

gary shteyngart's super sad true love story was supposed to be my anti-valentine's day read.  title alone is perfection.  also adore the cover, kate spade should make it a book clutch. back to my reading, i sadly did not finish it on time, even though i had the time  valentine's day weekend thanks to shia labeouf's #iamsorry exhibit.  the plan was also to read it before reading shteyngart's memoir little failure, but since i had return that book to the library first, this was placed on the back burner.

however, reading the memoir, i picked up on some things that i won't have if i hadn't.  as i mentioned in my little failure post, i learned that lenny's parents are essentially shteyngart's parents and that the korean girls from shteyngart's high school was the inspiration for eunice. but as i read more, i discovered that shteyngart's mentor/father figure john was the inspiration for lenny's mentor/father figure joshie, since both are obsessed with youth.  also lenny's mother was named after his grandmother. 

the setting is the distant future, a future i would be alive for and a future i could definitely imagine happening.  shteyngart's future is hilarious and clever but to take two adjectives from the title, super sad.  in the future we are ruled by an äppärät, an iphoneesque device that one wears around their neck.  äppärät just like an iphone is the future's means of staying connected to the world.  in the future, the world communicates via globalteens which i assuming is based on facebook.  facebook start off as a college kids site but now as turned into the most important form of online communication.  given the teens in its name, i imagine globalteens had a similar start. it can also shares and receives the scores and rankings of the individuals around you for the follow criteria:  credit, fuckability, hotness, personality, anal/oral/vaginal preference, sustainability.  as you can see the future is also driven by sex, a fuckability score demonstrates that fact.  more proof, girls wear onionskin jeans which are sheer jeans that show everything, bras that show your nipples and underwear called totallysurrender that are removed with the touch of one button, and there is clothing brand called juicypussy and a store called assluxury.  its all so clever but when you think about it honestly, its the exact direction the world is headed.  based on this sex-driven society, youth is super important in the future.  lenny works for a company that helps high net worth individuals live forever.  his boss, john, that i mentioned before, is a 70 something but looks like he is in early 40's (maybe younger i don't remember exactly) and his also obsessed with youth culture, aka hip on all the lingo (which i will explain later).  everyone stays youthful and healthy by being los angeles on crack.  everyone eats organic, fat-free, antibiotic-free food in order to stay young.   in shteyngart's future, los angeles would be mecca (the setting for this story is new york) or maybe los angeles is the future, but regardless, los angeles would thrive because sex, youth, and health are important.  oh and shopping is super important too, and of course the media, the main jobs everyone wants are in retail and media.  seriously, shteyngart's future is simply an mutant variation of current los angeles.  (btw i absolutely love los angeles, is this not an insult, but an observation.)

and in the future, america is no longer the powerhouse it once was.  (are we still a powerhouse?)  china is the big country in charge.  even korea is more stabled then america, we learn this from eunice's (i will introduce her later) parents who realized it would have safer for them to keep their daughters in korea than coming to america.  since retail and media are such important aspects of american society, america is ruled by big conglomerates like "alliedwastecvscitigroupcredit" (hilarious but so true).  however, america is facing the same problems , it is/was experiencing with occupy wall street.  the lower classes are fed up with the class divide but this time they set up their protest in central park.  in all honesty, this part was bit over my head (aka i was bored) just like politics is in real life for me.  so i didn't pay too much attention to this storyline.   i did find it interesting how the us was invading venezuela and venezuela was in our current news due to the protest about their economy.  and i am sorry, i know it makes me sound like a ignorant american (or like eunice park), but i always feel like even if you know about politics, you don't know exactly what is going on within the political realm.  

but back to the story.  super sad true love story is the story of two unlikely lovers, lenny abramov, the 39 year old son of russian immigrants, an old, and eunice park, the 23 (i think) year old daughter of korean immigrants.  it seems awkward to note their ethnic background but it is an element that adds to their unlikely love.  they love is unlikely because lenny is "old", gross (he looks like a rhesus monkey), fat, and unhip while eunice is the exact opposite, young, hot, thin and hip.  i hate to be so shallow but i couldn't get pass how awkward lenny was and didn't believe in their love for one bit.  (i also rarely believe in love in general.)   they met in rome at a party, for lenny it was true love, for eunice it was a gross random hook up with an old dude.  it seemed as though they would never met again, but when eunice comes back to the states, she doesn't want to stay with her family, so she stays with lenny.  with the world in turmoil,  and of course their love starts to blossom.  the love that i am skeptical of (and rightfully so), i mean the title kind of sets you up for their failure.

and though i was skeptical of their love, i did enjoy the book.  the book was divided between lenny's perspective via his journal and eunice's via her globalteens entires.  the book is also supposed to be a book within a book since lenny's journal and eunice's entries are later published and become a bestseller.  i hate to admit it but i found lenny's portion a bit boring but absolutely loved reading eunice's part.  it's funny because shteyngart realized this as well because he has lenny write how "the stateside critics have unanimously agreed, the gems of the text are eunice park's globalteens entries.  they 'present a welcome relief from lenny's relentness navel-gazing.'"  i couldn't have said it better myself.  eunice's entries were the gems and i could have read a book of just her entries  as i had mentioned before youth have their own lingo, made up primarily of acronyms, which is the way we are headed with our current use of lol, wtf, omg, etc.   since shteyngart's future is so sex driven, the lingo is as well, for example, "JBF" or "just butt fucking" is used alot by eunice.  but eunice's entries are hilarious and entertaining, like reading a friend's email or texts.  to start eunice's username on globalteens "euni-tard abroad", how great is that?  also the dialogue between eunice and her friend is pretty rauchy but i guess if you go on a random person's fb, you would see similar talk now.  and even though it's raunchy, it's still funny.  they seriously write the craziest stuff to each other:  

from eunice:

what up twat?  missing you 'tard?  wanna dump a little sugar on me? JBF 

i can never reveal who i really am to him because we would just vomit.

sup, my bus bee-oitch?

from her friend:

wak-waka, ass-sucka!  whut-a-happenin?

oh, shit. i gotta subtract.  why does alcohol make you go so much? is that a sciene thing?

panda, i'm off to juicy for a vag rejuv . . . 

from eunice's entries, we learn that she is troubled young woman trying to figure out life.  eunice is so messed up that lena dunham could add her to the cast of girls and do away with all those #whitegirlproblems critiques.  she has a trouble past, her father is abusive, beating her mother, her sister and eunice.  she is caught between this desire to protect and provide for her family while also wanting to live her own life.  at the beginning of the novel is a self-centered mess, but she becomes involved with the movement in central park, and begins to think beyond just herself.  though she is no perfect person, she still has her faults.  also her love for lenny still didn't make sense, even as she grew as a person.  

in the end, lenny and eunice do not stay together forever, but then again not all love lasts forever.  their relationship is an example of the kind of love that may not be true or forever but still allows an individual to grow and become a better person.  that relationship that helps one conquer a fear (as lenny overcame his fear of death) or help one see life a new way (as lenny showed eunice that there is more to life than media and retail).  and in reality we have more of these types of relationships than we do have of the true love forever kind, since there is only one of those.  due to this, the title is then perfect for their story, it was super sad and true because not all love stories end happily ever after.  

i really enjoyed this book.  shteyngart was so clever when it came to creating a future.  i recommend reading this novel for the setting alone and of course' eunice's gems.

p.s. i have to add that this library book smelled!  it stunk!!!  not like that sweet book smell but sour like someone puked in it.  i was able to read past it, but i just thought it was funny that in the book, people are grossed out by the books that lenny reads.  one guy on an airport complains that his book smells.  and when eunice moves into lenny's she is grossed out by his books, she even tries to spray them to make them smell better.  so the gross smell of this book only enhanced the story!