can't we talk about something more pleasant?: a memoir. roz chast. (250)

i had seen roz chast's memoir, can we talk about something more pleasant? on a handful of must read list.  however, i didn't start paying attention until i saw it included on best of 2014 lists and since i realized i hadn't read many of the books listed on the best of 2014 lists (though i have read books that came out in 2014), i decided to check it out.

prior to this memoir, i was not familiar with chast work.  she is a cartoonist for the new yorker.  i also was not familiar with the premise for the book.  based on the title and the cover, i thought it was going to be a fun stories of how parents get senile as they grow older and the odd conversations we have with them.  however, it is actually about her dealing with her parents aging and their deaths.  whenever chast tried to have a conversation about death, "can we talk about something more pleasant?" would be her parents' response.  i have to admit that i was a little bit worried about reading this because it has been a year since my grandmother death.  i was worried about it bringing up painful memories or that i might just randomly burst into tears.  it didn't.  though it reminded me how grateful i was to be with my grandma in her final years of life.  i always claimed that it was good for me to be back home for her to keep an eye on me but in reality, it was better to have her taking care of me.

being a graphic memoir, i actually finished the book in a day, probably closer to an afternoon.  it was an enjoyable read though it did remind me that i have a rough time ahead of me as my mom starts to grow older.  in fact, my aunt tracey and my uncle bob too.  but i don't want to think about that now.

the memoir is completely honest.  it covers all of the anxiety and stress that comes with dealing with aging parents.  and chast is a little neurotic and i was often shocked by how she reacted to some events.  for example, when chast's mother had her fall and went to the er, chast did not go to the hospital until a couple of hours after she got the phone call.  i understand that each person deals with emergencies in their own way, but i don't know how she didn't immediately rush to the hospital.  another time i was shocked was when her mother was released and instead of spending the night with her parents, she went back home.  again some people are different.  and i hate to be judgy, because it is tough and i have no idea what i would do if i was in that situation, i mean she is an only child and when i go through this i will have my siblings as support.  i hate to be so mean, but it was still shocking to read. 

and i know that its easier to said then done, but i can honestly say that i have done.  i'm not saying that i am better than chast and i hate to seem so judgy. but i am extremely squeamish when it comes to hospitals, like i could never sit through the emergency scenes in "ER" or the surgery scenes of "nip/tuck", however, i was always fine with staying overnight in the hospital room with my grandma.  in fact, my sister and i stayed with her in icu, one of the nights we were warned could be one of her last (thankfully we had her for a couple more weeks).  

and please don't take the examples as what time person chast.  she was actually very dedicated to making sure her parents were taken care of and comforted.  those were just two incidents that stuck out to me as i read.  there is alot more beauty to this book.  there is of course some humor, and i plan on reading more of her works.  it s a beautiful work in which she pays tribute to her parents and gives a very honest view of how tough it is to deal with death.

mr. fox. helen oyeyemi. (249)

i decided to pick up helen oyeyemi's mr. fox after it was listed on a flavorpill post about the 50 best fabulist books everyone should read.  flavorpill described it as a "a wandering, meta fairy tale about creativity, inspiration, and the fact that when you chop somebody’s head off in real life, they don’t actually become a prince."  fairy tales and head choppings!  i'm in.

the premise for the book was intriguing, one day mr. fox, an author with a tendencies to kill the females in his works, is invited to play a literary game with his muse, mary.  mary, a voice he created during the war to keep his morale up has evolved into a person.  they take turns creating stories for each other, her goal to have mr. fox fall in love with her and vice versa.  everything is fun and games until mr. fox's real life wife, daphne begins to get involved.

it sounds like a fun read, but i felt lacked execution.  perhaps i focused too much on looking for mr. fox, mary, and daphne in the stories which resulted in my displeasure.  i just did not see any cohesion that constitute it as a novel.  instead,a i think mr. fox would have worked better as a collection of short stories in which the lead characters shared the same name.  there is no denying that oyeyemi is an amazing writer.  i absolutely loved the chapter, "my daughter the racist" which centered around a mother and daughter in a war-torn, taliban-terrorized village in the middle east befriend an american solider much to the outrage of the village.  it's a beautiful story about human connection and tolerance.  i have also i discovered upon googling (to find the actual setting of the book) that it won the BBC national short story award, which is great, but makes me wonder how it fits into the novel.  it really didn't, but it does not make it a bad story, just a bad novel.

the other chapter that i enjoyed was "the training at madame de silentio's" which was the story of two boys, charles wolf and charlie wulf.  they were too mischievous boys that were sent to an academy that which was like a finishing school, turning boys into world-class husbands for wealthy wives.   they were taught things such as: "strong handshakes, silence, rudimentary car mechanics, how to mow the lawn, explosive displays of authority, sports and nutrition against impotence"  i personally enjoy the role reversals here.  

the other chapters though entertaining and well-written did not come together for an outstanding overall novel.  there is no denying oyeyemi's talent, but mr. fox is not her best work.

how to build a girl. caitlin moran. (247)

i thought i picked up caitlin moran's how to build a girl based on flavorpill recommendation but i couldn't find the article.  even though i can't remember where i saw it, i am glad that i decided to check it out.  and i mean the lena dunham blurb on the cover is totally unnecessary, helpful but this book is amazing it can sell itself. 

i hate to be so late to the game on moran but i knew nothing about her before i read this novel.  apparently, moran is a famous british journalist and wrote this feminist book called how to be a woman back in 2012 (i have since put in a request for this book).  i hate to admit this but i remember her book being on sale on amazon but judged a book by a cover, and didn't give it a thought.  it was her skunk hair.  i didn't take her seriously but i really wish i did!!

how to build a girl is loosely based on moran's life.  at least that is what the disclaimer at the beginning said.  she was a music journalist, had a large family, and grew up in wolverhampton.  but the lead character, johanna is not moran.

when we first meet johanna, you can't help but feel bad for the poor girl.  she was fat, friendless, awkward, and a chronic masturbator.  she masturbated a lot!  and with her older brother in the room and her younger brother in the bed next to her.  when i read that i was certain that is why lena dunham has so much love for moran as her blurb claimed.  seriously, what is with people masturbating with siblings in their bed, in high school, i felt bad if anyone else was in the house at the same time that i did it!

johanna's family was also poor, due to her father's dreams of being a rock star which resulted in him really just being an alcoholic.  he also did have an accident but still he just drank and lived off of his benefits.  however, when johanna spills the beans about her father being on benefits to a neighbor, which would

result in them losing them; she decided to get a job to help out.

her first attempts to time a job, a paper route and a starring in a production of "annie" are unsuccessful.  however, when johanna's luck changed when she  won a poetry contest (though her luck didn't change completely because she embarassed herself on tv.  however, it did help johanna realize that she wanted to be a writer and that writing would be the key to her helping her family and getting out of wolverhampton.

since johanna did not know anything about indie rock, she had to start completely from scratch.  she listened to a lot of music, but nothing that would be considered "cool".  her rock education started via the radio and the library, where she checked our CDs.  since she was starting from scratch, johanna needed a rock persona which results in her building a girl.  johanna created dolly wilde, named after oscar wilde's alcoholic lesbian niece.  i loved the nod to oscar wilde and dolly was totally the best choice for johanna, but i loved the name laurel canyon.  i have always wanted an amazing band-aid name, like "almost famous", and was always sad that penny lane was used because it is perfect. and laurel canyon is so good! i wish i thought of it.  oh, well.

so dolly wilde wore all black and a top hat like slash.  and after johanna sent in reviews to the magazine, "D&ME", she became a music journalist.  she also quite school to have more time to write.  one of her first assignments was attending a smashing pumpkins show, which her dad took her too cos she is so young.  initially, she tries to take notes, but in the end, realized that she just needed to enjoy the moment instead of being an observer.  dolly, even managed to get backstage to talk to the band!  

after the pumpkins, she was sent to ireland to interview john kite.  he was described as a jeff buckley type, but due to his fur coat and dandyish ways, i thought of him as oscar wilde. i also expected him to turn out gay.  however, dolly and kite had a wonderful time together, (they sounded like soulmates to me.) and she fell in love with him.  

oh and my favorite quote from them hanging out was this:

"you gonna norwegian wood it, love?", he said as i crawled off to sleep in the bath." 

so freakin' cute and clever!!!

however, after she sent in her interview, the calls stopped coming, because the piece was too fan-ish.  and with this realization dolly wilde went wild.

first it started with booze, she started drinking to created this wild child persona. then, she started writing these cruel reviews with created this bitch persona.  and last, she started having sex which resulted in this sex adventurerer persona.  and though it was hilarious and fun to read all of this, it was not good for dolly.  she started sleeping with the wrong men and making a compete mess of her life.  (i could totally relate.) 

in the end, after throwing herself at john kite, she realized she needed to

stop being dolly wilde and start being johanna again.

as a result, chapter 24 is wonderful advice for any girl, particularly teenage girls, but any female trying to find herself. we all make mistakes but as moran advises via johanna:

you'll find the tiny, right piece of grit you can pearl around, until nature kicks in, and your shell will just quietly fill with magic? even while you're busy doing other things.  what your nurture began, nature will take over, and start completing, until you stop having to think about who you'll be entirely--as you're too busy doing, now.

what a great little pearl of wisdom!

in the end johanna, begins her journey towards her new self.  she decided to move to london and continue her writing but as a fan and as herself!

this book was great and i highly recommend it.  johanna is hilarious and i would totally be her friend if she was a real person.  

just look at this quote:

when bill murray says shit like this, people completely lost it.  i wish used bill murray.  i hope everything i've read about evolution is wrong, and i eventually evolve into him.

bloody brilliant!  this book is filled with gems like this.

if you are a girl, women, riot grrl and lived or loved the nineties you need to read this book.  so good and i look forward to reading moran's other works.

adverbs. daniel handler. (246)

i came across daniel handler's adverbs in a flavorpill post on 10 underrated books everyone should read.  since he is lemony snicket, and i loved the movie version of his series (i know i need to read it!) and the dark, i decided to give this novel a read.

and i hate to go against flavorpill, but this would go on my list of underrated books that are actually overrated.  there is a blurb on the back by dave eggers that likens handler to nabokov,  which is a huge compliment and yes his prose is quite clever but it wasn't that impressive.  and i have to admit, eggers in a bit overrated in my book as well.

adverbs is called a novel, but i would consider it a collection of short stories.  there are a series of elements that threads that the chapters together.  initially,  i felt that it was the name of the characters, but as the reader discovers on the front jacket, characters may have share the same name.  however, i did not believe handler, all of the characters were the same person except there may have been two keiths.  he does admit at the end of the chapter, "truly", that we can not follow the names through the book that there are other elements to trace throughout the book, birds, stranger you spot outside of your cab, cocktails, pop songs.  and i did admire him for these added elements that connect the stories to create a novel, magpies, cocktails with silly names like "morning sickness", pop song lyrics like "baby, baby, oh, baby", a snow queen and of course, cabs.  it was like being on a treasure hunt, every discovery of these elements felt like an inside joke or ah-ha moment and i have to give him credit there.

i must also admit that "truly" (all of the chapters were titled with adverbs) was my favorite chapter, because it felt true.  the novel made sense after reading it, it felt like the heart of the novel.  it told us point blank why handler was writing as opposed to all the word play and coyness of the other chapters.  i liked how straight forward he was in this chapter.

the overall theme of the novel was love, all sorts of love.  for example, the novel opened with  falling in love with a total stranger (there was even the added element of it being gay love, that sounds bad but you know what i mean.) but this is my favorite kind of love, a missed connection sort of love.  it reminded me of the yacht song "psychic city", "i used to live in a heartbreak city, i swear i'd fall in love every minute on the street".  there was unrequited teenage love, best friend love, love of money, and love for thy neighbor (literally).

and with it being about love there were some great quotes:

the opening lines set the bar for me, "love was in the air, so both of us walked through love on our way to the corner.  we breathed it in, particularly me' the air was full of smells and birds, but it was the love, i was sure, that was tumbling down to my lungs, the heart's neighbors and confidants."

(after reading that, i had high expectations, but the novel fell kind of short for me.)

"they say love's like a bus, and if you wait long enough another will come along, but not in this place where the buses are slow and most of the cute ones are gay."

"you meet people who are in pain in life and love and you forgive them for behaving the way they do."

"love is like candy from a stranger, but its candy you've had before and it's probably won't kill you."

"it is not the diamonds or the birds, the people, or the potatoes; it is not any of the nouns. the miracle is the adverbs, the way things are done.  it is the way love gets done despite every catastrophe."

"and when love is over when the diner of love seems closed from the outside you want all those hours back along with anything you left at the lover's house and maybe a couple of things which aren't technically yours on the grounds that you wasted a portion of your life and those hours have all gone southside."

"they say when you're really in love, the word becomes gossamer and gorgeous, but in my experience the world gets grimy, and the love object is in stark relief from the surroundings.  this is love, a pretty thing on an ugly street."

"love is really liking someone a whole lot and not wanting to screw that up."

and of course i loved:

"they looked at each other like a pair of parentheses."  (i just love the idea of people as parentheses, it's that blow song!)

so i know all of these great quotes, so clever and sweet, so how did i not enjoy the novel?  because as i read i became confused by the need to make everything cohesive.  these quotes were like gems and hided under weird story plots.  i got caught up with the characters names, when maybe i should have focused on the elements and the love. i should give it another read, i guess.  i don't know.  i mean these quotes are great, maybe i just need to buy myself a copy and highlight the love quotes.  maybe i will love it more.

but for now, i think it is overrated, every though it has amazing quotes on love!

we were liars. e. lockhart (245)

i kept on seeing we were liars on must read lists over the summer, but didn't give much thought to it.  i mean everyone was writing about it, but it felt like something i had read before.  i think the title and cover reminded me of justin torres' we the animals.  however, after seeing it listed as one of the best ya novels of 2014, i decided to check it out.

though enjoyable, it was not my cup of tea.  i mean the twist ending though random and unexpected was not that incredible.  also after reading, belzhar, it felt unoriginal.  i guess if i would have read it when it first came out, it would have kind of blown my mind, but the surprise twist of belzhar kind of ruined it for me.

we were liars is the story of four teens, cadence (our main character and whose perspective we read from), her cousins, johnny, mirren, and the nephew of her aunt's boyfriend, gat.  they were called the liars because they hung out together every summer on their families private island.  they had what lykke li once sang about, "the rich kids' blues".  they were super rich, but that doesn't mean they didn't have any problems.  they actually did because though they didn't care about money, their mothers were worried about inheritance (they all had money issues, living off of trusts because they didn't have real jobs, which is a result from having money) so were constantly forcing them to appeal to their grandfather for their share of the inheritance.  they fought over who will inherit want, what homes they have, etc. the kids just wanted to get along.

there is also a love plot, cadence was in love with gat, but the family did not approve based on his race and lack of wealth.

however, cadence suffered an accident that caused the family to change.  her aunts and mother got a long, but the cousins were distant.  she was also kept from the island.  all she remembered is waking up on the beach, in her underwear, and alone.  she was kept away from the island but returned one summer.

when she returned there is a new central estate (the island had multiple houses) which is modern.  the liars all lived off in one of the empty houses and didn't engage with the family like before.  cadence decided to investigate what happen to her.

then it all comes flooding back to her, and it turns out . . . her cousins and gat were ghost!!!! they had died, the summer of her accident.  they had decided to burn down their grandfather's house. but cadence light the fire in her rooms to quickly and ended up trapping everyone in the house!!! talk about a crazy twist.  a surprise but also talk about extreme.

i also want to add that through the novel were fairy tales that she made up based upon her family, which i enjoyed.

i didn't enjoy this book, but i can imagine young adults enjoying it, so i think it deserves to be on the lists for the best of 2014.