a fortunate age. joanna smith rakoff. (300)

i picked up a fortunate age after reading smith-rakoff's blurb on the back of emma forrest's your voice in my head.  it sounded like a book i would be interested, twentysomething trying to make life happen in nyc.  in fact, i was shocked that the work didn't make it onto flavorpill's list of books to fill your the 'girls'-shaped hole in your life.  it seemed like it was girls but in the nineties.  however, after reading the book, i discovered why it was probably off of the list, this work is simply mary mccartney's the group (which was on the list) but with the characters' names changed and set in the nineties.  it was such total plagiarism that i had to give it a one star on goodreads and wrote this review:

Rakoff more like ripoff!  I had deja vu the entire time I read this novel, I felt like I had read it before and in fact, I had.  Instead of reading this, you should just read Mary McCarthy's "The Group".  This book is an "homage" to it but really, she just took McCarthy's novel and changed the character's names and the decade to the 90's.  The whole time I was reading, I kept wondering how this book was ever published, I mean it should be illegal to copy another author's like Smith Rakoff did.

i mean i get that authors will allude to other works or do retellings, even fan-fiction is fine since you are simply taking character's names but writing your own work, but what smith rakoff was just plain copying.  i mean how did her publisher and editor let this book see the light of day?  were they just banking on the fact that the group is kind of dated and current readers have never read it?  i mean i will say that most of the goodreads reviews either didn't mention the group, or admitted to never reading it.  but still, i can't believe that this book was allowed to be published.

in addition to that, i can't help now but i think of smith rakoff has a coattail writer.  last year, she came out with a book about your time with j.d. salinger, which i was tempted to read, but didn't since he was a recluse.  but it seemed like she used his name to sell her book, i mean it was called my salinger year.  and after reading this, i can't help but accuse her of stealing from mccarthy.

but seriously just read the group, instead of this.  i hate to waste so much time on this novel, but have to call out this copycat.

lily and tuck were kay and harald.  both kay and lily's wedding opened the book, as their deaths closed it.  just like kay, lily became the breadwinner, and just like harald, tuck, was a horrible husband.  tuck cheated on caitlin, a character that was exactly like norine, the girl that harald cheated with.  i even think caitlin's justifications for tuck's cheating were the same ones that norine used.  just like harald, tuck had kay committed must like lily, and both claimed their wives were hysteric.  the only difference was that kay may have committed suicide while lily died from the flu.  however, both husbands were  unwelcome guest at the funerals.  i also have to add both husbands were arrested after involvement in a protest that took place in a hotel.

beth was dottie.  both had a sex adventure at the  beginning of their story.  where as dottie lost her virginity, beth just had some weird sex.  though beth ended up marrying the person she had sex with, just like dottie, she had second thoughts about her marriage.  both women worried about still being in love with her first love (for dottie this was the man she lost her virginity too.) both women had close relationships with their mother and got advice from their moms on this matter.

emily was polly, both were the poor ones of the group and have a family history of mental illness.  they both have affairs with married men who are separated from their wives.  however, these men's wives still have power over them, in original gus' wife had him see a psychoanalyst while curtis' wife made him join AA, in the end, both men return to their wives.  just like polly's dad who suffered from mental illness went to live with polly, emily's sister who suffered from mental illness went to live with emily.  everything is fine and dandy when they move in, i even think polly's dad, like emily's sister help make improvements around their apartment.  both become socialist/communist, and started to be a financial drain.  however, emily and polly both end up marrying doctor's they meet due to this drain on money, polly married the doctor she met donating blood, emily married a doctor that helped her when she got injured as her second job (this doctor she had met previously when trying to get help for her sister.)

sadie was a blend of priss and helena.  she was helena because both discovered about their best friend's affair.  she was priss, because she struggled with motherhood, though while priss struggled to get her baby to breastfeed, sadie couldn't get her son to stop.

and caitlin is norine, both had affairs with married men and then justified it with politics.  they also both end up divorcing their husbands then remarrying rich jews.  both show up and make a sense at the funerals of the women whose husbands they slept with.

tal was lakey.  the one that everyone was in love with, and just like lakey spent most of the novel, aboard.  i kept on expecting tal to come out in the end just like lakey did, showing up at the funeral with her lesbian lover.  but i guess smith rakoff figure to cut back on some of the copying.

don't know who dave was, but i mean smith rakoff needed to have one character of her own.

ps i also didn't like how lightly she treated 9/11.  i mean the fact that she mentioned it in emily's storyline explaining that her sister came in two days after that seemed odd to me.  i also wonder if travel to nyc was stopped due to 9/11 and if so, then she should have had emily's sister come in a different time.  

supermutant magic academy. jillian tamaki. (299)

supermutant magic academy had been on a handful of instagram and facebook posts and since i loved tamaki's illustrations in one last summer, i decided to check it out.

i had assumed that the supermutanta magic academy was cohesive narrative but once i started reading it, i realized it was a collection of comics.  the comics featured the same characters and they related but there wasn't a direct storyline that connected them all.  though i was expecting a graphic novel, i did enjoy the comics.  my favorite character was frances, i loved her art and her smart-ass remarks.  i also loved wendy and marsha's comics, with marsha's cute crush on wendy.

here were my favorite comics:

love food humor!

love frances!!

this margaret mitchell quote is amazing!

time is never time at all.

there is no wrong way to interpret art,

i fear for kids today.

read books!

ps this is the second book i have read that mentioned ulysses (i didn't share that comment.) i really need to read it!

fun home: a family tragicomic. alison bechdel (298)

so i messed up!  when i went to nyc in may, there was buzz about a new broadway show called fun home.  i didn't research it, but from what i had seen, it seemed like a show about a family, and it didn't seem like something i would be into, so i didn't go.  however, after watching the fun home performance at the tony's, i realized that i made a huge mistake.

i, later, discovered after reading an article about a girl that was trying to get this work plus persepolis banned from her college course (talk about ignorance), that the broadway musical i missed out, was based on a graphic novel/memoir!  double regret.  so i decided to check out the novel, and hopefully catch fun home on my next nyc trip.

so from the tony's performance, i discovered that fun home was about a woman that discovered her father was gay after she came out to her parents.  i have to admit i was very excited when i got to the part of the book that tony's was based on.  it performance stayed trued to the memoir, and really wish i had seen it on broadway.

the story of alison's sexuality was complicated, because after sharing she was a lesbian with her parents, her mother told her the truth about her father.  in addition to this, her father's response was awkward and soon after he died when struck by a car.  alison believed that it may have been a suicide based on what had occurred with her.  i have to add that with no disrespect to alison, i didn't think her father committed suicide.  yes, he was reading that camus work at the time, which made a convincing case.  however, i felt that instead of wanting to commit suicide, he would have sought a new life, as a openly gay man.  kind of like hannah's dad on season 4 of girls.  he had lived so long with his secret, though he did get caught of it a handful of times, and his wife was fully aware that to suddenly end his life didn't make sense.  i feel that if that accident hadn't happened, he would have came out, he did express to alison that now was different for gays and lesbian now, that they were able to experience a freedom, he could not.  i feel he would have been hopeful about being there for his daughter versus wanting to end it all.  he did give her colette, which helped her realized she was a lesbian.  he wanted to help his daughter.  i think the reason why he was so distant initially, was to allow her to understand her sexuality in her own terms versus being forced upon by her dad.  being a gay father, he didn't want people to think that perhaps she made him gay.  again i feel bad for typing this, because alison seemed to think it was a suicide.  but i mean life is horrible and sometimes bad things just happen.

overall, i really enjoyed this memoir.  for those of you curious, the title fun home, came from alison's family for the funeral home that they ran.  speaking of the fun home, i, like the kids, loved the story of their grandmother about their father wandering out of into a field.  i also delighted in their delight of the oven part!  but that being said, i want to revisit this work, after i read the literary works that alison referenced.  i have never read ulysses so that went over my head.  i also need to read the importance of being earnest.  

on the topic of literary works, i absolutely loved alison's dad's love of the fitzgeralds.  just like him, after reading both of their works, i became obsessed with them.  there is something so glamorous about their wild times.  i need to read this side of paradise, but loved that we had both loved nancy milford's zelda biography.  i will also look into reading some colette.

this was an interesting read and i look forward to reading it after i visit the above works, to hopefully get a different take on the memoir.

china rich girlfriend. kevin kwan. (297)

i absolutely loved kevin kwan's crazy rich asians, and when i discovered that the sequel, china rich girlfriend, came out, i had to check it out.    

it has been a year since i read crazy rich asians, and i never blogged about it. (i always have a tough time blogging when i love a book, because all i want to do is gush.  but i will try to get that post up.)  so i was little rusty on what happen.  thanks to google, i was able to piece things together and of course, also as i read, things came to me. i will say that to start i did get arminata and astrid confused, but i got that sorted out.

so again, astrid was my favorite character.  i really hope that she is the focus of the next book.  i read that this a trilogy, but i would be okay if kwan decided to make books.  back to astrid, i just love that she is just so flawlessly and effortlessly chic.  i loved how the gossip columnist dismissed her, but it was only because her jewelry was so valuable that the columnist had no idea what it is.  i absolutely love how understated her outfits are yet, if you have money, you know that the girl's clothing and accessories are crazy expensive or belong in a museum.  though i love astrid, i hated reading about her good for nothing husband!  it was frustrating to read about how abusive, he was, but she did nothing.  i am glad that she left him in the end, and hope that the third book is all about her getting back with charlie wu!

so the focus of the story is nicholas and rachel.  nicholas and his family are still not on speaking terms after his mom hired that pi to dig up dirt on rachel.  they are planning their wedding, however, rachel is still searching for her father.  i would give more, but really you need just to read this book for yourself.

some random thoughts before i close:

-loved reading all about art auction!
-the return of kitty pong!  that story was outrageous and it was crazy to see how bernard ended up.  i could totally see him as one of those eco-friendly, vegan, gender-neutral kind of dads.
-i loved reading about all of the restaurants.  i want to check them out when i am abroad.  

here is what was named checked:  *mandarian kitchen for lobster noodles *four seasons for roasted duck

*royal china for dim sum
*dai pai dong for wonton noodles

*gerard mulot
*din tai fung (i'm excited cos i can do this in LA!)
-i wish i was crazy rich!!!

spoiler alert:  regardless of what her assistant said, colette was behind of it!!! psycho crazy china girlfriend!

oh and i have to add i still love kwan for his wit and his footnotes are the best.  the fire island was my favorite!! lol

read this book and i hope you love it as much as i did.

the odd woman and the city. (296)

i picked up vivian gornick's the odd woman and the city because it was on flavorpill's list of must read for may.  they wrote:

A wonderful and clear-eyed memoir of Gornick’s time in New York City that doubles as an appreciation of friendship — which more and more avails itself as the most important theme of our time.

i had never read anything else by gornick, but i liked the title and a memoir about nyc sounded interesting.  i must add that now i do want to read her other works, esp the feminist one.  she also inspired me to check out charles reznikoff's poetry after reading his poems in this work.  i might also check out the george gissing novel that inspired the title.

so even with being unfamiliar with her work, i found this work to be a delight.  it's a memoir but more like a journal.  we get tidbits about her life, friendships, and what i loved most vignettes from her life in new york city.

i must admit that it made me wish i loved in nyc.  as i read about the streets of new york, i regretted that my images were from memories from visits and not from living there.  none the less, the little scenes i read made me fall in love with nyc.

i loved the story of the man and the woman on the subway discussing the christian's hatred of jews.  the woman sharing, "after all, it the romans who killed him.  why don't they blame the italians."  the story of the boy and his father signing on the subway made me smile.  the boy deformed and as gornick at first surprised by his look later saw his beauty.  i also felt her frustration about the man on the bus talking too loudly on his phone.  i think good bus ettiquette is a lost art and am always silently angry at people who play music or talk loudly on a bus.  and the end, i loved the evasdropping she shared with us, esp these two conversations:

"when i was young, men were the main course, now they're the condiment."

and 

"i didn't realize you were such good friends.  what did she give you, that you miss her so?" "it wasn't what she gave me . . . it was what she didn't take away."

so many delightful and insightful things one hears.  i also learned that i shouldn't judge my friend markley, for all the evasdropping he does in nyc.

the work also focused on friendship.  she shared different friendships of hers, especially her friend leonard.  she examined why she was friends with particular people. n she also shared a handful of stories of authors and their friendships, looking at what draws people to each other. but in the end, the work is really about loneliness, as flavorpill noted.  it's actually more about finding solitude versus loneliness.

as she discussed, she discovered whole reading edmund gosse's memoir, father and son, that "one is lonely for the absent idealized other self, but in useful solitude i am there, keeping myself imaginative company, breaking life into silence,

filling the room with proof of my own sentient being."  

and this i feel is the heart of the memoir.  in solitude and keeping herself company, gornick wandered around and enjoyed new york city.

the work also had some beautiful life lessons that i didn't pay attention too because it became too wordy for me.  however, one day when i am older, i will revisit this work but for not will take the lessons that i saw best for me.  

lumberjanes: vol. 1. noelle stevenson, grace ellis, brooke a. allen. (295)

i read about lumberjanes on book riot.  a comic book for girls, how could the feminist in me resist?!?!

i wasn't sure what to expect, and i have to add that i was thrown off my the sci-fi element of it.  the girls fight off three-eyed foxes that warn them of a kitten holy.  i had anticipated a more realistic comic, but regardless this comic was great.

the comic was about five girls: jo, april, mal, molly, and ripley, they always find themselves in crazy situations at lumberjane camp.  the girls are a motley crew.  different but they get along and have their own special talent.  also two of them are lesbian (well it was hinted at) so nice to see some diversity.  oh i should add their camp director was named rosie and was very rosie the riveter-esque.

each chapter started off with a description of a lumberjane badge that relates to the adventure they find themselves in.  my favorite badge was the puncheon master badge which is given for great puns:  

cute, huh?

as i mentioned before, at camp the girls find themselves in crazy situations.  they have to fight off a river monster, crazy foxes, statues and brain-washed boy scouts (but not the official boy scouts.) they fought off everyone, because these girls got muscle! for example, april won a arm-wrestling match with a statute and then quoted kelis, when she was asked to show the girls how she did it:  

but these girls have brains too!! jo used the fibonacci sequence to help them get across a pit!  and april solved anagrams to get them out of the cave!  it was great to see them being super smart too!

since this was volume 1, i don't know how the story ends.  all i know so far is:

-they need to be aware of the kitten holy.

-they keep on being attacked by three-eyed creatures.

-they found a sacred bow and arrow.

-and the boy scouts are weird crazy cult.

i look forward to reading the next one to find out how all of this ends.

amy falls down. jincy willet. (294)

i saw amy falls down on lena dunham's instagram.  i figured since she was reading it, i should check it out.

i have to admit that after the premise, an author, amy, has an falls down in her backyard which then started a series of events that resulted in her career getting its second wind.  in all honesty, i was kind of iffy once i actually read the premise, and figured i would not enjoy it. it seemed like something that an actual writer (which lena is) would love, but the layman like me, would be bored.

however, i was surprised by how much i enjoyed this book.  it didn't change my life, but it was enjoyable.  

as the title explained, amy gallup, fell down one day in her backyard and hit her head on her birdbath.  instead of calling for help or going to the hospital, she decided to instead stay home and be interviewed by a local paper since she had it scheduled.

quick digression, there was a delightful explanation about how amy once didn't call for help while drowning as a child because she was so concern about her word choice.  i appreciated her need to best express herself even during an emergency.  

another time word choice was brought up was about how reviews are written and words like compelling are meaningless.  she also mentioned how difficult it is to review a book that you like, which i totally agree with, books i hate are always easier to write about.  

so the interview, amy remembered nothing about it but she came off as eccentric and had bunch of great quotes.  my favorite was "feelings are not news" which spun by the other reporter was true.  i always had an issue with oprah because i once watched when she had a family with a schizophrenic daughter that had been diagnosed at a young age, "how does it feel to deal with the disease?" i always saw it as insensitive of her and this book made me realized that its because it demonstrated how she was unable to empathize with them.  when we read the news, we need just facts, anyone should be able to understand how that person felt during the crisis or disaster.

i have to add that this book is filled with little gems like this about the book industry, writing, even why we read.  as demonstrated in amy's first panel, amy demonstrated the silliness in people wanting to know the writing rituals of. authors.  i attend a lot of author readings and this question always comes up and always bores me, i mean because it's usually the same kind of answer or super specific to the author.  also i loved how she addressed the whole, "how do authors' ideas come to them" at the convention.  i recently attended a judy blume talk and she had this question asked in various forms and each time, she was like i don't know, they just come to me.  

back to the interview, so it created a lot of buzz about amy going out which thankfully got her living and writing again.  as we learn throughout the novel, she married her best friend, max, who was gay, to stop him from being drafted.  they were happy, but he died from AIDS.  after a bad and rushed second marriage and divorce, amy became a recluse and stopped writing.  so this accident was a blessing because it got her to live again.regrettably, she wasted a lot of years but thankfully found herself again. 

an enjoyable novel, and if you are an avid reader or a writer, a work you should definitely check out.  i have to add that    i also loved reading about her stories and wish i could really read them. 

the book of lost things. john connolly. (293)

i don't know how the book of lost things, got on my to-read list.  i thought it was new book, but it has been out since 2006.  i read it on some list as a retelling of fairy tales, which is why i check it out, this type of work is part of my book riot read harder challenge.

before i have start, i have to say that i wish i had discovered this work earlier because then i could have shared it with my grandma.  this is totally something she would have loved.  it actually reminded me of the abc show, once upon the time.  i mean i feel that conolly could have been a writer for a series, especially since the villain, the crooked man, turned out to be rumplstiltskin, just like the series.  also, the whole ripping pit the heart to take one's soul and lifetime was just like once as well.

the novel opened with a young boy, david, losing his mother.  he was a lover of books and they begin talking to him.  his father remarried a woman named rose and they have a child, george.  david and his father move into rose's home.  he stayed in a room that previously belonged to her uncle, a fellow book lover that disappeared one day with his adopted sister.

david began to see a crooked man and have nightmares and one day ended up traveling to another world through a hole in a tree (kind of like, once).  

on the other side, he befriended a woodcutter that saved his life and suggested that he go to the king to help

him return home.  the king had a book, the book of lost things (the title) that should help him!

along the way, david encountered different characters and hears tales similar to the fairy tales that he loves.  he meets half wolf/half human creatures that are offspring of little red riding hood who decided to lie with wolves instead of kill them.  he met a crazy woman that combined the bodies of humans and animals so that she had new creatures to hunt.  he heard the story of hansel and gretel but in this version, gretel saved the day but instead of living happily ever after with gretel, hansel went looking for his mother and ened up disappearing after entering the home of an old woman.  he met a knight that turned out to be gay and searching for his lover who had gone out looking for briar rose aka sleeping beauty. he also shared a morbid tale bad on the prince and pauper.  

in the end, david escaped death a handful of times and ended up at the king's castle.  however, he discovered that the king was in cahoots with the crooked man.  it turned out the crooked man took the hearts of children which then added years to his life.  he sought out children who hated their siblings and convinced them to bring their siblings to the other world so he could steal the siblings' hearts and years and then make the jealous child the king or queen.  this is what happen to david's stepmother's uncle.  the crooked man wanted the name of george and would make david king.  however, david resist and the king and crooked men were destroyed by the wolf/man hybrids.  and david returned home.

i have to add this novel went on to share the rest of david's life which felt excessive, but in the end, david ended up back in the magical land.  minus all the evil, of course.

an enjoyable read.  i, of course, loved all the retellings of the fairy tales, so thanks book riot for this challenge.

the unbearable lightness of being. milan kundera. (292)

i picked up the unbearable lightness of being to reread it before i read kundera's latest book.  he hasn't written a book in about 15 years, so it's a bit of a big deal. i put in a request for his latest work, but felt like i should revisit this first.

i read the unbearable lightness of being about 13 years or so ago.  at the time i was obsessed with nick hornby's high fidelty and in the movie version (i don't recall if it's in the book), rob says:

i’m not the smartest guy in the world, but i’m certainly not the dumbest. i mean, i’ve read books like "the unbearable lightness of being" and "love in the time of cholera", and i think i’ve understood them. they’re about girls, right? just kidding. but i have to say my all-time favorite book is johnny cash’s autobiography "cash" by johnny cash.

since rob namechecked it, i decided i'd read it.  so young late teens/early twenties me read it.  i remember having the feeling that i had read something profound.  i also recalled the bowler hat (mainly because of the cover.) but as i reread it, i doubt younger me truly got it, especially all the parts about sex and also because even now some of this went over my head.

before i sound dumb, all the communist stuff went over my head.  i mean i get  communism, what went over my head (like a true american) was the geography and the link to communism.  like all the czech stuff. i know, i know, how ignorant can me? apparently, very.

also nietzsche was mentioned but in relationship to mental illness and an apology to animal for humans (specifically, descartes) not acknowledging their souls, but this book is about nihilism, right? (i just opened the novel to get a quote and it looks like nietzsche opens the novel, so this is nihilistic.) i mean, we read about these people's lives, but in the end they all die and all that we read, doesn't really matter.  i mean i have nihilistic tendencies, so i am all for this being the point of the novel.  it felt like every time, someone found "enlightenment" about life, when they finally got it all figured out, they died, proving that life is ironic, if you use alanis morrisette's definition.

franz realized that what really brought him happiness was his student-mistress. tomas explained to tereza that she did not ruin his life (i will have more on this in a second) because he was happy just to be with her.  i mean it's a beautiful idea, but maybe this what we humans do to justify the unbearable lightness of being. (i feel like i am being deep but this might be the whole point of this work, so just let me go with it. you might be reading this and thinking, duh, krisha).  we take any situation we are in and justify it by using the all encompassing adjective "happy" to help us cope with the decisions we have made in life. we are lying to ourselves to stop ourselves from spending our entire lives regretting.  who can truly say whether or not tomas would not have been happy if he didn't follow tereza? he would still be a surgeon, and would be able to sleep with anyone without guilt, and without tereza probably would have justified his life by saying he was happy to live with the regret of not chasing her.  we would probably be "happy" in whatever path our lives take, because we can never know the way the other options would have played out.  as explained in the beginning, we only have one life.  there is no way for us to truly know if we made the best decisions in life:

we can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can not compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.

we can not undo the past and so to deal with the decisions we have made, good or bad, we say that we are "happy" so that we can live with ourselves.  i mean i have made some poor decisions in life, but am happy on a day to day basis when i am not regretting the would have, could have, should haves, but in the end i think when i die there is nothing, so i am not that stressed out about my choices.  we just have to accept what we have done and this acceptance is the unbearable lightness of being.

the definition of the unbearable lightness of being came via sabine.  when she moved to paris, there was no drama to explain her move.  instead of a heavy burden to bear, she had the unbearable lightness of being, existence without a struggle.  its easier to explain life decisions by having trigger versus just doing or being. to exist is not enough, we have to explain all action.  our need to do so has resulted in the creation of religions, psychology, sociology, biology, any ology or field of study in fact, even art. it's our ability to reason that results in the need for this justification of our being.  life is tough cos we constantly have to justify it, as i explained above.

sorry i feel like i am talking in circles.  but this book is deep.  i should read it every 5 years to get perspective on life.  and should also do some czech history research to really get it.

i mean i could go into storylines but it's all pointless and i mean that is the point right?  we can see the detailed background of individuals and can see this reasoning behind their actions, but in the end, we all die so what does it matter?  it just one life, we don't get an do over.

with that being said, i do need to discuss tereza, cos i thought she was one crazy bitch and that she did ruin tomas' life! first of all, really? with the showing up and just moving in?  girl showed up casually, but had her suitcase at the station, ready to move in.  and i thought she was manipulative from the beginning (see: how she moved it).  also the whole hand holding in her sleep was crazy too! i would be frightened if my partner did that.  i would not see it as love.  i mean she admitted how manipulative she was in the end, but it was too late.

and yes, i know tomas was not faithful to her, and i didn't agree with his whole sex doesn't equate love theory, but she forced him into a relationship!  i am not saying that if he was truly in love, he would be faithful, but he was kind of coerced into allowing tereza to move in which then lead to marriage.  he was an idiot, the guy forgot to wash his hair after his affairs, but i doubt he would have settled down if given the choice.  and before you say he loved her in the end, go back to the part about the justifying our actions because we only have one life.

so i feel like this blog is just a bunch of rambling (i wish i was part of a book club so that i could share my ideas with someone), so here is a list of random thoughts i had as i read:

-i liked the definitions of words the demonstrated the differences between sabine and franz.

-that one artist on bravo's "work of art" totally confused unbearable and pride and prejudice why else was their a bowler hat on her book cover.

-there is a lot of sex in this book.

-the whole section on shit was interesting.

-this is the second book this summer that has mentioned plato's theory of people being split in two and finding their other half. (reminded me also of "hedwig and the angry inch".)

-what a whole section for the dog and about animals. also i have soul though i don't like animals. also i like karenin as a name for a dog.

all in all, a great and enlightening read.  if you have any comments please post.  if i an complete off base let me know.  

  

i'll give you the sun. jandy nelson. (291)

my friend chris, first told me about this book, but when my best friend's sister, michelle posted it on facebook, i decided to check it out.

*spoilers in this entry*

i knew nothing of the premise, except that it was about twins.  the novel was told from the perspective of two twins, noah and jude.  i enjoyed the chapters from noah's perspective because they were filled with beautiful imagery.  since noah was artistic, he painted in his head. here are some examples of the images in his head:

when jude is upset about the idea of going to art school, "jude barfs bright blue fluorescent bard all over the table, but i'm the only one who notices."

or when jude is jealous and he paints portrait of her:  green with envy, "skin: lime. hair: chartreuse. eyes:  forest. allof her: green, green, green."

so colorful right?

i also love how he paints moments, here are a couple of them:

(self-portrait:  a window flies open in my chest)

(self-portrait: the boy hiding inside the boy hiding inside the boy)

(portrait:  mom sleepwalking into another life)

(family portrait:  assume the crash position)

(self-portrait:  boy hitches ride on passing comet)

i really wish this book was illustrated so that we could see the paintings in noah's mind.

jude's chapters were filled with the colorful wives tales of her grandmother's bible.

some samples of entries:

to avoid serious illness, keep an onion in your pocket

if a boy gives a girl an orange, her love for him will multiply

i enjoyed these superstitions as well.

so back to the novel, in the beginning, we are introduced to the twins, noah, the artsy, gay, oddball, and jude, the hot, popular, surfer chick.  their mother had presented the idea of them attending high school at an arts academy.  noah was elated especially since his mother was so excited about his talent, which made jude jealous.

cut to a couple years later and the family had done a 180.  jude was now the artsy loner attending art school while noah was athletic, popular and "normal" attending regular school.  also, their parents had separated and sadly their mother died in a car accident.

jude convinced her mother's ghost is destroying her art because as we later learned she never sent in her brother's application with her,  jude went to a famous sculptor, guillermo garcia, to learn to sculpt using something her mother's ghost couldn't break, rock.

her work with guillermo, ultimately resulted in the world getting straightened out for the two twins.  it was discovered that her mother and guillermo were lovers during their parents separation.  demonstrating that some people should be in your life.

there were also a handful of other subplots including noah's homosexuality.  he became friends with their neighbor, brian, and thought brian liked him back. however, an incident with jude and brian and 7 minutes in heaven, resulted in awkwardness between the twins. brian turned out to be gay too, but then in a fit of anger, noah outed him.  but luckily, brian was able to come out and find acceptance at his high school and he and noah became boyfriends! yay!

jude also had a love interest, who sounded hot, but i was concern about the age difference.  i mean i got swept up in their attraction by then it lost it appealed when one realized jude was like 16.  but i mean they were destined, his mom did predict their meeting.

i have to add that i loved the inclusion of plato's theory of split-aparts, it reminded me of hedwig.

also there was an incident of date rape with jude that was heartbreaking to read, but didn't get resolved other than jude going on a boy strike and confronting her abuser and telling him to never do what he did to another girl.

all in all, an enjoyable read.  it was predicable at times, but interesting and nice to see high schoolers tolerant of homosexuality.

ps i just discovered this gallery of the artwork mentioned in the novel: http://jandynelson.com/gallery/