weetzie bat. francesca lia block.

so i was like 99.9% percent sure that i saw francesca lia block's weetzie bat on flavorpill, but i can not find a post.  i have found this amazing a "weird girl's reading list:  10 best outsider books for teenagers" that i will now add to my many list of books i need to read.  however, i know it wasn't this post that i learned of weetzie bat from because the cover is not the same.  though maybe the cover isn't why i got it? i just recognized the name.  anyway, who cares all that matter is that i have it.  and that i found it at the goodwill in delano! yes, in delano, and for like .79 i think.  talk about a deal!

so weetzie bat was supposed to be my final read of 2014.  it's only 113 pages and the book is a mini one so it's probably more like 50.  i started it on new years eve while waiting for my friend danny to finish his shopping at the amoeba in sf, however, i did not finish it before midnight struck.  (there was a lot of prep and prepartying on my nye). so instead of being my last book of 2014, it ended up being my first book of 2015 (i finished reading it while waiting for brunch on new years day!)

and can i just say that i love weetzie bat it's like this wild little adventures that takes place in the city that i love best, los angeles!  i mean on the first page, graumann's, the farmer's market and okie-dog are name-checked.  i texted my friend cody, who dragged me to okie-dog, a handful of nights, when i read that.  and it turns out his ex-stepmom had him reaad weetzie bat in high school!  (also i learned about ponyland which used to be an amusement park where the beverly center is now!)

so weetzie bat was a young high school girl that lives in shangri l.a., she had a blonde pixie haircut and dressed up in vintage dresses with taffeta or fringe, feather headdresses and moccasins (all the pre-coachella phenomenon.)  she befriended the hottest guy at school, dirk.  they spent a bunch of time hanging out, there was the promise of love in the air, and then it is discovered at the end of the chapter that dirk is gay!  the best ones are always gay! oh and i should clarify, no love in the hetero sense of boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, there is plenty of love between dirk and weetzie!

from dirk's grandmother, weetzie received a magic lamp.  a genie granted her three wishes and her life began to unfold.  i won't go into a rehashing of the plot, i mean it's 100 pages, you should check it out and i promise it won't take more than a day to finish.

i will say that i loved the story of dirk and duck, at the end of the novel. duck unable to cope with death of a friend to aids ran away to sf.  dirk just following instinct found him because duck was in his blood.  so sweet and what a wonderful point to make esp since blood became so scary due to aids.  

there is so much that happened in this novel and it was all weird and wonderful.  oh i just remember about how weetzie, dirk, and duck decided to have a child together!  loved that too.  it's a great little book and you should definitely pick it up or you can borrow mine.  hopefully i can make it through the rest of the series in 2015.  it was a great kick off book for the new year!

astonish me. maggie shipstead. (219)

i discovered maggie shipstead's astonish me via mashable.  they had posted 24 must-read books for summer 2014 .  they described it as 

Maggie Shipstead's first novel Seating Arrangements debuted to massive praise and won the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction. In Astonish Me she explores the haunting and sometimes painful world of professional ballet.

professional ballet?  i decided to check it out.   

in my usual fashion of requesting books and then forgetting how i found out about them, i searched for posts about this book and came across one that made it sounded like a suspense thriller.  when i came across that article, i was not thrilled about reading the book, but it turns i must have misread that blurb.  also i have to add with the more contemporary authors i read, the more names i recognize on book covers now!  for example, maria semple is on the front cover of this one!  and jeffrey eugenides is on the back, i'm really shocked that he wasn't give the front, but i guess where'd you go, bernedette is more current.

astonish me was an enjoyable read and not just because i understood the ballet terms.  the story centers around joan, an american ballet dancer.  though never prima ballerina material, she was vital to the professional ballet world because she helped arslan rusakov, a russian ballet dancer, who was very talented and would go on to become very famous, defect in 1975.  i must admit that i wasn't sure what defect meant initially but i guess it happened a lot during the cold war so pardon me for being young.  joan and arslan were lovers but it ended, partially due to his success.  joan then became pregnant and married jacob, a boy that was in love with her throughout high school.  the novel covers her life and the life of harry, their son.  another thing i must add is that though joan is the main focus, we learn a lot about the other characters, learning very intimate details about everyone.  i must add that all characters large or small contribute to the story and affect the course the story runs.  i enjoyed this because that is how life is, we may not see it, but in someway everyone we encounter leaves a mark upon on us that does affect our fate.

**there will be spoilers, there are some surprise turns in this novel, so i recommend reading it first, but if you don't care, continue reading

the novel covers about 30 years and jumps around time wise, as well as character wise.  i guess the best way to discuss the novel is how it ends.  in the end, it is discovered that harry is not joan and jacob's son but joan and arslan's son.  i was caught off guard though elaine, joan's friend from her ballet days, provided foreshadowing.  elaine had seen a picture of harry as a young child and knew that he would become a great dancer. this did not make sense to me when i read it but i caught on.  even when arslan and harry danced together, i didn't completely catch on, i had to go back and reread that last line to see that it was meant as foreshadowing as well, probably confirmation for brighter people.  harry was a brilliant dancer but it turned out to be his genetics.  this came as a complete shock to everyone, only joan knowing the truth and elaine having her suspicions.  also well-played by shipstead, allowing the reader to read too much into the situation because she never said that harry was jacob's. she even had jacob question joan's pregnancy in his head.  he and joan talking about her being on the pill and her not being direct in her reply.    

jacob and harry, sadly, discovered the truth from ludamilla's, arslan's ex wife, though arslan went to her knowing she would spill the beans.  arslah wanted her to tell them because he had plans for a ballet of his life and of course it would have to include the truth of harry being his son.  the ballet was a concept came up by arslan and his new wife.  okay here is another twist, so arslan ended up marrying . . .  harry's ex-girlfriend chloe!!!  harry and chloe grew up together as neighbors, joan even took chloe under her wing to help train her for ballet.  chloe was not that great of a ballerina and harry ended up breaking up with her because he thought that he was better than her because he was the better dancer.

quick digression, harry's rejection of chloe was an example of how history repeats itself.  arslan rejected joan because he can never partner with her in ballet as he wished.  also joan felt insecure about her dancing causing her to feel unworthy of being arslan's lover.  fast foward a couple of years, harry rejected chloe for the same reasons that his father rejected his mother.  

i was shocked that chloe ended up with arslan.  simply because i didn't like chloe, though i guess my dislike was due more to her parents then her.  her father did commit suicide, but they were both such horrible people.  also i didn't like how she was so mean to harry when he was in love with her in high school. 

another digression, though same notion of history repeating itself.  harry's love for chloe in high school and her keeping him as a friend, was the exact same situation as jacob being in love with joan and she doing the same.  just some food for thought.

in the end, the ballet happened.  jacob, hurt from what had occurred, did not want to go, but went for harry's sake.  he and joan end up sitting next to each other and i hope they end up back together.  the story doesn't say so, but that is how i am going to end it.

the very last section of the novel, we learn why arslan chose joan to help him defect.  i couldn't handle her neediness and constant questioning of why her.  her insecurities is what i think resulted in their relationship ending.  it's interesting to see how she went from being the reacher in her relationship with arslan to the settler in her relationship with jacob (google, if you are unfamiliar with "how i met your mother" reacher and settler theory.)  anyway, i think joan's inability to see her boldness is what caused her relationship with arslan to flourish.  however, i do believe that having jacob as his father allowed harry to become the successful dancer that he became.  if he had known that arslan was his father, the pressure to follow in his father's footsteps would have been too much.  and i think that this is what made the book a enjoyable read, life doesn't always work out the way we want it to, but it doesn't result in a bad life.  

all in all, a great ending to a great book.  i enjoyed it and will start looking to mashable for recommendations.  and i think i will read shipstead's other novel.

oh and before i close i have to add two things about elaine and mr. k.  first, i wish i was elaine's friend back in the late 70's doing coke and going to random clubs.  and second, author's need to stop making gay/bi/questioning characters die from aids, this is the second book i have read recently that a gay man died from aids.  i mean i know it happened but still.  though i should be nice and say that i have read one book in which the person with aids doesn't die.

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.

the impossible lives of greta wells. andrew sean greer. (128)

a week after learning about "life after life" by kate atkinson, i received an email from barnes and noble (i think) highlighting "the impossible lives of greta wells" which was also about a woman living multiple lives.  i figured maybe quasi-reincarnation was the new literary trend so decided to check it out.

(*i really enjoyed this book and if you haven't read it, stop here and go read it.  this is your spoiler alert if you decide to continue on.)

i have to start off by sharing that it is nothing like "life after life", while ursula would die and return to the same life, greta time-travelled to her own life in a different era.  we meet greta in 1985, her twin brother, felix, had just died of AIDs, her lover left her because she had neglected him and due to these events, she fell into a depression.  to treat her depression, greta begins electroconvulsive therapy (a milder form of electric shock therapy).  it is through these electriconvulsive treatments that she time-travels to 1918 and 1945.  greta discovered that she always travels in sequence and as a result of the other gretas having the same treatment.

1985 greta was not exactly in the greatest state of mind prior to the treatment and time-traveling must be overwhelming and scary.  however, greta discovered that her 1985 family and friends are her family and friends in 1918 and 1945.  and of course, she is always greta.  also, luckily for greta, her eccentric aunt ruth (who i absolutely loved) had a open mind in 1918 and 1985, and believed greta was time-traveling and became her confidant.  the stress of time traveling was less because greta time-travelled to familiar settings.

in 1918, greta's twin brother, felix, came back from the dead, figuratively.  her aunt ruth is still has wild as ever, filled with that fitzgerald-esque flair for partying.  and her lover, nathan, that left here in 1985, is her husband but he is away at war.  she also has a lover, leo.

in 1945, greta's twin brother, felix, is a live and married with a child.  her aunt ruth is dead. ruth died in an accident, at the fault of greta, and greta's treatment is a result of the trauma from the accident.  nathan is her husband and they have a child named for her brother, felix.

it appears that all three gretas are leading very different lives but actually their lives are very similar, the only real difference is the era they live in.

for example, greta's brother is gay in all three eras. in 1985, felix was out and had a partner, alan.  in 1944, he was married with a son but was seeing alan on the side.  it was sad to see them having to masquerade their love with a friendship but at least they were able to be together.  then, felix was caught in a gay bar and as a result his wife leaves him.  in 1918, felix was a bachelor and about to marry a senator's daughter.  greta attempted to set up alan and felix by having them meet at a party like they did in 1945.  however, her scheming was pointless because they had already met.  it made my heart smile when greta realized because it proved felix and alan's love to be true because they always found each other in every era.  sadly though, because it was 1918, their affair was brief and alan ended things.  

i appreciated greer's representation of homosexuality as something innate and not the product of a time period.  how often, homosexuality is painted as a modern epidemic when homosexuality has been around since the beginning of time.  it was heartbreaking yet inspiring to see felix's changing attitudes towards his sexuality.  in 1918, he is ashamed and full of self hate but in 1985, he is out and proud, demonstrating that it is and will get better.  the only thing that i found frustrating was 1985 greta's desire to force her brother out of the closet in 1918 and 1945.  even though she was accepting of his sexuality, he had not accepted it.  and in all my years of being the straight girl BFF to gay boys, i have learned you have to let people come out when they are ready and simply shower them with your support when they do.  

the lives of greta were also tainted by infidelity.  1985 and 1945 nathans were both unfaithful to greta, proving once a cheater, always a cheater.  however, in 1918, it is greta that has the affair with a younger man named leo.  granted it is 1985 greta that eventually slept with leo, it is quite obvious that 1918 greta loves him because she searched for him in 45 and 85.  as a reader, i kept on wondering why 1985 greta didn't seek him out in 1985, he was so in love with greta, maybe he was her true love not nathan.  also 1918 leo gave me some insider scoop on new york.  leo took greta to a secret chamber in the washington square arch!  (i googled to see if it was true and it is!  if you want to read more here is a curbed post.)  but it was interesting to note that nathan and greta's relationship was plagued by infidelity.  i have never been in a relationship in which someone cheated on me so i can't speak from experience, but i can imagine it is easier to cope with infidelity if it's an inevitable part of your relationship versus your failure as a partner.  i am not trying to let cheaters off of the hook, i think individuals need to be honest about their lost of feelings but i do feel that greer is trying to demonstrate that some relationships are just doomed.  

since greta's electrotherapy sessions were not forever, greta's time traveling had a deadline.  she was only having 12 procedures and the 12th procedure would restore all of the gretas to their correct era.  but with a interesting twist of fate, 1985 greta decided to stay in 1918.  granted, her love affair with leo did result in her being pregnant with his child, and nathan was very much aware of it.  nathan attempted to make greta and the unborn child sick and as a result, 1985 greta as 1918 greta leaves nathan.  so it makes sense that 1985 greta decided to stay in 1918, she had created a world in which she was only greta equipped to survive.  1918 greta, after leaving nathan (something 1918 would have never seem fathomable), was a single mother and 1985 greta was the only one thanks to her era was capable of the independence required.  furthermore, in 1918 she had her brother felix and her aunt ruth.  consequently, 1945 greta stayed in 45 where she would live happily ever after with nathan and 1918 greta would stay in 1985 where she could seek out her one true love, leo. that clever greta even hunted him down!  

i was shocked at first for the novel ending this way but realized it made sense and couldn't end any other way.  life is too fluid for our self identities to be so stagnant.  we sometimes fail to see the many selves that we have.  as a gemini, i have always felt like i have multiple selves for example the krisha i am with my friends is not the same one that my co-workers see or even my family.  but there are traits that are very much me, just like all the gretas were alike but not alike.  

as greer wrote:

perhaps one day they will invent a camera to capture the fleeting self--not the soul, but the self---!: we can truly see how we were on any particular day and mark the shifting of lives we lead that we pretend belongs to one person alone.  why is it impossible to believe:  that we are many headed as monsters, as many armed as gods, as many hearted as the angels?

we do have multiple lives that belong to different people.  it makes us all sound like we have disorder but in actually it's how we survive.  in order to make our impossible lives possible we have to grow as an individuals and become the best person for whatever life throws at us.  just as greta did.  (granted she had time travel to aid her with her mission.)

before i close i also have to share this wonderful quote:

morning had awakened like a girl in a tantrum who will wear nothing but her party dress, and unseasonal warmth spread over things.

i just loved that simile!

oh and one last note, read on huffington post that madge just got the movie rights for this book!  i am not one for novels to movies but madge did call him personally! how cool!!