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.  

paper towns. john green. (276)

i decided to read paper towns, because there is a panel discussion about it at bookcon.  i think it conflicts with a panel i actually want to see, but decided to read it, just in case i catch the panel.  i should also add that i think the panel is for the film based on the book.

so i read, watched, and loved the fault in our stars, however, the same can not be said for paper towns.  to be completely honest, they shouldn't have turned it into a movie.  the storyline is not that interesting and the characters are not as likable.  plus i just watched the trailer and it looks horrible.  maybe its because i know the ending, but it seems like a lot of hype for a lame ending.  

and i need to read the rest of his books, but if the rest of his books are like paper towns, it might be safe to say that green is a one hit wonder.

paper towns is like the poor man's the virgin suicides.  the obsessive neighbor, untoucable free spirited girl, but no interesting chronicles of her life and definitely none of the deep and insightful coming of age knowlege.

the novel is told from the point of view of q .  he has spent his life, all 17 years of it (i think), admiring and loving his neighbor margo roth spiegelman from afar.  they used to be best friend, their defining moment of friendship was when they found a dead body at age 9.  margo became a popular party girl while q became a nerd that hung out with band kids.  i am not hating, q and i would have ran in the same circles, if we went to high school together.  i liked his friend radar especially due to its obsession with updating a wikipedia-esque website, but ben was annoying and i would have hated him in real life.

any hoot, margo discovered her boyfriend was cheating on her and goes on this crazy revenge spree and enlisted the help of q.  margo gave q a talk about paper towns and how people are fake and not as the appear. the next day she disappeared.

q was worried that she committed suicide (i have to admit by the end i wish that she had.) he believed that she left him clues to find her.  it started with a woody guthrie picture (quick sidenote as i was reading about guthrie's poster and his guitar that read "this machine kills facists." i was like where have i read that? and i remember that steve martin's memoir mentioned it as well.) and leads him to developments that were never completed.

q did a lot of bad searching for margo, seriously how did he not realize that those holes in the wall were left by marks on a map?!?! he spent a lot of time overanalyzing leaves of grass, i love whitman but green was trying to hard there.  q discovered he is capable

of being adventurous, realized he put margo on a pedestal.  oh and he missed out on alot of partying before graduation.

in the end, he learned (and i did as well, maybe the only great thing to happen from reading this) that a paper town was a fake town that map makers made up and placed on maps to discover copyright infringement.  and on a paper town near nyc, there was a post about the population being one until some date.  which turned out to be the day after graduation, but since it took 22 hours to drove, q missed his graduation.

q and his friends (btw another big critique is that it lacey and ben as a couple happened really quickly!) go on a road trip.  and though fun, they were really geeky about it, i mean really would teens be that good about planning to the minute?

anyway, they found margo.  she didn't commit suicide but she was a bitch.  she and q resolved life, realizing that they both cared for these ideas of each other but not that actual person.  it was supposed to be deep but i felt like green was trying to hard.

in the end, i was disappointed by the ending, because after all of q's effort, margo was still a beezy.  and i know they talked it out but still it seemed like a big waste of time.  though i guess q did grow as a person.

all in all, this book was lame.

driftwood. elizabeth dutton. (254)

i picked up driftwood because emma robert's posted it on our instagram.  and i kind of wish i scrolled through by the picture because i did not enjoy the book.

the premise sounded cool, the daughter of a rock star goes on a road trip planned out for her by her dad upon his death.  i figured it would be as moving as cameron crowe's elizabethtown.  it was not.  it was like a bad lifetime movie.

to start, clem, the daughter was seriously #heiressproblems.  it's hard to be sympathetic to a character when money ain't a problem to them.  i am not saying that money solves everything, but i don't understand this mentality that money makes one immune to real issues.  i mean her biggest issue was that she didn't get excited about life.  really? she was unemployed but lived a life of luxury.  and yes she was lost like all twentysomethings are but she had the means to pursue her dreams because her family could financially support what she wanted to pursue.  her dad wasn't going to help her start a cafe but the ambition fizzled out of her. i couldn't empathize with her, i was too annoyed by her #firstworldproblems.

just like clem, the book lacked depth.  the road trip was a bit of a farce.  i felt like clem didn't gain any insight on her father based from the actual locations but more from the letters, so she probably should have just read them at home.  a random love interest was thrown in to help put the "lessons" she was learning into effect, but it all felt so staged.

but the worse was the ending.  it turned out her father wasn't who he said he was.  he actually killed a man and took on his identity, well name!  it was the most bizarre twist.  granted it was painted as a result of the abuse he dealt with as a child.  the abuse was revealed during the trip in a letter.  it was also foreshadowed by her love interest's story of beating up a guy because he had an abusive dad.  but whatever i still felt it was inexcusable. i mean he killed a man and took on his name and lived a normal life.  can we say psycho killer?!?! i can't believe clem didn't freak out, but actually discovered herself via this ending.  seriously, such a horrible book.

the only plus i can say is that one, it mentioned wasco which is near where i live! and two i learned that when nor cal and so cal meet on the 99, there is a pine tree and palm tree planted to represent the two regions

other than that, my advice to you, do not read this book.

goodnight june. sarah jio. (231)

i wish i could remember where i heard about sarah jio's goodnight june. ifi did, i would avoid their recommendations in the future.  okay, that sounds harsh, but this book was corny like hallmark movie corny.  the whole time i was like this would never happen in real life.  in the end, it just got ridiculous and everything cleaned up way too nicely.

i decided to read goodnight june because i had read its story centered around margaret wise brown's goodnight moon.  i was not sure what the premise was exactly but anything involving this classic children's books deserved a read.  in the author's note, jio explained that goodnight moon is her family's favorite and due to this she began to research brown's life.  based on what jio learned about brown, she felt the the two were kindred spirits.  jio explained that there is no information about what inspired goodnight moon and so goodnight june is her fictional background for the beloved classic.  (and in all honesty, i am unsure of brown would have found this charming.  i just read on wikipedia that she was engaged to rockefeller jr. and had a relationship with john barrymore's ex-wife.  this would have been too low-brow for her.)

spoilers alert! but don't worry, you will be happy you read my version versus the actual book.  unless you love hallmark movies, then stop here and read it.

goodnight june opened with june anderson, a thirtysomething, new yorker, in the hospital due to anxiety and stress.  her work was the primary cause of the stress, she worked in finance on foreclosures.  she had no real life other than her job.  she also has no real family.  she no longer speaks to her sister (we don't discover why until the last half of the novel but you know it's because she stole away june's fiancé) and her mother was a single-mom that liked to party so she kind of resents her.

june's aunt ruby passed away, which she had no knowledge of.  this seemed a little ridiculous to me since ruby practically raised june and her sister, giving them some kind of stability.  how did she not call of check up on her in this modern age of technology?!?!  anyway, ruby owned a children's bookstore in seattle, bluebird books, and left it to june.  june flew to seattle intend on selling the store. however, june met a man, gavin and discovered via a quasi-scavenger hunt that ruby was bff with margaret brown wise and helped inspired goodnight moon.  with this new knowledge and love, june decided to keep the bookstore but then is faced with the new dilemma of the store being foreclosed.

i enjoyed reading about june on her little scavenger hunt.  i also enjoyed the correspondence between ruby and brownie (brown's nickname.) i, especially, enjoyed how the letters were hidden in first edition books alluded to in the letters.  it also made realize that brown is more than just the runaway bunny and goodnight moon and that i have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to he works.  i must add the operation sisterhood got a bit preachy and redudent.  and towards the end, the goodnight moon suggestions from ruby seemed a little ridiculous, ie "there should be a phone to demonstrate the connection between the  inside world and the outside world" or "instead of porridge you should consider the word 'mush'".  i also how did june not noticed that the inside of bluebird books looked like goodnight moon, especially she it was her sister's favorite.  the first mentioned of those green and yellow curtains, i knew where this story was headed.  

if the story was just the letters and june saving the bookstore, i would have enjoyed it the story.  however, there were other subplots that were just absurd.

first, gavin.  amy needed a love interest but seriously one that told her i love you after three weeks?!?!? if i man did that i would be on the first flight back to seattle.  and then the fact that he still owned a business with his ex-fiancée?!?! which isn't that bad but as a means to help out june he offered to turn his restaurant next door into a joint cafe with the bookstore.  can he stop mixing business with pleasure?!?!  gavin though sweet seemed too perfect, too perfect.  i mean when when june becomes a mom (yes, just wait for that story!) he was all ready to settle down and be a family!  he broke off an engagement and now wants to play house??!?  did not seem realistic! the only thing i liked about how was his ability to make pasta.

so yes, june became a mom.  get ready for this whirlwind story that took place in one chapter.  so while reading about operation sisterhood, june thought about her relationship with amy.  she was hurt and could not forgive her.  gavin got in contact with amy and with the help of june's mom, they finally informed june that amy was pregnant . . . and had cancer!!!  i kid you not!  so they rushsd june to the hospital where amy was.  june forgave amy, and then amy asked june to be her baby's mom when she dies.  june said yes and somehow un-iced her heart and started being super affection calling amy, honey. i get it, i always say that sisters can fight like no other but then make up like nothing.  but seriously this plot was introduced and cleaned up so quickly and too nicely.  oh and i should add the baby was from one-night stand not from june's ex-fiancé.  the whole time i was reading, i was like omg this can not be happening.  serious hallmark movement moment.  and it was so random, it came out of nowhere and then it was tidied up, amy died and june had a new baby, ruby and the story went on to get more ridiculous.

in the letters, ruby revealed that bluebird books was bought for her by her lover.  this rich guy anthony that was married with a kid.  jio spun the story so that anthony was truly in love with his mistress, ruby.  when june discovered this, she sent an email to anthony's daughter, may (yes, their names hold significance, though i would have preferred if it was just as i originally thought that jio was unimaginative).  i thought june was an idiot for sending that email because a) what if may fought her for rights to the store and b) why stir up the pass when all parties are now dead.  but she visited with may which felt odd and even talked with anthony's widow, like there was absolutely nothing wrong with bringing up her husband's lover.  like everyone would be so willing to talk about something that ruined their lives.  from this visit, may told june that ruby had a child.

june then went on a search for ruby's child.  she posted online to try to find them and even met one man but since he was black, it was not a good lead.  also here is probably the best example of how bad jio's writing is, the man was described as a "young denzel washington."  i kid you not.  no one other character was given a point of reference description.  just the black guy.

okay, and here is when i almost stopped reading . . . in the end, it was discovered that june was ruby's baby!!! gasp!!  what? yes! and if i was june, i would have felt like an ass for neglecting my mom/aunt all those years.  but yes that is what happened in the end.

in the end, the bookstore was saved.  based on the goodnight moon connection, june held a fundraiser.  the local newspapers feature a story, then the news and even cnn. bill gates and clive cussler (don't know what he wrote) showed up at the fundraiser.  but still not enough money.  then, june's old boss saved the day! hooray!

goodnight june, was too cheesy to be a great read or for me to recommend.  but i mean if you love hallmark movies please check it out.