People are Unappealing (Even Me)

Author: Sara Barron

Pub. Date: 2009

This is a collection of essays about how quirky and annoying people can be. Rarely does a book actually make me laugh out loud - but this one did, often, and heartily. I would recommend this to everyone. It's fun, interesting, and you might even realize there's something annoying about you (but ultimately, that's what makes you interesting).

Grade: A+!

The God of Small Things

Author: Arundhati Roy

Pub. Date: 1997

Winner of the Booker Prize

This is a well-acclaimed novel, and clearly popular in the UK (it has been on the Big Read and all). At first, while reading it, I found it lyrical and magical. I loved the way it circled around the center action and teased the reader with small bits of knowledge.

But then about 2/3 of the way through it, I got tired of it all. Instead of lyrical, it became tired and repetitive and pretentious. I was just ready to know what had happened and was getting annoyed with all the hints at it.

There's a fine line between artistic and pretentious, and for me, this book crossed it. Had it been a bit shorter, I would have still been caught up in it and liked it a lot. But no. It dragged on too long for my taste.

Grade: C-

The Geography of Bliss

I wanted to throw this book in a lake (unfortunately, it's a library book). At times it was funny, sure, and it was kind of interesting. But I couldn't get over its shortcomings and so I didn't finish it (maybe you think that makes me unqualified to form an opinion of it, but I don't). First off, a real gripe I have with this these pop science (I use science loosely here, because I couldn't think of another way to describe the genre) books is that they never seem to have a bibliography, or always cite their sources. I mean, the author is no researcher, but still he quotes a whole lot of other works, which it would be nice if he had collected them at the back (and not, dare I say, too hard). In addition, he showed moments of extreme cultural insensitivity. Clearly, the question "are you happy" is not always an appropriate one to ask. Take when he was in Qatar. He even knew it was an inappropriate question, but asked it anyway.

Weiner is also ridiculously ethnocentric. When he talks about culture, he is referring to the American definition of 'high culture', not the definition that you should be using when doing cross-cultural research. The claim that Qatar has no culture is absurd! There is no place without a culture. Sure, it might not have its own arts, literature, music, etc., but those things are not equivalent to culture. He criticizes, ridicules even, parts of some of the cultures he visits. For instance, he sees the Bhutanese use of phalluses as an apotropaic symbol (they ward off evil spirits) and makes fun of it. This would be uncalled for and really offensive even if it was a uniquely Bhutanese custom. But no, he doesn't seem to realize that the use of the phallus to ward off evil is fairly common, and dates back at least as far as the ancient Romans.

Finally, Weiner expects to know all there is to know about a culture's view of happiness by going for a week or two and talking to a few people. This is completely outrageous and presumptious. You can't come to such broad conclusions after a week as a tourist. Basically, thanks to my being an anthropology major, I could not take anymore of this. So, I urge you to be suspicious while reading this book. If you can enjoy it, by all means, do. But don't believe that it's necessarily very true.

I, for my part, am going back to fiction.

Grade: F

The Sharing Knife: Horizon

2009

Author: Lois McMaster Bujold

Genre: Fantasy, Romance(ish)

I love the Sharing Knife series. It's a star-crossed lovers story, and masterfully written. There's a complex world involved and plenty of sex scenes involving a guy with a hook for a hand. The fourth, Horizon, was better than the third, I thought. I really enjoyed it. It's packed full of character drama as well as action. If it is the last one, as I suspect, I won't be too disappointed with the ending, either (though of course I want to know more).

The Graveyard Book

Author: Neil Gaiman

Year: 2008

Newbery Medal Winner!

This is a charming book about a little boy who, through rather unfortunate circumstances, grows up in a graveyard, raised by ghosts and other not-quite-living-things. Each chapter is a different but related adventure from the young life of Nobody, or Bod, as he is called. I am already a big fan of Neil Gaiman (he's my favorite author) but I hadn't yet read any of his children's/YA fiction. I was highly impressed. It's easy to forget that it's for young readers. Sure, it doesn't have hugely adult themes, but also, it is as complex and well-written as Gaiman's adult novels.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable book. I would recommend it for fantasy fans of any age.

Grade: A

Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go is shocking and profoundly moving. As you read, Ishiguro ever so slowly unfolds the twist, the reason the kids are 'special.' This book broke my heart a little, probably because of how ordinary the characters and their lives are. They know what is to become of them, but in other ways are naive. And, like I said, they are just so ordinary. I identified very closely with the main character, and long before the end I knew what was coming. Not in a bad way, because I wanted to see how it would unfold. This book is thought-provoking and masterfully crafted. I loved it.

Oil

This book began interestingly enough. At first I found Sinclair's style quite compellingly descriptive, and was rather excited about the rest of the book. It captured my attention immediately, and I had high hopes for it.

Somehow, though, I grew further and further distanced from the book as time went on. Sinclair overemphasizes how great Socialism is and how terrible capitalism is. The book is far too political and it starts to feel like you're being beat over the head with the ideology. The main plot of the book is that Bunny, the protagonist, can't make up his mind. After a while, he gets incredibly annoying.

I was really disappointed in the book overall. It seemed to have so much promise, and then everything changed for some reason. I haven't seen There Will Be Blood, but it's comforting to know it's only loosely based on the book.

Grade: C

Prozac Nation

Elizabeth Wurtzel’s memoir Prozac Nation is an incredibly intimate look into the nature of depression. We get an extremely personal glimpse into the mindset of someone who is clinically depressed, and learn exactly how it feels. We follow Wurtzel through her first overdose as a young teen at summer camp, to the abandonment of her father at age fourteen, to her enrolment at Harvard, to her first real heartbreak, to her diagnosis of atypical depression, and finally to her first real suicide attempt and eventual recovery. At times the narrative is a bit tedious and repetitive, but nonetheless it is highly illuminating.

As Wurtzel tries to make sense of her depression, she explores possible causes, thereby exposing popular thought surrounding this illness in psychology and mainstream culture today. She holds her family situation as a partial cause, and also the state of society in general. She also considers a biochemical explanation, but ultimately concludes it is probably a mix of all of these factors.
Wurtzel goes on to examine the prevalence of Prozac prescriptions in American society today. She accuses America of becoming a “Prozac Nation” in which everyone with the slightest case of morose feelings is prescribed Prozac or some other antidepressive. She points out the rising occurrence of depression among young people, so much so that it has become a part of our culture. Prozac Nation was written in the 1990s, at the height of grunge, and it would be interesting to examine how depression fits into culture today. Of course, there are certainly subcultures centred on depressive thought, what we know as ‘goth’ and ‘emo.’

Depression is a huge part of the lives of many Americans. There are fewer and fewer people who don’t at least know of one person who suffers from this disease. As someone who has a close relative who struggles with depression, this was an important read to me, if for no other reason than it allowed me to understand much better what depression is. It also brings up interesting social questions. Do social, political, and economic factors in America breed depression? The answer, it would seem, is yes. This book also leads one to ponder what place mental illness holds in society, and how much it has to do with biology versus social problems. Is it appropriate that so many people take a pill to get better instead of other therapeutic measures?

Grade: B

Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story

Christopher Moore is one of my favorite comedic authors. Wikipedia calls his style "absurdist fiction" - that fits quite well, in fact. I have read several of his novels, but there are still a few I've not gotten around to. Bloodsucking Fiends was in my closet, and while looking for anything light after Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I found it and immediately knew it would be perfect. It's about vampires: a beautiful girl gets attacked and wakes up to discover she's now a vampire. She finds a random guy to live with, who happens to be a young aspiring author. Craziness ensues, and well, you just need to read it. It's about an unconventional way of finding love. I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel, You Suck: A Love Story.

Grade: A+

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

It took me nearly a year to get around to reading this book - in fact, I started it sometime during my freshman year at college, and just could not continue. I finally picked it up about a week ago and dove in again. It struck me immediately that the style was akin to that of House of Leaves, and so I kept with it even though it wasn't the easiest read. This is not because it's not well-written, or insightful, but because the subject matter is tough. It follows a 9-year-old boy, Oskar Schell, who has lost his dad during 9/11. In addition to his search for meaning in all that death and his search for a lock which he found a key for in his dad's closet, the book follows his grandfather's struggle with his decision to leave before his son was born. His grandparents were in Dresden when it was bombed in World War II, and in this way Jonathan Safran Foer parallels the two events, effectively equating them to any act of war in which innocent lives are lost. This is not funny like Everything Is Illuminated, but Oskar Schell is a fascinating character to know the mind of. It's sad, poignant, and moving, and ultimately worth reading.

Grade: B+

A Salty Piece of Land

Surprisingly (at least to me), Jimmy Buffett is quite the storyteller. I didn't expect a celebrity novelist to be quite so entertaining, or so good at crafting a genuinely interesting tale. Granted, Buffett's songs are stories in themselves and he has written quite a few novels in his day, but still I didn't expect much from this book; I picked it up because my dad said it was alright and I wanted something to read that wasn't academic. So I was quite pleased to find that I really enjoyed it. It wasn't fine literature, of course, but it was similar to - and as good as - any Carl Hiaasen novel. So if you like Hiaasen, or Tim Dorsey, you'll like Buffett. This was a quirky and downright lovable story.

Grade: A

Next

Michael Crichton's Next is a tense thriller that makes the reader quite nervous. The fact that Crichton is well known for his well-researched books, and a glance at the bibliography, makes me feel a bit uncomfortable about genetic engineering in science today. There are several good characters, but it's mostly about introducing as much shocking reality as possible. You begin to think, what if this is really happening? The characters pull you in and make you wonder if this is the fate that you will undergo due to genetic testing. The book has some clear messages, made even clearer by the author's notes at the end. He is opposed to gene patenting and laws that make universities able to make a profit off of science. But, interestingly, in his notes he says he's against limiting research. Some of the storylines make it seem as though he's actually against genetic testing/engineering altogether, but apparently that's not the case. It's an interesting and quick read, and I would suggest it for anyone who's curious about where science is and where it's going: this may be fiction, but a lot of it is the truth.

Grade: B

Hurricane Punch

Lovable serial killer Serge Storms is back with his substance-abusing buddy Coleman. In this one, they track a whirlwind hurricane season, 'riding' the storms by driving in the eye. People die along the way of course - but Serge is not the only serial killer on the loose. Someone else is killing people, and Agent Mahoney thinks it's Serge's personality splitting. The ending surprised me, actually. I didn't figure it out until just before it was revealed. It's hilarious, as expected from Tim Dorsey. Excellent.

Grade: A

The Darkest Evening of the Year

Dean Koontz's latest novel is about a woman who rescues Golden Retrievers whose dark past comes back to haunt her. Also her boyfriend just so happens to have a dark past that intersects. It's well written, and the parts about dog abuse, etc. make you sad for humanity. It has a sweet ending (deus-ex-machina!) and as many Koontz books do, involves odd supernatural occurrences that might be due to the existence of God. Overall, a good, quick read.

Grade: B+

No Country for Old Men (novel)

Ok, so the novel did indeed illuminate many things. It is, as is often the case, better than the movie - not worlds better, but better. Just on the virtue that the movie was not able to capture everything the book could. I know now that Ed Tom did not go after Chigurh - it's about him having to live with failure and getting old and dying.

Grade: A+

Ishmael

I have to admit - the premise of this book is ridiculously cheesy. I started reading it, and thought, 'great, you've got to be kidding me.' But I gave it a chance and realized it is fully about the message - about the doom the human race is heading for and how we might stop it. I had to read it for Biological Anthropology, and I guess I understand why. It's pretty good.

Grade: B

Cordelia's Honor

Jeff gave me this book for Christmas. It was most excellent. Lois McMaster Bujold is a great author, it turns out. I should have always known, since Jeff recommended her sci fi novels. The ultramodern Beta Colony descriptions are fascinating, and the links to the world we know are amazing too. The characters are lovable and it is really easy to feel their emotions with them. Good stuff.

Grade: A

Sandman: The Kindly Ones; The Wake

The last two Sandman volumes are excellent. They bring the loose threads of the previous stories together in an imaginative way, and brings a grander story into existence and into a magnificent close. Basically, they're just as good as the other ones, and possibly more epic...

Grade:
-The Kindly Ones: A+
-The Wake: A

Eternals

Neil Gaiman is by far one of my favorite authors (perhaps you have noticed that) at the moment. His take on the Marvel Eternals (apparently created quite a while ago) is amazing. This is a story about ordinary people who discover they are extraordinary people, in fact that they are not people but invincible beings created to watch over the Earth by giant robot-like alien/gods called Celestials. This is an exquisitely created tale, which places the Eternals squarely in the Marvel universe. The nod to Greek and Roman mythology and the explanation of gods is brilliant. A definite must for Gaiman fans or for fans of Marvel.

Grade: A+

Nature Girl

Carl Hiaasen's latest novel is just as quirky and fun as his others. He's really good at developing a lot of storylines and then bringing them together in unusual and unlikely ways. I enjoyed this... it's about a sort-of crazy woman who's trying to take revenge on a slimy telemarketer.

Grade: B-