ATTENTION!

my awesome friend and writing mentor, sarah, whose seventh YA novel just came out last week, is on the new york times bestseller list! click here and then scroll down to the chapter books section.

#5? that's a lot of books, right?

book 19- a landmark event

confessions of a video vixen, karinne steffans
rating:


hey, it's my first book in weeks. i've actually been "reading" marisa de los santos' love walked in for about three weeks now, but i can't seem to get over the guilt of pleasure reading to finish it up. so this book was officially for school (it's popular non-fiction week), and that made it okay to read.

okay, so you know that part in reality bites when janeane garafolo's character pulls out her diary and writes down the name of that guy she just slept with, but she can't even really remember it, and then you suddenly see that her list of sexual partners spans for pages and pages? well, if you made that into a novel, it would be this book. except the names would all have to be major players in the music and film industries, with a few professional athletes thrown in for good measure. i was really disappointed. it wasn't horribly written, but it was very much a telling rather than showing book (e.g., "i did lots of drugs and slept with [insert hip hop big name here] and then he left and i felt alone"). mostly i just felt sad for this woman's son the whole time.

now, remember that other part in reality bites when they're buying groceries at the gas station (which is apparently some sort of comment on the disaffected members of generation x or something), and they start singing "my sharona" and dancing around? that was just plain fun. if this book had been more like that part of the movie, i would have given it at least three 'bots.

so i guess i don't read for fun anymore

i know! i'm going to lose my book bloggers' license!

but really, there's something so refreshing about taking some time to read articles on citation analysis, and usability studies, and all the other great library science literature that's out there.

oh wait. no there's not.

my bad.

book 18

the other boleyn girl, philippa gregory
rating:


this book was pretty awesome in a non-taxing sort of way. a nice spring break read. it's all about anne boleyn's sister, mary, who was actually king henry's mistress before anne boleyn was. or at least, that's how it plays out in the book (the author has a doctorate in 18th century literature so i'm sure she had some solid historical research skills). i was really into fat historical novels a few years back, and this one reminds me why. they're really absorbing. and there's typically lots of adultery and deception and drama and stuff.

book 17

heir to the glimmering world, cynthia ozick
rating:


for some reason, i didn't really get into this book until the last third or so. it's about a girl named rose who goes to work for this german family living in new york in 1933. the family, the mitwissers, is completely weird, with lots of kids, a mother who is having some kind of breakdown, and a father who studies a very small religious sect. the family is completely supported by a sporadically present benefactor, james, who is sort of like the real christopher robin in that his father wrote a series of adventures about a bear boy, modelled after his son. i know, it's complicated. but i got really into it at the end, and i thought that rose was a really great character, alienated but strangely involved in everything.

book 16

the ghost orchid, carol goodman
rating:


i was pretty pumped about this book, because i enjoyed goodman's earlier novels, particularly the first, the lake of dead languages. this one fell short for me, though. it's a mystery type of thing and has two parallel narratives: one about a woman at a famous writers' retreat who is writing a novel about the events that occurred on that same estate in 1893, and then the actual narrative of those events. it's well written, like her other novels, but i think this one bothered me because it dips a little too far into the supernatural. i guess it makes sense, since the legendary events that took place on the estate in 1893 involved a medium who was called to contact the souls of three dead children. eh, i don't know. i guess i just wasn't really in the mood to suspend my disbelief.

book 15

giving up america, pearl abraham
rating:


i read pearl abraham's first novel when i was in high school and i really loved it. randomly, a few weeks ago, i looked her up in the library catalog and found out that she's since published two more books. i could rate this book higher based on the quality and style of the writing, but i found it really depressing, so i can't really go higher than 3.5 'bots. it's about a woman from a hasidic family (deena) who marries an orthodox jew (daniel), and, according to her family, the marriage is doomed from the start. it's fine until seven years into it, when daniel clearly becomes obsessed with one of the secretaries at his office. the thing that bothered me the most was that deena became a total enabler, befriending this woman from daniel's work and so on. i don't know. the writing was great, and the book had a nice, even pace, but the story just left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

book 14

on beauty, zadie smith
rating:


this book was really good. i've never read anything by zadie smith, and i was a little wary because her books always get so much hype, but i enjoyed this. the characterizations were really excellent, and i really liked the way things came together. i hated the father. yeah, a good book. smart without being too pretentious.

something else i've missed: curtis sittenfeld has a new book coming out. i really liked her first novel, prep, even though there were some definite lulls and lags in the story. i guess i'm a sucker for coming-of-age books. so the new one interests me as well, but i'm a little torn, because, after reading, enjoying, and highly praising prep, i read a few of her articles and reviews and realized that she has a tendency to be (or at least to come off as) a raging, pompous bitch. i guess i can avoid an ethical dilemma by checking it out from the library and not officially supporting the author.

book 13

neuromancer, william gibson

i can't even rate this book because i spent so much time during my reading of it being completely confused. it was science fiction/fantasy week in popular materials, and i read this book on matt's recommendation. it's really well written, and there's lots of cool stuff that happens, but i just couldn't really get that into it. i'm not good with cyberpunk science fiction, i guess. apparently i have no imagination. i think i'll have to reread this when i have more mental energy to devote to it.

oh, snap! check out the hot dudes from whom dan brown (allegedly) stole the da vinci code. one can only hope that a representative of the "royal bloodline of jesus christ and mary magdalene" is going to step forward and make a statement.

and another thing...

my head just exploded.

how did i not know that jennifer egan, whose most recent book, look at me, pretty much rocked my face off when sarah made me read it back in 2002, is coming out with a new novel? i should really read the NYT book page more often.

my newest reading project.

maybe you thought i was joking about reading romances, but you were DEAD WRONG. in fact, i purchased my first romance today. it's interesting that the bookstore on campus doesn't seem to have a romance section, though there are sections for other genre fiction categories, like mystery and sci fi. and by interesting i mean DISCRIMINATORY.

i actually located my desired romance in the "literature" section.

anyway, i bought diana gabaldon's outlander, because 1) it costs $3.99 2) it's very popular 3) there is time travel in it 4) i saw at least five women reading these gabaldon books on the flight to switzerland last summer, so i'm sure they are worldly and sophisticated novels and 5) i've heard there's lots of sex in it. i tried to buy it unapologetically, though i was secretly ready to explain to the cashier that it's part of a personal investigation of why romance novels are so massively popular (i.e., the "it's a cultural studies thing" excuse). sure, i could read all the scholarly studies that have already been done and draw some conclusions that way. but there's almost never any time travel in scholarly literature. or sex.

(side note: buying this book was actually significantly less embarrassing than checking confessions of a video vixen out from the library. it was on the recently returned bookshelf and the title sounds so unseemly to me that i actually whispered it to the kid working the circulation desk. actually, first i whispered "i'm looking for the video vixen book," which, in retrospect, sounds like some sort of terrible code phrase.)

i probably won't actually read this until the semester's over. i'm currently breaking my own rule of reading, and i'm in the middle of three different books. so this whole romance thing is really on the back burner. i think i'll make it a summer project, and call it "reading outside of my range."

don't worry; i'll keep you posted.

book 12

bet me, jennifer crusie
rating:


i'm getting really bad at this whole book blogging thing. i finished this book like four days ago. anyway. we have to read romance novels for popular materials this week and i chose this one b/c my textbook said that jennifer crusie is also accessible for non-romance readers. this book was fun and fast, if totally improbable. it's all about a guy who is bet 10,000 dollars that he can't get this chubby chick in bed within a month. to make a long story short, they fall in love! crusie is a pretty funny writer, and the characters were quirky enough for me to avoid totally barfing all over the place. also, romance novels are really good at getting you involved. i kept thinking "of course they're going to get together. they have to get together. oh my god, what if they don't get together???" and so on.

did you know that romance novels account for approximately 50% of all book sales in the united states? that astounds me. (edit: it turns out it's really 50% of paperback book sales. still, i'm astounded.)i think i'm going to read some more. maybe a good boddice-ripper next time.

You're To Kill a Mockingbird!

by Harper Lee

Perceived as a revolutionary and groundbreaking person, you have
changed the minds of many people. While questioning the authority around you, you've
also taken a significant amount of flack. But you've had the admirable guts to
persevere. There's a weird guy in the neighborhood using dubious means to protect you,
but you're pretty sure it's worth it in the end. In the end, it remains unclear to you
whether finches and mockingbirds get along in real life.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

i've never been so happy as i was when i read that people perceive me as revolutionary and groundbreaking! i'm also flattered about the weird guy. show your face!

book 11

a bad boy can be good for a girl, tanya lee stone
rating:


this cute little book is part of an emerging trend in the young adult book market: novels written in verse. sarah loaned me this back in september, but i didn't get around to reading it until monday, when i was having trouble concentrating on anything because i was laid up with a back injury sustained from an afro-latino dance workout. it's written from the perspective of three different teen-aged girls, josie, nicolette, and aviva, all of whom fall for this love 'em and leave 'em jock guy. i don't know if it's just because i have a galley copy, but it has all these neat little notes and things tucked into it, so it's really cute. and it only took me about an hour to read.

book 10

foreign babes in beijing, rachel dewoskin
rating:


there's no reason that it should have taken me almost a week to read this book. sadly, i spend too much time getting stressed out about things that don't really matter, and not enough time reading. it's sort of my plight. i think.

anyway, this book was really good. matt and i saw it somewhere a few months ago, and we were both intrigued by the title/subject matter. it's about a woman who graduates from college and goes to work for an american pr firm in beijing. she ends up acting in a new chinese soap opera called foreign babes in beijing, which is essentially about the clash between china and the west, and portrays american girls as vixens and homewreckers. this memoir is about more than the show, though. it's about the author's whole experience as a foreigner in china, and it's really well done. dewoskin does a really good job of incorporating cultural and historical context without slowing things down or sounding too teachy. my favorite part in the whole book is when she talks about the success of who moved my cheese? in china, and explains that it spawned a bunch of spin-off books, with names like whose cheese should i move? and i don't bother to move your cheese.

book 9

TWO IN ONE DAY I AM A BEAST!

the ritual bath, faye kellerman
rating:


next week is mystery/detective fiction in popular materials, and i've never read faye kellerman, so i decided to try this out. it's the first in a series (according to my sister, the rest aren't very good), and it's all about this detective, peter decker, who has to investigate this rape that occurs in "jewtown" in l.a. ("jewtown"? isn't that kind of offensive? i mean this book is from the late 1980s.) anyway, it won a macavity award for best first mystery and i liked it pretty well. the story was pretty compelling and i liked the main characters, decker and rina lazarus, this widowed jewish woman. there's this weird love thing going on between them that's completely ridiculous, though. and the "mystery" was totally weak and i had it figured out as soon as the guy who turns out to be the perpetrator was introduced as a character. hence only three point five robots. still, it's a lot better than most of the mysteries i checked out from the concord public library when i was fourteen.

book 8; other orders of business

give me (songs for lovers), irina denezhkina
rating:


this book was supposed to be my reward for finishing the da vinci code but it turned out to be really blah. it got all kinds of ridiculously good reviews but i guess it was just too cool for me. i'm not that into suburban russian punk rockers i guess. there was one story that i really liked, about russian kids going to summer camp. but that was really cancelled out by this other story where death comes into this woman's house and sits at her computer, talking to people in a chat room. and this other story where little green men rape and murder little old ladies. sweet! also, there were a lot of characters who had the exact same names but seemed to be different people.


onto the other orders of business:

it's really just an order of business, singular. i need a new digital camera because mine is broken, and if i don't get a new one soon i can't take pictures of my new stuffed miffy doll. would anyone like to recommend a camera that is nice, dependable, sturdy, compact, and also inexpensive? that'd be great. thanks!

book seven

the da vinci code, dan brown
rating:


i know, i never thought i'd be blogging about this book either! so this is my post-1990 bestseller and what it tells me about society is: "society has a short attention span and a deep love of ellipses." though i found the writing style lacking in a number of ways, i was actually enjoying the story before it got so incredibly convoluted that literally nothing made sense to me. i am pretty fascinated by the fact that this book, which has been an NYT bestseller since 1984 or something, basically centers on the idea that jesus christ and mary magdalene were like, a thing, and had a baby and a royal lineage. and that christianity is all a lie (actually, according to my mom, my dad refuses to read this book because he "can't get past the jesus and mary stuff"). but what was really interesting to me was that there was no code actually written in the cracks of paint on mona lisa like there is in the movie trailer. i think i've been duped!