It was getting dark and she told him the brakes on the hire car were fucked, she couldn't see a thing, she couldn't even se"A Mountain Road. Midnight.
It was getting dark and she told him the brakes on the hire car were fucked, she couldn't see a thing, she couldn't even see her hands. Her silk dress was falling off her shoulders as she bent over the steering wheel. A rabbit ran across the road and the car swerved. He told her to keep her eyes on the road, to just do that, and while he was speaking she was kissing him and driving at the same time. And then she asked him to open his window so she could hear the insects calling to each other in the forest. He wound down the window and told her, again, to keep her eyes on the road. He leaned his head out of the window and felt the cold mountain air sting his lips. Early humans had once lived in this mountain forest. They knew the past lived in rocks and trees and they knew desire made them awkward, mad, mysterious, messed up. 'Yes,' Kitty Finch said, her eyes now back on the road. 'I know what you're thinking. Life is only worth living because we hope it will get better and we'll all get home safely. But you tried and you did not get home safely. You did not get home at all. That is why I am here, Jozef. I have come to France to save you from your thoughts.'"...more
Novels written specifically to be an "homage" to a piece of classic literature are always a risky venture for authors. You have to appeal to people whNovels written specifically to be an "homage" to a piece of classic literature are always a risky venture for authors. You have to appeal to people who have never read the work that your book is based on, by making your story stand on its own merit and not just on its similarities to another story; and by the same token, you need to put enough of your own spin on the story so fans of the source material will still be entertained. And of course, the biggest risk comes from inviting - and almost encouraging - readers to compare your story to the much more famous book it's based on.
So Kevin Kwan set himself up for an enormous challenge by attempting to do an updated version of A Room With a View, and it should come as no surprise to anyone that he biffs it, spectacularly.
EM Foster's heroine Lucy Honeychurch has been swapped out for Lucie Churchill - the half-Chinese, half-American daughter of an old-school East Coast WASP family. The Italian setting remains the same, although Kwan substitutes Capri for Florence, possibly because Capri gives him more chances to describe various lavish vacation homes (part of the fun of this book, I'll admit, is googling the different mansions and luxury hotels Kwan is constantly name-dropping). Anyone who has read Foster's book will already know every beat this story will take, and can rest assured that Kwan will not risk any truly innovative deviations from his source material. Readers who have no familiarity with A Room With a View will probably spend most of their time wondering why an adult woman in the 21st century is so obsessed with protecting her "reputation."
It doesn't translate well, is what I'm saying. Kwan almost sells us on the idea of a quick fling at a wedding almost ruining a woman's life, because he at least does a good job of demonstrating how strictly Lucie's behavior is dictated by her upper-class conservative upbringing. But Kwan can't even be bothered to make his version of George legitimately unsuitable for Lucie - the best he can do is have George be the wrong kind of obscenely rich, oh and also his mother is tacky. The horror. (there's a bit at the end where Mrs. Zao gets a WASP makeover to appease the racist co-op board of the luxury apartment she wants to buy, and it left a seriously bad taste in my mouth)
The easiest way to illustrate how Sex and Vanity (oh my god, the LAZINESS of that title! Go girl give us nothing!) fails to live up to its literary predecessor is with the text itself.
First, we have the scene from A Room With a View when Lucy breaks up with her fiance:
"When we were only acquaintances, you let me be myself, but now you're always protecting me...I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. Can't I be trusted to face the truth but I must get it second-hand through you? ...you wrap yourself up in art and books and music, and would try to wrap up me. I won't be stifled, not by the most glorious music, for people are more glorious, and you hide them from me. That's why I break off my engagement."
And here's how Kwan updated that speech for 2019:
"And I know you think it's wrong of me to say this now, but I know you'll be miserable being married to me in the long run. You deserve someone who actually has an Instagram account with more than eight posts. You deserve someone who loves sitting in the front row at the haute couture shows in Paris, who loves wearing huge emeralds while sunbathing on your superyacht. Someone who likes tying you up in the gondola and reenacting the wrestling scene from Death in Venice. ...For a while, I thought I was that person too, but I've come to realize I'm not."
Somehow, not quite as stirring.
The closest that Kwan ever gets to telling an actual story is when he examines the complicated relationship that Lucie has with her white grandmother, who raised Lucie in an environment where she was always treated more like a pet than a person - her grandmother's "little China doll." There's a scene where two characters discuss the idea that someone can love you and still be a racist piece of shit, and it's over far too quickly so Kwan can retreat back to his comfort zone of Rich People Doing Rich People Shit.
With this book, it's clear that Crazy Rich Asians was a fluke. That book succeeded because of Rachel Chu - our Everywoman who let us into the world of the obscenely rich while still keeping the reader tethered to reality. Kwan's total disinterest in her character (she virtually disappears from the series by the time the third book rolls around) shows that he's no more complex as the spoiled rich people his books try to parody: Kwan really doesn't have anything more to provide as an author except an endless litany of designer brands, exclusive locations, and luxurious mansions. There even seems to be a tiny flicker of jealousy from the author when he describes Lucie's art career - even though she comes from an extraordinarily privileged background and has the world at her fingertips, Lucie is considered above the other characters in the book because she has a rich inner life, and real artistic talent.
And talent, unfortunately, is the one thing you can't buy.
(Also, Kwan missed a huge opportunity by doing A Room With a View when I would pay real actual money to see his take on The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton. Now that could have really been something)...more
January Andrews and Augustus Everett (I'm sorry, but those names make me wince every time) met in college when they were both taking a creative writinJanuary Andrews and Augustus Everett (I'm sorry, but those names make me wince every time) met in college when they were both taking a creative writing course. As adults in their thirties, both have achieved literary success, although their careers have taken wildly different paths: January writes romance novels, while Augustus makes his name with serious Literary Fiction. When the two find themselves spending the summer in neighboring beach houses in Michigan, and both struggling with writer's block, they make a deal: January will attempt to write a serious novel without a happy ending, and Augustus will write a romance novel. On weekends, they'll take each other on "field trips" to get into the proper mindset for writing outside their respective genres. This means cute dates to amusement parks for Augustus, and investigating the burnt ruins of a death cult compound for January. Hijinks, family secrets, and sexual tension follow.
My three-star rating of this book isn't really due to any fault of Emily Henry's - I just went into this expecting a different kind of story than the one I got, and it's not the author's fault that I was never able to fully adjust my mindset.
The first disappointment I had was when I realized that this was going to be January's story first and foremost, and that we wouldn't be spending equal story time on Augustus. I had imagined that the book would switch back and forth between the two main characters' perspectives, so we could see each author struggling to write their book in equal measure, and also get their different viewpoints on the events taking place over the summer. But this is really about January coming to terms with the buried secrets within her own family and how that affects her personal viewpoint and her writing, while Augustus stays in his role of potential love interest. Which, fine! It works great, and I'm not saying that January isn't a fun and compelling protagonist, but it would have been fun to spend more time watching Augustus, a Male Novelist, attempt to write a fluffy romance novel. (I mean, him trying to write sex scenes would have been worth the price of admission alone, because there's a certain type of writer who loves to denigrate romance novels as "easy writing", as in, "LOL, I should just give up and write romance novels" but have you ever actually tried to write a sex scene that's actually sexy? There's a reason The Guardian compiles a list of the worst fictional sex scenes every year)
The best parts of the book are when January and Augustus have frank conversations about how their genders limit them as authors - January points out, rightfully so, that her books get dismissed as "women's fiction" no matter what she writes about, because female authors so often get pigeonholed that way. I can't actually remember if Nicholas Sparks (who lest we forget, is THE WORST) gets namedropped specifically, but January definitely points out that plenty of male authors can write books with romantic plotlines and have them shelved as just Fiction, instead of getting classified as Romance and dismissed as Not Serious Writing.
Ultimately, this is a fun romance with some family and emotional drama thrown in for color, and it works great. The biggest frustration comes from Henry's constant and very obvious attempts to keep us guessing about whether or not January and Augustus will actually hook up. She has to throw up some truly eyeroll-worthy reasons January can't immediately jump Augustus's bones - he has a strict Hit It And Quit It policy when it comes to hookups, and January wants more emotional investment from him, which, fair! But it also means that, in order to prolong the sexual and romantic tension, there are at least three separate scenes where January and August engage in what I'll call Erotic Hugging, like they're a couple of horny Mormons who can't do under-the-clothes touching. I get that it ruins the tension if they bang too early, but on the other hand there's really no good reason these two can't do some tequila shots and get naked on like, page fifty. So I guess we'll say I took off a star for that.
This is a perfectly delightful, fluffy little romance, and I don't regret reading it, so I don't want anyone to be turned away because of my lukewarm rating. Just go into it with an open mind, and you'll have a good time....more
It's been a long time since I've had a chance to add a new book to my "the movie is better" shelf, so at the very least, I owe The Devil Wears Prada cIt's been a long time since I've had a chance to add a new book to my "the movie is better" shelf, so at the very least, I owe The Devil Wears Prada credit for that.
(seriously, I could talk to the screenwriter of the movie for literally hours about the process of adapting the book and how she arrived at some of the brilliant choices she made)
I can't get over how night and day the two versions are. To show just one example: the character of Christian, in the book, functions purely as a temptation for Andy, teasing the reader with the threat that she'll cheat on her boyfriend (who, in the book, is so tooth-achingly perfect that I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and find out that he's been having an affair the whole time or something). And she (view spoiler)[never even sleeps with Christian in the book, so his character is ultimately pointless and should have been cut from the novel entirely (hide spoiler)]. But in the movie he actually has a function outside of just being the guy Andy might cheat on her boyfriend with - the book still has the challenge where Andy has to get a copy of an unpublished Harry Potter book for Miranda, but she just finds some rando at a publishing company to get it for her. Having Christian be the connection that gets her the book in the movie version was, frankly, a stroke of brilliance and I bet Lauren Weisberger is really mad that she didn't think of that.
The sad truth about The Devil Wears Prada is that it could have functioned perfectly well as an in-depth magazine article. Because ultimately, this novel is attempting to shine a light on the toxic work culture at Vogue, and specifically to show the world that Anna Wintour is straight-up abusive to her underlings. But when the book came out, all of that got lost as people just scrambled to read all the dirt about what it was like working inside the hallowed halls of one of the most influential fashion magazines running today. There were probably (and probably still are) plenty of garbage people who considered "Andy" ungrateful, and thought that she should be forced to pay her dues by working a shitty job for a shitty boss. What people lost sight of - including Weisberger herself, because she's mostly concerned about how her job affected her and isn't interested in seeing the bigger picture - is that no one should ever have to go through what Andy goes through in this book.
The sad thing is that I don't think Anna Wintour ever faced any significant backlash for how she's portrayed in this book. If anything, The Devil Wears Prada actually benefited Wintour, because it made her a household name. (We would not have The September Issue without The Devil Wears Prada) Which, when you think about it, is really fucked up: that Wintour became more famous thanks to a book that portrayed her, in no uncertain terms, as a horrible human being, and there were never any real consequences for all of that ugliness coming to light. There is almost certainly some girl at Vogue working today who performs all of Andy's former duties, but that person is probably an unpaid intern now.
And how did this all shake out for "Andy", aka Lauren Weisberger, who wanted to write for the New Yorker and scoffed at the idea of Vogue having "literary articles" (a skepticism that goes unchallenged in the book, because the screenwriters had to scrape five book characters together in order to create the movie's version of Nigel)? At the end of the book, Andy publishes a magazine article about a recent college grad who gets hired at a super demanding job, and almost loses herself in the process. Weisberger tries to lampshade this by having Andy's family joke about how closely this skews to her real life, but it seems to be a pretty accurate estimation of Weisberger's post-Prada career. A quick look at her author page shows that she managed to wring two sequels out of her star-making novel, and most of her other books seem to follow the same formula of a simple, good-hearted girl who gets swept up in a world of glitz and glamour that she's fully unprepared for.
For better or for worse, Weisberger has built her career off of that one terrible year she spent at Vogue. Anna Wintour made Weisberger's writing career, and Weisberger gave Wintour widespread fame. They deserve each other. ...more
Listen. I know that what I'm about to write is going to sound obnoxious and so, so smug. I know how I sound, and I know how annoying it is when reviewListen. I know that what I'm about to write is going to sound obnoxious and so, so smug. I know how I sound, and I know how annoying it is when reviewers do this.
But seriously: do not read the plot description for Piranesi. Go into it knowing as little about the plot as you possibly can. Half the fun of reading this book is figuring out, as you read, where this story takes place and what's going on.
Honestly my only complaint (and the only non-spoilery thing I can write about the book, because everything would be a spoiler) is that it ends sort of quickly. With everything she has to work with here, I can easily see how Susanna Clarke could have spread this out into another 800-page fantasy epic, like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell, and even though I'm disappointed that she didn't do a really deep dive into this setting and its characters, it's also kind of a relief that I could knock this book out in a weekend and didn't have to spend six months working my way through it.
If you loved Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell, you're going to love this. If you've never read Susanna Clarke and are wondering what all the fuss is about, give it a try. And I mean it: don't read the plot description....more
Lesson learned: don't read a book just because Chrissy Teigan recommended it on her Instagram.Lesson learned: don't read a book just because Chrissy Teigan recommended it on her Instagram....more
Trying to write a book about the slums of Mumbai is a daunting task, to say the least (and please bear in mind, I say that as a white lady whose only Trying to write a book about the slums of Mumbai is a daunting task, to say the least (and please bear in mind, I say that as a white lady whose only knowledge of India comes from a few Bollywood movies and Slumdog Millionare so if you’re looking for an analysis of how well-researched or factual Katherine Boo’s book is, this is not the review for you). Katherine Boo approaches her topic by shrinking it down to one family and one single, catastrophic event – teenage garbage picker Abdul's family has a long-running feud with their neighbor, a disabled woman named Fatima. One day, following an argument between Fatima and Abdul's mother (where the latter is overheard threatening physical violence), Fatima goes into her home, pours kerosene on herself, and lights a match. She survives, barely, and names Abdul as her attacker. The book chronicles the family’s lengthy legal battle as they attempt to prove their innocence in a system overrun with corruption and indifference. Other characters come in and out of the narrative, including slumlords, scavengers, orphans, and others who make up the population of Annawadi, a tiny slum just outside the Mumbai airport.
Boo manages to keep the book from being too exploitative or misery-porn-esque, but this is still a pretty grim slog of a book. There is very little redemption to be had, and we learn very quickly that anytime a character manages to snag a little bit of good luck, it certainly won’t last long.
For me, the most redeeming thing about this book is that Katherine Boo isn’t attempting to find some moral lesson within the lives of the people she spent years interviewing, and she doesn’t try to present any solutions for fixing India’s problems. She is merely doing her job as a journalist: seeking out a group of people often overlooked by the rest of the world, letting them tell their stories, and recording them faithfully. Any lesson or moral that you take from Behind the Beautiful Forevers is one you create yourself....more
I read it and enjoyed it a lot, but trying to write a review of Shrill almost a year after reading it (shut up, I have a backlog I’m working my way thI read it and enjoyed it a lot, but trying to write a review of Shrill almost a year after reading it (shut up, I have a backlog I’m working my way through), I realize that I honestly don’t remember much about it. The essays are really good, and Lindy West is alternately full of righteous anger and so goddamn tired of all of it, and her voice was clear and engaging.
The best section comes when Lindy describes her online interactions with a particularly vicious Twitter troll who went so far as to create a fake account where he insulted her online while posing as her dead father. West manages to convince this person to sit down for an in-person interview with her, which is pretty incredible, even if the interview itself doesn’t end up being especially illuminating. (Spoiler alert, her troll is a man who hates fat women and doesn’t know how to deal with his anger in healthy or constructive ways, which is neither interesting or surprising.)...more
I really don’t read a lot of new fantasy – probably the last fantasy series I read was A Song of Ice and Fire, and maaaaan did I get burned out on thaI really don’t read a lot of new fantasy – probably the last fantasy series I read was A Song of Ice and Fire, and maaaaan did I get burned out on that real fast. (He’s never going to finish it, guys. We need to just make peace with that and move on with our lives)
NK Jemison had been on my radar before, but what finally convinced me to get The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms from the library was right after Toni Morrison died, and Jemison’s name appeared on all these lists titled Toni Morrison Just Died; Here Are Some Black Women You Should Be Reading.
The central conceit of the Inheritance Trilogy is this: long ago, there were three main gods, along with a lot of their children and demigods.. There was a war, one of the gods was destroyed, and the remaining gods were punished by being trapped in physical bodies. The winners of the war were the Arameri, and they maintain control of their world through magic and ruthless violence. Our heroine is Yeine, whose mother was an Arameri heiress who abandoned her family and her title to marry Yeine’s father, a Darr “barbarian” from the north.
At nineteen, four months after her mother’s death, Yeine is called to her grandfather’s home and informed that he’s named her one of his heirs. Yeine will be forced to compete with two of her cousins for the title, and finds herself in an unfamiliar world of gods, riches, and magic, trying to navigate the deadly politics of her mother’s home.
Fair warning: the beginning of this book is complicated, because Jemison has to get us up to speed on a very complex belief system and history, and she has to do it very quickly, so there’s a lot of information to absorb right out of the gate, and I felt a little lost and overwhelmed for the first few chapters. But I caught up soon enough, and once you have the basics down, Jemison is careful to tease out the information, giving us enough to keep us interested and invested in the plot while still maintaining a mystery.
Honestly my only big gripe with the book is that all the synopses I saw leaned too hard on the “competition between heirs” element, when in reality there is very little actual competition for the throne, so if you’re expecting some kind of magical Hunger Games, you’re going to be disappointed. Jemison, and her heroine, are actually not super concerned with who’s going to win the throne – the real meat of the story concerns the gods who have been trapped into servitude by the royal family, and their relationship with Yeine.
While technically part of a series, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms works just fine as a standalone novel – so well, in fact, that apparently the second book doesn’t involve Yeine at all, and instead focuses on a different character and setting. I’ll be totally honest and admit that that’s kind of making me not want to continue with the series, since I’m so attached to Yeine and her demigod gang, so if there’s anyone who’s read the second book and can make a case for it, I’d definitely appreciate the recommendation. ...more
This is one of those books where I feel genuinely bad that I can't give it a higher rating. There's nothing wrong with this novel; it just wasn't writThis is one of those books where I feel genuinely bad that I can't give it a higher rating. There's nothing wrong with this novel; it just wasn't written for me, and that's fine.
I imagine that people who have a military background, or come from a military family, will connect with this story in ways that I just wasn't able to appreciate. Claire Gibson has a personal connection to the West Point setting, having grown up on the base, and has clearly done her research when it comes to portraying the experience of women in the US military. West Point, and the experience of going to school there, is detailed and real, and gives a really interesting glimpse into a very insular world (granted, most of the time my reaction to the West Point stuff was, this school sounds so fucking weird and I don't know why anyone thinks going there is a good idea, but like I said - this book was not written for me).
The novel starts in 2000, when three girls - Hannah, Avery, and Dani - are deciding where they'll go to college. The three of them, through a variety of circumstances, all end up accepted at West Point, the prestigious military college. The book follows their lives as they become friends, and their lives are uprooted by two major tragedies - first, the attacks on September 11th, which radically redefines their experience at the military college and their later careers in the armed forces; and then two years after graduation, when the death of a loved one sends shockwaves across all three women's lives.
The friend who gave me this book as a gift said that, for her, the main selling point was the way Gibson portrays the core friendship between the three women, and how they remain connected despite the very different paths their lives all take. And I get that! I agree that the portrayal of the bond between Hannah, Avery, and Dani was the strongest part of the book, even though the snarky part of my brain wants to dismiss it as Sisterhood of the Traveling Combat Boots.
This novel is also very purposefully non-political, and I can't decide if Claire Gibson should be applauded for that or not. On the one hand, this book is very clearly concerned with portraying the experience of the armed forces as human beings, rather than attempting to wade into the absolute fucking quagmire that is the Middle East conflict. But on the other hand...that quagmire is your entire setting. The closest Gibson gets to taking a political stance is when a character mentions in her narration that George W. Bush "hadn't earned her vote" and then when the "War on Terror" propaganda starts up in the wake of 9/11, and a character wonders how the hell they're supposed to win a war against a concept. Besides that, Claire Gibson has shrunk the entire Middle East conflict down to just the personal experiences of her three protagonists, without asking them to ever really consider the broader scope of what they're doing. Also, the US military's policy of not allowing women to serve in combat situations means that active duty for our protagonists means they do things like supervise construction crews and work in field hospitals, and are never put in a position where they're forced to take a life.
My only real criticism of this book is that the "present day" sections, when the girls are forced by tragedy to reunite, could have benefited from aging the characters up by a decade. The personal struggles they're dealing with, like Avery's inability to find a decent man and Dani's conflicted feelings about being successful at a job she's not passionate about (and also not being able to find a decent man, because this book is also uhhhhhhh...very Christian) kind of falls flat, because these women are twenty-four years old. It was hard to take their "oh god, I'm going to be alone and miserable forever unlike my friend Hannah who did the right thing by getting married at twenty-two" mindset seriously when they weren't even old enough to rent a car.
Claire Gibson also touches, very briefly and with feather-light pressure, on the prevalence of sexual harassment in the military - but again, she shrinks a huge issue down to a single conflict between four people, and (view spoiler)[it's resolved very neatly, with the culprit going to jail and the evil basketball coach sacrificed as a handy scapegoat (hide spoiler)], rather than examine the incident as merely a consequence of a much, much larger problem.
And it is not Claire Gibson's job to tackle these Big Ideas, I know! This book does not owe me anything deeper than a nice story about the changing friendship between three women and how tragedy can make those bonds stronger. If that's all you want from this story, you will walk away satisfied. ...more
In the afterword for Genuine Fraud, E. Lockhart writes that she was "inspired by" several different books, including The Talented Mr. Ripley. To say tIn the afterword for Genuine Fraud, E. Lockhart writes that she was "inspired by" several different books, including The Talented Mr. Ripley. To say that Patricia Highsmith's novel "inspired" Lockhart is a pretty huge understatement, as this book is less of an homage and more of a bold-faced ripoff. For fuck's sake, she couldn't even be bothered to come up with a new way for (view spoiler)[her protagonist to kill the rich person they're leeching off of - Imogen dies in the EXACT SAME WAY Dickie Greenleaf did (hide spoiler)].
If you're the kind of person who thinks that those live-action Disney remakes are fun and innovative, this is the book for you....more
This is a story that sounds too unlikely, too cinematic, to make up. In 1996, journalist and mountain climber Jon Kraukauer was assigned to cover an EThis is a story that sounds too unlikely, too cinematic, to make up. In 1996, journalist and mountain climber Jon Kraukauer was assigned to cover an Everest ascent expedition, and chronicle the experiences of people – some experienced climbers, some not - who paid a small fortune for the chance at a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Kraukauer was a member of one of three American-led climbing teams that would attempt to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest. By the time the teams made their way back to Base Camp, eleven people had died on the mountain.
Kraukauer’s book describes the journey to Everest, the different people on the teams, the storm that scattered the group just below the summit, and the deadly aftermath. This book, among other things, seeks to rationalize the decisions and behaviors of some of the people in the group, and understand how so many died in such a senseless way. Kraukauer himself, because he was part of the team, isn’t an impartial witness, and the book doesn’t shy away from his own culpability – at least two of the deaths that occurred during the expedition were very likely a direct result of Kraukauer’s own actions.
There are two main draws to this book: first, you get a firsthand view of what exactly goes into an Everest expedition, so you never have to actually do it yourself (seriously, DO NOT CLIMB EVEREST. EVEN IF YOU DON’T DIE (and we’ll get to that) IT’S STILL A TERRIBLE IDEA), and then you get Kraukauer’s in-depth investigation of deaths that he himself may have been instrumental in. He also attempts to explain how a person decides to climb the highest mountain in the world, and why anyone would want to do this. For me, this was the only real weak point of the book, because despite Kraukauer’s best efforts, I never once thought to myself, yeah, climbing Everest sounds like a totally reasonable thing to attempt.
Seriously, Everest is bullshit and it was all I could talk about for days after finishing this book. For one thing, Everest isn’t even a difficult climb, if you look at it from a technical standpoint. It’s only hard because the high altitude will literally kill you – the climb itself is not hard. At one point, the team climbs a bunch of ladders that were tied to a rock face by a team back in the 1970s.
And another fun fact I learned from this book is that there are two main ways to die on Everest: first, you can lose your footing and fall into a crevasse, or just slide right off a fucking cliff, and die instantly from the fall. This is the easy way to die on Everest. The hard way is you get altitude sickness (which is a nice way of putting it – past a certain altitude, even if you have supplemental oxygen, your brain literally starts to die) and collapse, and can’t get up. And then your team just has to LEAVE YOU THERE, because they sure as hell can’t carry you down, so you get to just lie there in the snow, fully conscious, and wait to die. And then your corpse becomes a landmark, along with all the other dead bodies that are just SITTING UP THERE. (There’s a really good My Favorite Murder podcast episode where they talk about the bodies on Everest, and it is straight-up heartbreaking.)
Aside from examining his own role in the tragedy and getting others’ versions of what happened, Kraukauer also spends some time discussing whether it’s even a good idea for people to attempt Everest in the first place. Aside from the very real risk of death, Kraukauer also considers the ethics of employing local Sherpa guides, and whether supplemental oxygen ultimately helps or hurts climbers. And, on top of all of that, this book is essentially a murder investigation – Kraukauer goes over the events of the fateful day, interviews the other surviving climbers, and evaluates the decisions of the guides and what role they may have played in the tragedy. He manages to strike a good balance of not avoiding his own responsibility in the tragedy, while also reminding readers that he and the other climbers were suffering from severe oxygen deprivation, and therefore both their decision-making abilities and their memories are not fully functional.
It’s easy to read Kraukauer’s other book of tragedy in the wilderness, Into the Wild, with a certain degree of superiority. Christopher McCandless died because he was woefully unprepared to survive in the wild, and his lack of knowledge and naivety killed him. But, as Into Thin Air proves, you can be a seasoned professional with thousands of successful climbs under your belt, and still die because of one stupid mistake, because Nature doesn’t care. Anyone can (and does) die on Everest, and Kraukauer’s book examines, among other things, whether it’s worth it....more
To be honest, I only read this book (okay, technically, listened to it) because I needed to find an audiobook to listen to for an upcoming car trip, aTo be honest, I only read this book (okay, technically, listened to it) because I needed to find an audiobook to listen to for an upcoming car trip, and the library didn’t have a ton of better offerings at the time. I liked Room, because everyone liked Room, but Emma Donahue’s other novel, Frog Music, didn’t impress me very much. But I had heard of this book, so I decided to give it a shot.
The story, taking place in 1859, starts when British nurse Lib Wright receives a very strange assignment. In a small village in Ireland, a family claims that their young daughter has not eaten any food in four months. Locals are insisting that it’s a miracle, and that the girl is a new saint. Lib, along with a local nun, will spend two weeks watching the girl, to either confirm that Anna O’Donnell is surviving on nothing but water, or to figure out how the deception works.
So my main problem with the book was that Donahue presents us with a very simple mystery at the core of her novel - how is Anna surviving on nothing but a few spoonfuls of water a day? What’s the trick? – and then wastes a lot of time not addressing that mystery with any real sense of urgency. The pace of this novel is sloooooow, and mostly follows the same pattern throughout: Lib gets up, goes to Anna’s house, and sits with the girl for like eight hours. Repeat. And repeat. We are expected to become invested in Lib’s relationship with Anna and her increasing inability to stay impartial and unattached, but I was mostly impatient for Donahue to just tell me how the trick was done. Too much buildup, not enough prestige.
Lib is also a frustrating protagonist, because her entire job in the novel is to just sit and watch things, which means she is very, very boring. But also, she’s charming in a weird way because she’s a) a stone-cold weirdo who reacts to people and situations as if this is the first time she’s left the house in several years, and b) manages to completely misinterpret every single conversation she has with another character.
Yes, Donahue does give us a satisfying solution to the mystery, so at least there’s that. The problem is the solution itself, which involves (view spoiler)[Anna’s mother spitting pre-chewed food into her daughter’s mouth under the pretense of a good-morning kiss. I just…I cannot. Stop and picture, really picture, what that exchange would look like. We are expected to believe that Lib never noticed anything weird for DAYS, even though apparently she was watching a mother and daughter basically Frenching each other every day. What in the actual fuck, Donahue? (hide spoiler)] ...more
This book was another result of me aimlessly browsing the available audiobook downloads from my library, and since I had read one PD James mystery (ThThis book was another result of me aimlessly browsing the available audiobook downloads from my library, and since I had read one PD James mystery (The Skull Beneath the Skin) and enjoyed it, I decided to give this a shot. This is actually James’ debut mystery, so I’m willing to forgive the more clunky aspects of the book in light of that.
The story follows your basic murder mystery formula, where we have a wealthy family in an English country manor, and muuuuuurder.
It’s a perfectly serviceable mystery, although not particularly memorable. There are some very, very obvious moments (like when one of the characters is saying that she’s sure her husband has an alibi for the night of the murder because she checked the clock when he came in, and it’s clear immediately that he adjusted the time) and I honestly can’t remember a lot of the finer details of the story. Everything gets wrapped up neatly, and the detective’s solution doesn’t have any obvious holes in it, so overall, solid three stars – no more, no less. ...more
After the disappointment of Career of Evil, I’m delighted to report that Cormoran and Robin are back, baby! No boring misogynist serial killers in thiAfter the disappointment of Career of Evil, I’m delighted to report that Cormoran and Robin are back, baby! No boring misogynist serial killers in this one; just a good old fashioned Rich People and Murder story!
The book picks up right after the last novel left off, with Strike dramatically interrupting Robin’s wedding (NOT, sadly, to confess that he’s in love with Robin and carry her off while Stupid Matthew cries at the altar, but merely to tell Robin that he caught the serial killer in the last book). We get some business-as-usual scenes around the Strike/Cunliffe office, and then they get an unexpected visitor – a mentally unbalanced man comes into the office, telling a disjointed story about how he witnessed a murder when he was a child. At the same time, Strike has been hired by a politician who claims he’s being blackmailed, and with that we’re off to the races.
Even though, at its core, this is a very dramatic and, in many ways, very sad story, there’s so much fun stuff in the meantime. Robin gets to go undercover as not one but TWO different people, and there’s more delightful romantic tension between her and Strike. Also, for anyone who was worried that Rowling was going to have Robin’s marriage to Stupid Matthew drag on for the rest of the series, you’ll be delighted to know that by the end of the book (view spoiler)[ they’re officially done, because Stupid Matthew was cheating on Robin, OF COURSE. They have a very gratifying (for me) argument and at one point Stupid Matthew tries to physically stop Robin from leaving, and she basically laughs in his face and is like, motherfucker, I have faced down TWO psycho killers and still have the knife wound from the last one, what exactly are you gonna do? It was at this point that I wrote in my notes, “Robin employs the “if you’re feeling froggy better jump” defense, for which Matthew has no counterattack.” (hide spoiler)]
I’m very glad to see that the Cormoran Strike series has bounced back, and this makes me hopeful for the rest of the series. More detective shenanigans and romantic pining, please! ...more
Look, I know what I said. I know that I wrote in my review of China Rich Girlfriend that I wasn’t going to continue with the series. All the fun and nLook, I know what I said. I know that I wrote in my review of China Rich Girlfriend that I wasn’t going to continue with the series. All the fun and novelty of the first book had worn off, and I realized that I was just reading a story about people who had so much money it had turned them into sociopaths. I said I was done, but I don’t like to leave things unfinished. So here we are.
As one can tell from the rating, Kevin Kwan was not able to turn things around for the last book. In fact, this series has taken such a hard nosedive since Book One that I have a hard time believing that I ever enjoyed reading about these people, and don’t think I’ve ever experienced such an extreme change in my feelings towards a series. (well, except maybe Harlots - we’re all pretending that season 3 never happened, right?)
The problem is that, frankly, the current state of the world means that I cannot enjoy a story about the problems of spoiled billionaires anymore. The entire drama of this book centers around the impending death of Nick’s grandmother, and which of her heirs will receive Tyersall Park in her will. Will she and Nick be able to mend their relationship in time so our golden boy can claim his birthright as Lord of the Manor? What on earth will happen! I certainly couldn’t guess!
We’re supposed to be invested in this, because Nick is the only relative who DESERVES to inherit the estate the size of a fucking national park. But when this novel takes place, Nick hasn’t even spoken to his grandmother in five years, so no matter how many times he insists that Tyersall Park is his beloved childhood home and he has a strong emotional stake in the property, it mostly comes across as Kwan covering his own ass and trying to convince us that he’s done the work to justify these feelings in his characters.
(There’s also a lot of flashbacks to Su Yi’s adolescence, and it’s basically Kwan retconning her into a nice person and glossing over the fact that she kicked Nick out of the family for marrying Rachel, because if there’s one thing this series has taught me, it’s that none of the characters in this book have ever met an emotion more complicated than “angry, but also sad.”)
There was a tiny hint of the book that this could have been, and it was enough to keep me going until the end. At about the halfway point, Kwan establishes that the bulk of Astrid’s inheritance comes from palm oil. A short time later, we have a character who runs a charity to save orangutans. Okay, now things are getting interesting, I remember thinking. Was Kwan going to have his characters connect the dots, and make sure his readers understand that orangutans are going extinct because their habitats are being destroyed to farm…palm oil? Was Perfect Astrid going to have to confront the fact that her lavish lifestyle is entirely funded by blood money? Would these people, who wouldn’t know a Consequence if it kicked them in their couture-clad ass, have to finally examine how their obscene wealth directly impacts the planet?
LOL nope. The connection between the Leongs' money and the gradual destruction of the planet remains tenuous at best, and the only character who points it out is Charlie Wu’s crazy ex-wife (oh, also Charlie has turned into Mr. Rochester for the purposes of the narrative). Speaking of Charlie Wu, what’s the environmental impact of his massive tech company? How much does he pay the factory workers who assemble the microchips or whatever?
Speaking of consequences, remember Rachel’s half-brother Carlton, and how in the beginning of the last book he caused a car crash that killed one woman and paralyzed another? He still hasn’t done any atonement whatsoever for that act, and even though he still feels so super bad about what happened, that’s pretty much the end of the discussion. (ugh, and it’s a one sentence fix too! “We’re so impressed with Carlton, he started going to AA and donated a gazillion dollars to some anti-drunk-driving charity” or whatever) And worse, we have Colette Bing, who I guess is just a full-fledged villain now. Okay, yes, she poisoned Rachel in the last book, but Rachel is fine. Again – Carlton killed a girl and paralyzed another, yet when Collette reveals this information to Carlton’s new girlfriend, it’s treated as an act of vindictive, jealous backstabbing.
(Kwan is so far up his characters’ asses that the only people in the book who bring up the past sins of his protagonists are the women labeled “crazy.” What a weird coincidence that is!!!)
Rachel’s barely in this book, by the way. We’re not quite in “sexy lamp” territory, but her main job in the few scenes where she appears is to make comforting noises while Nick complains about his family drama. There’s a little seed of a plot where Eleanor is obsessed with getting a grandchild, but that goes basically nowhere. It’s clear that Kwan has grown bored of Rachel, and he seems to think that what the people want is more Astrid instead. Kwan is wrong – I’m sorry, but Astrid is fucking insufferable. She has no flaws whatsoever, and what flaws do attempt to poke their heads out are ignored by the text. (True, there’s nothing technically wrong with getting engaged before the ink on your divorce papers is dry, but is it a dick move? Kind of! Does Kwan want to admit this? Nope! Perfect Astrid, who poops rose petals and doesn’t know what a pimple is, will not be questioned!)
God, I got so sick of her. There’s this wonderfully tone-deaf line where she reflects that she can’t remember the last time she really took a vacation just for herself, because every time she travels it’s for family stuff or business, and I’m staring at the pages saying, “You. Go. To. Paris. Once. A. Year. To. Buy. A. New. Couture. Wardrobe.” Oh, and also after she reads a line in a gossip magazine claiming she’s always sitting front row at fashion shows, protests that she never does that because “I’m always backstage, helping out.” UUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.
It’s unfair to harp on stuff like this, I know. This is supposed to be a fluffy, fun beach read that keeps you entertained for a few hours with its descriptions of unimaginable wealth and luxury. But it’s not fun for me, anymore, and I can’t just sit back and enjoy a story about a bunch of people who have the power to enact so much change, but instead just dither around buying art and having divorce drama and fighting over a fucking house. Long ago, I wrote a very snotty review of Gossip Girl and how it wasn’t even a real book, and now I find myself taking that all back. Kevin Kwan wishes he were on the same level as Gossip Girl, because say what you will about that series, at least Cecily von Ziegesar had enough interesting characters to maintain her series for a dozen or so installments. We’re only three books into this series, and Kwan’s boredom with his own characters is obvious. Hopefully this is the end of it.
(Fuck, am I gonna have to re-read the entire Gossip Girl series? Yeah. Yeah, I think I will. I owe von Ziegesar an apology) ...more
“For Assistant U.S. Attorney McDonald and the Strike Force prosecutors Henry Hill was a bonanza. He was not a mob boss or even a noncommissioned offic“For Assistant U.S. Attorney McDonald and the Strike Force prosecutors Henry Hill was a bonanza. He was not a mob boss or even a noncommissioned officer in the mob, but he was an earner, the kind of sidewalk mechanic who knew something about everything. He could have written the handbook on street-level mob operations. Ever since the first day he walked into the Euclid Avenue Taxicab Company back in 1954, Henry had been fascinated by the world he had longed to join, and there was little he hadn’t learned and even less that he had forgotten.”
Part of me wishes that I had read this book, which directly inspired Goodfellas, without having seen or even having any knowledge of the movie. There’s so much about Goodfellas that seems outrageous and over-the-top and made up, so it was almost weird to learn that Henry Hill was a real person, and that everything he describes in his memoir actually happened. Having seen the movie created this weird mental disconnect where even though I knew I was reading a memoir, it still felt kind of like a novel. (It also doesn’t help that the narration in Goodfellas is practically lifted word-for-word from the text of Hill’s memoir, to the point where I hope he got a screenwriter’s credit for the movie)
So I would actually be more likely to recommend this to someone who’s never seen Goodfellas, who can appreciate the sheer outlandishness of this memoir. Henry Hill, in collaboration with Nicholas Pileggi, wrote this book after he’d been placed in witness protection after ratting out the other members of his New York mafia family – so at that point, he’d already burned all his bridges and had nobody left to protect and nothing much left to lose. This means that he shares everything in this memoir, detailing the murders, the robberies, the drugs, the affairs, the betrayals…it’s all here, and it’s all just on the safe side of completely unbelievable.
I call it a memoir, but the book is really Pileggi’s – he writes it as a straightforward nonfiction book, but thanks to extensive phone interviews he conducted while researching the book, there are long sections told in Hill’s own words as he details his rise and fall in the mob. Together, they make the perfect blend of writers: Pileggi’s background is crime journalism, so he knows how to interview his subject, do research, and present the facts in a way that’s informative and engaging. And Hill’s voice is clear and distinct (like I said, a lot of Henry Hill’s narration in the movie is just lifted straight from the book), and best of all, he’s able to articulate the appeal of the mob world while also acknowledging the ugly aspects of it. This isn’t The Godfather, which reinvented mafia thugs as sophisticated outlaws too smart to work within the confines of society. Wiseguy is Henry Hill showing us all the ugliness that comes with the glamour, because he knows that we came to see both.
“It wasn’t that Henry was a boss. And it had nothing to do with his lofty rank within a crime family or the easy viciousness with which hoods from Henry’s world are identified. Henry, in fact, was neither of high rank nor particularly vicious; he wasn’t even tough as far as the cops could determine. What distinguished Henry from most of the other wiseguys who were under surveillance was the fact that he seemed to have total access to all levels of the mob world.”
(Also, the reason I initially decided to read this book was because of this great fun fact that I came across: so while Nicholas Pileggi was doing research for Wiseguy, he was married to Nora Ephron. Ephron would sometimes call Henry Hill late at night and chat with him (because of course Hill was bored as hell in witness protection), and she eventually wrote My Blue Heaven, which was a comedy starring Steve Martin as a former mob boss who’d been placed in the witness protection program. I love this so much, because Martin Scorsese read Wiseguy and decided to make a movie about his rise in the mob world, while Nora Ephron spoke with Henry Hill and made a goofy comedy about a mob boss after the mob.) ...more
I want to make something very clear right off the bat: I am not giving this book one star just because"I've gone to therapy, but it was inconclusive."
I want to make something very clear right off the bat: I am not giving this book one star just because it’s written by a reality TV star. I gave Holly Madison’s Playboy memoir five stars and I meant every single one of them, so I went into this book with a pretty open mind, and wasn't prepared to dismiss it just because it’s written by someone who became famous for being awful on a Bravo show.
I’m giving this one star because it’s the lowest tier of ghost-written celebrity literature: the so-called “how-to” book. Sometimes a C-list celebrity will attempt to write a book, but because they’ve already laid so much of their life bare on TV, social media, etc (and have no particularly interesting thoughts or inner life to share), they have to brand themselves as an “expert” in some vague and difficult to define field like “entertaining”, “balancing life and family”, “keeping it real”, or “having it all” (ie, nothing so specific where you need some kind of degree or certification to prove your expertise). Stassi has apparently decided that her particular Thing is “owning it” and at my most generous, I’d say that the purpose of this book is to help you find your self-confidence.
Which is, weirdly, a very appropriate subject for the woman whose claim to fame on Vanderpump Rules is systematically destroying the self-esteem and emotional well-being of her enemies. Who better to teach us how to hone our self-confidence than the woman whose greatest skill set is identifying weak points in the emotional armor of others?
Unfortunately, Stassi has completely de-fanged herself for this book in order to appeal to the broadest possible audience and not appear controversial in any way. This book is not written by the Stassi who once threatened to send an acid-soaked dildo to her enemy, and that’s a real shame. Any declarative statement in this book is immediately followed by the caveat that if it’s not your thing, that’s fine too! Everything is fine! There is no wrong way to be! Everyone just get along!
A weirdly fascinating aspect of this book is seeing all the various ways Stassi essentially rephrases the same core idea of “you do you, girl” and stretches it over a couple hundred pages. In fact, that’s pretty much the only lesson to be gleaned from this – so really, Stassi didn’t need to write a book, she could have just gotten t-shirts made. (Also, the “girl” part of “you do you, girl” is crucial, as this book is not remotely interested in speaking to anyone who is not a cishet woman)
But my one-star review mostly represents this book’s wasted potential. Stassi is trying to be a bootleg Oprah here, but that’s not what we want from her. You can draw a direct line from Dynasty villains to Stassi Schroeder’s persona on Vanderpump Rules, and that’s the person I wanted to read a memoir from. This book reads like an audition for a bland lifestyle show on the Home network, and that’s disappointing.
And Now, A List of Things I Wanted From This Book That Were Never Delivered:
-detailed step-by-step descriptions of how Stassi forced multiple girls to quit SUR because she didn’t like them -how to hack your boyfriend’s social media in order to keep tabs on him and exert full psychological control -a lengthy chapter explaining the how and why of that time Stassi tagged along on Katie and Schwartz’s honeymoon -a more honest memoir that would address the fascinating insight into Stassi’s adolescence that we got when her mother said that teenage Stassi would lie on the kitchen floor and eat bread every day after school -becoming a reality TV villain for fame and fortune: how did Stassi do it, and was it worth it? -a straightforward industry memoir about what it’s like to work in a West Hollywood restaurant that’s also a working reality TV set
At least I got this from the library and didn’t pay actual money for it....more