The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

I thought this sounded cool because it is the story of King Arthur told from the women's perspective. It turned out to be a huge bore and took me weeks to get through because I could only read a few pages an evening before falling asleep. I did eventually get engaged enough to finish it but would not recommend that anyone else read it. Big gripe: The main character was a midwife on Avalon but when it came time to have her own child was all of a sudden ignorant of childbirth. She was so scarred by this experience she gave up her child. It had a major impact on the story but made no sense.

Superstitous by R.L. Stine

This is the author who writes the Goosebumps horror series for kids. Yea, this is horror all right. Horrible storyline and horrible writing. I've wanted to check out the Goosebumps series and still do but this story was so bad! I could not finish it so skipped to the end just to see if my theories about the "bad guy" were correct. They were.

Spoiler alert, the bad guy was possessed by demons and the only way to get rid of the demons was to have a child who would in turn be possessed by the demons. He finds some sucker to marry him but then regrets it and "saves" her. Oops too late she is pregnant. That's the cliffhanger. I don't want to be awkward and mention it but this seems like the easiest out ever...abortion...shhhh

Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich

Non-fiction! The story: a group of MIT students who through a card counting system can beat the dealer and win at blackjack. They proceed to make millions, from Vegas to Atlantic City and every Indian reservation in between. Mildly interesting but the main character was annoying and kinda dense for someone who is supposed to be so smart. He was portrayed as having some mild regret for what he did and I think it would have been a hell of a lot cooler if the guy just owned up to it. I mean for gods sake, if you are going to do something pretty cool don’t be acting like a little boy who got caught cutting school. Man up! Yes, I won millions and had hottie prostitutes all over me because I had boatloads of cash. Done, see how easy that was?

A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve

I usually love her stories but this one didn’t really do it for me. The story was set in the months shortly after 9/11 and that was a huge focus of the book so maybe it is too specific to the time and reading it ten years later loses something. Anita Shreve seemed out of touch with modern times and she seemed especially out of touch when trying to write anything about the fifteen year old son of one of the main characters. For example, there was one scene where the boy and his friend drank a fifth of vodka one night. The next morning he was unconscious and had to be taken to the hospital where they couldn’t pump his stomach because ALL the vodka had been absorbed by his body. The son proceeded to be “unconscious” all day. While a fifth of vodka is a good amount of alcohol and if you shared it with one other person you would most certainly be drunk I don’t think it would lead to you being unconscious all the next day. It seemed a stupid story to include in the larger story.

Other oddities:

The book is about a group of friends who haven’t seen each other in 25 years but two of the friends are getting married to each other and inexplicably invite all these people they were friends with in high school who they haven’t seen in 25 years! But no one else…

They do invite the brides mom and sister but quickly make excuses for them to leave so we can focus on the friends from high school.

The women getting married has cancer, is probably dying but still her Mom and sister make excuses to not be around her wedding weekend. “Time to hit the outlets” aiii. Makes no sense.

Anita Shreve is a great writer so all is not lost but a big old shrug on the story itself.

The Likeness by Tana French

Right after I finished reading and being blown away by Into the Woods I was at the airport (the only place I buy new books) and saw another book by Tana French. I was having that internal debate over all the options and trying to read the first chapter to make sure I didn’t accidently buy a kids book (which is how I ended up reading Twilight) Anyway, I saw The Likeness and scooped it up immediately and hot damn, if it wasn’t even better than Into the Woods! I probably liked it more because it didn’t leave all the loose ends that the other one did but still had excellent writing, interesting characters and Cassie too! Who I think kicks ass, I want to go hang out in her apartment and eat dinner and talk about the shit going on in her crazy life. Ok, maybe not she does seem like she needs a friend but shit, man, she brings the drama! This is just a great story that is f’ed up as all get out.

Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson

Mildly entertaining but not a must read. I read this a while ago and to be honest can’t remember too much detail. The gist of it is an American goes to the UK and travels around, eventually he meets an English woman, they fall in love and get married and then many years later he decided to finish his tour of the ‘small island” before moving to the US. It had moments of charm, moments of being trite. My overall takeaway was wondering why he was wasting my time with stories of his life? I have my own. This book included the sort of stories that make a person interesting to talk to, but less interesting to read about.

4 Blondes by Candace Bushnell

This is the first (and last?) Candace Busnell book I have read. I loved the Sex and the City series on HBO; I saw most of the episodes. I was expecting a smart, funny book about cool chicks who I would probably want to be friends with and 4 Blondes is not that book. The women get what they want but it seems like so many sacrifices to get their. It wasn't the light fluffy book I expected and wanted. enh. I'll still check out the Sex and the City book but after this one my expectations are lowered.

In the Woods by Tana French

If you have not read the book, read it now before you read this "review". One of the better books I have read in a long time. I still don’t know what happened in the woods. For awhile I thought he had killed his friends; I’d almost believe it except there is no explanation for what happened to their bodies. Was there some sort of evilness in the woods that killed them and then left? Besides the actual what happened interest of the story, the characters were also really well written. Rosalind is one of the more terrifying characters I have ever met in between the pages of a book. There are many characters and moments in this story that will stay with me. Rob and Cassie, of course but also Jonathan, Katy’s Dad and especially the ballet teacher Simone. In one of the last pages Rob meets with Simone to talk about the journal of Katy’s that she had found. That scene is so devastating and so well written.

Ok, side note on Rosalind and crazy offspring in general. I have often wondered how does a parent handle it if they have a kid like Rosalind? I saw The Good Son, years ago and in that movie the Mom dropped her evil child off a cliff. But in other stories a kid kills someone and the parents destroy their own lives in an attempt to protect them. I guess in this case the parents went both ways. Jonathan was concerned with his other kids and innocent bystanders and the Mom couldn’t believe anything bad about her daughter. Yikes, scary stuff because it does happen. I think if you created this monster, it’s on you to destroy it. Ha. Obviously I don’t have any kids and maybe I read too many books. Back to the book review; seriously good writing, I was brought into their world. I’m not usually a fan of murder mysteries or police drama but this far surpassed any genre. I have Irish friends so I enjoyed the use of Irish phrases and words. Unfortunately she didn’t use “kicks like a whore” my favorite of the Irish sayings but hey, there’s always the next book.

This was a really excellent book; I will have to re-read it in a year or so and see if I get any more insight into what the hell happened in the woods!

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Wow, boring. I have seen this book everywhere over the last year or so. Reviews here, bestseller lists there and every time I’m in the airport there it is. It’s at the movies too! I bought it at Goodwill so at least I did not pay full price for it. It’s the story of a guy named Gogol born outside of Boston to parents from India and his boring, average life where little of consequence and nothing of difficulty seems to happen. Even the things that might have been interesting are told in the drabbest most boring manner possible. Conclusion: Jhumpa is a shite writer.

This book was written to be a movie, there is almost zero inner dialogue. It is simply a listing of happenings in Gogol’s life. Gogol is born, Gogol hangs out in Massachusetts being a toddler with his Mom, Gogol goes to story hour, Gogol goes to kindergarten. His parents attempt to give him a public name, interesting? Nope, still boring. Gogol is a good student, Gogol sometimes does not connect with his parents, Gogol’s parents have parties where they serve Indian food and invite other immigrant Bengali’s.

This is similar to my life, my friend’s lives and every other middle class person who grew up on the east coast and you know what? It’s Boring!

Specific annoyances:

I got the version of the book that has the movie cover, so for the entirety of the book I kept picturing the Indian guy from “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle”. Did that make it better or worse, I don’t know but I’d rather picture characters as their authors write them rather than as they are casted.

Maxine and her family; really are there people like this? People who when their daughters lover moves in with them apparently get offended because his Mom called (two times, scandal!). This could have been his insecurities seeing Maxine’s family as being offended by his Mom calling but I read it as them expecting him to appear into his life with no past, no baggage.

Was this meant to be a story about the struggles immigrant children face growing up in American society? Gogol did not seem to struggle. He went about living his life, becoming an architect, living in NYC, just living life without a care in the world. “Oh no, we had an Indian wedding” but at no point did he or his wife seemed to be fired up to have a traditional American wedding so why the questions after? Even his wife cheating on him, she was as self absorbed as he and neither of them seemed to have any enlightenment on how their actions might affect their lives. Damn, I would have cheated on him too, even with the guy who groped me on the bus while he maybe thought I was sleeping. Gross.

Finally, all the trips to Calcutta but almost nothing demonstrating any sort of culture shock. We went to Calcutta, we came home, we went to the mall, we came home. These characters are cardboard cutouts. Snooze.

Not recommended

The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett wrote Bel Canto which I really liked so when a friend offered me up this one I was excited to check it out. I did enjoy this book but what kept me from loving it was that the main character, Rose, is such a damn, selfish bitch. I mean maybe there are reasons for running off on your husband but what she did to her Mom and eventually to her daughter just sucked. Sure, they had other support in their lives, not just Rose but something like that does long term damage (in real life, books sometimes not so much). If, you are going to run off on someone can’t you lie and tell them you have yellow fever and are taking yourself off to the sanitarium to die or some such nonsense? This reminded me of how I felt about some of the characters in The House of Sand and Fog. I hated them so much, I wanted to jump into the pages and slap them. Rose wasn’t that nuts but still. Although the people suck, I guess it means the writers are good because they are creating such believable characters. The good thing about The Patron Saint of Liars is that Rose was the only sucky character in the book. I liked Rose’s Mom and Sister Evangeline was a really great character. Son was ok, kinda lame but ultimately at least a good person although the original Cecelia seems like an awful person too so maybe there were two “bad” people. This is definitely a good read, but it will not leave you as satisfied as a more “happy ending” book with all the loose ends neatly tied up.

What would you do if you were independently wealthy?

Well I'd shop, and workout and sleep in and probably have a drinking problem (ok a bigger drinking problem) I'd all the self absorbed things I don't have enough time for now.

Back when I had a full time job I was griping about work to a colleague. She asked me what I would do if money were no object. Apparently this is the question you ask yourself when you want to figure out what you want to be when you finally grow up. My response? Nothing. If I had unlimited funds I would do nothing. Interestingly enough this is pretty much what I did for about four months after being laid off from that job. I did lots of stuff, some of which I was paid for but nothing that I really considered work. But, I think that reaction was in direct correlation to how awful the job was. I worked for a non profit that burned through piles of money and accomplished nothing. Apparently others were getting things done while my department was spending money on important things like consultants and sub-consultants. Similar to the experience I had after accidently* running a 10k. After that grueling race I didn’t run for nearly three weeks. I was not anxious to revisit the source of that pain. Likewise after nearly three years in an awful job I needed to stay away from that

Commuter highlight: Unknown, I slept on the way to work this morning. Although on the way home I spent about ten minutes trying to figure out if a fellow commuter was a homeless person talking to themselves or if they were on a phone.

Is this burning an Eternal Flame?

I am currently doing temp work for a financial services firm. I have worked there for over a month and still do not have my own desk. Each day I get to the office and have to find an empty space. This would not be so bad except I also have to "clock in" online; so precious minutes of work time are wasted looking for an open computer. Today I was in the accounting office. I’ve been here before and it has its advantages; natural light and more desk space. Today, Accountant J was listening to the radio when Eternal Flame came on. She complained that she hated the song but proceeded to sing along, out loud. I zoned out for a good ten minutes thinking on this, but don’t fret I was still clocked in.

Commuter highlight: scoring over 30 points with the word “ozone” in Scrabble. I don’t remember the exact score but it was on the triple word square in the upper left corner. This led me on to defeat the computer in this round; a rare victory.

Commuter lowlight: tie, getting soaked running for the Muni in the rain (and missing it). My BART pass getting demagnetized; necessitating a long wait to get a new one.