Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Happiness for Beginners

By Katherine Center.

I've read the sequel to this, What You Wish For, already. This book takes place...maybe 8-10 years before this one?

Helen Carpenter recently divorced her alcoholic husband and at age 32, has decided to do a 3 week long SUPER INTENSIVE hiking program in the mountains to see if it changes her and her life. She's got a little brother, Duncan, age 22 (and drastically different from what you see in the sequel...but you get where he originated from, I guess), who she finds irritating, along with his best friend Jake. Unfortunately, she finds out that Jake's also signed up for the same program she is. It isn't a coincidence, as Jake's had a crush on her since he was 16. And after he begs a ride along to the program and she grudgingly gives in, Jake starts making moves and Helen finds herself kinda reciprocating...and then changing her mind and saying that she wants to pretend they don't know each other there. Okay, fine.

I admit I found the beginning a bit awkward. Helen's really not paid attention to him at all before other than finding him to be another young bro, though her being 32 and him being 22 doesn't seem to dissuade/bother her as much as you'd expect her to. Helen's also a .... I guess crankier heroine than usual, which I'm certainly fine with, but you do kind of wonder why Jake was pining for so long there when she has had no interest and doesn't even know what his last name is or that the rest of the family (such as they are) adore him. 

Anyway, upon arriving, the program isn't what Helen expected--other than her it's all college kids, especially Greek life ones, and the trip leader looks like he's 16 and SUPER CRANKY. It' promises to be a totally dirt filled, finicky, nitpicky, hardgoing experience, and why did she sign up for this again? She does kind of hit it up with a few people, such as snarky Hugh who ends up doing a wilderness no-no that she has to rescue him from. Then there's Windy, a girl who seems quite perfect and wants to be a pet psychiatrist--the conversation Helen has with her about her SUPER cranky rescue dog Pickle is a hoot. Windy, however, falls for Jake at first sight, as does pretty much everyone else on the trip, because Jake is charming AF. People are planning Jake and Windy's wedding, seriously, and Helen finds herself bothered by that.

This book makes it work, is what I'd say. Helen slowly gets more and more into Jake in the way he'd like, even as she thinks he'll end up with Wendy. She develops a talent for mapreading and does a good job of handling wilderness life after awhile. Jake's issues--we eventually find out the other reason why he wanted to go on the trip besides being with Helen--well, that's quite affecting, especially when it starts to bite him in the ass a bit in the woods. The affection becomes clear and you do root for them. There's also some backstory about Helen's family that comes into play and explains her issues with her brother and her mother. 

Quote Corner:

• "I gave you Jake because you absolutely never believe in yourself--and he finds a way to believe in you every damn day."  May we all find someone who cares about us like that.
• "I had finally come to understand that not getting what you want is actually the trick to it all. Because not getting what you want forces you to appreciate what you already have." 

The book does take awhile to get around to the denouement, which is to say that frankly, the looooooooong last section in which Helen goes to the bar mitzvah of her high school ex's kid (to which everyone else is kinda like "why are you doing that?" and I really don't get why Helen's family even wanted to go?) kind of drags on and on, even if I'm amused that she basically became some kind of bar mitzvah cheerleader or other at it. 

Overall I think I'm giving it three and a half stars. I liked it, but there's a few weak spots. 

 

 

You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington

By Alexis Coe.

The author, a lady, notes that her entire personal library of books on Washington were all written by men, and finds out that no woman had written an adult biography of him in more than 40 years. Stories like this have been by men, about men, for men, with women/people of color in supporting roles, and women biographers try to focus on others in the story. She said that when telling people what she was working on, they assumed it was about his wife/marriage. "No. It's a biography. Like a man would write."

She said she got interested in Washington when reading between the lines of famous biographies like Chernow's. "At first, I found the male historians' fixation on his manliness entertaining, but the sheer repetition of their narratives needled me. She has amusing snark about how Washington's thighs drive men wild, and biographies have a stiff photo of his head or posing on a horse, a "visual coffin of a cover with a verbal coffin of a title, often adhering to the same stale format." Titles are something like "George Washington: A Biography, George Washington, A Life, George Washington, A President." "With titles this stodgy, presidential biographies will always appear to be as if they are for men of a certain age, intended to be purchased on Presidents' or Father's Day." She calls the reviewers the "Thigh Men" who write giant books (I note that hers is around 250ish) and constantly go on about how manly Washington is. She's amused at how people focus on how he wasn't a biological father, but nobody really seemed to care at the time about that. 

The author also notes that Mary Washington, his mother, is portrayed as a total shrew in a lot of books, and she dubs Chernow's descriptions as "creative writing." There is a chart of all of the bad words he uses about her in the book. God forbid the woman not let her 14-year-old join the navy, apparently, what with the rumors of disease, deprivation and death that went on there. But the author gives her respect for losing a lot of her family members, losing her husband at a young age, and plugging along anyway. Later, she mentions that when Mary needed money, George offered to have her move in, but warned her that life at Mount Vernon "may be compared to a well resorted tavern," where you always needed to be dressed for company or hide in her room to avoid people. I guess she didn't move in :P 

Let me quote from the start of chapter 5: "Great love stories don't often begin with dysentery. But had George Washington not contracted the disease during his final year of British military service, he would never have met Martha Dandridge Custis."  LOL. Anyway, he was getting a checkup from the doctor and decided to check out the social scene. Later, we have "after a couple of failed attempts, Washington finally got the jackass he'd always wanted" (re: mule breeding). 

I do enjoy how the author put short, informative charts in throughout the book to make some more facts more digestible, such as explaining briefly about how Washington's battles went during the Revolutionary War and how he lost more than he won. Washington "became the only president to take up arms against his own citizens" during the Whiskey Rebellion. He also basically started the French and Indian War. Oops. 

I'm also amused at the "Frenemies" chapter, which starts out with a note saying that when Washington became president, he was beloved and by the end of his terms, he was estranged from most of his original cabinet members and future presidents, with "before and after" quotes about him from said frenemies. Thomas Paine in particular had good reason to be vengeful. And during his second term, the House of Representatives refused in 1796 to wish him well for his birthday :P  I'm also amused at the letters Washington wrote to Jefferson and Hamilton trying to get them to settle down. Hamilton said he'd try to improve the situation, Jefferson quit after writing 3,000 words of rebuttal :P I'm amused at the remark about how Jefferson never realized why he always lost when he went up against Hamilton--Washington and Hamilton shared the same worldview and Hamilton was very good at articulating that. 

I've always felt kind of bad that George's stepson Jacky and stepgrandson Wash were basically rich flaky layabouts with no ambition, but I did enjoy the letter from Jacky thanking Washington for being such a good guardian and that few had experienced such attention and care from real parents as he has. Wash was even worse, always hitting up for money and wanting to quit school. 

Washington and his slaves were...kinda sleazy/hinky at times. On the one hand, we're told that he did request the wife of one of his slaves to be brought to him, even though  Washington clearly didn't like the wife. On the other hand, once he found out that the law in Philadelphia freed slaves after they lived there for six months, he'd ship his slaves in and out. Washington was always land rich and cash poor and while he didn't go around buying slaves, a good chunk of them were from his wife's first husband's estate and he'd have to pay for them if they escaped. I note that a favorite slave, Hercules, originally indicated he didn't ever plan to run, but changed his mind after he got screwed out of his chef's job. While Washington could have freed his own slaves individually, he'd have to pay for the support of anyone he freed, and he couldn't afford it. Attempts at selling the land didn't go well--either there were no takers, or he didn't like the few there were. Also, his slaves had intermarried with the Custis slaves, and the Custis slaves weren't getting freed by that family. Finally, he put it in his will that his slaves would get freed after Martha's death--which of course made her realize her own life was at stake. 

Anyway, this is a fun, shorter read, and I did enjoy the charts and snark on other biographers. If you're interested in Washington but can't do Chernow or any other "thigh men," pick this one up. I kind of feel like it gets a little slower/duller as time goes on, but that's probably how one would describe how his life went IRL as well there. Three and a half stars. 

Warren G. Harding

By John W. Dean.

Another American Presidents series book. This is pretty short, like the rest of the series, and doesn't really dwell on Harding's sex scandals, bummer. It does talk more about the scandals that erupted after his death, but mostly indicates that wasn't on him. I'm also quite impressed with his wife, Florence, and her fierceness.

What really stood out for me was that Florence's dad, Amos Kling, was (a) rather a dick, and (b) had a hate on for Harding, who was a newspaper publisher at the time. Amos was the richest man in town and acted accordingly. Harding attacked him in the paper, Amos reacted about as you'd expect on that. "Capulet-and-Montague love affair" was used, har har.

Florence wasn't born a boy but got treated like one anyway, and he dominated the heck out of her and she wanted the heck OUT of that. He'd lock her out after curfew, she'd sleep elsewhere...and finally got pregnant by the town's "youngest drunk." They "eloped" and left town but never married legally, apparently, and of course the baby daddy eventually flaked and bailed, as they do. Right before Christmas Eve, Florence had to cave in, beg for a free train ride home, and go back to Marion (the town)..by which I mean, she literally BROKE INTO AN EMPTY HOUSE to sleep that night, with the baby, because she knew darned well he wouldn't let her in even for Christmas. She went to live with a friend instead and got help from others instead. Eventually her father made her an offer to adopt the boy, which she let him do. 

Naturally, Daddy-o lost it when he found out who his daughter was dating next, and ALSO Daddy-o was a racist and there were rumors that Harding wasn't white. I guess this rumor came about because the family lived by some African-Americans?  Amos did call Harding the n-bomb word around town to pressure her into breaking up with him (since claiming he'd disinherit her didn't do the trick...doesn't say why, I assume Florence assumed she was disinherited anyway so why worry about it?). Harding threatened to beat Amos's ass for that one, but it never got that far. He also tried to screw Harding over in business. The couple of course eloped. Harding's quote on the whole thing was that he'd rather have his father-in-law's hatred because "as it is, he now lets me alone. If he were friendly, he would want to tell me how to run my business." We're also told that "no bond was stronger than their mutual dislike of Florence's father, and their determination to show him that they could succeed in spite of his wishes and efforts to the contrary."  I do note that eventually Amos caved in and started liking his son-in-law. Which is to say, he still called Harding an n-bomb, but a "smart" (n-bomb.). He even wrote Harding a letter of apology! 

Florence was also tough as nails, and she was called "the Boss" and "the Duchess," and Harding liked to spend a lot of time out of town. At one point Harding didn't win any delegates in Indiana while running for re-election and when Harding was about to quit running for president, Florence grabbed the phone and said they were in it until hell froze over. Florence also went to a professional psychic who told her that her husband would win, but would die in office as president. "Florence never told her husband of these predictions because he didn't believe in such nonsense." 

I did enjoy the hate-on that H.L. Mencken had for Harding, including his elaborate descriptions as to how bad his speeches were, "wet sponges," and "stale bean soup," and "balder and dash." And after his death, "What did he accomplish in life? He became President....He was, from first to last, an obscure man, even as President. No salient piece of legislation bears his name. He led no great national movement. He solved no great public problem. He said nothing arresting and memorable." 

He did have affairs with Carrie Phillips and later supposedly knocked up Nan Britton, who wrote a book about it that H.L. Mencken gave a rave review to :P However, this author notes that Nan Briton never did establish the paternity of her child and it sounds like she made up a lot of details and/or getting dish from Carrie Phillips's daughter. Oh yeah, and that Harding was sterile. Attempts to track down the supposed president's daughter to check her DNA apparently didn't happen because the lady disappeared after the 1960's. The author notes he was unable to find her and hopes the family will reach out to him, hah hah. 

Anyway, this was pretty entertaining on the personal dish, so three and a half stars from me. 

Harding golfed, but badly, and he didn't want that in the newspapers. When reporters asked how to deal with the situation if any news happened while he golfed, Harding said if he broke 100, they could report it. LOL.

While Wilson was racist, Harding hired more African-Americans to posts, or it sounds like he did as much as he was legally allowed to, anyway. 

I'm not sure I'm smart enough to understand all the scandals that went on under Harding's nose, but I did like his quote about his friends were the ones who kept him up walking the floor nights, not his enemies. A few months after his death, things started exploding. "The fact that Harding had done nothing wrong and had not been involved in any criminal activities became irrelevant....Harding's reputation became inseparable from the bad apples in his administration. Their disgrace became his disgrace. All that he had done well was attributed to others, from his wife to the able men with whom he had surrounded himself." I guess it didn't help that his wife burned his papers, so "writers felt free to write the Harding history as they wished, and they did." 

How To Be Fine: What We Learned From Living By The Rules Of 50 Self-Help Books

By Jolenta Greenberg and Kristen Meinzer.

The authors produce the "By The Book" podcast, in which they pick a self-help book and live by what it says in it for two weeks, then report back on what happened. 

I've noticed sometimes that when people get book deals for their podcasts or websites or whatever (I'm thinking Anna Sale/"Death, Sex and Money," which I read recently but didn't really think of enough to say about it, so I didn't write a review, or the "Ask A Manager" book), I'm happy for them, but the book that ends up being produced ends up kind of being a summary of their usual work. This book definitely falls into that category, with sections called "Things That Worked," "Things That Didn't Work," and "Things We Wish More Books Recommended."

I can sum most of it up: they recommend being kind, positive self-talk, gratitude, apologizing, getting off your phone, decluttering, spending less, trying new things, going outside...you get the drift. They think more books should plug not comparing yourself to others, making friends with your boy, see a therapist, go on meds, that sort of thing.

But the one reason why I'm actually writing this review instead of being all "Eh, I can't think of anything much to say here," is the middle section, because I really enjoyed the "things that didn't work" section. As a natural night owl, I haaaaaaaaaaaaate all those "morning pages, go work out at 5 a.m." people and the authors straight up felt tired and ill trying to follow early bird scheduling. And of course the entire world is designed around early birds being able to do everything they want at the time of the day that they feel the most great at. Kristen didn't enjoy meditating. Jolenta points out that we believe what we believe about ourselves because others tell us those things. "You didn't create these lies that rotate through your head denigrating you every day. These lies were presented as trash by the powers that be. You are not stupid for buying into them and perpetrating them." Kristen just got totally effed up by reading "French Women Don't Get Fat." And Jolenta has the rage that I do at "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus." So I really enjoyed that most of all.

In the end, what did they learn from all of these books? Direct quote from Kristen: "not much." Hee.

Something else I want to mention is that every chapter ends with some letter from some "anonymous" person with initials defending whatever it was that the authors weren't into, and then the authors write back their opinions. I presume these are just made up, but it just got weir after awhile. 

Anyway, I enjoy the podcast when I listen to it (off and on, depends on the book they're covering), but the book is just okay. Three stars. 

How To Walk Away

By Katherine Center.

We don't learn much about Margaret Jacobsen's previous life before it's utterly destroyed. Her boyfriend's taking piloting lessons and even though Margaret's afraid of flying, she caves in and goes up with him. He proposes in the air, and then crashes the plane. Chip walks away without so much as a Band-Aid, while Margaret will never walk again and has burns to deal with to boot. (I note there's a possible cameo from Cassie in this one as a rescuing firefighter.) Of course she loses her new job that she hasn't gotten to start yet. Of course her new condo has stairs. Of course Chip immediately descends into guilt and alcoholism after what he's done, though I give credit to Margaret for generally realizing that he's not around much and he's a mess when he is and this isn't likely to continue. And of course her mother becomes one of those people who looks up every miracle inspirational story and drums them into Margaret's head, while at the same time literally saying she can't look at Margaret now.

Sounds like a downer, isn't it? I confess I probably wouldn't have picked this up had this not been Katherine Center, who has really impressed me with her books so far. And this did not disappoint.

While in hospital rehab, Margaret is assigned the gruff, surly, Scottish Ian as her physical therapist. He's not obviously fun and encouraging like the other PT's, and he apparently has some SUPER bad blood with his supervisor. But as they get to know each other, well... Ian has Been Through Some Shit, and definitely made some mistakes with the boss, and you are pretty much like "well, no wonder he was surly." He and Margaret eventually hit it off, though the way they met certainly makes things uh, legally difficult.

There's also her sister Kitty, who fled the family and cut them off years ago but finally returns once she's told of Margaret's accident. Kitty had her secret reasons for running, but does her best to be there for Margaret even if she's got issues with their mother. That eventually comes out too.

This isn't just a romance--well, it's slow burn, I'll say--but a story about a lady getting her new life together. This doesn't go all super miracle--Ian's life gets more befucked and at one point he tells Margaret he's not interested when he clearly is, though you can certainly get why he does that. But Margaret does need to make a life for herself, even if she's certainly clear on her feelings as to who's the better man. It's inspirational while being realistic, and it's not syrupy or fake. 

I really only have one quibble about this book, which will go below the spoiler cut. I also do find it a bit odd that we don't know that much about Margaret's previous life--hobbies? what else did she get up to? I guess she was just...perfect by family standards. But I do appreciate that the book doesn't waste time on portraying her life before her old life gets destroyed, since that's going out the window anyway. She builds a new one. Heck, she even knits, which cracked me up as a yarnie. 

This is a very, very good book. Four stars. 

The Hawthorne Legacy

By Jennifer Lynn Barnes.

Previous book here.  I'm going to keep the public review of this vague, and then discuss details below the spoiler cut.

I liked this book a whole lot better than the last one, because it finally Gets Down To Business and actually works on explaining--WITH REASONABLE REASONS--why Avery was tapped to inherit the Hawthorne millions despite not genetically being a Hawthorne. (Which frankly was a whole lot better than what book one posits, i.e. Avery's birthdate and the anagram of her name. Come on.) I'll get into that stuff below the spoiler cut, but it's mostly actually a reasonable reason--or is for most of the book, anyway. There was a last minute swerve I DID NOT LIKE (sigh), but the book at least tries to justify it, I suppose. But I really enjoyed the mystery they had going on and unraveling the missing person case that's the heart of this book. We find out who's secretly related to who, including how Skye's idiosyncratic (also "duh") naming schemes for her children are pretty obvious as to their paternities, hah. And there's a past dramatic event that has kicked off everything, including the puzzles to solve. I liked how that worked. 

I did enjoy how most of the characters band together to work on solving the mystery, including helping Avery when she's unable to physically go to places.  I also like how Max at one point is actually liberated from her parents on her 18th birthday and happily joins in the case. There may be some vibe between her and Xander, as he'll make her some droids. That's very sweet. 

As for the romances: Avery vacillates between Jameson and Grayson in this book. I don't really get the "relationship" with her and Grayson, which seems to have some attraction, but Grayson mostly doesn't want to act on it and says he wants to stay friends, and frankly, he doesn't spend that much time with Avery for us to get to know him or care. Meanwhile, Jameson has personality out the wazoo and likes to hang out with Avery and nickname her and puzzle solve with her, and after awhile he is All In on this, and I was all "Jameson, I am down with you, please." I did like how Max suggested that Avery figure out which guy she wanted by imagining which one would come up to her if she was on a cliff alone. At first Avery is all "Actually, I imagine myself alone," but later, well... I'm good with it, I'll say that. 

What's not great: see below spoiler cut. I'm also rather stumped as to how Avery survives a near-death experience that involves a coma, but we don't even really find out what injuries she suffered and after she comes out of the coma, she's fine? Shouldn't that have been more injurious? Did she get burned? Unable to walk? Anything? It's also kind of unclear what happened regarding the rule that Avery can't spend more than 3 nights a month away from "home." Is there a loophole for the hospital? I'm unclear, but we're told the rule wasn't violated...somehow? 

I'm going to give it four stars overall because I think it's a vast improvement and fairly well satisfying compared to the last one, even if I'm a wee bit bothered by the one swerve. Good job! Now on to the spoiler discussion!

Heiress Apparently

By Diana Ma.

18-year-old* Gemma Huang has moved to LA to become an actress, and she's just got a prime role as a gender-bending lawyer in a modern rom-com remake of "M. Butterfly." There's two directors: a jerky guy, and an amazing Chinese woman, Eilene, who Gemma is a fan of. Eilene privately tells Gemma that the two of them need to work to take over the movie together, since god knows Jake, the other director, doesn't have good ideas about the movie. Which is to say that her guy character, Song, has bad hair, baggy suits and is terrible gay stereotyping. Blech! But Gemma's in her first big role ever--how much power does she have on this?

• I note that Gemma is playing a lawyer, which makes me wonder on the age here?

Added bonus on top of that job stuff, and suddenly going long-distance with her new boyfriend who seems nice but jealous of her career, is that Gemma's always had no other family but her parents growing up. Dad's an orphan and Mom won't say anything about her past, other than forbidding Gemma to ever go to China. Naturally, this new movie she booked is filming in Beijing, so she takes the job and doesn't tell them where she's going.  Why didn't her mother want her to go there? I'm reminded of the comments about why Vorlons wore encounter suits on Babylon 5: we would be recognized by EVERYONE. Likewise, Gemma finds out that she has a twin: she's the spitting image of famous rich Chinese socialite Alyssa Chua and everyone thinks she's her. (In fact, that's how she's landed the role..) Gemma gets mobbed by fans and paparazzi, surprise, and one guy, Eric Liu, mistakes her for Alyssa and soon gets into conversation with her. Eric's family and Alyssa's have been feuding for years, and Eric's concerned that his little sister Mimi is now friends with Alyssa. Gemma ends up meeting Alyssa and it turns out they're identical cousins from twin mothers.  Gemma's mother left/was disowned from the family years ago, and obviously she'd like to find out what the heck is going on. So in between working on the movie, Gemma teams up with Eric, on the frequent trail of Alyssa and Mimi.

I really liked this book. It reminds me a wee bit of Crazy Rich Asians, but much better written and with more depth. I enjoyed the unraveling of the family mysteries, especially regarding Gemma's mom. I enjoyed Gemma getting closer to Eric--who's legitimately nice as well as rich--and eventually Alyssa. I enjoyed the discussion of cultural differences, like how Gemma can't view the Internet outside China after a week of VMP use, Alyssa's Weibo fame, who's heard exactly what about the Cultural Revolution/Tiananmen Square Massacre and what's banned online to find out there. And I really liked how homosexuality is discussed and handled here--the book makes a point that even if the government isn't gay-friendly, in real life people are much cooler about it. This comes up both in Gemma's personal life and in the movie, as Jake doesn't like it when Gemma thinks that given the plot of the movie, it should have more of a bisexual vibe. And when we finally find out why Gemma's mom split from the family, it's like OMG! (And that will be a prequel book.) There's also a super cool family secret that I loved. 

It's a really heartwarming, touching story and I really liked this one. Four stars! About the only thing I find a wee bit bothersome is that we don't really get to find out how the entire movie goes so much, as I was curious about that. 

The Meaning of Mariah Carey

By Mariah Carey with Michaela Angela Davis.

It's Mariah's autobiography! And it's better than I thought it would be. I'm not sure how the whole ghostwriting/co-writing process works exactly, but Mariah definitely has a distinctive speaking/writing style in this that shines on through. 

Mostly the book covers Mariah's turbulent growing up years as a mixed-race child with an African-American strict dad and a white opera singer mom who was jealous of Mariah's talent, and siblings that...well, they're not great people. "You poor girl," I kept thinking. Definitely makes you realize that she LIVED "Make It Happen." The book covers a lot of her family drama, along with her first marriage to Tommy Mottola. It doesn't sound like it was ever a love match on her end, but she goes into pretty good detail as to how Tommy kept her pretty well imprisoned at home and restricting her career to what he thought it should be. When a 19-year-old (Da Brat) can note that this relationship isn't good... Anyway, they go to therapy and Mariah eventually gets the heck out of that and out of working with Sony, has a brief love affair with Derek Jeter, and mentions dating a few other dudes here and there.

The latter half of the book is a bit skimm-ish, as she kind of barely gets around to talking about her relationship/marriage with Nick Cannon and Dem Babies and mostly talks about the celebrities she's worked with. That seems a little...short...to me, but maybe she didn't want to go into whatever drama went on with the guy when she still has to share custody and whatnot, I dunno. 

Overall, I'm inclined to give it 3.5 stars. Like I said, a bit skimm-ish at the end knocks it off a bit for me, but otherwise it's pretty dang good. Go Mariah for surviving all the crap she's gone through. (Note: the "Even the Rich" podcast does an excellent job of discussing this book and the events in it, if you want to check that out.)