Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

The Last Graduate

By Naomi Novik.

Previous book here.

It's senior year in the Scholomance, and how do I sum this up? Well, I'm going to go a bit beyond my usual "I try not to spoil beyond the first half of the book," but for reasons, because I have to discuss the themes of this. What happens is that El makes friends, and makes plans to get out for graduation, and then comes to the quite reasonable conclusion to her that she can get everyone out if they all band together. At first "everyone" is just her friends, then the senior class, and then literally the entire population of the school. And she figures out that the Scholomance itself hates that it's been doing such a poor job of protecting the students that it's supposed to be protecting, even the building itself wants to help.

HOW COOL IS THAT OF A PREMISE, EH? I love it so. It makes me want to post heart emojis. 

I continue to enjoy El's friends, and how they deal with her without being fazed by her natural cranky. I enjoy how El is shocked when she sees someone save someone else, or when she gets the idea to put together a group healing and people do it, and how when she's weirdly stuck in a room with freshmen for a semester, she basically adopts them against her own will. I enjoy that she gets an adorable smart mouse familiar that ends up being dubbed "Precious" even though El hates that sort of thing. It's all very sweet. As for Orion and the sorta-budding relationship between him and El, it does eventually, ah pick up more in an adorable way. I love the descriptions of their making out, I must say. I also like how El starts thinking of ideas as to what to do once she's out of the Scholomance, assuming she survives it and all. I won't get into that too much since clearly that'll be book three (if you look up the title of book 3, that's what she's going for), but that sounds really cool. 

If there's anything I sorta don't like, it's that the overall book execution can be hard for me to follow. Like there's constant spontaneous mal eruptions or whatever in between scheming and academics and it all feels a bit run-on and hard for me to follow at times. It's exhausting--but then again, so is El's life.

The book ends on a sudden event/cliffhanger, which I'll discuss below the spoiler cut. I will say that I have faith on this, though. Four stars. 

Quote Corner (all quotes El unless spelled out otherwise).

• "If you're wondering which of those two options I picked, then you must not know me, as pain and dismay were obviously my destination. I didn't even need to think about it."
• "It was one thing for the school to be out to get me, which I think all of us secretly feel is the case from the moment we arrive, and another for the school to be out to get only me, to the exclusion of literally everyone else....
• Aadhya to El: "I think that's like the third time you've asked to be ditched. You're like one of those puffer fish, the second anyone touches you a little wrong you go all bwoomp." I'm not gonna quote it all, but she also has a great rant about how Orion can't see or figure out people that aren't El and El thinks everyone should save total strangers, so they're perfect for one another.
• "They want someone who's going to cast death spells on their enemies. And if I gave them that, I wouldn't be me any more, so I might as well not go live in a bag of dicks."
• "Ah, the advantages of being a monstrous dark sorceress in embryonic form." 
• "Artifice is fundamentally about giving the universe a long and complicated story complete with attractive props in order to coax it to accommodate your wishes. I'm really more about shouting the universe into compliance with mine."
• "But I'd been overwhelmed by an instant eclat of idyllic vision: the two of us wandering the world together, welcomed everywhere by everyone, him cleaning out infestations and then watching my back while I put up Golden Stone enclaves with the power from the mals he took out." 
• "If you haven't eaten anything but tasteless slop in years and suddenly someone offers you a slice of chocolate cake, so what if you don't especially like chocolate cake, if you were interested in food at all, you'd at least think it over before you said no thanks." 
• "Mum always told me that you couldn't know what people would do in a crisis, but I'd thought she just meant you should forgive people for behaving like weasels under bad circumstances, not that a stale biscuit like Khamis might suddenly come over all heroic in a tight corner."
• Liesel: "It is not a complex problem to appear nice to people! You identify the most popular targets in each of your classes, learn what they value about themselves, and give them a minimum of three relevant compliments each week. So long as they think you are agreeable, others will follow their lead."

All About Me! My Remarkable Life in Show Business

By Mel Brooks.

I'm a fan, I'm in "The Producers" right now (I also got a copy of "How We Did It," but I don't feel like I can really review it when most of it is script and pics), so I got this. Anyway, Mel talks about his childhood and being the youngest of a bunch of boys and losing his dad at an early age, what he did during WWII, and how his career took off, before getting into each movie he's made and the quirks and actors in 'em. It's a fun, entertaining read, and you expect no less of him.

If there's anything not good/kinda off about this, it's that Mel is a bit weird about avoiding a few topics. He barely mentions that he had a first wife at all, who he had THREE kids with. I think the first three kids got like, two pages of mentions and then never come up again in the entire book? I'm not sure why that is. Admittedly, the book focuses more on his career once it takes off rather than his personal life, so that could be why. He focuses more on his second wife, Anne Bancroft (clearly that was a happy relationship) and mentions of his youngest son, Max. I sort of assume Max gets more mention since he did more film stuff and at this point is an author people have heard of, but I still felt bad for the other three kids, who I didn't even know existed before this. He also can't bear to talk much about Anne's death--well, yeah, I get that. 

I enjoyed the opening of the book, in which Mel is five and convinced that Frankenstein is going to come eat him. His mom points out very reasonably that it will take Frankenstein a long time to come to Brooklyn from Transylvania, and probably eat the people who live on the first floor. I like his mom. Sensible woman.

As a kid, Mel was planning on going to a specialized high school to learn how to become a mechanic and learn a trade. Then when his oldest brother Irving came home and found this out, he said, "This kid is special. He's different. He has something. He's really bright and we've got to give him a chance to go somewhere in life. He's not going to be an aviation mechanic. He's going to go to college," and then tore up the application. "I'll forever be grateful to Irving for seeing in me a future with great expectations." Awwww. Nobody ever thought I was special and was going to go somewhere and saw a future for me...of course, that's because I'm not and I go nowhere and there is no future for me. God bless that someone recognized that this guy had "it." Later he's all "I said, I am going into show business and nobody will stop me! And, strangely enough, nothing did." 

At age 14, he gets called in as a last minute replacement to play a lawyer in a play because he knows all the lines. After he accidentally drops a glass onstage, he confesses to being 14 and never having done this before. "The audience exploded in a huge roar of laughter. I felt great! I'd found my true profession. I wasn't an actor. I was a comedian." (And booted out of that show.) 

At the end of WWII, a friend of his marched him down to a schoolhouse cellar and provided food and drink. Why? Because the  friend reasonably deduced that people would go crazy and start shooting off their guns when the end of the war is announced, and all the bullets will be raining down..."And that's why we are going to spend the next twenty-four hours in the cellar, trading the joy of victory for the tired cliche of just staying alive." Smart man.

The inspiration for The Producers and specifically Max Bialystock was Mel's first boss, Benjamin Kutcher, who was clearly living in his office, always raised more money than he needed for the show, and that's where "you can make more with a flop than you can with a hit" originated. He also raised money from a lot of old lady backers "that he would flatter to pieces. I don't think that he ever went as far as Max Bialystock." 

During his time working with Sid Caesar writing sketch comedy, at one point Sid was accidentally dressed as a Roman soldier and walked into a business scene. "Sorry I'm late," Sid said, "but I just came from an all-night costume party. Let's get on with the business." GOOD JOB! However, he does say that Sid was sometimes crazy and once hung him outside a window for complaining it was too smoky indoors. And one time Sid took a sedative and passed out during dinner in public and everyone ended up pretending it was a skit or else it would end up in the papers. "I stood over Sid with a knife in my hand and said, "So, Inspector, this undoubtedly is the murder weapon,." Larry Gelbart responded, "Let us pray," and they all put their heads down on the table. This kind of improvisation went on for forty-five minutes, with Sid out cold." Sid woke up in time for the check, to finish ordering his meal. 

"One day we were walking up Fifty-seventh Street and coming down toward us were three nuns. They immediately knew I couldn't resist. Larry said, "Mel, leave it alone." Doc said, "Mel, whatever you were gonna do--don't do it." I answered "Not to worry, not to worry..." But I was lying. As the nuns approached, I shouted, "Get out of those costumes! The sketch is OUT!" 

If you've ever wondered on this topic: "I knew I was going to name the main character Max, because at that point I had named all of my main characters Max. The Producers had Max Bialystock. My father's name was Max, his grandfather's name was Max, and later I named my youngest son Max." 

Descriptions from The Producers:

Max: "Not only doth his cup runneth over but it spilleth all over the floor."

Leo: "Leo Bloom is a well-mannered, curly-haired, blue-eyed, forty-two-year-old walking anxiety attack. Leo Bloom and Pinocchio would probably have been very good friends. Both of them desperately want to become real live boys."

Mel's strategy for dealing with people objecting to things in his movies: lies, claims he'll take it out, then never does it. They never remember anyway, he says. "As far as movie executives are concerned, always agree with them, but never do a thing they say. When the good reviews, and more important for the front office, the money started rolling in, I never heard a bad word from the head of the studio again." He also advises you to hit up people for money in the bathroom, not in their office, where they feel like a king. 

On Hitler: "I wrote back to every single one and tried to explain to them that the way you bring down Hitler and his ideology is not by getting on a soapbox with him, but if you can reduce him to something laughable, you win. That's my job." 

"When you parody something, you move the truth sideways. With Blazing Saddles, we moved the truth out into the street. I told the writers:  "Write anything you want. We will never be heard from again. We will all be in jail for making this movie." Later he asks the head of production if it's too crazy to beat up an old lady in a Western bar fight. The answer: "Mell, if you're gonna step up to the bell--ring it!" 

When Mel got his hands and feet on the Walk of Fame, he had a sixth finger added on. He then wore it on Conan's show later that night and Conan went bananas when he saw. 

During Young Frankenstein, he told people to shove handkerchiefs in their mouths to stop laughing. "I turned around once in the middle of shooting a scene and saw a sea of white handkerchiefs in everybody's mouths. I thought, I've got a big hit here. This movie is going to be hilarious." 

Mel made friends with Hitchcock when making High Anxiety. When seeing it, Hitch only laughed at the bird poop scene, then walked out in silence...but did send Mel some fancy wine and his kindest regards and called it a "splendid entertainment." 

And finally, when he won the AFI award, he said he didn't want to have to come back the next year to praise the next winner, so he pre-emptively praised that person in a vague sort of way. Alas, Jane Fonda won the next year and begged him to show up...as did Steve Martin, after her. 

Anyway, this is a really enjoyable read. Four stars. 

The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre

By Robin Talley.

The Beaconville High School theater department is convinced that their theater is cursed. The original theater burned down, there was a bad production of MacBeth when the new one opened, and now there's a history and a thorough Google Doc of all the injuries/superstitions, what have you, that the cast and crew have dreamed up over the years to try to thwart the curse. You may be sensibly thinking, "theaters do tend to have people randomly get injured and costumes and props go awry and shit/entropy/chaos happens," and you'd be right, but would kinda also have to agree that well, after your theater's been on fire, people might be concerned.

Anyway: everyone thinks the theater is cursed, and the cast and/or crew develop new superstitions to thwart the curse, and that's A Thing here. (The running gag of all these documents cracks me up.) 

Melody McIntyre LOVES being a stage manager. While I admire stage managers, I admit I am kind of baffled as to how they enjoy being that level of stressed out all the time. Melody, however, makes it clear that she loves being the one in charge, fixing all the problems, enough that she wants it to be her lifelong career. But after her most recent girlfriend Rachel takes it upon herself to dump Melody IN THE MIDDLE OF A SHOW, THE FUCK, the rest of the crew politely asks that she...not...fall in love with anyone during the next show, for curse purposes. Melody doesn't exactly feel like she can argue the point.

I'm going to do a bit of a rant here: Rachel is such a jerk! I'm still not sure why she was soooooooooo pissed at Melody enough that she thought that the only way Melody would notice a breakup was to do it IN MID-SHOW, but that is so utterly unprofessional even for high school that I wanted to smack her. Like if I were an adult I would have FIRED HER ASS. I don't care if Melody slept with your sister and kicked your dog, YOU DON'T DUMP THE STAGE MANAGER IN MID-SHOW. WHEN SHE IS SUPPOSED TO BE PAYING ATTENTION TO THINGS. And yet, not that much happens to Rachel over this and Melody doesn't even seem that upset about it? Like it's cool and fine to work together? Anyway, that was such egregious behavior I raged on Melody's behalf. 

Melody has apparently gotten around, or at least has something like six exes around the school and they don't seem to have had horrible breakups. Even she admits maybe she should take a break from dating after the Rachel debacle. However, when the school's Broadway stare, Odile Rose, decides she wants to be in Les Mis this spring, all bets are off because Odile is VERY INTERESTED in Melody. And I'll say this: these two have SUPER CHEMISTRY in like, every single conversation they have. (Take note, Hallmark, this is how it's done.) You never saw an actor so into stage managing before :P Even though Melody said she'd hold off, she just can't resist...and soon enough, secret relationship is going on. And then, of course, another disaster happens, and people start figuring out what's going on, and is it really all Melody's fault?

Overall, I loved the heck out of this. This is GREAT FUN. It's a really cool concept for a book. And as an actor (the crew in this show kind of scorn actors and seem to assume it's vice versa) who does kind of wonder why anyone would want the stressful job of stage manager--like I look at some of ours at the theater I perform at and hoooo boy do some of them seem quite stressed--this book sells you on why Melody LOVES being in charge and being the person who can solve all the problems. That's really cool. Added bonus is that I was reading the book while in tech week for a show. Odile and Melody fall fast, but it works. The curse plot is great, and there's fun side bits about how one of Melody's friends goes from tech to acting, dealing with a pouty lead actor, etc. 

I did like how Melody focuses on Odile being genuinely happy when acting, vs. when she's faking being happy. People at school assume she's a snot because she's been out of school doing Broadway or film or whatever, but she's not as into film work as you'd think, and is secretly uncomfortable about the whole thing. Melody's crush is based on seeing how delighted Odile is to perform, and that's adorable. "For a split second, I almost understood the appeal of acting." 

Really, the only thing I don't love about this is Rachel, who's really pretty inexplicably shitty and I'm not sure I ever got why (I think it's because Melody pays more attention to show running than her?), and then nothing really happens there. Rachel continues to work there, there's no issues, she and Melody more or less stay neutral, and then when Rachel suspects about Melody and Odile, you assume something awful is going to happen, but...sorta yes and sorta now? Confusing. I guess I just wanted Rachel to either get a comeuppance or apologize for her shitty timing or something. 

I note that the author said in her note at the back that she ended up writing it in an alternate universe where plays went on in 2020, which of course she had no idea about when writing the book in 2018-2019. She also gasp isn't a theater person and hasn't been in a show, but did wed an actor/singer/stage manager

But overall, four and a half stars. Really good, fun book.

Quote Corner:

From the "A Brief History of BHS Theater Superstitions--Spring Musicals Edition" document:

• Little Shop Of Horrors: "DO NOT TOUCH THE PUPPET AFTER DARK WE REALLY THINK IT MIGHT TRY TO EAT YOU THIS IS NOT A JOKE."
• Once Upon A Mattress: "All male principals must chant in unison before each rehearsal: "I recognize the textual and subtextual misogyny in this musical and I promise to always strive to do better in my life than these jackass characters."

From "The Scottish Play: What Went Wrong" document:

• "During tech, a plastic dagger that was branded as "retractable" did not, in fact, retract. Fortunately, that actor only needed a few hours at urgent care, but the actor on the other end of the dagger will probably need therapy for life."

On a related note, Odile on her career: "I got into this because I like to sing, and now all of a sudden I'm in this movie about spies murdering each other. I have to take lessons on how to use a hunting knife. They haven't finished the script yet, but I think I have to stab someone." 

From "Les Mis Crises To Date" document:

• Julio: Somehow got hit in the face without ever actually getting hit in the face."