Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Problem Child

By Victoria Helen Stone.

Previous book here.

Every review I've read of this book says "It's not as good as the first one." I disagree. Sure, it's not a revenge tale--if anything it reminds me of whichever Dexter book it was where he realized his stepchildren also had Dark Passengers or whatever--but I still enjoyed it, thought it was fitting Jane, etc.

Anyway: a few years or so later, things are going well for Jane in her relationship and she's having a good time screwing with (but not screwing) a coworker who keeps trying to take her credit and whatnot. Then her boyfriend Luke is starting to want to move in together and maybe rethink the no-kids thing, and Jane freaks out. Around this time, she gets a phone call from one of her her deadbeat convict brother's babymommas, who appears to be the only one concerned that his 16-year-old daugther Kayla has been missing for like a month. Jane obviously wouldn't normally give any kind of a shit, except for a remark that Kayla is like Jane.

Another sociopath in the family? Sounds likely. Jane is intrigued enough to go to Oklahoma--which is as awful as you'd figure--and deal with her relatives again (ditto). It helps to get to run away from her relationship stuff too, and Jane certainly enjoys detective work. I'm still not clear on why wind turbines were A Thing in the mystery here, but there is a hilarious scene with a guy named Derrick--and how she manipulates him WITHOUT putting out--that is goddamned hilarious. Eventually Jane finds Kayla and while Kayla is certainly up to some bad shit, Jane thinks she has potential to make more of herself if she's mentored. And Jane is intrigued enough to want to give this a shot. 

It is implied at the end of the book that maybe this might be a bit tricksier than Jane originally thought, though. Is Kayla moldable, or will she be independent enough to cause serious trouble that Jane can't deal with? We shall see, assuming there's a book 3. I confess I'm with Jane on the "hm, this could be interesting, let's see how it goes" category. Finding a mini-me must be intriguing, right?

Anyway, I enjoyed reading Jane's voice again and hanging out with her, and look forward to her future exploits with a teenager in tow. Four stars. 

Jane Doe

By Victoria Helen Stone.

Jane (last name unknown, duh) thinks she is a sociopath, though maybe she's not as bad as she thinks. She had a traumatic, neglectful, abusive childhood in Oklahoma and learned to shut down most of her emotions, so she feels a lot more remote compared to most people. However, she had one best friend in the world, Meg, who she loved and cared about. Unfortunately, Meg got into an abusive relationship while Jane was living in Kuala Lumpur, so Jane was only so aware of what was going on beyond the constant breakups and getting back together. And then finally, Meg killed herself because of her "soulmate" abandoning her. 

Now Jane has taken two months leave from her job and returned to Minneapolis where they went to college and gotten herself a data entry job under a fake last name (unrevealed) at Meg's ex Steven's business. She's blonded up her hair and bought a bunch of cute girly flowery dresses and lacy bras to peek out from  under them. She's going to be catnip to Steven, he will pursue her, and then she's going to take him down. Maybe she'll kill him--at least, she certainly ponders it--but her overall plan is to figure out what he loves the most and take it away from him. Pretty straightforward plot there! You want a revenge fantasy, there you go.

Jane has studied people since she doesn't get them, and she can read Steven like a book in his shitty push-pull behavior. I think any woman who's ever been in an abusive relationship or suspects she is in one should read this, because this book makes it clear that that kind of shitty man behavior is a PLAYBOOK. Steven negs Jane about her weight--she's a size ten and perfectly fine with that, thank you very much, but he'll switch between "You're a good eater" and "Do you REALLY want that dessert?" behavior.

Steven has a very obvious "every woman in the world is a dirty whore" complex, which presumably comes from (a) being raised evangelical Christian by a pastor dad and (b) his mom having an affair and leaving when he was 15. I feel sorry for him on those two points, but by now he's a manipulative asshole whos' the sort that always wants to make a woman dependent on his approval, which he'll yank away semi-frequently for his own amusement. Happily, Jane gives absolutely no fucks about Steven's approval or feelings or whatever, so in her head she's being all, "Really, dude?!" while outwardly she's pretending to be distressed by him calling her a whore again. She "makes mistakes," she plays him like a fiddle. It's brilliant. Seriously, all women should read this to know what these fuckers are like. 

But Jane's not all bad. She adopts and is fond of her (also nameless) cat. And then she runs into Luke, a brief boyfriend she had in college who's very happy to see her again. While she's "dating" Steven, she also dates Luke, who is genuinely nice, comes from a somewhat similar shitty family background, and he enjoys just like, hanging out and reading. Luke thinks Jane is perhaps a bit autistic or something, but he finds her restful compared to his mama drama that he grew up with. It's adorable. 

There's only one thing I thought didn't go as well, which I'll discuss below the spoiler cut. But I did love how the takedown went on and what she did to do it, and the ending was as good as it could get, I think.

Four stars. I really enjoyed this and recommend it.

Here are some other reviews I enjoyed reading. I also agree with this SMTB review:

As I read this book I thought, what if Jane is not a sociopath, but rather an example of a what a woman can be when all the baggage that comes from being a woman is stripped away–the doubt, the irrational sense of familial duty, the self-criticism? She has such immense power in that way. What if all women were like that? What a terrifying world that would be for so many men.

I admit that's something that also appealed to me about The Rook: what if all the shitty baggage of being yourself/a woman was stripped away and you didn't feel it and weren't affected by it any more? 

Sex and Vanity

By Kevin Kwan.

(Disclaimer: I'm going to spoil the whole plot here. I just don't see the point in holding back in this one. Also, I'm writing this up on the day of the Harry/Meghan interview and the half-PoC stuff coming up here seems super relevant.) 

Lucie Tang Churchill is what she sounds like: a half Chinese Churchill from THOSE Churchills. Her mother Marian is a lovely person (and apparently a genius geneticist!), but since Lucie is the kid that takes after her in looks--her brother Freddie came out white-looking--she gets off and on weird racist shit like being called a "China doll" by her racist grandmother and gets asked if she feels more Chinese or more white. Lucie has been raised fairly well white and does her best to blend in and assimilate and whatnot.

At age 19, Lucie goes to a wedding on Capri with her older cousin Charlotte as chaperone. While there, they meet the SUPER generous--if a rather kooky dresser--Rosemary Zao and her extremely hot, serious teenage son George. We don't get a whole lot of personality development from George, probably because unlike everyone else in this world, he's not too into the title words (and indeed, calls them out in his biggest speech in the book). Lucie reacts on a weird soul level to meeting George, in an "I'm repulsed and yet super attracted to you" sort of way. He's not the sort that she wants, but somehow she's still fascinated. And when a guy has a heart attack and falls into Lucie's lap while she's at a cafe, she freaks the hell out and runs away because it reminds her of her father's death. George understands her pain, they have a few moments, and finally they start giving into their passion. George goes down on Lucie...and then some assholes fly a drone camera over them, capturing the moment. While the drone/video situation is thwarted, Charlotte chews Lucie out for what she got up to, think of the consequences, and well, the implications of a half-Chinese girl getting involved with a Chinese guy in their world....

Five years later, Lucie and George meet again in NYC, right after Lucie has gotten engaged (very public proposal-y) to Cecil Pike, a white rich social climber guy who's financially generous, into sexual role play (this was a bit eye-rolly!) and gets super triggered out by running into snobbery, like being around Lucie's relatives. He absolutely loses his shit for a few pages when he shows up at a club with a shirt without a collar, and he's frequently spectacularly rude to Lucie's mother and brother, both of who are perfectly nice to him. At one point Cecil absolutely slams the idea of asking a celebrity guest he knows to go to Marian's benefit, scoring the idea that the celebrity would EVER go to something as puny as Marian's event. Freddie uses "six degrees of separation" to invite the woman, who accepts enthusiastically. After this, Lucie is literally "Ew" at the idea of becoming "Mrs. Cecil Pike" (something that made me gag every time I read her bragging about it) and she peacefully and tactfully ends the engagement. 

Marian and Rosemary become fast friends, forcing Lucie to deal with George and their attraction rearing up. (And at one point, bizarrely, their oral sex/drone incident actually MAKES IT INTO SOMEOBODY'S MOVIE, THE FUCK?!) George pleads his case, it's very romantic, Lucie rejects him....and then forges a shitty-yet-kinda-amusing letter to the co-op board from her mother when Rosemary wants to get an apartment in their building. Rosemary, as it turns out, is very forgiving and understanding once she finds out that George has been coming on to Lucie against her will. 

This description I just wrote is a whooooole lot more interesting than the actual book. That's about why I got it--the plot sounded at least somewhat interesting, However, much as I know Kevin Kwan loves to snob about and make snobby comments that are amused at snobbery and whatnot, he could have used a bit less of this and a bit more love story. I feel like this is supposed to be a romance novel, more or less, but the romance needs more building. George and Lucie have inexplicable attraction, but they don't spend all that much time together to build upon it. There is LITERALLY no scene in which the two of them finally get together--the big climactic scene is Lucie talking to his mother, and then we cut to an island epilogue in which they're together, and that's it. The fuck? I felt like I was eating half-cooked baked goods.  Also, while Lucie is nice most of the time, she gets a bit shitty to George and especially his mother on that co-op letter, and I was all yeesh, girl. I liked Lucie dealing with the racism she got brought up with, when that happens, but it's not as much of a plot element as you'd think. 

I rather liked her mother and brother (I wouldn't mind if the brother was in the sequel, but alas, he got a girl offscreen at the end) and Rosemary and Charlotte aren't so bad, but there's just not all that much to this one. Two and a half stars. 

The Little Paris Bookshop

By Nina George.

I read this because my therapist told me to. It wasn't bad, just kind of in the "probably wouldn't have read on my own, not exactly for me, but sweet in its own way" category.

Jean Perdu runs a floating bookshop in Paris off his barge, which is pretty cool. He's a "literary apothecary," who has a knack for being able to recommend a book based off your mental state and what you need. This trait is why I checked out the book from the electronic library in the first place, but sadly, this isn't really going on any more past the beginning of the book (though the author does have a list of books she'd prescribe in the back at the end). I really would have liked to have seen more of that, and it is genuinely startling when Jean dis-recommends a book his neighbor wrote, telling Catherine, a lady who's just been dumped by her husband that this is NOT the book she needs to read right now. (The author, Max Jordan, is of course rather upset by this.) 

Jean, per his last name, has been mourning the loss of the love of his life for 20 years or so, refusing to even think her name, and he definitely hasn't read the letter she left behind, which he reasonably assumes was dumping him. The lady, Manon, was of a polyamorous inclination and loved both him and her husband, but I guess being open about loving two dudes wasn't okay in the 80's/90's. Anyway, Jean assumed she dumped him to go back to her husband. But upon finding himself attracted to another woman--the aforementioned Catherine--and her ending up briefly in possession of the letter, he opens it.

And it's the worst of news: Manon told him she was dying in the letter and wanted to see him. And it's twenty years too late. Jean snaps, releases his boat from its holdings, and takes off down the river to go see what remains of Manon. The aforementioned Max Jordan, having a writing crisis, hops on board as well, and they pick up a third guy later. On the slow train there, Jean looks for the author of his favorite book, who wrote under a pen name. Very eventually, he makes it to his love's husband's house and works out his mourning issues.

It's a slow feeling book to me. Everyone in it's sweet, but it isn't exactly about a book detective, or a romance exactly (there are romances ,but it's all pretty brief), mostly just Jean finally resolving his issues and moving on. Which I'm sure appeals to some folks. It's not bad, it's all very nice, but I think in the end I'm just not going to find it very memorable, and on December 31, 2021 (if I'm still alive then, one hopes) when I go to look at the list of books I read within the year, I'll be all "I don't remember reading that one?"

Three stars. 

Not Pounded By Anything While I Practice Responsible Social Distancing

By Chuck Tingle. 

WRITTEN BEFORE I START READING THIS:

I do not claim to understand the man/myth/legend/whatever that is Chuck Tingle. Is it real, is it not, is it all some odd act, I have no clue. I do appreciate that Chuck Tingle is on the side of the good guys in politics and obviously has a sense of humor about things like Hugo nomination. On the other hand, I do not have any kind of fascination with buttsex (I watched "Bend Over Boyfriend" and that's about all I felt like doing of that), and frankly, his spelling and grammar in like literally every interview/Twitter post of his I have ever seen pains me greatly to read, which also leads me in the "is this real?!?" direction. I've been told that someone ("son name of Jon") edits these things so they don't read like that, but I am still suspicious.

For those two reasons, I have so far avoided reading a Tingler.

However, given my general fascination with weird Internet shit, I did say to myself that if there was ever a free Tingler that doesn't involve buttsex, I'd read it. And guess what, there is one. So.... let's see how this goes. 

THOUGHTS I HAD WHILE READING THIS:

• As per rumor, this book is written in usual grammar and syntax and not making my eyes bleed, thank god. Otherwise this experiment would have been over in paragraph one.
• This book features a "trotting plague," which is about actual trotting and not having a case of diarrhea, thank god, which is what I kinda expected from seeing this word.
• Our narrator, Bill, decides to practice handwashing and responsible social distancing, canceling going to events and cafes, doing elbow bumping, and no longer gong to the "yearly hug party" his grandparents are throwing.
• I winced at "hug party" and got sad.
• Actually the writing style is very nice, kinda lyrical even. Is the same guy doing the interviews that does the writing of these things....?
• Direct quote: "Do I really need to avoid content with everyone? I was only gonna skip the spit contest and the hug party." 
• Bill oopses that he forgot he had a scheduled lunch date. WITH A DINOSAUR. Where does one find a dinosaur to date? Dare I ask?
• "I know we were going to pound each other tonight, but right now I can't be pounded. I'm socially distancing."
• "I just trotted a bit and now I think it's best for me to postpone the bone."
• Bill also had a date with Mario and Amber, the "bigfeet." Again, where are you finding these dates? I'm sure there has got to be SOME interesting website for that.
• Also, Bill was going to date AN ENTIRE UNICORN BASEBALL TEAM. Good god, I can't imagine the ass soreness from literally all of that pounding you....and I'm glad I am not gonna read about it, to be honest.
• Bill's dates are very polite about the whole thing. 
• Bill decides to date himself and make himself lasagna. 
• I shudder at the "finely aged chocolate milk from the eighties." Hope you don't die of that, Bill! 
• Now everyone's out of quarantine after a month or so (I go off to cry in the corner for a bit at this) and Bill and all his dates meet up together. Amber learned magic while in quarantine and Mario learned three new languages. 

The actual story is about eleven pages. The rest of the 21 pages is just all Chuck Tingle titles. I will restrain myself from typing them all out, but they are as ridiculous as you'd expect.

Things I have learned from his list of titles: he has categories.

• Dinosaurs
• Unicorns
• Bigfoot
• Living Object
• There are, in fact, lesbian tinglers.
• And also, a category of No Sex Tinglers. I mean, beyond this one. Go figure. 
• There's also trans and bisexual ones
• And guides to life
• And role playing games

MY OVERALL REACTION AFTER READING THIS.

It was better than I expected. Albeit I still wonder where one finds an entire unicorn baseball team to date, not to mention THAT OLD of chocolate milk. 

WHAT DO I RATE THIS?

I dunno, three stars? It's all right. Well written, polite, short, not terribly disturbing and I'm fine with that. 

WILL I EVER READ A TINGLER AGAIN?

I dunno, maybe one of the non-sex ones someday. 

Daisy Jones and the Six

By Taylor Jenkins Reid.

I haven't been able to read much since you-know-what happened. I decided to reread "Red, White and Royal Blue" after finishing it and it took me like three weeks because I couldn't get through more than about 3 pages at a time. I've at least improved on reading this book, which I think I got through in maybe a week?

This book is an oral history of "Daisy Jones and the Six," a band that was briefly super hot in the 1970's before splitting up. I've heard that this book is inspired by Fleetwood Mac's drama, and yeah, you can see that. In some respects, it feels unoriginal because of that. I can't say I'm terribly interested in drug addiction stories and cheating stories, which is to be expected by any band and especially one in the seventies. Really, there is only plot thing that didn't happen than genuinely surprised me--well, that and the ending note. See below the spoiler cut for commentary on that. 

I also don't really get why there's six people in the band, because really, the focus is only on about half of the characters in this group. I am fairly sure that there are guys named Rod and Warren in the band and one of them was gay, and that's all the personality I can think of for them. Pete was the one with Jenny the girlfriend. That's about as much character depth as those three got. Eddie gets slightly more depth as The Resentful One Who Hates Billy. But really, did this band need six? Nope, didn't really.

The main characters are:

(a) Daisy Jones, a gorgeous, independently minded, does what she wants, drug addicted songwriter who eventually gets recruited into the band after a duet she does with Billy hits the big time. Daisy and Billy do not get on, but she gets more attracted to him as they write songs together. However, he's married. 

(b) Billy Dunne, the band's "star" before Daisy, who hates/resents the fuck out of Daisy even though he's attracted to her. Billy is madly in love with his wife Camilla and goes through a drugging/cheating phase at the start of the book, which he improves on after that, and it's clear that watching Daisy get wasted 24-7 is also a factor for him. 

(c) Graham Dunne, Billy's little brother, always the eclipsed one. Graham is secretly in love with Karen, but it's not exactly mutual.

(d) Karen Sirko, an independent woman dealing with sexism who may care for Graham, but the last thing she wants to do is settle down and have a family like he would.

(e) Camila Dunne, Billy's "soulmate" wife who is also quietly strong-willed and is definitely going to Make It Work with Billy, regardless of whatever shit he goes through.

Naturally, there's relationship drama, addiction drama, songwriting drama (note that the book actually has the lyrics to all their hit songs in the back, good job!), and a lot of musings on the song chemistry of Daisy and Billy, in a "will they or won't they" sort of way. 

If I think a lot of the plot seems unoriginal, what did seem fresh to me was the female characters, who I really liked. Camila and Karen are women to respect. You feel for Daisy, being as fucked up as she was during most of the novel. Even Simone, her best friend who's in and out, is someone I respect. I really liked a lot of the lines out of the ladies in this one. 

The book seems to semi-argue that Billy and Camila may be soulmates, but so are he and Daisy, in a sense. I continue to think them as a pairing is a whoppingly bad idea--at least during the period of time in which they knew each other--but the author does write them as having stage chemistry (and offstage rivalry) well. Billy is such a Wife Guy, though. Again, I have some more thoughts about this that are going below the spoiler cut. 

Quote Corner:

• "Men often think they deserve a sticker for treating women like people." -Karen
• "A lot of my girlfriends were looking for guys that could afford a nice ring. But I wanted someone fascinating." -Camila
• "That's the glory of being a man. An ugly face isn't the end of you." -Karen
• "She said, "You got a record contract?" That's when I knew, right then. That Camila was my soul mate. She cared more about the record contract than anything else." -Billy
• "I felt like Jim was basically saying that nobody cared what I was singing about as long as they could get a good look at me." -Daisy
• "I wanted to write songs and get high." -Daisy
• There's a story about Camila offering to make everyone a big breakfast, then everyone else says they want burgers, then Camila says she'll make them burgers and sends Billy out for food, then says later that the burger meat didn't look so great, so she'll just make breakfast... "All of it tasted great and no one ever noticed what she had done except me. That's what I loved about her. She was no wallflower. You just had to be paying attention to see it." -Karen
• "I said one time, "Maybe while you're gone, you could tidy up or something." -Billy. "I said, "All right." And then I proceeded to not clean a single thing." -Camila
• "It didn't seem right to me that his weakest self got to decide how my life was going to turn out, what my family was going to look like. I got to decide that. And what I wanted was a life--a family, a beautiful marriage, a home--with him. With the man I knew he truly was. And I was going to get it, hell or high water." -Camila
• "Let me take this opportunity to be clear about one thing: I never slept with David Bowie. At least, I'm pretty sure I didn't." -Daisy
• "So I had this plan to sing my part like I wanted to believe him but maybe deep down inside I didn't. I thought that gave the song some layers." -Daisy
• "Billy was writing songs trying to tell himself he had got it all under control, that decades out he'll still have his sobriety and his wife and his family. And in about two minutes of singing, Daisy pulled the tablecloth from under the dishes." -Karen
• "I think Daisy was just very unexpected for Billy." -Graham
• "I did not understand what Billy had against me. I came in and I made the song just a little bit better. What was there to be upset about?" -Daisy
• "I wore what I wanted when I wanted. I did what I wanted with who I wanted. And if somebody didn't like it, screw 'em." -Daisy
• (On Daisy) "I suppose I probably should have hated her for it, but I didn't. I loved her for it. Because it meant she was less inclined to take the shit I'd been taking for years now. And with her around, I didn't have to take that shit either." -Karen
• "And it didn't matter how much of an asshole I thought Billy was. When you can sing like that with someone, there's a small part of you that feels connected to them. That sort of thing that gets under your skin and doesn't easily come out. Billy was like a splinter. That's exactly what he was like." -Daisy
• "I asked her if she was a natural blonde. Lesson learned. Not all women think that's funny." -Warren on getting well deservedly slapped by a stewardess.
• "How come you've never made a move on me?" "I don't take shots I know I'll miss." "I don't think you'll miss, Dunne." And then as soon as I said it, there was a dial tone." -Karen and Graham
• "But some people, they glow. Billy was like that. I mean, offstage, no. Offstage, he was sullen and sober and he barely had any sense of humor that I could see. At that point, I thought he was sort of a bore, to be honest with you. But onstage he looked like there was no place he'd rather be than standing right there with you."-Daisy
• "You know how sometimes people will describe other people and say they make you feel like you're the only one in the room? Billy and Daisy could both do that. But they somehow did it with each other. They each seemed like they thought the other one was the only person in the room. Like we were watching two people who didn't realize thousands of people were watching them." -Karen
• "In general, when you have drugs to spare and a nice cottage to do them in, you're probably not attracting people that care about you." -Daisy
• "It's not my responsibility to not turn them on. It's their responsibility to not be an asshole." -Daisy
• "I'm not singing an entire album about your wife, Billy." -Daisy
• "Every single one of those songs is about the pills in your pockets." -Billy
• "You can't keep writing apology songs to your wife and making the band play them." -Daisy
• 'I used to care when men called me difficult. I really did. Then I stopped. This way is better." -Daisy
• "I think I've rolled my eyes about five thousand more times in my life just on account of Billy Dunne." -Daisy
• "We have to be able to tell the truth to each other, to really be honest about ourselves. Otherwise, how can we ever write anything?" -Billy
• "There's just as much to hate about you as there is to like about you. And that's annoying." -Daisy (according to Billy)
• "It's like some of us are chasing after our nightmares the way other people chase dreams." "That's a song, right there." -Daisy and Billy
• "I was paying the price for the parts of himself that he didn't like." -Daisy
• "I don't change for anybody." -Daisy
• On Camila: "She was very good at knowing what everybody else should do and she had no problem telling you. It was really annoying. How right she always was. And she would tell you "I told you so." You'd do something she told you not to do and it wouldn't work out and you'd find yourself bristling around her, just waiting for that "I told you so" to come." -Karen
• "If you come to me and ask me for advice, and then you don't take my advice, and it blows up in your face exactly like I told you it would, what do you expect me to say?" -Camila
• "Oh, the tangled messes I've created in my life." -Daisy
• "I'm in love with a woman that I am starting to think doesn't love me and I'm not telling a single soul about it and you don't see me asking for intermediaries to save me from my own brand of crap, do you?" -Graham
• "What's gonna sell more copies? Billy Dunne used to be an alcoholic and now he's reformed? Or the two lead singers in this hip new band loathe each other? It was no contest. The world was filled with Billy Dunnes. So many men in this world missed their daughters' births or stepped out on their wives or whatever else he did. Sorry to say it but that's the world we live in. But not many people are so creatively in sync with someone they despise. That was fascinating." -Jonah Berg, journalist
• "If you went to a Daisy Jones and The Six show thinking they hated each other, you could find some damning evidence for that. And if you went thinking something was up with them, that the hatred maybe masked something else, you could find evidence for that, too." -Rod
• "When you find yourself high on the roof of a hotel with a husband who doesn't outright say that the two of you shouldn't jump off, you start to realize you have a lot of problems." -Daisy
• "Some people will never stop being themselves. And you think it drives you crazy but it is the very thing you will think about when they are gone. When you don't have them in your life any more." -Billy
• "We were two halves. We were the same. In that way that you're only the same with a few other people. In that way that you don't even feel like you have to say your own thoughts because you know the other person is already thinking them." -Billy
• "She was always the person I loved the most. She was always the person I would choose. It is Camila for me, always." -Billy
• "Don't count yourself out this early, Daisy. You're all sorts of things you don't even know yet." -Camila
• "I appeared to be the only person who didn't have his panties in a bunch about something." -Warren

Overall I give it about three and a half stars. It's surprisingly compelling and I got more into it as it went on, even if I think there's some weaknesses (too many Sixes) and I don't know what the hell I feel about Daisy and Billy's relationship. My best guess is that they have one of those fucked up twin flame relationships? It's interesting, albeit I didn't root for it because it all seemed so self-destructive. But I really like the women in this, and I do kind of wish they were all real so I could find more about what happened to these people. I recommend it. 

City of Girls

By Elizabeth Gilbert.

I really liked this one and it's well done, though it definitely has some pacing issues. 

The concept behind this book is that an elderly Vivian Morris has gotten a letter from someone named Angela that she seems vaguely acquainted with. Angela wants to know what Vivian's relationship with her father was. I will vaguely spoil that it does take 390+ pages  (Washington Post link) for Angela's father to become a main character in the story, which after awhile was making me think, "This is an interesting book, but why the hell are you going into your entire life story from age 19 on?" The answer eventually becomes clear as to why Vivian needed to explain exactly where she was coming from and how that influenced her relationship with Angela's father.

Chapter One starts out with, "In the summer of 1940, when I was nineteen years old and an idiot...." which is accurate, as Vivian has just flunked out of Vassar and gets sent to live with her Aunt Peg in NYC. Aunt Peg runs a run down theater called the Lily, which puts on cheap, fun, shallow entertainment. Vivian absolutely thrives in this crazy theater world and since she's a talented seamstress and designer, takes over doing all of the costumes. She makes friends with hot showgirl Celia Ray and the two become drinking and fucking buddies and roommates and have a blast every single night. Vivian loves to get laid and in general, isn't too ashamed about it, or her hard partying lifestyle. The girl is having fun. The entire theater world of 1940 sounds like an absolute blast, too. 

Things change at the theater when an awesome English actress named Edna Parker Watson and her husband Arthur lose their home and end up moving into the Lily. Edna is a quality person, and the Lily staff--and Peg's separated husband Billy Buell, who crosses the continent just to write a show for her--come together to do a much more upscale show than their usual, "City of Girls." Vivian falls in love/lust with the show's leading man, and becomes an adoring acolyte of Edna's, and all's right with the world...

Well, until one bad night, in which Vivian listens to the wrong people, has a scandalous one night stand, and barely misses getting smeared all over the tabloids. She loses her friends and boyfriend and ends up hightailing it home, hiding out and being a "good girl" and going through a loveless engagement. Eventually Peg comes to get Vivian some time later to recruit her to do costumes for entertainment for the soldiers, and Vivian happily goes back to NYC and slowly becomes herself again. 

Vivian, most of the time except for her bad moment, is unabashedly into sex, and one night stands, and mostly not having boyfriends and doesn't care a lick about getting married. She eventually makes an unconventional and fun life for herself, later running a bridal boutique with her best friend and when the best friend gets pregnant, raising the kid together. Vivian may have had an awesome time in the 1940's (mostly), but at her soul she's a 1960's rebel, making her own life as she likes it. And good for her, I say.

Then finally, we get to Angela's father, a fellow who doesn't get much screen time compared to the rest of the book, but when he's talking, he's memorable. Their first few meetings were awful, to say the least, but eventually they become loving friends and have an unconventional relationship that's hard to explain to Angela, but works for them in the end, more or less. It's all very touching and sweet.

About the only issue I have with it (other than feeling sorry for Angela's dad...which, well, you should, I haven't read so much about a messed up veteran since the Maisie Dobbs books) is that the pacing is odd. Vivian's 1940's partying is told in loving detail, but after a while the pacing gets faster and faster and skimming more and more as Vivian grows up, goes into a new line of work, and eventually gets around to Angela's father. So that's a little weird. 

But otherwise, it's a really good book and I recommend it. Four and a half stars. 

The Whistling Season

By Ivan Doig.

I've read this entire trilogy backwards. I read the last book in the series, then the middle one, and then I finally came across the first one. And I have to say that just like when I was reading all the Augusten Burroughs, I would not have read this book had I not read the latter two. Because man, this one was pretty dull and I only stuck with it because I knew that this author could be better. I felt like it was a cross between Sarah, *lain and Tall (though instead of "Will she sing, Papa? Will she sing?" it's "Will she cook?") and Cold Sassy Tree, in which a kid narrates stuff that's a bit too big for him. But we're told Paul is a young genius who is very insightful/seems to have a bit of dream/psychic insight going on. 

The book is told in flashback, as Paul Milliron, now a grown-ass superintendent of schools, reminisces about the one room schoolhouse he attended as a kid, and how his dad hired a housekeeper one year in 1909. When Paul is in the seventh grade, his mom has died and his father hires a housekeeper he sees an ad for. Despite the ad literally spelling out "Can't Cook" in it, Paul's dad Oliver hires the lady, Rose Llewellyn, from long distance anyway. Rose is a spic and span housekeeper and a nice lady, but it takes them 100 pages of waiting around and insisting that all women cook for them to realize that no, Rose actually has no clue about cooking and never learned and when she was married, ate out. I wanted to roll my eyes so fucking hard as they ignored that whole thing, and did snicker every time Rose evaded whenever someone tried to bring up the idea of her whipping up a meal.

Rose's brother Morrie Morgan comes along with her, also in need of employment, and one gets the impression that they are fancy people who have fallen upon hard times and needed a new life. And I couldn't help but smirk the one time Morrie reveals that he actually knows how to cook. I was all "why don't they hire him to do meals?" except I guess you didn't book a guy to do that in 1909. After the schoolteacher elopes, the overly educated, fancy pants, very entertaining Morrie gets the job of schoolteacher and really livens up the educational experience around the town of Marias Coulee. Which is needed because otherwise the plot is Oliver making do, whatever the little brothers are doing, and school. Paul doesn't like the other kid in his grade, and there's Eddie, the big ol' bruiser/bully of the eighth grade whose dad is an asshole and counts down the days until Eddie is legal to leave school. There's one interesting/touching scene in which Morrie sets up the entire schoolroom of boys to "dogpile" Eddie....but for what turns out to be good reasons. That was cool. I also really enjoyed Morrie's teaching about science and his fascination with Halley's Comet. 

Eventually....and I mean very eventually.... something interesting happens, in which the kids find/figure out some information about Rose's dead husband and then Paul dreams/deduces/finds out what else went on and has been going on, and he and Morrie have a little confrontation about it, and then the book ends. Whee. 

We never find out that much about Paul's adult life to find it interesting (I honestly couldn't care why he was musing this book out, other than he's sad about the deaths of one room schoolhouses), and we're told oh, btw, Oliver and Rose somehow fell in love while we weren't seeing it, and that before that Rose and Morrie were close. Rose is pleasant enough, but really, Morrie is the only interesting one in the book and I was just waiting around for him to come back onstage again and again. As a coming of age story for Paul, I wasn't all that interested except when Morrie was around. 

Two and a half stars. I'd feel more bad about saying that, but the author is dead, so who cares. 

Twenty-One Truths About Love

By Matthew Dicks.

This book is written entirely in lists made by one guy, Dan Mayrock. Which is an innovative format, but I wasn't sure if it was going to work in a novel or what. I really enjoyed the excerpts I read online, but went to an actual bookstore to flip through it and see if it worked for me. In the end, I decided pretty quickly that the list format really did work for me, but your mileage may vary. I for one definitely got enough sense of other characters (albeit filtered through Dan's brief but frequent points of view) and what was going on IRL for the book to work.

Because all the other reviewers are writing their reviews in lists...and really, can you resist? No....

1. Dan Mayrock is happily married to Jill, who he met while they were teaching and utterly adores. Jill is a billion times cooler than Dan can ever be. Dan is insecure as fuck and makes lists in lieu of journalling after a stint in therapy.
2. Jill is a widow and was happily married to Peter, who died. Dan is extremely intimidated by the remains of Peter in their lives, feels bad that he got Jill because Peter died, hates that the guy's birthday was Christmas Eve and he's left letters to Jill to be read every Valentine's Day, etc. Dan does not always behave so well about Peter. We don't know how Jill feels about that, but I bet it's a lulu every time there's an outburst.
3. Jill insists on having children, even though Dan doesn't actually want to because Dan has abandonment issues from his own dad running off. Dan has consented to have at least one kid even though he doesn't want to, and I don't consider it spoiling to say that Jill gets pregnant early on here.
4. A year or so ago, Dan quit his teaching job, which he was not enjoying, to run a bookstore. The bookstore is not doing well, but Dan cannot bring himself to tell Jill about the financial trouble they are in, especially since Peter would never have had that problem. Dan also isn't too close to too many other people (his mom and brother are difficult) to even talk to.
5. After taking up bingo and meeting one friend, Bill (who's crusty but cool), Dan gets the bright idea to rob a bingo parlor to solve his financial difficulties, an idea that looks better and better to him as things get worse and worse. Will he go through with it? Will he go to jail if he does? Will anything dawn on him to get him to realize this will only make things worse before it's too late?

Dan is a fun narrator even if you only read him in lists about errands, stuff he hates, stuff about Jill, notes on how to rob a bingo parlor, etc. He's judgmental of himself and others and brutally honest in his head (and apparently in public at times when he should not be), but he clearly adores Jill and will well, literally do anything for her even if it's not a good idea. Things are eventually worked out, I will say, so I was glad about that. One odd note though: much like "Ten Things I Hate About You," the end list is longer than advertised....? 

The snark is delightful to read. I read that the author came up with the idea while bored and making up lists during work meetings, which I have now started trying to do. There's a lot of quotes, which I of course now have a list of:

• Much like me once upon a time, Dan tried Cosmo sex tips. Much like me once upon a time, Jill was not impressed. "Total number of useful sex tips in Jill's opinion: 0."
• Quote from Jill: "The size of gummy worms compared to the size of gummy bears makes me question the whole gummy universe." 
• Dan hates his religious bigot employee Kimberly, but is too afraid of her to fire her. There's a list of "facts about Jesus that I told Kimberly to annoy her," followed by some of his laws of the universe: "Scripture is the basis of all religious belief. It is also the last thing in the world that will change a person's belief once that belief has been falsely cemented." and "There is an inverse correlation between a certainty of a person's religious belief and their actual knowledge of Scripture." 
• "I feel like I've told Jill about every cool thing that I've ever done but she has barely scratched the surface with me."
• "I was married to Jill for almost six months before she told me that she was once a fire spinner at Burning Man, which is cooler than anything I've ever done in my entire life but was an afterthought for her."
• "Jill is cooler than I will ever be, which once thrilled me but now makes me feel so fucking insecure." 
• "The luckiest people: People who were born wanting to be bankers, lawyers, actuaries, and surgeons." I TOTALLY AGREE WITH THIS.
• I love his 6 Rules of Drinking Stories, such as "If you have more than three excellent drinking stories from your entire life, you do not understand what constitutes an excellent drinking story." 
• "Walk around with a Diet Coke and half a dozen assholes will tell you how bad it is for you. Walk around with diet root beer and no one says a word." 
• The "thoughts on today's fucking baptism" list is also priceless, I'll just leave you with one line: "Asking your wife about a penis cake at any time is probably not a good idea." 
• "Life would be so much easier if I hadn't married Jill, but life would be so much harder if I hadn't married Jill." Awwwwwwwwww. 
• "Everyone complains about preservatives and food until the apocalypse, and then they'll all be on their knees thanking the food industry for canned cream corn and Twizzlers." (I watched The Last Man On Earth, true.)
• Advice from Dan's brother Jake: "Here's the thing: When you're a kid, you dream about your dream job because you can't see anything else. But then you find your dream girl, and the job isn't so important any more. Not even close. It's just the thing that lets you get back to your dream girl. Then you have a kid and forget it. You just want to get home to those two people."
• "When your baby is screaming in a restaurant, that is why they invented "outside the restaurant."
• "Why does Carly Rae Jepsen think it's crazy that a girl might give a guy her phone number after just meeting him? Isn't that how dating works?"
• "I don't want to be just another ordinary person in an ordinary life." I HEAR YA, SIR.
• "I used to want to be something for me, but now I want to be something for her even more."
• Quote from Jill: "I'm starting to feel the same way about meetings that you do. Then I remember we met in one of those fuckers, and all is forgiven. Mostly."
• "Let's start off with an icebreaker" are words no human being has ever wanted to hear."
• Quote from Bill: "Are you writing a book? Or the longest fucking grocery list in the history of the world?"
• From Bill's list on "What You Need To Understand About Your Wife:" "Her heart is big enough to keep loving her dead husband and love you, too," and "It's hard to love again. Don't forget that. She married you, so she must really fucking love you." 
• "The octopus is far more impressive than I will ever be. No matter what I do in this world, I'm a human being with thumbs and a giant brain and the collected knowledge of centuries of human existence in my pocket. Given my advantages, nothing I do will ever be as amazing as an octopus opening a childproof pill bottle." 
• "Read more. It allows you to borrow someone else's brain, and will make you more interesting at a dinner party." 
• "I was an average teacher. Maybe an average husband. A bad bookstore owner. A jealous brother. The worst son. Maybe this is a thing I can do well." 
• Dan on the name John: "When you care enough to slap the most ordinary name of all time on your child." I TOTALLY AGREE. 
• Dan as he sadly listens to "Code Monkey:" "Someday, somehow" are wishful thoughts that invariably lead to disaster." 

Anyway, this one worked for me and I really enjoyed reading it. Four stars. 

Build Your Own Christmas Movie Romance: Pick Your Plot, Meet Your Man, and Create the Holiday Love Story of a Lifetime

By Riane Konc.

I'm addicted to watching bad Hallmark Channel Christmas movies, so I'm the audience for this "choose your own adventure" version of one in book form. (Note: I don't think you should buy it in Kindle though, since those kinds of books skip around.)

Our heroine, Chrissy Kristen Christopher, is from Candy Cane Falls, a Christmas town where her family business is literally growing candy canes out of the ground. But ever since her dad died tragically of snakebite on Christmas and Chrissy was unable to save him, she's hated Christmas and is now All About The Business. Chrissy is into business in the same vague way that Carlos the Scientist is into science. Chrissy is a fairly nasty human with a matching boyfriend, Cole. But of course, she loses boyfriend and job at once, so she's forced to go home to Candy Cane Falls, alone, where she can find true love with the Uber driver, with her either high school nemesis or old flame Nick, or with Cole if/when he comes crawling back realizing the error of his ways. There's also a random Santa figure roaming around, and the sound of bells follows her too much. And there's amazing amounts of snark, as God intended.

This is a limited audience sort of thing. If you are into snarking on Hallmark, you'll be down with this. If you aren't, you will stare blankly at me like my friend did while I was reading this the other day. So, y'know, different strokes for different folks here. As a CYOA book, I like this because it's well designed into sections and most of them flow into each other or make it easy for you to go back and try out the alternate paths. The avalanche of future options in the last section is also a hoot. 

Quotes and Moments:

• There is a business book called "How to Business Your Way To The Top of Business."
• "The phone rang again. She picked it up, shouted, "Business!" and slammed it back down. She simply had too much business to do to deal with all of this."
• Chrissy grew up farming candy canes and she has NO IDEA how this works ("Chrissy never paid attention.").
• "When Chrissy first met Cole, she took one look at him and thought, "That man has a boat." And you know what? She was right." 
• In one version, Chrissy attempts to flip a table about her firing. It's nailed to the floor. 
• Cole's a romantic: "I will always love you slightly less than money."
• "I bet they won't even have a place that delivers foie gras sushi. I'll have to order it for.... pick up." She started wailing again." 
• The mayor is a moose.
• There is a store for royalty, just in case any arrive.
• There is a contest store if you need to win a contest and/or get your dad's respect.
• "Not once did Evan say, "You know, a couple of my buddies and I are actually thinking of starting a podcast. She literally had never met a man like him before."
• "She tried to trick herself into falling asleep by counting backwards from Nick, but that presented more troubles than it solved. And when she finally fell asleep later, do you know what she dreamed about? Her teeth falling out. But then later, also about Nick.....Really, the entire night just a dreamscape of Nick in a Christmas activity montage." 
• I will not quote all of the giant hilarious paragraph on page 66, but when I got to "and when I came back your father had died, and then we figured out that the reason we'd been having so much trouble with the WiFi was that the password had the number one in it, not an i, and then basically that was the weekend." I about died. Best part of this. 
• "..the...bells...thing...is...not...magic...there...are....just...a...lot...of...bells...in...this...town." Har!
• "Cole, like coal!" 

Overall, I don't know how much I'll remember this later, but it'll probably be a hoot when I read it again next year. I think I'll give it 3.5 stars.