Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Lessons in Chemistry

By Bonnie Garmus.

It's the early 50's and Elizabeth Zott, a born scientific genius, is trying her hardest to get around sexism. Unfortunately, sexism keeps squashing her career. She got raped by her faculty advisor in college and that killed her ability to get a PhD. She's working for Hastings Research in SoCal as a lab tech, but really considers herself to be a chemist and she's passionate about her work. Too bad her boss hates her guts.

She ends up meeting her soulmate, fellow genius and Big Deal Guy Calvin Evans, at Hastings. They partner up and it's beautiful, both at work and living together, but she doesn't want to get married and have kids. Calvin is pretty liberated for his time and place and loves and accepts Elizabeth as she is, for the most part, on an impressive level. They do, however, get a (bomb sniffing!) dog named Six-Thirty.* Unfortunately, the new leash law leads to Calvin's freak death** while he's out running with the dog, and after that, Elizabeth finds out that her birth control failed.

* I frankly didn't comprehend the explanation for the name in this book, nor do I think anyone else would, and cannot explain it to you. I note the TV show version of this makes that make more sense.
** Virtually every review or description I've seen of this book tries to omit this and then just does "one two skip a few" to "oh, btw, Elizabeth has a daughter," but for fuck's sake, it's within the first hundred pages of the book, and I deduced that he died from the descriptions alone anyway. I'm just gonna say it.

Years later, Elizabeth's got a lab in her kitchen, a budding daughter named Madeline named after her feelings at the time of giving birth, a friendship with the neighbor/babysitter Harriet, and she's still struggling at trying to make a living. Out of the blue, a parent at her child's school offers her the world's most random job: hosting an afternoon cooking show on television. Elizabeth likes cooking and considers it chemistry, mind you, but ... this is a stretch, to say the least? She won't dress sexy, she won't make a cocktail, she literally gives away the set dressings and won't read the cue cards. She becomes friends with the guy who recruited her, Walter, but he's also losing his damn mind every day at how she won't behave or get along to go along.

And yet...the show works, because Elizabeth turns it into a science lesson every day. She is polite and respectful of her audience, even if they're "just housewives." She takes them seriously. She gives thoughtful consideration to the questions she's asked, such as about vegetarianism and how something has to give its life for you to survive.  It's really pretty beautiful. Possibly the most implausible thing to me is that such an uncooperative--their definition--person gets her own show for awhile, but this book makes it work. She believes her audience is capable and smart, is polite about even what she disagrees with them about, and her audience ends up feeling good.

Even though Calvin's dead, his legacy lives on. Madeline wants to find out more about him, and after meeting a disillusioned minister who used to be Calvin's pen pal, enlists his help in tracking down the awful boys' school that Calvin lived at. Meanwhile, we're told off and on that there was some man that took an interest in Calvin while he was at the school--Calvin presumed that was his biological father and carried a grudge. And likewise, there's some "Parker Foundation" mystery donor who's taken an interest in Elizabeth's work, which evil boss Doctor Donatti twists to his own advantage whenever possible.

I love how this book actually carefully plots everything that might have come off as a stretch to be coincidental. Calvin ends up in the same town as Reverend Wakely because the reverend, a surfer, plugged the excellent weather. Or how we find out Amanda was eating Madeline's lunch because her dad is an absent-minded food packer. Six-Thirty's previous life as a bomb-sniffer comes in handy when he suspects something's funny about a non-happy woman in the audience. I admit this is a wee bit of a stretch, but also I enjoyed it? And the continuing off and on storyline about whoever's privately taken an interest in Calvin and Elizabeth works out really great, and even has a twist to it I did not deduce ahead of time. The ending really made me feel a lot better and was heartwarming. I'll comment more about the ending in the spoiler space.

I also liked how a character who starts out disliking Elizabeth and working against her--Miss Frask--ends up having more in common with Elizabeth than she thinks, and how their relationship improves as the book goes on. That was great.

I note that nobody in the book has a sense of humor (well, Walter tries to make food puns, which falls totally flat with his target), except there's the occasional delightful moment, such as any time Elizabeth has to physically fend off a dude (the second time? I DIED, see spoiler space), and the time she mentions poisonous mushrooms on the show and people think she's cracking a joke but she is serious...I about died there too.

There's also the fact that the dog off and on third-person narrates, which is...odd but works, more or less. (We shall see how this goes on the television show, as the "dog episode" hasn't aired yet at the time of my writing this.)

I really enjoyed reading this and found it very heartening. I'm not a science person--I wish--and normally I might ding it a bit for lack of sense of humor, but it works with these people not to have that going on. (Looking forward to the rest of the TV show too, which seems both similar to this and different in its own ways.) Four stars.

 

Quotes:

• Elizabeth on the science of igniting pistachios: "I will credit my father for two things: he could conjure a spontaneous combustion whenever he needed a convenient sign from God. Boy, did we go through the pistachios."
• Elizabeth's first show day: "At the end of our thirty minutes together, we will have done something worth doing. We will have created something that will not go unnoticed. We will have made supper. And it will matter. Now, let's get started."
• Elizabeth: "I won't perpetuate the myth that women are incompetent. If they cancel me, so be it. I'll do something else."
• Elizabeth: "Today we're going to study three different types of chemical bonds: ionic, covalent, and hydrogen. Why learn about bonds? Because when you do you will grasp the very foundation of life. Plus, your cakes will rise." (Then this leads into a lecture on both science and bonds.)
• Elizabeth finally mentions the sponsored soup...and then says that if you feed enough of it to your loved ones, they will eventually die off and save you tons of time feeding them. "Luckily, there are much faster ways to kill off your loved ones, and mushrooms are an excellent place to start. If it were me, I'd opt for the Amanita phalloides...So if someone dies and there's an inquiry, you can easily play the dumb housewife and plead mistaken mushroom identity." Then she threatens Harriet's awful husband...I DIED.
• Harriet: "Sometimes I ask myself: How is this show so popular?"
• Anonymous audience member: "Sometimes I think that if a man were to spend a day being a woman in America, he wouldn't make it past noon."

Good Fortune

By C.K. Chau.

This is Pride and Prejudice, except with an all-Chinese cast, in NYC, and taking place in the 90's (I think, there's Delia's and Blockbuster references and no cell phones). I wish I had more to say about it, but for the most part I just didn't feel strongly about it? I wasn't particularly gripped or interested in the future of "the rec" (center) the Chan family is into, and I guess the Wongs-and-company (other rich people) are now involved in. Business talk is not so much my bag, baby. The author definitely has a distinct tone and point of view and gets the characters across (though Jane and Brandon could use some more on-screen time...in all honestly, probably a lot of people could use more on-screen time) and their attitudes. I did kind of roll my eyes at being told Lydia is a "smart girl" and then she goes on about wanting to get her GED and otherwise well....being Lydia who isn't smart, sigh. Elizabeth is distinct, at least, but overall I just didn't feel massively into the plot and was considering just not finishing this.

About the only things that stood out to me were some of Darcy's moments, particularly his love confession to Elizabeth--it got to me!--and his letter, and the end of the book. That got me through enough to finish reading it. Frankly, this could just be me being in some kind of reading funk, maybe I've read too many PnP adaptations...whatever. It was okay, and I just don't feel more strongly about it than that.

Three stars.

 

 

 

Carrie Soto Is Back

By Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Carrie Soto (mentioned previously here) was the top tennis player in the 80's and broke records. But now in the 90's, as Nicki Chan threatens to overtake her records, she decides to come back to competing at age 37, with her beloved dad Javier as coach again. 

That's essentially the plot, right there. Carrie's learning to adjust to a different body with age and slower speed, but her dad's excellent at spotting people's weaknesses and telling her how to strategize her play. I don't play tennis and even I found all of that interesting. Also, since Carrie can't get any ladies to practice with her, her one-night-stand Bowe Huntley is recruited to practice with her since he's on the comeback trail too. Even though they kind of argue that one of them blew off the other one and they don't seem to be clear on who was first to do so, they slowly come back together as a romantic couple and it's very sweet. I can't say I've found most of this author's books to be very romance-y, but I do like it here a lot. 

I'll say this for Carrie: she's openly arrogant in her speech when it comes to tennis--she's called "The Battle Axe" and a "bitch" in public and her agent has to drag her away at times before she really insults someone--but she's not a jerk otherwise. She seems like the sort who'd be nice to the waiter and while she doesn't have a whole lot of emotional intimates, they get her as she is and aren't overly bothered by her razzing. She's unapologetic as to who she is, isn't going to play meek and mild and "I hope I win" or "it's just luck" about it. Even though we all know women get shit for that, I like how she's just who she is and doesn't super care. I also liked her friendly rivalry with Nicki Chan, as both of them end up liking each other personally as well as respecting the hell out of each other. 

I really enjoyed this. Four stars. I'll make some comments below the spoiler cut.

Malibu Rising

By Taylor Jenkins Reid.

"Her husband had returned, his mistress had shown up, she might have a long-lost sister, and her brother was sleeping with her other brother's ex-girlfriend. She just wanted the night to be over." 

TJR's books appear to be in the same vague universe. This one features, minorly, one of the many ex-husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Mick Riva, but mostly the family he abandoned. Officially, this book takes place in one day in 1983, but the first half recaps the marriage of future famous singer Mick Riva and his first and fourth wife, June. Mick had two kids with June, knocked up another lady with a third kid around the same time and then that lady dumped her baby on June (June nicely adopted the kid and kicked out Mick), then they got back together after Evelyn, had a fourth kid, and then he dumped her again. June took up alcoholism, died, and left oldest daughter Nina to have to drop out of school and take care of all the kids after Mick never does step up. They all take up surfing and surfing appears to be some part of all of their careers. 

In the 80's, Nina's made money as a model, is now getting divorced from a tennis pro who started cheating on her with Carrie Soto*, and has enough money to still be living in a mansion. Every year she throws an infamous end-of-summer party. This is going to be The Biggest Blowout Ever...and the last of its kind, apparently.

• the next book I'm gonna read, I note Carrie comes off as a pretty mixed bag in this one, kind of a jerk and sometimes kind of one with integrity despite the situation?

The major family dramas going on:

• Nina's ex rolls back into her life at the party.
• Jay's found out he has a medical condition that might kill him and he'll have to give up his surfing career. Even though he's chasing a new girl, he's not over his ex Ashley.
• His brother Hudson, on the other hand, is now dating/in love with Ashley, and how on earth is he gonna break that news to Jay?
• Meanwhile, Kit's finding out the hard way that she's gay.
• Kit sent an invite to Mick to come to the party, and this is the year he's actually noticed it . And is nearby.
• Meanwhile, a potential fifth Riva kid shows up as well. Nina is sympathetic.

As for everyone else at the party, the rest of Hollywood is getting drunk/stoned/coked up/laid, swinging from chandeliers, and peeing on the Lichtenstein. Is anybody gonna die at this party? Will the house survive? LOLno. But it resolves well, for the Rivas at least, even if a whole lot of partygoers possibly find some brief love and/or jail time.

I enjoyed reading this, it was fun, four stars. 

The Diamond Eye

By Kate Quinn.

This is a fictionalized/slightly souped up retelling of the story of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a grad student turned extremely good professional sniper during World War II. About half of the book is her life story before and in the early year or two of the war between when she decided to train in sharpshooting and when she went into the military, and the other half (interspersed) is when she's sent on a publicity tour in America in 1942, where she famously and really became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt. I first heard of this on Drunk History and it's great. I love it so.

Anyway, Mila got seduced at barely age 15 by a skeezy doctor who knocked her up, abandoned her, but refused to actually go through with giving her a divorce. On her own, she raised her son wit her parents, went to grad school, wrote a comically long/apparently dull dissertation that she carried around on the battlefield while it got messier and messier (again, see below spoiler cut for remarks on this), and joined the military the afternoon that war broke out. She was an extremely good shooter and the author writes in great detail as to how it's done and what her experiences were. Mila also fell in love with a total sweetheart, Lyonya, but, y'know, warfare....

Later, Mila gets sent on tour along with her estranged husband, who's happy to sponge off her fame (I note I find it funny how she refers to Lyonya as her "husband" and yet it doesn't sound like people in fiction cottoned on to what was going on with someone with the same last name being on tour?), and Kostia, her shooting partner who was also besties with Lyonya. The two of them are already close and get closer, in a very sweet way. And the friendship with Mila and Eleanor is delightful. It starts off a bit rocky, but Eleanor is the kind of woman who will legit drop everything to sew you some clothing alternations and talk to you about how to advance your cause, and it's so sweet! Love it!

"Hello, dear," Eleanor said tranquilly, as if she hemmed pajamas for foreign-born killers every day before dinner." 

"This is one of those scenes," the President mused, rubbing his jaw with that sinewy hand, "that just defies description." 

I will address some of the fictionalized bits below the spoiler cut. I was disappointed to read they weren't real, but I think the author did an excellent job of adding the plot elements that she did and filling in the holes in Mila's autobiography.

Four stars, loved this, go read it. 

Some Of It Was Real

By Nan Fischer.

Sylvie Young is a psychic medium (more or less, that's about the title that sums it up) on the brink of TV stardom, when she's confronted by Thomas Holmes, a reporter looking to expose "grief vampires" like herself. Thomas lost his father and brother at an early age and his mother has been chasing psychics ever since, so he's got A Personal Grudge against this shit. He's already investigated some frauds, but he can't find anything on Sylvie's childhood before her adoption, and he smells a rat. Sylvie's already heading to their mutual home state of Oregon for a gig, and Thomas insists on tagging along, confiscating her electronics so she can't look anyone up, and investigating her past. Sylvie agrees to this.

It's pretty clear from Sylvie's POV that her powers are odd and legitimate--even if yes, her agent is providing her with information found online (hence the title: she knows some things the usual way, but also, "some of it is real."). She can't explain how she knows how she knows or gets the messages that she gets, but the more time Thomas spends with her, the more you gotta believe. Sylvie's past has been VERY hidden from her for some good, dark reasons, and eventually finding out the truth helps explain a lot. Sylvie and Thomas also become closer, despite the weirdnesses, and overall, the novel works very well and is very sweet and eerie and heartbreaking and heart-healing, all at once. 

Four stars. 

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

By Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Monique Grant is a biracial magazine writer who, out of nowhere, is selected to write a magazine profile of famous actress Evelyn Hugo. I note that Monique is not a Big Name by any means in the writer world--her most notable article is on end of life care--and her employer suggested other big names. But Evelyn herself insisted it was Monique or no one. Do they know each other? No. Did her dad (who worked in film long ago before his death) know her? Nobody knows. Is Monique adopted and secretly a relative of Evelyn's? Well, she's not adopted, anyway. Though frankly, if I were Monique, that would have been the FIRST thing I asked, are we secretly related that I don't know about....

Anyway, Evelyn is obviously an Elizabeth Taylor analogue in some respects with the number of husbands, though this takes a turn beyond that. Evelyn says she's selected Monique to be her biographer and after she's dead--which she implies is soon but won't give a date--Monique can sell the book and make a few millions or whatever. Why she's making Monique this offer--well, she won't say until the end, of course, so you can sit there and wonder if they're related for a few hundred pages. (See spoiler cut for my commentary on that one.)

Most of the book is Evelyn telling her life story, which in general she's not ashamed of, even though there's a few choices she regrets. Mostly she's just very driven, very practical, and very expedient. Most of her marriages were for practical, expedient, and/or business-related reasons, with a few for love--of very varying kinds of love. What this book really could be called is "The Seven Husbands (And One Off-And-On Secret Girlfriend) of Evelyn Hugo," because Evelyn's greatest romantic love was her Little Women costar Celia St. James. Evelyn's bi, Celia's a lesbian, and Celia has off-and-on issues with Evelyn's bisexuality and willingness to boink a dude (or in one movie, fake boink a dude) and will break up with her over it for years before getting back together again.

The book is divided per husband: husband #1 she married when she was 15 and trying to get out of Hell's Kitchen and into Hollywood. #2 was a Hollywood actor and one of the few she loved, until he started beating her. #'s 3 and 4 and 5 were more or less beard marriages/business arrangements, with the latter two husbands being much more aware of it than dumb schmuck #3. Her fifth husband and sole babydaddy was Harry Cameron, her best gay guy friend, and he and she and Celia and Celia's beard husband settle down into an adorable foursome for awhile. #6 was after the foursome breaks up and he proclaims his love for her and she's ready to be loved again--then it turns out he just loves being with "Evelyn Hugo," and #7 is Celia's brother--another business/beard arrangement. She and Celia--her one "wife" unofficially at that point--are off and on romantically, depending on how Celia deals with Evelyn being with dudes off and on to stay in the closet/keep her career. They both debate at various times coming out and ruining their careers, but end up staying in. So really, a story about seven husbands is really about gay lovin'. And I enjoyed it. I get why Evelyn made the choices she did and why overall she doesn't regret them, except for the times where Celia took offense. The love for Celia and Harry in particular is palpable with her.

Monique isn't in the book much (note to the publisher: would have appreciated some different typeface or something so we visually had a distinguisher between Monique's narration and Evelyn's) so we don't get to know her much. She's close with her mother, misses her dad, and is breaking up quietly with a husband, but doesn't really get to stand out in this story a whole lot. Definitely not a two-hander. Maybe that's not the point, though.

In the end, this resolves well and mostly about how you might figure (okay, I concur that why Evelyn chose Monique is not typical--see spoiler space), and Monique comes to terms with her brief acquaintance with a memorable figure. Four stars, I read this compulsively for a few days WHILE ALSO VERY BUSY, so that tells you something. 

The Personal Librarian

By Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.

I'm visiting my mother this weekend and she insisted I read this book (and then bring it back ASAP). It's historical fiction based off the real life of Belle da Costa Greene, the personal librarian/art dealer (pretty much) of J.P. Morgan. Belle sounds like a smart, charming, flirtatious, strategic lady who was extremely good at her job and procuring artwork, and she also (fictionally, at least?) did very well at dealing with a mercurial boss.

Oh yeah, and she was a colored woman who was passing as white the entire time. Her father was a famous Harvard graduate/law dean/political advocate guy who was dedicated to fighting for equality. However, her mother's heart was broken with the overturning of the Civil Rights Act, and she concluded after that that the only way to be safe was to pass as white. Her parents broke up over this and he moved to Russia and knocked up a Japanese lady. (He...went to Russia to find a Japanese lady?!) The rest of the family all passed as white and Belle changed her middle and first names to claim a Portuguese grandmother to explain why she wasn't quite as pale as most of the rest of the family. 

Obviously neither me nor the authors know the full extent of her relationships for real, but they do a sizzling job imagining that Belle and her boss had a very close relationship, but it never went very far romantically because Morgan wanted to keep her around instead of having yet another mistress breakup. And while Belle has the occasional fling here and there, she has an off-and-on relationship with Bernard Berenson, an art expert who also hides his own background and is in a happily open relationship. Bernard is...complicated and hard to root for after awhile, but Belle resolves things on her own regarding that one. She also juggles the urge to not have to disown her colored relatives/be open to someone about her secret periodically, while living in fear every time Morgan gets ticky about something that he's figured it out. She also has a frosty relationship with Morgan's daughter Anne, a closeted lesbian who figures out that Belle is colored and always seems cranky about her. Belle points out when Anne or her girlfriends(!) (score, girl, you had two girlfriends!) get nosey at her that she isn't getting nosey about them, and it sounds like they kinda respect her for that. 

Anyway: people in this book are very memorable and filled in very well, and it feels historically accurate while giving us the feels of what it was like to be there. I highly recommend it. Four and a half stars. 

The Book of Magic

By Alice Hoffman.

I read Practical Magic so many years ago I don't think I could even find the original review, if I ever wrote one. Ditto the movie. I know the author has been writing prequels to the book and I haven't particularly felt like reading more about the Owens Love Curse during a period of time where you know it's going to be sad. But this book takes place after Practical Magic, so then I was interested.

Since then, Sally's lost another husband to death (bummed me out) and is closed off to love again. Gillian is still with her dude, but hiding that they're married to duck the curse. Antonia, a lesbian, is having a baby with her best gay guy friend, and Kylie's still secretly in love with her best guy friend Gideon. Unfortunately, Sally being all anti-magic about things has led to Sally NOT warning the girls that the family is cursed about love, and poor Kylie finds this out when her boyfriend is hit by a car and is in a coma.

Aunt Jet dies at the beginning of this book, but has about a week of warning before she does so, so she ties up loose ends and digs up a magical book that could help someone get rid of the curse. She left it for her sister Franny, but Kylie finds it and flies off to England, where the curse began. Unfortunately, the magical ally she finds there is Tom, whose line is also cursed and he's looking to do bad things. So most of the rest of the family, including Grandpa Vincent (gay, faked his own death to be with his true love), also fly to England, where they meet some new magical allies. Antonia is stuck at home, but falls in insta-love with the lawyer handling Jet's will. Most notable in this is Sally falling in instalove with Ian, an ex-con turned professor who investigates the dark side of magic. Honestly, I don't know if I lurve that particular relationship or not, but that's the one that gets the most development here. Antonia and Vincent also find true love again, but it's not covered much. Anyway, somebody needs to sacrifice, guess who, and it's time to end this whole thing.

Overall this was a pleasant enough book. I wasn't madly in love but was entertained enough. I think I felt the romances were all pretty shsallowly established. Kylie and Gideon only get a few pages, but it seemed like the healthiest relationship of the bunch. I wasn't too into Ian as a love interest--like, I get that he's not super evil at heart, but he's dubious enough that I was all "I really don't know about this dude as a match for Sally." But it has a happy ending, so I'm good with that. Three and a half stars. 

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.