Book Review: Fates and Furies

Don't worry about spoilers. I don't care enough to include any.

Fates and Furies - Lauren Groff

Plot: The book is split into two parts, Fates and Furies. Fates follows Lancelot (ugh) Satterwhite from birth to death, with the largest chunk of the story taking place over the course of his 30-ish-year marriage to Mathilde. Furies does the same thing with Mathilde, though much less linearly.

Thoughts: First, a little story. For some reason I feel like I've written this anecdote on the blog before, but I can't find it so here it is (possibly) again. When I was in high school, I took a class called Peace Studies. One of the things that Mr. Vennell, our teacher, stressed was that when we didn't like something (like a book or a movie), we should say "I didn't like it" or "I didn't think it was good" - but not "That movie is bad." I've always really appreciated that rule because it's true that opinions vary and art can be good and can be enjoyed by other people without me liking it. 

That being said -  this book is bad. So, so, so bad. But it's critically-acclaimed, it was Amazon's 2015 Book of the Year, and it was President Obama's favorite book of the year - AND I DON'T KNOW WHY. 

The smug pretension of the writing kills me. KILLS ME. Her main characters are called Lancelot and Mathilde. Please. And we can't just call Lancelot's mother Mom or Ma or even Mother - it's Muvva. WHY?!? There are all kinds of little bracketed asides [you know, cause just writing a normal sentence is too plebeian]. 

It's almost physically painful to read the dialogue because it's so stilted and unrealistic. It's kind of like if robots performed scenes out of Dawson's Creek. And then there are the plays. Lancelot becomes an insufferable, famous playwright and we're subjected to portions of his works. 

My grade: F-

Who would I recommend it to: A prisoner who is stuck in solitary confinement and, in the very truest sense of the phrase, has absolutely nothing else to do with their time. It would help if the person is in prison for a really terrible, violent crime so that I don't feel bad that they have to suffer through this book. 

P.S. If you want to read a funny, much more insightful and detailed review of this terrible book, check out this one on Goodreads. Here's a preview: "To the contrary, Fates and Furies is the antithesis of a literary masterpiece. The only expectation it defies is that of one expecting to read good literature. It is dazzling only in its level of insipid ludicrousness." Bahahaha!

Book Review: Career of Evil

Note: This thing is filled with spoilers. Proceed with caution.

Career of Evil - Robert Galbraith (Cormoran Strike #3)

For background on the Cormoran Strike novels and my thoughts on the first and second books in the series, check out this post and this post.

Plot: A severed leg is sent through the "post" (I just love British words for things) to Robin at the office she shares with Strike. It is a woman's right leg, severed at the exact same location that Strike's is and there is a note in the box containing Blue Oyster Cult song lyrics. The lyrics are meaningful to Strike because his mother had them tattooed on her abdomen. Based on the brutality and sheer lunacy of someone cutting off a person's leg and sending it through the mail, coupled with their knowledge of the tattoo, Strike narrows the suspects down to three people from his past: his stepfather and two men he arrested while a member of the British military police. 

Thoughts: This book is much grittier than the previous two and does not start out slowly like they did. It opens with the stalker/killer following Robin through the streets of London and thinking hateful thoughts about Strike. So, yeah, that's another thing -- while the narrative is third-person like the other books, this one has chapters sprinkled in where the narrative focuses on the thoughts of the killer. I don't love this for two reasons: I don't always like POV changes because they can be really jarring but, more importantly, his chapters are so dark and creepy. Kind of makes me wonder what other disturbing things are rattling around in old JKR's head.

Ok, that sounded negative, but overall I was enthralled by this book. It was extremely engaging and the mystery was set up such that I kept changing my mind as to which of the three guys was going to turn out to be the killer. I also considered strongly that it would be none of them, but some other person that we hadn't heard much about. 

As with The Silkworm, I "read" this book via audiobook and cannot recommend that route enough. Robert Glenister is just a really talented narrator. 

Favorite part(s):

1.The mystery! I changed my mind about 100 times when it came to choosing who did it. [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER -- TURN BACK NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE KILLER!] I knew pretty strongly that Kelsey's sister was "It," but I also thought Strike would have recognized Ray as DL when they met face to face.

2. I really, really liked getting to know Robin more and learning about her back story. I was underwhelmed when she [SPOILER] decided to go back to Matthew, but I guess that leaves more dramatic plot options for the future. 

3. Strike and Robin's travels through England and Scotland were cool. I spent a lot of time looking places up on Google Earth as I read. I also loved all the different accents. Those Barrow-in-Furness accents were not easy to understand. Of course my man RG nailed them. 

4. Shanker's involvement in everything. He's not a good guy, but he helps both Robin and Strike to do-the-right-thing, as it were (of course he's got to be paid but -- baby steps). I also love how blindly loyal and protective he is. 

5. [SPOILER] Strike rushing to the wedding and then crashing around and making a scene cause he's a big bull in a china shop. 

Least favorite part(s):

1. [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER -- TURN BACK NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE KILLER!] Maybe it's just because I've never experienced something like this, but I have a hard time understanding how Strike didn't recognize Ray as DL when they met face to face.

2. In the first scene when the killer is following Robin, he is thinking about Strike and calls him "Cormoran" in his head. But the original label on the leg box was addressed to "Cameron." Obviously, the killer knows his real name, so why the incorrect name on the address?

3. As usual, Matthew is a bottom-feeding asshole and I hate him. When he erased Strike's message...

4. Just the generally disturbing plot elements. So much violence or the allusion to it, especially sexual violence and child abuse. That is always hard to read. I think the great storytelling makes it worth it, but it's still tough. 

5. What's up with Strike being such a weirdo misogynist? Robin's not an anomaly for being hard-working, nice, cool, and sane, but he acts like shes the only woman he's ever met who is. He's particularly hard on his sister. I hope JKR gets more into the background of his misogyny in future books. 

My grade: A

Who would I recommend it to: Mystery-lovers who can get over the creepy inner monologue of a serial killer. 

Book Review: The Silkworm

Note: This thing is filled with spoilers. Proceed with caution.

The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith (Cormoran Strike #2)

For background on the Cormoran Strike novels and my thoughts on the first book in the series, check out this post. 

Plot: Cormoran Strike is approached by Leonora Quine to find her husband, Owen, who has been missing for 10 days. Owen Quine is a struggling author, prone to disappearing to fancy hotels for periods of time while his wife and special needs daughter are left at home, wondering where he is. In his attempts to track down Quine, Strike stumbles upon the writer's dismembered body in a gruesome, ritualistic murder scene. Leonora is the Met's main suspect, and Strike sets out to prove her innocence.

Thoughts: Like The Cuckoo's Calling, this book starts out slowly. It took me awhile to get into it. The story is really intricate, something I think JKR excels at executing. The mystery was a bit anti-climactic. You knew there were only a finite number of suspects and it turned out to be one of the main options,so there just wasn't much of a surprise. I have to pat myself on the back here though because [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER -- TURN BACK NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE KILLER!] Elizabeth Tassel's cough always seemed to me to be a very likely side-affect of having breathed in strong acid, which she did when she was destroying evidence.

The book within the book (Bombyx Mori) was a gross, but imaginative. I was a little confused by it at first, but I listened to most of the story a second time and it made more sense once I saw how the pieces came together in the end.

Speaking of listening: I "read" this book via Audible. Wow, this series is definitely one you should listen to (as opposed to reading regularly, which is how I did The Cuckoo's Calling). The guy who narrates them is called Robert Glenister and he is great. I love how he does Cormoran, but he even manages to do women's voices really well (so many male narrators butcher women's voices). I actually scrolled through Audible just looking for other books he's read to see if there was something that peaked my interest, cause I could listen to him all day.

Favorite part(s):

1. Robin turning out to be a kick-ass driver. I really like Robin and I want all the success for her.

2. Nina. I don't know if she was intended to really be a positive character, but I just loved her and thought she was really cool. Maybe she'll come back in a future book, though she didn't seem too thrilled with Cormoran (rightly so) at the end.

3. Cormoran getting some quality time with his brother Al, and seeing how jealous Al was that Cormoran is successful with almost no help from their wealthy father. Logically, Cormoran should be the one jealous of Al and the luxury in which he he grew up, but I love that the tables were turned.

Least favorite part(s):

1. [SPOILER] The fact that Tasssel fed Quine's intestines to her dog. Just writing that out (and then reading back through the chapter near the beginning when Strike goes to her office and the dog has thrown up everywhere) makes me queasy.

2. The taxi scene at the end. Dumb.

3. Basically anything involving Matthew. He is the worst. Especially when he told Cormoran that he dated Robin in high school because he didn't have other options. Gross. I hate him.

4. [SPOILER] The side plot of Matthew's mother's death. It made absolutely no sense that Robin didn't go down to Yorkshire for the whole week with him. I felt like Matthew had every right to be annoyed with her and I don't like feeling sympathetic toward him.

My grade: A-

Who would I recommend it to: Mystery-lovers, anglophiles, and people interested in the dramatic behind-the-scenes of the publishing world.

5 Great Things About Camper Living - Initial Reactions

Chris has been here for more than 5 months, but I've only been here for a couple weeks. Still, it seems like a good time to jot down my ideas about what I like and dislike about the camper lifestyle so far. I'll post soon about the stuff I dislike, but figured I'd start out positive and sunny with the things that are actually really cool.

FORCED MINIMALISM
It's probably been going on longer, but I just feel like minimalism became this TREND in 2015. All over my facebook and the blogosphere, I'm tripping over posts about capsule closets and downsizing the house and cleaning out the garage. I like this movement because I have a fear of becoming a hoarder, but I also think it's silly because it really is only a trend. Well, I'm here to tell you that if minimalism is cool, our camper is James Dean or whomever is actually cool in this century (obviously, I have no idea. I think Angela Lansbury is cool). You just can't have a lot of stuff in one of these babies. Actually, we really do have a bit too much stuff, like the dog bed that is too big, or the space heaters that we can't use now but are an absolute necessity in the winter. But, for the most part, we're doing pretty well living with less stuff.

Of course, we don't really have less stuff. It's just all 6 hours away in our house (and the storage unit that we rented to put our futon and Christmas decorations and elliptical machine in because, apparently, people don't want to see those things when looking to buy your house). But we don't have all of those things on a daily basis and it's a good learning experience. I can kind of see what I really miss (our bed!) versus what I definitely don't need (the ten bottles of Bath and Body Works body spray that I never used and cluttered up my bathroom counter).


MORE WALKING
Our pups are here with us (of course!), so we do several walks each day with them. This little campground is small but quite hilly, so we go up and down hills every time. There's also just more walking in general: our mail comes in down at the general store, the fancy spacious showers and the laundry are up at the clubhouse, you have to walk to the dumpster every day because there's no room for a full-sized trash can. Just more walking all around, and I love it.

REDUCED MAINTENANCE AND CLEANING TIME
I mean...the camper is 200 square feet. And that's really over-selling it since much of that area has stuff taking up the space, like a bed, a couch, the table, the kitchen. So cleaning is easy-peasy. And there's no yard work! Someone else mowed our little yard today and we didn't even need to ask!

Also, there is no room for me to store tools, wood, paint etc, so I can't get myself into any DIY projects. Which means fewer projects to:
1. Get really excited about
2. Start
3. Get bored with
4. Feel stuck and resentful towards because it's taking up all my time
5. Finally finish while swearing that I'm selling all the tools and never doing another DIY project
7. Go back to #1 and repeat over and over....

REDUCED MONTHLY COSTS
For trying to save money, this lifestyle can't be beat. Once our house sells, we will get to completely ditch the:

• Mortgage (still gotta pay rent, but it's a relative drop in the bucket)
• Property tax
• Water/garbage/sewer bill
• Homeowners' insurance (our camper is insured, but the cost is a small fraction of our HOI)
• Termite insurance (I have an irrational fear of termites, so we had preventative insurance just in case we ever got them, which we didn't)
• Cable (but we do maintain our Netflix and Hulu Plus accounts)

Of course, the downside of all this saving is that, as with any renting situation, we're not gaining any equity in anything. Well, except our camper :-)

LEISURE TIME
Since there's so little cleaning and maintenance to distract me, and no DIY projects, I can guiltlessly do things I like better than all of those, like reading, working on my blog, watching Bones...

I've already read a book, finished a book I was working on, started two more (here and here), and put up three (now four!) blog posts. I really think this is my favorite part of being here. Once I'm home from work, I just feel like I don't have as many responsibilities and it lets me do more stuff I enjoy. Plus, doing enjoyable, relaxing things is a nice distraction from the worry about having a house on the market, planning for a new one, etc.

2014 in Review: Books I Read

January
Inferno by Dan Brown

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

February
The Fault in Our Stars by John Greene

March
Divergent by Veronica Roth

April
None

May
Longbourn by Jo Baker

June
Moonlight Becomes You by Mary Higgins Clark

July
On the Street Where You Live by Mary Higgins Clark

August
The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick*

September
The Virgin Blue by Tracey Chevalier

October
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

November
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

December
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

*My favorite

March Resolutions

Since I didn't quite complete everything I wanted to in February, I'm going to lighten up a little in March.

Finish Divergent

I've been reading this YA book for like three months. It's (obviously) not grabbing me, but it's time to put my game face on and just finish it. 

Only Read "Fun" Blogs (e.g. Home Improvement, Design) on the Weekends

I love blogs. Bloggy-blog-blogs. I love them so much that they become a time suck for me. And while I find it thrilling to read about the lives of stay-at-home moms who have tons of time to cover all their stuff in gold spray paint and chevron wrapping paper, it's not really productive for me. I need to be reading about stuff that is pertinent to my own career. But let's be real: I'm not gonna stop reading this stuff. It's Swedish Fish for my brain. So I'm limiting myself to only reading them on the weekends this month. It's actually been a great exercise for me because I find myself scrolling through my blog reader and only reading the posts that are actually interesting to me. I believe I've reduced my wasteful blog reading time by 1 billion percent (+/-). 

Oh, did I mention this is really hard for me? It's March 14th and I'm still going through withdrawals.

Build Something with My Kreg Jig

I WILL DO THIS! I am making this towel rack!

I'll be back in April with an update on my results. Fingers crossed they're better than February. 

Book Review: The Interestings

Reading The Interestings was one of my January resolutions. I chose it because A Beautiful Mess started a (virtual) monthly book club and this was the first book they picked. Emma wrote the post about it and her call to get reading again after falling off the wagon hit a nerve; as far as I can remember, I only read one book last year (The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling). That's not good. I should be reading more than one book a year.

I put off starting The Interestings a bit. I was in the middle of reading Inferno by Dan Brown when I saw Emma's post, and I wanted to finish it. I put The Interestings in my Nook list to buy and it was $8.99. That felt high to me (I have this thing about paying more than $5 for a book that's not even a real book), so I put it off and then when I went back to get it, the price had jumped up to $11.99. I bought it anyway because reading it was one of my resolutions. I'm so glad I did.

This is a book that was well-received by critics (examples here, here, and here), and I've lately been steering clear of those because I've developed this prejudicial attitude that can be summed up thusly: sometimes I think critically-acclaimed books are like The Emperor's New Clothes. Someone decides a book is good literature and then poof! It’s good, it's literature, even if it's barely readable (ahem, Wolf Hall, ahem). But if it becomes too popular, suddenly it's crap. Ugh. Book snobbery is a huge pet peeve of mine.  But I’m now veering off topic, so back to it.

The Interestings follows a group of friends from their teenage days at an artsy summer camp in western Massachusetts (Spirit-in-the-Woods, a ridiculously pretentious name that is so spot on for an arts camp in the Berkshires) through their early fifties. The story is told in the third person, but the main character is Jules Jacobson, who is a therapist married to an ultrasound technician, living in Manhattan. Most of the characters live in New York City. Jules struggles with the fact that her life feels particularly unsuccessful in light of the careers and income of Ethan and Ash, two other Spirit-in-the-Woods alums that have remained some of her closest friends over the years. Jules does deal with hardships (money struggles, her husband's debilitating clinical depression), but her jealously of Ethan and Ash blinds her to the good things in her life.

There wasn't really a whole lot going on plot-wise, which was fine because the insight into the characters was so good and the writing was very sublime. At first I feared it was teetering on the edge of being a little too stylized (really stylized writing feels gimmicky to me, like the stream-of-consciousness chapters in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close that were almost literally painful to read), but it quickly found its footing and balance, and I ended up feeling that the writing perfectly conveyed some great insights into a few different topics: being a "talented" kid and then growing up to just be "normal"; desperate jealousy of one's friends and acquaintances; living through the unfolding AIDS epidemic in the early 80s, especially in New York City; clinical depression; and dealing with other people changing, developing different interests, friends, and resources.

What I Liked:

More than anything, this book made me think about the idea of what success means, and how that meaning changes based on perspective and expectations. Though she has a loving husband and healthy child, a master's degree in social work, and a somewhat-thriving therapy practice in Manhattan, Jules is never happy and never feels good enough. If she hadn't gone to Spirit-in-the-Woods, hadn't met Ethan and Ash, and had simply lived her life along other normals like her sister and mother, would she feel like such a failure? Do we set our children up for disappointment when we surround them with people who are richer, smarter, more talented than them, and tell them that that are just as smart and talented as those kids, that they can achieve all the things those kids can achieve? Maybe yes, maybe no. It does seem to be the case for Jules, but Ethan blossomed at Spirit-in-the-Woods (though admittedly his talent was never in doubt), and he made the connections there that allowed him to become massively successful.

The characters are generally likeable, though written to be real humans with real flaws. I liked Jules and Ethan the most, which I guess Wolitzer probably did too based on how she wrote them. I obviously disliked Goodman; the author gave him no redeeming qualities. I thought Wolitzer's approach to Ash was really interesting. Ash was entitled, hypocritical, and completely out of touch with the real world, yet it was difficult to actually dislike her. I guess this is why Jules, Ethan, and Jonah (the other original camper who stood the test of time) stuck with her all those years.

What I Didn't Like:

I didn't like the way the second-generation children were written. Well, Rory was ok. Larkin was a weird, Dickensian child who spoke like a tiny adult; I didn't buy her at all (hey, maybe there are kids like that out there, I just don't know any of them). And poor Mo. Mo felt like the sacrificial lamb of the book. Wolitzer really made him out to be quite an albatross for Ethan and Ash. I kept wondering if people who had children or grandchildren "on the spectrum" as Ash liked to say were offended when reading it. I read recently about an outcry that arose when Suzanne Wright (co-founder of Autism Speaks) wrote an essay about autism being a disease that ruins peoples' lives. Some activists were angry about it. Mo really represented a very bleak portrait of autism, and I could see people disliking that aspect of the book if they were angry about what Wright said.

The Bottom Line:

I liked this book very, very much. It was moving (I cried at the end), funny, and touched on so many issues that are just real. It’s not a light, feel-good book, but it’s not dark and desolate either. I guess in that way it’s like life. Up and down, happy and sad, but ultimately beautiful.

Let's Try This Again

It's January 2014, and it's been quite a while (nine months, to be exact!) since I've posted on here. I don't even really know why I stopped posting, but I want to give it another try. I loooooove January and the new year and resolutions, even though I'm pretty terrible about keeping them. For example, I made four resolutions last year and I only kept one (well, half of one really - I donated money every month to Kane's Krusade, my favorite dog rescue group).  But I'm not giving up on resolutions! I will, however, alter my approach to them so that I don't fall into the insanity rut. 

So this is my 2014 approach to self-improvement: monthly resolutions. I'm going to pick a few resolutions that I think I can complete in one month. Some of them will be things that I can hopefully turn into habits, but I won't expect that to happen. They're all kind of centered around some overall goals that I have for myself: read more, run more, blog more, keep doing home projects (even small ones), save money, and get more organized. You know, just self-perfection. No big deal.  

January Goals:

• Get up at 5 am every week day (and by extension, get to bed on time so that waking up at 5 isn't torture).

• Read The Interestings.

• Get our entryway looking like it's part of a house where people actually live.

• Bonus: Run three times each week (I'm counting this as a bonus because I already work out Mon-Tue-Thu with my friend Kate and Wednesday evenings are taken up with a committee meeting. That means I would have to run every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in January to achieve this, and life often gets in the way of very specific requirements like that. So I'm going to run as often as possible, but not feel bad if I don't get in a run every Fri-Sat-Sun).

I am so excited about 2014, and there are so very many things I want to do. These goals are a only a small part of that, but I think by keeping my monthly targets reasonable, attainable, and practical, I'll be more likely to achieve them (or at least stay on track to achieving them). 

Cheers to a great year!