MWF Seeking BFF, by Rachel Bertsche

Genre: Memoir, Self-Help

Rating: ★★★
Pages: 349

Published: 2011

Publisher: Ballantine Books

It's ten o'clock. Do you know where your best friend is? 

Rachel Bertsche is a young, newly-married woman who is new to Chicago. While she loves her work, her husband, her adopted city, and Entertainment Weekly, she finds that her life is missing something rather important: friends. It isn't that she's totally friendless — stories of past friendships quickly inform the reader that Bertsche left a fairly rich social life behind in New York — but she is doesn't have a BFF in her new city. You know, the kind of BFF who she can call last minute for a pedicure, to go out to brunch with, talk about reality TV with...you get the picture. Deciding that she Can't Go On with the way things are, Bertsche decides to take matters into her own hands and issues herself a challenge: she will go on 52 new friend dates for the next year. Over the course of the year, she goes on blind dates, takes improv classes, and makes the rounds on the book club circuit. In doing so, Bertsche hopes that she will meet her next Best Friend Forever.  

I can't remember how MWF Seeking BFF crossed my path, but since moving to Virginia, I feel like I can definitely identify where Bertsche is coming from. Finally, following one lonely weekend, I felt vulnerable enough to click the "add to cart" button on Amazon and eagerly awaited for Bertsche's book to help me out of my slump.

While there were parts of MWF that I could have done without (talking about her honeymoon, interactions with strangers who she doesn't go on a friend date with, talking about how much she misses her father* — basically events that I didn't think had much to do with her challenge), I really liked the first third of the book, which is where Bertsche really delves into the psychology and sociology of friendship. One concept that I found especially interesting from her research is Dunbar's number, which (according to Wikipedia) is a "suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships."**

Bertsche used the number to calculate where she stood friend-wise and found that she was short of the "stable" friendship types illustrated below. (She says that she was 20 people shy of hitting Dunbar's 150) While calculating the number of individuals I would include in my Dunbar's total seems to be a little tedious (and suspicious, I'll admit), I did find the concept that our brains can only handle so many certain kinds of relationship to be interesting. 

A visual representation of Dunbar's number. Dunbar calculated the human threshold of relationships to be 150. Via.

MWF is technically a self-help book (in that it's marketed as such), but I didn't think that it really compared to other self-help books I've encountered (namely: Jen Sincero's You Are a Badass and Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up). While MWF did chart the journey of one woman to improve her life, its tone was more aligned with a memoir-sociological-psychological hybrid. Bertsche wasn't telling me what to do so much as she was explaining the quest she went on to (and the various methods she used) find a new BFF.

I don't think that MWF is for everyone; while its core lesson is ~basically~ "you can never have too many friends," Bertsche is a pretty specific personality to get used to while writing, and I know that there were times I found her voice to be annoying and self-congratulatory. I also found myself slogging through the last third of the book due to what seemed like a lack of plot development. (I can only read about friendship membership services for so long.) And, hello, there is a ton of name-dropping in this book (At least 52 of them, in fact)! MWF is an easy read, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's consistently fun or light.

I think that MWF works as a good companion for anyone undertaking their own "friendship challenge," but it shouldn't necessarily be used as a bible or manual in the friend-making process. Important social lessons can be learned from Bertsche — follow up on emails, don't be upset if someone doesn't "click" with you right away, body language matters, etc. — but I would be skeptical of anyone following her plan to the letter. I think MWF will be useful to me as I work on expanding my social circle in the DMV, and it has encouraged me to consider the ways in which I reach out to people around me. However, I can't see myself ever re-reading this book or suggesting it to anyone unless they have a prior, specific interest either in it or in making new friends. 

* In regards to the dad feels, I've been there, done that, gotten the crappy T-Shirt. I feel for her. But I felt that her attempts to tie in her father's death to her friendship quest were pretty weak.
** Apparently Dunbar himself described it as "the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them at a bar." (My man!)

The Royal We, by Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan

Genre: Fiction, Romance

Rating: ★★★★★
Pages: 496

Published: 2016

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

When was the last time that you fell in love with a book? Like head-over-heels love. The kind of love where you know its faults but still think the sun shines from every page? The kind of love where you just. can't. get. enough. of it and want to spend every waking moment either reading and re-reading it or telling people about it? The kind of love I'm talking about is different from your regular "I-love-this-book-you-should-read-it." No, the kind of love I'm talking about is basically equal to puppy love. You are absolutely crazy about this book, and while no one can quite figure out why you feel so strongly for this book, your feelings for this book are just so pure and whatever, Mom, This Book and I are going to be together forever. 

It's been a while since I've fallen for a book (or at least documented it on here), but OMG. Let me spill my feelings to you lovely readers, Bridget Jones-style, about The Royal We.

The premise of The Royal We is basically Prince William and Kate Middleton fanfic (or RPF). Our heroine, Rebecca ("Bex") Porter is an American student who opts for a year abroad at Oxford in inject a little more adventure into her life. When she gets there, she finds herself living across the hall from Prince Nicolas Lyons, second in line to the British throne and a secret insomniac. Being an insomniac is not the only one of Nick's secrets, and as Bex is inducted into Nick's friend group and life at Oxford, she finds herself befriending and accidentally falling in love with the young prince.  

Which, hello, awesome! Except, as Bex is told, Nick "Will never. Marry. An American." Also, Nick has a lot of family baggage, is surrounded by the always-hysterical tabloids, and is terrified of Bex getting hurt by "the Company." Opening on the eve of their wedding (#nospoilers), Bex reflects on the state of her and Nick's relationship, as well as the sacrifices that she has had to make for true love and wonders if it will be enough. 

Now that that background is out of the way....

(I like this book so much I am using Supernatural GIFs. Whatever, don't judge me.)

GUYS. GUUUUUUUUYS. I LIKED THIS BOOK SO MUCH. I wanted to swALLOW IT WHOLE sometimes. I wanted to both adopt and be adopted by Nick and Bex. I wanted to hang out with them and their awesome friend group! Oh my god, y'all, I started and read this book in about two days because I just couldn't stop. If I had to pick a favorite character it would probably be Gaz (also tagged as: "always crying"), but I honestly also loved Nick and Bex.* This book had me cracking up all the damn time (I also shed some tears). And the fluff/romance between Nick and Bex?.....

Above: Actual footage of me reading this book.

.......Sickeningly sweet but also I was cheering for them the whole time.

So, yeah, y'all should totally read The Royal We. I know it's RPF, and I know that it's super fluffy (and is sometimes annoying in that Bex has all of these anecdotes about her relationship with Nick but we never see when these things could have happened or hear them mentioned again), but this book is — as the Internet Youths say — "A beautiful cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure." 

The Royal We is one of the books that picked me up during the post-Election slump, so I recommend it on the basis that it can be the little fluffy pick-me-up that you might need if you're having a hard time. 

The Royal We: Come for the RPF, linger for the romance, stay for the hilarious ensemble cast and the #feels. 

*ESPECIALLY NIGHT NICK AND NIGHT BEX.

I Want a Tattoo of the Skyline Chili Logo, or: Eligible, by Curtis Sittenfeld

Genre: Fiction

Rating: ★★★★

Pages: 512

Published: 2016

Publisher: Random House

Like many Americans, I felt that I needed a little pick-me-up following Election Day this year. Alcohol didn't do me much good, break-up songs hit waaaay too close to home, and the platter of calamari I stress-ate Election Night was not sitting well with me. 

So I did what any decent, red-blooded American capitalist does with emotional (and calamari-induced) pain — I dealt with my feelings by shopping. 

Fifteen minutes and several enticing promises by Amazon Prime later, Curtis Sittenfeld's Eligible was purchased and en route to my house. The fact that it was there before I got home was the surprisingly delicious icing on the dumpster fire cake that has so far been 2016. 

I've been meaning to read Eligible for a while, but I didn't get serious about it until I read Sittenfeld's essay on The New Yorker, titled "My Friend Sam." Something about Sittenfeld's writing style reminded me of one of my good friends, Kiernyn, to the point where I decided that I just had to get my greedy little hamster hands on this book. 

Eligible is one of six novels the Austen project (link), which seeks to pair Jane Austen's six novels with a contemporary (and critically-acclaimed) author in order to prove the timelessness of Jane Austen's stories. While several of the novels have so far received mixed reviews (Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Northanger Abbey), Sittenfeld's Pride and Prejudice contribution was highly anticipated due to the blockbuster status of Pride and Prejudice within the literary world and Austen fandom. This New York Times article is a pretty solid interview with Sittenfeld about the project and about how she feels taking up the Pride and Prejudice mantle, so I'd recommend y'all reading it if you have a free minute (or 10).

*swats away background and baggage* K, let's get to the review.

Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her older sister Jane (a yoga instructor) lives in New York City. When their father suffers a heart attack, the two women fly home to help around the house as their father recovers. Liz, usually the most perceptive Bennet of the bunch, is shocked at the state of things: their home is run down, their family's finances are perilous, their mother has an online shopping addiction, and her younger sisters — left to their own devices — are running amok. 

Liz and Jane's return to Cincinnati is also marked by the appearance of Chip Bingley, a young doctor fresh from a wildly successful (and infamous) run on a reality television show (not-so-coincidentally named Eligible). Mrs. Bennet (always the meddler) decides that Chip Bingley is destined to marry Jane who, nearly forty, is practically a spinster (my heavens). Of course, as Jane and Bingley hit it off and their relationship heats up, Liz comes into contact with Chip's good friend, the ever-obnoxious and ever-handsome Darcy. And from there, as the reader and Liz learn, is how misleading first impressions can be.

The New York Time's Sarah Lyall says in this review of Eligible that Sittenfeld's decision to set the novel in the United States "let[s] the air in," in regards to interpreting Austen's classic story and characters, and I totally agree. As opposed to setting a modern-day retelling of P&P in England, I think that moving the Bennets to Cincinnati highlights the universality of these characters, their problems, and their faults.* 

I loved Sittenfeld setting the novel in Cincinnati for a couple of reasons. First of all, as a Midwestern transplant, I always like to see a little more Midwestern love in the literary world.** Second, the Cincinnati setting is prefaced by a Mark Twain quote: 

"When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always twenty years behind the times."

Via.

This quote establishes Cincinnati as the stand-in for the backwater town Meryton where the wealthy Bingleys and Darcy find themselves. Darcy's discomfort with Cincinnati is what initially pits him against Elizabeth, as Liz overhears him talking about grading Cincinnati/Midwestern women "on a curve." Naturally, Liz is insulted, and uses this as the springboard for her dislike/hatred. This chip-on-the-shoulder attitude is familiar, I think, to Midwestern transplants who frequently feel that they have to defend their cities, towns, states, etc., on a regular basis. If nothing else, Sittenfeld's nearly anthropological statements about the Midwestern state of mind (she makes an especially salient point about what it means to ask someone where they went to high school) got me on her (and Liz's) side as the reader. 

Like with the setting, Sittenfeld makes other ~~artistic choices~~ which modernize certain plot elements. Such as: the Bennet sisters being aged up (because not a lot of people consider themselves spinsters at 20 these days); the Meryton ball where Darcy and Elizabeth meet becoming a July 4th barbecue; and the infamous George Wickham being split into two characters, Jasper Wick (who has considerable baggage left over from his time at Stanford and has been leading Liz on for more than a decade by the start of the book) and Ham (the owner of a CrossFit gym who becomes Lydia's boyfriend). 

I really liked Eligible. Even though it clocked in at over 180 chapters (!) and over 500 pages, I found that time flew by as I read it. Some of the shorter chapters made the actions a little choppy, or didn't contribute much to the overall plot (although they did arguably reveal bits about the characters), and some of the Cincinnati references were frustrating because they went over my head  (like, "they ran to this neighborhood, and then this one, and then went to this famous Cincinnati restaurant for lunch"). But overall, I think that Sittenfeld did a really, really good job at bringing the Bennets (& Co.) into the modern era while being true to the spirit of the book. It didn't feel forced — the characters' interactions felt natural and true to form, even if there was 100% more CrossFit in this book than the original. 

(Bottom line: You should read this book.)

You've probably seen this one before. Image (c) Kate Beaton, Hark! A Vagrant

*The Lizzie Bennet Diaries does a really good job with this setting as well. Link here. And if Emma is more your speed, here is Hank Green and Bernie Su's second foray into Austenland with Emma Approved. (It took a while for EA to hook me, but once it did, boy was I in.)

** s/o to my short-lived Midwest Monday series.

Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel

Genre: Fiction, Romance

Rating: ★★★

Pages: 222

Published: 1989/1993

Publisher: Black Swan

I picked up Like Water for Chocolate at a fantastic English-language bookstore in Sofia called the Elephant Bookstore. It was recommended by one of the girls in my group, so I decided to get it in order to counteract all of the Yugoslavia nonfiction I had with me. 

Like Water for Chocolate is about a young woman, Tita, living in revolutionary Mexico. Tita, as the youngest daughter of the De La Garza family, has her fate decided for her: she is forbidden to marry by family tradition, and must instead care for her mother until she dies. When Pedro, Tita's sweetheart, asks for her hand, he is swiftly rebuffed by Tita's mother and redirected towards her sister, Rosaura. Pedro agrees to marry Rosaura, if only because that will allow him to remain by Tita's side. Over the course of the next 22 years, the two circle each other in "unconsummated passion" (according to the back description) that inspires passion in the lives of those around them. Each chapter also begins with the name of a dish and the ingredients for said dish. During the following chapter, the food is somehow woven into the narrative. 

Like Water for Chocolate reads like a folktale, and so there are some extreme exaggerations regarding activity and imagery (ex: losing 65 pounds in a week, having a blanket that covers an entire ranch, etc.). Because this was my first "magical realism" book (and magical realism utilizes hyperbole and mythology), it was definitely something I had to get used to — I took a few hyperboles quite literally and was left going "what?" a few times in the beginning of the novel. 

Continuing on the "magical narrative" trend, the food that Tita cooks assumes a large role in conveying Tita's emotions to others and influencing events in the book. While Tita doesn't often show her true emotions to others (such as anger, lust), other characters pick up on her feelings through her cooking, although their sudden emotional outbursts confuse them. 

I think I was more into the first half of the book, but lost steam afterwards. I guess I just had a harder time sympathizing with Pedro and Tito? I didn't really care for Pedro, and thought that Tita could have done better than him. Like Water was also a little unusual in that the tone would go from being very clinical and detached to being super technical and "whatever" about sex and lust. The book was described as containing "unbridled passion," and I guess my takeaway is that I don't really go for that. (One review on the inside described the ideal reader as one who likes their wine "full-bodied" and their food "zesty." I don't really fall into either category.)

I ended up finishing this book faster than I thought I would; it's very accessible, and — due to its monthly format — felt unimposing and gave me a good sense of how far along I was in the story. While it is somewhat unfortunate that the romance plot fell a little flat for me, there were other comedic parts of the book that I really liked, and one character in particular — Gertrudis — that was by far my favorite. I recommend it to anyone who likes cooking or is interesting in magical realism novels.

(Oh, yes — and """passion""")

Safe Area Gorazde, by Joe Sacco

My cover looked cooler, but this is the best image I could find.

Genre: Graphic Novel, Memoir

Rating: ★★★★

Pages: 229

Published: 2007

Publisher: Jonathan Cape

This rating has a trigger warning for blood/gore imagery, war mentions, and the like.

Hello again, peaches! I'd apologize for the radio silence, but I'm really not that sorry about it. Study abroad has been pretty neat so far, and this past month I spent my Spring Break on (as one guy in my group put it) a "tour of the Ottoman Empire." 6 countries (Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Turkey) in 10 days. My takeaway? The Balkans are beautiful and awesome and I wanna go back like nothing else. (As my friend, E., "I could make a life here!")

Because I'm me, and I was surrounded by enabling poli-sci majors, I found time during my trip to go to a few bookstores and picked up some """relevant reading.""" (Book haul post to come later. If I remember.) One of the books I got in Bosnia was Safe Area Gorazde ("Gorazde" pronounced like "gor-AJ-da"). I picked it up after visiting the Gallery 11/07/95, which is a permanent gallery about the Srebrenica massacre (or genocide, depending on who you're talking to). 

Real talk: the Gallery is super depressing and kind of awful, but in a good way? It was very informative and powerful, and definitely impacted my stay in Sarajevo. It was kind of surreal walking around the Balkans and examining the scars that the war left on both buildings and people. 

Building in Belgrade, Serbia.

Inside the Gallery

 

  

The building next to my hostel in Sarajevo.

(But this review is about Joe Sacco's time in Bosnia, not mine.)

Safe Area Gorazde details the time that journalist Joe Sacco spent in Gorazde, Bosnia, from 1994-1995. The book's material is largely based off of his interviews with Bosnian Muslims in the Muslim "enclave" of Gorazde, but also includes historical information and Sacco's opinion on the war. Safe Area Gorazde is meant as a memoir, but delivers Sacco's own brand of self-reflection and political observations. 

I was kinda familiar with Sacco's art before reading Safe Area Gorazde, and had some prior knowledge about the Balkan War. Gorazde was mentioned briefly in the Srebrenica exhibit as a UN Safe Area, but wasn't really elaborated on. My interest was piqued, then, when I saw Sacco's book in Sarajevo (it was one of the titles consistently available in English throughout the city) and I decided to purchase it. I didn't recall seeing Sacco's work in many stores previously, so I thought it would be a worthwhile buy. 

I enjoyed reading Safe Area Gorazde for its writing and art, and was appreciative of how Sacco established the book as his personal narrative during a portion of the conflict, as opposed to a definitive telling of the entire war. Sacco wrote about the privilege he enjoyed during the war (such as being able to travel relatively freely whereas people from Gorazde were stuck in the city). National privilege is an uncomfortable thing to admit when traveling, and I sometimes think that some writers, despite operating outside of the host society as foreigners, tend to over-identify with their subjects to the point where they believe they face the same challenges and restrictions as them.

Page from Safe Area Gorazde detailing the 1994 offensive. Copyright Joe Sacco.

Panels from Safe Area Gorazde. Copyright Joe Sacco.

I would absolutely recommend Safe Area Gorazde to anyone interested in learning about the Balkans War, the intersection of nationality and ethnicity, modern nation-building, and how international government organizations operate. It's a powerful book, a compelling memoir that Sacco shares with other individuals about a dark period in European/world history. Although dark and depressing, the story that Sacco tells does not stand for willful ignorance. 

Kindle Reads: A Once Crowded Sky, by Tom King

Genre: Fiction

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Pages: 336

Published: 2012

Publisher: Touchstone

A Once Crowded Sky is the sort of thing that I adore — superhero meta. I've spent hours on Tumblr, Fanfiction.net, whatever, reading introspective fic about superheroes and how they operate within their own world. You can probably imagine how pumped I was to see this book — like, how could I not read this? 

A Once Crowded Sky takes place in a world where superheroes used to roam the earth. You read me right — "used to." The superhero community is left reeling after a disaster (you know the kind, one where the world is about to end and the world's heroes must team up to save the planet from certain destruction) not only ends the life of perhaps the most powerful superhero alive — Ultimate, the Man with the Metal Face — but also with all superheroes losing their superpowers. Permanently. For a group of people whose lives are essentially "cycles of violence" (periods of peace interrupted by periods of war/fighting, rinse and repeat), and never really experience change for long (one character remarks that his wife and daughter have died five times but have always come back), the idea of permanent power loss is beyond destabilizing and debilitating. 

King uses this formula to explore the idea of what makes a hero when death is a nonissue — when you and everyone you love always come back. I mean, if you can be sure that despite whatever evil you might face you'll make it out alright, what are you really risking? King also examines the possible psychological effects of living such a life. (His conclusion is mixed, I think.)

A Once Crowded Sky was definitely a fast read for me. I liked how each character's "voice" came through in their respective chapters and in the broader narrative. (I'm such a sucker for that.) As a writer, King has a firm hold on who his characters are, through and through. He's also obviously versed in superhero lingo. Despite the fact that he builds this superhero universe from scratch, it all sounds plausible — like, I wouldn't be surprised to see comics about these people. Sky doesn't sound like some kind of superhero parody, which I appreciated. 

Via.

I did have a few issues with Sky, however — namely with the female characters and how they were handled. I feel like they were largely one-dimensional; they were frequently described through their relationships with various male characters and were (outside of the wife of the protagonist) infrequently mentioned.

I think that King tried to tackle the issue of "fridging" in comics and how a rational person should react to it ("My wife/SO is dead and that is NOT OKAY and that does NOT motivate me as a superhero but is instead AWFUL for both me and her), but its delivery was kiiiiiiinda weak in that I didn't feel like I had a good understanding of Anna's character. (Anna being the main character's wife.) I am, however, REALLY GLAD that he addressed this issue and called it out on its bullshit.

My final issue was with another female character, Mashallah. I know that her relationship with her religion was supposed to be complicated thanks to her superhero past and previous relationships, but I didn't really see her talking about it in depth or actively working through it. It was more often referenced as an issue or a roadblock for other characters to overcome. (But yo, I am happy that King included a Muslim hijabi superheroine.) Kind of a missed opportunity to really explore a potentially interesting character. 

So. Besides these issues, I did like the A Once Crowded Sky. Each "part" included pages of comic art that provided backstory/character analysis, which was awesome. I'm interested in checking out similar books (because seriously, superhero meta is my crack) and King's other work. I would personally recommend this book to anyone who likes superheroes/comics or likes to dabble in superhero meta themselves.

(If you know of any similar books, PLEASE let me know in the comments.)

Kindle Reads: American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: ★ ★ ★       

Published: 2001/2011 (Author's Preferred Text reissue)

Publisher: HarperCollins

As a breathing life form who has spent a lot of time on the internet (and Tumblr), I've been aware of Neil Gaiman's American Gods for quite a few years now. It's always been a book that I've meant to read, but haven't. I'm pretty sure that I even bought it a few years ago but donated it because it just didn't seem like (at the time) I'd ever get to it. (Obviously I have.) American Gods is frequently cited as one of Neil Gaiman's best works — it's won the Hugo and Nebula Awards (both are for science fiction/fantasy), and there's plenty of fanart, fanfiction, etc., on the 'net. 

The edition of American Gods that I read was (I think) the tenth anniversary "Author's Preferred Text," which is longhand for "Director's Cut." If there's an "author's preferred anything," there's a good chance that I'll do my best to read it, despite the fact that it (like American Gods) might be loaded down with approximately 12,000 "extra" words. 

So, a summary: American Gods opens on a man named Shadow, who is coming to the end of a prison sentence for robbery (I couldn't really figure out if it was armed or not). Three days before the end of his trial, Shadow is told that his wife has died in a car accident, and that he has been allowed to leave prison early. It is on the plane ride back home that he meets a man who introduces himself as Mr. Wednesday, and offers Shadow a job — Shadow will act as his errand boy/bodyguard while Mr. Wednesday tours the country visiting his colleagues and associates. Shadow eventually learns that these "associates" are in fact gods, brought over to America by past immigrants. These gods' strength has been sapped over the past years (decades)  by changing American beliefs, and have begun to be supplanted by "new" gods — gods of technology, media, oil, etc. Mr. Wednesday's goal is to assemble a group of old gods to fight the new — and to assert the old gods' place in America. 

I think that the premise behind American Gods is super interesting, and (of course) put my little fandom brain at work, wondering how various gods would operate in contemporary American society. However, I was ultimately....underwhelmed by this book. Which, to be honest, I didn't really expect to happen. 

I'm not sure what it is about American Gods that underwhelmed me. I think part of it was because I felt like I had a hard time connecting to the protagonist, Shadow, and understanding his character or motivation. For a while I had a hard time knowing what his motivation even was. While he did go through a Mandatory Protagonist Transformation during the story, it still felt kinda..."meh" to me. I was more interested in reading about other characters, or the one-shot "Coming to America" chapters, where Gaiman told the story of an individual (or group of individuals) who brought their beliefs into America. I wish there were more of those chapters, because I think that they could have been utilized to show how American values and belief systems changed over time. 

I also wish that the "new gods" had more of a backstory. Like, what was their "coming to America" experience? They seemed to be more indigenous to the land and were more...theoretical than earlier gods (like gods of "the media," neon, the internet, etc.). I think that out of the new gods, the TV and IT gods were the most compelling because I was able to see examples of their literal operations (like possessing Lucille Ball on-screen). I do wish, however, that Gaiman had elaborated more on their worldview, or at least how they perceived humans. Did they like them? Hate them? Were they indifferent?

I think another reason that I felt so underwhelmed by American Gods was because there was soooo much hype about it on the internet. Given how hugely popular it is, and how aware I was of its popularity when I started reading it, I guess I had some really high expectations that just couldn't be met. Despite these issues, giving this book less than three stars didn't feel "right" to me because there were sections that really grabbed my attention (the murder-mystery subplot, mostly) (spoilers?), and the idea behind this book is really cool and unique.

I think one of the reasons that I felt so....underwhelmed? by American Gods was because it had been so. hyped. up. to me that I guess there wasn't really any way that the book could've lived up to my expectations (whatever they were). Giving this book less than three stars didn't feel "right" to me because there were sections that really grabbed my attention (the murder-mystery subplot, mostly) (spoilers?), and the idea behind this book is really cool and unique. I'm not sure who I would or could recommend this book to; it seems like everyone and their aunt on the Internet has already read it, so to those who haven't....give it a shot? Hopefully this review was balanced enough that you can still form your own opinion. 

I really liked how Gaiman incorporated gods into American fabric, and how he used the American Midwest as a setting for a lot of the novel. I feel like a lot of writers imagine "America" as New York City, or the American Southwest or California (not that those places aren't America too), so it was nice to see states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri and Kansas represented. 

I could see myself reading this book sometime in the future, since it's just so long and I want to be sure that I understand it was well as I can. I'm still a little confused about Shadow's future — not to mention the crime that landed him in prison before the book even started. Who is Shadow? What is Shadow? I still don't totally understand.

So, yeah, while I really liked a lot of the side characters, the novel's premise, and a lot of the imagery of the book, (as well as the Lakeside subplot) I feel like my inability to understand or connect with Shadow made it harder for me to like this book.  I'm not sure who I would or could recommend this book to; it seems like everyone and their aunt on the Internet has already read it, so to those who haven't....give it a shot? Hopefully this review was balanced enough that you can still form your own opinion. 

The Robber Bride, by Margaret Atwood

Genre: Fiction

Rating:   ★  ★ ★  ★  ★      

Published: 1995

Publisher: Bantam Books

Pages: 528

YO, so I'm actually really exciting to be writing a review for this book since I was SO PUMPED to read it (and had been looking for it for a few months) and no one else I know has read it. I read The Handmaid's Tale* by Margaret Atwood my freshman year (of college), and immediately went on the hunt for this puppy afterwards. Atwood has a reputation as a feminist author, and I would say that I agree with that title. Whereas The Handmaid's Tale is a more dystopic novel (taking place in the fundamentalist Christian state of Gilead), The Robber Bride is a more intimate and modern story that takes place in Canada in the very early 1990s (I'm dating it around 1990, maaaaaybe 1991). 

The Robber Bride focuses on a small group of friends — Tony, Charis and Roz — whose lives have become intwined since college thanks to the bewitching and devastating Zenia. Zenia stole their men, undermined their careers, and effectively threatened their Way Of Life before disappearing into thin air. The last the trio had heard of her was her death, and after attending her funeral, considered to be a ghastly warning from the past. Tony, Charis and Roz have since begun a slow healing process, trying to move on from the damage that Zenia has caused. But one day, while the three women are out for lunch, who should walk into the restaurant but Zenia — very much alive. What does she want? Why has she come back? And what does she have in store for Tony, Charis and Roz?

The Robber Bride is over five hundred pages long, and I flew threw it. The book is divided into different section, with Tony, Charis and Roz serving as "perspective" narrators for each section. While The Robber Bride detailed Zenia's relationship with the three women, it also detailed the life experiences of Tony, Charis, and Roz, and touched on issues such as mental illness, sexual abuse, divorce, death, and money and class. Personally, I think that Atwood did a fantastic job at juggling the three women's perspectives. While each character's perspective chapter was openly characterized by one of the three women, Atwood maintained her style overall. (I feel like that was a bad explanation, so let me try again: Atwood asserts the characteristic differences of the three women throughout their respective chapters while maintaining a specific writing style throughout. Some very, very tricky writing, I think.)

The Robber Bride continuously reflections on issues relating to gender and power relations in the modern (or post-modern?) era. While Tony, Charis and Roz each lead lives that (I feel) they want to lead (Tony as an academic, Charis as a free spirit, Roz as a businesswoman), they are each constrained by gender roles and expectations. Tony is frustrated that, as a woman, her work relating to military history is taken less seriously. Charis is often at odds with her daughter, a strict by-the-book individual. Roz constantly juggles the difficulties of being a mother, being an executive, and being a "good feminist." 

Zenia, however, does not seem to reflect on such identity politics or issues. Zenia is portrayed by Atwood as a third sex; someone who is able to easily navigate male and female world and roles. Unlike the three women, Zenia isn't boxed in by social expectations, and doesn't seem to be at odds with her gender. Zenia is also, however, not at the beck and call of her sexual appetite as often as the men in The Robber Bride are. It is because of her "third role" that she is presented as a terrifying question and an unpredictable actor to Tony, Charis, and Roz. The Robber Bride doesn't deal very much with topics like gender fluidity and queer identification (and it also only touches upon homosexuality), but does discuss and elaborate upon the choices that women are often forced to make regarding their families, careers, and love lives. 

I'd absolutely recommend The Robber Bride; I thought that it was a super engaging and engrossing read, and that the book's heft ceased to be intimidating once I got into the swing of things. Tony, Charis and Roz are women whose strengths and weaknesses (and vanities) differ greatly from one woman to the next. I enjoyed reading about their relationships with each other as much as I enjoyed speculating on what Zenia was planning.

*The Handmaid's Tale was spooky and thought-provoking and presented a situation I thought to be absolutely terrifying: zero bodily autonomy. (Unfortunately I don't have a review for it; just take my word for it, it's fantastic.)

The House of Hades, by Rick Riordan (Heroes of Olympus #4)

Via.

Genre: Fiction, YA

Rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★ 

Published: 2013

Publisher: Hyperion Books

Pages: 583

Okay, so I know that I'm like a year late to the House of Hades party (and that The Blood of Olympus just came out), but I told myself that I was going to catch up with my reviews, and anyway I can't help it if I forget to read my books sometimes. (Plus, it was totally spoiled for me on at least two counts, so forgive me if I wasn't super desperate to learn major plot development.)

The House of Hades is the fourth book in Rick Riordan's "Heroes of Olympus" series (the follow-up to the "Percy Jackson & the Olympians" series), and immediately follows the events of the previous book, The Mark of Athena. Annabeth and Percy are in Tartarus, fighting their way towards the Doors of Death (along with every other monster and titan they've basically ever faced). The rest of the crew (Leo, Nico, Piper, Hazel, Frank, and Jason) is on the lookout for the House of Hades, where they expect to close the (aforementioned) Doors of Death. Basically, drama llamas abound as the eight demigods continue on their quest to prevent the giants from raising the awakening Gaea.

I really enjoyed this book, although I do wish that there had been additional characters that had received their own "point of view" chapters (I'm looking at you, Nico and Reyna...). I think that sometimes the action in this book came and went in bursts — which was alternately refreshing and irksome. I think I really appreciated hearing more about the Roman and Greek gods and goddesses, and also really enjoyed glimpses of Camp Half Blood, as well as (my gurl) Reyna. I do expect there to be more of Reyna (and Nico!) in Blood of Olympus, so I'll just have to wait a little while longer...!

I also liked how House of Hades explored Percy and Annabeth's relationship. Percy/Annabeth is obviously R. Riordan's main ship, but it was nice (in my opinion) for the author to explore his reasoning for the couple's coupledom while examining Percy and Annabeth's thoughts about the other. I feel like in a series like Heroes of Olympus (and Percy Jackson & the Olympians) where there are characters with a history that spans several books, it's really useful to sometimes stop and take a breather and question characters' motives and opinions. 

I would definitely recommend House of Hades to those familiar with the series, or anyone who is  interested at all in Greek or Roman mythology. (Honestly, the mythology aspect is probably what interests me most in the Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus series.) I look forward to reading the next one when I get back home for break, and will hopefully have my fill of Reyna and Nico then. 

The Mayor of Castro Street, by Randy Shilts

Unfortunately, I'm still playing catch-up with my reviews. Stay with me, kids.

Genre: Biography, Non-Fiction

Rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Published: 1982

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Pages: 348

Last year, I read Randy Shilts's And the Band Played On , which is his account of the early years of AIDS public policy and scientific research. DESPITE it being a little over 600 pages (of small, frequently scientific print), I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to put it on my "favorites" list on the basis that it was infuriating, informative, heartbreaking, and then some. After reading it, I decided that I wanted to check out his other books, so I picked up The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk.

I originally wanted this review to coincide with a few events: Milk's birthday, the issuing of a Harvey Milk stamp , and the release of HBO's The Normal Heart (which is more about AIDS than it is about Harvey Milk). Unfortunately, this review is quite a few months overdue. (Talking about my good intentions is just as good as actually following through, yeah?)

(I guess I'd also like to give a quick disclaimer before this review to say that I identify as straight, and so I might fail to convey some important information in this review.)

The Mayor of Castro Street is a comprehensive biography of Harvey Milk, who became the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California when he won a position on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. The book begins with his childhood in Long Island and follows him throughout his adulthood in New York City, Texas, his time in the Navy, and his eventual move to the Castro District in San Francisco. 

As Shilts details these personal details, he also assesses the social and cultural events that caused the Castro to emerge as a gay neighborhood. Shilts also spends time detailing San Franciscan politics (as well as "gay" politics) prior to Harvey's arrival, including the activist José Sarria (who was the first only gay candidate for public office in the United States), as well as gay political organizations such as the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club.

I found The Mayor of Castro Street to be as inspiring and interesting as it was heartbreaking and infuriating. While the book does focus on the "gay" movement, "gay" in this instance refers to (almost exclusively) as "male," since (asides from Anne Kronenberg, a political aide of Harvey) lesbians receive little mention in this book. Transgender individuals also receive little to no mention. This...lack of political representation made me wonder if the change that Harvey inspired would be been possible if he were lesbian, transgender, or an LGBT+ person of color.

From left to right: Harvey Milk, George Moscone, Dan White. White was convicted of the manslaughter, as opposed to murder, of Milk and Moscone. White served only five years of a seven year sentence.  Via .

The Mayor of Castro Street is at times an infuriating recollection of local, state-wide, and national politics of the 1960s and 1970s. Gay politics then relied almost exclusively on straight, liberal allies. Harvey, Shilts, notes, was regarded as radical by many members of the "old guard" gay political community because he argued that gays should seize power for themselves and not rely on handouts or favors from said "allies." 

I found that it complemented Shilts's And the Band Played On very nicely, as Band discussed the effect that Harvey had nationwide on gay politics and attitudes. I also noticed parallels between Shilts's discussion of gentrification in San Francisco during the 1970s and now.

I do not think Shilts tried to pull many (or any) punches when it came to describing Harvey, and so I would like to think that Mayor enabled me to develop a more complex view of Harvey Milk.

In The Mayor of Castro Street, Shilts has crafts a work that is as suspenseful as it is detailed. Shilts slowly sets the state, introducing characters, their motivations, and their eventual fates. His subtlety is devastating. (I say "devastating" because it feels like a sucker punch to the gut — I had a lot of "oh my god, of course" moments while reading this book.) 

I think The Mayor of Castro Street absolutely deserves a five star rating. This book made ​​me think about my own (straight, cis white) privilege, how that privilege has carried into the current/modern era (especially regarding political representation), and how "radicalism" can be as benign as saying that marginalized peoples and communities should represent themselves in government. It made ​​me consider how much progress we have made ​​(as a society, as well as legally) in the LGBT+ civil rights movement. This book both enthralled me and upset me while providing me with a rich history of San Francisco and the LGBT+ civil rights movement. I would absolutely recommend this book for anyone interested in American history, LGBT+ issues, or civil rights.

Interested in learning more? See Before / After Stonewall , The  Castro , and  The Times of Harvey Milk .

Not My Father's Son: A Memoir, by Alan Cumming

Basically the only decent picture I could get of the book. Via .

Genre: Memoir

Rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★

Published: 2014

Publisher: It Books

Pages: 288

Many like my age (I'm sure), the first time I saw Alan Cumming on the big screen (or any screen, tbh), It Was the first Spy Kids  movie. He played the villian-turn-good guy (spoilers?), Floop, a reclusive toymaker / TV star who lived in a crazy, Gaudi-esque mansion on a remote island. Was he weird? Yes. Was he sympathetic? Oh, totally. Have I seen anything else he's been in since That? No, not really.  (Just kidding. I saw him in the Emma movie too.) 

This past spring, It Books reached out to book bloggers interested in reading and reviewing Cumming's memoir, Not My Father's Son. Interested in learning more about Cumming, I kind of blindly requested a copy. I would say that I'm generally pretty clueless about celebrities' personal lives, and haven't really read celebrity memoirs / autobiographies before (The sole exception being Is Everyone Hanging Out ​​Without Me?  by Mindy Kaling).   I kind of forgot about it, actually, until one day when I got a copy in the mail! (Surprise packages are AWESOME, and doubly so when they're books.)

In Not My Father's Son, Alan Cumming discusses and details the years of abuse he endured at the hands of his father, spanning from his childhood and lasting into his adult life. As Cumming grows up and begins to question his father as well as the reasons for his father's abuse, Cumming also starts to differentiate himself from his father's person and develops an interest in acting.

Cumming's voice caries through the narrative easily, and I was almost surprised at how quickly I fell into the pages of this book. Cumming gives, I think, a very full and detailed account of his childhood as well as more recent events pertaining to the taping of "his" episode on the show Who Do You Think You Are? Because I found Cumming's tone to be conversational, I wasn't entirely surprised when he would digress from the subject at hand (his father, his identity, etc.) in order to talk about his hair, Eurovision, and his fear of losing his Masterpiece! job at PBS to Patti Smith. 

I found Not My Father's Son to be a very engaging book. Cumming's style is at times self-depreciating, but is also very raw and open. He is very open about his life, and rarely (if ever) shies away from "uncomfortable" subjects. I would personally recommend this book depending on whether or not you have an interest in "celebrity" books or are interested in learning more about Alan Cumming. Not My Father's Son has piqued my interest in reading more "celebrity" books and memoirs. By the end of the book, I found myself with a new appreciation for his work. I look forward to his next project(s).