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""")

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 Chaperone, by Laura Moriarty

Genre: (Historical) Fiction

Rating:  ★ ★ ★      

Published: 2012

Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover

Pages: 384

The Chaperone grabbed my attention for a pretty shallow reason, and it is that it is set (at least somewhat) in Wichita, Kansas. Now, I'm not from Wichita, but I do enjoy Kansas lit every now and then that a) is not The Wizard of Oz, or b) is not In Cold Blood. You would think that those are pretty easy qualifiers, but alas — the supply of Kansas books is dreadfully thin. What do I have to do to read about my home state?

The Chaperone details the story of one Cora Carlisle, a well-to-do lady in 1920s Wichita who volunteers as a chaperone for the young, wanna be dancer/actress, Louise Brooks. Louise has been awarded a space in the prestigious Denishawn School of Dancing for a month-long training camp, and — being a young woman — obviously needs someone to look out for her "wellbeing" (read: to make sure she doesn't drink and have sex). Cora is motivated to accompany Louise not out of a sense of moral righteousness (although she does give some morally upright speeches to Louise, who promptly brushes them off), but for her own personal reasons. 

Fun fact: Louise Brooks is actually a real person — something I didn't know before reading this book. After her time with the Denishawn School of Dancing, Louise became a silent movie film star, although her career did fade over time. But despite Louise's celebrity, I wouldn't say that she overpowered Cora's personal narrative.

The real Louise Brooks. Via. 

The Kansas Theater in Wichita, KS. Circa 1922. Via.

Identity is a central theme to The Chaperone; who do you think you are, who do others think you are, what do you think others think of you... Moriarty shows in The Chaperone how exhausting the constant scrutiny of being a young (and older) woman is. Throughout the book, both Cora and Louise undergo some sort of identity crisis, although at different points. Cora's search for identity spans more or less the entire book, whereas Louise's crisis is more acute in the last third of the book. Although both characters pursue their interests and desires differently, although it is clear that Cora is obviously shaped (some would say "liberated) by her short time with Louise. 

The Chaperone spans decades and covers a huge variety of historical events — orphan trains, the women's suffrage movement, Prohibition, The Depression, World War II... It's a huge undertaking, and obviously required a huge amount of research on the part of Moriarty. 

The Chaperone is a pretty fast and easy read. That aside, it does delve into darker subjects, and Moriarty isn't one to shy away from character confrontation. So while I wouldn't say that The Chaperone was particularly challenging, and it didn't upset or enthrall me like The Mayor of Castro Street (for example), it did spark my interest in several historical events (like orphan trains and the women's suffrage movement), and certainly gave me some "food for thought" regarding America in the early twentieth century and the fairly dramatic social changes going on then. 

For all of those of you who're interested in reading The Chaperone, I'd recommend pairing it with a nice ragtime playlist and your best suffragette hat. (And maybe some white wine, if you're feeling particularly rebellious.)

The Tiger's Wife, by Tea Obreht

Genre: Fiction/World Literature

Rating: ★★★★

Published: November 1, 2011

Publisher: Random House

Pages: 368

OK, so. This review has been kind of difficult for me to write, not because I didn't like the book or anything, but because I feel like it's kind of a hard book to summarize concisely. I got The Tiger's Wife for Christmas a few years ago from my grandma, and despite it looking absolutely fascinating - there was a tiger! And great cover art! - it sat on my shelf until I decided last week that enough was enough, and that I needed to finally read it. 

The Tiger's Wife takes place in an unnamed Balkan country picking itself up after war, where Natalia - a young doctor - finds herself compelled by the mysterious circumstances surrounding her grandfather's death. In searching for clues, she turns to the stories he has told her over the years of "the deathless man," as well as his well-worn copy of The Jungle Book. But perhaps the most revealing story is one he never told her - the story of the tiger's wife.

(Mmmmost of that description came from the back cover.)

Before reading The Tiger's Wife, I hadn't read any book set in the Balkans, and had little knowledge about it (the region). And I don't want to say that it's like, necessary, to know about the region before cracking open the book, but it certainly helped me a lot. This is a thick book, you guys. And I don't mean that it's super difficult to understand, it's just that there is a lot of history and information and myth layered on top of each other to create a very rich, very dense book. 

The Tiger's Wife is primarily about the use of myth and allegory in history, as well as the necessity of personal narratives during wartime. And when I say that, I mean taking a very complex issue that is not your own - a bombing, a war, whatever kind of event - and finding your personal story in it. Finding a way to make the events in your life - no matter how out-of-control they seem - your own. 

The use of myths and stories are used throughout The Tiger's Wife to discuss other complex issues, such as nationality, ethnicity, religion, belonging, and - ultimately - death. Because the novel takes place in the Balkans after "a war," and because Obreht is originally Yugoslavian (meaning, to me, that parts of her identity have now been reassigned to difference countries, different nationalities), The Tiger's Wife is very fluid in regards to geography, language, etc. And while a lot of books deal with war, and the realities of living in wartime, The Tiger's Wife gave me a new perspective on what it is like to life while a war is ending, when new identities are being created and old unions are being destroyed, and how families and cities can become easily estranged. 

A map for your viewing pleasure. Via.

Obreht deals with these questions of nationality as well as death by creating a narrative so intricate that, frankly, I was amazed that she was able to tie everything together in the end. She used flashbacks on flashbacks in creating a story-within-a-story-within-a-story narrative that was actually really satisfying and not as confusing as it sounds. It might have been a little slow to start, but once I got hooked, I was hooked  - I almost took the book with me to a job interview to read in the car after my meeting because I just had to know the end right then. 

I'd recommend this book to those who aren't adverse to flashbacks, or story-within-a-story structure. Because, seriously guys, there is a ton of it. I also might recommend reading the Wikipedia page on the Balkans? Or having a map or something? Because that area has been dominated forever (by the Ottomans, and then later there was the Habsburgs, and then WWI happened... you get the idea), and there is just so. much. damn. history. But don't let that stop you - The Tiger's Wife has been on countless lists as a "to-read" book. Go and find out the truth about the tiger's wife and the deathless man and see if you can maybe see the world a little differently when you're done.