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"Water for Elephants"
Sara Gruen
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $13,95
"I'll do just about anything. But if possible I'd like to work with animals."
"Animals," he says. "Did you hear that, August? The lad wants to work with animals. You want to carry water for elephants, I suppose?" (57)
Sara Gruen opens her novel "Water for Elephants" with a quote from Dr. Seuss' book "Horton Hatches the Egg":
I meant what I said, and I said what I meant ...
An elephant's faithful — one hundred per cent!
"Elephants" lives up to that, leading me to wonder if it served as inspiration for the story.
The novel begins with a prologue, which is actually a shortened version of the climax, then brings the reader up to now, where the main character, Jacob Jankowski, is a 90something confined to a nursing home. When he learns the circus is coming to town, he flashes back to his days as part of a traveling circus.
Jacob's story starts during the Great Depression, when he is studying to be a veterinarian at Cornell. As he is preparing to take his final examination, his parents die in a car accident, leaving him with no money and no job, as he had planned to join his father's practice. And so, in what sounds like something that could only happen in a story (but certainly actually happened during this time), he Jacob runs off to join the circus.
Jacob doesn't intentionally join the circus, however. He jumps a train that just happens to be a circus train, and he just happens to be able to get a job working with the animals. During his time with The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, Jacob finds an enemy in the head animal trainer (August), a friend in the dwarf clown (Walter), and a love in the star performer (Marlena).
Life in the circus changes when Uncle Al, who runs The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, modifies the travel schedule to pick up an elephant when another circus collapses. Rosie joins the show, and Jacob immediately falls in love with the animal. While most of the workers, such as August, think Rosie is dumb, Jacob sees her intelligence and develops a connection with her.
Although Gruen begins her novel with the climax, little is given away because of the omitted details. I didn't understand her reason for doing it when I began reading, nor did I know when this scene would play into the book. But Gruen was smart in doing this because it sets the primary scene for the novel: the midway at the circus, with the greasy fry cook and the wild animals and the loyal roustabouts — the workers who are lowest on the totem pole but will do anything to help out their friends. And because she jumps from the prologue into 90something Jacob in the first chapter, it can be read as if it is a dream Jacob is having — a flashback to the moment that changed his life 70 years earlier.
Gruen fills her novel with historically accurate details of life on the circus train, and each circus chapter is accompanied by a photograph of 1930s era circuses. The pictures in addition to the author's colorful descriptions give the reader a sense of the sights, sounds and smells of everything Jacob experienced. The research put into the book truly paid off because it made the story come alive.
Jumping back and forth between 90something Jacob and 20something Jacob is slightly distracting from the plot of the primary story. The only reason I can figure 90something Jacob even is important to the story is because his is the type of character a reader will wonder about after the story ends.
Gruen's characters are likable and hateable, and in hindsight, predictable. Rosie, especially, serves an important role in the novel, carrying out actions to create scenes that never would have been possible without an elephant in the book.
Because I attempt to predict how the novel would end, I was disappointed when I got there. It was not the same way I would have liked to see Jacob's story end (or begin, depending on how you look at it), but I suppose it was fitting for how he got to be where he ended up.
Overall it is a good book, a colorful story. I would have structured it differently, but then again, I never would have been able to think up a plot like this.
"Bridge to Terabithia"
Katherine Paterson
HarperTrophy, $6.99
I read "Bridge to Terabithia" in sixth grade, and I remembered crying to myself in the classroom, while pretending I wasn't so I wouldn't be embarrassed among my fellow 11-year-olds.
After the 2007 movie adaptation was released, I decided I would read it again before seeing the film, especially because it hadn't been too well-received, and I didn't want a poor theatrical version of the story to taint my memory of the novel, which had faded in the 11 years since.
Katherine Paterson's "Terabithia" tells the story of 10-year-old Jess Aarons Jr., the third of five children — and the only boy — in a poor family in rural Virginia. After initial hesitancy, he befriends Leslie Burke — a rich tomboy whose family (mostly inexplicably) moves to a neighboring farm. The two create the secret, magical kingdom of Terabithia, for which they are the king and queen, while developing a close friendship.
As in most novels, tragedy strikes, and the characters take with them the lessons they had been learning and teaching one another throughout the story so they can persevere.
But because that is a simple, overused plot technique doesn't mean that Paterson doesn't succeed in using it.
She also finds success in her character development by using general, exaggerated stereotypes, and in her foreshadowing by giving clues that might have been too far over my 11-year-old head but far too obvious for any adult.
"Terabithia" has landed itself on banned books lists for the subject of death, the use of the word "lord" and the promotion of secular humanism, according to Wikipedia. Added to that list could be the use of inappropriate language throughout the novel and the inclusion of topics like child abuse. What the banned book list makers seem to fail to grasp is the notion that 10-year-old children are exposed to death and swearing and abuse, and have imaginations that create worlds outside of the "safe" ones where the banned books list makers pretend death or swearing or abuse don't exist.
Paterson was able to step into the shoes of a fifth-grader when she wrote "Terabithia." She analyzes the important things of the world, like winning a foot race or making sure the seventh-grade bully doesn't take your lunch money. Paterson also is able to bridge the gap between how kids and adults deal with tragedy. She runs through the "what ifs" that all adults imagine after experiencing a terrible event and assuming they are somehow responsible for its occurrence, and she is able to see the event through the eyes of a 10-year-old who doesn't know how to respond without the full understanding of what has happened.
There is a reason this novel won the Newbery Medal. And if you haven't already — or if it's been a while since you've done so — you should pick up the book and discover why.
"The Time Traveler's Wife"
Audrey Niffenegger
Harcourt, Inc., $14
According to the book's jacket, "The Time Traveler's Wife" is "A most untraditional love story ..." and that might be the best way to explain it.
Audrey Niffenegger's novel tells the untraditional love story of Clare Abshire and Henry DeTamble. The pair are eight years apart. But because Henry is a time traveler, Clare meets Henry when she is 6, and Henry meets Clare when he is 28. So Clare grows up knowing who she will marry, and Henry has no clue of Clare's existence until he is 28.
They meet in real time and fall in love, and they go through the same troubles that all couples face. But their troubles are complicated, due to the fact that Henry disappears randomly to unknown places and times for varied periods of time. He travels most often when he's nervous, and finds himself naked, hungry and nauseated during his trips, not to mention lost and confused. And after he meets Clare in present time, he leaves her alone, confused and wondering when he will return:
Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waitin. Why had he gone where I cannot follow? (vii)
Niffenegger doesn't follow traditional rules of writing. The book is filled with run-on sentences, so you feel as though you are having conversations with Henry and Clare rather than reading a book, and somehow the blending of thoughts into lengthy breaths makes them easier to read. She also doesn't tell the story chronologically, for obvious reasons, but rather in a way that seems to make sense — telling the different vignettes of Henry's and Clare's lives in the order in which the reader would learn about them as though they were an aside, a flashback, but most of the time, they are told in the present while Henry is time traveling.
She takes real events and real places and gives her characters real problems to deal with — school, money, jobs, life, death, sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, alcohol, cancer, AIDS — and the not so real problem of time travel, which is made real by the details with which she explains the incidents during Henry's travels.
Niffenegger's story is somehow believable, her characters lovable. Readers will find themselves attached to the couple they want to see succeed though they are dealing with the most difficult obstacle to overcome.
"The Time Traveler's Wife" is proof that the magic of love can triumph over hardships and time. It's nice to see a story of love having the ability to conquer all in a world with just too little of it.
"Nineteen Minutes"
Jodi Picoult
Artria Books, $26.95 (hardcover)
Because of the recent devastation in Blacksburg, Va., I can't decide if reading a book that delves into the why of a school shooting is more comforting — giving a window into the mind of a killer to show how it all started — or depressing — knowing that there might not be anything to stop this from ever happening again.
"Nineteen Minutes" is Jodi Picoult's 14th novel. She tells the story of the storybook town of Sterling, N.H., and how the high school and the town are devastated when one of the students goes on a shooting rampage that lasts 19 minutes and results in 10 deaths, 19 injuries and an untold number of lives changed forever.
As is Picoult's style, she focuses her story on multiple characters and their relationships with each other. There's Josie, whose single mother Alex has worked her way up to being a judge, but has failed at providing a family life for her daughter. And there's Peter, the social outcast who has never lived up to be as good as his brother Joey, even though mother Lacy has given him love and support.
Josie is like any other teenager, trying to find her niche in high school life, but perhaps only finding that the only way she fits is to pretend to be a person she is not — pretending to be the person her "friends" want her to be. She is in the popular group. Her boyfriend is a varsity hockey player. She is pretty. She is skinny. She is unhappy.
Peter and Josie used to be friends — until Josie realized that it was easier to make fun of Peter with everyone else in the school, rather than to try to defend him and be his friend. Peter drifts into the cracks of high school. And in 19 minutes, he gets revenge.
Picoult often tells her books by starting at the beginning and telling the stories by way of what is currently happening and flashbacks to other events that have affected the way things are now. Because of the nature of this story — the crime, the impending trial, the mystery of what really happened that day — it closely resembles her 1998 novel "The Pact" (the same defense lawyer and investigator even return to this novel). The past and the present meet in the final chapter, when the whole story of the crime is told. And like Chris Harte in "The Pact," we know that Peter Houghton is guilty the whole time we are reading — what we don't know is how the defense, prosecution and jury will interpret the word guilty.
But it is disturbing to think that something as insane and disheartening as a school shooting could be the logical conclusion of any turn of events. No person who is mentally stable and balanced could even consider committing any sort of destruction of that magnitude. This is where Picoult is genius. She takes topics that are difficult to talk about and gives them a story, a start for a discussion. This is how everything started, this could be the cause of all school shootings. And, like in most of her stories, she cannot give a solution because the problem is not black and white, and too many shades of gray make it impossible to come up with any sort of simple fix.
I usually have few or no complaints about Picoult's work because she ties up all the loose ends, and everything she writes has a reason that might only appear later in the book. However, this time, I found inconsistencies — most notably when she mentions a boy in the room for the prosecution's witnesses, only to have another boy talk about watching him die the day of the school shooting. And I don't know if she ran out of time or space or couldn't find the place most appropriate to put it, but there was never any reason given for why some of the students became casualties of Peter's rage.
The end of the book is unsettling. She takes less than three pages to discuss how things are one year later. And she only needs that much space because nothing has changed — the social hierarchy remains, the nerds are pushed aside from the popular kids, there is no cohesion in the school that had witnessed a tragedy a year earlier. And that might be even sadder than the fact that it happened at all.
"A Density of Souls"
Christopher Rice
Pan, $13.00
If Christopher Rice's parents weren't famous, I fail to see how he would have had a New York Times bestseller with "A Density of Souls"
His novel is the story of four friends. And their parents. And their teachers. And their classmates. And their lovers. The story follows them from pre-puberty up to their early 20s. And like any over-dramatic story, it includes love, friendship, alcohol, violence, hate, abuse, alcohol, sex, psychiatric hospitals, alcohol, alcohol poisoning, guns, death, rebellion, natural disasters and alcohol.
Basically, it's a soap opera squeezed into 288 pages. If that description turns you off from reading it, you're welcome for saving a few hours of your life that you might have otherwise spent gasping at the ridiculousness of this novel.
Every event that happens in the story is painted up through excessive description and dramatic dialouge as if what has just occurred will change the world:
Then Meredith heard it. A human, female wail, a torrent of vocal pain she had never heard given breath before. Meredith felt the wail pass through her body. She trembled. For a brief instant, it was as if the sound had ripped the black veil across Meredith's own grief.
An ambulance's sirens devoured the woman's screams. (91)
The characters yell and fight in conversations that would be discussed in a normal tone of voice in real life. They drink alcohol as much as they inhale oxygen. They fight and hit and punch as if they all have anger control problems — except for one character who mostly chooses to drink bottles of Stoli every night while writing in a secret journal, presumably hidden under her mattress (yeah, like anyone's ever NOT checked there for a diary).
Rice jumps around with his primary character, the one who is telling the story. While it would make sense for him to switch between the four characters who are supposed to be the stars who share a secret, he also jumps to the mom, the brother, the teacher, the jock — but they only tell the story while they are necessary to be in it.
Rice's book asserts that the jock would not exist if it were not for the homosexual because he needs him to be his opposite in the social order to prove his dominance. He shows this in the typical, generic high school way, where the jocks tease the homosexuals and call them names. But he also brings in a more disgusting, sexual description of how the social relationships between these two groups work, going too far with even the idea of that being a normal activity and with the graphic description of what happens between the boys.
A good story has developed, meaningful relationships between the characters because those are what keeps the reader interested in what happens to them. But the relationships between the four main characters is hardly explained. The only reason we learn anything about those friendships is because they are explained in the final section of the book — if the reader even makes it there.
Rice tries to pull the reader in by saying things such as Meredith will hurt Brandon if he ever goes near Stephen, and Meredith knows there's something about the boys that will always leave her out of the group, and Stephen knows the secrets about Brandon and Greg, and Jordan knows something is going on with Brandon but Elise won't tell him where he is, and more and more and more and more. Rice hides all of these secrets until the end of the book, but, just as with a soap opera, it wouldn't be hard to walk away in the middle of the story without missing what you didn't know about them or where they will go next.
The book is drowned in alcohol and depression. The only reason I could find to read it is so you can laugh at the ridiculousness of the drama and the way the characters yell and overreact about every event they encounter.
New York Times Bestseller? Really? Maybe it's easier to make that list than I thought. Maybe all you need is a famous last name.
"The World's Shortest Stories"
edited by Steve Moss
Running Press, $8.95
The world’s shortest stories, told in 55 words.
Some will make you laugh, some will make you gasp, some will make you think. Only a few I didn’t like.
It will make you wonder if you can write a story in 55 words.
A wonderful collection combined into the perfect coffee table book.
Read it.
"The Tenth Circle"
Jodi Picoult
Washington Square Press, $15
As usual, Jodi Picoult does not steer away from controversial, sensitive topics in "The Tenth Circle," with topics such as rape, self destruction, lying, cheating and death gracing the 387 pages of her thirteenth novel.
Trixie Stone is 14 and heartbroken. Stay-at-home Dad Daniel knows something is different about his daughter, but he is hardly willing to accept that she is growing up and growing away from him. And he knows something is different about his wife Laura, who we meet in the middle of an extra marital affair in the opening pages of the story.
So like any teenager who is sad about her first love, Trixie wants to get him back and tries to do so by making him jealous. The boy ends up raping her — so Trixie says. How could she have known that he would only want her back for one night instead of back for good, even after she dressed up and flirted and did everything she thought was right in high school relationships.
Picoult fabulously paints the picture of a family who is hurting — the way their individual situations have affected them and the way it has affected their relationships with each other. I found myself being able to relate to each of them, recalling times when I had felt broken or had loved someone who felt broken and how that changed the dynamics of our relationship and how it felt to try to fix it.
Picoult's idea of the rape that might not have been a rape is fascinating. What other crime is there in our society that has physical evidence that could mean nothing but could mean everything, that is dependent on the interpretation of actions, words, the looks on the faces of the plantiff and defendant. Nothing could have worked better into her story because it reinforces the idea that the truth is in the eye of the beholder and changes every time a story is told, especially if the one who is holding the secret isn't sure if she is lying to herself.
Although I have criticized her in the past for spending too much time talking about the side stories, I found myself wanting more this time around. We learn about Trixie's best friend Zephyr, but her story tapers off in the end. We hear part of the Stone family's story from the detective Mike Bartholemew, who has his own depressing tale of losing his daughter, but we don't know if he finds any answers or gets any resolve through Trixie's story. Seth, the object of Laura's forbidden affection, might have played one of the most important roles in the novel, but he disappears as if he didn't matter — which, to the family, he didn't. And Willie, who offers Trixie help when she gets to her lowest, is only in the story long enough to help bring her back up.
Picoult says "The Tenth Circle" is not a departure from her usual, but I would disagree. Her other novels end when the story ends, but this one stops at the end of a story within the larger story. The Stone family makes their way to hell and back, but the demons are still there when they return home, and the reader will never know how they make it out of that fight.
But this had to be a departure from Picoult's usual. It was the first time I haven't cried when I get to the ending. This story wasn't my favorite, but it is one that I will remember.
"My Misspent Youth"
Meghan Daum
Open City Books, $14
After painfully pulling myself through "The Quality of Life Report," I wasn't sure if I would ever want to read Meghan Daum again.
But I was pleasantly surprised throughout "My Misspent Youth" and have decided Daum is much more suited for writing nonfictional essays about the fortunes and misfortunes she has experienced than fictional novels about what she might wish to experience.
"Youth" is a collection of Daum's essays that have previously appeared in other publications, such as The New Yorker, GQ and Harper's. They are blunt. They are true.
Daum's writing is fresh. She is writing about herself and personal experiences without drowning the reader in first person pronouns.
She incorporates today's society, its expectations and how a twentysomething would conform in her writings. She discovers the ups and downs of finding love online in "On The Fringes Of The Physical World." She confesses her form of snobbiness through not being able to take a great deal of an apartment because of its one flaw in "Carpet Is Mungers." She searches for a definition of love and belonging in "According To The Women I'm Fairly Pretty."
The stories she tells don't always end, but she finds a way to finish telling them. The style allows readers to think about these ideas in their own lives, to fill in the spaces Daum has left. I could find myself in the stories she told — losing a relationship when the way to communicate changes; allowing disappointment with your bank account in order to be pleased with your everyday life; denying yourself love because someone can't fit the exact criteria of what you have planned in your life; falling in love where it will never work because of cultural expectations; finding success in something you always wanted but never did; dealing with grief when you're not sure if you're grieving.
The best stories are the stories that aren't just stories because they go beyond the realm of what is considered to be a story. They're the stories that are real. They're the stories that make you see, feel, believe. They're the stories you could see yourself writing, if you had the talent of Daum.
"Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture"
Ariel Levy
Free Press, $25
If Ariel Levy is making a suggestion for how to truly equalize men and women in American culture, it's stuck somewhere in between her complaints about the sexually liberated, the lesbians, the high school girls who will do anything to be "cool" and the men who reinforce all of this behavior as acceptable.
In "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture," she questions if our mothers' generation spent time fighting for equal rights so the new generation could disregard the concept of self-respect in favor of doing whatever is sexy to catch a man's attention — or another woman's attention, as described in the chapter "From Womyn to Bois."
Why has this become so socially acceptable? When did it go from equal rights to flashing a camera to get a trucker hat with "Girls Gone Wild" stamped across the front?
Levy attempts to investigate this and seems to come to the conclusion that the women of today who become involved in this type of behavior see it as liberating. Yes, their mothers fought for equality, but the equality came to them in the form of the ability to do what they want to do — even if what they want to do is wear skimpy clothes to tease boys.
The older women Levy talks to (mid-20s through late-30s) seem to jibe with the idea of being liberated and doing what they want to do — especially the lesbians and bois. Their biggest concern is being happy with who they are and what they are doing. But when Levy is talking to teens and young collegiates, their concerns are focused on keeping up with the other girls — specifically when it comes to attracting boys.
Levy brings a fresh perspective to the idea of strippers and porn stars — many are in those positions because they feel they are sexually liberated and that's how they would like to express themselves, while Levy seems to prefer they not compromise their bodies and their self-respect just because men would like them to. But if you're not against them, you're for them, and that's the type of attitude Levy casts against society. Of course women have the right to be strippers if they want to but they shouldn't be, seems to be what she is saying.
The attitude of those who support a woman's free choice to do with her body what she will is the same attitude of "Sex and the City," which, for some reason I still don't understand, is immensely popular among women in my age group. Levy brings up the show in her chapter "Shopping for Sex," and I was worried she was going to champion it and its characters as role models for young women who want to truly be liberated from men and enjoy the equality between sexes that should exist but doesnt. I was pleasantly surprised with Levy's take on the show:
Sex and the City was great entertainment, but it was a flawed guide to empowerment, which is how many women viewed it. (175-176)
The same females who are viewing "Sex and the City" as a guide to women's empowerment are the ones who are flashing Girls Gone Wild, competing with their girlfriends to see who can "go the furthest" with the most boys and allowing themselves to be harrassed and looked upon as sex objects because they think it is empowering.
The book jacket says "Female Chauvinist Pigs makes the case that the rise of raunch does not represent how far women have come, it only proves how far they have left to go." And that's true. Levy talks for 200 pages about how women are going in the wrong direction, but she fails in pointing us in the right one.
"My Sister's Keeper"
Jodi Picoult
Washington Square Press, $14
What if you grew up knowing the only reason you were alive was because you were created to save someone else's life?
That is how 13-year-old Anna lives. In "My Sister's Keeper," Jodi Picoult introduces the audience to the Fitzgerald family. Brian, the firefighter and wannabe astronomer, and his wife Sara, the no-longer-practicing lawyer, have three children: Jesse, the rebel whose parents have already given up on him; Kate, the girl who has had luekemia on and off for 14 years; and Anna, who was created when her parents picked the right genes so she could be a one-time donor for Kate.
But when the one time doesn't cure Kate, Anna becomes a donor again. And again. And again.
For 13 years, Anna is used to taking trips to hospitals and being poked and proded because her parents think it is in the best interest of keeping Kate alive. She is hardly asked whether she wants to because she has grown up knowing this role is her life. And how do you tell your parents you don't want to give up your body to save your sister anymore?
Well, when she needs a kidney transplant, you could sue your parents for the medical rights to your body and find a lawyer willing to take on the case pro bono.
Picoult, as usual, tackles a controversial idea in her "My Sister's Keeper," and she does it well. She dances around any political statement about whether it was right for Brian and Sara to conceive Anna to use her to help Kate, about whether Anna is obligated to give up a part of her body to save her sister. Whether it was right isn't what's important — it's how what is happening now has affected the family.
Picoult focuses on the character development by using flashbacks to specific situations that have made the characters who they are at present time. Of course Jesse is going to act out — after Anna was born and Kate was still sick, he lost his role in the family. Of course Sara is going to side with Kate — there is no relationship that is stronger than between a mother and her child, especially when that child needs help. Of course Anna feels like she's not part of the family — her parents pay the most attention to her when they need her to help Kate.
The only problem with the character development, as usual in Picoult's novels, is the side story distracts from the main story. What a coincidence that the lawyer and guardian ad litem had a previous relationship that has affected the way they treat each other now. And hearing about their past was boring. I was eager to get back to Anna and Kate. But as always, the side stories tie into the end of the main story and make reading them worth it.
I also wanted to hear more from Kate's point of view, but Picoult's reason for not telling the story from Kate's perspective was probably because Kate has never had her own voice throughout her life. We hear the most about Kate and how she has dealt with things through her mother because Sara's life has been taken over by taking care of Kate. Choosing to do this shows Picoult's strength as a story teller — she knows her characters so well that she knows who needs to tell which parts of the story to portray it most clearly to the audience.
And once you get to the end of the story, you know what is going to happen, and it ends in the only way that is right for such a story to end.
I don't know how she does it, but each time I read Picoult, I am amazed at the beauty with which all of the elements come together — the plot, the characters, the events, the language. And "My Sister's Keeper" is no exception, and perhaps one of her best.
And one of the best characters in this book is Campbell, the big shot lawyer who volunteers to help Anna's case. Campbell has a service dog, and the reason for his service changes with each time someone asks him why he has the dog:
I think about coming clean, for once, for the first time. But then again, you have to be able to laugh at yourself, don't you? "I'm a lawyer," I say, and I grin at her. "He chases ambulances for me." (408)
And Campbell's admittance of being able to laugh at yourself, to smile at what you have, is a reminder for all of us when we get to the end of the story, that we can smile at what we have.
And this admittance comes in full circle to Anna's admittance on the first page of the book:
When I was little, the great mystery to me wasn't how babies were made, but why.
Anna's story shows us that maybe the reason we're all here is to make life better for others — whether that means making crappy lawyer jokes or giving parts of your body to your sister in hopes that she will continue breathing for one more day.
"The Devil Wears Prada"
Lauren Weisberger
Broadway Books, $13.95
We all think we have the worst job in the world.
But we have never worked as an assistant to Miranda Priestly — the job a million girls would die for.
Andrea Sachs is Lauren Weisberger's character who is fulfilling the role as the devil's assistant — just until she puts in her year and is able to move onto something better. She puts up with the nonstop coffee runs, 16-hour work days, laundry pickup and dropoff and more on a daily basis because she has her eye on what could be ahead for her. She aspires to be a writer at The New Yorker, and working for the editor of Runway — only THE magazine in the fashion world — is a great start. Especially because it's the job a million girls would die for.
So she keeps telling herself.
But through her year of servitude, Andrea loses herself. The relationships with her parents, best friend and boyfriend strain. She loses sleep. She loses her own life, independent of Miranda and work.
But she never loses her ambition to try for something better.
Weisberger creates a dreadful character that anyone would hate — Miranda is quite devilish. She is the foil to Andrea, the recent college grad with plans to change the world and be successful and happy in her life. She says again and again, if she can get through this one year of working the job a million girls would die for, she will have a good start to her career and a leg up to all other recent grads struggling to be writers.
Andrea becomes a hero, someone the reader can see in herself, someone she aspires to be. You pity her. You want her to quit her job. You want her to realize that maybe it's just not worth it.
Weisberger cleverly gets the reader to thinking this through the way she has crafted her story. Each chapter is a new story, a new drama brought on by Miranda, and through telling the stories, Andrea brings up past incidents with the so-called Devil, with wearing the wrong clothes, with saying the wrong words, with eating the wrong food. Throughout the book, Weisberger doesn't flat out say that the reader should hate Miranda and the position Andrea is in, but the reader gradually grows to feel the stress on Andrea, the hatred she has for her job, for her boss, for her life and the direction it has taken.
The climax of the book slows down. Although I got to watch Andrea mature and learn to stand on her own two feet, I was hoping for something more. She improves, she moves on in her life and she gets some revenge on the hell that was her job a million girls would die for. But for getting so involved in the plot, becoming Andrea's cheerleader and imagining ways her life could pan out, I was disappointed in the way the book ended. It fizzled, and I expected sparks. But Andrea's story was inspirational, and just because the final three chapters of the book did not contain as much drama as the first 16 doesn't mean the book got bad.
The novel is somewhat girly and fashionistic. But underneath the Prada exterior, there is a real story that anyone who is frustrated with her life, her job — anyone who wants to just stick it out for a little longer until she can move onto something better — can relate to.
Weisberger's strong, motivated Andrea helps show the ugliness of the pretty, the poor side of fashion, the strength you can find when you think have fallen to your weakest.
"Tripping the Prom Queen: The Truth About Women and Rivalry"
Susan Shapiro Barash
St. Martin's Press, $22.95
"Mean Girls" is one of my favorite movies. I don't remember having "Mean Girls" in my high school, but I'm sure they exist everywhere. They are the girls who have to better than you at everything, and they will remind you that they are. They will be your friends until it is no longer convenient for them or until you beat them at something. Then they will drop you and find something else where they will be more successful to show you up. Their mission in life is to be better than you. And they will be. And they will let you know.
Susan Shapiro Barash tells us it's not just high school girls. And it's not just enemies. It's friends, best friends, sisters, mothers, daughters, cousins and co-workers. And it happens when they are school girls, collegiates and adults; single, married and divorced; parents and childless; promoted, passed over and fired. Women and rivalry happens all the time.
Barash uses hundreds of interviews with a variety of women as the basis for "Tripping the Prom Queen: The Truth About Women and Rivalry." The unfortunate yet undeniable fact drawn from the interviews and her book is that all types of women of all ages are constantly in competition with each other unless they are able to realize it and make an effort to stop.
I picked up this book thinking I didn't have much rivalry with other women, wondering what this could be about. The more I read about the experiences other women have had, the more I thought about my own experiences in life that were competition and rivalry that came out of envy and jealousy that didn't end until I was convinced I was the better of the two of us in at least one way.
Envy and jealousy provide the basis for most of the competition and rivalry between women. This is clear through Barash's examples of women's friendships ending when one is getting married and the other is perpetually single, or one gets pregnant when another has been tirelessly trying to have children sans success, or one is promoted to a position another has had her eye on for longer. When someone gets something you want, it's natural to feel jealous because you have lost this supposed competition between the two of you.
The big question is why this is so prevelant in relationships among women and not with men. Unfortunately, Barash's book doesn't give us much of the why. She instead tells us the rivalry is inevitable, but there are ways to downplay it so relationships will not be destroyed when a woman meets success and her friend cannot.
So without much of a cause or a permanent solution, Barash just shows that rivalry among women exists. We all like to see the Prom Queen trip, even if she is our best friend. It's something we like to see because it assures us that we, the losers in the popularity contest, are still better than her at something, even if it's as simple as balance or poise.
"Tripping" doesn't provide much insight as to why the phenomenon of women's rivalry occurs, but it will give women readers insight as to why their relationships with other women have broken down, why envy over a minute detail could be the eventual downfall of a seemingly flawless friendship. And Barash's advice at the end of the book may just be the key to saving those that are worth it.
"Everything is Illuminated"
Jonathan Safran Foer
Harper-Perennial, $13.95
It's hard to pick out the good in a book more or less about the Holocaust. But it's hard to pick out the bad, too.
The main character, who shares his name with the author, is an American college student who sets out on a journey to Ukraine to learn about his grandfather. He is guided by Alex, who is the same age and an ardent admirer of everything American, Alex's grandfather, also named Alex, and Alex's grandfather's "seeing-eye bitch," Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior. The younger Alex serves as a translator for Jonathan, who speaks only American.
Jonathan's grandfather escaped the destruction of his shtetl by the Nazis with the help of a woman named Augustine. Armed with the photograph and name of the town, Trachimbrod, the troop sets out hopefully to find something.
But the story isn't told that easily. Foer jumps between Jonathan's novel about his family's history (beginning in the 18th century), Alex's story of the journey to Trachimbrod and their discoveries, and Alex's letters to Jonathan in America.
The best written parts of the book are from Alex, though Jonathan is the one with hopes of becoming a writer. Jonathan's story involves too many sexually explicit stories that don't serve much purpose to the rest of the book, other than perhaps letting us know that even 200 years ago there was heavy primiscuous activity occuring. It's explicit and mostly unnecessary.
Jonathan's story starts with his many greats-grandmother, but after her story is done, jumps to his grandfather. It was set up as though it would contain a more detailed description of his family's history, but perhaps he only saw his many greats-grandmother and his granddather as the only important parts. Besides, with all the intercourse he had to write about, there wasn't much time for him to mention other people from his lineage.
The story from Alex's point of view is more depressing. Here is where we learn the truth about what happened in Trachimbrod and during World War II. But these chapters in the book are also the funniest and most entertaining because of Alex's style of writing in English. The man's desire to use American slang coupled with his obvious use of a thesaurus lead to truely amusing passages that made me laugh at how ridiculous some American sayings must seem to outsiders.
Alex also complains that the characters in Jonathan's stories should be happy and should have happy endings. But they don't get that. And Jonathan doesn't either. There is only sadness and shock in learning about the past and the hate the Nazis displayed to his family and their town.
Finishing this book doesn't give the reader a happy ending either. There are still questions that are unanswered and will always remain that way. There isn't the closure that Alex expects all stories to have.
So there's good and there's bad. Foer took a sad story and wrote it in a way that could be comical — and at some parts is actually laugh out loud funny. He has a talent for creating characters that the audience can imagine and predict, complete with their personalities, quirks and speeches.
Foer has written a fake real story, and it hurts to know that there is truth behind this fiction.
"Booking in the Heartland"
Jack Matthews
Johns Hopkins University Press, $16.95
Jack Matthews tales his joy of collecting rare books in this book of essays that will be most enjoyed by a bibliophile — more specifically, a bibliophile from Ohio.
If you are neither of those, it is not likely you will derive the same sort of joy from this book that Matthews surely got from writing it.
I picked up this book because I had written down the title after a professor mentioned it in a class I took a year ago. And in it I found the same sort of treasure that I'm sure Matthews finds when he is out booking. There are interesting stories that I otherwise never would have heard. And although they aren't always interesting, I feel enlightened, maybe even educated for now knowing them.
I've also always been interested in the not textbook version of history — the personalities, the interactions, the conversations that made things the way they are. And I have particular interest in Ohio, being that it is the only place I have ever lived.
Matthews seems to share this same passion, sharing the locations he found books or their characters' ties to different areas of Ohio. He writes with a high level of intellect, subtlely injecting humor, sometimes about the authors of the books he has found.
Perhaps that is the weakness of the book. Although it is short, it was a more difficult read because of the prose. But then again, considering the targeted audience for this book, I'm sure that wouldn't be a problem for most readers.
And perhaps the only other weakness is Matthews does not give full details about the books he discusses, probably to keep the book on the topic at hand — the booking, not necessarily the topics of the books obtained through the booking — and it might only be ignorance on my part that I don't know more about these books or the historical events mentioned.
Matthews' books are rare, special. People who otherwise would have disappeared in the pages of history come alive.
That's the main point: There is a story behind everything. You might think that artifacts from a past life are meaningless, but they are the only things that tie the future to the past — what gives our society and culture some sort of explanation. Books are the very glue that holds everything together. A man may have just scrawled details in a journal about a trek by a wagon train, but his stories make those adventures and his life real to the person who picks up the faded, torn leather at a used book sale.
Matthews book will inspire his targeted audience to find rarities in their own collections, to share them, to search for more, to find characters forgotten as their years have passed, to write their own journals in hopes that someday other bibliophiles will drive hours to find them.
"The Female Brain"
Louann Brizendine, M.D.
Morgan Road Books, $24.95
To all women who think they are a little crazy and all men who don't understand them: Read this book.
Ever wondered why there aren't more women in engineering jobs? How women can read men's minds? Why men don't understand why their girlfriends go from what they think is fine and normal to a mess of tears and wailings, while the girlfriends don't understand why they didn't see it coming? Why boys play rough and girls role play? Why men are always ready for sex and women have to be "in the mood"?
There are biological explanations for all of those, and Louann Brizendine illustrates what they are.
Brizendine uses examples from her patients and her own life to sensibly explain the differences between men and women. Their actions, personality traits, and job, family and mate choices are more than just differences in nurturing; nature has played a role in what makes a man a man and what makes a woman a woman.
Scientists and doctors used to think that women's brains were just a smaller version of men's, and therefore similar, Brizendine says. She disproves that theory by showing the scientific actions of the testosterone, estrogen, amygdala, oxytocin, etc., produce the different actions and reactions men and women have to varied situations.
In one case, a man goes to play poker with his buddies instead of calling his girlfriend. His girlfriend assumes he has found someone else and is cheating on her. She becomes upset with him and he has no idea why. Somone might just think the girlfriend has a jealous, controlling problem, but in reality, because of the way the human species has evolved, her brain was trained to think her boyfriend was out with someone else for the basic biological needs of humans — to reproduce.
Brizendine explains that throughout evolution, those who have survived to reproduce and pass on their traits to future generations have affected the way the human race is now. A man's job is to reproduce with as many women as possible, while a woman's job is to be assured that she will have comfort from this man and he will be there when she needs him. Of course she would fear the worst if her boyfriend doesn't call — biologically, it would make the most sense for him to be out with other women.
Now if that isn't assurance that women aren't crazy, I don't know what is!
But I wouldn't recommend this book just because it made me feel better about myself, the things I have done, the things I have experienced and the things I will look forward to encountering in the future.
My biggest complaint about the book is the lack of discussion about homosexual men and women. There are a few pages tucked after the main part of the book but before Brizendine's citations where she explains that homosexual women tend to have brains that may react more like men's in different situations because they have more testosterone, but that is about it. I was disappointed that there wasn't a chapter devoted to differences between heterosexual and homosexual women, but I'm guessing that's because of lack of research there. Perhaps there isn't much of a significant difference, but I still think it's something that should be addressed.
Women should read "The Female Brain" to know they are not alone in the ways they feel about things and that it is normal for them to go through different phases and feelings. Men should read it so they can get a better understanding of why women react the way they do in different situations.
The book probably won't help any man understand women any better, but it's probably a good start.
"Keeping Faith"
Jodi Picoult
Harper Perennial, $13.95
Jodi Picoult says when she was doing research for this book, many people wouldn't talk to her, would push her away without answering her questions. It's no surprise, considering one of the book's characters talks with God, experiences stigmata and heals the hurt and sick — even resurrects someone from the dead.
And that character is a 7-year-old girl, born of a Jew into a mixed family who decided against teaching any sort of religion because the parents couldn't even figure out what they wanted to be.
So if the idea that a Jewish girl without any religious background speaks to God and performs miracles is offensive, you probably shouldn't pick up this book. Oh yeah, and God is a She.
Mariah catches husband Colin having an affair, and Faith is standing there to witness her parents fight and fall out. They get divorced.
Faith begins talking about someone whom her mom assumes is an imaginary friend, but after taking her to a psychologist, Faith is seen as psychologically balanced and Mom shouldn't worry. Until Faith starts performing miracles.
Then droves of the believers and nonbelievers fill the front yard and street of Mariah and Faith's home. Faith is pulled out of school, and Mariah does whatever she can to ensure that Faith lives a normal life — whatever that is.
During their journey to attempted normalcy, Mariah is harrassed by Ian Fletcher, the anti-Billy Graham teleathiest, whose life goal is to disprove all supposed miracles from God by giving scientific explanations. But he's not sure if he can disprove Faith.
Colin tires of the fact that his daughter has become the center of all media attention and decides he wants custody. Mariah and Colin and their lawyers battle while Faith just tries to keep on being Faith, although the definition of what she is seems to have changed since she first started talking to God.
"Keeping Faith" is the perfect name for this book. What most people will think of when they hear the phrase "keeping faith" has the strong religious connotations, which obviously tie into the inexplicable miracles laced throughout the novel. And "keeping Faith" is all Mariah is trying to do the entire book. Keeping Faith normal, keeping Faith happy, keeping Faith safe, keeping Faith home.
Picoult, as usual, thoroughly develops every character. However, she might have overdone it in this book. It is difficult to tell which plot and which characters are supposed to be dominant. Faith seems to be the obvious, but then there is Mariah and the way she grows psychologically and emotionally, and Ian Fletcher, who begins to question his atheistic beliefs after not being able to figure out Faith.
After so much build up throughout the book, the climax levels out, and the story ends. But so many questions are still unanswered. Perhaps Picoult is allowing the reader to fill in the blanks and figure out what happens next. There isn't really anything left for her to say at the end of the book, but I don't get the feeling that it ended. I didn't get any closure from the ending, and I want to know what happens next.
I guess that's a strength of Picoult's — to keep the readers wanting more, long after they have put down her books. People can continue questioning what happened and what will happen to these characters after this particularly conflict has passed through their lives.
Whether Faith is actually seeing God and performing Her miracles are secondary in this story. The most important thing Picoult addresses in this book is believing in something or someone, in what will make you happy and comfortable. That was all the characters in this book needed, and God was able to give them that through faith. And Faith.
"Automatic Wealth for Grads ... and Anyone Else Just Starting Out"
Michael Masterson
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., $22.95
Michael Masterson makes it sound like it is SO EASY to become a millionaire and retire by the time you are 30.
If only he were right.
In "Automatic Wealth for Grads ... and Anyone Else Just Starting Out," Masterson explains the different ways you can make money with little effort — basically by putting a little more effort into everything you already do.
Masterson makes some good points, such as attempting to save at least 15 percent of your income and buying off-brand to save money. Find a job that you love, and your career (and paycheck) will blossom with your enthusiasm for work. Those are pretty simple ideas, and I'm guessing most grads already are buying off-brand and still living with the romantic notion that what they have studied for four (or five, or six) years will help them achieve a job they love.
But he also talks about the benefits of owning real estate, starting your own multi-million dollar business and investing in the stock market. And how many recent grads posess the knowledge to do all of those successfully?
Wealth just doesn't come as easily to everyone.
Maybe I am just bitter because my salary is significantly lower than the average of recent grads, and the average is what Masterson uses when showing how much one would need to invest at what percentage to achieve a certain amount by a certain date. I am already starting out behind in every one of his examples.
Maybe I am just bitter because his suggestions to help increase salary can't really apply to me because of the type of job I have and the type of place I work. The nature of jobs I am interested in doing will never allow me to suggest to my supervisor that he or she double my salary — to make an investment in me — because I will make the company more productive and ultimately make a higher profit.
Instead of seeing Masterson's book as a way to get rich, I see it as a guide to everything one could do to get rich. There is another element of actually going out and doing it for any of his advice to be significantly helpful, and even then, unless you already are educated about any of these areas, you probably will need to go somewhere else — a professional, a specialized book, a Web site, Mom and Dad — to make the smart decisions to help you accomplish something such as successfully investing in real estate or the stock market.
Masterson is very eager to share how he gained wealth and how it has affected his life, and that is motivation for anyone to try to do the same. He doesn't forget where he came from and everything he did to get where he is now.
And in the last chapter, Masterson really tries to illustrate how wealth has changed his life. But it gets annoying. He dedicates an entire section to explaining how to taste wine and throwing dinner parties. The point of the chapter is to show that even if you don't have wealth yet doesn't mean you can't start feeling like a million dollars now. But he loses focus. He tries to cover too many topics in detail instead of giving a general overview. The detail was necessary in his earlier chapters because he was talking about specialized topics. But to explain what wine to put with what meal? Overkill. If I want to learn about putting together wine and food, I'm going to find a different book in the library.
Masterson has some good ideas, but it's all just guidelines. Reading the book will give you ideas for what you can do to improve your financial status, but it won't make you any richer.
"Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side Of Everything"
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
William Morrow, $25.95
Be prepared to be thrown off balance from what you have generally accepted to be the norm. Economist Steven D. Levitt uses his reasoning to show that swimming pools are more dangerous than guns and the legalization of abortion was a reason for decreased crime in the early 1990s. More people die in car accidents than in airplane crashes, but is that because cars are more dangerous or because people spend more time in cars?
Are you thinking yet?
This book isn't for someone who is set in his ways, but it is for the person who is interested in expanding his mind and way of thinking. Levitt uses examples of everyday life to illustrate that what seems to be doesn't have to be.
Levitt shows that teachers and sumo wrestlers have similarities in the sense that they will cheat if it seems to help out others. That is, if they have a motive, they will do it, regardless of how unethical society has made cheating seem in their respective fields. And he has analyzed data and put the facts in simple language to show why. It's hard to accept something opposite of what you have been taught, but his reasoning shows it could be true.
Perhaps the best thing about "Freakonomics" is that it isn't written for economists or students of economics. Although it includes charts, those are merely for illustration and not for the understanding of the book overall. It is written in layman's terms using examples anyone can relate to. And if you don't understand the example he used, don't worry, he is about to explain it in a different way.
Levitt's intention isn't necessarily to make you change what you believe in and the things you know as "fact," but it will make you think. He doesn't say that others are wrong for the conclusions they have come to, but he says that it could be looked at in another way.
And that is just what our country needs. In a time where there is distrust in public figures and media outlets, people need to be taught to look at everything in a different way without just accepting what those in power say "just because." Those who are in agreement with The Powers That Be won't get much from this book, and that's a shame.
I'm not saying that "Freakonomics" is a new Bible, but it is worth a read. It might not change your mind, but it will at least open it.
