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"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.
