Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld, a review

I stumbled upon this book almost by accident. I had been talking to a friend about books that we enjoyed reading and found out that it was coming out - Curtis Sittenfeld is one of my most favorite authors and I re-read her novel, Prep, often.  So when I heard that she was coming out with a retelling of Hill's life, I was all in!

This book literally imagines what Hillary Rodham Clinton's life would have been like if she had never married Bill Clinton. This book is, in a single word: mesmerizing.

So, Hillary at Wellesley (full disclosure:  I graduated from Wellesley in 2001) is still the same, down to the Commencement address she gave in 1969 - she was the first student commencement speaker at a graduation in Wellesley history. She goes to Yale Law, meets Bill and travels some with him, but instead of marrying him, she leaves him and goes back to Chicago. What is brilliant about this novel is that it's a a fictional re-telling of Hillary's Living History.

I found myself experiencing a lot of emotions here - I found myself charmed by the early romance and then horrified in turn at how Bill acted, but I still couldn't tear myself away. I felt uncomfortable with some of the compromises that were made by Hillary - particularly when it came to Donald Trump (who plays an interesting role here). I felt a little squeamish reading about the fictional Hillary talking about sex and other bodily functions, much as I would any other person talking about that - I'm sure Hillary is reading it - can you imagine HER reaction?!

And yet, in spite of this, (or maybe because of it), I couldn't put the book down. It's the most technically perfect book I've read in a very long time and I was absolutely enthralled and mesmerized by it.  Definitely recommended. 

Origin by Dan Brown - a review

It has been such a long time since I posted a review in large part because it has been so hard to just read during this public health crisis. My life has been turned upside down quite frankly - what with working remotely, my actual job undergoing some changes and my children remotely learning for the rest of this year.  I don't even know if I will get to see my family in Connecticut or New York this summer.  It's been very stressful and difficult for me to deal with.  I've since gotten back to reading because I'm trying to get some self care in and reading has always been that for me, so here I am.

Dan Brown is high on my list of readable authors - I love mysteries, steeped in history and religion and he hits all of those marks.  The fact that he is from New Hampshire is an added benefit - I can say I'm supporting a local author other than John Irving. I have loved Dan Brown since my mom handed me a copy of The Da Vinci Code and insisted I read it (thanks mom!).

For those of you that have read other Dan Brown books, specifically Inferno, don't worry - this is a standalone. This should also appease all of the people that haven't read a Dan Brown book too - go ahead and pick this one up to start. Origin is the Fifth in the Langdon series - although you don't need to have read the previous books in order to appreciate and love this book. THis book is set in Spain with Langdon's former student and Elon Musk wannabe Edmond Kirsch giving a talk that is probably going to really, really piss off the religious folk - because all of these books are about pissing off the religious folk. As Kirsch is giving the talk, an assassin shoots him and Langdon and his female companion (who always changes, James Bond style) have to get the talk out!

At the time that I was reading this book - right when our lives were changing in massive ways - this book was exactly what I needed.  The chapters were short to match my overanxiously short attention span and I didn't have to really "think" or concentrate in my sometimes preoccupied and sometimes down state.  It took me away when I needed to be taken away and provided entertainment.  I enjoyed it, even though it was somewhat predictable.  It was fun and earnest and I loved it. It transported me to Spain and into lives and places that I had never been to before and if that's not the mark of a good book, then I don't know what is.

A review: Little Children by Tom Perrotta

So I've been a big fan of Tom Perrotta since I found out that he penned Election, which was made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon (I actually saw the movie before I read the book, which is really unheard of for me!!).

THis was one of the Perrotta books that I had yet to read, so when I saw it at a Library book sale, I grabbed it. The novel revolves around Sarah, a radical feminist who can't believe she is "only" a stay at home mom married to a much older man and going to the playground with her three year old. She, while hanging out at the playground with the other moms, meets Todd, aka the "Prom King" a stay at home dad that has not been able to pass the bar exam no matter how many times he's tried to take it. Sarah and Todd become intertwined when she accepts a bet to talk to him.  We also meet Kathy, Todd's filmmaker and breadwinner gorgeous wife, Larry - the ex cop who is out to get the neighborhood sex offender and the neighborhood sex offender himself.

It has been very, very hard for me to read a book lately in large part due to the stress of the Covid-19 pandemic and yet this book managed to draw me in. In large part, it was because of the pacing of the novel. I could easily split it up into little chunks of reading time.  The chapters themselves were short but were also split into subsections themselves, which allowed me "soundbytes." I actually really liked that there wasn't a neat, tied up ending where I felt that the characters resolved all of their issues.  I get really annoyed with books like that.

Generally a good book!

Live events that are fun to do with the kids

With kids and parents and adults alike being told to stay home, there's often something besides going for a walk in the woods that has to happen to make things tolerable. Here are some ideas:

• New England Aquarium Virtual Visits
• The Columbia Zoo has come cool live shows too.
• National Women's Museum has digital classroom resources and online exhibits
• Visit MoMA, the Anne Frank House, the Palace of Versailles and more on the Google Arts App
• Scholastic is offering learning at home.
• Free concerts! Make sure to check out offerings on Facebook live too!
• Minecraft has a coding education program for grades 3-5. Mystery Science has scienc lessons for K-5. 
• Yellowstone has a virtual tour. So does the Boston CHildren's Museum.
•  Frozen Actor Josh Gad reads online to kids every night on Twitter. Find the past ones here: https://www.ktnv.com/news/national/coronavirus/frozen-actor-josh-gad-reading-to-kids-on-twitter-to-provide-entertainment-during-outbreak.  For those who don't know, he's Olaf and was also in the live action Beauty and the Beast as Lefou.  His twitter account is @joshgad
• DJ Mel has kid friendly dance parties and DJ luis has parties too! 
• I have been to the Aquarium in Monterey and it's amazing. It has an otter cam up too!
• Check out the Great Wall of China.

So, if you're like me and a gym rat, it's also been really, really hard to get your steps in.  We have been walking in the woods a lot.  But a lot of companies are offering online streaming classes too.

• Planet Fitness has in home workouts once a  day usually at 7PM EST.
•  Beachbody brings you P90X and all those workouts 14 days for free.
• YouTube has a ton of workouts 
• DailyBurn too!

For Adults - in addition to the streaming services, these look fascinating:

•  Broadway * 

I'm sure I'm missing a lot - add in the comments!!  

• 
  

Review: Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow

I'm going to out myself right now - I have a huge celebrity crush on Ronan Farrow.  Even though he could easily have used his parents' money, he put himself through law school. He was a UNICEF spokesperson for women and children who were suffering in Darfur and he most recently, as a journalist, outed  Weinstein, Lauer and the practice of catching and killing stories.  This book is his memoir as to how he broke the Weinstein story while beginning at NBC and then, eventually, at the New Yorker Magazine.

I loved this book. It moved quickly and I devoured it in a way that I didn't devour She Said, a book I reviewed here about the same topic.  In large part, I think, Farrow narrates this as almost a spy novel where he's followed a lot, his sources go dark and his bosses at NBC stop him at every turn. The bite sized snippets that are chapters are helpful too.

The book does a masterful job capturing the feelings that Weinstein has (the sheer panic!) and his victims feel. It does a great job in describing the potential consequences people had in coming forward - Farrow himself got fired from NBC for pursuing this story. I loved learning about his process of reporting and what he had to do to ensure that he got things just so.  He was able to talk about all of the aspects of this story - personal impact, professional, victims, perpetrator - in a way that was balanced and informative without being too heavy handed. This is an important book to read as it memorializes a turning point in our culture insofar as power dynamics, sexual harassment and assault and the workplace go.

Definitely worth reading. 

Review: The Third Rainbow Girl by Emma Copley Eisenberg

OMG, so NPR has some of the BEST book recommendations. And this one was no exception. Generally speaking, this book is about the murder of two women who were hitchhiking to a music festival in West Virginia in 1980.  It's broad theme is about restless women and how society handles them. As a restless woman myself, how could I possibly resist.

The two women: Vicki Durian and Nancy Santomero (who was from Long Island, NY - yet another connection), were hitchhiking from Arizona to West Virginia in 1980 for the Rainbow Gathering, a hippie-type peace and music festival that was being held in the woods and mountains in West Virginia (I had no desire to go W.V. before this book, but now I totally want to go!). Their bodies were found in an isolated clearing in Pocahontas County, near the festival. The women had been shot, but there were no signs of other assault or sexual assault.

Rumors flew around. Everyone had a theory about who did it but generally, everyone seemed to agree that the people that committed these acts were locals, based upon where the bodies were located. One local farmer in particular, Jacob Beard, was arrested and tried because he was a mean drunk in particular. He was later acquitted when a notorious serial killer confessed to the killings (it was actually the same guy that shot Larry Flynt of Hustler fame!). Because he was already on death row, there was never any trial for him on the Rainbow murders.

I loved this book. Eisenberg was as close as you can get to being a native without actually being a native having educated young women in the area on and off for years. This gave her a level of access generally reserved for insiders. She takes on things like the "missing white girl" syndrome and the scary hick myth popularized by movies and books like Deliverance. I loved learning about Eisenberg's own story about working in West Virginia as well and she managed to weave that into the narrative of the two murdered women seamlessly. She weaves the narrative of how women want to travel to learn about themselves into the true crime story of two women who sadly lost their own lives.

So good.  Go get it NOW!

Review: She Said by Megan Twohey and and Jodi Kantor

So, this book, along with Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow are really credited with starting the avalanche that is the #MeToo Movement.  She Said chronicles how Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey broke the Weinstein story for the NY Times.  I literally devoured this book in large chunks because it's very readable and ego free and lends itself to binge reading. The book itself is timely since Harvey Weinstein is in the middle of his criminal trial in NYC on sexual assault and abuse allegations.

There were many things that I learned in reading this that I didn't know before - how it was Rose McGowan's infamous tweet that caught their eye and began the process and how Lisa Bloom (who is the daughter of Gloria Allred) pretty much worked for Weinstein, helping him to discredit the women that she build her career and reputation helping. I also learned, although I wasn't surprised, that the two reporters struggled for at least a year to get people to go on the record - while they learned of many women that had been abused at Weinstein's hands, all of them were either scared or had received settlements (or both), putting the two persistent reporters in a bind.

The persistence of the reporters was inspirational as were the stories of the ordinary women who eventually came forward.  The last part of the book focused on the Kavanaugh hearings - those hearings were ones that I was obsessed with because of what I do in real life for work and my interest in gender issues - they seemed to intersect in those hearings.  I wish that this section of the book were as fleshed out and detailed as the Weinstein parts, but it was still really wonderful to read.   I enjoyed this book and what it reveals about the power struggles, the ambiguity of sexual harassment reporting (by actual reporters and the people that suffer it at the hands of powerful people) and where we are at as a society currently.

Definitely worth the read.