The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo

I don't remember where I heard about this book but I remember thinking that it came highly recommended and, because it was written by an author that got her MFA from the University of Iowa - a prestigious place - I was hopeful.

Ms. Lombardo's first novel spans many generations - at least four that I could count - that center around a marriage that has lasted for around 40 years give or take. The couple at the center of the marriage forms the hub of the novel. We also meet the couples' four daughters - the eldest two of whom are "Irish twins," and the younger two seeming to live in their wake. The book takes place in Chicago and its suburbs - hardly unusual considering the homeplace of the author - and begins in 2000 when the oldest daughter, Wendy, an unabashed money chaser, is getting married to an older and wealthier man. Don't get me wrong - this isn't a 55 year old marrying a 25 year old.  It seems that Wendy loves him very, very much. That being said, the novel takes place over four seasons, often interspersed with flashbacks that bring us up to speed with regards to the drama that inhabits the family.

The writing is VERY good, don't get me wrong. But I did find myself rolling my eyes a lot over the course of the novel. It's VERY white, VERY heteronormative and VERY economically non challenging.  The novel is a treatise on first world problems.  Seriously. And it's depressing in its first worldness. So much talent from an author seemingly wasted. There are the predictable issues:  stay at home mom with a law degree who opted out, surprise pregnancies and single parenthood, youngest child angst, blindsided and alcoholic widows.  How much more stereotypically upper middle class/upper class American can you get?!

The book was also very long - about 150 pages too long honestly. It was very, very repetitive and too neatly tied up at the end.  A family with that much baggage can't have such a simple and neat tie up at the end. Seriously.  

You can skip this one, promise, but I hope that Ms. Loombardo writes a second novel that I can give a shot because I think that she has some serious promise, even if I didn't particularly care for this first novel.  

Celebrate Banned Books Week!

I love Banned Books Week - but I'm a complete and utter book nerd and reader.  Banned Books Week was created in 1982 by a - shocker - librarian and now has the American Library Association as its biggest sponsor. It draws attention to books that are banned and challenged in the United States. This year, the week runs from September 22-September 28.

What I love is that this holiday draws attention to a lot of things that I absolutely value.  It celebrates individuality and the ability to choose what you consume, without the government or some other entity or person telling you that you can't consume that. It allows you to consume anything, even the unpopular things.  It helps to foster communication - what better way to talk about values, ideas, cultures and other things that are important to you than to talk about them in the form of books and what you've read?! It also stresses the value of having many different viewpoints and fosters the ability to think critically about those viewpoints.

Some of my favorite banned books include:  The Handmaid's Tale, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Bridge to Terebithia and The Catcher in the Rye.

Happy reading!

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

This book was, perhaps, the most highly anticipated release of September, 2019 if not the entire year. I am a huge Margaret Atwood fan and so for me, this was the most anticipated release as well.  

This novel is the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, a dystopian novel that Atwood wrote in the mid-80's and which describes a religious overthrow of the United States government and then subsequent life under the new religious regime. In that regime, women are treated explicitly terribly with women being subjected to ritualized sexual assault by powerful men in the hopes that they get pregnant and with women essentially otherwise being stripped of all economic, political and other rights.  This novel takes place about 15 years after the incidents described in Atwood's previous novel.

In this novel, there are three narrators:  Aunt Lydia, one teen who has grown up in Gilead and one teenager who has grown up in Canada, observing Gilead and experiencing Canada's response to the religious regime to the South. Aunt Lydia's narrative really drives the book and while she's so terrifying still, I was excited about it. She had such a huge and scary roll in the first novel. I loved that I learned her origin story and, on some level, she appealed to the survivor in me (and I think other readers) because she seems to say that we become almost reptilian in our responses to stressful times (hello, flight, freeze or fight anyone?!). I enjoyed Lydia's portions of the novel more than I enjoyed the other girls' parts of the novel - although they were important in driving the novel forward.  I was just more curious about Lydia and what drives her. 

So, it's been widely discussed about how collaboration can and is used in order to make sure that certain groups of people remain oppressed. This collaboration can be intentional - like slavery - or it can be more unconscious.  The Testaments is very strong in showing how different forms of collaboration are used to keep women and girls oppressed - in both Gilead and in Canada (which represents a country governed by the Democratic Process).

I really liked this book.  I intend to read it again in order to appreciate the more nuanced portions of it instead of reading it to experience it.  Totally worth it.

The Gifted School by Bruce Holsinger

We all know how society is now - in America at least with its first world problems related to magnet schools and education (#firstworldproblems anyone?!) - but it's so easy to overlook the passive (or in some cases not so passive) competitiveness of parenting and education and to shove it into the back of your mind.  How often have you (or myself for that matter) found myself thinking: "That's totally not me?"  Well, this book doesn't let you get away with that and for that reason, I loved it.

This book also couldn't have come at a better time:  we learned of stars like Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin buying their children spaces at prestigious universities, resulting in the arrest and prosecution of said celebrities.This novel revolves around a very similar and comical version of it. The action all revolves around a fictional Colorado town where the protagonists are all addicted to privilege and hoarding it. The town has found out that it is getting a school for the "gifted" and the main theme is that the children of these elite should get in, not on their own merit or gifts, but because they are simply the children of the elite. There is a group of four female friends that form the core of the elite circle that Holsinger satirizes. These women all met at a baby swim class - how typical.

All four have a child that they believe and hope will get into this school. Two will lie and cheat their children into the school.

I found the book to be useful in the sense that it draws attention to things that are going on currently.  But honestly? I found the book to be so overtly predictable and stereotypical that it was downright boring. It also moved along at a snail's pace.  I mean really?  300+ pages is not needed for a story like this.  It just wasn't a book that I was particularly fond of.  

My top book podcasts

So it shouldn't be a shock to you that I am passionate about reading, books and all things bookish.  I am an unabashed lover of reading and am also not shy in telling people that I'm an absolute geek. I get an immense amount of satisfaction out of geek culture - reading specifically - but I can appreciate a good piece of Star Wars fanfic when I come across it (yes, I'm more Star Wars than Trekkie but I will take Buffy over both any day).

Anyways, one of the geek culture things that I love engaging in are podcasts. These are shows that are literally about anything and can be as professionally done as any radio show but can also be a person recording an episode on their phone. And they are on every topic under the sun. I love listening to podcasts- they are food for my brain - and books/reading is a main topic of some of the podcasts that I listen to. I have come across a few in my day but there are some that you absolutely have to listen to. They're listed below = please subscribe and rate them positively:

1. The BookRiot Podcast - firstly, BookRiot is a readers' wet dream.  Go there immediately to read their blog if nothing else.  The podcast is just amazing.

2. Modern Mrs. Darcy has a podcast called "What Should I Read Next" that is to DIE for.  Um, anyone who has a blog called Modern Mrs. Darcy though?  Come ON readers - need I say more?! Surf on over there.

3. Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books - Zibby Owens hosts this podcast in addition to being a mom of four and a writer. Can you say badass?!  Get it done and go over there!


What bookish podcasts do you listen to?!

The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Lagercrantz

Lisbeth Salander is one of my all time favorite fictional characters (as is Ellen Ripley quite frankly). So even though the original author is no longer with us (RIP Stieg Larsson!), I love Lisbeth enough to stick it out.

In this book, we continue with Lisbeth as she dukes it out with her Russian mafia allied sister while also helping Mikael B. (as I affectionately call him) solve an ancillary mystery that has nothing to do with Lisbeth's thirst for revenge. In particular, Mikael is attempting to solve the mysteries related to a climb up Mount Everest.

I don't feel like I can give much more away without ruining the book because a large part of these books is the slow unfolding of the plot.  What I an say is that I really missed Salander's physical presence. She's so awesome and so badass that only having her kind of sort of present was a bummer. I was also way more intrigued by Mikael's storyline than Lisbeth's - which just seemed old.  I found myself saying - oh just get ON with it.  IF this really were Lisbeth it would have been done with already in a cold and calculating way and clean too. Unlike with the previous books, I didn't find myself gripped and could have easily walked away from the book and not shed a tear about it.

If you're going to start anywhere with Lisbeth, start with the original trilogy.   Just like Star Wars, the originals contain something that subsequent  books have yet to capture. 

My TBR List for September 2019

I recently saw this post over at Never Enough Novels and thought I would join in.  I have a few books on my TBR pile this month - I'm usually very ambitious - likely that my eyes are bigger than the time that I have to actually read.  There are a few books that I really, really, really am looking forward to getting through this month:

1. The Girl Who Lived Twice - Millenium #6 - yes, this is the Lisbeth Salander series that carried on after the tragic death of the original author and yes, I've remained loyal even though it isn't quite the same.

2. The Black Ice - by Michael Connelly and featuring Harry Bosch.  The second book in the series. While I do have two series going on, it's actually quite hard to get Harry confused with Lisbeth. Ha!

3. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood.  I love Margaret Atwood - she's my all time favorite and The Handmaid's Tale is one of my favorite novels - so this could be either a really awesome sequel or a complete flop, a la Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird). Atwood is so awesome though that I am confident she'll knock it out of the park.

I will likely read more than these, but these three gems are the ones that I want to get through.