50 Shades of Grey by EL James

I read this book because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  The book that started out as fan fiction to the Twilight series.  The Mommy Porn of my generation. I wanted to read it before I watched or attempted to watch the movie - that's my M.O. I always read the book first.  And quite frankly, after I was about two chapters in, I was like "Why the HELL is this so popular?"
The story is told from Anastasia Steele's perspective - known affectionately to her friends as Ana. She's living in Seattle and a senior in college, just about to graduate and is a virgin (of course) who hasn't had any sexual interest in anyone whatsoever - that just doesn't seem right at ALL. Wasn't she a teenager at one point?  I'm pretty certain that teenagers, with their raging hormones, have sexual interest in anything that moves. So yeah, doesn't make sense. She meets Christian Grey, the sexy business owner right away because she has to interview him for the graudation edition of the college newspaper. She's pretty much smitten and intimidate at once - mostly by his intensity and his money. He seems to be somewhat of an enigma as well. She learns after he grooms her by buying her a first edition of one of her favorite books, rescuing her from drunks, showing up at her work and taking her ona helicopter flight that he's into BDSM.
This book was laughable at best and terrible at worst. It is terribly written and utterly and disappointingly predictable.  It perpetuates damaging stereotypes of sexuality and sexual identity in general and about BDSM specifically. The characters are flat and boring and there is NO conflict in the book that is resolved. Really - vanilla v. BDSM?  The prose is robotic and boring. Childish even. There is no room for nuance in this and I felt like either the author herself didn't understand nuance or she thought that I, as her reader, couldn't be counted on to understand nuance and subtlety. It is uniformly predictable and utterly boring.  
Ugh, this book is so not worth your time or money.

My book Meccas

So, I know I haven't posted in a while. Since my divorce, things have been hectic but I have lots of things that I want to blog about now and now that I have a great space to do it in, I'll find it more enjoyable to actually do it. See! Here's my new little "me" space:

The first topic that I want to come back to blogging with is what my book Mecca is. I attribute it to listening to an episode of Books on the Nightstand. I love wandering around in bookstores - my ultimate Mecca of a bookstore would be a place where I could just wander aimlessly for hours or days and not get bored ever. It's my Holy Land of books - wehre I can feel the books, pick them up and smell them and flip through the pages, where I can sit and read a few and/or have conversations about them and maybe meet an author or two.

I have a few that I have been to and one or two that I really want to visit. The ones that I've been to are below.

• The Boston Public Library - what other place has a museum  AND a library filled with hundreds upon hundreds of any sort of book that you could ever want to read???  In the heart of a truly wonderful and historic city?  I mean, really. I could LIVE there if I put my mind to it. 
• The NY Public Library - this is the infamous library from the beginning of the movie, Ghostbusters. The one with the steps and the lions out front that is in Midtown Manhattan.  The architecture on the inside, the wooden tables with the lamps and the sheer size of the place make it wonderful.
• The Harvard Bookstore - this is an independent bookstore in Harvard Square in Cambridge.  It has author events/signings and sells a fantastic number of bestsellers and local favorites.  The staff is knowledgeable and friendly.  Also, the basement has a used book section - always a plus for bibliophiles like me that are looking to sell/trade/buy books and it was a pretty decent selection.
• I went to Powell's once and only once when I was in Portland for a training.  First of all, I loved Portland - there's a shocker right?  I think that I would totally fit in in an episode of Portlandia. Secondly, Powell's is just amazing.  It had the largest used book section that I had ever been in.  People were all over the place just browsing, sitting down and reading, discussing books intelligently and passionately, and I felt completely and utterly at home.

There are a few places that I'd like to visit that have the potential to be added to the bookstore Mecca list. 

• The Strand - as someone from NY, I am ashamed to admit that I have never once been to the Strand.  I've heard amazing things from everyone that I have spoken to that has been there - one day that I take a trip back to NY, I will make it a priority to go to this book store.
• Northshire Bookstore - I mean, just LOOK at it - so cute!  And they have Booktopia there!!

What makes something a book Holy Land for you? What are yours?

The Secret Place by Tana French

This is the latest in Tana French's murder squad books and in it, not only do we see a familiar face but we also see murder brought to a private, Catholic girl's school. Stephen Moran, who we met in Faithful Place, is revealed to be extremely ambitious. He's a part of the Cold Case Squad who wants to be a part of the Murder Squad. He sees his opportunity when Holly Mackey, the teenage daughter of another detective and a student at St. Kilda's, arrives and asks to speak with him. She brought a message with her that she spotted on a board in the school where girls may reveal their most private thoughts and feelings anonymously. A picture of the murder victim, a boy named Chris, has been placed on the board along with the words "I know who killed him" in the style of a ransom note.

Moran then finds out who the detectives on the case were - one is retired and the other is Antoinette Conway - a tough detective who is still on the force. Moran is permitted to accompany Conway to St. Kilda's to help with the follow up investigation prompted by the postcard. The novel takes place over the course of one day and the chapters alternate between the present day and the past. The novel is told from the point of view of Moran and Holly and her friends. I loved how she drew the girls and the competing cliques: Holly's vs. Joanne's. Joanne's group is more of the Queen Bee type of group. She also was fantastic in showing the gender divides. They are especially apparent between the two detectives; however the boys and the girls interactions were also very enlightening. The claustrophobic world within a world of the boarding school, like nesting dolls, is rendered well in this novel. Loved it. It's not a speed read but well worth it.

Soldier Girls by Helen Thorpe

There is a lot about female American soldiers in today's news. Commanding officers and administrators are being called onto the carpet for sexual assaults that are occuring. Female soldiers have been kidnapped and then released and also participate in atrocities (think Abu Ghraib). Women's roles in the military are also subjected to much debate - will they be allowed into combat? But in the midst of all this discussion, the actual individual women and their motivations are forgotten - they are nameless, faceless and storyless. Who are they? Why are they there? In this book, Helen Thorpe seeks to answer that question by following the stories of three very different women as they serve in the national guard.

All three women enlisted in the National Guard before September 11, 2001 and all seemed to hope that the enlistment would help them to improve their stations in life. Michelle Fischer, the youngest, was from a dysfunctional family and wanted to use the national guard to go to school. Desma Brooks had children, was impulsive and joined on a dare. Debbie helton was the oldest and became a grandmother while she had been deployed. The women drilled on weekends, were grateful for the extra paycheck and went on with their civilian lives. When 9/11 happened, a lot of men and women were deployed including the three women that Thorpe followed. This book detailed the deployments and the relationships that the women experienced. It covered everything from deployments and their returns to the experiences that the women had while deployed, including the relationships they experienced with fellow soldiers and commanding officers (even though that's a huge no no).

What I loved about this book was how accessible it made the experiences and the questions that it raised about the ever changing role of the military, the roles of women in society and the military in particular and the struggles that our society has with it. It became readily apparent that women and men experience military life and deployment differently and raised tremendous questions about how we and the military must deal with those. Love it and highly recommend this book.

Then There was You by Jennifer Weiner

I have read some of Jennifer Weiner's books in the past. I know that she's unusually prolific so I haven't read anything of hers in a while. I was surprised to find out that this book was all about surrogacy and egg donation instead of the usual chick-lit stuff. The story is told from differing perspectives. The first person we meet is Jules. Jules is a Princeton student, soon to be graduate, with a secret that she keeps from most of her classmates. She comes from a seriously broken family. She's also extremely beautiful and is at a loss as to why it attracts both men and women. It also attracts the attention of a person that works for an egg donation clinic, who is interested in her body but not in the normal way. We also meet Annie, a hard-working, blue collar mother of two and wife with two children and a husband that works for the TSA. Their small family lives in a beautiful farmhouse outside of Philadelphia. There is also the trophy wife: India. She's a chick lit staple: She's in search of a baby, she's a gold digging Manhattan socialite who works as a PR executive and who isn't all that she seems to be. She has snagged a wealthy, older man despite the fact that everything from her face to her name and past has been made up. Surprisingly, felt bad for her inspite of her awful actions.

My favorite part of this book was hearing the different voices and seeing the different perspectives. What were seemingly unrelated stories were later intertwined. A weakness of this same literary ploy, however, was that towards the end, I felt that things were too neatly and quickly intertwined. Life is oftentimes very much more messy and complicated particularly with regards to babies and reproduction than Weiner would have us believe from reading this book. Emotions and other practical matters never resolve as quickly as one would have us believe. It's also not a very complicated or quick read. This is not a book that you can sink your teeth into on a cold day. But it would be great as a beach read or something to distract you during a very trying period in your life.

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

This is Stephen King's most recent novel and his first (and hopefully only!) crime/detective novel. The protagonist is Bill Hodges, a 62 year old retired, overweight former detective who now spends his afternoon watching daytime television and contemplating using his father's gun on himself until he gets a letter from the infamous Mercedes killer. The killer had, the year before, driven a grey Mercedes into a group of people who were waiting for a job fair to begin, killing 8 and injuring many more. The killer had gotten away and the case was one of the active ones when Hodges retired from the police force. The letter rejuvenates Hodges in a way that the killer perhaps never intended, motivating him to start his own private investigation and solve the case before the killer strikes again.

I understand that Stephen King has had a long and deep love for crime fiction - he has said it over and over again through the years. And lately, he's tried to branch out somewhat successfully with his book on JFK and Joyland, a coming of age tale. I genuinely liked what the MErcedes killer represented- a plausible bad guy who is unremarkable in his own way and could be anyone; he is a man that has a tenuous at best grasp upon reality and his own mental health. He can't stand the world that he lives in because of the circumstances that have occurred to him. However, the plot and the story itself was not in anyway unique: it was like every other crime novel that has ever been written and was utterly predictable. The characters were also really predictable and cookie-cutter: the maverick detective, his sidekick (a young person) and a family member that is a member of the family that has been influenced by the events of the killer). In general, King's latest novel is nothing special because it's like every other crime/detective novel that has come out with the exception that it has been written by Stephen King.

What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist That Tried to Kill Your Wife

How can we Americans, who sit and watch the news on our televisions or listen to it on NPR, even begin to comprehend what the limbs and blood and screams and other sounds are like in a terrorist explosion, unless we've actually lived it? In Israel, however, these sorts of conflicts and explosions are a matter of daily life that the occupants must endure. It is in tis sort of life that David Harris-Gershorn writes his first book - a memoir of sorts.

He gives an interesting perspective on this daily life in Israel with its constant threats. While he's not a primary victim of a terrorist bombing, his wife was, making him a secondary victim of sorts. In 2002, Harris-Gershorn and his wife were living in Israel, studying and attending Hebrew university. Harris-Gershorn's wife was a student there. On one fateful date, she was sitting in the cafeteria when a bomb went off literally next to her while she and some of their friends were eating lunch. While eating pasta in the apartment that he shared with his wife, the author got a phone call and learned that his wife had been in the bombing and had been severely burned. Additionally, a piece of shrapnel had embedded itself in her intestines, requiring immediate surgery.

A year later, the family is back in America and trying to recover psychologically speaking from the bomb, even though there has been a physical recovery. The experience left the author very much paralyzed and prompted him to begin a quest to understand the motivation of the attacker in committing such horrendous acts. He ultimately decides that he must meet the bomber himself. For most of the book, we wait patiently for the moment in which the two people meet. While the book itself is beautifully written, it is unfilling to some extent. Perhaps that is ultimately the purpose of the book - to convey the frustration that the author must feel, to tell us that we must not expect answers to all of our questions and that it might be often about the quest as opposed to the answers. This was a wonderful first effort and I look forward to future efforts.