Haunted, by Chuck Palahniuk (2005)
This book will be made into a movie. You can SEE the movie as you're reading.
A bunch of people respond to an ad for a writers' retreat. A bus picks them up. Tension builds as a narrator says things like, what would you bring if you could only bring one suitcase and all your food would be provided--at least, you ASSUMED all your food would be provided. We start to get the feeling that this writers' retreat isn't going to be what the writers expected.
Indeed it isn't. They're locked in by the old guy who invited them there. But here's what's really creepy: the foreshadowing led us to believe that the old guy would deprive them of food/water/heat/etc.--but in actual fact, the writers deprive themselves of these things, just to make their story better when they're eventually rescued. Then they go farther than that, and begin competing for who will be the most pitiful case: chopping off their own fingers, etc., so they can say the old guy did it to them. It's scary in the way Lord of the Flies is scary: people are going crazy, and it seems like it could seriously happen.
Meanwhile, the writers tell stories. When I read the first one, in which a teenaged boy survives getting his intestines sucked out by a swimming pool pump, I mentally looked at the writer and said, "Don't do that to me again." He must have mentally heard me, because the rest aren't so severely stomach-turning. There's a "Nightmare Box" that causes anyone who looks into it to abandon normal life. There's a couple making a homemade porn movie. There's a group of high-society people who try out homeless life. Still, there's plenty of gross to go around, and you shouldn't read the book if you don't like horror: people rot, people boil to death, people get their skulls smashed in, etc.
There's also a story about a chef who carves up restaurant critics. He (the chef) goes on for awhile about how "those who can't, gripe." Critics are described as "selling out...setting yourself up as a know-it-all, and taking cheap shots..." "Those online critics, they're a dime a dozen. Everybody with a mouth and a computer." We're not really talking about FOOD critics, ARE we. But let me say this about "food critics": saying that they're failed cooks is like saying an architect is a failed housebuilder. Criticism is its own field, unconnected to the critic's ability or inability to handle other careers. It is only the fantasy of the negatively criticized that critics are frustrated failures. Hey, I'm just sticking up for those poor food critics.
Forcing Amaryllis, by Louise Ure (2005)
From the gimmicky character names ("Calla" and "Amaryllis" are sisters) to the tacky title ("Forcing" refers to a rape) to the way a character tells us what she looks like by looking at herself in a mirror, this novel reeks of a first attempt. These things could be forgiven in a book with a good story and interesting characters, but no such luck.
Let's start with the plot, which has promising ideas but poor execution. Amaryllis endures a horrible rape (she's raped with the blade of a knife); when she survives, her near-successful suicide attempt leaves her in a coma. Her sister Calla suffers seven years of this before she can't stand it another minute and begins investigating the crime Amaryllis refused to report. During her investigation, she not only finds several suspects and several similarly brutalized women, she also finds that her sister's story doesn't ring true. Great ideas, right? You can really see how a thrilling tale could develop. But it doesn't. Instead, the plot manages to be plodding and dull. I have said this before and I'll say it again: a good writer can make a raised eyebrow entirely chilling; a poor author can use snakes and knives and deserts and guns and weird belts and creepy cops and STILL fail to make the reader's heart beat faster.
The character of Calla fails to evoke any sympathy or interest. The millionth time she mentioned her credit card balance, I felt like smacking her just to alleviate my boredom. And if she's really as plain-Jane as she tells us she is, why should we believe her insta-romance with the hot guy? Certainly Calla's mind isn't the reason he fell for her. Are we really supposed to believe she's a lawyer?
In fact, speaking of "Forcing," the whole book feels forced. The romance is forced. The "scary" scenes are forced. The dramatic tension, such as it is, is forced. The quote from Calla's mother about "it's not real unless you say it out loud" is forced to tie the book together (it fails to do so, perhaps because it's a truly stupid quote). The reader, far from being carried along by the plot, must force her way to the end. But don't bother: I did it so you don't have to.
Amy and Isabelle, by Elizabeth Strout (1998)
There's a sentence about a third of the way through this book that helped me formulate the essence of my review. A character has just read Madame Bovary, and she is thinking she might not read any more books for awhile because "...life was difficult enough without bringing someone else's sorrows to crash down about your head."
Amy and Isabelle just have so many PROBLEMS. Isabelle is only 32 or 33, but it took me until the end of the book to realize it, because she seems like a downtrodden late 40s. Amy is Isabelle's 15- or 16-year-old daughter, and she made me remember how bad the teen years can feel. Both Amy and Isabelle have trouble relating to other people, and their awkward attempts left me feeling tense.
The main story line is that Amy has a fling with her math teacher, and Isabelle, whose past has made her sensitive to this issue, hits the ceiling. Neither Isabelle nor Amy seems able to fix the huge rift this puts in their relationship. Since both of them are silent, awkward sulkers rather than loud, screaming fighters, this gives the reader a lot of time to suffer in that house, with only the ticking of clock and the occasional quiet horrible remark to break the silence.
The book is an engrossing read (and I LOVED Fat Bev), but it left me feeling like I'd brought someone else's sorrows crashing about my head.
Quite a Year for Plums, by Bailey White (1998)
Don't ask me what the book is about, because I don't have an answer for you. There's no plot I can put a finger on. It's just about the people it's about, and that's all.
There's Ethel, a woman who has casual encounters with many men, saying that sex is better when you're not having it but that she has to keep checking to make sure that's still true. There's Louise, Ethel's mother, who works ceaselessly with string and tin foil and letter patterns to communicate with the aliens paying her regular visits. There's Hilma, who gets to thinking about something and misses most of a conversation. There's Roger, Ethel's ex-husband, who placidly helps out wherever he's needed, with no apparent bitterness toward Ethel. There's Della, who paints pictures of birds and brings all her belongings to the dump with little notes on them ("If you are tall, maybe this light won't shine in your eyes").
The book just sort of watches these and other people for awhile. Della works intensely and fretfully on a painting of chickens. Roger gets his picture in the paper. Louise moves in with her sister Eula and rents out her own house to out-of-towners. Hilma pays a visit to some new people in town. That's what happens. It's really good. I didn't find myself rushing back to the book at every opportunity, but I did find myself savoring the strong-but-subtle dialogue, and the way Eula had to keep reminding herself that Della painted PICTURES of birds, not the birds themselves.
Amy's Answering Machine, by Amy Borkowsky (2001)
Amy's Jewish mother leaves lots of messages on Amy's answering machine. Amy found that when she told other people about these messages, other people laughed. So she put them in a book.
The messages really are great: "I don't know if you heard the latest on the portable stereos, but they're saying that the foam earpiece on the headphones is a prime breeding ground for bacteria. So if you still insist on walking around with the headphones on, you may wanna take an antibiotic. Okay, hon? Talk to you soon. Bye." Cumulatively, they're even better. But the commentary in between the messages? No good. Forced comedy, not funny. A few amusing things here and there, but really just filler. (She mentions using the material "on stage"--perhaps it's excellent when spoken, but doesn't transcribe well.) The cartoons, too, are not very good: they don't match the tone of the book. They're like....BOY cartoons in a GIRL book.
Big Fish, by Daniel Wallace (1998)
I was interested in the movie based on this book, but the movie was directed by Tim Burton and I don't trust Tim Burton with my tender emotions. So I read the book instead.
It's great. It's fairy tales for grown-ups. The stories--true, false, and exaggerated, and you'll never know for sure which are which--are all about Edward Bloom. A wondrous guy, was Edward Bloom. He caught a poisonous snake before it could bite a beautiful naked woman. He ripped out a wild dog's heart before it could attack a little girl. He fell off a roof and was unharmed. He purchased an entire town. He saw an underwater city. And throughout, he told jokes. Good stuff.
Specimen Days, by Michael Cunningham (2005)
You may have heard of this book. I'd heard of it as "a book by that guy who wrote The Hours." I'd also heard that it was made up of three stories, each starring the same three characters---a man, a woman, and a child---plus Walt Whitman. And that in the third story, the woman was played by a giant alien lizard.
Saying that all three stories involve "the same three characters" is stretching it. Sure, there's an adult female in all three stories, but is her similar name in all three (Catherine/Cat/Catareen) really enough to make her the same person? (Waiting for an answer? It's "no.")
In the first story, a boy works at the job previously held by his older brother--a man killed by the machine the boy is now working on, a machine that now seems to be whispering to the boy. In the second story, a woman who works as a police hotline operator for nutcases fails to screen out a nutcase who has actual follow-through. In the third story, a cyborg and a giant alien lizard run for their lives.
All three stories are fat with Walt Whitman quotations. I would have been more affected by these if they hadn't kept triggering in my mind a quote from that episode of The Simpsons where Homer kicks Walt Whitman's gravestone: "I-hate-you-Walt-freakin'-Whitman! Leaves-of-Grass-my-ass!"
The stories are good, and the Whitman stuff is a pleasingly unusual touch, but they left a bad taste in my mind. They're not exactly "feel-good" situations, and the hopelessness got to me. In the end, the cyborg rides off into the sunset, and I had no confidence that he could take any kind of care of that horse.
Tending Violet: A Baby's First Year, by Joyce Lollar
This is not a book. These are weekly essays I WISH were a book. You will find them here: http://www.babycenter.com/general/baby/1433663.html
Joyce is a first-time mother. Her first-time baby is Violet. Each week she writes a column about how it's going. I happen to count among my acquaintances a baby girl the same age as Violet---and let me tell you, this stuff is right on the nose.
Furthermore, I want to be best friends with Joyce. I love her. I love the way she puts things. Singing frogs. Permission to refuel. The soothing sounds of a sex toy. Calling the miniature feet. A tiny, confused person the cat outweighs by ten pounds. We're fans. Chuck, chuck, swallow. Resentful little pink face. Baby Jenga. Starfish hands. Smells like milk and warm kittens.
Someone please publish this. PLEASE. Leave in all the cute photos.
The 7 Stages of Motherhood, by Ann Pleshette Murphy (2004)
As with many huge, life-changing, emotionally-charged topics, not everyone will agree on all points. Some points may even cause flames to shoot out of a reader's ears. I am good friends with a woman who uses careful spanking as an infrequent, calm discipline technique, and she would not appreciate hearing it equated with angry child-beating, or reading several times a line such as "All it teaches is that a big person can use her superior strength to hurt a little person." That even cheeses ME off a little.
I was irritated by the talk of getting children into the "right" preschool. The author is making the point that it's not all that important--but the way she brings it up implies that it IS important and that you should do your best to put it in perspective in the event that your child gets into only a "mediocre" preschool. Not everyone will be able to identify, either, with how important it is that you teach your child to do his own laundry even though technically the maid could do it for him, or with worrying that a piece of fried dough at a carnival will lead to occluded arteries.
The book slips frequently into the "me first" groove: "...deciding to respect your own feelings, your own needs, will probably benefit your child in ways that far outstrip the nutritional advantages of breast milk." Working women are first described as doing what's best for their families by meeting their own needs and fulfilling their own selves, but then it is stated repeatedly that working women are always putting their own needs last.
The book is well redeemed, however, by sentences like this: "You also have to schedule regular dates. I know this sounds like all of those chirpy women's magazine articles...." This is even better when you realize the author is the former editor-in-chief of Parents magazine. Another good line, when discussing how some children are ahead of others developmentally: "The problem with making comparisons is that they're grounded in the specious notion that an auspicious start guarantees a successful future."
I like that the author interviewed many mothers and used quotes from those mothers liberally. But man, what were some of those women smoking before they had children? Some of them claimed that "nobody told me" that childbirth would be painful or that infant care would be difficult. They were furious at what they perceived to be "a conspiracy of silence." Our culture is saturated with millions of years of women reporting that childbirth hurts and infant care is hard; you almost can't hear the tweeting birdies over the din of it. Women who choose not to receive that message, either for lack of research or for scoffing at other women or for saying "la la la I can't hear you" with their hands over their ears, deserve what they get. Conspiracy of silence, my foot.
Overall, it's a very good study of motherhood. The "seven stages" approach is an interesting one, and makes for good reading. The author manages to convey the way the mothering years stretch on forever and simultaneously race by at the speed of light, and the way rewards are balanced with suffering and struggle. She brings up many good points, and the writing is well-organized and runs smoothly from point to point. Quotes from other mothers are well-placed, and serve to represent many different perspectives and opinions; the message is brought home that different mothers may make different decisions, but different decisions are okay. The negatives stated above are minor and infrequent, and of course the things you consider negatives are likely to be different than mine: as previously stated, it's a topic full of opinionated disagreement.