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1st out of 50 books
—
5 voters
Snake Hips: Belly Dancing and How I Found True Love
by
Anne Thomas Soffee (Goodreads Author)
SNAKE HIPS follows an Arab-American woman's life as she shimmies her way from getting dumped by her tattoo-artist boyfriend to coming to grips with being single, ample, and 30. Her heart broken, Soffee moves back home to wallow in self-pity. There she comes across a flier advertising the usual classes in yoga, vegetarian cookery, ballet and...belly dancing. Against the wis...more
Paperback, 266 pages
Published
January 1st 2004
by Chicago Review Press
(first published 2002)
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This is a good light read, with plenty of humor in it, which is exactly what I was looking for at this point in my life. (When you're eight months pregnant, those gut wrenching/deep social commentaries are just too much for your hormones to handle.)
The premise of the book is based on Soffee's real life, but I'm not sure exactly how closely it follows it. The title explains it all: she dates a few guys, finally finds the right guy, and learns to bellydance during the whole process. Unless you're...more
The premise of the book is based on Soffee's real life, but I'm not sure exactly how closely it follows it. The title explains it all: she dates a few guys, finally finds the right guy, and learns to bellydance during the whole process. Unless you're...more
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May 06, 2009
Stephanie
added it
The subtitle of this book should have warned me away, but the Amazon reviews said "I was pleasantly surprised," so I gave it a skim. Endearingly, Soffee falls completely in love with belly dance, and the pleasure of this book is in the contrast between the what she sees as the glamorous and alluring nature of belly dance and the reality of where most of it is performed: community centers with folding chairs, Moose lodges, agricultural fairs. Soffee's first solo gets rudely booed in a nursing hom...more
Nothing makes you appreciate your family and upbringing more than reading about someone else's. (No matter how many times she calls it a "suburb", the author describes her hometown as a seriously creepy ghetto.)
For the intermittent belly dancer, this book is a lot of fun, chock full of words that you'll feel all elite for knowing. It's a novelized account of how the author picked herself up (from bad relationships and drug addictions) and cleaned up her life, finding a new happiness and self-suf...more
For the intermittent belly dancer, this book is a lot of fun, chock full of words that you'll feel all elite for knowing. It's a novelized account of how the author picked herself up (from bad relationships and drug addictions) and cleaned up her life, finding a new happiness and self-suf...more
I wanted so badly to like this book! It especially sucks not to like a memoir, because it feels like you're saying you don't like the very real person whose story is told within its pages, but the fact is certain people's stories will resonate with you and others just won't. I've done bellydance in the past, and the idea of a woman using dance to get through difficult times with a lot of humor was right up my alley. And there were a couple of parts that genuinely made me laugh.
About 3/4 of the...more
About 3/4 of the...more
This is just a regular old memoir, from my perspective. And it was repetitive. I don't think I could have handled any more references to her nerdy half-Lebanese self.
I also don't really see how this woman, after three years of belly-dancing, didn't seem to get any better. She claimed she was a beginning three years in and that she was shy. I guess it seemed like the only proactive thing she did was go to a class, and then she got kind of swooped into the customs. Aside from seeking potential hu...more
I also don't really see how this woman, after three years of belly-dancing, didn't seem to get any better. She claimed she was a beginning three years in and that she was shy. I guess it seemed like the only proactive thing she did was go to a class, and then she got kind of swooped into the customs. Aside from seeking potential hu...more
1 like · like · see review
Redemption through female camaraderie, finding one's ethnic roots and hip shaking. Soffee presents herself as a bit lost, very likable and earnest, always striving to be a better dancer, a better friend and a better Lebanese-American Princess. She recovers from a disastrous relationship with a tattoo artist (tattoo artists, she claims, tend to have barely legal girlfriends--not sure what the age of consent is in North Carolina) by throwing herself into belly dancing and finding some real friends...more
Bought this from the author at the first James River Writer's Festival way back in 2003. I enjoyed it a lot ~ the author has a wonderful voice and a very wry, humorous outlook on life to which I can relate. It didn't hurt that 99.9% of the book is set in Richmond VA, where I live.
There was a lot about belly dancing, as you can gather from the title, and perhaps a bit more about the author's failed love life than I wanted to know about, but overall, I enjoyed the book immensely. My only complaint...more
There was a lot about belly dancing, as you can gather from the title, and perhaps a bit more about the author's failed love life than I wanted to know about, but overall, I enjoyed the book immensely. My only complaint...more
I first sought this book out as an escapist memoir during spring break of my first year of grad school, and I wanted a fun book about something I love -- dancing! Almost two years later, I picked it up again because I wanted a funny and engaging read for relaxation an the book provides good reminder of how growth can be found in unexpected places.
Snake Hips is particularly enjoyable because the author has a good sense of humor and self-awareness (or self-deprecation?) about her life and choices....more
Snake Hips is particularly enjoyable because the author has a good sense of humor and self-awareness (or self-deprecation?) about her life and choices....more
I chanced upon this book after becoming a bit obsessive about belly dancing, doing a search at my public library, and having it show up among all of the instruction manuals and DVDs. I think Ms. Soffee would've approved.
What a fun memoir - witty, smart, self-deprecating - everything I love in a memoir. Throw in rock and roll references, lots of belly dancing, and a happy ending and - well it's everything I like a memoir to be.
I'd write more, but I need to work on my hip drops.
What a fun memoir - witty, smart, self-deprecating - everything I love in a memoir. Throw in rock and roll references, lots of belly dancing, and a happy ending and - well it's everything I like a memoir to be.
I'd write more, but I need to work on my hip drops.
This was a definitely fun and light read. (I'm going by memory now as I've since swapped the book with another reader.) I enjoyed her behind-the-scenes look into the bellydance world, but I remember wishing more tribal bellydance was shown (that's what I danced). Anyway, Soffee's funny if not a little too self-conscious but, since the book's a definite light-read, her self-consciousness isn't so bad.
Jun 16, 2011
Valerie
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Crystal, Janelle, Tami
Shelves:
dancing
I have been belly dancing for a little while, and I really enjoyed her description of the dance classes, the costumes (probably the funnest parts) and the teachers. This is probably the 3rd or 4th book about dance that I've read where the main female tries to find true hetero love by dancing. Women would do well to examine thedemographics of dance classes before choosing this approach.
Jan 29, 2009
Sonya
added it
This isn't really a book about bellydancing, per so. The woman in the book takes up bellydancing as a way to escape the unhappingess in her life, meet people that boost her self-esteem, etc. As a relatively new student of TRIBAL bellydancing, I related to her story in many, many ways. :)
This book was actually more interesting as a sort of character study (except for a real person) or a discussion of how people construct their own identities rather than a memoir itself. It definitely gave me some food for thought, but it wasn't as engrossing as I would have liked.
Anne Thomas Soffee is a damn fine writer. Being married to someone studying bellydance (AKA Danse Orientale) it seemed like reading this was written in the rules IN INK for me. After about the first page, it was clear this would be no chore at all. Soffee is an engaging, entertaining writer, and she spins a tale of how bellydancing kept her mind occupied after moving back home to Virginia following a heart-breaking dumping from her then boyfriend, and helped not only rebuild her self-confidence,...more
This book was slow and uninteresting. I suppose she felt her (boring) life had been interesting enough (to someone)to write this drivel but it was a long story about her loneliness and desperation. It doesn't talk about actual belly dancing much at all.
Cute and funny, not the best novel by any means.
Hilarious if you understand the Bellydance references, I'm not sure how much you'd appreciate those if you had never done a class before.
Hilarious if you understand the Bellydance references, I'm not sure how much you'd appreciate those if you had never done a class before.
Really enjoyed her writing, especially all the wit and sarcasm .... great for ladies that are just plain over the men in their lives.
Very well written book from this Richmond native. She got a nod from Tom Robbins which is awesome in and of itself!
only on page 36 and i can not get into it! Going to do my best to read it since it is a book club book and the author will be at out meeting in March. Not loving it.
It turns out there IS more than one way to be happy!
loved it!!! Great vacation read. Creative writer too.
Hilarious! I love the author's realness.
Jan 04, 2010
Jenn
marked it as to-read
Local Richmond author.
I really REALLY enjoyed this book until... the end. The author changed from past tense to present tense and failed to really end the story where it should have ended. Sure, it's autobiographical and life is constantly moving forward, but aesthetically I feel the book could have ended a chapter or two before it actually did. A fun read though, especially if you are interested in belly dance or are nearing 30 and still feeling a bit uncomfortable in adulthood.
Started strong, but just trailed on, with no real climax or big plot point.
After being dumped by her long-time tattoo artist boyfriend, Anne finds a flier for belly dancing classes and tries it as a way to get over her ex and reconnect with her Lebanese roots. She throws herself full force into this specialized type of dancing and the unusual community that surrounds it. A great sneak peek into the world of belly dancing.
-Kelly M.H.-
-Kelly M.H.-
I didn't love the story as much as I loved the writing. Nice to find an author who can put words together intelligently!
Jan 23, 2011
Nicole Hudgins
added it
I just couldnt finish it.
Interesting book. It was much more about belly dancing than the true love. I liked the interspersed stories about disastrous dating--good comedy. The belly dancing part was empowering! The true love shouldn't have been billed on the front cover because I didn't think that was really what it was about.
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