I can see giving this to the right kid and scaring the shit bejesus out of him so badly that he'll be in therapy until he's forty just to be able to g...moreI can see giving this to the right kid and scaring the shit bejesus out of him so badly that he'll be in therapy until he's forty just to be able to go into nature ever again. There are funguses and viruses and creepy worms out there just waiting to parasite it up inside of a hosts body and some of these things can even hijack control of the brain and get the host to do some destructive and very out of character actions.
We don't necessarily think of a cricket as being really high on the scale of cognitive volition, they are insects and they do insect things, which from out apex of mammal-dom doesn't look all that sophisticated. (Ok, maybe it does some complex things, but did you ever think of a cricket as sitting around and wondering what it should do, being sad in the face of contemplating all it's 'free-will', or just unable to leap from one leaf to another because it can't think of what it wants to eat tonight. Yeah maybe these aren't the most sophisticated thoughts, but they are thoughts about thoughts, the basis of what we think of as our own cognitive free-will) But with the introduction of the hairworm, Paragordius Tricuspidatus the cricket's sole purpose becomes to jump in water, never mind that crickets can't swim and they instinctively avoid water. What does something like this mean for the concepts of free will? Obviously a cricket that can't swim isn't going to intentionally throw itself in water, that kind of behavior would have been easily bred out of the gene pool by evolution a long time ago. But Paragordius Tricuspidatus doesn't infect us, and make us want to drown ourselves in order for the little hairworm (well not really that little in comparison to the size of a cricket, the little (opps I almost said a dirty word, and this is a kid's book review, I'm going to be good) worm is actually three feet long!
But what about the single cell parasite Toxoplasma Gondii that lowers the fear instinct in rats to such a degree that they actually seek out and want to be around their natural predator, the house cat? Apparently 25% of all people are infected with this little zombie-maker, and it does little to humans, but isn't in conceivable that with some good old evolution T. gondii could find a use for us, all it would take is some strain of it to have a marked success at doing something that would increase it's chances of survival and we could be throwing ourselves into lion cages or something, right? Ok, that is facetious. But still it's a little chilling what a tiny microbe can do to so called free-will.
Karen wrote a review with some great visuals of some of the different zombie parasites out there just waiting to take control of unsuspecting hosts. You can read her review here if you haven't already, of just go back and read it again and be creeped out by the picture of the mice hanging out on a cat's face. http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
If you've read The Book of Dangerous Animals this book will give you even more reasons to never venture outside again, and maybe even not want to let things into your house (T. gondii is out to get you! You are possibly already infected from eating undercooked meat, eating unwashed vegetables or changing your cat's litter box). If you haven't read the other book you should just so you can realize the full extent of the dangers nature has waiting for you. And then read this childrens book when it is released this fall.
Sort of like OULIPO for kids. Or would it just be a kind of Perec for kids? Or maybe just a warning to kids to stay away from people who discriminate...moreSort of like OULIPO for kids. Or would it just be a kind of Perec for kids? Or maybe just a warning to kids to stay away from people who discriminate against particular vowels, and try to rid the world (or the text) of them.
Pirates attack a small island. When they find no treasures the head pirate gets very angry and punishes the island by ridding it of anything that has the letter O in it, the bane of his existence. What follows is an attempt by the pirates and their collaborators (I just realized that there is a kind of French resistance thing going on here, an added dimension to talk to children about, they love anything Nazi, even if it's fighting the Nazi's and love their books to subtly deal with the topic), to rid the island of O's. For examples pigs are fine, but not hogs, but swine's are, but they can be butchered into ham, but not pork or bacon.
The book is actually a lot of fun, and pretty funny in an absurd kind of way. I'm not sure about how much your average child will like this, kids today might cry because in this world they will no longer be able to LOL with their friends, while their parents and other adults will still be able to laugh, but the spellings that result from having to take O's out of words will probably delight them, even if they see no problem with why anyone would care about the nonsensical destruction that is caused by the pillaging of letters. Younger children will probably enjoy this more than teenagers, probably because they haven't become quite as language retarded yet as their older siblings. I'm being judgmental though, and probably not adding anything constructive to this legitimate forum of book reviewing by my non-sequiters.
Anyway a fun children's novel that plays with language in an appealing manner to this bookish reader, and it's easier to read than anything OULIPO has ever created. (less)
Because I'm mature and it's best to act mature when reviewing literature written for children, I won't say anything about the second story here.
I als...moreBecause I'm mature and it's best to act mature when reviewing literature written for children, I won't say anything about the second story here.
I also won't admit to giggling I read this line nor make any comments about the the maturity of French children (nor wonder at what age it is appropriate here in America to decide to worth of a cock based on it's size alone).
"Who does he think he is?" she said to her sister. "Just a little cock who doesn't matter to anyone!"
And I also won't say anything about what kind of little girl talks about the advantages of a big cock versus a little one.
"You can say what you like, cock, but it's a great advantage to be big." "It may be useful at times," said the cock, "but you must admit there's nothing handsome about it..."
Instead I'll share these two delightful pictures of foxes from the same story!
This fox doesn't just want to eat a little black cock, he wants to use the little black cock to lure all of the other chicks and cocks in the farm into the woods so he can eat them all at his leisure.
And this is what happens when little girls foil the plans of foxes. The foxes get angry!!
Sadly, the foxes had just eaten a lot of chickens so they were feeling sluggish and the little Darger-esque girls were able to escape to safety.
The author for these children stories about a farm where all the animals can talk, is mentioned in A Novel Bookstore as being an author of 'good' books. I don't think his children books were mentioned, and I actually didn't realize this was going to be a book for children until after I placed my request on the library website. Since it's by one of the authors mentioned in the book though it gets to live on the bookshelf!
I do have one of his 'adult' books to read, and I'm hoping that isn't nearly as racy as his children's work. I don't think I could take reading a whole novel about cocks, no matter what their color or size is. (less)
Part One Ariel, recommended this book to me, and she wrote a fine good review of the book. You can find it by clicking on her name...moreA Review in Two Parts
Part One Ariel, recommended this book to me, and she wrote a fine good review of the book. You can find it by clicking on her name.
I really liked the book, but didn't love it. I think the things I didn't love about the book were me being a crank. For example, the myopic narrator view point of a seventh grader was great; it caught the distortions that a kid sees the world through and the way teachers and others outside of their own circle are depersonalized into roles instead of people. Without being preachy, though. But, then I would not like the Wally and Beaver golly-gee attitude that would at times sneak into the book. Sometimes it worked for good comic effect but it seemed too pure and innocent for me. Another part that I'm not quite sure how I feel is the Forest Gump path the story veers off into sometimes. But maybe if Tom Hanks hadn't starred in the movie I wouldn't be annoyed by anything that reminds me of the movie.
On the plus side, I really like the month of May in the book (each chapter is a month in the school year). I was a little afraid of what May may bring when I was reading the book, you know since it would be May 1968, probably the most tragic month of the second half of the 20th century. I'm not interested in going into detail and talking late story plot developments or anything, so I'll just leave it that the author does a great job capturing a certain pathos by this point in the novel that originally had only been a suburban comedic effect.
If I was a teacher of young adults and I had them read this book, I'd probably test them by asking them this question: "Tragedy or Comedy? Why? Explain and Defend".
Part Two (If you are averse to potty mouth language please go away, I'm about to rant it up. You've been warned. Now go away if you don't like dirty words. Seriously. Go Away)
Anyway, thank you for sticking around. This part is called Wednesday Wars as Republican Fantasy , or something like that.
The basic premise of this book is that there is this one WASP kid in a Long Island class surrounded by Papists taking orders from the Vatican (and thus only a step better than Communists, but never to be trusted as real Americans) and Jews (those greedy fucks who run the banks., ie., the ones who figure a way to swindle the poor upper middle class white Protestant males money from him through usury, liberal politics, socialism and ultimately Communism). This paragon of WHITE AMERICA is (gasp!) a MINORITY in this own home, and further more sees that the people in power (his teacher) irrationally hates him! (Just like Big Government (i.e., Liberals, Democrats, (see Jews!) hate the SILENT MAJORITY- which is not mentioned in the book, but which would be used as a rallying slogan by Nixon in the 1968 elections)). See the character in this book as RIGHT WING CHRISTIAN AMERICA circa, well whenever, but today is good. When they are a MAJORITY but for some reason see themselves as a persecuted MINORITY, and they are angry, ANGRY, ANGRY!!!!! that anyone else gets any of the pie besides them, and that if people aren't on their hands and knees sucking their dicks then they are only trying to steal their money and take things away from them (see THOSE FUCKING GAYS WITH THEIR WANTING TO GET MARRIED!!!! HOW DARE THEY!!!!!!).
This might sound like fiction, but sadly it's not. A 13 year old has the right to seeing the world in a distorted manner or persecution. A nation of adults seeing the world in the same way is sad?, scary?, retarded?, enough to make one (me) want to seriously reconsider democracy and not let those suffering from extreme persecution delusions have a right to vote? All of the above?
This isn't even so much a rant, as a pointing out of another story going on in this book. Sadly, for my theory here, the White, Right and Dumb American story falls apart after a chapter or two. Which goes to show that 13 year olds can grow, but stupid ignorant tea-baggers haven't yet shown that they can. (less)
I agree with Karen's reviews from this morning. Reading these non-fiction children's books has been eye-opening.
This is a great book. Objectively it'...moreI agree with Karen's reviews from this morning. Reading these non-fiction children's books has been eye-opening.
This is a great book. Objectively it's probably a five star book, it only gets four stars from me because my interest in baseball isn't that great, that's not the books fault though. At first I was afraid the book would fall apart under its language, the author uses a rhythm that is kind of old fashioned and stereotypically a rural African American. Instead of ever crossing the line into being either a mockery or calling too much attention to the language and away from the material the language actually adds an 'authentic' feel to the story being told.
Much of the material here I knew nothing about. I had no idea about the Negro Baseball League, or any of the other non-white baseball organizations that existed until integration in the late 1940's. If only I'd been more interested in baseball this book probably would have been very fascinating, and I probably would have wanted to delve into the material that Nelson had used as his source material. I'm pretty sure that if I had read this book when I was ten years old (and when I actually did care about Baseball) I would have loved it, read it over and over again, memorized every great painting in the book and to this day been able to tell you all the facts given about the baseball players described in this story. (less)
This isn't a very inspiring biography of Walt Whitman. Being that it is for children I shouldn't find this too surprising, but after reading some of t...moreThis isn't a very inspiring biography of Walt Whitman. Being that it is for children I shouldn't find this too surprising, but after reading some of the other children non-fiction books I was expecting a little more. I'm sure Brian Selznick worked hard on the illustrations, but they seemed pretty weak. Not that his drawing style in his other books is great, but in the Cabinet of Hugo whatever the title is, and the Harry Houdini book they added something wondrous to the story, here they seemed to cheapen the story.
Why three stars? I don't know. It's not a bad book, and since I'm not the intended audience of the book, and I'm not reading it on my own free-will I think I shouldn't be too harsh. While no mention of Whitman's sexuality is mentioned, there is an almost Victorian nod to it in the author notes in the back, and one of the pictures does have a homo-sensual (it's not erotic, does this term work?) feel to it. (less)
This is kind of like a Kundera novel for kids, but told with lots of pictures and not so many words. Better than some of the Kundera books I have read...moreThis is kind of like a Kundera novel for kids, but told with lots of pictures and not so many words. Better than some of the Kundera books I have read, like say Immortality, but not others. Is it right to even be comparing Kundera to a children's book? Not growing up in a totalitarian regime, I don't really know what it is like, and I have a feeling that compared to even a sliver of what life was like under Soviet rule the freedoms of the West are glorious, but there is quite a bit of almost cold-war era propaganda seeming to go on in this book. An us and them kind of dichotomy that makes me feel uneasy, and a little fearful about the old uncritical rah-rah of American and Western freedoms being given in a diluted form to kids. I thought we were past this kind of cold war ideology being forced on kids, but then I have to think that this is one man's experience, and that kids really don't necessarily need to be exposed to the reality of American imperialism.
Twits are ugly people who do horrible things to each other and others. They are not nice, and they are negative people who have been negative so long...moreTwits are ugly people who do horrible things to each other and others. They are not nice, and they are negative people who have been negative so long that the negativity has made them ugly.
On Monday I was going to write a review that just said that I'm a twit. Which isn't really true, I'm generally a only a slightly negative person, bordering on neutral and I don't do things intentionally to try to cause other people harm. Sometimes I do turn incredibly negative though and then I come out swinging at anyone close to me. I get angry, feel incredibly destructive, make life hell for anyone nearby and then it passes and I just get really depressed for awhile. I hope, even when I'm in my shit mood, that I don't do anything to hurt anyone else in anyway, so I guess I'm not quite a Twit.
Instead, I guess I unintentionally wait to wade through the bullshit of my depression, and do something then to fuck everything up, or at least start a chain reaction. Yay me, huh?
Don't vote for this. I meant to say, Vote for This. Who cares if it's not a review. I generally don't write reviews, I write opinion pieces and rants peppered with confessionals from my life. Sometimes I write very critical things, and I guess they might be considered a review, but really they are just throwing venom and spite at a target that won't swing back. Very few of the many words I've used on this site are anything that would really give someone a sense if they want to read a book or not.
That said, the book is amusing. You might like it. (less)
If David Mamet must write a book for children he should not do two things:
1. Use obscure words that w...moreDavid Mamet should not write books for children.
If David Mamet must write a book for children he should not do two things:
1. Use obscure words that will send parents to the dictionary in order to explain what a precious little pig or a super-hero ant in their existential journeys.
2. Handwrite the text for the book. Mamet, your hand writing is just a little bit better than mine. Let someone else do hand lettering if that is your thing, or else why not let it be typeset? It's awesome if children can actually make out the words in books they are trying to read.
On the plus side, this book isn't nearly as obtuse as the one about the pig going to college.
Karen and I recently saw this book at McNally Jackson. We were there with Tommy and when we saw Simon and Schuster published it, she said that she wou...moreKaren and I recently saw this book at McNally Jackson. We were there with Tommy and when we saw Simon and Schuster published it, she said that she would get it for us. When she received the book she told us that the book looked dumb, or stupid or bad, or something like that. Tommy must have been temporarily crazy, or else confusing this book with another.
First off, the book looks pretty. It is designed in a Chris Ware sort of way, you know Acme Novelty style. Mixed with the Ware-esque aesthetics there is a sort of (you know the graphic novel I'm thinking of but can't remember, Karen just let me know that I'm thinking of Pluck and Fuzz by Ted Stern) feel to the drawing style of the characters (I might be really offbase with this comparison). But this book is for kids, and hopefully the intended audience won't have any frame of reference to say that this looks like Chris Ware, because seriously if kids are reading Ware they are going to grow up to be depressed little shits, and they should be out there enjoying their last fleeting moments of enjoyment in life before they realize what a cruel joke it all really is.
Anyway, this is part graphic novel, part traditional novel. The story is about a talking chipmunk who thinks he knows better than his sister and mom and chooses to live in a tree decorated with a postcard with a picture of a skyscraper on it. Early in the book though the little chipmunk is punished for his hubris of living in a tree instead of in the ground. During a rainstorm his tree gets washed away. When his tree finally comes to dry land he finds himself in a post-human New York City that is populated by a variety of talking critters. Talking animals on adventures in books are a guilty enjoyment of mine. I love Tailchasher's Song and Watership Down, although the world of Brian Jacques freaks me out a little, I've never read a Redwall novel. Add pictures of cute chipmunks and grumpy porcupines (but where the fuck are the foxes? huh? They are mentioned on several occasions, but where are the fucking foxes? Put them in!!) and how can any infantile thirty-six year old guy not think this book is just adorable (especially when the book looks like a Chris Ware production, which makes it 'cool' for a chubby bespectacled guy nearing his middle ages to like).
Also did I mention that the book has that, books are magical and awesome, moral in it? Even though it's cheap to stick this moral into books for kids I'm still dreamy enough about books to find the message charming.
Ok, the story itself is a little weak. There isn't the best development and the characters overcome difficulties easily, but for an hour or so reading on a Saturday morning this book was adorable enough for me to want to read the further adventures of Thelonious the talking chipmunk. (less)
There are some very cute pictures of the animals in here, especially of the little fox so that gets it four stars. The story is a little weak, it's mo...moreThere are some very cute pictures of the animals in here, especially of the little fox so that gets it four stars. The story is a little weak, it's morning, time for the little fox to goto sleep but he doesn't want. He wants to go out and seize the day, play with all the day time animals, see all of the world he's missing while he's asleep. Because see he's only up in the middle of the night, sure it's a nice time to be out and about maybe if you're into bar hopping and sitting in all night diners, but that's not what the little fox is in to. Besides, having much experience with working third shift / overnights I know that when you sleep all day after awhile there is a disconnect you feel with the regular world, and the everything takes on a strange feeling, because the people who you run into a 3 am in a copyshop or a gas station aren't usually like normal people, and maybe you just want to see some of your normal friends, the ones that aren't out all night. That's all the little fox wants. Then he meets badger, who also stays up all night, and they agree to hang out the next night. Probably after awhile though the little fox is going to wish he had some more friends to see besides just badger, but that's not covered in this book. (less)
The story is taken from a Scandinavian folk-tale. It's about a giant chicken who hunts the forests for things to eat. Since it's a giant bird it needs...moreThe story is taken from a Scandinavian folk-tale. It's about a giant chicken who hunts the forests for things to eat. Since it's a giant bird it needs to eat big things, like horses. One day though he fucks with the wrong horse and gets his comeuppance.
I said in the comments that this is kind of dark, but now that I'm thinking of it it's really not. Lots of fairy tales end with the demise of the antagonist. I guess it's really not that dark.
The book is beautifully designed, like almost all of the New York Review of Books children classics are. I don't think that these books are really for kids though, more for stunted adults like myself who have a weak spot for book design and a nostalgia for a youth and time that was never their own (I mean I had a youth, but the books NYRB releases are not 'lost classics' from my childhood, but from an earlier time). The books in the series look so nice that you'll want them on your shelf, but I'm not sure if the youth of today would find much in them, or appreciate the quality of the books. I'm not sure if children should appreciate things like this, they should save that kind of appreciation for when they are older and avoiding the banality of their real life by filling the void with this appreciation.
I do like that the book teaches that birds are evil. Children need to learn this. It's science mind you. Birds are direct descendants from dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were not necessarily evil, but when most of the dinosaurs went extinct birds' brains evolved with the instinct to seek justice for the catastrophe of their ancestors. Birds have small brains, but they are wired with hatred towards mammals. As I said this is science. The only mammals they can abide to sharing the world with are dolphins, because they also hate all other mammals, and they are in the water. A place the birds have no claim of their own on.
Birds believe that one day the chosen bird will be born who will mate with a luciferian dolphin and a new species will be created that will help usher in a new age of dinosaurs. This is of course complete bullshit, but birds and dolphins still believe it. Just like evangelicals believe in the rapture.
Gosh this is a sort of disturbing book. And it's being marketed for teens. I like to pepper my review...more"TapouT: an expression of combat known worldwide"
Gosh this is a sort of disturbing book. And it's being marketed for teens. I like to pepper my reviews with fucks, shits, douche bags, assholes and assorted other words but the language in this book really set me back a bit. The first page along has at least 7 cuss words, one of them being in the first sentence. I'm not against cursing, in fact I think it's a wonderful thing but there was sort of an overabundance of it here, or maybe I'm only noticing it because the book is being marketed for fourteen year olds and up.
If this book gets any sort of popularity upon it being released you can almost say hello banned book.
The book is about this seventeen year old kid, Tony, who lives in a trailer park with his mom. His mom is something of a human punching bag for a string of degenerate losers. Tony generally hides in his room while his mom gets the shit beat out of her by whomever is her current love interest. Tony's best friend Rob also lives in this trailer park from hell (with apparently just a few other families, it sounds fairly small, there is a weird lack of flushing out the world the characters inhabit going on in this book) but he's been training in MMA and wants to get Tony in to it, for his own good. I agree with Tony's friend Rob, fighting class is a great way to build character. Their trailer park existence has other plans for them then being future Bellator figher stories*, mainly by the presence of a ridiculously named meth slinging biker gang, Agnostic Front (really?), who sort of blackmail Tony into slinging some drugs for them.
The book has the same flawed fatalism of Monster, maybe fatalism isn't the right word, but the same feeling that the author is trying to get you to sympathize with a character who is really not that great of a person. He's sort of a normal teenager in that respect, he makes stupid decisions and all of that, but he also does quite a few things that are sort of questionable. And as the book goes on a general theme is that he needs to break free of the life he's been living that is trying to swallow him whole, but he generally doesn't do that much to try to ever escape that life. We are told that he is actually super-smart, but there is rarely ever any display of that. It's kind of a weird thing going on in the book about how smart he is supposed to be, and it almost feels like it got added into the story as a good idea about a hundred pages into the novel without the first bit of the novel re-written to be about someone with a fairly above average IQ.
Besides the cussing, it was some of the moral decisions that left me feeling uncomfortable about this book. Kind of uneasy. LIke I was cheering Tony on to have a better life, to stick with MMA, to not deal drugs or whatever but then I'd catch myself thinking why should I care about this person?
I'm not exactly making myself clear, and I will probably pay for this a year or two down the line when someone trolls the review to tell me how I'm wrong and then I'll have to try to comb through my feeble memory to remember anything about this book.
I think if this book wasn't about white trash trailer park kids and MMA fighting I would have disliked it. But since it's about two of my favorite preoccupations it kept me interested! I had a couple of problems with the fighting stuff though. One, Tony is apparently what MMA commentators call, a phenome (maybe it's phenom as Karen points out, either way my spell-checker is telling me it's not a real word). He's just naturally awesome at it. Ok, I'll accept this, except that he fights sort of terribly in the real world, but maybe he just needs to be shown something in the gym and he's like a sponge who can do it. Ok, I'll buy it. But if he's as good as they say, the real course would be to train him and not his good, but has to work at it friend Rob, to become a fighter. If he's as good as they say then get him ready for the octagon. I had a hard time believing he was as good as he was supposed to be, especially since not much time passes in the novel. My second complaint is a bit more serious. YOU DON'T KICK WITH YOUR FOOT!!!! Yes, when you soccer kick someone on the ground you use your foot, but if you're executing a perfect leg kick on a girl in a high school hallway it's not done with your foot. It takes approximately one kick at some practice pads to realize that kicking with your foot is really stupid and really hurts. It takes a bunch more kicks to correct what you're doing with what you now you should be doing, but if you are said to be kicking correctly you're going to be making contact with your shin (unless you are soccer kicking or doing a push kick or something like an axe kick, but the general rule is you kick with your shin). This doesn't sound like a big deal, but it really is. It kills some of the realism of the MMA scenes in the book.
I guess I liked the book, I toyed with giving it four stars mostly because as I said I like reading about degenerate white trash and I like reading about fighting. But when I stripped those two parts from the story I wasn't really that in love with what was left. And it does have a shit load of disturbing things that I don't think are necessarily appropriate for a fourteen year old, but I'm probably just a prude and torture-rape and only getting off with a girl by physically abusing her are the kinds of things that kids today don't even bat an eye at.
*For non-MMA watching people out there, before every Bellator fight there is a little video of the each fighter, these videos are almost always about how hard their life had been, abuse, neglect, maybe drugs, prison before they got their shit together by getting into MMA. As a side note, these videos are also hysterically dubbed with vaguely racist stereotypical voices for any fighter who doesn't speak English, or doesn't speak English well. The fighter videos are pretty awful on the whole for Bellator but the fights are almost always really good, so the show balances out. (less)
If I remember right this book was actually better than SF, but it never had the obsession thing attached to it. There is a part in the book where Pete...moreIf I remember right this book was actually better than SF, but it never had the obsession thing attached to it. There is a part in the book where Peter (holy shit, how did I do that, I can't remember character names in books I read last week, but here I am pulling out a character name from a book I read a quarter of a century ago), gets mugged and he says that it's what happens in New York, or something like it's scary but everyone gets mugged so it's no big deal. And this stuck with me for a long time, and I thought that everyone in New York does get mugged. This is kind of a lie, but I think Bernhard Getze (spelling? you know the guy who shot the kids on the subway vigilante style in the 80's.) was in the news a lot, and it just seemed like this fact must be true, and it stuck with me all these years. Why is this important to the book, and why would this make you want to read it or not read it? I don't know, but it's a true story and it shows that this book left a lasting impression on my young malleable mind, and so much of one that I even remembered the character name. So I guess it was a pretty darn good fucking book (wouldn't that be a great blurb on the next paperback edition?)(less)
In third grade or maybe it was second, I don't remember, but I had the same teacher for both grades so it's irrelevant to the story; so anyway in what...moreIn third grade or maybe it was second, I don't remember, but I had the same teacher for both grades so it's irrelevant to the story; so anyway in whatever grade, second or third, my teacher started to read from Superfudge to the class every Friday afternoon. The class got enthralled in the book, and getting a hold of the book from the school library was a pretty impressive feat since everyone in the class wanted the one copy. I can still remember exactly where on the shelf it would have sat if the book had ever actually been in, but trying to get this book became something on an obsession of mine, going to the shelf to see if the book was there on every library trip. Even after I finally did get a hold of the book from the library (when I was in fourth grade (or third), I think that the teacher actually had taken out the elusive only copy of the book to read to us from), I would still check on the status of the book being in or out everytime I stopped in the library. This book I hold as my first book obsession, and even though it never dawned on me to just go to the local bookstore, or maybe town library to get a copy, it still paved the way for many later obsessions with various books and getting them into my greedy little hands so that I could covet them forever and ever (this almost makes it sound like a stole the book, which I did not. Actually I never even owned this book, I only read it twice, both times by taking it out of the library like a person does. It wrong to steal from libraries anyway. Really really wrong.) (less)
I remember nothing of this book, all I remember is the name stuck in my head and the fact that I hated this book more than almost any other book I was...moreI remember nothing of this book, all I remember is the name stuck in my head and the fact that I hated this book more than almost any other book I was ever forced to read in an English class in middle or high school. (less)
I don't remember this one too well, but from the cover I think that it's the one where the blond one from Dukes of Hazzard and John Ritter go looking...moreI don't remember this one too well, but from the cover I think that it's the one where the blond one from Dukes of Hazzard and John Ritter go looking for semen. (less)
This is a weird book. The book itself is pretty straight-forward, the narrator is a high school senior named Sutter who likes to drink and is the life...moreThis is a weird book. The book itself is pretty straight-forward, the narrator is a high school senior named Sutter who likes to drink and is the life of the party. The party to him though is all of life. He's always the life of the party even though most people probably don't realize the party is happening. He lives by the motto of 'embrace the weird', meaning just go with whatever happens and make the best of it. Part of his embracing whatever happens is knocking back enough whiskey to make the weird palatable and normal.
What's weird to me is that this is classified as a teen book. I don't want to come across as priggish or a prude or anything like that, but I usually figured teen books should have some kind of 'good' in them. They should be some kind of mini-little-morality-play. Sutter should realize that his life is going no-where, he should have some moment where he sees that there needs to be more to life than acting like the fun jackass and being drunk all the time.
If I substitute the drinking in the book for smoking copious amounts of pot on a daily basis Sutter isn't all that different from quite a few friends and acquaintances of mine in my late high school and college years. Thinking of Sutter as some of my old friends, this song started to play in my head. The weird innocence of being young and fucked up, something that maybe it's fine to be but which doesn't really last and eventually becomes being a fucked up fuck up.
As the book moved on I wanted to see Sutter learn something, and everytime he seemed to learn a lesson he would in no time show the bit of learning he did to be an aberration that was quickly corrected by another reckless action. Even towards the end of the book the progress that the reader sees him make is put into relief by the very last chapter that can be seen as either a stand for youth against the encroachment of early adulthood or as someone who is never really going to learn anything as long as there are people willing to cheer him on for his antics. Which makes me think that instead of the wistful reminiscences of the Wilco song above Sutter's future is more likely going to be more like this darker Uncle Tupelo song. (less)
I really liked this book. Karen may disagree, and say that I didn't grow up as a teenage girl so I can't judge the accuracy of how this book is, but I...moreI really liked this book. Karen may disagree, and say that I didn't grow up as a teenage girl so I can't judge the accuracy of how this book is, but I can counter with this girl would never be judged Prom Queen, so Karen might be coming at a view of High School from a slightly different angle.
Now, as someone who went through roughly 27 months (this would be from November 1989 to January 1992) completely friendless (I am not exaggerating, I had no friends during this time, not even other loser friends) in a new school that bewildered, frightened, disgusted and depressed me on a daily basis I think that Anderson did a great job capturing the inner world of someone who for all purposes is invisible to the entire school. The general feeling of not even warranting enough attention to be picked on, just left completely alone in ones own head (with the occasional burst of some inane ridicule that passes as quickly as it comes) is here in this book. I don't know anyone else who went through high school like I did, and yes I am jealous that in a way she has captured my own particular angst and created a great book out of it (of course there are different reasons for the reason I went into my own world, it was moving and being socially unfit for the pressures, much less traumatizing that what made Melinda go into her own world, but still the general feeling is the same).
This book looks really familiar, like maybe I actually read it as a child. I've learned that even though I thought that I read as a child I must have...moreThis book looks really familiar, like maybe I actually read it as a child. I've learned that even though I thought that I read as a child I must have only read things that would never be deemed 'classics', or maybe I just only re-read the same books over and over again. This book captures a nice nostalgia for being little and having a snow day, when the time seemed to stretch out forever and so much shit was packed into the day that now it's baffling how you could ever do so much. As a little kid I don't know if I would have thought much of this book. (less)
I read this because in one of Nick Hornby's Believer columns he mentioned this was supposed to be the best YA book of all time. I don't know where he...moreI read this because in one of Nick Hornby's Believer columns he mentioned this was supposed to be the best YA book of all time. I don't know where he got this information, maybe from the ALA or some other three letter group. He gave it a glowing review so I thought I'd read it.
My first thought after reading it was that if it had been an adult novel I would have loved it. As a novel it felt more like a very nice sketch of an interesting and magical story than what I would like from a finished book. Not that there seemed to be anything necessarily missing from the book, it just didn't seem fully flushed out, like there was more he could have done with the book to given it more depth and expanded some of the themes in even more interesting ways. Of course doing so would have made this probably not a YA novel, but rather moved him into the magical-realism worlds of someone like Jonathan Carroll or Nicholas Christopher. But that said I found this really enjoyable, but in a teasing way that made me want more of something that there was no more to have.
The funny thing I found in this book was the author interview at the end. The author is asked about his influences, and he is led in the question to a magical realism answer which he admits to having and cites Marquez, someone whom I have never read, but maybe one day will. But then he answers that his other big influence is Raymond Carver. I find this to be really funny (not that you can't see the Carver in the book, the minimalism of Carver is defintely present in the streamlined no nonsense prose contained within) because I'm imagining some 13 year old who loving this book goes to read the people the author says are good and goes to pick up Carver. This is something I would have done at 13, and still do to this day, I'm a sucker for going after influences of authors I love and expanding the books I will one day need to read in this way. I would love to see the reaction of a 13 year old reading story after story of middle aged losers with dead end jobs getting drunk, chain-smoking and living in the dismal shit of adulthood. What would a young teen make of this? Would it scar them for life? Would they instantly suffer some existential crisis? How would a youngster deal with the harsh reality of Carver's characters? So yeah I found that funny, in an absurd-ish sort of way, but that really has nothing to do with the book which was pretty damned good. (less)
Maybe because my teacher said something in class, but I was expecting something different from this book. I thought maybe it would be 'de-constructing...moreMaybe because my teacher said something in class, but I was expecting something different from this book. I thought maybe it would be 'de-constructing' the fairy tale in someway, but instead it was just sort of putting it together in a mismash of various versions, some Grimm, some earlier traditions. The illustrations were interesting, and the abundance of cats in the pictures were nice. (less)
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