With Three Cups of Tea, I had to stop and start over three different times in order to convince myself that it was a...moreSee if you notice a pattern here.
With Three Cups of Tea, I had to stop and start over three different times in order to convince myself that it was a true story. Something about Greg Mortenson descending from a mountain like some biblical figure to a group of adoring villagers just didn't ring true for me. I even found myself thinking of how easy it would be for Mortenson to pocket the cash he was getting to build schools, but brushed aside my own suspicions, thinking that no one would do such a thing. I should have listened to myself. Instead, I was eventually won over by the beautiful writing and I bought in, hook line and sinker. This was of my favorites for years. Oops.
Princess was an equally gripping read, and totally un-put-downable. Yet a third of the way through, my bullshit detector went off. I tossed the book in the trash because I don't appreciate being sold fiction passed off as non-fiction by some white chick from Georgia with a save-the-poor-brown-women-of-the-Middle-East complex because the publishers would rather get rich from the author's book sales instead of exposing her for a lying sack of crap. For someone, anyone, to expose the author, an actual American would have to speak Arabic (ha!), travel to Saudi Arabia, and start asking the royal family some questions. Yeah, that'll happen. Just keep rolling in the cash, guys. Ugh. Whatever.
Good ol' Ingrid Betancourt wrote an enthralling, beautiful, and touching book that was impossible to put down. Even in this one, a little close reading reveals the author to be full of it at times: there are several accounts of other captives that contradict Betancourt's memoir, her writing reads like fiction, and everything she swears by are events that are impossible to verify. At least with Ingrid, we can blame extreme trauma for her half-truths. Hell, we can even forgive her because she's a politician: we expect her to lie.
1. So well-written that it's impossible to put down -- Check 2. Written about a far away and inaccessible place -- Check 3. Because said place is so far away and inaccessible, the story is nearly impossible to verify -- Check 4. READS A LOT LIKE FICTION -- CHECK CHECK CHECK
Know why fake memoirs are so good? Because they're fucking fiction, that's why. Like all of the other too-good-to-be-true "memoirs" or "journalism" books, Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai is just a bunch of shit the author made up. Read the first ten pages. You'll see what I'm talking about.
I bought this on impulse (damn Kindle)because the title was on some Amazon "Best Non-Fiction of 2012" list that came in my email. Best of 2012? Heh.
P...moreI bought this on impulse (damn Kindle)because the title was on some Amazon "Best Non-Fiction of 2012" list that came in my email. Best of 2012? Heh.
People Who Eat Darkness is the story of a Tokyo murder that happened in 2000, sort of like In Cold Blood meets Murakami. The only problem? People Who Eat Darkness has none of the Murakami and an excess of Capote.
What I'm saying is, all of these true-crime novels, from In Cold Blood to Helter Skelter to People Who Eat Darkness, are boring as hell. The most interesting parts of the story are always the suspenseful moments of the doomed characters' last hours of life. After the crime is committed? Then it's all trials, denials, and convictions. YAWN.
This book was like trying to read an episode of Dateline, except there was no eerie background music, no panning to a guy in a prison jumpsuit insisting he's innocent, and no drunken Diane Sawyer to lighten up the mood.
And why would you read this endless, rambling, researched-to-the-point-of-exhaustion book when you can just watch the entire story on Dateline on YouTube and be done with it in an hour?
Is it bad that I'm waiting with baited breath for Marcus Samuelsson to fly just a little too close to the sun? You can bet I'll be there to kick him w...moreIs it bad that I'm waiting with baited breath for Marcus Samuelsson to fly just a little too close to the sun? You can bet I'll be there to kick him when he comes crashing down.
You see, this is not a memoir. It's the story of one man's unwavering ambition. And it's really just a cog in the massive Marcus Samuelsson self-promotion machine. It's a small workhorse that gives just a little more publicity to the guy who has four restaurants, catered for the Obamas at the White House, and got himself gigs on the Food Network and Bravo.
But the thing is, I don't even care about the memoir being a self-serving gig to promote his many businesses and his agenda. That's fine. That's business. That's the state of American publishing. What bothers me here is Marcus Samuelsson's heaping sack of steaming crap, bound up, disguised as a story, and packaged nicely by a decently talented ghost writer. The entire thing is a healthy entree of bullshit with a side of crème fraîche.
While I do appreciate the fact that Samuelsson had to endure great hardships because of the color of his skin (and I take particular glee in the fact that he called out Gordon Ramsay for being a negative, loudmouth, asshole racist), I can't stand the fact that I'm supposed to ignore the pain he inflicted on others in pursuit of his dreams of becoming a chef.
Some examples? Samuelsson missed his father's funeral because our fair chef's visa paperwork prevented him from traveling. Well. It happens, and the dead are exceedingly understanding about these things. Let's try again. Oh, yes, he broke up with a girl he'd been dating for years to follow his dreams of working in a Swiss restaurant and simply can't fathom why she's upset. He's even more perturbed that she takes a job in Switzerland with him, so to cope with his annoyance, he fucks a different girl in Austria and knocks her up; that relationship produced a daughter for whom Samuelsson paid child support but refused to meet until she was fourteen because he was too busy making his career in New York and marrying a model. (Oh, great. Just what the world needs: another little girl with daddy issues. We all know what happens with those.) (Good thing Samuelsson made up for lost time with his kid by flying her to New York to meet Kanye West at a party. Jesus. Fucking. Christ).
You know, ambition is fine. Ambition is what makes dirtbags like Marcus Samuelsson famous while people like me write pissed off reviews on goodreads. It's the fact that Samuelsson treats the people that are supposed to be important -- his daughter, his father, women, etc. -- like crap, but then praises himself for sending monthly financial support to his family of origin in Ethiopia (that gave him up for adoption when he was a baby), or talks about how much he loves his super-wealthy supermodel wife. Funny how the only woman he respects is one who's rich and gorgeous, and the only family he takes care of is the one that sounds great in New York Times articles. UGH.
When he wasn't trying to disguise his dickheadedness with faux acts of humanity, it was all food, food, food, food, food, FOOD, FOOD, FOOD, FOOD and ... yeah, I couldn't take it.
So, Marcus Samuelsson, do your thing. Marry the model, run the chic four-star New York City restaurants. Pop up on every TV show on Bravo and the Food Network. Do your little promo thing with Illy. Rake in even more millions. Just keep flying higher, my friend...that's right, higher, right towards that warm glowing orb, just keep flying ... When you hit the ground with a thud, I'll be here waiting. With a pair of boots on....with steel-pointed toes.
Oh, and Marcus? You forgot to mention your daughter in the acknowledgments section. *shocker*
"I'm Scott Jurek. I am so great. I'm vegan. I'm Scott Jurek. I am so great. I'm vegan. I'm Scott Jurek. I am so great....moreAnd now a summary of this book.
"I'm Scott Jurek. I am so great. I'm vegan. I'm Scott Jurek. I am so great. I'm vegan. I'm Scott Jurek. I am so great. I'm vegan. I'm Scott Jurek. I am so great. I'm vegan. I'm Scott Jurek. I am so great. I'm vegan. I'm Scott Jurek. I am so great. I'm vegan. I'm Scott Jurek. I am so great. I'm vegan."
Look. I like Scott Jurek. We all do. He's a great runner and he just seems like a really nice guy. But you'll need the willpower of an ultra marathoner to get through this one...and getting the to last page will probably feel like crossing the finish line in a 100-mile ultra, too.
Here's the thing. I don't really care about a book that's nothing more than an ongoing list of Jurek's trail-running triumphs, broken up by the occasionally interesting vegan recipe. And while I do buy into Jurek's plant-based diet thing, it's really not going to stand between me and my weekly cheeseburger. And while Jerker never does get too douchebaggy about his diet, he does get irritating. I mean, his whole claim that eating cows and chickens is bad because the animals are injected with hormones and antibiotics? Well, dude, you're probably right, but let's not forget that your prized vegetables are doused in pesticides ... unless they're organic, in which case they're fertilized with feces. *Yummay*.
And isn't it just such Western snobbery to refuse food and get all crampy about your diet? I mean, you don't see Kenyan running champion Samuel Wanjiru following a special diet. Oh wait, that's right, he got wasted and fell from a balcony to his death, so he actually doesn't give a fuck about his diet at all. Never mind. The point is, shut the fuck up, eat, and enjoy life.
The few parts where the book momentarily borders on interesting are too few and far between. Example? His wife finally up and leaves him (perhaps because our fair Jurek was too busy training, racing, and winning) because she was in love with another man. Now, any non-moron knows who the guy is, but not only does Jurek frustratingly refuse to dish out the dirt, he doesn't even give us an inkling of emotion. Come on, Scottie! Call her a skank! Call her a cheating hooker and tell us how you went out and banged her best friend for revenge! Give us something we can USE for Chrissakes! But alas, no, it's only depression and more running.
Something like a narrative arc follows when Jurek talks about losing his mother and falling out with his best friend, but it's always the running, the running, the running. See, instead of telling us how he feels, we just learn that Jurek's bad mood leads him to lose races that he should have won. The moral of the story? Jurek comes to understand that winning isn't everything. Sigh. Fuck me.
Unlike my other reviews where I rip the book to shreds and take the author down with me, I actually *like* this author and wanted to like this book. It didn't happen. But I don't want my money back. Hey, That's a first.
Sucked. But Scott Jurek doesn't suck. Just hire a ghost writer next time, buddy. (less)
You know those books that are a complete chore to read? The ones you'll do anything -- playing Words with Friends, cleaning the house, scrubbing toile...moreYou know those books that are a complete chore to read? The ones you'll do anything -- playing Words with Friends, cleaning the house, scrubbing toilets -- to avoid reading? Then a few weeks go by and you've gotten dumber, because in doing your damnedest to avoid reading said book, menial tasks have turned your brain to mush?
Yeah.
Gone Girl has gone to my "sucked" shelf.
Look. If I want to hear about bored, unhappily married people, I'll talk to my married friends or delve into something by a capable writer. If I want horror and suspense, I'll drop all pretenses and hit up the master.
I can't deal with a slow-moving plot about a neurotic suburban housewife and her (justifiably) distant husband. I can't deal with lines like "She blew more smoke toward me, a lazy game of cancer catch," or "When I think of my wife, I always think of her head....It was what the Victorians would call a finely-shaped head." (Hey, Gillian, next time you write from a male point of view, try to remember that guys notice T&A and not the shape of a woman's head. GAHHHHHD!)
Then there's the issue with the character named Margo, or Go for short. What a pain in the ass when sentences start with her name. It seems like a verb, then you go on to realize that it's the chick with the annoying name. i.e., "Go walked across the bar," "Go loves to read," "Go was now pantomiming dick-slapping my wife." Right.
I downloaded this because of the New York Times article claiming that this erotic novel "electrified women across the country." I just had to see what...more
I downloaded this because of the New York Times article claiming that this erotic novel "electrified women across the country." I just had to see what all the buzz was about. Erotic thriller? Hey, bring it on.
Sigh.
This is the best you can do? Seriously?
This book reads like the sexual fantasy of a virgin Twilight fan... oh wait, it IS the sexual fantasy of a virgin Twilight fan. Gotcha. That explains the crappy writing, the lack of character development, the slow as sludge plot, and the dullest sex in print. If this book is truly "relighting a fire under a lot of marriages" in America, I'm even more worried for the sate of our fair nation.
Jesus Christ.
Look. Real women read The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. Or we find the good stuff in Ken Follett and pretend we read it for the plot. Or we go for old reliable: the bodice-ripper. But at least we know where to go for something we can friggin use.
****Update: 25/3/2012: The massive thread that follows just totally reaffirms every point I made in the review. All of this from a writer whose work a...more****Update: 25/3/2012: The massive thread that follows just totally reaffirms every point I made in the review. All of this from a writer whose work appears in the New York Times? Nice. Enjoy.****
****Update: 21/3/2012: I need to give credit where credit is due. For an eloquent and informative review (NOT AUTHORED BY ME) of Brave Girl Eating that, unlike my review, places facts over rage, please see http://www.amazon.com/review/R1F9BQBA...
For scathing snark and wrath, my review is below.****
***Sigh. Let's do this. Oh, and Harriet Brown, I hope you read this. I really, really do. Though I doubt it would do you any good.*** (Update: she has read it, contacted me and unleashed her fans on me. I was right: it didn't do any good.)
Brave Girls Eating is Harriet Brown's memoir about her experiences with her daughter's anorexia.
This book gave me nightmares: I literally had dreams that I was in a therapy session with Harriet Brown, screaming at her while she laughed and smiled away. The positive reviews of this book on goodreads have left me absolutely dumbfounded.
Here's the deal.
All of the psychological studies done on anorexia paint a picture of family dysfunction that brings about the disorder. More or less, the typical story goes like this: one parent -- usually the mother -- is overbearing, controlling, suffocating, lacks boundaries, is the center of the family's attention, and is totally entrenched in denial about any problems existing within herself or her family. Right around the time of puberty, when the normal progression is for the child to separate from the parents and form an identity of her own, the child enters into crisis. She wants to become her own person but has no idea who she is because she's never been allowed to be herself: she's been who others (i.e., mom) want her to be. She has NO identity.
Additional family dysfunction only enhances the child's difficulties. The family dysfunction likely never created a problem before because the child was, well, still a child. It's when the kids start to grow up, see that something is wrong in the family, and are unable to articulate it, that anorexia comes about. Hey, some kids do drugs. Some smoke. Some go the other way and excel at sports. Whatever. But most kids in this kind of situation end up with an eating disorder because food is the only thing in their lives that they can control. (For example, mom may make herself the center of attention when her daughter takes first place at a gymnastics meet...but mom can't make her daughter put an apple in her mouth, chew it, and swallow it.) Like a toddler who cries because he can't express himself, the anorexic starves because she can't articulate her feelings.
The problem? Well, among others things, when parents finally figure out that their kid is sick, it's too late. The child has adopted a coping mechanism that she can't shake despite the fact that it's making her miserable. Why can't she shake it? Well, starving (and the mental torture one must inflict upon oneself to continue starving) make a person half crazy. Even better? The fact that she's never been allowed to have an identity? Well, guess what the anorexia has become? It becomes her identity. Then the sufferer is so mentally screwed up from the starving/anorexia-thinking that she's even more at a loss to understand why she does this to herself, what drove her to do it in the first place, and why she can't stop.
Enter Harriet Brown, whom I suspect is one of those above-mentioned overbearing mothers. That's just my guess, given that only an extremely controlling mother would take the one thing that her daughter clings for an identity (the anorexia) and make it her own. And publish a book about it. And make that book all about herself. And see nothing wrong with that fact.
A little reading between the lines in this book tells you a lot about Harriet Brown. You see, from the beginning she tells us that anorexia "chose" her daughter and not vice versa. Harriet also says that while her family had a little dysfunction, it was nothing out of the ordinary. No. Not her family. She insists they simply don't fit the anorexic family profile. (Translation: Harriet is blameless.) Yet Harriet leaves us so very many clues to the contrary that she renders own her claims laughable.
1) The book's title alone should tell you that mom's got a penchant for drama. If that's not enough to convince you, consider some of the following gems: Every time her daughter eats it's like she's "jumping from thirty-thousand feet. Without a parachute" ; "If I'd had a gun in my hand, I swear I would have pulled the trigger" ; "Every day was fraught now, strewn with mine fields and tears." Yikes. If that's just the drama on the page, imagine what it's like to live in a house with and be the daughter of this woman.
2) Here's a little hint as to what kind of mom we're dealing with. To illustrate the anorexic's typical family dynamic, Harriet gives us an example of a girl who told her mother that she wanted to be a flight attendant when she grew up and mom replied, "that's not good enough." (Shock, the daughter developed anorexia, probably after a lifetime of dealing with such *loving* encouragement.) Instead of noticing the meanness in the mother's statement, Harriet writes, "I wonder if there's a mother anywhere in America who has actively supported every single one of her daughter's choices." (ARGHGHGHGH!!!!)
3) Some other hints that something's up with this mom and her kids? --Her daughter's first anxiety attack/anorexic meltdown happens on Mother's Day. Symbolic much? --The girl is in her teens and still calls Harriet "mommy." --The sick daughter would "rather be with her family than her friends" on Halloween. Huh?? She's a TEENAGER who chooses family over friends? Hello, red flag. --The very pseudonym that Harriet gives her daughter in the book infantilizes the girl even more: "Kitty." Like a pet. Like a baby. --Oh, and Harriet is quick to tell us that when it came to writing the book, her daughter "overcame her own preference for privacy out of a wish to help others." Sure she did. She "overcame" what she valued and wanted so that she could give mama Harriet what she wanted. And the brilliance? Harriet has herself (and probably the kid, too) convinced that it's what the daughter wants. Fuck me. --On that note, it took me all of 3 minutes to find "Kitty's" true identity with Google. If Harriet really did care about concealing her daughter's identity, wouldn't she have done a little more to hide her than simply changing the name? It almost makes me think Harriet enjoys the attention. Shocking.
4) Apparently a lot of other people noticed her daughter's anorexia long before Harriet did. One friend tells her as much. Instead of using this moment to do a little reflection and self-evaluation as to why she, as the mother, never saw it happening, Harriet's reaction is, "I feel like slapping her. No, punching her in the mouth. No, garroting her." (Jesus H. Christ.)
5) Harriet is sure her family is not the cause of the anorexia, despite the fact that nurses write "mother in denial" on her daughter's charts. Harriet is sure that it's not the family despite the five plus decades of research on the disease that basically says, "If your kid is anorexic, you fucked up." (Yes, the research, the case studies, the psychologists, and everyone else -- they're wrong, wrong, wrong.) She's sure it's not the family despite the fact that her other daughter screams "It's your fault my sister is anorexic!" before tearing down the street screaming at the top of her lungs that her parents are horrible.
Well. PHEW. Now that Harriet has shown us that the cause of her daughter's illness is not because she's a "take-all-the-credit-and-none-of-the-blame" mom, Harriet can adopt the radical new "Family-Based Treatment." In FBT, the parents take complete charge of all of the child's meals ... because that's just what an anorexic needs: more control from mom. What a wonderful way to go against the stacks of research that say "it's not about the food," and, well, make it about the food.
FBT is great for Harriet because, according to developers of the method, there's "no need to know [the cause of anorexia] in order to treat the illness." Oh! Perfect! So her daughter never needs to learn why she's sick, what triggers her anorexia, and what changes to make in her life in order to sustain her recovery! YAY! That pesky "why?" that plagues all anorexics can just be swept under the carpet! It'll all be fine as long as she just eats! HOORAY!
Wow. That sounds a lot like not vaccinating your child, treating the onslaught of illnesses that follow with sugar pills, and all the while wondering why your kid keeps getting sick. Heh. Fixing the surface issue instead of repairing the problem at the source. Gee. Great idea.
Are you surprised to hear that her daughter relapsed again and again?
What kills me, absolutely KILLS me, is that the daughter repeatedly asked to go to inpatient therapy and the parents continuously refused. God forbid they relinquish control and let their daughter develop the skills necessary for recovery. Could it be that they're afraid of what will surface if the daughter were to go and learn for herself just why she's sick?
And why is she sick? That doesn't matter, according to Harriet, but our author gives us a little clue anyway: "I don't think I'm one of those mothers who believes she's close with her child when actually the child loathes her." (PSSSSST. Harriet. Think again. You just nailed it.)
300-some pages of infuriating, self-serving denial. My heart really goes out to Harriet's daughter.
A few smirk-worthy moments made me hate this somewhat less than Sense and Sensibility, but all in all, a snore-fest of the first order. I kept having...moreA few smirk-worthy moments made me hate this somewhat less than Sense and Sensibility, but all in all, a snore-fest of the first order. I kept having to reread because I spaced out for pages at a time.
Boring as all hell and can best be summed up with one word: SUCKED. (less)
Room has been called "remarkable," and "sensational." It was not only shortlisted for the Booker Prize, but it was also chosen as a Favorite Book of 2...moreRoom has been called "remarkable," and "sensational." It was not only shortlisted for the Booker Prize, but it was also chosen as a Favorite Book of 2010 by our fair goodreads community, proving once again that heads are up asses in the world of literary criticism and readers everywhere.
How this book is anything but blither is beyond me.
The reality is that the plot for this book was ripped from the headlines, based on the stories of Jaycee Dugard, Natascha Kampusch, and the Fritzl family. Emma Donoghue was given a $2 million advance to write Room. With cash in hand and only a plot outline, clearly no one gave a shit if the final work were good or not. What a better way to save face than to tout a piece of crap book you actually paid someone to write as a "gem." UGH. In the end, all we have is yet another author exploiting and getting rich off of the real life tragedies of others. I suppose I wouldn't mind so much -- hey, I may even cheer it on -- if it were done well. In this case, it was done horribly.
You see, if you truly do want to hear the blabbering of a 5 year-old for 300 pages, then you immediately need to change careers and become a kindergarten teacher. Look. It takes talent to write in the voice of a child, which is precisely why so few authors are successful at it. When a good author writes from a child's perspective, the book becomes a classic. Think about it. J.D. Salinger, Harper Lee, Roald Dahl, and James Joyce. As for the rest of them? The child narrator is nothing more than a laughable gimmick.
Emma Donoghue falls flat on her face -- and drags us down with her -- for an entire novel with that very gimmick. I don't have patience for "silly penis is always standing up in the morning. I push him down," nor "penis floats," and especially not "my poo is hard to push out." I don't care for rambling recounts of Dylan the Digger and Dora the Explorer, either. Further, I found it odd that a child who is remarkably well-versed in the narrative would have such huge inconsistencies in his spoken English, many times sounding like a 3 year-old while at other times having perfect grammar. Huh? Finally, I got rather annoyed by Capitalizing Nouns and Other Objects in the Room, I found it Distracting and Annoying, and to me it screams Piss Poor Writer. Don't forget to throw in some of Donoghue's own politics for fun: our 5 year-old is still breastfeeding and he loves to tell us which boob produces the creamiest milk. Don't be disgusted. After all, it's natural! And let's not forget the most blatant and frankly, lame, self-insertion by an author into her own novel: Noreen is a kind and clever nurse who hails from merry ol' Ireland, just like our author. BARF.
Forgive me for not passionately hating this book more. Quite simply, it bored the hell out of me. I spent half the time wishing someone would throw the narrator back in the room so he'd shut the hell up. I spent the other half wanting to slap Donoghue's publishers. Suffice to say....
Ivana Lowell is a Guinness heiress. That means every time someone cracks open a pint of Guinness, cha-ching, Ivana gets richer. She hobnobs with actor...moreIvana Lowell is a Guinness heiress. That means every time someone cracks open a pint of Guinness, cha-ching, Ivana gets richer. She hobnobs with actors, writers, the very rich, and royalty. Oscar de la Renta made her wedding dress. She got handed a job at Miramax, she has a "condo" (that's Brit-speak for penthouse) in Manhattan, a house in Long Island, a castle in Ireland, another castle that her mother bought from Princess Diana's brother, and she grew up in the USA and the UK. She went to exclusive boarding schools and acting academies until she grew tired of them and ran away. She had a nervous breakdown on the floor of a haberdashery because she couldn't get the appropriate name tags for her school clothes. She hangs out in the most exclusive and the sparsest rehab facilities. She doesn't move in mere social circles, no. Her people are "sets."
Anyway, I'm rambling. Ivana really means to tell us that her life is HARD! Why, she's been an alcoholic and abused drugs and comes from a family rife with dysfunction! She's dated bad dudes, made a fool of herself with booze, and wouldn't you know it, she's just plain unhappy! Stars! They're just like us!
I have about as much sympathy for a rich boozer as I did for Britney Spears when, rolling in her millions, complained about being put on the cover of Rolling Stone when she was just 15. ARHGGHGH!!! Even though Ivana did suffer some real trauma (molestation, death of a sibling, severe burns, paternity issues), guess what? It doesn't separate you, elevate you, or make you any different from the rest of us. It just makes you a lot friggin luckier because you have about a billion more bucks than we do. So, either make it interesting (she doesn't), be a sympathetic subject (she isn't), or make damn sure you're a celebrity (she isn't) before penning out a memoir.
Ivana Lowell can't write for shit, which makes me think her therapist put her up to writing this book and then her powerful friends in New York got it published. She never even tells us any of the details of all those drunken nights, preferring instead to say, I was drunk, it was bad. The the name dropping of royals, Vanderbilts, Freuds, and intellectuals in her "set" then ensues. She sums up her entire story near the very end -- which, if she'd done at the beginning would have saved me a lot of time, eye-rolls, and seven bucks -- by saying she spent her life "drinking, being difficult, marrying an addict, having fights with him, and then divorcing him." The rest is just the simple ramblings of a 40-something poor little rich girl who no one's ever heard of. Sheesh. At least James Frey would have us believe that he had girls snorting coke off his ... never mind, at least there was some action there.
The best part? Ivana never even tells us if she got off the booze! Unfortunately, due to the sheer dullness of this book, I'm inclined to think she's clean. Damn. I'm sure she'd have written a much more interesting tale after a couple of dry martinis.
One star for the touching (and only real thing in the book) description of her mother's passing.
There must be other fools out there like me who were conned into buying this book because they vaguely remember liking The Nanny Diaries.
Look. What m...moreThere must be other fools out there like me who were conned into buying this book because they vaguely remember liking The Nanny Diaries.
Look. What made The Nanny Diaries so great was that authors Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus had both been nannies in New York City. They knew their material, they knew the intricate, scandalous, and absurd details of their uber-rich clients' lives, and they were able to write a mildly amusing best-seller. That SHOULD have been it. End of story right there. But for some reason, someone out there is still letting these chicks write books. Why? WHY? (Now do it like Nancy Kerrigan.) WHYYYYYYYYYY?????
Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus are not teenagers. Nor are they reality TV stars. So why they are writing about teen reality stars is beyond me. And beyond them, clearly. In short, this book reads like being talked AT by an adult's idea of a teenager. Wow. A rambling, senseless, and superficial monologue from an unauthentic sounding teen about reality TV stardom. Sounds like fun, no? From the bad, "I stare into the microwave, waiting for my egg to puff up like a chef's hat," to the downright confusing, "Jase snores like he's gargling furniture," I kept having to re-read entire passages because I was unable to follow the pseudo-adolescent banter. Who knew there would be a book out there that's literally too difficult for me to read because it's written for a level of stupidity that even I can't comprehend?
The most disturbing aspect of this steaming cesspool of vomit on paper is that it's actually marketed to teenagers. Are kids today so truly dumbed down? Aren't they supposed to be forced into submission by reading The Great Gatsby and The Scarlet Letter? Aren't they finding themselves in The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar? Shouldn't they be busy with their first readings of Shakespeare? If not, and they truly are reading things like The Real Real, I'm scared for the future of the entire planet.
This book was so poorly written, so full of typos and grammatical errors, and the story so goddamn boring that I literally question the fact that Heli...moreThis book was so poorly written, so full of typos and grammatical errors, and the story so goddamn boring that I literally question the fact that Helie Lee wrote Still Life With Rice at all. The differences between the two books are so vast (think one of the best contemporary memoris of all time contrasted with, well, a bag of literary dog shit) that I'm really inclined to think that Still Life With Rice was dictated to or translated from Korean to English by Lee.
Save yourself the time and the headach: she gets her whole family out of North Korea. The end.
I wonder how much money Palahniuk made on sales of this piece of shit from fools like me who wanted to give the author one mor...moreHonestly, what the FUCK?
I wonder how much money Palahniuk made on sales of this piece of shit from fools like me who wanted to give the author one more chance.
Behold, one sentence (just pages after the ass-rape scene in mangled English in the Wal-Mart bathroom): "Here worship shrine, all male neck must bind around with knotted banner, silk banner knotted at windpipe so dangle two long strands down chest to waistband trouser." I get that the main chartacter is supposed to be a Chinese exchange student... Given that I teach ESL students, I'm also pretty sure the main character could just look up "tie" in the dictionary instead of having this long-winded, confusing mess of words.
We all bought her first book because of the lovable giant that is Julia Child and the story of...moreLook.
Let's be honest here.
No one likes Julie Powell.
We all bought her first book because of the lovable giant that is Julia Child and the story of a promising culinary project. We had enough of those pleasant distractions to kindly ignore the loudmouth attention-whore Julie Powell, despite the fact that she was running around the background screaming "Look at me! Look at me, damn you!!" (What do you want to bet she was a theater major?)
The problem is, her followup gives us none of the positive and all of the negative from Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: no Julia Child, no ambitious cooking project, and lots more of Julie Powell. Now, ask yourself: would YOU want to read the true story of a fat, ugly, mildly famous chick's crumbling marriage, her unabashed accounts of rough sex with her lover and complete strangers, all held together by the glue that is ... (wait for it) ... the art of butchery? Occasionally spiced up with her weird, dated and nerdy fascination with the 90's serial Buffy The Vampire Slayer? Dotted with her musings about marriage as she tanks a bottle and a half of wine each night? Would you REALLY want to read this?
Yeah, me neither.
That's precisely why this book sucks. Julie forgot us, her meager little audience, and she thinks we actually give a fuck about her life instead of her cooking projects. Here's a hint, Julie: we don't give a shit.
You know what you do after the success of Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen? You write a sequel about world cuisine a là Anthony Bourdain. Or you attempt recreating dishes from imperial menus in the 1500s and let us know how it turns out. Or you get a job at the Food Network and write a book spilling all the dirt on their chefs (does The Barefoot Contessa really have sex with her husband, or does she eat her feelings??; is Emeril gay??; is Giada bulimic??)
But guess what you don't do?
You don't publish autobiographical trash that no one gives a baker's fuck (no pun intended) about. We're your readers, not your girlfriends. Save it for your shrink.
Well, I don't mean to be a hater, but ... let's get on with it, shall we?
I only mention Eat, Pray, Love because Committed picks up where that novel le...moreWell, I don't mean to be a hater, but ... let's get on with it, shall we?
I only mention Eat, Pray, Love because Committed picks up where that novel left off. While EPL gave us the candid story of a woman admitting her many faults and going on a soul-searching quest around the world to better herself, Committed is simply an expository essay written with a high-school freshman level of mediocrity. While it masquerades itself as a historical critique of marriage, it's really nothing more than a warning/apology/disclaimer for the fact that Elizabeth Gilbert got married again and will likely be divorced again. Fine. I didn't expect that after one year of travel, a self-proclaimed serial monogamist who ended up right back where she started, to be somehow "changed." No, what bothers me are Gilbert's unnerving insecurities, which she wants you to believe are about marriage. Her insecurities are not about matrimony, they run much deeper and are much more irritating than that: she is insecure as all hell about love, most likely because she's clueless about it and unable to comprehend it. And when you're not upfront with your readers about what's really eating you, or are trying to mask who you really are, you come off as stupid, juvenile, self-centered and tacky.
Let's get some logistical stuff out of the way before I tear your ass a new one, no?
First, if you're going to write some sort of historical chronicle bashing marriage, I commend you. But can you list a few sources so that we readers don't happen to wonder if you're pulling all of this out of your ass? And do us all a favor and don't use Carol Gilligan -- who used an interview with one boy and one girl to make the claim that women are nurtures and men are practical -- to back up your points. Next, can you pay your editor a little more? I was so sick of reading the word "conservative" over and over that I was ready to scream -- I don't like the right that much, either, but if you can't find a Thesaurus or do some clever editing to use a different word, I'm going to sign up for the Republican party right now because you have me convinced that we "liberals" are morons. And one more thing ... you state repeatedly that marriage favors men over women. Sweetie. Life favors men. Get used to it. Work to make it change or shut up. Stupid.
Now, let's deal with some of the personal stuff from the novel. It seeps through here and there that Gilbert is anxious about her relationship. I would be, too. The guy is 17 years older than her, they have nothing in common, and he won't do anything she likes or enjoys. (Thank God there's a prenup.) Then she's too afraid to even take off for a few days of travel without him, because really, insert-1000-excuses-of-the-clingy-neurotic-type-here. Thank goodness, then, that Gilbert has assured us over and over again that she is in love for real this time, and that this is the most mature relationship of her life. After all, she says, it's not one of those childish relationships people have where they fall madly in love with a stranger while traveling abroad ... oh, wait. Grow up, Liz. Life is a crap shoot, it's scary, and you're never totally safe in anything. Get over yourself you juvenile dimwit.
Now, Gilbert likes us to think she's a modern feminist rebel of sorts. She is only able to accept marriage (or so she says -- I'm inclined to think in some secret part of herself she wanted marriage all along) by believing that it's an act of rebellion. Now, she's such a rebel that she cannot seem to fathom how in her own family history, women have given up careers and independence to marry and have children. How did her own grandmother give up everything when she married, only to look back and say it was the happiest time of her life? How could her own mother have given up a groundbreaking career at Planned Parenthood in the 1970's to stay home with the children and then have no regrets? It's called love, dear. People are not terrorized of being abandoned to the point of indecision like you obviously are. Life happens to people, especially when they fall in love and get married. Thus, they sacrifice and they move on. Figure it out you self-centered tool.
Of course, the rebel in Gilbert will beat over our heads a million times that she has chosen not to have children, a choice I wish more people would make, to be honest. Yet, I've never seen someone so subconsciously fucked up (and in denial) about that choice as I have in this book. Gilbert tells us divorce is more anxiety producing than the loss of a child. Um, NO. Then, around every corner is an observation of a pregnant woman or a reference to babies. Her previous failed marriage is a baby "dropped on its fuzzy head." Her lover is her "baby." New England cemeteries are filled with centuries-old tombstones of dead infants, and the dreams women give up by marrying are buried, like those dead infants, in a graveyard of the mind. Um, no, again, sweetie. You tacky, tacky loudmouth. (The baby stuff was so repetitive that when Gilbert states that she has no desire for children, I literally pulled a Senator Joe Wilson and shouted "YOU LIE!" at the book.)
My prediction is Gilbert will be one of those accidentally-on-purpose pregnant women who will claim she never wanted it, hates it, and then she'll go writing a 300-page meditation about motherhood. Good. At least she'd be less insecure about her love life, thus sparing us more of her whiny pseudo-feminist banter.
So, you know what happens when you take a liberal arts school student and throw him in the mix with the boys at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, a...moreSo, you know what happens when you take a liberal arts school student and throw him in the mix with the boys at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, a school where the dorms are segregated and residents have a curfew? Well, gee, whaddaya know, "what boys always do" happens: they sit around and play video games, talk about women and sex, they do their homework and contemplate their futures. Oh, and throw some prayer in, too, because it's a Christian University.
And what a shocker! Not all the students are as straight-laced as the school would have them, while others are complete biggots. Why, in fact, they're a mixed bag, pretty much like you'd get in any other university in America. Oh, and surprise! The science classes teach creationism because it's a religious school, and well, gee, the students who believe in creationism seem to just eat that right up. Yet, there are still some private dissenters. WOW!
This ethnography is so vague that it literally could have been about any social group in any institution in the world. In other words? It's piss poor.
Boring.
Tedious.
Took nothing away from it other than Jerry Falwell was a money-making evil genius.
The brilliance of Child 44 came from two simple and intertwined themes: the nightmare of Stalinist Russia which created an environment of mistru...moreSigh.
The brilliance of Child 44 came from two simple and intertwined themes: the nightmare of Stalinist Russia which created an environment of mistrust and betrayal. In Child 44, a child serial killer is running rampant, there's mystery the of the children at the beginning of the story, and the tyrannical government that turns its own people into traitors. To put it simply, the bad guys were nowhere and everywhere all at once, and you had no idea who was who.
And along came Khrushchev ... and along came The Secret Speech. The bad guys are no longer hidden in back alleyways with trenchoats and big fur hats, they're not former friends turned informants any more. Noooo, now the bad guys are in your face. We now have a boring, totally unbelievable female character who managed to live through some death camps, became the leader of an all-male gang, and seeks revenge (my God what an original plot twist! revenge!) on her former interrogator, the hero from the first novel. I suppose this could work if the book were well-written. It wasn't. I've read cereal boxes with better stories and comic books with better action scenes, and I'm pissed off that I found grammatical mistakes and spelling errors (no shit) in a book I spent the last 3 months waiting eagerly to read. The writing was rushed and some of these scenes I swear were stolen from movies. UGH. Waste of time.
Oh God, it just NEVER ended! The first half of the book was good, until Salander disappeared from the story for a good 350 pages. You don't take the m...moreOh God, it just NEVER ended! The first half of the book was good, until Salander disappeared from the story for a good 350 pages. You don't take the main character away for a quarter of the book. Almost painful to read, was definitely skimming at the end.
**spoiler alert** Reading this book made me want to gouge my own eyes out with knitting needles. My throat got sore from all of the groaning I did pag...more**spoiler alert** Reading this book made me want to gouge my own eyes out with knitting needles. My throat got sore from all of the groaning I did page after page. Let me give you some examples of suckiness:
All the non-white characters are described as having cafe au lait skin or mocha skin.
Some of the sloppy writing and editing did turn out to be quite funny, such as when a character remembers visiting her grandmother in Scotland and they "sat by the fire wearing nothing but their socks." Since I assume granny and child don't sit naked save for their socks by the fire, it was good for a shudder and a laugh.
There's a graduate student named (wait for it) DARWIN. Oh GAD! Because she's in grad school. So she's smart. So she should be named Darwin. GAH!!!
The grandmother is a sage old woman with an answer to everything, with excellent life advice, including such gems as "Life is what you make of it." Oh. Really? OMG! I'm enlightened.
Knitting is supposed to be a central theme, but really it's just there as an excuse to call this crappy mixture of boring women's lives a "valid" book.
When one of the guys meets up with another guy for a beer, he says "I think I'm falling in love with my family." And the other guy clinks his beer bottle and says, "Congratulations, you've just become a man." Oh. Yes. Because men talk this way. When they have vaginas and are actually women. GAD!!
The main character is killed off by cancer because, you know, she was such a saintly, good character, so why not kill her to inspire some tears and create some sort of heartwarming feeling in readers? Besides, where was the story going anyway ... if she didn't die the ending would have to have been "and they lived happily ever after."
Yah, bad book, story sucked, it was too long, writing was terrible, and it was obviously published just because the author has worked in publishing for years.
This book would have been a lot better had it been written by someone more capable and less smug. The premise itself is fascinating -- living the bibl...moreThis book would have been a lot better had it been written by someone more capable and less smug. The premise itself is fascinating -- living the bible literally -- as are the religious groups that the author decided to interview, including snake handlers, the Amish, right-wing Christians, and Samaritans, to name a few. However, his "whoooa, I'm so secular, wow, look at all these religious people, whooooa" attitude made it nothing more than a half-baked project written under a deadline, sloppily contrasted with the author's own life, and a superficial read. Now you know what happens when you send your kid to a university with a pass/fail system instead of grades: you get passable mediocrity that for some unknown reason, gets celebrated by American audiences.
The thing about with these New York memoirists like this author, along with others like Julie Powell or Elizabeth Gilbert, is that they've been so consumed by New York that they forget that the rest of us, in fact, the majority of the entire fucking planet, are not New Yorkers. They look down on us, think we're less intelligent, and can't even communicate on our non-Gotham level because they're plugged into the matrix that is Manhattan. (And I can say this because when I lived in New York, I smiled down at and patted the heads of all those other silly, non-New Yorkers.) What you end up with are these talentless hacks spinning out shallow books that talk down to the rest of us.
If Jacobs had taken his project even half-seriously and remembered that the majority of his readers are at the very least semi-religious, then dropped his condescending I'm-so-great-and-secular-and-work-at-Esquire-in-Manhattan attitude, his book might have been halfway decent.
This book is boring, predictable, and pointless. Maybe the kind of thing that charms the sentimental. It's a series of letters in post WWII England be...moreThis book is boring, predictable, and pointless. Maybe the kind of thing that charms the sentimental. It's a series of letters in post WWII England between an author facing writers block and an island community who formed a book club during the German occupation. Eventually we meet the characters (who, oddly, have the same voice as the author in their letters) who come to describe one saintly, cliche, full of b.s. woman who held them all together during the occupation, while she manages to slap an overly-religious type, find the one good, true human Nazi and have his child (yep) and then die tragically simply by being her holier-than-this-earth self.
Two stars for one of two well thought-out paragraphs buried among the 200 something pages.
Look. I don't want to sound too much like Tipper Gore in the 80's, or too much like Maude Flanders of The Simpsons, tearing out my hair and screeching...moreLook. I don't want to sound too much like Tipper Gore in the 80's, or too much like Maude Flanders of The Simpsons, tearing out my hair and screeching "WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN!?!?" ... but this book? Are you fucking kidding me? Have teenagers really grown up so much in the 9 years since I was one, when I was content with R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike, and scandalized by Sweet Valley High? I mean, COME ON.
Not only is this book written with the intelligence of a monkey on acid, there's just something stomach-churning about a plot-less book about teenagers with too much money gulping down booze, sticking their fingers down their throats, sleeping with each other's boyfriends, and saturating it with deep prose suck as "shit," "fuck," "slut," "bitch," "whore," etc as if it were all normality, you know, just a day in the life. Christ.
The actual Gossip Girl TV show is so great that I felt inspired to read the book ... but what makes the program so awesome is that they just stole a premise, a few characters, and a general plot outline from the novel ... leaving the rest as he horrible pile of shit it is. If I ever catch my future kids reading this, I will smack them on the head for being so goddamn stupid.
771 pages. Talking about college. How college is shocking for sheltered girls. How college (shocker) isn't really about academia, but sports, bee...moreSigh.
771 pages. Talking about college. How college is shocking for sheltered girls. How college (shocker) isn't really about academia, but sports, beer, sex, and pretty much everything that the university brochures lie about in order to protect their reputations and continue charging $30,000 a year for an "education." This could be written by ANYONE, and in less than HALF the pages.
When a book is bad, and too long, there is a certain point in reading the same shit over and over when your mind just screams SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!. This happened to me about half way through when I got sick of even the most random characters who appear only once in the story, having their entire family histories mapped out for the reader since the 1800's. Filler? Some sort of psychological explanation of the character? NO. BORING. EDITOR?? WHERE ARE YOU!? CUT THIS SHIT. Also, we don't need every single regional accent spelled out for us. Charlotte is from the South. We don't need to be reminded after the says "get" that she pronounces it "git." We don't need to be told that a dude from Brooklyn says "what do you want?" and then have it rewritten again after the quote as "whaddaya want?". Fuck me. If that wasn't enough, can we stop this shit of "shooting looks that are as if to say...."? He shot her a look as if to say fuck you, she shot him a look as if to say I hate you, etc. UGH.
Granted, this book did get the Bad Sex Award in 2003. But since it doesn't even happen until page 2394875485723847, it's not just BAD, it's boring. How anyone managed to FIND this bad sex without skimming over it or simply falling asleep is completely beyond me. I'm shocked that this didn't get the Bad Book Award of 2003.
If you want a good, engaging, and true-to-life story about a fish out of water in her academic environment, read Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel Prep. Use I am Charlotte Simmons only for expensive toilet paper or to stop a bullet.
"The Da Vinci Code for people with brains." The Independent.
Sigh. Yeah. More like a book for anyone who passed English 101 freshman year of college....more"The Da Vinci Code for people with brains." The Independent.
Sigh. Yeah. More like a book for anyone who passed English 101 freshman year of college. At least the Da Vinci Code was a page-turner ... an idiotic and predictable page-turner, but still entertaining. In The Rule of Four, it takes 268 pages for two hours to pass. The male protagonists are four college guys who drink wine (yeah right) and watch Audrey Hepburn movies (suuuuuure), and one is such a genius that he can easily translate a 15th century Genovese dialect into English ... which can only be insulting to the reader "with brains" who knows that the Genovese dialect is a language of it's own, incomprehensible to native Italian speakers who live anywhere outside Genova. In the end, this boring story (which actually had great potential by exploring the origins of a mysterious book from 1499) is really just a pseudo-intellectual rag and a snobby history of Princeton University. Blaaaah.
It gets two stars for a few interesting insights about love and life, and the one developed character who was a fascinating librarian who only surfaced for ten pages or so.
This author has watched and adored Sex and the City so much that she decided to write her own book about it, with the backdrop of Riyadh instead of Ma...moreThis author has watched and adored Sex and the City so much that she decided to write her own book about it, with the backdrop of Riyadh instead of Manhattan. No, it doesn't say that anywhere in the book, but it's obvious enough from reading it.
So, four superficial girls with too much money, who can't appreciate the lives and opportunities they have (I boldly assume it's better to be filthy rich in Saudi Arabia, as the characters are, than poor), whine about equally superficial stories, including men and the constraints of their oppressive society. Could be more interesting if not completely contrived, and in my opinion, made up in the author's Carrie-Miranda-Charlotte-Samantha worshiping mind.
I hate Sex and the City, but at least the show asks a few interesting questions like, can you be friends with an ex? or, are all men freaks? This book just backs up most womens' stereotypes of Islamic/Saudi society (uhh, it sucks, esp. if you're a woman) and offers no insights at all.
**spoiler alert** This was the biggest piece of garbage I've ever read, after The Kite Runner. Just as with The Kite Runner, I'm (somewhat) shocked th...more**spoiler alert** This was the biggest piece of garbage I've ever read, after The Kite Runner. Just as with The Kite Runner, I'm (somewhat) shocked that this book is a bestseller and has been given awards, chewed up and swallowed by the literary masses and regarded as greatness. Riiiight.
The whole thing can be summed up as the story of a girl who sometimes steals books, coming of age during the Holocaust. Throw in the snarky narration by Death (nifty trick except that it doesn't work), a few half-assed drawings of birdies and swastikas, senseless and often laughable prose that sounds like it was pulled from the "poetry" journal of a self-important 15 year-old, and a cast of characters that throughout are like watching cardboard cutouts walking around VERY SLOWLY, and that's the novel.
Here are some humble observations.
First, chances are that you, Mr. Zusak, are not Antonin Chekhov. You are, therefore, incapable of properly describing the weather for use as a literary device, and you end up sounding like an asshole. Don't believe me?
"I like a chocolate-colored sky. Dark, dark chocolate." Really? Do you, now?
"The sky was dripping. Like a tap that a child has tried it’s hardest to turn off but hasn’t quite managed.” Really?? Wow. Next you'll tell me that the rain was like a shower. I'm moved.
"Oh, how the clouds stumbled in and assembled stupidly in the sky. Great obese clouds." Yes. Stupid, obese clouds! They need an education and a healthy diet!
Next, chances are that you, Mr. Zusak, are not William Styron or any one of the other small handful of authors that can get away with Holocaust fiction. They've done their research, had some inkling of writing ability, and were able to tell fascinating stories. You invented a fake town in Germany (probably so you didn't have to do any research) and told a long-winded and poorly-written story, and in 500+ pages you couldn't even make it to 1945, so you sloppily dropped off and wrapped it up in 1943. What's the point of writing historical fiction if you can't even stay within the basic confines of that hisotrical event? For me, this does nothing more than trivialize the mass murder of over 6 million people. Maybe that's why a 30 year-old Australian shouldn't write about the Holocaust. But that's just me. Moving on.
But what really makes this book expensive toilet paper is the bad writing which is to be found not just in bizarre descriptions of the weather, but really on every page. Some personal favorites?
"The breakfast colored sun."
"Somewhere inside her were the souls of words."
"The oldened young man." WTF?!!?
"He crawled to a disfigured figure."
"Her words were motionless."
"It smelled like friendship." (Remind me to sniff my friends next time I see them.)
"A multitude of words and sentences were at her fingertips." (HUH?)
"Pinecones littered the ground like cookies."
Sigh.
All of this is quite funny coming from a book where the main character supposedly learns the importance of words. Further, I love that the protagonist comes to the conclusion that Hitler "would be nothing without words." Really? REALLY? Would Hitler be nothing without WORDS? What about self-loathing, misplaced blame and hatred, an ideology, xenophobia, charisma, an army, and a pride-injured nation willing to listen? Don't those count for something??
The shit-storm comes to an end when a bomb lands on our fictional town, wiping out everyone save for the sometimes book-thief main character. Of course. Because weak writers who don't know how to end their story just kill everyone off for a clean break and some nice emotional manipulation. Written for maximum tear-jerking effect, our main character spews out some great lines when she sees the death and destruction around her:
To her dead mother, "God damn it, you were so beautiful."
To her dead best friend as she shakes him, "Wake up! I love you! Wake up!" (Didn't I see the same thing in that movie My Girl?)
Then she profoundly notes that her dead father "...was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones."
And this kind of angsty adolescent prose just never ended! It went on and on to form the one long-ass, senseless, disjointed story.
But that's ok. Take it all the junk, give it a quirky narrator, an obscure and mysterious title, throw in a Jew on the run from Nazis who likes to draw silly pictures of birds and swastikas, and market it all as Holocaust lit. Ahh, the packaging of bullshit makes for such a sweet best seller.
Swallow it down, America. Put it on the shelf next to The Kite Runner. You love this. You live for this.
This wasn't bad. I think you just have to be French (of have some understanding of French culture/mentality) to get it.
I have neither, so I found it...moreThis wasn't bad. I think you just have to be French (of have some understanding of French culture/mentality) to get it.
I have neither, so I found it to be psuedo-deep/self-centered/angsty/incomplete/dull. What pisses me off more is the reviews that even DARE to compare her to the American great, Dorothy Parker. UH. DON'T. GO. THERE.
La Petite Américaine
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