Getting In Touch With My Dark Side
April's over. This marks a third of the way done in this challenge. I started the month making a choice. Was it time to venture back into Gillian Flynn's twisted world again? And if so, which world would it be -- Sharp Objects or Dark Places?
Book # 9: The first book you see in a bookstore
Modern Romance made me feel old. Like, ridiculously old-fashioned, basically geriatric. Every statistic about love in your twenties doesn't apply to me at all. Mind you, in my teen years, I defied the whole twenties dating market by finding the right person for me early on. I feel very lucky to have found my other half, another old soul like me, a life partner who roots for our team as much as I do.
Modern Romance is a compelling sociological study of the unique context of love today, written in a comedian's voice but researched and supported by many academic sources.
Earlier parts of the book look at how love, romance, dating, and marriage has changed, which requires an examination of yesteryear. The older generation described the differences they perceive between dating attitudes now versus then thusly:
"I don't think we thought, Well, there are another twelve doors or another seventeen doors or another four hundred and thirty-three doors . . . We saw a door we wanted, and so we took it."
On page 28, Aziz then describes this generation's dating options as "a hallway with millions of doors" and asks the question, "Is that better? Is it terrifying?"
The Internet era obviously changed everything and love is no different. It's interesting to read how the type of person that online daters describe as what they want rarely matched up with the traits of the people they actually contacted, and how Tinder effectively eliminated this lack of self-awareness problem.
Aziz even touched on the neurochemical dimensions of love and why that can be both a good and a bad thing.
By far the most intriguing part of the book comes much later on, when modern romance is examined from a multicultural perspective. The sexually aggressive men and the hard-to-get ladies of Buenos Aires, Argentina, are juxtaposed against the "herbivorous" men and sex-deprived women of Tokyo, Japan. I learned about Qatar and France, as well. I learned a thing or two. It was quite fascinating in that regard, almost like a social science-version of National Geographic.
I know what you're going to say: Is that yet another book penned by a cast member of Parks and Rec?
And so, I will move on....
Book #10: A book of poetry
Not a fan of Emily Dickinson? Me neither.
For poetry, I had to venture elsewhere or risk rereading Shakespeare's folio of sonnets.
Cue my choice: Pop Sonnets: Shakespearean Spins on Your Favorite Songs, by Erik Didriksen.
I love sonnets. I love music. This is their love child. When I found this cute book, I couldn't resist. Written in the style of the Shakespearean sonnet, each poem here is an adaptation of the lyrics, the tone, and the message conveyed in popular songs. What kind of songs? Everything from Frank Sinatra and Chuck Berry to Rick Springfield and Rick Astley. You want some Chumbawumba? It's there. How about Rebecca Black? That's more in the category of unpopular songs, but you get my point. With such a wide variety, this book is bound to please.
It's interesting to read the Elizabethan verses and hear the applicable lyrics humming in the back of your mind. Or better yet, I invented a little game. I forced myself to read only the poetry without taking note of the song title at the bottom of the page and then tried to figure out what it was.
Try this one:
"For thee, I would ensure a journey great --
on foot I would embark five hundred miles
and reply, I'd not then slow my gait;
I'd walk it o'er again to see thee smile."
Sound familiar? It should. It's an adaptation of that itty-bitty ditty from The Proclaimers.
One more?
"Fourscore and nineteen problems I possess;
his bitch, however, brings me no distress."
That, my friends, is derived from Jay-Z.
Okay, before I fall back down this rabbithole, I'll move on.
Book #11: A book recommended by a family member
My sister has been on my ass to read The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend for well over a year. She bought it, read it, and then immediately read it all over again. I did not have that same level of interest, fairly certain that it would be a lot of texting and lip gloss. I didn't want to read some daft chick lit.
It isn't like that at all. It would definitely fall in the YA section as a teen romance, but it is firmly injected with a dose of cynicism. Kody Keplinger wrote a sex-positive book that reads realistically while transcending to become better than real adolescents talk and act, perhaps with a touch more literary references than the average Snapchat.
Regardless, I was drawn in and felt it was wonderfully well written. It has a whiff of the kinky escapism of Fifty Shades of Grey for the younger generation and dares to go there. It isn't too condescending, either, which makes for a much better read.
Full disclosure: I have watched the film of the same name. I don't know what exactly it is that I watched, but it sure as hell wasn't what I read. Never in all my life have I seen an adaptation that wandered so far off. The film was okay, mediocre but entertaining nonetheless, while the book exceeds all my expectations by being nothing -- and I do mean nothing, short of the use of character names -- like what I watched. The plot is not the same. If you've seen the film, you have not read the book. It's baffling to me how you could legally call the film an adaptation of the book when there is no likeness between the two.
If I had read the book first, I would have been infuriated. I still haven't gotten over what they did to My Sister's Keeper, trashing integral characters and going for the exact opposite of conclusions.
Whatever. I devoured this book in a day. Please don't let your preconceptions surrounding the ridiculous title scare you off. This isn't an Internet meme fleshed out into a novel. No, it's a solid narrative in its own right that I definitely recommend.
What did I learn from reading it? I should listen to my sister more often.
Book #12: A murder mystery
It's jarring to go from the warm fuzzies of teen lit to the dark side. And that's exactly what I did.
Gone Girl is not Gillian Flynn's best book. Brilliantly dark, yes. Masterful storytelling, absolutely. Most publicized of her writings, no duh. But after having read her debut novel, Sharp Objects, I realized that Flynn has always been fantastic. She crafts a murder mystery that doesn't feel like a generic Sherlock traipsing around tallying up clues. You're equally invested in the protagonist as you are in finding the killer. And the beautifully vivid descriptions of life in Wind Gap, Missouri, only draw you in further. When I say you can smell the faint aroma of hogs in the air, I'm not kidding. She's that good.
You may stay up to an ungodly hour reading Sharp Objects. It is the definition of a page-turner. 25% of me itched to know if it's who I thought all along, but, like a total sap, 75% of myself yearned against all hope that she ends up with the right man, a good man who loves her. That is, if she doesn't screw it all up.
But who can blame her? She hasn't exactly had anyone in her vicinity to model happiness and normal behaviour.
And those scars . . . The thought of them throbbing against her body, each word she has inscribed in her skin calling out . . . It really gives you an idea of the pain that our protagonist, Camille, is going through, something that she has to overcome, but that she's stuffing it down with sex and work, sex and work, sex and work. Oh, and booze.
A good book makes you want to blame the author when things don't go the way you wanted them to, but a fantastic book? You blame the characters themselves. Camille feels so real, like you know her, saw her walking down the street one day, passed by her once or twice. As I read, I wondered if Gillian Flynn knew someone like her and had their image pierced into her brain as she wrote each word. Nothing is out of place. In a way, Camille is a mystery just as much as the murderer is. So full and fleshed out but rough at the edges, so much we haven't seen. And that's what makes Sharp Objects stand out. It's more than a murder mystery.
For anyone who thinks this is a raving recommendation, it is, but I must temper it with a warning. Gillian doesn't write happy endings, so I'm a fool for not mentally preparing to have my hopes shattered. I should know better. We all should. If you can't handle that, then she's not the writer for you.
What she writes are the kind of books that leave you startled, both thinking about the darkness contained in a human heart and wishing things had gone better in one way or another. For anyone who has read or even watched Gone Girl, they know all too well what that feeling's like. Oh, Gillian, you twisted devil, why do you hurt me so?
Needless to say, I'm absolutely in love with this book, and absolutely enamoured with Flynn, too. It's a one-sided dysfunctional relationship that we have. It hurt to end Sharp Objects, because I knew that it was goodbye, unlikely to run into Camille again. As always, I was unsure of whether things were working out for the best or getting dramatically worse. Doesn't matter -- I'm addicted. So, I intend to read Dark Places after this challenge is over; it's the only way to recapture that feeling.
Thanks, Flynn. I think.
Book #13: A book written by a celebrity
I needed a little happiness after Sharp Objects. Lifestyles of the rich and famous seemed to be a guarantee of some form of pleasantness. I didn't want something tainted, like a rock star's adventures in mixing drugs and alcohol. I wanted nice.
So, I ventured first into unknown territory to a celebrity I knew relatively nothing about. Anjelica Huston spent the majority of my life as the Grand High Witch in The Witches movie. She has an air of mystery -- that's for sure.
Hence, my decision to read her memoir, A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York .
I learned that Anjelica and her brother Tony were named after her mother Ricki's parents. Her grandfather Tony was an interesting character, a yogi who owned a successful restaurant that served the Hollywood elite in New York and named his son Nappy because he believed he descended from Napoleon. I learned that her father, famous director John Huston, had stood up her mother at fourteen years old because the war got in the way of their date at the ballet. I learned that Anjelica's mother had suffered postpartum depression, that her father was not there for her birth, and that a Californian pediatrician had medicated Anjelica as a baby to stop her crying. I learned that Anjelica had lost part of her finger as a child in a lawn mower accident. I learned that her parents basically had a loveless marriage more like a series of business transactions than like a real relationship. I learned quite a lot.
As someone allergic to horses, I was not particularly compelled by the large sections devoted to dressage and other forms of jockeying in the lush Irish countryside. Nor did I care for the long passages that served no purpose other than a room-by-room inventory of the objects in her childhood homes. Lots of beige prose produces snores. But that's my cross to bear. You see, I wasn't in the right mindset. Something still didn't feel right. I had reached page 75, but it felt like I wasn't getting the full intended effect of the story. I couldn't take in Anjelica's words the way I should have. I don't know, guys. Sharp Objects really messed me up.
So, I made adjustments. I turned instead to even lighter fare: So That Happened: My Unexpected Life in Hollywood , by Jon Cryer.
Whenever I see Jon Cryer, I see Duckie. It doesn't matter how many years he spent proving he can be naughty on Two and a Half Men . He can try and try, but he has no claim to debauchery. No, he will always be in that record store or waiting for me at prom.
My partner asked me if I would read it to him, which I knew would take more time to read aloud than to read silently to myself. But that was fine. Stories are meant to be shared.
However, sharing stories can slow you down a touch. Knowing that I would trail into May reading So That Happened, I decided to do double-duty: one read-aloud storytime book (this would fulfill the prompt for a book written by a celebrity -- thanks, Jon!) at the same time as an on-my-own book.
So, I started something else. But what, you ask?
Well, honesty is the best policy and, since I never finished reading this book in April, it would be unfair to include it in this post. I guess you'll have to wait until next month to find out...
Happy reading!
Book # 9: The first book you see in a bookstore
Modern Romance made me feel old. Like, ridiculously old-fashioned, basically geriatric. Every statistic about love in your twenties doesn't apply to me at all. Mind you, in my teen years, I defied the whole twenties dating market by finding the right person for me early on. I feel very lucky to have found my other half, another old soul like me, a life partner who roots for our team as much as I do.
Modern Romance is a compelling sociological study of the unique context of love today, written in a comedian's voice but researched and supported by many academic sources.
Earlier parts of the book look at how love, romance, dating, and marriage has changed, which requires an examination of yesteryear. The older generation described the differences they perceive between dating attitudes now versus then thusly:
"I don't think we thought, Well, there are another twelve doors or another seventeen doors or another four hundred and thirty-three doors . . . We saw a door we wanted, and so we took it."
On page 28, Aziz then describes this generation's dating options as "a hallway with millions of doors" and asks the question, "Is that better? Is it terrifying?"
The Internet era obviously changed everything and love is no different. It's interesting to read how the type of person that online daters describe as what they want rarely matched up with the traits of the people they actually contacted, and how Tinder effectively eliminated this lack of self-awareness problem.
Aziz even touched on the neurochemical dimensions of love and why that can be both a good and a bad thing.
By far the most intriguing part of the book comes much later on, when modern romance is examined from a multicultural perspective. The sexually aggressive men and the hard-to-get ladies of Buenos Aires, Argentina, are juxtaposed against the "herbivorous" men and sex-deprived women of Tokyo, Japan. I learned about Qatar and France, as well. I learned a thing or two. It was quite fascinating in that regard, almost like a social science-version of National Geographic.
I know what you're going to say: Is that yet another book penned by a cast member of Parks and Rec?
And so, I will move on....
Book #10: A book of poetry
Not a fan of Emily Dickinson? Me neither.
For poetry, I had to venture elsewhere or risk rereading Shakespeare's folio of sonnets.
Cue my choice: Pop Sonnets: Shakespearean Spins on Your Favorite Songs, by Erik Didriksen.
I love sonnets. I love music. This is their love child. When I found this cute book, I couldn't resist. Written in the style of the Shakespearean sonnet, each poem here is an adaptation of the lyrics, the tone, and the message conveyed in popular songs. What kind of songs? Everything from Frank Sinatra and Chuck Berry to Rick Springfield and Rick Astley. You want some Chumbawumba? It's there. How about Rebecca Black? That's more in the category of unpopular songs, but you get my point. With such a wide variety, this book is bound to please.
It's interesting to read the Elizabethan verses and hear the applicable lyrics humming in the back of your mind. Or better yet, I invented a little game. I forced myself to read only the poetry without taking note of the song title at the bottom of the page and then tried to figure out what it was.
Try this one:
"For thee, I would ensure a journey great --
on foot I would embark five hundred miles
and reply, I'd not then slow my gait;
I'd walk it o'er again to see thee smile."
Sound familiar? It should. It's an adaptation of that itty-bitty ditty from The Proclaimers.
One more?
"Fourscore and nineteen problems I possess;
his bitch, however, brings me no distress."
That, my friends, is derived from Jay-Z.
Okay, before I fall back down this rabbithole, I'll move on.
Book #11: A book recommended by a family member
My sister has been on my ass to read The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend for well over a year. She bought it, read it, and then immediately read it all over again. I did not have that same level of interest, fairly certain that it would be a lot of texting and lip gloss. I didn't want to read some daft chick lit.
It isn't like that at all. It would definitely fall in the YA section as a teen romance, but it is firmly injected with a dose of cynicism. Kody Keplinger wrote a sex-positive book that reads realistically while transcending to become better than real adolescents talk and act, perhaps with a touch more literary references than the average Snapchat.
Regardless, I was drawn in and felt it was wonderfully well written. It has a whiff of the kinky escapism of Fifty Shades of Grey for the younger generation and dares to go there. It isn't too condescending, either, which makes for a much better read.
Full disclosure: I have watched the film of the same name. I don't know what exactly it is that I watched, but it sure as hell wasn't what I read. Never in all my life have I seen an adaptation that wandered so far off. The film was okay, mediocre but entertaining nonetheless, while the book exceeds all my expectations by being nothing -- and I do mean nothing, short of the use of character names -- like what I watched. The plot is not the same. If you've seen the film, you have not read the book. It's baffling to me how you could legally call the film an adaptation of the book when there is no likeness between the two.
If I had read the book first, I would have been infuriated. I still haven't gotten over what they did to My Sister's Keeper, trashing integral characters and going for the exact opposite of conclusions.
Whatever. I devoured this book in a day. Please don't let your preconceptions surrounding the ridiculous title scare you off. This isn't an Internet meme fleshed out into a novel. No, it's a solid narrative in its own right that I definitely recommend.
What did I learn from reading it? I should listen to my sister more often.
Book #12: A murder mystery
It's jarring to go from the warm fuzzies of teen lit to the dark side. And that's exactly what I did.
Gone Girl is not Gillian Flynn's best book. Brilliantly dark, yes. Masterful storytelling, absolutely. Most publicized of her writings, no duh. But after having read her debut novel, Sharp Objects, I realized that Flynn has always been fantastic. She crafts a murder mystery that doesn't feel like a generic Sherlock traipsing around tallying up clues. You're equally invested in the protagonist as you are in finding the killer. And the beautifully vivid descriptions of life in Wind Gap, Missouri, only draw you in further. When I say you can smell the faint aroma of hogs in the air, I'm not kidding. She's that good.
You may stay up to an ungodly hour reading Sharp Objects. It is the definition of a page-turner. 25% of me itched to know if it's who I thought all along, but, like a total sap, 75% of myself yearned against all hope that she ends up with the right man, a good man who loves her. That is, if she doesn't screw it all up.
But who can blame her? She hasn't exactly had anyone in her vicinity to model happiness and normal behaviour.
And those scars . . . The thought of them throbbing against her body, each word she has inscribed in her skin calling out . . . It really gives you an idea of the pain that our protagonist, Camille, is going through, something that she has to overcome, but that she's stuffing it down with sex and work, sex and work, sex and work. Oh, and booze.
A good book makes you want to blame the author when things don't go the way you wanted them to, but a fantastic book? You blame the characters themselves. Camille feels so real, like you know her, saw her walking down the street one day, passed by her once or twice. As I read, I wondered if Gillian Flynn knew someone like her and had their image pierced into her brain as she wrote each word. Nothing is out of place. In a way, Camille is a mystery just as much as the murderer is. So full and fleshed out but rough at the edges, so much we haven't seen. And that's what makes Sharp Objects stand out. It's more than a murder mystery.
For anyone who thinks this is a raving recommendation, it is, but I must temper it with a warning. Gillian doesn't write happy endings, so I'm a fool for not mentally preparing to have my hopes shattered. I should know better. We all should. If you can't handle that, then she's not the writer for you.
What she writes are the kind of books that leave you startled, both thinking about the darkness contained in a human heart and wishing things had gone better in one way or another. For anyone who has read or even watched Gone Girl, they know all too well what that feeling's like. Oh, Gillian, you twisted devil, why do you hurt me so?
Needless to say, I'm absolutely in love with this book, and absolutely enamoured with Flynn, too. It's a one-sided dysfunctional relationship that we have. It hurt to end Sharp Objects, because I knew that it was goodbye, unlikely to run into Camille again. As always, I was unsure of whether things were working out for the best or getting dramatically worse. Doesn't matter -- I'm addicted. So, I intend to read Dark Places after this challenge is over; it's the only way to recapture that feeling.
Thanks, Flynn. I think.
I needed a little happiness after Sharp Objects. Lifestyles of the rich and famous seemed to be a guarantee of some form of pleasantness. I didn't want something tainted, like a rock star's adventures in mixing drugs and alcohol. I wanted nice.
So, I ventured first into unknown territory to a celebrity I knew relatively nothing about. Anjelica Huston spent the majority of my life as the Grand High Witch in The Witches movie. She has an air of mystery -- that's for sure.
Hence, my decision to read her memoir, A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York .
I learned that Anjelica and her brother Tony were named after her mother Ricki's parents. Her grandfather Tony was an interesting character, a yogi who owned a successful restaurant that served the Hollywood elite in New York and named his son Nappy because he believed he descended from Napoleon. I learned that her father, famous director John Huston, had stood up her mother at fourteen years old because the war got in the way of their date at the ballet. I learned that Anjelica's mother had suffered postpartum depression, that her father was not there for her birth, and that a Californian pediatrician had medicated Anjelica as a baby to stop her crying. I learned that Anjelica had lost part of her finger as a child in a lawn mower accident. I learned that her parents basically had a loveless marriage more like a series of business transactions than like a real relationship. I learned quite a lot.
As someone allergic to horses, I was not particularly compelled by the large sections devoted to dressage and other forms of jockeying in the lush Irish countryside. Nor did I care for the long passages that served no purpose other than a room-by-room inventory of the objects in her childhood homes. Lots of beige prose produces snores. But that's my cross to bear. You see, I wasn't in the right mindset. Something still didn't feel right. I had reached page 75, but it felt like I wasn't getting the full intended effect of the story. I couldn't take in Anjelica's words the way I should have. I don't know, guys. Sharp Objects really messed me up.
So, I made adjustments. I turned instead to even lighter fare: So That Happened: My Unexpected Life in Hollywood , by Jon Cryer.
Whenever I see Jon Cryer, I see Duckie. It doesn't matter how many years he spent proving he can be naughty on Two and a Half Men . He can try and try, but he has no claim to debauchery. No, he will always be in that record store or waiting for me at prom.
My partner asked me if I would read it to him, which I knew would take more time to read aloud than to read silently to myself. But that was fine. Stories are meant to be shared.
However, sharing stories can slow you down a touch. Knowing that I would trail into May reading So That Happened, I decided to do double-duty: one read-aloud storytime book (this would fulfill the prompt for a book written by a celebrity -- thanks, Jon!) at the same time as an on-my-own book.
So, I started something else. But what, you ask?
Well, honesty is the best policy and, since I never finished reading this book in April, it would be unfair to include it in this post. I guess you'll have to wait until next month to find out...
Happy reading!
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