Matthew McElroy > Recent Status Updates

They are doing this ridiculous minute by minute documentation of everything that is happening. I'm not sure I realized it at the beginning. So, over the course of 300 pages, I have heard every clue, and every thought of every character.
This story is ridiculous in every possible way. Everyone seems to know the exact information they need to solve the puzzle, only two minutes too late.

This feels like so much foolishness. Nobody except Langdon has an internal dialog. Everyone just says everything they are thinking and then acts on it. It is so wildly convenient that the right person is always in the right place to ask a question. It's almost like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book for adults.

It's not just that it's poorly written, it's that even the stuff that should be logical defies logic.
Really, a member of the most elite fighting force in the world doesn't do a basic pat down because a woman gives him a dirty look?

It's an easy enough read, but it's incredibly sprawling. I'm not sure Guterson is a talented enough writer to pull off a story of this scope. It seems like he just wants to fill the pages with sex and the plot with various deus ex machina plot twists.

Eisenhower jackets were readily available and known as Eisenhower jackets three years BEFORE Eisenhower led the invasion at Normandy?🤔🧐🤨
I will have to do some half-hearted research into this.

Seems like Hatsue is capable of multiple meaningful relationships. Much of the book is written in flashback form, almost to the point where the murder trial is a flash forward. Currently, we have been in the past so long, the trial (relax, it was introduced in the first chapter) seems more like an afterthought.

I'm a softee, but the Jim Valvano ESPY speech gets me every time. I can't imagine someone who hasn't been affected by cancer in some way, but as someone who was about 12 when Jimmy V gave his speech, it was the first time I really became aware of it. This was the early 90s- AIDS, SIDS, and crack were much more terrifying. The interviews aren't as devastating as you might expect. Is that a result of time or selection?

Pretty good so far. Guterson seems to be a patient storyteller, which might be the first time I've ever written that. He seems content to let you get to know the entire history of all the characters, which seems to date back nearly 60 years. I suppose that is a little unnerving thinking of it that way. In a small town, all of these people's lives are intertwined for multiple decades.

This is fairly well done. Towle has done an excellent job compiling people who knew Valvano best, even when they don't have positive things to say.

A set of short interviews recounting the life of Jim Valvano. I'm only at the beginning, but this is already better than the Torre story. Volcano has something of mythic status in American sports circles, and yet, the author/editor still allows for critical stories about Valvano.
We get to learn who he is, for better and for worse.

🤣🤣🤣
This was literally a cultural phenomenon.

Not sure how Goodreads found a 749 page copy of this. Mine is 471, and it looks like a fairly standard paperback copy.

Hard to believe I'm almost finished. This has been excellent, though probably not as enlightening as I hoped. The last chapter was an editorial on how inexcusable it is that we don't give students a chance at equal opportunities.
Then Kozol elaborates on the myriad excuses people for not providing children with equal opportunities. He is clearly passionate about his subject in a way too few people are.

This book feels biographical. First a chapter on Chicago and it's suburbs and then Camden and Cherry Hill. I attended Cherry Hill schools for 11 years and went to college in Camden. I never thought improving Camden would weaken Cherry Hill. I heard stories that were concerning, and it wasn't a district I wanted to attend. The idea that Camden students were undeserving never came up. I guess Camden never came up.

I'm trying to figure out Kozol's big goal. The notion that inner city schools are wildly underfunded can't be groundbreaking, though I can't speak to how what role books like this played in making this known to the public.
Compound that with A) how many people read this book, and B) the segregation is built into the system. At some point I would like Kozol to start offering solutions.

I'm reading this at least a decade late. I wasn't going to read it at nine years old, when it was published, and i didn't take an interest in education until I was about 20 (approximately 2000). I'd heard about this book, and it lives up to the hype.
As someone who could have seen both sides of education- Chicago, but moved to a middle-class suburb of Philadelphia these are "there but for the grace of God" moments.

Fuck you Garth Ennis.

Fuck you Butcher.

Just when I thought we'd had a breakthrough.

This is considerably better than some of the earlier ones. Ennis gets away from silly shock value sex and violence and starts working with his characters.
It's still not great, and Ennis has written himself into a huge hole, because everyone is so horribly unlikable. However, we are getting to see the complex dynamics of their relationships when they don't have superheroes to rip apart.

I'm 90% finished (did I scan the right version?) And I have no idea what exactly is happening.
Ignatius is still loud, obnoxious, ill-mannered and pretentious. I'm not sure there are any specifically redeeming humans in this story, though most are more likable than Ignatius.
Reading this while reading The Boys is a nice contrast. This is satire done correctly- where there is a clear condemnation of bad behavior.

If students read more plays like this, they might be more interested in drama club.

The G-Coast v. G-Style exchange may be the most racist stereotyping I've ever seen.

The only thing preventing me from putting this down is that Mother's Milk is the moral center of the entire story, and Homelander is a stereotype of every white supremacist ever.

But I'm going to have to give this some thought.

It's a pretty standard Dave Barry crime-comedy-caper. That means it is probably better than most stuff out there, but it doesn't come with the social commentary of Carl Hiaasen, or the dark human observation of Elmore Leonard.
Still, overall, Barry is always a good read.

Screw you Goodreads. If I have a different edition of the book, i should be able to make the necessary edits that I need. Otherwise, why are you asking for my input.

I can't figure out if John Kennedy Toole loves or hates his protagonist.
And that is a weird predicament.

It's good, it's not great. It certainly has some interesting characters, but none of the characters seem particularly interested in doing anything or inspiring another character to do anything.

Ignatius only seems to act under his own impulse, otherwise he is explosively reactive, but not in a dangerous explosion- more of a baking soda and vinegar way.

Diving into Twain's writing, you find he really is a muckraker, and there is much more to him than just Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, which if those were his only two contributions, would be a pretty good legacy.

Twain holds America to a high standard, and is the best kind of patriot- the kind that asks the country to live up to its founding statements; to be the nation it claims to be.

The art is very good, and the stories are short and often inspiring. If you live in America, you are probably closer to a utopian or separatist community than you realize. And not just the Quakers of Pennsylvania or the people who created cold cereal in Michigan (help me out here, please).