This short novel tells the story of Achilles and Priam, zooming in on their evening together with short descriptions of the events leading up to their truce (Hector’s death) and following (Achilles’s and Priam’s deaths). It’s a beautiful story that captures the uniqueness of the moment: a king walks into danger to beg from his son’s murderer. A hero weeps and embraces the enemy king. I loved these characters before, and I love them even more after reading Ransom. Continue reading
Books
The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski
I loved Rutkoski’s Kronos Chronicles series, and her ability to create a believable fantasy world holds true. Can you sense the “but” coming? But….I thought The Winner’s Curse indulged in YA romance tropes, when I know she can do more interesting things with relationships. Kestrel and Arin have a definite Romeo-and-Juliet vibe going on, since he is her purchased slave, but their feelings for each other felt too inevitable. Is that a weird complaint? Neither of them seemed to really care about the social implications of their feelings for the enemy, even if their internal dialogue begs to differ. Continue reading
Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
I couldn’t finish it. It was a fast read, and I got to page 129 (chapter 15), but I just had zero interest in reading more. Which is a real shame, because I loved Sanderson’s Mistborn. In that novel, he clearly showed that he could write women with complexity, but Steelheart was one big boy-book borefest. And when I say it’s a boy book, I am flabbergasted that I didn’t like it, because I’m a huge fan of Fight Club, Percy Jackson, Star Wars…all the boy things. Continue reading
More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera
I can’t say I liked this book, but I’m so glad I read it and I want everyone in the world to read More Happy Than Not. I read the entire thing in one night: it was wholly engrossing, and then the plot kicked me upside the head and I learned a new kind of desperation for MUST READ. This is not a feel-good book, but it might leave you feeling….no I can’t do the cheesy “more happy than not” line. Because honestly, I closed the book feeling more UNhappy than not. I tend to expect my YA books to have happily ever after endings, and this one was serious is a wonderful but disconcerting way. Continue reading
Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
I loved this book far more than I anticipated. I like memoirs written by comedians, so I knew I would pick up Aziz’s when it came out. I love him in Parks & Recreation, and his stand up on Netflix is some of the smartest, most modern, most feminist comedy I’ve seen. I knew his book would be funny. I did not expect it to be so smart! He’s an insightful guy, but teamed up with Eric Klinenberg, sociologist, this book is everything my humor-loving sociology-major heart could want.
I found it fascinating to look back at courtships of yesteryear (aka 30 or 40 years ago) and compare them to my struggles as a single with an iPhone. So much has changed with the advent of the Internet and phone apps that allow us to check out singles all over the world. In an especially effective analogy, Ansari likens dating to a hallway. Men and women used to enter a hallway with four or five doorways–they peeked through a couple, found one that wasn’t too horrible, and walked through. Now, singles stand in a hallway with millions of doorways. This enormity of options means that we are more likely to find someone who aligns closely with our interests, values, and personality. But it also means that we are often paralyzed, terrified to walk through any doorway for fear that the next one down will be better.
Ansari hilariously describes and analyzes the frustrations of modern dating. I appreciated his honest assessment of the good and the bad, and I really appreciated how he managed to find humor in it all. I finished the book both thankful and horrified to be in the dating world at this time in world history. But at least now I have the tools to understand what I’m going through and hopefully wade through the complications a little more effectively.
Book Jacket
At some point, every one of us embarks on a journey to find love. We meet people, date, get into and out of relationships, all with the hope of finding someone with whom we share a deep connection. This seems standard now, but it’s wildly different from what people did even just decades ago. Single people today have more romantic options than at any point in human history. With technology, our ability to connect with and sort through these options is staggering. Just a few years ago, in 2010, 10% of single Americans said they met their significant other online. Three years later, in 2013, that number was up to 35%. We are truly in a new world. What’s the good in all this change? What’s the bad? Why are so many people frustrated?
Some of our problems are unique to our time: “Why did this guy just text me an emoji of a pizza?” “Should I go out with this girl even though she listed Combos as one of her favorite food snacks? Combos?!” “My girlfriend just got a message from some dude named Nathan. Who’s Nathan? Did he just send her a picture of his penis? Should I check just to be sure?”
But the transformation of our romantic lives can’t be explained by technology alone. In a short period of time, the whole culture of finding love has changed dramatically. A few decades ago people would find a decent person who lived in their neighborhood. Their families would meet and, after deciding neither party seemed like a murderer, they would get married and soon have a kid–all by the time they were twenty-four. Today, people marry later than ever and spend years of their lives on a quest to find the perfect person, a soul mate.
For years, Aziz Ansari has been aiming his comic insight at modern romance, but for Modern Romance, the book, he decided to take things to another level. He teamed up with NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg and designed a massive research project, including hundreds of interviews and focus groups conducted everywhere from Tokyo to Buenos Aires to Wichita. They analyzed behavioral data and surveys and created their own online research forum on Reddit, which drew thousands of messages. They enlisted the world’s leading social scientists, including Andrew Cherlin, Eli Finkel, Helen Fisher, Sheena Iyengar, Barry Schwartz, Sherry Turkle, and Robb Willer. The result is Modern Romance, a marriage of cutting-edge social science and razor-sharp humor to form an assessment of our new romantic world that is as funny as it is groundbreaking.
Release Date: June 2015
The Illyrian Adventure by Lloyd Alexander
There has never been a better opening paragraph than this one:
Miss Vesper Holly has the digestive talents of a goat and the mind of a chess master. She is familiar with half a dozen languages and can swear fluently in all of them. She understands the use of a slide rule but prefers doing calculations in her head. She does not hesitate to risk life and limb–mine as well as her own. No doubt she has other qualities as yet undiscovered. I hope not.
Now that is a heroine. From the first page (and every page thereafter) I was completely enthralled by Vesper’s persuasive wit. Added to the fantastic characters was a really fun plot–an Indiana Jones-type treasure-seeking adventure. The book is short, and its brevity quickens the novel’s pace. Where modern YA books might describe long treks through the jungle or every detail of a banquet, Alexander bypasses these scenes with clever paragraphs that add to the dry humor of the story.
I really enjoyed reading about Vesper and Brinnie’s adventures, and I will definitely be on the lookout for more in the series in future. Continue reading
Butter by Erin Jade Lange
It’s been way too long since I’ve read a book of fiction, so when I got Butter, I devoured it (hah) in one evening. This was not just because of my fiction-fast, but because the book is really good. I loved the themes of popularity desperation, the nuanced portrayal of bullying, and the dissection of eating disorders and obesity.
I don’t know if I’ve ever read a YA book from the perspective of an obese teenager. I liked that Butter was a typical teenage boy in a lot of ways – crushing on the cute girl, making friends at summer camp, desperate for attention. I also liked that he’s a saxophone player (like I was!), and that his musical talent is central to the plot. Butter’s relationship with the kids at school is where the big drama is, but we also get to see the way his obesity affects his family, his teachers, and his doctors. Lange doesn’t blame Butter for his weight, but she also doesn’t hold back from showing the consequences of being young and overweight.
I can see this book being hugely influential for those who read it. There has been an uptick in discussion on fat shaming culturally, and I hope books like Butter encourage readers to be empathetic toward overweight people. And I hope it encourages readers who are overweight, that they will feel understood, validated, and inspired. Continue reading
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter by Thomas Cahill
I’ve already begun thinking of myself as part-Greek, which is, I know, very ridiculous. Just because I will live in the country for a year does not mean I have a right to claim their heritage as my own….except that Cahill has written an entire book about how the Western world has been shaped by the Greek worldview for the last two and a half thousand years. So while I may not be Greek in heritage, I am in spirit.
Cahill divides his chapters into themes that also follow a general chronological pattern. I found this to be a much easier way to track with the history and culture presented. He also makes use of a lot of literature, which, as a book nerd, I found especially delightful. Beginning with Homer’s The Iliad, Cahill describes Greek warriors and their obsession with glory on the battlefield. We then move on emotions, celebrations, politics, philosophy, art, and religion. Over and over again, Cahill reminds us just how strongly our present-day culture resembles the ancient Greeks.
I’ve always loved Greek mythology, my high school English class spent some time with Sophocles and Homer, and I took art history classes as electives in college. I’m a little familiar with a lot of Greek history and thought, but Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea put everything into context. For instance, the shift in Greek sculptures from rigid idealistic poses of men to the twisting, agonized figures in the famous Laocoon and His Sons came about as the strength of Athens waned, first to Sparta in the Peloponnesian War and then to Rome.
This book hits all of my interests: art, literature, history, culture, and GREECE. Perfect. Continue reading
Never Have I Ever: My Life (So Far) Without a Date by Katie Heaney
I loved this book, but it also infuriated me. Two years ago, when I was 25, I wrote 80 pages of a pseudo-memoir about how I was 25 and had so far avoided having an actual boyfriend. Now Katie Heaney does the same thing, and SO MUCH BETTER. I’m over my jealousy – this girl is hilarious and we are kindred spirits. Her every observation (whether about 90s kid culture, junior high horror, or college friendships) is so accurate. Her personality, like mine, is perfectly suited to obsessions and inaction. Which is why she’s 25 and hasn’t had a date.
“I just don’t know how anyone ever knows what to do with their bodies. I catch myself worrying about what my arms are doing when I’m walking alone, and that is just walking. Alone.
So I am a basket case, generally, and picky, and have almost always had crushes on people who usually don’t have crushes on me, and it’s rare that I’m so attracted to a stranger that I could imagine having sex with him at that exact moment. And even when that has been true, I am only able to talk about thinking about it, from a safe distance. I have no idea what I’d actually do about it. But generally speaking, I’d like to date someone, at least a little, first. Add all this to my somewhat looming height, an unintentional bracing hostility toward people I don’t know well, and an end to the era in my life when I might have felt the need to do something for the first time to get it over with, and it’s not hard to end up with a twenty-five-year-old who hasn’t had sex. I put practically no effort into it at all.”
You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day
I’ve been a fan of Felicia’s from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog to her YouTube gaming show with Ryon Day, Co-Optitude. It was inevitable that I would read her memoir, though now that I’ve read it, I regret letting….one whole month pass. I should have read this the second it was released! Continue reading
It Is Trish 