Read No Length 256 Quick Review Alaskan Holiday is a really good example of what I don’t like in a book. Sappy romance, a pretend strong female character, bad grammar, terrible plot, and over all not put together well. Upside: there is a dog.
Happy first day of December!!! I’m starting off my holiday reading with a real low point. It’s not the worst book I’ve read all year, but it’s in the top three! Which means, in all hopefulness, that the reading quality can only go up the rest of the month!
I pretty much began reading Alaskan Holiday by Debbie Macomber feeling that it would be awful. It was. It was not good. It’s like a Hallmark movie in book form so a more painful time commitment.
The two main characters are Josie and Palmer. They’re in the middle of nowhere Alaska. A place so remote almost everyone leaves during the winter months and is only reachable by plane. Josie was the chef during the season, and Palmer lives there permanently. Palmer falls in love and asks her to marry him. The rest of the novel unfolds to the exact ending you know is going to happen.
Alaskan Holidayis incredibly sexist. There is the effort of having a strong, career oriented woman as the lead, but the whole novel falls into the trope of ‘need to calm this wild, career woman down to get her to settle into a small boring life.’ The woman gives up everything for the man. This is bolstered by the fact that there are several other women trying to convince Josie she can be happy in the middle of nowhere because love. Palmer is awful. I really hated his character. He oozes the quiet, toxic masculinity that is a total turn-off to any actual strong, career oriented woman I’ve ever met. His machismo was irritating after page 2. His jealousy is beyond aggravating. I couldn’t take it.
There is a lot of telling and very little showing, so the storytelling is Alaskan Holidayis as bad as the characters. The story spends 130 pages, out of 220, setting up a story that could have been easily summed up in 25 pages. The story reads like a teenager’s diary, but not an insightful, wise teenager. There are also a lot of grammar errors.
I was really unimpressed by Alaskan Holiday. It was pretty much a waist of my time. Luckily it was so bad and easy to read, I was able to read it in a less time than a Hallmark movie takes.
Read Yes Length 256 Quick Review Stephen Hawking isn’t an anti-social genius. He’s brilliant, no doubt. He’s also witty, sarcastic, charming, and completely relatable in his book Brief Answers for the Big Questions, published posthumously.
I had a wonderful time reading Brief Answers for the Big Questionsby Stephen Hawking. This is the first book I’ve read by Hawking. I read it on airplanes on Thanksgiving day, so the only break I took was walking between terminals. It’s a book that pulls you in and keeps you even if science isn’t your thing.
I was under the illusions Stephen Hawking was a one of those scientific geniuses who I’d be unable to have a conversation with because he’s that much smarter than me. Except that’s exactly what feels so wonderful about Brief Answers for the Big Questionsthe intimacy of it. It’s a conversation between Hawking and the reader. He doesn’t shove science and math down your throat; instead he is warm, funny, charming, and absolutely relatable.
His sense of humor is evident from the very beginning. The forward is by Eddie Redmayne, who played Hawking in the movie The Theory of Everything. Hawking is funny, blunt, and very self-deprecating “Eddie Redmayne plays a particularly handsome version of me…” It makes him even more admirable in his humility. The word “surprised” was used far too often when Hawking discusses his successes. Even though he was brilliant and earned everything he had, he seems completely shocked looking back at the things he accomplished.
There are very few things non-sciency people will need to look up because Hawking does not drown the reader in things they probably are unfamiliar with or equations. He wants Brief Answers to the Big Questionsto be accessible to all. He talks about theories and equations with a sense of humor because he’s talking to people not scientists. M-theory – I did look that up- and Einstein and quantum mechanics and The Big Crunch “In Britain, people don’t seem too worried about a possible end twenty billion years in the future. You can do quite a lot of eating, drinking and being merry before that.” are all there but understandable. It’s not just science, though. He constantly references everything from history, science, philosophy, literature, and pop culture ie: Jurassic Park, Star Trek, etc.
Has funny little Q&A’s throughout the chapters. They usually sum up in a sentence or two his personal feelings about the overarching question being asked in the chapter. My favorite being the Q&A on page 141 when he mentions throwing a party in 2009 for legitimate time travelers. It culminated in him sitting alone in the college hall because he sent out invitations after the party was over to ensure there would be no phonies
I learned that Non-Euclidean geometry exists. Had I known this before, I could have been a total smart ass in formal geometry in high school. I found out triangles do not have to add up to 180° in flat three-dimensional space, but space would be curved and therefore non-euclidean. New information!
I highly enjoyed the small little jabs he made throughout including, “If there are beings alive on Alpha Centauri today, they remain blissfully ignorant of the rise of Donald Trump.” I don’t have to wonder too hard how he felt about the election.
Brief Answers to the Big Questions is highly entertaining. Hawking answers the questions, but really he’s just posing more. He is FULL of huge ideas. It’s absolutely amazing all the things he accomplished in spite of the obstacles he overcame. One of my favorite quotes is in the last pages of the book, “Opening up the thrill and wonder of scientific discovery, creating innovative and accessible ways to reach out to the widest young audiences possible, greatly increases the chances of finding and inspiring the new Einstein. Wherever she might be.” I love his inclusivity and call to action while simultaneously empowering the young women and men of today.The last two paragraphs are inspiring and a call to action and empowering.
Lucy Hawking, his daughter, summed up the sentiment of who he seemed to be through his own words in her own afterword, “He was a surprisingly modest man who, while adoring the limelight, seemed baffled by his own fame.” Reading Brief Answers to the Big Questionswas an absolute pleasure. Professor Hawking will be greatly missed for generations to come.
Memorable Quotes “Although, if there were such a God, I would like to ask however did he think of anything as complicated as M-theory in eleven dimensions.” “We don’t expect the universe to end in a brick wall, although there’s no logical reason why it couldn’t.” “This is a pity because, if they had, I would have got a Nobel Prize.” “The producers of Star Trek even persuaded me to take part, not that it was difficult.” Particle Accelerators: “They would have to be larger than the solar system and they are not likely to be approved in the present financial climate.”
Read Maybe Length 304 Quick Review Pat Barker retells the Iliad in The Silence of the Girls from a new and forgotten point of view: the women. Briseis was queen of a city before it fell making her a slave to Achilles.
We know the story of Helen of Troy. We know of Helen through the stories of men. What about women? Where were they? What is their story? They were lost to history, so Pat Barker gives them a voice in The Silence of the Girls through Briseis, a queen who fell with her city.
Briseis was still a teenager and a queen of a neighboring Trojan city when the Greeks attacked her city. As a little girl, she lived in Troy spending time with Helen. She was a proud Trojan woman. She watched everything and everyone she cared for destroyed by the Greeks led by Achilles. She became a slave to Achilles in the Greek camp outside of Troy. Briseis is used as a pawn and as a woman, but she listens and watches. The Silence of the Girlsis Barker’s take on what the women, who were barely old enough to be called women, went through as victims of war. Pawns of men.
The women in the camp have one role: serve the men. They do it in a variety of ways: being “bed-girls,” working in the medical tent, weaving, and serving. They go where they are told, when they are told, and they do it silently. They are no longer women; they are objects with a purpose. They were a fundamental reason the Greeks won the war.
The Silence of the Girlsis told mostly from Briseis’ perspective. There are minor chapters told from Achilles’ perspective. Briseis is strong and broken and full of disgust for her owners and situation because who wouldn’t be. BIG BUT. Briseis is the flattest character in the novel. The side characters were far more interesting. Briseis showed almost nothing but disgust the women who were fond of their captors. Achilles was the enemy, but he was complicated as all humans are. As a woman with a past of abuse, it’s far more complicated than the simplicity of emotion that Barker illustrates in Briseis. Stockholm syndrome is real and complicated. In a world where there is very little kindness, Briseis was on the receiving end of a lot of kindness, which would affect how she felt about her captors, but it just doesn’t in the novel. Barker really needed to dive into the psyche of an abused woman, and she didn’t.
I’ve seen The Silence of the Girlsreferred to as a masterpiece. It’s good, but it’s not that good. The emotions fall flat for the situation. The Washington Post’s reviewsaid the only remnant of Briseis’ past as a queen is a tunic of her father’s and that Pat Barker upends the storytelling of famous women, who have the most privilege. Except this isn’t true at all. Barker is telling the story of a privileged woman. Briseis was a queen and a young, beautiful one at that. She was Achilles’ concubine because she was a queen. A “prize.” Had she been a woman of lesser or no status, she would have been one of the women scavenging under tents and dying with the rats. Briseis complained of her life as a slave, but even her atrocious status as a “bed-girl” was much better than women of lesser status. She was not beaten. She was not passed around. She was not starved. She was not on the receiving end of so many possible horrors. There is no gratitude for that, and victims of abuse always, always, always see how it could be worse. Briseis doesn’t.
I truly did enjoy reading The Silence of the Girls. It was a really entertaining book to read with the right amount of mysticism and historicity. It could have been more, though. It could have been a triumph for abused women. Instead it fell flat.
Memorable Quotes “Oh, I watched him all right, I watched him like a mouse.” “Men carve meaning into women’s faces; messages addressed to other men.” “How on earth can you feel any pity or concern confronted by this list of intolerably nameless names.”
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Title: The Silence of Girls Author: Pat Barker Publisher: Doubleday Copyright: 2018 ISBN: 9780385544214
Read Yes Length 272 Quick Review Glory Edim is the amazing woman behind the Instagram @wellreadblackgirl. I have been obsessively following her since I started my blog. Her book is a testament to the importance of books.
Well-Read Black Girlis a book of essays about reading journeys by amazing black women from a variety of backgrounds compiled by Glory Edim, the creator of @wellreadblackgirl. It is beautiful. Literature is white-centric. As a girl, I read books and new they were about girls who looked like me. To be honest, I didn’t really read books with people who don’t look like me as the main characters until I was in high school. There aren’t that many of them. For a huge swath of the population, they don’t see themselves in the pages they read.
The authors of the essays talk about finding their reflection in the books they read within the pages of Well-Read Black Girl. The books they talk about are meant for the world, but have unique meanings to each woman. They searched for themselves in books like we all do. For them, it was harder because literature rarely tells their story. These are the essays about the books that changed them. We all have that book, I think.
I honestly don’t want to go into too much depth about the book because it’s so fabulous. You should take the time to read it. The essays aren’t long, so you can enjoy them with a busy schedule. I will be returning to the book often because it’s inspiring.
I truly loved reading this. There were names I knew and names I am not familiar with, but I’m going to try and broaden my horizons more. Several books and authors are mentioned in several essays. The fact this is so prevalent goes to show how few options there are for and about women of color. In fact, the books the essays discuss are the same books that touched me deeply.
My favorite thing in Well-Read Black Girl are the book recommendations. There are several lists of books for and about black women throughout. It also compiles all the books mentioned throughout the pages. There are so many good books mentioned and several I still need to read.
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Memorable Quotes “I suddenly understood that her story was part of the larger story of Black womanhood and survival.” “We are not looking for anyone else to give us validation; because we have one another.” “Mom raised us more like cactuses, rather than orchids.” Gabourey Sidibe
Read Yes Length 288 Quick Review This is one of those nostalgia filled, feel-good memoirs. If you’re a fan of old Hollywood, it’s a must read. Kathryn Sermak has a beautiful insight into the later years of the icon, Bette Davis.
Miss D & Meby Kathryn Sermakcalled my name the moment I realized it existed. In my late teens, I fell in love with old Hollywood movies. Rosemary Clooney, Marilyn Monroe, Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Barbara Stanwyck, Ginger Rogers, Vivien Leigh, and, of course, Bette Davis captured my attention. These were strong women; poised women; intelligent women; underestimated women. They were fascinating.
Bette Davis is an icon. She has been for generations. Kathryn Sermak was a young woman with almost zero knowledge of who Miss Davis was when she took on the role of Girl Friday. In the beginning, Sermak had no depth in the needs or wants of Miss Davis, but with time, effort, patience, and a lot of hard work, Sermak learned a great deal from an icon beloved by the world.
Sermak documents her years with Bette Davis in Miss D & Meas an assistant and a close confidante. The two women were on opposite spectrums of age and experience, but they made a bond that lasted. Sermak lived with Miss Davis through all the hardships of her last years including cancer, a stroke, her daughter’s betrayal, a broken hip, and more.
I absolutely loved reading Miss D & Mebecause it feels like you’re entering a very private area of Miss Davis’ life. You get to see the gracious woman she was along with the pain she hid from her fans. She had a beautiful and kind soul. I felt drawn to her survivor’s spirit.
The most interesting part of Miss D & Meis in the very last few pages. Sermak talks about her last days with Miss Davis. At the time, Sermak was in a relationship listening to Miss Davis give advice on what women shouldn’t settle for and what they should expect from their partners. I couldn’t have agreed with Miss Davis more.
Miss D & Mesolidifies Bette Davis’ role as an icon and a star; a term she very much earned through a lifetime of work.
Memorable Quotes “Only if she was perfect would she feel worthy of their love.” “Walking away from a project she considered beneath her always put her in a good frame of mind.”
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Title: Miss D & Me Author: Kathryn Sermak Co-Author: Danelle Morton Publisher: Hachette Books Copyright: 2017 ISBN: 9780316507868
I packed a suitcase full of books for my trip this month. Alex, my frequent partner in crime, is deploying next month. Before he leaves, I flew to North Carolina on Saturday. We spent the night on base; then, we road tripped to his parents’ homes in Minnesota. A mere 19 hours in the car. We’re actually pretty used to it. We’ll be spending a week and a half together before I go home to Houston. We’ll see how many books I read in that time span. I am travelling prepared, though!
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Miss D & Me: Life with the Invincible Bette Davis by Kathryn Seremak with Danelle Morton I’m looking forward to this one because I am a huge Bette Davis fan, and I love her classic movies! Such a talent.
Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking I feel like this speaks for itself. I’m always looking for books to challenge me. Stephen Hawking will for sure do that. I know very little about his realm of study.
Torch Song Trilogy: Plays by Harvey Fierstein I haven’t read a play in a long, long time, so I’m excited to dive in.
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker I haven’t read much historical fiction this year. I’m a tough critic, but I’ve heard a lot of good things about this one in particular.
Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton This is one of my favorite books. It’s been years since I have read it, and I want to revisit.
Him Her Him Again the End of Him by Patricia Marx I’m going to be completely honest… I bought this solely because the spine has houndstooth on it, and I have been obsessed with that pattern for ever.
A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua
I don’t know much about this book, but I do love the cover a lot! It’s so bright!
Pajamas from Target I love pajamas, but I honestly don’t wear them that often. I mostly bum around in oversized t-shirts, which is totally fine when I’m at home or with Alex. But I’ll be spending time around his parents. I love these pajamas; they are literally the softest thing ever!
Brown Hat from Amazon I think everyone needs a good brown, felt hat for the fall season… especially up North!
Yellow Faux Mohair Plaid Throw from Target I bought this throw blanket on a whim. I’m so glad I did. It was so necessary on the plane!!! It fit perfectly in my bag, but it is also incredibly soft and warm. You need it! Ok, I “needed” it.
Samsonite 20” Centric Spinner I bought new luggage for my trip because it had been a decade. I did a bunch of research, and I really like this set of luggage. This carry on is perfect and lightweight. It really only carried my books on this trip, though!
I’m off to bed! It’s been a long few days of travel, travel, travel! I need some sleep before I get to work again bright and early tomorrow morning, so I can have some fun in the afternoon!
