Worth A Read Yes Length 182 Quick Review Death comes to us all, but we can prepare for it. Kathy Benjamin helps people understand death, funerals, and how to prepare with a sense of humor and creativity while honoring traditions in this lovely little book.
I figured a cemetery would be the most appropriate location for these pictures… Or a morgue, but they said no. Weird.
I am pro talking about death. I always have been. It might be the realist in me; it might be the fact I’ve seen the downsides of not talking about death; it might be my dark sense of humor; it might be that I love making people uncomfortable; it might be all the near death experiences I’ve had; it might be that I’m chronically ill. It’s probably all of those things combined. When I saw that Quirk was publishing this, I hopped on the chance to read it. I support transparency and talking about hard things. Death is one of those unavoidable things in life, and it makes people so squirmy. Kathy Benjamin takes on death and funerals in her funny yet profoundly informative It’s Your Funeral.
Going through the process of preparing for our very last hurrah in our honor, Benjamin talks about options, remains, funerals, wills, and more in three parts that encompassing knowing your options, planning the party, and ensuring your memory is what you want it to be as best as possible or Part I. It’s Your Body, Part II. It’s Your Funeral, and Part III. It’s Your Legacy.
Death is scary, and Benjamin gets to the heart of one of the many reasons for fear: lack of control. Once we’re gone, we have no control of what happens to us, our life’s work, and how we’re remembered. By taking control of those things ourselves before we’re gone, we can have a semblance of control in the after, and Benjamin creates a comprehensive guide to tackling this feat.
Filled with amazingly poignant and comical moments, Benjamin realistically talks about death. The ways to get rid of a body from the traditional to historical to cultural to unique with honesty and as little grossness as possible. Culture plays a big role in death and the traditions surrounding it, and It’s Your Funeralnotes many traditions in other cultures and religions. Did you know that “In Bhutan, often rated the happiest nation in the world, it’s considered important to reflect on death five times a day.”
Funerals are the last hurrah. They can be fun, sad, celebratory, reminiscent, really anything at all, but “The theme for most funerals is basically just “grief.”” Lots of information is included on: what people traditionally are buried with and what they can bring with them; weird post-death doings by eccentric people; important things to think about; how to get creative; ideas; and more. A list of famous and interesting cemeteries are included in case you want some ideas or travel destinations. Serious to humorous quotes from real memorials, monuments, and epitaphs are listed for those who want ideas.
Honestly, a really funny book. If you couldn’t tell by the cover design. 10/10
Wills are important. Having witnessed this in my extended family, I can attest to the truth of “What does happen all the time is that people die without a will and all hell breaks loose.” It’s Your Funeral spells out exactly why and how to create a will. One of the most important things you can and should do for those you’ll leave behind. Please, if for no one else do it for me, create a will and a living will. I have both.
I love a good worksheet, and I’m assuming Benjamin does too, as there are many throughout this delightfully morbid book. To help process thoughts, emotions, wishes for your after life journey. These worksheets will help get your creative juices flowing, while you still can. They’re not all strictly serious, as in the “Haunting Game Plan” for those hoping to dawdlishly pass on.
I really enjoyed this one. Benjamin does an excellent job of balancing the information with humor; gravity with levity; tradition with creativity; American with global. For those wanting to broach the topic of planning what happens after for themselves or a loved one, It’s Your Funeralby Kathy Benjamin is a really instructive place to start.
Memorable Quotes “It’s almost more terrifying than dying: the thought that, one day, your whole life will likely be forgotten. Take a moment to gaze existentially out the window…” “Sure, you’ll be dead, so it’s not your problem, but if you want to ensure things go smoothly after you die, write the freaking will.”
bisous un обьятий, RaeAnna
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Title: It’s Your Funeral! Plan the Celebration of a Lifetime—Before It’s too Late Author: Kathy Benjamin Publisher: Quirk Books Copyright: 2021 ISBN: 9781683692584
Worth A Read Yes Length 336 Quick Review Green Banks, West Virginia is the heart of a zone with bans on all devices emitting radio frequencies so astronomers can look past the stars. The quiet zone keeps away WiFi and technology, but creates an atmosphere perfect for less than wholesome individuals.
Enjoying quiet time reading in the Grand Canyon.
Stephen Kurczy does not own a cell phone (or at least he didn’t as of the writing of this book). It started out of convenience and evolved into a protest against society. He sought out Green Banks, a place where he was not the only one without technology, and his time there sparked the inspiration for The Quiet Zone. Moving into the town, hearing the stories of the natives and the transplants, learning about the observatory, he learned the area offered a darker story than the one he set out to tell.
Pocahontas County is home to the National Radio Quiet Zone because of the Green Banks Telescope, the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope, which is under the control of the Green Banks Observatory but was previously operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) until late 2016. This quiet zone is enforced by radio policemen and “Operating any electrical equipment within ten miles of here was illegal if it caused interference to the telescope.” There are other quiet zones in the world, they are largely uninhabited; though Pocahontas County is sparsely populated, it is very much lived in. Kurczy was intrigued by the space like many other media outlets around the world. Instead of breezing through and interviewing a handful of people, he made a space in his life for the place and the people. Taking the time to get to know the nuance, the hypocrisy, the secrets, the community, the history, the science, and more. What he found led The Quiet Zone in a different direction because he took the time, asked questions, and did what others had not: “Had [Sanjay] Gupta and [Katie] Couric so much as searched for a WiFi signal using their smartphones, they might have started to see a messier portrait of the Quiet Zone.”
Green Banks is in the Appalachians; a notoriously difficult area to navigate and inhabited by people who are, at best, wary of outsiders. Over the years, people, from hippies to the electromagnetic hypersensitives to neo-Nazis and everything in between have gravitated to the area for their own reasons. Secluded geography and a lack of technology make it a paradise for those wanting to live off the grid or avoid surveillance, “The physical and bureaucratic barriers isolated an already remote area.” With a heavy neo-Nazi population and a National Alliance base, Kurczy arrived with one story in mind but, so often is the case, realized there was a more interesting story to tell.
The Quiet Zone by Stephen Kurczy
The Quiet Zone is well written and intriguing because he captures the essence of a place that exists outside the norm of modern society. He asks the question: is an unconnected life truly idyllic? The portrait of Green Banks is wonderful in all its eccentricities and hypocrisy. No place is as simple as the world believes it to be, and that couldn’t be more true than in Green Banks. Kurczy embraces his quest to find the heart of Green Banks and doesn’t shy away from stomach curdling stories and situations, including tours of the National Alliance’s headquarters, animal cruelty, terrorist plots, unsolved murders, and more.
I read this book in between hikes into the Grand Canyon. I was experiencing my own quiet zone as I was living without WiFi, cell phone service, internet, and even electricity as I was camping. I enjoyed it, but there were definitely some bits that were hard to read. In Kurczy’s place, I don’t know if I would have been able to do what he did. I highly recommend The Quiet Zone to all those who are piqued by a life without technology.
Memorable Quotes “I felt that I’d stumbled into a pivotal place in the world and, perhaps, in the history of humanity: an area endangered not by climate change or gentrification but by the Fitbit on your wrist, the iPhone in your hand, the anti-collision sensor in your car, the human desire to have what everybody else has.” “Then I started coming back with stories of electro-allergies and illicit WiFi hotspots, secret government hideouts and neo-Nazi terror plots. The place was less and less Walden and more and more weird.”
bisous un обьятий, RaeAnna
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Title: The Quiet Zone; Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence Author: Stephen Kurczy Publisher: Dey Street Copyright: 2021 ISBN: 9780062945495
Worth A Read Yes Length 621 Quick Review Three young women from drastically different backgrounds converge on Bletchley Park in 1940 and meet the consequences head on in the days leading up to Princess Elizabeth’s wedding in 1947.
Kate Quinn does an exceptional job at creating three complex and intriguing women in her heroines: Osla, Mab, and Beth.The Rose Code is lovely historical fiction featuring fictionalized versions of real people and composites of real people. Full of friendship, intrigue, loyalty, war, love, and searching for meaning, Quinn creates the captivating world of 1940’s Bletchley Park, England to dive into.
When there is more than one protagonist, I find myself identifying with one over the others and dredging through the others’ narratives until it finally comes back round to the one I like best. Quinn focuses on three women from drastically different backgrounds with an amazing ability to make them all equally likeable, disagreeable, moving, and interesting. I enjoyed each one’s narrative, and found myself rooting for all of them to “win”. Osla is a smart debutante from high society. Mab is a tall working girl from London. Beth is a good Christian daughter. They all struggle with the role society has dictated for them in the midst of being a woman during war time.
Women were an integral part of the war effort in every country and culture. From the U.S. to Britain to Algeria to Russia to Japan, women played key roles. These women were forced back into their boxes after the war without a thank you or much acknowledgement for their commitment, secrecy, and love of country. Quinn challenges the idea that men were the only ones to fight in the war and earn wounds. Women may not have fought on the front lines [depends on the country and how much you dig into history], but they were an integral part of the fight. Britain’s intelligence would have collapsed without women’s efforts; “Bletchley Park and it’s outstations had four women to every man…” The Rose Codedoes not just stop at the role they played at the time; Quinne discusses at length, throughout the entirety of the novel, the erasure of women from history and common knowledge. She tackles it head on particularly in the segment
“Where were all those women now? How many men who had fought in the war now sat reading their morning newspapers without realizing the woman sitting across from them at the breakfast table had fought, too? Maybe the ladies of BP hadn’t faced bullets or bombs, but they’d fought—oh, yes, they’d fought. And now they were dismissed as housewives, schoolteachers, silly debs and they just bit their tongues and hid their wounds.”
Osla, Mab, and Beth may be the focus of the novel, but they represent the countless women in Britain, Europe, and around the world who put their lives on hold and at risk to fight for their countries in the only way they were allowed. Without reward, thanks, or even recognition, these women worked tirelessly.
Quinn attempts to tackle the inequality of history in a variety of ways. Though her historical novel is hefty, there’s not enough room to adequately deconstruct all the inequities women and people of color faced. Racial inequality and racism are put under scrutiny through the book club’s reading of Gone with the Wind and the Egyptian-Maltese-Arab character of Harry Zarb. A look into the dark space that is an asylum. Beth is committed. Rather than being mentally unstable, she has knowledge. Throughout history, when a woman was difficult, intelligent, or an heiress, they were locked away in asylums, drugged into a state of mental decay. Quinn also explores the way these imprisoned women were exploited sexually. I’m glad she doesn’t leave these issues out of the novel, but they could have been explored deeper and more meaningfully.
I love Osla, Mab, and Beth. I see myself in each one of them for different reasons. Osla is judged solely on her appearance. Mab had to work hard for everything she has. I identified most completely with Beth: the good, Christian daughter, who stands up for herself against her domineering mother after being told she is dim the entirety of her life as her doormat of a father stood by. This bit lit me up inside:
“I’m your father. I have the right—” “No, you don’t.” Beth looked him in the eye. “You didn’t stop her throwing me out. You never defended me. You never told me I was clever, even though I can do the Sunday crossword ten times faster than you. You never told me I was anything.”
It is the story of so many women and girls. It’s the story of my own adolescence told in a tiny nutshell.
The Rose Codeis Quinn’s way of critiquing modern society through the use of historical fiction. The world has come a long way since war time 1940s, but in so many ways, it hasn’t progressed all that much. We still hold the same work done by men on a pedestal while reducing women’s to nothing more than “fluff”, “If you were a man and you wrote funny pieces about daily life, they called it satire. If you were a woman and you wrote funny pieces about daily life, they called it fluff.” On the surface it may seem like a social critique of the past, but the society and standards Osla, Mab, and Beth live in are still far too au courant.
Memorable Quotes “It sounded very poetic: “What lies at the center of a rose?” but it wasn’t the poetry that entranced Beth, or the scent. It was the pattern.” “The men shifted at the word brassiere, and Osla nearly rolled her eyes. Point out a security leak and they shrugged; mention a woman’s underclothes and everyone got in a wax.” “How much she hated being a woman sometimes: forever underpaid and underestimated and betrayed by your own body.”
bisous und обьятий, RaeAnna
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Title: The Rose Code Author: Kate Quinn Publisher: WilliamMorrow Copyright: 2021 ISBN: 9780062943477
I read Kate Chopin’s The Awakeningtwice in high school, but I haven’t touched it since.
Normally, I write book reviews, but this is more of a book forward, a book impression, a book remembrance. I read it for the first time and fell deeply in love with this classic, feminist triumph of a novel, but I’ve been scared to return. As a young woman, it came to me while I was in the midst of my own battle against the patriarchy, man, and family for freedom of self. My uncertainty to open its cover once again is out of fear. Fear of what I will find it would do or maybe what it wouldn’t do. Would it mean the same thing it did to sixteen year old me as it does to twenty-nine year old me? Not only am I stronger and more broken, I have been of this world longer with its misogyny, laws, patriarchy, double standards, abuse, and more. I’m also a more experienced reader. So of course The Awakeningwon’t mean the same to me today as it did a decade ago, but I was scared it would mean less.
Literature with a capital ‘L’ arrived on my bookshelf when I was eight. I was an overachieving priss of a child; children’s literature did not speak to me. I love Literature because I didn’t get it right away. It demanded an understanding of the vocabulary, history, culture, and more in which it was written and set. I yearned for knowledge. Literature made me do the research; in a time before Google and the internet, it was an interactive experience as I read one book surrounded by a dictionary and encyclopedia. As much as I loved Literature, I craved more. I craved seeing myself on the page. Even as I kid, I knew I was not being represented in the pages I so loved. There is very little written by women. More exists than meets the eye, but even as an educated reader and researcher, finding older works by women takes effort outside of Dickenson, the Brontës, Alcott, and Austen. It was years before I found Woolf, Morrison, Eliot, Shelley, Wollstonecraft, Duras, Wharton, Cather, Plath, Lee, Stein, Beauvoir, Angelou, Gaskell, Lennox, Stowe, Hurston, and of course Kate Chopin. All of whom have shaped me as a reader, writer, and most importantly as a woman. Chopin was my gateway into a world of writers writing about me, my plight, my pain, my existence in a world not meant for me. Even a hundred years later or more, the words these women wrote represented my place in the world. Chopin wrote in the late nineteenth century, and she rocked society with her daring works about the internal and external lives of ordinary women daring to live.
The Awakeningwas the first book I ever felt a deep connection with. I was a young reader beginning to understand the importance of Literature, representation, feminism, activism, and more. I was starting to come into my own as a thinker with a vagina. I was beginning to grasp at what it meant to walk this earth as a woman. A lover of Literature and history, I was probably more aware than most fifteen year old girls of women’s historical lack of autonomy. Historical being the key word. I did not feel equal, and I wanted equality, but I knew it wasn’t mine. Even with my fundamentally better understanding of history, I had yet to grasp the whys or the hows or the history or the culture or any of it. I just had a feeling. This book came into my life when my life was changing from bad to worse to what I would eventually title “Hell”. As I read The Awakening, I was struck by the realization that I knew very little had changed for women. I could wear pants like the boys, but I would never be like the boys. I was a girl. America had never been the land of the free.*
Four months after I experienced my first sexual assault in the lunch room by a school administrator. Four months after I told my mother. Four months after she told me to keep quiet and see if it would happen again. Three months after my first kiss at the Winter Formal because my mother told me I had to or I wouldn’t have a boyfriend anymore. Three months after I realized no one would protect me. Two months after I realized I was only worth something connected to a man. I was a freshman in high school. I was experiencing my first tastes of being a woman.
It was the summer I turned sixteen. I had new boyfriend because that’s what sixteen year old girls do. But I had no faith in men. No faith in women. No faith in family. No faith in people. I felt utterly alone. With no one to protect me, to understand, to hold my hand, I was accepting that to be a woman was to be alone.
What I had read in history was not at all in the past. Nothing had changed really. Being a woman meant being an object for male consumption. Some took gently. Some did not. It would be another year before I learned how much they could and would take without permission, without waiting, without caring I was human. And if I turned to women, they would not protect me if they believed me at all. My mother taught me that.
At sixteen, the next seventy years looked like a lonely, losing battle. What was the point? Did all women feel this way? Why weren’t they do anything about it? I was years away from understanding the nuance of internalized misogyny and all the culture shit we are taught to swallow, believe, conform to, and uphold as women. But I already knew existing like that in this world was not for me, and so I already had a few suicide attempts under my belt. I had very little desire to live even before the first of many men took what he thought was his right.
And then Edna walked along a Grand Isle’s beach and dared to yearn for more than motherhood and wifedom. We were separated by a century. We were separated by experience. We were separated by so many things, but I understood her. She didn’t save my life, but I felt seen. I felt validated.
I reached out to my fellow bibliophiles asking for their opinions on The Awakening, on Edna. The few who had read the book hated Edna. They found her shallow and selfish. The ending was completely unrealistic. What woman with a life of leisure would walk into the ocean? What wife would leave her husband? What mother would choose death over her children? To me, it was the perfect ending to her story. I was frustrated by the vitriol. How could they not understand? She was alone and desperate, leading a meaningless life.
The Awakeningwas the first time I saw a female character with any emotions or internal life I could comprehend and identify with; probably because she was the first woman written by I woman I had read. Edna was the first, but many have come after her.
My concept of womanhood has evolved over the last thirteen years. I am no longer the optimistic sixeen year old, but I’m no longer the devastated sixteen year old. All is not completely lost, though I have a dismal view of the present and near future. My world view is complex, and I know I am on a lifelong search for my place and role in society. Not all share my view of womanhood, nor should they. But I will continue to fight for every woman. As a twenty-nine year old, I know my life has seen challenges many have never and will never seen, but it has also been blessed in many ways. Pain is not a competition. I acknowledge my many privileges and disadvantages. Pain is not the only thing I have known, but pain is still central to my experiences as a human and as a woman.
Kate Chopin, The Awakening, and Edna gave me validation. Someone understood. 122 years ago, a woman knew the pain I knew and dared to want more.
I am not going to review The Awakening. For so many reasons, one of which being: I don’t want to. Another being: It would be a very long review. My fears ended up being unfounded. The book means more to me as a grown ass woman than it did as a teenager. I found the nuances, narrative, and storytelling far more enthralling than I had thirteen years ago. Not only did I fall more in love with Edna, I fell out of love with her husband, paramour, and female companions. What had seemed like a love story years ago is anything but today. It isn’t romantic but deeply depressing. I could identify the tragedies with the eye of an analyst and the heart of a woman and the mind of a partner. I saw the craft in Chopin’s work and the soul in her story. The Awakening spoke to me in new and more powerful levels.
Edna is very much alive.
bisous et обьятий, RaeAnna
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*This is being written from the perspective of a white woman as I look back at the views I had as a teenager exploring my own place in this world as a woman through the knowledge, resources, and books I had at my disposal. It would be several more years before I learned the term “intersectionality” and began applying it to my own life, views, feminism, and activism. Up until that point, feminism and racism were uniquely separate issues because that is all I knew. Black women suffered racism. Black women suffered feminism. I wanted equality for everyone: men and women, Black and white and Asian and Hispanic and everyone in between. I was more apt to identify as a humanist than a feminist. My fundamental beliefs have remained the same, but my terminology has expanded to better encompass and express my desires for intersectionality, equity, and advocacy.
Spring Reading List. Peep Beau relaxing in the background
One of the things I posted about in my 11… Ways I’m Forgiving Myself post was all the books I’d read and never reviewed. There are a whole lot. So I’m dividing them up into four different posts. Here is the first one. After this, hopefully—big hopefully—I will be much better about not getting behind on the book reviews. One or two is understandable, but I’m 48 books behind on the reviewing.
Oh well, it happens. I’ve forgiven myself. Now, I’m rounding them up. Here are some books that I read. Some are really good. Some are really not. Some are in between. Some I took pictures with. Some I did not. Pictures are included when necessary. Otherwise, you’ve got a brief review of each! Yay. I was productive today.
When the restaurant and your outfit matches the book.
Tools of Engagement by Tessa Bailey Worth A Read Eh|| Length 368
Quick Review When Wes gains custody of his niece he has to grow up, but Bethany is already a grown up, trying to prove something to her family. There’s an age difference, a personality difference, and a lifestyle difference, but none of that stops these two from lusting after each other and falling in love. The writing is not great, but there are some fun quippy moments. It’s definitely a good summer, beach read. No thought necessary for this formulaic romance. Memorable Quote “When it came to being annoying, drunk men were right up there with telemarketers and thirty-second advertisements in the middle of an internet video.”
No Offense by Meg Cabot Worth A Read Eh|| Length 352
Quick Review Molly is a librarian in a small Florida Keys town, who attracts the attention of the native Sheriff. I found Molly irritating and John, the Sheriff, unbelievable stupid. There’s a mystery. There’s love. I was bored. I really did not love this book, but then again, I’m a hard critic when it comes to boring romances. Memorable Quote “…the three words she most loved hearing in all the world—the three words she was pretty certain every librarian, or at least lover of knowledge, adored more than any other in the human language: You were right.”
Unfinished by Priyanka Chopra Jonas Worth A Read Yes|| Length 256
Quick Review She’s an incredible beauty and an even bigger talent. Having taken India by storm, she managed to conquer prime time American television in a way no other Southeast Asian had before. I have a great love for Bollywood movies and knew of her long before she came to the U.S. I have been thrilled to watch her career as she paves new roads for diversity. Her undeniable spirit, vivacity, and talent comes through on every page as she opens up about her personal struggles, successes, and things in between. Memorable Quote “My parents had taught me that confidence is not a permanent state of being, a piece of wisdom I still believe.”
Dog’s Best Friendby Simon Garfield Worth A Read Yes || Length 320
Quick Review An incredibly sweet look at the relationship humans have forged with dogs over the centuries. From art and science to breeding and connection, dogs have played a pivotal role in human history. Today, they play a pivotal role in many of our lives. (I know they have in mine.) Well researched and movingly written, I highly suggest it for anyone who has a dog or has loved a dog. Also the footnotes are incredible. Memorable Quote “A dog binds us to the world like nothing else: to a history of all the dogs that have gone before, to a wider community that welcomes their presence and demands our selfless attention. This too is their purpose, why they are here with us and us with them.”
Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce Worth A Read Yes|| Length 352
Quick Review An elderly Miss Benson heads to the other side of the world with a ditsy assistant to find an undiscovered beetle. With twists, turns, intrigue, and a lot of oopsies, these two make memories and find adventures. This turned out to be a really sweet book about two women fighting for and finding a place in the world. Memorable Quote “Hunger is the ultimate expression of hope…”
A Dog Named Beautiful by Rob Kugler Worth A Read Yes|| Length 304
Quick Review Like many people, Kugler turned to a puppy when life was tough. For him, it was returning from war. A Marine, he worked hard to find his place in the world, but his dog, Bella, brought meaning into his life. When she was diagnosed with a terminal illness, he wanted to give life back to her, and they took to the road. It’s a moving story told without much nuance, but when you’re telling the story of a cute dog… who needs nuance. Memorable Quote “This moment matters, and it’s a moment I will not let slip by.”
The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons Worth A Read Yes || Length 384
Quick Review An exploration of connection, age, and living in the moment through the eyes of a crotchety old woman with a literal death wish. It’s a sweet book. Really a wonderful book to distract and engage during quarantine. Equal parts frustrating and exhilarating. Annie Lyons creates connection and joy between two lost humans as far apart in age as possible. Memorable Quote “Death is an inevitable preoccupation for a woman of Eudoras years, but she can’t recall a time when it wasn’t lurking in the background.”
Greenlights in McConaughey’s Austin, Texas overlooking the Pennybacker Bridge (aka 360 Bridge)
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey Worth A Read Yes|| Length 304
Quick Review He’s one of the most recognizable celebrities in the world, and he’s here to tell his story in his words. A beautiful look at his life littered with his writings and tidbits of wisdom. Born and raised in Texas, he tells it how it is in a charming southern way. His distinctive voice comes through on every page. Memorable Quote “When we know what we want to do, knowing when to do it is the hard part.”
It’s Not All Downhill From Here by Terry McMillan Worth A Read Yes || Length 355
Quick Review I think the world needs more novels about women enjoying life after thirty-five. It’s a love story but not the romantic kind. McMillan highlights the importance of leaning into female relationships, putting oneself first, and living through grief. I love it. Memorable Quote “I still love him more than my Twizzlers!”
Fin & Lady by Cathleen Schine Worth A Read Yes|| Length 277
Quick Review As an older sister, I love reading books about sibling relationships; though mine bears no resemblance to that of Fin and Lady’s. It’s a great story about family, responsibility, growing up, understanding, and life. The dialogue is amazingly quippy. Perfect book to take on vacation. Memorable Quote “…and secrets, he already understood, were generally associated with shame.”
Enjoying some beach time even though the book was subpar.
The Jetsetters by Amanda Eyre Ward Worth A Read No|| Length 352
Quick Review Diving into the ties and traumas that bind a family together. It’s an attempt to explore mother-daughter and sibling relationships but falls very short. It does an even worse job examining trauma and sexual assault. I was a big not fan. What looks like a light, beach read by the cover is a bummer. Memorable Quote “You couldn’t be naked with another person and remain perfectly together.”
Being a woman in the world can be exhausting, but it’s nice to see the reality and complexity of our existence reflected in literature like The Learning Curveby Mandy Berman. | Jumpsuit | Sandals | Earrings |
Worth a Read Eh Length 400 Quick Review An exploration of womanhood, friendship, sexuality, loss, and greater meanings of loyalty and sisterhood.
In theory, I like The Learning Curve by Mandy Berman. In reality, I found it relatable but boring. The plot and characters failed to capture my attention even though it incorporates many of the elements I want and search for in a strong female driven narrative. A flawed diamond, beautiful but not worth it upon further inspection.
Told from the perspective of three women, The Learning Curvefollows the lives’ and internal struggles’ of Fiona, a grieving senior at Buchanan College, Liv, the girl-next door and senior at Buchanan College, and Simone, a mother, academic, and long-distant wife of a lecherous teacher at Buchanan College. These women lead drastically different lives, yet they intertwine and impact one another in expected and unexpected ways.
Two aspects of the novel stand out to me. Characters and the rape.
Often, authors choose for their characters to act in petty, childish, or irresponsible ways, which is rarely reflected in my own interactions with people. That being said, I have been witnessing a higher frequency of childish and catty behavior in my personal relationships, so maybe authors are doing a better job of portraying reality than I had previously imagined. Berman creates characters with sophisticated emotional interiors and allows those characters to interact with each other in mature and communicative ways. They don’t lack for differences in opinions, views, and communication styles, but the plot is not driven by immature women playing into the misogynistic stereotypes we’re so often given.
Rape is one of those topics people skirt. Authors employ it in a variety of ways. More often than I’d like, rape is portrayed poorly and even offensively. Sometimes, authors get it right. The Learning Curvedoes excellent work creating a rape situation that is often overlooked in literature and is rarely talked about in life. Fiona struggles with grief—after losing her younger sister—by drinking and escaping reality with various sexual partners. One night, she drinks and goes home with a guy. What starts consensually turns into rape. Berman calls consent into question. Is it given once? Can it be taken away? Is it ongoing? What should be a part of sexual education and in the quotidian conversation about sex and consent is rarely in the conversation at all. Berman illustrates rape in a way that many authors would not choose because it’s gray, it’s tricky, and it’s emotionally charged. How many girls have found themselves in Fiona’s position? How many don’t call it what it is: rape? How many chalk it up to a bad night and pretend it never happened, while they deal with the trauma for years to come?
One of the most poignant moments in this inherently feminist novel is when Berman calls out English for it’s sexist nature. English is not a gender neutral language. Throughout the history and evolution of English, the “neutral” has always been “he” or of the male gendered pronouns and nouns. A lot of this has to do with the fact women have not been able to hold property, inherit, vote, have jobs or careers, be leaders, and don’t forget women have been considered property to be held by men. It’s more than a linguistic oops; it is a reflection and amalgamation of our society, culture, and history. Men are the de facto and women are hidden. Berman broaches a discussion of this sexist and exclusionary facet of English and how it is used without realization by men and women every day.
The book is riddled with grammatical errors of varying sizes. I can’t tell if the grammatical errors are narrative and character motivated… But I found it distracting. I would like to know where the copy editor was, what they were drinking, or a transcript of the conversations they endured.
The Learning Curvereally is an exceptionally well thought out book. I just can’t bring myself to love it emotionally, even though I do on a technical level. Though exceptionally thought out, I found it largely lackluster and forgettable the moment I put it down. Even in the middle of reading, I had to remind myself what was happening. I really wish I could say I loved it, but it fell flat for me. I definitely suggest it on so many levels because Berman calls attention to truly important topics and themes in women’s lives.
Memorable Quotes “Fiona wondered what it might be like for your ideas to be so valuable that other people would pay to read them, or would show up on a Thursday night, when they could be drinking or having sex or sleeping instead, to hear them.” “These days she wondered how people raised more than one child. Just one was a second full-time job.” “She was learning that attraction didn’t discriminate—that often, in fact, it bloomed in the most perverse of circumstances.” ““Complicated”: an adult code word for I don’t want to talk about it.”
bisous und обьятий, RaeAnna
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Title: The Learning Curve Author: Mandy Berman Publisher: Random House Copyright: 2019 ISBN: 978039958948
