Bookstagram – Page 6 – …on the B.L.

The Glass Castle

July 31, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 288
Quick Review A memoir about the difficulties of growing up in a dysfunctionally transient family with a fascinating and intelligent alcoholic of a father leading their way.

I read this book a few years ago, and it has stayed with me not just for the story but because of Walls’ writing. With the movie coming out in a few days, I power read it over the weekend. It is just as resonating a second time.

Jeannette Walls is a journalist in New York City with a degree from Barnard College. These are wonderful achievements, which help define her character and intelligence even more so considering what she overcame as a child. The Glass Castle is a testament to her resilience.

Walls was born in 1960 to Rex and Rose Mary. She is one of four children. Growing up she lived a nomadic life. Her father was a brilliant man. His children adored him before growing up to resent his alcoholism and inability to conform even a little. He was able to capture his children’s imagination through storytelling and science. The children were home schooled a great deal with an emphasis on living life through the absence of fear. With one parent abhorring the conformity of society, the children needed a grounded parent. They did not find it in their mother, Rose Mary. She was an artistic free spirit looking at feminine domesticity as a prison she would not tolerate. She dismissed her role as parent and mother.

Walls writes about the difficulties of growing up in secluded environment. She describes the bond between her siblings; how they would lean on each other for support, nourishment, clothing, and protection in a world where their parents were barely present.

All four Walls children went on to live in society as fully functional and present participants ending up in New York City. Rex and Rose Mary followed their children to New York. Rex died in 1994 from a heart attack after he and his wife chose to remain homeless despite offers of help from their children.

Walls is a wonderful writer. She does not shy away from brutal honesty. She meets her childhood trauma head on with the maturity in the realization it formed her into the well-respected and successful journalist and writer she is today.

Memorable Quotes
“You’ve got to get right back in the saddle. You can’t live in fear of something as basic as fire.”
“You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.”
“She had her addictions and one of them was reading.”
“Life’s too short to care about what other people think. Besides, they should accept us for who we are”

Title: The Glass Castle
Author: Jeannette Walls
Publisher: Scribner
Copyright: 2005
ISBN: 9780743247542

Experiences, Travel

Pasadena 2017

July 18, 2017September 8, 2019 RaeAnna

I’m a huge fan of vacation and travel. The combination of books and travel bring meaning to my life. I wish I were joking.

When I’m not visiting friends, I like to stay in Airbnb’s. They’re great! This time the Airbnb led me to Pasadena. I had never had any interest in the area outside of the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day. I liked being close to the mountains, so the drive was worth it. I ended up really enjoying Pasadena. Also my Airbnb was just about perfect, so that never hurts. It was a small cottage with an overstuffed leather couch, comfy bed, cute kitchenette, espresso machine, and Beau was incredibly happy there because of the chickens. All truly good Airbnbs must have chickens, right? Beau sure thinks so. It was more than idyllic to reach for a good book in the morning and snuggling up with a book in the afternoon because, let’s be honest, I’m not really out that late. Overlooking the mountains, it was only eight minutes from downtown Pasadena, which is full of cute restaurants and buildings.

Right outside the front door of my Airbnb was a mountain road, which I took my car up one afternoon. I am normally a devastatingly careful driver, but this road made me drive with even more caution due to the immense twists and turns. Once at the top, it overlooked the San Gabriel Valley to the South and the mountain range the rest of the view. If you look at my Instagram, you can tell I draw a lot of joy and inspiration from being outside surrounded by nature. (Which is amusing because nature constantly tries to kill me due to my severe allergies.) I’m always in awe of nature and the beauty it holds. I really wish I could look out on mountains and trees as well as the city like I did every day in the Airbnb. For me, it would be the perfect reading-writing balance being able to venture into the city for distraction or wander through the woods for inspiration. If only Houston had that, but alas, we are flat.

Downtown Pasadena is great. It is full of buildings evocative of ye olden times. The city hall is a towering creamy stone. Kitty Corner to the city hall, there is a foundation for girls housed in a brick building with stained glass windows holding up curtains of thick ivy; I couldn’t help but to be taken back to London looking at that building. Walk half a block down the road, you’ll find brick buildings with sliding wooden barn doors. Great restaurants are in abundance! I found a chinese restaurant, which took me back to my childhood with their sizzling rice soup. I was in a little bit of heaven that day. The fashion bloggers were out in droves for all the picturesque spots in downtown Pasadena. I had never come across a several story Target with its own parking garage until Pasadena, but I guess, there’s a first for everything. Downtown is crowded with spots welcoming readers with open arms.

In downtown Pasadena, there is a park with a memorial. I didn’t know what it was at first, so I wandered my way towards it. It ended up being a memorial for the first public library. Unfortunately I couldn’t get near it because it was fenced off plastered with warning signs about falling rocks. Still it was very beautiful, and I love that there is a memorial to a library. Truly made my heart sing.

Books, Fiction

Autobiography of Us

June 22, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 304
Quick Review This is a great summer read about female relationships changing through the years.

Aria Beth Sloss tried to tackle the incredibly complex topic of female friendship in her book Autobiography of Us. Set in the 1960’s in Pasadena, two friends, Rebecca and Alex, live on the same street becoming close friends as children. The story is told through Rebecca’s perspective. She starts telling the story to someone as a reflection upon her past. It is evident that her best friend, Alex, has passed away, which is the catalyst for the story. She begins her narration when Alex moves into the neighborhood. There is immediate tension building between the two. Rebecca deals with an inferiority complex the entire book. Alex was the daughter of extravagantly rich parents, while Rebecca’s family struggle to maintain their wealthy facade. Alex was pretty, and Rebecca was less so. Alex had an air for the dramatic and always pulled everyone’s attention. Coming of age in the sixties, Rebecca was pressured by her family to fulfill all the traditional roles; however, she fought an internal battle contradicting her family and the times she lived in.

Sloss draws attention to the times by often using Rebecca to reference how different the times were then for girls. Usually making the statement about how young she was and naive. Though making some feminist statements throughout, this self-infantilization undermined the attempted message of female empowerment.

Sloss likes to bring characters into scenes without naming them. Integrating them into the action and conversation for paragraphs if not a page or two creates a bit of confusion instead of mystery. I had to look back a few times just to make sure I hadn’t accidentally missed it.

Autobiography of Us is a story about female friendship, familial relationships, societal pressures, and marriage. Sloss adds a few more twists than the usual story, but, in general, she sticks to a generic storyline.

Memorable Quotes
“There are years she meant more to me rush anyone, years our lives besides into each other’s so neatly I’m not sure, to be honest, they ever came undone.”
“How little we know the ones we love. How little we know of anyone, in the end.”
“I believe injustice eventually gives way to justice,” he said ““Slowly, perhaps. With great effort, and too often through the unfortunate medium of violence.””

Title: Autobiography of Us
Author: Aria Beth Sloss
Publisher: Picador
Copyright: 2013
ISBN: 9781250044051

Books

Women Who Run With The Wolves

April 23, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 608
Quick Review This is an incredible psychoanalysis of women and the wild woman through storytelling. It’s an incredibly diverse and rich feminist text.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés is known for a lot of things. She has her PhD and is a well known Jungian analyst with storytelling experience reaching to her cultural roots as a Latina. She combines all expertise into Women Who Run With The Wolves a groundbreaking feminist work, which has remained popular since it was published over twenty years ago in 1992.

Women Who Run With The Wolves is a search for woman’s most inner woman, feelings, and history. Throughout history women have been molded and suppressed. Estés argues it is important to look at women throughout history and story to find their most quintessential essence. She believes it is important for women to be in touch with their inner wild woman, or they will go crazy in their suppressed role.

The book is a collection of fourteen stories from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Estés tells the story as traditionally as possible at the beginning of each chapter. After each recounting, she analyses every aspect of the story through a psychoanalytical and feminist lense. Each story offers an important learning opportunity for women to be in touch with themselves.

There is a reoccurring theme of life-death-life mother across many cultures. In today’s society, we often are confronted with the idea of life and death. Estés reiterates the idea of life-death-life as missing from most accounts of the evolution of life in Euro-centric culture. I think the missing reoccurrence of life is an equivalent to the pieces of ourselves as women we have lost of the years and generations of being molded into cultural ideals.

Women Who Run With The Wolves is not necessarily an easy read, but it is an important.

P.S. There would have been far more quotes, but I would have ended up infringing on copyright laws because I would have quoted the entire book.

Memorable Quotes
“This Self must have freedom to move, to speak, to be angry, and to create.”
“This early training to “be nice” causes women to override their intuitions.”
“So many women themselves are afraid of women’s power.”

Title: Women Who Run With The Wolves
Author: Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.
Publisher: Rider
Copyright: 1992
ISBN: 9781846041099