GoodReads – Page 12 – …on the B.L.

Purple Hibiscus

June 22, 2018 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 307
Quick Review Set against the backdrop of a Nigerian coup, a 15 year old Kambili learns about love and life outside of her childhood home controlled by a religious zealot.

I love Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She is my favorite author, and I have now officially read all of her books. Purple Hibiscus is her first novel, and it’s beautiful.

Nigeria is in the midst of a complete upheaval. Kambili, a 15 year old girl, and her brother, Jaja, stay with their aunt and cousins in Nsukka. Kambili begins to realize the extent of her father’s religious fundamentalism and abusive nature when she compares it with the loving, open household her cousins flourish in.

Adichie explores so many interesting themes throughout the progression of the novel. Christian fundamentalism is a looming presence as Kambili struggles with her father’s oppression even when she is far out of reach. She is unable to engage with her surroundings, family, and even herself because she lives in perpetual fear of her father’s wrath and eternal damnation. The physical and psychological abuse Kambili, Jaja, and their mother live with is intense. Aunt Ifeoma and her children are the voice of progressivism.

I love Adichie’s inclusion of Igbo words peppered throughout the narrative.

I seriously suggest this novel to anyone interested in reading. It’s a beautiful and moving novel full of hope and heartbreak speaking to the resilience of the human spirit.

Memorable Quotes
“I was not sure what my laughter sounded like.”
“We didn’t scale the today because we believed we could, we scaled it because we were terrified we couldn’t.”

Title: Purple Hibiscus
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Publisher: Collins (HarperCollins Publishers)
Copyright: 2004
ISBN: 9780007345328

Lifestyle

The GOC: The Grammar Obsessed Character

June 12, 2018 RaeAnna

I’ve decided to do a series called Tuesday Truths. I’m a huge fan of the truth, so why not get down and dirty with the thoughts that cross my mind as a reader, as a blogger, as an Instagrammer, and everything in between. So… kind of my once a week complain session, but it’s a well founded complain sesh. Let’s start off with a good one.

I hate books with grammar obsessed protagonists.

As an avid reader, I come across books of all shapes, sizes, and plots. Something that keeps cropping up: main characters with a grammar obsession. It’s overdone and not done well. Writers are a language obsessed group, and grammar is a part of that obsession. It’s appealing to write a character with this specific neurosis because it’s familiar.

I dare you to name one person you truly enjoy being around who is constantly correcting your grammar and how you speak. I can’t come up with one either. No one likes being reprimanded mid-sentence because they used who instead of whom. It’s called conversation; I’m not writing a thesis while talking about my favorite way to prepare a potato. Let’s just have fun and enjoy the company.

As unpleasant as these people are in real life, they are even more unpleasant on the page. I have yet to read a grammar obsessed character I like or relate with or want to know better. They literally never come off as endearing. The author usually tries to sell it as a cute quirk. Not cute. Not a quirk. It’s annoying. It makes me not like your book. Each character has come off as snotty and better than me. I don’t want to waste my time on a character I wouldn’t give the time of day to in real life.

On top of being awful, the books usually have grammar mistakes. This is partially the editors fault, but it’s also the author’s fault. If you’re writing an uppity grammar police of a character, then your prose better be flawless. I mean immaculate. If it’s not, then you come off as a douchy hypocrite, which makes me like you even less.

I’m tired of this trope. Let’s move on from writing these characters. Unless the goal is to make them unlikable, then keep on writing! I will keep on hating.

Books

I’ll Have What She’s Having

May 19, 2018 RaeAnna

Read: Yes
Difficulty: II
Length: III
Genre: NonFiction – Literary Journalism
Quick Review: Romcoms were changed by the iconic Nora Ephron when she began making her movies in the 1980’s.

Happy Birthday to Nora Ephron!

Erin Carlson’s I’ll Have What She’s Having is named after one of the most iconic lines in Romantic Comedy. Nora Ephron was a creative icon as she pushed the genre into the modern age and had a hand in some of the most talked about movies of their time and today as a talented journalist, screenwriter, producer, and director. I grew up on Ephron movies; some I didn’t even know were Ephron movies – My Blue Heaven. She was born in New York City, but moved to LA as her parents’ screenwriting career blossomed. Never getting over her love for NYC, she moved back and never really left. Her career started out as a hard hitting journalist. She went through the dissolution of two marriages including a high profile marriage to Carl Bernstein before marrying her true love Nick Pileggi. Ephron was propelled to even greater success as a screenwriter with When Harry Met Sally. It was the first of what would be her trio of iconic films: Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail. Though, her Hollywood credits extended much further.

Carlson tells Ephron’s story through the making of the three iconic films. Although, it’s not the only story being told. The story of the actors, crew, and Hollywood were also unfolding throughout the book. Ephron was a unique woman combining type A personality, warmth, drive, ambition, inclusion, and so much more into a pint sized woman. One of the things that really stood out about her was her ability to collect talented people utilizing their ideas when it added to a project. Collaboration was a word people used to describe her. She was a legend in her own time. People simultaneously loved and were intimidated by her. There’s a sense of her being completely fabulous yet transparently flawed.

It’s hard not to be drawn into the book because so many of us have a special place in our hearts for these films. Carlson has a big story to tell, and she does a very good job of covering this topic. She writes with a strong sense of humor and a style that can be described as bouncy. It is apparent she has so much admiration for Ephron.

Carlson writes incredibly well with her own style. The book includes excerpts from the script, anecdotes, and tons of quotes. The quotes are funny, sweet, honest, and add so much depth to the book and Ephron. Carlson includes tons of pertinent facts about Ephron, crew, actors, companies, locations, and history. These are really wonderful. Due to the immense amount of quotes and excerpts used the style and syntax can get very complex. Carlson increases this complexity as she peppers the book with her own opinions and thoughts about certain aspects. She is fostering a feeling of friendship between herself and the reader, which supports the style of film Ephron made. However, these personal opinions made the syntax even more complex. Sometimes it detracted from the reading experience because I would get distracted by the interesting side notes. Footnotes might have been a more effective way of communicating some of the side information.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was wonderful learning so much history and backstory to some of my favorite movies growing up. I sped read this book in a day, a Sunday. After reading it, I had a movie marathon to watch all three of the iconic films because it truly made me nostalgic.

Memorable Quotes:
“Sleepless, Stressed, and Addicted to Starbucks.”

Title: I’ll Have What She’s Having; How Nora Ephron’s Three Iconic Films Saved the Romantic Comedy
Author: Erin Carlson
Publisher: Hachette Books
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9780316353908

Books

The Sweetness of Tears

April 24, 2018 RaeAnna

Difficulty: II
Length: III
Quick Review: When a conservative Christian family’s secret is revealed by science, Jo’s path changed drastically opening her mind as she navigates life in a Muslim country.

I’ve read a bunch of not great books lately… So I approached this hesitantly because I was temporarily, literarily jaded. Thank goodness, this lifted my spirits considerably. I loved it!

In The Sweetness of Tears, Nafisa Haji weaves complicated stories to create a beautiful novel full of truly human experiences. In today’s society, Christians and Muslims are viewed as opposites and even enemies. Haji contradicts these assumptions through parallels, by placing the two in the other’s worlds, by creating situations calling for openness and understanding instead of hostility and animosity.

Jo March is a twin raised by a conservative Christian family with a legacy in the evangelist circles. When she studied genetics in high school, she learned the impossibility of her brown eyes by her blue eyed parents. When she found the answer she was looking for, her life changed. She studied Arabic and Urdu in college before embarking on a career as a translator in the Middle East during the beginning of war. Her time there lead her to seek out the answers to questions she had been to scared to ask before. I won’t tell you more because you should read the book, and I don’t want to spoil anything.

I found it addicting from the first page, which rarely happens. I shy away from books with conservative Christians at the center because well, it’s just not my cup of tea. Haji confronts those stereotypes of intolerance, close-mindedness, and more the way she confronts similar to those that plague Muslims.

Haji writes for a largely American audience with the assumption they have a Christian upbringing. She explains Pakistani and Islamic customs for those who are not familiar, but she does not condescend or dumb down her culture. There are so many themes, ideas, customs, and cultures running through the book, I would be a fool to try and talk about them all. She is truly a wonderful storyteller. She is able to put questions in the reader’s mind while waiting to answer them until the time is right.

One of the most overarching themes in the book connects to the way Haji wrote the book. The present is hard to define without first knowing the past, the choices, the situations, the people which created the present. Whether we like it or not, we are products of our parents and grandparents choices and experiences.

Other things I really appreciated: the character of Grandma Faith. She is what a good Christian should be: loving, accepting, and kind. I loved everything she said and stood for, though I am not a Christian myself. None of the characters in the book were dislikable, except for maybe Uncle Ron – the stereotypical evangelist.

I truly can’t recommend this novel enough. In today’s America, there is an overwhelming amount of mistrust, fear, and hostility when it comes to unfamiliar cultures. Haji writes a beautiful story about opening oneself to new and different, to accepting culpability, to being an intersectional world. It’s amazing.

Memorable Quotes:
“family values- only thing I ever saw being values when I’ve heard those two words getting thrown around is the act of not minding your own business.”
“Belief is about closing yourself off – a lie you tell yourself to make the world fit in with how you’ve decided it should be.”
“Real change in the world, real justice, cannot happen without the participation of women.”

Title: The Sweetness of Tears
Author: Nafisa Haji
Publisher: William Morrow (HarperCollins Publishers)
Copyright: 2011
ISBN: 9780061780103

Books, Fiction

Sinner

April 3, 2018 RaeAnna

Read: No
Difficulty: IV – because it was so painfully bad
Quick Review: A very poorly written novel about a man whose troubled past manifests in serial killing ways.

I have been avoiding writing this review. That would mean I have to think about this novel again, and reading it once was horrific enough. Not because it was a thriller, but because it was just that bad.

I just… It’s… I can’t… I mean I can; I don’t want to… But here it goes.

I was approached to review this novel. I don’t typically read thrillers. I have been trying to branch out, so I said “yes!” I would create a time machine just so I could go back and say, “STOP, DON’T READ IT!” Or go back even further into time and convince Christopher Graves writing may not be his calling.

The basic concept of Sinner is there is this group of violent, religious, women killing vigilantes. A dude named Zeke goes around killing women of loose morals… basically any lady who isn’t chained to the stove with three babies banging pots around her… due to his religious conviction. Come to find out he had a rough upbringing. (Poor white man, your daddy didn’t love you.) The “strong” female characters fight back. Yada yada yada… It’s terrible.

The thing that made me hate this novel straight off is the narration switches between Zeke (creepy serial killer) and the ladies being serial killed or other key ladies in the story. When dealing with women who are being raped… it’s best not to try and enter the psyche of a woman being raped when you are, in fact, not a woman. I yet to read a male author who can portray these scenes well. It falls flat at best. As a rape survivor myself, it was nowhere near realistic for me. It even came across as flippant, disrespectful, and, quite frankly, offensive. Every section where the woman is narrating, it’s hollow from the dialogue to the internal monologue to the description of how she views herself. You want to buy into the characters and feel for them, but Graves does such a poor job in character development none of the characters even approach likable.

Graves’ writing is unfocused, disorganized, lacks cohesion, and reads like a bad high school first draft. The timeline jumps around in a state of confusion. I don’t think he knows how to organize a novel. Timelines don’t have to be linear, but they do need to make sense. Spelling mistakes run rampant. There are grammar and syntax issues. His word choice is questionable at times. Over all, the writing feels amateurish. I can almost imagine him flipping through a writer’s handbook, pointing at a literary device, and thinking yes, I’ll try that one. When there’s an absence of literary device, don’t fret an analogy is just around the corner. It’s not the work of a capable author probing into the psyche of a troubled man… I would be interested in reading that. It reads like an aspiring writer trying to be all of those things.

Total side note… What is with all the female characters winking? It’s obnoxious and unrealistic. What sane woman winks in the middle of awkward silences or at staring strangers or constantly. As a living, breathing woman, I can’t tell you the last time I winked at someone. I can almost guarantee you it was at a small child and not at the creepy dude staring at me in a pizza joint.

Sinner by Christopher Graves will be released April 5, 2018 (tomorrow) for audiences enjoyment(?). Please don’t read it. It’s not even ironically painful to read. It just caused me pain.

Memorable Quotes:
There were none. Too painful.

Title: Sinner
Author: Christopher Graves
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9780999643723

Books

Winter Garden

March 7, 2018 RaeAnna

Read: No
Length: 394
Quick Review: Meredith and Nina think their old, Russian mother hates them, but on their father’s death bed everything changes. A mother-daughter mystery couldn’t be more generic.

As a Russian speaker… This book was incredibly painful to read. As an English speaker… I found it mundane and common at best.

Meredith and Nina are sisters following vastly different paths. Meredith stayed home to help run the family business as her father aged. Nina left for adventures as a photographer. Their childhood was marked by a father’s unconditional love and their mother’s frigidity. A fairy tale they heard as children transformed into something meaningful to their mother and their own lives after their father dies suddenly.

Hannah tries to build a beautiful picture in the reader’s mind, but falls short as she uses too many unnecessary adjectives giving the narrative a clunky, arbitrary feel. Her efforts feel amateurish as she becomes overly repetitive. When she refines her language, everything flows better, but these moments are fleeting throughout the almost four hundred pages.

The characters come off as flat, grating, unempathetic, and overly stupid. Spoiler: The mother is an elderly, Russian woman with a heavy accent. The plot takes place in 2001. If I could VERY easily do the math: Woman. 80 ish years of age. Her heavy accent means she did not leave Russia as a child but an adult. Even if she moved to the US as a 23 year old woman, she would have been in Russia during WWII… Which explains all of her behavior. So… In the 37 and 40 years her daughters had with her, they didn’t even think about her life before them. I have a hard time feeling sympathy for adult characters who live in me-me-me land, which is exactly what the main characters here do. Not to mention their inability to view the “fairy tale” as an allegory for their mother’s life. As children, all of these things are excusable, but as adult characters it’s surprising and not believable.

Hannah has an obsession with “unconditional” love throughout the narrative. Every time the word “love” is used it is almost always in conjunction with “unconditional.” It just irritated me. After the first few times, she could have dropped the word since she was referring to family and not an “unconditional love” of dirt.

All in all, the book was a waste of my time. I had the plot guessed in detail within the first thirty pages. It’s a formulaic mother-daughter relationship story with an even more uninspired mystery for good measure. As a non-Russian speaker, I would have been able to forgive her, but I’m not that. She fell short. It’s a lesson in how one should only write about languages they’re familiar with.

Memorable Quotes:

“She had thought she was full grown then.”
“”A woman can be a girl and still know her own heart.””

Title: Winter Garden
Author: Kristin Hannah
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Copyright: 2010
ISBN: 9781615239498