Curtis Sittenfeld, the author of New York Times bestseller "Prep" the story of a prep school girl who never quite finds her way in the world of the elite, leaves the reader hanging in her latest novel, "The Man of My Dreams."
Meet Hannah - a young girl who's father set a lousy example for her of what a loving relationship is supposed to look like. Watch Hannah grow up groping through the dark as she tries to figure out how to make relationships, sex and a basic social life work. Hannah has all the cliches around her - a beautiful sister who has her pick of men and proposals, a doting mother, a therapist and a wild cousin/friend she drops almost everything for.
The coming of age novel that follows Hannah from 14 to her mid 20s is sad. Sad because Hannah never quite gets it, and even when you think she's about to, she doesn't. Sittenfeld leads her on a wild goose chase to Chicago and then lands her in New Mexico, all so she can find herself, but even when she does, the reader is still not sure who she is or if there is a man of her dreams.
My advice, skip The Man of My Dreams and find something with an actual conclusion.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Falling through the Earth
A father-daughter relationship is murky at best most of the time. A father-daughter relationship involving a Vietnam war survivor who spent most of his time in 'Nam hunting the enemy in underground tunnels is downright challenging. But Danielle Trussoni somehow makes her relationship work with her hard-drinking, hard-working, un-affectionate father who raised her while her siblings grew up with her mother.
Trussoni captures the life she led with her father in her memoir Falling through the Earth. In it she recounts sitting as a child on a bar stool in Roscoe's as her father and her uncles traded stories. She also reveals her own experience of going to Vietnam and traveling down into the tunnels that kept the Viet Cong alive during the long years of the war. It was there that she believed she would find a piece of her father that he had left behind as a young man.
Trussoni comes back without the missing key to her father's affections, but in the meantime she learns more of who she is and the stock she came from than most ever begin to realize.
Falling through the Earth is an interesting read. Don't expect any great revelations from this memoir, instead, just go along for the ride.
Trussoni captures the life she led with her father in her memoir Falling through the Earth. In it she recounts sitting as a child on a bar stool in Roscoe's as her father and her uncles traded stories. She also reveals her own experience of going to Vietnam and traveling down into the tunnels that kept the Viet Cong alive during the long years of the war. It was there that she believed she would find a piece of her father that he had left behind as a young man.
Trussoni comes back without the missing key to her father's affections, but in the meantime she learns more of who she is and the stock she came from than most ever begin to realize.
Falling through the Earth is an interesting read. Don't expect any great revelations from this memoir, instead, just go along for the ride.
Luck is in the eye of the beholder
Alice Sebold took an incredibly brave step when she was 18 and only a freshman in college at Syracuse University. She fought back against a rapist. She pressed charges. She won.
Alice Sebold did another incredibly brave thing in 1999. She published a book about her rape, how it affected her. How she lived after that. How her life was viewed in halves - the first half before the rape, and the second half after. She laid out her heart, her soul, her mind and her fears in the pages of "Lucky." Can you believe it. That's what the police told her when she went to police station to tell her story. They said she was lucky because in the tunnel in a park next to campus where she was raped, another woman had been brutally murdered. Alice got out with her life, but lost her virginity, innocence and ideals to a rapist that had the nerve to approach her on the street less than a year later and ask if he knew her from somewhere - with a sneer.
Alice Sebold's personal story is as gripping as the New York Times best seller she penned "The Lovely Bones," and it is just as haunting. Lucky is a book you can't put down. It is a story of strength that we hear so infrequently about rape. Sebold's book has the power of Trisha Meili's I am the Central Park Jogger and is told in a more riveting style. Both are books for every woman to read.
I give Alice Sebold credit for the book she wrote. I give her my admiration for having it published and I give her applause for having the bravery to have the world read it and shaming all those who still believe there is a stigma tied to a woman who is raped. Alice Sebold is not a victim. She is a survivor and a wonderful writer as well.
Alice Sebold did another incredibly brave thing in 1999. She published a book about her rape, how it affected her. How she lived after that. How her life was viewed in halves - the first half before the rape, and the second half after. She laid out her heart, her soul, her mind and her fears in the pages of "Lucky." Can you believe it. That's what the police told her when she went to police station to tell her story. They said she was lucky because in the tunnel in a park next to campus where she was raped, another woman had been brutally murdered. Alice got out with her life, but lost her virginity, innocence and ideals to a rapist that had the nerve to approach her on the street less than a year later and ask if he knew her from somewhere - with a sneer.
Alice Sebold's personal story is as gripping as the New York Times best seller she penned "The Lovely Bones," and it is just as haunting. Lucky is a book you can't put down. It is a story of strength that we hear so infrequently about rape. Sebold's book has the power of Trisha Meili's I am the Central Park Jogger and is told in a more riveting style. Both are books for every woman to read.
I give Alice Sebold credit for the book she wrote. I give her my admiration for having it published and I give her applause for having the bravery to have the world read it and shaming all those who still believe there is a stigma tied to a woman who is raped. Alice Sebold is not a victim. She is a survivor and a wonderful writer as well.
A tribute to Vonnegut
We all know that the literary world lost an amazing mind and writer in the passing of renowned author Kurt Vonnegut.
There aren't words to describe his prose or approach to stories that carry such heavy memories like Slaughterhouse Five. Though hundreds have tried to capture his wit and wisdom with catchy turns of a phrase with a little science fiction thrill tossed in, I won't even try.
Here, in this post, I will simply say that I admired his skill greatly. I am glad I was encouraged to read Slaughterhouse Five recently for book club and I am thankful I picked up A man without a country a few months ago and read it joyfully in one sitting a few months prior to Vonnegut's passing. He mentions his death several times in the book and as one critic said, it was a work that led a reader to pour over every word.
One such passage made me stop and think of what Vonnegut may have been trying to tell us many times over but didn't hear. What we may practice in every day life and not realize the folly of. What we should open our eyes to:
"I wanted all things to seem to make some sense, so we could all be happy, yes, instead of tense. And I made up lies, so they all fit nice, and I made this sad world a paradise."
Thank you, Kurt Vonnegut.
There aren't words to describe his prose or approach to stories that carry such heavy memories like Slaughterhouse Five. Though hundreds have tried to capture his wit and wisdom with catchy turns of a phrase with a little science fiction thrill tossed in, I won't even try.
Here, in this post, I will simply say that I admired his skill greatly. I am glad I was encouraged to read Slaughterhouse Five recently for book club and I am thankful I picked up A man without a country a few months ago and read it joyfully in one sitting a few months prior to Vonnegut's passing. He mentions his death several times in the book and as one critic said, it was a work that led a reader to pour over every word.
One such passage made me stop and think of what Vonnegut may have been trying to tell us many times over but didn't hear. What we may practice in every day life and not realize the folly of. What we should open our eyes to:
"I wanted all things to seem to make some sense, so we could all be happy, yes, instead of tense. And I made up lies, so they all fit nice, and I made this sad world a paradise."
Thank you, Kurt Vonnegut.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Before you know kindness ... read this book
Chris Bohjalian's "Before you Know Kindness" captures a heart wrenching story that could happen to any family at any time. It's hard to say if any family would come out on the other side as well as the Setons and the McColloughs do at the end of this novel.
The book gets off to slow start in New Hampshire, chronicling the lives of the well-to-do during the summer months. You can't feel the heat of the summer or this novel until the action hits in the July evening with a gun shot.
The issues of animal protection, guns, violence, family communication, vegetarianism, legalities and more surface as the book progresses. There are no real heroes in this book. It's hard to like any of the characters - they all have their well written flaws, but it only goes to make the books more readable and realistic.
Kudos to Bohjalian and "Kindness."
The book gets off to slow start in New Hampshire, chronicling the lives of the well-to-do during the summer months. You can't feel the heat of the summer or this novel until the action hits in the July evening with a gun shot.
The issues of animal protection, guns, violence, family communication, vegetarianism, legalities and more surface as the book progresses. There are no real heroes in this book. It's hard to like any of the characters - they all have their well written flaws, but it only goes to make the books more readable and realistic.
Kudos to Bohjalian and "Kindness."
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