Book Six

Book six is Assholes Finish First by Tucker Max. I figured I might as well read his books back to back. And a book that can make me laugh is always a decent one. I haven't heard quite as much about this one from people I know as I did with I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. When I read his first book, I had a lot of people telling me how great it was and how funny it was. I haven't heard as much about this one from people, but I'm sure if it's anywhere near as funny as the first one, I'm going to enjoy it.

And just because these are funny, here are responses to I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell:

"We protest everything about Tucker Max and what he stands for."

"I had never finished a book--not even for school--until I came across yours. I had no idea writing could be this interesting or funny."

"People who like Tucker Max: Douchebags and Baby Rapists."

"Your book made me laugh so hard I pissed my goddamn pants. I literally pissed in my pants. When's the last time you read something that did that to you? I don't even do that when I'm drunk."

"For some reason professional creep Tucker Max wrote a book, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, which became a bestseller just to prove that America, as a concept, is over"

"Tucker, you are my hero. I wake up every morning with the courage to face my shitty life, all because you exist. I know the system can be beat, because I've seen you do it. Thank you so much."

I usually like people. I truly pray something terrible happens to you. Maybe for saying that I will end up in hell, but hopefully on a different level than you. You will end up drinking fire as the devil fucks you in the ass. Enjoy the limelight you alcoholic walking Petri dish."

"I am a happily married mother of three wonderful young sons. One day I will ask them, 'Sons, what do you want to be when you grow up?' The first will answer, 'an astronaut.' The second will answer, 'the president.' The third will look me in the eyes and confidently say, 'Tucker Max.' He'll be my favorite son."

The inside cover says:

"What do you do after you write a #1 bestselling book about your drunken, sexual misadventures that makes you rich and famous? Celebrate by getting more drunk and having insane amounts of sex, obviously. And pretty soon you've got another fucking book on your hands. Stuffed full of ridiculous stories of bad decisions, debauchery, and sexual recklessness, Assholes Finish First starts where I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell left off, and proceeds to "some next-level shit." You already know how women react to confidence game, and vodka, but what happens when you add money and fame to the mix? You get answers to the hard questions you've never thought of asking:
What's it like to have sex with a midget? What about two midgets?
How does it feel to get multiple requests to 'fuck for charity'?
What does it do to a man to watch a 19-year-old do wind sprints to sober up, so that she can have sex with you before her twin sister does?
At what number of virgins does deflowering them stop being fun and start feeling like a job?
When a girl you met three hours ago decides to tattoo your name next to her pussy, what is the appropriate reaction?
Can you X-ray a blowjob?
The answers are inside, they are absurd and hilarious, and they are the product of one man's experiences: His name is Tucker Max, and he is still an asshole."

I'm pretty excited to start reading this book. If you're interested, you can get it from Amazon:

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell: Final Review

This one took me a long time, not because it was a hard or uninteresting read, but because sometimes life gets in the way of the things we enjoy. August was an insanely hectic month for me. But I'm back and finally finished I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.

Overall, this book was hilarious. And after the month I've had, finishing this book made me feel a little better about my life. My life may be messy sometimes, but it isn't anywhere near the level of Tucker Max, so I'm pretty grateful for that.

As with the rest of the book, the last half had some great lines. Here are a few of my favorites:

"Men will treat you the way you let them. There is no such thing as 'deserving' respect; you get what you demand from people," (209).

"If I owned Hell and Texas, I'd rent out Texas and live in Hell," (251).

"Fucking with 18 year old girls is like kicking cripples; it's just too easy," (253).

"In the country, it ain't called 'drankin a beer', it's called 'improvin' yer work'," (256).

The things he says to other people (usually girls he is talking to in bars) and the things other people say to him (such as the last one above said by a guy he met in Midland, Texas) are ridiculous and hilarious. The interactions usually follow the same scenario--Tucker meets girl; Tucker insults girl or girl's friends; Girl thinks Tucker is funny; Tucker has sex with girl--and yet, they are always funny.

My one qualm with this book is the last story, "The Worst Tucker Story Ever". The title describes it perfectly. It is, by far, the worst story in the book. And the most disgusting and repulsing. I'm not even going to tell you about it. Thinking about it makes me want to vomit. You'll have to read that one for yourself and decide whether or not you agree that it's the worst Tucker story.

Aside from that story (which I really don't think should have ended the book), the book is excellent. It's dirty and graphic and vulgar and I wouldn't recommend anyone under 17 read it. I wouldn't let your mom read it either. Unless your mom is really cool and finds stuff like this funny. It's a good book, and definitely worth a read. And I do intend to watch the movie just as soon as I can get it and I'll let you all know what I think.

Overall, I'd rate this book as a Starbucks Peppermint Mocha (4). It was really good, but not quite good enough to be a favorite. And the ending is partially what ruined it for this book. If you're interested in buying I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, you can find it on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Hope-They-Serve-Beer-movie/dp/0806532254/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315423482&sr=1-1

As always, thanks for reading!

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell: Halfway

I'm about halfway through I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell and so far, it has been pretty hilarious. Basically, most of this book is about the stupid things Tucker and his friends do while drunk, primarily all the hot, and not-so hot girls they have sex with. They get into fights with other people, and each other, frequently, and one guy even ended up in jail one night.

My favorite thing about this book is all the one-liners he says. Here are a few of my favorites so far:

“Blowjobs . . . the sweet sounds of silence. The problem with oral sex is that it’s like writing. When done right, it’s amazing, but there are just so many ways it can go wrong, and when it goes wrong, it’s just not worth it,” (21).  

“Most guys are hard-up schmucks who couldn’t get laid in a monkey whorehouse with a bag of bananas,” (53). 

“Her makeup looks like it was applied with a shotgun,” (106). 

And because I love hockey, and hate the Red Wings:

“Whatever buddy, you’re wearing a Detroit Red Wings jersey to a strip club, you obviously suck,” (112).

I've laughed out loud reading this book several times, which in turn, causes my coworkers to laugh at me and my "high-pitched giggle". Whatever. This book is funny and I definitely recommend reading it. If anything, you'll be thankful your life isn't as screwed up as his. And rest assured. I will be watching the movie after I'm finished with this book, and I'll let you all know how it is, although I've heard it's just as funny.

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is available on Amazon.com:

  

Book Five

My next book is I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max. I'm pretty excited about this book. I've heard a lot of good things about it and that it's hilarious so I'm looking forward to reading it. It's a New York Times Bestseller. I've got high hopes for this book. I've read a few excerpts of it online and those were funny, so I'm hoping the whole book will be like that.

Here is reader feedback:

"I am completely baffled as to how you can congratulate yourself for being a womanizer and a raging drunk, or think anyone cares about an idiot like you. Do you really think that exploiting the insecurities of others while getting wasted is a legitimate thing to offer?"

"Thank you, thank you, thank you--for sharing with us your wonderful tales of drunken revelry, for teaching me what it means to be a man, for just existing so I know that there is another option; I too can say 'screw the system' and be myself and have fun. My life truly began when I inished reading your stories. now, when faced with a quandary about what course of action I should take, I just ask myself, 'What would Tucker do?'--and I do it, and I am a better man for it."

"I find it truly appalling that there are people in the world like you. You are a disgusting, vile, repulsive, repugnant, foul creature. Because of you, I don't believe in God anymore. No just God would allow someone like you to exist."

"I'll stay with God as my lord, but you are my savior. I just finished reading your brilliant stories, and I laughed so hard I almost vomited. i want to bring that kind of joy to people. You're an artist of the highest order and a true humanitarian to boot. I'm in both shock and awe at how much I want to be you."

"You are the coolest person I can even imagine existing. If you slept with my girlfriend, it'd make me love her more."

And here's a little about the author:

Tucker Max received his B.A. from the University of Chicago, where he graduated in 1998. He attended Duke Law School on an academic scholarship, where he graduated with a J.D. in 2001 (despite the fact that he neglected to buy any of his textbooks for his final two years and spent part of one semester--while still enrolled in classes--living in Cancun). Tucker is purportedly the reason Duke dropped from 7 to 11 in the USN&WR rainkings during his tenure. He currently lives in New York, and when he isn't drinking or fornicating, he writes for his website, tuckermax.com.

What Tucker has to say about himself:

"My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole. I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women that is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead. But, I do contribute to humanity in one very important way: I share my adventures with the world."

If you've heard about this book, or if this is the first time and it sounds hilarious, you might as well just go out and get it, or order it from Amazon.com:

Sarah's Key: Final Review

I was a little disappointed in this book. I really didn’t like her writing style at all. There were many parts throughout the book that seemed poorly written. They didn’t make sense in my head and I’d have to reread them. The first couple times this happened, I figured it was just me not paying close attention to what I was reading. After a while I realized it’s not me; it’s her style. She worded things in ways that I never would, and most people wouldn’t.

The storyline was also disappointing for me. After a while it became really predictable. And much of the story had nothing to do with the events that took place in 1942 in France or Julia’s research on those events. A lot of it was about her marital and family problems and other personal issues. I would have preferred to have had more of the story focused in 1942 and on the research Julia did for the article she wrote. Julia’s boss tells her the story was nice, however he was curious as to what the French police would have said. She hadn’t thought to try to interview any of them or their families to see how they felt. Which, in my opinion, is poor journalism. As a journalist, you should look at all sides of a story, and she did not. And I think this says a lot about the author. It’s almost as if she was almost done with the book and realized she hadn’t thought to look into any of that, so she pinned it on Julia’s poor journalism. I think that reflects poor research on the author’s part. Hearing stories from the French police who either helped in conducting the roundup or worked at any of the camps would have been extremely interesting and it shouldn’t have been overlooked.

I did learn a lot from this book. There are a lot of dark secrets in France’s history that most people try very hard to hide, and they do a pretty darn good job of it. Most people, unless they were there or had relatives experience it don’t know anything about Velodrome d’Hiver. It isn’t something that is taught in your history classes, or in French classes. This book was a real eye-opener for me. I had no idea how involved the French police were in the Holocaust until I read this book, and then did some of my own research.

Every detail she used was fact in this book. Every place Julia visited for her research is a place that existed. There are monuments built in these places to honor those who were victims of the roundup. She gave several quotes throughout the book from those places, such as this one:

“To the 3,500 Jewish children torn from their parents, interned at Beaune-la-Rolande and Pithiviers, deported and exterminated at Auschwitz. Victims of the Nazis, buried at the graveyard of Beaune-la-Rolande,” (153).

What was heartbreaking to learn was the total disregard of many of these camps. At Beaune-la-Rolande, a technical school was built over it. The only signs of the camp are the small monument with the words above written on it and the cemetery farther down from the school. At Drancy, there are people actually living in the buildings that were there at the camp. They had been built as a residential community and were then used for an internment camp. Not even ten years later, people began living in those buildings. Many of the monuments and memorials place the blame solely on the Nazis, even though the French police were the men who tore these families from their homes, locked them in the stadium, shipped them off to the camps, tore mothers away from their children, and sent them to their certain death at Auschwitz.

There is so much we still don’t know about the events that took place during the Holocaust, and there is so much we don’t know because it is not taught. People need to know what happened there. People need to be aware of the horrible events that took place. If we don’t teach our children these things, how can we prevent them from happening again? Zakhor. Al Tichkah. Remember. Never forget. 

Okay, so like I’ve said, I wasn’t a huge fan of this book. I just wanted more and more information on the Velodrome d’Hiver and the roundups. It was informative though, and urged me to do more research to learn more, and I hope all of you will do the same, even if you just look it up on Google. I pretty much disliked everything else about this book. The plot could have been better. Her descriptions could have been better. Her characters could have been better. I just really didn’t like her writing in general. Overall, I’m still going to give this one a flavored coffee with sugar and cream (3) rating, primarily because I did learn a lot from this book. And any book you can learn something new from is worth reading.

As always, if you're interested in reading this book for yourself, you can find it on Amazon.com:

Velodrome d'Hiver: Operation Spring Breeze

As promised, I decided to do some research on my own. I found some interesting things that I hadn't already learned from Sarah's Key. I looked at a few different websites, found a book that included excerpts of letters written from the head of French police and the Germans making the orders from the roundup.


I started with Wikipedia. It's not the best source for reliable information, but I like to start there, because it's a good place to get ideas of other things to search for.
Here's the link for Velodrome d'Hiver on Wikipedia for some basic information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vel'_d'Hiv_Roundup


I work in a library, so I figured I might as well see what kind of books we have on the topic. The best one I found is The Claims of Memory: Representations of the Holocaust in Contemporary Germany and France
This is the book that has letters in it between French and German officers. It also includes pictures of the camps, specifically Drancy, as well as pictures of a few of the memorials and a museum. There is an entire section of the book devoted to Vel' d'Hiv specifically, and another section for Drancy. I'd definitely recommend this one for anyone looking to learn more about the Holocaust, specifically it's execution in France. You can probably find this in your local library, but it's also available on Amazon.com:








I also read a survivor's story which was really touching. Unfortunately it was the only one I was able to find online. There are probably a lot more out there, but I'm fairly certain that there are very few survivor stories from the Jews of Vel' d'Hiv'. Here's her story:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3942285,00.html






Around the same time Madeleine Testyler told her story, a movie was made about the roundup in Paris called La Rafle. This is available on Netflix, but only on DVD. I'm not sure if it's available in video stores, but it is available on Amazon.com as well:



La Rafle is a 2010 French film. From the Vélodrome D'Hiver, where 13,000 Jews are crammed, to the camp of Beaune-La-Rolande, from Vichy to the terrace of the Berghof, La Rafle follows the real destinies of the victims and the executioners. Of those who orchestrated it all. Of those who trusted them. Of those who fled. Of those who opposed them. Every character in this film has existed. Every event, even the most extreme, transpired on that summer of 1942.












Letters from Drancy is an article I found online. It has several letters written from one woman to her sister as well as others. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jul/18/worlddispatch.jonhenley

I also found a 60th anniversary commemoration speech (July, 2002): http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/Commemoration-of-the-60th

I was unable to find President Jaques Chirac's speech in its entirety from July 21, 1995 when he publicly addressed France's role in the Holocaust. I did find an article someone wrote about it, and it includes many of the important parts of Chirac's speech, as well as commentary from other Eurpoean diplomats.
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/1322/chirac-hailed-for-citing-france-s-role-in-holocaust/

I hope you all find this information helpful and useful, and if you happen to do any research of your own and find anything interesting, let me know!

Thanks for reading!

Sarah's Key: Halfway

Finally, I made it halfway through this book. It was a lot more difficult to get into than I had anticipated, and then we had that awesome holiday weekend in there, so needless to say I didn't get a lot of reading done. There are many things I really like about this book, and several things I really dislike about it.

First, I love Paris, and I love the French language, and I love learning about World War II. So it's got that going for it. Julia describes why she attracted to Paris and she says, "It was during my adolescence that I felt the first yearnings for France, an insidious fascination that grew stronger with the passage of time. Why France? Why Paris? The French language had always attracted me. I found it softer, more sensual than German, Spanish, or Italian," (45). Listening to French is one of my favorite things to do. It's so elegant. I took several years of French. I love the language. I love listening to people speak it and I love reading it. And there are quite a few French words thrown in there. I love that I understand them and how beautiful they look.

I've learned a lot of things about WWII from this book that I didn't know. And if it's as she says in the book, it's not something that is documented in a lot of books, nor is it taught in French schools (or any schools for that matter). Julia is a journalist for an American magazine in Paris and she's doing an article on the Velodrome d'Hiver which was the Nazi-ordered but French police-enforced roundup of the Jews in Paris. At the site where the Velodrome in Paris used to stand, there is a small plaque that reads:

"On July 16 and 17, 1942, 13,152 Jews were arrested in Paris and the suburbs, deported and assassinated at Auschwitz. In the Velodrome d'Hiver that once stood on this spot, 1,129 men, 2,916 women, and 4,115 children were packed here in inhuman conditions by the government of the Vichy police, by order of the Nazi occupant. May those who tried to save them be thanked. Passerby, never forget!" 

So the book alternates between Julia's story of uncovering the mysteries behind the Vel' d'Hiv' and Sarah's story, a little girl and her family that were part of the roundup in Paris and were shipped to camps in Paris. I won't tell you much more than that, because that would probably ruin a lot of the story for you. But the things Sarah sees and experiences are sickening as one can imagine. And the information Julia finds out about the roundup--including how her husband's family is tied in to all of it is equally sickening, as well as interesting, and really, just sad. This isn't a book to lift one's spirits.

That said, there are many things I really, really, dislike about this book. Poor sentence structure and syntax. It sounds like it was written for 8th graders, and heck, maybe it was. I don't know. But I don't like it. And she has numerous sentences such as this: "I came to live in Paris when I was a little over twenty, after graduating from Boston University with an English major," (45). I cringe every time I read sentences like that. It just sounds...weird, like no one would talk that way. People don't say they graduated "with an English major". I graduated with a lot of English majors. And we all got to sit together at commencement too! Most people would say they graduated with their bachelor's in English.

On top of poor syntax and sentence structure, this book just lacks description and imagery, and I feel like it could really benefit from that. Her writing just lacks almost everything I love about writing. The use of figurative language to describe something. This description in particular was just awful: "We entered the apartment, fumbled with light switches. Nothing happened. Antoine opened a couple of shutters. The sun poured in. The rooms were bare, dusty," (20). She could have done so much more with this, using similes to describe what those things were like. Everything just seems really uncreative and straightforward and often her word choices just seem too light for the subject matter we're dealing with here. I expected things to be a lot deeper, and I was greatly disappointed in that aspect.

One other pet peeve. Sarah is referred to as "the girl" for almost the entire first half of the book. And even after her name is revealed to be Sarah Starzynski, she is still called "the girl". Sure, it's fairly safe to assume from the beginning that this girl suffering through all these horrible nightmares is Sarah from the beginning. But it's extremely annoying to have to read the first half of the book for that to be confirmed.

In all, I really don't know how I feel about this book so far. I love all of the new things I'm learning from it. I hate a lot of other things, like her writing style. As of now, I'd still recommend people read it. I'm very picky when it comes to liking a writing style, so you might enjoy this a lot more than I have so far. I've learned a lot about the roundup--things I had no idea even happened. And I'm a firm believer in educating people in all the details, no matter how disturbing, sickening. If people are educated, cruelty such as this can be prevented. So, if you're like me and you've never heard of the Velodrome d'Hiver, I'd recommend reading Sarah's Key, just for the information it has about the roundup. Or at least just google it and see what you find. I might even make another post with what I find so if any of you are interested in learning about it, you can check it out.
Sarah's Key is available on Amazon.com:

Book Four

My next book is Sarah's Key  by Tatiana de Rosnay. This book was recommended to me by a good friend of mine. I've heard nothing but good things about it, plus, it's historical fiction which is a guilty pleasure of mine, especially when it's WWII. I'm excited to start reading this one.

Here's a short synopsis of the book, followed by praise for the book:

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten-year-old girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door-to-door arresting Jewish families in the middle of the night. Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard--their secret hiding place--and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released.

Sixty Years Later: Sarah's story intertwines with that of Julia Jaramond, an American journalist investigating the roundup. In her research, Julia stumbles onto a trail of secrets that link her to Sarah, and to questions about her own romantic future.

"A remarkable novel. Like Sophie's Choice, it's a book that impresses itself upon one's heart and soul forever." --Naomi Ragen, author of The Saturday Wife


"It will make you cry--and remember." --Jenna Blum, New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us


"Rich in mystery, intrigue, and suspense, Sarah's Key made me wonder and weep." --The Roanoke Times


"Sarah's Key unlocks a star-crossed, heart-thumping story . . . This book will stay in your mind long after it's back on the shelf." --Risa Miller, author of Welcome to Heavenly Heights


If you're interested in reading Sarah's Key, you can find it on Amazon.com:

Happy: Final Review

Happy by Alex Lemon is not even close to being one of the "happiest" books I've ever read, but it is one of the best. I would have expected nothing less from one of my favorite poets. As with his poetry, Happy is full of stellar imagery and descriptions and raw emotions.

"The neighborhood is fragmented, milky orange and diamondy, and the nothingness inside me seems impossibly heavy," (201). 

I have to go back to what Nick Flynn said about this book because it stood out to me from the very beginning, and now that I've finished it, I understand it completely: "The pyrotechnic prose of Alex Lemon's memoir creates an electrifying portrait of a body in crisis, and the way the soul is inexorably, reluctantly, dragged along . . . If ever a book was written in blood, it is this one."

Alex suffers and endures more physical pain than anyone should, especially as a student in college. Most college students are partying, trying to fit in, trying to figure out who they are and what they want to do with the rest of their lives, and to experience what Alex did would be unbearable on top of all that. As a recent college graduate, this book really struck a chord with me, especially since I've had more than my fair share of trips to the emergency room and it's hard going through things like that pretty much alone. Your family is far away and you don't have many reliable friends. It's amazing what the body and soul can endure and Happy shows, more than once, a young man at his breaking point both emotionally and physically.

He bares all to his readers, holding nothing back. He's dealt with fits of rage and depression after his brain surgery, taking his anger out on his mom, his friends, and most frequently, himself. He spends most of his time alone as he begins his long and slow recovery and the things he can no longer do such as reading and walking haunt him daily:

"Not being able to read is making me crazy. Words crawl across the page like they're alive, like bugs. They jump. They tick," (182). 

"I want to move, to lose myself in a book," (182).  

The end of the book is bittersweet and full of more of the imagery that hooked me on Lemon's writing in the first place.

"The tightness, the just-bearable despair in my chest thaws, melts, breaks apart. Light courses through my veins. I can feel the world pinballing around me," (209).

"It feels like there's a beehive in my chest and it is on fire and it is beautiful and it is there always and forever and I start to weep I'm so happy," (212).

There is perseverance and acceptance. Alex never gives up, regardless of how many times he wanted to. And he accepts that some things can not be changed. In the end, he learns how to live up to his nickname once again: Happy.

Overall, this book gets Starbucks Peppermint Mocha (4 out of 5). I love almost everything about this book. My one problem was that one section of the book was a complete run-on sentence. Although I liked the style, I had to reread it a few times to make sure I was getting it. The rest of the book had very few run-ons, so an entire section of just one long run-on just didn't really seem to fit for me. Aside from that, this book was wonderful and it's definitely worth reading. You can buy it on Amazon.com:
Thanks for reading!

 

 

Happy: Halfway

I’m about half-way through Happy by Alex Lemon and I have loved it so far. It was difficult for me to put it down long enough to write this. First, let me say, if you are offended by strong language, this might not be the book for you. Also if you have a weak stomach when it comes to a lot of blood and other graphic images, you may not want to read this. If things like that don’t bother you, then I’d definitely recommend this one.

Lemon’s imagery and descriptions throughout the book are great. Even just in the first few lines of the book, you can see and feel what he’s going through:

“The world whirls when I crack open. Bookshelf, poster board, the windows wink their eyes. The digital clock is a red blur. Every light pulses yelloworange and brilliant, and the TV is a blue splash. When I stand, the dorm room spins and I tip, slamming my chin into the bed frame. My temple rocks off of the cinder-block wall and I crash back to the mattress. The first pounding breath is Good morning you asshole and my insides rubberband,” (13).

The first and last lines are my favorite. He cracks open rather than wakes up and his insides rubberband and you just know exactly the way those things feel. Even if you’ve never experienced those feelings, you can imagine them, and they give you a wonderful image. And he never neglects the colors in the world around him. His descriptions of the colors and how they blur together really emphasizes how physically sick he is. He can’t see properly, he’s constantly dizzy.

For most of the first half of the book, he brushes off these symptoms, telling people he just has a cold or the flu. He’s unable to field any balls as catcher for his baseball team which makes his coach and teammates irate. Finally his girlfriend convinces him to go to the campus health clinic to see if they can do anything for him. He first sees a nurse, who is fairly certain it is merely an inner-ear infection and gives him a prescription and sends him on his way. Of course, the medicine doesn’t help.

At this point, I’m frustrated for him. If I had a dollar for every time I went to a doctor and was misdiagnosed or they just couldn’t figure out what was causing me pain I’d be richer than Bill Gates. Okay, I wouldn’t be that rich. But I could probably afford to pay off all my student loans. On top of that, I’m feeling even more frustrated because before my mom was diagnosed with MS, they thought she had an inner-ear infection as well. I feel like if a doctor ever tells you that you have an inner-ear infection, you should probably get a second opinion and have more tests done because it’s probably something more severe than that.

He sees another doctor who recommends he goes to a neurologist. He has an MRI and they discover he has a brain malformation—a lesion on his brain near the brain stem that has probably been there all his life that had bled and stopped. With rest and a few extra precautions, he should be okay.

It seems the more the doctors tell him he’s improving, the less okay he really is. He deals with fits of rage, memory loss, and the continued blurred vision and dizziness. On top of that, he’s a college student, just trying to be normal and go to parties. So he drinks, he gets high, and it’s not really clear if doing those things helps to calm him down, makes no difference, or makes things worse.

His eccentric mother worries about him incessantly and is trying desperately to adjust to the changes in her son as he lashes out at her occasionally for no reason. At times she seems like a sweet woman who just wants what’s best for her family and other times she just seems downright crazy. He describes how she used to come to his high school baseball games and bring the wooden dining room chairs to sit in with a plate of “real food”.  Teenagers are generally embarrassed by their parents anyway, but then to have a parent act the way she did would probably be worse. Lemon’s teammates teased him about it often. Although he hasn’t said he is embarrassed by his mother, some of his actions say it for him.

So far, I love this book. It’s fantastic and the irony of the title (which is also his nickname) makes it that much better. Over and over he is called “Happy” even though there have been very few moments in the book where he seems truly happy (whether under the influence of drugs or otherwise). At this point in the book, things seem like they’re really turning around and he’s improving, but in my gut, I just know things will get worse. Although that’s partially because I’ve done a little research on Alex Lemon prior to reading this book. After all, that's what makes a good author and book: You know how it ends, and you still want to devour every page just to see how it gets there. Either way, I’m hooked and can’t wait to read the rest.

Book Three

My next book is Happy by Alex Lemon. I have read two of his books of poetry, Hallelujah Blackout, and Fancy Beasts and both were excellent. When I was reading Fancy Beasts this past semester for a project in my creative writing class, I was looking things up online and found that he had a memoir coming out soon. I read some excerpts from it online and I was hooked. So here we are and Happy is the third book on my list.

Here's some of the praise Happy received:

"Alex Lemon takes his reader inside the terror and strangeness of illness--and gives us, along the way, a loving portrait, of a devoted, wonderfully nutty mother. Lemon is a brave, headlong writer, and he captures the life of the body with vivid and memorable intensity." --Mark Doty, author of Dog Years and Fire to Fire


"The pyrotechnic prose of Alex Lemon's memoir creates an electrifying portrait of a body in crisis, and the way the soul is inexorably, reluctantly, dragged along . . . If ever a book was written in blood, it is this one."
--Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City


"Happy unfurls like gauze, revealing not a wound, but a series of intricate and beautiful scars. Alex reminds us that though we can't make it through this life unscathed, we can make it through transformed." --Robin Romm, author of The Mercy Papers and The Mother Garden


"A page-turner on par with the best thrillers . . . Lemon's exquisite prose blasts us out of our own time, heart, brain, and body into his, making an acute empathy possible. Read this and weep, laugh, weep." --Library Journal, Editor's Pick

This sounds like a fantastic book and memoir and I can't wait to get started. It shouldn't be too hard to beat Life of Pi--it will at least have quite a bit of excitement, that's for sure. You can also look this up on Amazon.com and read excerpts from it, so if you like what you see, you can buy it!

Life of Pi: Final Review

Well, it only took me a couple weeks (although it feels more like a month) to finally finish Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I'd say it's pretty obvious that I didn't like this book since it took me so long to read it. However, I do have a couple positive things to say about it.

First, it is beautifully written. Martel has long beautiful passages describing the scenery and the world around Pi. Everything from the animals on the boat to the ocean to the few supplies on the lifeboat are all described in wonderful detail. He has several lovely descriptions and one of my favorites was his description of a town they visited:

"The coolness was as pleasing as having a mint in your mouth," (50).

It's a fantastic image. You can feel and taste that mint and can imagine what it would be like to have that feeling envelop your body. That's what being on the beach is like for me. It's a cool, tingling sensation all over your skin.

The other thing I really enjoyed about the book was the discussion of religion. As I may have mentioned in my last post, Pi eventually considers himself to be a part of three different religions: Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. His descriptions and thoughts on religion were quite interesting and thought-provoking. He discussed the religions separately, describing how they made him feel and grow as a person, and he spoke of them altogether, making them work in a harmony the rest of humanity could only dream of. When defending his choice to practice three religions, Pi says,

"Bapu Gandhi said, 'All religions are true.' I just want to love God," (69). 

And really, what does it matter what religion we choose to be. Isn't religion supposed to be about loving God in the first place? There are many other quotes throughout the book regarding religion, and all are worth taking a look at in my opinion, but my other favorite is this:

“There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, ‘Business as usual.’ But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening. These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out,” (70-71).

Beautiful passages and discussion of three very different religions. Those are the two best things about this book, in my opinion.

Now, on to the not-so-great things about this book. There are many, in my opinion, but I'll try to keep it brief. First, there was not a lot of action throughout the book. The most exciting/action-filled parts were when the ship sank and Pi ended up on a lifeboat with the tiger. Everything else was painfully slow, which is why it took me such a long time to finish the book.

I didn't know that there were lifeboats big enough to hold not only a tiger, but a human, as well as several other animals (a hyena, a zebra, and an orangutan), plus life jackets, food and water supplies, etc. Trying to imagine a lifeboat big enough to house all of these was quite a stretch for me.

After the ship sinks, the remainder of the book (more than the last half of it) just describes what it was like on the ocean, stuck in a small lifeboat with a tiger. Things got interesting a couple times, but most of it seemed redundant and repetitive. Nothing is told in any sort of order. In chapter 66, he talks about killing sea turtles for food. He then rambles on for several chapters about the sea life surrounding the lifeboat (and on the underside of the lifeboat), his sleep patterns, and the numerous times he thought he saw a ship or boat. Then, in chapter 70, he goes right back to talking about  how difficult it was to kill a sea turtle. Normally it doesn't bother me when a book isn't written in chronological order, but this really irked me, which made it all the more difficult to read.

Another major complaint was the end of the book. I'll try to discuss this without giving away too much (in case any of you still want to read it after reading this review). Basically, the very end of the book is the report of a Japanese official about the sinking of the ship Pi and his family were on. The report is very straightforward and the complete opposite of the beautiful descriptions and imagery that filled the rest of the book. Although sometimes getting myself through all the detail was difficult, it was far better than reading something so boring as a report. Basically, if you want to know what the book was all about without all the extra details, you can read the report at the end. It tells you exactly what happened (or what they think happened anyway) in the simplest terms possible. It was a major disappointment to spend so much time with this book and then have it end so quickly with very little description in comparison to the rest of the book.

Overall, Life of Pi gets a Coffee, Sugar and Cream, No Flavor rating (or a 2). Although there were a few things I did enjoy about the book, I disliked a great deal of it. And any book that takes me more than a week to read (especially during the summer when I have nothing better to do with my time than read) is not a good book in my opinion.

If you're still interested in reading this book, well, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, however I do encourage everyone to at least attempt it and form your own opinions about it. Don't just take my word for it. And remember, don't judge a book by it's cover, because if you did, you'd have an even harder time wrapping your head around the fact that the lifeboat was big enough to house so many animals as the one described in the book.

Life of Pi is available on Amazon.com if you choose to read it and decide for yourself.
As always, thanks for reading!

Life of Pi: Halfway

I just finished chapter 50 of the 100 chapters in Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I thought this would be a good time to give my impression of the book so far. From what I've read up to this point, there are two parts. Part One: Toronto and Pondicherry took me quite a while to read. A large majority of this part, and book really, is description. Although Martel has some really wonderful descriptions and images, when that's all there is, it really slows down the reading. In addition, he has used some sentence fragments throughout, and it's unclear if that's Martel's personal style, or if that's how he intends Pi to be interpreted. Either way, that slows things down too.

Part Two: The Pacific Ocean really picks up the pace. There is a lot more action so far in this part of the book. There is still quite a bit of description, but it is broken up with action and dialogue, which helps move the reading along more quickly. The first chapter of Part Two is a little confusing, because he keeps referring to "Richard Parker" and it isn't really clear who or what Richard Parker is, but it becomes much clearer a little later on.

Overall, I'm not a huge fan of this book so far. I have a hard time reading it for long periods of time. I usually read a few chapters and then take a break and do something else for a while and then pick it back up again. At this point, I just want to get it finished so I can move on to my next book. However, I'm hoping that things will pick up in the last half of the book and get a lot more interesting.

Book Two

The second book on my list for this summer is Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This book was recommended to me by my friend Katie a while back. It's one of her favorite books. I attempted to start reading this book a couple months ago, but after a few chapters, I just couldn't get into it. Not off to the best start. So I'm going to try again now, and hope that it's as good as Katie says it is and I won't hate it.

Here are a few short reviews about the book:

"An impassioned defense of zoos, a death-defying trans-Pacific sea adventure a la Kon-Tiki, and hilarious . . . This audacious novel manages to be all of these." --The New Yorker

"Life of Pi could renew your faith in the ability of novelists to invest even the most outrageous scenario with plausible life." --The New York Times Book Review

"Life of Pi is a real adventure: brutal, tender, expressive, dramatic, and disarmingly funny . . . It's difficult to stop reading when the pages run out." --San Francisco Chronicle

This has gotten good reviews, and I know several other people aside from Katie who love this book. So I hope that once I get past the first couple chapters, things will pick up and get interesting. If this sounds like a book you'd like to read, you can order it on Amazon.com.

FYI: As I'm reading books, I will probably update on here how I'm feeling about the book, at least once or twice before I finish it and then write a final review about the book overall.

Thanks for reading!

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

I should mention that I'm stuck in my college town for the summer, only able to go home on the weekends. If this town was boring during the school year, it is a ghost town in the summer. There's not much to do, and not many people to hang out with. The first book on my Summer Reading List for this summer was Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn, and I felt the title fit my situation perfectly. 

This is probably the first memoir I have read that I've actually enjoyed (and not the first I will be reading this summer). I don't generally enjoy them--not because the person's life isn't interesting enough but primarily because they aren't written well. Nick Flynn is a great writer. He has several books of poetry published and his poetic voice comes through often in his prose, which only makes his writing better. His descriptions and images are both beautiful and heartbreaking. 

The memoir primarily focuses on Nick's relationship (or lack thereof) with his father Jonathon. It circles around it, an attempt to avoid directly addressing the situation--his father's alcoholism, homelessness, and their strained relationship. Nick grew up without a constant father figure in his life. His father spent time in jail--more than once--and writing his novel which, according to Jonathon, would be proclaimed a masterpiece and he'd be nominated for a Nobel Prize. 

Nick pulls the reader into his life, his mind. He began working for a homeless shelter where his father eventually turns up. He spends most of his time trying to avoid him and his drunken outbursts, unable to mentally take care of his father. But their paths inevitably cross several times and Nick attempts to figure out how his father fits in his life, both past and present. 

There were several quotes in the book, from Nick, his mother, father, and a few writers, including loose quotations from Shakespeare (primarily from King Lear). These are a few that really stuck out to me as I was reading:

"But they never taught us what to do if both of you are lost, and you both end up in the same place, waiting."

"'Never trust anyone who doesn't drink.' Those who don't drink have something to hide, an awful secret that will slip out if they were ever to get drunk. By drinking together we prove we have nothing to hide."

"Seek, seek for him, / Lest his ungoverned rage dissolve the life / That wants the means to end it"

"To be caught in a notion of self is bad. To be caught in a notion of nonself is worse." 

"The present is made entirely of the past. Dwell in the present but learn from the past."

"Read when you can. Write whenever you feel the inner need to do so. And don't ever rush into print."

"When everything has proven tenuous, one can either move toward permanence or move toward impermanence."

"By what you make, you will save the world."

"We need to create the story that will make sense of our lives, to make sense of the daily tasks."

Overall, I thought this book was really great, so I'll give it a 4 out of 5 or a Starbuck's Peppermint Mocha. Nick Flynn is a great writer and I plan to read some more of his poetry this summer. If this book sounds like something you'd be interested in reading, you can get Another Bullshit Night in Suck City from Amazon.com. This was a great book to start my summer reading with. I hope the rest of the books I read this summer are as great as this one was. 

Check Out the Rating System

If you haven't noticed, there is a link at the bottom of the page (under the link that says "Home") that will explain my rating system that I'll be using to rate the books I review. Please keep in mind that these reviews are my opinions of the books, and thus the rating system is solely based on my opinion. For instance, I hate black coffee, therefore a really terrible book would receive a 1/Black Coffee rating. Dr. Pepper is my favorite caffeinated beverage, so an excellent book would get a 5/Dr. Pepper rating.

Getting Started

I got the idea a few months ago to start a blog. I was an English major, and I consider myself to be a writer, so I figured, why not? The problem was that I had no idea what I would write about. What in my life could I write about that would be interesting enough that others would want to read? The answer: Not much, my life is pretty boring.

Finally, the idea came to me while I was beginning my "Summer Reading List 2011". I wrote about the first book I had finished for this summer, telling people what I liked about the book. And I realized, that is what my blog should be. So here I am. My reviews will be informal for the most part, because formal can be stuffy and boring. I'll be writing about the books I'm currently reading, books I have recently finished, and books I've read in the past that have stuck with me, as many good books do.

Unfortunately, once I had an idea of what to write, I had to come up with a title for my blog. I may call myself a writer, but I really suck at coming up with good titles. So I went through a long list of really crappy ones. Then I came up with Books and Caffeine (or lack thereof). The "lack thereof" part because I gave up caffeine a few months ago and haven't touched it since. However I get the feeling that might change after I start grad school this fall. My reasoning for books and caffeine together was that there are some books that are just so boring they put you to sleep (like most textbooks) and to get through them, you need an energy drink (or two, or five). So I ran it by a few friends and got mixed reviews. It was okay, but not great. Then my friend (and future roommate) Rhyen said I should call it Books and Caffeine: the only drugs I can afford. I think she was only half serious, but I loved it. Ran it by a few other people again, and they liked it too. So here we are.

I'm working on coming up with a rating system using the caffeine levels necessary to get through certain books. Once I have that figured out and it makes sense (I hope) I'll post that, and then use that rating system to rate the books I read/have read.

I hope you all will enjoy my reviews and maybe you'll check out some of the books. And I'll be sure to keep everyone posted on whether or not I start back up on caffeine again.

Thanks for reading!