Funny, kind, thoughtful, and seriously... Funny - Amy Poehler is doing this life thing and having a good time. The only Golden Globes ceremony I have EVER watched was the one hosted by Amy and Tina Fey. They were magnificent. Yes Please was published in 2014 when Parks and Recreation was in its fifth or sixth season, 30 Rock was on the air, and Chris Pratt hadn't yet taken off his shirt in Guardians of the Galaxy (no, thank YOU Star Lord). In any case, what I mean to say, is it was published when Poehler was at the top of her game and her friends were all doing well and had interesting projects. Right now I think she's hosting a crafting show with Nick Offerman (I don't really watch TV so I'll have to take Google's word for it).In any case, Yes Please talks a lot about Amy's work with the comedy troop, The Upright Citizen's Brigade, Saturday Night Live, and then Parks and Recreation (which I've never watched but want to start). Through those experiences she has met a lot of people and been able to influence the types of shows and movies that are made by, for and about women. Overall, Amy just seems like a really NICE person who is also really funny but not in a cruel way. She has an entire chapter on apologizing for a skit that she did not properly vet and was a vicious portrayal of a handicapped child. Ouch. I hope to see Amy in future projects because she really is just a silly joy.
4/5 Stars.
I was hesitant to start such a big book and commit to a series (I can tell myself if I don't like it I don't have to read the rest of the series but who are we kidding here, I even read Allegiant when I wanted to rip out my own eyeballs). But I can confidently say, I'm all in on Kvothe and his story. I want big big things for him. I want to know how an orphaned actor became a hero and then gave it all up to be a lowly innkeeper. I want to know all the things that were hinted at and not yet talked about. I want Ambrose to suffer horribly and come to ruin. So yeah, I'm forcing myself to interlude with another book. I made a mistake once of reading two George RR Martin books back to back and halfway through the second had become to resent my choice, and the characters whose intrigue could not be wrapped up succinctly. For now, let's recap The Name of the Wind. Kvothe is a young boy travelling with his parents' theater troupe and enjoying life on the road. He's very bright and picks things up very quickly. Then Ben joins the group. He's something called an Arcanist, meaning he's kind of magical, but in a more metaphysical way rather than wands and spells type of thing. He teaches Kvothe about Sympathy (the connection of all things) and Kvothe, being an exceptionally bright student, learns faster and more thoroughly than Ben can account for.And then, well then Kvothe's family is killed by some very bad beings called The Chandrian and he vows to spend his life avenging his family. But first, he needs to learn how and make it to a place called The University - to do all that learning that Ben started. There he meets the love of his life, a truly brutal adversary, and some very good friends. And then this stupid book ends and I have NO IDEA HOW THIS WORKS OUT AND WHY OH WHY DID THIS HAPPEN AND.....Well you know, good cliff hangers are what keep the folks coming back. Anyway, I loved this in the way I love a good fantasy big book series and although I have the second book sitting on my shelf at home, I'll get to it when the itch doesn't feel quite as urgent, so my mind can truly appreciate the expanse of the world created by Rothfuss.
But, I will say that I wish some of the other characters got half the build out that Kvothe receives. No one else gets as much page time and Denna, the only other "principal" actor in the narrative has some mysterious backstory that Kvothe is too much of a coward to ask about.
4/5
Before picking up Bad Feminist, I had seen Roxane Gay in a few TV interviews in passing. She's always struck me as a thoughtful analyst of issues. But now I know something else. She's FUNNY! This book was funny. There's an entire essay devoted to how awful the 50 Shades series is and it's hilarious. Part memoir, part op-ed type essays, Bad Feminist describes one woman's navigation of the complex world of feminism and all the trappings that go along with trying, or avoiding, declaring oneself as such. I'm was also reminded throughout this book why it is so important to make sure one is exposed to a variety of voices and narratives outside the echo chamber we create for ourselves within and without social media. Many more years ago than I realized had passed, I read The Help with my book club and attended an author talk about the book in Chicago. I remember being vaguely uncomfortable at the use of dialect in the book, written by a white woman, about black women in the Civil Rights Era South. But, for lots of reasons, I didn't recognize the very basis of the book as problematic. And then, overtime, I came to realize the deeply flawed foundation of the book. And Roxane Gay laid it all out in an essay on the topic in this book.She also dove deep into her Scrabble talent. I didn't realize, but probably should have, that there were such things as competitive Scrabble tournaments. There were deeply heartbreaking stories mixed into the story that give a glimpse of the author and her early life's journey. Overall it was a very enjoyable 11 hours to spend in someone's company.
4/5 Stars.
After hearing so many great things about Where the Crawdads Sing, I was excited to receive it in a bulk book mailing from a friend. And it started out pretty good for me. I liked the setting. And I was pretty emotionally invested in young Kya. How could I not be? Kya is six years old when her mother walks away from her family and never looks back.
Her mother turns out to be the glue that was holding her family of two brothers, two sisters, father and mother together in the backwater marsh of coastal North Carolina. Once her mother is gone, Kya's two older sisters and older brother in turn leave the home and the youngest siblings, Jodie (13) and Kya (6) in the hands of their abusive father. After Jodie takes an additional beating, he realizes he can also not stay and leaves Kya alone.
Kya is smart and lithe and she's able to stay out of her father's way for the most part. They make amends of sorts and even spend a couple months together where her father teachers her to fish and navigate the marsh. But when her father is reminded of the mother that left and forced to face his own failings, he reverts to his drunken ways and then disappears for good.
Kya is well and absolutely alone at the age of 7. She walks miles to the grocery store only to be treated with scorn and derision by the town folk. And this is essentially the life that Kya scratches out for years - interacting only occasionally with Jumpin and his wife Mabel, a pair that run a dry goods and boat fuel spot on the marsh. Living in colored town, Mabel and Jumpin understand how secluded Kya actually is and they understand her ostracism from the towns people. So Kya digs mussels and delivers them to Jumpin for cash payment. And in this way she survives on grits and turnip greens.
When she is 13, she re-encounters a friend of her brother Jodie's - Tate. Tate has an odd fascination with Kya and befriends her, teaching her to read and bringing her books to slowly expand her world into science and nature. Kya already knows so much about the marsh. She has become an avid collector of bird feathers, shells, grasses etc. But now she gains the scientific background to go with it.
Tate though eventually has to go to college and so he, like so many people before, abandons Kya even as their relationship was starting to take a serious romantic turn. And this is probably when I stopped being able to overlook all the things that just didn't work about this book.
Because the problem is not with Kya, or with Tate, but with the writing. I know this was Owens' first fiction novel and while she clearly researched the marsh portions and had a knack for writing about nature, the dialogue in this book was really stunted and awkward. The language jumps from vernacular to standard English it seems on a whim.
The author is constantly telling instead of showing. The book suffered from an overindulgence of unnecessary attempts at character development. Tate and Kya both like poetry, okay. But towards the end, Kya is often reciting her favorite "Amanda Hamilton" poems. Amanda Hamilton does not exist, she's made up for the purposes of the book, which would be a spoiler to say much more about except that the poetry is not very good and it is constantly appearing in the text to no purpose except to serve a plot point later on in the story. A plot point that would have been better served not to be set up with mediocre poetry.
Lastly, as a lawyer, the courtroom scenes were extremely difficult to read. So the entire last part of the book was a big disappointment for me.
I hope Owens continues to write. She's likely to get a second book advance based on the returns for this one alone. And it would be nice to see her writing improve as she goes into a new topic. Maybe next time without poetry.
2.5/5 Stars
I ran across the first Leo Demidov book by accident, when I finished a previous audio book and the did a search for more books by the narrator. What a fun find. Semi-historical, but slightly far-fetched, Leo Demidov, the ex-MGB officer turned homicide detective has been on the beat for three years since events ending the prior book, Child 44. The Secret Speech continued Leo's story and quest to become a better man. Leo and his wife Raisa are trying to raise Zoya and her sister Elena, girls left orphaned by Leo's prior activities in arresting denounced anti-Soviets. But you see, they're not doing a good job. Because try as he might, Leo is still responsible for their parents' death, and 13 year old Zoya is having NONE of this. In the meantime, it seems like someone is out to get old MGB officers, hunting them down and killing them. Well, they had created quite a few enemies. At the same time, Khrushchev has given a speech, a "Secret" speech before the party leadership denouncing the excesses and cult of personality operated under Stalin. Now the power dynamic is shifting and no one in Russia is quite sure what is going to become the new normal.And, as it happens, the people who were made powerful by the denunciations, purges and reprisals of the past, are not looking forward to letting go of power. This leads to unlikely allies and a quest by Leo to hold his family together. I like Leo's struggle to be a better person in the face of a state apparatus designed to bring out the worst in people. I also like the banality with which Soviet violence is presented. There's such an undercurrent of futility and waste that makes one wonder why the whole experiment didn't crumble sooner.
3.5/5 Stars.
I'm just going to say it now. This is the best book I will read in 2019. The moment I woke up after reading all night, I sent a note to my mom and sister - "Just finished this last night. It's exquisite."Exquisite. I'm not sure I can think of a better word than that to describe Esi Edugyan's Washington Black. First, the writing is exquisite. This is about as tight as a novel can be written but still say so much. Words aren't wasted. Ordinary words line up in a sentence and become transformative. Here's some examples:"You were children," his father said. "You knew nothing of beauty.""Children know everything about beauty," Titch countered softly. "It is adults who have forgotten.""In any case, it was then I recognized that my own values - the tenets I hold dear as an Englishman - they are not the only, nor the best, values in existence. I understood there were many ways of being in the world, that to privilege one rigid set of beliefs over another was to lose something." Goff gave a flustered grunt, shoving some boiled potatoes into his mouth, but I could see he was interested. "Such a thing is not possible." I peered quietly at him. "Nothing is possible, sir, until it is made so."Point number two: The nuance is exquisite. These characters, they're complex without being unnecessarily so. There are strong positions on slavery and race, but it's not surface stuff. There is so much nuance - so much examination of the subtle violence of slavery and racism that accompany the obvious violence. Point number three: The timelessness of the story is exquisite. Yes, clearly this novel is set in the 1830s. It boldly displays that at the start of each section. And yet. And yet. I would sometimes completely forget that this was happening in a setting close on 200 years ago. All of a sudden a carriage would make its way through a city and I would be shocked to remember that this was all happening a long time ago. This shouldn't be possible when one of the characters is a former slave, and slavery is still a very much real part of the plot, but it just somehow was. George Washington Black, "Wash", was timeless in his character. Somehow. And that is just a very real mark of the artistry put in by Edugyan. So I could say many things about the plot. How 11 year old Wash is selected by Christopher Wilde to become his assistant while he toils around his brother's plantation. How Christopher, "Titch", is repulsed but also complacent in his brother's mistreatment of slaves on the land. How the brutality of slavery seeps into every page of the first part of the novel and beyond. How Wash has an opportunity to escape that life without truly understanding what this meant to be forever one part out and one part in. How a daring escape led to a discovery of what it fully means to be your own person. But this is really not a novel that can be described but has to be experienced. Because my heart still feels full of it and that's a rare gift.
5/5 Stars.
