I really enjoyed portions of The Last Romantics. In the end, it felt a little bit too long, but I really did enjoy this story of four siblings making their way through a world in which their father dies young and their mother, unable to handle the strain of living as a widow responsible for the lives of four children, who shuts down and puts a "pause" on their mothering. I love sibling stories. Sibling relationships contain so many multitudes of depth and understanding.I only have one sister. And our relationship has lasted through rivalry, separation, and now a close bond of friendship, mutual admiration and respect, and shared lifestyles. It's sometimes hard for me to imagine having similar experiences with two additional people.Renee, Caroline, Joe, and Fiona are each individually shaped by their experiences during "the pause" and it carries them into adulthood in varied ways. Never able to fully unload their baggage, they go through periods of self denial. Joe perhaps the worst, because he has been coddled and protected from his choices until he also dies an early death, which leaves each of the sisters grieving in their own destructive ways.The story is told in flashbacks with Fiona giving an author talk at some point over the age of 100. I didn't quite understand the need for this narrative voice as I found it a distraction that teetered on the edge of unbelievability. Will modern medicine improve our lives and outcomes, extending out life spans to well past 100? Perhaps, but the contemplation of this question added nothing to the story except a hint at the secret hiding in the middle.On the whole, this was a well crafted novel about the complicated relationships between siblings, needlessly complicated by a contemplated future in which we experience extended lifespans and unnamed security crises.
3/5 Stars.
I have to admit I wasn't into this one. Every Man a Menace benefits from short declarative and perfunctory sentence structure. It's pace is quick and it moves well. Based in five parts from five different points of view, the book works backward in time, with the first part introducing the character of Raymond Gaspar, a recently released prisoner who has a simple job to perform for his protector on the inside. He needs to figure out which of two people involved in the drug trade have lost their edge. It becomes obvious early on that Raymond is being played by both the distributor, Gloria, and the dealer, Shadrack who are not too keen on letting Raymond in on their well run enterprise. We are told a lot that Raymond is frightened or scared. And then he's dead. Part two steps back in time to before Raymond's death to tell us about the two Miami club owners who are the importers of the ecstasy eventually distributed and sold in San Francisco by Gloria and Shadrack. Isaac and Semion are old friends from the Israeli army who have landed in Miami and have cut a nice niche for themselves in the ecstasy game. We are told when their Belgian supplier falls through, they start to wholesale out of Thailand. Determined to remain small, Semion is at odds with Isaac who has grander plans. So we know that's not going to work out well for Semion who is eventually set up and played by a "crazy" Brazilian woman who he knows is lying to him, but doesn't seem to care.Step back in time to their contact in Thailand, a man who's name I cannot now recall has also been set up by the police as a shake down for a bribe after his grindr date ends up being a plant (by the police). He calls in a favor from the manufacturer of all this ecstasy and the favor ends up being called in right away in the form of forcing the contact to get Semion and Isaac to agree to a bigger order. So the last part of the book then fast forwards through all this back to Raymond and Gloria and Shadrack to make some kind of sense of who is cutting out who in this cut throat industry of the drug trade. The book is gritty without texture and full of interesting characters that are a complete blank. I'm good with non linear timelines. I'm good with morally bankrupt characters. I like diversity among characters. Check, check, check. But here, it felt like EMaM was merely checking off boxes as I have done here on a list, without taking the necessary steps to weave anything together. The extra piece is missing here to turn this from a page turning crime drama into something in which to become invested.
2/5 Stars.
Philip K. Dick was ahead of his time when he penned A Scanner Darkly. Published in 1977, it is a gritty dystopian story of undercover narcotics informant Bob Arctor who lives in a house with other substance abusers. The world is divided between dopers and straights and never the two intermix. The straights have been taught that the dopers are mindless fiends for the drugs - substance D.When Arctor puts on a "scramble suit" causing him to appear as a faceless nameless blur, he takes on the persona of Fred, a narcotics agent charged, ironically with the surveillance of Bob Arctor, who seems to be making a play to become a heavy drug dealer. Because Arctor must consumer substance D in order to maintain his cover, the damage done to his brain causes him to suffer a rift in his reality, where eventually he no longer recognizes that Fred and Bob Arctor are one in the same. It's brilliantly painful, and slowly wrought as Dick's writing makes smaller and smaller moves to make us aware of the breakdown. At once a condemnation of the damage done by drugs, without condemnation of the users, Dick's story came from a deeply personal place, evident by the epilogue in which he lists the names of several people who died or became disabled due to their drug use. The novel also serves as an early condemnation of the war on drugs, which criminalized small dealers, but created an industry that required the addicts in order to operate. I can only imagine this was difficult to write. There were times when the story moved frustratingly slow, but mostly it was a pleasure to read.
4/5 Stars.
This book was all around excellent. I had heard of the TV show (I have eyeballs and access to the internet, so...) and was vaguely aware that it was based on a book. I'm glad I chose this one. There wasn't quite enough detail on her trial for the law nerd in me, but that's not the point of Orange is the New Black.This very well done memoir of Piper Kerman, who follows her girlfriend to Indonesia in a slightly naive pursuit of "adventure" and ends up ferrying money for illicit drugs through US airports. She gets out of the game and moves on with her life but the incredibly slow wheels of the US justice system eventually catch up to her and she is sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. Due to some delays, she doesn't actually start her sentence until 10 years after her crimes. Sentenced to Danbury (sorry this was audio, I don't know how to spell anything) minimum security, Piper puts up with the monotony and doldrums that make up prison life. The hardest thing to deal with would definitely be the day to day nonsensical BS that comes with a large federal program. Piper seems to make friends along the way and serves her time without going too crazy.This memoir is extremely well written and avoided cliches and hyperbole. It's not hard to guess why it has been so well received.
5/5 Stars.
