Self-made man by Norah Vincent

Joseph Conrad once said that “being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.” Oftentimes, I would say that this is true. Walk past a construction site, walk down a busy road, and you will be reminded that you are a woman, and some people view you as a sexual object, as someone whose brain could never be as desirable as your body. So when Norah Vincent went out one night in drag and found that she got no catcalls, heard no whispers from the corners of dark New York streets, her curiosity was piqued. On that night, she got a glimpse into male culture. Men glanced at her and looked away, and it astounded her that purposefully not looking could be a sign of respect. So, following in the tradition of famous literary characters and famous people alike, she embarked on a year and a half long journey into male culture.

Self-made man is a book with a surprising message. It is not the anti-man diatribe that anyone was expecting, but rather an explosive piece of journalism that teaches all of us that, even in a mans world it can be hard to be a man. Norah Vincent has explored and exposed six facets of a man’s life; friendship, sex, love, life, work and self. There are some explicit parts. There are things about the book as a whole that are surprising, and there are things that are not: male culture makes an effort to raise tough young men. When it initially fails, a new message is sent out in full force; “grow a thicker skin.”

Male friendship is much deeper and more complex that women realize. There are the surface aspects, the silliness that we all see. But there is a deeper connection, a connection that very few women see or experience, at least with men. Secrets are shared, yes, but in a very different way than women share their secrets. Men share, maybe cry, and come back from it maybe a little uncomfortable, but feeling fulfilled. It is not a long, drawn out affair. Sadness is reserved for certain rare occasions.

Self made man is a tour de force in journalism, and it is an important book. Women too often underestimate men, write them off as having no emotions, or only one. As women, we need to grow and recognize that men are more complex than we realize.

Zoo Station – a memoir of Christiane f.’s life

Zoo Station tells the story of Christiane, whose young life was consumed with addiction. It is not only an illustration of a little known social phenomenon, but a very accurate, and at times uncomfortable memoir. At twelve, Christane has already lived what, at the time, was an absolutely ordinary life if you happened to be living in the projects in Berlin. Her father was abusive, which resulted in her mother taking the girls and moving in with her new twenty year old boyfriend Klaus. At this point, the story is still moving pretty slowly, but it picks up rapidly when Christiane starts spending time with a new friend Kessi. They join a clique, which is a soft drug, marijuana and alcohol scene. And for Christiane, these things turn out to be only the gateway to her next phase. She starts to sneak off to clubs in the city. By the time she’s 14, she and her boyfriend are selling their bodies to feed their ever-growing heroin addiction.

Christiane’s memoir isn’t an easy read exactly. The language and jargon are pretty standard for a semi biographical work, but the material is sad and surreal, and shocking at times. Christiane tries multiple times to beat the addiction, and fails again and again. You rise and fall with her, and the ups and downs leave you, eventually, exhausted. This particular account is entirely unfiltered, and at times even a little boring, as life can often be. But this book leaves no story untold. Christiane’s failures and struggles are depicted accurately, and the feeling of rising and falling time after time can become monotonous.

Christiane lives a life that, sadly, many can understand. Drug addiction hasn’t gone away or decreased, and for many, Christiane’s life is only too close to their own. But everyone should read this book. The 1970′s heroin epidemic was heretofore unknown to me. And despite the fact that much of the subject material is foreign, I found myself empathizing with Christiane more than I thought I would. I think that, in the end, the reality of our lives is that we are all having this big human experience. It is rare for someone to drop so far out of our sphere of living that they cannot be related to; and that never happens to Christiane. She spends her young adult life circling the drain of addiction, and there is no finite ending to her story.

Prepare yourself for brutal honesty, and what seems at times to be a neverending parade of challenges that are thrown into Christiane’s face. This is a heart wrenching, sick to the stomach read. But it will leave you feeling grateful and hopeful, in unexpected ways.

“It seemed like she could be anything she wanted, but she didn’t want to be anything.”

This is not a test by Courtney Summers

This is not a test is an exploration of what it takes to keep living when the end is not only in sight, but literally pounding on the doors. Not many would think to pair a suicidal and lonely teenager with a zombie apocalypse, but Summers not only links the two together effortlessly, she draws in all the difficulties of regular life. This book is more of an emotional survival story than it is a thriller.

Sloane Price, the main character, is at a loss. She isn’t afraid of the end; she longs for it. Her older sister Lily escaped their abusive father, leaving Sloane to suffer him alone. So when the end of the world comes flailing against her front door, Sloane isn’t scared of it. Somehow, though, she ends up with a group of teenagers locked in at her school. They lock the doors, barring themselves in with fresh water and supplies. And for a while, everything is as fine as it can be when zombies are waiting patiently outside your doors. But then, as you might expect, emotional ties start to form. Fingers are pointed. Betrayal, anger, lust, hatred and sickness invade the school, and it is only about to get worse.

Good paranormal fiction is hard to come by. The genre walks a fine line between too much fantasy and too little emotion. Oftentimes, the writing can be sloppy or cliched and over dramatic. The characters are often not well developed. There is usually a poorly formed love triangle, which you can’t particularly understand because none of its counterparts are particularly appealing. The characters have bright and shiny experiences, the gritty and difficult parts are glossed over, and you come away feeling uncertain and abruptly shut out of something that could have been real. But Summers has done a remarkably intricate job of creating down to earth, well rounded characters, and giving them life experiences even inside such an ambiguous reality. Not every moment is difficult, but even the best and nicest are explored, the sharp edges exposed. The entirety of the book feels real. It explores fundamental questions, yes, but specifically, it asks if the end justifes the means. Are the small victories worth the big sacrifices, in the end?

“I woke up and the last piece of my heart disappeared. I opened my eyes and I felt it go.” -Sloane Price

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Everyone has a type; tomboys, girly girls, drama queens, bad boys, cool guys, techies. For the most part, though, at some point everyone discovers that saying that they have a “type” is a really limiting, and eventually heartbreaking, thing to do. Colin, the main character of An Abundance of Katherines, has a very, very specific type: girls named Katherine. He has dated 19 Katherines; each and every one has broken his heart, in their various ways. He knows every break up line in the book. And so, upon the loss of the 19th Katherine, Colin’s best friend Hassan drags him on a summer long road trip.

I’m not going to spoil the ending for you. The plot isn’t ridiculously complex. But, despite the simple plot, John Green has inserted a plethora of good advice and life lessons into this coming of age story about an anagramming, theorizing teen prodigy.

This book is quirky. Every other chapter holds something hilariously embarrassing or surprising. And, as with every good book, the sadness is there, plainly stated, but unrealized until you finally put it back on the shelf. There is real sadness in unrequited love. But as with all of John Green’s work, the story drags you in until the moment you finish it, and realize that you really understand what Colin is going through.

John Green is an expert in something that very few authors have accomplished; he is excellent at suspending emotion, at leaving you reading between the lines. Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but being so drawn into a story that you forget that the emotions are not your own is entirely another.

In life, everyone has their ordinary losses, their drama, their unrequited love. But we keep going. We are perpetually swimming in sadness, and we rarely, if ever, acknowledge it. Most of us don’t look around, and feel hopelessly sad about other people’s pain. We are so used to seeing heartbreak or loss. We respond to deep losses. It is the human condition to dwell on what is not ordinary. But we forget the things that everyone goes through. We forget the first heartbreak, and we tell those who we see going through it that everyone has to, and that we promise it will be alright in the end. But we forget what it feels like to be that person. We forget what it feels like to forget to come up for air. We forget what it feels like to be drowning, because we are all drowning in our own ways. Not everyone is heartbroken. But everyone hurts. Some of us are just better at remembering to breathe.

In An Abundance of Katherines, John Green explores the life of a person who experiences his life in knowledge. Every event is tied to a fact, every person has a mundane story that seems important to Colin. Colin remembers everything he reads. He could tell you exactly what happened to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. He can tell you how to tame a wild hog (yes, wild). But when he gets his heart broken by the 19th Katherine, he wants a way to predict the next heartbreak. And after hundreds of tries, he realizes that, while any theorem can predict the past perfectly, if tweaked enough times, a theorem can never predict the future perfectly. You can only get a probability from the future. The future is never here. It hangs in front of you forever. Living your life in trying to predict the future is making the decision to be a little bit broken.

An Abundance of Katherines is witty, charming, clever, and surprisingly full of lessons that you can learn only by reading between the lines. It is not a book that will immediately change your life, although everything you do does change your life to an extent. But the lessons that you learn only later are the ones that apply to this book.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Review: I have a confession to make. I have committed the ultimate literary faux pas; I judged a book by its cover. Now, let’s all be honest here. No one can say that they haven’t forgone a good book at least once because the cover (and or title) didn’t seem to have much depth. I for one have made this mistake several times, but I was never as wrong as I was about Anna and the French Kiss. Looking at the cover, I don’t see anything that really draws me in. The title is more cliched than popcorn and a movie. But. Having read the book, there couldn’t be a better picture, or a more all encompassing title. This book is the culmination of my three favorite things: uncomfortable, but oh-so relatable situations, big words, and the very difficult to articulate sensation of becoming-yourself-away-from-everything-you-know that is teenagerhood. Anna and the French Kiss is filled with callipygian boys, and completely absent of meretricious language. It is full to the brim of euphemisms, and references to fabulous literature (you want an example? Like Water for Chocolate), and it’s bursting with a really tangible sense of emotion that is almost too easy to connect with. It draws parallels to cliches, and manages to be genuine without trying to hard. This is the book of the year. This is the literary Breakfast Club. If you have to read one book this year that will make you laugh, make you smile, and make you wish it would never end, choose this one.

Summary:

All Anna wants is the perfect senior year, in her hometown, Atlanta, Georgia, with the perfect boyfriend (Toph), the hilarious best friend (Bridget), the adorable little brother (Seany), and a fabulous cinema blog (Femme Film Freak). But Anna’s father has other plans; he’s sending her to the School Of America in Paris. Yes, that’s right. He’s sending her to SOAP. Upon arriving, Anna discovers that there are some pros to her situation. And the biggest ones name is Etienne St. Clair. An English-French-American hybrid who has messy hair, a short stature, and the kind of crooked smile that goes weak at the knees. St. Clair, of course, has his own pros and cons. The pros: he’s St. Clair. The cons: he has a major girlfriend.

Anna discovers that Paris is the film capitol of the world, and her blog soars. She loves English, hates French, ironically, and learns how to order her own food. She thrives; and she wishes for St. Clair every time she visits the magical Point Zero, where everything in Paris comes together.

Anna and St. Clair find themselves alone at the school for several days, with only the faculty to keep an eye on them. And St. Clair, whose life is falling apart, spends a little more time with Anna than he should. He sleeps in her room, they spend all day together. But when everyone returns, including St. Clairs girlfriend Ellie, Anna and St. Clair start to drift apart, and Anna starts to feel furious at him for leading her on. At Christmas break, Anna discovers that Bridget has started dating Toph, despite knowing that Anna liked him. A lot. Anna is furious at Bridget, and her Christmas break is ruined. Except for one thing. St. Clair, who is miserable, stuck with his father while his mother is in radiation therapy, calls constantly. They email all the time. They become each others home.

On Anna’s birthday, however, when “the gang” goes out to celebrate, and Anna and St. Clair have to much to drink, awkward things happen on the dance floor. Anna and St. Clair grow apart. For a long time. But eventually, Anna realizes that she can put everything back together again. And she will move mountains trying to.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Review: Many people fear that should something bad happen to our planet, we would lose our sense of humanity and equality. James Dashner explores what desperation can do to our society, and how important it is to have a sense of  our future, and who, as humans, we are.

Science fiction is usually not my genre, but this book contains a compelling struggle and also an almost involuntary exploration of how inherent personality is. Many people would say that without our memories we are nothing, but in this novel, there is an interesting exploration of how ingrained the sense of self is.

This is a fantastic and entertaining story.

Summary:

Thomas wakes up in an elevator. When the elevator arrives at his destination, he steps out into The Glade, an enclosed living area containing forty other teenage boys. It is explained to him that they all woke up in the elevator, at first several, then only one per month as time passed. They get shipments of food, clothes, shoes, and whatever they need. Every day, the giant gate that keeps the Glade separate from whatever is outside. Each day, the runners run the maze outside the gates, trying to find a way out. But get stuck in the maze at night, and you soon have bigger problems than just being alone. Because you’re not alone. The Grievers, giant globs of goo and metal spikes will chase you with a vengeance. If they catch you, you’ll be injected with something that causes you to remember everything that happened to you before you came to the maze. Because upon your arrival, all you know is your own name. As if this weren’t enough, the day after Thomas arrives, the Gladers are faced with something they’ve never had to deal with before. A girl. A girl who triggers The End. And if they don’t find their way out of the maze, there won’t be a reason to worry anymore. Because each night, the Grievers will kill one of them.

Thomas and his friends must find a way to escape, and discover how to get out of the maze. Oh. And to find out who they are, and why they were chosen.

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler

Review: There is a time in everyone’s life when we befriend someone who we will eventually regret having had contact with at all. And after this befriending occurs, regardless of whether it’s a platonic or a romantic relationship, we can always look back and say to ourselves (and, let’s just admit right here) that the person we were with is truly a terrible person (although usually they’re not). Alternately, we sometimes think: why didn’t I see all the terrible things they were doing when we were together, whereas now I can look back and tell myself how very stupid I was?

Why We Broke Up is an exploration of those feelings, and also of the blindness that so inherently goes with them. The main character, Min, is a role model for girls everywhere, in that:

a) she made a huge mistake, and

b) she did not let it define her, which is not to mention,

c) she did not ignore what happened and pretend it was insignificant. In fact, Min so artfully details the happenings of this book that you almost forget that, yes, a breakup is inevitable.

Told in snapshots and memorabilia, Daniel Handler has artfully displayed the truth about relationships, and has somehow managed to leave out all the lies we tell ourselves about said relationships.

Artful, funny, and full of don’t do what I did advice, Why We Broke Up is a book that every teenage girl should read.

Summary:

Min is a weird girl. She’s a feminist. She uses big words. She likes to watch old movies and drink strange alcoholic beverages, and she is named after Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom.

When she meets Ed Slaterton, she never suspects that she and Ed might get together. But, before she knows it, Min is with him at the movies, and they’re kissing beneath weeping willows, and making igloos out of squared eggs and cookies out of stolen sugar.

Min doesn’t change for Ed- at least not on purpose. But she finds herself anxious around her friends, and discovers, too late, that she’s given him more than she should have.

Told in excerpts, with pictures of important aspects of each chapter, like bottles of alcohol and an egg cuber, Min’s story is artfully woven and very creative; a brilliant story.

Between Shades of Gray- Ruta Sepetys

Review:

“Few books are beautifully written, fewer still are important; this novel is both” — The Washington Post

I’ve always been interested in the question of good or evil. Whether or not there even is a question to ask, or humans are just fundamentally flawed beyond recognition of any idealistic pedestal we set ourselves on. In Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys explores the vicious brutality of Stalin and his followers through this remarkable piece of historical nonfiction.

But this book is more deep and complex than just cruelty and  goodness; it explores, also, the amazing sense of humanity. The inherent sense that there is more. That things get better. And that, as humans, it is our job to capture that feeling, in whatever way possible. For the heroine of this book, she catches those moments in art, showing me and all readers that without art, all would be lost. Art has the power to create, to destroy, to change, to conform, but most of all, to bind. To make a lasting difference.

This book was very well worth reading. It really changed the way I look at things; it made me wish I could draw. But it was very dark. There is a lot of cruelty in this book, and it was very difficult to read because it is so powerful. The imagery in this book will make you cry. It will make you think. And mostly, it will lift you up into a sense of what should be, and what isn’t.

Summary:

Fifteen year old Lina has a future. Everyone says so, and she knows it’s true. She draws the truth, whether it’s bitter or filled with joy. But these drawings, her parents fear, will get her in trouble.

One night, the NKVD shows up in Lina’s home, telling her mother that the family has twenty minutes to be ready to leave. Lina’s father is gone. Her mother tells Lina and her younger brother Jonas that their father will meet them. They are put into a truck with many other Lithuanians and driven to a train station. Once at the station, they are loaded into a cattle car, and driven from Kaunas, Lithuania, to Vilnius, where Lina, her brother, and a boy who is in their car, Andrius, sneak away to search for their fathers. Lina finds her father and he tells her to draw him clues that will lead him eventually to where they are.

They get back into the cattle car, and drive for forty days, hungry, starving. They arrive at Atlai labor camp, where they are worked hard and some are forced into prostitution. Andrius and Lina fall in love, just as Lina, Jonas, and their mother are taken again, this time much farther away, to Trofimovsk, the North Pole. The freezing temperatures kill many before the family is saved. But salvation comes too late for Lina’s mother.

Leap Day by Wendy Mass

Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November. All the rest have thirty one, though February’s underdone with twenty-eight — now hold the line, leap day makes it twenty nine.

Leap Day is a day full of common misconceptions. Though everyone knows about leap day, a surprisingly small amount of people actually know what leap day is- the reason for it or the origin.

A commonly (wrongly) held belief is that of the idea that there are 365 days in a year. While this is true to some extent, the fact is that there are 365 and a quarter days in a year, which is where leap day comes in every four years, to round it off so that we don’t wind up having Christmas in the summer.

The origin of leap day is somewhat of a mystery to many people, although for it to be a mystery there might have to be a curiosity in the first place. There are several myths about leap day, the most common one being that it was a day given to women so that they could propose to men instead of the other way around. The men could not turn the women down unless they offered them a silk gown and a kiss in consolation.

Josie Taylor knows for a fact how special it is to be born on Leap Day; she’s reminded every four years by the Domino’s pizza guy. But this year is extra special; it’s her SIXTEENTH birthday, and along with  a drivers licence, Josie might just get a change in perspective.

Summary:

Josie Taylor’s fourth birthday is finally here. Well, technically, it’s her sixteenth. Regardless, neither her parents nor her friends are going to let this day slide by unannounced.

Over the course of Josie’s day, we see her point of view, opinions, and feelings about others. They way they touch her, and the way she touches them. But you also see the way she touches others; after each chapter is an excerpt of each person Josie comes in contact with; how she has changed them.

Wendy Mass has created a masterpiece. This is human interaction at its finest; it was well worth the read, and good for a laugh.

Ten Miles Past Normal by Frances O’Roark Dowell

Different. Everyone has their own philosophy about that word. I find that the two most common are that:

 

 

a) being different should be celebrated

and b) differences should be brushed under the mat.

There is another philosophy emerging from the center of our culture, and that is the idea that being different isn’t special. That being different isn’t wrong or right, but that’s it’s not a particularly interesting thing to be either.

And then there’s Normal. That’s a word that carries a lot of baggage. Normalcy is appreciated in our culture, and alongside normalcy live oppression and fear. To some, being normal is a good thing. Easy life, easy word. To others, the very idea of normalcy is offensive. Normalcy is conforming. Normalcy is being the dreaded same. And then, to those who live lives they regard as abnormal or other, normal is something to search for.

To the main character of Ten Miles Past Normal, Janie, normal is a state of nonexistence; something she looks for, but it’s never really there; and she doesn’t really know what it is she’s looking for.

One fundamental idea of this book is that normal and different aren’t things you can look for; they’re things you’re born with, that you have to embrace.

Summary:

Ten Miles Past Normal is a coming of age story. Janie, a not-so-normal teen lives on a farm several miles away from her small town. Janie wishes for nothing more than to go to school smelling like something other than goats. She has a classic crush on an unobtainable boy, a funny best friend who has a remarkably smart and rebellious older sister, and a burning desire to make new friends and become who she really is: normal. When Janie and her best friend Sarah get pulled into a band at school, courtesy of unobtainable boy, Janie meets Monster- a 6 foot tall, sweet as honey pie bass player. He volunteers to help her learn the bass.

Janie and Sarah are assigned a women’s rights project, and they eventually decide to do it about a woman named Mrs. Pritchard who founded the Freedom School; a school that taught black people to read and write back in the 40′s. Janie and Sarah start the project, and have successful results.

Janie and Monster start spending time together, just as Sarah gets the idea to break into the building where the Freedom School is. They get caught, and taken to jail. Their parents, having picked them up, are surprisingly lenient about the whole ordeal.