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.

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.

Peace, Love and Baby Ducks- Lauren Myracle

Review: For the most part, sisterhood is a wonderful journey. And yet, as I think most sisters would agree, there are some big bumps along the way. There are general conflicts, of course; who ruined whose t-shirt, and why does she get to go and I can’t- these are, primarily, elemental pieces of the greater puzzle that is sisterhood. There are deeper pieces too, though, some pieces that can’t really be explained to someone who doesn’t have a sister. Peace, Love & Baby Ducks explores the strong bond between sisters, and all of the underlying tension and conflict that exists between them. It examines the realm that exists between them, both that fierce protection that an older sister feels for a younger one, and the deep desire to be loved and understood which is so elemental in the existence of a younger sister, and yet which is thankfully not fragile, for try as they might, an older sister can rarely anticipate just what might set the younger one off; and vice versa. Lauren Myracle has done a truly remarkable job in showing both the connections of sisterhood and the difficulties of being a teenager. She has illustrated and put into words a lot of subtle elements that are hard to get at.

*this review is dedicated to my little sister.

‘When our hair is white, we’ll still have our sister love.’- Shanghai Girls.

Summary:

Fifteen year old Carly is a rebel. But she’s a rebel with a sidekick and a back-up plan; she has her sister Anna.

Carly and Anna are as different as black and white, night and day. And, just as night and day, they exist on different planes of the world. Carly lives in her down to earth real world, where people suffer, there is pain, and stereotypes are as brutal as knives and guns, and being different is a badge of honor. Anna lives in a world of perfection and pearls, where a white miniskirt printed with pink whales is “adorable”, and everyone should try to fit in; even if that means bleaching one’s teeth.

And also like night and day, Carly and Anna have their moments of converging, as the sun rises and the world reconnects, if only for a second. Carly is there for Anna 24/7. That’s what sisters are for, after all. They are there, somewhere, even when night and day diverge.

When Carly returns from summer camp, she discovers that her sister Anna has blossomed. And by blossomed, she means grown up. And by grown up, she means, Anna is hot. Hotter than Carly; hot enough that, even as a freshman, she’s going to attract a lot of attention. But Carly and Anna love each other, so despite that teeny twinge of jealousy, Carly manages to push it aside for her little “ducky-wucky”- a nickname that Anna despises.

A few days before school starts, Carly and Anna get their hair cut. Anna, conforming to the style of their school, Holy Redeemer, goes simple. Carly, however, decides to try a radical style with a new stylist; and it does not turn out as planned.

Going back to school, Carly and Anna discover that they are both going to have plenty of conflicts; Carly, dealing with first, comments about her hair, and second, comments about how “hot” her sister is, and Anna, discovering that Carly and Carly’s friend Peyton weren’t lying; Anna really will get hit on.

Carly crushes on a new boy, drops Peyton, and moves on to  a new friend; Vonzelle, the only African American girl at school. Peyton and Anna percieve Carly’s friendship with Vonzelle as part of Carly’s quest to break the Holy Redeemer mold, and Carly starts to pressure Anna to break stereotypes and rank with Holy Redeemer.

Carly’s parents leave town, leaving Carly and Anna with a “babysitter”, their creepy housekeeper Tracy. Peyton asks Carly if they can have a small get together at her house. Carly and Anna discover a box of chicks  on their doorstep. They make them a temporary home in the bathtub, and ask Tracy to drive them to a store to buy duck food and supplies. Tracy drops off Carly and Vonzelle; Anna has stayed home. Carly and Vonzelle arrive home to discover that a raging party is going on at their house. Once Carly manages to kick everyone out, she discovers that Anna has gone missing. She goes out to look for Anna, and eventually, she finds her. They hug, and apologize profusely. Then they go home and clean up the party.

This book is wrought with lessons and experiences, boy crushes and whales.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Review: When I first picked up this book, I was afraid that it would make me cry. Books about teenage cancer patients with terminal cancer rarely avoid the route of sadness and despair. And this book will make you cry, but not because of an overwhelming despair and hopelessness; this book subscribes more to the idea that your life is how your life is; you fight until you can’t fight anymore, and then you hope.

When books are written from the point of view of a cancer patient, they often take on the tone which is expected of them: hopelessness. Full of loss and sacrifice, with little joy or good news, rarely a witty or cleverly worded comment. The new element that John Green has brought to the table is that of humor and witticism, which is not to say that loss and sacrifice are not huge elements of this story. His main character, Hazel, has terminal thyroid cancer. She carries a tank of oxygen, and wears a cannula due to the fact that she has metoids in her lungs. But, as with all unlikely heroines, Hazel has a special quality that is just as unusual and breathtaking as her heroism; Hazel has words. She reads and reads, and in all that reading, picks up so many words that John Green’s novel is overflowing with them. As much as a person may say, “well, of course a book has words”, the sad fact is, that much like children playing with wooden blocks to make easy words like “cat” and “dog”, many authors neglect words that are not building blocks. This isn’t to say that the word “beautiful” isn’t a perfectly good and useful word, because it is. What it lacks, however, is the quality of strange familiarity. We hear, over the course of our lives, many, many words, and yet, the average person is said to know 12000 to 20000 words, and yet, in the English language, there are 1013913. So, due to this sobering statistic, many people may never hear the word sobriquet: a nickname, sometimes assumed, usually given by another. Or the word Hamartia: a fatal flaw. Both of these are words that I learned from John Green; and they are both words I plan to start using more frequently.

John Green has woven together a literary masterpiece. His characters are interesting, and perfectly flawed; his words link together like chain mail; not to be torn apart or dissected.

Summary:

Hazel has had terminal thyroid cancer since she was thirteen. Thus far, it has been held back by Phalanxifor, but in the winter of Hazel’s seventeenth year, she becomes depressed. Her mother, a deeply caring and concerned person, forces her to go back to cancer support group, which meets in the basement of an Episcopal church, right in the middle of the cross, where the literal heart of Jesus Christ would have been. Hazel, not being a religious, or a deeply hopeful person, does not enjoy support group. Until the day she goes back, and meets a new “survivor”, named Augustus Waters, who announces he lost a leg due to osteosarcoma, but is fine now, and really only here for his friend Isaac, who is about to lose his second eye to cancer.

Augustus approaches Hazel after the meeting. He asks her to watch a movie at his house. Hazel safely assumes that Augustus is not a serial killer, and agrees to go.

What Hazel hadn’t expected was to fall in love with Augustus. Not quickly, and not in a sappy, sick way, but slowly. And once Hazel has fallen in love with Augustus, she shares her favorite book with him; An Imperial Affliction. He immediately gives her the Wish that he got from the Wish genies in exchange for his leg, and Hazel and Augustus (and Hazel’s mother, of course) set off to find the author, Peter Van Houten, and drag the end of the book out of him, because the book ends in the middle of a sentence. They discover, however, that Peter Van Houten is miserable, a drunk, and that he really doesn’t know how the story ends.

And, while I will not end this review mid-sentence, I will not tell you anymore. This book is so heart-wrenchingly beautiful and fantastic that is would be positively sacrilege to do so. You will love this book. Guaranteed. Whether you do or do not love superfluous vocabulary, your heart will beat a little faster as you reach the end of this story.

The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler

Review: The Basic Eight is a rare book in that the author makes no attempt to make the main character particularly likeable. The character, Flannery Culp, has her sympathetic moments, but she is a bit of an anomaly in terms of main characters, due to the fact that she is not written to be a likeable character. More to the point, she is not written to be a repugnant character either. She is neither overly off putting or particularly nice; she is very much herself. She could, in fact, be her own adjective: Flannery: (fla-ne-ree) being oneself without trying to impress or pull the wool over another’s eyes.

As I was reading the Basic Eight, it occurred to me that if I were to meet Flannery Culp in my school or my town, she would not very likely be someone I enjoyed spending all of my time with. I delighted in this discovery, due to the fact that in most books, primarily those written for teenagers and young adults, the main character, or a character who deeply influences the main character is very likeable: ex. very likeable character: Peeta from The Hunger Games, conversely, a very difficult character could be Sammy from Before I Fall.

Flannery Culp, however, is very much her own entity. She is totally herself, all the time, which is part of the reason why the book was so enjoyable. Written in a journal-style prose, Flannery’s story, told as she edits her diary after the Basic Eight have done what they did, Flannery’s story is complicated, jumbled, messy, mixed up, confusing, and delightful all at once.

I recommend it highly; furthermore I recommend you do not read the summary, as I think you should read the book.

Summary:

High school is a difficult time for anyone; and for Flannery Culp, who spent the summer before senior year in Italy, writing love letters to a semi-indifferent, mostly negligent of his feelings young boy named Adam, Flannery finds that she hates senior year just as much as the years before it, or so the book advertises. I would merely invoke the idea that Flannery has a pretty fabulous time for at least the first part of the book; her friends are funny, she has dinner parties, and she is witty and clever. I will concede that things go downhill for Flannery not so very far into the book. Flannery writes her “journal” from the standpoint of jail, several months into the future. She is editing it, interjecting articles from famous psychologists, and conversations from the “Winnie Moprah” show, all of which discuss how Flannery, and her 7 friend, the eight of whom make up the Basic Eight, are dangerous and have killed Flannery’s “lover” Adam State, who, to be quite honest, probably did not deserve to be killed, though Flannery was stood up by Adam; she was jilted by Adam, I think you could say. The dark humor that Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler’s pen name for the Series of Unfortunate Events) ran rampant, and I found myself laughing at things that were most certainly not funny, in a literal sense.

I recommend this book very highly, but with a few asides: this is somewhat a psychological comedic-drama. Flannery is very irrational, and there is a lot of substance abuse and sexuality in the book. I myself did not find said elements particularly overwhelming, but I will say that there was a lot of it. I read several other reviews, a few of which stated that the book was “disturbing” due to the insight into the irrationality of the minds of my generation; however, I would say that it is not an accurate display of reactions, though Flannery’s feelings are certainly valid.