· book reviews

#34 Transparency Stories by France Hwang

October 8, 2007 in book reviews, books, short fiction submissions | Permalink

#34 Transparency: Stories. Frances Hwang. Short Fiction. 3.5 Stars

These stories were haunting and beautiful overall, and while they did not link together directly as some collections do they had a similar tone and flavor that gave the collection a cohesiveness that was enjoyable. As usual with short fiction I was moved by some pieces more than others, but unlike many collections I read all of the stories were strong.

The Old Gentleman, Blue Hour, Transparency, and Sonata for the Left Hand were my favorites, but I can’t quite pinpoint why as they were written with the same beautiful ease as the other. I suppose I just connected a little more to the characters or what they were going through in these pieces than the others. I did feel that Hwang’s longer pieces were her stronger works, Remedies, The Modern Age, and Giving a Clock were for me the weaker of the bunch and also by far the shortest works.

Ironically enough the two last pieces in the collection, Intruders and Garden City, I enjoyed immensely, but they ended abruptly for me and left me wanting in a kind of desperate way. Perhaps this is what Hwang intended, but I confess to being disappointed considering how satisfied I felt with my favorites in the collection. In fact I feel and felt most connected to the character Susan in Intruders and was moved by this story above all others, but ultimately I felt a bit let down, but considering the nature of the piece, perhaps that is what Hwang wanted in me.

Overall a strong collection, that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys short fiction. 3.5 stars.

#33. Famous Fathers And Other Stories

September 14, 2007 in book reviews | Permalink

#33. Famous Fathers And Other Stories. Short Fiction Collection. Pia Z. Ehrhardt. 4 stars.

this is the best short fiction collection that i have read in a long time. it almost felt like i wasn’t reading it. the stories just kind of washed over me and infected me with their bittersweet taste. all the stories were told from the perspective of interesting women, and all the stories, sans the title piece, dealt with infidelity (if you read this blog you know i’m having a lot of thoughts about that these days).

the funny thing about Ehrhardt’s take on infidelity, or at least, what i got from it after finishing, is that life just tramples through. people make these choices and do these things, and often infidelity is in the past or in the future for you and you already know it or you’re going to one day. we are all affected by it, we are influenced by it, yet it does not rule our lives. it’s just this fact in a series of facts, both good and bad in life.

i walked away from Famous Fathers feeling like life is very very big and you can have no idea what is going to happen, nor should you, because then what would be the point. having gone through infidelity in my life i have to say that i’m not a fan. i’m not in it enough or far enough away from it to be able to be like the women in Famous Fathers, the women who are either relishing it, or just over it. not to say that these women are all happy, the stories were incredibly bittersweet – and some were out and out sad – but the overall feeling was one of life washing over you as you read her strories – much like her book washed over me.

there were some beautiful passages and gorgeous language, but in general i suppose that the stories were so well crafted and edited that they just seemlessly happened and there wasn’t much time to sit back and be fascinated with this passage or that, because you were already onto the next thing. much like there wasn’t much time to be too concerned about the infidelity, because you were already onto the next thing.

i hope that Ehrhardt’s book is more non-fiction than fiction, because i know in my life i’d really like to be “onto the next thing”.

#32…it’s comics and i’m counting it

September 10, 2007 in book reviews, comics, the walking dead, writing, x-men | 9 comments

normally i wouldn’t count a comic book, unless it was a really impressive graphic novel or a long collection or trade, as a “book” especially for my review/goal purposes, however i am both WAY behind on goal, and the quality of the books i read this weekend was so high, and also quite frankly i think i read almost 60 comic books on sunday and so, well, it took all day and i’m counting it.

feel free to call bullshit on this if you like in the comments (i’m sure Josh will).

this all started because i was at the always awesome Jim Hanley’s on Saturday (of course they did not have a copy of James Jeans’ Process Recess 2, so i’m disappointed, but whatever). anyway, here i am and as usual i somehow find myself in the X-Men section (why does this always happen? must be my childhood rearing it’s head). so i bought a copy of Astonishing X-Men #22 (the current issue). Astonishing X-Men is currently written by Joss Whedon and i am a huge Joss (therefore Buffy) fan and the art, by John Cassady, was impeccable. so i take it home Saturday night and read it. it was awesome. the best comic book (excepting The Walking Dead or the original run incarnation of Supreme Power) that i have read in an age.

so this began a quest to get and read the previous 21 issues, so i could actually know what the hell was going on. suffice to say that was done with much assistance from Adam (thank you!). and i absolutely loved the whole damn thing. every issue was beautiful and brilliant. a smaller cast (primarily Scott Summers/Cyclops, Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast, Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat, Emma Frost/White Queen, and Peter/Piotr Rasputin/Colossus, and Logan/James Howlett/Wolverine) made much more time for character work and beautiful art mixed flawlessly with Joss’ spot on dialogue – sparse when necessary – dense only when absolutely necessary. in a word, beautiful. and i’m officially back on the train. i’ll be buying this book until Marvel fucks it up and breaks up the dream team, which happens in comics more times than a fangirl like myself can count. Astonishing X-Men #1 – 22. Whedon/Cassady. 4.5 stars.

Update: after a little research i find out that the “dream team” of Whedon and Cassaday is pretty much already broken up. apparently this book has had problems being on time and Whedon had only committed for a certain amount of time. the book is scheduled to be taken over by Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi. Warren Ellis is a huge talent so maybe that won’t be so bad, i’m going to try to stay positive. i’m not familiar with Bianchi, except for cover art, which is good. i can’t imagine anything being up to Cassaday’s work, but i’ll give it a try. the problem for me often with art is that even if the penciling is good, if the layouts are ridiculous it is pretty hard for me to enjoy it. that is one of the beautiful things about Cassaday’s work – those panel layouts are just gorgeous. i can’t tell exactly when this new arc starts, but i’ll be holding my breath until then i guess.

so maybe you’re wondering where i came up with 60 books, when i clearly only read 22 books…well after reading astonishing i had to go back and dig up the Grant Morrison run on The New X-Men as i felt astonishing borrowed heavily from that history (i.e. in Whedon’s Astonishing Jean Grey is dead…but i didn’t know how…and that felt wrong). i had picked up single issues here and there of Morrison’s amazing run on New X-Men, but never the whole thing. between Adam and i however we pretty much had issue #114 – #150, which was exactly the run i was looking for.

so after Astonishing i dug in to Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s take on The New X-Men. as i remembered, these issues were amazing. and the art? foget about it. Quitely is the master. his layouts are gorgeous and his pencils are sublime. i never can get into his women’s faces as much as i’d like (they always look a bit pinched and “older”) however he has a way of drawing that is so not the traditional plastic look of superheroes…you can almost feel the flesh, it’s beautiful. the only downside to the art is that with such a long run (114 – 150) there were times when guest pencillers had to step in and while there were a few stars in there, sometimes the quality really dropped considerably.

Morrison is a genius and it’s evidenced in where he took these characters that so many of us have seen everything already written about…i guess that’s the point really isn’t it? it’s not just what you’re doing to the characters, it’s how you’re constructing it and how everything bounces off of that construction. i felt the arc (ending with 150 and Jean Grey’s death) really lost me in the end. i somehow suspect Marvel and not Morrison as i remember there was a lot of controversy over this book – i believe it was getting critical but not commerical success, which can often drive a book into the ground and perhaps Morrison was getting pressure to make it more accessible. i’ll add an update if i find anything about that. regardless, overall it was a great run, one of the best (and most important) in the X-Men “history”. The New X-Men #114 – #150. Morrison/Quitely 3.5 stars.

since i’m making these two books share one spot (#32) on my books reviewed list i’m going to split the difference between them and give #32 an official 4 stars. fair enough?

non-fiction…what a shock.

September 4, 2007 in book reviews, books | Permalink

i read two more books this weekend, both non-fiction, which is not usually my style, although one is probably considered self-help more than non-fiction (self-help being even less my style) and the other, though in no way considered self-help by the world at large i read largely for “self-help” reasons. my this got complicated fast.

both books came to me on recommendation of my therapist. yes, i have a therapist. in fact, i believe it is required by law that you start seeing a therapist within two years of entering the state of New York (i made it just under the wire). anyway, both books were good recommendations, which i hope means i’m getting the right kind of mental help…okay, onto the reviews…

#30. Susie Orbach On Eating. By Susie Orbach. Self Help/Non-Fiction. 3 stars.

i’m giving this 3 stars for now, with the option to re-evaluate it after i have the chance to embrace some of her “teachings” this month. if the shit works then i reserve the right to raise it to 4 stars (hell, if the shit REALLY works then 5 stars here we come). what is good about this book, regardless of whether what Orbach preaches works for me or not is that this is the non-diet diet book, and not in the way that still means there is “diet” inside. Orbach talks about no diet. she just talks about living, which is incredibly refreshing. there is no health bar or microwave meal tie in. there are no “real-life” stories of stars (or normal folks), it’s just some common freaking sense…which made A LOT of sense.

Orbach has five basic rules about food and life, that actually are pretty basic and are probably how people used to eat and live back before we all became obsessed with being thin and living up to unrealistic ideals and waif looks…when people were more concerned with real problems (survival?) than with the more vain (and i include myself here) problems of looking like the latest best looking bitch on the block.

Orbach does say that people’s bodies have a personal set point that our bodies are comfortable with. i’ve always believed this personally (depsite the fact that i know for a fact that my body’s set point is far lower than where i’ve put myself) but i have many beautiful female friends that live their lives unhappily, or who don’t quite live at all because of those final ten pounds they can’t manage to shake. i just want to shake them and say “Your body has a personal set point! You are at that set point! Just be happy and live damnit!” i somehow suspect this would not go over well.

anyway, i think everyone, or at least every woman should read this book, even if it doesn’t work (we’ll see) then at least it gives a person a different way about thinking about this life pbsession that has somehow grabbed us while we weren’t looking and overcome everything that life was supposed to be about.

#31. Lust In Translation: The Rules of Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee. Pamela Druckerman. Non-Fiction. 3.5 stars.

this is not my kind of book, but i enjoyed it enough to think about exploring some other non-fiction that i’ve been interested in lately. i read this for edification and to a lesser extent “self-help purposes”. i’ve been thinking a lot about infidelity this year (long story, don’t ask) and this book was both really helpful and also upsetting.

it’s hard for me to review non-fiction with any kind of intelligence, since i’m sadly so out of my depth in the field. suffice to say i learned a great deal from this book and i felt it was well pieced together and well researched. though the facts and percentages were necessary, they were certainly the least interesting aspects of the book, most riveting were the author’s personal stories and experiences, which were often fascinating.

on a personal note, i find infidelity infinitely depressing. i have to admit and accept that it is a reality in the world and more specifically in my life and the lives of people all around me. this is, as said, infinitely depressing. it also has created an issue with me and men (a group i BARELY trusted prior to this past year) and it has amped up my interest in militant feminism (which i have also had to accept i will never achieve, i’m just not the girl for it, i want to be, but i’m just not).

here’s the bottom line i guess for me at this point in my life: the person i am closest to in my life is a man. he is my best friend and just about my everything. yet i have learned that ultimately, no matter how much i want to trust him and give over everything to him in the pursuit of romantic love and a happy future together, i must keep part of myself removed, because ultimately i cannot trust him, not necessarily because of who he is, but just because of who people are. people belong only to themselves and as much as i want he and i to possess one another, it can just never be as complete as i’d like it to be. i doubt he would like hearing this (and he will i’m sure read it here and not like it) but i suspect that he does the same thing in our relationship, but perhaps with less deliberate intention, perhaps just with a more natural survival instinct. i suppose i just find it truly and heartbreakingly sad that someone wants to give so much of themselves, but has been hurt too badly to be able to do that in their lives. after reading this book i know that the one thing i am in the world, is not alone in being hurt.

maybe time heals it, i have no idea, although i guess i’ll find out.

suffice to say a tough read, but i’m glad i read it.

traveling with paul auster

September 2, 2007 in book reviews, books | 11 comments

#29. Travels In The Scriptorium. Paul Auster. Fiction. 4 stars.

switched it up to a straight fiction novel, instead of a short fiction collection this week, and really enjoyed myself. i have previously only read Auster’s City of Glass and that was long ago (while in college which was shockingly long ago actually) and i feel i’ll have to give it another read. all i remember of City of Glass was feeling really really depressed. but i’m depressed these days whether reading a depressing book or not, so i suspect i’ll have a lot more intelligent thoughts about it on a second, more mature read.

i really enjoyed Travels In The Scriptorium, despite the fact that there is very little closure and i was left with more questions than answers by the time i finished. perhaps it bothered me less not to have closure here than in Beattie’s Follies because in Follies i knew it was going to happen to me over and over again, whereas in Auster’s novel i knew it was just going to be the one time. i’m not sure.

Travels was beautifully written and totally engaging from page one. i think the lack of closure might be frustrating for a lot of people as it really does leave you completely hanging about both what happened to the characters to bring them to this moment in the novel, and also what will happen to them in the future. you really learn very little and much is left to the imagination. would i prefer this book if Auster had spent another 150+ pages filling in the gaps? maybe. but there is a story within a story in Travels and that informs much of what i suspect Auster wants you to do on your own.

as said previously, i remember little of City of Glass, but i suspect this style (and how much is given and withheld) is vintage Auster, and so fans of his will likely not be disappointed. it was very interesting. beautifully executed. 4 stars.

i am more than a little bit happier with this book

August 31, 2007 in anis mojgani, book reviews | Permalink

so i get it now.

all the hype about Tao Lin.

i just finished #28 – You Are A Little Bit Happier Than I Am. Tao Lin. Poetry Collection. 3.5 stars

this poetry is powerful and unique stuff. he writes in a very distinctive voice (much like his novel Eeeee Eeee Eee) but it worked powerfully for me here, where in his novel i had trouble connecting, here the beautiful language was enough and i didn’t feel let down for not being able to connect, that didn’t seem to be the point. perhaps that isn’t the point for Lin in his novel either, but unfortunately it is something i do look for. i’ll have to try a short fiction collection of Lin’s next and see if that works for me as his poetry did.

other than reading (or hearing) my friend Anis Mojgani’s work i don’t think i’ve been as satisfied with a poetic voice as i was with Lin’s since i first discovered Bukowski. not that i am comparing them, they couldn’t be more different except for in their power. a few favorites from You Are A Little Bit Happier Than I Am: Some of My Happiest Moments In Life Occur On AOL Instant Messenger; Things I Wanted To Do Today; I Want To Start A Band; Pessimism? Or Robotics?; It’ll Get Different; I Honestly Do Not Know Who This Poem Is Directed At But I Still Somehow Wrote It With Conviction; and Things You Have Emailed Me.

if you like poetry, or feel like trying some out, i would highly recommend Lin’s book. interesting stuff.

ann beattie’s follies…

August 30, 2007 in book reviews, writing | Permalink

#27. Follies. Ann Beattie. Short Fiction Collection. 3.5 stars

i’m not quite sure what to say about this book, i enjoyed it, but it ultimately left me wanting. i think her stories were beautiful, and unlike many collections i read, they were all very even in that none stood out more than others as better or worse (which i think i like, although i seem to also be complaining about it, so who the hell knows what i like). there was a certain level of quality to all of the pieces and it was nice to know walking into a new story that it was going to deliver as the others had.

i also enjoyed the realism in her stories. i completely believed her characters, i suppose in part that is because she writes somewhat melancholy and bittersweet stories that move slowly and deliberately, as life tends to. her characters make the choices her characters would make, they never step out of line and do the unexpected, and while that may sound boring, i think grabbing on and translating that kind of realism is actually quite difficult, especially in short fiction where you have a short amount of time to nail those things down. unfortunately, because of her realisitc sparse way of writing and the somewhat non-dramatic real life circumstances her characters find themselves in i didn’t find myself too attached to any of the characters. but her writing was beautiful, and i enjoyed it consistently throughout and the stories flowed flawlessly into one another, though there is no obvious link.

i guess my biggest problem with the book overall is that the endings didn’t do it for me. i do so love it when my short fiction (or poetry…maybe even novels) have a snap to them. not a twist ending or anything out of nowhere, but the idea that they kind of come around to something. some kind of resolution or something…anything. it’s funny because my mother loves her entertainment (movies, books, television shows) to be very tied up in a neat little bow, whether sad or happy, she likes to at least KNOW. i have always complained to her that this is not an interesting way to look at things and that often the answers are given, just less obviously, and that you just have to look. so it is ironic that i am now crying out for more closure. strange. perhaps i got lazy during her book and didn’t pay enough attention, or am just not smart enough to get it in the first place, but none of the stories had a ‘snap’…that thing i love that in the last few pages makes reading a story all the more fulfilling.

still good though. i’ll have to read more of Beattie’s work, she’s been quite prolific and except for a few stories in collections here and there this is the first of her work that i’ve read.

ps – LOVE the cover. so cute, and relevant to what is within…

#26 ode to the A train…

August 24, 2007 in book reviews, new york city, writing | 3 comments

#26. The Subway Chronicles. Edited by Jacquelin Cangro. Essay Collection. 3.0 stars

i picked this collection up mostly as an acknowledgment of how much i owe to New York City in its effort to help me become a better writer. i doubt New York City cares (or tried) to make me (and probably many others) become a better writer, but it happens nonetheless.* the inspiration and incident factor alone can make you a better writer without even trying. i often fear if i return to Los Angeles (or anywhere else for that matter) that i will suddenly have nothing to write about. that my actual experiences (overheard, seen, or otherwise) will plummet and i will have literally nothing but my imagination to guide me (never good).

this was a decent collection, solid and enjoyable. some really nice pieces and very few “losers” in the bunch. but there was nothing that really blew me away. i didn’t really come away from it with anything more than a pleasant feeling of having enjoyed myself and being ready to move on. i guess i generally want and expect more from my essays and short fiction than that, which is why it doesn’t rate a higher score. if you’re a new yorker born and raised, you can probably add at least half a star to my rating.

*it is still up for debate whether i have actually become a better writer since living here, and basically i have no actual proof of such a statement. requests for proof of any improvement will be casually ignored.

oh yeah, and this marks the halfway point of my goal of 52 books and 52 reviews this year. yippee! i figure i’m about 8 books behind. yeesh.

the apocalypse is not always interesting…

August 22, 2007 in book reviews, zombies | 2 comments

this is the hardest book review i’ve had to write yet.

#25. The Apocalypse Reader. Edited by Justin Taylor. Short Fiction Collection.

i desperately wanted to like this book, both because it is a collection of great writers both seasoned and relatively new, giving their original takes on the apocalypse, which is interesting in and of itself, and just because i adore good short fiction. there are 34 stories in total by 35 different authors, all dealing in their own ways with “the apocalypse” and if i have complained before about an uneven collection, then boy was i complaining before i even knew what to complain about it. this is the most uneven collection i have ever read, some of it just awesome and mind blowing and hilarious and some of it so dull and underwhelming that a few times i gave up and didn’t complete a story (unheard of for me – i always trudge through!). however, i want more collections, i want to support both the short story form and the vision of what this collection is about. so i’m torn about this review.

i suppose the real truth of it is: 2 stars for the half of it i didn’t like and 4 stars for the half of it i did like? hmm…split the difference and give it 3 stars? jeez. i hate this. 3 seems too high. maybe i have to admit that my expectations were too high? is that part of the problem here?

pieces by the following artists were awesome: Jared Hohl, Matthew Derby, Shelley Jackson, Adam Nemett, Brian Evenson, Robert Bradley, Josip Novakovich, Allison Whittenberg, Justin Taylor, Kelly Link, Neil Gaiman, Tao Lin, Elliot David, Colette Phair, Michael Moorcock, Jeff Goldberg, Jocye Carole Oates. I desperately want to add Dennis Cooper to this list with The Ash Gray Proclamation, and he had me for the first 15 pages, but i couldn’t hold on for the last 10 or so, it just got too ridiculous, which was perhaps the point, but somewhere my enjoyment was lost.

the piece by Jeff Goldberg, These Zombies Are Not A Metaphor, was my favorite as it was hilarious and inventive and just utterly enjoyable. second runners up include An Accounting by Brian Evenson, The Last Man by Adam Nemett, and Fraise, Menthe. Et Poivre 1978 by Jared Hohl.

the ones i didn’t mention were either passable or borderline unreadable and i’m sad to say that this included several VERY famous writers and even some that whether famous or not, i’ve been a fan of, for quite some time. very disappointing.

the problem i suppose with any review, be it movie, book, or album, is that so much of it is based on personal tastes. i’ve always tried to make it known that my reviews are very personal, which means that it is just one girl’s silly opinion and it may not work for everyone. but at the same time, with this book, i couldn’t in good conscience recommend it to anyone, which is the mark of a genuinely good book, right? jeez. a simple book review shouldn’t be so difficult…

Okay, 3.0 stars – with the stipulation that there are many 4 star pieces in there, but that for me, there are also a lot of 1 and 2 star pieces, so read at your own risk. if anyone has read this book, i would welcome comments about which stories worked for them, particularly if you have an argument as to why a story i didn’t list was a favorite of yours.

st. lucy’s home for girls raised by wolves

August 20, 2007 in book reviews | Permalink

so i didn’t even have to come up with a creative title for this post, because the above is the title of the short fiction collection i just finished, and it’s pretty much creative enough to stand on it’s own.

#24. St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised By Wolves. Short Fiction Collection by Karen Russel. 4 stars

this was a completely creative and enjoyable read. so off the charts creative, and experimental in its own way, but at the same time completely involving. a few of these pieces have been published elsewhere including a piece that i had already read in The New Yorker (Accident Brief, Occurrence #00/422).

this was a really even collection, so much so that i found it difficult to pick stories that were stronger than others, i’d say they were all about equally strong. perhaps the best was the title story of the collection, but all strong. the only fault i find with the collection at all is that the endings seemed a bit abrupt. not that there was anything overly wrong with them, but that they seemed kind of arbitrary. also while i felt that most of them started very strongly, i didn’t feel they came around quite as powerfully. otherwise a really strong collection, and since Ms. Russell is only like a ridiculous 25 yeas old, i suspect we’ll be hearing (reading?) a lot from her in the future.

as a sidenote: she’s yet another Columbia MFA grad, making me even more wistful that i too was attending…

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