Three Stars (two for the book and one for the premise) As we made our way to the gate before a two-hour flight home last night, we spotted this book. I knew it had come out recently, and realized that the format (ostensibly a ‘choose your own adventure’-style autobiography) would probably lend itself better to a physical book. I picked it up and read it continuously, from waiting in line to board the plane until we caught a shuttle to our car back home. I […]
Shitty draft by shitty draft
I find it difficult to accept advice from writers whose books I have never read. I realize this is my own fault, but it must be mentioned as it plays into my review of the rest of the book. I find Lamott, as a writer, incredibly generic, her patterns of “funny” are easy to see through and her examples of “whimsical” writing annoy me. I am like the students she complain about. The ones who enter bright-eyed on the first day of class put up […]
Not That Kind of Girl
Lena Dunham is the writer, producer, director and star of HBO’s “Girls”- one of the more divisive TV shows on right now. My husband absolutely hates her. However, he absolutely loves me so he bought me her memoir as one of our Anniversary gifts (year one is paper) because despite his protests “Girls” is one of my guilty pleasures. Lena Dunham is kind of a mess- but for the most part she owns it. She is not relatable in anyway; unless you are an OCD […]
I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Well, this was sweet and cute and ultimately, I probably won’t remember a word of it in six months. But it was a fun book to read in the bathtub. Sloane Crosley’s collection of essays, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, touches on all sorts of important topics: the mall, weird parents, bad bosses, shitty boyfriends, etc. She has a good, self-deprecating sense of humor (important for a collection of memoirs) and an interesting take on a variety of subjects in life. Her brutal story about […]
WILD
Cheryl Strayed was 22-years-old when her mother died at the age of 45. Strayed fell into a downward spiral that led to a divorce and a casual relationship with heroin. During that time she got the crazy idea to hike the Pacific Crest Trail (1,100 miles) alone. She is wildly unprepared for the journey: she has no prior backpacking experience and, despite endless research, she skips things like going on a dry run with her pack. “I was amazed that what I needed to survive […]
March (Book 1): An Origin Story
What’s hard for kids to recognize – hell, what’s hard for people to recognize – is that we’re living through history right this minute. That, someday, there’s going to be a kid, bored of his mind, doodling in the margins of his brain tablet (or whatever space technology kids are learning on in the future), barely listening to his teacher drone on and on about ‘the geopolitical ramifications of US drone strikes in 2014’ or – in deference to today’s book – ‘Let’s compare and […]
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