Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess)

You've all read the post about Beyonce (the Chicken, not the singer), right? If you haven't, stop here and go read it.

Back?

Ok, now you know what Let's Pretend This Never Happened is like, review over! Just kidding. It's got a few more serious moments (the entire book doesn't make your stomach hurt laughing) but even the serious topics are funny. Lawson doesn't hold back about her crazy childhood (think: taxidermy), her high school experience (cow vagina), miscarriage (I can't even), mental illness (whoa). While I did read several of the stories on her blog prior to reading the book, I don't feel like reading the book was time wasted at all. I highly recommend this one to anyone who likes a great memoir, has a sense of humor, and isn't completely offended by the f-bomb.

You can find more chat about Let's Pretend This Never Happened at the BlogHer Book Club discussion. The Bloggess is online here, and on Twitter. You can also read an interview with her here.


This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.

A Good American by Alex George

One of the things that I rarely read are novels that cover the span of a hundred years. I don't mind novels that play with time a little- grandma's history mixed with the present- or perhaps the majority of the life of a single person, but I rarely pick up a book that covers the history of multiple generations. Turns out, I don't enjoy it so much.

The first half of A Good American by Alex George is really interesting. Jette and Frederick immigrate to America around the turn of the century and settle in Beatrice, Missouri. They are German, as is the majority of the town. They have a couple children and then Frederick goes and joins WWI, with predictable results.  The book continues on through American history, with Jette, and her kids and grandkids. The first half, with the immigration experience and a lot of great detail about blues, jazz, and other music of the time is quite enjoyable. I loved seeing them set up a life and the struggles to keep up with the times. I often turned on Songza to a blues or jazz playlist while I read. (Turning Songza on to a blues playlist is incredibly common for me, but I have yet to learn to love jazz.)

Unfortunately, the second half, which begins about when the narrator is born, completely changes. The entire book is narrated by Jette's grandson James, so perhaps the change happens when it starts to talk about the parts of his life that he remembers, but I much preferred to read his history. The small bits of foreshadowing in the first half become and every other page bits of foreshadowing. The believable history of a family in the first half becomes a series of ridiculous people and their actions (and deaths.)  By the end, it felt like a parody of a family history. The focus on music changed, and was not longer about the love of music itself.

That said, the book does have some really great moments. I loved watching Frederick learn English, and the romance between Cora and Joseph, James's father. There's a scene in New Orleans at the beginning, where Frederick hears jazz for the first time that is wonderful. There are some memorable characters as well; Lomax, who plays music and cooks soul food; Polk, who works at the bar; Freddy, who has the best story of anyone, except Frederick himself.  There are also quite a few that seem to be there for impact; Morrie, the gentle giant, Rankin Fitch, Mrs. Fitch, the entire sub-plot of Reverend Gresham and Teddy.

I'm sure I won't stop thinking about some of the final revelations for a few days, and I'm going to have to go back and re-read a couple pivotal scenes to look for clues. Overall though, it was just ok, and I don't see myself ever choosing to read or recommend it.

You can join the discussion at BlogHer by clicking this link. The first discussion question has been posted, "What foods are are part of your gastronomic mosaic?", which you can answer here. You can find Alex George online here, and on Twitter.

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.

Matched by Ally Condie

Ok, so. Matched. I've checked this out of the library at least 3 times, and every time it goes back untouched because of the love triangle plot. It's not a subtle bit of the plot, it pretty much IS the plot.  Love triangles are pretty much my least favorite plot ever. (Ok, maybe child murders or something, but I don't pick those up at ALL.)  Here's the summary of Matched from Amazon.com:

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

See? So even though everyone on earth loved it, I kept sending it back.  Then BlogHer asked if I'd like to read it for the BlogHer book club and I decided to let them force me into finding out what happens. And what happens is that I ended up enjoying it (as usually happens).  Matched is one part The Giver (assigned careers) and a bit of Divergent (how you dress, how you live, your place in society) and a bit of Fahrenheit 451 (book burning!) If you're a fan of dystopian novels and you like a little romance you'll probably enjoy this. Especially if you live love triangles. (I admit to having a favorite here too, of course.) It's not my favorite book, but it is worth taking a look at. It is clearly the first part of a trilogy tho, so be prepared that it doesn't come to a neat tidy ending.

You can find Ally Condie online on Facebook, Twitter, and her blog.

I received this book from BlogHer in exchange for my review and participation in the BlogHer Book Club discussion of said book. All opinions are my own.

The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns by Margaret Dilloway

Another month, another BlogHer book club book! This month's selection was The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns by Margaret Dilloway. Dilloway is the author of How to Be an American Housewife which lots and lots of bloggers read last year (I did not. Full disclosure, I judged it by the cover, that type of cover turns me off. Don't ask me to explain "that type".) Care and Feeding is about practical, no-nonsence Gal Garner. Gal teaches biology at a small private school, which managing to live with no kidney function and every other day dialysis.  Her passion in life is breeding roses and she's trying to develop a new variation that will win her major awards. Life is going along according to plan- her job is secure, her roses are thriving, and her kidneys haven't killed her yet- when her teenaged niece Riley shows up unexpectedly to live with her.

Unfortunately, I wasn't overly impressed with the book. Some authors have a way of making unusual things like rose breeding interesting, but I wasn't caught up by this one. The storyline with Riley felt a bit predictible (will having your long lost niece around make you soften up? be less thorny than roses? roses with thorns?) and the ultimate ending wasn't much of a surprise.

I took a peek at rating on Goodreads and it seems that I'm in the minority here, the average rating is a 4.  The BlogHer discussion takes off today at this link, and you can find the author on the web here, or on twitter.

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.

Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood

Everybody knows Cate Cahill and her sisters are eccentric. Too pretty, too reclusive, and far too educated for their own good. But the truth is even worse: they're witches. And if their secret is discovered by the priests of the Brotherhood, it would mean an asylum, a prison ship—or an early grave.

Before her mother died, Cate promised to protect her sisters. But with only six months left to choose between marriage and the Sisterhood, she might not be able to keep her word...especially after she finds her mother's diary, uncovering a secret that could spell her family's destruction. Desperate to find alternatives to their fate, Cate starts scouring banned books and questioning rebellious new friends, all while juggling tea parties, shocking marriage proposals, and a forbidden romance with the completely unsuitable Finn Belastra.

If what her mother wrote is true, the Cahill girls aren't safe. Not from the Brotherhood, the Sisterhood—not even from each other.

Born Wicked is another book selection for the BlogHer Book Club. When they sent the request out  I didn't read the description quite as well as I could have and was taken by surprise to discover that it takes place around 1900. This detail alone made it a slow start for me, as typically the only historicals I read are romances. After a few chapters I was able to into it a bit more and from around page 50 it (or I) sped up and zoomed through the rest in a matter of days. As regular readers know I'm a big fan of paranormal, though usually more of the vampire/witches/werewolves variety than the presented-as-actual-historial-reality variety. (And only readers of paranormal will likely get that distinction, if even they do.) Born Wicked is also a bit of an alternate history book, taking place in a different New England from the one that really existed, with a much heavier religious setting and different country borders. There is a romance and a love triangle (though it is very clear who the true romance belongs to) and some fairly intense moments all around.

If you're interested in reading more about the book you can find the BlogHer discussion of the book here, and the first discussion question here. The author can be found online here and on Facebook here.  You can also watch the book trailer on her website, and it's really a lovely trailer (tho I could do without the sketchy moustasche). This is the first book in a series, but book two will not be released until next February.


This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

The three Andreas sisters have returned home for various reasons- Rose, the oldest, is running from the chance of having to change her boring life for love; Bean, the middle sister, is running home with her tail between her legs after having been fired from her New York City life (yes, life); and the little sister, Cordy, is increasingly uncomfortable with her nomad backpacking life.  They have the excuse of needing to help with their sick mother, but in reality none of them are really there for their mom.

I did not particularly like this book. I disliked two of the sisters immensely and thought the redemption of one of them way more than she deserved. The endless Shakespeare quotes from their Shakespeare professor father were annoying and often irrelevant. The strange narration of all three sisters speaking in one voice constantly threw me out of the story. There were a few small parts that I did love- the sisters love of reading, Father Aidan, the retired librarian- but overall I just wanted to be done. I can't say that I'd recommend this one to many people, but have definitely read glowing reviews of it, which is why I requested it. If you'd like to see what other people are saying, follow this link to the BlogHer Book Club page and join in the discussion here. Oddly, I'm more interested in the discussion than I would have been had I enjoyed the book. It's like they say, mixed reactions make the best discussions!

Disclosure: This book was provided to me as part of the BlogHer Book Club and I was paid a small amount for the review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own (obviously).

Why Women Need Fat

At the end of last year I read a really great book called The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, by Kathleen Flinn. While the entire book was excellent, there was one chapter about eating out of the box, about how mixes have taken over for cooking, even though they don't really save that much time. Food out of a box is full of ingredients and preservatives that we wouldn't be eating if we just made those items from scratch. I had just finished that book and was pondering making a lifestyle/eating change when the BlogHer Book Club offered me the chance to read Why Women Need Fat: How "Healthy" Food Makes Us Gain Excess Weight and the Surprising Solution to Losing It Forever. Since I was already in the mood to read more about food, I accepted the title. It arrived during the craziness of Christmas so I didn't start reading until after the new year.

The content of the book was really fascinating, and (as the writers would hope) I thought their argument had merit. Their science made a lot of sense, and I'm more than willing to try their suggestions.  I did find the writing a bit circular and at times a tad (ok, very) dry and hard to focus on, but I found that if I skimmed those bits and came back they would make more sense. Their basic premise is that the addition of so many processed oils, replacing more natural animal fats, have lowered beneficial Omega-3s and raised the more harmful, more fat inspiring, Omega-6s. They'd have you drop processed food and oils. This jibes well with my thinking from the other food reading I've been doing, so I was willing to go along for their ride.

If you want to join the discussion and learn more about how you can add fat and lose weight, you can click through to the BlogHer Book Club page here. The first topic of discussion is "This means I get to use real butter, right?"  I mean, how can you not follow through on that?

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.