Monday, October 31, 2005
Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel took me a long time to read even though, at 241 pages, it's fairly short. I suppose I went into it thinking I would hate it. I actually thought I would just read the first few pages and then ditch it. And it was annoying at first. But then I got sucked in and wanted to keep reading. This actually happened every time I came back to it. I mean, it's been compared to Catcher in the Rye (which I haven't read since I was a teenager), but what is soul searching and deeply meaningful at age 17 isn't quite as endearing when the character is 27 instead. That's not to say I didn't empathize - men don't have a monopoly on inertia and feelings of mediocrity. Then something from left field, like the random mild incestuous feelings, would put me off initially, only to end up making a good point, as in this comment from Dwight's sister Alice, "The reason you have this idea is that I'm the one girl you actually got to know in the right way. It was gradual, it was inevitable - obviously we didn't have any choice in the matter. There wasn't all this deformingly distinctive and abrupt self-preservation that constitutes contemporary urban dating, where you always have to give your stunted personality the hard sell - the hooks, the slogans, the shtick. Where right away you always try to imply Me, me, I belong to your demographic - and no one else ever will." See what I mean? The central idea, it seems, is illustrated in this bit from his mother, "Don't you think, Dwight...that in New York you can become more inert than you notice. You can mistake the city's commotion for your own." The answer Kunkel proposes to alleviate this state of busy nothingness is to become politically active and work to better the world for those less fortunate - "...that what's happiest is just to be alive and sensitive when it comes to feeling the world..." I'm not quite sure he earns this conclusion, although after thinking about it for a couple of days, I think he might. I don't know. I can't quite decide how I feel about the book. I did enjoy it, but I didn't feel compelled to finish it quickly, which is why it took so bloody long to read. It wasn't bad, but I'm not enthusiastically putting it at the top of my best of the year list, either. It is worth reading though. How's that for a recommendation?
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Thursday, October 20, 2005
I found Under the Bridge by Rebecca Godfrey a little hard to get into at first. It's the nonfiction story of the murder of a 14 year old girl by two other teenagers. The book begins with the discovery of Reena's body, but then backtracks to introduce many of the players in the case. This part drags a little, but once the lead up to the murder begins, the pace quickens and doesn't falter until the end. I don't remember the case, so I enjoyed the way Godfrey assumed the reader would be unfamiliar with the details and kept up the suspense about who the murderers were. The topic is a good fit for Godfrey, whose book The Torn Skirt I read and enjoyed earlier this year. Both books share a similar interest in seemingly ordinary teenage girls and what can cause them to go off the rails.
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Monday, October 17, 2005
And then this weekend I read Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan. It's a cute little YA gay romance, although the whimsy can be a bit much at times. It's set in a town where the high school quarterback is a 6'4" drag queen named Infinite Darlene, the janitors make millions trading stocks (they just have a compulsion to clean schools), and they had a gay straight alliance in elementary school. The main character, Paul, doesn't agonize about his sexuality, which is refreshing, and his romance with Noah is sweet. I don't mean to make it sound like it's all sweetness and light, though. Paul's friend Tony's parents are religious and don't approve of him and his friend Joni starts dating a guy he dislikes and their friendship is in jeopardy over it. Overall though, the tone is lighthearted and fun and I enjoyed it.
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Last week I read Don't Get Too Comfortable by David Rakoff, his second book of humorous essays. This time he focuses mostly on our culture and its excesses. There are some politics mixed in (the essay on the Log Cabin Republicans is entitled "Beat Me, Daddy" Hah!), but for the most part it is luxury that is skewered. One small thing that irritated me and I can only assume was intentional for the sake of the essay because you'd think he'd have a fact checker or at least someone remotely familiar with pop culture, was his beginning one essay by saying Bugs Bunny was always trying to reach Miami Beach. No, in fact it was Pismo Beach. These are the things that bug me. I know it's silly but c'mon - that's just a stupid mistake.
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Tuesday, October 11, 2005
I tried some library books last week and still couldn't settle on anything, so I pulled out Field of Blood by Denise Mina, which I've been saving for the right time. Apparently the right time was Sunday because I worked through it quickly. It's a mystery novel about a woman in the early 1980s in Glasgow trying to become a newspaper reporter. A young cousin of her fiance is arrested for murder and she becomes convinced that he and the other boy were not acting alone. Along the way we get a picture of her working class family life, her growing rebellion against their expectations for her and against her religion, and the looming specter of the harsh economic times to come as Scotland enters a recession. It's an unusual choice for the time period, but one that could yield interesting storylines as the people and the region sink further into economic depression. The mystery itself wasn't terribly hard to figure out and several times I nearly yelled at the character for not picking up things quicker. I forgave her though because of the richness of the setting and the interesting characters and the moral dilemmas they face.
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Tuesday, October 04, 2005
I completely forgot to write about Thirsty by M. T. Anderson yesterday. I reread it over the weekend and was surprised by how dark it was. I mean, I remembered it was dark, but I'd forgotten just how much. Maybe that's because Burger Wuss was so funny, but Thirsty is even darker than Feed. That ending! Let me back up a little. As the book begins, Chris finds out he is turning into a vampire. In his reality, vampires are common, but reviled, and are executed immediately upon capture. He is approached by a higher being named Chet who wants him to infiltrate the vampire group in his town and prevent them from releasing their Vampire Lord. In return he is promised that he will be cured and will return to normal. He begins to doubt Chet's motives and himself and is caught up in a situation where he is rapidly losing control. It's my least favorite of Anderson's books, but it still stands out from other YA vampire books.
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