One Day

As you can imagine, the sugary cover art of this romance novel led me to expect something breezy and cheerful. I wasn't prepared for the gritty cynicism and desperate discontentment of the two protagonists, Emma and Derek. In some ways, though, this makes it even more optimistic; Emma and Derek are deeply flawed individuals who still get to experience a romance worth writing about. Makes me kind of jealous... and kind of hopeful.

Nicholls takes us through one day per year -always June 15 - in the lives of Emma and Derek. Sometimes they're together, sometimes they meet only briefly, and sometimes they don't directly interact at all. Their lives are realistically unpredictable, with Derek usually enjoying some extravagant lifestyle and Emma settling for something she despises and scorns, whether a pathetic job or a worthless boyfriend. I can't give anything away about the plot, but One Day is definitely worth the negligible amount of time it takes to read.

The Bell Jar

While I was reading The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, I oscillated constantly between feeling as if the main character was actually describing what goes on in my head, and feeling completely alienated from this unfortunate individual named Esther. Her struggle with depression and suicide is something that everyone can relate to on some level - the ennui, the fatigue, the self-destructive urges - and yet is too profoundly disturbed for a happy, mentally healthy person to fully comprehend.

Esther is a fascinating girl, who sees flaws in society as clearly as she sees flaws in herself. Throughout her struggle, she studies books on psychology and identifies with hopeless cases she reads about. Her courage carries over into her evaluations of feminism, old-fashioned views on male and female roles, and mysogynism. Her thoughts reflect Plath's political views to some degree, but the book isn't exactly feminist propaganda.

As well as issues of feminism, this book reflects psychiatric technology and techniques of the day. Published in 1971, and based on a slightly earlier time period, the Esther's experiences with electric-shock therapy, multiple psychiatrists, and various mental institutions are all fascinating depictions of how mental illness was dealt with in the twentieth century.

The Bell Jar is not a cheery read, but as someone who is fascinated by both history and mental illness, I loved it. Esther and her story are not easily forgotten, and Sylvia Plath's writing makes The Bell Jar a valuable piece of modern literature.

Like the Red Panda

The deep emotions surrounding suicide make it difficult to write about, but Andrea Seigel painted an eloquent portrait of a suicidal teen in Like the Red Panda.

This lonely story is written in the first person, and is noticeably void of melodramatic histerics that sometimes saturate literature about suicide and depression. Stella, the protagonist, is not only isolated from the people around her, but from her own emotions. Chilly descriptions of the world and matter-of-fact analyses of her feelings leave no doubt about Stella's ennui. Academically successful, attractive, and finding no meaning in the world, Stella goes about committing suicide like most people go about buying a house.

The only issue with Like the Red Panda is the seeming lack of reason for suicide. Stella may explain how everything in life seems arbitrary, but she still has a friend and a lover and some desire to please others. She doesn't hate herself, or have any profound shame or guilt. She seems like someone who should major in philosophy, maybe spend a lot of time studying exhistentialism, not someone who wants to end their life. The instinctive desire to live is not a weak impulse, and there are millions of bored, melancholy individuals (such as myself) who do not seriously consider committing suicide.

It's very possible that the nuances of Stella's mental illness went over my head, and that her suicidal intentions were perfectly logical. I'd recommend this book, if only for it's thought-provoking nature.

The Overacheivers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids

Do you long for stress in your life? Do you ever have days full of nothing but leisurely fun and meaningful pursuits? You should read The Overachievers; The Secret Lives of Driven Kids, by Alexandra Robbins, and chase away those feelings of calm and contentment.

This book, assigned summer reading for high school students entering their first AP English course, is more anxiety-producing than the most suspenseful thriller. It's more tedious than a documentary on the manufacturing of beige carpet, and about as long as your average Harry Potter book. The characters aren't flat, exactly, but their emotions are relegated to ambition, anxiety, and exhaustion. Anything irrelevant to the college application process is omitted, and every college councelor visit and extra curricular is described in detail.

So if you aren't one of those unfortunate high school students who has this as assigned reading, let this serve as a warning: do not read The Overachievers. You will not be surprised, intrigued, or informed. You'll be bored, nervous and feeling vicariously over-worked.

The Chosen One

Of the many books I've read this week (thank God its summer), the only one that has brought out any strong emotion was The Chosen One, by Carol Lynch Williams. It's the story of a thirteen-year-old girl who lives in a polygamist compound, and finds out she must marry her uncle to fulfill the Prophet's vision. The Prophet is the leader of the community, and in his sacred vision, he "saw" Kyra, the brave protagonist, becoming the seventh wife of her father's 63-year-old brother.

Naturally, Kyra wants to escape, but in a world where thugs called the God Squad have killed and beaten would-be escapees many times before, this is no easy goal. And the more Kyra resists the will of the Prophet, the higher the stakes get, and the more they watch her. She has allies - the boy she loves, Joshua, and the owner of a traveling library named Patrick. But when these allies fall to the power of the Prophet and his violent supporters, she has to keep trying by herself.

Naturally, this book reminded me of the Texas polygamist cult that was raided in recent years. The enormous numbers of children, the long hair and dresses for girls, the adherence to an extreme version of Christianity - it was all the same. But when the Texas cult was raided, I looked on with some sympathy. It seemed as though these people, with their odd way of life, were not exactly wrong or bad, just different. But in The Chosen One, the blatant sexism, the rejection from the compound of some boys (to leave enough wives for the others), and the near-worship of community leaders is all clearly wrong. There is nothing natural about the violence, the marriage of young teen girls to old men who have wives already, the physical discipline used on both children and women, or the deitous power of the so-called Prophet and his Apostles.

One wonders how much creative liscence the author took. How accurate is the portrayal of violence? Do some community members really live in decadant luxury, while most live in trailers? Would a young girl really be asked to marry her elderly uncle? Do they really go to such extreme measures to prevent escape? Of course, if this were an Amish community, the answer would be no; they just live as though in the past, certainly without polygamy, and they send their young people into the "real world" for a year of their adolescence, to make sure they really want to be Amish. But what about cults, like the one in Texas? It's hard to know for sure. But as someone who rarely condemns a type of worship, or a lifestyle, that is different from my own, I can honestly say that this kind of polygamy on an isolated compound is disgusting, cruel, and wrong.

This is possibly why this book made such an impression on me; it forced me to make a judgement about a group of people, something I normally avoid at all costs. I would recommend reading The Chosen One, and see what you think - is it accurate? Is it objective? Is this lifestyle, under any circumstances, acceptable? Not that I would find fault with women and children born into it, or even men who would have a hard time escaping; it is the leaders and founders of such cults who should be ashamed of their selfishness, violence, and un-Christian behavior.

Brave New World

I've been swamped with school - sorry about the time between posts! Anyways, I recently read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which I thought was a really valuable satire, and surprisingly relevant (considering it was written about 1930).



In Brave New World, although the human race is capable of creating perfectly healthy humans (with a mistake here or there, but still), they create an entire class with subhuman mental capabilities, and other classes that were less strong and intelligent than they could have been.


This raises two questions: does some one always have to be on the bottom? And is it the same to have disabilities imposed by the system, or imposed by chance?


In the book they explain that for stability, there must be some classes who have less power and privilege than others. There are plenty of economic and political ideas that support or disprove this concept. The latter question, however, is more difficult to talk about. If we had complete control over things like severe autism and Downs Syndrome, would it be wrong for the powers that be to mandate that a certain number of "disabled" people be created? Is that heartless, or copying nature? On a personal level, the concept of poisoning embryos (as they do in Brave New World) to stunt their growth and development disgusts me. This is a horrid example of how science can be used in a way that it should never be used. But when it comes to controlling a planet, is it necessary for some people to have lower intelligence, so that they aren't discontented with boring, simple jobs? Is this doing them a favor - if someone has to do these jobs - to "condition" them to be content? Or is it a heinous, artificial imitation of one of nature's faults?


Unlike many satires, which ridicule one or two simple issues or individuals, Brave New World raises questions that are almost impossible to answer. If you haven't read it, I would. Even after finishing it, I am still questioning things in the world around me that I previously didn't give much thought to - everything from religion, to self-punishment, to marriage's place in society. In my opinion, that makes it a book that was worth my time.

A Moon for the Misbegotten

So on a poll a while back, the vote was for me to read & review this play. I've been ridiculously busy, but here it is, ladies and gentlemen: A Moon For the Misbegotten, by Eugene O'Neill.



This brief, all-American play probably would've been boring to see, but I truly enjoyed reading it. In the italicized phrases interspersed in the dialogue, as well as describing set and characters, there was a great deal of imagery and emotion that enriched the experience. Unlike many plays, which are simply lacking when put on paper, A Moon for the Misbegotten was a lively and thought provoking book.


Since this play has a relatively simple plot, and very little action, the true artistry is in the characters and their developments. There is only one flat character, the pompous neighbor named Harder, who adds an element of comedy and is as flat as my own pompous next-door neighbors seem to be in real life. The rest of the characters are warm, regretful, anxious, proud, sinful, loyal, and loving. Josie, the only female character, is at once proud of her strenghth and ashamed of her great size, which are almost universal sentiments among women. Jim Tyrone is both a cynic and a romantic, and Hogan is a hard-nosed, heavy-drinking, big-hearted old man. The three of them, with their all of their hope and insurmountable baggage, spend the time in the play in a mixture of intimate comfort and convoluted loneliness.


It may be personal to me, or a result of O'Neill's superior characterization, but I found myself relating to everyone in the story on a deep personal level. Josie's pride and love, Hogan's craftiness and underlying good intentions, Tyrone's dislike for himself and the world... there were so many similarities that I felt as though the play were a direct part of my life as I read it. I don't know if others have had similar experiences reading this, but I suggest you try - it's only about 150 pages - and I wouldn't be surprised if you find yourself identifying with the characters in this brilliant play.


Happy Reading!

Flash Burnout

Young Adult Fiction seems to be my main source of reading material recently; when I have more time, I'll read and report on either more classic literature, or something new and controversial. In the meantime, here's a quick and colorful book. It's called Flash Burnout, by L. K. Madigan. The main character is a guy in high school who's also the narrator, which is why I say it's colorful; his thoughts are what I imagine actually goes through the heads of the guys around me. If you're too young, too old, or too sheltered, you might have to Urban Dictionary some of the terms he uses.

This whole book is tied together by photography, which is the narrator/protagonist's passion. In the story, his best female friend is having trouble with her mother, a meth addict, and things are heating up with his high-maintenance girl friend. He's a pretty normal kid, and the book is fun to read, although the plot probably won't get your heart racing too often. It's written by a woman (this took extensive research to find out, since nothing in the book specified) so all it tells us is that all women (well, okay, me and her) assume the most of the same things about the thoughts and feelings of teen guys.

The one thing I got out of reading this, to be honest, was a really strong desire to either take up photography or befriend someone who already has. Or both. But if you need some entertainment, I'd recommend Flash Burnout.

You Are What You Hear

Candor, by Pam Bachorz, is a supremely creepy book. It's about a boy who lives in a special town that his father founded, where music containing subliminal messages is used to control the people who live there. Catchy phrases turn them into loose-clothing-wearing, healthy-food-eating, nonartistic, avidly academic individuals. No one wears eye makeup or nailpolish or holds hands in public, and teenagers never drink alcohol or make out in movie theatres. And if they ever leave and forget to take some of the special music with them, they will go insane and die a violent suicidal death. Oscar, the protagonist, has found a way to outsmart his father, but he's still stuck in this strange microcosm, with questions of love, control and honesty to confront. The entire book was full of suspense - will he escape? Will anyone escape? Will they all be brainwashed by the evil Mr. Banks, with no hope of free thought?

Clearly Bachorz believes that a) the media can affect us without our realization and b) our music, and the messages it contains, can define who we are. I agree that the words in songs, as well as the pictures and articles in magazines and the things we see on TV, can change both our perception and our goals more than we expect, but I think villainizing music is a pretty strong exageration of this concept. Then again, maybe the exageration is necessary to catch our attention.

Crooked, Zipped, and Crushed

These are three seperate books, by one married couple of authors. They aren't a series, but they are all "young adult" books, and they're all about pretty normal American teenagers. If I were a guy, I would probably be most interested in Zipped and least interested in Crushed, but if you like one of these, you'll probably like all of them.




Crooked was the first book I read by Laura and Tom McNeal, and it's about a girl with a crooked nose and no mother. There's a bad guy and a good guy who sometimes seem to change roles, and a really bad guy. Reading it felt like moving to a new town and getting to know new people, only probably a bit more exciting. The characters were all "round" characters, as my English teacher calls them, and I liked it a lot. This one gets 4.5 outta 5 stars.

Zipped was mainly told from a guy's point of view. It was full of questions and matters of perspective and identity, covering everything from adultery to racism to Mormon culture. It had one of the best quotes-within-a-story I've ever come across when two characters discuss the lyrics of a showtune, and no one was completely bad or completely good. 4 stars.

I honestly didn't want to read Crushed, but I liked the other two books enough to try it, and it wasn't terrible. Everyone it it was dealing with loss, whether that involved money, friends, family, or some combination thereof, and it was honestly pretty interesting. The characters, though, all seemed either naive or distrustworthy, except a few nice ones, who's importance levels fell somewhere between benchwarmers and supporting actors. So everyone likable was basically a "flat character". I think I should have stopped after Zipped, but this book isn't a total waste of time. 3 stars.

Has anyone else read any of these? Would you want to? Does the label "Young Adult Literature" affect whether or not you want to?

Say You're One of Them

I think there are authors who think that happy endings are boring, predictable, and less meaningful to the reader. They may be right. I also think that Uwem Akpan, author of Say You're One of Them, is one of these authors.

This collection of fictional stories by a smiley Jesuit priest from Nigeria doesn't have a single happy ending. There are bittersweet endings, endings that are twisted with relief and regret, and endings that leave you cold. But, as I recently learned how to say in Spanish, Todas las cuentas acaban mal. They have sad endings.

If you feel like you now don't have to read these stories, don't get me wrong; the endings are often unpredictable, some ending with what we hoped for all along, but not quite as happy, and some ending with what the characters dreaded, but we were too naive to believe possible.

These stories of Africa, exploring ordeals that happen to people there, and not rarely, are all unnerving. I had to ask myself, over and over, what seperates me from them? There are answers - physical distance, money, language - but they pale in comparison to the similarities, the unnerving proximities. Like Jubril, am I not at the mercy of the crowd whenever I take a bus or a train, or a plane? Could the others not kill me, if all incensed and united against me? Could I not lose my parents in an instant, like Kotchikpa, and find myself at the mercy of the world? These stories take place in an alternate universe, one that exists, only a plane ride away.

Some people don't read "depressing" stories, because they say that there isn't anything they can do about it. But maybe, if we read about the struggles of others, we won't be tempted to prey upon the one Muslim in a group of Christians, even in times of desperation and fear. Maybe we won't turn against our neighbors and families when there is a crisis, because we see how horrific it was when it happened in Rwanda. Maybe we won't ignore those charities that help child slaves just because they seem so far away, and we'll be careful where and how we get our oil and diamonds. So read Say You're One of Them, by Uwem Akpan. Maybe you'll learn something about life, or yourself.

Titian; The Last Days

Over Spring Break, I finished an excessive number of books, but this was not one of them.

Titian, by Mark Hudson, is about everything and everyone (and everyone's cousin) in Italy within a century or two of Titian's life. I read detailed accounts of the possible interpretations of paintings (which Titian probably never even saw) by artists who Titian never knew. I read the word "beatific" four times in one page, and eventually looked it up. ( If you're curious, it means saintly, calm, enlightened, etc; it is not simply another way to say beautiful. It is also used to address the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church. If you find this excessive and unwarranted explanantion tedious, I recommend you do NOT read this book). Reading this, I felt as though someone had written a three page dissertation on Titian, realized that it had to be a 100 page paper, panicked, and proceeded to throw in everything but the kitchen sink. And then, realizing he only had 99.5 pages, threw in the kitchen sink and made the page margins a bit smaller.

So if you'd like to educate yourself about Titian's home and how it looks now, rumors about the personal lives of those who inspired and trained him, and the nuances of tempera paint as opposed to oil paint, I would recommend this book. If you want to learn something about Titian, I'd recommend Wikipedia.

Seven Days in the Art World

So I thought I'd mix it up with some current nonfiction, and the book I chose is a fascinating look into the complex world of art - buying, selling, auctioning, collecting, studying, etc - that I never really thought about before.

Like most nonfiction, Seven Days in the Art World, by Sarah Thornton, is not a book for everyone. If you think Sports Illustrated when you think nonfiction, I'd sit this one out. But if you're interested in art, history, art history, high society, money, and/or psychology (especially group psychology), then I'd definitely give it a spin. There are a lot confusing aspects to the art world, like why does some strange-looking art sell for millions, and who decides? How are artists trained, and what kind of qualifications help an artist to be successful? How does the art market work economically, and what does that have to do with the art itself? And what does one do with a degree in art history?

Thornton uses her BA in art history, her PhD in sociology, and her extensive experience in all facets of the visual arts industry to help us understand this chaotic, lucrative whirlwind that is the art world. She divides the book into 5 clear parts, with a few helpful visuals. The first is The Auction, all about the people, personalities and pocketbooks in New York City that determine the value of artwork. Next is The Crit, about a class at the prestigious CalArts grad school. The Fair takes place in Switzerland, at a prestigious international art fair, and in The Magazine, we return to Manhattan to experience ArtForum, and important artistic publication that was mentioned several times in previous chapters. The Studio takes us to Tokyo, into the intimate world of an excentric Japanese artist named Takashi Murakami, who is making an eighteen-foot sculpture that will soon be platinmum-plated.

By the time you've finished 7 Days in the Art World, you will not only have visited 5 countries, including Italy and the UK, but you will also have the kind of knowledge about art and the people who deal with it that you'll be able to refer to countless times in the near future. Thornton's expeditious name-dropping and process-explaining imparts quite a bit of knowlegde and insight that most people could never aquire, due to the small and exclusive nature of the art circle.

If my positive review isn't enough to convince you, it was a New York Times Best Art Book of the Year, was a best-seller in Canada, got positive reviews from Vogue and Financial Times, and has been translated into 10 languages. You can also visit Sarah Thornton's website to learn more about her and her work.

Happy Reading!

Things Fall Apart

Little Bee is all about what the world and its people do to people. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, explains a lot about why the world (specifically Africa) is the way it is.


Doesn't seem like the country borders match up with tribal/kindom borders very well, do they? Might explain a lot about current political issues...



We all know that Africa is a chaotic place, full of sudden wars and horrifying poverty. I recently talked to some people who now live in France, who had to flee Zimbabwe because they were related to a human rights lawyer, and if you read Little Bee, you get the idea that wars spring up and wipe out innocent bystanders, and then governments hunt down the witnesses and kill them, too. Africa has problems. But it wasn't always that way; for a long time, there were just mostly-peaceful tribes with sophisticated cultural, religious and social traditions. When they fought, it was often to humiliate their enemy, rather than kill, and they knew how to survive in the most inhospitable climates. But then a variety of European powers came along, and infiltratred their society, destroying them using a variety of weapons, from military force to money to religious persuasion.


Things Fall Apart is the story of this infiltration. We can look at it with purely Western eyes, and maybe sustain the notion that Europeans were better and stronger and it was good that we conquered the Africans. If we have any level of sensitivity, however, we begin to understand that this beautiful civilization was no better or worse than Western society, then or now. The outsiders came to Africa, and started doing unforgivable things, like massacring an entire village on market day, or converting peoples' children to Christianity. We see how a group of people reacts, when there are suddenly outsiders with new ideas and lacking morals, and how they survive - or dont.



This story is written by an African, and gives the account of a very specific tribe and it's slow descent. Parallels can be drawn between every culture that was colonized by Europeans, though the British never wiped out an entire tribe by poisoning their water supply (like the Germans) or left a large disabled population by cutting off the right hand of anyone who didn't work up to speed (like the Dutch in the Congo). What we see in Things Fall Apart is really the moral and social destruction of a culture, rather than a aqueiescence to force. In order to understand Africa now, I think it's important to understand what it underwent to get where it is.


I'm curious - has anyone else read Things Fall Apart? I know it's a well-known book, and taught in a lot of history classes, (although probably not as commonly as Heart of Darkness, which I never finished). It's not as riveting as Little Bee, but I still wouldn't pass it up!


Happy Reading!

ps - Thanks to my AP Euro teacher for a lot of the ideas/information relating to African colonialization!

Little Bee

Little Bee, by Chris Cleave, is the story of a girl whose real name I will not tell you, who flees to the UK for typical yet tragic reasons (as she often says, "The stories always begin with 'The men, they came and they...'"). So she finds herself in England, upon the day of her release from a detention facility. This is where the book begins, although the story of Little Bee starts much earlier.

This is not what one would call a "brief" read, because it is not transient or easily forgotten. It's left me with the same sensation I feel after a shocking new article about a true event, or when a fabulous movie is suddenly over; it is as if the floor has fallen and nothing will ever be the same. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but reading Little Bee has made me think more about my life, my priorities, and the world than anything has in years. The characters, Little Bee and Sarah, are fighting opposite wars until they meet: Little Bee is trying to survive men with guns, while Sarah is trying to survive the miseries of a suburban life that is spiraling out of control. Little Bee is hanging on to her life for all she's worth, while Sarah is questioning her life and its true worth. When they meet, all of the death, fear, hope, and determination that rule their lives meet in a maelstrom of questions.

People are always talking about what they got out of something. Like, "Oh, I went to this wonderful seminar on the benefits of getting sleep - I just got so much out of it!" or something along those lines. Well, personally, I got so much out of this book I don't think I have the words to share it all, but I'll try to give you an idea. Little Bee, the character, is a heroine. She fights bad guys and survives tragedies and keeps her wits about her. Sarah is a lost soul, struggling with a failed marriage and a career that just isn't changing the world the way she once hoped it would. Between the two of them, they exemplify everything I want to be and everything I'm terrified of becoming. The story speaks to so many of my unspoken hopes and fears, and feels like something I've just been waiting to read. This is the sort of book that makes all those let-down, why-did-I-waste-my-time? books shrink in comparison, and I dearly hope you read it.

While Little Bee is "soon to be a major motion picture," I suggest the book, and soon. Click here to go to Borders to buy Little Bee (they have new and used) or else go to Amazon... I apologize for seeming like some pushy advertisment, but I can't suppress the desire to share this fabulous book with everyone!

Incendiary

I'm sorry it's been a while since I last wrote - school's been soo hectic!

At the moment, I'm reading Little Bee, by Chris Cleave, which is a current fiction best seller. Not too long ago I read another book of his, Incendiary. Incendiary is written in letters - letters to Osama bin Laden. In the story, the protagonist is a British woman, trying to cope with loss after an enormous terrorist attack.

It actually took me several chapters to realize that the attack the woman refers to is a fictional one. In the story, Al Queda terrorists set off a series of bombs in Chelsea stadium, during a Chelsea vs Arsenal soccer match that her son and husband were attending. As you can imagine, the story is not light and amusing, though it is rather witty. Through the eyes of a working class woman with "bad nerves" who lacks any understanding of comma usage, we see what happens when things begin to fall apart - or explode, as it were - around our ears. As London disintegrates into lunacy, so does the protagonist, though there is a prevailing ray of hope that things may return to normalcy. Whether it's a happy or sad ending, I won't reveal, but I do want to warn you that after the tragedy and horror of the book as a whole, not even a "happily ever after" could leave you feeling warm and fuzzy.

This relatively adult book is tragic, poignant and rather critical of the human race. It's terribly well-written, and the bad grammar, punctuation and capitalization only add to it's unique appeal. I have very little criticism for this fabulous book by Chris Cleave, and enjoyed the fact that it didn't seem to have great political biases or leanings, despite the politically-touchy nature of the subject matter. It's a sort of worst-case-scenario that is so fascinating, and told by such an appealing character, that it will pull you in to the plot, and probably make you cry as often as it makes you laugh.

I'll share what I think of Little Bee, as soon as I finish it - it too takes place in the modern day UK and the protagonist is also a woman who's suffered a great deal.. so far, I love it!

Happy Reading!

Edna St. Vincent Millay: Feast

I drank at every vine.
The last was like the first.
I came upon no wine
So wonderful as thirst.

I gnawed at every root.
I ate of every plant.
I came upon no fruit
So wonderful as want.

Feed the grape and bean
To the vintner and monger;
I will lie down lean
With my thirst and my hunger.

I haven't written about a poem yet, but I was recently reading a collection of poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay and it was all so delectable, I wanted to write about it. Millay is a fabulous poet who wrote about love and life - sometime flippantly, sometimes dramatically, sometimes cynically. This poem is too self-explanatory for me to say much about it; I just think she's a brilliant writer who says simple things in her poetry that others don't often think to say. Also, she has a way of romanticizing a life of dissatisfaction and recklessness, without ignoring the negative aspects.

A few recomendations of beautiful poetry of hers:

Sad:
The Betrothal
Ebb
Ashes of Life
Spring
Time Does Not Bring Relief/Sonnet II

Optomistic:
To A Young Poet
First Fig
Second Fig
Recuerdo

Books To Read

I just found a list of books that I read last year in my room, and I thought I'd share my favorites. I'll divide them up - books for adults, books for kids, books for teenagers, and books for anyone.

Some of the Books for Kids are more boy-oriented, since I borrowed most of them from my little brother when I ran out of books to read, but I enjoyed most of them anyway. I enjoy a very wide range of literature, so I'd recommend reading the backs of these books before starting them. Also, these are all books I read over 6 months ago, so I apologize if I forgot to mark any with an M or D. Let me know if you read/enjoy any of these!

Key:
(M) m for mature; books that have more than a little drugs/sex in them, as I remember
(D) d for disturbing; don't take it too seriously, but these are books with themes like suicide, abuse, and mental illness
* one of my favorites


Books For Kids (10-13):

Lion Boy Trilogy
Aleutian Sparrow
Airman
Wolf Brother
Downsiders
The Last Codfish
Anahita's Woven Riddle (more of a girl book)
The Life History of A Star (also a girl book)
Elske (definitely a girl book - princesses and all)


Books for Teenagers:

Margaux with an X
As Cool As I Am (M)
The Torn Skirt (M)
A Simple As Snow
Ely & Naomi's No Kiss List
Keeping You A Secret
Burned (D) *
Wide Awake
The Realm of Possibility
48 Shades of Brown
Cupcake
Confess-O-Rama
Playing with Matches
Crooked*
You Know Where to Find Me (M) (D)
Marly's Ghost
Perks of Being a Wallflower (D)
It's Kind of A Funny Story (D) *
All That Remains (D)*
The Bean Trees
Stealing Henry
Chasing Windmills
The Arizona Kid
Boy Meets Boy
Dough Boy
Beige
Things My Mother Doesn't Know
Looking For Alaska (D)(M)*
After the Crash, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away (D)(M)
The Fattening Hut (D)
The Pretty One
Life Is Funny (M)
Wild Orchid
I Can't Tell You (M?)


Books for Adults:

Sea Wolf
Images of Chekov (Russian literature - not exactly cheery)
The Bluest Eye (M)(D)
The Guardian
Joy In the Morning


Books for Anyone (adults/teens):

Crashing Through
Gone With the Wind*
A Thousand Splendid Suns (D)(M)
1984


After going through this list, I realize that there are plenty of books I didn't like at all, so I didn't include those. I apologize for the lack of authors, but if you search these titles on Amazon.com or at a library, you can probably find all of them. Happy reading!

Ali and Nino

The title of this book by Kurban Said says a lot. The two names are the names of lovers, like Tristan and Isolde, or Romeo and Juliet. And like Ali Babba and the Forty Thieves, this story takes place in the Middle East.

Just before the first world war, two young people in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, fall in love. Ali is a Muslim boy of aristocratic descent. Nino is a Christian girl with Western values, yet the two share a deep bond from the first. Even as a school boy, Ali thinks Nino is the most beautiful girl in the world. From the very first chapter, the question is raised: is Baku in Europe, or Asia? As the city struggles with its identity, so do the lovers. Ali feels at home in a Persian palace, while Nino refuses to wear a veil. Ali's ancestors killed Nino's namesake's husband. As Ali says, "We ought to be blood enemies."

In the end, though, the two are seperated by death, not by religion or beliefs or culture. This book explores the controversies that accompany love when the lovers have different ideas about religion and social rules. Is it possible to have a deep, spiritual bond with someone who practices a different religion and values different ideas? Is it possible to have a lover or spouse whose cultural ideas about love and marriage are very different? In Ali and Nino, the it does seem possible. Yet they are rarely happy at the same time, and since they share such a deep bond, this means that for most of the story they are both unhappy. So while Said seems to idealize love that overcomes cultural boundaries, he also portrays it as an unhappy struggle. Thus, the romantic message has a stipulation: love can overcome anything, but it'll probably leave everyone miserable if it has to overcome much of anything.

One thing that Said does very well is characterization; unlike some authors, who rush to tell us exactly who all of the characters are, he slowly reveals them. In real life, we rarely know who anyone truly is, and we learn about them slowly if at all. If you've read A Tale of Two Cities, you know that Dickens rushes to tell us everything about a character: what they look like, what they wear, what distinct mannerisms, habits, and idiosyncracies they have, and everything else that usually takes time to notice about a person. Said lets each character slowly tell the reader who they are through actions and dialogue, often with many contradictions and changes along the way. This is appropriate for a novel that deals with a crisis of identity for a city and for two people.

This book can be read as an entertaining romance, or a thought-provoking commentary on culture, religion, and human nature. It examines issues that divide the world today, and is a beautiful love story.

The Old Man and the Sea

I recently began writing a piece for a short story contest, on the topic of "the human condition". For my piece, I chose the theme of the human cycle of insecurity, rejection, anger, and guilt. The prompt, however, made me think of another story of the human condition.

In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago is an elderly fisherman who catches an enormous fish. It takes a great deal of time to fight and kill it, and as he tows it back to the shore (he cannot lift it into his boat) a shark eats most of the fish. This tragic man-vs-nature struggle is such a human story. Alone in a dangerous wilderness, we fight to survive. Sometimes we succeed. But if our story seems to have a happy ending, it is because it is not finished. Had Hemingway finished the story right when the old man triumphed over the great fish, it would have been a happy ending. Like life, however, Hemingway continued on until the triumph turned into a great defeat, and the old man returned to his simple life, weary and sad.

Hemingway explored the beauty of true competition in this story, and the crushing frustration of unfair defeat. The experienced fisherman and the 18-foot sword fish, both old and cunning and strong, fight a fair battle. But as it fights, the fish swims farther and farther from shore, bringing the old man with it. Thus, once it dies, the old man has days of sailing to get back. And in these days, a swarm of sharks find him and follow him and attack. They attack together, and at night, like the most dispicable cowards, but they are only animals, which adds to the indignity of the situation. In the end, Santiago returns to his worried village, where people fuss over the enormous skeleton still tied to his boat, and he goes to sleep and dreams of the same things he dreamed of before he left.

I love this approach to writing, because so many authors make it seems as though the characters have undergone some great change and life is linear, when actually people rarely change and life is a cyclical pattern. This story is a fanciful creation, yet strikingly true.

The Disreputable History of Frankie-Landau Banks

This book seems, at first, like one of those silly Gossip Girl-type books where everyone is wealthy, and the main character suddenly becomes popular when she becomes pretty. Actually, though, it's a book about society's expectations, feminism, and being underestimated.

The main character's name is Frankie-Landau Banks, and she attends a fancy East Coast prep school where mostly everyone is smart and wealthy. She isn't exactly a feminist, but she is very bothered by the fact that everyone in her life underestimates her. Her family calls her "bunny-rabbit", and no one notices her until she goes up a few bra-sizes.

Once that happens, though, all of the guys suddenly notice her, and the most popular guy in school asks her out. They still don't take her seriously, though. The author explains how Frankie wants to be "a force to be reckoned with," and she does this by infiltrating the all-male Basset Hound Society, an old and secretive society of the most popular upperclassmen at her prep school, of which her boyfriend is president. Once she realizes that secrets are being kept from her, and that she is second fiddle to her boyfriend's friends, she becomes determined to prove all of the low expectations wrong. She succeeds in her efforts, and everyone realizes that she matters. Naturally, though, her boyfriend holds this against her, and she suddenly is left with only her nerdy best friend as a social circle.

The author, E. Lockhart, clearly sets forth a societal conflict: can a woman be successful and popular? Frankie is beautiful, smart, wealthy, charming, and generally a nice person, yet is hated as soon as she outsmarts a few people. She constantly compares herself to guys, wants to beat them at things and have what they have, but also wants them to want her. It seems reasonable to want respect and love from people at the same time, but Frankie's situation is a common one in life. I'll say right of the bat that I don't know anything about politics or politicians, but I find it offensive that Hillary Clinton, when running for a presidential election, was mocked for things like lipstick choices and her appearance. Michelle Obama is a smart, accomplished person who is important in many ways, yet the public is fixated on her shapely arms and cute dresses. This sort of thing is exactly what Frankie stands up against; if you are going to admire someone, admire them for who they are, not what they look like. And if you're going to criticize a politician, you had better have something against her other than her gender.

This book is relatively simple in message: if you're a girl, don't be a doormat. Whoever you are, don't underestimate girls. If you can't join 'em, beat 'em, but if you succeed you will definitely not be able to join 'em.