Cost

I know, two posts in one day. I finished the long, bad Against the Day a few days ago, and I finished the shorter, better Cost today.

Cost delves into a family that learns of and reacts to the heroin addiction of one character, Jack. We meet the family just before they learn of this addiction. The mother and father are divorced, and the father has remarried. Jack's maternal grandparents are on the scene, as are a maternal aunt and older brother. Most of the book happens during the course of a few days, although there is some follow-up that occurs later.

Robinson does a nice job of shifting among the perspectives of different family members. It's somewhat similar to that of Jodi Piccoult, although it's not dramatic and sustained in the same way. She seems to "check in" with each of the various characters without the dramatic shift. I enjoyed that style.

The story was very engaging, although I had to skip some of the explicit descriptions of shooting up. I'm way too squeamish for that stuff.

This book is a quick read without sacrificing psychological intensity.

Against the Day

I haven't posted anything for a long time because I was slogging through this book. Spoiler alert: it sucks. It took me forever to read it because a) it was 1085 pages long, and b) I couldn't get into the book. So many times I thought about quitting it, but I just can't stand to do that. I read this book because it was one of the 1001 books to read before you die. Trust me, you can die in peace without reading this.

One issue was the numerous extremely long sentences that are individually difficult to follow, such as the following:

"Appearing these days in the infant science of counter-terrorism as an all-purpose code name, the bloke you sent out a discreet summons for to alert your own security staff to a crisis, the real "Inspector Sands," beleaguered, ever struggling to define and maintain a level of professional behavior, unaware of his drift into legend, soon enough aged beyond his years and sweated into a moodiness at home that could not but slop over onto the wife and kids, would find by midcareer no time even to take of his hat, hurrying as ever from one emergency to the next--"Ah, Sands, there you are, and high time too."

It's also very difficult to follow because it involves 39 characters (according to Wikipedia) with really weird names, such as:

• Lew Basnight
• Chick Counterfly
• Darby Suckling
• Sloat Fresno
• Yashmeen Halfcourt
• Deuce Kindred
• Cyprian Latewood
• Lake Traverse
• Professor Heino Vanderjuice
• Scarsdale Vibe

These characters travel all over much of the world and cross paths with each other in the most unlikely of situations over the course of about 30 years.

The story involves time travel, gratuitous sex, confusing mathematical theories, and rediculous songs. I checked out some reviews, and here are some of my favorite snippets:

• "All the paranoia and silliness and vast workings out of history make it easy to overlook the sheer beauty of Pynchon's prose." - Mark Feeney, Boston Globe
• "Rambling, pompous and often completely incomprehensible" - The Economist
• "It's a world of mystery and paranoia, of inchoate longing, of disillusionment and anticlimax. Like Pynchon's characters, we wander through a swarm of hints that both promises light and darkens what little day we have." - Greg Hollingshead, The Globe & Mail
• "Against the Day is built out of vast amounts of period detail, from ladies' hats to the arcane minutiae of the mathematical squabbles of the day...(I)t's quite a challenge to hold its multitudinous threads together in your head sufficiently clearly to grasp what it is they're being woven together to form." - James Lasdun, The Guardian
• "This shambling ragbag of prose rattles with more than a hundred characters, multiple settings in this world and others and a multitude of narratives held together by gossamer skeins of plot." - David Goldblatt, The Independent
• "It is a humongous, bloated jigsaw puzzle of a story, pretentious without being provocative, elliptical without being illuminating, complicated without being rewardingly complex." - Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
• "There is too much going on among too many characters in too many places. There are also too many tonal shifts, as though Pynchon set out to mimic all the styles of popular fiction -- boys’ adventure stories, science fiction, Westerns, comic books, hardboiled crime fiction, spy novels, soft-core porn." - Louis Menand, The New Yorker
• "The text is overwhelming, unstable, encyclopaedic and extravagantly allusive." - David Gale, The Observer

And, there are many more. Don't waste your time on this huge book.

Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism

I know I haven't put anything up in a long time. My computer is dying, and I've been slogging through a super long and non-engaging book for weeks now. In the meantime, I read this book at work.

This book is super interesting. It tells the story of a woman who was diagnosed with Asperger's/High Functioning Autism as an adult. She talks about her struggle to fit in and how developing an understanding of and community with gorillas helped her learn to how connect with humans. She talks a lot about her experiences with gorillas, which I found really interesting. It is also a message of hope for adults with Aspergers/Autism, as she leads a satisfying life with a partner and a child. I definitely recommend it.

On Beauty

This book follows the experiences of one family, although other characters intertwine in various ways. Howard, the father, is a White British professor in the American Northeast. Kiki, the mother, is a Southern African-American woman who has invested her life in her husband and children. Jerome, their oldest child, is a college student is notable as the only family member who is religious (Christian). Zora, their daughter, is a college student who struggles notably with her own body image. Levi, their youngest child, is a high schooler who becomes active in a movement supporting equal rights for Haitians.

Overall, the book is about conflict...conflict between various family members, conflict between family members and other people in their surroundings, conflict between liberal and conservative values, conflict between different racial/ethnic/socioeconomic groups, conflict between who characters are, who they want to be, and who they want people to think they are, etc. While the story itself is generally not overly heavy, it does provide a great deal of thought provoking material. I think you might want to read it.

The Red Queen: A Transcultural Tragicomedy

This book has an interesting and unconventional style. The half of the book tells the story of a Korean woman who became a princess and was to become the Red Queen. Her real name is not known. I'll call her the Red Queen for the sake of clarity. She lived a long life and saw her father-in-law, son, and grandson as king; her husband was mentally ill and was murdered by his father (the king). The second half of the story tracks a female professor in England in the 21st century. She mysteriously received a copy of a memoir of the Red Queen and becomes somewhat obsessed with her.

The most unusual characteristics of this book are:

1. The whole story is told in the voice of the Red Queen. She is dead but is tracking the developments of the modern world. She is aware of the internet, reads voraciously, and has a vested interest in continuing to share her story.
2. The author (Margaret Drabble) wrote herself into the second half of the book. She is a character who interacts with the other fictional characters in the book. She is a novelist in the book and is only a minor character.

I thought this book was interesting. The story of the Red Queen was fascinating, but the idea of continuing mentally after death is more intriguing. The Red Queen has all of eternity to read whatever she wants, to research topics that interest her, and to see how she has impacted the world. That idea is quite compelling. It would be very painful to see the world continuing to unfold, while having essentially no impact upon it. However, at the same time, the idea of having eternity to read sounds fabulous,  although I could imagine that at some point eternity would feel exhausting.

Child 44

I have to preface this by saying that I know almost nothing about Communist Russia. I wish that I did, so I could tell how far from impossible (and I hope it's really far) this story is. This book was an engaging and suspenseful read. The story involves the search for a mass murderer in a society where murder is alleged to never occur. Each of the individual murders was pinned on an easy target, even when it became clear that they were connected. The powers that be could not admit that they were all committed by one man. Instead, the murderer was sought by one disgraced cop who was considered a traitor. In the end, the connection was a little too close for anyone's comfort. In this story Russia is a dystopian society were everyone is a potential traitor who could be murdered for the slightest infraction. The downside of the book...it reinforces the communism=inherently bad myth. Other than that, it's a good read.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

#31! It's April 16, and I've read more books than I read last year!

This was a good one. This story provides a glimpse into Henry Lee's life during two distinct time periods.

During the first, 1942-1945, Henry is 12-15 year old Chinese American boy growing up in Seattle. He is caught in a cultural divide between his traditional Chinese parents and the American society into which he was born. His father is extremely anti-Japanese due to extensive war and conflict between China and Japan. Meanwhile, Henry slowly falls in love with a Japanese classmate named Keiko. She and her family are removed from Seattle and forced to live in internment camps. Miraculously, Henry manages to visit Keiko and maintain some contact with her until Henry's father stops their correspondence. Toward the end of this time period, Henry met Ethel, a Chinese American girl, falls for her, and proposes because he is afraid that he will never be able to find Keiko again.

The second time period is 1986, although some elements that the author mentions (e.g., online support groups) are not consistent with 1986. In this portion of the story Ethel has been dead for six months. Henry has a strained relationship with his 21 year old son Marty, which is improved during this story after the introduction of his White fiancee Samantha. In 1986 the belongings of numerous Japanese American families that were removed to internment camps were found in an old hotel in Japantown. Henry, Marty, and Samantha go sleuthing through these items and find some items of Keiko's. Marty and Samantha use the internet (which was not so well developed in 1986) to find Keiko, and Henry visits her in New York City.

During the book, these stories are interspersed, so each is unfolding simultaneously. The story itself is both bitter and sweet. It is truly disturbing that the US government locked up US citizens in the 1940's due to their ethnic heritage. The story reminds me a little bit of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas in its illustration of how children are not born with discriminatory beliefs but these have to be taught. Clearly then, we can teach children otherwise.

I recommend this sweet, sad book. It's a quick read and will touch your heart.

Pillars of the Earth

Okay, I finally have another book to add. I am feeling like a slacker since this is the first one in April, and April is half over. Granted, this book is just shy of 1000 pages long, and I've been super busy with life stuff, but I like to move through the books a little faster than this. On the upside, this is the 30th book of 2012. This important since I vowed to read more this year than last year, and last year I read 30 books. I basically only need to read one more to beat last year. Of course, I'll be reading more than that in 2012.

I really liked this book. It takes place in the Middle Ages in England. It follows the family of Tom Builder, his allies, and their opponents over four decades. Priests, monks, earls, knights, kings, and craftsmen are all integral to this story, and the story involves lies, murder, rape, and any number of smaller offenses. Much of the story revolves around Prior Phillip's desire to have a large cathedral built at his priory, Kingsbridge. He initially hires Tom Builder to build it, but he was killed in a raid. His son, Alfred Builder, takes over, but his design collapses. After several years, Tom's disgraced stepson, Jack Jackson, returns to Kingsbridge and eventually builds a church like has never been seen in England. Although the book is long and a few passages about architecture get boring, it's an engaging read overall.

I was reading it at the hotel 2 weeks ago, and a guest mentioned that there was a mini-series based on the book. I looked it up last night after finishing the book and discovered that, sadly, the 8 part series is not on Netflix, Hulu, or YouTube. That's a little disappointing, but the book is probably better anyway.

Look Me in the Eye

For those of you who are following along, this is the second book in a row about Asperger's/Autism. This one is a memoir by a man who worked for KISS, designed famous games, and owns his own high end car repair shop. He is the brother of Augusten Borroughs, who wrote the book Running with Scissors (which was adapted into a movie). They had very dysfunctional childhoods, at the hands of their mentally ill, substance addicted parents. John's Asperger's was undiagnosed until he was 40 years old, so he never understood why he had so many problems related to his social interactions. Learning about Asperger's, meeting supportive people, and working to change his habits resulted in John learning to get along with people much better. John's story is inspirational for anyone who felt like an outcast, and it especially speaks volumes about what people with Asperger's can do.

I recommend this book to everyone and especially to those who know people with Asperger's.

The Way I See It

Temple Grandin is famous for two reasons: she has designed state of the art cattle facilities, and she has High Functioning Autism. This book is about the latter. The book is informative and interesting at times, but I actually didn't like it that much because it is a compilation of short articles. These articles are redundant and repetitive at times, which I did not like. The book could have probably been 25 pages shorter if all of the repetitive information was deleted. I am interested in reading some other materials of hers though because I think she has a great perspective. Her Ted Talk is really good too, and I would encourage anyone to look it up.

Cutting for Stone

I really enjoyed this book, with the exception of a few parts that were overly medical/gory. The protagonist is a boy/young man/middle aged man who is half-British and half-Indian, born as a conjoined twin to a nun and a brilliant surgeon in Ethiopia, and raised by an Indian couple. This book involves a political coup, female circumcision, and several ground-breaking surgeries. The story makes me think about the meaning of family, of nationality, and of ethnicity. This is an engaging story spanning about six decades and four continents.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

This book is translated from the original French, and I do believe a little is lost in translation (due more to the cultural gap between France and the US than the actual language, I believe). The book alternates between the point of view of two very different characters who live in the same building--an aging servant and a brilliant suicidal adolescent girl. I had a hard time getting into the book at first. I didn't like slogging through the dense philosophical content at the beginning, but I found it to be worth it. I was getting really invested in the characters when the book suddenly and tragically ended. I was displeased about that part, but I liked the book overall.

Nothing to be Frightened Of

Honestly, I finished this book about two weeks ago, and I didn't like it. I felt like I was reading rambling free association roughly focusing around the author's views of religion and death. It was tangential and often irrelevant. I don't remember a lot of the details, beyond being happy when I finally finished the book.

Oryx and Crake

Consistent with some other books I've read recently (think: The Hunger Games series) most of this book takes place after life as people knew it ceased and an alternate form of civilization developed. Oryx and Crake jumps back and forth between the current time, when Jimmy/Thickney/Snowman is the caretake for a new breed of mostly-humans, and the events leading up to this time. Although it's hard to understand in the beginning, I became immersed in the book and had trouble putting it down. Misty would be dissatisfied by the lack of closure at the end, but I think it's still a quality read!

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

This book was weird, on a number of levels, not the least of which is the unusual abilities of the title characters. It appears that the author began writing by finding some unusual old photos and then developing a story that integrates each of the pictures. The pictures are included throughout the book. The fact that there are pictures in the book, combined with the fact that it is narrated by a teenage boy, makes this book a little childish for my taste. However, it grew on me as I continued reading it. I'm also a little creeped out by the part of the story that involves the protagonist Jacob and his grandfather being romantically involved with the same girl (who did not age between these liaisons). Jacob appears to be disturbed by this initially but becomes so swept up in his lust for her that he ultimately had no qualms about this. I'm surprised that Misty likes it so much because it is somewhat of a cliffhanger, which she typically does not enjoy, but there is some trauma, which is a redeeming quality for her.

Son of a Witch

This book is the second in the Wicked trilogy. (For those of you who are keeping count, this is the third trilogy to make an appearance this year.) I read Wicked when I was a senior in college, which means that I read it 9 years ago. During the last nine years I have seen the musical Wicked 3 or 4 times and listened to the soundtrack countless times. I have no memory at this point about how the book differs from the musical. Reading this book made it clear that either the book is very different from the musical or a lot happens between the first and second books. I'm not sure which is true. This made it hard for me to get into this book. It took about a third of the book to get hooked, I think, but I did eventually get hooked. In this book, Liir, the probable son of Elphaba (Wicked Witch of the West), finds his own path, which involves furthering Elphaba's work. The end of the book leaves the reader in extreme suspense (MISTY), so I am excited to read the last book in the trilogy.

Room

I read Room after my mom recommended it. I remember her talking about it when she visited us in Ithaca. This book is narrated by 5 year old Jack, who has lived in Room for his entire life and believes everything outside of Room is fictional and exists only in TV. This extremely bright little boy explains his world as he understands it, and the fierce love between Jack and Ma is palpable. I really do not want to spoil this book because I think you should read it.

The Help

I might be one of the last people in America to read The Help, but I finally got to it. Unfortunately, I already saw the movie, so that ruined some of the emotional impact of the book for me. The movie was a close adaptation of the book, although one aspect that is lost is the narrative style of the book. The book is alternately narrated by Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny, which I enjoyed. Having Aibileen and Minny's voices included in the book saved it from the "White lady saves poor minorities" flavor that appeared at times during the movie. Overall, I found that this book does live up to the hype, and I'd definitely recommend it...as long as you don't mind having chocolate custard pie ruined for you.

Virgin: The Untouched History

This book traces the various cultural meanings behind virginity through the ages. I learned about how virgins have been thought to be almost invincible and magical. Virgins could even tame unicorns. I believe a lot of this actually provides the underpinning for the fact that virgins always live during teen horror movies...until they "lose it," after which time they are immediately killed. She discusses famous virgins (some of whom were likely not virgins), including the Virgin Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and that British lesbian who sold her hetero virginity a few years ago. This book also talks about current abstinence based sex ed, which ironically never includes the word "virgin," even though that is the premise of the program.

This book was really interesting. She has another book out about heterosexuality, and I hope to read that soon.

Sybil Exposed

This book is fascinating! Almost everyone is aware of the Sybil story (the woman with 16 personalities), but what few people know is that the story was manufactured. This book tells the story of the three women who made this hoax possible: Dr. Connie Wilbur (the psychiatrist), Shirley Mason ("Sybil"), and Flora Schreiber (the author of Sybil). Here's the lowdown...

• Shirley had pernicious anemia. Symptoms of pernicious anemia include fatigue, rapid heart rate, depression, mild cognitive impairment, and pins and needles sensations in the fingers and toes.
• Pernicious anemia was not understood when Shirley was coming of age, so her symptoms were misunderstood as being psychological in nature.
• Shirley thus sought help from Dr. Wilbur.
• Dr. Wilbur was very career driven and fascinated by the idea of multiple personality disorder (MPD; as it came to be known, before it was known as DID).
• Dr. Wilbur arrived at the decision that Shirley had MPD, and she informed Shirley of this diagnosis. She then proceeded to prescribe and administer numerous addictive and potentially dangerous drugs, to which Shirley became addicted. They agreed that they would write a book about Shirley to make them rich.
• Shirley was eager to please Dr. Wilbur, so she manufactured personality after personality to gain her attention.
• Dr. Wilbur and Shirley engaged in a very inappropriate relationship, which involved going on vacations together, Shirley working for Dr. Wilbur, and them even living together for a period of time. Some individuals believe they were engaged in a romantic relationship.
• They later met Flora, who was interested in the big scoop. At first, she was clueless about the fact that it was a fraud, but she realized along the way that everything was whack. However, she didn't want to lose face (or money), so she decided to write the book anyway, making up more details along the way.
• They all then willingly broadcast their fraud to the world. Dr. Wilbur and Flora became rich and famous, but Shirley got outed repeatedly due to the fact that Flora barely covered Shirley's identity. Shirley essentially lived the rest of her life in hiding.

I was blown away by all of this. I also found it very educational. I learned a lot about Seventh Day Adventism (Shirley's religion) and several aspects of mental health history. I would encourage anyone to read this book. I guarantee you will learn something.

The Lacuna

This is the third Barbara Kingsolver book I have read. I didn't really like the last one that much (Prodigal Summer), but a friend recommended this one, and I gave it a shot. I was talking with some friends at lunch today about how to classify this book. We settled on "historical fiction." This is a fictional book in which a fictional character interacts with real people (e.g., Frieda Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Trotsky) and is shaped by real historical events, especially including the US War on Communism (McCarthyism). I had a hard time getting into the book at first because it is comprised of many different segments, including a polished chapter 1, fictional diary entries, fictional correspondence, actual New York Times articles, etc. Once I got used to the format, I really liked it. I don't know a lot about the historical events included in the book, and reading the book made me more interested in learning the truth. I just read a little bit about Trotsky, and it seems that much of the information in The Lacuna is legit. 

If you want to learn a little about Mexican/American/Russian history and read something quirky and different, you might want to give this a shot.

Firefly Lane

This book is much farther into the Chick Lit genre than what I typically read. I see this book as basically a love story, although it focuses on friendship love rather than romantic love. This tracks the friendship of two very different women over the course of 30 years. It's nice to be able to read a story that confirms what I have experienced and what I have witnessed with friends and clients--the line between friendship love and romantic love is not as distinct as you might imagine. What I mean by that is that the betrayal of a friend can break your heart in almost the exact same way as the betrayal of a lover. Likewise, the love of a friend can fill your soul in a very similar way to the love of a partner. Many times I've had clients sit in my office crying over the loss of a close friendship, and their pain is intensified because they believe that they "shouldn't" feel so strongly because it was "just" a friend. Well, friendship can be a very powerful thing.

So, this book was good and sad. I didn't love it, but I liked it. For Misty I'll say: there's trauma, but relatively little since it's a long book and only a few pages are about trauma. As far as closure, I think it was decent, but you'd still probably want more.  :)

The Kite Runner

My reactions to this book are complex. First of all, it made me realize how little I know about Afganistan (and many other areas of the world). This book is rooted in decades of unrest and war and reminds us that Afganis are just people like us. (I know it sounds obvious, but just hearing about these conflicts on TV just paints them as the "other.") Second of all, the story is very moving and heart wrenching. Misty would love the traumatic parts but HATE the ending. This is a powerful story about family, a broken society, upheaval, and the ways that it shapes lives. I would like to read a follow up story, although I don't think it exists.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

I finally read the last book of the trilogy, although it has been quite awhile since I read the first two. I watched the Swedish version of the movies to refresh my memory before I embarked on this 563 page tome. (As a side note, I thought the movies were good--gritty but good.) I enjoyed this book, but I found it more daunting than the previous two. I think that might be because of the sheer number of Swedish characters that I had to keep track of during the book (e.g., Niedermann vs. Nieminen, Edklinth vs. Ekstrom). Additionally, a number of characters are alternately referred to by their first and last names. The cast of characters in this book is enormous. I think I would have been well-served by several pages listing succinct descriptions of each character. This distracted me for the first half of the book and slowed me down throughout the book. All of that aside, Larsson managed to write a book that was good enough to round out the trilogy. I plan to watch this Swedish movie soon. I'm sure I'll catch the American The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo sometime after it's out of the theaters. After watching the Swedish version I realized that Lizzy will hate the movie, so I'll have to watch it when she's not around.

When Men Become Gods

This history of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) was fascinating. I haven't been reading a lot of nonfiction lately, but I got this one for free, so I decided to give it a shot. It was well worth the read. This book has plenty of scandal and intrigue, plus evasion and spy stuff. I learned that the show Big Love is much closer to reality than I ever dreamed. The show's depiction of the old-fashioned closed FLDS community, which is ruled by a tyrannical man and his son, could be a made-for-tv-movie-based-on-a-true-story version of Rulon and Warren Jeffs at The Crick. The author provides a brief history of the entire Mormon church and then chronicles the development of the corruption, greed, and child abuse. This account is fascinating, and I  highly recommend it!

Double Cross

This is the first of Patterson's popular books that I've ever read. This is the 13th in the series, but it's written in such a manner that you don't need to have read the previous books to follow it, although perhaps you would feel more invested if you had read the previous books. I don't typically read the detective mystery type books lately, but I used to read cop/lawyer mystery books a lot when I was in high school. 

I don't have a lot to say about the book. It's a quick read, and it's great brainless entertainment. I got it for free, and while I didn't love it, I don't regret reading it. I would read other books in the series, and I have another Patterson book in the queue.

Mockingjay

I finally read the last book in The Hunger Games trilogy. I really wish I could have read them all back to back, but I had to beg, borrow, and steal to get my hot little hands on them for free.

I don't feel like discussing the particulars of the plot. Instead, I'm going to reflect a little on my thoughts about the series. I thought it was great and found all of the books to be quick reads. Greg, the intern at work who lent me #2 and #3, asked me whether I was "Team Peeta" or "Team Gale." I thought about it and realized that I had no particular opinion about which man, if either, Katniss ended up with. I was rooting for all of them to make it out alive, but I didn't know what particular ending would be better. I think that Katniss loved Peeta and Gale, but I think she loved them in different ways that are more adaptive for different parts of her life. I think I couldn't "pick a team" without knowing how things ended up for her. I was satisfied with that portion of the ending. I thought that Prim dying was an extra special tragedy since the whole trajectory of the book started with Katniss keeping Prim alive.

I recommend these books, and I'm looking forward to watching the movie, although I'm sure it will be a disappointment.

The Last Child

This is another book Misty loaned me. I now understand that she loves reading about traumatic topics!

This book started one year after 12 year old Alyssa went missing. We learn that her disappearance has basically destroyed the lives of her twin brother Johnny, her mother, and the lead detective on the case. After the case has been cold for nearly the entire year, it breaks open pretty quickly due to Johnny's astute detective work. While I found myself engaged in the book, I had trouble connecting with parts of it because it seemed so unrealistic at times. This especially true with some of the connections that Johnny makes--the author tries to make them sound logical, but it seems more random. During the course of the book, there are in inordinate amount of murders, including a college professor who saw too much, a prostitute, a dirty security guard, a child molester, a coke head business tycoon, etc. Everyone in this town appears to be connected and twisted.

This book made me question, for about the billionth time, how people put their lives back together after a tragedy. If my *hypothetical* daughter disappeared, how would I go on living and breathing? Would I be able to go on with some semblance of my life as I know it now, or would it be the beginning of my own demise? In my work I sometimes see people who are reeling from some type of tragedy, like my 19 year old college student client whose 17 year old brother drowned. I am supposed to make some judgements about how he is reacting to it--is that reaction appropriate, especially given that his family immigrated to the US from other country and thus has different cultural norms for dealing with death? I hate assigning diagnostic labels to people who are reacting to their own very difficult situations. I always question at what point it is--or should be--considered mental illness.

Well, maybe that's just a rant, but that was what I was thinking post-The Last Child.

Lucky

Misty recommended that I read Lucky and lent it to me after I finished The Lovely Bones. This memoir is not for the faint of heart. It begins with a graphic description of her brutal rape. At the end, she leaves the reader with some hope, but this hope is only given after Alice loses nearly everything. The reader learns about the rape, the additional injuries caused by the criminal justice system, the often insensitive responses of others (including a terrible psychiatrist), her best friend's rape, and her alcohol and drug abuse before learning that she truly did emerge as a survivor.

While reading this, I kept asking myself if this was something I would/could/should recommend for clients. It is not unusual to have a client with some history of sexual trauma, and sometimes it helps to have something to read. I don't think I would recommend this to a survivor though because it may be too traumatizing. I think it might be good reading for a romantic partner or family member of a rape survivor. Although Alice's story is just her own, perhaps there are lessons in it for all of us who are confronted with rape/rape survivors. The last statistic I read on this matter was that 1 in 4 American women (1 in 4!) experiences sexual abuse and/or sexual assault during her lifetime. That means that every American is likely to know many women who have had unwanted sexual contact. This book may be a window into their experience, although reading the book is actually somewhat traumatizing.

Catching Fire

This is the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy. I really wish I had been able to read them all in a row, but I didn't have my greedy little hands on all of them at once. This book picks up about a month after the last book left off. Katniss is back in District 12 and is essentially leading a double life. According to the Capitol, she is love with Peeta. According to her, she is in love with Gale and is unsure about her feelings toward Peeta. She is frightened about the safety of her family, Gale's family, and (to a lesser extent) Peeta's family. Her fears seem realistic, as the president of Panem visits her and threatens Gale. Every time she thinks that she is doing something to buy herself and/or the people she loves a little safety, it either backfires or is rendered useless.

After a series of events, it is determined that Peeta and Katniss have to compete in the Hunger Games again against champions from previous years. It seems clear that the Capitol wants Katniss dead, as uprisings in other districts are being blamed on her. Once the competition begins, it is clear that something is amiss. Rather than trying to kill her and Peeta, several other tributes are going out of their way to keep them alive. After three days and a number of deaths, Katniss brought down the forcefield around the arena.

Katniss woke up connected to machines and tubes and thought she was still a pawn in the Capitol's games. Instead, she was a pawn in the rebel's games. Her face, and her Mockingjay, were symbols that had organized a revolution. She and two other competitors were rescued, but Peeta is thought to be dead. (My money is on him popping back up at some point.) She was reunited with Gale, her mother, and her sister, but she learned that District 12 had been destroyed.

This book is as engaging as the first. You will want to sit and read it all at once. I am very eager to read the third one, but I have to wait to get it, so I have to read something else in the interim. 

Regeneration

I didn't have access to any of the books that I planned to read, so I snuck this one in there a few days ago. My former supervisor, Dr. Wai Wong, bought this for me as a goodbye gift when I left Cornell. He said he liked it because it combined two of his passions: therapy and war poetry.

What I didn't know when I read the book was that it is based on true characters and events. It (loosely?) follows the 

experience of a WW1 soldier who objects to the war and is ultimately forced into a mental institution. His psychiatrist (also based on a real person) is treating a large number of soldiers, who are mostly suffering from "shell shock"/PTSD. The psychiatrist is mostly conducting exposure therapy, which was apparently cutting edge at the time. He is contrasted with a colleague of his who treats symptoms through electrical shock applied to various areas of the body. The psychiatrist's own mental health also receives some exploration.

I can't decide if I liked the book. I guess I did but not a lot. It was hard for me to get into it because I have no interest in reading about war, but once he was in the mental institution, I found it more interesting. It is always intriguing for me to read about the development of psychological treatment, so that part was good. There was some attention to same-sex attraction/desire that was interesting.

This book is part of a trilogy, and I've been considering if I would like to read books 2 and 3. I'm leaning against it. While this first book was okay, and the other books might also be okay, I have a list of books that I'm really interested in reading, so I'll probably skip the rest of this trilogy.

The Hunger Games

Well, I finally got around to starting the second famous recent trilogy (with the other one being The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This book was a very fast, engaging read. The story line takes place in a post-apocalyptic society in the area of the former US. In this society, the Capital controls almost everything that happens in each of the 12 districts of the country. The main character, Katniss, grew up in District 12, where she is one of the poor children of "The Seam." One way that the Capital reminds residents of the districts of their total lack of power is by the Hunger Games, which involves one boy tribute and one girl tribute from each district entering a brutal weeks-long competition from which only one will emerge alive. This event is televised, and citizens are required to watch it.

Katniss, who grew up protecting her younger sister Primrose, took Prim's place as a tribute. Although Katniss appeared to be an underdog in many ways, she was a favorite by the time the actual competition begins. She outwits many competitors but is confused by the kindness of Peeta, the boy tribute from her district. Since Peeta had spun a tale about he and Katniss were star-crossed lovers, the Capitol changed the rules of the Hunger Games to allow both tributes from any given district to win. Basically, a lot of fighting and out-smarting occurs, and Katniss and Peeta are left alive. In a not unforeseen twist, the Capitol dictates that there can be only one winner, as watching Katniss and Peeta (who seem to actually have legitimate feelings for one another) fight to the death. Katniss gets the last laugh of the official Games though, so they both live.

Katniss and Peeta are returned to the Capitol, where their various injuries are miraculously healed. This appears to be a happy ending, until Katniss learns that Capitol officials want her dead to punish her for her final stunt at the end of the Games. This is further complicated by Peeta's love for Katniss and Katniss's confusion about her feelings for Peeta. This book ends just as Peeta and Katniss return, victoriously, to District 12. Of course, this cliff hanger is a very effective way to sell the second book in the trilogy.

This book reminds me of the last book I read...government control of the masses, using people for whatever purposes suits them, etc. These themes are very thought-provoking and disturbing. I'm going to be mulling this over for quite some time.

Never Let Me Go

This book have given me a lot to think about. It is set in near present day England, and this society is in many ways similar to current society. The dystopian elements, however, are disturbing. The book is narrated by Kathy, who looks back throughout her life and provides snapshots of different moments of her life. Throughout the book she learns (and we learn) Kathy's role in her society. She grew up in a setting that appears to be an idyllic boarding school, but she ultimately learns that she is a clone of an existing human being. She and all of her classmates have been created to serve as donors for all of the non-cloned people. Each of the donors serves a term as a carer for donors before transitioning into being a donor. Each donor donates various body parts until completing (i.e., dying). Although this is a compelling story line, it is largely the backdrop against which the central love story is set. The love story is quite sad, as Kathy and her love Tommy are kept apart by various forces. 

In the end, I am sadder about the outcome of Kathy and Tommy's relationship and the meaning of their lives than either of them seemed to be. They understood their fate and seemed fairly easily resigned to it. 

This book continues to raise questions about the implications of scientific progress. In this society they have cured cancer and most health conditions but only at the cost of having a second class of human beings that are created as body parts farms for first class human beings. Obviously, this is over the line, but it can be hard to see where the line is sometimes.

The Total Money Makeover

I finished this book a few days ago, but I've been busy drinking Ramsey's KoolAid, so I wasn't able to blog about it.

Obviously, this book doesn't fit so well with the other books I have read so far this year. Lizzy and I decided to read this book because I know a few people who have been following the system with success. Ramsey explains financial concepts very clearly, although I could do without the quotes from The Bible.

Our own situation can use a makeover. When I finally graduated with my last degree just over one year ago, I had way too much student loan debt. I also have some credit card debt. Lizzy had student loans, credit card debt, and medical bills when we met, but we have paid all of that off except for her student loans. Since reading the book, we have decided to attack our debt more aggressively, even though we are planning our wedding reception. Over the past couple of days we have listed many items for sale on Craigslist and Ebay, and I've gotten over $250 so far. I also applied for a part time job to supplement our income, at least temporarily.

It's way too early to tell how committed we will stay to this over time, since we will need to budget very strictly for a long time to meet our goals. I'm hoping that putting this out into the universe will help build in some accountability for me.

Unaccustomed Earth

Book #3 of 2012 is by the same author as Book #1 (The Namesake). This book has a unique structure. The first part is comprised of 5 disconnected short stories, and the second part has three short stories that are snapshots from the same characters' lives that occur over the course of several decades. Each story in the book falls under the overarching theme of people who left India to build a life elsewhere. Most stories have some version of an unhappy ending, although there is a wide range from just merely in an unhappy marriage to being killed by an act of nature. Many stories involve the juxtaposition of American culture and Indian culture and varying levels of acculturation by different family members, similar to The Namesake. While this book was interesting, I would recommend The Namesake above it, partially just because I like to explore characters over the course of a novel rather than just a short story.

The Lovely Bones

It's great when the students are gone for break. I read a whole book today, with a big chunk of it completed at work.

This book is told from the perspective of a 14 year old girl who gets murdered. Parts of the book are simply heartbreaking, while the overall message seems hopefully. There are some interesting perspectives on the afterlife, which (for me) range from probable to impossible. Sebold's notion of individual heavens that overlap with other people's individual heavens is intriguing, and her observations of those left behind are stimulating. If you can handle some grief and feel up to contemplating existential themes, I recommend this book.

The Namesake

I officially started The Namesake last week (i.e., 2011), but I read almost all of it today, so I figured that it counts as the first book of 2012. I watched the movie a few years ago, and the book followed basically all of the plot that I can remember from the movie.

Lahiri poignantly describes Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli's process as they diligently work to maintain their Indian culture while American culture and their own children pull to Americanize them. She mostly follows the life of Gogol/Nikhil, which parallels a number of clients that I have worked with over the years. He struggles to walk the tightrope of two disparate cultures, attempting to create his own American identity while determining how to respect his parents and their (his) Indian culture. After failed relationships and family tragedies, he seems to find a balance that works for him. I enjoyed this book, and I would recommend it to other readers.

Getting Started

Lizzy encouraged me to start my first ever blog to review the books I read, so I decided to give it a shot. I finished 30 books last year, and I hope to do better this year. I plan to use this space to share my thoughts about what I read and hopefully start some dialogue. Be warned: any and all of these posts might contain spoilers, so don't read them if you are worried about that.