Everyone Is Beautiful

Back in December, I was contacted by Laura Ford, who is an editor at Random House Publishing. She must have come across my review of Katherine Center's first novel, because in her email, she asked if I would like to receive an early edition of Katherine's second novel. Her exact words were, "May I send you a galley?" My words back to her (although not exact) were "Hell yeah!"

So, I had the honour of having a reader's edition of this book. I would be lying if I said that I didn't excitedly wait for this book to arrive on my doorstep. The book itself didn't officially come out in bookstores until February 17th. And of course I urge you all to go to your nearest book store and purchase the book if you haven't already done so.

Without giving too much away, this book is about Lanie Coates who is a young wife and mother to three children. Her life is uprooted across the country when her husband gets accepted to a grad program for music (his dream).

Ever the supportive wife, she willingly packs up her life's belongings into a U-Haul to make the big move. Things are changing and it's never more apparent when she finds out that her parents have not only sold her childhood home, but are moving to a different country/time zone.

In an effort to make sense of her life (and find herself while she's at it), she decides to make some changes, including joining a gym and signing up for a photography class. While she is snapping photos of the world around her, her own little world is beginning to slowly come back into focus.

Of course this doesn't come easily. There are a few obstacles that she'll have to overcome ...

This was a great read and yet another winner by Katherine Center.

I Just Want My Pants Back

Meet Jason Strider. He lost a pair of his favourite pants to a girl he "made love" to in a refrigerator (she wore them home and never returned them). Now normally losing a pair of pants shouldn't be THAT big a deal, but it is to Jason because those pants are one of three that he owns. He lives in New York and works as an assistant (pay is horrible) and also drinks like a fish and smokes doobies like it's going out of style. Oh, and he needs to eat too. So he doesn't exactly have a lot of money to throw on a pair of pants. (Even though he probably should.)

His is the perfect case which proves that getting an education at an Ivy League college doesn't necessarily mean that you will make the most out of it. His English degree is not one that he uses to help him rake in the dough. The only time he exhibits his use for it is when he text messages his friends or sends them emails. Which happens very often throughout the day since his assistant job doesn't really leave him with much to do where actual work is concerned.

His days are spent running late for work, drinking a lot of alcohol, hanging out with his friends, trying to get laid, smoking up, and going to bed super late despite the fact that he needs to wake up early to start the cycle all over again.

The only bright side there is to his living situation (although, it could be worse ... he could not only look the part of homeless dude, -- which he totally does -- but also play the part as well) is that he befriends his neighbour, Patty. She is much, much older than him but has lived the same lifestyle as he is living now (pot, drinking, frequenting bars until dawn, dead end job) so she is a "cool" older neighbour. You definitely wouldn't mistake her for being somebody's grandma.

This debut novel was written by David J. Rosen. I don't read a lot of books written by dudes, but this is exactly what I would've expected. It was laced with cringe-worthy humour ... you know, the type that you chuckle at but then mentally berate yourself for having laughed in the first place because it was "below the belt?" That kind of humour ... very boy's locker room. I mean ... he writes about sex with a girl in his refrigerator and has his character think in the middle of it, "What a fantastic e-mail this is going to make tomorrow." So something a guy would say. And do.

He eventually gets his pants back, but I felt that the book kind of progressed from him trying to find his pants, to him trying to find his life. I read this book last year (and actually wrote this review last year as well) so it's hard for me to elaborate any more without re-reading. I do remember enjoying it and getting through it quickly. If you're looking for a change of pace with what you're reading, pick this up.

How To Be Single

I just finished reading this book by Liz Tuccillo. She co-authored the book He's Just Not That Into You with Greg Behrendt which some women have dubbed The Dating Bible (and which is in production of becoming a movie, apparently). I have to say that I do own that book and after reading it, things started to make a lot more sense and I stopped taking crap from guys. But that's another post for another day.

How To Be Single. I had seen this book many months ago and picked it up but never bought it. Even though it seemed like a good read and not your typical chic-lit book (sassy is not chic-lit), I just didn't want to read it because of the title. There, I said it. I don't want to know how to be single. I've been single for a long time. I know how to be single and it sucks (sometimes). I'll admit, the not having to check in on anyone and having the freedom to do what I want, when I want without the need to think of my boyfriend first, is kind of liberating. But the flip-side is that I don't have a guy that I can kiss when I feel like it. There is always a down side to that bright side.

But I digress.

I didn't get this book at first because I didn't want to read a book that would give me advice on how to do this (be single) accordingly. But when I finally picked it up, I had a hard time putting it down. Before I get into the story, I need to say that Liz Tuccillo is a fantastic writer. It makes complete sense that she was an executive story editor for HBO's Sex and the City. The book felt like it could have been a complete season of Sex and the City. It was witty and funny and clever and heart-wrenching and joyous all at the same time. As soon as I turned over the last page, my immediate thought was that I would read that book again sometime soon. And I don't do that. Especially with the looming pile of books that seems to never end.

Again, I digress.

Tuccillo had some interesting research to be done for this book and she was able to travel around the world to get the information that she needed ... mainly, how women coped with being single in different countries in the world.

The narrator of the book, Julie, embarks on a similar journey while she leaves her four friends in New York to deal with how to be single in their own lives. Before Julie takes this trip, she and her friends go out to try and get Georgia's mind off the fact that her husband had left her for a younger Brazilian tango dancer. She pulls in reinforcements (her other 3 friends) to help Georgia have fun. This night is something of an epiphany to Julie. Here she is, sitting with her beautiful and successful late 30-something friends, and they are all alone. And she doesn't know why. The night ends with a trip to the hospital and it's there that she meets two Parisian women who give her some insight as to how women from other parts of the world deal with their relationships (or lack thereof) in much different ways. This is where her idea of traveling to interview single women is born. Throughout her travels, she comes to some insights of her own as her friends do the same back home. Her four friends were only acquaintances with eachother, their tie being Julie, but by the end of the book they are friends who have been there for each other and not only for a good time.

This story celebrates friendship and heartache -- heartache that is necessary to see what you have when you have it (and what you deserve and shouldn't settle for) and friendship to see you through it. It teaches us that no matter what life throws at us, or no matter how despondent our situation may seem, there is always love to be had, you are not alone, and miracles do happen.

Radio On

Once upon a time, radio was a sound salvation. It played all the time, in the kitchen, in the bedroom, on the pool deck, in the car. The tinny pop chug-a-lug wired the air around it with bright-minded echoes of retro romance and fakey fun, filling up the empty blue space that envelops all suburbia with the simplest of all possible remedies for boredom: a beat. - Gina Arnold, Route 666

Sarah Vowell's first book, Radio On is a diary of sorts that documents her experiment: listening to the radio every day for a full year. To some, this may sound simple, but she doesn't simply listen, she engulfs it, understands it, and somehow becomes the radio. Listening to everything from the top ten hits to obscure Native American chants on AM stations, she documents every song and every commercial listened to. An interesting anthropological study of her, if nothing else.

The book was written in 1995, a year after Kurt Cobain passed away and that's what sets the the book on the first page. Being a long time fan of the band Nivana, Vowell discusses how the band didn't just play music, they influenced it, along with a generation of followers. Throughout the book she touches on other musicians she likes (Courtney Love, Smashing Pumpkins) and abhors (Alanis Morissette, Hootie and the Blowfish). She addresses the idea of selling out and how most bands are completely overplayed, leaving the radio full of repetition and nothing new.

As stated, she doesn't just listen to music. Being a great hater of Rush Limbaugh, she frequently tunes into his program to see what he's ranting about. It's an interesting social commentary, listening to her opinions of him, juxtaposed by her vision of Clinton and the time, a president who she didn't always agree with, but ultimately supported. Along the way, she tuned into NPR frequently, namechecking greats such as David Sedaris and Ira Glass (individuals who she later in her life became friends with and works with currently on the program This American LIfe).

What was most interesting to me wasn't just her analysis of the radio (which she, ultimately, gets sick of half way through, yet trudges through like any good writer would), but how the book is very dated. Taking place in 1995, she addresses radio and CDs as the only medium of music. In one scene, during an early recording of This American Life, she notes a new, unfamiliar piece of equipment, a minidisc. Ultimately, I'd love to know what Vowell thinks of the radio today. Although, mostly, it hasn't changed, we still have Rush, we still have repetative top ten hits, but it's not nearly as influential as it was back then. In days of sirius radio where you can listen to whatever you want whenever you want, ordinary channels seem out of date. And regarding politics, I wonder what she thinks of the situation nowadays, or what she thinks of Mrs. Clinton running (and losing) for the democratic candidate. 

As a long time Vowell fan, I will admit this was my least favorite of her few, however I did enjoy it. It was an interesting journey through the world of this medium, something that, admittedly, I rarely listen to. If nothing else, it inspired me. Inspired me to put down the itunes and ipod and turn on the radio for at least right now. Who knows what I'll find on it.

The Dive From Clausen's Pier

This is easily one of my most favourite books. This is a story that reminds us of how precious life is and how easily (and tragically) it can change. There will be a time in our lives where we will be faced at a cross-road and we must decide which route to take knowing that this can be a life-altering decision. Do we choose the path that is to our best interest, or do we choose the path where we assume the role of martyr (placing ourselves in our own personal and suffocating hell), where the needs and wants of those around us will forever come before our own?

Sometimes people fall into a monotonous pattern in their life. This is something that could work perfectly for some, but in time can prove to be trying for others. You grow up with the same people around you. The same friends. The same hang outs. You date your highschool sweetheart, go to college with your highschool sweetheart, and become engaged to your highschool sweetheart because it just seems like the logical step to take. You haven't set foot out of your home town because everything you have or would ever want is right there, so why leave? Why explore? For some, this life could be the most comforting in the world. But for others, and for the main character of the story, Carrie Bell, this could prove to be a life that you can't get away from fast enough.

Carrie is engaged to her high school sweetheart but has fallen out of love with him. She is devastated by this discovery because the last thing she wants to do is hurt him. And funnily enough she feels torn since they share the same friends and doesn't want to hurt that dynamic as well. When she finally comes to grips with how she feels and finally decides that she can't go on living this lie and that she must tell her fiance, tragedy hits in the most unexpected way. They, along with their friends, are spending time at Clausen's Pier. Mike (her fiance) senses Carrie is slipping away. He decides that he's going to dive off the pier in an attempt to impress her. Only he doesn't realize that the water is not that deep and there are rocks at the bottom of the lake. He shouldn't be diving head first. Only he does, and he becomes paralyzed. A quadriplegic. People expect Carrie to be the caregiver for Mike, but unable to justify it to herself and unable to shake the feeling that she doesn't belong there (and having wanted to leave before the accident), she goes to New York to find herself. She has hurt a lot of people in the process who feel she is running away from her responsibilities, but it is something she must do for herself.

This story is about Carrie's journey to self-realization. It is a story about taking responsibility not because you HAVE to but because you WANT to. Eventually, Carrie's past catches up with her and she is forced to make a decision of what is best for her and for the situation at hand. Is she able to forget the past and start a new life? Or are her roots too deeply embedded?

Here is an excerpt of the book:

When something terrible happens to someone else, people often use the word "unbearable." Living through a child's death, a spouse's, enduring some other kind of permanent loss–it's unbearable, it's too awful to be borne, and the person or people to whom it's happened take on a kind of horrible glow in your mind, because they are in fact bearing it, or trying to: doing the thing that it's impossible to do. The glow can be blinding at first–it can be all you see–and although it diminishes as years pass it never goes out entirely, so that late some night when you are wandering the back pathways of your mind you may stop at the sudden sight of someone up ahead, signaling even now with a faint but terrible light.

Mike's accident happened to Mike, not to me, but for a long time afterward I felt some of that glow, felt I was giving it off, so that even doing the most innocuous errand, filling my car with gas or buying toothpaste, I thought everyone around me must see I was in the middle of a crisis.

Yet I didn't cry. The first days at the hospital were full of crying–Mike's parents crying, his brother and sister, and Rooster, maybe Rooster most of all–but I was dry-eyed. My mother and Jamie told me it was because I was numb, and I guess that was part of it, numb and terrified: when I looked at him it was as if years had unwound, and I'd just met him, and I couldn't stand not knowing what was going to happen. But there was something else, too: everyone was treating me so carefully and solicitously that I felt breakable, and yet I wasn't broken. Mike was broken, and I wasn't broken. He was separate from me, and that was shocking.

A national bestseller, Ann Packer was definitely able to write this story in such a way that can make you want to both root Carrie on in her attempts to find herself during such a tumultuous period and want to simultaneously hit her upside the head.

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything across Italy, India and Indonesia - Elizabeth Gilbert

I have never truly "reviewed" books before, but I thought it might be fun to give it a try. Airam was kind enough to allow me to experiment on this site. Thus, without further ado... well, maybe a bit more ado...

When I am bored at work (and that does happen more often than I would like) I browse through the online bookstores in search of fun, light, interesting, entertaining books to read. I am a voracious reader, and feeding this habit can be quite challenging.

This spring a book popped onto my radar screen "Eat, Pray, and Love. " The title alone caught my attention.

Thus, I had to read it. And you have to read it too!

I am not sure what I was expecting when I first started the book. Despite reading the reviews, I had no preconceived notions as to what lay between the covers. Thus, I am not going to give you much information here, I don't want to spoil the experience for you.

Gilbert writes of a year long journey that she took in her early thirties. Having suffered through a very bitter divorce and embarked on a journey of self knowledge, she leaves her home in New York and her career to... experience, discover, and grow; to Eat, Pray, and Love.

The book is written with a realistic tone - a mix of comedy and self discovery. I found myself craving such an experience.

First, Gilbert travels to Italy in search of pleasure, then to India to explore prayer and ascetic rigor, and finally to Bali where she attempts to balance her life, past and present; new and old. Along the way she is introduced to various characters that become friends, challenges, teachers, etc. Challenges abound as she attempts to quiet her mind and find answers to her questions - to become content, and forgive. There is something for everyone in this book.

This book takes the reader on a journey that is worth the price of the ticket!

What are you waiting for? Pack your bags and go forth!