The Final Word

My boyfriend Jay Smooth, not surprisingly, has a insightful analysis of MJ:



Isn't he dreamy?

Lovely

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I listened to the audio book on a road trip over the 4th of July weekend. It's a heartbreaker, but I was glad to have "read" it. It focuses a lot on the issues of women in the last four decades in Afghanistan, so .... harrowing. Especially the years under the Taliban. Not that this is nonfiction, but I assume it's not too far from the truth. I'd recommend it.

View all my reviews.

Lady Detective

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a entertaining, quick read. The main character is immensely likeable and the story or series of stories are tidy but intriguing.


View all my reviews.

Starving to Death

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a rather brutal book about the author's many years of bulimia and anorexia. She doesn't spare any details about the self-destructive behavior and it's consequences. It's a difficult read partly because it's easy to see yourself and most women in her thought processes about eating, weight, and self-worth. I don't really know any women who don't think that way to some extent, which is horrifying. It's, of course, also hard to follow her excrutiatingly detailed and horribly prolonged efforts to kill herself through starvation and malnourishment.

The thing I didn't like was that that was all we got. The book ended before her final hospitalization, so we didn't follow her through her more lasting recovery (we did get some of the initial hospitalizations). We don't get to hear what ultimately helped her to pull out of the mess she was in. It's like when your girlfriend spends weeks detailing the trouble she's having with her partner and you're all enraged on her behalf, then the two of them make it up and you don't hear another word. You're left with all these feelings and worries, and they are blissfully happy, but aren't sharing their secrets with you anymore.

Hornbacher's been accused of writing book that provides all sorts of "tips" for aspiring anoretics. It seems like that impression would have been blunted if she'd just let us in a little on her recovery.

View all my reviews.

The Cure for Irony

This guy is like the smartest person I've ever even heard of:



Also: my new boyfriend.

Sad

I said goodbye to my nearly 18-year-old kitty today. I was hoping not to have to make the decision, but he was a tough old bird and who know how long he would have hung on? He wasn't eating and couldn't move very well.

I'm sure going to miss him.

The Sassmaster Review of Books

Epileptic by David B.

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is probably the longest graphic novel I've read which is probably to the author's credit as it must have been a ridiculous amount of work, but it can be taxing on the reader. The story, about the author's childhood to young adulthood with his family and brother with epilepsy, is worth telling, and he has a unique take on it. His parents search for help for their son among an astonishing range of esoteric religions, cults, alternative medicines, healers, diets, etc. is mixed with his own hyperactive imagination. As a child, the author fixates on war and violence-prone historical figures such as Ghengis Khan. His drawings show us his rich, but lonely, interior life, filled with ghosts, fantastical creatures, and reimagined reality. Despite the implied anxiety, he manages to make this bizarre landscape feel homey and comforting. The density of the drawings and the length of the book means it's hard to appreciate fully the extent of his work. But it's a worth a look


View all my reviews.