Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson (#4, For Fun)

Um . . . sorry Mom, I didn't love it. It was quick, it was mysterious, but I think I really hated Lena and Burr--two of the main characters. They just seemed like a really dorky couple to me, seriously--making up stupid sounding games to play in the car. I don't know, that just rubbed me the wrong way. But, I suppose I have read worse.

It was your typical best seller book. A book for the masses, I am not the masses.

On a side note, can I just say that the book and author both lost major points before I even read the first word because of the author's first name/the way her name is spelled. Don't plague your children with randomly spelled fake names, it doesn't look or sound pretty.

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (#3, Nonfiction)

Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love has been on my reading list since this summer. I wish I had read it over the summer--I think it would have helped me tremendously during my rough transitional period. But alas, perhaps I was not meant to read it until I was truly ready to be scared shitless by Gilbert's message.

My sister and my good friend Sarah both told me that I had to read this book--and then a couple more people told me to read it as well. How could I resist and not read this book when there were people telling me I had to? So I made my sister finish it before she left for New York so I could have it. Eat Pray Love was not an easy read for me. It hit so close to home that I would read it before bed and not be able to fall asleep for hours afterward. I identified with a lot of the things that Gilbert wrote about--her sadness and depression and not knowing herself. She was 30 when she realized that something was wrong and that she needed to learn to love herself. She had never been alone in her entire life and it caught up with her one horrible night where she found herself crying alone in her bathroom at three in the morning.

I clearly see similarities between the way my life has been going and the way that Gilbert's went. As I read the book, I began to see it as a cautionary tale of what not to let happen to yourself. There are tiny beads of wisdom throughout the book. Here is one of my favorite:

The karmic philosophy appeals to me on a metaphorical level because even in one lifetime it's obvious how often we must repeat our same mistakes, banging our heads against the same old addictions and compulsions, generating the same old miserable and often catastrophic consequences, until we can finally stop and fix it. This is the supreme lesson of karma--take care of the problems now, or else you'll just have to suffer again later when you screw everything up next time. (Gilbert 262)

The first two parts of Eat Pray Love stressed me out. While she is in Italy and India, she is still working through the pain. It is hard to read especially when you are going through something very similar. Once she reached Bali, though, I relaxed. Our narrator became happy--things worked themselves out. But there key here is that she made them work out. She created her own happiness. Her story is inspiring and it makes me realize that I need to do something like that. I need to go away for a while and spend some quality time just getting to know me. There is a strength that I need to build in myself that I don't have--a strength that can only come from knowing yourself and trusting in yourself. I need that.

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield (#2, Nonfiction)

This book came highly recommended by my other roommate, Shawn. She read this book during one of her darkest transitional times and she said it helped her realize a lot of things--mainly about what types of people work for her as friends and what types don't. The Celestine Prophecy is all about energy--how everything on this earth carries its own energy, including people. I found this concept interesting, especially the part that talked about how humans get energy.

Redfield talks about four types of control dramas that develop from your relationships with your family when you are a child. There is the interrogator, the aloof, the intimidator, and the poor me. I am a poor me. I come from an entire family of poor mes. We are the masters of using guilt to steal energy from others, to make them do what we want, to make them feel bad that they aren't going out of their way to do everything they can for us. Now that I know this--that I am this way--I must stop the cycle! I don't want to always repeat this way of getting energy. And yes, I know all this talk of energy sounds sort of hokie, but there is something behind it. Everyone has had interactions with people where you come away from a conversation feeling depleted and drained--probably because that person took your energy. And vice versa--there are those people out there who pump you up, who inflate you and make you feel like you are on top of the world. These are the people who give you energy. If only we could always surround ourselves with people who feed our energy instead of take it away.

Some of the other insights are a bit strange and far fetched, but for the most part, as with any self-help type book, you the reader must decide what to take and what to leave. I'm going to learn how to supply my own energy instead of relying on other people.

Camille by Alexandre Dumas fils, (#3, French Lit)

When I checked Camille out I was under the impression that it was by Alexandre Dumas, as in the author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, but turns out it was actually by his son, hence the "fils" after his name (I don't know French!). Good to know.

Very Moulin Rouge-esque. I enjoyed it, but the main character, Armand--a man in love with a "kept" woman, drove me crazy when he continued to get jealous of her pimps. As Nicole Kidman says, "a girl has got to eat."

I have to find myself an old Duke. :)

Stuart Little by E.B. White (#2, For Fun)

I remember loving this book when I was in second grade. What kind of child was I that I was okay with how the book ended??! Seriously, Stuart picks up to look for his friend the bird, and he leaves his family behind. The book just ends with him driving down the road in his little car heading off into the sunset. Does he not see how frantic his family is going to be? Yes, he is a mouse, but somehow human parents gave birth to a mouse, and they are going to be really sad when he never comes home. I guess when I was 7 I didn't think about the repercussions of him leaving home.

Done with the "for fun" for awhile and on to some French authors . . . let's see how long it is going to take me to read Les Miserables--so long! I hope I like it!

2007 Books in Review

What a year. Following in Steph's footsteps I am going to outline my Best and Worst 5 of the year. I may have to include a few other runner up categories to give credit (or bad credit) to as many books as possible.

Top 5
1) A Tale of Two Cities--loved it. Dickens has yet to let me down. I loved the characters, evil and good alike, there is adventure, good dialogue, and good settings. Funny that this is another book that I have tried to start many times and failed.
2) The Fountainhead--loved it. Such a long book, but so great. Ayn Rand did such an amazing job crafting her characters to make them unique and real. I am absolutely going to read Atlas Shrugged very soon.
3) The Glass Castle--what a story. Real stories are generally so much more interesting than fiction--so long as they are written well. The story is beyond unbelievable and well written. Two thumbs up.
4) Frankenstein--Probably the book that I have waited the longest to read. With so much consumerism surrounding "Frankenstein" it is good to know where it all comes from. I love the moral of the story in this one--there is such a thing as too much forward progress.
5) Magical Thinking--How fabulous to round out the 50 with a top 5 book? Augusten Burroughs is hysterical.

Just a few runners up: Three Junes, In the Heart of the Sea, The Three Musketeers and Marley and Me. I am happy to say I had a lot more runner ups for the good than the bad.

Worst 5
1) Vanishing Acts--shoot me if I ever pick up another book by Jodi Picoult.
2) The Dogs of Babel--this one had potential and it just failed miserably. Not even beach read-worthy.
3) The Rule of Four--if you are going to mimic a novel that already exists, you better do it better. They failed at that.
4) Veronica--did I miss the boat on this one? I guess I am just not interested in the "woe is me" story of a has-been model.
5) One-Hundred Years of Solitude--I know!!!! Where did this go so wrong? I had been waiting to read this book for SO long. I would love to hear the opinion of someone who loved it. Please, what did I miss??

Bad runner ups: Captain Alatriste, The Crimson Petal and the White and Something Happened

Book that I was most let down by: The Namesake
Book with the worst ending: Middlesex
Best Beach read: Outlander
Most pleasantly surprised by: The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky
Most Bizarre: Skinny Legs and All tied with To the Lighthouse

It's A Wonderful Lie (#1, Nonfiction)

This year I am reading to learn about myself--that's my challenge to myself. It's A Wonderful Lie: 26 Truths About Life in Your Twenties is my first foray into finding myself through books. I started this book in my sickly, hungover state on New Year's Day and immediately loved each chapter written by a different woman who had struggled through her twenties and somehow made it out alive. This was comforting because sometimes I don't feel like I will make it out of my twenties with my sanity. There is a lot to be said about taking the time to find yourself--everyone has to do it and everyone has to do it in their own way. Sometimes you have reach that extra low point, you have to hit rock bottom--to get to the point where you can see everything in your life clearly. Perspective is what I am searching for--a perch I can nestle into and be satisfied with the way things are right now. I learned from the You're Not That Into Him Either book that there is no meantime--this is the time. It is important to live life as if each day is the time, not just the meantime that you are trying to get through to get to the real time. This is your life now, and you owe it to yourself to make the most of it.

I think it would be good, also, as part of my self-help book challenge to put the books in conversation with one another. I am reading another book right now that can easily be put into conversation with The End of Mr. Y. But more on that when I finish The Celestine Prophecy.

2007--A Year In Books

So the challenge for 2007 was to read 50 books. This challenge was met with about 5 hours to spare. I cut it pretty close, but I still finished. I learned a lot from filling the genre quotas, and I step away with a greater appreciation for nonfiction. Here are my top 5 worst and best books of the year:

Worst:
1. Lost and Found--This book disappointed me with its bad writing and predictable ending.
2. Bergdorf Blondes--Horrible. I wish I could make money writing something as flimsy and stupid as this book was.
3. Girl Cook--No redeeming qualities to be found here.
4. Colors Insulting To Nature--This one had potential but it was just too sensational, too campy for me to really enjoy.
5. Play It As It Lays--Yes, I am putting a Joan Didion book on my worst of the year list. Get over it.

Best:
1. Life of Pi--Absolutely loved this book. I highly recommend it.
2. Everything Is Illuminated--The play on language was entertaining and I enjoyed it from beginning to end. Go read it!
3. The End of Mr. Y--All English majors who like theory will like this book. My last one of the year ended up being one of the best.
4. Eragon--Could be the next Harry Potter series. Delicious after a string of bad picks.
5. A Walk In the Woods--The first nonfiction book I really liked and was excited to read.

The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory (#1, For Fun)

You can rest assured that unless I am stuck in a house, unable to turn on the tv, and have no books to read other than those by Philippa Gregory, I will not be reading her again.

2008--What books will the new year bring?

You didn't think we were just going to disappear once we accomplished one measly little goal, did you? I am back and I have a new challenge. I haven't talked with Steph yet, because I figure, new year, this time around we can tailor our reading to our own specific needs--ie. I am going to read 500 murder/mystery books and steph is going to read 500 time traveling/sci fi and/or chick lit . . . kidding!

But seriously, I found myself skipping a lot of books in 2007 that were either recommended to me or that I have always wanted to read because they were TOO LONG. Therefore, in 2008, the total number of books I read will not matter (well, I am a competitive fool so numbers always matter). But really, I am picking various categories/genres/time periods/authors and will stick with that genre etc. for a month or so, depending on how much I enjoy it or how many books I want to read from it. Some that I have come up with include, but are not limited to: Russian Authors--here I come Brothers Karamazov, French Authors--Les Miserables, American Literature--maybe some more Hemingway, Philosophy--I need some of this in my life, Poetry--I heart Robert Frost and need to be able to recite more of his work, Plays--there is still so much Shakespeare to read . . . and I am sure I will come up with more.

Sound fun? Oh, and because these are all pretty intense categories, I will be throwing in some trashy beach reads along the way--maybe even some more of the Time Traveling steph loves so much :)