EricaO

We're putting this in our adult collection but I think it's safe for YA.

Anyway.

This is cute, light-hearted and fun. I enjoyed the illustrations immensely as well as the concept/story idea. It reminded me a bit of the [b:Boneyard: Volume 1 - In Full Color|803107|Boneyard Volume 1 - In Full Color|Richard Moore|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328754806s/803107.jpg|789067] books (also published by this group).

The one problem I had was with the actual writing. It needs some work. The conversation doesn't flow...heck, even the word bubbles don't flow well in many cases. The overall story ends up being clunky.

So while I loved the drawrings and the idea, the actual dialogue just tripped me up a few too many times to give this more than 3 stars. However, I'm hoping that lessons will be learned and volume 2 will work out much better.

This was one of those that came across my desk and piqued my interest. While it wasn't quite what I think I'd expected (not that I remember what I'd expected), it was enjoyable.

Sookie.
I know this woman. I know several versions of this woman and while I understand how these women are made and why they are the way they are, it doesn't make me love them any more. These women, the ones who exist for everyone else, the ones who have no self-definition, the ones who pitter and dither and are the mercy of their community's whims, they drive me batty. I am definitely a product of the women's liberation movement (thanks, mom, aunts, and grandmothers!) and, as a result, could not connect to Sookie. The woman full-out exasperated me.
Because of that, I was able to be proud of her as she cast off some of her unwarranted beliefs and notions, as she learned about her biological past and created her own future. Yay, Sookie! I still don't want to know you but I am proud of you, nonetheless.

Here's something funny: I got to feel a little smug while listening to this. Not only do I know a whole lot more about...well, a lot of crap than Sookie (really? Jays are bullying your finches and chickadees and you can't figure out how to deal with it and you make yourself look like a crazy lady in your attempts to foil those bully birds? Also, jays are funny; just get to know them and stop being so judgey, you old bat and stop freaking out over every little thing! Pull up your big girl panties, suss it out on your own, and stop calling your poor husband at work) but I felt all "Why is this not common knowledge?" on a regular basis. For instance, the WASPs. Howcome no one in the contemporary story knew who they were? I know who they were. Maybe because my grandmother told me. I don't know. But I knew that women flew planes and were called WASPs (though, to be honest, up until probably ... oh, five or six years ago, I think I just assumed they were called WASPs because the wasp insect has a feminine body and it flies and so it made sense to have the flying females named after the black and yellow stripey guys. Research. Who needs it? Logic comes up with much more delightful explanations) I wound up feeling smarter than most the contemporary characters in this book. What an ego boost! I like to think of myself as B+ smart and that's only if you don't involve things like math or brain surgery or good-decision-making. But these people made me feel like a member of MENSA! Yay!

Ok, time to be serious.
I enjoyed the parts about Fritzy and her family the best. I wanted to be a Fritzy when I grew up and I missed the mark, which turns out to be good, but still, as I suppose her peers would have said, "What a gal." We've got so many strong stories from World War II, many of them focusing on the men who fought on either side, on the atrocities and terrors that raged so regularly during that time, on the saviors and the villains, on victims and the families left behind. This isn't the first story out there about how women helped their countries - America, in this case - but it is still a good reminder that it wasn't just young men standing up for what they believed in, fighting and dying. Women did not just stay home, recycling gum wrappers and drawing lines up the backs of their legs in lieu of stockings. Many did amazing, heroic things and it's nice to have that recognized.

Do I think this book was published because it's Drew Barrymore's? Yes.
Do I think the subject is not-all-that? Yes.
Did I enjoy it anyway? Yes.

I get to see a lot of non-biographical books written by stars and in most cases, it's the fact they're well-known people with clout that gets their crap published. Like they don't get enough attention being actors and rock stars and what have you. I roll my eyes at those people.

There are always exceptions. I have found [a:Henry Winkler|140559|Henry Winkler|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1316836250p2/140559.jpg]'s and [a:Jamie Lee Curtis|5693|Jamie Lee Curtis|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1221195319p2/5693.jpg]'s children's book to be fun and delightful and I appreciate [a:Julie Andrews Edwards|6781|Julie Andrews Edwards|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1373997074p2/6781.jpg] truck stories; I've never been particularly charmed by them, myself, but I know plenty of kids who are and that's good enough for me.

This book...I think its appeal is that it reminds me of friends, both current and long-gone. I know these people who collect random hearts. I brought a heart-shaped stone back from Greece for a girl who collected heart-shaped rocks. I have a friend who collects found objects, all heart-shaped. It's a hobby, a need, an obsession I do not share but that I can completely understand, and, better yet, can add to. I like seeing a heart and giving it to a friend who loves hearts; it feels good. This book reminded me of that feeling even though there's nothing particularly moving in the pictures -some being quite a stretch- or the text.

I will probably buy a copy or two of this to give to those friends who, like Barrymore, find hearts in everything.

If you're looking to make a delectable dish for Princess Diana of Themyscira or you're planning to have Bruce Wayne to your bruncheon, this is not the book for you. There are no time-consuming, rare-ingredient recipes anywhere in here.

The most complex step of any of these recipes involves cutting out stencils or making shapes out of foods.

However, if it's your job to get a child interested in making food - and, really, people, you've got to start teaching your children to cook. Like, early on. My nieces and nephews can't even make a grilled cheese sandwich and I worry that if I'm ever sick and they have to go through the woods, past the wolf, to come care for me, I will wind up starving to death, not dying of my bad cold. Kids need to learn cooking skills! - this would be a great starting point.

The recipes are sort of gross as adult food but awesome as child food, like the Batarang Crackers - crackers with Batman Symbol-shaped pieces of cheese and lunchmeat. In the photo, there's a glass of some Gatorade-looking liquid and Robin's mask is on the glass. You know, to really Bat it all up.
There are healthy meals, like Green Arrow Kebobs - green peppers, Brussels sprouts (because kids love those), zucchini, broccoli, chicken sausage - and Power Ring Pasta - fuscilli pasta (which you might be able to find in gluten free?), kale, spinach, butter, salt and pepper - as well recipes covering everything from breakfast to desserts, including sugar cookies with superhero logos stenciled upon them and smoothies that have actually nothing to do with heroes until you put gold thread around the glass and call it Wonder Woman's lasso. No, they didn't take the logical jump from lasso to lassi. Yes, it's a disappointment.

Am I going to run out and buy this? No. But if I had an 8-year-old birthday party to put on and that soon-to-be-8-year-old liked DC superheroes, I'd check this out and make some of these items. Probably.

The first thing I noticed when I opened this book was the secret message on the CIP page. I loved that because, really, how many people read the CIP and how many people will find the secret message on their own?
Well, a lot, actually, because it's a little bit obvious there's something there, but still, give me this moment of self-congratulatory cleverness.

This looks like so many of my childhood books; I had to double-check to see if it was a reprint from the late '60's. I mean, my cousins' family had that station wagon and does anyone under the age of 30 even know what a beach buggy is? Vroom-a-zoom-zoom, dude.

I imagine this will become a popular read-aloud book, especially for library storytimes, because there are sounds! Children's librarians love sounds, right? Plus it's a chain-of-events story and those are simply timeless. We still sing "The Farmer In the Dell," right? Even though we've been bereft of dells since Moll Flanders' era.

However, the term "goes" instead of "says" will probably be irritating to some. I know plenty of proper-type people who correct me when I say, "And she was all," or "I laughed and he goes," and they tell me, "Don't say 'all' or 'goes' when you really mean 'said' or 'says,' dear."

But the behavior of speech patterns aside, I think this would be quite fun to read out loud, with great vim, vigor and even fervor. And sheepy noises.

Alright. Here we go!
I really liked the first book and equally hated the second. If this averages out at 3 stars, I'll be happy.

Well...close to happy, at least.

Ok. So. Mayor Prentiss = The Goblin King (the one from "Labyrinth," not some other goblin king) This guy - the Mayor...well, and the Goblin King, but I'm specifically talking about the May...oops, President, here - is completely out of his gourd with crazy. And it's smart crazy, not drool in a corner crazy. He's scary and he's manipulative both via his odd logic and his mental powers.

And Mistress Coyle? Man, that woman is pure guerilla. Get the damn job done, no matter what. I freaking loved her, even though I didn't agree with her mad tactics.

Poor Viola, knocked out of commission for much of the book due to dying from armband infection. And even so, she was able to get out there, do things, be brave. This girl kicks ass and I appreciate that.

And then there was Tod. Oh good lord, that boy...what is wrong with him? Why can he never, not ever learn a damned lesson? He is incredibly gullible, overly-trusting, and just all-around dim. Yes, he has a good heart, he's a good person...basically. But not really because he refuses to see a bigger picture, focusing specifically on his love of Viola - the girl who is dying from the armband the Mayor had slapped on her but who is still fighting to create a better world and understands, despite high fevers and blood poisoning, that some of the decisions she wants to make are the wrong decisions made for the wrong reasons but she goes ahead and (nearly) makes them anyway. She's a fan of personal accountability, it seems - and his distrust-that-somehow-always-turns-into-trust of the Mayor. Why didn't someone slap this boy upside the head? Even the Mayor calls him out on his useless threats with a "You're going to what, Tod?" in response to yet another of Tod's ineffectual, "If you X, I'm gonna..."
I hate Tod because everyone thinks he's so great and amazing and, really, he's just a ditherer. I'm not sure he even knows this, what with being focused on Viola. And not trusting the Mayor. But mostly Viola.

You know what else I hated? Another selfless act of saving the humans by a beloved animal. It hurt when Manche did it but when it happened this time, I was all...

(I plan to use this picture all year long)

You know, it's a good thing Tod was shot and killed before Viola could find out what a twit, a sap, an easily-manipulated wet noodle of useless threats he really was because I think had she had to spend her life with him, she would have wound up resenting and probably hating him. And stabbing him with A KNIFE.
but oh wait. He's not actually dead. She might have an opportunity to get to know the real I-can't-commit-to-anything-or-make-a-decision boy, after all. And she'll probably stab him with A KNIFE.

Buuuut...ok, I thought it was a little strange that with each additional book, there's an additional voice. I mean, first it was just Tod, then it was Tod and Viola, and this story featured Tod, Viola, and The Return. However, because I was so intrigued with the spackle side of things as well as how their community works, how they think and communicate and choose leaders, I was not as bothered by the addition of another narrator as I'd expected to be.
In fact, I think The Return and The Sky (they really were saying "The Sky," right? I didn't mishear that?) were the most interesting characters in this go-round.

So to sum it up, I suppose, this was nowhere near as gobsmackingly stunning as [b:The Knife of Never Letting Go|2118745|The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking, #1)|Patrick Ness|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1277071696s/2118745.jpg|2124180] but not as loathesome as [b:The Ask and the Answer|6043849|The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking, #2)|Patrick Ness|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347305027s/6043849.jpg|6219422]. I did say that if I got at least a 3 out of this book, I'd be happy, and so...I suppose I'm happy!

I've come to the conclusion that I really like the way this author sets up a story, creates a place and time, and makes a situation interesting.

I won't say this book doesn't have problems and I acknowledge that sometimes DeStefano's descriptions get a little out of hand and exasperating, but, to my reading mind, there are far more striking sentences - I shouldn't have put the book in the bookdrop; I wish I'd have kept it another day so I could share some of my favorite quotes - than not.

I am not a religious person, I wouldn't even say I'm particularly spiritual, but I was charmed by the simple idea of death in this book, of the sky god and the order of life - you are pre-planned by...I guess whatever constitutes the government. I don't know that I learned who does the family planning on this small island in the sky. Anyway, your parents get into the Have a Kid queue and you're eventually made and then you go to school and you get a job in whatever field you love and then you retire and live in the dodder home until you're 75 and then you're "dispatched" and burned and the good parts of your leftovers/soul float up to the sky god while the bad were torched into oblivion. How lovely is that?
Even better was the Festival of Stars. I was completly charmed with the idea of silver branches being hung everywhere, strung with little ornaments that represented ideals, dreams, and wishes. I ate that up.

However, as much as I enjoyed this story, and I did enjoy it a great deal, I wait for the next installment with trepidation. If I learned only one thing from her Chemical Garden series, it is that her follow through leaves something to be desired and the end may not be anywhere as powerful as the beginning. I don't trust this author to keep me enthralled through multiple books about Morgan's circumstances.

Still.
I really liked this book.

I'm listening to the Bridget Jones books again in preparation for Mad About the Boy narrating. She was phenomenal. It cemented the importance of this novel to my time-of-life at that time. ...of...life...

So now I'm listening to these again and we don't have the Tracie Bennett narration edition anymore. We have the Barbara Rosenblat narration edition.

I adore [a:Barbara Rosenblat|12492|Barbara Rosenblat|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1332211833p2/12492.jpg]; she is, hands down, my favorite reader. Always. Except in this case. It's not that she's not adept at reading this book, it's that she cannot sound like a flighty ditz no matter how she tries. Granted her, "Why? WHY?", "How? HOW?" and other squeaky/whiny exclamations were spot on, but, in general, I didn't feel she was ever able to capture that essential dumbness that is Bridget. Her voice, Barbara's, I mean, is too smart, I suppose.

It's been good to revisit these books. They are charming still, though I find I have a little less patience with Ms. Jones' shenanigans. I would have the same reaction if I had to revisit my own self from this time period.

"But Erica," you say. "You hate vampire fiction."

Yes. That is true. With exception to [b:Dracula|17245|Dracula|Bram Stoker|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1387151694s/17245.jpg|3165724] since that was written before vampire fiction was all the rage. Heh heh heh.

"And also? You try to steer clear of self-published works."

That, too, is true. I deal with a lot of self-published material at work and it all-to-often gives me headaches. Very bad headaches. Caused by excessive tooth-grinding and jaw-clenching and some over-the-top nostril-flaring.

"Sooo...then...why are you reading this?"

Funny story: This was one of the books I had to catalog for work (that WorldCat record for the paperbound edition? It's mine. I made it) and as I perused it to get a feel for the contents, I was not horrified. In addition, it sounded kind of funny. So I thought, WTH, I'll give this a shot.
As it turns out, I used to know one of the authors. So then I was totally eager to read this so I could pay back some of the teasing I'd received at the hands of said formerly-known author! MwahahaHA!

I'll let you know what I thought about it when I'm done reading.

And now, without further ado, is my actual review:

I thought this started out well. There were characters I understood, some of whom I felt I even knew. It was funny, like "Office Space" with Louis CK as the vampire boss.
In this world, vampires are a rare but known commodity, the story likens them to actors and rock stars, and not all the traditional vampire lore remains in tact. I am good with that.
Vic, the Louis CK-type vampire, is able to hold onto his humanity. As a result, he works during the day, sleeps at night, drinks expired blood from the blood-bank and can't even stomach that, preferring to soak the blood into food or mix it into a Bloooooody Mary since fresh blood completely grosses him right on out.
For awhile, the story flowed, the characters were amusing and while none were too in-depth, they were all recognizable and even a little relatable. There were some clunky parts - most notably the party at the blood bank and the company picnic in the park; I don't know how many times I re-read those passages to get the gist of the scenes - and there are parts that could use some tightening. One of my pet peeves showed up: brand-name and song dropping. That mostly happened in a flashback in order to set the scene but still, more than one or two songs/brand and I get irritated. Still, I think I would have stuck to a 3.5 or 4 rating with only those snags.
But then DISASTER.
It started with the out-n-out Twilight reference, and yes, I was expecting one but this one just left me...


Then there was a lecture from Vic's BFF, Tripp, in which Tripp essentially says "it's a woman's job to stroke a man's ego" and coming from that particular character, it just seemed wrong. And horrible. And I wanted to punch faces for that.

But all my stars plummeted when I read pages 269-291. I still don't understand what happened there. First, we've got Jay and Raj randomly making out-of-the-blue accusations of fraud at the park and then Barb is selling the house and there's suddenly another vampire, one who should have been shown long before this, on Vic's doorstep. Bob is the name of the other vampire and Slayer Eugene had been watching him prior to Vic becoming a vamp but for some reason, Eugene's interest in Bob waned as soon as Vic came on the scene. Why? WHY? That didn't make sense. Worse, Eugene kills Bob the Other Vamp without even recognizing him; Eugene had showed up to the house to kill Vic, saw Bob, didn't know who he was, and then Bob was dead. What is happening here? Help, someone, I am so lost.
And, ok, I understand that Vic had to see his daughter attacked in order to realize how bleak the road to full-on humanityless vampirism is, but the whole set up was too over the top for my taste. I had a very hard time getting through all those pages.
It turned out ok, though. AFter page 291, the crazy-ride stopped and the normal flow resumed. It ends with no answers and that will annoy some people but it worked fine for me.

Now here is what I didn't do, otherwise I'd have been irritated at the entire story: I did not look deeper into what this all could have been saying, what a lot of vampire stories are saying (some just far more blatantly than others). I did not examine the theme of becoming more masculine via taking advantage of women, complete with the "She was asking for it" talk, the scenes bordering on rape as well as the rape fantasy aspect found in so much current vampire fiction. In traditional vamp lit, the victims and, subsequently, townsfolk are frightened and the vampire is a monster to be hunted and killed. Because that is what we do with rapists. And vampires. In this story, the vampire is a controlled substance and women can use him to play out their fantasies of being bitten, getting intoxicated on fear and the whole idea of being overpowered. Their struggles is part of the act and "no" means "yes" because they want to be overwhelmed, bitten, and sucked-on until they're dizzy and sometimes sick. In return, the vampire is rewarded with greater masculinity and a lack of consequences as no one hits him with her handbag or calls the cops to press charges. Instead, his manliness becomes an additional attractant in his already-mysterious, studly and pointy-toothed repertoire of allure. So while I recognize that the theme is there, I ignored it because I didn't want feminism to get in the way of my reading enjoyment. Also, I'm shallow and don't like to think too much.

Is this worth reading? Yes, I think it is. Does it need some work? Yes, I think it does. Will I read their other works? I certainly will, especially since their next two titles are not about vampires. Because, honestly, I do hate those damned bloodsuckers.

I am a little alarmed that this was written by a public education administrator.

Reminisce = verb (like "remember")
Reminiscence = noun (like "memory")

It seems he didn't call upon the editing resources he should have had access to in the form of English teachers and the like, which is a shame since the story is a Hollywood-level inspirational journey but one that is hard to follow due to awkward sentence structure, malapropisms, and problems in the flow of narrative.

What the hell, me? You just barely finished [b:The Paris Wife|8683812|The Paris Wife|Paula McLain|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320545874s/8683812.jpg|13556031] and got all fed up with it and then you move straight on to this? Really? What were you thinking?

Ok, to be fair, I had forgotten I'd put this book on hold at the library. It just happened to become available for my reading pleasure two days after I finished with the Hemingways. This was not an intentional reading of one biographical fiction after another.

I don't remember putting this on hold nor do I know why I did but when I got the book, I figured it couldn't be too bad. Whereas I've never liked Hemingway, I've always liked Poe. I have a thing for the mentally unstable, which is obvious if you just look at the bulk of my relationships throughout my life thus far. I think I know maybe two "normal" (as in, not deranged) people? I'm not one of them. So I'd like this book, too, right?

No.
I couldn't finish it. I got eight chapters in and was fed up with the lack of luster shown in Frances. Wasn't she supposed to have been a flirty, delightful, coquettish charmer? Wasn't she essentially the adopted daughter of high society and a shining star in literary circles? Not with this personality, she wouldn't have been. Mostly, the Mrs. Frances Locke Osgood character in this book was vapid, useless, and boring up through the first eight chapters.
And Poe. Oh, poor Poe. I'd never heard him described as handsome prior to this book but I had heard him described as magnetic when not being an asshole. I didn't really see that coming across here.

You know what? It was like reading Edward and Bella all over again but set in a different time period in a different place and instead of Jacob, we have the consumptive Mrs. Virginia Poe, who, in this story, seemed a bit tetched, herself. Ed-gar/ward was handsome all the time, pretty much to the point of sparkling and he didn't have much of importance to say on the pages. Frances/Bella just repeated everything anyone else said and had very few strong opinions of her own, other than she had to get to know Mr. Poe and had to figure out a way to write just like he does.

Whereas this all may have changed later in the book and maybe the story became absolutely riveting, I just couldn't make myself continue...I gave up and turned the book back in. DoneOver.

Mr. Yoder, do NOT read this review. You should never read reviews of your own work. It's like a law, or something.

I hate poetry.
Oh my god, I hate it so very much.
We, poetry and I, had a fiery passionate affair until I became an English major in college. Then I got to know poetry better. And poets, those self-indulgent, crazy, ridiculous people = Ugh.
I grew to loathe poetry. I hated how hard it became to understand, I hated how "good" poetry made my eyes roll into the back of my head, I hated it all.
Except children's poetry because that was still fairly uncomplicated and manageable, aimed at entertaining soft, young minds, not making maudlin the entire world.
Oh and love poetry? GAG! Worst Stuff EVER!
I hate poetry so very much.

And then I got this book.
I put off reading it forever because I didn't want to admit, "Yes, I got this book but I actually hate poetry, so...I'll probably never read it."

But here's the thing, the magical little moment:
I was cataloging this book for work and there was a power surge and for some reason my surge protector didn't work and my computer shut down and I had to wait about 10 minutes for everything to reboot...so...I read this damn slim volume of poetry while I waited to be able to resume working.

I only admit this under my breath and with my eyes all sideglancing and peevish: I did not hate these poems.
Yes, sure, there are hints of the amateur hand here and there and some rhymes are a bit forced and stumbly, but on the whole?
Not only did I understand almost every single piece both on a cerebral level as well as a personally emotional level, but I...ugh, I hate saying this...enjoyed the feeling of my eyes looking over the words flowing down the page.
Some of the poems are funny, wryly humorous, often darkly so. Others aren't. Some are painful. Others are punchy. And most of them, I reluctantly admit, are pretty damn good.

I don't plan to read a lot more poetry because of this; I'm not re-converted. My favorites are still [a:Shel Silverstein|435477|Shel Silverstein|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1201029128p2/435477.jpg] and [a:Jack Prelutsky|20775|Jack Prelutsky|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1201022851p2/20775.jpg](ok, honestly, I like [a:Robert Burns|75831|Robert Burns|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1209473267p2/75831.jpg], too, but let's not let that get out) but I do own an ecopy of this book and I'll probably actually read some of the poems over and over like I used to back before I learned to hate poetry.
I 100% recommend this to people who like poetry, especially the Romantics (not the band)(well, not that I'm excluding people who like the band, mind you)

This is one of those books that I felt I should know something about since it's all popular and stuff, though, in all honesty, I knew it wouldn't appeal on a personal level seeing as how I've never been a fan of Hemingway, either his works or the stories of him as a person.

For the first half, I was intrigued. Reading a fictional account of the Hemingways' lives in Europe was fun and interesting, full of famous characters, some of whose works I do actually enjoy. It painted a delightful tableau of literary authors' lives captured in a brief moment in time.

And then I got so bored. Hadley, who sounds as if she was actually a fairly spiffy person, was a tedious character. I couldn't feel anything for her. Hemingway comes across as a charmer, a braggart, a hard-at-his-craft-worker, and an asshole. I already thought these things about him, though, so it's not like this convinced me to know him better. In fact, it felt odd to have little bits of Hemingway's point-of-view (in third person) written in here and there and the last one, at the end of Ch. 45, was just irritating. I felt like I was supposed to read about his relationship with his mother and then feel all sad for him and become more understanding of why he was a cad, a lost soul, incapable of love and bent toward romantic destruction. I felt manipulated by this piece and that irked me.

The second half of the book is painful. You know how it's going to end but it takes forever to get there. It's very drawn-out but not in a way that helps to explain the crumbling of a marriage, the feelings involved, the sense of loss and alienation and indignation, the whys and hows. The way this was written, none of the characters cared overly much that this supposedly great relationship was ending because another had begun. I wanted to feel all ripped-apart, to feel Hadley's pain but apparently, her pain wasn't too bad and she continued to love Ernest until his dying day, never really placing any blame on his shoulders or the shoulders of Pauline. Ugh, it was all just so bland and nicely-tied-up.

So while I liked the imagery and the settings and the time period and even the writing, I didn't overmuch enjoy the story, not because it's a tragic tale but because it was boring.

My original plan had been to cross-review this with [b:Blueprints for Building Better Girls: Fiction|8711905|Blueprints for Building Better Girls Fiction|Elissa Schappell|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327930584s/8711905.jpg|13584771] which I'd started reading around the same times I'd started reading this.
This, however, I read during my half-hour lunch breaks so it took me a really, super, amazingly long time to get through it whereas I read the Blueprints book at home in, like, five days and now I've forgotten what I was going to say to compare the two, other than both are books of short stories that explore relationships females have with other people, specifically mother/daughter relationships.

So, instead, I'll just give my thoughts on this book and then go write the review for that book and it won't be half as clever and erudite as I'd planned.

This book.
Because I'm not an artistic-thinking individual, I was confused by the layout of this book. Now, I must remind you that I was reading this during lunch breaks and was often interrupted in my reading so it took me three stories to realize that I was reading about the same girl named Ruby. I was thrown off because the first story, "Shout her lovely name," is about a nameless mother whose nameless daughter is suffering from an eating disorder and they're trying to navigate teenagehood and parenthood around this serious illness. But then the next story, "Ruby Jewel," starts in with the Ruby stories. She's a teen coming home from college and having to deal with her drunk father and her distant mother after having tasted her own life for a semester, or however long it's been. Then there are two more Ruby stories, then a story about a woman on a plane with her husband and their baby. Then it goes back to Ruby stories, only now Ruby has a daughter named Nora. Slowly, we move into Nora stories and then the book ends with a woman named Cassie who has two teenage children and they are planning a birthday party for the soon-to-be-50-year-old dad.
The end.
Why was this book set up that way? Why were the bulk of stories about Ruby and then Nora, making a sort of novel, only to have the stories bookended and bisected by unrelated stories? I mean, I get that ther reader gets to know Nora after the woman on the plane (not snakes on the plane) story, but why are the three non-Ruby stories random, as in they are not about anyone related to the Ruby stories and they don't seem related to each other, either. I do not understand what I'm supposed to get from that.

The stories were fine. I didn't really connect with any of them. I'm not a mother. I am a daughter, but I didn't connect on that level, either. Ruby is a teen in the 70's, I believe. I was a little kid in the 70's. My experiences were way different, even if I did recognize the environment. Nora's childhood wasn't totally different from mine, but dissimilar enough that I didn't really sympathize with her, either. It was like I was just watching these people in these stories, never truly feeling their feels.

Even so, the stories are well-written and describe moments of life that are worth reading about. They explore relationships women have with other women, with their mothers, their daughters, with siblings and friends, with men and I always find such things interesting.

I closed my review of [b:I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman|8765|I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman|Nora Ephron|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320433577s/8765.jpg|2516574] with the following, which seems a good opener for this review:

P.S.
I do not recommend following [b:I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman|8765|I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman|Nora Ephron|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320433577s/8765.jpg|2516574] with this book. Delia starts out with the Nora's end days. I've been crying in the car for two drives, now. It's been hard to go from Nora talking about death, losing her BFF and wondering who was next - and now I know she knew she was sick when she wrote that - to Delia talking about how her sister's death impacted her, both during and after and even still, I am sure. OMG, it just hurts. And it's scary. I have a sister. We don't collaborate on books, we're not famous, but I can't lose her and this part of the book is terrifying to me because I don't want to think about the surviving sister syndrome. And it's sad. So I don't recommend it as a chaser.

Despite that, I am thankful that my brain works the way it does and made me listen to the two, one after another. They're wonderful bookends for each other.

I find I like the Ephrons, at least these particular two. My family was so different yet so similar. We're not Jewish...hell, we're not even religious!...and we're not in the entertainment industry and we don't all have the same career and we don't have money. But I understand the dynamics of a dysfunctional family - we didn't deal with alcohol so much as cocaine and abuse and who knows what else and we only had one parent down, not both - of having resentment toward our mother, of having to love and battle with three other siblings. While the Ephrons were not like my family, there was still so much I understood.

I really enjoyed listening to this and I think I'm going to buy these two books for my sister and make her read them in the same order I did.
I hope she also cries.

I wonder if I should have started with some of Kagen's newer works and then read my way backward? In retrospect, reading her first novel first may not have been my most clever move.

The story, here, is what my pals and I call "Fine and Perfect" which means it was ok but I don't really want to talk about it.
I'm still going to talk about it, though.

Alright. So. The story. It's a fun, quick summer suspense featuring a ten-year-old girl in 1959 Milwaukee who believes she will be the next victim of a child rapist/murderer. No,that doesn't sound fun but, despite the child raping and murdering and the leaving of the bodies down by the park, it's pretty light-hearted. In addition, the girl - Sally O'Malley (yes, really) - and her just-a-bit-younger sister, Troo, are essentially abandoned for the summer while their mother is dying in the hospital and their stepfather is getting into bar brawls and staying at the waitress' house most nights. But don't worry, it's not as depressing as it sounds. There's an older sister who tries to pitch in when not doing what teenage girls do in the summer and a cop who shows a little too much interest in Sally and a zoo with a gorilla named Samson.

Delightful characters are introduced (Ethel), the sense of community that I think many of us yearn for runs rampant through the pages, sparking nostalgia both real and imagined, and the mystery of who has been kidnapping, abusing, then murdering little girls is solved. That all makes for a pleasant read.

The thing that marred my pleasant read, though, was Sally, the narrator and protagonist.
I had a hard time following her tale because the narration is fashioned after the thoughts of a ten-year-old city girl in the swell '50's. The thing is, though, kids can be pretty clear, especially when telling their stories. It may not sound like it from an adult perspective, but ten-year-olds usually understand the concept of flow and consistency. Normally, if things get muddled during a child's rendition of her life, you just ask for clarification and get the kid to set things straight. In a book, the reader can't ask for clarification so a child narrator is a tricky thing; getting the voice of a ten-year-old to come across without tangling the story is hard. And, in this case, I don't think it was successful.
Sally sounded like a child written from an adult's point-of-view, meaning "This is how grown-ups think children think"; she didn't feel authentic; it was if she had been pared down to the most basic child-like form and then dressed in clever kid-like thoughts that had adult undertones making her faux-precocious and simultaneously overly innocent and completely not genuine.
Adding to that is her inconsistent voice. Her sentimentality for the Sky King starts out over-the-top, then goes away altogether, then pops back up at the end. (There are numerous, unnecessary asides in parentheses but they bunch up together in some chapters and then go missing for many chapters only to suddenly appear again). Her inner monologue isn't even consistent. On and off throughout the beginning chapters, she's all lazy speech, all the time - she's gonna, he coulda, she's runnin', we woulda, they're laughin' - but then that stops and her speech begins to even out, flow better, reads more smoothly, and then suddenly she jerks back to the beginning chapters again. I kept getting thrown out of the story every time that happened.

I ran into other problems - like Ethel. She turns out to be an awesome character but I'd just assumed she was another kid, albeit a little older than Sally and her sister, with whom they liked to hang. No, it turns out she's a full-on adult and she's black and she works as a caretaker for a little old lady. I found that out in chapter 20. I'd been picturing her as just some 14-year-old that did good deeds. It was jarring to have to re-imagine her halfway through the book when she becomes an important character.
Switching from honorifics to first names and back was also very confusing. Mrs. Callahan was Mrs. Callahan and then Betty but then back to Mrs. Callahan all in the same paragraph, making me wonder who the hell Betty was and why she'd popped up when we were talking about Mrs. Callahan? It took me a few minutes to realize that this ten-year-old is calling Mrs. Callahan by her first name. Did ten-year-olds who were raised to be all proper and crap do that in 1959? Did they think of people as both Mr/Mrs as well as by their first names? I don't know if they did, or not, but switching back and forth like that certainly messed with the flow of the story.
And the killer. At the end, he goes all psycho and weird and I have to admit I rolled my eyes through the entire scene.
These were all problems for me.

So to sum up: While I liked the idea of the overarching story, the little inconsistencies and my inability to believe in Sally O'Malley as a ten-year-old got in my way and I couldn't enjoy the story as much as I'd have liked.