That’s it. Goal Met. Challenge conquered. I do not need to read any other book this year. I am satiated.
You know how I have that groupie mentality? Y That’s it. Goal Met. Challenge conquered. I do not need to read any other book this year. I am satiated.
You know how I have that groupie mentality? Yeah, well… Ilovejohnsteinbecksomuchit’skillingme.
“It happened to so many of my friends. The lecture ends, “Slow down. You’re not as young as you once were.” And I had seen so many begin to pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood into a kind of spiritual and physical semi invalidism…. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I’ve lifted pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage.”
They should put that on a t-shirt. Girls would flock. Seriously, this guy is hot. What’s the opposite of cougar because that’s what I am. Or maybe I should just move to necrophilia since we’re going on 40 years since he met the daisies. Still, all through this book I was OMG THIS IS THE MAN OF MY DREAMS. He names his truck Rocinante! And Charley? My god… don’t even.
I’ve never really had the itch to travel across America. I’m a northeaster, I can’t handle people who don’t talk as fast as me, don’t walk as fast as me, eat clam chowder that’s red, use the word ‘pop’, don’t have basements, have tornado warnings, you know… those people. I’ve tiptoed out of my comfort zone a few times but usually rush back to the elitist, bitter, hmphing bosom of my kind. John has given me a bit of a rash.
The first few parts of the book center on country that I am familiar with… he drives from Long Island to the tip of Maine and back down across New Hampshire and Vermont. He stops at roadside diners, encounters sad souls and men of few words. This is 1960, when plastic covered everything was in and politics was best left to the city folk. He absorbs so much. “ And the Aurora Borealis was out. I’ve seen it only a few times in my life. It hung and moved with majesty in folds like an infinite traveler upstage in an infinite theater. In color sof rose and lavender and purple it moved and pulsed against the night, and the frost sharpened stars shone through it. What a thing to see at a time when I need it so badly!" And to the sad soul who served him his plastic meal that night he says “ I wondered for a moment whether I should grab that waitress and kick her behind out to look at it, but I didn’t dare. She could make eternity and infinity melt and run out through your fingers.” Yes, I realize that’s an insult, but how freakin’ beautiful.
I want to breathe that air, to feel that rising, so glorious that words are not enough (except with him, they can be and that’s amazing). I want to sit by a fire with canucks passing as seasonal potato pickers; I want to sit in the Vermont church with him listening to the hellfire promising preacher damn us.
“Having proved that we, or perhaps only I, were no damn good, he painted with cool certainty what was likely to happen to us if we didn’t make some basic reorganizations for which he didn’t hold out much hope…. I began to feel good all over. For some years now God has been a pal to us, practicing togetherness, and that causes the same emptiness a father does playing softball with his son. But this Vermont God cared enough about me to go to a lot of trouble kicking the hell out of me.”
My OTP. My BFF, the fly to my soup, the lox to my bagel, my everything. See, John is.. JOHN in this book, he says he’s not.. he says he doesn’t want anyone to recognize him, that he wants to know America, to understand but he comes across so vividly, full Technicolor, that I found myself responding to him. I felt the manic depressive moments like the hills and valley of a rollercoaster. He bares himself to strangers, tries to pry the life out of them. He studies voraciously—and this isn’t a newbie rambler---he’s been EVERYWHERE and you still feel lost with him on the shores of lakes in the back woods of Indiana.
“My wants are simple. I have no desire to latch onto a monster symbol of fate and prove my manhood in titanic piscine war. But sometimes I do like a couple of cooperative fish of frying size.” I would fish with you my friend. Even in Indiana.
If I were to step out of my comfort zone and travel this America, I know that I wouldn’t see the same way that John sees. I know that this is a different America from 1960 Steinbeck as much as it is to 1930 Steinbeck. Perhaps even more so… we are consumed with posthaste and irritated with impermanent. I would want to take the unknown but know that I would fall prey to the interstates and their humdrum. I am not a patient woman (I am a northeaster). I wonder how many have taken the travels with Charley route and what they discovered.
There are so many more scenes that I want to share with you. I want to follow you around and read this out loud with boisterous glee. I cannot however, dinner is due and laundry is waiting.
Please, PLEASE read this book. Scratch the itch. Tell me all about it. ...more
Kit’s Wilderness I wonder how many times I’ve seen this title and assumed it was an American Girl book. Truly a shame… This has been out for 15 years… Kit’s Wilderness I wonder how many times I’ve seen this title and assumed it was an American Girl book. Truly a shame… This has been out for 15 years… 15 years that I could have carried Kit and his story with me.
It almost eluded me once again, when I noticed the author, David Almond, I knew that name. A sudden surge, like a warm fuzzie or a premenopausal hot flash overcame me. Skellig. Yes. Now, I remember.
David Almond has this incredible talent. His voice. He rambles, he doesn’t use paragraphs, his dialogues runs into each other, he’s got that British slang thing and he must say “Eh? Eh?” a hundred times which just reminds me of Eh? Eh!. Then I lose my train of thought and some random facebook picture of one of Eh’s dinners pop up and then I’m hungry and I have to focus focus focus.
His voice. It’s gentle, it lulls you.
“This is our world, he used to say. “Aye, there’s more than enough of darkness in it. But over everthing there’s all this joy, Kit. There’s all this lovely lovely light.”
The story is of two boys, Kit and John, aged thirteen. Living in Stoneygate, built over an old mine that holds a power of the boys, the ghosts of children who perished down there, the fascination with death, the escape of grandfathers suffering from dementia or drunk abusive fathers… something draws them together, a story that they need to tell in order to heal.
Or something like that.
What I know is that Mr. Almond was able to lure me into a story of two pubescent boys living in a bleak town in England and hold me there, tightly, until he decided he was done with me. Cast me off into the tunnels below Stoneygate. And now I feel hollow and I’m meandering, trying to catch Silky’s eye. (You have to be in the know) ...more
The worst thing in the world would be to pretend t know the people whose lives I step through. They cannot be homes to me. They must be hotel rooms.
LeThe worst thing in the world would be to pretend t know the people whose lives I step through. They cannot be homes to me. They must be hotel rooms.
Levithan is revisiting A, the character he introduced us to in Every Day. I suppose this is a prequel that needs to be read as a sequel so you understand A, you can see, be, the six different people that A has chosen you to glimpse.
Again, such beauty. One day does not ever seem enough and to stay detached, to try to not disrupt, to always have to be thinking of the person you are squatting in and not yourself... I don't envy A.
"It's the secret smile you get from knowing that, somewhere, there is someone who is yours. Not in the sense that you own her, or control her. She is yours because you can say anything to her."
Too often we realize this too late.
"The desire to be heard is as deepply seeded as the desire to be loved. So much of the technology we spend our time on is geared toward this. For some people, it doesn't matter who's on the other end."
I want to hug David Levithan. I have since I met A, Nick, Nora... and now I want to meet all of his creations. I may even go back and find which Baby Sitter's Club books he wrote.
I'm a geek.. I'm nerd... I have no life.. but if not living means I can throw myself in a Levithan world, then I'm okay with that. I feel lighter after one of his reads.
Goddamn it. I hate you, Barry Lyga. By that I mean I love you but right now you are not my favorite person. I will get to that later.
Having vented... Goddamn it. I hate you, Barry Lyga. By that I mean I love you but right now you are not my favorite person. I will get to that later.
Having vented... if you haven't read anything by Barry Lyga, you are a fool. If you consider yourself a fan of YA and haven't read him then you are an even bigger fool. Please put down your dystopian vampire love triangle and pick up something. Anything. Read Boy Toyor The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl. Read the first book in this series, I Hunt Killers. Just READ.
Because he is creepy and awesome. Creepingly awesome. I gush. I can't help it. Then I see this on his goodreads page... So help me god, put down that fantasy crap* and read him.
Now, back to my gut wrenching hatred for Mr. Lyga. How DARE you end this book this way. It is 4:20 (I'm not making that up, btw) in the morning and I just finished your second installment of Jasper Dent and now I want to throttle you. I hope that you have been chained to your computer and are furiously belting out the next book. I hope you don't sleep until it is finished. If I see you, do not think that I won't go all Annie Wilkes on your ass. In exchange, I promise that if you receive another pink slip, I will hunt down those people and end them. Billy Dent would be proud.
Now get writing.
*crap meant in the most lovingly way, of course....more
These books are like crack. Not that I’ve tried crack, but I’ve been in enough toy stores and seen enough Breaking Bad dolls that I know I would like These books are like crack. Not that I’ve tried crack, but I’ve been in enough toy stores and seen enough Breaking Bad dolls that I know I would like it. It’s Rachel and David again. My two (unbeknownst to them) BFFs. Finishing this book made me sad. Like when you leave your best friend sad. I hate that.
I don’t recommend reading all three of these books at once. It’s best to spread them out. Like Hal Hartley films or candy corn binges. It’s not good for your health and it might lower your love and expectations because yes, there is definitely a pattern, but what happens within that pattern is bewitching.
I wonder who writes what parts? Does David always write the boy’s POV and Rachel always the girl’s? Did they switch it up? Do they write a chapter at a time and give it to the other and say ‘GO!’? And the other has no idea what the first has written until that moment? I’m sure I could look this up, but I don’t want to. I need to stay in this Rachel/me/David bubble. It gives me my castles in the air.
“How can you spend hours every day trying in small ways to figure out who you are, then have a near-stranger give you a sentence of yourself that says it better than you ever could?”
Yes, Rachid? How? I could never ever ever (one more and I’ve got a Taylor song) hang out with Naomi and Ely. They are too pretty, too witty, too close. I would always feel inferior. It would crush any self worth that’s still dust bunnying up the corners of my soul. I’m more like the side side character, Girl-Robin:
"I am the Velma. I am the girl with the bowl haircut and the sensible sweater-the investigator, not the cause of the investigation. I am not the thinnest, the prettiest, the coolest or the loudest. I blend in easily as should a girl from Schenectady….I don’t bother with dating. There is the problem of no one actually asking me on a date, but I choose not to think of that problem as a problem. It’s a solution. The Velmas of the world do not intern at CNN, hope to be accepted at Columbia J-School after graduating NYU with honors and go on to with Pulitzer Prized by getting bogged down in a relationship drama. That's a problem for the Daphnes of the world. Daphne, you bitch, you can't even drive the damn van."
I don’t even think I have that much going for me. Though I certainly know a lot of Daphnes. But, it makes me smile. What doesn’t make me smile is that I sort of feel like a fool. These books are not written for 40-something moms who need an escape, like Twilight or Outlander. These books are meant for the ones that are young and just beginning and to inspire them to be more than just boring. So, yeah… pie on my face me living in my fool’s paradise.
This is a sad story in the way that most people actually can understand. It's learning that what you thought could happen, just won’t. That things change, people change, that you can’t make plans and live comfortably in them until you are old and gray. Life gets in the way. And when this happens, it breaks you. I know it did me. Like innocence lost, like no santa at christmas, like Charlie before the glass elevator.
It fucking sucks.
“The complexity embedded in the different levels of meaning that go along with the words "I love you" ought to be a whole mindfuck of a video game”
Exactly Dachel. Naomi and Ely. Naomi thinks that they are meant for eachother. Ely thinks that too. But he knows better. And that realization of ‘knowing’… that’s the ball buster. It breaks everything. Your whole conception of ‘being’ is shifted and now you have to think of life without the other person and you’ve never done that before and that’s scary as fuck.
“Maybe your history just repeats and repeats until it batters you enough to snap the seams that hold you together”
It’s not pretty when the seams rip. It’s goddamn awful. A hurt so deep that the thought of just feeling despair is a mood lifter.
“We always see the worst in our selves. Our most vulnerable selves. We need someone to get close enough to tell us that we're wrong. Someone we trust.”
I want to be worthy of these writers. I know that they aren’t like the Hemingways or the Austins, or the Franzens of the world. Which is awesome actually having just finished reading Zadie Smith and not at ALL having this warm fuzzy that Naomi and Ely provided. It shows me that even if my tastes are thought to be par with Hungry Mans, my feelings are still like gelato in Florence.
Crikey. I know I have a tendency to gush. Yeah, yeah, get over it. But, Hell on Wheels, I love this series. I’ve been trying to get friends to read itCrikey. I know I have a tendency to gush. Yeah, yeah, get over it. But, Hell on Wheels, I love this series. I’ve been trying to get friends to read it for years, but it seems like they shut down when I say ‘Have you read the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series yet?’ Is it the title? Because, puhlease… you guys have hauled around much worse and don’t say you haven’t.
Laini Taylor is freakin’ awesome. I mean, the fact that she can pull off cerise colored hair at 42 really should be enough, but the worlds that she builds in DOSAB are fanciful and impressive and goddammit her characters are KICK.ASS.
Okay, yes. I’ve fallen for the hype of other, lesser series (cough, cough) and I can totally see you brushing me off here, but you would be doing yourself an injustice. I would like to thank karen for introducing me to DOSAB with her zero cool review. I mean, yes, she usually outdoes herself but what drew me to this review was the sincerity. I love her beaver reviews and her sex addict sea monster addiction, but there was such a sweetness to this review that I knew we’d be kin.
So, now I have to ask: Would I have ever been able to admit that I fell in love with a book that had fiery hawt angels (well, yeah, not a stretch) and blue haired artists living in Prague (keep going, Kim, you’re not fooling anyone) that have this intense, unrequited love that lasts through thousands of years and maybe even a few different lifetimes?
Yes.
But, then I’d have to kind of gawk at totally crushing on chimeras with hooves and batwings and horns. A little too close to bestiality for my comfort, but HERE I AM, falling for Ziri and loving Issa, "snake tail, the hood and fangs of a cobra, and clothes herself with snakes" and then there’s Brimstone, “a chimaera with a ram's head, lion haunches, raptor feet, and reptilian eyes, with the rest being like a man's” who I actually wish was MY father.
It’s a stretch.
But, it works and that’s what you have to love about this series. Laini, my(unbeknownst to her) BFF crafts these great parallel universes and each book is better than the last. Akiva and Karou. Zuzana and Mik. Ziri and Liraz. Who needs Bogie and Bacall (too soon?)? I love these characters and I will admit that I cried when it ended. Laini states that series readers are the best readers. I can see that, because we are INVESTED. (Yeah, all you Game of Thrones fans.. you be nodding). I was invested in the misbegotten seraphim and the chimera. I wanted Eretz to survive, I cried for Loramendi. I hated the Stelians until I didn’t.
I know that none of this means anything to those who haven’t read this. I’m hoping that you sense the excitement and the passion that I have for these books and decide to visit these characters and these realms, because if not, you are SO missing out.
Here's a taste: "Liraz had heard it said that there was only one emotion which, in recollection, was capable of resurrecting the full immediacy and power of the original - one emotion that time could never fade, and that would drag you back any number of years into the pure, undiluted feeling, as if you were living it anew. It wasn't love - not that she had any experience of that one - and it wasn't hate, or anger, or happiness, or even grief. Memories of those were but echoes of the true feeling. It was shame. Shame never faded, and Liraz realized only now that this was the baseline of her emotions - her bitter, curdled "normal" - and that her soul was poisoned soil in which nothing good could grow."
Relatively Excited…. That usually isn’t a great state. I mean, super-excited, or moderately interested and there’s that chance of being bowled over or pissed off. Relatively excited usually leads to ‘meh’.
And meh (which is so 'meh' to say now, maybe I should try 'derp')it is.
I don’t know… maybe it’s just that I’m old (I’ve said this in so many reviews now… you’d think I’d just accept and move on, but noooooooo)---I’ve been there done that with this story. Hell, I lived it. Okay, not the mental institution or the suicide attempt but most definitely the BoD (Bangs of Doom) and the goth (or post-goth—whatever she calls it to get to sleep at night) and above all, I’ve done the Mom-dying-of-Cancer-routine.
I felt cheated. I wished that Barry had given Kyra a more original voice. I wish that the formula weren’t so formulaic and that there wasn’t the happy ending that is supposed to still be a big ol’ fuck you to society. Teen angst, Smiths style. Yawn.
I do have to admit that there was one little light bulb moment… In today’s anti-depressant ridden society it’s interesting to think back to that old idiom and how positively appropriate it is now. Accept your punishment---take your medicine. HA!
It might also be meh because well, it so belittles that time in my life. No one takes that seriously… hiding behind your bangs, wearing clothes that make other people stay away from you because, frankly, you want to be left alone. The confusion that is misplaced anger and total self-absorption. It seems trite when you can look down the barrel 20 years.. It was supposed to be more important than that.
“People think I’m a goth. But I’m not. I’m post-goth. I hang out with goths and they think they get me but they really don’t. But they’re the closest thing I’ve got to people who do get me, so I stick with them. See, goth was originally all about rebelling and being different. You’d be lucky to see two or three goths together at once (ed. Note: TRUTH) Now they’re everywhere. There are, like, stores and stuff that cater to them. There’s a website I found once that even does date matching for goths. Bakeries that make cakes with black icing… It’s all mainstream. That’s what I hate about this world: It takes everything unique and cool and interesting and makes it mainstream. There’s an effing TV channel for everything. A website for everything. A section of the bookstore for everything. I want to yell. I want to scream to the world: THIS IS NOT SOMETHING FOR YOU TO MARKET! THIS IS NOT SOMETHING FOR YOU TO SELL! THIS IS MY LIFE! THIS IS HOW I FEEL! There’s no room left to be an individual. Everyone’s part of a group. And it sucks."
Yay, Barry, yay. Except that I’m sure there’s a t-shirt and a scene from Reality Bites that mimics this. Turn it up a notch, kay? ...more
It’s 7:55am. I’m at the light at Susie Wilson Road. (Local folklore states that Susie Wilson was the town Madam. Bit of trivia for you there…) I woke It’s 7:55am. I’m at the light at Susie Wilson Road. (Local folklore states that Susie Wilson was the town Madam. Bit of trivia for you there…) I woke up 10 minutes ago, showered, dropped my kid off at school and here I wait. I hate this light. I hate driving. Most of all, I hate vanity plates. ‘GOTHAM1’ is in front of me. A blue mid 2000s Durango. I’m sure that Batman would be honored. I wonder if other superhero fans nod or finger pistol the driver like there is some sort of unspoken clubhouse sign that shows solidarity. You know, like when bus drivers or bikers wave to each other? Maybe he has the bat symbol on his headlights or a set of wonder twin rings in the glove box. ‘GOTHAM1’ is not like its namesake. It takes a good 20 seconds for it to ease up on the gas at the light. I wonder if there is a ‘GOTHAM2’ somewhere and if their avatars bunk together.
I chastise myself for being so hackneyed in my reveries. Who am I to judge? I read vampire books and watch the CW (on occasion).
Still… I was never a full out geek. When I say ‘geek’, I’m talking physics geeks, mathematics geeks, engineering geeks, sci-fi geeks, computer geeks, various science geeks, movie and film geeks (cinephile), comic book geeks, theater geeks, music geeks (including band geeks), art geeks, philosophy geeks, literature geeks, historical reenactment geeks, video game geeks, roleplay geeks. Whovians, cyberpunk geeks, steampunk geeks, Trekkies, Jedis, D&D, BSG, TMNT, HPRP, LARP, MMORPG, GED/J d-- s:++>: a--C++(++++) ULU++ P+ L++E---- W+(-) N+++ o+ K+++ w--- O-M+ V--PS++>$ PE++>$Y++ PGP++ t-5+++ X++ R+++>$tv+ b+ DI+++ D+++ G+++++ e++ h r--y++**,LOTR, Buffys, Wesleys, RHPS, "bright young man (or woman) turned inward, poorly socialized, who felt so little kinship with his(her) own planet that he (she) routinely traveled to the ones invented by his(her) favorite authors, who thought of that secret, dreamy place his(her)computer took him (her) to as cyberspace—somewhere exciting, a place more real than his(her) own life, a land he(she) could conquer, not a drab teenager's room in his(her)parents' house." (as defined by Julie Smith (not sure if they meant the soft core porn actress or the mystery novelist)).
Okay, now that I’ve offended a great deal of people who are furiously hunting down my IP address and inserting many a virus to my account, I will get to the point. (yes, there is one)
I am a booknerd. A proud one. I haven’t given into the ‘man’ yet and bought a Kindle or a Nook or Ipad or whatever. I still haul around 2-3 books and notebooks everywhere I go. I juggle coffee and hardcovers on shuttle buses and never (NEVER) pass a bookshop without checking it out. I feel a kinship with the geeks. (“Ohhh. Great warrior. Wars not make one great.”) I really do.
Geektastic is the neutral zone for booknerds and geeks (yes, there are many that are one in the same and kudos to you if you are, you will long rule middle earth or something.) 15 stories about teen angst written in the geek narrative. There is the classic Romeo and Juliet (Jedi Apprentice and Klingon-respectively)tale where ComiCon is the new Verona.
There is a raver of a Role Playing party hosted by a polyamorous middle aged Xena at her lakeside condo where Catherine Earnshaw hopes to meet Heathcliff but instead falls for Mr. Kool-Aid who really turns out to be Heathcliff without all the asshole traits (Cyrano De Bergerac)
There is the Buffy Sing Along (ala Rocky Horror) where our hero, Dawn, stands up to all the Buffys and speaks for all the ‘previously unknown, never-mentioned, pseudo-sibling who appears suddenly out of nowhere’ gaining the admiration of her peers (sort of) (Cinderella?)
There is the online relationship twist where a young girl (Enchantress Magic Eightball) travels to New York to meet her first love (the master thief Boggle) and to tell him that she is really just a 15 year old girl from Keokuk, Illinois and hopes that his 34yr old non-profit tech self won’t really mind. (‘To Catch A Predator’??)
There is the story of Dino Girl, a freshman who has only ever had eyes for the Jurassic type..always ‘a Compsognathus among Carcharodontosaurs’ until she meets Jamie Terravozza. The junior baseball player in her science class and suddenly hormones make the scene and the cropolite hits the fan. (Any teen movie in the last 25 years)
What I’m saying is that you need not be a geek to enjoy these stories. Yes, I haven’t done them justice with my flip little paragraphs, but they are as precious as Eärendil. Some of my favorite YA authors contributed to this anthology, Barry Lyga, Wendy Mass, M.T. Anderson, Garth Nix, John Green and so on...Pure ‘Please, Captain, not in front of the Klingons’ young adult nirvana. This may be the best book that I’ve read this year. ...more
Hi!!!!!!! I’m back. Yep. Thought I might have given up on you, right? No way “We’re stuck together like paper to glue / Like a me to a you / Like honeHi!!!!!!! I’m back. Yep. Thought I might have given up on you, right? No way “We’re stuck together like paper to glue / Like a me to a you / Like honey to Pooh / Like the sky is to blue.” You complete me. I can’t quit you. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach. Don’t forget I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her. I’m very discreet but… I will haunt your dreams.
Get it? I will not be daunted by a horse head in the bed… by a boiled bunny… by giving me free cable… nope. I am strong in my conviction. I love you, Nick Hornby. In Icelandic, that would be: Ég elska þig, Nick Hornby. (it sounds like I’m insulting you, maybe that’s what makes Icelanders so hip now.—maybe I’m just studying the culture so when I show up at your door with a wheelbarrow and a potato sack and some duck tape you’ll sort of know what my plans might be.)
Shakespeare Wrote for Money is another collection of Nick’s columns from his Believer days. More books bought, books read, DVDs bought, movies watched... more of the essential Nick Hornby. This alone should be enough, right? Oh no no no... with an Introduction by Sarah Vowell Sarah! My BFF, my blood sister, the Bridget Fonda to my Jennifer Jason Leigh. Hell yeah! Enough, you say? Where’s the Thorazine to shut this bitch up already you ask?
Wait... there’s more. Nick has discovered YA during these years. I’m sure it has to do with his publishing of Slam and all that goes along with toting it, but get this... HE REVIEWS WEETZIE BAT! My all-time-no-holds-barred-carry-me-to-the-grave FAVORITE book.
“Weetzie Bat is, I suppose, about single mothers and AIDS and homosexuality and loneliness, but that’s like saying that “Desolation Row is about Cinderella and Einstein and Bette Davis. And actually, when I was trying to recall the last time I was exposed to a mind this singular, it was Dylan’s book Chronicles that I thought of—not because Block thinks or writes in a similar way, and she certainly doesn’t write or think about similar things, but because this kind of originality in prose is very rare indeed.”
This is an erotic dream that culminates in an emission of ejaculatory fluid come true.
“Reading begets reading” Nick says.
“I like liking things. It’s just that there are more books to like than anyone can ever read. Which, granted, is an uptown problem, but a problem nonetheless.” Sarah remarks.
My peeps, may I welcome you to my warm bosom...
Nick knocks out these columns between 2006 and 2008. Some of the books that he has reviewed are Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel, Ironweed by William Kennedy, On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan, Poppy Shakespeare, by Clare Allan, The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta, Feed by M.T. Anderson--just to name a few. He jumps from sports to biographies to the movie industry (Dr. Doolittle in particular) to musical history to dystopian YA lit and …. do I need an ‘and’? He’s just so awesome.
He read a biography: Thomas Hardy: The Time Torn Man by Claire Tomalin:
“Hardy’s prose is best consumed when you’re young, and your endless craving for misery is left unsatisfied by a diet of the Smiths and incessant parental misunderstanding. When I was seventeen, the scene in Jude the Obscure where Jude’s children hang themselves “becos they are meny” provided much-needed confirmation that adult like was going to be thrillingly, unimaginatively, deliciously awful.”
His review of The Road (compared to mine: a pitiful 12 words: “Cormac McCarthy is a ray of friggin' sunshine on an apocalyptic day....” piece of crap) gives us just enough self centered ‘we are fucked’ attitude to make us want to devour it… even a second time, just to know that Nick is right there beside you.
“The man spends much of the book wondering whether he should shoot his son with their last remaining bullet, just to spare him further pain…. Sometimes you feel like begging the man to use his last bullet on you, rather than the boy. The boy is a fictional creation, after all, but you’re not. You’re really suffering. Reading The Road is rather like attending the beautiful funeral of someone you love who has died young. You’re happy that the ceremony seems to be going so well, and you know you’ll remember the experience for the rest of your life, but the truth is that you’d rather not be there at all.”
This time around, I was lucky to have read a good dozen of the same books---and then proceeded to add another twenty or so to my To-Read list. Thank you Nick… thank you for letting me have these essays. Reading Hornby is extremely pleasurable event.
And to all you non-Believers out there… Þú mega hafa a loka fundur með geðveikur tannlæknir!
"Weltschmerz (from the German, meaning world-pain or world-weariness, pronounced [ˈvɛltʃmɛɐ̯ts]) is a term coined by the German author Jean Paul and d"Weltschmerz (from the German, meaning world-pain or world-weariness, pronounced [ˈvɛltʃmɛɐ̯ts]) is a term coined by the German author Jean Paul and denotes the kind of feeling experienced by someone who understands that physical reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind. It is also used to denote the feeling of sadness when thinking about the evils of the world."
I’ve learned a new word today. I’m not sure if it’s something that I should incorporate into my vocabulary this close to the holiday, but boy I wish I had known it when I was 16. It’s the best goth word ever.
So, there’s this cool crowd of young adult authors that I’ve recently discovered. John Green, Holly Black, David Levithan, Libba Bray, Barry Lyga… I was never one to yearn for a clique. Until now. I would grovel and sell one of my kids and lick someone’s toe for the chance to be a part of this group. Isn’t that pathetic? Thing is, I’ve been searching for them since freshman year of college after reading Weetzie Bat. I thought ‘Yes! Someone gets me! Someone can be snarky and clever and intelligent and understand all of my sidebar like comments!’ This was my Weltschmertz. I’m not sure if this a noun, but I’m using it as such. I began to believe that it was luck to find Francesca and that I should be glad that I did but there would never be a gang, with a password and a gang knock and all that comes in gangland (suburbia gangland, mind you.) Now I am sad. I am left in the cold, only to consume everything I can from this group. I am at the edge of the group trying to hear all the cool things that they are saying. I write their name on all my book covers, I draw hearts and swirlies around it. I am, unabashedly, a gawker.
So, now that you know how far my devotion goes, let me add another level. This book is written by TWO of them. They went and collaborated just to make me fall deeper. Because, as the book teaches you… It’s about the falling, not the landing.
“i live in a big goddamned weltschermz ocean, you know? and so do you. and so does everyone. because everyone thinks it should be possible just to keep falling and falling forever, to feel the rush of the air on your face as you fall, that air pulling your face into a brilliant goddamned smile. and that should be possible. you should be able to fall forever.”
Isnt’ that… perfect? Will Grayson, Will Grayson is about finding yourself, learning to live with yourself, learning to let go and not give a fuck what other people think, learning to trust and learning to love. Mighty big statement. Formula for every YA book, you say? No. This one is different. This is where talents collide and boys named Will Grayson emerge. They look battered and worn down and they don’t say a lot but when they do… you don’t want them to stop. Will Graysons discover that elusive thing…that ‘love is bound with truth.’ And, boy, they do it damn well.
“i think the idea of a ‘mental health day’ is something completely invented by people who have no clue what it’s like to have bad mental health. the idea that your mind can be aired out in twenty-four hours is kind of like saying heart disease can be cured if you eat the right breakfast cereal. mental health days only exist for people who have the luxury of saying ‘I don’t want to deal with things today’ and then can take the whole day off, while the rest of us are stuck fighting the fights we always fight, with no one really caring one way or another, unless we choose to bring a gun to school or ruin the morning announcements with a suicide.”
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