Tag: book review of sorts

girls (part one)

Posted on by weeks4send

deary deary me

The above is the back-cover blurb of Girls by Nic Kelman.  No, sorry- girls.  No, sorry- girls: a paean.  We must be accurate.

Note how, in the description, we are given three examples of older men who sleep with women who are too young for them (we all know that “a young woman whose true age he never learns” is a euphemism for “a girl who was probably underage,” right?).  Note how we aren’t told how the girls themselves feel about any of this.  Note how said girls are explicitly described as prizes and possessions.  Note how all the men are described entirely in terms of their financial success.  Note how we’re encouraged to compare this book to Ancient Greek literature purely on the grounds that it’s about dirty old men trying to get their end away.

Note also how two of the review quotes are from James Frey and J.T. LeRoy, two well-known biographical authors who were later found to be lying their heads off.  That has nothing to do with anything else- I just find it funny.

I was a teenage girl myself when this book came out, and it annoyed me so much that I bought a £1:99 copy from The Works in order to horrify my friends (none of whom, I assure you, had any interest in sleeping with their fathers’ grubby mates, even if they were wealthy CEOs.)  These days, I’m 29, and it still annoys me.  So I’m going to spend this summer reviewing it.  I’ll try to post twice a week, talking about twenty pages at a time, give or take.

And, after that, I’ll probably chop it to bits and turn it into origami swans.  Or maybe I’ll cover it with amusing graffiti and post photos.  It depends what kind of mood I’m in.

 

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What Happens in “A Family Daughter” by Maile Meloy

Posted on by weeks4send

Abby, aged seven, goes to stay with her grandparents one summer while her parents go through a divorce.  Unfortunately, she gets chickenpox and can’t go out, so her uncle comes to visit so he can cheer her up.  Apparently, this is why they have an affair ten years later.  The moral of the story is, don’t let kids near their uncles.

After the divorce, Abby lives with her dad, while her mother goes off to “find herself” (read, sleep with as many people as she can).  Then Abby goes to university, and has an Italian boyfriend who won’t marry her because she’s not rich.  Then her dad dies in a car accident because she wouldn’t go skiing with him (I think).  Her uncle comes along to comfort her, and they begin an affair.  Definitely don’t let kids near their uncles.

Abby sends her uncle to see her therapist, who is surprisingly non-judgemental about the whole incest thing.  Because she’s a true professional, the therapist tells him that he might be his oldest sister’s secret illegitimate son (spoilers- he’s not).  Then Abby’s mother gets a new girlfriend, and asks her own mother if she had an affair with a photographer when she was young (spoilers- she didn’t).  Then her uncle starts going out with a spoilt heiress, who may or may not be cheating on him with her childhood friend (spoilers- she is).  We then get a whole chapter devoted to the heiress’ mother in Argentina, because plot focus is for losers.  The heiress’ mother worries about her failing health, so she asks the heiress to take custody of her five-year-old son, adopted from Romania on a whim.

Then Abby dithers about for ages before finally deciding to sleep with a guy from university instead of pursuing her uncle.  Unfortunately, this is quickly rendered moot because her uncle asks her to come to Argentina with him and the spoiled heiress.  Almost as soon as they get there, the mother dies and the son’s biological mother shows up.

Then Abby’s grandfather has an operation to improve his eyesight.  This also gets an entire chapter to itself.

Abby’s uncle sleeps with the biological mother, and decides to marry her and raise her son as his own.  Abby then publishes a book about her family history, including the part about sleeping with her uncle.  She doesn’t bother to warn her family about this before they read it, because she’s a troll like that.  Abby’s aunt reads the book and is reminded of a priest she had an affair with years ago.  Then the uncle’s adopted son steals a chocolate bar, and the uncle makes him pay for it.  The biological mother gets in touch with her lawyer and says she wants to go back to Romania, after which Abby’s aunt gets back in touch with the priest and starts up the affair again, after which Abby’s mum breaks up with her girlfriend and gets back in touch with her childhood sweetheart.  Everything in that last sentence happened in the course of about twenty pages, by the way.

The whole family meets up for Thanksgiving, except for Abby’s aunt, who’s off with her new boyfriend.  Unfortunately, her boyfriend goes bananas in public after her son comes to get her, causing her to leave.  Then Abby sleeps with her uncle again.  A few weeks later, they all meet up again for Christmas, joined by the spoiled heiress, who has a new baby and wants him to spend Christmas with a nice, wholesome family.  There doesn’t seem to be one around, though, so this lot will have to do.

Unfortunately, the baby’s arrival seals their doom, because he gives the entire family flu and Abby’s grandfather dies.  Abby blames herself for this, since the baby wouldn’t have been there if the heiress hadn’t read the book, but honestly, this story is such an unconnected series of events that she might just as well blame Timmy Mallett.  The good news is that she ends up with her university boyfriend instead of her uncle, so maybe there’s hope for her after all.

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What Happens in “The Almost Moon” by Alice Sebold

Posted on by weeks4send

Helen the narrator gets a phone call in the middle of the night, asking her to come and take care of her awful mother, who suffers from dementia but is still awful.    While trying to give her mother a bath, Helen gets fed up and suffocates her mother with a towel.  Then she washes the body and thinks a bit about the neighbours, her mother’s career as a model, her father’s long-ago suicide, and the time her mother dropped her grandson on his head.  Then Helen’s mother’s neighbour knocks at the door.  Helen doesn’t answer, and the neighbour goes away.

Then she tries to get in touch with her ex-husband, who left her because she broke his dragon statue by mistake.  That is a leading cause of divorce.  She gets him on the phone and tells him that she’s killed her mother.  He promises to come over and help dispose of the body.  He also tells her to stay in the house until he gets there, but she doesn’t feel like it, so she dumps the body in the basement and leaves.

Helen drives off to her best friend’s house, where she sleeps with said friend’s son on a whim.  In fact, she does a lot of things on a whim over the course of the book. Then she thinks about the time the neighbours tried to lynch her mother for not calling an ambulance for a boy who was hit by a car.  (She also remembers the nice neighbour who taught her to drive, and her father saying they were going to move but eventually deciding not to.)

Back in the present, Helen’s ex-husband shows up.  He tells her off for moving the body to the basement, and then they talk about his job.  Then they drive up to Helen’s mother’s house, and they talk about why they got divorced.  Apparently, it wasn’t about the dragon statue after all.  Who knew?  They see police cars surrounding Helen’s mother’s house.  The nice neighbour from the flashback comes up to say hi, and then Helen’s ex-husband drives her to work (she’s a nude model).  You’d think she’d call in sick today of all days, but you can’t argue with work ethic.

Then the police come along to question her, and, at around the same time, her best friend finds out about the sleeping-with-her-son thing and gets angry.  Then Helen and her ex-husband get her house ready for when their daughter arrives, and Helen thinks about the time she threatened her daughter’s abusive boyfriend with a baseball bat.  Then her daughter arrives, and Helen tells her that she slept with her best friend’s son and also killed her mother.  The daughter is somewhat nonplussed.

Then Helen gets a text saying that the police want to search her house.  She sneaks off and meets up with her best friend’s son, who she sleeps with again.  Afterwards, he tells her he knows she killed her mother, because that’s his idea of pillow-talk apparently.  Then she borrows his car and drives to an art gallery she once went to on a date.  Then she drives back to her mother’s neighbour’s house (not the nice neighbour from the flashback; the recently-deceased neighbour who’s been mentioned about twice so far) and writes a suicide note.  Then she finds some of the neighbour’s writing and decides not to commit suicide after all.  Then the police show up.  The end.

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Things I found refreshing about “The Sandman”

Posted on by weeks4send
  • In “The Doll’s House,” Rose Walker is a sardonic, sexually active young woman with multi-coloured hair. She is not portrayed as a horrific failure of a human being for this.
  • Hob Gadling is a Medieval peasant who loudly proclaims that he never intends to die… while Death is in the room. He is not portrayed as a horrific failure of a human being for this.
  • In “The Doll’s House” and “A Game of You,” Barbie is a mildly airheaded blonde yuppie with a silly name. She is not portrayed as a horrific failure of a human being for this.
  • In “Dream of a Thousand Cats,” the narrator ventures into the heart of the Dreaming to avenge the deaths of her kittens. She is warned against going forward, but she does anyway, losing her identity at one point. She is not portrayed as a horrific failure of a cat for this.
  • In “Seasons of Mists,” Charles Rowland refuses to go with Death, because that would mean abandoning a ghost he has befriended. He is not portrayed as a horrific failure of a human being for this.
  • In “Brief Lives,” Ruby secretly wants to be incredibly rich. She is not portrayed as a horrific failure of a human being for this.
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