Fake Book Report

I'm a grad student with opinions. That's it, that's the blog!

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What the heck is this?

Hello! You've found my fake book report. I started this when I was an English major at a southern liberal arts university. I have since graduated, and am now an MFA candidate at a northern liberal arts university. This is where I post my silly thoughts about the stuff I read as part of my classes.

If you want to know more about me, keep reading these sentences. I'm a 27-yr-old woman in a full residency MFA program, and I'm in an MA program in Publishing online at the same time. I live near campus and I work in the writing center as a graduate assistant (GA). My career goal is to be a professor of creative writing and teach undergraduate fiction and poetry workshops.

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Her Sister's Tattoo by Ellen Meeropol

I came across this novel when I was at AWP this past weekend, where I bought too many books and am still trying to make a dent in the pile of them. (That sentence made no sense, but you catch my drift.) The basic premise: Two sisters are arrested while protesting the Vietnam war. One sister has to testify against the other, and this reverberates through the family for generations.

The writing was lovely, and the story was gripping. Almost the entire novel was told in the 3rd person limited, with one character being the focal point of each chapter, and the focal character's name was the title of each chapter, which I always appreciate. When dealing with a rotating POV or a novel that has a huge cast of characters, I find that it's much easier to follow when the character name is at the start of each chapter rather than having to discern whose chapter it is from context. Unless it serves the story, it's just easier that way.

That being said, there was one character who got a first-person POV in all of her chapters. I would have really liked to know why the author chose to do it this way and what her reasoning was. (And I probably could've asked her too, since it was AWP!) It didn't distract me so much that I couldn't focus or engage with those chapters, but it struck me as inconsistent.

The passage of time flowed really well in this novel. It spanned multiple generations, which can be challenging, but Meeropol did it with grace. The historical info felt accurate and not obtrusive; the author had done her research, but didn't feel compelled to make us read endless paragraphs to prove it.

I did think that some of the characters' actions were a little bit hard to believe or go along with. The relationship between the two daughters who meet at summer camp was... odd. I also found it surprising that the Esther was so willing to never speak of Rosa just because that's what her husband wanted. For such an allegedly headstrong character, this didn't track for me. I wanted the parents, especially the father, to be a little more rounded out. Also, the first several chapters of the book talk about breastfeeding--a lot. This normally wouldn't be worth mentioning, but it seems to appear on every page, sometimes every paragraph, for quite a while. It's not because it's a bodily function, but simply because it seems odd to mention something so much, so often, and then never bring it up for most of the rest of the novel, especially because it is completely inconsequential to the plot.

All in all, I really enjoyed this novel, and I devoured it in one day. The writing struck a really nice balance between lyricism and accessibility, the story was gripping, and the characters were vivid.

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Brutes by Dizz Tate

This book was incredible! As a writer from Florida who is obsessed with all things girlhood and coming-of-age, I knew I'd like this novel, but I cannot overstate how much I LOVED it.

Here's the basic premise: a group of several neighborhood girls (if I recall correctly they are 13) is obsessed with Sammy, the local televangelist's daughter. When Sammy goes missing, all hell breaks loose. There's more to it than that (a lot more!) but I don't want to give anything away.

So many things are done well in this novel. First of all, the use of the first-person plural was bold. Really bold! And it worked. I honestly did not think Tate could pull it off for as long as she did, but I was pleasantly surprised. I think the use of the first-person plural (we do this, we do that,) was so effective because it both captures and mythologizes the teen girl experience, as well as highlighting this group mentality of the obsession with Sammy.

One of the major symbols in Brutes is the lake in the subdivision where most of the novel takes place. Oh, did I mention there's a lake monster? Yeah, sign me the fuck up! There is so much going on in this novel, action and weirdness and tension (oh, the tension!) on every page, so at times the lake monster seems like less of a concern than it maybe should be? But also, when you're a teenage girl, it can be hard to prioritize. (Speaking only from personal experience here as a former teen girl.)

The novel also did a really fantastic job of managing huge jumps in the timeline which were accompanied by changes in POV. I definitely think it was the right move to shift into the first person singular for the chapters that didn't take place in childhood. It helped break up the weirdness of the repeated "we," pronouns in the bulk of the story, and it also gave depth and definition to the characters speaking as "I" in their designated chapters.

I have zero complaints about this book, other than the fact that I did not read it sooner. This was so good, so filled with beautiful, brilliant, and creepy lines, and just utterly captivated me in every way. If you are looking for something unlike anything you've read before that doesn't wrap pretty much anything up at the end, sprint to your nearest bookstore or library and read Brutes!

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Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas

WOW OKAY SO! THIS BOOK! Was really great! A classmate of mine suggested it to me, so when I saw it at the library, I had to grab it. I think I read it all in 3 or 4 days. Thomas does such a good job of showing that obsessive kind of teenage friendship that you're willing to prioritize before everything else because adolescence. Basically, this book is about two queer friends at a Quaker high school in NYC in the early 2000's, and how the intensity and obsessive nature of their friendship affects the trajectory of the rest of their lives and impacts their identities.

I will say that as a 1996 baby, I am slightly too young to have gotten all of the references to AOL instant messenger and dial-up internet, (but I still use LiveJournal...), however, I think even Gen Z and iPhone babies will appreciate this novel despite the antiquated technology. (Wow, that makes me feel old. Moving right along!)

Structurally, this book jumped between a couple of POV's, and every third chapter was told in the 3rd person plural, from the POV of "the F + N Unit." (The two friends' names are Fay and Nell.) I did not think the F+N chapters were going to work or even be tolerable--pleasantly surprised! Those were some of the best chapters.

What I loved about this book was how it encapsulated the "I am, are you? Are you? Are you? Is anyone else?" kind of mentality that comes with figuring out that you're queer in high school, and then that high school bubble is popped and everything shifts and changes. The main takeaway (for me) from this book is a resounding, "You're NOT alone!"

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A Home for Friendless Women by Kelly Hill

Before we get started, I'd like to note that this book contains scenes of sexual violence/rape, a stabbing, and suicide.

Alright, so this book left me with a really heavy feeling. Set in Louisville, KY in the Victoria era, (yeah, so it's already pretty grim), the novel follows the lives of several women who are involved in what's more contemporarily known as a home for unwed mothers. It's quite clear that Hill did her research on this time period and associated societal norms, which were basically misogyny, misogyny, and... more misogyny.

The writing was gorgeous. I say that a lot because I will read just about anything if the writing is pretty, pleasant to read, or just especially well-crafted. This book was no exception. There were some truly beautiful lines, which stood out against the bleakness of the concept.

Structurally, Hill broke the story up into three different plotlines, the first two being in the first-person, the last one in omniscient(ish) third-person. I liked the second one the best because I thought that narrator was the most likeable and easiest to understand. (Not on a comprehension level, but an emotional one.) I didn't really find it necessary that the last character's arc was in third-person, but it was a nice, if jarring, break from the intensity of the first-person.

I'll be honest, I was confused at the end. As I've mentioned, I have a hard time with novels that have (what I consider) too many characters, and many of them had similar names (Mary, Marie, Mimi, etc.) which is even harder for me to differentiate. (I think I read in one of those "hey kiddo, do ya wanna write a novel?" books that writers should never give their characters unusual names or names that are too similar unless its central to the plot, and I think I just internalized this at a young age, and my brain just refuses to work with me on this one. anyway.) But yeah, I wasn't quite sure what had happened with the situation with one of the babies at the end.

That being said, this book is a grim and stark look at what motherhood and womanhood was like in the Victorian era (overall: bad.) It also makes pregnancy, birth, and postpartum look pretty bleak. Again, Hill did her research, and presents her findings to us without holding back.

I did wonder why the book was broken into three very distinct sections, and why they didn't overlap as significantly as I thought they might have. Especially with the change in POV, I thought that was signaling something important or central to the plot, but it never came.

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The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

This book was SO MUCH FUN to read! I generally do not like books with too many characters; it's hard for me to keep track of a bunch of names of usually minor characters who can oftentimes be combined into one character. On the other hand, it's also irritating when there are several characters whose only defining feature is a catchphrase or uniform (think: cartoon characters).

Before we get too far into this, I would like to point out that this book contains two individual scenes of sexual assault.

However. This book blew me away with how vivid and detailed each character was. I had no trouble keeping track of who was who, remembering each character's backstory and goals, and the way McBride handled dialogue was excellent. The psychic distance was kind of zoomed out, but with so many intertwining characters and plot lines going, it was necessary not to get too close to any one particular character. McBride did a great job of weaving a complex plot without being predictable or too unbelievable. With every page, something new was revealed.

I wished that the ending had been different. Spoilers below the cut.

I knew that Dodo would be rescued, but I really wanted the conversation between him and Nate in which Dodo understood that he wasn't in trouble and someone explained why no one came to visit him. We never got it. I will say, though, that the epilogue was satisfying as far as the Dodo plotline was concerned.

The other thing I liked was that Malachi's presence was never explained. I was torn on whether this added or detracted from my enjoyment of the novel, and I think it was additive in the end. A little bit of mystery can be good sometimes.

And if you're wondering, the characters who commit sexual assault get punished in the end.

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You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

This was such an impactful little book! The writing was really beautiful and introspective, a good mix of heartrendingly funny and deeply insightful. I liked the narrator, and I didn't think she was necessarily bad bisexual rep, but she was just a nuanced, flawed character who was sometimes unlikeable. I liked that it ended on a hopeful note for the protag without wrapping everything up too neatly. My only complaint is that the setting jumped around a lot, and it didn't really add anything to the plot. The story could have remained in one city and the plot would've been basically the same.

Structurally, Arafat's choice to tell this novel in non-chronological vignettes was highly effective. The main conflict was between the narrator and her mother, and by jumping around in time, Arafat was able to really drive home the way memory is warped by time and vice versa. It was clear that the mother was mentally ill, but I appreciated that Arafat didn't come right out and diagnose the her. (As a mentally ill writer/reader/human, this matters!) The dialogue, especially the mother's dialogue, was convincing while remaining eloquent.

Main takeaways from this book: (1.) vignettes differ from scenes. Don't ask me how. As a writing exercise, I tried to write a story in vignettes. I wrote a bunch of scenes. If I had to define it, (which I don't, but I will), I'd say a vignette stands alone, while a scene is a segment of a larger story. Though that second definition is applicable to a vignette as well. So don't ask me. (2.) Playing with chronological order is fun, and works well, when done with a purpose. This author definitely knew what she was doing. (3.) Please give your protag a name!

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A Treatise on Stars by Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge

Good morning, y'all! It's been a minute! I just finished reading this collection of poems yesterday, and it was quite an experience! Divided into two parts, the first section is exactly what the title promises: it's a bunch of long poems about stars. If that sounds predictable and cliché to you, you're not alone, but what surprised me about this collection was how original Berssenbrugge's approach to these often tired topics was. There are so many (so, so many) poems out there about the magic of the moon and eyes like stars, etc., etc., but this is as far from cliché as can be. My favorite line from this section is "Some hear coyotes speaking in computer beeps; some entertain guests unaware." The whole first section is like this: a strangely beautiful combination of nature and science. Burssenbrugge uses tons of astronomy-related terms, which heightens the originality and distances these works from overdone cliches that so often permeate works about the stars. The vibe? You're walking under the Northern Lights with a soft-spoken friend who is quietly telling you about a half-remembered dream.

If only the second half were as good! Ugh, it was all downhill after about 55 pages or so. The book is formally divided into parts I and II, and the second part got all weird, intentionally edgy, and pseudo-sciency. If you're going to write a poem about aliens, do it well. I couldn't take all of the metaphors about dolphins being unconditional love seriously, and I disliked the idea of star-people. There were still plenty of beautiful lines in this section, but they were overshadowed by the weirdness of what they described.

Overall, this was a cool book, and I think I will return to it, and perhaps even appreciate the second section a little more at another time.

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First Born by Will Dune

This book was utterly ridiculous. It was just barely good enough to motivate me to keep reading because I wanted to know just how over-the-top things were going to get. The characters had absolutely zero depth, so it didn't matter that the reader has no idea which twin is which because they're quite literally interchangeable. A lot of the major plot points hinge on internet research that Molly, the narrator, does on YouTube. Sure, fine, I guess everything's available on the internet, but do we really need the detail that Molly wears adult diapers while she researches so she doesn't have to use the bathroom? Call me crazy ("You're crazy!") but I really didn't think that detail needed to be there, nor did it advance the plot. Speaking of plot... one good thing about this novel was that it did, indeed, keep me guessing. Is there a plot? Are any of these moving parts connected? Technically, yes, in the end everything was revealed, and it was all explained... through dialogue that was totally stilted and unnecessary because Molly was explaining to another character all of the major plot points that the reader and this other character were already aware of. (That was a poorly constructed sentence, but you feel me.) Ultimately, this book was quite silly, but I really enjoyed it because sometimes you just need some fluff!

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Call It Sleep by Henry Roth

Okay, I'll be honest with y'all, this book took me about 6 months to finish. It wasn't because I didn't like it--quite the opposite, in fact, it was incredible. Roth's diction was stellar. Chef's kiss and all that. However, at just over 440 pages, with a high-level lexicon, it's not the kind of book you can devour all at once.

The basic premise is that we're following a young boy named David over the first few years of his conscious childhood (by which I mean, from, like, ages 3-8 or so). The novel is largely told in the 3rd person omniscient with a few chapters from David's POV. The first scene has this beautiful and intimidating description of the Statue of Liberty and we meet David's parents: Albert and Genya.

When I started reading, it was apparent right away that this is a book that is more about the sensory experiences than a fast-paced plot (or a plot at all, really). Rather, we piece things together through David's limited insights into the very adult things that are going on in his child-sized world. That first scene, though... it's important about 300 pages later.

Normally, I would not be into a book that takes 3 pages just to tell you it's raining. However, the language was just so, so beautiful that I would have read a description of just about anything. The other notable thing about this novel is that while it is written completely in English, there are sections where the reader is expected to know that the characters are speaking Yiddish. The difference between the Yiddish and the English dialogues are like night and day. The English is written phonetically, which was a bit of a barrier to my understanding of some of the sections. For instance, when the word "furniture," appears in an English dialogue section, it's written as "foinichuh," and I had to say it aloud several times to be like, "Oh... furniture... right," rise and repeat. With every. single. English. word. So, that was kind of annoying. However, with the way that Roth elevated the Yiddish dialogue the contrast added a lot to the narrative.

So yeah, overall, this book was a great read. I didn't realize that Roth has written other works (Thanks, Wikipedia!) so I will definitely be checking those out.

This is an example of some of the language I found especially lyrical and lovely.

I highly, highly recommend this book!

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"Weightless" by Rennie Sparks

What's up aspiring novelists, hobgoblin extraordinaires, and procrastinators? It's me again, and my semester is OVER which means I have more time to read and stare into the void.

Before I start, let me just mention that this story deals explicitly with eating disorders, sexual assault/abuse, and substance use. If that is going to cause you unnecessary mental strife, please scroll on by.

So, I read this story in 2013 when I, myself, was struggling with an eating disorder, and I remembered it being so freaky and weird even all these years later that I decided to go searching for it, and sure enough I found it. It follows two high school girls, the narrator Janine, and her best friend Dawn, who "knows how to throw up," unlike Janine. Right from the outset, we get into that distorted mentality of having an eating disorder, but even more pervasively than that is the distortions that come with being a teenage girl, especially with all the chaos that's going on in the background of Janine's life. She has no sense of stability in her life; there's vague indications that her stepfather might be abusing her, and her mother is definitely a nonfunctional alcoholic. Being a teenager is hard enough, and having all this stuff piled on top of the existing angst of adolescence does not make a healthy mentality. (Obviously. I'm not saying anything new here, I'm just like... dang, this author Gets It.)

Before I go any further, I will admit, I have a weird fascination with shopping malls. The one in my town is dying, and I am here for it! As an adult, it doesn't have the same draw for me as it did when I was a teen, but oh, do I remember being unleashed on the mall as a tween/teen, and it was glorious! I've written a handful of things that take place in the mall. I just. Love. Malls.

That's part of what makes this story so disturbing: the mall is the background. The intro of the story follows Janine and Dawn getting ready to go. There's no explicit time period for this story, but Janine mentions a couple of early 90's TV shows. (Which I had to Google, but y'know.) The descriptions of their clothes are very dated: they crimp their hair, wear colorful eyeliner, etc.

Once we arrive at the mall, we follow the girls into the bathroom. Dawn wants to redo her hair, and Janine looks at herself in the mirror and tells us what she looks like in terms of hair, makeup, nails ("perfect,") and criticizes nearly every other aspect of her appearance. Multiple times in the story she calls herself a "fat cow."

After the girls exit the bathroom, to "look for babes," they go to the center of the mall, and see two classmates. Janine says,

"Even from two stores down, I can see Carol’s lost weight, and I’m instantly jealous. She was always a pudge like me. Then she had to go to the clinic for an abortion, and she threw up for two days after the anesthetic. It makes me wonder why no one sells anesthetic to fat people for a diet. I guess it’s against the law, but still it isn’t fair."

This quote speaks to me on SO many levels. It perfectly encapsulates that bizarre, sort of out-of-order manner in which teenagers prioritize things. Like, the abortion is secondary (and the mental toll that may have taken on Carol), but she lost weight, so who cares? On top of that, is the self-loathing that comes with having an eating disorder. Janine is basically saying she'd tolerate any amount of discomfort or pain if she could lose enough weight.

The story drags a little bit at this point, several times the characters ask each other, "what's up?" and respond with, "nothing," which is very appropriate for the setting, but gets a little redundant. It culminates with Janine and Dawn leaving the mall with two guys they just met, and Janine is both forced by the boy and forced by her loyalty to Dawn to give this guy a blowjob. She changes her mind halfway through, and the guy doesn't chase her or anything, but the experience is already traumatic enough.

What really, really gets me about this story though is the way Janine's character arc is presented here. Readers might expect her to learn something or to be transformed. Perhaps she should realize that her friendship with Dawn is toxic, or that the things that seem so important to her right then (like Carol's weight) aren't really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.

Instead, Sparks leaves the reader with this weird, discontented, almost unfinished ending. And I think that's absolutely the most appropriate thing to do here. When I read this in 2013, I was also a teenager, a junior in high school, and struggling like Janine, and at that time, I was like, "Yeah, she gets it." But now, looking at it with non-eating-disordered, non-teenage eyes, I can see how this story is about the commodification of women, how the beauty industry preys on young girls and women, and also about how so many girls and women have issues identifying their internal worth, and instead rely on external validation and outside framework to decide what's important to them. On the surface, yes, this story has many elements that were relatable to me as a teen (and that are probably relatable to lots of people) but what's so compelling about it is the numerous layers it has, especially for a story with such spare diction.

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Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

Yooooo this book was super good! I cried so many times because it was just so relatable and accurate. This novel is actually YA literature, which I think is important to note. It follows Caden, a 15 yr old boy, through what is basically a psychotic break and leads to him being hospitalized where he is medicated and diagnosed. (It never specifies if he is diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. More on this later.) Most of the narration is 1st person, with a few sections in 2nd person, which I thought was a bold, yet necessary move. Each section is only a few pages long; I think the longest one was 3-4 pages and many others are just a page or a page and a half. Each one is also titled, which made for some both ironic and tragic juxtaposition.

The main thing this book relies on is an extended metaphor in which psychosis is likened to a journey or quest on a pirate ship. During the most intense parts of Caden’s psychosis, we find ourselves on a pirate ship where the Captain (in my opinion) represents Caden’s illness. Halfway through the book (or maybe a little farther than that) we begin to see connections to the hospital and external world. For example, a parrot plays heavily into the plot as does a Dr. Pirout. (I’m sure I’m spelling that wrong, but you get what I mean.) Another instance of this: the ship has a masthead/figurehead shaped like a woman named Calliope, who is represented by a fellow patient named Callie who always looks out the window of the hospital. 

As a person who frequently experiences psychosis pretty regularly, this book was a double-edged sword. I’m not going to go into how it affected me personally because this is a (fake) book report, not a diary. What I will say, though, is that because I’ve been in Caden’s shoes (or his ship, so to speak.) I can vouch for how accurate the narration was. Every time Caden got close to achieving what he believed his goal was (usually in order to pacify the captain,) the goal would change. It was only when he began to take medication that he was able to differentiate between psychosis and reality. 

The other thing that this book did really, really well was in how it depicted the chronic nature of schizo-spectrum disorders. When Caden is discharged from the hospital, there is discussion of the uncertainty of his path regarding finishing high school (he was hospitalized for like 9 weeks or so, and missed a lot of school), but there’s also the acknowledgment that relapses happen, that it’s probably not a matter of if, but of when he will find himself back on the pirate ship. Despite that, the novel left me feeling hopeful, that Caden could have a good life despite his illness.

I would highly recommend this novel to anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of what it feels like to develop psychosis. It was very illuminating and showed me, a person with SZA, that there are people out there who get it and seek to help others understand as well.

It’s interesting to note that the author’s son also dealt with psychosis. Many of the son’s drawings are in the novel, and the author’s note in the back says that the novel was inspired partly by that experience.

Other important features to mention: Caden explicitly says at least once that a diagnosis isn’t a one-size-fits-all sort of deal. That’s hugely important, especially for teen lit because (at least in my experience) it’s very easy for mentally ill teens to attribute everything to their illness. I know I did this when I was in high school, and I see posts about it on social media as well. I think it’s important for readers with mental illness (and just ppl in general) to know that a diagnosis doesn’t rewrite your whole story. It also did a good job of showing that medication is more of an art than a science. Caden is on several different medicines before his doc finds the right combo for him. I also loved that he was on a combo, which is the reality for many people on the schizo spectrum. He didn’t magically get better after two days, either. The novel truly exemplified the whole “recovery is not linear,” thing. 

I didn’t like that it portrayed meds as “happy pills,” (yes, that term is in there once or twice) and that it highlighted the negative side effects while not mentioning the obvious: Yes, Seroquel makes you sleepy, but it also helps you not have psychosis. Again, speaking only from personal experience, I know when I was a teen, the idea that medicine was hiding the “real me,” and dulling my creativity, etc., was very prevalent among my peers, and I could have saved myself a lot of trips to the psych hospital if I’d just taken my meds.

Overall, this was a fantastic book, and I’m so glad that there are YA books out there about schizo-spectrum disorders that don’t paint us all as monsters, but as humans.

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Naive. Super by Erlend Loe

I wanted to love this novel. I really did. It’s been called “charming,” and “deceptively simple,” by people who are way smarter than I am. A brief overview: an unnamed, 25 y/o, male narrator takes us through what could be called a nervous breakdown in excruciating detail. He does a whole lot of doing nothing and playing with children’s toys and riding a bicycle around his town. There’s not much of a plot and the characters seem to fit archetypes of roles rather than playing the roles in actuality.

It’s worth mentioning that I read this book for a class on “Neurodivergent Literature,” and that it’s been translated from Norwegian into English. It was also published in 1996. (None of those facts bear any relation to each other, but please enjoy my hodgepodge of a sentence or two.) I was a bit confused about this narrator being used as an example (by my professor) of a neurodivergent and/or mentally ill narrator becauses I found most of his choices and thought processes to be very easy to understand and follow. Then I remembered I have mental illnesses out the wazoo and I’m not exactly the poster child of normalcy.

That being said, what really got to me about this novel was the syntax. This could’ve been an amazingly eloquent novel, and it does express some very complex ideas, but they’re executed horribly. Most of the sentences are basic, simple sentences, and a lot of them are fragments. The narrator is obviously highly intelligent and I see that Loe was trying to create a certain voice (or vibe, as the youth would say) but all he really accomplished was creating the voice of an adult man who talks like a second grader. Not cute! 

I did enjoy the ending because it sort of broke the narrator’s ridgid (yet hopeful) worldview and this navel-gazer realized not everything is about him.

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"Christina Rosenthal" by Jeffrey Archer

School is back in session! You know what that means! More fake book reports!!

So today I'm gonna kvetch about this short story by Jeffrey Archer, a dude I'd never heard of until today. I shouldn't call him "a dude," when he is, in fact, a very accomplished author. But I do lots of things I shouldn't do, dudes! You know the drill: quick synopsis, and then my ramblings.

This post contains spoilers!! Read the story here first!

Summary: A rabbi is reading a letter written to him by his son, Benjamin. The rabbi cannot begin writing his sermon until he reads this letter. The majority of the story is actually the son's letter, and we learn that the son was heckled by this gal (who remains nameless for the first half or so of the story, only identified as "Greg's girlfriend/friend," etc., until Benjamin finally calls her Christina and we're just supposed to know he's referring to the same woman that's heckling him.) Anyway, Benjamin is a runner and Christina and Greg are calling him "Jew-boy, Jew-boy," and he contemplates yelling, "No breasts, no breasts," back at Christina. We get a lot of info about this gal's tits, or lack thereof. More on that later. A bunch of high school drama happens, and as we continue reading, it becomes apparent that Benjamin was in high school a long time ago, and I wondered why this social minutia even matters to him anymore. Here and there we get breaks in which Rabbi/Ben's dad will give us some background info that's not especially pertinent but is a nice break from Ben's increasingly crazed ravings. Eventually, Christina apologizes for heckling Benjamin, and then like, one line later, they're in love. No dialogue, no explanation, not even a reason. Oh, but her tits? Yeah, she's got 'em now. She's got nice legs too. Ben gets Christina pregnant, her family literally just disappears with her. She's all Ben can think about and one day he randomly sees her with their son, now five years old (Nicholas) waiting for the bus. So he tracks her down. This story is set in the mid 60's, I think, which makes it creepier because it's not like he looked at info she'd made public on, say, and Instagram page. No, he had to follow her around and stuff. Super not weird and totally romantic and not stalkerish! They're finally able to marry, all is well, Ben is beyond obsessive and he's just ~so happy~. Christina is pregnant again, Ben is thrilled, he's convinced it's a girl. Christina goes into labor, the doctors won't let him into the room and we get several mentions of how annoyed Ben is that they're not giving him what he wants. After all, his wife giving birth to their child is all about him, right?? Okay, I shouldn't be such a jerk because in the next paragraph, we discover that Christina has died in childbirth. Two paragraphs later? The baby has died as well. Death always comes in threes, right? Yeah, so the last paragraph of the story reveals that this is not an ordinary letter, it's a suicide note. Ben's dying wish is to be buried next to his dead daughter and wife. As if that's not heartbreaking enough, the last line, the real kicker: The rabbi had read this letter every day for the last ten years.

So as bizarre and weird as Ben might have been, this is still an absolutely tragic story and had I not been in a silent library when I read it, I might've cried. I think that if this had just been a straight narrative, without the added layer of this being read through someone else's eyes, it really would've fallen flat. We, as readers, don't necessarily have to decide if we like Ben's character, but where I think more of the meaning and emotion of this piece can be found is in the fact that we are reading this in tandem with Ben's father. The first line creates a sense of urgency because the rabbi "can't start his sermon," until he reads this letter, and then we find out that he's read it every day for years, that he most likely even has it memorized. That's what punches me right in the face, the huge loss this rabbi has endured, yet it's still as tangible and present for him as this physical letter in his hands.

I'm reading this for a class that's about Judaism in America and as an American Jew, I think it's kind of a strange introduction to a class (especially if you are a non-Jew) but how many times have I heard, "We are a people in which the past endures," so I guess that's also sort of applicable here?

While I don't like the lack of character development on Ben and Christina, I think this was an excellent use of a unique structure to create a multifaceted narrative.

[fakebookreport]

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

What's up, all you shiny, happy people? Today, I will be weeping over this exquisite novel that left me absolutely wrecked. I finished it last night after a whole 3 days of nonstop reading (which should tell you something because it usually takes me a whole month to read a novel). It's helpful to know that Vuong is also an accomplished poet, which explains the lyrical beauty of his prose.

A quick plot synopsis: our narrator, Little Dog, and his family have immigrated to America from Vietnam. Little Dog is writing a letter to his mother, who cannot read in English. The story is all at once the dark side of the "American dream," a coming-of-age tale, and a coming out of the closet story. I don't want to spoil any more of it for you because I genuinely hope you'll read it and be as wrecked as I was when I finished it.

There are so many lines in here that are just jaw-droppingly gorgeous, far too many to try and pick one. There are a handful of sex scenes too, and they're so gorgeously and realistically depicted. I'm a bit of a prude when it comes to stuff like that, but it worked so well in this novel because we're mostly focused on Little Dog's emotions during the act; these are definitely not erotic scenes.

So much of the novel is gutting and tragic, but a lot of it is also hopeful and there are humorous parts as well. Much like life itself, this is truly a multifaceted and brilliant work.

[fakebookreport]

Hey y'all, today I'm going to scream about how disappointing this short story was but before I start, lemme give y'all a TRIGGER WARNING!! This story involves rape and BDSM and self-injury and childhood sexual abuse . That being said, let's proceed.

Okay, so this story is tangentially related to Gerard's True Love, which is a banger, unlike this story. It follows Nina (the TL protagonist) who is going on some kind of unofficial writer's retreat with three friends to a cabin in Maine. In true Gerard style, we get a lot of info about farts right at the beginning. Most of the characters have weird nicknames (Churchgoer, Lit Wife, etc.) and the basic premise of this story is that the four friends go to Maine to write and they're all super passive-aggressive and just unpleasant. Which is cool, because what Gerard does so well in her novel is makes the reader root for Nina even though she's not a "good" person. But this story is mainly comprised of stilted dialogue and the meat of it is actually in the stuff that's happened before the timeline of this story and is presented as Nina narrating her past. We get tons and tons of info about her ex-husband, Curly, and her "relationship" (using that term loosely) with a bunch of other dudes (Fisherman, Daddy, etc.) but all of that is way more exciting sounding than the stilted dialogue that's happening in the cabin. We also get some info about Rita and the "massage incident," but that's never fully explained. All-in-all, I was highly disappointed with this story because True Love was so perfect and this did not live up to expectations.

If you want to read it and see for yourself, click here [X]

[fakebookreport]

The Reconception of Marie by Teresa Carmody

What's up you beautiful book beaters? Today I'm going to SCREAM about this novel I just finished on my lunch break at work yesterday. The Reconception of Marie was written by Dr. Carmody, who is the director of the MFA program at my university. I had a fiction workshop (at the 300 lvl) with her last year and I will be taking the same workshop with her at the 400 level next semester. (None of that is relevant, but you're welcome.)

So, let's talk about Marie. The novel begins by letting us know that it takes place in 1987, western Michigan. The overall scope of the book bounces back between first person narration, which readers should come to understand is our protagonist, Marie, telling and/or writing down the goings-on in her life. We learn about Marie's friends, Angie, Jennifer, and Denise, and we learn that the most important thing in Marie's life currently is Christ. Marie's mother has been "born again," and Marie takes it upon herself to bring her friends to salvation. The novel's first paragraph sets the framework for a series of Marie's (seemingly) unshakeable beliefs with parenthetical citations of the Bible.

Marie is either in late elementary school or early middle/junior high school. I found it hard to get a read on her. Do I like her? Do I dislike her? Do I find her endearing or annoying? The answer is D. All of the above! What I find Marie's main redeeming quality to be is that she is confident and typically feels good about herself. She seems to believe that she is an overall good person and that she usually tries to do the right thing. Even though her logic is kind of skewed, she says things like true friends should tell you your bad qualities so you can work on them, etc., Marie always has good intentions.

Now, we've gotta talk about the paintings. Carmody waxes and wanes about these classical paintings depicting Biblical scenes. I'm talking pages and pages and pages and pages of detailed descriptions of the geometry, the color schemes, the proportions... To the point where I was like, ok, either you need to include a pic of these paintings in here or move on because this is a novel not an art gallery. The other reason I disliked the sections on the paintings was because to me, it read like Carmody was just dressing up her interior monologue in the 3rd person and passing it off as fiction. I didn't feel that the descriptions of the paintings added anything to the novel (except numerous pages) and then we've got stuff like this ⬇⬇⬇

One thing I did find refreshingly real (though unfortunately as sad as it is common) was that Marie had a boyfriend (Chris) who took advantage of heriof the disorganized scope of this novel), and the use of rhetorical questions feels ineffective.

Take a look at the 2nd paragraph on this page and tell me that the pink hairbow/hairy legs dichotomy isn't a cliche. C'mon, I dare you to say it with a straight face. You can't? Me neither. I get what Carmody is trying to do here, I do, but she doesn't do it well. Maybe it's just not the main focus of the novel, but this glosses over so many details, and I'd way rather get some dialogue with the mother over the pink hairbow, the music, and especially the weed. Later on Marie comes home one day (where has she been??) and finds that her mom has destroyed a bunch of her stuff. She's cut Marie's dresses in half, etc., because they're too provocative, but we are never told that Marie even had them in the first place?

One thing I did find refreshingly real (though unfortunately as sad as it is common) was that Marie had a boyfriend (Chris) who took advantage of her in a way that wasn't overtly rape, but was still a violation of her boundaries and pushing the terms of her consent. Marie was concerned that her virginity may not have been intact (my words, not hers) and her boyfriend laughed at her as though nothing had happened. A few pages later, we find Marie and Chris in a Planned Parenthood for an abortion.

Not long after this, the novel wraps itself up as bizarrely as it begins. The last full chapter has weird line breaks, like two words on a line (is this prose or poetry? Not that there's anything wrong with hybrid work, but if you're gonna throw some poetry in there, do it before the very end. It appears on pg 288 and nowhere else in the novel, which is 302 pages long. A bit late to introduce new formats, if you ask me.) (But no one did!)

Finally, we travel back in time to March 1981 for no apparent reason that I can glean, and we are given a few extremely short diary entries that Marie has written, like 3-5 sentences each. It ends with one of those. It's vague, it's weird, and its dissatisfying. The only reason I kept reading this book was because I found it so bizarre that I had to keep going since it was giving me so much to think about. So. There you have it. The Reconception of Marie.