Dare Me

Dare Me was not what I expected. There's a danger in filling up your library reserves list with books and then forgetting about them until they come in weeks or months later. When this came in, I looked at the cover and glanced at the jacket flap. It's a book about cheerleaders and has pretty lips on the cover - it's YA, right? I knew it had a dark side - the cover talks about how there's a suicide and the cheerleaders are investigated. I assumed this was going to be a book about bullying - the cheerleaders bully someone into committing suicide, how much blame should they take for it? But I was wrong.

As I started reading, I was struck by the writing. It was literary fiction and clearly not YA. I flipped to the spine - yep, not YA. I readjusted my expectations, but it was an odd transition for me. It's hard to go into a book expecting one thing and get something so different. A literary fiction adult book about high school cheerleaders? You kind of need preparation for that.

The book itself is well written, although Abbott tends toward purple prose in places, mixing it with contemporary slang and pop song references that causes a jarring feeling and just didn't quite work for me. It distracted me from the novel. It was engrossing and I finished it in a day, so clearly the writing and story were strong enough to keep me interested. However, I thought the cheer coach was completely unbelievable and that made it hard for me to accept the story and not argue with all along the way. In the end, I didn't care for it, although I can see how others would. Have you ever gone into a book expecting one thing and getting something completely different? How did it affect your experience?

Classics Club Check In #1

It's time for my first check-in for the Classics Club! I cannot stop changing my list!!! If I want to make any more changes I'll just have to read faster and start my second list. :)

I wish I'd read more from my list, but I've only managed four so far. I've been working my way through a huge stack of library books and have been reading more YA than usual as I'm researching agents for and making final edits to my young adult novel. I'm really read to dive in more and hope to do so through the fall. I'm planning to start Tom Jones by Henry Fielding next, partly to wash the taste of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa out of my mouth. (I didn't put Clarissa on my list since I'd already started before the club.) I'm also selecting it because I checked out The English Novel, one of the Great Courses from The Teaching Company, out from the library and Fielding (and Richardson) are the first two authors discussed. Even though I've taken similar courses in real life, I like The Teaching Company courses and wanted to work through this one. I watched the lectures on Ulysses back when I read it this summer, so I already know I like the professor and his style. If you ever wish for more of a lecture to go along with your classics reading, you might check your library for these. I've also watched one on the Greek Tragedians and London. 

I hope your reading is going well! Any favorite classics I should add to round two when I get there?

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

I gave into temptation and joined the Harry Potter Read Along. I was jealous reading everyone's posts. I'm rereading them right before bed. It's a nice comforting way to end the day.

I thought I'd start by sharing how I first came to read Harry Potter. It was the fall of 1999. My mom's friend from work told her she had to read them and let her borrow them. My mom blew through them and convinced me to give them a try. I thought she was crazy. What high school senior wants to read kids' books? And seriously, something about a wizard? But since we swapped books often and she sang their praises so much, I gave him. Thank God I did! I fell in love immediately and gobbled up the first three books (all that were out at that time) in one weekend. We bought our own copies. I re-read them. I convinced my boyfriend at the time, who never read, to read them. I couldn't wait until the fourth one came out. That was the last quiet release of something Harry Potter related that I went to. I breezed into Walden Books during the middle of release day and picked one right up. But after that - Harry Potter mania hit the U.S.

I went to midnight releases for the next three books. I saw all the movies on their release date, most of them during midnight releases (the first couple didn't have midnight releases here, or at least I don't think they did). For the first one, I convinced my then boyfriend now husband to go even though he thought my obsession was odd. He caught on eventually and read all the books and we've gone to Harry Potter parties with friends together now.

So, what is it about Harry Potter? In rereading HP and the Sorcerer's Stone, I'm still struck by Rowling's ability to create this magical world and enthrall us with Harry's story. This is probably the 15th time I've read this novel. Yet it still captures my attention and draws me into this world. She does such a great job creating the world that you can't help but wish you had received your letter to Hogwarts when you were 11. :) I can't wait until I eventually get to visit the Harry Potter theme park at Universal in Florida and feel like I'm really there.

One sad thing about reading this time is that it's the first time I've read it without anticipating something - the next book or the next movie. I have nothing left to wonder about! It's a bit weird, after 13 years.The other slightly disappointing thing is that the books and movies have mingled in my mind, so as I read I picture the actors and scenes from the movies. This enhances in some ways and detracts in others. They did such a great job with casting that the actors were quite close to what I pictured, so that's not so bad, but sometimes it's a little sad to not use my own imagination as much. This changes a bit when I get to the later books, when the movies annoy me in some places. But we'll discuss that later. :)

I don't think I ever posted pictures from some of the Harry Potter related things Ryan and I did when we visited England last year, so I think I'll post about that soon. Until then, happy reading!

Why Have Kids?

I have so many notes on Jessica Valenti's Why Have Kids that I could probably write about five blog posts about it. I'll spare you that and try to stick to one post, but highly encourage you to check the book out for yourself.

Valenti addresses a lot of myths and issues regarding having children that people tend to ignore. Despite the title, it isn't a book telling you that you should have kids, nor does it argue the opposite. She draws on her own experience as a new mom and the cultural constructs and lies about motherhood she's encountered. It's a book that challenges societal norms and pushes you to think. She admits the book will likely make the reader angry because of it's discussion of controversial topics.

Valenti's main focus is the way we lift up motherhood in our culture, that we say it's the most rewarding, challenging job out there and we pressure women to be the ideal mother. All of these things may be done with good intentions, but they harm all of us. By lifting up motherhood above all else, we denigrate fatherhood and any woman who can't or chooses not to become a mother. Why even both going to college or having a career if being a mother is the best career? Why encourage our daughters to do anything else? We also pressure women to be everything for their kids, putting unnecessary stress on the woman to do everything right and creating overly coddled kids at the same time.

I can see this in my friends - the Facebook posts about making organic baby food; taking their kids to various lessons in gymnastics, Chinese, art, music, and more; bragging about their kids asking for broccoli and hummus instead of junk food or even fruit; constant updates about their potty training progress and every minute detail of the child's life with no updates about them, as though they don't exist as a person outside of their children anymore. I don't mind the posts about their kids and understand that's important to them, but often it feels like a competition and I picture the pressure that most put on the other moms. That must make them feel guilty for making their own baby food, for using disposable diapers, for working, etc. They also seem to compete about having a natural childbirth - how does that make someone who has to have a C-section feel? Valenti writes about how other moms feel perfectly comfortable giving her advice and strangers will berate her for not breastfeeding. Why do women do this to other women? It's dangerous.

One of the many dangers is that as a society, we promote certain ways of mothering that might be feasible for an upper-middle class woman with a supportive husband and, if she works, a flexible and supportive employer, but aren't possible for poor women. For example, we berate women who don't breastfeed, to the point that many hospitals no longer provide free formula as a gift or discuss any options but breastfeeding. If you don't breastfeed, you are portrayed as not loving your children enough to do what's best for them. However, if you don't have a job where you can pump and you work long hours, and don't even get much of a maternity leave since it's unpaid and you need the money, how are you supposed to breastfeed? Should we really look down on women in that situation? And what about the women who can't? Valenti shares the story of one woman who tried but couldn't do it. People told her that she wasn't trying hard enough or it would have worked. Valenti herself struggled with it, pumping for five hours a day after her daughter was born prematurely. She built up a supply, but it wasn't enough and she couldn't keep up and tortured herself trying to make it work. Why? How is that helping anyone?

She also writes about how women's health is often considered only in terms of how it affects child-bearing. The CDC issued a statement advising all women of child-bearing age to take care of their "pre-natal" health for their future children. Should the woman not take care of her health for her own sake? What if she doesn't plan to have kids or can't have kids? Does her health not matter? I'm not suggesting we not promote pre-natal care, but it seems odd that the CDC would promote it but not women's health in general. I once had a doctor give me a lecture about not being so focused on my career and how I need to go ahead and have kids now and even after I insisted I don't want kids she prescribed me pre-natal vitamins. Needless to say, I don't go to her anymore. The experience was so frustrating - she wouldn't listen to me and assumed she knew me better than I know myself. I'm not the only one. It's extremely rare to find a doctor who will perform sterilization treatments on a woman if she doesn't have kids already. They insist she will change her mind. I get that because of potential lawsuits, doctors are hesitant. However, a man doesn't have the same problem. Nearly any doctor will perform a vasectomy on a young man. So, the young man won't change his mind, but the woman will? The doctor knows better than the woman, but not the man? How is that right?

Another frustrating issue with our society is how we view fatherhood. The Census Bureau - in 2010 - considered mom's time with kids as parenting time and dad's time with kids as childcare - the same as a babysitter or daycare. What??? How is that right? Dad's time with the kids is just as important as mom's and both should be considered parenting. We shouldn't celebrate when a dad actually spends time with his kids - that should be the norm. And women are the cause of most of this. They don't make their husbands participate and complain about how they don't do things right when they do try. I see this all the time - women complaining about their husbands not doing things and then complaining they didn't do it right when they do try.  I just don't get it. Ryan and I have always split chores and now that he's going back to school, he does all the chores. Once he starts working again, we'll go back to splitting things. I just don't understand why everyone doesn't do it that way.

One of the scariest parts of the books is the section where she talks about new laws regarding investigating miscarriages. Several states have tried to or have passed laws saying that miscarriages must be investigated to see if the woman intentionally caused them. Yeah, that's what a grieving mother needs - the cops questioning her about if she caused it. I've had several friends who have miscarried and I hate to think about them dealing with that. She also tells the story of a woman who had a C-section and wanted to have a vaginal birth with her second child. No doctor would agree, so she found a midwife and planned to have the baby at home. While in labor, she needed an IV. They found a hospital that agreed to administer the IV. After she was there and on the IV, the hospital asked her to sign papers agreeing to a C-section. She refused and went home to have the baby. While in labor in her own bedroom, the deputy sheriff and state attorney arrive and physically force her back to the hospital to have the C-section against her will. She then sued the state and lost. Seriously???? This story makes me so angry! The labor had progressed to the point where it was almost in the birth canal before the C-section and wasn't in danger. How can the woman have no say over what happened to her? How can we allow that?

Most of the book got my blood boiling, especially the story above. The one thing I liked was parts about women who don't have kids being happier, and how smart women are less likely to have kids. :) You're also less likely to get divorced if the woman works and the man shares in the housework. All of that bodes well for me. It also challenges our beliefs that you have to follow the traditional path. Why must we assume everyone will get married, have kids, that everyone wants those things? Why do we tell women who don't want those things that they will change their minds or regret it?

There is so much in this little book and I barely scratched the surface here. I know I haven't done it justice, but I hope you'll check it out for yourself. I did not agree with a lot of Valenti's solutions - I'm a libertarian and most of her solutions involve increasing government involvement - but I love that she raises a lot of questions about our cultural constructs and encourages people to challenge them. I think this book would be extremely helpful for someone considering having kids or who has kids and wants to not feel so alone about some of the issues she raises. And for me, it added to my already strong desire to not have kids.

Clarissa - The End

I conquered it. I finally finished Clarissa, considered the longest novel written in English, clocking in a million words. Most novels average around 100,000 words. Meaning, in the time it took me to read Clarissa, I could have read 10 interesting books instead. Five more worthy, lengthy classics. I hadn’t quite thought of it that way. Ugh.

I read a lot of classics. It’s extremely rare that I don’t like them. In fact, Richardson is the ONLY British classic novelist I haven't got on with - and I've read a lot of British lit. I’m fine with stories where nothing much happens, where the story comes more in form of a psychological view inside a character’s mind or we get a slice of life from a specific point in time. At the very least, I can usually appreciate what the author did regarding style or format or something. Occasionally, I know I came to an author to young and need to try them again, like I did with James Joyce and William Faulkner, both of whom I now like.
But with Clarissa? I just…can’t even…why…how?
There is very little plot, which doesn't bother me in many works, but over the course of 1500 pages gets tiring.
The writing is repetitive. Any editor worth her salt could make this immensely better by cutting it down to around 150,000 words. And I think that’s being generous. That Richardson didn't allow this makes me think he's a pompous twit.
The characters are all one-dimensional and therefore boring. It felt like reading a looooooong morality play in novel form, only not funny the way those could at least occasionally be.
Bad writing, boring flat characters, no story, I do not understand what there is to like here.
I’ve gone on and on about my complaints in previous posts so I won’t go over them in depth here. But I think the worst thing is that his basic plot is actually interesting – he just manages to mangle it so much that it’s boring as all get out. It got to the point where I started wishing Clarissa would turn into some crazed lunatic and start murdering people.
I have mentioned this before as well, but I would recommend reading Richardson’s Pamela. If you love it, then go for Clarissa. If you don’t like Pamela, I doubt you’ll like Clarissa. Pamela is shorter and more tightly written, although it still has some issues with plot and character development. However, you then get to read Joseph Andrews and Shamela with even more enjoyment and understanding so it is worth it. If you're looking for a good classic epistolary novel, try Evelina by Fanny Burney (considered a precursor to Jane Austen). It's in some ways similar to Clarissa, only Evelina - both the character and the novel - is far more entertaining, interesting, and realistic.
But don’t just take my word on it. You can check out the other participants in the Clarissa readalong (I raced ahead to put myself out of my misery so they aren’t quite through yet) or get an entirely different perspective from Delaisse, who loved it. At least I have another book to mark off my Classics Club list! And I might have to reread Joseph Andrews soon to rejoice with Fielding in his ceasless mocking of Richardson. :)

Howards End

I have read so many good books lately! But I am so so behind in posting. I'm busy editing my novel and I think I'm close to having it ready to start sending out, which is crazy to me since I've worked on it so long. I don't want to neglect the blog though, and I want to share the wonderful books I read recently with you! First up - Howards End by E.M. Forster, one of the books on my Classics Club list.

Before I rave about this, I will point out the only thing that bugged me - why is there no apostrophe in the title??? Shouldn't it by Howard's End or Howards' End??? On a related note, Forster's name also bugs me - I feel it should be Forester. I always think people have left out the e when I see it and then remember that no, it's just Forster. Clearly this isn't his fault. :)

Anyway - read Howards End! Put it on your Classics Club list! Move it up on your priority list! Why? Because it is amazing! I said this when I read A Room with a View - I didn't like my first experience with Forster, when I read A Passage to India. I must now revisit that work because I loved A Room with a View and Howards End quickly rose up the ranks of my favorite books. It may actually be in the top 10, which for the most part have been set for year.

"And month by month the roads smelt more strongly of petrol, and were more difficult to cross, and human beings heard each other speak with greater difficulty, breathed less of the air, and saw less of the sky. Nature withdrew."

How contemporary does that sound? This novel came out in 1910 - can you imagine what Forster would have said about TVs, computers, social media, iPhones? I love how he doesn't complain directly about cars and radio, but focuses on the withdrawing from nature. No one wants a lecture on giving up their fun toys, but a reminder of breathing fresh air and seeing the sky? That's much more effective.

There's something soothing to me about Forster's writing, the rhythm washes over me and floats me along, whether it's making me laugh or cry or scream or cheer. He writes beautifully, but not in an overdone, showing of an MFA way that some modern authors gravitate toward.

I'm glad I read this after reading Far from the Madding Crowd and Portrait of a Lady. Each of the novels focus on women who might marry jerks and they seem like a natural progression in time. I adored Margaret. She's strong and bold, but in a quiet way. She's not flashy and reckless the way strong women are often portrayed. She stands up for her family members and stands by them even when they make mistakes, without judging them. And I like the ending much better than in the previous two but I'll keep this spoiler free and won't say why. :)

Here's a rather long quote from Margaret exemplifying why I love her:

"All over the world men and women are worrying because they cannot develop as they are supposed to develop. Here and there they have the matter out, and it comforts them. Don't fret yourself. Develop what you have; love your child. I do not love children. I am thankful to have none. I can play with their beauty and charm, but that is all - nothing real, not one scrap of what there ought to be. And others - others go farther still, and move outside humanity altogether. A place, as well as a person, may catch the glow. Don't you see that all this leads to comfort in the end? It is part of the battle against sameness. Differences - eternal differences, planted by God in a single family, so that there may always be colour; sorrow perhaps, but colour in the daily grey."

Love love love that! I love that she admits to not wanting kids - people judge me for that today, in 2012, 100 years after Forster wrote that! We still want to suck the color out of people who are different from us (I meant that metaphorically, but I suppose that also speaks to racists). We make fun of those who are different from us. We judge each other. EVERYONE does that. I'm trying to be more conscious of this, that God created many of our differences, and even the ones that He didn't, they still bring more color to life.

Have you ever disliked a book by an author and giving them another chance and loved the next book?

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

I hope everyone in the U.S. is enjoying Labor Day weekend and getting some extra reading time in. I'm hoping to get caught up with both my reading and blogging. I feel like I've been starting and not finishing a lot of books and jumping from book to book too much so I haven't had much to post. I finished Howards End on Friday and loved it and will have a review up soon. I also just finished Tyrell, a powerful young adult book I also want to review soon.

I'm in the middle of The Secret History by Donna Tartt, which is beautiful and intriguing and is taking all of my attention. I'm also in the middle of 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King, but it just hasn't grabbed me the way his other works have and I'm struggling with getting back into it. I almost finished with Clarissa - I've had only 70 pages left for several weeks! My goal is to finish it this weekend and finally put that one behind me. I also started reading Color, a nonfiction book Eva recommended, and Lies My Teacher Told Me. I like both, but haven't been in the mood for much nonfiction lately. I did skim through Curiosities of Literature yesterday, but the poor, unclear writing put me off so I just looked through a few sections of interest to me. It was disappointing.

Coming up, I want to read The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, and 20 plus other books I have checked out from the library right now. I wish I were kidding. I have a problem. I'm also hoping to read some American and Oklahoma history alongside Ryan for some classes he's taken this semester. (He's going back to school to be a history teacher.)

I'm off now to try to catch up on my blog reading and commenting. Happy reading!