A Hypochondriac's Guide to Books: Station Eleven

This is a review of Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, which was my book club's selection in December. We pick our books in a pretty simple way: at a meeting, a few people will nominate books they'd like to read, and then we vote on the three or four books suggested. I never once voted for this book, and it came up again and again, month after month. Finally, it was selected, and I had to stop pouting about it and read the dang thing.

Symptoms: This was pitched to me as a story about how 99 percent of the world's population gets killed off by the flu. NO THANKS.

Examination: Well sure, there's the flu. There isn't actually much description of the flu. I mean, people are tired, and sick, and they die, but the flu is not the point of the story, and so it isn't played up for dramatic effect or anything. It's so matter-of-fact.

The point of this book is what happens after so much of the population has been killed. The phone lines go down. People try to escape the cities they're in (to go where?) and they run out of gas and abandon their vehicles on the highway. People are stranded with no way to get in touch with loved ones that are not immediately close at hand. TV stations eventually go dead.

The story begins with an actor who has a heart attack on stage while performing King Lear, the night the flu pandemic begins. (No, the heart attack is not described graphically, and other than the fact that it happened; it is an impetus to move the plot forward, and not an event unto itself.) A child actress witnesses the actor's collapse and a man from the audience's attempt to revive him, and suddenly there are so many things happening, different characters affected by this one event, followed by another event that changes everything, and how they get on with their lives now that nothing will ever be the same.

The medical stuff that stuck out to me: There is a group of people that, post-pandemic, find themselves living in an airport after all the flights have been grounded. There is a woman who has some kind of mental health condition (depression? it's been a while since I read it, and this wasn't that important), and asks all the people in the airport if they have the prescription she needs. (It's unsafe to leave the airport, and looters have already done their work in a lot of the towns.) She is unable to find it, and eventually leaves the airport, because she is unable to cope without her medication, choosing instead to see if it's possible to find help out "there." There is also a man who talks about his family, one of whom was an insulin-dependent diabetic, and it is implied that the same thing must have happened — eventually they would have run out of insulin, and would have been out of luck.

Diagnosis: Turns out, this isn't even really about the flu, so stop being a pansy. This caused me to pause and consider the end of the world for a long time after I had finished reading, and I didn't waste a second thought on the flu that caused it. What struck me most about this book was how thought-out it was; regardless of what causes the end of the world (whether disease, or nuclear holocaust, or something else), I could absolutely picture this being how people would react, and what the outcome would look like.

Prognosis: You'll be fine. I loved this book and gave it five stars. (Sorry book club friends!) The post-apocalyptic aspect has really stuck with me, and not a lot of books continue to follow me around once I'm done with them. It was very good.

A Hypochondriac's Guide to Books: Introduction

When I was in the seventh grade, our science teacher read the first chapter of The Hot Zone to our class. It was not a good experience. I have always been a worrier and a hypochondriac.

Emphasis on TERRIFYING.

After class that day, the teacher had to call my mom, because I was visibly not okay. I had never heard of ebola before, and after The Hot Zone's graphic descriptions of the symptoms, I subsequently spent the next 15 years worrying that I was going to get it, despite having never left the United States.

(I finally got over that worry — you know, as you do — as soon as that first case of ebola actually made its way to Texas. Because I don't worry about realistic problems.)

But to this day, I generally try not to read things that I think will freak me out. And more than once, I have googled "hypochondria [insert book title here]" to no avail. Apparently that's not something people think to include when they write book reviews.

But I decided that someone should go ahead and start this vital service! Because I have had several book club picks come up where I have been very worried about the month's selected or potential books, and people don't tend to take me seriously when I ask them if they think it will make me freak out. (It doesn't take much to freak me out.)

The first book I'm going to review is actually the one that I resisted for months in my new book club. Someone suggested Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel, and I asked the other members about the hypochondria factor, and they all told me that it was fine, I'd be fine, etc. etc. and yet I refused to believe them or vote for it and was basically a baby until finally they picked it anyway.

I'm actually pretty excited about revisiting some of the books I've read recently with illness factors, and maybe I can help someone out who does the same googling that I do.

Do you have any irrational worries? What do you look for in a book review?

"For you, in my respect, are all the world."

"Then how can it be said I am alone // When all the world is here to look on me?"
- A Midsummer Night's Dream

I just finished taking an online Shakespeare class. It was through Coursera, and was a free four-week massive open course in which we read four Shakespeare plays and discussed them, and watched clips from the movies that have been made about them.

Video "lecture." This format is pretty awesome.

I really enjoyed the class. I had read two of the plays before (Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream), but I hadn't picked up any Shakespeare since high school, so it was like re-discovering something and seeing it with whole new eyes. The other two plays were The Tempest and Much Ado About Nothing, and I was especially looking forward to the latter, as it had been on my to-read list for quite some time. (I didn't end up liking The Tempest much. It was really confusing to me, but I really liked Much Ado. And then I watched the Emma Thompson/Denzel Washington version of the movie, and it was also really good, and Matt even enjoyed it once he figured out what was happening.)

Though can I tell you something about A Midsummer Night's Dream? I think it was my sophomore year of high school, our theater department put on that play. I've looked for photographic evidence, but unfortunately I found none.

Before I started re-reading the play, I could not for the life of me remember the name of the character I played, nor what the play was actually about.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is about a wedding, and actors that are to perform a play during the wedding festivities, and a terrible love triangle (square?) in which a woman, Hermia is engaged to a man named Demetrius, though she's in love with another man, Lysander, and her best friend Helena is in love with Demetrius but he thinks that Helena is horrible. It makes for some very amusing poetry.

Reading it brought back so many memories from high school. I was cast as Hermia, and I was horrified when this boy that I thought was icky (no idea why, now) was cast as Lysander. Though I never had to, I was terrified that I might have to kiss him. (I had never kissed anyone, and didn't want Ickface to be my first.) Especially because I was totally head over heels for this guy that lived down the street from me, who was also in the play. Creepily enough, he got cast as Hermia's dad, Egeus, but it was like, the highlight of my life at the time to get to spend rehearsals with him, though nothing ever happened between us. (High School Allie pretty much only had unrequited crushes, until she went to Homecoming with High School Matt senior year.)

Your turn: tell me about your high school self! What were you involved in? Who did you have a massive crush on? (Or, if you'd rather, have you read Shakespeare? What is your favorite play?)

Harry Potter and the Spanish Translation

It took me four months, but I am FINALLY done reading Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal.

When I said I wanted to read the first Harry Potter book in Spanish, I knew I was undertaking quite a challenge. I had taken Spanish on and off throughout middle school, high school and college, and always found that the classes came fairly easily to me, but you know what they say: if you don't use it, you lose it. I lost a lot of my español vocabulary over the past five years.

I'd been practicing using my Duolingo app for several months, though, and was feeling a bit more confident going in. I bought the e-book from Pottermore and downloaded it to my Kindle, because I knew I would be looking up a lot of words that I didn't understand, so I wanted to be able to do that with just a touch.

And at first, I found the reading really difficult because, despite learning a lot of the verbs in the present-tense during my Spanish classes, how often are books really written in present tense? My knowledge of the past-tense versions were rusty at best, non-existent at worst. I found myself using the translation button like eight times per Kindle page, and was frustrated at how much time it was taking.

A few days after I started struggling through La Piedra Filosofal, I had dinner with a girl who had majored in Spanish in college and is fluent herself. She said that she had read some books in Spanish before, and that it was easier and more helpful for your own Spanish skills to just keep reading and use context clues to figure out what the missing words were. I started using the translation function less after that, and it started to go much smoother. I still ended up translating maybe once or twice per page, in the beginning, but the closer I got to the end, the less I felt like I needed to lean on that. I tried to read out loud when I could to practice the words. I managed to learn a lot of new words and re-learned a lot of old forgotten ones.

At the end, I still didn't understand every word, not by a long shot. Thank goodness I was so familiar with the story that I could figure out what was going on even if I didn't know the words! But it was an interesting experience. One that I don't plan to attempt again soon.

I Don't Know Lots of Things About World War II

Perhaps this is presumptuous, but despite not being alive yet in the 1940s and 1950s, I thought that I had a pretty good grasp of the goings-on during World War II. Through high school and college, it was one of only two historical periods that I was interested in (the other being Tudor England), and I didn't care at all about any of my other history classes.

Thankfully I've become more interested in other time periods since then, because there's a lot of interesting stuff that's happened in the world, but WWII still fascinates me. And there have been a few good books and movies that I've experienced lately that have shown me just how little my pool of knowledge is. There is SO MUCH that I didn't know, and, I'm sure, still so much to learn.

"The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II" by Denise Kiernan

I started thinking about my knowledge — or lack thereof — when one of my book clubs chose to read "The Girls of Atomic City" a few months back. The book is about the compounds at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the women (and men) who worked to build the Atomic bombs that fell at the end of the war. Only they didn't know what they were working on, they were just recruited for these high-paying government jobs and knew they were contributing to the war effort, but the project was kept so hush-hush that no one ever talked about what they were doing. I found it fascinating because I really had no concept of the Manhattan Project and what the U.S. was doing through most of the war (though I did watch Bomb Girls on Netflix? and it was kind of sort of similar, except in Canada?). Most of the people in my book club didn't like "The Girls of Atomic City" and tore it to shreds, but I thought it was interesting, even if it had some weaknesses. (I agreed that there were too many characters and that they were difficult to distinguish [there was a summary of characters, places and events at the beginning for reference], but thought the overall view of the Project was very interesting.)

The Imitation Game

A few weeks back, Matt and I went to go see The Imitation Game at this little local theater by campus, and sorry to yell but IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS YOU SHOULD DO SO IMMEDIATELY. It was fantastic. Benedict Cumberbatch is so good. Everyone in it is so good. It's about the code-breakers at Bletchley Park in England, led by mathematician Alan Turing, and how they were trying to crack the Enigma machine that the Germans were using to communicate with their military. It was deemed to be an impossible task, as there were some 190,000,000 possible settings for Enigma and the settings were changed every night at midnight. The movie was wonderful, funny, fast-paced, heartbreaking and smart all at once. Now I very much want to pick up the book that it was based off, "Alan Turing: The Enigma." (Catherine has also suggested the show The Bletchley Circle, which is on Netflix, but I haven't gotten around to seeing it yet. Also, I have since read about some inaccuracies in the script, but it was still a beautifully done movie.)




"All The Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

I loved this book. Loved loved loved. Marie-Laure is a blind French girl who evacuates Paris during the German occupation to live with her uncle. Werner is a German orphan that is recruited into the German army when it's discovered that he has a talent for fixing radios. Two teenagers growing up in war-time with such different expectations for life.

I loved the main characters. I loved the secondary characters. I loved that the good guys were flawed, and that the bad guys could have been good guys, depending on your perspective. I loved that this book gave me such a unique glimpse into the German armies: prior to reading "All The Light," I had this idea of what a Nazi was, and what that person must be/believe, and this book completely threw me through a loop; the idea that there were people fighting under the German flag that may not have agreed with any of the things the Nazis were doing, but that were afraid to refuse to fight for their country? It was a fascinating perspective and an excellent read, and it made for a GREAT book club discussion.

What historical periods are you obsessed with? Have you read any good historical books — fiction or non — lately?

How Many Book Clubs Am I In?!

On the way to Starbucks on Saturday night, I made a sweeping declaration:

"From now on, I am going to limit myself to only reading two books at a time! No more of this three-or-four-books-simultaneously thing. I am overwhelmed!"*

And Matt said yeah right. He pointed out that one of my "only two" book slots is currently being taken up by my slowly attempting to read "Harry Potter" in Spanish. He said he believed me for right this second, but that the second I realized that I had two book club books to read in a week's time, I'd freak out and start reading both at the same time regardless of how many other books I had going.

Not book club picks. Just for fun. :)

And then came the question: "Just how many book clubs ARE you in?!"

Um. A lot.

See, when I found out we were moving, I joined several different book clubs on Meetup. I made a lot of good friends in my book club in Texas, and I figured it was a good way to meet like-minded people. Of the three I signed up for, two of them ended up being a good fit. And then I'm also in … two online-only book clubs. And I occasionally participate in a podcast-based book discussion group. I know it's a problem, but I just love getting book recommendations and reading new things and talking about them!

(Once upon a time in middle school, I actually believed it was possible to read every book in the world and I wanted to do that. I now realize that's ridiculous and impossible, but a little part of me still harbors that irrational fantasy.)

So yeah. I'm a little overwhelmed. I had to create a Stickies note on my computer desktop so I can keep track of what book is coming up next among all these groups. But I'm starting to feel less guilt about putting books down when I'm not enjoying them, because there are just too many other things to read.

Are you in a book club? What is your favorite thing about it? How many is too many, in your opinion? What things did you believe were possible when you were a kid?

*I later clarified that audiobooks do not count in my tally. Because I listen to them in the car on the way to and from work**, and that doesn't overwhelm me at all.
**Oh, right, I got a job! One that's actually kind of in my field! I had someone tell me there were no marketing jobs in this area and that I may as well go back to school and get another degree, so suck on that, snotty girl in the third book club that I didn't end up sticking with!

Favorite Books of 2014

I wrapped up 2013 with a list of the best books I read during the year, and it was so much fun looking back and talking to ya'll about your favorites that I wanted to do it again this year! I read a bunch of really great books in 2014, but I limited myself to my top 10. In no particular order!

"Warm Bodies" by Isaac Marion
I listened to the audiobook wayyyyy back in February, but I can't stop recommending "Warm Bodies." Yeah, it's about zombies, and I really don't care about or like most zombie stories, but it is so not about the blood and gore at all. It's about a zombie, who calls himself R, and how he falls in love with a human named Julie as he's eating her boyfriend's brain. How all the best romantic comedies start, right? But Julie is supposed to be a zombie hunter! And their relationship is causing R to start turning back into a human! The narrator, Kevin Kenerly, was SO GOOD. He had the perfect semi-creepy voice that you'd expect of a zombie book. Basically, you should listen to this book immediately. Reading it would also be acceptable.

"The Green Mile" by Stephen King
Matt bought the movie a few years ago, so I actually experienced that first, and so I knew how the book was going to end before I even started. But that didn't make the journey any less interesting or nail-biting for me. John Coffey is a man that has been convicted of murdering two little girls, and is awaiting his execution on Death Row (called the Green Mile because of the color of the floor). Paul works in the prison, and his job is to keep the inmates on the Green Mile calm and stable before he presides over their electric-chair executions. But soon after Coffey's arrival on the Mile, Paul realizes that John Coffey is not like any other inmate he's ever known. John Coffey has almost no capacity for memories, and John Coffey possesses supernatural powers.

"Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea" by Barbara Demick
Review here.

"3 a.m." by Nick Pirog
I got this as a free Kindle download on one of those deal sites. (Bookbub? Shelfbuzz? I don't remember.) So don't take it as a piece of great literature or anything, but I just thought the storyline was so unique and engaging that I read through the whole thing extraordinarily quickly. Henry Binns has a fictional medical condition that causes him to remain unconscious/asleep 23 hours a day, and he cannot be woken up. The entirety of his life occurs between the hours of 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. One night, during his hour of consciousness, he hears a scream from his neighbor's house, and as he goes to the window to investigate, he sees the President of the United States running from the house. Is his neighbor dead? Did the President really attack her? It's up to him to solve the crime, and he's only got an hour per day in which to do it!

"10 Things Jesus Never Said: And Why You Should Stop Believing Them" by Will Davis Jr.
I'm chalking this one up to one of those right-book-at-the-right-time things. Between grad school, Matt's job search and my employment situation, this was kind of a rough year. I found myself overly stressed most of the time, and I loved the message that pervaded this book: Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." The whole book just gave me such a profound sense of peace. I wrote a pretty comprehensive review on Goodreads, which you can read here.

"The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green
I'm still counting it as a favorite even though it was a re-read. I read it when it first came out in 2012, and then re-read it right before I went to see the movie this year. And I cried and cried both times, and Matt walked in on me sobbing at the hands of fictional characters both times, and then I cried at the movie twice. (Matt read it too, but he didn't cry.) Basically, a book about teenagers with cancer, but it's not ABOUT kids with cancer, it's about living. And it's excellent.

"Attachments" by Rainbow Rowell
Review here.

"The Book Thief" by Marcus Zusak
This might go down as one of my favorite books of all time. This is the only book I've ever read that I sobbed right to the end, and then flipped back to page 1 and started reading again because I just couldn't let it go yet. I mean, Death is the narrator! And it speaks so beautifully about life and death. Which there's a good amount of, since the book takes place in the 1940s in Nazi Germany, but it's not about death. It's about a little girl named Liesl, who steals books but can't read (at first), and her newly adoptive father begins to teach her by painting words on their basement walls. That is, until her parents agree to hide a Jewish refugee and former boxer named Max in the basement.

"We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves" by Karen Joy Fowler
I can't tell you what this book is really about. I'm sorry. Don't hate me. On the surface, it's about a young woman whose sister disappeared when she was a child, and because of her sister's disappearance, her brother rebelled against their psychologist parents until he, too, could escape from the family. That's all I'm going to say. You'll just have to read it. It was excellent, and gave me quite the book hangover.

"The Martian" by Andy Weir
Review here.

What were your favorite books this year?

Let's Read ALL THE THINGS!

The other day, I was struck by a little inspiration. I had just added "The Year of Reading Dangerously" by Andy Miller to my Goodreads list, about all the books he's claimed to have read but had never actually gotten around to reading, and his resolution to get through some of them.

Now, I haven't read it yet, and I don't lie to people about what I have or have not read, but I started thinking about all the books that I've been wanting to read for a long time, but haven't gotten around to yet. Books that have made a big impression on readers, or books that are classics, or books that just came highly recommended by someone at the right time.

So I made a list of the top 20 that have been languishing on my to-read list. I think I'd like to make those books my reading goal for 2015.

1) "Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood. I asked for the second book in this series ("Year of the Flood") a few years ago for Christmas, not realizing that it was not a standalone book. I still haven't gotten around to reading the first one in the series, and should probably get on that.

2) "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger. I've been told that I need to read this before I turn 30, because only young people can appreciate it. I don't know if this is true or not, but 30 is only a couple of years away, and I'd hate to miss out.

3) "The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling" by Peter Ackroyd/Geoffrey Chaucer. I bought this at a book sale like three years ago, and never read it. It's supposed to be a more modern translation of the original Chaucer, which is good, because … I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I have a hard time understanding and getting into Old English. (I mean, I've never even read Shakespeare without side-by-side modern English translations.)

4) "The Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut. It's about time I read something by Vonnegut.

5) "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck. My one and only book regret was not finishing this one in high school. Now I've got to start all over because the only things I remember about it is that it was really messed up and the main character's name was Adam.

6) "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot. My book club read this a while back, but I didn't, because I don't like medical stuff. I have been assured that it will not upset my hypochondria.

7) "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Even though I didn't manage to make it through "Anna Karenina," I want to give Russian literature another go. I feel like the author must have a sense of humor with that title.

8) "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott. I think I'm the only girl in the world that never read this book as a kid.

9) "Vanity Fair" by William Makepeace Thackeray. Totally inspired by the Reese Witherspoon movie that came out 10 years ago. I didn't see the movie, but the trailer made it look really good, and … well, if the trailer is good, the book must be good too?

10) "A Moveable Feast" by Ernest Hemingway. I also managed to get through high school without reading any Hemingway. Amanda told me that this one is really good.

11) "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden. I wanted to read this in college, when a friend was obsessed with it. I wanted to read it when the movie came out. I wanted to read it after I saw the movie. Now I've forgotten what happened in the movie, and so I have to read it.

12) "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury. You can't go wrong with a book about books! Another one I didn't finish in high school.

13) "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo. The movie was good. I'm not sure if I have the abridged or unabridged version, but I'm going to read the one I already have on my shelf.

14) "Harry Potter y La Piedra Filosofal" by J.K. Rowling. Yes, I've read Harry Potter a bazillion times, but you know what I have not done? Read it in Spanish. THAT'S RIGHT. #micdrop

15) "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver. I've heard that this one is kind of … classic-adjacent? I liked the last Kingsolver I read ("Animal Vegetable Miracle"), but my grandma told me she hated this one.

16) "This is the Story of a Happy Marriage" by Ann Patchett. This one keeps popping up in my periphery, and David Sedaris is going around recommending it, so … I just do what David Sedaris says. :)

17) "Delancey: A Man, A Woman, A Restaurant, A Marriage" by Molly Wizenberg. The movie just came out, and the trailer looked so good.

18) "The Marriage Plot" by Jeffrey Eugenides. Matt and I were listening to the audiobook of "Middlesex" last year and decided it was too weird/boring to finish. But I will give Eugenides one more chance.

19) "The Thornbirds" by Colleen McCullough. I have no idea what this one is about, but it came SO highly recommended by an online book group I'm in that I feel no choice but to read it.

20) "The Complete Sherlock Holmes" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I love Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock, and Matt tells me the books are almost identical to the show. (It actually encompasses two enormous books.) One of the few times in which Matt can say he has read something that I haven't!

Have you read any of these? What books have been on your to-read list forever? Do you ever lie about what you've read?

Book Reports: The Martian, Nothing to Envy, Attachments

It's been quite a while since I've done a book post. I've been reading up a storm this year, and a lot of them have been really good. But of course, I mainly choose to write posts about the books that I just found to be absolutely excellent.

If you're interested in seeing what else I've read, check me out on Goodreads.

The Martian by Andy Weir
I'll preface this by saying I'm not really into sci-fi. I don't do fantasy, and I like my worlds to be fairly realistic (or at least close enough to realistic that I don't have to suspend too much belief). What surprised me about this book was how realistic it seemed. There was a heck of a lot of math and science in this (fictional) story, but the way it was told was so entertaining and suspenseful, it kept me on my toes the whole time.

Mark is one of six astronauts to ever set foot on Mars, but when a dust storm damages their equipment and blows a metal satellite straight into Mark, puncturing his spacesuit, the crew has to cut their mission short and bail out, leaving Mark for dead. Only it turns out he didn't actually die, and instead finds himself alone on a planet that it took months to travel to, with limited food supplies and no way of communicating with his crew.

Basically, every single thing he does on the red planet just might kill him for real; wear and tear on the space suits he has remaining, the frequent dust storms, the lack of significant amounts of food, and of course "plain old human error." And Mark determines (through math!) that even if he could get word to his crew that he was still alive, it would take them more than 400 days to get back to Mars to pick him up.

The story is pretty ingenious. Mark is a smart cookie (you'd have to be, to be an astronaut!) and the way he MacGuyvers his remaining supplies in an attempt to stay alive and fix his broken communication signal is brilliant. Only thing that might put some people off is that there are a lot of F-bombs in this book, but … well, what would you be saying if you were trapped on Mars?! A

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick
With all that's always going on in the world, I never really thought about North Korea, other than the fact that the U.S. was worried they might have nuclear weapons. I don't remember who recommended Nothing to Envy to me, but oh my goodness. This book was FANTASTIC. The author is a journalist who has visited North Korea officially several times, and found herself frustrated that the North Korean government tended to put on a big show for visitors, while hiding any potential unpleasantness about the country. She interviewed six North Koreans who had defected to South Korea in order to get a true picture of life in North Korea.

Those defectors painted such vivid pictures with their stories. The woman who worked as a doctor, but ended up nearly starving to death when her salary was cut because the government couldn't afford to pay her anymore. The mother who worshipped the Kim family, but was looked on with suspicion because of her grown daughter's anti-regime comments. The famines that the government tried to cover up, the stores with nothing available for purchase inside, the danger and risk it took to get out of North Korea, because North Korea didn't want its citizens leaving and China didn't want the North Koreans entering its country.

The title of the book comes from the propaganda posters that former dictator Kim Il-sung had hanging all over the country — We have nothing to envy in the world! North Korea is the richest and best country! The United States is a terrible and consumerist country that would seek to destroy our way of life! — messages that play a big role in how North Koreans are raised and what they believe. They have no (legal) access to the Internet, radio or television, except for the shows and movies that the Korean government releases, which are all propaganda too.

Overall, it was just a fascinating, horrifying, beautiful work. Can't recommend highly enough, especially if you're interested in other cultures or history. A+

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
I've seen the blog world singing the praises of Rowell's books for months (years?), but hadn't had the opportunity to pick up any of her books until now. I've signed up for a couple of book clubs in Virginia to see if I can find one that's a good fit when I get there, and this was the chosen October book for one of them, and so I was glad that my opportunity had arrived.

The year is 1999, and daily newspaper The Courier just got its staff on an e-mail system. The bigwigs at the paper are freaking out about the increased use of technology in the newsroom, and so they hire Lincoln to be, essentially, a living spam filter: his job is to read the employees' e-mails and flag ones that contain inappropriate words or content, and send notices to the offending employees. Lincoln hates his job.

But when Lincoln starts reading the correspondence between Beth and Jennifer, he doesn't send them a notice about using company e-mail for personal use. Instead, he looks forward to their conversations getting caught in the filter. And eventually, he starts to fall in love with one of them.

This book was totally cute. The characters were real people you could see yourself being friends with (or already having friends like them). I loved the candid-ness of Jennifer and Beth's friendship, completely told through e-mails. This was a refreshing and fun read, and felt similar in tone to some of Meg Cabot's adult novels. I'm looking forward to reading more of Rowell's work. A

Have you read anything just absolutely fantastic lately?

Book Report: The Circle

A few weeks ago, I finished reading Dave Eggers' The Circle. It was a really interesting, good book. The premise is that a twenty-something girl named Mae has just secured a coveted job at a Google-like entity called The Circle, and is expected to go far in the organization. Created by a trio called "The Three Wise Men," The Circle's goal is to ensure that all knowledge is accessible to all people.

In order to do that, the Wise Men and the members of The Circle believe that no experience should be private, no information should be kept to yourself, and all should be transparent. Politicians are encouraged to wear cameras on their necks to show constituents that they aren't participating in shady deal-making behind closed doors. Tiny cameras have been hidden in public places all over the world, allowing people to experience anything and know everything — say, what the surfing conditions are like at that exact moment on any beach in the world — and also have the side effect of making crime basically non-existent. When your every move could be recorded, it makes it harder to do illegal or unethical things under the table.

Mae wants to grow at The Circle, and believes — truly, deeply believes — in everything The Circle stands for. When The Circle tells her she needs to be improving her social media interactions as a part of her job, she makes it her goal to be one of the best in the company at it. She finds ways to incorporate The Circle's social media and products into the government and political world, making it a requirement for everyone to have a Circle account in order to do things like make purchases or vote. For those who want to live off the grid, The Circle makes it nearly impossible, because the organization believes that off-the-grid people are "stealing" experiences from others by not sharing them.

Eventually, Mae is convinced that the best thing she can do for the organization is to become "transparent" herself — to share EVERY experience she has by wearing a video camera around her neck that records and stores her every move and every conversation.

(I've actually heard of someone doing this in real life as a type of social experiment. How frightening is that?)

You can basically see through the whole novel how what started out as an interesting, innovative idea devolves into 1984, Big-Brother-style surveillance in which no one has any privacy and everyone is brainwashed to believe this is for the good of the people.

It was a creepy novel, but fascinating. One of my big problems with dystopian novels is that, many times, I have a hard time seeing how "we" as a society came to the "solution" posed in the story (see also: Divergent, The Handmaid's Tale). But I could totally see how the events that occur in The Circle could happen, and that is terrifying.

My only complaint is that I really hated Mae as a character. She made such terrible life decisions and lacked self-awareness in such a major way that it was distracting. It made me wonder … since the advent of social media, have our collective social skills devolved THAT much, that someone of a presumably average- to above-average intelligence can no longer pick up on basic social cues? That seems unlikely to me, and therefore frustrated me.

Even with deductions for Mae's idiocy, I'll still give it an A+.

Have you read The Circle? Do you ever worry about the future of technology? How do you think social media will continue to affect us in the future?

Better In Real Life Reading List

I'm over at Better In Real Life today! Lauren has created this awesome summer reading list, and is including her community in the discussions each month, so today I'm contributing to a discussion of Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride.

Spoiler alert, I wasn't crazy about this book. But it's led to an interesting discussion about human nature and feminism. You should come contribute to the discussion!

Have you read any of Atwood's books?

Resistance is Futile

A few weeks before graduation, Matt turned to me and said, "If I wanted to get you something pretty, what should I get you?"

And I thought about it, but there wasn't really anything "pretty" I wanted. I mean, I'm out of space for shoes in my closet, and I just got a new purse. What else do I need?

A few weeks before that, a bee friend published a book. I downloaded the Kindle version thinking I could read it on Ye Olde iPad if I downloaded the Kindle app. Which was mistake #1. Ye Olde iPad is SO olde that the Kindle app isn't even compatible with it anymore.

Which left my phone. Mistake #2. I downloaded the Kindle app and then cursed myself for the entirety of the reading experience. The book was great, but reading a book on a phone is HARD. It's hard on your eyes because of the backlight, and because the text isn't big enough (and if it is big enough, you're constantly turning "pages" like, every 10 words).

So when I finally had the option to name my price for being nice through grad school, I asked for a Kindle. After years of being adamantly anti-digital-reading, the book-on-phone experience showed me the undeniable value of having one, and I was tired of fighting it.

When Matt got home from his graduation ceremony, he presented me with a giant pink bag with pink polka-dot tissue paper (does he know me or what!), and a shiny new Kindle Paperwhite.

I made my own case so that it wouldn't get scratched while in my purse. I followed this Allie-proof tutorial for sewing padded gadget cases and used some fabric my sister left at my house years and years ago.

And you know what? I love it. I usually read more than one book at a time, so it's nice being able to carry around a lot of books with me. It's nice being able to carry books in my purse without lugging the weight. It's nice being able to read at night without the light on, without hurting my eyes. I like being able to "highlight" things so I can flip back and forth for reference. I LOVE being able to look up words I don't know instantly, and translate phrases in languages I don't understand.

I've subscribed to BookBub (thanks Madison!) so I can download free e-books all the time, and I can get free downloads from my local libraries, too. I don't intend to use the Kindle as a replacement for books; I don't know that I could ever give up paper books. But if it can supplement my reading obsession? I'm on board. One can never have too many books!

What are you reading right now? Do you have an e-reader? And is there anything that "everyone else" is doing that you've been resisting too?

Infidelity and Movie Adaptations

Because I'd never seen any of Woody Allen's movies before, I put several of them on my Netflix list and watched them back to back: Annie Hall, Match Point, Midnight in Paris.

I also recently finished reading The Last Letter From Your Lover, and The Emperor's Children. I'm about 1/4 of the way through Anna Karenina. (You can follow me on Goodreads here.)

On Sunday, we finally watched the Leonardo DiCaprio version of The Great Gatsby.

All of these pieces of art were lovely (except Annie Hall, I hated Annie Hall), but after the credits rolled on Gatsby, I just felt this overwhelming sadness.

I'm tired of watching movies and reading stories about infidelity. Do we, as a culture, have this idea that staying with your partner, fulfilling your vows, loving one person until death do you part is boring? I don't think it has to be boring. I don't think it has to be cheesy or sappy either, ahem, Nicholas Sparks.

It makes me sad that, off the top of my head, the only happily married book or movie characters I can think of are Arthur and Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter series.

I know that books and movies are a means of escaping your own life for a bit, but why do we want so badly to escape into lives that are even more messed up than our own? What is the appeal of escaping into someone else's life, when theirs is in shambles from their poor decisions or the decisions of their significant other?

—————

My friend Sara and I went to see Divergent yesterday. We both really enjoyed it, despite both of us having major problems with/reservations about the book (though I hear many of my problems with it get answered in the third book; I just got book two from the library). Shailene Woodley was a much better actress than I expected her to be, and made the character of Tris much more likable than she was in the book. We agreed that it was probably one of the best book-to-movie adaptations we'd seen, with so little detail left out.

On the way back home, we were talking about Woodley's next role in The Fault in Our Stars, which is coming out this summer. I really, really want to see it. Because the author was involved in the production, I figure he couldn't ruin his own book by making the movie not as good, right? Sara didn't want to see it at all, because she loved the book so much and couldn't bear the thought of the movie not living up to the book.

Which makes sense. It's a good, hard read. I've read it twice, and both times Matt has walked in on me clutching the book to my chest and sobbing. It makes you think about life, and death, and it seems like a daunting task to take it from words into pictures. I just hope they can do justice to such a beautiful book.

—————

Have you seen Divergent? What is your favorite book-to-movie adaptation? Are there any topics that you're tired of reading about?

Inspired By: Prose

Obviously, I read a good amount. I read for fun. I read to escape. I read because there's nothing good on TV. I read because other people have done way cooler stuff than I have and I want to live vicariously. I read because other people have experienced heartbreak in ways that I never have and hopefully never will.

And lately, I find myself reading because I'm jealous.

It's just … almost everything I've read lately is just SO deliciously good. Not even necessarily in plot — though if the writing is good, it can make up for weaknesses in plot, in my opinion. I'm just amazed at the metaphors other people think to write in, and the prose that flows out of other people's pens. And I've started thinking about how I write, and whether these types of exotic sentences come natural to these amazing writers, or if they, like me, have to really work hard in order to create something that flows beautiful and poetic.

I know that I'm writing a blog and not the next great American novel or anything. I try to write this blog the way I would talk with you in real life. I'm not trying to make this space something it's not. But I can't help but be wistful at how beautiful some of these sentences are, and how unlike anything I could have written.

Book Report: Moonwalking With Einstein

I normally prefer fiction to non-fiction, but last summer when I was perusing the library for audiobooks to listen to on the way to Chicago, I saw a title that piqued my interest: "Moonwalking With Einstein" by Joshua Foer. I had to see what that was about, so I checked it out, popped it into my computer and ripped the audio into iTunes so I could listen to it on my phone on the way out of town. As I mentioned, I didn't get around to it on the trip, and just started listening to it at the beginning of January, six months later.

via

I found this book to be really fascinating. It's about the history of memory and the progression of how we went from a culture of memorizing and remembering everything, to one where we rely on books, calendars and lists to do our remembering for us. But the most fascinating parts for me were twofold — how a journalist with an average memory went on to train, and actually participate in, the U.S. Memory Championship, and how we can use the same strategies he used in order to memorize things.

Notice I didn't say "remember things." Because after the competition is over, Foer still finds that, like the rest of us, he has trouble remembering things like where he parked his car. Instead, the strategies are for helping you memorize things like your grocery list, complex lines of poetry, or entire decks of playing cards (because we all have use for that in our daily lives).

I know that sounds cynical of me, but seriously, it was a really good, interesting book even if it didn't have much practical application for me. The narrator had a good voice and kept a nice pace, and I never found myself growing bored. I'm giving it an A-.

Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction? What are you reading?

Check out my Recently Read sidebar to see what else I've been reading!

One Box Lighter

One thing I've been wanting to tackle practically since I graduated college was the giant pile of notebooks my chicken-scratch and doodling filled in those four years. Over the course of my college education, I racked up dozens of spiral notebooks full of notes from my classes. I was a notebook-writing kinda gal; if I'd brought my laptop to class, I'd have spent the whole time playing games and not paying attention. (You gotta know what works for you when it comes to study habits!)

So I acquired all these spiral notebooks. And then I graduated college and they moved back to Texas with me. And then I moved in with Matt, and they followed me then too. And for the past almost three years, they've lived in the guest room closet where no one has looked at them since they were placed there.

Only like, one or two of these are Matt's.

I knew I couldn't just recycle them and be done with it. That would be like throwing away the physical evidence of the knowledge I'd gained over my four years of schooling. Instead, my lofty goal was to scan the pages of my notebooks so that I could haul them around forever without straining my back; to make all those spirals no heavier than the weight of my MacBook Pro.

It was no easy task! (I watched both the Golden Globes and the Grammys as I scanned and scanned.) Hundreds and hundreds of pages etched onto a flash drive and transferred over to the computer. Distant memories from long-forgotten classes dredged up. I took some really interesting classes that I'd forgotten about: Religion, Culture and the Meaning of Life. The Bible as Literature. A women's studies class on body image. Tudor England (one of my favorites). A technology class where we spent the whole time discussing "new" means of communication, like Skype and Google and TiVo. Plus, all the advertising classes you could ever dream of, a perfect fit for a commercial nerd like me.

I may not remember every second of those classes, but I remember which ones I loved and which notebooks got thrown out as soon as the class was over. (I'm looking at YOU, Propaganda and Rhetoric. What should have been a thrilling English class was the most boring three credits ever. Except that we got to read "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood as part of the curriculum, and that was excellent.)

By scanning these pages, though, it's almost as if I'm admitting that digital text makes much more sense than paper and pen. Which kind of saddens me. I've always been so pro-written word, so anti-digital reading.

At the same time, it feels like a huge burden has been lifted. (And placed on Matt's shoulders, because it's his job to take out the recycling bin. And I mean BIN.)

Our giant Rubbermaid "paper recycling bin." At least half of it is old notebook pages.

But once it's taken out, we'll no longer have to carry the weight anymore. And that's a relief.

The remaining spirals are Matt's. Only a few old Bibles and Photoshop magazines are left. Michael Scott approves.

What do you need to organize? Did you keep any of your old school notebooks?

Top 10 Books of 2013

I've been seeing other people's lists of top book picks for this year, and I can't believe I didn't think to do a list on my own. I've read some good stuff this year, so I figured I should put together one too. These are in no particular order, because I have a hard enough time picking favorites, let alone ranking them.

"Life After Life" by Kate Atkinson
I wanted to give this one its own post, but I just finished reading it and literally have to talk about it now. The premise is that Ursula Todd is born, and dies, and continues to be reborn and die again and again as the book shows the different trajectories one life can take. She lives many lives, in many ways, with many people. When I started the book, I kept waiting for Ursula to die, wondering what would take her this time, and how long would it be until "darkness falls" once again.

Around page 250 I realized that I had stopped waiting for Ursula to die; that I was actively hoping she wouldn't die this time, even though I knew it was probably inevitable. Some of her life trajectories gut you, and others are the ones you hope will be the ones that stick. It made me think a lot about the choices in my life that have led me to where I am, what life would look like had I made different choices, or alternatively, what if circumstances outside of my control had led me to a different existence. Very interesting thinking material.

"Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald" by Therese Anne Fowler
I spoke to a friend about this one recently because she had just read a different biography of Zelda Fitzgerald. The mystery around her and her life with husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald is fascinating, and biographers can't seem to agree to the details to pin on her. Some say that she was crazy and drove Scott to drinking and ruined his life. Others say that Scott's drinking, infidelity and insecurities drove Zelda to the brink of insanity and ruined her life. After reading this book, I'm convinced that they both played a role in ruining each other. Very good book.

"The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared" by Jonas Jonasson
This one was fun. Allan Karlsson is about to celebrate his 100th birthday in the nursing home where he has been living for the past few months, and he decides he doesn't want to spend time with all these old people he doesn't like. He climbs out the window of his room and begins an adventure that has him making new friends and running from the law with a two-ton escaped circus elephant in tow. The chapters alternate between his current adventure, and his past experience as an explosives expert for some of the most prominent leaders of the 20th century. I loved its message that you don't have to give up on adventure just because you grow up.

"State of Wonder" by Ann Patchett
Review here.

"The Light Between Oceans" by M.L. Stedman
My book club expressed some disappointment in this one, but I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a beautiful, heartbreaking story. You can see the characters dooming themselves from the start, but you can't help but wish good things for them anyway. Tom lives with his wife, Isabel, on an island off the coast of Australia where he tends the lighthouse. They are the only two people on the island, and when a lifeboat washes ashore containing a dead man and a wailing infant, Tom and Isabel have to decide whether to keep the child or find out where it came from.

"Unbearable Lightness" by Portia de Rossi
Review here.

"Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline
This YA-esque novel is probably not for everyone, but I found it really interesting. The world has fallen into such disrepair that everyone lives, works, plays and goes to school via avatar in a computer world, OASIS. The main character, a teenager named Wade, has long used OASIS as a means of escaping from his abusive family and the poverty that surrounds him. When the billionaire creater of OASIS suddenly dies, he states in his will that his entire fortune is to be left to the first person who can find and solve three keys that are hidden in the fantasy world. But finding these keys will be dangerous, as there are people who are willing to kill not only avatars, but the people behind them, in order to take control of the fortune and software for themselves.

"Where'd You Go Bernadette" by Maria Semple
After reading this, I really wanted to go to Antarctica. Middle-schooler Bee has been promised a trip to the southernmost continent after receiving good grades, but her agoraphobic mother, Bernadette, feels anxious about the impending trip. With the help of a virtual assistant in another country, Bernadette acquires the necessary clothing and documents for the trip, and then disappears before they are scheduled to leave. Bee makes it her mission to find out where her mom has run off to, even if she has to cross Antarctica alone.

"Rules of Civility" by Amor Towles
Review here.

"By Blood" by Ellen Ullman
I read this near the beginning of the year and am still recommending it to everyone. A professor has lost his job at the university where he teaches, so he rents an office to work on his research in the hopes of getting his job back. The office next door to him houses a therapist, and when the therapist's sound machine is turned off, the professor can hear patients' conversations through the walls. Week after week, he sits in silence during the sessions of one particular patient — an adopted, lesbian Jewess who is struggling with whether or not she should find her birth family and learn about her past — and he comes to think of her as his patient and attempts to aid her in her self-discovery. Creepy, and a really good story.

What were your favorite books this year?

To see what else I'm reading, check out the Recently Read sidebar.

Bible Challenge: Complete

Matt and I used to be involved in a Bible study at church. We were the "young professionals," but some of us called ourselves the "young partiers." Because we're classy.

When we first joined the group, there were four other young couples that would join us each week. But eventually, those couples started having kids, or stopped attending church, until it was only us and one other couple. We had a few individuals join and a few individuals leave. We changed our name to the "20s/30s" group so it would be inclusive of those friends with kids. But still, there just weren't enough of us to meet every week. Over the summer, we officially let the group die with the hopes that one day we could start it up again.

I initially wanted to start this challenge because it had been entirely too long since I'd done any kind of real Bible reading. We would study a chapter here or there in Bible study, and we would cover verses in church, but it seems like the same books and the same chapters get covered over and over again, with little to no attention on some of the other books. The gospels get read a lot, what with the Christmas story and the Easter story. Paul's writings get read often, especially at weddings and when pastors want to remind everyone to be good, loving, faithful people. James gets read at least once a year to remind everyone that you have to DO good in addition to having great faith.

But when was the last time you read about the prophets Zephaniah or Habakkuk? (Our group did try to study Isaiah one time, before it was deemed "too boring" and was replaced by a different study.) There aren't really "takeaway" lessons you can pull from the chronology lists in Chronicles. You don't hear Revelations from the pulpit all that often (at least not at our current church, though I'm sure there are others that put more emphasis on it). I wanted the chance to (re)read those.

I've finished reading through the entire Bible during the course of this year. While I'm glad I chose to do it, I am relieved that I'm done. It's not an easy read — even with an easier translation, like the New International Version (NIV), which is what I used — and I've found myself feeling weary about reading in general, which is not like me at all.

But I think it was a good challenge to do, because every time I read the Bible, I learn new things. And every time I learn new things, I feel better equipped to stand up for my faith.

If you're at all interested in reading through the Bible, I would recommend YouVersion's reading plans. (You can read them on your phone or tablet, or on your computer screen, which is what I had to do when my old first-gen iPad wasn't compatible with the newer downloaded version of the app.) It made it easy to keep track of what I needed to be reading.

Are you going to set any reading goals in the new year?

September Wrap-Up

Where did September goooo?! It seems like it just started and now here we are and it's practically winter. Actually I take that back. It's still going to get up to 87 degrees today.

via Buzzfeed's 35 Texas Secrets to Having the Best Summer Ever. WHICH IS 100 PERCENT ACCURATE.

Going Vegetarian
The first week was a little challenging because I had already done my grocery shopping for the week, and had a luncheon meeting scheduled for which I hadn't requested a vegetarian meal. But I made it work. At lunch, I just pushed my piece of chicken to the side and ate the broccoli and pasta, and they served a yummy black bean and pico soup to start. We also went to visit my parents the first weekend, and thankfully they didn't have a problem with my decision — my dad simply made salmon for dinner, and since I am still eating seafood, that was fine with me. My mom doesn't eat red meat anyway, so it wasn't a big deal.

Matt also said he doesn't mind if I mainly cook vegetarian, so I don't have to worry about cooking different food for each of us. While he's not interested in being vegetarian/pescatarian himself, he can get meat when he goes out to lunch or attends school events. I think I might still try to make meat for him on occasion (or at least buy meat so he can make it for himself). We'll see.

I have an awful lot to say about this topic, so I think I'll write a follow-up post soon so this doesn't turn into one long rambling post about food. :)

Completed: Day 20 of 90. (That is, assuming I only keep it up for the three months required by my Life List.)

Reading Challenge: Read Through the Bible in a Year
Less than 100 days to go! Still reading. Still a bit ahead. My goodness I love reading ahead. I'm plodding through Isaiah right now. Before our young professionals Bible study went kaput, we tried to study Isaiah for a couple of weeks. Everyone basically thought it was too boring and decided to study something else. Honesty is the best policy.

Completed: Day 277 of 362

Food Challenge: Sample Every Flavor of Bluebell Ice Cream
Oof, I tried a lot of ice cream this month.

Bluebell released a new flavor — Chocolate Peanut Butter — which, of course, I tried immediately. Now, I normally love anything chocolate or peanut butter flavored, and when you put those things together, you get Reese's, which are omgnom. But I was kind of lukewarm about this flavor. It had an unusual coffee smell when I opened the carton, and kind of left a weird aftertaste. If you love chocolate and peanut butter like I love chocolate and peanut butter, Butter Crunch is better.

Just as I had mourned that no store would ever carry Krazy Kolors again, I found an ice cream place that had it. So I tried that too. It was basically just vanilla ice cream, except that it turns your mouth funny kolors. I can see why it's not that popular.

at Must Be Heaven in Downtown Bryan

HEB ran an offer that if you spent $20 in the frozen food section, you could get a $5 coupon off your next frozen food purchase, and since I don't normally buy a whole lot of frozen stuff (other than veggies and frozen waffles), I opted to put some of that money toward Blueberry Cheesecake ice cream. I thought it was better than the last cheesecake flavor I tried (Strawberry Cheesecake), but Matt didn't like it at all.

Finally, Matt bought some Coffee flavored ice cream. He had been waiting for this moment forever. I hated it. He got the whole half-gallon to himself, and keeps asking when we can buy more.

Completed: 52 out of 69 flavors

Other Adventures
I revamped some old sandals into faux-designer shoes. I shared the rules to the most confusing card game in the world. We finally attempted part two of our kolache journey. Matt told me no, I can't go running with the bulls. And I participated in Blogtember (see my thoughts on Girls, college and hand-me-down mattresses).

What adventures have you had this month?

Book Report: Instant Mom

I have never had a case of baby fever, much less baby rabies. I have never felt a longing to be pregnant, or to give birth. Occasionally, after a rough encounter with someone else's kid(s), I quip to Matt that we're never having children. Or I claim the stork is going to bring ours.

Even though I've never been all that excited about the idea of having children in the traditional manner, I will admit that I've always wanted to adopt. I don't know why, but for some reason I have always had this innate knowledge that, someday, I would adopt a child, regardless of whether or not we're capable of having kids the "old fashioned" way.

Family members have repeatedly tried to talk me out of this based on the assumption that adopted children are more likely to have emotional problems. But I think that the real problem is that we live in a kind of train-wreck, rubber-necking society, where we'd rather hear stories of social workers gone bad or adoptions gone wrong; children that have fallen through the cracks of society. Because those are more interesting than the stories of children who went to loving homes and grew up healthy and went to college and became regular ol' upstanding members of society.

That's one thing that I loved about reading "Instant Mom" by Nia Vardalos (yes, that's the woman who wrote and starred in My Big Fat Greek Wedding) — she acknowledged that this is true and instead chose to focus on the positive and the good things about the adoption and foster care systems in the United States.* I've never believed that those horror stories were the WHOLE story, so seeing the system through the eyes of people who have had a positive experience with foster-adoption was wholly refreshing.

via

After undergoing thirteen rounds of IVF unsuccessfully, Vardalos and her husband begin considering the adoption process. They say repeatedly that they are open to any gender, any ethnicity, any age, and they put themselves on the waiting list in several countries including the U.S. But while there is an appendix at the back of the book about ways to adopt children from various countries, the majority of the book was about the American foster-adoption (fos-adopt) system, and how they met the girl who would eventually, legally, become their daughter. And of course, the transition that followed.

I appreciated Vardalos' honesty that not everything was rainbows and butterflies following the placement of the almost-three-year-old toddler they adopted. Yes, their daughter acted out — trying to push the limits of what was acceptable, trying to get the new parents to prove that they weren't going to give her away. The book showed it was a long lesson in patience, but that it's a necessary process in which trust has to be built. And that once there is trust, adoptive relationships are just like any other family's parent-child dynamic.

This book was funny, heart-wrenching and easy to relate to. Whether or not you would ever consider adoption, whether or not you're struggling with your own fertility, whether or not you want to be a parent at all, I would recommend this book.

Anyone else considering non-traditional ways of becoming parents? Do you like celebrity memoirs?

*I've been reading adoption blogs for years, written by both parents of adopted children and those who have themselves been adopted. Some of them had positive experiences, some of them had negative experiences. Everyone is different. I like hearing ALL the stories, because I want to have a well-rounded view of what I would be likely to experience when we reach that point in time when we are ready to pursue parenthood. That time is not now.