The second to last post of the year is here! I've got a whole raft of new books to read, which I will talk about in my final post of the year 4 days from now. Meanwhile, here's what I've read so far, along with some interesting tidbits.
This sounds like a fascinating show that I'd really like to see on a streaming service like Netflix.
TV: The Magical Reality of Nadia
Political satirist/comedian Bassem Youssef is teaming with Powerhouse Animation Studios to adapt his forthcoming book, The Magical Reality of Nadia http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46874912, as a television series. Deadline reported that the book, written by Youssef and Catherine R. Daly with illustrations by Douglas Holgate (The Last Kids on Earth), "is inspired by Bassem's own experience and his hopes and dreams for his children." Scholastic will publish the first book in the series in February 2021. Youssef will serve as executive producer and voice the character of Titi in the series. Brad Graeber and Daniel Dominguez will also exec produce the project, which will initially be shopped to streaming services.
This is a book that is on a list of my reading choices for 2021. I am always interested in stories with a strong female protagonist who doesn't turn into an idiot the moment that a man arrives on the scene.
How to Fail at Flirting: A Novel http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46874921 by Denise Williams (Berkley, $16, 9780593101902). "A sweet romance about a professor who decides to take a chance when she finds herself out at a bar by herself seated next to an attractive man in town on business. Naya never would have imagined that their one-night stand would turn into a week-long fling with the potential for even more. And because of her toxic past relationships, she is hesitant to trust Jake. I loved reading about a professor as a romance leading lady!" --Kate Storhoff, Bookmarks, Winston-Salem, N.C.
Confessions of a Curious Bookseller by Elizabeth Green is an ebook that I managed to get for free from Amazon due to a low-price to free ebook newsletter that I signed up for in 2018, and haven't used nearly often enough. Anyway, this book, with a funny cat loving proprietor of a bookstore owner, sounded right up my alley, so I grabbed the free copy for my old Kindle ASAP. I was surprised to discover that most of the book is read through blog posts, emails, twitter feeds and letters, rather than actual prose-filled chapters. This makes the book easy to read and its plot flies along so fast that you might have to go back to a previous post if you missed an important piece of information. The fact that the middle aged proprietor of the store is portrayed as a nutty liar who creates a completely different life in her head and tells her family and the public these fantasies is all the more reason to pay close attention to what is being said, lest you get fantasy and reality mixed up, as the protagonist does. Here's the blurb:
A heartening and uproariously funny novel of high hopes, bad choices, book love, and one woman’s best—and worst—intentions.
Without question, Fawn Birchill knows that her used bookstore is the heart of West Philadelphia, a cornerstone of culture for a community that, for the past twenty years, has found the quirkiness absolutely charming. When an amicable young indie bookseller invades her block, Fawn is convinced that his cushy couches, impressive selection, coffee bar, and knowledgeable staff are a neighborhood blight. Misguided yet blindly resilient, Fawn readies for battle.
But as she wages her war, Fawn is forced to reflect on a few unavoidable truths: the tribulations of online dating, a strained relationship with her family, and a devoted if not always law-abiding intern—not to mention what to do about a pen pal with whom she hasn’t been entirely honest and the litany of repairs her aging store requires.
Through emails, journal entries, combative online reviews, texts, and tweets, Fawn plans her next move. Now it’s time for her to dig deep and use every trick at her disposal if she’s to reclaim her beloved business—and her life.
While I realize that we're supposed to love goofy Fawn and her cooked up lies and backstabbing and drunken texting, I didn't find her charming at all. She has no idea how to manage money, she constantly claims to be dating or enamored with men she encounters who are married or want nothing to do with her (and rightly so, she's a train wreak and flatters herself that she looks like Kiera Knightly, when it's obvious that she doesn't) she is delusional about her aged cat and the condition of her smelly, run down and flooded bookstore that contains few undamaged books, and she constantly sends her poor staff members to do things to the neighboring bookstore that are illegal if not immoral, all while claiming it to be the other bookstore manager's fault, when he does nothing to warrant her ire, constantly trying to be professional and nice in the face of her absurd attacks. Fawn even sells all of her dementia-addled renter's furnishings and household plants and other items to keep her bookstore afloat, all without actually getting "Janes" consent. She loathes her family, especially the father who treated her badly during her childhood, and she refuses to let go of her animosity toward him or her mother and sister, even after her mother apologizes. Honestly, I found Fawn to be a weak and cruel person who turned out much like her horrible father in the end. So I'd give this supposedly funny book (I didn't really find it amusing at all) a C-, and only recommend it to people who enjoy petty immature protagonists who need therapy and a trip to AA.
Instant Karma by Marissa Meyer is a YA romance that is fairly well written and has some odd magical powers thrown in that are never really acknowledged to be real. Anyway, here's the blurb: In New York Times bestselling author Marissa Meyer's young
adult contemporary romance, a girl is suddenly gifted with the ability
to cast instant karma on those around her – both good and bad.
Chronic
overachiever Prudence Barnett is always quick to cast judgment on the
lazy, rude, and arrogant residents of her coastal town. Her dreams of
karmic justice are fulfilled when, after a night out with her friends,
she wakes up with the sudden ability to cast instant karma on those
around her.
Pru giddily makes use of the power, punishing
everyone from public vandals to mean gossips, but there is one person on
whom her powers consistently backfire: Quint Erickson, her slacker of a
lab partner. Quint is annoyingly cute and impressively noble,
especially when it comes to his work with the rescue center for local
sea animals.
When Pru resigns herself to working at the rescue
center for extra credit, she begins to uncover truths about baby otters,
environmental upheaval, and romantic crossed signals―not necessarily in
that order. Her newfound karmic insights reveal how thin the line is
between virtue and vanity, generosity and greed . . . love and hate… and
fate.
The prose in this novel was clean and crisp, and moved along the nicely paced plot quite well. My problem with the book was the trope that pervades many YA romances, that the young woman, no matter how competent, isn't complete as a person until she meets and falls in love with the male protagonist, no matter how much of a slacker or a creep or cretin he may be. Somehow, the authors seem to say, without a guy to acknowledge you as being beautiful and smart, you just don't exist in the world, and there is no place for you as female without a male. Quint is a jerk to Pru, and treats her terribly, but because she's smart and talented and has her sh*t together when it comes to management and business, she is seen as "uptight" and unlovable and unattractive. Those same attributes are all seen as huge positives when associated with men or boys. Even her teacher downgrades her for not being able to "get along" with Quint, though he doesn't have half her acumen or focus when it comes to a school project. Meyer could easily have routed the sexism in this book and made Quint own up to being such a slacker, but he gets a free pass in the end, as do most all young men in YA romances (or adult romances, for that matter). Ugh. Anyway, though I enjoyed much of the book because I liked Pru and her use of her instant karma powers, I was disappointed by the sexism that pervaded the novel, and I'd give it a B-. I would recommend it to those who are interested in an opposites attract kind of YA romance.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig is a rather philosophical novel about what makes a life worth living. Here's the blurb: "Between life and death there is a library, and within that library,
the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another
life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made
other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had
the chance to undo your regrets?"
A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time.
Somewhere
out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an
infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One
tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the
other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at
any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have
been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for
yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
In The Midnight Library,
Matt Haig's enchanting new novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with
this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new
one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her
dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she
travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling
in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
I enjoyed Nora's journey in this semi-paranormal novel, and I could understand her despair at how her life had turned out, and her need to find out what life would have been like if she'd made different or 'better' choices along the way. I think everyone wonders what their life would be like if they had become rich and famous, for example. Or if they'd have become a star athlete, or married their first love and had a family. Nora gets the chance we all crave to be able to go back and live those lives, and for a short time, wonder if she wants to remain in that life and eschew all her other selves. Nora gets stuck, however, when she discovers in each life that someone close to her, albeit her father, her mother, her brother or a friend are either non existent or dead in that life, so no one life is "perfect." There's always a sacrifice. You cannot escape the pain of loss, nor the price that one pays for fame and fortune, or a career as an Olympic athlete, or even being a successful wife and mother. There are always trade offs. When Nora finally realizes this, she goes back to her original life to try and work within it to make it a better life, realizing at last that the power is in her own hands to make her life worth living. This novel is well written, with strong prose and a beautifully-paced plot that doesn't suffer when the reader wants to stop and contemplate their own life choices. I'd give it an A, and recommend it to anyone who feels like their life is not worth living. This book will give you something to think about, not the least of which being that suicide is a poor solution to problems that can be worked out, with a bit of help and imagination. Don't give up...you never know what may be right around the corner.
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