February reading: Working Stiff

Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert
by Grant Stoddard
List Price: $13.95

Summary:

Grant Stoddard didn't know what to do with his life in America-until he won an X-rated online contest, the prize being intercourse with an infamous married sex columnist. He consequently wound up delivering mail at Nerve.com but accidentally found his calling as a gonzo sex reporter who would try any and every lurid activity his crafty coworkers devised-from offering himself up as man-bait at a hard-core gay bar to attending an elite orgy, to being a hapless participant in a sexual home invasion.


From The Critics:

Publishers Weekly:
Stoddard would probably balk at the suggestion that he has a "typically English" sense of humor, but whatever he'd choose to call it, his self-deprecating style and wonderful appreciation of the absurd serves him well, whether he's describing his highly unusual university flatmate (an octogenarian named Mrs. Montague) or a more recent stint as a terrified extra in a pornographic movie. If the book has a weakness it's in the pacing: toward the end the narrative threatens to stall, and an over-long description of Stoddard's failed attempt to woo a visiting French teenager falls flat.

Kirkus Reviews:
Although the meat of the book involves Stoddard's almost accidental hiring at the sex website Nerve.com at the height of the Internet boom-and his misadventures as the site's wacky columnist-his low-key writer's voice is better suited to the sad-sack persona he develops early on. Stoddard's descriptions of his increasingly edgy sex misadventures (bondage summer camp, public orgies, working out a closetful of kinks with an apparently endless stream of ready-and-willing New York girls) are enjoyable for their geek-out-of-geekdom charm. But the appeal here winds down as his career amps up. This odyssey of luck is often charmingly relayed. However, by the time the formerly mousy Brit findshimself in California shooting a pilot for VH1 and sleeping with teenagers, it all loses its luster.

My review:

This book reminds me of an old boyfriend: one awkward sexual scenario after another. After awhile you just get...bored...and tired...and maybe, on occasion, a little sore...

Stoddard has some interesting tales but overall I would skip it, save $14.00 and just read Stoddard' blog.

January Reading: Water for Elephants

By Sara Gruen
List Price:$16.29

Set in 1932, a veterinary student is put in charge of caring for a menagerie of animals in a second-rate circus during the Great Depression. He meets Marlena, the beautiful young star of the equestrian act, and Rosie, an untrainable elephant. He falls in love with one of them...


Review:

Publishers Weekly Review:
"With a showman's expert timing, [Gruen] saves a terrific revelation for the final pages, transforming a glimpse of Americana into an enchanting escapist fairy tale."

New York Times Book Review:

"Gruen has done her homework...lively with historical detail and unexpected turns....[A] delightful gem springing from a fascinating footnote to history that absolutely deserved to be mined."

Denver Post Review:

"One of the many pleasures of this novel is the opportunity to enter a bizarrely coded and private world with its own laws, superstitions and vocabulary....The pleasures of that world were so compelling, so detailed and vivid, that I couldn't bear to be torn away from it for a single minute."

My review:

First, let me share a reader review from another site:

"When I saw the reviews for this book I was tempted to read it but did not do so because I thought "I don't care about circus books!" But, I kept seeing it reviewed favorably and then a friend recommended it (we give each other tips on books so she knows my tastes) and I said "Ok, I'll try." WELL!!!! I am so glad I did. It is NOT a circus book."

WTF? There is a whole world of fiction called "circus books?" Are they in the Science Fiction or Romance?

I really liked this book. It is a fast read with emphathetic characters and a solid story line. Gruen took a lot of effort into researching this novel without making the book a belabored history lesson (a la Margaret George)--or a "circus book" for that matter.

January Reading: I'm Not the New Me

I'm Not the New Me: A Memoir
by Wendy McClure
List Price: $14.00

Summary:
Wendy McClure chronicles losing weight, or failing to lose weight, on her website, Pound. The best part: there are real life pictures of Weight Watchers recipes circa 1974--which she has compiled into another book "The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan: Classic Diet Recipe Cards from the 1970s." See mackerel pudding now at Candyboots.

Review:

Kirkus Reviews: "Bridget Jones-style endearing self-deprecation."

Jennifer Weiner, author of "Good in Bed": "A brave, bittersweet look at weight, loss, and elusive happy endings."

My review:

A story about a blogger who gets lucrative book deal--I like it!

Ever read a book, fall in love with the characters, finish the book and miss your new friends? (No--then why the fuck are you reading this website?) Now you can read a book without the fear of losing a friend at the end--you are just switching media!

Plus, I like this trend of books spun off of websites. They have an honest and sarcastic quality that you don't find in your standard memoir. (However, if you are currently curled up with any book by a presidential nominee, or any book that has the word "hope" in the title, you may want to skip this book.)

But if you find yourself so engaged in self-help, self-improvement, "self-love" (ahem...) projects that you no longer identify as yourself--instead as the new and improved self you just know you can and will *be* this book is for you. Not so that you--or even the future you--will change, but just so the two of you can laugh at this book together and have at least one thing in common.

January Reading: Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood

Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
by Koren Zailckas
List Price: $14.93

In January, I wanted to turn a new leaf and stop reading books that were so dark, so I picked up a memoir about how a young woman almost drinks herself to death...

Summary:

Twenty-four-year-old Koren Zailckas describes her experience binge drinking in high school and college.

Media Reviews:

From Publishers Weekly
This isn't just one girl's story of sneaking drinks in junior high, creeping out for night-long keg parties in high school and binge-drinking weeknights and weekends through college—it's also a valuable cautionary tale. At 24 (her present age), Zailckas gave up drinking after a decade of getting drunk, having blackouts and experiencing brushes with comas, date rape and suicide. She weaves disturbing statistics (from Harvard School of Public Heath studies and elsewhere) into her memoir.


From Booklist
Zailckas muses about the societal factors that contribute to the astonishing rise in women's drinking. Most unnerving, though, are her honest, detailed accounts of her own profound abuse, which was accepted, encouraged, and chillingly commonplace; thousands of young women share her story.

My review:

Rating: Most girls will have their first drink by age 12, and will have the experience of being drunk by 14; teenage girls drink as much as their male peers, but their bodies process it badly (they get drunk faster, stay drunk longer and are more likely to die of alcohol poisoning); and date rape and booze go hand-in-hand... Blah, Blah, Blah...

I thought this was a quick, amusing weekend read that brought me back to the college life I didn't have. (I missed out on the sororities, binge drinking, frat parties and the like... I spent undergrad being too socially awkward to go to parties... But I saw other girls go to those things, I "heard" about frat parties so it was like I went, Right? kinda? Sorta? No??)

Zalickas tells a relatable story about the awkwardness of becoming an adult--whether or not you were on a liquid diet while doing so--with some public health tidbits thrown in.

Let's just admit it: growing up is a series of awkward situations punctuated by mood swings and heavy petting. Some people choose to numb the pain with alcohol or drugs...some people find other ways to escape like hobbies, sports, or, let's say...reading... or the internet...pick your poison.

But reading about someone else's awkward situations from the comfort of your bedroom, decades after high school and college, that's some good reading!

January reading: The Memory Keeper's Daughter

The Memory Keeper's Daughter
by Kim Edwards
List Price: $14.00


I normally don't read books that would appeal to the "Everybody Loves Raymond" and the NBC Today's Book Club...but it was the first week in January, I was low on cash, so I had to hit my Book Reserve*.

Summary:

In 1964 in Lexington, Kentucky, Norah Henry delivers twins. The doctor and father of the children sees the baby girl has Down's syndrome. He instructs his nurse to dump her in an institution. The nurse disobeys and runs away to raise the baby herself. The father-doctor tells his wife that the little girl died. The book proceeds to follow the twins until they become adults. The moral here is: secrets are bad for families.

Media Reviews

Publisher's Weekly
"This neatly structured story is a little too moist with compassion."

Booklist - Carolyn Kubisz
"Unfolding the plot over the course of 25 years, Edwards tells a moving story of two families bound by a secret that both eats away at relationships and eventually helps to create new ones."

The Washington Post - Ron Charles
Some ominously saccharine moments indicate that Edwards can slip into the treacly trade -- "The love was within her all the time, and its only renewal came from giving it away" -- but these gaffes are relatively infrequent, especially considering the presence of a handicapped character, who would, in less disciplined hands, be used to generate a waterfall of sentimental tears.

My review:
Rating: ehhh....

This book was ooookkkkaaayyy--especially since I did not pay for it. The prose was simple and thoughtful but the story line was, well, trite. (The tied-up-in-a-bow ending was hackneyed and predictable.) But having seen daytime tv and a few too many Lifetime for Women movies, I can see why this book has had considerable market success. For me, I prefer it when authors don't BEAT ME OVER THE HEAD with some moral for me to learn. (I don't read to become a better person. I read to escape--get it, people!)

*Laura's Book Reserve consists of books that I somehow managed to get for free but are not appealing to me but so I keep them as a secret stash in case of an emergency when I don't have access to (or the cash to buy) a book I would prefer to read.