Nerdgasm Vol. 1: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood February 9, 2010

I must admit it, I’ve long been afraid to unleash my inner dork as fully as possible here on the blog. Perhaps to give myself some reassurance that I am not, in fact, a complete and total nerd. However, it’s been too hard a fight and I just can’t do it anymore. So I hereby proclaim for all the here: I AM A NERD. A DORK. A GEEK. It happens. Previously to this past week or so, though, my nerd-dom was mostly literary, or at least of a certain variety: Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings/comic books kind of nerdy. But, thanks to the appearance of a new friend, hereby named GingerBoy due to a very large mass of very bright red hair, I’ve gotten hooked on a number of anime series. This is shocking for two main reasons:

1.) I do not watch anime and;

2.) I DO NOT WATCH ANIME!!!

However, it seems that this may no longer be the case, as this weeks Nerdgasm (and my recent obsession of the past few weeks) is the anime series Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, which is not technically the ‘original’ Fullmetal Alchemist but is, according to GingerBoy, the far superior series.

I usually don’t do this, but the plot of this series is one of those that can get easily muddled if not explain right, so I’m cribbing this straight of wikipedia:

“Edward and Alphonse Elric are two alchemist brothers searching for the legendary Philosopher’s Stone, a powerful object which would allow them to recover their bodies (which were lost in an attempt to bring their mother back to life through alchemy). Born in the village of Resembool from the country of Amestris (アメストリス, Amesutorisu^?), the two brothers live there with their parents. Their father, Hohenheim, leaves home for unknown reasons and years later, their mother, Trisha Elric, dies of a terminal illness leaving the Elric brothers alone. After their mother’s death, Edward becomes determined to bring her back through the use of alchemy, an advanced science in which objects can be created from raw materials. They research Human Transmutation, a forbidden art in which one attempts to create or modify a human being. However, this attempt fails, ultimately resulting in the loss of Edward’s left leg and Alphonse’s entire body. In a desperate effort to save his brother, Edward sacrifices his right arm to affix Alphonse’s soul to a suit of armor. Some days later, an alchemist named Roy Mustang visits the Elric brothers, and he tells Edward to become a member of the State Military of the country to find a way to recover their bodies. After that, Edward’s left leg and right arm are replaced with automail, a type of advanced prosthetic limb, created for him by his close family friends Winry Rockbell and her grandmother Pinako.

Edward sets out to become a State Alchemist (国家錬金術師, Kokka Renkinjutsushi^?), an alchemist employed by the State Military of Amestris, which infamously annihilated most of the Ishbalan race (Ishbal) in the past decade. Becoming a State Alchemist enables Edward to use the extensive resources available to State Alchemists, but it also turns him into what they call a “dog of the military”. His more friendly relationship with Roy Mustang however, whom he reports to and who recruited him, allows the brothers freedom to search for the Philosopher’s Stone as part of Edward’s research, as each State Alchemist is expected to independently research new things which may be of a use to the State Military of Amestris. The brothers set off in search of the Philosopher’s Stone as a means to restore their bodies. Throughout their journey, they meet many antagonists, including those who are willing to do anything to obtain the Philosopher’s Stone; Scar, one of the few surviving Ishbalans, who seeks vengeance on the State Alchemists for the destruction of his race; and the homunculi, a group of human-like creatures who carry pieces of the Philosopher’s Stone inside themselves, and from it derive the ability to survive almost any harm. As the story progresses, Edward and Alphonse discover the vast expansion of Amestris was the result of the homunculi, who created and secretly control the State Military. The homunculi and much of the high-ranking military officers are commanded from behind the curtains by the creator of the homunculi, a man simply known as “Father” who gained immortality by using a copy of Hohenheim as his new body centuries before the series’ timeline. He plans to use Amestris as a gigantic transmutation circle, possibly to transmute the entire country into the Philosopher’s Stone. When Edward and Alphonse discover Father’s plans, they, along with other members of the State Military, set out to defeat him.

There are 43 episodes of the show online now, with more on the way (I’m all caught up and now have to wait, painfully, for the episodes to be aired weekly – DAMN YOU, MARATHONS!) and while the full knowledge of this show definitely lends itself to the dorky nature of myself, there are also some really intense questions that can arise from the show: what would you give up to get back the people you’ve loved and lost?” “Just how important is family?” “What are the boundaries between mind, body, and soul? Between intentions and actions?” Not to mention the Ishbalan extermination calls to mind a number of other political atrocities – everything from the Serbian/Bosnia conflict to the recent skirmishes arising from America’s current involvement in Iraq. I also find the concept of alchemy to be incredly enchanting – it’s basically magic based in science – as well as the idea of equal exchange – that for each favor asked, something of greater value must be exchanged.

My favorite/the most disturbing episode to date is the one in which a State Alchemist has come to his annual review, and must prove that his experiments (in this case, as an alchemist his goal is to work with transmutation and the creation of creatures out of other creatures) to produce a chimera (any mythology fans out there?!) that understands human language, or he risks loosing his State Alchemist position – and with it, the financial and social prestige and protection that comes with that. Faced with the pressure, he transmutes his young daughter and his dog together, essentially making a talking dog that is doomed to live as a mutant hybrid creature. This is made even more disturbing because this torture was enacted upon this poor girl by her father. It’s hard to explain just how disturbing this is (you can watch the episode here, if you’d like a real idea) but it raises a number of REALLY uncomfortable questions when you realize that his horrible behavior and the actions of the main characters may not be so far apart.

I’m reserving my complete thoughts until the show has reached it’s end (DREAD THE DAY!!!) and I’m begging any other Fullmetal fans out there to come out of the woodwork so I can have SOMEONE other than GingerBoy to discuss it with (my friends mock me mercilessly, which I don’t blame them for, see numbers 1 and 2 above for historical precedent)! And there you have it, folks, my incredibly, overly verbose rantings on this week’s Nerdgasm! Happy reading (or watching, hopefully!)

Review: A Walk to Remember February 8, 2010

Nicholas Sparks, I will admit, is a purely guilty pleasure author for me. That isn’t to impute on his skill or on those who fully admire his work, but for me his books have always been more about escapist fluff than serious literature. Which explains, I think, why I picked up this slim little volume when I was trying so desperately to pull myself out of my reading slump. To be honest, it was a fully selfish choice – with dozens and dozens of books peering at me threateningly from the TBR shelf, I just wanted to curl into the book equivalent of the fetal position and read something I know wouldn’t really make me think, wouldn’t take too long to read (nothing gets you out of a slump better than the feeling of accomplishment of finishing a book!) and would take me down an emotional path I knew how to walk (I always cry, but I always know when I’m going to cry, so it’s beauty in the predictibility!)

A Walk to Remember, for the few of you who have managed to avoid either the book or the movie, is about a young man, Landon Carter, who falls in love at 17 with the preacher’s daughter, Jamie Sullivan. It’s late 1950’s Beaufort, South Carolina, and Landon is taught things about himself that he never anticipated when he realizes that he loves Jamie – an innocent, homely, kind and unfailingly Christian girl who he’s known his entire life but never really seen. Now, I have some issues with how heavy-handed the Christian aspects of this story can get, but, overall, it also played into the things I love most about the story – it’s a story of a boy with no faith learning how to have faith in something, which I think is a lesson that we all could learn just a bit more. **SPOILER** When he learns that Jamie has leukemia, he realizes that it’s time for him to own his own life and to be the person that so many around him see him to be. Her death is saddening, to be sure, but it’s also full of hope and the promise, for Landon, of a future better than it would have been otherwise. **END SPOILER**

I also love that this love story is almost an anti-love story, at least an anti-cliche love story. Landon falls in love with Jamie slowly, almost imperceptibly – he helps her out with the school play because he feels sorry for her, goes with her to help the orphans she volunteers with because he has a car, helps pick up the cans she puts out to collect money because he doesn’t know how to say no. And then, at the end of the day, he realizes that underneath all of his guilt and his “I just couldn’t say no”-ness, that it’s more than that. He’s fallen in love. The thing I love most about this is just how true to life it can be. Love isn’t always about grand moments of forehead-slapping revelation. I like to think that we’re in love with everyone from the beginning, and sometimes it’s just a matter of all the right incidents lining up. Kismet, if you will.

Now, if you can believe it, the movie version of A Walk to Remember is a rare exception to “the book is always better than the movie” rule, because I actually like this version (starring Mandy Moore and Shane West, directed by Adam Shankman) better than the book. In the movie, I think Jamie is given a bit more permission to be a teenager – she’s still pious and still has faith, but she’s not quite as ‘holier than thou’ as the Jamie in the book, and she has moments of crises of faith. In addition, I will say this only once – HOW DAMN CUTE IS SHANE WEST, FOR REAL?! It may be shallow, but damn if that wasn’t the thing that kept me running back to the theater and dropping all of my allowance money when this one hit the theaters.

I also liked the movie a bit more because the ending was a little less…intense than the ending of the book. In the book, because of Jamie’s disease, she gets to be incredibly sick and incredibly frail, to the point that even physical descriptions of her call to mind the pallor of illness and inevitable death. It’s part of what makes things so sad. But in the movie, while Jamie does make progressions to illness, she avoids things like wheelchairs and 24/7 nurse care (there is one particular scene in the book where Jamie is described as being fed through a tube which, thank God, was left out of the movie because, let’s be honest, it’s kind of creepy) and manages to be sick with dignity. While not true to the book, I felt that it gave the story the chance to focus on what really matters: not that Jamie is sick (although this is important!) but that Jamie’s sickness and, more importantly, life, has this huge effect on Landon.

All in all, while I knew both well enough to know that I liked the movie better, you just can’t be a wonderful Nicholas Sparks book to make you feel a bit better in the bookish soul! This one will go towards the Read the Book, See the Movie challenge, and I think I’m going to really, really enjoy getting to do more comparison reviews! Upcoming? “Nerdgasm: Vol. 1″, “Word Wanderlust: Vol. 1″ and a review of The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Happy reading!

TSS: A Brief Repose February 7, 2010

Hello all! This Sunday brings, yet again, even more snow (although the snow here is in no way as bad as they’re getting it out East, or so my friends who live in DC tell me!) and the chance to catch my breath, grab some tea, and revisit my long-neglected, sad little blog. I wish I could say I had some kind of excuse for not posting these past weeks, but I really can’t – the semester picked up, I found a few new hobbies (which will be explicated upon in detail in a later feature I’m starting called “Nerdgasm”, in which I will talk about all my non-bookish related obsessions) and the blog unfortunately fell by the wayside.

But never fear! I’m planning on introducing two new segments to the blog (in addition to “Nerdgasm”, I’m also planning on coming up with a “Word Wanderlust” series in which I’ll discuss poets, poems, and poetic miscellanea which I can never really seem to find a way to talk about!)  and I’m confident that I’ve finally found that lovely balancing point that must be discovered each semester in which both class reading and fun reading find their home in my schedule! I wish that I had more to talk about on this lovely Sunday (the first in a while, actually, that I haven’t had filled with  coffee dates, meetings with faculty, study groups and editing sessions) but I don’t! In the upcoming week I can *hopefully* promise the first two installments of “Nerdgasm” and “Word Wanderlust” in addition to a review for the “Read the Book, See the Movie” challenge, a review of Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree and maybe even the admittance of a book failure. And, if you’re really lucky, maybe even an update on the BookMaven’s love life! Happy reading!

Review: A Single Man January 22, 2010

You’ll have to forgive the scatterdness of this post – I’m writing from work and thus I’m writing on the book mostly from memory. But what fond memories they are!

A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood’s novella, focuses on a day in the life of George, a slightly-more-than-middle-aged English professor at a California University who, from the first page, is mourning the recent and sudden death of his lover, Jim. George gets ready for work, goes about his day, and can’t keep himself from alternately enjoying so much of the beauty he sees around him (there is quite a beautiful description of two men playing tennis who George turns into Demigods) and being distraught over the loss of Jim. One of the few things that brings him out of his constant mental monologue is the interactions with his students – especially a young man named Kenny, who George runs into at a seaside bar later that night. After having increasingly-drunken conversations with Kenny, and recklessly taking a naked swim in the ocean with the young student, George and Kenny return to George’s house, where George promptly passes out without committing any heinously inappropriate actions. In the morning, Kenny is gone. The novel’s end is surprisingly sweet concerning the content, and it makes the last ten-ish pages some of the most beautiful in the novel.

I think one of the things I liked most about the book was that, despite the fact that it’s entire book about a single day, nothing felt tedious or drawn out. Isherwood was able to explore the deeper levels of George’s internal character by contrasting glimpses of his life with Jim (having animals, enjoying the cosy house) with the life he is currently living (no more animals, depressed in a cramped house) and by allowing him to briefly – and, of course, in code – discuss his more sexual side with Kenny. The two never engage in any direct sexual action, but George is able to work out some of his more conflicted internal feelings by discussing them in metaphor with Kenny. I also loved the relationship between George and his neighbor Charley, a fellow Englishwoman who, at some point in time earlier in the future, also had a relationship with Jim.

These three character form a kind of make-shift family that I can sympathize with enormously, seeing as how my best friend and his boyfriend are two of the most important people in my life. But the thing about George and Charly is that both of them seem to want something different than what they have, but neither can identify it or take steps to achieve it. For Charley, this means wanting desperately to return to England but knowing that this will never happen. For George, it simply means a longing that can’t be satisfied now that Jim is gone. But there is something achingly poetic about the two of them together, because as much as they love each other, they’re not necessarily good for each other.

The end of the book is, perhaps, my favorite part – although that always sounds like such an awful thing to say! Without giving spoilers, it’s a little difficult to talk about and, thus, SPOILER ALERTS! STOP READING RIGHT NOW IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW! YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!!! George’s death at the end of the novel seems to be the most fitting ending possible, especially because throughout the book you get the sense that George isn’t really even living his life anymore. He’s just…going through the motions, without aim and without much drive. That isn’t to say that he’s not happy in his life. More just that he’s not actively involved. The last dozen pages outline a hypothetical reality – “suppose if, after Jim died, a slow and subtle blockage began to form…” (that’s not a direct quote, but you get the idea!) and, essentially, it outlines the physical occurrences of having a heart attack. George’s ending is poetic and final, but it’s fitting. END SPOILER ALERT!! YOU MAY NOW COMMENCE READING!

All in all, I wouldn’t say it was the best book I ever read, but it definately had it’s shining moments. As soon as I get my copy back I’ll have passages to elaborate on, but for the most part I was just kind of lukewarm about the book. It’s another one to add to the list for the M/M Romance Challenge, and, if nothing else, the read was short! Coming up sometime this week? Another round of the OOTM (Obsession of the Month, a spotlight I haven’t done in FOREVER) and a review of the Rainbow Boys series by Alex Sanchez! Happy Reading!

Review: Giovanni’s Room January 18, 2010

What is there to say about Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin? I still can’t get rid of that heavy feeling in the bottom of my stomach that means that I’ve read a book that has changed me in some way. All books have their effect, but not all are life changing. I’m not sure what change has occurred, but I know that some change has, and it came from this small but overwhelmingly powerful book.

That said, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t have any problems with the book, which tells the story of David, a young man who is visiting Paris one year while his fiancee is travelling around Spain. There, David meets and falls in love with Giovanni, the waiter at a nearby gay bar. The only problem is, David doesn’t know how to be in love with Giovanni. He believes homosexuality to be wrong, and, even more than that, can’t admit to himself that this is what he is. It causes a lot of pain in David, and even more pain in Giovanni because, as David tries to figure out these issues of the heart, he continues to live with Giovanni and string him along. From my reading journal as I was reading along:

Does our hatred of David keep us from loving and trusting him as a narrator? Never in my life have I hated anyone as much as David when he promises Giovanni to stay forever (p. 105) and then so deliberately and hurtfully pretends to have no feelings towards him whatsoever (p. 123). But does this hate cause us to sympathize with his predicament (and, by doing so admit that we, too, are capable of such hateful disregard) or is it too much – causing us to dissociate from David (and by doing so, tell ourselves that we are above such petty actions)?

As you can see, I had a lot of issues with David. Not because he isn’t comfortable with his sexuality, or is having trouble accepting himself for what and who he is – these things I understand and pity in him. But because, in his search to answer these questions, he manages to do severe and deliberate harm to Giovanni, a man who wanted nothing but to love and be loved by David. The story transcends sexuality boundaries and speaks to the frightening, powerful, violent nature of love as an entity. Baldwin treats the subject with not only tact, but with beauty and grace and the kind of writing that every young writer looking for honesty should try and internalize. This was my first Baldwin, but I can guarantee that it won’t be the last.

Favorite passages:

“‘I don’t believe in this nonsense about time. Time is just common, it’s like water for a fish. Everybody’s in this water, nobody gets out of it, or if he does the same thing happens to him that happens to the fish, he dies. And you know what happens in this water, time? The big fish eat the little fish. That’s all. The big fish eat the little fish and the ocean doesn’t care’” (37).

“Until I die there will be those moments, moments seeming to rise up out of the ground like Macbeth’s witches, when his face will come before me, the face in all it’s changes, when the exact timbre of his voice and tricks of his sppec with nearly burst my ears, when his smell will overpower my nostrils. Sometimes, in the days which are coming – God grant me the grace to live them: in the glare of the grey morning, sour-mouthed, eyelids raw and red, hair tangled and damp from my stormy sleep, facing, over coffee and cigarette smoke, last night’s impenetrable, meaningless boy who will shortly rise and vanish like smoke, I will see Giovanni again, as he was that night, so vivid, so winning, all of the light of that gloomy tunnel trapped around his head” (45).

“‘Love him,’ said Jacques, with vehemence, ‘love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? And how long, at the best, can it last, since you are both men and still have everywhere to go? Only five minutes, I assure you, only five minutes, and most of that, helas! in the dark” (57).

“I ached abruptly, intolerably, with a longing to go home; not to that hotel, in one of the alleys of Paris, where the concierge barred the way with my unpaid bill; but home, home across the ocean, to things and people I knew and understood; to those things, those places, those people which I would always helplessly, and in whatever bitterness of spirit, love above all else. I had never realized such a sentiment in myself before, and it frightened me. I saw myself, sharply, as a wanderer, an adventurer, rocking through the world, unanchored. I looked at Giovanni’s face, which did not help me. He belonged to this strange city, which did not belong to me. I began to see that, while what was happening to me was not so starge as it would have comforted me to believe, yet it was strange beyond belief” (62).

“‘What are you doing all the time? And why do you say nothing? You are evil, you know, and sometimes when you smiled at me I hated you. I wanted to strike you. I wanted to make you bleed. You smiled at me the way you smiled at everyone, you told me what you told everyone – and you tell nothing but lies. What are you always hiding? And do you think I did not know when you made love to me, you were making love to no one? No one! Or everyone – but not me certainly. I am nothing to you, nothing, and you bring me fever but no delight” (130).

“‘You do not,’ cried Giovanni, sitting up, ‘love anyone! You never have loved anyone, I am sure you never will! You love your purity, you love your mirror – you are just like a little virgin, you walk around with your hands in front of you as though you had some precious metal, gold, silver…down there between your legs! You will never give it to anybody, you will never let anybody touch it…you want to be clean…You want to leave Giovanni because he makes you stink. You want to despise Giovanni because he is not afraid of the stink of love. You want to kill him in the name of all your lying little moralities” (134).

TSS: Review: Ex Libris January 17, 2010

Ah, another Sunday! This week has been relatively low-key, considering we started the spring semester. I imagine that pretty much all of this has to do with the fact that I’m only actually IN a classroom on Tuesdays on Thursdays, and the homework level hasn’t hit critical mass, so my many hours of desk work have been able to lend themselves to repeated checking of the NY Times for updates on Haiti and marking up the wonderful books I’ve had the chance to work through lately! Today, as almost all Sundays, has been devoted to catching up on all the school reading I elected to NOT do on Saturday because, lets face it, homework and Saturdays just shouldn’t mix. At least, not if I have any hope of retaining any future sanity. This week has also been wonderful because it involved a rather intense (and embarrassing!) trip to the library where I took home the over TWENTY books I’d put on reserve. I doubt I’ll have time to read them all before the due date, but I love having a whole pile in the house to choose from. As if I didn’t already.

The first book I finished this week (which I, in all honesty, finished on Wednesday night and then had to put aside for digestion until today) was Anne Faidman’s Ex Libris, an absolutely wonderful book that I know by now most of you have read! This collection of essays focuses on a number of yummy, bookish things – everything from enjoying sesquipedalians (that’s “big words” for all of you not in the know!) to what is proper when it comes to the physical handling of books. That was probably the essay I enjoyed the most, the one entitled “Never Do That To a Book” which is all about whether or not it is ever okay to crack a spine, dog-ear a page, write in the margins, or whether all books deserve to be preserved in as pristine condition as they are. As far as I’m concerned, books were made to be read, and, even more than that, books were meant to become friends. And what friendship is ever kept in pristine condition? Without scratches, dents, markings, and the wonderful writing that is memory between two people (or, in this case, between person and book). I’ve long been a fan of the dog-ear, even more so than most people because I will dog-ear the top of a page to mark my place and will dog-ear the bottom of a page to keep track of passages I long to go back to later. Which often, I’m afraid, give my books a rather unbalanced quality of being thicker at the bottom than at the top. But I love doing it – it makes my books mine.

The other essay I enjoyed immensely (more-so than the rest of the book, which I loved dearly as a whole) was the one entitled “My Ancestral Castles”, which spoke of how important books are to have around the house for children to play with, crawl on, chew on, and come to love. This is how my house was. My mother has always been a reader (my father is a bigger fan of Time and Newsweek or newspapers as opposed to books) and my house was full of books when I was growing up. I used to take the books of Mark Twain and Charles Dickens (both of whom we have the complete ouvere of) down off the shelf and build buildings for my dolls. When my stuffed animals and I had school, they would sit on the words of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, and Tom Robbins. And I know (as much as one can without the power of time travel) that, had I not had these physical volumes to play with as I saw fit, I wouldn’t love books quite as much as I do. I would still love them, but an inherent quality would be missing. And it’s this same kind of love that Faidman translates through her wonderfully well-written essays.

Favorite passages:

“Books wrote our life story, and as they accumulated on our shelves (and on our windowsills, and underneath our sofa, and on top of our refrigerator), they became chapters in it themselves” (xi).

“It has long been my belief that everyone’s library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection, reveals a good deal about it’s owner” (21).

“To us, a book’s words were holy, but the paper, cloth, cardboard, glue, thread, and ink that contained them were a mere vessel, and it was no sacrilege to treat them as wantonly as desire and pragmatism dictated. Hard use was a sign not of disrespect but of intimacy” (38).

“‘I had repaired to the King’s Arms, the pup closest to the Bodleian Library, with a fellow student, a dashing but bullheaded young Scotsman who proclaimed over coffee that Homer was vastly inferior to Virgil. As a Homeric partisan, I was much miffed, even though, as the conversation progressed, I had to confess that I had ever actually read Virgil. ‘If you think Virgil is so great,’ said I, the brash American, ‘why don’t you give me a copy?’ Soon thereafter, a blue volume arrived on my doorstep, inscribed on the flyleaf with thirteen lines of Latin dactylic hexameter – Virgil’s preferred meter.’…’So what happened?’ I asked Maude, who now teaches classics at Stanford. ‘I never slept with the boy,’ she said. ‘But I fell for Virgil, and I’ve slept wit the book many times’ (61).

“When he read Livy at Thrasymenus – in Latin, of course – Macaulay achieved a kind of Double Word score recognized by anyone who has ever read Wordsworth at Grasmere, Gibbon in Rome, or Thoreau at Walden” (64).

I also was thrilled to finish Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin this week, although I’ll leave off a review of that until a later time – this post is long enough as it is! This week on the reading pile? The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by the Pulitzer-prize winning author Thomas Friedman and A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood. Happy reading!

Review: Boy Meets Boy January 12, 2010

Hello all! Sorry about the brief hiatus – I moved back to my home-sweet-school apartment and was hit with a bout of nesting that led to freshly vacuumed carpet, a mopped kitchen floor, hung picture frames, and no time for blogging! But it’s alright – I wanted to make sure and give this book time to sit anyway.

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan is EXACTLY the kind of book that I would have wet myself over in high school. And I didn’t enjoy it any less now than I would have then, even if my sense of the “realities of love” is a little more grounded than it used to be! I originally picked up this tiny blue volume because it’s going to make FABULOUS research for my English honors thesis (the formulations of ‘understanding’ in LGTBQ teen fiction as a way to examine moves towards positive social acceptance) but by the end of the first chapter all of that went right out the window.

Levithan describes the story so well himself: “This is the story of Paul, a sophomore at a high school like no other: The cheerleaders ride Harleys, the homecoming queen used to be a guy named Daryl (she now prefers Infinite Darlene and is also the star quarterback), and the gay-straight alliance was formed to help the straight kids learn how to dance.” In essence, this book takes place in a place that has put sexuality in a category where it no longer even needs to be categorized. There are still the brief glimpses of parents who don’t approve or religious zealots spewing the standard homophobia, but, for the most part, the kids of this book know their sexuality and are comfortable with it. This isn’t to say that they don’t go through the normal teen drama – of course they do! Backstabbing friends, hurtful gossips, new loves, lost loves, dances and dates, all the things that make up YA novels are still present in this book. But they’re done in a way that makes them seem fresh, makes it not as cringe-worthy as teen lit can sometimes be.

When Paul meets Noah, he knows things are different, and indeed Noah looks to be the kind of literary dream hunk I would have (and still do!) swoon over, no matter how unrealistic. He takes haunting black-and-white photography, he paints music (here Levithan’s writing really shines – it’s hard to make pages of color description sound interesting, but he does it with the best of them!) and he loves Paul for who he is. Plus, he’s slightly emotionally damaged, making him slightly angsty in that oh-so-adorable way. Paul, as a character, is more secure in himself than I can ever remember being as a sophomore in high school, and even when it seems like all of his friends, family, and social activities are falling apart, he manages to pull himself together – again, and hope that everything will turn out okay. It is, to be honest, hopelessly hopeful and unrealistic, but I ate it up like watermelon in summer.

There are shades of darkness in the book, as well – hints at the depression and suicidal thoughts that can so easily overwhelm those who are told that they are “different”, “unworthy”, or “wrong”. But, for the characters in this book, none of that actually comes to be. It’s a nice change, considering that before the late 80s it is almost impossible to find a YA book concerning LGTBQ issues that didn’t involve the tragic death of at least one of the characters.

I’m going to be counting this one towards the M/M Romance Challenge because it did, obviously, feature a M/M Romance, however I have a sneaking suspicion it’s not quite going to…gel with all of the other books I’m hoping to read for the challenge. But, either way, I can’t recommend the book highly enough. No matter what your personal belief on LGTBQ issues, the book offers even greater messages about friendship, hope, and self-assurance. Up next on the list? Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris, which I picked up in a wonderfully successful trip to the library, and the worlds biggest cup of spiced apple cider (I stocked up on the last bit that my local grocer had before it goes back on the ‘non-seasonal’ shelf) which, to me, sounds like quite possibly the best way to celebrate the last few days before school starts. Happy reading!

BookMaven

BTT – Holiday Recieving January 7, 2010

Barbara wants to know:
What books did you get for Christmas (or whichever holiday you may have celebrated last month)?
Do you usually ask for books on gift-giving occasions or do you prefer to buy them yourself?
This Christmas was relatively light on the book-receiving front, having been given only a book of the collected works of W.H. Auden by my grandmother (which was, wonderfully enough, something I asked for!). But, on the plus side, I did go to visit my sister in Chicago, which means I got back a great number of the books I’ve loaned her over the year – so, in a way, I got almost seven books this year, but six of them were already mine! Although, now that I have those back, I can’t wait to give Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See an0ther read!

Usually, when it comes to gift-giving holidays, I’ll just ask for a gift card to Borders, B&N, Half Price Books, or, if I’m feeling really greedy, to the local bookstore The Raven. This isn’t because I don’t trust the lovely people kind enough to give me gifts (although, to be honest, I really wouldn’t trust some of them to get me good books, which is a key distinction) but rather because every year, without fail, when my mom asks me the dreaded question “what do you want for Christmas”, my mind will go blank and completely freeze up – even if I’ve got a list of books a mile long! I trap myself in a conundrum – I don’t want to ask my folks to spend money on a book I haven’t read, and therefore may not like, but asking them to pay for a book I’ve already read seems like a smidge of a waste of their money. So I’d much prefer to take my time, look through the books I’d like for myself, and then head to the bookstore armed with that little plastic square of love! Plus, having my own say means a choice in the cover art! Happy reading!

BookMaven

Review: I Hope they Serve Beer in Hell January 7, 2010

I’m feeling a little antsy today, and I know I need to review Tucker Max’s book while it’s still fresh in my mind, but I’m REALLY not in the mood to do a normal post, so instead, all you lucky readers out there get to read the wonderful pro/con list I’ve put together about I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.

PRO:
* This book is ABSOLUTELY hilarious – to me. My mother found it less funny. As did every other woman I asked to read it. Apparently, this makes me an aberration amongst my gender. However, I’ve always found jokes about bodily functions (both male and female) and the blatant mocking of others to be really, really funny and, as such, I found this book hilarious.
* This book made me so, SO happy that the men that I know in my life aren’t at all like Tucker Max. Not that they wouldn’t go around getting drunk and having overly promiscuous sex if given the chance (in fact, many of them do do this) but I know they’d do it with more general respect and compassion than Tucker does.
* The book also, I think, teaches women a very important lesson: you get the respect you demand. It’s not about deserving. Yes, Tucker Max is a horrible, horrible person. Let me repeat: TUCKER MAX IS A HORRIBLE PERSON. But the reason he’s able to get away with 90% of the things he gets away with is because the girls he’s with allow him to. It’s a simple lesson – don’t let the guy be a jerk, and he may leave, but at least he won’t be treating you like a jerk.
* Tucker Max writes with the kind of honesty I admire. He tells you from the first page that he isn’t a good person, and he’s right. He also tells every possible embarrassing story he can, whether it’s embarrassing for him or someone else. Whether you find it entertaining or not, you have to admire a guy who’s willing to admit that he’s been: vomited on, pooped on by a dog, and shot in the eye with his own baby-making-liquids.

CONS
* This book is absolutely disgusting (for just a hint of some of the disgusting things that happen to Tucker Max, see the final bullet point of the “PRO” column”)
* Tucker Max not only objectifies women, he is especially hell-ful to the fat women (a word that appear at least 200 times throughout the whole book) and, as a self-classified (and proud of it!) ‘fat-girl’, I had to be pissed at Tucker Max. It was one of those situations where, even as I was laughing, I knew that if a man were talking to me the way Tucker Max talks to some of these girls, I would remove from him any future of having children. So I do sympathize – I’m not a total traitor to my fellow sistahs!
* Tucker Max is funny, but it’s mean funny. And I mean MEAN, cruel, insensitive and combative funny. All of his friends (pseudonymed with gems like ‘SlingBlade, GoldenBoy, and Credit) are the same way. And it’s making me mean. I’ve noticed that my on-fire-zinging-comebacks have increased, and gotten a lot more viscious than usual – and I blame Tucker.

So should you read this book? Maybe. There is a really, really good chance that you will not like this book (especially if you are a female, which most of my readership happens to be – all four of you) but it will, either way, expose you to a world that you may have never before had the chance to enter – the mind of a mid-to-late twenties misogynistic womanizer who also happens to be famous for nothing but drinking, fornicating, and writing about it. However, there may be some small portion of you out there – those raised with too many brothers, in a world of potty humor and off-color sexual innuendos who aren’t afraid of words like ‘blowjob’ and ‘cunnilingus’ – who may find this book really entertaining. So give it a try – the only thing it could hurt is your emotional state and mental purity! Happy reading!

BookMaven

PS: For those who don’t think they can handle a full book of Tucker Max exploits, you can get a daily dose over at www.TuckerMax.com

Review: Letters to a Young Poet January 6, 2010

Please don’t be expecting much from this review – mostly because there isn’t much I can say about the book other than… OHMYFREAKINGJIMMINYTHISBOOKWILLCHANGEYOURLIFE!

In case you missed that, this book will change your life, especially if you’ve ever wondered about the following things:

* If it’s okay to want to be alone
* What sex is, and what a relationship is
* What art is, and how to create it
* Whether or not there is more to poetry than just words and rhymes
* How an older poet works to help a younger one

If any of this strikes your fancy, or if you’re just looking for a book to fill a few hours spare time (the edition that I have, which is the edition pictured at left, comes in at just under 100 pages – 98, to be exact) then pick up some Rilke. He spins words like cotton candy, with just as much flavor but twice as much sustenance, and some of the best writers I know carry tiny copies of this book in their back pockets or purses the way that some people carry tiny Bibles. It’s my first five-star read of the New Year, and it was totally worth it! Happy reading!

BookMaven