I caught trends like I caught colds

While reading Bleak House, I broke up my reading time with this book of essays written by teenage girls. The editor, Amy Goldwater, sent out a request for submission on any subject, as long as the writing was true. She was amazed with the results and complies them according to subject and then by age.

"Karl Marx said that religion was the opiate of the masses. We, Mr. Marx! We have this oh-so-shiny new development. It's called the television, and if it isn't religion, then I don't know what is."

There are 58 different girls who have pieces in this book and each one was interesting and made me revert back to my teenage self. The angst of high school, parents divorce, crushes, and the struggle to fit in all made me taste the cafeteria egg salad sandwiches and feel the sting of tears in my eyes from notes passed back and forth. But it also made me think of the fun of being a teenager, the thrill of driving anywhere with your friends, sneaking out, and wearing too much makeup.

Some of the essays are better written than others, but these are still developing writers. This book is an easy read for the most part (if you can get past those high school flash-backs) and was a nice contrast to Dickens. These girls come from so many different backgrounds and all have voices that demand to be heard. And I was happy to listen.

Yeah, that's pepper spray.

How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley is still pretty new, but as I am still trying to save every penny, I got this from the library. I read I Was Told There'd Be Cake last year and loved it, so I had some pretty high hopes for this one.

"After that first day, I awoke to the vague but identifiable smell of cheese. The kind of cheese where if you didn't know it was cheese, you'd think someone took a crap on the metro and set it on fire. And then put it out with milk."

Crosley writes about her life as a late twenty-something, referring back to her past to tell stories of her childhood pets, jumping forward to tell of getting kicked out of Paris and enduring a shady relationship. And on that particular smell that lives in taxi cabs:

"This is a scent that does not waft in real time so much as it seeps into your memory to replace every pleasant aroma you have ever smelled with its pungency."

She has a way with words that sits so well with me, but this book lacked the humour that her first one did.The stories were a little long and seemed to drag in places, but still left me with a smile, if not the belly-laughs that her first one gave me.


I am working my way through Bleak House and have my copy of the Idiot on hand. Dickens is surprisingly not what I expected and I am enjoying the book a lot. I have a few "lighter" reads to break up my time so I will still be updating while working through this massive Dickens book. My past experience with Dickens is mainly A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations. Any thoughts on favorite Dickens books?

meh

This book caught my eye while I was working at B&N the other day. One of the great things about working and B&N is that you can check out hardcover books for free. This is so we can talk about the books to customers or something crazy like that. So I checked this one out.

I'm a big fan of Klosterman, but this book fell a little short. The chapters are surrounded by interview excerpts, but these interviews aren't labeled and I didn't know who any of these interviews were actually with. Give me a footnote or something. Jeesh.

While I enjoyed his chapters on time travel and ABBA, this book just wasn't what I hoped for. I even stuck it out during the chapter on football and chuckled a few times, but still. Meh.


Side note: I sometimes am really surprised when I read about things that are happening right now. I'm so used to reading literature from forever ago that's it's weird to see the word Twitter in an actual book.

Is it a pony?

I read this on my plane ride over to Italy instead of sleeping on the plane like I should have. This book is a collection of short essays about life for a young woman.

Right off the bat, the first essay really got me. "The Pony Problem" is about how Sloane always seems to get some type of pony figurine from her boyfriends and keeps them under her sink because she can't bring herself to get rid of them. She can't stop thinking what would happen if she died and her parents found her pony collection.

Oregon Trail, cookies shaped like bad bosses, and the pain of being a bridesmaid to a girl you hardly know make up some of the other essays. The book is a good read, nothing too heavy. A good vacation book.



"I figured a one-night stand happened when two people. one of whom was a woman, went to a man's apartment for martinis and stood on the bed the entire time, trying not to spill them." page 99.