"I don't let anyone touch me."

“Why not? Because I was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close, their smell of beer or fifteen-year-old whiskey. Men who didn’t come to the emergency room with you, men who left on Christmas Eve. Men who slammed the security gates, who made you love them and then changed their minds. Forests of boys, their ragged shrubs full of eyes following you, grabbing your breast, waving their money, eyes already knocking you down, taking what they felt was theirs.

Because I could still see a woman in a red bathrobe crawling in the street. A woman on a roof in the wind, mute and strange. Women with pills, with knives, women dying their hair. Women painting doorknobs with poison for love, making dinners too large to eat, firing into a child’s room at close range. It was a play and I knew how it ended, I didn’t want to audition for any of the roles. It was no game, no casual thrill. It was a three-bullet Russian roulette.”


Say what you will about White Oleander, but it holds so many insights in one bound copy that I don't know how many people have had their world shaken by it. One day I'll go through and create a post full of my favorite quotable excerpts from this book, when I find the time.

So tell me, what do you see when you read this? What picture does it paint, and why, and how? What strings deep in your being does it twang?

I see my home, and how my mother and I sit at the kitchen table, close to the small television in there, so we can watch a movie with the volume low because my father is in the living room sprawled on the couch watching SportsCenter on our big, loud television. I see one of my closest, dearest friends distancing herself from me in high school because I was dating a boy she met once and claimed her stake on. I see Sex and the City and how four women can do nothing but talk about the way men change their lives. I see the desperation of a seventeen year old me because she needs him, she loves him, can't you see, if he'd only come back for longer than a week or so, then he'd love her. I see the way women tailor their lives around the men they love so they can hold on to something solid and safe and strong.

What do you see?

Yeah, it's cheap, so yeah, shut up.

Today is Celebrate Your Light Reading Day! Er, well, that's the focus of this post, anyway.

Some backstory: I have a weakness in my character for light, fluffy novels that don't need me to think about them too hard and just let me enjoy the ride. Commonly known as "chick lit", which I'm not sure if I dig, but to me it's all just easy reading. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love me some heavy stuff that challenges my viewpoint on the world and all, but sometimes you just need a palate cleanser. Promise, all of the books on today's post are just that.

To start off: most things by Meg Cabot are recommended highly, except for maybe The Princess Diaries because seriously, that series is overrated. I have the first three and Mia's voice gets annoying fast. I avoid it like the fucking plague. Her other stuff is much more interesting. I bought Avalon High a while back and I love it. It's Arthurian legend 101 in teenagerese. (Teenagerese: the voice and language of the current 14-17 year old set. Can be very enjoyable in moderation. Not to be confused with Juno-speak, which, though similar, is its own category.) Quick, satisfying, and if you love anything related to King Arthur, this is the easy read for you.

Another Meg Cabot book I love love love is The Boy Next Door. Mel's next-door neighbor has fallen into a coma, and walking her Great Dane Paco is interfering with Mel's work! Never fear, her neighbor's nephew, Max Friedlander has gallantly swooped in to take care of the dog and her two cats! But why does he insist that she call him John? And why do none of the rumors of Max Friendlander, Playboy About Town seem to match this laid-back, Grateful Dead-loving man? Prime example of easy romantic read - focus is on the romance, but there's a subplot that's also unfolding; it's charming and quirky and cute, and the romance is absolutely adorable, true to Cabot form. John is all too perfect. I'm just waiting for this to be made into a movie. (I will be first in line to buy tickets.)

Getting away from Meg Cabot, another easy rec is the Georgia Nicolson series by Louise Rennison, starting with Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging. Basically? Follows the life of crazy and wild teenager Georgia and her romantic ups and downs, not to mention her hilariously dysfunctional family. Rennison is a comedy writer, so these books are guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. They do it to me every time, and I've read and reread these books more times than I can count. Also, I can completely understand Georgia. Shaving off the eyebrows? Been there. (Okay, well, it was more like accidentally taking off a quarter of one, but still. You fuck up your eyebrows and trust me, everybody notices.)

On the teen-lit front, I just bought a book called Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty by Jody Gehrman. It's Much Ado About Nothing in teenagerese! I love it!! Considering Much Ado is only my favorite Shakespeare play ever, to see a teen remake of it made me squee out loud in the bookstore. (Yes, I am easily impressed.) So I shelled out the $16 for the hardcover copy and whaddya know? I love it. It's narrated by the Beatrice character, Geena, and oh my god her and Ben's romance is too adorable for words. I can't tell you how freaking cute this book was. See? Easy read, and adorable. Sometimes, it's just what you need. I mean, I could buy something artsy that pushes the limits of what's acceptable in prose and whatnot... but sometimes you just need to read a teen romance. It can't be helped.

To counteract all the teen books on here (what can I say, teen romances are the most adorable), I'll also rec Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips. It's what American Gods would be without the philosophical musings, the implications of what America has become, the meaningfulness, and Neil Gaiman. It's light-hearted and witty, I'll give it that. The Greek gods exist, and they are the only gods, and they are losing their power. Also, Aphrodite is a phone-sex worker. (That's really the only job any of the gods have in the book that's worth mentioning.) It's funny and sarcastic, and if you want to take it seriously (which I don't), I'm sure an argument can be made to the effect of "how would the Greek gods find a niche in today's London?" - but then again, the same sort of thing was covered in American Gods to a much better effect.

Short and short of it? I'll always prefer American Gods, but Gods Behaving Badly kinda fits the myths of the gods' trickeries and capriciousness. I won't get into how the myths are supposed to be parables and not actual true stories of what the gods are like (I promised this would be short), but if you enjoy the Greek myths for entertainment, I think you'll like this. Also, it's really fun to watch Artemis wince every time someone talks about sex.

I have loads more books, because I am a sad, sad woman, but I'm pretty sure you can live off of these. As long as one is discerning about the fluff they read, you can find some damn good fluff out there. See: a lot of stuff they sell in airport terminals. You have no idea, the light fluffy books I find there. Easy read extrordinaire.

So go out, buy yourself a light novel, and then sit back and enjoy not having to think too hard. Everyone deserves a break now and again, right? Ta for now.

We're all Looking for Alaska, anyway

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'”

-Jack Kerouac

I love that quote. I always have. It describes everything I want to be in my life.

Alaska Young is that quote personified. There isn't any way I can describe her that does her any justice except that quote. She defies adjectives.

Looking for Alaska by John Green is like that quote. Miles is quirky in his own subdued, lethargic way, and still normal. He leaves life in Florida where nobody knows him to Culver Creek Boarding School in Alabama (hah, how utterly appropriate), where he rooms with Chip (the Colonel) and befriends Takumi, Lara, and Alaska.

Miles, or Pudge as the Colonel starts calling him ironically, is of course swept off his feet by Alaska. She's in her own league and dimension and mind. She's Edie Sedgwick, just in an Alabama boarding school. She is her own entity. How could she not sweep you off your feet?

The format immediately grabs your attention: there are two parts, Before and After. There is one central part to the book that is both shocking and obvious at the same time. Not hindsight-obvious, but just textbook, no-connotations obvious. And somehow it still shakes your world and starts the roaring in your ears, like every time it's ever happened in real life.

I had this whole post ready revolving around the climax and why it is that things like that always happen, but it really would spoil too much and I can't do that to anybody bothering to read this. So I'll save it for later, when you won't connect it to this book.

In my copy, there's a reading guide in the back. I want to rip it out and tear it to pieces. How can you make some trite reading guide about this book? It's fucking moving. It's honest and real and bewitching and surreal and true. It's like making a reading guide for The Things They Carried so your book club can try to make sense of it. I know, they always do that for books hitting on heavy stuff for teenagers, but that doesn't make it any less cheap and trite. It would be like a reading guide for Speak. Just... unthinkable. Maybe John Green thinks it's okay, but to me it just tries to cheapen the experience I got from this book.

(Yes, I am comparing it to The Things They Carried and Speak. The language is strongly reminiscent of both, but completely different and unique. The themes, though, are closer to the former. Also, both of those books changed my life.)

And you know what? I know he wrote it for high schoolers, but I can't imagine someone my age reading this and not being completely moved by it. Not moved like "oh man, I cried at Where the Red Fern Grows" or something, but... moved. I can't say it any other way. Sometimes there are no words for an experience. Maybe it wouldn't completely change the way my mother sees things or someone her age, but for the large age bracket that is my generation? It more than works.

So in case you didn't get the picture, buy this book. Don't just read it, buy it. It's mind-blowing, which is beautifully rare in young adult novels nowadays. Not a recommendation, an order. Buy it. Read it. And then maybe you'll really understand Jack Kerouac up there and why those people are the only things worth clinging to now.

Snark: Get Off of My Lawn, You Crazy Kids, Or I'll Get the Hose!

David Denby, a critic for The New Yorker, has written a book decrying (what else?) snark, entitled Snark: It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our Conversations. From what I can tell, mostly he confuses actual honest-to-goodness snark with trolling. So well done there, Mr. Denby.

However, since I really don't feel like wasting what precious money I have on a book that will tell me all about how I and my generation are destroying people's conversations and Internet experiences worldwide, I'll let Adam Sternbergh of the New York Magazine tell you what he thinks instead. Magically, and resisting the urge that clearly I cannot, he refrains from any snark on the book whatsoever and engages in a serious and honest tone about defining snark.

Sorry, Mr. Denby - I'll always hold a special place for Fandom Wank in my heart, and no clueless but crotchety author will sway that. I'll get off of your lawn now, there's no need to swing your cane at me so menacingly.

Grotesque - who is the real monster?

Nowadays, the trend is to write books in which "we", the humans and/or the side that seems sympathetic at first, are the true monsters of society. Damn, we can go back to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and see the beginnings of a whole new theme that would soon be co-opted by a politician talking about the polar ice caps (although I doubt Shelley saw that coming). We are the monsters. Alternatively, it could be that the author is performing a clever shell con on us - while they make much attention in one particular character, it is another one that truly possesses ugliness.

Natsuo Kirino achieves this in her novel Grotesque, but with one major difference: many if not all of the main characters are true monsters.

Grotesque is a novel fascinated with the difference and blurred lines between beauty and ugliness. We are led through most of the book by an unnamed narrator who isn't even referred to by so much as her last name (interesting, especially considering that this was originally written in Japanese). Instead, she is merely, "Yuriko's older sister, " or "Yuriko's sister". She resents it, but believes herself to be better than her sister because Yuriko is a monster.

Yuriko has always been a stunningly beautiful girl. From childhood, when people thought she looked like a doll and she "stirred men's Lolita complex", to youth, where she was admitted to a prestigious high school for girls simply because she was beautiful, she has always possessed this beauty - even as an adult, she is a prostitute and admits that she is a nymphomaniac. She has never seen any reason to help anyone else out because she knows they'll take care of her. As a fading prostitute, she gets business here and there.

Until she is brutally murdered at the age of 37.

Yuriko's older sister isn't sad, surprised, or shaken at all - she hated her sister and envied her all at the same time. She maintains that she always knew Yuriko would get killed like that, so who cares? At the same time, she seems angry at the press for ignoring Yuriko's death. She says bitterly that it's all because Yuriko was only a prostitute - and who cares about another dead hooker? The way she turns from calling Yuriko a monster to sharply berating the newspapers for not talking about Yuriko more startles the reader, but makes us curious. Why is she like this? What did Yuriko do to her?

Kazue Sato is the third girl in the tragedy. She too has become a prostitute - all the more baffling because she is a successful, intelligent business woman working for a prestigious firm in Tokyo. She, like the narrator and Yuriko, attended Q School for Young Women. But where Yuriko naturally became popular because of her incredible looks, the narrator and Kazue were outsiders in an insider's paradise. The narrator brushes it off and says it wasn't worth it (words that are later called into question by the climax of the book), but Kazue was desperate to fit in. She tries everything she thinks of, but is just too normal for these privileged, rich girls.

Of all the characters, I identified with Kazue the best. She really was just a normal girl, growing up in a normal household. Her father doted on her and told her that if she wanted to do something, all she had to do was work hard and try her best. She wrote herself encouraging notes while studying for the Q School entrance exams. She only wanted to fit in and have friends.

The narrator, however, has other plans. Kazue, according to her, clamped onto her and wouldn't let go, so she decided to piss the stars right out of Kazue's eyes. She ridicules her for working hard, makes fun of her efforts and her family, and practically pisses all over Kazue's first crush.

That story in and of itself is telling. Kazue admits to the narrator that she has a crush on a boy named Takashi Kijima, who spends a lot of time with Yuriko. Since Yuriko is her sister, Kazue begs, couldn't she talk to Yuriko and find out what kind of girl he likes? The narrator senses an opportunity and mines it for all it's worth.

Kazue writes love letter after love letter to Kijima, asking the narrator eagerly to read them first. The narrator laughs at them behind her back, but graciously sends the most fervent ones on to Kijima. She tells a breathless Kazue that Kijima really likes a famous movie star, so he must like skinny girls. Kazue, a veritable twig, immediately frets aloud that she's too fat. The narrator slyly suggests that she cut back on the eating and trim herself up so that Kijima will finally like her - she'll be skinny, after all! Kazue subsequently develops both anorexia and bulimia, a habit that she never finds her way out of.

You see, Kazue is also violently murdered a year after Yuriko. Same way and allegedly the same man.

Kazue's life showed so much promise - so much more than the other two, so her ultimate fall is terrifying. Yuriko knew from an early age that all she wanted was to be desired and to have as much sex as she liked. Her sister was too wrapped up in her maliciousness (her "special talent", as she called it) to even contemplate the word promise. Kazue could have been so much more than what she was, and arguably she would have if only the narrator had not so wholeheartedly crushed and perverted her.

So do I recommend this book? Hell to the yes. Crime noir at its finest, it weaves in the Japanese dynamics between teenage girls, the sexes, and society so acutely it stings to read the brutal honesty in it sometimes. The ending is ambiguous and yet somehow obvious if you read between the lines. It is both beautful and ugly, much like the characters themselves. This is definitely on my new must-read list.