Mega Review

Started: May 22, 2010

I must confess that I have read 5 novels and have reviewed none. I’ve been drowning myself lately in the lives of others to distract myself from the mini-quakes that were shattering my own. Shattering may be a strong word but for a while that is how it felt. And my drug of choice thankfully is reading. It’s always been my solace and I hope it will always be. Through prayer & reading & trying new things, I’m getting out of this funk. No, I will not properly review all 5 books because some of them were so light that their memories have already drifted away. I will do my best to capture the best & worst of each one briefly. (Note: I actually only reviewed 3.1 of the books here, more to come later or not.)

Almost Single by Advaita Kala

I always like to pick up books in foreign countries to get a flavor of what their literature is like. This is one I picked up in India. It is a chick-lit type read about the new phenomenon of young women past the age of mid-20s still being (ohmigoodness!) unmarried and  working!!! None of the particulars of this book were shocking if you read it as a Westerner. But, if you put it in the context of a very traditional patriarch society (which is India), then the fact that she exists and still holds her head up high is shocking and admirable. I don’t know how the Western ideals of dating & matrimony will indwell itself in the Eastern ideals & traditions in India. My gut tells me it may not be as liberating as the book portends. But, it was a light read so let them have their cake and eat it too.

PS: For some reason, this book uses the word “avatar” all the freaking time! It irritated me because it seemed shameless in its attempt to be cool by implicitly referencing the movie of the same name. I don’t know, maybe it was a coincidence because the novel was written in 2007. Was Avatar even done in 2007?

above average by Amitabha Bagchi

I felt bad about picking up this book because I couldn’t even remember how it ended. But, turns out I didn’t finish it…barely even 30 pages in so this review comes later or not at all.

Up to No Good by Carl Weber

Part soft-porn, part Jerry-Springer. This is the first time I have read a book and learned N-O-T-H-I-N-G. No new words, no new lessons, no interesting perspectives on life. Just a whole lot of “what-the-hell” moments.

I hesitated to buy this book, I almost abandoned the idea altogether. I naturally shy away from the Urban lit section of the bookstore because it so does not represent me and it so represents so many Black stereotypes. The worst part is that these are Black authors perpetuating these stereotypes in these books. Crabs in a literary basket.

Why did I buy this book? You see, I recently joined a Black woman’s book club to try and start meeting people and make some friends since I’ve lived in this city for nearly 4 years now and I still don’t have someone I can just call up and hang out with on the weekends. This was the book chosen for the next meeting. As I was reading about dicks slamming into writhing women, gold-diggers scheming to turn all her tricks to get what she wants from her sugar daddy, and desperate woman after desperate woman trying to screw her way into a man’s heart; I was sitting there wondering what type of women was I going to be meeting in this book club. There was nothing good about this book, I mean it is absolute garbage and the only reason I kept it was to finish this review and then it is off to Goodwill. There was not ONE healthy relationship between man & woman, father & son, father & daughter, mother & daughter, mothers & father, even the friendships were toxic. The writing was elementary but, given the intended audience, expected.

Although I would never ever, ever ever, ever ever, ever ever ever ever ever recommend this book to ANYONE, one good thing came out of it. The book club was fly! (Yes, I’m a 90’s child and I still love that word!) The women, thank God, were total opposites of the book. We all hated it but it brought up so many stories and we shared so much in just our first meeting that it was worth the frustration of reading the book. I will be going to the next one.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

“This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.”

Farm Fresh

When I was a kid, my mom used to take me and my brother to Farm Fresh after church service to get our cookie. It was our tradition and I loved it. I don’t remember a Sunday that we didn’t do that, unless we just plain missed church. It was kind of like our reward for being good in church.

Well now I have a new type of farm fresh. I’m literally getting my groceries from a farm now. And I just had my very first farm-fresh egg. I feel a little different in a very good way. It’s like I ate a little bit of sunshine. And I normally don’t ever feel this way when I’ve been working since 7 in the morning on a Friday. But here I am feeling fed, full, and still energized at the same time.

They were YELLOW! I mean really yellow. Yellowish-orange to be exact, like the color when the sun first begins to set. The color popped on my plate. The consistency of the eggs was so different from store-bought eggs as well. They were more dense and had less of the flimsy white stuff that I’m used to seeing so much of in my eggs. The taste wasn’t that different, it was slightly better but that may have been from mental bias. So the taste is comparable. The final difference is how I feel. I don’t know if it’s from the knowledge of eating from the farm and supporting local farmers that is giving me this amazing, energized feeling but I don’t really care. The feeling is here and I don’t normally get energized about eggs. I love to eat them but I don’t remember feeling this energized from them ever. Let’s see how long this lasts.

Needless to say, I’m sticking with the farm. Right now I’m only getting eggs and meat products (I’ll let you know how that goes), but in a month or two I will start to get fruit and veggies too. Bye bye Farm Fresh, hello farm-fresh :).

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

I never intended to read this book because people responded to it the same way they responded to Slumdog Millionaire…with absolute adoration because it showed the pale faces the “real” side of an ethnicity that they wouldn’t otherwise see. But I was stranded in a hotel without a book for two weeks and I took what was offered to me. Some people feel amiss without their phone, I feel amiss without a book.

The book was great until the end frustrated me so much that it made me rethink that decision. The end was so shocking and abrupt it was like slamming into a brick wall after running at full speed. You’re totally unprepared for the blow. What concerns me is that this book is so popular that there will be many copycats of this type of ending. It would be a shame if my premonition comes true because you can only run into a brick wall but once. Then you learn the lesson and move on.

The White Tiger features Balram, an entrepreneur, based in Bangalore, India… Electronics City, Phase 1, Bangalore, India to be exact. And I read the book while staying in Electronics City, Phase 1, Bangalore, India. Too bad the book had nothing to do with Bangalore because the book was really about Delhi and the Darkness.

The book follows the journey of one enterprising man travelling from the Darkness, as one of the many impoverished youths in India, to the Light as an entrepreneur. At first I found the writing a little stilted but the author was writing from the pen of a lifelong servant whose mastery of prose came secondhand. And, after being in India for a while, the way Indians in general structure their sentences is awkward to the ear of an American. That awkwardness dissipated the more I interacted with Indians during my stay. It seemed the longer I stayed in India, the more fluid Balram became.

The author brought us an intimate portrayal of an Indian servant’s life. His secret wants and desires would make a master look twice at the staff they allow free range in their home. From the eyes of a servant, I could see how cruel the elite could be and it made me put more of an effort to be kind to the staff working in my hotel. I got so engrossed in how Balram saw life in India versus how I was experiencing it as one of those elite people; I almost forgot this was fiction. Correction, I have forgotten that this is fiction and I constantly look at my drivers wondering if they have the same thoughts as Balram. Do all servants have these thoughts or just drivers? I kept assessing if someone was a “landlord” or not as I surveyed Indian people. And it made me think about Indian men’s beaks more often than I like to admit.

The problem I have now is that this book has totally warped the way I look at Indian people. Since I was reading an Indian author’s portrayal of the backside of India, I took it all as true. But it is only one image of the complex tapestry that is India. From my own experiences, I know that India has some extremely rich people but a whole heck of a lot of poor people. And there is a growing middle class in between. There is more than one true image of India and I have only intimately researched one.

The Yada Yada Prayer Group by Neta Jackson

The bright pink & yellow cover caught my eye at my church’s “library” a couple Sundays ago. After reading the description on the back, I took it home. “Why not?” I thought, “It’s free to borrow it from the library anyway. So if I don’t like it, so what.”

This is the first time I have ever read Christian fiction. I was always put off by the idea because I thought it would be hokey and cliché like many books in the “African-American” fiction genre. If I learned nothing else from this book, I at least learned that general accusations don’t normally apply. I’m not saying that my initial thoughts aren’t true for a lot of books of these genres but it is not always true.

On to Yada Yada. The novel follows a group of women thrown together in a prayer group at a Chicago Christian conference for women. The story really begins after the conference is over as these women continue to meet and carry each other’s heavy life loads. They become each other’s support group. However unlikely it is that a group of women would travel up and down and across Chicago to meet & pray, it is inspiring and hopeful to see these women open up to each other and support each other so wholeheartedly and non-judgmentally.

Perhaps I like this book because I belong to a women’s prayer group myself and see a vision for what our prayer group could be and has been at spotted occasions when we really open up.

For my first Christian book… it isn’t bad… it isn’t spectacular either. The writing is sophomoric. The writing isn’t as fluid as really good writers can be. And some of her terminology reveals how out of touch the author is with how worldly people talk. When I saw the phrase “Did someone hit the bozo button?” I laughed out loud. People really don’t talk like that, especially the ex-con character Yo-Yo who said that phrase. Not even going to go into why she names a character “Yo-Yo” either.

What I really like about this book again is the hope & inspiration I see in relation to my own prayer group. These women really open up to each other and support each other. And I think that is what is missing in a lot of Christian circles. It’s common to hear someone talk about their struggles in such a vague sense that you can just replace Person A’s name with Person B’s name and you will have the same prayer request, the same testimony. How many times have we heard “God has brought me a long way. I used to be wild in my younger days you know but God saved me from it”? No, I really don’t know about your younger days, I don’t know what “wild” really is, and I don’t know what “younger” really means. Is “younger” 10 years ago, last year, or yesterday? What happens if that person really tells their testimony, tells what really happened. I’m sure someone in that congregation who is going through that same situation will have some hope, some real connection to another Christian because they now have hope through someone’s personal testimony. This is not me trying to nose in someone else’s business. This is me saying: When people really get real, and we respond to that realness with Christ-like love, that’s when the real benefits of Christianity become practical here on Earth (Psalms 27:13). But too often, people (including myself) remain vague about their struggles because they are not comfortable sharing something so intimate with others, risking their “good Church girl/guy” reputation. This book shows me the possibilities of what can happen when people remove the Church mask.

Okay, off my soapbox. This novel also let me be a peeping Tom into a world I had never considered before. I looked at the world through the eyes of a meek, sensitive, Christian white woman. There is no doubt in my mind that the author Neta Jackson uses herself as the model for the protagonist, Jodi Baxter. Jodi Baxter sees the world so differently from how I view it. And Jackson is not scared to write it in that way, maybe the author doesn’t know any other way. Jodi Baxter is so careful and cautious at times that I shook my head at her, wanting to just tell her to grow a pair, move on, just say what’s on your mind. And she is always tearing up at something touching or tragic. To be fair, I have a personal bias against tears; I see them as a sign of weakness and do my best not to let people see me cry. But, if someone says “boo” to her, tears start welling up. I wanted her to grow a backbone sooo many times. Non-issues to me become issues in the mind of this strictly Christian woman. And her amazement, bewilderment, and sometimes fear of certain Black women cracked me up. But, from the outside looking in, I guess we can be intimidating at times :).

I didn’t love it but I like this book. I like it more for my ability to connect this story to the events & possibilities in my personal life. If you are looking for an introduction to Christian fiction that isn’t preachy & overly formulaic, then this is it. And if you really like it, the Yada Yada Prayer Group is a series so there are at least 8 more books to keep you going.


Good Scripture
Psalm 27, 34, 125, 139
Hebrews 12, 13, 55
Isaiah 43, 49, 55

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones by Andrew McCall Smith

Have you ever read a soap opera? If not, then this is your book. The writing wasn’t terrible but I expected so much more because of the title. I was expecting something quirky but maybe it was trying too hard to be that as is evidenced by the title. Lesson learned: You cannot declare to be quirky; if you must, then you are not. The title was funny, the content was underwhelming.

Not to be too critical, the story wasn’t terrible but the way that it was put together was. This book was a product of a column the author has in a Scottish newspaper. Apparently, every week he would write a new installment in this series following the lives of affluent Scotsmen in Edinburgh. I suppose it was fine to read them in weekly installments. But, pulling it all together into a book with no extra seaming together of the often-disjoint chapters was the mistake. It was basically a copy-and-paste from the week-by-week articles. There was a flow within each chapter but there was no flow between the chapters to make it a novel.

The stories themselves followed 4 separate tracks. The 1st track followed an arrogant, handsome, status-hungry, 30-something stud-of-sorts who always got his way because of his charm and good looks. However, a turn of events led him to come to terms of who he really is and begin that humble journey to where he needs to be. The theme overall was honorable but the transition was rather superficial, leaving one to wonder if the change is really permanent or temporary. The 2nd track was a young family with an obsequious husband and an overbearing wife. Their young son seemed to be the only sane one who can see clearly what should be what. Of course, being the child, no one listened. Although, the boy did get a listener (finally!) in the psychotherapy sessions his mother forced him to attend, no change really occurred by the end of the novel. The 3rd track followed the thorny but loving relationship between two old friends, a man and a woman. And the 4th track was the newly wed couple. The wife almost lost the groom to a rip tide on their honeymoon.

Really those were the details worth sharing because all of these stories were half-formed. The yeast is still rising and it’s not ready to come out of the oven yet. I believe this is the 1st novel in a series about these Scottish folk so that would account for the lumpy dough that was left rising at the end of the novel. I guess I could find the conclusions to these stories over the rest of the series; the problem is the stories weren’t interesting enough to really care.

Division + Force = Divorce.

Wet with blood across the Turkish border with mom & dad

Wetlands by Charlotte Roche

The wetness is dripping off my fingers.
I'd ripped my ass open on the metal foot pedal of the hospital bed.
I did it to get my parents back together.
I didn't succeed.

That is the ride you take with Wetlands: sexual intrigue followed by something disgusting and ending with pity and despair.

I started this novel because I love great intros. It started with hemorrhoids: “As far back as I can remember, I’ve had hemorrhoids (pg 1, line 1)”. The author of this book states, “this is going to be one of those shocking & refreshing novels dispelling the illegitimate fears society has placed in women about the untidiness of our natural selves”. I was ready to examine the female body in an intense, personal, and unashamed way. I thought it would forever eradicate all self-conscious fears I had of my body: I am constantly concerned about smelling like fish (which any Massengil or Summer’s Eve commercial will convince you that you do). At the very least, I thought it would be interesting.

Interesting it was, shocking it was, refreshing definitely not. The novel is both erotic, repulsive, and sad, which leaves you feeling that the protagonist is just as unresolved & broken at the end of the novel as she was at the beginning.

What is supposed to pass as an unflinchingly glare into female anatomy and sexuality translates into a girl’s desperate plea to be loved by the ones who are supposed to love her: mom and dad. Her desperate plea is shouted with actions: the many men she beds, her exhibitionist nature to garner attention, and her abhorrence at being alone.

I learned nothing from this book as the protagonist learned nothing as well. She leaves, at the end, on the arms of a nurse she plans to bed when they get home, torn ass and all.

Bonus points: smegma was EVERYWHERE! :D



Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody with William Hoffer

I don’t normally read biographies but my mother has always thrown this story at me whenever I dated a foreigner. “He might kidnap your kids to his country and you’ll never get them back. Just like ‘Not Without My Daughter’”. Apparently this novel was a hit movie in the 80s that reinforced that Americans should stay with Americans. Or was the message that Americans should not marry Iranians? Hmmm…

Regardless, I picked up this novel since I had a 14-hour layover in Abu Dhabi on my trip home from Qatar. Add the fact that I am seriously dating a foreigner and there you have it: me sitting in a leather armchair at a closed coffee house reading the novel and waiting for the airport to open.

I finished all 518 pages before we reached the Atlantic (pat myself on the back). It was a fast read, it was action packed, and it had a good ending (the lady did get her daughter in the end, sorry to spoil that ending for you).

Throughout the novel, though, I wondered why this woman married this guy in the first place. Yes, he was kind and thoughtful when she met him but she didn’t respect his country or culture at all. Everything was fine as long as he acted American, was pro-America, and disassociated himself from Iranian culture. She allowed Iranian cooking into her life but that is as far as it was allowed to go. Her comfort zone was limited to American standards only. So, why would she marry a foreigner? Why did she not take time to understand his country and culture? Why was she shocked to learn that people do not stray far from their roots? It is not all this woman’s fault that she was deceived. Her husband, Moody, was also to blame. But I always feel there is more onus on the woman to investigate the potential pitfalls because the woman has more to lose out of the deal if the marriage goes awry.

The lesson I did learn from this woman’s story is to know not just your man but his country and culture too. If you cannot live with that, then you probably cannot live with him till death do you part.