Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

2 Stars

Confession time: The only reason I read Fun Home was because it was on the list of most challenged or banned books last year, I had already read more than half of the others on the list and there was a snowball’s chance in hell I’d opt to read The Bible for pleasure.

I had also never heard of Alison Bechdel prior to snatching this one up from the library display (such a badass, right????) and had to Google “The Bechdel Test” to find out WTF it was. And after doing so?????



Yowza. (And please note the irony of my first Bechdel experience being ALLLLLLLLLL about her father – A MAN.)

I’m also someone who can’t help but question the level of narcissism required for a fairly non-famous person (on the scale from obscurity to Kardashian) to think their life story is that which others would want to read. Thus was the case when I was reading this. If you are a bibliophile there is a chance you will get wrapped up in the name dropping of Fitzgerald and Joyce and Hemingway and Salinger, but if you are a not-so-bright schmuck like myself (or especially this week maybe a teenager attempting to push the envelope by reading something that has been challenged), you might find your reaction to be more along these lines . . . .

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (translated by Henning Koch)

5 Stars

ALL THE STARS!!!!!!



It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You work and pay off the mortgage and pay taxes and do what you should. You marry. For better or for worse until death do us part, wasn’t that what they agreed? Ove remembers quite clearly that it was. And she wasn’t supposed to be the first one to die. Wasn’t it bloody well understood that it was his death they were talking about? Well, wasn’t it?

And so begins Ove’s story. Left alone after more than 40 years of marriage, Ove has one final task to fulfill – commit suicide. Being that Ove has always been a man of routine and order he has everything in place. From making sure the proper drill bit has been used and a sufficient hook installed to hold his body weight to putting on his best suit to having his funeral instructions carefully tucked in said suit’s pocket to covering the floors in order to assure the realtor won’t have to deal with cleaning up dirty footprints from the first responders, Ove is ready to say goodbye to this world. Until some bloody idiot who can’t even back up a trailer not only flattens his mailbox but then proceeds to scrape the entire side of his house thus interrupting his plans. The same goes for when he tries the old tube in the tailpipe method and even when he decides to dispose of his earthly body in a not-so-tidy way. Ove just can’t be let alone to die in peace, it seems. But over time even though . . . .

He was a man of black and white. And she was color. All the color he had.

And . . . .

If anyone had asked, he would have told them that he never lived before he met her. And not after either.

Due to the pestering of the new vivacious family next door and one Annoyance Cat, things begin to shift . . . .

She points at a figure in the middle of the drawing. Everything else on the paper is drawn in black, but the figure in the middle is a veritable explosion of color. A riot of yellow and red and blue and green and orange and purpose. “You’re the funniest thing she knows. That’s why she always draws you in color.”

Proving that . . . .

Love is a strange thing. It takes you by surprise.

So there you have it. There’s a good chance if you pick this book up you won’t like it all that much. That’s what happened to my mother-in-law (who gets all of the credit for me reading this one since it was her book club selection that I attempted - and failed, natch – to participate in hundreds of miles away). My explanation of her not enjoying this as much as me? She is the Sonja - not only for her husband but for our entire family. Maybe – just maybe – you need to be a bit of an Ove to fully appreciate him. And if you are, get ready for a real one-two punch right in the feels . . . .



I finished reading this at lunch yesterday and terrified the entire office when they walked by my desk . . . .



Yep. I cried. That doesn’t happen often. And when people asked WTF was wrong with me I couldn’t even articulate . . . .



So like I said, I can’t tell you for certain you’ll love Ove as much as I did. You may hate it and that’s totally fine. But for me? This is going down as one of my favorite books of all time and I already ordered a hardcover in order to make sure it has a permanent spot on my bookshelves. Maybe you just have to be the recipient of the attention of an “Annoyance Cat” of you own to fully appreciate the story . . . . .



(^^^^^That’s “Sewer Cat” – named such because he likes to hang out in the storm sewer like the nasty freak he is. He’s about eleven thousand years old, mean as a snake, second runner-up (behind Shelby’s White Trash) in the worst cat in the universe contest who sprays his disgusting pee/semen/whateveritis on my bushes to mark the front of my house as his territory and pulls the decorative landscaping away from my porch so he can sleep under it when he feels the need. He’s the epitome of a nuisance animal . . . but when he comes and knocks on the door as seen in the photo above I haul my fat butt outside pronto and give him the cat food/tuna/lunchmeat he demands. I also apologize profusely to him for my cat being a racist and not accepting the fact that black is not the only acceptable color for kittehs.)

Little Children by Tom Perrotta

4 Stars

In case you haven’t seen me brag about it before are unaware, I work a couple of blocks away from this beauty . . . .


(^^^^That’s just the parking garage.)

So I can go check out books conveniently during my lunch hour. (There’s also the porny library up in the ‘burbs that gives me the hookup on all of my . . . . scientific research projects.) Since Fall has finally fallen and the temps are no longer in the bazillions I’ve taken it upon myself to walk down to the ol’ bibliotech a time or two – and since I’m a farking crack addict I now have FIFTEEN physical books checked out in addition to a bunch of e-copies and eleventy thousand galleys. Added bonus, since I suck at reviewing I have actually read a few of these already but keep getting distracted by squirrels the convenience of Kindle notes rather than the inconvenience of post-it notes so now I’m all like . . . .



Basically what all that amounts to is you should expect an even shittier review than I generally puke out.

Okay, so do you ever have a lifetime phase where you are kind of like this . . . .



And then you take a new job in your company and for the first time in 10 years you are supposed to interact with others and it is extremely people-y and you just want to scream . . . .



But you’re trying to pretend you’re almost normal and that would totally blow your cover and so you bottle up all of your annoyance until you get home and then you flip out on your husband about shit like . . . .



And then you finally come to the conclusion that you need to give yourself a time out.

If the above has ever happened to you I highly suggest reading a book that confirms . . . .



In order to feel better about yourself. Little Children seriously delivered. We’re talking affairs and secret internet fetishes and a real over-achieving PITA supermom you want to punch in the throat and a child molester. It probably goes without saying these were all Mitchell’s type of people. A solid 4 Stars that worked so well it took me almost a whole month to get back to my typical approach to life . . . .



Even my friend Deanna liked this one and she is pretty much the nicest person ever so now you know you don’t have to be a total psychopath like me in order to enjoy it : )

The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko by Scott Stambach

3.5 Stars

“The world needs happy endings, no matter how unethical.” – Vladimir Navokov
The blurb states . . . .

“The Fault In Our Stars meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”

My response to that?



Maybe more like The Fault In Our Stars meets Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, ya know if the children were terminally ill rather than strangely gifted and you only really got to know two of them in depth.

I’m going to let the book do most of the talking on this one. Allow me to introduce you to Ivan . . . .

“I’m seventeen years old, approximately male, and I live in an asylum for mutant children.” (No, not like the X-Men.) “My body is horribly incomplete. I only have one arm (my left), and the hand attached to the end of it is deficient in digits (I have two fingers and a thumb). The rest of my appendages are short, asymmetrical nubs that wiggle with fantastic effort. My skin is nearly transparent, revealing the intricate tapestry of my underutilized veins. The muscles in my face are only loosely connected to my brain, resulting in a droopy, flat affect, which makes me look like an idiot, especially when I talk.”

As for the comparison to John Green. Yes, it exists. The difference is you know from the beginning that one of the two young loves is dead and the attitude toward their blossoming romance is waaaaaaay more realistic . . . .

“If we weren’t in this hospital and you saw me in a restaurant, you would be just beautiful enough to be disgusted by me and just soulful enough to pity me.”

As for the story itself . . . .

“There are as many themes in Ivan’s story as there are pages. It is at once a love story, a revelation of the dark legacy of the Soviet experiment, a conversation on medical ethics, a reproach of religious hypocrisy, and an admonition against choosing fear over purpose. But, ultimately, it is simply the story of a single human life, within which so much can be held.”

I will be 100% honest here and say if I were a person with the ability to “DNF” I would have done so with this book. Not a whole lot happens and even though I think it’s nearly impossible not to fall in love with Ivan, his personality and storytelling wasn’t enough to make this read at any faster than a snail’s pace. Buuuuuuuuuuut, if you keep with it you’ll not only get plenty of hardy-hars – like the moment when Ivan catches the hospital director and a nurse in flagrante delicto . . . .

“My first instinct was to mentally ridicule the unkempt and voluminous nature of Nurse Lyudmila’s genital hair.”

And maybe even have a feeling or two . . .

“Ivan?”

“Yes?”

“How do you even start a book you know is going to be your last?”

“You lie and say it’s not.”



♫♪♫♪ Take another little piece of my heart now, baby. ♫♪♫♪

My friend Michellegave me the okay to quit on this one and was even kind enough to say maybe I wasn’t reading it wrong. (Spoiler Alert: I still probably read it wrong.)

Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging By Louise Rennison

4 Stars

Meet Georgia. She’s basically a 14-year old version of this . . . .



I’m sure plenty of other reviews have and will point out that . . . .



But you know what? I still am was an asshole much like Georgia back in the day.

Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging is a year in the life of Georgia courtesy of her journal and was most definitely just what the doctor ordered for me to read on Presidential Debate Day. I never expected to laugh out loud reading the trials and tribulations of this teenie bopper, but I sure as shart did. Especially the part about her first tweezing experience . . . .



Her quest for love with an unattainable crush . . . .



And trying to get some uhhhhhhhh experience (if ya know what I’m sayin’) . . . .

“I lay on my arm until it went numb and then I lifted it (with the nonnumb arm) only my breasts. I wanted to see what it felt like to have a strange hand on them. It was quite nice, but what do I know?”



Not to mention all of the bits with Angus . . . .



This isn’t a book that will change the world or make you smarter or want to be a better person, but hell . . .



And sometimes I just want to laugh. If you’re interested in the same, then you too might find Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging to be . . . .

Well Hung by Lauren Blakely

3 Stars

“What could possibly go wrong on a business trip to Vegas?”
When I saw this was a “got drunk and accidentally married in Vegas” trope, I was like . . . .



Unfortunately, Well Hung ended up being just meh for me. The problem was quite simple . . . .



That would be Wyatt Hammer – the leading male. For being a construction worker with a mega schlong he sure was a whiny bitch a good portion of the time.

So the story was about construction company owner Wyatt and his assistant Natalie who get sent to Vegas for a uuuuuuuuge (™Donald Trump) job that will take the company to the next level. Buuuuuuut when the job falls through the two are left with a free evening and sorrows to drown. One thing leads to another, Wyatt and Natalie get hitched and when plans for a quickie annulment backfire the two are left to deal with their feelings for one another.

As I said before, this one was just aiiiiiiiight for me. There wasn’t a whole lotta plot, which would have been fine if the characters didn’t keep talking about how funny they were while not being funny at all. (Romantic comedy porns are my favorite porns, so I might have been judgier than most.) There was also the dreaded nickname issue to deal with and in this case: “Frisky Mittens” had me all . . . .



The one thing this story did deliver in spades was mass quantities of sexual times. We’re talking everything from a roller coaster . . . .



To a slot machine that had Natalie screaming . . . .



But quantity didn’t make up for quantity when it came to this story . . . probably because it was told 100% from Wyatt’s perspective and the more I was in his head the less I wanted his head in me. Therefore, my panties remained a sploosh free environment . . . . .



Good news is, I am not yet prepared to give up on Lauren Blakely and due to my most awesome book fairy I’ll be reading more of her stuff in the near future. Because, ya know . . . .



ORIGINAL "REVIEW":

Go ahead co-workers. Ask me what I'm reading today when you see me at the coffee bar . . . .



In other news, I'm officially declaring my love for my fairygodbookmother Sh3lly. Let me know when you wanna go to Vegas and get hitched : )

Sugar Rush by Sawyer Bennett

2 Stars

Welcome to my non-review for a non-book . . . .



This is a prime example of why I rarely ever read past the first book in a series. There just isn’t enough material for most of these stories to drag on for three books and for whatever reason three has become the (minimum) magic number in order to milk as many dollars as possible from all of us lemmings which means at least one of the books turns out pretty much like this . . . .



If you haven’t figured it out yet, this appears to be the turd. That being said, after the cliffy in Sugar Daddy and the fact that the porny librarian had #2 available for request, there was no way I wasn’t going to see what happened next. And what happened? Basically nothing. According to Amazon this book had 242 pages. The amount that was actually needed in order to progress the story along was probably 50 – and that’s being generous. Of course there was sex, but even that was . . . .



Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, dat ending tho . . . .



Just kidding. No monkeys were harmed in the creation of this porno.

Seriously, though, that ending. I’m ready to wrap this puppy up and get book #3 . . . .



Don’t fail me, porny librarian!!!!!

 

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl by Ryan North - Art by Eric Henderson

1 Star

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS 42,000 GIFS AND QUITE POSSIBLY THE ONLY DISSENTING OPINION ABOUT THIS SERIES THAT EXISTS.
My reaction to The Unbearable Squirrel Girl(™ Sam Quixote – Don’t let the 3 Star review fool you, Sam must have suffered a head injury when he rated the first issue and has now come to his senses) . . . .



Keep y’all nasty Kool-Aid over there because there is NO WAY I’m jumping on this bandwagon.

I knew things weren’t going to go my way from page uno . . . .



Which had me questioning . . . .



And a couple of pages later when Squirrel Girl’s faithful sidekick Tippy Toe asked . . .



There I was - ♪♫♪♫ All by myseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelf ♪♫♪♫ . . . .



I should have recognized the problem before I even requested this from the library because . . . .

“It's the start of a brand-new set of adventures starring the nuttiest and most upbeat super hero in the world!”

Which translates to “this new superhero isn’t real much of a superhero at all, but is instead a MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL” and if you know me at all you know I pretty much have a zero tolerance with respect to inviting those kind of people into my life. The exceptions being . . . .



And . . . . .



This was supposed to be funny – it was not. I was under the impression my lovaaaaaah Deadpool was actually in it rather than just contributing tiny cells containing “Deadpool’s Guide to Super Villains” stats – so there’s another fail. Her superpowerish way of defeating bad guys was shoving a whole mess of squirrels into their mouth and that was just . . . .



And her supersuit??????



^^^^^That looks like she’s crawling out of a giant doo doo.

Basically it seems to me the only redeeming quality Squirrel Girl has is that she’s not scantily clad, but I’m old and confused and was under the impression that the new generation thinks women should dress however they choose . . . .



Guess I was mistaken.

Anyway, everyone loved it but me so I obviously read it wrong. If you’re looking for a character who is pretty much like this 100% of the time . . . .



You’ll probably like it just fine too.

If you’re like me you’ll make sure to bring snacks and booze before coming to my shame corner and then we can talk about how this was the only good thing to come from this abomination . . . .



And then we’ll wait for the day when poor Squirrel Girl’s 15 minutes of fame are up . . . .