50 Shades of Grey is standing between me and well-read? Do I have to arm-wrestle it?

So something happened (almost a month ago?), and I thought I was over it, BUT I AM NOT OVER IT. In fact, I just had a sort of internal rage-dialogue with myself in the shower, which is what led me to my computer with wet hair at midnight on a Sunday.

The folks at Book Riot posted a list of 100 recommended titles for those who wish to call themselves “well-read.” This was bound to be a controversial list no matter what ended up on it, because everyone has favorites that may not appear on THIS particular list for any number of reasons, and because the meaning of “well-read” is itself subjective. And I get that the purpose of the list is to represent a sampling from a wide variety of genres that would engender a sort of well-roundedness in the reader who tackles them all.

Well, 50 Shades of Grey is on the list.

The argument for its inclusion—as far as I can understand from the lively comments section—is that, whether we like it or not (we HATES it, Smeagol), it is a permanent fixture in popular culture and has made important waves among the readerly and not-so-readerly masses. The other part of the argument is that you can’t have an informed opinion about something unless you experience it firsthand.

Let me just say, I respect and am quite fond of the people who presented these arguments. I will forever and always look to them as People Who Know a Thing or Two About Books, and I admire the way they push the Literary Elite’s buttons on the regular.

But I really just have to call bullshit on this one.

The second part of the argument sounds uncomfortably akin to the one I used on my parents when they tried to warn me, based on their years of experience as adult humans, that my awful boyfriend was, in fact, awful. “But, Mom and Dad . . . how will I KNOW for sure unless I experience firsthand his meth-induced rage while trapped in a moving vehicle with him?” (True story.)

On a very basic level, I think we can all agree that triangulating opinions from respected sources (or, in some cases, just one REALLY GOOD source; hi, Mom and Dad!) will give us a pretty good idea of what we’re dealing with, whether the subject under review is a book or a potentially disastrous dating decision. And learning from other people’s mistakes so that we don’t have to make them ourselves is not inferior to firsthand experience and does not disqualify one from holding an informed opinion (notice that I specify informed opinion). The information just didn’t happen to come from experiencing the terrible thing firsthand. AND THAT IS OK.

The first part of the argument is a little bit more tricky and also the bit that sparks my shower-fury, apparently.

YES, correct, E.L. James HAS written a thing that has subsequently gotten people talking . . . and talking and talking. But has she added anything NEW to the conversation?

Let me just check on a couple of things here:

1. Is the main female character of 50 Shades of Grey still an infantilized adult virgin who repeatedly and nauseatingly refers to her “Inner Goddess”?
2. Is the main male character of 50 Shades of Grey still a wealthy businessman with “singular erotic tastes” and “the need to control”?
3. Does the plot still revolve around him dominating her through a BDSM crash-course on sexuality while she meekly submits at every turn?

The answer to all those questions is STILL and always will be YES.

So I am at a loss as to what this book is adding to the CULTURAL (pop or otherwise) conversation that might raise it above the level of Honey Boo-Boo, just for example. Because for one thing, BDSM erotica is not NEW, and for another, as far as I can tell, this particular specimen of BDSM erotica is just perpetuating the same old unhealthy message that has caused such a problem for women who want to be taken seriously since the beginning of time. That is BORING. I am bored with that.

And I don’t need to waste several hours of my life (a generous time estimate) reading this book to figure out that it's a waste of time.

If that’s not an informed opinion, then dammit, I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. But at least I have this cookbook that teaches me 50 things to do with chicken.

Except the opposite of that,
because I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Tell the Wolves I'm Home: Hits you right in the childhood

So this book is The Sad, right? That’s probably the one thing everyone hears about it. And whenever a book gets that reputation, our cynicism pops in for a visit (oh, who are we kidding, it never left). No one appreciates being emotionally manipulated by an author (*cough*John Green*cough*Markus Zusak).

But in this case, it was less like, “Look at this puppy: I KICK IT AND ALSO DIP YOUR LOLLIPOP IN A MUD PUDDLE,” and more like, “Remember the ’80s and how they kind of sucked the most for the gay community, and also how hard it was to be a teenage girl? Remember THAT? Let’s discuss.”

June Elbus is 14, and the year is 1987. She has an older sister whom she used to be close with but is now separated from by a gaping chasm called High School. She’s a little bit eccentric. She doesn’t have many friends her age. Who she DOES have is her Uncle Finn. He understands her better than anyone else in her life and lets her be just who she is. But Finn is wasting away in the grip of a serious disease—an automatic-death-sentence sort of disease. Since the name of this particular affliction isn’t mentioned on the book jacket, I feel obligated to warn you that this could possibly be a spoiler? So if you haven’t already guessed what the mysteeeeeerious illness is, read no farther.

Be sure to visit the snack counter on your way out.

Everyone came back with snacks, right? Because I'm sure you all figured out that Finn is gay and has, at some point before the story picks up, contracted AIDS. Because it’s the ’80s, no one yet knows how to protect themselves from this virus or even exactly how it's transmitted. And the stigma around AIDS is at its height, because with ignorance comes fear and with fear comes people braiding ribbons into the manes of their moral high horses. If you have AIDS, you must have done something to deserve it, or someone must have given it to you maliciously because you fraternize with the sort of people who would do something like that. Because AIDS only happens to Bad People.

Something about adding insult to injury.

The book follows June through this pivotal time in her life, showing how she and her family deal with the enormity of their loss and the conflicting feelings that come with fiercely loving someone who the world tells you is dirty and wrong and unlovable. It’s also about family dynamics at their most basic. About siblings. About mothers and daughters. About husbands and wives. It’s good, you guys. It’s really good.

And the writing? Not too shabby for a YA book (she says with her hands shielding her face, and also having recently read no fewer than five YA books in a row).

The sun kept on with its slipping away, and I thought how many small good things in the world might be resting on the shoulders of something terrible. (p. 233)

One thing I love about June is that she's kind of into the Renaissance period and visiting the woods by herself so she can pretend she is a lone maiden venturing out in search of medicinal herbs to save the people of her village. She might be a little old for make-believe, but time travel is an effective escape at any age.

I used to think maybe I wanted to become a falconer, and now I’m sure of it, because I need to figure out the secret. I need to work out how to keep things flying back to me instead of always flying away. (p. 350)

I identify with this character. I have an older sibling whom I was close to and then grew impossibly far away from without ever really understanding how. I also used to pretend that I lived in another time. I didn’t have woods to retreat to, but I frequently ventured into the backyard bushes to reenact scenes from Sleeping Beauty.

I played the part of the horse.

Even more than those somewhat superficial connections with June, I also have an uncle who died of AIDS. Because my family is fairly conservative and also lived far away from my Uncle David (he in San Francisco; we in Texas), there has always been a lot of mystery surrounding the whole ordeal—made worse by the fact that I was too young to be invited into ALL the details of his illness. I knew that he preferred men. I knew that he wore a lot of leather (and he looked gooooood, ya’ll). I knew that he was a little thinner each time I saw him. I knew that there was a fair amount of tension around that subject. I knew that he somehow understood me better than any of my other aunts and uncles, even though I saw him the least. (He MADE me a leather journal for Christmas one year because he knew I loved to write.)

And then one day he was just gone. And that was that.

So after I read this book, I decided to ask my dad more about that time. I asked him why none of us went to Uncle Dave’s funeral. (We just couldn’t make the journey to California on such short notice.) I asked him if they kept their distance because they disapproved of his lifestyle. (Partly.) I asked him if he had a partner to take care of him when he got really sick. (No, because his long-term partner, whom he met in England [if you’ve read the book, you will realize that this is a CRAZY parallel], also had AIDS and passed away first. But he was surrounded by close friends.)

It was a good talk. And I’m glad this book inspired it.

So go forth, my friends. Read and cry cleansing tears of crippling sadness.

Harry Potter Readalong: The Retrospective

It’s official, friends. I hereby join the ranks of Those Who Have Read Harry Potter. It’s a big club. But only a select few members have their own wands.

Ebony with Phoenix feather core. For threatening my enemies.

I don’t know if you realize this, but organizing a group of book bloggers who live all over the world to read the same books and then talk about them on the same day every week for 6 months running is a stupendous feat. Like herding cats? Is that the saying? And only our brave and fearless leader, Alice, our collective fondness for GIFs, and the scary-brilliant imagination of Lady JK Rowling herself could have provided the motivation to keep us all onboard. Also peer pressure (not just for making children smoke the cigarettes anymore).

As some of you may know . . . the past 6 months have been maybe the most difficult of my life. My world sort of fell apart right before Christmas, and it’s taken this long just to assemble the scaffolding to BEGIN the rebuilding process. And through all that personal journeying, I was simultaneously making my steady way onward from the cupboard under the stairs at Number 4 Privet Drive. They say you never forget your first time reading the Harry Potter series, and for me that could not be more true.

TOO MANY FEELINGS.

Makes your opponent's pee smell funny for DAYS.

The heat of my passion for Neville Longbottom would have been more than enough to carry me through, but I ALSO had reading partners who made me spit coffee every Friday, right on schedule. And sometimes we also cried. But we cried together. And then we looked at more pictures of post-puberty Matthew Lewis, and all was well again.

So thank you, friends, for making this first read so memorable.

To be followed by a 10-minute group hug.

Eleanor & Park: Emergency circle time for discussion of my feelings

I have three other books to write things about, but Eleanor & Park is just one of those books that you have to talk about immediately . . . with anyone who will listen. This is the reason people HAVE book blogs. Because sometimes the people in your everyday life just don’t really care to hear about how tingly a school bus hand-holding scene made you feel (SUPER tingly . . . and at Sunday brunch, too).

My eggs got all cold and rubbery.

Quick summary: It’s the mid-’80s in Omaha, Nebraska. Eleanor is the new girl in school. She has unruly wine-red hair, a less-than-ideal home life, and a unique personal style that would probably be cool in a John Hughes movie but just makes her an easy target in the real world. She also has an ample figure. “At sixteen, Eleanor was already built like she ran a medieval pub” (p. 18).

Eleanor does not yet know this.

Park is probably the only Asian boy in town, but he grew up there and is well liked. He has excellent taste in comic books (if the character likes Batman, I like the character), terrible taste in friends, an insatiable appetite for new and varied music, and a pretty great home life.

Eleanor has just appeared on the bus for the first time, amid cruel jeering and a general lack of welcome from her peers. After a long, awkward walk down the bus aisle, she has reluctantly taken the only empty seat toward the back of the bus, right next to Park, who makes room for her with equal reluctance. Thus begins the story of a high school relationship, told from the alternating firsthand perspectives of Eleanor and Park.

There are two things about this book that make it universally readable, although it is technically of the young adult variety: (1) its overall ability to replicate the feeling of first love, complete with agony and ecstasy, and (2) the theme of self-perception, and how frequently off the mark it is.

At one point in the book, Eleanor and Park are in their English class and their teacher asks Park why he thinks Romeo and Juliet is still so widely read today. Park's answer is something along the lines of, "Because people want to remember what it feels like to fall in love." Even if it's all-consuming, ill-advised love. Even if it IS Big Will's commentary on the foolishness and selfishness of youth (it is). We just want to feel the butterflies.

Do you remember how popular Twilight was? Of course not. That was ages ago. But it was popular for EXACTLY this reason. As poorly written as it was, it pretty expertly captured that swept-away, can't-sleep, can't-eat, can't-bother-being-human-anymore feeling of epic, hormonal, I-need-you-now love. I remember. I was reading it on a plane, with my mom sitting next to me. And I missed my boyfriend a LOT. If you know what I mean.

Well Eleanor & Park does the same thing. But with smart writing that doesn't make you want to go back in time and prevent Stephenie Meyer from learning to read. ("No storytime for you, little girl!")

The other big excellent thing about this book is the way we learn, through the alternating perspectives, that the way Eleanor sees herself is nowhere near how Park sees her. And vice versa. If we take Eleanor's word for it, she's disgusting. Is she a flawless goddess sent from heaven above? Truly . . . no. But she's so much more beautiful than she feels on a day-to-day basis.

Yeah, so maybe this isn't news. We usually aren't the best judges of ourselves, because we can't be trusted not to judge too harshly. But at almost 28, I STILL need to be reminded of this daily. Just because I quite frequently feel like an eel in a skin suit doesn't mean that's how anyone else sees me. And did I hope that I would be done feeling this way once I was a grown-up lady? Absolutely. I counted on it. But we never grow out of our insecurities. We just deal with them the best we can. And a good book can help with that.

So if you like being visited by the butterflies and also reading words that are put together nicely and also being reminded that you're not a hideous freak, give this a go.

And if you want a smart vampire/human love story . . .

Harry Potter and the Deathly Readalong 4: "My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?"

First of all, let me just say . . . Being Sad is not my most beloved of leisure activities, and I have spent more time Being Sad in my leisure time this past week than doing anything else. AND I BLAME ALL OF YOU.

Teddy is my only friend now.

There were just a couple of times when I took a break from Being Sad to be Cautiously Amused. Like when Ginny thought she heard Ron and Hermione say something about the bathroom right before disappearing together for a prolonged period of time. (They were gathering Basilisk fangs in the Chamber of Secrets, obviously. Geez. Get your minds out of the gutter.)

Speaking of Ron and Hermione going on solo missions to remote parts of Hogwarts, the first time WE see them kiss is the first time Harry sees them kiss, which is right after Ron says a nice thing about house-elves. But I’m not entirely convinced that was their first kiss. Almost completely certain it wasn’t, actually. Or maybe it was. I just realized I’m not all that invested in this theory.

But do you know what theory I AM invested in? (Look at all my smooth segues today! I’ve just ruined them by pointing them out, haven’t I?) The good ship Potterfoy. I will go DOWN with that ship holding tight to just a couple of tidbits. I can live off tidbits for AGES.

Tidbit #1: "'Don’t kill him! DON’T KILL HIM!' Malfoy yelled at Crabbe and Goyle, who were both aiming at Harry" (pp. 631–631).

Tidbit #2: "Malfoy was screaming and holding Harry so tightly it hurt" (p. 634).

Damn. Fresh out of tidbits.

Another theory I’ve been working on (i.e., thought of just now) has to do with perhaps the only big secret Severus Snape succeeded in taking to his grave. 

"With a tingle of horror, Harry saw in the distance a huge, batlike shape flying through the darkness toward the perimeter wall." (p. 599)

Snape was Batman.

I didn’t shed actual tears at any point in this last book. (There was a LOT of lip trembling and throat tightening. I’m not a robot.) But the most emotional moments for me were the ones that continued a tiny thread from the very first book. Like when Hermione yells at Ron: "Are you a wizard, or what?" (p. 651). And when Hagrid tenderly carries through the woods what he thinks is Harry’s body . . . much like when Hagrid carried a smaller Harry to the doorstep of Number 4 Privet Drive. And when we see through Snape’s memories how hurt Petunia was that she wasn’t magical like her little sister—a hurt she carried into adulthood. And when Neville’s Gryffindor qualities (the ones that made it possible for him to stand up to his friends in those little-boy PJs) fully manifest in the absence of Harry, Ron, and Hermione at Hogwarts.

It’s like, in this last section, everyone’s very best qualities come out (even Kreacher’s). Which makes it all the more painful when some of these people are taken away from us.

And that means I can’t put this off any longer. It’s time for the final, and most painful . . .

1. Crabbe (burned in hellfire of his own making)

2. Fred (I refuse to talk about it.)

3. Lavender Brown (fell from a balcony; briefly savaged by Fenrir Grayback)

4. Severus Snape (received Hicky of Death from Nagini)

5. Lupin and Tonks (manner of death unknown)

6. Colin Creevey (manner of death unknown)

7. Bellatrix (cursed by badass Mama Weasley)

8. Voldemort (was his own undoing)

9. Fifty others (I'm sure they died bravely and well.)

And Draco and Harry AREN'T best friends in 19 years?!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Readalong 3: The week of ladies in particular kicking arse

This section was packed with more action than Hermione could stuff in her magical beaded purse. Fred (or maybe George?) made a funny about Snape's distaste for hair-cleaning products. Bellatrix called Dobby a "dirty little monkey," which is offensive to house elves everywhere. Harry is making all kinds of grown-up decisions and putting all his faith in Dumbledore's wisdom at last. We learned what really happened in the Dumbledore family when Albus and Aberforth were teenagers, and only SOME of it involved goats (The Hog's Head smells faintly of goats! I get it now!). All these loose ends being tied up remind me that there's only one week left in what has started to feel like the Harry Potter Readalong of NEVER-ENDING Awesomeness. I don't know whether to be relieved or despondent.

I'm about 3 to 1 on this.

Look, I hate to keep revisiting the whole "wands are penises" thing (it pains me, really it does), but after that argument with my husband I feel like I have to defend my stance a little more. And, well . . .

Wands are only as powerful as the wizards who use them. Some wizards just like to boast that theirs are bigger and better than other people's. (p. 415)

I think I can probably plant my victory flag on that one.

On a related note, I was impressed to learn that Bellatrix's wand is 12 3/4 inches and unyielding. I think that's the longest wand in the series, aside from Voldemort's. Which I think says something about her overall lady power, be it evil or otherwise. (It's evil. She's totally evil.)

And I HARDLY think that's appropriate, Bellatrix.

Also, Hermione saved everyone's mortal soul numerous times in this section. Thinking on her feet in Xenophilius Lovegood's house and Disapparating with Ron and Harry WHILE FALLING THROUGH THE FLOOR. Girl's got skills. And then she withstood prolonged torture in Malfoy Manor without telling Bellatrix anything useful or true.

Also this:

She's tough, Luna, much tougher than you'd think. She's probably teaching all the inmates about Wrackspurts and Nargles. (p. 425)

True story.

I have another question this week. When Peter Pettigrew hesitates to kill Harry for that brief moment in the basement at Malfoy Manor and his own magical hand strangles him instead . . . I don't exactly understand what happened there. Was the hand enchanted so that if he ever failed to kill Harry, he would die? Because what if he didn't kill Harry right then because he knew Voldemort wanted to kill Harry himself. That's all anyone ever says: "Don't kill Potter. The Dark Lord wants that honor for himself," blah blah, ad nauseam. So if Pettigrew HAD killed Harry right then, he would have been in capital T trouble with his boss. And that is what we in the business call a Catch-22 . . . or else a poorly written plot device, I'm sad to say.

And now, for Week 3 . . .

1. Ted Tonks (Did he know he was a grandfather? Stop it, too sad.)
2. Dirk Cresswell (I have no memory of this person and feel pretty bad about it.)
3. Gornuk the goblin (Their eyes with no whites are creepy, right?)
4. A Muggle family of five ("unnamed, but no less regretted")
5. Dobby, a free elf (I'm so sorry I called you the Jar Jar Binks of the Harry Potter series! I feel just awful about that now.)

A Visit From the Goon Squad: "We have some history together that hasn’t happened yet."

What can I even SAY about this book? That I had forgotten what a well-written book was like until I read the first five pages of this one? That I want to have entire paragraphs tattooed on my person? That it's funny and clever but still manages to make me feel the kind of profound sadness I get when I look at pictures of Earth from outer space?

Or just...I guess one word is fine, too.

Goon Squad reads like a book of highly cohesive short stories, because each chapter is told from a different character’s perspective and jumps around on the book's timeline, with corresponding (often drastic) changes in voice and tone. Egan basically wears a different body for each chapter (slimy but effective). And you've probably heard of the chapter that's entirely in slideshow format? It SEEMS like that would come off a little gimmicky, but it's so far from anything resembling a gimmick. You'll see, my friends (because you're currently purchasing this from your friendly neighborhood bookseller, I trust).

None of the characters are formally introduced. You get acquainted with them organically, within the framework of their connection to a previous character. And the more you read, the more you gather about the book’s two central characters. But you’re not always aware that they ARE the central characters, because you’re learning about them in such a roundabout way. Each chapter builds on the previous one to give you an idea of who these two people are and how they came to be that way, and it’s all based on the people whom they crossed paths with or who meant something to them at some point, and then it comes full circle and is JUST lovely.

I think the magical component is that this rings so true to life. We are an amalgam of all the people we’ve known and all the places we’ve been and all the things we’ve done. And the only way to really know a person is to know ALL those things, places, and people. And it’s so overwhelming and wonderful to realize that you just can’t. You can’t know. We don’t even know ourselves that way. 

ISN'T IT FANTASTIC AND ALSO TERRIBLE?

Egan’s writing is flawless. She drops a little nugget in one chapter as though it’s incidental and then brings it up several chapters later in another person’s story to powerful effect. It’s emotional but never emotionally manipulative.

It’s hard to pull out quotes for this book, because everything is seamless and interlocking. So here’s basically an entire paragraph (I’m sorry, Jennifer, if this breaks some sort of copyright law . . . you brought this on yourself):

Many years ago, he had taken the passion he felt for Susan and folded it in half, so he no longer had a drowning, helpless feeling when he glimpsed her beside him in bed. . . . Then he’d folded it in half again, so when he felt desire for Susan, it no longer brought with it an edgy terror of never being satisfied. Then in half again, so that feeling desire entailed no immediate need to act. Then in half again, so he hardly felt it. His desire was so small in the end that Ted could slip it inside his desk or a pocket and forget about it, and this gave him a feeling of safety and accomplishment, of having dismantled a perilous apparatus that might have crushed them both.

I KNOW.