Book Review: The Glass Castle: A Memoir, by Jeannette Walls

I’m probably one of the last people on Earth to realize this…but this book is straight-up PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE. And I loved every moment of it, even when I was clutching at my heart in spasms of emotional pain.

The Glass Castle: A Memoir, by Jeannette Walls, is a memoir about growing up in a loving but completely dysfunctional family. Her father, Rex, concocts fanciful stories and get-rich quick schemes, but fails to provide his family with enough money for food or clothing; any money they manage to save goes toward booze. Her mother, Rose Mary, has artistic pretensions and a teaching degree, but refuses to work for very long even when her children are going hungry at home, viewing physical and emotional hardship as “an adventure.” The family moves from place to place, often under the cover of darkness and at the drop of a hat.

For all of the Steven King fans out there

Pop-culture site Vulture has posted great ranking of all of Steven King’s works.

I haven’t read very much of King’s oeuvre so far–just Carrie and On Writing. (I enjoyed the latter especially, and am thankful to my undergrad creative nonfiction professor for assigning it, so long ago!)

After reading their list, I think I’d like to check out Needful Things, The Long Walk, The Dead Zone, Misery and Full Dark, No Stars. I go through phases were all I want to read are psychological horror, and one may be coming up soon!

What are your favorite books by King?

Review: Evolution in a Toxic World, by Emily Monosson

Did you know that oxygen used to be toxic? That some species, like killifish, have already evolved resistance to some water pollutants? That it is mosquitoes’ ability to duplicate alleles that allows them to develop pesticide resistance?

If those sound like things you would be interested in learning more about, you might want to pick up Evolution in a Toxic World: How Life Responds to Chemical Threats , by Emily Monosson. She details how various living creatures have evolved to survive–and even thrive–when faced with a constant onslaught of toxic substances, starting with the primordial origins of life and ending in the present day. In the process, we learn about the functions of various structures of our bodies as they adapt to changing conditions.

The third part of the book, which deals specifically with humans, was the most interesting to me. (This maaaay have something to do with the fact that my graduate studies revolve around environmental health and environmental justice impacts on humans…). It introduces current toxics, like PBCs and CFCs, and the sorts of effects they have had and continue to have our on bodies. It also seemed to be the most accessible section, with  the least dependence on highly scientific terminology. Monosson’s discussion of evolution itself, and the generational evolution we are able to observe in creatures like killifish and mosquitoes, was incredibly interesting and very well-put.

That being said, I don’t think this is a book for the general layperson, with no environmental health or toxicology previous experience. The first two sections of the book especially are difficult if you are not familiar with the functions of DNA, mitochondria and other cells, and basic toxicology. There were some sections that I found dense and confusing, myself, and I do have some familiarity with the subject. This is a book to take slowly and carefully, and where you may need to look up things if you don’t understand them on the first read. At the same time, it is highly informative and provides a broad range of environmental health issues under the umbrella of one subject: evolution. If you have some interest and experience with toxicology or cellular biology, be sure to check this read out!

I received this book free for review from the publisher through NetGalley. Evolution in a Toxic World was released on April 2nd, 2012, and is available now.

Bookwanderer Rating: Three stars

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books That Were Totally Deceiving

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week, they post a topic and encourage fellow bloggers to list their own top ten answers. This week’s prompt asks us to list books that, implicitly or explicitly, were deceiving. Some of the suggestions given are books whose covers or titles don’t fit the content, books that were radically different than its summary suggested, or fluffy-seeming books that turned out to be dramatic. I chose to interpret this as both positive and negative deceptions.

1. Soulless, by Gail Carriger
In my review of this novel, first in the Parasol Protectorate series, I specifically talked about how the book’s summary and genre labeling are quite misleading. I’m sure it’s a great paranormal romance, but I was promised a mystery/fantasy/horror book, damn it!

2. Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins
The third book in the Hunger Games trilogy takes on much more complex and confusing themes than even the previous two. I think readers who were expecting exciting romps through the Arena, with clearly delineated “good guys” and “bad guys,” were probably disappointed by Mockingjay. However, issues like the nuanced treatment of Katniss’s PTSD, the politics of creating an icon, and the betrayal of the public by their politicians made this, for me, a pleasant surprise.

3. Chicano, by Richard Vasquez
It had a ton of good reviews on GoodReads, was a bestseller during the 1970s, and was purportedly an unromanticized look at the lives of Mexican-Americans. But I hated Chicano. I didn’t find it a realistic or sympathetic portrayal of Mexican-Americans at all; instead, it played up many of the worst stereotypes and seems to indicate that Mexican-Americans will always be “the other” and will never truly be successful in the U.S.

4. Insatiable: Tales From a Life of Delicious Excess, by Gael Greene
Way too much about Gael’s flings with Elvis, etc. and not enough about cuisine other than French.

5. Circle of Friends, by Maeve Binchy
For a book that had been described to me as chick lit, Circle of Friends is incredibly powerful and mediates on the nature of friendships and the indelible marks that class makes on us. (Also, the movie looks pretty fluffy, and this is angst-central!)

6. The Emperor’s Children, by Claire Messud
According to GoodReads, this is “a dazzling, masterful novel about the intersections in the lives of three friends, now on the cusp of their thirties, making their way—and not—in New York City,” which is very true. However, it also packs a huge surprise punch at the end that many, including myself, did not see coming.

7. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
I was lucky enough to buy the book with a different cover than the truly hideous one showed here. Because if I had seen that one first, I probably wouldn’t have purchased it, expecting it to be a thinly-veiled rip-off of Starship Troopers, instead of the excellent allegory of the Vietnam War that it actually is. Really, that cover does a huge disservice to a wonderfully complex book!

8. Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, by Richard Rodriguez
So I was one of a handful of students with Latino heritage at my high school, and I think because of that fact, my 9th grade English teacher recommended this book to me.  At first, I was interested in learning about Rodriguez’s experiences as a cultural/ethnic outsider in the California school system, but it quickly becomes his own anti-affirmative action, anti-bilingual education screed. Being that I was pretty liberal, even as a 15-year old, this was definitely not the book for me!

9. A Million Little Pieces, by James Frey
Self-explanatory!  Regardless of your feelings about the bounds of creative non-fiction, Frey definitely did misrepresent certain aspects of his story.

10. Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
If you’ve read this, you know that the ideas of deception and how we perceive reality are central to the plot.

Waiting on Wednesday (Apr 21)

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

My Waiting on Wednesday pick this week is The Bird Detective. (I love birds and I love learning about them in fun ways, so I’m really excited about this one, especially as it turns bird fidelity on its head.) The blurb, via Harper Collins:

In The Bird Detective, the author explains why some birds readily “divorce,” why parents don’t treat their sons and daughters equally, why females sneak in quick sex with neighbouring males and why some adults forgo breeding altogether. Stutchbury writes about the territorial nature of birds and describes their nesting habits, revealing why some species prefer to live in over-crowded groups. Perhaps most important, she illuminates how climate change and other pressures of the modern world are forcing birds to change their habits as they fight for their very survival.

There’s a great article on the book here. The Bird Detective comes out July 4, 2010.

What’s your Waiting on Wednesday?

Review: The Boys of My Youth

“Oh God,” I thought while reading the first story or two in Jo Ann Beard’s The Boys of My Youth. “I’m not liking this. I’m going to have to write ANOTHER negative review about a memoir! People are going to think I’ve got it in for memoirs!”

I am so, so glad I kept reading. The Boys of My Youth is actually a fantastic collection of creative non-fiction focused on Beard’s childhood in the Midwest, her relationships with her parents, siblings, and friends, and her tumultuous marriage. I feel like it’s somewhat misnamed; “The Boys of My Youth” is one specific story in the collection, not really the theme of ALL of the pieces. I’d say it focuses much more intimately on Beard’s family and female friends, and it’s pretty affirming.

The stories range in subject and length from the short, “Against the Grain,” about living with a perfectionist, to the long, titular story, that highlights how the relationship between Beard and her childhood friend Elizabeth has changed–and, more importantly, remained the same. That one especially is cute and cutting at the same time, as it depicts the ways the two friends support each other through divorces, while at the same time flashing back to when they were girls playing pranks on the boys in their neighborhood.

They all have, for the most part, a slow, sad sort of air about them, with little bursts of humor (yes, real humor!). “The Family Hour” is about Beard’s parents’ rocky relationship, due to her father’s alcoholism. ”Waiting” is about Beard and her sister choosing their mother’s coffin, and the last days of her life.  ”Out There” is about Beard’s frightening run-in on with a trucker on an abandoned road. So the majority of these diverse stories are upsetting, yes, but also SUPER good. I felt like a got a really good feel for the kind of person Beard is, too, and I LIKED her.

One of my personal favorite stories, “The Fourth State of Matter,” is ostensibly about the slow, graceless decline of a pet dog and the end of Beard’s marriage–and then the main conflict comes at you out of nowhere and leaves you, like Beard in the story, a shaking mess. If you only read one story in this collection (and why would you do that??), make it that one. A million stars.

Interestingly, my least favorite stories of the collection were the most experimental: “Coyotes” was a sappy chore to read. (I can appreciate what she was doing and how she was using form and tone, but I don’t have to like it. And I LIKE nature writing!) “Behind the Screen” and “Bonanza,” the former about watching fireworks with her family and the latter about her grandparents, were two of the weaker stories, I felt. There was a shift in tone, a sense of trying too hard, or something else that I can’t quite pinpoint, but it definitely affected my enjoyment of those stories.

Overall, though, this was a thoughtful, enjoyable read that should appeal to even those who think they don’t like memoirs. Her tone is serious and funny where it needs to be, and she’s a talented writer with a well-developed sense of pace and plot. I especially liked the fact that the most defining characters in her life were the women: her mother, her cousin, her childhood best friend. All of these women supported her and shaped her in some way–made her stronger, really–and she regards them with a good mix of humor and honesty.

In my opinion, though, the collection is worth buying for “The Fourth State of Matter” and “The Boys of My Youth” alone.

This book counts as a non-fiction pick in the Women Unbound Challenge.

Bookwanderer Rating: Four stars

Bookwanderer Tagline: The boys (and girls!) of a Kansas childhood and tumultuous adulthood.

Second Opinions:
New York Times Book Review
Meat and Potatoes

Mexico 2010 Challenge

Um, I think I’m getting addicted to joining reading challenges. Is this a common problem? Should I seek help?

Anyway, yes, I’m joining another challenge: the Mexico 2010 reading challenge! I really enjoy reading Latin American literature, and as a Mexican-American myself, I almost felt like I HAD to do this one. (I mean, I rarely reread books, but I’ve read Open Veins of Latin America three times now.) I could definitely be reading more Mexican literature than I am. And you could too! If you’re interested in joining yourself, it’s hosted here by Sylvia of Classical Bookworm.

According to Sylvia,

In honour of the tricolor, the flag of Mexico, the challenge is to read three books of Mexican literature, history, or art.

Anyway, exciting! My potential reading list (suggestions welcome!):

Mexico: Biography of Power, by Enrique Krauze: I already own this, and got about 1/3 of the way through it before I was distracted and didn’t finish –which doesn’t mean it was boring or I didn’t like it. It’s pretty fantastic and extremely comprehensive. If anything, it was just too heavy to carry in my bag on the subway!

The Death of Artemio Cruz, by Carlos Fuentes: A fictional account of  the rise of a Mexican man during and after the Mexican Revolution, representing the paradoxes of modern Mexico itself.

Basta! Land and the Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas, by George A. Collier & Elizabeth Lowery Quaratiello: A non-fiction history of the Zapatista rebellion and the continuing land disputes in the Mexican state of Chiapas.

The Hummingbird’s Daughter, by Luis Alberto Urrea: According to Publishers Weekly, “The book is wildly romantic, sweeping in its effect, employing the techniques of Catholic hagiography, Western fairy tale, Indian legend and everyday family folklore against the gritty historical realities of war, poverty, prejudice, lawlessness, torture and genocide. Urrea effortlessly links Teresita’s supernatural calling to the turmoil of the times, concealing substantial intellectual content behind effervescent storytelling and considerable humor.”

Daughters of Juarez, by Teresa Rodriguez: A journalist’s account of the mysterious murders that have been occuring in Juarez, Mexico, since 1995, and have resulted in more than 300 women’s deaths. This was my Friday Find a few weeks ago.

Endangered Mexico, by Joel Simon: A broad appraisal of the many and myriad environmental problems of Mexico, which is the third most biodiverse country in the world, yet has difficulty protecting its natural resources.

The Log From the Sea of Cortez, by John Steinbeck: Gotta love Steinbeck! A combination of “science, philosophy and high-spirited adventure,” this book is his account of exploring the Gulf of California with his marine biologist friend.

If you have suggestions, please leave them in the comments! And as always, I’m keeping track of my reading challenge progress on the Challenges page.

The Women Unbound Challenge

Instead of a Friday Find this week…I’m joining another reading challenge! I’m trying to pace myself, since a) I’ve never done reading challenges before, b) I hate leaving things unfinished, and c) I’ve got a busy job/life.

But…I’m really excited about this one, which I found on A Striped Armchair. I argued with myself and finally decided to go for it and join the Women Unbound Challenge. According to the challenge blog:

Participants are encouraged to read nonfiction and fiction books related to the rather broad idea of ‘women’s studies.’ The definition according to Merriam-Webster is “the multidisciplinary study of the social status and societal contributions of women and the relationship between power and gender.”

There are three levels of participation:

• Philogynist: read at least two books, including at least one nonfiction one.
• Bluestocking: read at least five books, including at least two nonfiction ones.
• Suffragette: read at least eight books, including at least three nonfiction ones

The Women Unbound Challenge runs from November 2009 to November 2010. If you want to get involved, head over to the challenge blog and sign up!

I’m going to aim for Bluestocking this time around. (Suffragette, maybe next year!) As for a possible reading list to complete the challenge, I’ve got:

• The Commoner, by John Burnam Schwartz: A fictional account of a woman who becomes the first commoner to marry into the Japanese royal family, whose “freedom and ambition suffer under the stifling rituals of court life.” Bonus: it’s based on the real life of Empress Michiko of Japan.
• Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters:  A gothic novel about the intertwined lives of two orphan girls and the misfortunes that they participate in, with more twists and turns than a maze. I’m about 2/3 of the way through right now. SO GOOD.
• The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: This was my Friday Find last week, a story about a woman locked in a tiny room after giving birth.
• Out, by Natsuo Kirino: The story of four female Japanese factory workers who become linked due to a crime, and the covering up of the crime. It’s been praised for its gritty portrayal of domestic Tokyo life.
• Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks: A historical fiction novel about the lengths a small Derbyshire village goes to to keep a 17th-century plague from spreading. I’ve read that the female narrator has great inner strength while dealing with the deaths of her fellow villagers. 
• The Boys of My Youth, by Jo Ann Beard: A series of memoir-ish essays of growing up in the ’60s, and the author’s relationships with family, friends, and men.  
• Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs: One of the first personal narratives written by a slave in the United States during the late 1800s, and one of the only written by a woman. It features cruelty and subjugation, yes, but also kindness, justice, and above all, the strength and will of Harriet. A re-read for me, but a powerful one.
• Birding on Borrowed Time, by Phoebe Snetsinger: The true story of a woman who, after being diagnosed with malignant melanoma, decided to dedicate the rest of her life to birding and became one of the “big listers”–a birder who has seen and identified 7000+ species!
• Odd Girl Out, by Rachel Simmons: The author, a journalist, investigates the “hidden aggression” in girls and the ways they express it by interviewing 300 girls at 30 different schools.
• Sex with Kings, by Eleanor Herman: A history of royal mistresses and the power they wielded in Europe that serves as an account ”of the “art and science” of being a royal mistress.” 

This is a tentative list; I still haven’t quite decided what to read. What are some feminist fiction and non-fiction books that I’ve missed or ones that you love?  Leave a comment and let me know!

WWW Wednesday/Waiting on Wednesday (Feb 17)

WWW Wednesdays are hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

Heeeeere’s tarynwanderer!

What are you currently reading? I’m just starting Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It’s embarrassing to admit for a self-professed fantasy nerd, but I’ve only read ONE book by Gaiman (Neverwhere) and NONE by Pratchett. So I’m looking forward to this one a lot.

 What did you recently finish reading? Just finished John James Audubon: The Making of an American, and it was so, so interesting. He was pretty ahead of his time in terms of his thinking about birds and protection of natural resources. He was an inspiring guy–didn’t let business failure, money woes, or age get him down! (Yeah…I kind of have a crush on Audubon now.)

What do you think you’ll read next? I’m keeping my options open! Waiting for several packages to arrive that include The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, The Commoner by John Burnam Schwartz, Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, and Forever by Pete Hamill. So it depends which one stikes me once I’ve got my grubby lil’ paws on it.

As for my Waiting on Wednesday pick (hosted by Jill of Breaking the Spine), this week I’m going with Anthill, by E.O Wilson. If you are interested in science and nature at all, you’ve probs read some of Wilson’s work before. But Anthill is his first foray into FICTION! Awesome. It sounds like Wilson brings his trademark depth and level of detail to a new kind of story.

The blurb, via Amazon:

Astonishing, inspirational, even magical: a naturalist’s novel about an Alabama boy who heroically tries to save a sacred forest. “What the hell do you want?” snarled Frogman at Raff Cody, as the boy stepped innocently on the reputed murderer’s property. Fifteen years old, Raff had only wanted to catch a glimpse of Frogman’s 1,000-pound alligator. Thus begins the epic story of Anthill, part thriller, part parable, which follows the adventures of Raff, a modern-day Huck Finn, whose improbable love of ants ends up transforming his own life and those around him. Alarmed by condo developers who are intent on destroying Alabama’s endangered Nokobee tract, Raff idealistically heads off to law school. Returning home, he encounters the angry and corrupt ghosts of an old South he thought had disappeared. The sacred woods he must now travel through to save Lake Nokobee are teeming with unimaginable danger. Anthill, with some of the most striking scientific detail ever seen in a popular novel, will transfix readers with its stunning twists and startling revelations of the true meaning of nature’s wildness.

Anthill, by  E.O Wilson, comes out on April 5th.

Fridays Finds (Feb 12)!

 What great books did you hear about/discover this past week? Share with us your FRIDAY FINDS! Hosted by MizB at, where else, Should Be Reading.

Some interesting Friday Finds for ol’ tarynwanderer this week!

                         

• Out, by Natsuo Kirino, is a psychological thriller about four Japanese women with unhappy lives who become linked and tangled due to a murder. First spotted (it’s a striking cover!) being read on the 1 train uptown, I’ve had it in the back of my mind to read for ages now. I’ve already marked it as a ‘to-read’ on my Goodreads.
• Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel, is about Thomas Cromwell, a commoner who becomes one of King Henry VIII’s most trusted advisers and influential in the creation of the Church of England. I had heard this title  bandied about, but only really got interested in reading after books i done read’s review. Originally I thought it was a fantasy novel (with that title, come on!) but it still sounds like a totally interesting and engaging portrait of someone that history has been less than kind to.
• Picking Bones From Ash,  by Marie Mutsuki Mockett, is a tale of a mother and a daughter, post-war Japan, coming-of-age, and family secrets. What can I say? I LOVE the title. And that cover, holy crap–it’s gorgeous. And according to Amazon, there is a mix of magical realism and history too. Definitely on my TBR list!