Skip to content

Recent Posts

  • Best review yet of You Knew He Had Kids
  • Frequently Asked Questions about Society of Stepmothers
  • Random Facts about The Evil Sweater and Other Stories
  • Free recipe: Chocolate Raspberry Croissant
  • Free recipe: Simple Mint

Most Used Categories

  • Reviews (61)
    • Fiction (41)
    • Bestsellers (40)
    • Nonfiction (17)
    • No-Spoiler Book Reviews (13)
    • Audiobooks (5)
    • A Book from Every Country (5)
  • My Books (21)
    • Why We Read What We Read (15)
  • News & Blabber (5)
Skip to content
  • Online Courses
  • Contact
Author, Writer, and Editor Lisa Adams | 'Society of Stepmothers,' 'S'mores: Gourmet Treats for Every Occasion,' 'Feshy's Dreamworld,' 'The Evil Sweater and Other Stories,' and 'Why We Read What We Read,'

Author, Writer, and Editor Lisa Adams | 'Society of Stepmothers,' 'S'mores: Gourmet Treats for Every Occasion,' 'Feshy's Dreamworld,' 'The Evil Sweater and Other Stories,' and 'Why We Read What We Read,'

  • S’mores
  • Society of Stepmothers
  • Evil Sweater
  • Feshy’s Dreamworld
  • Why We Read What We Read
  • Home
  • Reviews
  • Fiction

Category: Fiction

Holidays on Ice

LisaNovember 25, 2011January 22, 2014

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

Holidays on Ice has become one of my favorite holiday traditions. I have an uncanny ability to unintentionally pick up books about war and torture, which is problematic enough during the rest of the year, but around the holidays I’m just not in the mood. Nor, however, do I want to read sappy crap about puppies that save people’s marriages or other lame-ass Christmas miracles. Holidays on Ice always fits the bill.

It’s a collection of David Sedaris’s holiday-themed short stories, many (all?) of which are plucked from his other books. Anyone who’s ever barfed over a Christmas letter will delight in the parody “Season’s Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!” And anyone who’s suffered through an elementary school production of any kind will find a kindred spirit in “Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol.” But my favorite story of all is “SantaLand Diaries,” Sedaris’s hilarious reflections on the winter he spent working as a mall elf.

So, while I will always encourage you to buy one of my books to give to everyone on your list, you really can’t go wrong with this one either. Whatever you read, boycott torture for the season. Happy holidays!

Jitterbug Perfume

LisaMarch 31, 2011January 22, 2014

Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

Like a lot of nerdy and ungainly girls, I went through a Tom Robbins phase in high school. His playful love of women appealed to us earnest and hopeful types.

Then I got sick of his writing style and abandoned him completely for 20 years.

So when my book club picked Jitterbug Perfume for its next selection, I was looking forward to revisiting my old friend—though I was slightly worried that the pages might engulf me back into some tedious adolescent throes.

I needn’t have worried. I found Tom Robbins to be as enjoyable as ever, and nothing about his work compelled me to gnash my teeth and write bad poetry.

Story: Ancient Bohemian king Alobar escapes certain cultish death and sets off on a mission to extend his life indefinitely, accompanied by suttee escapee and love interest Kudra. Also, modern-day perfumers battle it out to recreate a mesmerizing scent that will earn them eternal fragrance fame.

Themes: Perfume, immortality, and beets. Yep, you read that right.

Writing: This book’s themes are compelling, but people really read Robbins for his writing. And it is good—very good—intricate and witty like few other authors out there. His sense of humor, in fact, is the closest to my husband’s I’ve ever encountered on this earth—though (rather like my husband’s punny episodes) it is relentless, best in smaller doses. By the end of Jitterbug Perfume I definitely needed a break.

Best thing about it: Alobar’s journey is captivating from the first pages.

Worst thing about it: The modern-day characters are never fully developed. They feel more like distractions from the main plot.

Half of a Yellow Sun (Nigeria)

LisaJanuary 2, 2011January 22, 2014

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Story: In the 1960s, the southeastern provinces of Nigeria attempted to secede and form an independent nation called Biafra. Adichie tells the story of this civil war through the experiences of five characters: a professor who passionately supports the revolution; a teenage houseboy from a rural village; a British transplant who’s fallen in love with Nigeria; and upper-class twin sisters with a stormy relationship.

Writing: Literary but totally accessible. The story is told in third person and switches back and forth between the various characters’ perspectives. The structure is clever—the book starts in the early 1960s, moves to the late 1960s, and then switches back to the early 1960s before finishing with the late 1960s—enabling Adichie to drive readers into a frenzy of curiosity when she hints at “missing” events throughout the middle of the book.

Best thing about it: Half of a Yellow Sun has a great balance of character and plot. Adichie brings the true events of the revolution to life through well-drawn, likable characters. And the creative structure really keeps you guessing.

Worst thing about it: I got nothing. It’s a good read and a beautiful tribute to Adichie’s own family members who lived through the conflict.

The Grapes of Wrath

LisaSeptember 16, 2010January 22, 2014

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

I’m going to tell you the plain truth: This book was so depressing that it took me two years to read. And I actually like depressing books. So suck on that for a while.

Even so, I actually kind of love it. I appreciate its greatness. I appreciate its anger and honesty. I appreciate that a book like this, if published today, would probably be read by about half a thousand critics and six readers, each of whom would write a useless strongly-worded letter to some farming authority. Meanwhile Steinbeck, the lucky dog, gets to punish high school students throughout eternity with the bleakest tale of western migration ever told.

But here are the juicy details.

Setting: Oklahoma to California in the 1930s.

Story: Victims of changing practices in the farming industry, the members of the voluminous Joad family have been cast off their Oklahoma land. So they head out to California, where they’ve been told they’ll find work a-plenty, pickin’ peaches and baskin’ in the sun. Then all the bad things in the world happen.

Writing: The majority of the story is told from the perspectives of various family members and is thus written in “Okie” dialect. This, as authentic as it surely is, can get really annoying. However, Steinbeck incorporates these interludes in his own language that are magically beautiful.

Themes: This is really an ultimate man vs. The Man kind of story—a family simply trying to scrape by with a little dignity, beaten down at every turn by a system that is both nonsensical and inhumane.

But what’s the deal, you wonder, with the “grapes of wrath”? It really sounds like some freaky Stephen King plot where the grapes fling themselves off the vines and burrow into people’s eyeballs. I drove all through California last weekend and could not stop staring at all those creepy little buggers on the hillsides.

But that, it turns out, is not the meaning at all. The book’s thematic climax spells it out:

“There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate—died of malnutrition—because the foot must rot, must be forced to rot.

“The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

So relax. You don’t need to be afraid of the grapes. Unless you are of course The Man, and then the people are coming for you.

Best thing about it: This is an important book. It just is. You can tell when you read it, even when you hate it.

Worst thing about it: Well, you know. It’s really freaking depressing.

Final thoughts: You should probably read it. I’m just sayin’.

The Island

LisaSeptember 9, 2010January 22, 2014

The Island by Elin Hilderbrand

Okay, I love my Kindle, but there is just one little problem with it that only major snobs like yours truly will appreciate: it doesn’t really let you see the covers, so you can’t exactly figure out what genre you are considering.

Thus me purchasing The Island.

Yes, I did read the sample, and that should have delivered a healthy dose of caveat emptor. But it didn’t (my brain was addled by vacation; I was trying to find something light; the sample mentioned weddings; I just went for it). And then I was stuck with incredibly lengthy chick lit that I was too, er, tenacious to stop reading.

Let me be clear, though: this isn’t a bad book. It’s just kind of a pointless one, and very long for a book that has neither a thrills-a-minute plot nor thematic depth. I thought chick lit was supposed to be short and sweet, maybe even funny and charming, but The Island is fairly serious. To me it’s lying in limbo, somewhere between a beach read and a literary novel.

Setting: Modern-day Tuckernuck, an ultra-rustic island off of Nantucket.

Story: Mom, two daughters, and aunt spend a month together at their family’s vacation home on a remote island. Each is dealing with a relationship issue: a divorce; a broken engagement; a dead husband and potential lesbian lover; and a lifelong crush that hasn’t materialized. Each woman must work through her issues, past and present, with her love interest(s) and her female relations.

Themes: Sibling rivalry; the nature of love; guilt and forgiveness.

Writing: It’s fine. Nothing that will knock your socks off, but nothing bad either. It’s just really long. (Have I mentioned that?)

Best thing about it: Lesbians?

Worst thing about it: It’s just doesn’t have enough depth for a novel that is all about feelings and relationships. And it has a ridiculously unbelievable stepmom sub-plot that had me rolling my eyes.

Final thoughts: The Island would probably make a satisfying beach read for many women, but I just wasn’t one of them.

This Is Where I Leave You

LisaSeptember 2, 2010January 22, 2014

This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

Story: Judd is a sad sack. He’s been dumped, humiliated, and stripped of employment. Needless to say, he’s at an all-time low—and his father has the gall to make it even worse by dying…and then requesting that his wife and four children all sit shiva. So back to his parents’ house Judd goes, hanging out with his dysfunctional family for a week as he mourns the loss of his father, his wife, and the life he thought he had in the bag.

Writing: This is where Tropper really shines. Despite the depressing subject matter, the book is a quick and witty read, with great comic phrasing and characterization. This is ugly real life in all its hilarious glory, and I’m all over that shizzle.

Yeah, I said shizzle.

Themes: No one gets the life s/he expected. Terrible things happen, people get old and lumpy, and you make the best of what you’ve got. The book really explores the meaning of family relationships—what it is to be a child, a sibling, a spouse, a parent—and all the fine twisted love and torture that lie therein.

Yeah, I said therein.

Best thing about it: Writing!

Worst thing about it: I can’t really say without revealing too much about the plot, but there’s something that happens near the end that I find all too convenient.

Final thoughts: One of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in a while.

Little Bee

LisaAugust 26, 2010January 22, 2014

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Setting: Modern-day London and Nigeria.

Story: Okay, I’m going to go along with the book’s marketing team on this one—I can’t really tell you. But the fulcrum of the story involves a British couple, two Nigerian teenagers, and a horrific event on a Nigerian beach that—you know—changes their lives forever.

Writing: The narrative switches between the first-person perspectives of Sarah (the British woman) and Little Bee (one of the Nigerian teenagers). Little Bee’s language is especially entertaining and rhythmic, though at first I thought it was a little patronizing.

Themes: Some pretty heavy stuff underpins this novel: immigration and the treatment of refugees; globalization and its human cost; the meaning and impact of self-sacrifice; what makes a life worth living (or not). It’s meaty, man.

Best thing about it: Interesting plot and Little Bee’s perspective.

Worst thing about it: I found Sarah a bit tedious and her son a lot tedious.

Final thoughts: A good choice for book clubs. You can all ask each other what you would do during the big secret event that I can’t tell you about.

Heart of Darkness

LisaAugust 11, 2010January 22, 2014

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Okay, so you know how sometimes you just never read a classic book for years and years—because even as an English major you can’t possibly read all of them in college—and then you finally get around to it and you realize that it is some missing piece of your soul that has finally come home to rest?

Well, this wasn’t one of those times. It’s true that I managed not to read Heart of Darkness till now, but I kinda wish it had stayed that way. It’s one of those books that skates by on its historical significance and once-revolutionary themes, so no one bothers to mention the totally crappy storytelling.

John and I read this for our own personal book club, and basically spent the entire discussion complaining about it and tallying up all the things we wished Conrad would have done instead.

But let’s break it down.

Setting: Late 19th century, England and the Congo

Story: Naive English dude becomes a ferry-boat captain headed to the Congo. He is charged with 1) transporting ivory, and 2) picking up a guy named Kurtz, who is some fiendishly successful ivory trader who needs to be returned to civilization. Kurtz is a genius, they say, but seems to be dabbling in some shady practices.

Themes: As good little 19th century Brits, we all know that the “heart of darkness” refers to the jungle itself, the black-skinned heathens who live there. Or does it? Could it be that raping the African land in the name of Christianizing the savages is not such a pure motive after all, that true darkness perhaps germinates in the human soul?

Writing: I have no complaints with Conrad’s style. It’s the freaking plot and structure.

First, the whole thing is a frame story, which as far as I can tell has no function except to jolt the reader out of the story periodically for no good reason. But the main problem is that the book fails to deliver the goods. Conrad piques our interest for pages and pages about this Kurtz fellow. All the characters go on at length about his persuasive methods, his amazing speeches, his heroic proportions. And Conrad never shows us, never tells us, never gives us any satisfying details about who Kurtz actually is or what Kurtz actually does. I walked away from this book with literary blue balls, and I’m still angry about it.

Best thing about it: It’s short.

Worst thing about it: See “writing” above.

Final thoughts: Watch Apocalypse Now instead. It’s actually supposed to be an adaptation of Heart of Darkness, though from what I understand (I’ve only seen the big famous scene with the Wagner) it actually has a good plot.

A Single Man

LisaJuly 30, 2010January 22, 2014

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
Narrated by Simon Prebble

Setting: Los Angeles in the 1960s

Story: Gay English professor George has just lost his longtime partner. We follow him through the aftermath of the event and his silent, secret grief.

Themes: The feeling of isolation even when surrounded by others. As a gay man, a Brit, a professor, a man of a certain age, George moves through a heavily populated world in which he constantly stands apart.

Writing: Literary. This is a character study of the truest sort, an intimate step-into-my-brain kind of adventure.

Best thing about it: Hollywood has glutted our hearts and minds with jolly, fabulous gay men. It’s refreshing to see an old gay grump.

Worst thing about it: I can’t exactly put my finger on the reason, but this book just never totally seized me as I wished it would.

Audiobook insights: Narrator Simon Prebble captures George’s bitter outlook with the perfect sardonic tone.

Final thoughts: If you like character studies, A Single Man is totally solid. Those looking for a zippier plot should look elsewhere.

The Shadow of the Wind (Spain)

LisaJune 15, 2010January 22, 2014

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Narrated by Jonathan Davis

Setting: 1950s Barcelona

Story: When protagonist Daniel is just a child, his father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books—a vast and secret library where books in danger of extinction live for all time. (Book nerds, start salivating!) Daniel’s mission there is to choose one special book whose existence he will protect for life.

Daniel sets out to investigate his chosen tome and stumbles upon a mystery—what happened to the book’s disturbed, talented, and wildly unsuccessful author? And why is someone seeking out and burning all his books? Along with Fermín, a hilarious friend and self-described ladies’ man, Daniel sets out to uncover the author’s secrets and stop his work from being destroyed.

Writing: Quite readable with some literary flair. (It’s a translation, however, so I can’t comment on the original.)

Best thing about it: Fermín is just a great character who lends some wonderful levity to the book. His relationship with Daniel is touching and three-dimensional—not the usual fare. I also love that the mysterious author is amazingly gifted, yet can’t sell a novel to save his life!

Worst thing about it: Shockingly, I can’t think of anything to complain about.

Audiobook insights: Highly recommended. Davis is a genius at distinguishing the characters from one another, especially in bringing Fermín to life.

Final thoughts: This literary mystery and coming-of-age story is a great read.

Shantaram (India)

LisaJune 3, 2010January 22, 2014

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Narrated by Humphrey Bower

Well, it turns out that India is not merely a land of funtime singalongs. If you’re dying to delve into the underbelly of Bombay in the 80s, slums and black markets and more, Shantaram is the book for you. It’s a world I knew nothing about, described by a tour guide who’s really been there: Gregory David Roberts, the Australian robber and prison escapee who based much of this novel on his own life.

Story: A man on the run has to start from scratch. And so we meet our protagonist, Lin, during his first hours on Indian soil. He must make friends, learn the languages, and forge a new life for himself in a teeming, complex city he soon comes to love. Rural villages, Bombay slums, brothels, lice-infested prisons, Bollywood movie sets, and Afghan mountainsides all serve as backdrops for Lin’s many adventures, both criminal and philanthropic. And a love story captivates throughout.

Writing: Mostly straightforward, but at times quite literary.

Best thing about it: Fascinating details about the culture and way of life, especially on the criminal side. News to me!

Worst thing about it: There is an enormous cast of characters and it can be hard to keep track.

Audiobook insights: On the positive side, the narrator is great, especially when shifting between Kiwi, Indian, and French accents. On the negative side, unless you are familiar with Indian and Arabic names, it can be tough to keep track of all the characters; I think it would be easier to see the names in print. Also, the audiobook is (gasp) abridged, which I did not know when I bought it, and may have contributed to my name confusion.

Final thoughts: A solid read, but a big investment (the printed book, I understand, has some 900 pages). Unless you’re into epics, don’t even try.

Tropic of Cancer

LisaMay 3, 2010January 22, 2014

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

In the first sentences, Miller writes:

“This is not a book in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of art, a kick in the pants to God, man, destiny, time, love, beauty, what you will.”

Story: Henry Miller and his ridiculous friends caper about Paris like frat boys with brains, dodging responsibility and screwing everything in sight (not necessarily in that order). That said, plot is minimal. Miller wasn’t lying: This is more an assortment of semi-autobiographical diary entries than a novel in any typical sense.

Writing: The writing is rather marvelous. If there were a stronger thread of plot, this book would probably be amazing.

Obscenity index: Tropic of Cancer was banned in the US in the 1960s, but its obscenity probably won’t set you swooning. It’s certainly dirty, somewhat creepy, full of foul language (in particular, see below), but not really offensive by today’s standards.

Best thing about it: Gives you implicit permission to call your friends “cunts.”

Worst thing about it: I’d have to go with no plot, but Miller’s weird brands of misogyny and anti-Semitism also get tiresome.

Audiobook insights: Recommended. The narrator, Campbell Scott, has this seedy sotto voce that really captures the intimacy and broodiness of the narrative. Some of the scenes—the bit with Carl comes to mind—are actually quite hilarious when read out loud. And, since you won’t have to keep track of any plot, the audiobook makes it easy to listen to five minutes at a time with no worries about getting interrupted and losing the point.

Final thoughts: I am so done with expatriate literature. Did anyone actually do anything in Paris in the 30s? Seriously. I am over it.

Re-read The Corrections

LisaApril 28, 2010January 22, 2014

In Why We Read What We Read, we talked briefly about Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, using it to illustrate Oprah’s peculiar ways of reading literature. But we never really got to say what a wonderful book it is.

This was unfair. Franzen’s National Book Award winner is one of the best books we read on our bestselling journey, certainly my personal Fiction Top Five. It chronicles the lives of the five members of the Lambert family: stubborn, recalcitrant father Alfred, on a steady Parkinson’s-induced decline; nagging mother Enid, perpetually midwestern and disappointed with her children’s unconventional choices; prosperous son Gary, obsessed with proving how great his life is even as he loses the war against depression and his wife and children’s alliance against him; writer/academic son Chip, whose imprudent dalliances with an undergraduate cost him his career and his dignity; and daughter Denise, a star chef successful in all but the personal arena where she manages to get involved with both her boss and his wife.

Never has a book about so many wretched people been so hilarious. It’s not slapstick, just the perfect turns of phrase, the perfect big hunks of chapters that expose the neuroses and obsessions of these people in all their all-too-realistic glory.

Three brief reviews of Chick Lit

LisaMay 26, 2008January 22, 2014

…in order from worst to best.

The two words that come to mind when I think of Family Trust by Amanda Brown are “frivolous” and “dumb.” Brown is the author of the Legally Blonde novel, but having read Family Trust I wonder if the movie’s charm came from elsewhere. At any rate Family Trust seems to have been written solely in the hopes that it, too, would be converted into a Reese Witherspoon film. If we are lucky, it won’t be. The premise of the book is that unmarried parents die in a plane crash, each appointing a separate guardian for the four-year-old left behind. The two different-as-can-be guardians have to learn to get along as they raise their new daughter and then—wocka wocka wocka—fall in love.

The Ivy Chronicles by Karen Quinn lands in the middle of the scale. It’s not a whole lot less frivolous than Family Trust, but there’s a goofy quality about the book—the main character goes on a date with George Clooney; another character gets eaten by an alligator—that reminds me of Janet Evanovich. The plot here centers on New York businesswoman Ivy Ames, who loses her bigshot job and bigshot husband and so launches a company that helps parents get their kids into the best private kindergartens. (Aside: this topic—the snootiness and impossibility of Manhattan kindergartens—seems to deliver endless fascination to chick lit authors and audiences. It appears in both Family Trust and The Nanny Diaries. I kinda don’t get it.) Along the way Ivy does anything to make her clients successful: working with a mobster, painting a little girl black, even selling out her own (Jewish) people for cash. But in the end she regains her dignity and fixes some of her more pronounced value flaws. I recommend this book over Family Trust mainly because it’s sillier and there’s a lot more swearing.

The one I liked the best was Sabine Durrant’s Having It and Eating It, a novel about the shadowy sides of parenting and marriage. By far the most realistic of the three books, Durrant’s novel follows Maggie Owen, a stay-at-home mom of a baby and a toddler who has grown increasingly estranged from her busy advertising exec hubby. Filled with dark humor and adorable British lingo, Having It and Eating It explores the inherent tensions of child-rearing and long-term relationships, the lure of adultery, the peculiar joys and jealousies of women for whom motherhood is a full-time job.

With that, I’m over my chick lit experiment. I never could find any lad lit aside from Nick Hornby (who I think is good but ever-so-slightly overrated); apparently this was a genre more or less invented by publishing houses hoping to bring chick lit to the boys. But they failed—pretty big time—because, of course, most men don’t read fiction that isn’t headlined by the likes of Jack Ryan and Dirk Pitt. Geez, we could have told them that!

Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers 2007: James Patterson gets even more annoying

LisaMay 12, 2008May 29, 2014

Okay, I’m serious now, people. Stop reading James Patterson! He’s just not that good.

The numbers, alas, say otherwise: in addition to the four paperback bestsellers already mentioned in my earlier post, the guy has five hardcover bestsellers as well! Here’s the full list:

1. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Riverhead (5/07) 2,201,865
2. Playing for Pizza by John Grisham. Doubleday (9/07) 1,445,000
3. Double Cross
by James Patterson. Little, Brown (11/07) 1,428,974
4. The Choice by Nicholas Sparks. Grand Central (9/07) 1,200,809
5. Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich. St. Martin’s (6/07) 1,116,828
6. Plum Lovin’ by Janet Evanovich. St. Martin’s (1/07) 1,080,686
7. Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell. Putnam (10/07) 1,027,000
8. The Quickie by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. Little, Brown (7/07) 795,736
9. The 6th Target by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro. Little, Brown (5/07) 769,460
10. The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz. Bantam (11/07) 740,000
11. Step on a Crack by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. Little, Brown (2/07) 732,702
12. You’ve Been Warned by James Patterson and Howard Roughan. Little, Brown (9/07) 724,713
13. T Is for Trespass by Sue Grafton. Putnam (12/07) 716,582
14. Stone Cold by David Baldacci. Grand Central (11/07) 670,590
15. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. Atria Books (3/07) 609,000

The saddest thing about this unsurprising list is that not a single new novelist made it this year. Though I’m not a passionate fan of Mr. Hosseini, I guess I can be glad that the number one title was a literary offering.

Mostly, though, I keep thinking about Sue Grafton. I honestly remember seeing these same Kinsey Millhone books in the store when I was a child. How can Grafton not be wanting to gnaw off her own fingers at this point? And does some brilliant psychotic meltdown await her when the alphabet runs out? I worry about her. I really do.

Chick Lit, here I come

LisaMay 4, 2008May 29, 2014

It’s been suggested by some readers here that I look into the chick lit phenomenon, a genre we skipped in Why We Read What We Read because it simply isn’t bestselling—at least not bestselling enough to thrust a title into the top 15 for any one year. Still, one really can’t ignore the hot pink drawings gracing innumerable slim paperbacks at one’s local bookstore. These titles occupy premium display space at the chain stores, proof enough that they are selling in very satisfying quantities indeed.

As a clueless outsider, I wasn’t sure even what “chick lit” really was. After all, 70% of literary fiction is read by women, and with even autobiographical journeys like Eat, Pray, Love scoring big with the ladies, it wasn’t clear to me that all of those offerings didn’t qualify. However, according to the book reviewers over at ChickLitBooks.com, chick lit is women’s fiction of a very special type:

It’s all in the tone. Chick lit is told in a more confiding, personal tone. It’s like having a best friend tell you about her life….Humor is a strong point in chick lit, too….THAT is what really separates chick lit from regular women’s fiction.

Got it. Less Maya Angelou, more Bridget Jones.

I also learned that chick lit, like romantic fiction, comes in multiple sub-genres. You’ve got City Girl Lit, and Wedding Lit, and Hen Lit (for “older” women in their 30s to 60s). You’ve got Christian Lit, “Bigger Girl” Lit, even “Lad Lit” that’s written by and about men (but in that all-important light and humorous tone).

I started with Mom Lit. It seemed like it would be different from The Nanny Diaries (which I did read once) and Sex and the City (which I still watch a lot) without veering too far into one of the more peculiar branches of the genre.

And I started with a powerhouse: Jennifer Weiner. Though chick lit hasn’t broken through to an annual list’s top 15, Weiner is still a bestselling author who sold nearly 300,000 copies of The Guy Not Taken in 2007. That’s not the book I read, though. I picked up Little Earthquakes, a story about women who meet in a prenatal yoga class and become friends, supporting each other through their trials with their husbands and new babies.

Well, I wasn’t very impressed. I just felt so neutral about this book: it wasn’t horribly boring, but it wasn’t terribly interesting. And, disappointingly, despite the promises of ChickLitBooks.com, it just wasn’t that funny. It was light, certainly, and it had scenes that I know were supposed to be funny, but the only thing that I thought was genuinely amusing was when the women took turns tossing yarmulkes across the room at their babies’ bare heads.

Of course, a book needn’t be funny if it has depth, but I thought Little Earthquakes was lacking in that department as well. It wasn’t really about anything—except that caring for an infant is really, really hard. That’s all true, and I can see the book being comforting to overworked new moms (if they would even have time to read it), but I just needed more.

Halfway through, in fact, I needed so much more that I swapped Little Earthquakes for Tom Perrotta’s Little Children. Both the titular and thematic similarities were coincidental, but the comparison well demonstrated what I want from a novel that my foray into chick lit just wasn’t delivering.

Themes. Themes! Themes!! I like my books to be about something bigger, to comment upon the human condition, to explore our tweaked-out selves in some thoughtful way. It’s not a matter of topic: like Weiner, Perrotta writes about parents, children, marriage, and suburban life. But he does it in a way that’s so much less shallow, so much less predictable, and just—honestly—so much better.

His story follows a number of befuddled characters: a stay-at-home mom who can’t quite figure how she ever ended up married with a child; a hot stay-at-home dad who sneaks out at night to watch skateboarders instead of studying for the bar exam he’s failed twice; an angry retired cop with an agenda; a panty-sniffer; and yes, even a child molester. Perhaps these dark edges give Perrotta an immediate literary advantage. But either way, he works his theme both literally and figuratively: the characters are linked by the “little children” around which their lives revolve, while also becoming helpless “little children” themselves in the face of their own desires.

After finishing Little Children, I did eventually get to the embarrassingly shallow ending of Little Earthquakes, in which all is magically resolved. What’s so strange to me is that Weiner goes out of her way to crystallize the genuine, overwhelming difficulty of motherhood, but then gives us an ending that glazes over all the problems she’s spent 400 pages cataloging. Does realism not apply to denouements? Perrotta’s ending, on the other hand, manages to be generally positive without undermining the issues and complexities explored in the novel.

I wonder—and this is a theory, not a statement—if one difference between literary and genre fiction is how they deal with truth: the former dishes it out relentlessly while the latter can’t quite look it in the eye.

We’ll see. I’m not judging all chick lit based on this one book. I’ll be back with reviews of Family Trust, Having It and Eating It, and maybe some of that quirky “Lad Lit” if I can get my hands on it.

Bestselling Mass Market Paperbacks, 2007

LisaApril 28, 2008May 29, 2014

Here they be.

1. Blood Brothers. Nora Roberts. Orig. Jove (2,247,730)
2. Cross
. James Patterson. Rep. Grand Central (1,831,296)
3. Angels Fall. Nora Roberts. Rep. Jove (1,655,329)
4. Judge & Jury. James Patterson & Andrew Gross. Rep. Grand Central (1,653,623)
5. Beach Road. James Patterson & Peter de Jonge. Rep. Grand Central (1,645,810)
6. Honeymoon. James Patterson & Howard Roughan. Rep. Grand Central (1,638,139)
7. Next. Michael Crichton. Rep. Harper (1,600,000)
8. Twelve Sharp. Janet Evanovich. Rep. St. Martin’s (1,500,000)
9. At Risk. Patricia Cornwell. Rep. Berkley (1,445,075)
10. The Collectors. David Baldacci. Rep. Grand Central (1,286,410)
11. Two Little Girls in Blue. Mary Higgins Clark. Rep. Pocket (1,231,500)
12. True Believer. Nicholas Sparks. Rep. Grand Central (1,205,824)
13. Echo Park. Michael Connelly. Rep. Grand Central (1,068,053)
14. At First Sight. Nicholas Sparks. Rep. Grand Central (1,035,993)
15. Dead Watch. John Sandford. Rep. Berkley (1,005,314)

Look at James Patterson go! He’s clearly still well utilizing the practice of getting authorial hopefuls to write his books. Interesting, though, how the title that was Patterson’s alone—Cross—sold ever so slightly more copies. Coincidence? Or do people actually dislike diluted Pattersons?

Nora Roberts is also still pumping out the books and raking in the checks, though this year she only had two titles in the top 15, for a total of almost four million copies. Impressive, sure, but compare to last year’s four titles and nine million copies (not to mention the comparative 4.3 million copies that Eat, Pray, Love sold—further kudos to Elizabeth Gilbert!). Perhaps she’s finally decided to take it easy, publishing only, you know, ten books a year or so. Hey, even cyborgs need a vacation.

And one has to ask (though one wishes she didn’t notice) where is Dan Brown? In 2006 he scaled both the Trade Paperback and Mass Market Paperback lists with over nine million copies of his novels sold; this year not a single one of his books sold even 100,000 copies. The list-dominator has simply vanished! Is his own shocking disappearance part of an elaborate promotional plan for his next novel…or has every single person in America finally read The Da Vinci Code?

The 2007 annual bestseller lists are here!

LisaApril 20, 2008May 29, 2014

Okay, they’ve been here, it turns out, for almost a month. But Publisher’s Weekly has this sneaky way of burying each year’s numbers in its voluminous archives, hiding their presence even from its own search engine. Very secretive, those folks.

PW publishes four different lists: Hardcover Fiction, Hardcover Nonfiction, Trade Paperbacks (both fiction and nonfiction), and Mass Market Paperbacks (fiction, often of the genre variety). Shall we start with the top fifteen Trade Paperbacks? (Click here for the full list.)

1. Eat, Pray, Love. Elizabeth Gilbert. Rep. Penguin (4,274,804)
2. The Kite Runner. Khaled Hosseini. Rep. Riverhead (2,022,041)
3. Water for Elephants. Sara Gruen. Rep. Algonquin (1,450,000)
4. The Road. Cormac McCarthy. Rep. Vintage (1,364,722)
5. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. Kim Edwards. Rep. Penguin (1,362,585)
6. The Pillars of the Earth. Ken Follett. Rep. NAL (1,310,419)
7. Love in the Time of Cholera. Gabriel García Márquez. Rep. Vintage (1,298,554)
8. 90 Minutes in Heaven. Don Piper and Cecil Murphey. Orig. Revell (1,273,000)
9. Jerusalem Countdown. John Hagee. Revised. Frontline (1,200,000)
10. Middlesex. Jeffrey Eugenides. Rep. Picador (1,000,000)
11. Measure of a Man. Sidney Poitier. Orig. HarperOne (1,000,000)
12. Skinny Bitch. Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. Orig. Running Press (987,000)
13. Into the Wild. Jon Krakauer. Rep. Anchor (918,234)
14. Three Cups of Tea. Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Rep. Penguin (843,390)
15. The 5th Horseman. James Patterson & Maxine Paetro. Rep. Grand Central (707,340)

The majority of these are no surprise. Eat, Pray, Love. Yes, yes. The Kite Runner. Yes, yes. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter—last year’s number two. A third of these books are associated with Oprah in some way.

It’s numbers 8 and 9 that make me think things went a little wonky in ’07. I’m dismayed to see that 90 Minutes in Heaven—a book detailing a near-death experience and resulting life of devout Christianity—has actually gained in popularity (it was #9 last year), now selling a total of around 2 million copies. Funny how James Frey gets skewered for fabricating parts of his memoir, yet anyone can write these “visit to heaven” books with no proof whatsoever of their authenticity—and no one seems to care!

Sure, 90 Minutes in Heaven could have been a flukey favorite, but number 9 suggests instead that America’s religious curiosity is all aflame. The purpose of Jerusalem Countdown, written by some nutjob pastor, is to demonstrate through biblical prophecy how America’s prickly issues with Iran may lead to the Apocalypse. And people bought 1.2 million copies of it.

Of course, the presence of religious books on an annual bestseller list can also indicate a general case of the societal willies. In troubling times, even the confused and indifferent start reading the darnedest things. The two titles here are so typical of our culture’s hysterical extremism: we want to scare the crap out of ourselves with looming conflicts both material and supernatural, yet be reminded that redemption is available with just a little faith. So different, yet so comforting: for even as his horrors spill from heaven, Pastor Hagee reminds us that a plan governs the universe and all our lives.

I’m sorry to see that no first-time novelists scored this year, though one certainly can’t begrudge literary author and relative newcomer Sara Gruen her number-three spot for Water for Elephants.

Best book on the list: The Road. Followed closely by Pillars of the Earth and Middlesex.

Worst book on the list: Jerusalem Countdown. I think I can safely say this without reading a single word.

Bestsellers that Count

LisaMarch 13, 2008May 29, 2014

This post is by John Heath. Yes, he deigned to write a blog post. Whatta guy.

Unlike my chatty colleague in crime, it’s been several months since I spent focused time with bestsellers. Let’s call it “Da Vinci fatigue.” Did you miss me? Hmmn. Well, let’s pretend you did, and that you’re excited that I’m starting to get the itch again. Maybe it’s the anticipation of the appearance of Publishers Weekly’s bestselling lists for 2007. Maybe it’s spring fever. Maybe it’s just that rash again (don’t ask). In any case, a few weeks ago I plunged right back into the bestselling pond. Well, okay, not so much plunged as put my toe in, scouring the bestseller lists so far in 2008. And it turned out the water felt awfully familiar.

Predictable names dominate the fiction lists: Patterson, Evanovich, Albom, Cornwell, and of course the unstoppable trio of Grisham and Roberts and King (oh my!). Fitness, diet, and cookbooks are still the rage. Spiritual guides clog many of the top spots, including the inestimable advice of Montel Williams. For those not interested in his Living Well, there are dozens of vampire tales for the living dead. Business guides flourish, of course, proving once again novelist Chris Buckley’s wisdom that the only way to get rich from a get-rich book is to write one.  The ephemeral joys of pop biography (Tom Cruise) and auto-biography (Steve Martin) continue to appeal. Adding increased auctoritas to a relatively mundane collection are such classics as To Kill a Mockingbird, Night, Green Eggs and Ham, and Good Morning Moon. Oh, and of course, there’s that perennial spellbinder, The Official SAT Study Guide.

But there are a couple major differences between previous years and the 2008 lists so far. One is the remarkable absence of political spew in an election year. (I’ll have more to say about what this may signify at a later date, but that’s actually a substantive issue and I’m trying to keep this as shallow as possible. You don’t want to dive too deeply too fast into this bestseller stuff.) The most striking deviation from the past is in the titles, and I think our Why We Read What We Read may have had a salutary influence on the industry. The publishing titans no doubt read our analysis and jumped into action. In our survey of bestselling books over the past 16 years, we noted that there was an odd reliance on the number 7 (see pages 40-1). But so far bestsellers in 2008 have provided an unprecedented and nearly algebraic variety: Three Cups of Tea (due out soon, its sequel: Eight Trips to the Bathroom), 4-Hour Work Week, The Five Love Languages, The Six Sacred Stones, 12 Second Sequence (no, it’s not about sex), The Thirteenth Tale, Nineteen Minutes, 21 Pounds in 21 Days, 90 Minutes in Heaven (which beats Nineteen Minutes by over an hour), and, pummeling all others in numerical dust, A Thousand Splendid Suns. The author of The Nine was apparently so confident in the number that he felt it could stand alone as a bestselling noun.

It’s nice to know we’ve made a difference.

Cloud Atlas

LisaFebruary 27, 2008May 29, 2014

So here’s a cool idea. You start a story, get the reader into it, and then abruptly cut it off 4o pages later—in mid-sentence, no less. Then you begin a totally different story, one that takes place in a different time with different characters—written, even, in a different style—and wriggle in a reference to the previous story somewhere in the process.

Then you do it five more times.

That’s the methodology underlying David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, which begins as a colonial travelogue but quickly morphs into a sassy correspondence—then a thriller—then a black comedy—then an interview—and finally a storytelling session in a tribal dialect of the future. But just when you’ve reached the last story—in the middle of the book, that is—the whole piece unwinds, returning to and tying up each story in reverse order.

As if that wasn’t painfully clever enough, Mitchell even has one of his characters, a musician, compose a piece called the “Cloud Atlas Sextet,” which shares the book’s structure. In a letter to a former lover, the character describes his work:

In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor: in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? (445)

Well, the world has spoken, and it looks like the vote is for “revolutionary.” Or at least awesome.

Of course, even so, Cloud Atlas was not a bestseller. It often requires, like, concentration—which would explain why it took ME so long to finish it—and each plunge into a new story can leave you discombobulated. So this is definitely not your mainstream fare. But snobs and linguaphiles, take this one on! The reward for your efforts is lush and beautiful writing, the work of a clear master.

Posts navigation

1 2 3 Next

Latest Posts

  • Best review yet of You Knew He Had Kids
  • Frequently Asked Questions about Society of Stepmothers
  • Random Facts about The Evil Sweater and Other Stories
  • Free recipe: Chocolate Raspberry Croissant
  • Free recipe: Simple Mint

All Categories

  • My Books (21)
    • Evil Sweater (1)
    • Feshy's Dreamworld (1)
    • S'mores (2)
    • Society of Stepmothers (2)
    • Why We Read What We Read (15)
  • News & Blabber (5)
  • Reviews (61)
    • A Book from Every Country (5)
    • Audiobooks (5)
    • Bestsellers (40)
    • Favorites (3)
    • Fiction (41)
    • No-Spoiler Book Reviews (13)
    • Nonfiction (17)
Copyright All Rights Reserved | Theme: BlockWP by Candid Themes.