Tag: coming of age

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

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Joyce, James. The Portable James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Viking Press, 1981.

Reason read: James Joyce was born on February 2nd. He and I share the same birth date. I also needed a book for the 2024 Portland Public Library Reading Challenge in the category of a book someone you know did not like. Portrait was an easy choice. Not many people like Joyce.

Stephen Dedalus, being James Joyce’s alter ego, is a study in personal and spiritual growth. The subtext is one of sexual awakening; a coming of age, if you will. Stephen navigates life with contradictory moments of trepidation and vigor. He believes that in order to be a great artist one needs to suffer for the art. A self imposed exile and abandonment of family is critical for success. Not unlike Joyce’s own journey to becoming an accomplished author.
The trick to reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is to not take every sentence as gospel. Every detail is not going to be on some final exam. Read Joyce like you are on an acid trip. Tiptoe across the run-on sentences and uber microscopic details and you will be just fine. If it helps, Joyce was experimenting with different ways to write literature. They didn’t always make sense.

Lines I liked, “He wanted to meet in the real world the unsubstantial image which his soul so constantly beheld” (p 77), “Pride and hope and desire like crushed herbs in his heart sent up vapours of maddening incense before the eyes of his mind” (p 335).

Author fact: Joyce’s full name was James Augustine Aloysius Joyce.

Book trivia: The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was adapted into a film in 1977.

Playlist: “Lily of Kilarney”, “O, Twine Me a Bower”, “Bluest Eyes and Golden Hair”, and “The Groves of Blarney”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Joyce an influence on all other Irish writers.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapters called “Irish Fiction” (p 125) and “100 Good Reads, Decade By Decade: 1910s (p 175).

Hearts in Atlantis

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King, Stephen. Hearts in Atlantis. Scribner, 1999.

Reason read: Stephen King’s face should be in the dictionary next to the word ‘scary.’ Read in honor of Halloween.

Critics have cited King’s first novel, Carrie, when reviewing Hearts in Atlantis. Like Carrie, Hearts in Atlantis carries a running theme of the Vietnam War and psychological breakdowns. Like a television on in the background where no one is watching, the conflict begins as a faint constant presence, a hum, until it becomes a deafening roar by the end of the book. Despite having five separate narratives Hearts in Atlantis reads like a fragmented novel. The character narratives are sequential in nature, allowing the reading to stay connected to particular characters from beginning to end, even though the locations and stories change.
In the 254 page short novella that kicks off Hearts in Atlantis, “Low Men in Yellow Coats,” eleven year old Bobby Garfield just wants to buy a bicycle. It is his birthday and all his mother can afford is an adult library card. This is when Bobby is introduced to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and the weird upstairs neighbor, Ted. Suddenly, adults are no longer the protectors he has always trusted. Predators lurk behind faces he has known all his life. Bobby was a good kid who slowly soured on doing the right thing. He sank lower into a life of crime – breaking windows, drinking, theft.
In the next short story, “Hearts in Atlantis,” we leave Bobby and follow Pete who ends up dating Bobby’s childhood girlfriend, Carol. Carol is now college-aged and she is the one who ties “Low Men in Yellow Coats” and “Hearts in Atlantis” together. In fact, she, together with the Vietnam war, are the linchpins that hold all of the stories together.

Lines I loved, “Put a glass of water next to Nate Hoppenstand and it was the water that looked vivacious” (p 262) and “In Orono, Maine, buying a Rolling Stones record passes for a revolutionary act” (p 395). Truth.

Author fact: Stephen King is known for taking ordinary situations and making them scary as hell. In Hearts there are no monsters. Only what war can do to a person; how human nature can turn ugly and sinister.

Book trivia: I loved how the genesis of the peace symbol is explained in “Hearts in Atlantis.” I never knew it was the British Navy’s semaphore letters for nuclear disarmament.

Setlist: Andy Williams Singers, Animals, “Angel of the Morning”, Al Jolson’s “Mammy”, Allman Brothers, Beatles, Benny Goodman Orchestra, Bob Dylan, “Boom Boom”, “Bad Moon Rising”, Bobby Darin, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B Good”, Carpenters, Dave Clark Five, the Doors’ “Break On Through”, Dean Martin, Diane Renay’s “Navy Blue”, “Do You Know What I know?”, “Don’t You Just Know It” by Hury “Piano” Smith and the Clowns”, Danny and the Juniors, Donovan Leitch’s “Atlantis”, Dovells, “Dance to the Music”, Doors, Donna Summer’s “Bad Girl”, Elvis Presley, Four Seasons, Frank Sinatra, Freddie “Boom Boom” Cannon, “Gimme Some Lovin'”, Gerry Miller, “Goin’ Up the Country”, “Hang on Sloopy”, Hare Krishna Chorale, Herman and the Hermits, “Insta Karma”, Jack Scott, Jo Stafford, Jimmy Gilmer’s “Sugar Shack”, “Let’s Work Together”, Little Richard, “Light My Fire”, Liz Phair, “Love is Strange”, “Louie, Louie”, Miracles, Mitch Miller, “Mack the Knife”, Mysterians’ “96 Tears”, “My Girl”, Neil Diamond, “Night and Day”, “Oh! Carol” by Neil Sedaka, Offspring, “The Old Rugged Cross”, “One O’Clock Jump”, “One Tin Soldier”, Paul Anka, Petula Clark, Peter Frampton, Platters, Phil Och’s “I Aint Marching Anymore”, “Queen of the Hop”, “The Rainbows”, Rare Earth, “Red River Valley” Rolling Stones, Royal Teen’s “Short Shorts”, “Silent Night”, Sly and the Family Stone, Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Strawberry Alarm Clock’s “Incense and Peppermints”, “Tequila” by the Champs, Tro Shondell’s “This Time”, William Ackerman, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, “Where the Boys Are”, and the Youngbloods.

Confessional: whenever I think of “Mack the Knife, “I think of a time when I was in my early twenties. The guy I was dating called a radio station to request a song. No one had a person phone back then. My true love had to run out to a payphone up a hill and around a building. I thought for sure he was going to request something romantic; something just for me. Nope. He requested “Mack the Knife.” When I asked him why Mack he said he just liked the song.
More connections to my life: I went to UMaine and dated a guy named Soucie. His twin was named AnneMarie. I also worked in the Bear’s Den.

BookLust Twist: Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213).

Thing About My Uncle

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Stavros, Peter J. The Thing About My Uncle. BHC Press, 2024.

Reason read: Occasionally I am asked to review books for LibraryThing’s very cool Early Review program. This is one such book.

I don’t know as if I believe the fourteen year old narrator. What kid uses the words forthwith or flummoxed or nary? Sometimes Rhett is an adult looking back and sometimes he is a teenager in the here and now. In the beginning I was put off by the tired-seeming plot: teenage kid always in trouble (but secretly a good, albeit misunderstood, kid). You know the kind who desperately need straightening out, but really don’t. Mom is at her wits end so sends said kid (Rhett) to a gruff, tattooed, loner family member who has mysteries of his own. He lives disconnected from society with barely any internet or television to entertain a teenager. Only there is no mystery to Uncle Theo. What you see is what you get. Three nights in a row he serves up wild “game” his hunting buddies gave him in exchange for “produce” from his extensive garden. Don’t go into the garden; do not go into the garden Uncle Theo tells Rhett. Gee, I wonder what Theo is growing? As a book for young adults, I suspect the plot will be just as transparent for them as well. You know that Theo’s secrets are going to be revealed in a dramatic way. You know Rhett is going to love being in the country. What you don’t know is how they will get from point A to point B. Well worth the read.

My only complaint: Rhett goes on and on about his mom’s famous tuna melt dinner. When Rhett wants to surprise his uncle with this meal a whole drama unfolds but Rhett still manages to make the dish…and in the end nothing is said about it. Yes, the events leading up to the tuna melt overshadow the actual meal. I get that. Realistically, Rhett could have skipped making the tuna melt after all that drama.

Book trivia: the cover of The Thing About My Uncle is beautiful.

Demon Copperhead

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Kingsolver, Barbara. Demon Copperhead. Harper Collins, 2022.

Reason read: Kisa gave me this book for my birthday.

Be forewarned. The language of Demon Copperhead is sandpaper rough. There is no romantic words to describe the life of Damon, aka Demon Copperhead. His life is harsh, cruel, and ugly. Like a horrible tasting medicine or a poison akin to chemotherapy, I had to sip the chapters in small increments. Big gulps of heartbreak in paragraph form would surely kill me. And believe me, there were many moments where my eyes couldn’t take in the sentences of pain. Demon is a child with a life from hell, yet completely believable and all too common. Born to a mother addicted to drugs, bounced around from place to place, he finally ends up with a grandmother who changes his life. She doesn’t approve of men living in her house, but she knows someone who will not only take him in, but make him a star. A football star, that is. Bad luck seems to follow Demon wherever he goes. If his life isn’t transient and temporary, it is translucent and tenuous. There is never a moment when I can breathe easy for a boy in the poverty stricken, opioid laden rural south.
I am not proud of the way I minced gingerly through the early chapters of Demon Copperhead as if I were on a sharp rock beach in baby-tender bare feet. But, like a hard won marathon, I would gladly read it again and again.

Lines I loved, “It can thrill a person senseless” (p 129). “The moral of his story was how you never know the size of hurt that’s in people’s hearts, or what they’re liable to do about it, given the chance” (p -).

Book trivia: Demon Copperhead is dedicated to the survivors and is an Oprah Book. Updated to add: and it just won a Pulitzer!

Author fact: Social media has changed the way of the world. Thanks to Instagram, I was able to follow Kingsolver’s writing journey including publication, press, and book tour. It felt a little voyeuristic to pull back the curtain on a process that traditionally is hidden from the public eye, but I am grateful my favorite author chose to be so transparent with her craft.

Playlist: “Amazing Grace”, Avril Lavigne, “Beautiful Mess”, Beastie Boys, Bee Gees, Britney Spears, Brooks and Dunn, Carrie Underwood, Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrty”, Destiny’s Child, Dolly Parton, Eddie Rabbit, “Electric Slide”, Elvis, Eminem, Garth Brooks, “I Have Joy Like a Fountain in My Soul”, Ice-Cube, “It’s Gonna Be Me”, Jay-Z, Ja Rule’s “Always on Time”, Jay-Z, Kathy Mattea, LeAnn Rimes’s “Can’t Fight the Moonlight”, Loretta Lynn, “Macarena”, Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Nas, P!nk, Prince, Reba McIntyre, Rosanne Cash, Scarface, Snoop Dogg, Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One”, “Song Cry”, Spice Girls, “This Little Light of Mine”, “Thong Song”, Tommy Cochran’s “Life Happened”, Tupac, and Willie Nelson.

Boy’s Own Story

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White, Edmund. A Boy’s Own Story. Iconic Books, Open Road Media. 2000.
White, Edmund. A Boy’s Own Story. Vintage International, 1982.

Reason read: June is Pride Month.

First published in 1982, A Boy’s Own Story‘s main character has been compared to Teddy Roosevelt and characters from Lolita and Huckleberry Finn. The first in a trilogy and supposedly autobiographical in nature, A Boy’s Own Story introduces themes of desire, coming of age, and identity. The book’s nameless young narrator navigates his own sexuality in an age when parents simply warn their children about predators who seem “oversexed” and “take advantage of younger boys.” Our hero fights his homosexual tendencies while wondering why the adult camp counselor doesn’t rub his back in the middle of the night. Torn between propriety and passion, he struggles to find normalcy in his desires. Will his feelings for other boys fade in time? It this something to grow out of? In an effort to “change” he first seeks the advice of a priest. When that does not work, he convinces his father to send him to an all-boys boarding school. Maybe being in the presence of so many males would normalize his sexuality and set him straight? Not so. Next came a psychiatrist. Maybe he can address the psychological aspects of being attracted to men? Ultimately, he is looking for a way to have sex with a man and then disown him so to disavow his homosexuality. The secret to his longing is power which makes A Boy’s Own Story all at once poignant and sad.

Line I liked, “The subject of this book might be that brief eloquence between the fantasies of a dream-bound child and his implementing through charm, sexuality, his wits” (p 6). The saddest sentence in the book, “I had spent so much of my childhood sunk into a cross-eyed, nose-picking turpitude of shame and self-loathing, scrunched up in the corner of a sweating leather chair on a hot summer day, the heat having silenced the birds, even the construction workers on the site next door, and delivering me up to the admonishing black head of the fan on the floor slowly shaking from left to right, right to left to signal its tedious repetition of no, no, no, and to exhale the faintly irritating vacillations of its breath” (p 126).

Author fact: White lists Proust as one of his influences. I love it when I’m reading a connection to another book.

Book trivia: A Boy’s Own Story is autobiographical.

Playlist: “Dies Irae”, Juliette Greco, “Nothing Like a Dame”, Odetta, “Pat Boone’s “Twixt Twelve and Twenty”, “Now is the Hour”, “Zip-a-Dee Doo-Dah”, “Kitten on the Keys”, “I’ll Be Seeing You in Apple Blossom Time”, “The Tennessee Waltz”, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Liberace, Schubert’s “Unfinished”,

Nancy said: Pearl said Boy’s Own Story was “set prior to Stonewall” (Book Lust p 94). For those who don’t know, Stonewall refers to the Stonewall Rebellion or Stonewall Uprising; a riot in the early morning of June 28th, 1969. Police violently raided an establishment known as Stonewall. The community in and around Greenwich Village, New York, protested the attack.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the too-short chapter called “Gay and Lesbian Fiction: Out of the Closet” (p 93). There are so many other great novels Pearl could have mentioned (like Annie On My Mind by Nancy Garden).

Fifteen

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Cleary, Beverly. Fifteen. HarperCollins, 1956.

Reason read: a Christmas gift to myself (something I could read in a day without thinking).

If you know Cleary’s books you know they can be inhaled in one sitting. Written for children and young adults, Fifteen tackles, well, being fifteen. Jane Purdy is exactly that age and anxious to break free of stereotypical teenager dilemmas like mean girls and being boy crazy. She tires of babysitting brats, longs for a boyfriend she can call her own, and is sick of being the homely girl Marcy always teases. As it is, Jane is an easy target with her sensible shoes, no nonsense hairstyle and round collars. I found it distressing that Jane needed a boy to feel like she belonged at Woodmont High, but that’s fifteen for you. This is definitely one book best read as a young child or early teen.

Author fact: Cleary also write the Ramona series. I am only reading Fifteen for the Challenge.

Book trivia: I couldn’t remember reading this book until I saw a different cover of it. Interesting fact: the cover of that book had a boy putting an identification bracelet on a girl’s wrist as a sign they were going steady. I was disappointed in the cover because that’s not how it happened in the book. Spoiler alert.

Nancy said: Pearl included Fifteen as a book that is better remembered than reread. She actually said it was one book she couldn’t reread without feeling “disappointed, betrayed, and embarrassed” (Book Lust p 165).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “My Own Private Dui” (p 165).

Brooklyn

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Toibin, Colm. Brooklyn. Scribner, 2009.

Reason read: October is festival month in Ireland. Time to celebrate the green isle. I also needed a book with a one-word title for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge.

Colm Toibin writes with such clear sincerity one can easily walk in young Eilis Lacey’s shoes as she navigates entry into adulthood. Unable to find decent employment in rural Ireland, she is taken under the wing of Father Flood, an Irish priest who has emigrated to the big city of Brooklyn, New York; the land of opportunity. Father Flood has seen Eilis’s talents and believes she will do well in America. Leaving behind her widowed and weak mother and vivacious sister, Eilis slowly makes a life for herself in her strange new city. Even though she is naive she finds work, starts college for a career in book keeping, and even finds a nice Italian boy with whom to fall in love. But, Brooklyn is not Ireland. It’s not even close to feeling like home. No one is her true family. When she is called back to Ireland following a family tragedy, it is no surprise that Eilis falls comfortably back into old routines. Only this time she is a different, more confident young woman. Both worlds feel right to her. Both worlds are home but which one will she chose?

I found myself identifying with Eilis in small insignificant ways. I wear makeup when I need a little extra courage. I think my sister is the coolest person on the planet.

As an aside, I found myself humming “My sister Rose” by 10,000 Manaics after every reading of Brooklyn. It could have been sung from the perspective of Eilis Lacey.

Author fact: Toilbin has written a bunch of other books. I am reading a total of four of them for the Book Challenge.

Book trivia: Brooklyn was made into a movie in November 2015.

Nancy said: Pearl explained that Brooklyn was in the Ireland chapter of Book Lust To Go because the first and last parts take place in a “beautifully evoked” small Irish town (p 111).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Ireland: Beyond Joyce, Behan, Beckett, and Synge” (p 110).

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

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Smith, Betty. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005.

Reason read: I needed a book for the Portland Public Library 2022 Reading Challenge in the category of “A book that makes you feel hopeful for the future.” I don’t know why, but this one does.

It was pointed out that in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn nothing happens. There is no over-the-top drama involving sex, violence, or rock and roll. Instead, A Tree is a simple and honest story about what it means to be human. Harsh realities about poverty, crime, alcoholism, life, and death are not ignored or sugarcoated. I would argue that something does happen in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. A little girl comes of age. In the summer of 1912 Francie Nolan was a scrappy eleven year old. At the time, her best friend was a tree that seemed to like poor people. By the end of the story, Francie has lost her father, gained a baby sister, managed to find her way to college, and started to date. It is a story of hope.
One of my favorite moments was when Francie understands for the first time she can read and the fact she would never be lonely again. Books would be her companions for any circumstance. Another favorite scene was when Francie graduates and she receives roses from her deceased daddy. It broke my heart.

Confessional: The scene when Katie is playing the piano with the children bothered me. Neely starts to sign and it is noted his voice is starting to change. It is then that Francie remarks, “You know what Mama would say if she were sitting here now?” Where did she go? She was just playing the piano. I think Smith meant Johnny. Johnny was the one who was missing from the scene.

Signs of the times, “He was a boy, he handled the money.” The candy store was a boys store and Francie had to wait outside while her brother bought her candy.

Phrasing I adored, “ground-down poor” and “helpless relaxation.”

Author fact: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn has such clarity it is impossible to ignore its autobiographical nature. Rumor has it, Smith originally wrote the story as a memoir but her publishers urged her to fictionalize it to reach a wider audience. Could they not handle the truth?

Book trivia: My edition had a foreword by Anna Quinlan. She compared Francie to Jo March, Betsy Ray, and Anne of Green Gables. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was also published in an Armed Services edition. The wartime copy was specially sized to fit in a soldier’s rucksack.

Playlist: because Francie’s father is a singing waiter there were lots of great tunes mentioned in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: “There are Smiles That Make You Happy,” At the Darkstrutters’ Ball,” “When You’re a Long, Long Way From Home,” “My Wild Rose,” “Hello, Central, Give Me No Man’s Land,” “You’ll find Old Dixieland in France,” There’s a Quaker Down in Quaker Time,” Ted Lewis’s “For When My Baby Smiles at Me,” “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” (a song I can remember my mother singing while she vacuumed), “Molly Malone,” “The Soldier’s Chorus,” “When I Get You Alone Tonight,” “Sweet Rosie O’Grady,” “She May Have Seen Better Days,” “I’m Wearin’ My Heart Away for You,” “Ave Maria,” “Beautiful Blue Danube,” “At the Devil’s Ball,” “My Sweetheart’s the Man in the Moon,” “Kerry Dancers,” “When Irish Eyes are Smiling,” Harrigan, That’s Me,” “The River Shannon,” “Holy Night,” “Star Spangled Banner,” “Schubert Serenade,” “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” “Call Me Up Some Rainy Afternoon,” Handle’s “Largo,” Dvorak’s “New World Symphony,” Verdi, Walter Wildflower, “O, Sole Mio,” “Some Sunday Morning,” “Auld Lang Syne,” “Silent night,” “Annie Laurie,” “Last Rose of Summer,” “Sweet Adeline,” “Down By the Old Mill Stream,” “A Shanty in Shantytown,” “When You Wore a Tulip,” “Dear Old Girl,” ” I’m Sorry I made You Cry,” “Over There,” “K-K-Katy,” “The Rose of No Man’s Land,” “Mother Macree,” and “The Band Played On.”

Nancy said: Pearl called A Tree Grows in Brooklyn a “classic coming-of-age” story.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Girls Growing Up” (p 101).

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

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Vuong, Ocean. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. New York: Penguin Press, 2019.

Reason read: Are you holding onto your hats? Are you sitting down? I’m going off the Challenge list for this one. Why? Basically, I will read everything my sister recommends. Why? She’s cool and she doesn’t waste her time with boring books.

Is it enough to say that On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is heartbreakingly beautiful? I could go on to elaborate: the language is harsh yet poignant, stark yet lush, truthful yet magical. Little Dog writes a letter to his mother to…what? Explain his choices? Tell her how her life has shaped his? Make a declaration of love to the world around him? His motives are unclear, but the language stirs the heart. For example, the imagery of a lighthouse: seen as both shelter and warning. Could a woman be both monster and mother?

Lines I loved: “We sidestep ourselves in order to move forward” (p 53). If I were a lecturer and I had actually coined that phrase I would repeat it and ask the audience to let the words sink in. There is more truth in those eight little words than I care to admit. One more to quote, “Maybe we look in mirrors not merely to seek beauty, regardless of how illusive, but to make sure, despite the facts, that we are still here” (p 138).

Book trivia: this should be a movie. Seriously. For something completely random, Vuong thanked Frank Ocean. I am wondering if this is the same Frank Ocean Dermot Kennedy thanked for the song, “Swim Good.”

Author fact: According to the back flap of On Earth… Vuong lived in Northampton in 2019. I am not a stalker so I don’t know if that’s still true. If it is, this author is less than 30 minutes from me. Cool. In a more widely (undisputed) fact, Vuong is a poet which is abundantly obvious in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.

Playlist: Khanh Ly, Neil Young, 50 Cent, Etta James, Curtis Jackson, Chopin, Justin Timberlake, Miles Davis, Black Eyed Peas’ “Where is the Love?,” Led Zeppelin’s “Get Rich, or Die Tryin’,” “His Eye Is On the Sparrow,” “This Little Light of Mine,” and “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.”

Out Stealing Horses

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Petterson, Per. Out Stealing Horses. New York: Picador, 2003.

Reason read: Petterson is a Norwegian writer. An old friend of mine lives in Norway and was born in October. Read in her honor even though we haven’t spoken in a long time.

Trond Sander, at 67 years old, is a simple man living alone with his dog, Lyra, deep in the Norwegian woods. He likes the quiet. He loves the solitude. It’s as if he has run away from memories. In reality, he has done just that. Trond lost his sister and wife in one month three years prior. That was when he stopped talking to people. His silence is profound until he meets a stranger in the woods near his cabin. Only this stranger carries the very memories Trond has been trying to escape. Lars is a member of a family with entangled deep tragedies and Trond knows them well. Petterson is able to move Trond from past to present with remarkable grace. Trond as a teenager versus Trond, the aging adult in Norway’s breathtaking landscape. Like any good drama, there is violence, illicit love, abandonment, and atonement with surprises along the way. I hope the movie is as spectacular as the book.

Lines I liked, “When the record ends I will go to bed and sleep as heavily as possible without being dead, and awake to a new millennium and not let it mean a thing” (p 5) and “A shipwrecked man without an anchor in the world except in his own liquid thoughts where time has lost its sequence” (p 195).

Author fact: I am reading three of Per Petterson’s novels: In the Wake, In Siberia, and Out Stealing Horses.

Book trivia: Out Stealing Horses was made into a movie Just last year in 2020. It looks really good.

Playlist: Billie Holliday

Nancy said: Pearl had a lot to say about Out Stealing Horses. Along with the general plot she said the writing is spare and restrained. The plot emerges slowly and should not to be missed. She also mentioned the translation as being beautiful and the cover as evocative.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Norway: the Land of the Midnight Sun” (p 162).

Dicey’s Song

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Voigt, Cynthia. Dicey’s Song. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982.

Reason read: to finish the series started in July in honor of Kids month.

When we catch up to the Tillerman family (after reading Homecoming) they are in Maryland living with the grandmother they never knew they had. Dicey is a teenager starting to come of age with homework and budding, albeit reluctant, friendships. Her two younger brothers, James and Sammy, are in thriving in school. Her only sister Maybeth is a musical prodigy. Her family is becoming self-sufficient. Everything should be great for Dicey as the eldest sibling. Her family is not on the run. They have a roof over their heads every night. They have food on the table at every meal. They have someone to look after them. They are all in school. But, for Dicey something is intrinsically wrong. For the longest time she had control over her family. Keeping them together and safe was all she knew. It is what she did best. When her siblings start exercising independence Dicey isn’t sure how to feel about it. Throughout the story she struggles to learn to let them go their own ways, together but apart. At the same time Dicey deals with the internal confusion of becoming a young woman without her mother’s guidance. My favorite moments were whenever Gram’s hardened exterior softened as each child reached for her love.

Author fact: Voigt has written over a dozen young adult novels.

Book trivia: Dicey’s Song is a Newbery Award winner.

Playlist: “I Gave My Love a Cherry,” “Amazing Grace,” “Who Will Sing for Me?” “The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly,” “Pretty Polly,” “Amazing Grace,” Beethoven, and even though they didn’t name the song, I recognized the story of “Matty Groves” (thanks to Natalie Merchant).

Nancy said: Pearl said nothing specific about Dicey’s Song.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Best for Boys and Girls” (p 169).

Bad Haircut

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Perrotta, Tom. Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies. New York: Berkey Books, 1994.

Reason read: June is short story month.

Comprised of ten short stories:

  • The Wiener Man – Your past is never far behind you. A mother connects with an old friend.
  • Thirteen – Coming of age is terrible when trying to help a best friend get the girl.
  • Race Riot – Which side are you on? Racial tensions and peer pressure and a bad combination.
  • Snowman – revenge is not as sweet as you think.
  • Forgiveness – standing for the flag is a choice.
  • A Bill Floyd Christmas – Bill loses his wife and latches on to another family to fill the void.
  • You Start to Live – take chances in life.
  • The Jane Pasco Fan Club – Dating in high school can be dangerous.
  • Just the Way We Were – prom memories.
  • Wild Kingdom – sometimes people can be animals.

Lines I liked: “The world was a still as a photograph” (p 61) and “She had that voice special tone of voice that she only used when she had company,” (p 119).

Author fact: Perrotta is from New Jersey.

Book trivia: all of the short stories are linked and are in chronological order.

Setlist: “We May Never Pass This Way Again,” Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are,” Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” The Carpenters, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Donny Osmond, Aerosmith, Grateful Dead, a couple of Jim Croce songs, “I’ve got a Name” and “Operator.”

Nancy said: Pearl called Bad Haircut “heartfelt yet unsentimental.”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Near Novels: Linked Short Stories” (p 175).

Reviving Ophelia

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Pipher, Mary. Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. New York: Ballantine, 1995.

Reason read: as part of a New Year’s resolution for a friend, I am reading this with a few other books about raising daughters.

Reviving Ophelia takes personal stories of girls and connects them to larger cultural issues. While written in the mid-nineties, and a little out of date in places, for the most part Dr. Pipher still delivers sound advice, often sharing tidbits about herself along the way. Pipher is a child of the 1950s, and even though the writing is over thirty years old, her stories still hold up. Who hasn’t been “untrue” to themselves, lying about their level of hunger, downplaying grades, pretending to like a style of music or fashion to impress someone else? Peggy Orenstein addresses eating disorders in Schoolgirls in much the same way as Pipher. At times, the stories of girls with overwhelming desires to be thin were so similar I would forget which book, Pipher or Orenstein, I was reading. Reviving Ophelia is different from Schoolgirls in that Pipher is drawing from actual therapy sessions while Orenstein visited two different middle schools and interviewed children in a different atmosphere.

Quote to quote, “My relationship with my mother, like all relationships with mothers was extremely complex, filled with love, longing, a need for closeness and distance, separation and fusion” (p 102). Sounds very familiar. One other line to like, “Strong girls may protect themselves by being quiet and guarded so that their rebellion in known only by a few trusted others” (p 266).

Author fact: Mary Pipher has her own website here. Her blog, while brief, is beautiful.

Book trivia: Pipher does not include photographs in her book.

Nancy said: Pearl said Pipher should be read with The Body Project (Bromberg), Schoolgirls (Orenstein), and Queen Bees & Wannabes (Wiseman) as they are all about “teenage girls’ problems with both society and themselves” (More Book Lust p 227).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Two, or Three, are Better Than One” (p 226).

Queen Bees Wannabes

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Wiseman, Rosalind. Queen Bees Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boys, and the New Realities of Girl World, 3rd Ed. New York: Harmony Books, 2012.

Reason read: a woman’s new year’s resolution is to be a better mother. I’m not that woman, but she made me think of these books. Read in her honor.

Written for parents as a tool for understanding their daughters, Queen Bees offers insights from children and teens to supplement Wiseman’s sound advice. Wiseman’s first job is to offer suggestions for what kind of guidance a mother can give her daughter surrounding all kinds of situations, usually related to peer to peer friendships and other critical relationships in a girl’s life. Occasionally, she addresses the dads, too. More often than not, Wiseman will offer sample “scripts” of what to say in various situations. It is here that I found Wideman to be a little idealistic in more than a few places. See here: “Get inside her head and then you’ll understand where she is coming from and how to help her” (p 8). That is like saying create world peace and you will end gun violence. Don’t all parents want to know what is going on inside their child’s head? Wouldn’t knowing her true thoughts give parents at least some of the tools they need to help her? Additionally, some of the quotes from children seem a little suspect; a little too good to be true. Wiseman ignores the impact emotion has on an action. Sometimes logic is compromised by uncontrolled feeling; so much so that the right thing to say cannot come out. In truth, there are so many suggested dialogues that I found them a little tedious.
As an aside, I grew up with only two other girls in my entire school from 6th to 8th grade. and one of them was my little sister. I didn’t have the confrontations and drama that most girls in Queen Bees encountered. However, when I got to high school I had the social immaturity of a fourth grader. I was a pleaser and didn’t know how to voice my own opinion, or be my own person. I cringed to read about my own misguided actions and beliefs.

Quotes I liked, “There has never been an age limit on being mean” (p 5). Yup. First quote that really got me, “I had already learned that having a relationship was more important than how I was treated within it” (p 15). Been there, done that. Sadly. It’s called lying to yourself.

Author fact: Wiseman started off teaching young girls self defense and progressed to classes on self esteem and confidence.

Book trivia: Wiseman updates Queen Bees every five years. For example, this latest update included advice about emerging technologies.

Nancy said: Pearl said Wiseman should be read with The Body Project (Bromberg), Reviving Ophelia (Pipher), and Schoolgirls (Orenstein) as they all “address teenage girls’ problems with both society and themselves” (More Book Lust p 227).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Two, or Three, are Better Than One” (p 226).

Schoolgirls

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Orenstein, Peggy. Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap. New York: Anchor, 1995.

Reason read: as part of a mother’s new year’s eve resolution I am reading this in solidarity.

Peggy Orenstein started her Schoolgirls project after reading a report by the American Association of University Women, “Shortchanging girls, Shortchanging America” in her daily newspaper. Inspired, she set out to probe deeper into this cultural chasm and ended up writing Schoolgirls.
Orenstein’s approach to her project was to visit two ethnically polarized middle schools and observe the behaviors of young girls, specifically eighth graders, from all walks of life. She even singled out specific children to learn more about their personal lives. She witnessed girls with declining confidence, girls with conflicting responsibilities: do I stay at home and take care of my younger siblings or do I go to school where I’m not learning much? Do I quit school to get a job to support my family? Orenstein shed light on challenges all girls face no matter their socio-economic backgrounds: self-image and eating disorders, sex, teen pregnancy, and harassment, cliques and bullying, and dipping academic success. One element of young girls’ lives not addressed was the advent of technology: texting, social media platforms, webcams.

Author fact: Schoolgirls has its own webpage here.

Book trivia: The re-issue of Schoolgirls features a new foreword.

Nancy said: Pearl said Orenstein should be read with The Body Project (Bromberg), Reviving Ophelia (Pipher), and Queen Bees & Wannabes (Wiseman) as they are all about “teenage girls’ problems with both society and themselves” (More Book Lust p 227).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Two, or Three, are better Than One” (p 227).