Tag Archives: books

The Series Section

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“If Regina George is Cokie Mason, then Gretchen Weiners is Grace Blume. Think about it.”

If you understood that sentence, get yourself to What Claudia Wore, stat.

Recently, I’ve noticed an increasing number of blogs dedicated to the 90s phenomenon I like to call “the series section.” There still are, and always will be, book series for middle grade readers and young adults— Harry Potter, Twilight, and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants have been a few this decade—but the days of the mega-series, when you recognized books by their numbers along with their titles, when ghostwriters helped ensure that one book a month came out, when the Barnes & Noble in Nashua had rows and rows containing every book in the Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley Twins in a section labeled “Young Adults Series,” seem to be behind us. Sadly, most of those books, which I’d spend whatever money I had on, spend hours browsing in said Nashua Barnes & Noble, and beg for in groups of ten whenever it was Christmas or my birthday, are no longer in print.

So thank God for blogs like What Claudia Wore, The Dairi Burger, The Unicorner, and Sleepover Friends Forever, which exist to remind us what a loss this is to the world of children’s literature. I remember these books the same way I remember Titanic—as fun as it is to frequent the blogs that snark on them, wondering how many times the BSC could possibly be in eighth grade, what Claudia would have been like if she’d grown up in the age of spell check, and why everyone always just put up with Kristy’s bitching about them getting to the meetings at 5:30 on the dot, these were the books that helped ensure that I loved reading throughout my preteens. Kids today had Harry Potter, which was only seven books long and, of course, is over now, but I could always look forward to a new Baby-Sitters Club or Sweet Valley Twins book. They made for cheap but much-appreciated birthday gifts in fourth and fifth grade. I’d bond with my friends over them (“Ooh, have you read this one yet?”). And, as I’ve mentioned before, books were often how I dealt with my own feelings—if I had a fight with my friends, got embarrassed in gym class, or was being made fun of at school, I’d seek out a book about a kid going through something similar, and book series always dealt with a wide range of topics.

But enough of this serious talk. You know you loved those books, too. Reminisce with me, will you?

The Baby-Sitters Club
Kristy was the one who had the “great idea” to start the club. She was short, coached softball, had a rich stepfather and a stepsister who got her own book series (Baby-Sitters Little Sister, which was what introduced me to the BSC), bossed everyone around, and bitched everyone out if they got to the meetings even a minute late. For some reason, no one ever told her to shut up.

Claudia was Japanese-American and an artist and had eating habits almost as bad as her spelling. She had a genius older sister and parents who were on her case about her junk food, her penchant for Nancy Drew, and her bad grades—but they did let her have her own phone line, which was why the meetings were at her house. Entire paragraphs in the second chapter of every book were dedicated to her outfits. Now, so are entire blogs.

Mary Anne cried a lot. Like, a lot. She was really shy, her mother was dead, and her father eventually married Dawn’s mother. She had a cute boyfriend named Logan who had a Southern accent and became an associate club member. Everyone was very upset when she got a haircut.

Stacey was a New York stereotype whose books were like a PSA for type 1 diabetes.

Dawn was a California stereotype who couldn’t make up her mind about which coast she wanted to live on.

Mallory was eleven, completely awkward, a writer, a horse-lover, and the oldest of eight kids. So of course, minus the eight kids part, she was the one I related to the most easily.

Jessi was black! Which they felt the need to mention every chapter! And she was also a ballerina. Who was black!

Abby didn’t show up until about book 90, so a lot of people forget about her. If you need a refresher, she was funny, athletic, and Jewish and had a twin sister, a dead father, and asthma. She also occasionally talked back to Kristy. It only took 90 books for someone to do it.

Together, they baby-sat a lot of cute kids, like the adorable Jamie Newton, Stacey’s “almost-sister” Charlotte Johansson, bratty Jenny Prezzioso, and “walking disaster” Jackie Rodowsky. They wrote about their jobs in the club notebook. They met every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 5:30 to 6:00. And they were the best.friends.ever.

God, I loved The Baby-Sitters Club. I read just about every book in the series not once but several times. After awhile, they didn’t even fit on my bookshelves. When I was nine, my entire room was decorated with posters and memorabilia I got from the Baby-Sitters Club fan club. My friends and I dreamed of the day we’d start our own baby-sitters club (of course, it never happened). When the movie came out in 1995, I wore my Baby-Sitters Club T-shirt and hat to the theater on the first day it came out. Actually, my cousins’ aunt, who works for Scholastic, was the executive producer of the movie, and when she got me Ann M. Martin’s autograph when I was ten, it was pretty much the best day of my life at the time.

Yeah, I think you get the picture. I was a huuuuuuuge fan.

Sweet Valley Twins
Sweet Valley High came first, and there was also Sweet Valley Kids, which had the same characters in second grade. But Sweet Valley Twins (later retitled Sweet Valley Twins and Friends, since it wasn’t just about the Wakefields) was the series I read the most. It was centered around the titular twins, Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, who were identically blonde and pretty but, of course, polar opposites personality-wise. Elizabeth was the school newspaper editor, had perfect grades, and was obnoxiously self-righteous. Jessica was popularity-obsessed, a member of the Unicorn Club (which was basically a group of popular girls sitting around congratulating themselves on how awesome they were), and obnoxiously self-centered. They were twelve-year-old sixth graders in Sweet Valley, California, which must have one hell of a public transportation system, since these middle schoolers were somehow able to get around by themselves incredibly easily. Speaking of which:

Sleepover Friends
Man, I loved sleepovers as a kid. My mom, who thought they made me tired and cranky, was not such a fan. But what sleepover-loving pre-teen wouldn’t love reading a whole book series about friends who sleep over at each other’s houses every Friday night?

Enter the Sleepover Friends. They were ten-and eleven-year-old fifth graders in Riverhurst, USA, a suburb of “The City,” which was never identified further than that. Lauren, who narrated most of the books (eventually, the other three girls started narrating some of them), was athletic and loved food. Kate was the Kristy Thomas of the group—short, bossy, and would bitch you out if you talked during a movie. Patti, formerly of The City, was the smart, shy one. Stephanie, also formerly of The City, only dressed in red, black, and white because she thought it was cool and probably went on to have an eating disorder, since she was concerned about getting fat even at age ten. They’d get together on Fridays, make food, play Truth or Dare, listen to the radio, make fun of their classmates. And like Sweet Valley, Riverhurst was apparently very easy to get around, because these girls, who weren’t even in middle school yet, seemed to have no trouble going anywhere by themselves without any adults.

The Gymnasts
I used to want to be a gymnast, but not enough to take gymnastics classes. Only enough to do round-offs and one-handed cartwheels on the field at recess and to use the edge of my sandbox like a balance beam. So of course I loved this series, which was about a group of girls on a gymnastics team called the Pinecones at Evergreen Gymnastics Academy (geddit?). It was mainly focused on Lauren, Cindi, Jodi, and Darlene. Lauren was smart but not great at gymnastics, although in the end she turned out to be a good vaulter. Cindi was Lauren’s best friend and was good at the bars. Darlene was the captain, and her dad was a football player nicknamed Big Beef. Jodi was blonde and had a bit of a temper and had a mom who’d recently remarried. The four of them usually took turns narrating the books, except for one that was narrated by Ti An, the youngest member of their team, and two that were narrated by Heidi, an elite gymnast and recovering anorexic they sometimes hung out with. Heidi won an Olympic gold medal in Barcelona in the completely unrealistic series finale. The Pinecones had a really cool coach named Patrick, whom Lauren had a crush on. And let’s not forget about the enemies: Becky, the requisite bitchy girl who was a level higher than the Pinecones; Ashley, the bratty younger Pinecone who never got her own book; and the team’s big rivals, the Atomic Amazons. I remember Lauren always used to preface every statement she made with, “It’s a proven fact.” One of them was, “It’s a proven fact that pigs don’t sweat,” in response to someone using the phrase, “Sweating like a pig.”

Fear Street
R. L. Stine had the Goosebumps series for younger kids, but this was the series I read. Entertainment has never really scared me, and neither did these books, but it’s kind of amazing that these were marketed to pre-teens. There’s no sex in any of them, but there are tons of graphic, bloody murders. All of them took place in Shadyside, USA, which sounds like an ordinary suburb with a ridiculously high crime rate. It’s amazing anyone wanted to live there. Occasionally, there would be small cameos by characters mentioned in another book, but for the most part, every book was about someone different. A lot of them were surprisingly well-plotted—the killer usually turned out to be the least likely person, like the main character’s best friend, or the prom queen candidate who faked her own death and then began killing all the other prom queen candidates because she thought they were trying to steal her boyfriend (seriously). Mostly, they were just murder mysteries, but some were about something supernatural, like cheerleaders getting possessed by an evil spirit, a “ghost from the future” who comes back to try to prevent his own death, or some weird “mind transfer tape” of chanting by some primitive tribe that allowed this guy to possess his girlfriend’s body and make her kill people. I remember there was also a series of books that tried to explain the beginnings of Fear Street, starting in Puritan times when an innocent girl was burned at the stake for witchcraft in a frightening display of historical inaccuracy.

Lurlene McDaniel
This wasn’t a series so much as an author franchise. Lurlene McDaniel wrote a ton of books about teenagers dying of cancer, and when I was about twelve, I couldn’t get enough of these romanticized depictions of illness. They were all so formulaic—if there was a teenage couple, one of them would not survive. If the teenager with cancer survived the book, she probably would die in the sequel, or at least someone close to her would. Lather, rinse, repeat. I’d read these for the same reason I watch The Notebook, but I think also because they helped put middle school problems in perspective.

I remember plenty of other series, complete with the numbers, that I didn’t read too many of. For the little girls dreaming of becoming professional dancers, there was Ballet School for the younger crowd and Satin Slippers for older kids. There was also another series about gymnasts called American Gold Gymnasts, and I think those gymnasts were kids who actually had a shot at the Olympics. And then there was Girl Talk, which was about…a bunch of girls talking? Four girls in a middle school, I think.

There still are, and continue to be, some fabulous children’s and young adult books out there. But it looks like the series section is gone for good. Thanks for the memories.

The Series Section

4 Replies

“If Regina George is Cokie Mason, then Gretchen Weiners is Grace Blume. Think about it.”

If you understood that sentence, get yourself to What Claudia Wore, stat.

Recently, I’ve noticed an increasing number of blogs dedicated to the 90s phenomenon I like to call “the series section.” There still are, and always will be, book series for middle grade readers and young adults— Harry Potter, Twilight, and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants have been a few this decade—but the days of the mega-series, when you recognized books by their numbers along with their titles, when ghostwriters helped ensure that one book a month came out, when the Barnes & Noble in Nashua had rows and rows containing every book in the Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley Twins in a section labeled “Young Adults Series,” seem to be behind us. Sadly, most of those books, which I’d spend whatever money I had on, spend hours browsing in said Nashua Barnes & Noble, and beg for in groups of ten whenever it was Christmas or my birthday, are no longer in print.

So thank God for blogs like What Claudia Wore, The Dairi Burger, The Unicorner, and Sleepover Friends Forever, which exist to remind us what a loss this is to the world of children’s literature. I remember these books the same way I remember Titanic—as fun as it is to frequent the blogs that snark on them, wondering how many times the BSC could possibly be in eighth grade, what Claudia would have been like if she’d grown up in the age of spell check, and why everyone always just put up with Kristy’s bitching about them getting to the meetings at 5:30 on the dot, these were the books that helped ensure that I loved reading throughout my preteens. Kids today had Harry Potter, which was only seven books long and, of course, is over now, but I could always look forward to a new Baby-Sitters Club or Sweet Valley Twins book. They made for cheap but much-appreciated birthday gifts in fourth and fifth grade. I’d bond with my friends over them (“Ooh, have you read this one yet?”). And, as I’ve mentioned before, books were often how I dealt with my own feelings—if I had a fight with my friends, got embarrassed in gym class, or was being made fun of at school, I’d seek out a book about a kid going through something similar, and book series always dealt with a wide range of topics.

But enough of this serious talk. You know you loved those books, too. Reminisce with me, will you?

The Baby-Sitters Club
Kristy was the one who had the “great idea” to start the club. She was short, coached softball, had a rich stepfather and a stepsister who got her own book series (Baby-Sitters Little Sister, which was what introduced me to the BSC), bossed everyone around, and bitched everyone out if they got to the meetings even a minute late. For some reason, no one ever told her to shut up.

Claudia was Japanese-American and an artist and had eating habits almost as bad as her spelling. She had a genius older sister and parents who were on her case about her junk food, her penchant for Nancy Drew, and her bad grades—but they did let her have her own phone line, which was why the meetings were at her house. Entire paragraphs in the second chapter of every book were dedicated to her outfits. Now, so are entire blogs.

Mary Anne cried a lot. Like, a lot. She was really shy, her mother was dead, and her father eventually married Dawn’s mother. She had a cute boyfriend named Logan who had a Southern accent and became an associate club member. Everyone was very upset when she got a haircut.

Stacey was a New York stereotype whose books were like a PSA for type 1 diabetes.

Dawn was a California stereotype who couldn’t make up her mind about which coast she wanted to live on.

Mallory was eleven, completely awkward, a writer, a horse-lover, and the oldest of eight kids. So of course, minus the eight kids part, she was the one I related to the most easily.

Jessi was black! Which they felt the need to mention every chapter! And she was also a ballerina. Who was black!

Abby didn’t show up until about book 90, so a lot of people forget about her. If you need a refresher, she was funny, athletic, and Jewish and had a twin sister, a dead father, and asthma. She also occasionally talked back to Kristy. It only took 90 books for someone to do it.

Together, they baby-sat a lot of cute kids, like the adorable Jamie Newton, Stacey’s “almost-sister” Charlotte Johansson, bratty Jenny Prezzioso, and “walking disaster” Jackie Rodowsky. They wrote about their jobs in the club notebook. They met every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 5:30 to 6:00. And they were the best.friends.ever.

God, I loved The Baby-Sitters Club. I read just about every book in the series not once but several times. After awhile, they didn’t even fit on my bookshelves. When I was nine, my entire room was decorated with posters and memorabilia I got from the Baby-Sitters Club fan club. My friends and I dreamed of the day we’d start our own baby-sitters club (of course, it never happened). When the movie came out in 1995, I wore my Baby-Sitters Club T-shirt and hat to the theater on the first day it came out. Actually, my cousins’ aunt, who works for Scholastic, was the executive producer of the movie, and when she got me Ann M. Martin’s autograph when I was ten, it was pretty much the best day of my life at the time.

Yeah, I think you get the picture. I was a huuuuuuuge fan.

Sweet Valley Twins
Sweet Valley High came first, and there was also Sweet Valley Kids, which had the same characters in second grade. But Sweet Valley Twins (later retitled Sweet Valley Twins and Friends, since it wasn’t just about the Wakefields) was the series I read the most. It was centered around the titular twins, Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, who were identically blonde and pretty but, of course, polar opposites personality-wise. Elizabeth was the school newspaper editor, had perfect grades, and was obnoxiously self-righteous. Jessica was popularity-obsessed, a member of the Unicorn Club (which was basically a group of popular girls sitting around congratulating themselves on how awesome they were), and obnoxiously self-centered. They were twelve-year-old sixth graders in Sweet Valley, California, which must have one hell of a public transportation system, since these middle schoolers were somehow able to get around by themselves incredibly easily. Speaking of which:

Sleepover Friends
Man, I loved sleepovers as a kid. My mom, who thought they made me tired and cranky, was not such a fan. But what sleepover-loving pre-teen wouldn’t love reading a whole book series about friends who sleep over at each other’s houses every Friday night?

Enter the Sleepover Friends. They were ten-and eleven-year-old fifth graders in Riverhurst, USA, a suburb of “The City,” which was never identified further than that. Lauren, who narrated most of the books (eventually, the other three girls started narrating some of them), was athletic and loved food. Kate was the Kristy Thomas of the group—short, bossy, and would bitch you out if you talked during a movie. Patti, formerly of The City, was the smart, shy one. Stephanie, also formerly of The City, only dressed in red, black, and white because she thought it was cool and probably went on to have an eating disorder, since she was concerned about getting fat even at age ten. They’d get together on Fridays, make food, play Truth or Dare, listen to the radio, make fun of their classmates. And like Sweet Valley, Riverhurst was apparently very easy to get around, because these girls, who weren’t even in middle school yet, seemed to have no trouble going anywhere by themselves without any adults.

The Gymnasts
I used to want to be a gymnast, but not enough to take gymnastics classes. Only enough to do round-offs and one-handed cartwheels on the field at recess and to use the edge of my sandbox like a balance beam. So of course I loved this series, which was about a group of girls on a gymnastics team called the Pinecones at Evergreen Gymnastics Academy (geddit?). It was mainly focused on Lauren, Cindi, Jodi, and Darlene. Lauren was smart but not great at gymnastics, although in the end she turned out to be a good vaulter. Cindi was Lauren’s best friend and was good at the bars. Darlene was the captain, and her dad was a football player nicknamed Big Beef. Jodi was blonde and had a bit of a temper and had a mom who’d recently remarried. The four of them usually took turns narrating the books, except for one that was narrated by Ti An, the youngest member of their team, and two that were narrated by Heidi, an elite gymnast and recovering anorexic they sometimes hung out with. Heidi won an Olympic gold medal in Barcelona in the completely unrealistic series finale. The Pinecones had a really cool coach named Patrick, whom Lauren had a crush on. And let’s not forget about the enemies: Becky, the requisite bitchy girl who was a level higher than the Pinecones; Ashley, the bratty younger Pinecone who never got her own book; and the team’s big rivals, the Atomic Amazons. I remember Lauren always used to preface every statement she made with, “It’s a proven fact.” One of them was, “It’s a proven fact that pigs don’t sweat,” in response to someone using the phrase, “Sweating like a pig.”

Fear Street
R. L. Stine had the Goosebumps series for younger kids, but this was the series I read. Entertainment has never really scared me, and neither did these books, but it’s kind of amazing that these were marketed to pre-teens. There’s no sex in any of them, but there are tons of graphic, bloody murders. All of them took place in Shadyside, USA, which sounds like an ordinary suburb with a ridiculously high crime rate. It’s amazing anyone wanted to live there. Occasionally, there would be small cameos by characters mentioned in another book, but for the most part, every book was about someone different. A lot of them were surprisingly well-plotted—the killer usually turned out to be the least likely person, like the main character’s best friend, or the prom queen candidate who faked her own death and then began killing all the other prom queen candidates because she thought they were trying to steal her boyfriend (seriously). Mostly, they were just murder mysteries, but some were about something supernatural, like cheerleaders getting possessed by an evil spirit, a “ghost from the future” who comes back to try to prevent his own death, or some weird “mind transfer tape” of chanting by some primitive tribe that allowed this guy to possess his girlfriend’s body and make her kill people. I remember there was also a series of books that tried to explain the beginnings of Fear Street, starting in Puritan times when an innocent girl was burned at the stake for witchcraft in a frightening display of historical inaccuracy.

Lurlene McDaniel
This wasn’t a series so much as an author franchise. Lurlene McDaniel wrote a ton of books about teenagers dying of cancer, and when I was about twelve, I couldn’t get enough of these romanticized depictions of illness. They were all so formulaic—if there was a teenage couple, one of them would not survive. If the teenager with cancer survived the book, she probably would die in the sequel, or at least someone close to her would. Lather, rinse, repeat. I’d read these for the same reason I watch The Notebook, but I think also because they helped put middle school problems in perspective.

I remember plenty of other series, complete with the numbers, that I didn’t read too many of. For the little girls dreaming of becoming professional dancers, there was Ballet School for the younger crowd and Satin Slippers for older kids. There was also another series about gymnasts called American Gold Gymnasts, and I think those gymnasts were kids who actually had a shot at the Olympics. And then there was Girl Talk, which was about…a bunch of girls talking? Four girls in a middle school, I think.

There still are, and continue to be, some fabulous children’s and young adult books out there. But it looks like the series section is gone for good. Thanks for the memories.

Between the Lines and Behind the Doors

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I will eventually post about the election. In fact, I’ll probably post about it three times because I have multiple thoughts on it. But this is something that’s been on my mind that I need to get out, even though I’m tired and need to be getting to bed.

I’ve written about the book The Song Reader before. It’s something I think about a lot, whenever the lyrics of a song keep echoing in my mind. And, as anyone who’s Facebook friends with me knows, lately, the song I’ve been listening to over and over is “Between the Lines” by Sara Bareilles. It’s a song I’d heard before but hadn’t listened to closely until last week. There was a specific situation I applied it to, but then I thought about another situation that was very different but equally applicable.

But then I started thinking about the song in a more universal sense. How many things do we attempt to gain knowledge of by reading between the lines?

I remember reading this article in New York magazine, about how the Internet has caused a generation gap (young people are willing to bear their souls online; their parents aren’t). And after reading it, all I could think was…no one reveals everything online, even to their friends. No one.

Excuse my very cheesy analogy, but the Internet, if you will, is like an extremely large collection of doors. There are the doors that are open to everyone. There are the doors that are locked. There are doors that are locked to most people, but that someone has given you the keys to. And there are doors that are open, but that you probably wouldn’t have found if someone hadn’t led you there.

You could all probably figure out what I meant. We’ve all searched for our own open doors—what people can find out about us by Googling us. We Google ourselves, the people we date, the people we crush on. I sometimes Google my friends just for the hell of it. And we make the most of what we have when we run into a locked door—we see if we have mutual friends with someone whose Facebook profile is private, or check if someone’s posted on someone else’s wall. When someone gives us the key to a door, we read whatever we can into his or her goofy poses in photographs or cryptic Livejournal posts. And if we find our way to an open door we weren’t led to, we feel the need to justify it: “Oh, uh…I found your blog after so-and-so linked to it.”

The thing is, though, you could have access to every bit of information available online about a person and still not know anything important about him. While sometimes in this blog I’m just rambling about TV or whining about the T, sometimes it’s my attempt to be honest and just say what I’m thinking without having to say it out loud—and sometimes hoping that someone will read it and say, “OMG, I know EXACTLY what you mean!!!” (in a less annoying way, of course). But there are so many things I can’t put out there, even in writing, even knowing that this is a door that someone would have to be led to. If years from now, I were to look back on this blog as a record of what I was thinking and feeling at the time, I wouldn’t know the half of what was going on with me. The Internet makes it easier to tell some stories and harder to tell others, and there are some that I would love to be able to tell but know that I never will.

I wonder what people will read between the lines of this entry—or between the lines of my recent obsession with “Between the Lines.” Posting that little Facebook status update reminded me of the days in college when we’d post song lyrics on our AIM away messages, leaving people to read between those lines. The funny thing was that sometimes they read them completely wrong. I remember once, I had the lyrics to “Drive” by Incubus up, and I meant it as a kind of expression of independence and individuality. But my friend Jon saw it and immediately IMed me saying, “What’s wrong?” One person’s anthem of living fearlessly is another’s angry rant.

And to bring this post full-circle, that’s one interesting thing about song reading—the same song can’t mean the same thing to two different people. I recently found this from the author of The Song Reader, which helps you figure out how to read between the lines of your songs. It’s something that might help you figure yourself out when you know that the people reading your vague status updates and cryptic blog posts never will.

A Story That Might Not Mean Anything

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Warning: I try not to write about anything too personal here, but this is going to be more personal than most. I really hope that I don’t come off sounding like a moody drama queen, but it may be unavoidable.

A couple of years ago, I read a wonderful book by Lisa Tucker called The Song Reader. It’s about a woman who analyzes what’s going on in people’s lives based on the songs they listen to or that have been stuck in their heads, especially specific lines that stick out for them. Sometimes a song is a manifestation of your subconscious.

I won’t say too much more about the book, but it’s amazing how true it is. On my coworker’s last day of work, she said she had “Goodbye to You” by Michelle Branch, a song she doesn’t even like, stuck in her head. When I was going through a difficult time awhile ago, the song I kept listening to on repeat was Beth Hart’s “Leave the Light On,” which might have been my way of telling myself not to give up.

And then there’s the song that’s been stuck in my head lately: “The Story” by Brandi Carlile. And this is the line I can’t get rid of: “But these stories don’t mean anything if you’ve got no one to tell them to.”

In the context of the song, it’s a happy line—the next one is “It’s true, I was made for you.” But my subconscious never gets there.

Here’s a story I wish I had someone to tell. Last Friday, after getting out of work early for a summer Friday, I didn’t know what to do. Then I thought, why don’t I go walk along the beach in South Boston? I’ve never been there, and it might be a cool place to explore. So, by myself, I took the bus, and to get to the beach, I had to walk across a field. On the other side of the field was a man with a dog, which he had taken off the leash. It was a fairly small dog, and I’m not sure what kind—probably mixed breed. But anyway, the dog saw me walking across the field, ran over to me, jumped on me, and slightly bit me. (Before you worry, it was a superficial wound, and I’ve since gone to the doctor, gotten a tetanus shot, and put on a rabies vaccine, so I’m fine.) The dog’s owner was apologizing and saying that the dog never does this. I was too in shock to ask for the owner’s name and phone number, which I probably should have done.

But then, when I did get over the shock, I just thought, No one is here. I just got bitten by a dog, and no one is here.

This happened after a few weeks of me feeling increasingly lonely. There are times when it hits me that I’ve been single my entire life, and this is one of those times. I mean, forget having someone to grow old with, have kids with, celebrate Valentine’s Day with, split the cost of a one-bedroom apartment with (seriously, I found myself wanting to be in a relationship for that specific reason while I was looking for a new apartment), etc. Sometimes, I just want to be in a relationship for the companionship. It would be really nice to have someone to whom I mattered enough that I could just call him and say, “Hey! Some random dog just bit me!” Or someone who would make the time to go to the beach with me. Or, for that matter, go to Restaurant Week or a bar I’ve been meaning to try or the BC-Notre Dame game with me. And someone whom I’d accompany to whatever he wanted to do, and whom I’d listen to if he called me after getting bitten by a dog. Someone who would always be there for me, whether I want to go out and do something fun or stay in and watch Friends reruns, whether I want to share a funny story or vent about the annoying people on the T.

It’s not that I don’t have friends—I do—but they all have their own lives, and I can’t bother them with all the good and bad things going on with me. I think one problem I have, and one that I’ve struggled with in the past, is that I don’t feel that I’m necessary in many people’s lives. I mean, there are certainly people who like me, but not too many who would notice my absence and say, “Wow, too bad Katie’s not here!” And when you’re in your twenties, so many people’s lives are in flux—people are moving away, changing jobs, going back to school—that it’s nice to have a constant presence in your life, someone you can depend on to care about you. I really just want someone who makes me feel necessary—not in a needy, codependent way, and not in a cheesy, Jerry Maguire, “You complete me,” way, but in a way that makes me feel confident that he’ll always enjoy my company, always listen to what I have to say, and know that I’ll always feel the same way about him.

Like I said, I don’t want to come off sounding whiny and dramatic, because realistically, I don’t think I’m doomed to a lifetime of singlehood. I’m only twenty-four, and plenty of people my age are still single. And it’s not like I hate being alone—I’ve always been good at enjoying the pleasure of my own company. But there was something I saw on the T last week that made me pause: a girl and a guy who I think were BU students and who were cute in the way of couples who are friends as well as romantic partners. They were affectionate, but not in a really obvious, disgusting way, and they were having a good time making fun of each other as they talked. At one point, the guy started telling the girl something, and she said, “I’m sorry—but you’ve already told me this story about ten times, and it’s not that interesting.” Then they both laughed, and kissed a little bit. I loved that they were comfortable enough with each other that they could say that.

That’s what I want. At the end of the day, I think that’s what most of us want—someone whom we can tell our stories to. Even if he’s already heard them ten times and they’re not that interesting.

If This Blog Isn’t Enough…

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…here’s another place you can read my writing. Especially if you’re interested in YA lit.

Teens Read Too is a cool site with reviews of Young Adult books, and I’ve recently become a reviewer. The thesis I wrote in college is a young adult novel, and I think it’s a genre that resonates with anyone, even if you left high school long ago. One of my reviews is up, and more will follow.

This is my page here. And no, my bio does not say anything about spewing generational angst.

Non-Spoilery Harry Potter Post

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I turned 23 on July 20, and just for this year, my birthday was an international holiday. Christina and I went to Potterpaloozza in Brookline before we went to get our books.

I had my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows finished by 7:00 PM on July 21st, and because I’m a complete nerd, I’ve since re-read the whole thing. I won’t spoil those who haven’t finished it yet except to say that I loved it and I think it’s my favorite of the HP books.

But I’m still a bit let down. This is really the end (well, except for the encyclopedia J.K. Rowling says is coming out eventually). Not only will we never have another Harry Potter book to anticipate again, but I have a hard time imagining any book that could cause people to unite the way the HP books do. What other book could cause concepts like the Sorting Hat to become so well-known in the mainstream, or inspire “Republicans for Voldemort” bumper stickers? What other book could lead people to stand in line at midnight dressed in costume? What other book could appeal to so many people—elementary school students and senior citizens, lifelong readers and people who’ve never read for fun in their lives, fantasy nerds and those who never read anything outside of fairy tales that had to do with magic? What piece of fiction could get so many people debating who would survive the last book or what side Snape was on?

It’s amazing, too, because I’d been afraid for a long time that reading for pleasure was a dying pastime. Books only tend to get widespread attention if Oprah’s involved (even better if you write a memoir of questionable authenticity) or if they’re written by a plagiarizing Harvard undergrad. When I worked at a pool, all the little kids would be bouncing off the walls when a new HP book was about to come out. I always used to get made fun of for reading when I was in elementary school. I wish Harry Potter had been around when I was little.

My parents were recently talking about how they remember seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, and were saying that there won’t ever be anything again that could be so universal, that everyone would be so obsessed with.

I said, “Yes, there is. And it’s even British.”

Let’s See How I Do on My Speculation N.E.W.T.

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WARNING: Read no further if you haven’t yet read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Only two weeks to go. (And no, although I can’t wait, I’m not counting down the days like bookstores and libraries are—I had to look that up to be sure. Really.) It’s time to talk about Harry Potter.

I just re-read all six books in order so that they’re fresh in my mind. There are a lot of random things I didn’t notice when I read them initially. One good example: in Book 5, after Ginny tells him that she’s broken up with Michael but before she tells him she’s now seeing Dean, Ron casts Harry “an oddly furtive look” as he tells Ginny to choose someone better next time. So all of Harry’s worrying throughout Book 6 was unnecessary, because it looks like Ron actually did want Harry and Ginny together!

But enough with the romantic stuff. Here are some other thoughts I have upon re-reading all the books, and some speculation I have for the final one:

Snape
After re-reading Book 6, I’m really not sure what to think about him. If he is a double agent, I’m not sure what side he’s on. But maybe he’s on neither side and was just in it for himself the whole time.

One thing did jump out at me, though. I’d forgotten that the Unbreakable Vow he made with Narcissa Malfoy wasn’t just that he would protect Draco—it was also that he’d fulfill Draco’s mission (to kill Dumbledore) if Draco couldn’t. So if Snape didn’t kill Dumbledore, he would have died.

And that’s interesting. Maybe it wasn’t as much a matter of killing Dumbledore as it was staying alive himself. I’m also torn on whether or not Dumbledore knew that Snape would kill him, or if Snape killing him was part of a plan. Dumbledore did ask to see Snape, after all, and when he was talking to Draco before Snape showed up, he was definitely stalling. His last words, “Severus…please…” could be him asking Snape to kill him. But the book does say that Snape, before he kills Dumbledore, has “revulsion and hatred etched in the lines of his face.”

So I really don’t know. I do think, though, that Snape was probably in love with Lily, even if he did call her a Mudblood in that flashback. It would explain why he hated James so much, and since Lily stuck up for him, it would make sense. But if Snape is capable of love, that means he can’t be completely evil, right?

My head hurts thinking about it. Congratulations, J.K. Rowling, you got me thinking.

Look of Triumph
One of the weirdest moments in the whole series. It’s in Book 4, when Harry is explaining to Dumbledore what happened when Voldemort return. After Harry explains that Voldemort now has Harry’s blood and the protection his mother left him, he thinks he sees a “look of triumph” in Dumbledore’s face, then thinks he must have imagined it.

At first I wondered if Dumbledore was evil, but now, after reading books 5 and 6, I don’t think that would make any sense. I mean, it wouldn’t even be a cool twist—it just wouldn’t make sense. So my best guess is that Voldemort having Harry’s blood will somehow aid in his downfall. Dumbledore probably knew something that he never told Harry.

House elves
This is one plotline I never quite got. Logically, it seems like the house elves should all be freed, or at least paid for their work, but I feel like at this point, wrapping that storyline up would take half the book. There are so many issues complicating the matter—house elves like Kreacher who are loyal to Death Eaters, house elves like Winky who don’t want to be free. Also, while Hermione is all righteously indignant about elf rights, most other people are ambivalent on the issue at best. Harry even used Kreacher and Winky to tail Draco in Book 6. So I’m really not sure where this plotline is going.

Behind the veil
I took a class in college on young adult and adolescent literature that discussed the books we read, including Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, as they pertained to the hero archetype, and one part of that is the hero visiting the land of the dead. So I definitely think we’ll get a glimpse behind the veil, and that Lily, James, Sirius, and Dumbledore will all appear in some form.

Then, of course, there’s the matter of who dies. I had to read what J.K. Rowling has said about the matter. What she said, I think (I’m too lazy to look for the actual quote) was that the last chapter will reveal the fates of the surviving characters, that one character got a reprieve, and that two characters died whom she didn’t intend to die.

That probably means that more characters die that she did intend to die—I’m pretty sure she didn’t decide to kill Voldemort randomly. So who survives?

The Death Pool

–Ginny. I think Ginny is more likely to live than anyone else. I just think it would be too cruel if Harry broke off the relationship to protect her and then she died anyway.

–Ron or Hermione. I don’t know. I just don’t see it happening. Just a gut feeling. If one of them is going to die, though, I’d say Ron is more vulnerable.

–Harry. There’s so much speculation about whether Harry is going to die, but I don’t think he will. I just…don’t think it would fit with the tone of the books. It is true that the books keep getting darker, but they still maintain this hopeful quality. One word I’ve never used to describe HP is depressing. And Harry dying, even if he died heroically, would be depressing. Unless it’s just in the epilogue and he dies of old age or something.

–Draco. I think he’s a very real possibility. Now we know that he’s not completely evil, so of course that’s just asking to be killed by Voldemort or a Death Eater. However, I can also see him being the character who gets the reprieve—maybe his not being evil is what enables him to live.

–Snape. Another very real possibility. Whether his death will be a good or a bad thing is yet to be determined.

–Neville. I can completely see Neville dying. In Book 5 he got to be part of the showdown at the Ministry, and I want him to have an even greater heroic moment in the last book. And I think the fact that the prophesy could also have meant him implies that he has the potential for greatness. On the other hand, it would be pretty tragic if he died just as he was reaching his potential.

–One of the Weasleys. I hope the Weasley parents survive, but if one of them dies, I think Arthur is more vulnerable, just because Molly is really the only maternal figure in the books.

–McGonagall. Why McGonagall? Why not McGonagall? Actually, I think she might have a bigger role in Book 7 since Dumbledore’s dead now, but I can also see her dying heroically.

–Hagrid. Hagrid might die, but I kind of don’t think so. He was the first wizard Harry met, so I think he needs to be there at the end, to have the story come full circle.

–Trelawney. I keep thinking of Friends, when Phoebe’s psychic tells her she’s going to die, but then the psychic dies. So maybe it’s the same thing—maybe all this time when Trelawney’s been predicting Harry’s death, she’s been messing up and actually seeing her own death!

Just kidding about that last one.

But know this: I do not exist on July 21st. Don’t call me or ask me to do anything until I’m done with the book. I think I’ve made myself pretty clear.

Elizabeth Berg Is Awesome. And I’m A Fangirl Dork.

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Wednesday night was an event I’d been looking forward to since I first heard about it: Elizabeth Berg reading at the Brookline Booksmith. I think I’ve already mentioned in this blog that she is my favorite author. I’ve read and loved almost all her books. She just has this way of nailing truths about life that I’ve felt but could never express. And her characters are usually American women in ordinary suburban settings, which is refreshing to me—I feel like too many authors feel like they have to set their novel somewhere exotic or make their main characters totally out-of-the-ordinary. But it’s always very easy to identify with Elizabeth Berg’s characters.

Her latest book is different— The Handmaid and the Carpenter is about Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus. At first I was very surprised, because all of her other books take place in relatively ordinary settings, and none of them are explicitly religious. But then I read this passage toward the end of the book: “For miracles are everywhere around us. Sometimes they are small and common: The curl of a child’s ear. The ripening of grapes on the vine. The stretching of a rainbow over the valley in which we live. Sometimes they are larger: That we have inside ourselves the ability to feel the music we hear. That our people survive!”

And suddenly, I got it. This is the attitude that’s present in all of her work. She expresses it explicitly in a short story called “Today’s Special”:

“Nothing big ever replaces the sight of the winter boots all lined up, or the sound of the click of the front doors locked up against the darkness each night. Consider cooling pies. The impossibly small size of your own child’s shoe…Isn’t it those small things that add the necessary shape and meaning to our lives? And don’t we miss seeing them if we look too hard for big things?”

So basically, if we can believe that little, everyday things like those are miracles, it’s not so hard to believe in the biggest miracle of all.

So, anyway, Elizabeth Berg read from The Handmaid and the Carpenter, and then she signed autographs. She also brought some baked goods—her daughter, who lives in Newton, just started a baking business, one that I’ll probably utilize at some point, because the cookies and brownies I tried were awesome.

But when I got her autograph, she was so nice. She signed three of my books, including my favorite, Joy School. (A book where the main character is also named Katie—an added bonus of an already fantastic book.) And because I am a huge dork, I gave her a letter I’ve written.

One of the things I mentioned in the letter was that one particular chapter of Joy School is one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I’ve ever read. It’s just two pages, but even if you haven’t read what comes before, you can tell so much about this character and her life. Because it’s beautiful and because it has to do with Christmas, I’ll share it with you here:

“It is such an odd thing to have a Christmas with only two people. It might be worse than being alone. My father and I opened our few presents, then sat awhile by the tree, each thinking that’s what the other one wanted to do, I guess. My father gave me twenty dollars to buy him something and I just got him a wallet and a duck call. He never will use that duck call. It was one of those things, I was feeling desperate and the guy selling the duck calls honked it and I thought, Isn’t that cute! Maybe my father will think that’s funny! and I bought it. But he just said all serious, Well, thank you, Katie and then he laid it carefully back in the box. I got knee socks, pajamas, a book of poems by Americans and a stuffed animal, a cat wearing a dress. She’s cute, but really I am too old, she’ll have to live in my closet. The best gift was Intimate perfume and dusting powder. So I guess Ginger helped a bit with shopping. I kept wishing someone else was there so I could have another face to look at, a triangle of possibility instead of a deadly straight line.

“After a bit we went out for Chinese food, and my father left a big Christmas tip and the waiter nodded and nodded and said, ‘Happy Christmas, Happy Christmas,’ about three hundred times. We went for a little walk afterward and my father’s hands were deep in his pockets and his head was hanging low. I didn’t even try. I just walked beside him and kept looking at the stars, trying to think which one was the Star of Bethlehem, which I think is one of the prettiest phrases I’ve ever heard, Star of Bethlehem. I thought, what if I were a Wise Man, what would the message be now? Maybe just God saying, Well, they are wrong about me. I did once make a terrible mistake. If you think I’ll ever send my Son again, forget it.

“Now it is ten o’clock and we are both pretending to sleep. But I can feel his awakeness and probably he can feel mine. I have my radio turned on real low and someone is singing ‘I’ll be home for Christmas’ like their heart is breaking wide open. Outside, snow falls, so perfect.”

If you can see the same magic in that passage that I see, you are my new best friend.

Experience Freedom: Read a Banned Book (In Celebration of Banned Books Week)

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My dream is that one day, I’ll write a book and it will be banned.

I’m serious. I can’t think of a better way to honor my writing. It’ll put me in good company. The Harry Potter books, The Giver, Bridge to Terabithia, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Wrinkle in Time have also been banned.

What else do these books have in common? They’ve been banned for all sorts of reasons—swearing, violence, sex, contradiction to religious beliefs (because, you know, flying on a broom and wearing an invisibility cloak like Harry Potter is possible and everything).

But the other thing they have in common is that they all get kids to think.

When I was a sheltered suburban kid, books were how I learned about the world. Number the Stars and Freedom Crossing taught me about the parts of history we wish had never happened. I’d never thought seriously about modern-day racism until I read books about it, like Iggie’s House and certain Baby-Sitters Club books. If I had a problem, like having a fight with my friends or being teased by the popular kids, I’d seek out a book with a protagonist going through the same thing. I even learned about menstruation after reading the word in a book and asking my mom what it meant.

The fact is, books, unlike TV and movies and videogames, can never be called mindless entertainment. The fact that they do get kids to think is undeniable. The books I’ve mentioned that have been banned get them to think about concepts like good and evil and the importance of choice. About serious issues like death and violence and racism. Sometimes just about the possibility of a world other than the one they live in. And because they can’t physically see the story they’re reading unfold, using their imaginations isn’t an option.

Let me be clear: I’m not saying that parents don’t have the right to tell their kids they can’t read something they don’t feel is appropriate. I’m also not saying they should. What I am saying is that parents shouldn’t take away another kid’s right to read a good book just because they don’t want their kids reading something with swears (because all kids learn bad words from books) or homosexuality (because their own kids will never meet a gay person in real life) or sex (because there isn’t any other way a kid would possibly be exposed to sexual content) or anything else that they could, you know, just talk to their kids about.

And why won’t they talk to their kids about uncomfortable things? Because they want their kids to go on thinking the world is perfect? Because they don’t want their kids to know that there are people with different viewpoints?

Sadly, there are many people like this in the world. Just check out this web site. On one part of this site, people review movies and TV shows from a Christian perspective, and basically, if it’s not VeggieTales or The Passion of the Christ, someone is offended by it, whether it’s because there’s some vague implication of “magic” (which always means the devil) or because a brother and sister are fighting (which, you know, siblings never do in real life).

I should mention that my first sentence isn’t just idle talk. I actually did write a young adult novel for my senior thesis in college, which I’m currently editing so I can send it to an agent. It’s a book that deals with some serious issues and has some swearing in it. And honestly, while I’d love for it to be challenged, I wouldn’t love for it to be banned, because that would mean that overzealous parents had successfully kept my book out of the hands of kids other than their own.

So I think what I really wish is that a kid whose parents don’t want her to read my book will read it anyway—and think about what I have to say.

Katie Recommends: Why Moms Are Weird

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This is going to be a semi-regular feature. I’ll blog about a book, movie, TV show, or musical artist that I like and discuss what else I’ve been reading/watching/listening to lately. These things aren’t necessarily my favorites, just things I like that you might not be familiar with.

Pamela Ribon, aka Pamie who used to recap Gilmore Girls at Television Without Pity (one of my favorite web sites), wrote her first book, Why Girls Are Weird, a few years ago. It was an enjoyable book that I’d definitely recommend to anyone who likes her web site, as the book is essentially its fictionalized version. Recently, her second book, Why Moms Are Weird, came out. I read it expecting to get a nice romantic comedy with more emphasis on familial relationships than her previous book.

What did I get instead? Holy shit. The biggest cliche you can use when reviewing something is “I laughed, I cried,” but for this book, nothing is truer. Pamie has made me laugh numerous times, and this book is no exception- the first chapter of the book is funnier than almost anything you’ll see on TV nowadays- but she also writes things like this:

“You can fight it, you can rationalize it, and you can pretend to ignore it, but you can’t stop love. You can’t help whom you bond with, and the need we have for each other. All you can do is try to handle it with respect, and ultimately do the right thing.”

It’s worth saying twice. Holy shit, Pamie. You made me cry. You hit on a truth that I’ve felt but could never put into words.

So now that I’ve described her style– laugh-out-loud funny one minute, amazingly and originally true and insightful the next– I should describe the plot. Despite the title, it’s not about the characters in Why Girls Are Weird. It’s about a young woman named Benny (for Belinda) who flies from LA to Virginia after her widowed mother and wild-child younger sister are in a car accident. Her mother has begun dating again, which, to say the least, is awkward for Benny, and her sister has a penchant for dating criminals. Meanwhile, Benny is torn between a guy in LA whom she was just getting to know and a guy she meets in Virginia.

A million other authors would write a terrible book with this premise, but Pamie pulls it off beautifully. She has a knack for writing realistic dialogue and throwing in pop culture references without making them seem forced. But more importantly, she creates very believable and likeable characters who seem like they could be your own relatives. Benny definitely isn’t perfect, but Pamie creates her with flaws without ever sacrificing her likeability.

Yeah, it’s kind of a girly book, so it’s not for everyone, but if you like fiction that hits close to home, you’ll probably like this one.

Other books I’ve been reading lately:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer: Just as weird as it is wonderful and amazing. This book has everything– it’s original, beautifully written, and hopeful. Oskar Schell is a precocious nine-year-old whose father died in the World Trade Center on September 11th. Oskar sets off on a quest to find the lock that goes with a key his father left behind. Once you get past the fact that Oskar doesn’t sound anything like a nine-year-old, you have to marvel at Foer’s skill. He creates this distinct voice for Oskar that’s unlike anything I’v ever read, and some paragraphs I just have to keep re-reading so I can appreciate their beauty all over again. He also manages to find humor even in devastating situations. But what I really love is how Foer isn’t trying to be cool by being cynical or sarcastic or self-deprecating. He’s not afraid to try to write something genuinely moving, and he definitely succeeds.

Smashed by Koren Zailckas

As I think I’ve mentioned, I’m not a big drinker. But that doesn’t mean that alcohol wasn’t everywhere in college, and that I didn’t get stuck drunk-sitting my friends. In this memoir, Koren Zailckas, who is now 26, details her descent into alcohol abuse starting at age 14 and continuing through high school and college. Her writing is vivid, clear, and easy to relate to, and you’ll definitely recognize the scenarios she describes—the awkward freshman year of college, the depressed and drunk friend. Her point is that young girls often drink because of low self-esteem, and I couldn’t agree more.

Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst

Carolyn Parkhurst’s first book, The Dogs of Babel, was a well-written novel with a kind of bizarre subject: a widower who tries to teach his dog to talk to find out whether his wife died accidentally or by suicide. This one is about a topic so obvious that I can’t believe I’ve never read anything similar: a group of people on a (fictional) reality show. It’s told from the points of view of seven different characters: everyone from an “ex-gay” couple to a former child star to a mother and daughter trying to repair their relationship. She really gets into these characters’ heads, and the plot, like any good reality show, is engaging and keeps you guessing. The only disappointment was the ending—I kind of wanted more. But it’s fun and extremely well-written, and I definitely recommend it.

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

Nick Hornby is a great writer, and not only because his books are funny and insightful with well-written plots. He has an amazing talent for taking subjects that sound really sappy and turning them into funny, remarkably unsentimental novels. Here, he writes about four people who go onto a rooftop in London to kill themselves on New Year’s Eve: a disgraced former talk show host, a mother of a severely handicapped son, a depressed teenage girl, and an American musician. After talking, they decide not to kill themselves and to check in on each other on Valentine’s Day. With a description like that, wouldn’t you think it would be really sappy? But it’s not. It’s funny and sarcastic and self-aware. There are lines like, “First, I’ll have you know that I scored very highly on Dr. Aaron T. Beck’s Suicide Intent Scale. I’ll bet you didn’t even know there was such a scale, did you? Well, there is, and I reckon I got something like twenty-one out of thirty points.” The book is told from all four main characters’ points of view, and they each have their own distinct voice. It doesn’t trivialize suicide, but rather points out the absurdity of it. What it’s really saying is that when you think you’re alone, you aren’t really, and that the world doesn’t revolve around your problems—it just keeps going. But of course, it says so in a much less sappy way.

Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner

First, a disclaimer: I do not think there’s anything inherently wrong with “chick lit.” A girl I knew in college actually wrote an entire thesis on why chick lit is worthless, but I disagree. The only problem with chick lit is when books are a little too ditzy or when they all start to sound the same, or when people start to dismiss all books written by women as “chick lit.” But to me the term just implies a story that’s easy to relate to, entertaining, and cute. And when it comes to chick lit, Jennifer Weiner is the cream of the crop. She’s a smart, funny, confident writer who creates believable and likeable characters. This book is a little different—it’s a murder mystery. A bored mother of young children in a rich suburb sets out to solve the murder of a fellow mother. The mysyery keeps you guessing right up until the end, and there are plenty of laugh-out-loud details about life in the ’burbs. (Like the Starbucks in the center of town that couldn’t put up a sign because it ruined the town’s “feel,” or the woman who raises her children without diapers to get in tune with their “natural rhythms.”)

The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

Eh. Honestly, I didn’t really like this one. I loved her first book, The Secret Life of Bees, but in this one I couldn’t stand the main character. She’s a married woman who has an affair with a monk. Why should I care about her? I have no idea. The writing is pretty, but in the reading of this book, I discovered that when it comes to fictional characters, I have more sympathy for murderers than for people who cheat on their significant others. I think that says it all.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

I finally read this, and it was…interesting. And not in a bad way. It’s an unusual subject, and I learned a lot about geishas, a topic about which I had previously known nothing. The author obviously did a ton of research, and the characters are realistic and compelling. But plot-wise…I kind of wanted more in the end, and the romance at the heart of the story rang very false to me.

Hypocrite In a Pouffy White Dress by Susan Jane Gilman

This was awesome. When I think “memoir” I automatically think “depressing,” seeing as so many memoirs get made into Lifetime movies. But this one is hilarious. Susan Jane Gilman’s life isn’t terribly extraordinary (well, aside from having hippie parents who took her to a socialist retreat at age 4), but she writes essays about things like her first job and being picked on at school in the most hilarious and compelling way. One of the most important elements of humor is unexpectedness, and this book definitely has that. When describing her impending marriage, she says, “Both my overwhelming love for him and the desire for joint health insurance won out.” When describing a point on which she and a friend disagreed as teenagers, she says, “In standard Teenage Girl Culture, this should’ve been considered a massive betrayal, a pivotal moment that ended our friendship. The fact that it wasn’t was a testimony to how close we were.” The book follows her from her earliest memories to adulthood, so we learn about the lies she told to her kindergarten class, her massive crush on Mick Jagger as a teenager, and her thankless stint working for a congresswoman as an adult. The overwhelming impression you get of her is that she’s someone you’d love to be friends with.

Once Upon a Day by Lisa Tucker

Lisa Tucker has quickly become one of my favorite authors. Her first book, The Song Reader, was wonderful, and her second, Shout Down the Moon, was almost as good. Here, she’s taken her writing to the next level. It starts with a twenty-three-year-old woman who has been raised in a “sanctuary” away from society meeting a young man who has lost his entire family. The woman is searching for her older brother, who has run away from the world in which their father raised them. I hesitate to tell much more than that, because the plot is almost like a Gothic novel—secrets just keep unfolding. It’s a rarity: a literary novel with a page-turning plot, and it raises a resonant theme: the dangers you face in life shouldn’t prevent you from living your life. I highly recommend it.

The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld

I didn’t like this as much as Prep, but it was still enjoyable. I think Sittenfeld’s greatest strength is observation. She has this real knack for nailing truths about everyday situations. This one is about a woman named Hannah and her insecurities with relationships, and one reason why I liked it is because I’ve never read another book about someone who wasn’t kissed until college. In a lot of places I saw myself in Hannah. She truly seems like a real person, and while the ending isn’t terribly satisfying, it feels like the natural course of events.

We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg

I’ve never read an Elizabeth Berg book that I didn’t like. In this one, she writes from the point of view of a young adult, which she’s exceptionally good at. The only other books where she’s done so are her books about Katie (Durable Goods, Joy School, and True to Form), and those are some of her best. So is this one. It’s loosely based on a true story about a woman who gave birth in an iron lung as she was being paralyzed by polio. The story, which takes place in 1964, is told from the point of view of the woman’s now-fourteen-year-old daughter. It deals with the struggles they, as well as their black maid, face. The mother-daughter relationship feels very genuine, and I enjoyed this book all the way through.