adventures in disaster

Books

I am on a reading tear right now, reading not Reading the team though I still love them with all my heart. Knocking two Chelsea keepers out cold in one game? Wow...hope they will be okay cause damn.
Anyway, back to books.
I had been avoiding the Lovely Bones for awhile. I don't really know why. The graduations of blue on the jacket maybe. That blue thing always signals really sad story with sort of half assed uplifting ending to me and I haven't been in the mood. I haven't seen any uplifting endings lately.
I liked this book. I liked that this little murdered girl wasn't broken in that awful chicklit way. She was broken but it was the brokenness of a real person not a pasty, soft Hollywood writer played by Kirsten Dunst broken. All the characters had edges that sliced through , making the right, true cuts. The book had the requisite uplifting it's all going to be okay ending but the writer earned that ending. It felt correct that this family would find some way to knit itself back together.
It's a not a fun, beach read but it's worthwhile.

The Liars Club is a memoir and like all memoirs it is filled with the cringeworthy. I don't understand this need to pull out all the worst memories of your life and wave them to the crowd but because we are all voyeurs to some extent it's fascinating reading. Unfortunately for me there were too may spots in this book where I felt like a creep. The very act of reading and then knowing the most intimate details of a tragic life makes me somehow complicit in the acts of violence. As if I have a responsibility to call the cops. I liked the writers style, the use of language but some of the details left me feeling angry , too angry and then realizing that these hurts were a strangers hurts long healed made me feel manipulated.
It's a good memoir but be prepared.

Finally I found a Canadian book retailer that had Pamies book! Why Moms are weird is not a chicklit book. I know some publishing agent thinks it is and the marketers do too but don't listen to them. It's a book book. A well written story that made me a lot more sad than I thought it would. Yes, it is funny and some of the situations are funny but it's not a comedy. It is a book about not fitting in. It's about trying to save people ad realizing you can't and that is sad. It points out that saving someone is a selfish act. Just thinking that someone needs saving reveals a lot about the saver, like they are usually less than thoughtful about other peoples feelings.
I liked the book because it was circular. Every character suffered from alienation and loneliness yet every character manifested their symptoms in completely different ways save one, their inability to choose the right guy. Each character took the same trip finding acceptance but their experiences on that journey were all different. A reminder that we all share the same goals, happiness being the most important and we all choose some really colourful and sometimes damn painful ways to get there.
It's a thoughtful book despite the comedy.
I am a little concerned that Pamie is going for sitcom with this. I get that it can be funny but it's poignant too and a laugh track can strip that out. It's the underlying sadness that makes the characters funny. Their humour and their sometimes grandiose and outlandish choices are a reaction to that sadness. They are railing against loss, real and imagined. I worry that Hollywood wont have much patience with tragedy and that audiences that think Two and a Half men is funny wont have the energy to get a different kind of funny. I look back at Brett Butlers sitcom with some hope though. People thought that was funny right? For a little while anyway before she started the drugs and harassing her underage co-workers..heh..that could be a sit com right there.

posted by adventures in disaster @ 10:06 PM