Tremors and Aftershocks

After the Quake by Haruki Murakami

Reading Challenge: A book translated to English.

I had a vague idea, for a few months, that maybe I would read a translated book for the reading challenge that was not one of Murakami’s. I even started one (but, under the stress of graduation times, found it too dense and gave up). Then came the gift card, and the used copy of After the Quake just sitting there in the bookstore. I resigned myself to the inevitable. I just really love Murakami, you guys.

Now, I don’t love all of Murakami’s books. I think 1Q84 and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle are masterpieces, and After Dark is my favorite. But I haven’t been able to get into Kafka on the Shore, and the last short story collection of his that I read, The Elephant Vanishes, was just too claustrophobic for me. So I didn’t know exactly what to expect with this one.

After the Quake was just lovely, though. It’s a slim book, a collection of 6 stories all with a connection to the Kobe earthquake of 1995. Perhaps because of that connection, there’s something a little more restrained about these stories, maybe a little more grounded. The last story, “Honey Pie,” is just as sweet as its title (but not cloying at all, I loved it), while “Landscape with Flatiron” is a quintessential story of lost souls connecting. Everyone’s a little lost in these stories, but sometimes they get something: a dance, a connection, some advice, the realization that they already have someone, an extremely polite but determined giant frog in search of assistance.

Gosh, it’s good. It’s fairly accessible, too, so if you’ve been curious about this author, this wouldn’t be the worst place to start. If you’re already familiar with Murakami but haven’t read this one yet, though, don’t worry, it’s still plenty weird.

Recommended pairing: I want to recommend something a little weird, not to all tastes, and kind of complex for a pairing, but I’m honestly not that good at booze. It’s been really hot, though, and you know what’s a great hot-weather drink? A nice chilled Riesling. I’ll bet you can find one that’s appropriately complex if you look hard enough.

Work/Life Balance

The Hummingbird by Stephen P. Kiernan

Reading Challenge: A book with a protagonist who has your occupation

Here’s a fun fact about social workers: for whatever reason (it can’t be our boring lives!), most writers have decided social workers do not make good protagonists. The few who have, I discovered when searching for books featuring social worker protagonists, have chosen to write about social workers in the child protection/family services field. This is actually not what most social workers do, although those who do enter that part of the field have all my admiration and respect.

This narrow view is disappointing, but not really a surprise. Most social workers in movies and TV appear as humorless, clipboard-bearing people who arrive at the home of the quirky but lovable protagonist declaring “I am here to test you, and should you not pass my test, I will take away the child in your care.” Please see The Simpsons and Buffy the Vampire Slayer for prime examples. In fact, the most positive portrayal of a social worker I’ve seen cross the screen has actually been this guy:

That’s Cobra Bubbles from Lilo and Stitch, folks. And that should tell you how far we have to go on the public image of the social worker.

Anywho, this is all a long roundabout way of explaining how I wound up deciding that The Hummingbird‘s narrator, Deborah Birch, RN, MSW (hey, that’s my degree!) had more in common with me professionally than some child protective services worker in Montana who screwed up his own family life (sorry, Fourth of July Creek, maybe next year?). See, I’m a psychiatric social worker, and most accounts of inpatient psych units are from the perspectives of the patients rather than the clinicians. No joy there from book land. However, I did my last year of clinical training in a medical hospital, and did have terminal patients, and used the talented palliative care social workers as a resource on the regular. And Deb, also a nurse, is social work to the core. Everything she said and did as a professional rang true, from what she said about her patients to her relentless self-interrogation of her own decisions. I kept checking the author bio because I was so sure he must be a social worker (apparently he’s not). That’s how true this was.

The Hummingbird (now that I’ve bored you to tears with my thoughts on social workers in fiction, thanks for hanging in) is about Deb, a hospice nurse with a Masters in Social Work, and her relationship with two men: her husband, Michael, recently back from a third tour of duty and struggling with some massive PTSD, and her patient, Barclay Reed, who is a keenly intelligent, snotty academic receiving hospice care. Social work is all about meeting the patient or client where they’re at, and Deb does that and does that some more, both with her patient and with her husband. Neither one of them is giving her much of a break. There’s also the patient’s manuscript, about a little-known incident in World War II, interspersed between the chapters of Deb’s narration. Deb is our protagonist and heroine and her voice (measured, rational, self-critical) dominates the book. Deb comes across as so real I found myself wanting to take her to task for her constant self-criticism and lack of self-care during a very difficult time. So it could be hard reading the manuscript sections, written at a remove and much weaker. I found myself bored with most of these sections, but by the end I found myself won over and acknowledging that they did add something to the book. By the end, I also found myself pretty close to tears. This is a profoundly moving book, and I think it would be so no matter what your profession is.

It wasn’t a perfect book (I’m saying that a lot lately, aren’t I? What do we think are the odds of me actually reading a perfect book this year?). For me much of the weakness was Michael. He gave Deb so little to work with, which was fine, but where the author dropped the ball was on giving us a reason for Deb to want to stick through everything Michael puts her through (spoiler alert: it’s a lot). There were gestures towards this as Deb thought back to what made Michael lovable and their marriage good, but almost every memory she came up with for us was about how good the sex used to be. And good sex is important to marriage, I’m not arguing that, but, well, let’s go with “necessary but not sufficient” on that one.

Still, overall a very good book, moving and powerful.

Recommended pairing: I feel like Deb could have used a strong drink at the end of her days with Barclay and Michael. You know what’s a really good strong drink? BenRiach, if you’ve got the budget for it. One of the best Scotches I’ve tried this year.

 

Stories, stories, everywhere

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Reading Challenge: A National Book Award Winner

I have a hard time reviewing Good Books. I have no trouble shredding a Bad Book, or weighing the strengths and weaknesses of a Pretty Good Book, or, in my superhero identity as Minority Opinion Girl, encouraging you to consider that maybe a Good Book isn’t very good after all or that a Pretty Good or Bad Book is significantly better than you thought.

But this was a Good Book that actually was good, so what am I supposed to tell you about it? I’m not really breaking the news that Louise Erdrich is a good writer or that The Round House is a good book. It won a National Book Award. I think the word is out.

So, just in case you weren’t already aware, The Round House is really good. It’s timely and topical (set in the 80s, but still sadly too relevant), it’s full of vivid characters, it’s harrowing, it’s funny, it’s enraging, it’s a coming-of-age story, it’s depressing but not pointlessly “gritty,” it’s about brutality and about love, it’s about stories and storytelling. My favorite moments were all story-related: the stories the boys tell each other to make sense of their world, the stories Mooshum tells either awake or asleep (although the Supernatural fan in me couldn’t help thinking “someone really should have told Sam and Dean you can cure a wiindigo with hot soup”). My only complaint is that the book wandered into symbolic territory a little too far for me at the end, but that’s probably just me and my low tolerance for that kind of thing.

Very little to say about this book, except, it’s good. You should probably read it.

Recommended pairing: Oh, so many poor decisions are made regarding alcohol in this book (by 13 year-old boys) I’m tempted to recommend seltzer. But actually, I think something like a Harpoon IPA, a nice, well-rounded beer, would fit a good, well-rounded book.

 

Born to be a Heroine

Summer of Secrets by Rosie Rushton

Reading Challenge: A book that takes place during summer

Retellings are the blessing and the curse of my reading life. I love a riff on a classic story if it’s done well (for example, The Girls at the Kingfisher Club), but it’s absolute nails on a chalkboard if done poorly (I know I keep ripping on this one, but man, I hate The Family Fortune a lot. You lost me when you put the Boston landmark steaming teakettle in Kenmore instead of Scollay Square, lady, and you lost me and ran off without me when you insisted that a character “spoke like she was from the nineteenth century” for no other reason than to excuse the stilted language you were shoving in her mouth). But what makes a good retelling is a bit of a puzzle. I think it has to contain the right mix of elements from the original story and new pieces. It HAS to stand on its own. But probably what makes a good retelling is individual to the reader, and what he or she thinks are the crucial elements of the original.

So that brings me to Summer of Secrets. I read Rosie Rushton’s adolescent take on Sense and Sensibility, The Dashwood Sisters’ Secrets of Love, years ago, and remembered it being pretty decent. Then I found out a few weeks ago that this was one of a series, that Rosie Rushton had gone and done ALL the complete Austens as contemporary teen novels. I was intrigued, and sad when I realized only the first book is easy to find on this side of the pond. I was particularly intrigued to investigate the take on Northanger Abbey, which has been more or less left alone by avid retellers, and eventually tracked it down on Amazon.

And it’s a cute little book! Nothing life-changing, but more or less accomplishes what it sets out to do. Mr. Drinking-and-Ink and I were talking, and we agreed it makes sense for a contemporary Austen retelling to be about teenagers. Who else would have that much free time on their hands, and who else would care so deeply about social position? Catherine Morland, of all of Austen’s heroines, is a profoundly adolescent character, and Caitlin Morland, in spite of having something close to a celebrity name (is Caitlin Moran a celebrity?), is a fair update of her. Having much of the book be about her friendship with Miss Tilney (here named Summer, and yes, I’d say that’s part of the title) was I thought a very solid choice. Everything in the book was bubbly and light-hearted, even the serious bits, and although I guessed the truth about the Tilneys’ mother quickly, I didn’t mind it. Caitlin also manages not to make as much of an idiot out of herself as Catherine, the original, does, and the part of me that cringes in sympathy watching people do stupid things really didn’t mind that, either.

There were some things I did mind. Caitlin spent almost no time with her love interest, so when they finally got together, my apathy was palpable. Caitlin’s mother seemed sort of off-handedly cruel and I’m not sure she was meant to be. She’s described as an “earth mother” but refers to her daughter as “chunky” and calls her “naive” multiple times to her face. Is this a British thing I’m missing? Or maybe I’m just sensitive because when I was a teenager, people called me both of those things (but I’d like to point out my mother was not one of them, because she’s my mother). There was a last minute twist that turned out not to be a twist – and if that sounds dumb, it’s because it was.

But overall, this was fun, frothy, and full of British adolescent slang, which is always entertaining as far as I’m concerned. Will this book remain with me a long time? No, but it could be worse. I still remember just how I felt reading The Family Fortune. There are worse things than not leaving much of an impact.

Recommended pairing: Clearly champagne, but you’re going to have to choose your own because I don’t know a thing about champagne.

 

 

 

Clinical Privileges

An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison

Reading Challenge: An autobiography.

When you read blurbs about this book, you read that it’s a book about manic depression (a term preferred by the author, but more commonly known these days as bipolar disorder). But that’s not strictly accurate. To be accurate, this book is about Kay Redfield Jamison, who has manic depression. There is a focus on that aspect of her life but it’s still about her, the whole person, and as with any autobiography, that’s both the strength and the weakness of what is overall a very good book.

As a newly-minted mental health professional, the biggest thing I came away with from this book was a reminder of what an enormous difference power and privilege make in outcomes of health and mental health. Yes, I know, I’m boring. But I don’t think Jamison would disagree with me. She is a psychologist, extremely successful and well-credentialed, and she and her family are financially well-off. She’s surrounded by loving and supportive people, which of course is vital to anyone and a privilege that crosses cultures, class, and continents, but these are also people who can fly across the country at the drop of a hat to support her. In the prologue, Jamison recounts an incident in which the police take notice of her wild behavior, and are apparently reassured by a flashing of professional credentials. That seems almost quaint from a 21st-century perspective (p.s. she’s white). Also quaint, maybe, definitely on the disturbing side, is the number of close friends/lovers she possesses who are able to prescribe her lithium. That both tells you how many doctors surround her and that they have no problem prescribing for friends and family, which is a little…right? Is it just me?

Jamison is highly credentialed, and she lets us know it. But I never found it gratuitous. Considering the tremendous stigma and stereotyping surrounding mental illness, it took a lot of courage for her to be open about her own struggles while also remaining on the professional side of the mental health equation. She’s a realist, too: I appreciated reading about her professional safeguards and what a strong proponent of medication she is throughout. Her descriptions of moods, mania, and all the other states of being were immediate and vital and quite beautiful. I got a strong sense of both her experience and her mixed feelings towards manic depression.

This is a very good book overall, but I thought it kind of petered out towards the end. Jamison has been supported by a great number of people throughout her life and I can understand why she would want to give credit where it is due, but the repetition of “and there was also Dr. So-and-So who is full of grace and humor and who was so very kind to me” just does not make good reading. It reminded me a little of Lit, Mary Karr’s memoir of alcoholism and religion, which went way overboard in that direction and which was a book I just plain did not like. That was at its worst. At its best, this book reminded me of Elyn Saks’ The Center Cannot Hold, which is a book everyone should read. And that, honestly, was the problem. I suspect if I’d read this one first, I would have loved it and raved about it. But I’ve read The Center Cannot Hold, and found it overall a stronger book, illuminating and honest and possibly life-changing, depending on who you are and where you’re coming from. I could not avoid the comparison, and this book had to suffer for it. Tell you what: read them both, because they’re both worth reading, and then decide for yourself.

Suggested pairing: Anything in moderation, people. Please. But she seems to be a wine drinker, and it’s warm, so maybe a nice chilled white. A dry Riesling, anyone?

 

 

Both Hands and a Map

You Are Here by Jennifer E. Smith

Reading Challenge: A book about a road trip

When I got to the end of You Are Here, and by “end” I mean the inside jacket flap, I found myself looking at the smiling face of Jennifer E. Smith and thinking “hey, she looks like a really nice person.” And she does. Friendly, with a good sense of humor, possibly self-deprecating. She got her master’s in creative writing at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, which is wicked cool. Jennifer E. Smith seems, from her picture, like a person who would tell you good stories. Which is why it makes me sad to report that if she does have good stories to tell, You Are Here ain’t it. A more fitting title for this book would have been There’s No There There.

Another thing I realized, looking at Jennifer E. Smith’s face, after I’d gotten through the end of her book, was “man – you’re going to say mean things about her book and how is that fair? Someone worked hard on this.” But I found I couldn’t really believe that. I mean, I’m sure she did. But I cannot picture anyone throwing blood, sweat, and tears into this book. There’s something half-assed about it. The adjectives that kept popping into my mind as I read this book were “watery” and “weak.” “Contrived” also came to mind. The premise of the story involves two teenagers, neighbors, each other’s social world, who have each suffered a significant loss in their immediate families, and independently each decides to take a rebellious road trip that winds up being the same road trip when one’s car breaks down. Also, there’s a 3-legged dog that appears at a rest stop and comes along for the ride, because of course there is.

I’m pretty sure I was supposed to feel some kind of interest or compassion or frustration as the characters changed over time (and map metaphors, similes, and symbolism were crammed in rather like improperly-folded road maps in an overstuffed glove compartment and did you see what I did there? Sure you did). But all I could manage was a mild dislike for our young heroes, and nothing for their one-dimensional families. Allow me to introduce the quotes that made me shudder and really cemented my dislike for them:

    He could understand why she was upset, maybe even a little bit angry, but he wanted her to hurry up and realize that in the midst of this whole mess he was still there for her, the only one who really understood her. (p. 171)

Even though (or because) he takes it all back internally in the next sentence, that tells you everything you need to know about Peter. As for Emma,

    She knew she was wired differently from most people, that she wasn’t often understood and was even less often inclined to try to understand others. (p. 182)

Emma is so different, you guys. She thinks so, Peter thinks so, but we never see any real evidence of that. Nor does she have a detectable personality. At least Peter, although he irritated me more, has a few preferences and habits. Emma likes animals. She’s sort of average in an intellectual family. And…that’s about it. Also she totally doesn’t care what she looks like, but who wants to guess that she’s pale, skinny, and long-haired?

I still feel sorry that I didn’t like this book. As I said, Jennifer E. Smith looks like a nice person! A person who worked hard. I felt less bad, though, when I noticed that a few chapters would inconsistently switch POV in a confusing way. And I felt way less bad when I got to this line on page 232:

    “Mom…,” Emma began, but she wasn’t sure where to even start.

You could start by not adding a comma after an ellipsis. That would be a start.

Suggested pairing: Keystone Lite. No, don’t ACTUALLY drink Keystone Lite. But that’s what these kids will be drinking when they go to college in upstate New York in a couple of years and, yeah, it’s weak and watery, so it’s appropriate.

Be Careful What You Wish For

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

Reading Challenge: A book and its prequel (part one)

Does anyone else remember when the Artemis Fowl books came out and were being touted as kind of a dark Harry Potter? I do. I read the first one, was less than impressed (sorry) and left it there. But I wasn’t really looking for a dark version of anything. As I’ve mentioned previously, I tend not to be into the dark and depressing versions of stories. If I were looking to slap an “evil universe Harry Potter” label on a book, though, I would be putting it on this one.

This is a dark children’s book, although I wonder if some of it’s only obvious when you read it as an adult. The Amulet of Samarkand takes place in a world where magicians are an upper caste in society (non-magicians are a distinct underclass, and forget being called “muggles,” these guys are referred to as “commoners”) and get all their power by enslaving otherworldly spirits. The magicians are generally kind of awful people, everyone grasping and jostling for power and prestige. The ostensible hero of the story, Nathaniel, is distinctly lacking in hero qualities: he’s sulky, proud, ambitious, makes mistakes, and is almost always motivated by revenge. The adults around him are mostly worse: even Mrs. Underwood, who shows him some basic kindness and of whom Nathaniel is actually fairly fond, seems to be sort of a dull lady who’s willing to patch up the kid from her husband’s abuses but doesn’t do anything to stop them or acknowledge that they’re wrong. There’s just an epic lack of sympathetic characters. I mean, we’re talking Henry James scale here.

Why read this book, then, if these magicians are so awful and the world is so grim? The answer, naturally, is in the title of the series. It’s not called the Nathaniel trilogy, people. Bartimaeus is the djinni summoned by Nathaniel to help with his ill-considered plans and the narrator of roughly half the book. He’s cynical, sarcastic, full of himself, and hilarious. His chapters feature the best footnotes I’ve ever seen outside of Pratchett. His narrative is slightly unreliable but always entertaining, he himself has a lot of charm, and after spending enough time with this world you really won’t blame him for being so cynical. He’s extremely good company. The biggest weakness of the book, as far as I’m concerned, is that it’s not all narrated by him, although I understand the necessity of including Nathaniel’s (third-person) point of view. If you read this book, read it for Bartimaeus, and he’s worth reading it for.

The main reason I read it, of course, was because it has a prequel, and I wasn’t sure how to get that item on the reading list otherwise. Bartimaeus would understand my motivation.

Suggested pairing: How about a nice shandy? That hint of lemonade for the hint of children’s book about this, with appropriate levels of bitter for the darkness of the world. This time of year I’m all about the Harpoon Big Squeeze grapefruit shandy, but Curious Traveler is good, too.

 

Just so uncomfortable

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Reading Challenge: A YA Bestseller

Although I selected this for my “YA Bestseller” read, I could also have reasonably chosen it for my “recommended by a family member” book. My older sister read it first, and told me it made her think of me. I was not sure how to feel about that, especially when I got around to starting the book. You see, “Fangirl” is about a college freshman with fairly severe social anxiety, separating from her twin and her father for the first time, who spends as much time as possible shut away fully absorbed in writing fanfiction for a thinly-veiled “Harry Potter” series. Is that how my sister pictured me in college? Yes, I was a socially anxious, awkward, nerdy teenager, but two things: 1, I was actually very outgoing in college, and 2, I never wrote fanfiction, thankyouverymuch. Okay, there was maybe that one Star Trek story when I was 15, but I invented my whole own ship and crew rather than using any of the existing characters. That has to count for something!

Sigh. This book got me worked up, which was to its credit. Cath – look, that name. First of all, every other heroine in existence has a Catherine-based name. Second, I sort of get “Cather” as a name, I get the explanation in the book, but I have spent too much time working in hospitals. You know what a cath is in a hospital? Yeah, you do. It’s not obscure. Okay, back on track. Cath was a frustrating, complicated heroine and I appreciated how much the author resisted ever simplifying her. I wanted to smack her several times, related to her on a number of levels, and felt for her at other times. I thought the father was well-done (and that although I could comfortably have diagnosed most of these characters without getting any pushback from an insurance company, none of them were ever just what the DSM would have to say). I loved Reagan. I thought she was a fully-believable fairy godmother for our shy heroine, also complicated, also with her own shit going on, and just so hilarious. Characters who exist only to inexplicably like Our Heroine, who has been thoroughly unpleasant to them, are my pet peeve, and Reagan could easily have stepped over that line. She didn’t. I would be friends with Reagan. I thought Wren was about 3/4s of a good character, but had a sense that there was a middle step we missed in her development. We never really cracked the box open on Wren, and I was sorry about that, because she’s important. Cath, her father, and Reagan especially made me appreciate the psychological consistency the author was capable of. I could not, however, warm up to Levi. That he went all “wives, mothers, daughters” on the creep in the bar was enough to completely lose me (or, you know, you shouldn’t be a creep because these girls are people who don’t want to be creeped on, not because they have a father who wouldn’t like to hear it! This thought was apparently too complex for Our Love Interest, and no one ever suggested it to him, even when Cath was fighting him on other Items of Chivalry). But even before then I thought he was smug. And he remained smug, even when he was apologizing or messing up or confessing vulnerability. Smug.

This book was uncomfortable reading, too, both for the unflinchingly uncomfortable moments and the memories it brought back of my own college years (yesterday marked 9 years since graduation, if that gives you any hint how far back I had to reach for freshman year memories). And that was in its favor! The realness of it all!

This book also made me think about what incredibly mixed feelings I have about fanfiction. I’m reasonably conversant in the terms, having read a tumblr or two: I know what a “ship” is in fandom, I know what OTP and AU stand for, and I have created a headcanon or two. Like Cath, I was a writing major in college and had professors in fiction writing who banned us from turning in genre pieces, for bullshit reasons of snobbery in academia (I don’t know what they would have done with fanfiction – killed it with fire, probably). I think people should be able to write whatever they want and get feedback on it. I don’t think it’s fair to look down on fanfiction on the internet when Jane Austen fanfictions get published every year essentially because people can’t get enough of fantasizing about Mr. Darcy, and that’s somehow more okay than Draco/Harry slashfic. On the other hand, fanfiction gave us the crime against humanity that is Fifty Shades of Grey, and it…well, much of it makes me uncomfortable. But people have been lovingly crafting their sexual fantasies into works for art since forever, and “because I wouldn’t want to do it and it makes me uncomfortable” is the baseline reasoning for a lot of current legislation that I’m very much opposed to. So carry on, fanfiction (see what I did there? If you read the book, you did).

Bottom line, I guess, is that this is a very frustrating, uncomfortable, but honestly good book.

Suggested pairing: I feel like I shouldn’t recommend any alcoholic beverage since Cath doesn’t drink, but Long Trail just came out with this super, super tasty IPA called Green Blaze? It’s so good. And it’s fairly complex and flavorful, so it would match well with this book.

Sketch of a Lady

Lady Susan by Jane Austen

Reading challenge: A book that’s at least 100 years older than you.

You guys. You guys. I can’t believe it never occurred to me that there was a Jane Austen out there and I hadn’t read it. I’m actually pretty sure if not for two things this fabulous little nugget would have gone unread. Thing number one: it’s being adapted for the screen and I saw a preview. Thing number two: I needed something to read that would move quickly and be absorbing. I’m trying to read another book right now, but it’s kind of dense and I’m in my last couple of weeks of classes/internship/general craziness. And it turns out Lady Susan is free on the internet! How perfect.

It’s not like one of the full-length novels, but gosh, this was a fun little book. It’s clever and funny and sharply-observed and quite a bit cynical – I want to say “dry run of Mansfield Park” but you know, I’ve only read Mansfield Park once and don’t remember it all that well. It’s got an anti-heroine you want to boo and hiss at, but you can’t help rooting for just a little. It seems modern in some ways, too: if Lady Susan had been a contemporary woman with the same resources she possessed in the novel she might have been a corporate shark, or a lawyer, or some kind of high-powered manager. And given the absolute mania for retellings of Jane Austen (some more successful than others: ask me sometime what I think about The Family Fortune and get an earful), I’m really surprised no one has yet reprised this novel in text message form.

Suggested pairing: I was going to say “tea, you savage” but after finishing the book I realized that spending any time with Lady Susan you’d probably want something a little stronger. So you know what drink I actually like quite a bit? Port. It’s a super-tasty dessert drink. Have some port, and toast Lady Susan, and add a quiet thank-you that you don’t actually know her.

Fangirl Alert

Employee of the Month and Other Big Deals by Mary Jo Pehl

Reading Challenge: A book you can read in a day.

If you have been reading this blog regularly, then you’re probably related to me by birth or marriage, or you’re that one friend who kept reading my blog even after my review of The Selection gave her nightmares. Thanks, Catherine, you’re the best. Anyway, if you’ve been reading the blog regularly, you know me, and if you know me, you probably know the following things.

You know when I reviewed Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? I suggested that she writes like everyone’s best friend, while recognizing that she would probably not actually be my best friend. Here is another book that reads like it’s written by somebody who could be your best friend, but the difference is, I actually now want to be Mary Jo Pehl’s friend. We both love books! We both hate shopping! We both have a deadpan humor that could easily be misunderstood!

You also know that Mystery Science Theater 3000 is my favorite TV show. See, in this, my final year of grad school, I have a pretty awful schedule. Three days a week I’m in an internship, the next day is for classes, then the following three days (the weekend, I might add) I work evening shift at what may be one of the more stressful part time jobs out there. Then after a few hours of sleep I roll right back into the internship at 8:30 a.m. I knew in advance that my schedule was going to be awful, and my husband and I agreed that it would help to plan in advance a good relaxing activity, something safe and comforting. So we decided to watch all of Mystery Science Theater 3000 from the beginning. We started in Season 1 in September, and now in April we’re partway into Season 9 of 10. I’m a big fan of MST3K. And being a big fan of Mary Jo Pehl has been part of that.

So what I’m saying is I was probably in this book’s target audience.

Let me say, though, you should no more read this book for MST3K stories than you should read Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking for Star Wars stories. Mary Jo devotes very little of a very little book to that phase of her life. What she offers instead are brief vignettes about growing up, employment, aunt-hood, dating, parents, etc. that range from pretty funny to hysterically funny (and one conversation with her sister that’s not funny, but poignant, and may conceivably make you cry instead). The deadpan humor that makes her amazing on MST3k and Cinematic Titanic is present in written form, and there’s something in the dry, self-deprecating wit that reminds me pretty strongly of Dorothy Parker, albeit a  fairly happy Dorothy Parker. It’s incredibly Midwestern, too, but not in the Garrison Keillor kind of way (in that it makes me want to visit Minneapolis instead of running as far from the Twin Cities as possible). This book is short, funny, and full of life, and I liked it.

Recommended pairing: I read this book so fast I hardly thought about this. It goes so fast I think you would have time for one beer while reading this. I’m not up on the Midwestern beers (at least, none of the good ones), but it’s cold in Minnesota and you know what’s a great cold-weather beer? Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout.