Books – Page 82

Categories: Books

SWF Seeking BFF

“Popular culture has made it okay to yell “I want a man!” from the rooftops, so why are we still embarrassed to say, “I want a best friend”? (p. 94 – MWF Seeking BFF by Rachel Bertsche)

I started the memoir, MWF Seeking BFF, with a bit of trepidation. It’s been getting a lot of buzz lately which always makes me a little wary. I’m prone to not wanting to read what everyone else is reading.

Case in point: I just downloaded The Hunger Games to my Kindle last week.

Yeah.

But I picked up this book because the premise sounded enticing for a girl who is seriously lacking in the friendship department. Making friends when I was in elementary school and middle school and high school was easy. You find your group, you hang out with your group, the end. And then college came and I had a vastly different experience than most people where I didn’t find that core group of friends to hang out with. Living on campus was difficult for me, so I moved home and became a commuter.

I consider my mom my best friend and the most special relationship I have in my life. And I have my brother, another super close friend to me. I have casual friends I met from college, from work, from blogging. But I don’t have that core group of friends that is touted in almost every TV show or book I read. I don’t have a Rachel or a Phoebe or a Monica. And sometimes, as much as I love hanging out with and talking to my mom, a girl just wants some girlfriends to gab with.

I don’t make friends easily and I’ll even go as far as to say as I can come off as unfriendly to some people. It’s the social anxiety/introversion/shyness in me. I don’t want to be unfriendly… I just get freaked out by social interaction with strangers sometimes. And I get worn out when I have to be social for very long. I’m the quiet one. The homebody. The girl who hates small talk and being friendly to strangers.

And I’m okay with being this way. I understand this is part of me. This is who I am. I am the shy introvert. There’s nothing wrong with being shy, with being a homebody, with treasuring alone time. I know my limits for social interaction. I know when I need a quiet night in, with nothing but a warm dachshund curled by my side and a favorite book in my hands. I also know it’s not good to remain inside your cocoon. It’s comfortable and safe there, but humans also need people and interaction and community. And while blogging has helped me to see I’m not alone – and brought a few girlfriends into my life that are some of my closest confidants – I know I need to put myself out there more.

I don’t want a busy social calendar. I don’t want to be able to have a birthday party and have dozens upon dozens of friends to invite. I want some girlfriends. I want one or two or three girls that will meet me for a drink on a Friday night, or invite me to a low-key shindig at their apartment. I want friends. Friends who understand me, who push me to be better, who have my back.

When I began reading MWF Seeking BFF, I was immediately drawn to the author, Rachel. She has one of those easy-to-read writing styles with sprinkles of humor and wit. She was someone I got. I understood her mission. I don’t really read memoirs or non-fiction books with the hunger I attack fiction, but this was a book I couldn’t put down. This book wasn’t just about Rachel’s decision to go on 52 girl dates in one year. It was a study on friendship. It was about how Rachel’s definition of friendship changed as this journey changed her.

Rachel didn’t hold back with anything. She was vulnerable about her worries and honest about those girl dates that didn’t go well. She was completely invested in her search for a BFF.

This book taught me so much. I honestly didn’t expect to actually learn a ton of lessons. I didn’t expect to finish the book feeling so much for one author or having to scribble down thoughts so I wouldn’t forget how much I learned from this book.

Like…

Initiate conversation with girls you think you might be friends with. I am shy. I am an introvert. We have already been over this. I do not initiate conversation with people. Also, I am terrible at small talk so I tend to freeze up when I have to talk to strangers. But I also want to have more friends and I know that initiating conversations with girls I think could be potential BFFs opens the door to “asking them out”.

It really is as simple as a “hey, let’s meet for coffee sometime!” I tend to complicate things and to be honest, it never crossed my mind to email that old friend I had a few college classes with and ask her to have coffee with me sometime. I think there’s always hesitancy that they have enough friends and aren’t looking to start up relationships with new ones. I think, though, as I begin my search, I will find people more receptive to meeting for a girl date than not.

That said, be aggressive about follow-up. If I tell a potential BFF that I want to meet her for coffee, I have to be aggressive about a time and place. I can’t just say that lightly and then get on my high horse with a, “Well, if she isn’t going to message me about it, then I don’t want to have coffee with her.” I do this so often. So, so often. It’s embarrassing, really. I turn into a five-year-old. When beginning a potential BFF relationship, it’s important to be the one following up – especially if a girl date goes well and I want to see them again.

Beginning my own search for local BFFs will teach me to be friendlier in social settings and more open to trying new things. Well, I hope this happens. While I don’t feel the need to go on 52 girl dates next year, I do plan on placing priority on putting myself out there in the friendship world and initiating some girl dates. I don’t want this book to be another one that I’ve read, felt changed by, and then did nothing with. I want to set an action plan for finding local BFFs and being more social. I want to try Meetup groups in search of friends and learn to be less hesitant about social situations. Now, as an introvert, this is not my favorite thing to do and I wholly embrace my need for solitude and silence. But I also want to challenge myself in this area to tackle one or two social events a month to hopefully teach me how to open myself up. I think social situations will always be hard for me, but the more I expose myself to them, the easier they will be. Or the better I will get at faking it, right?

There aren’t quite words to adequately describe how much this book affected me. This book taught me so much about friendship and helped me realize I am not alone in my quest for friends. I may not have the lifelong BFFs that the author has, but even so, many of us are searching for those best friends that we can meet for happy hour or a Saturday afternoon pedicure or a short gab session on our commute home from work. We are seeking connection and community.

My plan after reading this book is this: two girl dates a month. I’m not brave enough to commit to one a week so two a month sounds doable for me right now. And while I have joined a book club, I want to commit to trying at least one new group a month to force myself out of my comfort zone. And who knows? Maybe in one of those groups I will find another girl as shy as me, and I’ll find my new BFF.

Have you read MWF Seeking BFF? Your thoughts? And hey, I’ll be brave and put a call out to any local girls reading my blog – let’s meet for coffee sometime!

Categories: Books

Book Review: An Extraordinary Theory of Objects by Stephanie LaCava

An Extraordinary Theory Of Objects: A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris
Author: Stephanie LaCava
Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Goodreads Summary:

An awkward, curious girl growing up in a foreign country, Stephanie LaCava finds solace and security in strange and beautiful objects.

When her father’s mysterious job transports her and her family to the Parisian suburb of Le Vesinet, the young American embarks on a life of discovery. Tasting the enchantments of Paris, she makes friends with her peers at a wildly unconventional international school and faces terrorism. But Stephanie’s wonder gives way to anxiety and a deep depression brought on by a series of circumstances. Through her darkest moments, Stephanie continues to filter the world through her peculiar lens, discovering the strange beauty surrounding her. The grotesque (beetles and catacombs), the natural (mushrooms and lilies of the valley) the cultural (Nirvana and other nineties touchstones) and the historical (Nancy Cunard, Jean Seberg), all become unique talismans. Encouraged by her father through trips to museums and scavenger hunts in antique shows, she traces an interconnected web of stories of past outsiders, historical and natural objects, and her present predicament that ultimately helps her survive when she feels she’s losing control.

A series of essays that unfold in cinematic fashion, An “Extraordinary Theory of Objects” moves from past to present as Stephanie revisits France seeking to understand and make peace with her childhood. Her journey reveals the magic of seemingly ordinary objects to distract us from our lives, construct order in an unpredictable world, and reveal the power of stories to shape and reflect who we are.

My review:

I felt an instant connection with this author from the introduction and was excited to dig in and learn more about her time abroad in Paris and how it changed her. The book was short and an easy read. I think I finished it in a matter of hours. It was filled with pictures and anecdotes and footnotes with long descriptions of certain words. I read through the first few footnotes but they distracted me from the story too much so I started skipping them.

The story was easy to follow and I enjoyed the writing style. There wasn’t much of a plot and the end came rather abruptly and I was left with this feeling that I never really got to know the author and who she is. This is touted as a memoir, after all. I really wanted to learn more about the author, more about her time in Paris, and I felt a little let-down by how short the book was.

In any event, it’s a neat little story and I enjoyed reading about LaCava’s time in Paris. It’s different, which was a nice switch from the books I have been reading. If I were to recommend this book, I would recommend it to someone who would like to read about Paris in a completely different way, told in an unusual and interesting manner.

I received this book for free from TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. All words and opinions, unless otherwise stated, are my own.

Categories: Books

November Reads

I stopped doing these posts in May for some reason, but I discovered I missed talking about books I was reading and my thoughts on them so I decided to bring this back. I flew right past my goal of reading 75 books this year at the end of October so now trying to see if I can make it to 90. Woo!

Because You Have To: A Writing Life by Joan Frank – 2 stars. I wrote my review on this book for TLC Book Tours already. It is basically a book on writing, part memoir and part survey of the process of writing. It is an interesting book, but some of it didn’t grab me like I wanted it to. It started to read like a textbook for me about halfway through.

Along For the Ride by Sarah Dessen – 4 stars. I am very happy that my library offers all of Sarah Dessen’s novels on their digital site with no waiting, so I am making my way through her novels. This is the fourth novel of hers I’ve read and I really, really enjoyed it. It followed the story of Auden whose parents are divorced and both professors. Her mom is involved with one of her grad students and her father just married someone not much older than Auden herself and had a baby with her. Her brother is gallivanting around Europe and Auden decides to spend the summer with her dad, new stepmom, and new half-sister. It’s a summer of self-discovery for Auden as she discovers her father is less perfect than she thought he was, her stepmom is less flighty than she thought she was, and how much she missed out on during school. It’s a really sweet novel, with lots of teenage angst and romance. I really love Dessen’s writing style and it’s just one of those fun, easy reads to take your mind off things.

Return to You by Kate Perry – 3 stars. This was free on Kindle so I picked it up because the cover was pretty and it seemed like it was just the right kind of predictable romance novel I needed. I read this when I needed a break from The Casual Vacancy (this is one of my tricks to how I read so darn much!) and it was everything I expected – light, funny, cheesy, predictable. Just how I like my romance novels! While the characters seemed a little over-the-top and the male lead was a bit lackluster, it was a good novel. Perfect if you just want something cheesy to read on a rainy weekend afternoon!

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling – 3 stars. This was our November #twookclub pick and also the November pick for my in-person book club. To be honest, the premise of the book didn’t entice me and I wasn’t really interested in reading it. But I did and I must say it wasn’t my favorite. Rowling throws 30 different characters at you in the beginning and trying to sort out who they were and how they related to the story was difficult. There wasn’t really much of a plot and it was filled with a lot of profanity, violence, and sex. To be frank, it grossed me out because it was done in a derogatory way. I’m not saying this is bad or the writing sucked… I just didn’t particularly enjoy it. About 200-250 pages in, I started to understand the novel and felt more invested in the characters but there was still something missing for me from this book. I think I’m in the minority of this because most people rate this book 4 or 5 stars on Goodreads, but my personal opinion? I probably won’t read another adult fiction novel from Rowling.

Out of Control by Suzanne Brockmann – 5 stars. I felt a catch in the bottom of my stomach when I finished this book. Not because the ending was particularly surprising, but because I was upset that I had finished this book. I have been slowly working my way through Brockmann’s Troubleshooters series (I read the majority of the books a few years ago) because I enjoy the series so, so much. I am so captivated by the characters and I love how some plotlines carry through from novel to novel. This book followed the story of their computer techie member, Ken, who spent the majority of the first part of the Troubleshooters series trying to get over an old college girlfriend. It’s been a few years since then and he’s completely over her and meets Savannah by chance (or so he thinks!). Savannah knows who Ken is and wants to use his SEAL expertise to rescue her uncle who has been captured by a terrorist. The book is fast-paced and follows Brockmann’s usual style. The thing about Brockmann is that her books could be considered predictable but the way she gets you there is always unpredictable! Fans of romantic thrillers – check this author out. She’s the best!

The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe – 4 stars. Oh, my heavens. I adored this book. This is my in-person book club book for December so I started reading it, thinking it would take me a while to get through it. Nope. I tore through this book in a matter of days and honestly couldn’t get enough of it. The novel is a memoir of a son (Will) who starts up an informal two-person book club with his mom, Mary Anne, who is dying of cancer. The book delves into some pretty hard-hitting topics, such as refugees and healthcare, and it’s not solely about books or cancer. It’s really about Mary Anne and the impact she had on people. I had an instant connection with Mary Anne because of watching my grandma go through chemotherapy twice and knowing the toll it took on her – yet she never lost her faith and never stopped worrying about her kids and grandkids. Mary-Anne is an exceptional woman and Will wrote an incredible book. I loved all the different books mentioned and the play-by-play between Will and his mom as they discussed them. I highly recommend this book!

California Caress by Rebecca Sinclair – 3 stars. This book was free on Kindle and it seemed like my kind of historical romance – predictable, cheesy, and an escape. So I picked it up and read it in a few days. It was light and funny and I generally enjoyed it. The plot was a little shaky for me, but the romance seemed believable enough. It was just one of those books that wasn’t hard to get into and kept me interested in what was going to happen next.

Books read in 2012: 82

Categories: Books

Book Review: Because You Have To by Joan Frank

Because You Have To: A Writing Life
Author: Joan Frank
Rating: 2 of 5 stars

Goodreads Summary:

Part memoir, part handbook, part survey of the contemporary literary scene, Joan Frank’s Because You Have To: A Writing Life is a collection of essays that, taken together, provide a walking tour of the writing life. Frank’s aim is to form a coherent vision, one that may provide some communion about realities of the writer’s vocation that have struck her as rarely revealed.

Frank offers what she has learned as a writer not only to other writers, but to those to whom good writing matters. Her insights about “thinking on paper” are never dogmatic or pontifical; rather, they are cordial and intellectually welcoming.

Original, witty, and practical, Frank ably steers us through the journey of her own life as a writer, as well as through the careers and work of other writers. Her subjects range widely, from the “boot camp” conditioning of marketing work to squaring off with rejection and envy; from sustaining belief in art’s necessity to the baffling subjectivity of literary perception and the magical books that nourish writers. Frank’s personal journey is wonderfully told, so that what in these essays is particular becomes useful and universal.

My Review:

This book started off really great for me. I loved the premise of the book as an aspiring writer and felt like it would give me some great insight into the life of a writer. The first handful of essays were about Frank and her journey to becoming a writer. I was captivated by these essays, hungrily reading through them and nodding my head in agreement. I was so interested to read about her life and her journey and there were so many quotes I loved that I was sticking Post-It notes all over the book.

I don’t know when it happened but it suddenly started reading like a textbook to me. I would find myself reading through a page and realizing I hadn’t actually comprehended a single word and would have to go back and read it again. It’s not that the subject matter was confusing or difficult to read, I was just bored. I felt like I was reading a required text for a literature class. There were many essays in this book that I found to be a bit dry and dull to me. I think this is PURELY a personal preference and I hate to be so critical of a novel about the process of writing but there it is. There were many sections I lightly skimmed because the subject matter didn’t exactly interest me.

Although there were some essays I greatly enjoyed, I found myself struggling through the majority of the novel and just wanting to finish it. Honestly, I don’t think the book is terrible (and it’s very well-written!) but a lot of it just didn’t appeal to me at this moment in my life.

I will leave you all with some quotes that spoke to me because, as I said, there were certain essays I just adored and felt a kindred tugging with the author:

“I learned to look people in the eye and make delightful noises at them while the essence of my mind operated lightyears elsewhere.” (p. 7)

I totally do this. All the time. In meetings, especially. I form entire stories in my head while nodding my head and making coherent conversations. Oops?

“In short, rejection reminds us over and over again of the relativity of authority and the subjectivity of taste. Opinions from different quarters may clash amusingly – an odd form of entertainment that becomes a side product of rejection. I have had one editor write, ‘You do your piece a disservice with its last line,’ and another write, ‘Your last line takes my breath away.'” (p. 82)

“Rejection, then, is like the wake of a boat: proof of motion. No action from the writer means no reaction from the world. To risk rejection is to risk reaction and, as such, a courageous step.” (p. 85)

Have you ever picked up a book that you thought you would thoroughly enjoy…and ended up not enjoying it as much as you thought you would?

I received this book for free from TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. All words and opinions, unless otherwise stated, are my own.

Categories: Books

Book Review: Charlotte Street by Danny Wallace

Charlotte Street
Danny Wallace
3 of 5 stars

Goodreads Summary:

Jason Priestley (not that one) has just seen her. They shared an incredible, brief, fleeting moment of deep possibility, somewhere halfway down Charlotte Street.

And then, just like that, she was gone – accidentally leaving him holding her old-fashioned, disposable camera, chock full of undeveloped photos…

And now Jason – ex-teacher, ex-boyfriend, part-time writer and reluctant hero – faces a dilemma. Should he try and track The Girl down? What if she’s The One? But that would mean using the only clues he has, which lie untouched in this tatty disposable…

It’s funny how things can develop…

My Review:

This was a very interesting read and I mean that in a good way. It was slow in the beginning and I had to adjust to the author’s writing style, plus reading from a male point of view. I wouldn’t say I ever really liked the main character, but the secondary characters – mainly Dev, Abbey, and Matt – stole the show. They felt more real and alive to me than Jason ever did. Jason had this self-pitying air about him that annoyed me. He spent the majority of the novel mooning over his ex-girlfriend who is now engaged and pregnant and I just wanted to shake him! I will say I liked how the author didn’t try to make Jason super likable As much as he annoyed me, I think that was the point and I think he was authentic in his misery.

The concept of this novel was an intriguing one, especially the theory of how people save the best images of the best moments of their lives for a disposable camera. Unlike digital cameras or phone cameras, you have a select number of shots you can take so you want to make them last and want to make them special. I really loved this desire to piece together the pictures of The Girl’s life and the mystery behind who she is. I think this was very well-written and it piqued my interest because I wanted to know more about who The Girl is and what these pictures meant to her.

The ending was a bit too perfect for me. Too wrapped up and I felt a little let-down at the cheesiness of everything tying together neatly. I just felt the book might have felt more authentic with an ending that left readers guessing and coming up with their own conclusions. But then again, who doesn’t love a happy ending?

I would end up recommending this book, if only because the writing was great and the plot was intriguing and moved at a pretty good pace.

When is the last time you used a disposable camera? I used one during my May cruise to be able to use it in the water in Grand Cayman. It’s very true that you try to save only the best images for your camera, as I found myself being very careful with how many pictures I took and making sure they were as perfect as they could be.

You can learn more about Danny Wallace and his books on his website. You can also become a fan on Facebook and follow him on Twitter. In addition, you can watch this video where the author talks more about the book and the inspiration behind it.

I received this book for free from TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. All words and opinions, unless otherwise stated, are my own.