REVIEW: How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

How to Be a Woman
Caitlin Moran
Kindle edition (borrowed from library)

Synopsis: Caitlin Moran interweaves provocative observations on women’s lives with laugh-out-loud funny scenes from her own, from the riot of adolescence to her development as a writer, wife, and mother.
(brief quote from Goodreads synopsis.  Click image to go to Goodreads page)

This could be a touchy subject for some people, so I invite calm, rational discussion in the comments.

I saw a review by Julie at julie’s chick lit (I mentioned this in my last WWW post) on this book and decided I wanted to check it out.  There were definitely moments when I did laugh out loud (but more toward the beginning of the book).

Anyway, I did read a couple of reviews for this on Goodreads (when I was a little more than halfway through the book), and some people really enjoyed it and others didn’t care for it at all.  Some seemed kind of harsh in their comments, but we’re all entitled to our own opinions!

To be quite honest, it seemed that the concept of feminism wasn’t necessarily the main point throughout the book, even if that might have been the intention.  So to me, I took this as a memoir, which happened to discuss feminism, and enjoyed it for what it was.  (I will agree with one negative reviewer that it seemed Moran only mentioned Germaine Greer as her go-to feminist and references to other feminists were lacking).

There are points I agree with, such as: the negative connotation we associate with the word “feminism”, that we don’t want to “take over”, just get our share of things, and the fact that Hollywood, the press, and the gossip rags really influence people to an extreme degree.  Take, for instance, the following quote:

My beautician told me she has had girls of 12 and 13 coming in for Brazilians. (page 76)

That is absolutely ridiculous!!

When talking about how negative the word feminist has become, Moran laments that there is no other word to use; we don’t have alternatives.  To that end, she stresses:

We need the only word we have ever had to describe “making the world equal for men and women.” (page 79)

I wholeheartedly agree.  So many people assume a feminist is a man-hater, angry with everyone and everything, dresses a certain way, acts a certain way, and most often people assume the woman (let’s face it, most people who call themselves feminists are women…so more power to the men who use this as an identifier!) is a lesbian.  None of these are necessarily true of a feminist.  I consider myself a feminist and don’t identify with any of the above.   We need to reclaim this word for exactly what it means.

Another quote I enjoyed was:

What is feminism? Simply the belief that women should be as free as men, however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy and smug they might be.

Moran definitely hit the nail on the head in some aspects about how crazy women can act, too, with a twist of humor.  (We probably find these things funny because we can either absolutely imagine it happening, have heard a friend react in a similar way, or maybe we are the ones who’ve acted this way).  She talks about how some women blow things out of proportion and assume there are hidden meanings behind everything a man does.  For example, she mentions a friend who went out on a couple dates with a guy and then the friend noticed the guy added a song to his “likes” on his Facebook page.  Moran’s friend automatically assumed it was significant because it was a private message to her since they had talked about that very song not that long before he updated his Facebook page. (page 238).

One thing I was getting a bit frustrated with, though, was that she seemed to generalize and lump women altogether.  I think it’s one thing to say “most women” or “some women” but to make it sound like she’s referring to “all women” got a little annoying.

Overall, it was enjoyable. Moran does raise some good points that I’m sure I will dwell on, or points that will sneak up on me at one time or another.  (But I definitely don’t look at this as a go-to for feminist discussion)

A random feminist moment of my own: I would always get frustrated in English class in high school when the (female) teacher would say she needed two of the boys to get the boxes of the next book we’d be reading in class.  I always wanted to ask why the teacher was asking for the boys when girls can carry boxes too!

One thing I think is really great is the rise of women in the workplace.  In my department, for example, of the 5 directors 3 are women.  That’s great!  One is the director of a group consisting entirely of women, a second has almost all women within her group, and the third female director’s direct reports below are split pretty evenly between men and women.  It’s really inspiring to see such strong women in the workplace and I look to them as role models.

So I guess that’s my bit on this.  I’ve been thinking about what to write for this review since I started reading the book.  I kind of wish I had written some things down, because I feel it’s not as polished as I wanted it to be.  But I also didn’t want it to sound like an essay! (I highlighted a few passages on the Kindle so I would remember to quote them here, but other than that I didn’t really utilize the “make a note” feature on the Kindle either).  So, sorry if this seems half-assed, not fully thought out, etc.  And I think this is long enough now…(Also, the Bruins are in overtime, so I’m kind of distracted…man listen to that crowd!…and now they’re going into overtime!!)

REVIEW: Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern

Title: Sh*t My Dad Says
Author: Justin Halpern

Goodreads Synopsis: In the vein of bestselling humor collections by Chelsea Handler, David Sedaris, and Laurie Notaro, “Sh*t My Dad Says” is a chaotic, hilarious, true portrait of a father-son relationship from a major new comic voice.

This was a quick read.  It was split up into short stories and then just particular sayings from the author’s father.  There’s really not much to say about it.  But the father is a pretty funny guy.  He tends to enjoy the word “shit”.  The short stories are written well and are infused with humor.   I enjoyed it and look forward to reading more from Halpern.

REVIEW: MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend by Rachel Bertsche

Title: MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend
Author: Rachel Bertsche
Genre: Memoir/Non-Fiction

Goodreads Synopsis: When Rachel Bertsche first moves to Chicago, she’s thrilled to finally share a zip code with her boyfriend. But shortly after getting married, she realizes that her new life is missing one thing: friends. Sure, she has plenty of BFFs—in New York and San Francisco and Boston and Washington, D.C. Still, in her adopted hometown, there’s no one to call at the last minute for girl talk over brunch or a reality-TV marathon over a bottle of wine. Taking matters into her own hands, Bertsche develops a plan: Meeting people everywhere from improv class to friend rental websites, she’ll go on fifty-two friend-dates, one per week for a year, in hopes of meeting her new Best Friend Forever.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book!  It was refreshing that someone shared a friending experience like this one.  Rachel set aside embarrassment and awkwardness in order to share her experience at finding new friends.   She adds tidbits of research at certain points throughout the book and then relates an experience that is a perfect example of the research.  I could really see her growth over the course of the year, just in her actions – and reactions – to the different situations presented to her.  If I lived in Chicago, or if she lived here, I would absolutely have taken her up on a girl-date!  In the middle of reading the book, I decided to jump online to find Rachel’s blog.  Imagine my surprise when I found out it was here on WordPress. Sweet, now I can follow her right here, so easy! Check her blog out.

Rachel’s book truly inspired me to consider my friendships.  I have different groups of friends that get together…most of my friends are from college, but they are different groups that I hung out with on campus that rarely saw each other.  (I think living with different people every school year really helped me meet many different people).  Some of the friends are the girls I met/lived with my freshman year (and while I may not have necessarily share that tiny room with all of them, they lived next door and that’s close enough to say we lived together), and others are from the sorority I joined while in school.  And obviously within those groups, I’m closer with some more than others.  Of course, there are the others that moved back home to different states and that makes it THAT much harder to see each other.  And I have the random “outlier” friends that I will always say hello to  and do a quick catch-up with when I happen to bump into them, but nothing beyond that happens (maybe a “we should get together sometime…”).

While reading this, I’ve noticed that one of us will say “We need to do this again for real.  Not just talk about doing it again” and while the others agree, it ends up being a lot longer until the next time.  Maybe it’s the lack of follow through?  I think I should will start working on that.  Granted, we are all very busy with work, family, furthering education and other obligations and schedules it makes it that much harder to plan.  But we need to try, right?

Recently, my cousins (from my dad’s side of the family), my sister and I have decided to make plans once a month. But no pressure: if you can make it, great!; if not, no worries, there’s always the next month.  At first, we started talking about just doing dinners.  We had our first one a couple of weeks ago and it was a really great time.   My eldest cousin suggested that we should always plan the next month at the end of the current get together, that way everyone will be on the same page and we don’t need to send a million emails to try to narrow down a date…it took us 2 months to get this first dinner planned!  We all thought this was a great idea and (since we’re in the digital age) we all pulled out our fancy shmancy phones and added it to our calendars.  We started discussing new ideas other than just dinner.  As long as we at least schedule the next date, then we can work from there.  We have “penciled in” the next gathering and can decide what to do.  Maybe we want to catch a movie, a Red Sox game, or a Blue Man Group Show… who knows?  But now that we’re establishing something and we all want to do it, we can make it work.

That is something I want to start trying with my friends, too.  Like I said, we always say “let’s do this again, but without so much time passing…” so I want to am going to reach out to them and start with another get together.  I love them all so much and really miss not seeing them as often as I used to…and I certainly don’t want to lose them!

So now that I’ve digressed from my book review, excuse me while I go send messages/emails to my friends.

A mini book marathon

In my last post I mentioned that I read four books over my week vacation.  It felt like a little marathon, how many books can I get through? I started out at the airport, bright and early, 6am.   I’ll just give brief synopses of the books, without giving too much away.

I began with Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.  The story is set in a futuristic society in which young genius children are bred for space warfare.  It focuses on a boy named Ender who goes through many trials and tribulations while in “Battle School” learning the ways of the warriors and the fight against the Buggers (an alien race).

I forget who mentioned this book to me, but I kept it in the back of my mind for a few months and then bought it on my Kindle a couple of weeks ago. First, I had no idea how old the book was. Second, it was kind of hard for me to remember how old, or rather how young, these kids were.  BUT I really enjoyed it nonetheless. I felt bad for Ender and the other children, but I think it was more because they were so young and that they never knew what it was like to be regular children. I kind of kept hoping that Ender would defy the adults by making friends with some of the other kids (and keeping those friendships) instead of just having the commander-subordinate relationship that resulted. (But I think that’s just my emotional self talking). It’s interesting that Card would make children the warriors in this society. Makes the phrase “the children are our future” have a bit more meaning, no?  I definitely recommend this book!
I have added Speaker for the Dead to my Kindle.

Next I moved onto Yoga Bitch: One Woman’s Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment by Suzanne Morrison. Morrison regales readers with her story of a short period of time in her life when she questioned things and was scared while on the cusp of big changes in her life.  She enjoys yoga and decides to attend a 2 month yoga teaching retreat in Bali with her favorite yoga instructor.  Part narration and part journal entries, this book really takes readers into the mind of Morrison and, as a 26 year old woman, I can relate to some of her story.

Funny, last year when I went to Aruba I read Eat, Pray, Love which also talks about yoga. Morrison is funny and easy to relate to.  The copies of her journal entries while on her 2-month retreat in Bali were very entertaining.   I’m still not sure how I feel about the whole “pissdrinker” thing, I definitely don’t think I’d be able to do it; though I suppose one might never know what situations one can get into.  Whenever I’m done reading a book about yoga, it really makes me want to get back on my mat and go full force. I lack self-discipline, however.  But I’m really trying!  I’d recommend this one as well.

Then I moved onto Locked in Time by Lois Duncan.  Young adult novel about a girl who goes to live with her father and his new wife and 2 step children and learns that there is something strange about her new step family.  Through some detective work, she discovers a weird secret and must convince her father to escape before it’s too late.

I’m pretty sure I’ve read other books by Duncan in the past and I probably liked her others better than this.  Then again, I was much younger when I read it. It’s your average young adult novel.  It was a short read.  But I think I have outgrown these types of books.  It’s an easy-to-follow plot and the reader can figure out what’s happening early on (especially if you read a summary beforehand!).  Like I said, it was pretty short, so the whole issue is resolved pretty quickly.  I know an adult novel would probably be twice the length with more twists and turns and a little more depth to the characters. Overall, it was fine.

The last book I read on my trip was If Jack’s in Love by Stephen Wetta.  Jack is a young boy from an ostracized family. His dad is constantly out of work, his mom is ugly and his brother is a huge bully and trouble-maker. Jack is a bright young boy but no one but a girl classmate (and Jack’s crush), Mrya, realizes his potential. When Myra’s brother Gaylord goes missing not too long after Jack’s brother Stan threatens him, Jack’s family is ridiculed even more; did Stan do something to Gaylord?  (Set in the 1960′s)

I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about it.   And I haven’t really figured out the title yet…

Oh I forgot in my earlier post: I also read the December issue of Yoga Journal.

(all photos are from goodreads.com. Click the image to be taken to the page)