Shopgirl by Steve Martin

A few pages into this book I thought to myself "hmmm, this smacks of someone already  famous getting a book deal based on their established famousness." I retain that opinion. 

     

     In the beginning I couldn't decide if the completely saturating pretension was supposed to be satirical. It's not. Except for with Lisa. Who happens to be my favorite character. In a love-to-hate sort of way. All of the characters in this book are incredibly self involved. They treat others as lesser and go along making excuses for why their behavior is justified. Meanwhile Lisa is horrible, quite possibly the most horrible. But she owns it. And there's something to be said for that. 

     The writing comes off as heavy handed. Whenever a clever line or description came up I found myself envisioning Steve Martin at his desk thinking to himself "brilliant! Oh Steve Martin you are a gift to the written word!" But that's probably just me. 

     I also thought the writing was lazy. The ending? What's that about? Not a single bit of it is fleshed out. The same with the Dad's Vietnam bit. It seems like The author got bored and dropped it. 

     I read this for book club. Which explains why I forged ahead despite hating it so hard. A fellow book club member said, "I'm pretty sure Steve Martin wrote this so it could be made into a movie, which he stars in and gets to repeatedly get it on with Claire Danes." Agreed. The book is supposedly semi-autobiographical. Steve Martin is supposed to be the young guy who winds up getting his act together. But we all know he's the insensitive, rich, skeevy old guy. And we know this because all sorts of lame excuses are made for Ray, the old guy. Like, Ray didn't know he was hurting Mirabelle because he didn't know himself well enough. Time to hurry up Ray, you're over 50. As I said, Lame excuses. 

     The excessive use of the F word is more evidence of Lazy writing. Get a thesaurus Steve Martin. It started to remind me of a sociology professor I had in college that would show porn for the shock value and the reputation it earned him as "the cool teacher." 

     There is this to say positively, there were some astute observations of human behavior. Particularly the ease and complexity of miscommunication in relationships. It was clear that the author spent a lot of time thinking on it. I can appreciate that. 

     In conclusion I really hated this book. Which is unfortunate because I enjoy Steve Martin. Though, admittedly, only to a point. If I could give Shopgirl zero stars I would. Just skip it. If you want to read something about human behavior and relationships that is less than 200 pages (and also awesome!) read Dept of Speculation by Jenny Offill instead. 

Neverhome by Laird Hunt

I've always thought it goofy when people say they read a book and then love it so much they immediately flip back to the first page and read it again. Goofy is the wrong word here. Stupid is what I actually mean. I think it's stupid and I hate it. There are so many books in the world! I understand reading the same book twice. Like a year or ten later but back to back? No. Believe me when I say I cannot describe how ludicrous I think this is. 

   

     So, I'm about to eat crow. I would totally do an immediate reread of Neverhome. This is huge. But seriously, this book is sheer brilliance. It is gentle and violent in synchronized turns. The main plot alone is enough reason to read this book. But add to that the wealth of other stories going on around it. It's as though Laird Hunt had 100 story ideas and instead of writing them all he fleshed out one and mixed in the rest for good measure. And he did so masterfully. The reader never feels inundated with names and places and who what where when blah! Yet there's so much going on! And it is seamless. 

     

     The writing is exquisite. Which sounds really pretentious but trust me on this. It's creative and inventive and different but never overwrought. While reading this book I never got the sense that I was back in a college writing workshop sitting across from someone who had written yet another essay about their angst, or how their saxophone is like the wind. The author never came across as trying too hard.  When people try new things with language that is hard to pull off! At least to me. I have a very low cheese tolerance. 

     There's this scene in the book where the main character describes her mother and the author builds a scene in which the mother is getting out of the tub and she has springs for legs. It sounds kooky and too...far out when I describe it. But it's actually weird and genius AND still accessible and dammit if it doesn't work. Like work, WORK. 

     I've tried thinking of other books I've read that manage what Neverhome does and I am hard pressed. Some of Annie Dillard's later books manage to be creative yet not flowery or floofy or gaggy sentimental. And plenty of other books manage to be intense page-turners. Laird Hunt marries the two in Neverhome. It's simply the best. I really wish more people had it on their radar so we could discuss it to an unhealthy extent. So read it. 

2014 Book Survey, because it's still January

And because I love a good, scripted, survey!

Number of books I read cover to cover this year: 52.

Number of books that were rereads from previous years: 3

Genre I read the most from: Nonfiction, also loads of short story collections and juvenile fiction with the boychild.

Most employed bookmark of 2014: The ol' corner fold. Sorry Library.

Best Book I read in 2014: Neverhome, by Laird Hunt

Book I thought I would love but didn't: Deadeye Dick, by Kurt Vonnegut. Let's All Kill Constance, by Ray Bradbury. Holy The Firm, by Annie Dillard. Three of my favorite authors...all dud works. Go figure.

Most surprising read (in a good or bad way): Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. I knew it was going to be bad, and it was bad. But I was surprised by how readable it was, when not totally and completely enraging.

Best series of 2014: Harry Potter books 1-4. Which I read with my 7 year old, and it was my first time. Thoroughly enjoyable. I generally avoid things that people go bananas over because they are generally awful (TWILIGHT!!!). I'm so glad that isn't the case with HP.

Favorite new author discovered in 2014: Rainbow Rowell and Laird Hunt. Both quite different, but both quite amazeballs.

Best book read from a genre outside of normal comfort zone: everything was in my comfort zone. Except possibly Eat, Pray, Love, I'm typically uncomfortable reading books with Oprah's seal emblazoned on them. For completely arbitrary and judgy reasons. It's a character flaw I can live with. I died a little bit inside when Oprah inducted The Good Earth into her club. No, Oprah! Nooooooo!

Most action packed, thrilling, unputdownable book: Company of Liars, by Karen Maitland. Also, Illuminations, by Mary Sharratt. (Holla at ya, Medieval historical fiction!)

Favorite cover of a book read in 2014: Meh. Maybe The Signature of All Things, by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's planty.

Most memorable character: Hildegard Von Bingen, care of Mary Sharratt. Or Constance/Ash via Laird Hunt. Or Alma, from Elizabeth Gilbert's Signature Of All Things.

Most beautifully written book of 2014: Dept. of Speculation, by Jenny Offil. And, again, Neverhome, by Laird Hunt.

Most thought provoking/life-changing book: Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. Or Bird by Bird, y Anne Lamott. Or If This Isn't Nice What Is, Vonnegut speeches.

Book you can't believe you waited until 2014 to read: Harry Potter. Though I'm glad I did, because reading them with my kid for the first time is pretty neat.

Shortest read: something poetry, like Splinter Factory, by Jeffrey McDaniels.

Longest Read: A History of the World in 100 Objects... can't remember who wrote it. I listened to it on audio technically, and got the hard copy from the library strictly for the pictures. it was over 1000 pages. phew.

Book that shocked you the most: Psychopath Test, by Jon Ronson. Yeeeeeesh!

Book you pushed the most people to read and they did: Currently it's Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell. Though I'm still pushing Neverhome on everybody and awaiting results.

Favorite non-romantic relationship. The girls in Attachments. Or Bill Bryson and his kids in I'm A Stranger Here Myself.

Favorite book read in 2014 from a previously read author: Great Expectations, by Dickens. Or, Look At The Birdie, by Vonnegut. Or At The Gates Of The Animal Kingdom, by Amy Hempel.

Best book read in 2014 that I read because of peer pressure: probably Harry Potter. Does offspring pressure count as peer pressure?

Best 2014 debut I read: Neverhome, by Laird Hunt. And so I don't sound like a broken record, One More Thing, by BJ Novak. That's an excellent book.

Most fun to read: I'm A Stranger Here Myself, by Bill Bryson. Or, My Planet, by Mary Roach. Or, Adam And Eve's Diaries, by Mark Twain.

Made me cry, or nearly cry: Slouching Toward Bethlehem, by Joan Didion. I NEVER cry at books or movies. I just don't. The joke is that I probably have a heart of stone. But damn, that one essay about Hawaii and Pearl Harbor and the teenage soldier boys...damn. It must've been an off day for me.

Hidden gem of the year: Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys. Quite literally a HIDDEN gem. Though not an actual gem. I found this while cleaning out my garage. I think it used to belong to my sister-in-law. It's anyone's guess as to how it ended up in our garage. I read it back to back with Jane Eyre. Very neat.

Book that crushed your soul: Farewell To The East End, by Jennifer Worth. The workhouses! The poverty! If that's not soul crushing, I don't know what is.

Book that made you the most mad: Eat Pray Love, UGH! The whining. THE WHINING! It should be titled, Throwing Money At First World Problems. Also, it should be a criminal offense to base an entire book on some giant, catastrophic, life-altering horribleness and then refuse to delve into or explain what the horribleness is, like at all, but still constantly, CONSTANTLY elude to it, and use the phrase, "suffice it to say..." a bunch. Bleck. Elizabeth Gilbert, you're so much better than that. Stick to fiction.
Also The Good Life Lab, by Wendy Tremayne made me pretty mad. Do not, seriously DO NOT, claim to have zero homesteading skills over and over and over, and chant "if I can do it, anybody can!" and then later reveal that you had a 6 figure salary banked before starting a rural homestead and also a wealth of previously acquired homesteading skills...like being well trained in welding. Sheesh. I have strong feels about this.

The Numbers Breakdown (that will be interesting to no one).

Fiction: 30
Nonfiction or other: 22

Authored by women: 27
Authored by men: 23

2 were collections authored by both men and women.

Goodreads Star Breakdown

5 stars: 12
4 stars: 21
3 stars: 10
2 stars: 7
1 star: 2

Pages read in 2014: 14,600 not including abandoned and unfinished books.

Hard Copies: 37
Audio books: 7
Ebooks: 5

Owned: 22
Free Audiobooks App: 4
Library: 26