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Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl

2016, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Non-Fiction, Women /

When you’re 53ish and reading Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl you find yourself wanting to give away all of your crap and move to Philly and hang out with your punk/goth kid and listen to all of the punk/goth music for awhile and do nothing else at all.

And then you might feel like after your kid is sick of you and you’re sick of Philly that it would be a good time to move onto the Pacific Northwest and hang out with another kid and see if you can figure out where all the cool indie musicians hang out and just listen to whatever it is that might be cool now.

At which point you realize that you don’t actually know what kinds of indie music might be cool and whether there is any cool indie music going on anywhere because you’re old now and you have all of these responsibilities and you have dogs, for godsakes (though Carrie has dogs, too, now… which by the way, the almost last chapter of the book comes at you from nowhere and you won’t be prepared for what happens and it might make you feel kind of ill and stuff… just warning you. You should still read the book… where was I?)

Oh yea, which then causes you to think maybe you should just put the book down, turn Sleater-Kinney up really loud and make a zine, which causes you to laugh your ass off because you can’t even manage to write anything decent on your own blog (or anywhere) or paint in your art journal or really do anything except work and think about mortgages and crap.

Which causes you to kind of be annoyed that you missed all of the cool stuff that happened in the 90s because you were busy raising kids and working, working, working — always working.

Whatever. You still have Sleater-Kinney to listen to. And there are some old zines on your bookshelves (or if you’re me, they’re packed in a box but will be back on your bookshelves someday…assuming the mortgage all works out, lol.) And you can listen to your goth/punk kids’ music any damn time you want and even sometimes listen to her playlist for her DJ gig. And… that will be enough. Mostly.

Read Carrie’s book. And listen to some Sleater-Kinney.

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Footer Davis Probably Is Crazy

2016, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction /

You guys! I read a book! A whole book. On paper. It had words! How exciting is that?

It’s also a book from the Cybils shortlist and a really good middle grade fiction book. Footer Davis Probably Is Crazy is about a mom who has Bipolar Disorder and a daughter who worries she might “get sick,” too. It also has a character with cerebral palsy, another with PTSD, and touches on child abuse.

I really liked all of the characters and I liked the way the story played out.

Also, I READ A BOOK!! hahaha.

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The Woman Who Walked In Sunshine

2016, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

I love me some #1 Ladies Detective Agency (on audio) and really enjoyed The Woman Who Walked In Sunshine except… I was afraid AMS was trying to kill off Mma Ramotswe. TW kept telling me I was dumb but I didn’t believe her til the very, very end, lol. Maybe it’s because we had just listened to the “killing” of Dexter? (Though I absolutely wanted him dead – more dead than he was there at the end, actually. Which is possibly a spoiler. Oops?)

I also did not really find the explanation about why Mma Makutse did what she did with Mr Polopetsi… that just didn’t seem quite right. I dunno.

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In the Unlikely Event

2015, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

I had no idea Elizabeth, NJ had three plane crashes over the course of a few weeks. How horrendous that must have been. And Judy Blume does an excellent job of fictionalizing the events in In An Unlikely Event.

There are a ton of characters introduced early and that was a little confusing, particularly since I had no idea what the darn book was about when we started listening to it on audio. Once I realized – multiple plane crashes and that’s why all of these people were important, it was easier to follow.

Well done, Judy Blume. Well done.

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