Book Review: You Have No Idea by Vanessa Williams & Helen Williams

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From the back of the book: When Vanessa Williams was growing up, she had a plan: She'd go to college and major in musical theater; afterward she'd get her MFA from the Yale School of Drama, and then she would embark on a successful career on Broadway. But her life took a detour and she wound up the first black Miss America in September 1983 (an accomplishment that she never planned for or desired), only to be forced to resign ten months later due to a nude photo scandal-much to the shock of her mother, Helen, who had told her, "never pose nude for anyone". But Vanessa survived this setback, and many others to come, to enjoy a thirty-plus-year career as an award-winning singer and actress. Vanessa has been asked to write her memoir many times, but only now-in collaboration with her mother, Helen-is she ready to tell her story. 

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Let me be straight up. I don't often read celebrity memoirs. Actually, I don't often read nonfiction in general. I don't have a lot of time to read nowadays, and when I do, I usually go where my heart is--fiction. However, when I joined BlogHer Book Club almost two years ago, I decided that it would be a good opportunity to reach out of my literary comfort zone, and so I planned to just say yes to any offer to read and review that came my way, because you never know when you'll stumble upon something that you might not have picked for yourself, but ended up loving.

You Have No Idea was definitely not a book that I would have picked for myself in the bookstore, but I thought it sounded interesting anyway, because let's face it, Vanessa Williams has had a pretty amazing, dramatic, and interesting life.

And here's the part where I'm not really sure how to continue on with the review. Because it wasn't a bad book--I finished it in one evening. It was FUNNY. The stories were entertaining, though they felt a bit gossipy at times. Vanessa Williams undoubtedly had an interesting life and accomplished some amazing things, and that was fun to read about. But honestly? It just isn't a book that jumps to the top of my mind when someone asks what the best book I've read recently is.

That said, it is kind of a fun, easy read, and there's a place for that sort of book too, even though my heart belongs to fiction. It was sort of a memoir/nonfiction equivalent to the standard beach read. I guess the bottom line is that it wasn't my favorite book I've read this year, but it also wasn't a bad book by any means, so you shouldn't discount it if it caught your eye!

But (to steal a line from Reading Rainbow), don't take my word for it! See what others have to say over on BlogHer Book Club, where you can even read an excerpt of Vanessa Williams talking about her nude photo scandal! But hurry, the excerpts don't seem to stay up for long!

Disclosure Statement: This was a paid review as part of BlogHer Book Club. As always, the thoughts are my own--I don't think I could lie about a book even if I wanted to!

Book Review: The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

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From the back of the book: Three sisters have returned to their childhood home, reuniting the eccentric Andreas family. Here, books are a passion (there is no problem a library card can't solve) and TV is something other people watch. Their father-a professor of Shakespeare who speaks almost exclusively in verse-named them after the Bard's heroines. It's a lot to live up to.

The sisters have a hard time communicating with their parents and their lovers, but especially with one another. What can the shy homebody eldest sister, the fast-living middle child, and the bohemian youngest sibling have in common? Only that none has found life to be what was expected; and now, faced with their parents' frailty and their own personal disappointments, not even a book can solve what ails them...

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The Weird Sisters has been on my "book radar" for quite some time. I mean, it's about a family who takes loving books to new heights, which is obviously right up my alley. In fact, I hopped on the wait-list for the Kindle version when it topped 100 people at my little local library. My name finally made it to the top of the list in December, and I eagerly began reading, only to discover that one of the major themes of the book was the sisters dealing with their mother's cancer diagnosis. Having just been diagnosed with skin cancer myself, I couldn't bring myself to read it--I thought there was a chance that the mother would end up dying over the course of the novel, and just COULD NOT handle that possibility at the time. 

However, by the time BlogHer Book Club began recruiting for The Weird Sisters this spring, I had been given a cancer-free bill of health, and it was a huge blessing to me to actually make it into the review pool--it felt like a little piece of redemption to be able to finish the book this time around (and get paid to do it!). 

This time, I flew through the book, devouring the interactions between the various characters. I found myself smiling and seeing a bit a lot of myself in the sisters who carry books with them wherever they go. I saw myself in Rose, the oldest sister who has taken it upon herself to make sure that everything in everyone's life runs smoothly, and who may micromanage others to divert from the fact that she's scared of change herself. 


In The Weird Sisters, Eleanor Brown created a world that I felt like I could disappear into, if only for half an hour at a time, which is something that doesn't happen all that often for me when it comes to fiction, but is always a joy when it does. That said, I didn't absolutely love the ending--one of my own particular quirks when it comes to reading fiction is that I often don't find the endings to be as flushed out as I'd like--sometimes I feel like I spend 300 or more pages getting to know these characters and their lives, and then the conclusion is hammered out in roughly 8 pages or less. The speed-conclusion phenomenon in The Weird Sisters definitely wasn't as bad or dramatic as some books I've read recently (*cough* Mockingjay *cough*), but I did find myself wishing that Brown had spent a bit more time bringing us to a conclusion. 

Overall? It's definitely worth a read, but the light conclusion kept it just short of being one of my favorites this year.

You can read a generous excerpt of The Weird Sisters over at BlogHer Book Club! Come on over and join the discussion! 

Disclosure Statement: This was a paid review as part of BlogHer Book Club--I received the book at no cost in order to review, and was also compensated for this review itself. That said, when it comes to books, you're always getting my real, honest opinion whether I'm being compensated or not.

Book Review: Love at First Bark

image from BlogHer Book Club

I'll never forget my first upper-division college English class. As a self-proclaimed bookworm, I had already read most of the books we covered in the intro classes, and I was thrilled to be getting into something more meaty. Within minutes of purchasing the books on the syllabus, I had already begun reading, even though our first class meeting was months away. I was THAT excited.

The first book that my professor assigned was narrated by a dog. Don't ask me what it was called, because I think I've blocked it from my memory. It was the worst book I've ever read. EVER. It was painful to finish. I absolutely hated it, and couldn't even see what redeeming qualities someone else might find in the book as I usually can.

I'm a little bit ashamed to admit it, but since that experience, I've avoided "dog-books" like the plague. I think I just figured that I clearly wasn't one of those "dog people", and I'd never understand books that revolved around them. Marley & Me? Nope, didn't read it. I may or may not have avoided The Art of Racing in the Rain simply because it had a dog on the cover. However, for BlogHer Book Club, I was recently sent Love at First Bark: How Saving A Dog Can Sometimes Help You Save Yourself by Julie Klam. Truth be told, I had almost skipped participating this round because it was a "dog book"...but I'm always telling people that one of my favorite things about BlogHer Book Club is that it encourages me to read books I might not have read otherwise. So, I bit the bullet and agreed to read and review the book.

Shortly after it arrived, I sat down with Love at First Bark as I was getting ready to rock Lizzy to sleep for her nap. And honest-to-God, I didn't get up again until I'd finished the book. For the first time, Julie Klam's book didn't feel like a "dog book"--it felt like a witty, hilarious, lovely memoir that happened to include characters who were dogs right along with the human ones.

My favorite story in the book was Morris-the-Pitbull, whom Julie and her husband Paul happened upon on the street, tied to a lightpost. Upon asking around, they discovered that this particular tagless Pitbull had been tied up for quite some time. They quickly began calling him Morris, and Julie began trying to find him a home, Paul reluctantly staying with her, probably partly to ensure that Morris didn't come home with them. But unexpectedly, Paul and Julie, who had sort of been passing through their marriage like ships in the night, reconnected in a way that they haven't in a long time. I mean, haven't we all been there in relationships? In a place where you're just not connecting like you used to? And then suddenly, you get involved in something that helps you reconnect? Gives you something to talk about again?

Now that I've read Love at First Bark, I think that my prior aversion to most "dog books" (excluding the one I read in college English, which was just BAD) was that I simply couldn't relate. While we had dogs growing up, I felt rather ambivalent about them. I didn't love them. I honestly didn't even feel affection for them--they were just those two annoying things that barked at night and woke me up. I simply haven't loved a dog like a member of my family. Although I've never personally encountered that kind of love for a dog, for the first time when reading Love at First Bark, I could see how it's possible, and hope I'm fortunate enough to experience it someday.

Join the discussion about Love at First Bark over at BlogHer Book Club!

Disclosure Statement: This was a paid review for BlogHer Book Club, but as always, all opinions expressed are 100% my own.

Random Snippets

-I've been on a book reading kick lately. I've seriously been devouring books left and right, and I'm totally bummed that I wasn't quick enough to make the cut for the next two BlogHer Book Club selections! Also, I was super excited that you can now check out library books on the Kindle...except that the entire state of Oregon shares the digital collection, and it's just like the regular library--they have one or two copies of each book, and only one person can have it checked out at a time. I must have looked up 50 books on my list yesterday, and all of them had a wait list, most of them were over 100 people long. What a bummer!

-This morning, we're actually home with no place to go for the first time in weeks. So, we're giving underwear a shot for Lizzy. She's wanted to go potty here and there for the past month or so, and has had some success, but nothing consistent. So, we're giving it a shot.

-That said, I'm hoping that I'm not setting us up for failure here, because I also wanted to do some major house cleaning this morning, and I don't want to get distracted and miss any cues that she might need to go. Maybe I just need to let the house disaster go this morning and try and tackle it once she's down for her nap...along with all the other things I want to get done like working out, taking a shower, all that good stuff heh!

-I'm officially a month into Turbofire. I took before pictures, so I really should take some in-progress ones now, but I'm scared to, lol!

- I think we may be done with the crib here soon. I've watched Lizzy try to climb IN it a few times recently, but I've never seen her try to climb out. Still, I think it will probably be sooner rather than later. We're still trying to decide whether to convert it to a toddler bed, or just pick up a twin somewhere and keep the crib as a crib for any future bambinos.

-I've had a few photography shoots lately, which is awesome. But, the bummer is that I've noticed that I haven't been taking photos at home all that often recently, which is really sad. I don't want photography to ever feel like "work".

Book Review: Lunch Wars

Image Credit: This is an actual school lunch from the USA submitted to www.whatsforschoollunch.blogspot.com | Link Here

I think many of us know that there's a problem with school food in the US. We've watched Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. We've seen the menus at our local elementary schools and winced. Maybe it has affirmed for you why your child will always take a lunch from home (that was my first thought too). But here's the thing: the USDA says that in 2009, they provided free hot lunch to 31 million children per day through the free and reduced lunch program. Should those kids, who depend on the school's hot lunch, have to eat like that every day? Especially when we could do better without raising the cost? For me personally, the idea of my nation's kiddos (even kiddos that aren't my own) receiving the above meal for lunch most days gets me fired up. But, I felt like I didn't fully understand the politics and policies that got us where we are today...let alone how to exert change. 

 image credit

Amy Kalafa's new book Lunch Wars- How to Start a School Food Revolution and Win the Battle for Our Children's Health does just that--explains the policies behind school food. For example, Kalafa explains, "[F]rom 1995 to 2005, our Farm Bill allotted 74 percent of government agricultural subsidies to meat and dairy outfits, 13 percent for grains, 10 percent for sugar, oil, startch, and alcohol, 1.9 percent for nuts and legumes, and .37 percent to subsidize fruits and vegetables," (p. 127). 

Kalafa (quoting food policy professor Marion Nestle) also explains, "When the pressure started coming on the USDA to provide healthy meals, the USDA went into a conflict of interest. It can't really be an agency that is meant to promote the consumption of American sugars and American beef and be in a situation where it's providing menus that cut down on high fat meats and cut down on sugars. So it's stuck between a rock and a hard place. So this is politics. And it's the ugliest kind of politics being fought over our kids' health," (p. 126).

Happily, there are also case studies of many schools who are now working outside the box to create healthier lunches for their kiddos. Many of them just seemed like such no-brainers to me, that I couldn't help but ask, "Why aren't we doing this everywhere?" For example, you may or may not be familiar with the idea that all across the nation, many farmers are being paid by the government not to grow on their land. One forward thinking state decided that instead of paying the farmers not to grow, they'd pay them the same amount to grow produce specifically for school lunches. I mean, DUH. That just makes sense--it provides the kids with healthier meals, and it also ensures that a portion of the billions of dollars the state spends on school lunches each year remains in the local economy, and because the farmers were being paid that amount anyway, it reduces the state's overall budget. Everybody wins...so why aren't we doing it everywhere?! 

Our family had already been making some shifts in the way that we approach food, but I think that this book may have sent us over the edge. We've been asking questions (happily, the school that Lizzy will attend when she's older has already broken away from the USDA's food provision and makes their own meals from scratch on-site). We've been thinking and talking about changing the way that we buy meat. I'm more convicted than ever about the importance of our backyard garden, not just because it cuts down on our grocery bill, but also because it is so important for Lizzy to see where food comes from and how it's grown. 

Overall?

What do you think? Do school lunches concern you? Have you done anything about it? Join the conversation about school lunches over on BlogHer Book Club!

Disclosure Statement: This was a paid review for BlogHer Book Club, but as always, all opinions expressed are 100% my own.

BlogHer Book Club Review: Slow Love by Dominique Browning

When I heard that the next selection for Blog Her Book Club was Dominique Browning’s Slow Love, I was excited. The tagline, “How I Lost My Job, Put on My Pajamas, and Found Happiness”, had me prepared for a book about slowing down to appreciate the little blessings in life, and indeed, there is some of that—joy found in baking muffins and planting mint wherever the author wants. There were many such moments in Slow Love that I found sweet and inspiring.

However, there were also a number of moments in which the author’s prose just rubbed me the wrong way. I found myself, at times, wanting to reach through the pages and shake the author, reminding her of her blessings—she had to sell her home, but she had a smaller second home that she had just renovated. She’d managed her money well enough while she was working to be able to spend several months lounging in her Brooks Brothers pajamas, baking muffins, gardening, and swimming in the ocean...and still, there seemed to be so much to complain about for Browning. At other times, Browning’s style left me feeling patronized—referring to warehouse stores such as Costco, Browning says, “Those places are temples to the marketing gods, who have tricked an entire population of otherwise rational people into thinking they are saving money when they buy in bulk.” It just simply doesn’t feel good to have an author make digs at things you do and enjoy.

See what more readers in BlogHer Book Club have to say about the newest selection from Penguin Books at the Slow Love page on BlogHer.com

Disclosure Statement: This was a paid review for BlogHer Book Club and Penguin books. Still, being paid to write the review has no bearing on whether or not the book receives a favorable review by me. Just so ya know!