5 posts tagged “memoir”
Finished: 09-February 2009
Story Synopsis:
Through delightful drawings, photographs, and musings, twenty-three-year-old Lucy Knisley documents a six-week trip she and her mother took to Paris when each was facing a milestone birthday. With a quirky flat in the fifth arrondissement as their home base, they set out to explore all the city has to offer, watching fireworks over the Eiffel Tower on New Year's Eve, visiting Oscar Wilde's grave, loafing at cafés, and, of course, drinking delicious French milk. What results is not only a sweet and savory journey through the City of Light but a moving, personal look at a mother-daughter relationship.
Commentary:
I first discovered Lucy Knisley at her table at the MoCCA fest in 2008. Her art looked extremely cute, and being the wannabe foodie that I am, I was amused that she was selling a "cheese" shirt. So, I looked her up and found out that this book was coming out later in the year, which made me excited since it was about two of my favorite things: food and Paris.
Lucy's experience in Paris is something that I would want to try someday. And she does a great job of detailing exactly what makes Paris enjoyable -- the museums, the art, and of course, all the wonderful food. I truly enjoy reading these travelogue comics (such as Carnet de Voyage and A Year in Japan), so finally owning French Milk is a great addition to my library.
I will admit though, that sometimes, Lucy's feelings towards things make her sound like an ungrateful whiny brat. I mean, she has a wonderful experience of being able to spend SIX WEEKS in Paris, and she wastes precious time whining. Well, I guess we're all allowed our share of existential angst...
Obtained: NYPL
Finished: 30-January 2009
Story Synopsis:
In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.
Enter Chelsea Handler. Gorgeous, sharp, and anything but shy, Chelsea loves men and lots of them. My Horizontal Life chronicles her romp through the different bedrooms of a variety of suitors, a no-holds-barred account of what can happen between a man and a sometimes very intoxicated, outgoing woman during one night of passion. From her short fling with a Vegas stripper to her even shorter dalliance with a well-endowed little person, from her uncomfortable tryst with a cruise ship performer to her misguided rebound with a man who likes to play leather dress-up, Chelsea recalls the highs and lows of her one-night stands with hilarious honesty. Encouraged by her motley collection of friends (aka: her partners in crime) but challenged by her family members (who at times find themselves a surprise part of the encounter), Chelsea hits bottom and bounces back, unafraid to share the gritty details. My Horizontal Life is one guilty pleasure you won’t be ashamed to talk about in the morning.
Commentary:
Okay, dirty secret time: I actually watch Chelsea Handler's show every once in a while. She's mostly funny, and she's pretty enough and I like her schtick with her midget assistant.
...Which, sadly, also sums up my feelings about her book.
I really thought that this book was going to be the rauchiest, most embarrassing and cringeworthy thing that I'll be reading all year. Sure, there were some sections that had me snorting to myself on the train, but overall, I felt that this book was just okay. Not bad, not good, just okay.
And maybe this is a dilemma with humor books as a genre -- while many writers are able to convey humor through their words, there are people who can convey it better either in spoken form or acted out. I think Chelsea Handler belongs in the latter. Her stories are probably hilarious when she tells them in her stand-up since you're experiencing the whole person communicating the story. But if I'm just experiencing everything through her words, I felt like there was something missing.
(What? There was a contest?)
Men May Come and Men May Go ... But I've Still Got My Little Pink Raincoat by Gigi Anders
Obtained: Library
Finished: 26-November 2007
Story Synopsis:
From one very fabulous and elusive little pink raincoat (to woo one commitment-phobe) to a pair of very persuasive peach panties (a gift from a dazzling doc), Gigi Anders relates her obsessions with clothing and men through a series of beautifully crafted vignettes. Side-splitting and sharply observed, these true stories chronicle ten classically glamorous and hard-to-find items (from clothing to accessories to makeup), the corresponding hard-to-pin-down boyfriends—and the quest to nail them both.
Anders delivers a tasty, uplifting, and universal meditation on the things we crave and the lengths we'll go to get them. Women everywhere will recognize themselves in this book.
Commentary:A quick and flighty read about the author's obsessive relationship with things and men.
Gigi Anders presents herself as one of those women who think that having (or wearing, or owning) certain items will make her more attractive and more lovable to men. The pink raincoat mentioned in the title, for instance, was an almost painful revelation on the lengths certain people (okay, women) will go to in order to get that one coveted thing. It's a GAP raincoat, for one thing, and last I checked, boys won't love you for wearing cute pink outerwear.
I don't think I found any of the essays "side-splitting," as the advertising text suggests. It was almost like watching multiple reruns of a car wreck. Woman obsesses on certain item, buys certain item thinking that it'll bring her love and happiness from a man, watches in dismay as man doesn't offer love and happiness because of item, rinse and repeat.
If anything, this book only proves that 90% of primping and beautifying that women think would bring them attention from a man is unnecessary. If a guy really wants to be with you, you could be wearing a sack for all he cares.
In January 1998, while the rest of her newsroom is chasing the Monica Lewinsky story, television journalist Jennifer Cohen gets a lead that takes her out of covering that scandal and deep into another one—the trafficking of sex slaves from the former Soviet Union into the United States. Knowing that the college crush she never quite forgot works for a St. Petersburg newspaper, she hires him to help out. Much to their surprise, they fall madly in love over thousands of miles of telephone line. Cohen finds herself engaged to marry a man she barely knows and on a plane to Russia. No one could have predicted the total collapse that followed—of the Russian economy, of her fiancé's sobriety, of Cohen's mental health and physical safety, and of her professional aspirations.
Cohen's vivid descriptions of her life in anything-goes Moscow—bribing government officials, meeting pimps in back alleys for interviews—are a colorful counterpart to the despair and loneliness that replaces the love between Cohen and her fiancé. Their battles with prescription drugs, alcoholic rages, and physical abuse are recounted, offering a poignant and unvarnished look at a complicated relationship in a complicated land.
Commentary:
I found this book in the bargain section of an indie bookstore in San Francisco. Since I am having my own "Russian affair" of sorts, I just thought it would be a quick, painless read on the flight back home.
But instead, I found a book that touched many nerves and personal insecurities. What was supposed to be a 2-hour read stretched out to over a week because I kept stopping, upset about specific events that the author and her fiance had to go through.
Jennifer Cohen was a young & ambitious producer when she decided to leave NY in pursuit of her Russian sex slave story. It was risky for her in many aspects -- professionally and personally -- to just up and move to a country so vastly different from the one that she's known all her life. Granted that she's lived there as a college student, but this time around, her situation was made further complicated because she was going to be living with Kevin, the boy that she loved and lost in college.
One Amazon review of this book likened it to a Jerry Springer show; it had sex, drugs, violence, broken engagements, scandals, affairs, and the seedy Moscow underground as the backdrop. Granted, it's easy to see this book as a sociological snapshot of that particular time period in Russian history, the point when things were supposed to get better, but for some reason, they didn't. What affected me deeply was Cohen's own personal hell, partially caused by her own romanticism that Russia will love her almost as much as she loved it and partially caused by her faith that the man that she loved will be the first step to a perfect life. As you can tell from my cynicism, things didn't end up as she had envisioned them... far from it.
Despite the personal hardships that she possibly had to relive in writing this memoir, Cohen's voice rings strong and confident. She is not afraid to show herself as weak and (maybe) as vilified in what happened in Russia. The book doesn't pull punches, it's not afraid to show the truth.
Random tidbit: I actually bought this book at the Astor Place B&N, just before I left for Germany a couple of weeks ago. I still find it weird when I read things that reference places that I actually know & frequent. Maria Headley is funny and smart, and her writing reflects it. I made the stupid mistake of reading the author bio, and for this book, that kinda spoiled the ending... Nonetheless, her journey of accepting love (be it from the wrong men at all the wrong times) is pretty inspiring for this NY'er. This city does have a lot to offer, and it's always best to keep an open mind lest you miss your chance for happiness.
This is also it for my chick-lit selections for a while. Chick-lit somehow makes me really frustrated (for numerous reasons) so I need a short break.
