LIZ: BOOK #20

The Los Angeles Diaries: A Memoir by James Brown

224 pages

Completed 4/19/10

Overdue for a memoir I would enjoy, I picked this book up off the shelf it'd been sitting on for over a year. Brown allows the reader to delve into his drug and alcohol fueled existence with brief interruptions of his troubled childhood. Relationships with his disturbed mother, equally addicted brother and sister, a less than perfect father, and broken marriage with rarely-mentioned children paint a picture of a broken man.

Shaped by addiction, Brown's memoir is dark and haunted by the suicides of his siblings. However, as in most memoirs I enjoy, dry humor is laced throughout - both by the mere pathetic events that take place and Brown's own awareness.

Of note: the last chapter, focused on the author's suicidal sister, is written in a different way than the rest of the book. Normally, this would bother me; I like consistency in writing. However, the confusion and broken sentences allowed me to understand the desperation of the characters and the rise to the surface of addiction that Brown seemed to have made. With unanswered questions, I went to Google with searches of Brown's epilogue - to me, a successful memoir that led me to wanting more.

LIZ: BOOK #19

Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine

288 pages

Completed 4/17/10

The mere idea of this title made me break out into a sweat; there's no way I could do this. But it piqued my interest. I expected a humorous self-effacing account of a twenty-something year old forced to save and not spend. Oh, how I was wrong. I should have realized I was off point when the first chapters focused on the economics and societal effects of spending and shopping.

Levine voluntarily embarks on this no-spending journey with her roommate (a random guy in his forties...I wish more details were revealed about this weird relationship) and situations that could have been written funnily were instead dry and, quite frankly, boring. Are Q-tips a luxury? What foods are not a necessity? Ugh, spare me.

I began this book and was so annoyed a few chapters in that I had to stop. Only when I was too lazy to go get another book did I pick it back up again. Readers more politically lined may enjoy this, but for me the book was more about consumerism than quirky ironies and a better-than-thou attitude.

LIZ: BOOK #18

Tabloid Love: Looking for Mr. Right in All the Wrong Places by Bridget Harrison

384 pages

Completed 4/13/10

This memoir read like fiction to me - not necessarily the intended effect when reading a memoir. However, see my last post to understand why I needed something a little lighter to read. Gossipy and humorous without reading too much like chick-lit, this account of an English 29 year old's next 5 years in New York City working for a tabloid paper, writing a dating column, and pursuing men of all walks of life, keeps your interest if only for the reason you want to see what happens to Bridget.

Yes, there were a lot of similarities - and references - to Bridget Jones and Carrie Bradshaw, but this was book was more self-discovery than single girl escapades; although there were plenty of those. My biggest complaint about this memoir was how it wrapped up so open-ended.

All in all, Harrison is a talented writer with some unique experiences under her belt. Obviously not a book you'd pick up for substance, but a good beach read nonetheless.

LIZ: BOOK #17

Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz by Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel

320 pages

Completed 4/6/10

I have been working on an intensive research paper on medical experimentation in concentration camps during WWII and in my research came across this book. For this one paper, I've actually read 13 books, but none worth reviewing for this blog; until this one.

Dr. Josef Mengele, or "The Angel of Death" was medically fascinated with twins. This fascination led to twins' lives being spared from the gas chambers, but their fate instead led them to horrific medical experiments at the hands of Mengele. I won't go into too much detail here, but this book is not for the weak-stomached. Only 160 of 3000 twins subjected to genetic experimentation by Mengele survived through the end of the war.

Written as both a biography of Mengele interrupted by interview excerpts from some of the twin survivors, I was more intrigued by the firsthand accounts of the children - now adults. I also could not keep all of the names straight which was a shame because the epilogue updates (as of 1993) were very thorough.

LIZ: Book #16

Tweaked by Patrick Moore

215 pages

Completed 3/27/10

Another addiction memoir; this one not as intriguing as most I've read. More of a focus on his 10 year sober life, Moore didn't really succeed at making me connect with the story. After losing his lover to AIDS in the early nineties, and already in love with drugs, Moore spiraled into the world of meth. Now, having escaped NYC to California and moonlighting as a drug addiction counselor, he tends to flashback to some moments in his addiction-fueled life, but just not enough, in my opinion.

The most interesting parts of the book, for me, focused on Moore's relationship with his grandmother. Early in life with her idiosyncrasies, and later in life as she's dying. Her character left me wanting more, as opposed to Patrick's story.

To summarize, this memoir simply left me underwhelmed.

LIZ: Book #15

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

544 pages

Completed 3/25/10

This novel took a novel - no pun intended - approach. Ebershoff successfully mansges to merge a current day story with a grad student's thesis, a nineteenth century autobiography, news reports, and letters into a wonderful story.

Polygamy and FLDS has fascinated me for quite some time, but most memoirs I have read are pretty similar. So when I came across this fiction book regarding the same topic, I was pleased. It didn't disappoint. A present-day 19th wife of a FLDS man is pinned with her husband's murder and her estranged gay son ventures back into the world he had left so long ago to find out the truth. Meanwhile, the mystery is juxtaposed with the 19th wife of Brigham Young - FLDS leader in the later 1800s.

At some points, I was almost bored to tears; early in the novel, it's almost an information overload. But by the end of the book, I could not put it down. The intricate connections between characters was so well written I nearly forgot that this was only a work of fiction.

LIZ: Book #14

Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult

464 pages

Completed 3/19/2010

Well, I have been slacking on reviews, so here is the first of a few!

My teenage sister is a big fan of Picoult's novels. I, on the other hand, could take her or leave her. When I listened to "My Sister's Keeper" on audio, I did enjoy the story, but was reluctant to pick up anymore of her books. This storyline, however, reeled me in.

A murder leaves a pregnant woman bereft of her husband and daughter. The murderer is apprehended and sentenced to death. Years later, the child is in need of a heart and the man who killed the family she never knew wants to give her his. Enter a variety of characters - a priest who served on the jury, a lawyer brought up in a religious environment, a bitter widow, an AIDS affected inmate - and an attempt to change a NH law, you have a story that lasts almost 500 pages (which could have been edited down...a lot.). When religion got to be a main storyline, I have to admit that I was bored.

This was a typical Picoult novel; predictable, medically-based, and heart-wrenching. If you are a fan of hers, or a believer in miracles, this is a must-read. Those who aren't, don't bother with this one.