Read Watch Grow

This was an awful week. For me. For the country. For the planet. And I don't want to talk about it or think about it or write about it.

Instead, I read a really good book and watched a really good TV show and sat on my front porch a lot and admired the flowers in my hellstrip garden bobbing in the breeze, people strolling past, and occasionally, a dog lifting its leg to pee on the marigolds. I only winced a little. 

What I read: Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

This book caught my interest because it has a weird title and colorful cover and I like John Green books. Green explains in the first chapter that he used to review books for Booklist and then he goes off on a tangent about star ratings and how not-helpful they are. Also, people will rate everything these days. Someone rated a bench in Amsterdam, for example, because it was a prop in the movie The Fault in our Stars. They gave the bench 3 stars and said in the review, "It is a bench." 

Green explains that we're living in the Anthropocene Era, a time that is dominated by humans, and humans lately, aren't doing such a great job. (Green was writing this book at the beginning of the pandemic. He's an anxious person and one of his greatest fears used to be pandemics. At the beginning of the lockdown, which he thought would last a few weeks, he bought 60 cans of Diet Dr Pepper, his favorite drink, and told his brother Hank he was prepared. His brother laughed and said, "For someone who has spent four decades worrying about disease pandemics, you sure don't understand how disease pandemics work.")

The book is a collection of essays on random topics that Green reviews and rates. Canadian geese, the Indianapolis 500, CNN, Piggly Wiggly, Googling Strangers and Auld Lang Syne are just a few. Each essay is short, funny and sometimes not-so-funny, with Green's observations about people and the strange and awful and beautiful things we do. 

There's footnotes and fun facts. And one essay made me burst into tears and feel great love for humanity. I give John Green's Anthropocene Reviewed 5 stars. 

What I watched: Ted Lasso 

This did not seem like a TV show I would like. My daughter told me about it and she said, I know you're thinking you won't like it, Mom, but you will. She was right on both counts. The show is about an American football coach, Ted Lasso, played by Jason Sudeikis, who gets hired to coach a British football (soccer) team. Ted knows nothing about British football. He's a genuinely nice guy who is in way over his head. Classic fish out of water tale. 

Whenever I read a book or watch a TV show or movie, my brain immediately goes into storytelling mode and I can see the structure behind it. How the characters and plot are set up. What the conflicts are going to be. How the whole thing will probably turn out. Ted Lasso seemed like an easy one. 

But I was wrong on basically everything, and wrong in ways that I love. We know, for example, that there's got to be a reason why Ted was hired to coach a sport he knows nothing about. The answer is clear in episode one. The team owner Rebecca Welton, played by Hannah Waddingham, is recently divorced and bitter. The team was her ex-husband's baby, but now it's hers. What better way to get revenge on the ex than to hire a ding-dong American to destroy what the ex loves? 

My brain immediately imagined the entire series from this point on. Ted would be eager to learn and help and Rebecca would thwart his every move, sabotaging all of his efforts and hurting the team. But this is NOT what happens. Only a few episodes in, I loved Rebecca, who's a much more complicated and multi-layered person than "bitter ex-wife." 

It's the same with all of the characters in this show and all in unexpected ways. Nice guy Ted has some demons, and not the ones you think. There's an arrogant soccer player, the groupie-ish model girlfriend, the old cranky soccer player who should retire but isn't ready to quit playing yet. All of these people turn out to be just as interesting as Ted and Rebecca. 

Now, I've just started watching season two, and have no idea what's going to happen to any of these people but I love it and I love them. I give Ted Lasso 5 stars. 

What I grew: 

Yellow squash and green beans and so many tomatoes that I can't make enough spaghetti sauce and salsas and caprese salads to keep up with them. Basil and ginger (a plant I bought at the farmer's market but now am unclear about when I should harvest it) and ditto, the fennel, which I have never grown before, but it looks so lovely and feathery that I'm not sure I want to pick it at all. 

Black-eyed Susans in the back flower beds and some mystery flower that I planted from seeds my father-in-law gave me, but now it's about to bloom and I had no idea what it was, exactly, that I had planted. A friend took a look and said Datura. Now that I think about it, my father-in-law called them moonflowers, which is one of the common names of Datura. Also, if you want to go down a fun rabbit hole into strange plants, take a look at the Datura entry on Wikipedia. 

(One example: "All species of Datura are poisonous and potentially psychoactive, especially their seeds and flowers, which can cause respiratory depression, arrhythmias, fever, delirium, hallucinations, anticholinergic syndrome, psychosis, and even death if taken internally. Due to their effects and symptoms, they have occasionally been used not only as poisons, but also as hallucinogens by various groups throughout history.") 

Datura. It's gorgeous, but don't smoke it. Unless you want to die. 

Also, cleome and Mexican sunflowers in the hellstrip, the sunflowers now taller than I am and possibly breaking some city ordinance about how high things can grow in front of your house, but I don't care. The people walking by seem to enjoy them and God knows the dogs do.

Not Just Any High School Party (A Review of Adele Griffin's All You Never Wanted)

Some books are easier than others to pitch in a sentence or two. Take the new YA novel Every Day by David Levithan: Every morning the main character wakes up in someone else's body and must live the day out as that person. Kind of a Quantum Leap meets Ground Hog's Day. Editors (and the publishing company marketing team) love high concept books like this. It's way easier to sell a book that you can explain in a few seconds. Writers conferences I've been to even hold sessions about crafting what they call elevator pitches. (Just in case you ever find yourself on an elevator with the agent of your dreams--how can you best sum up your manuscript in the time it takes before you get to the next floor?)

Of course, the best novels go way beyond the initial concept. If I tell you that John Green's book The Fault in our Stars is a love story about kids with cancer, and you have no idea who John Green is, you might be a tad reluctant to pick up the book. (But please DO pick it up, because you SHOULD know who John Green is. And The Fault in our Stars is brilliant and heartbreaking and yet somehow hilarious).

One of my favorite books of all time, How I Live Now, is hard to pin down in a paragraph, never mind a sentence. I can't even tell you what genre it is. Post Apocalyptic? Fantasy? Romance? Adventure? After I read it, I pretty much just sat there stunned, rereading the last page because I didn't ever want the world of the book to end. It wasn't until later that I wondered how the heck Meg Rosoff managed to snag the attention of an editor. This was her first novel (for which she deservedly won the Printz Award), so she probably had to do a bit of pitching and querying and synopsis-ing.

Maybe you'd call a book like this low-concept. Whenever I come across a good one of these, the only thing I can think to do is stick the book in your hands and say, Trust me, read it!

But because I am attempting to act like a book reviewer, (also I don't know you and have no way to actually stick a book in your hands), I will do my best to describe this awesome book I read the other day, All You Never Wanted by Adele Griffin. (Pathetic digression: I am ashamed to admit that I've never read a book by this author before, never, uh, heard of her until a few weeks ago. Ridiculous, because I pride myself on how much YA fiction I read, and tragic, because Adele Griffin is a really really good writer; I scrolled around her website and it looks like All You Never Wanted is her 18th book! and I've now got to get busy checking all the others out.)

The blurb on the back of the book plays up the sibling rivalry between sisters Alex and Thea. They're living a fairy tale life in upscale Greenwich, Connecticut, (their single mom recently married a bazillionaire tycoon) but there's turmoil under the surface. Older sister Alex is beautiful and popular and seems to have it all. Thea is brilliant and envious, coveting Alex's enviable life, which also includes Alex's boyfriend, and she'll do anything to get it. Cue soap-opera-y music.

But this book is not a soap opera. The narrative moves back and forth between the two sisters' points of view. Yes, Alex is beautiful, but she's struggling big time with crippling anxiety. Her boyfriend's a great guy, sticking by her even though she's falling apart, but on the other hand, he's sort of a loser too. Why does Thea like him so much anyway? And why is a smart girl like Thea using her brainpower in such destructive ways? None of these characters are what they seem.

And here's something funny that just occurred to me: there is a fast-moving, page-turnery plot at the core of this book, but when you scrape away the details, what you're mainly left with is two girls planning a party. But this is like saying that all of Jane Austin's books are about planning weddings.

Oh, there is so much more going on than a party (even though it is a party of epic proportions). I was biting my nails and worrying over these people, because they do seem like real people, watching as the inevitable (yet somehow unexpected) end approached. There is real love (and lust) involved. There's also real drama and heartbreak. And evil. Geez, what people will do to hurt each other, especially the ones closest to them. When I closed the book, I was breathing fast, and my head is still churning with how it all ended up. Not sure how in the world Adele Griffin pitched this manuscript to her editor. Teen drama? Romance? Psychological horror?

Whatever. I give up.

Please. Trust me. Read it. And then give me a call so I can talk about it with someone!

Ah, Joy. When a Camera-Shy Writer Consents to Pose for an Author Pic.

My aversion to having my picture taken goes waaaaaay back. Look, here’s me as a toddler hiding behind a curtain to avoid my overzealous, picture-snapping relatives. (I was the first born in the family. Some say I was cute. Not that we will ever be able to glean this from the picture.)

Cut to: me, now, being asked to have a professional photo taken for the back flap of my new novel. (THIN SPACE! Release date: Sept. 2013!) Well, I can tell you my response to this request: Start looking around the room for some heavy drapes.

But I rallied and swallowed my fear and hauled myself over to my favorite children’s bookstore Cover to Cover. There, I parked out on the floor surrounded by stacks of young adult novels so I could study the back flaps. Apparently there are so many factors to consider when taking an author photo. How to pose. What to wear. Type of background. Did I want to look serious and authorly? Or go for cutsey and fun-loving? And, sigh. All of these writers are so young and hip...

See what I mean?
The awesome John Green looking awesome in a collegiate setting--

And adorable Kiera Cass (author of The Selection)--

Ahh, Lauren Myracle. What else can I say?

And Libba Bray--Wow!--Rockin' it in her cool frames--

Anyway, my next step was to clue my husband in on my author pic research. Because I had decided there was no way I was posing for a professional. I know that many of you might think I made a mistake here. You get what you pay for, etc. But you don’t have my long (sad) experience with professional photographers... I leave a long string of awkwardly posed pictures in my wake. The kind with gritted teeth and fake smiles and closed eyes and weird stick-my-fist-under-my chin poses. Upon seeing one of these pictures, many people say, “That doesn’t look like you.”  God. I hope not.

That seemed to be the goal here, for my husband the picture taker. Just make it look like me, honey.

Oh, he was such a cheerful trooper, propping me against various potentially interesting backdrops around the city, before giving up and towing me around our backyard. Leaning me against trees. In front of bushes. And flowers. Then, in the house against bookcases. And blank walls. Telling me to smile. To not smile. To look away. To not look away. To think happy thoughts. To not think happy thoughts.

"For God’s sake," he said at one point. "Why do you keep tilting your head?"

Then later, "You’re snarling at me. What kind of smile is that?"

Which got me making a beeline for the curtains.

So we called it a day and he uploaded everything and we scrolled through the hundreds of futile attempts and finally out of sheer desperation, chose one. The best I can say for it is it's the one that most looks like me. I showed one of my friends and she said it looked like I was in pain. Well, yeah. Of course I was. From taking so many damn pictures. But I sent it to the publishing company before I could change my mind.

The cheerful, youthful editor gave me a positive response then added, "We can do photoshop if you want."

I had a hearty laugh in my head about that. But rallied again. "Yeah. Sure!" I replied.

I know. I know. You want to SEE the picture don't you? Well, you are going to have to work for it just a little, my friend. In the interest of self-promotion (another painful issue for me), here's a link to my author page on Facebook. There's the blessed neck tilted picture in all its full glory.

Do you think it looks like me?

Review of The Fault in our Stars

I just finished reading John Green’s latest novel The Fault in our Stars and my head (and heart) are still spinning around (and sputtering softly and vulnerably) two hours later. It is truly a great book.

First, a few words about John Green. I bow down to this man. His books are brilliant and funny and philosophically thought-provoking, with moments of heartbreak flashing sporadically so that when you’re reading you sometimes have to catch your breath and put the book down and marvel for a minute at the guy’s freaking genius. I am not overstating here.

Paper Towns and Looking for Alaska (which won the Printz Award) are really good books, but my favorite (until roughly two hours ago) is the first book I read of Green’s, An Abundance of Katherines. The main character is a cynical, depressed boy who’s had the cruddy luck to be dumped by nineteen girls named Katherine. After yet another break up, he goes off on a zany summer road trip with his best friend. 

There’s clever dialogue along the way and something about a vicious boar attack and also an attempt to plot out the perfect mathematical equation—one that will pinpoint exactly when a person is about to be dumped.

I was cracking up nearly the entire time I was reading it and marveling at how spot on Green was at capturing a type of teen not often portrayed in YA novels— a kind of nerdy, gifted, wise-cracking boy. (Side note: everyone in my family got hooked on John Green’s books. My son, when fifteen, read all three books on a family vacation, literally toting the open books around with him wherever we went. This was a kid who did not read YA books and most of the time did not read any fiction at all. He had jumped at age twelve right into the world of adult non-fiction, stuff by Jon Krakauer and Bill Bryson. After reading the John Green collection he remarked that he hadn’t known there were books out there meant for him.

So Fault in our Stars came out about a month ago and I went right out to buy it but my son got to it first. He closed himself up in his room and basically didn’t come out until he finished it. Then he handed it to me, solemnly, tears in his eyes, and said, "This is a great book."

I put it off for a week because I knew what it was about. I’d read little snippets of reviews online. It’s a love story. About kids with cancer. Which doesn’t sound—how shall I say this kindly?—good. But this is John Green we’re talking about here. If anyone could pull it off, he could.

I read a lot of books. Specifically, I read a lot of books for young adults. So many, in fact, that lately I can sort them into categories without even reading past the first page. There are the “bad” books. Many more are simply “meh” books—quick (or not so quick) reads, a fast food equivalent of literature. (You know how you like that big mac for the 20 seconds you’re wolfing it down and then you kind of wished you hadn’t ever pulled through the drive thru?) There are a lot of good books, too. Page turners and slow builders. Cool flashy entertaining ones and books you want to get lost in and return to.

And then there is this other level all together. From the very first page, you’re in. The writing is effortless (which is to say that it was probably incredibly sweated over but after much work has been boiled down to its essence and seems effortless). Sometimes I read a pretty good book and I feel nothing but despair. I’m envious of the writer’s talent. I’m jealous of the cool idea or the clever execution. I look at my own writing and find it sadly lacking. But here’s something cool about a great book: there is no despair or envy. Instead I am inspired.

There are very few books that fall into this category for me. And this is a key point to make—it’s very personal, this response to literature. But if anyone’s wondering, here’s my list of all time greats—books that made me suck in my breath, cheer, marvel, cry, be grateful that I got to share in the experience and/or feel pride that I live in a world where such a book exists:

Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson

Story of a Girl, Sara Zarr

How I Live Now, Meg Rosoff

Holes, Louis Sachar

Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo

Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro

Bel Canto, Ann Patchett

Nobody's Fool, Richard Russo

Moby Dick, Herman Melville (had to read it in school and was totally blown away and shocked, I guess, that what I thought would be a dry classic by a long dead guy, could speak to me.)

The Fault in our Stars, John Green

It’s a love story about kids with cancer. Hazel Grace is stricken with an incurable lung disease. Augustus Waters has beaten bone cancer but lost a leg in the battle. Neither Hazel nor Augustus would like that I used the word "battle." It ticks them off that people frame the discussion of disease in terms of war. They also mock the "cancer perks," cool stuff well-meaning people give cancer patients out of pity, such as free tickets to Disney World. Or champagne. (But they’re not above taking the champagne.) They also discuss books, recite poems, play violent action video games, and have philosophical discussions about life.

I know I haven’t even scratched the surface of capturing this book, a shameful side effect of Great Bookism. A truly great book can’t be adequately explained or dissected or pitched. There really is nothing you can do in the end, but read it and share it with someone else.

So do me a favor and get your hands on this book. Read it and share it with someone else.

The Mushy Middle. Otherwise known as Driving through Texas

Ah, the mushy dark sprawling space that is the middle of a novel. If you’re plodding along writing your certain number of words a day, you’ll inevitably reach the point where you are halfway to somewhere. The problem is you still might not know where you’re going. You may not remember where you’ve been. You’re wondering if you should stop, turn around, forget this trip. Maybe go someplace else.

Writer Laraine Herring says that writing a novel is a lot like driving through Texas. You’ve got a long way to go to reach the border, but if you keep driving, you’ll eventually get there. I’ve never driven through Texas. I’ve never even been to Texas, but I have driven from one corner of Tennessee to the other corner and I know that takes a long time, so I trust Laraine’s metaphor.

One of the nice things about signing up to do National Novel Writing Month is they send you these cool inspirational emails from authors who’ve been there in the trenches. Today’s was from one of my favorite young adult novelists, John Green. He was trying to be inspirational, but he started by lamenting about how hard it is to keep writing when you’ve reached the middle of your book:

“Why do I quit halfway in? I get tired. It's not fun anymore. The story kind of sucks, and it's hard to sit down every day and spend several hours eating from a giant bowl of suck. And most of all, like the kid who spends hours preparing plastic armies for war, I enjoy setting things up more than I enjoy the battle itself. To finish something is to be disappointed. By definition, abandoned novels are more promising than completed ones.”

I hear you, John. The story in my head is always a million times better than the one that gets put on paper. Unfortunately, the story in my head doesn’t exist. And it never will exist if I don’t keep writing it. John Green’s pep talk does eventually get peppier and he ends by reminding us that Robert Frost once said: “The only way out is through.” Now that I think about it, Robert Frost was brilliant. He wrote poems. Which would be more like driving through Rhode Island.

But I’m still driving through Texas. Tumbleweeds are blowing around in the desert alongside my car. (This is me, imagining Texas, because I’ve never actually been there.) I see a lot of cactuses (cacti? too). The road stretches off into the horizon. There’s one gas station ahead and it’s only got one fuel pump working. But that’s really all need. And maybe some snack food and coffee.

I’ve made it this far. No way am I turning back.