Kylie's Book Log

Book: 13
Title: Dry
Author: Augusten Burroughs
Genre: Memoir
Summary: Augusten Burroughs' memoir of recovery from alcoholism.
Why did you get this book? I have a long-running interest in addiction-recovery memoirs, and Running with Scissors proved to me that Burroughs has got serious writing chops, so.
Did you enjoy the book? This book was seriously fantastic. No, really. This is the sort of book where I want to shove everyone toward the bookstore with the title and author written on a little slip of paper in their hands, and if they don't go I want to redirect them and then keep poking them in the back until they go and get this book. ::sigh:: I mean, okay. It isn't perfect -- what book is? -- and people who are less into this particular genre than I would doubtless be more prone to pointing out the flaws rather than flailing over the good parts. But Burroughs' writing has a surprising and unique quality of drawing you into the experience and making you feel, not what he feels when he's writing it, but what he felt while he was living through the events he's writing about. The result is a reading experience of extraordinary immediacy. Dude knows how to write.
Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? I'm not sure if I'll read his new memoir, Magical Thinking. I hear it's, well, really depressing. Given what I've said before about how immersive the experience of reading a Burroughs memoir is, I'm not all that sure that I'd handle the new one terribly well.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? It's a library book, but I want to buy it.
Anything else? Not really.
Scale of 1 to 10: 9/10

Book: 11
Title: As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As a Girl
Author: John Colapinto
Genre: Nonfiction, Gender Studies, LGBTQQIA
Summary: The story of David Reimer, who lost his penis in a circumcision accident at eight months old. On the advice of Dr. John Money, an outspoken specialist in the study of gender and sexuality, Reimer was surgically castrated, given rudimentary female genitalia, and raised as a girl without ever being told that he had been born a boy. The results were disastrous.
Why did you get this book? I saw it on a table at the Coop and thought it looked really interesting.
Did you enjoy the book? I... this is one of those cases where "enjoy" is not a good word. I mean, it's a fantastic book. Thoroughly researched, well-written, not given to overt polemicism (although the writing clearly favors one point of view, it seems that this is not Colapinto's but Reimer's own point of view). And the story at the center of it is just heartbreaking. It's a story that makes it clear that you can't just assign someone a sex and then manipulate their gender to match; that gender's not strictly a cultural construct and does have some kind of biological basis. But the most gripping and tragic aspect of the story by far was the portrait of Dr. Money, a crusader for his own particular views on the malleability of gender at birth and -- far more dangerously -- for his own techniques on how gender identity can be shaped and molded throughout childhood. Many of the practices he employs are nothing more than sexual abuse under the guise of science, and regardless of his reasons for doing this stuff, the trauma sustained by the children under his "care" is awful. Basically I hate the motherfucker and he disgusts me and his hubris and lack of regard for scientific process is incredible and the last line of the book hits like a punch to the stomach. ::sigh:: Yes, it's a very good book. But my God, poor David Reimer.
Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? I'd never read anything by him before. I think he's written some fiction since. Not sure if I'd read that -- it would depend on the subject.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? Library book, but I'm going to keep it out for awhile now that I've finished -- I may want to reread parts of it.
Anything else? One thing I wondered about was what Colapinto thought of the issue of transgenderism; he confined himself largely to a study of the practice of surgically assigning a sex to intersex children at birth, as well as the practice of changing boys' genitalia into girls' when circumcision accidents result in the loss of a penis. Which makes sense given the topic of the book. To me, though, Reimer's story of feeling completely out of place in his body and of *knowing* he was a boy despite everything sounds very much like the stories of transpeople I know, and at a glance, it's not clear whether Colapinto regards the biological basis of gender as an argument against the existence of transgenderism. Dr. Money, in addition to his wacky crusading for surgical reassignment of intersexual infants and children, also was instrumental in founding the nation's first center for sexual reassignment for transpeople. Which is huge, and hugely important to the transgender movement. Colapinto tends to stay quiet on that subject; he mentions that one of Money's most vocal opponents thinks that transpeople are simply mentally disturbed and should be treated solely by talk therapy in order to feel comfortable in the "right" gender, but Colapinto himself doesn't espouse one viewpoint or the other. I tend to think the answer's somewhere in between, but I don't have all the answers, and they're not in this book. It is surprising and disconcerting, for someone like me who regards gender and sexuality as having at least some essential fluidity (more so for some people than others, but still), to see such a strong case made for biologically-based immutability of gender orientation. It raises for me those questions that are at the bottom of all of these discussions: what does it mean to be "male" or "female"? I know that I'm cisgender, but *how* do I know? What does it mean to me that I am a woman? It's more than playing with dolls or guns, more than wearing dresses or pants, but what is it? David Reimer played with guns and wanted to wear pants; he was a pugnacious little kid who, everyone around him agreed, carried himself "like a boy". But how is that different from being a tomboy? These are big questions to me, and they reminded me that I need to do more reading on the subject.
Scale of 1 to 10: 9

Book: 4
Title: Wintergirls
Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Genre: YA/teen
One-sentence summary: An eighteen-year-old anorexic, Lia has always had a complicated relationship with her bulimic friend Cassie; the two have always understood one another a little too well, and become entangled in a dangerous downward spiral together. Lia is estranged from Cassie the night that Cassie leaves thirty-three messages on Lia's cell phone voice mail -- and turns up dead the next day. In the coming months, Lia's anorexia becomes more and more severe as she finds herself confronted with Cassie's ghost over and over again, blurring the line between life and death and drawing her closer to the brink.
Why did you get this book? I <3 Laurie Halse Anderson.
Do you like the cover? The cover is absolutely beautiful. I don't know who did the cover art for that book but if I ever become a published YA author I will feel myself to have arrived if I can snag this person for my cover art.
Did you enjoy the book? I did, though that seems much too simple a word. My reaction to it was actually incredibly complicated and I want to do a full review on my other LJ. It made me think a lot about what it means to write a good YA novel, and what LHA was trying to do with the book, and what I liked about that and where I thought she could have taken it a step further, and the social context in which she's writing AND... you get the point. Mostly it made me think a lot about what I want to do with my own writing. But it was... I don't even know how to put it. As I was reading it, the word "engulfing" was the only word I could find to describe the feeling I had. It's very, very rare for me to feel so completely that I *am* the protagonist, and rarer still for that to happen when the protag's specific issues are ones I've never dealt with.
Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? No, LHA's my girl from way back. And her teen stuff is AMAZING.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? Keeping it, though λ will read it, I'm sure.
Anything else? I'll link back to my full review when I finish it.
Scale of 1 to 10: 9/10

Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs
Book: 3
Title: Running with Scissors
Author: Augusten Burroughs
Genre: Memoir
One-sentence summary: Augusten Burroughs had one hell of a fucked-up childhood.
Why did you get this book? I had a copy of it lying around the house that someone had given me, and when I read an absolutely amazing interview with him I had to start reading it immediately.
Do you like the cover? Yeah, it's fun. A kid with a giant cardboard box on his head. I don't know why it's that because among all the wacky shit that happened a cardboard box on someone's head was not actually part of it, and the metaphor doesn't resonate for me all that well because... because... because this book is seriously crazier than anything ever in the entire world and a cardboard box-head does not begin to cover it. But it's a funny picture.
Did you enjoy the book? I did. It was *insane*. I just do not even have words and am not going to attempt to describe. But, yeah, he's quite the writer.
Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? Yes, and yes. I'm quite interested in both his other memoirs, Dry (a memoir of alcoholism and, one infers, recovery) and the new one about his father that I don't remember the name of.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? Keeping it unless my friend comes back to claim it, which seems unlikely as she moved transcontinentally and gave me the books she couldn't bring with her.
Anything else? I liked this book!
Scale of 1 to 10: 9

Witches of Worm, Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Book: 2
Title: Witches of Worm
Author: Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Genre: YA/"independent reader"
One-sentence summary: The protagonist whose name I have also forgotten is a smart, prickly, very lonely girl who finds herself starting to act out in rather nasty ways. Unable to understand the bitter impulses she has to disrupt other people's lives, she blames a stray cat that she adopted ("Worm"), calling him a witch's cat.
Why did you get this book? I needed something that would definitely be good in order to clear my palate after Forged by Fire, and Zilpha Keatley Snyder has never let me down yet.
Do you like the cover? I don’t remember it very well, so I guess it was probably okay.
Did you enjoy the book? Yeah, ZKS definitely knows what she's doing. It's funny, her characterization is... you know, it's not like you carry away from her books this sense of a living human being with all sorts of quirks and foibles and a distinct way of speaking, or whatever. I'm not quite sure how to explain it -- I often feel a little distanced from her characters, like I'm observing them rather than living alongside them. But she has this skill that I find very infrequently in YA lit -- or at least, she has it to a degree that I find very infrequently in YA lit -- and it's a talent for getting inside the way kids really think. She's particularly good at protags like this one -- smart, manipulative, not-particularly-nice-but-you-can-empathize-with-them female adolescents. Her prose is also firm and deft, and her plotting is tight and well-crafted. I've never had the sense that she has the name recognition of a Katherine Paterson, say, and it's kind of a shame, because I think they're equally good (and it's a compliment to both of them.)
Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? No. Yes.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? Keeping.
Anything else? In the edition I got, the preface to the book, written by Snyder herself, spoils not only the ending but the entire point of the book. Like, she goes, "Here's what this book is about including the whole ending, and here is what I was trying to do with this book, and why!" So if you get the most recent edition (I don't know the exact specs but I can tell you the publisher's imprint is a bucking horse, and their design is superimposed over the back cover blurb), skip the preface until after you've read the book if you're spoiler-averse.
Scale of 1 to 10: 8/9

Book: 37
Title: Purple Hibiscus
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Genre: Fiction
One-sentence summary: In the frightening political chaos of modern-day Nigeria, fifteen-year-old Kambili finds herself torn between the need to please her abusive and religiously fanatical father and her growing desire to find her own voice, encouraged by her independent-minded aunt and a magnetic young parish priest.
Why did you get this book? I'd read a short story by Adichie in This Is Not Chick Lit and decided I had to read more by her.
Do you like the cover? Yeah, it draws the eye.
Did you enjoy the book? I did, although it picked up steam as it went on. At first I thought the portrayal of the dynamics of an abusive home seemed a little facile, but it stopped seeming so as I went on. I do think that "facile" is a good word for a few things she did in the book - at the beginning of the book Kambili was so utterly controlled by her father, but she started to be able to abandon those thought patterns in something like a week spent with her aunt, which I found to be unrealistic given how abusive her father was. That would have been easily fixed by expanding the time frame a bit, though, and the characterization and the family dynamics were well handled. It also got me interested in learning more about the current political situation in Nigeria, and anything that gets me interested in learning something new is a good thing in my book.
Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? The only thing I'd read before was the short story. Half of a Yellow Sun looks really good and I will almost certainly get it from the library soon.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? Another library book, and another one I may get my own copy of.
Anything else? Not really, except that I bet I'll recommend this book to a lot of people.
Number of pages: 320
Total pages for the year: 11017
Scale of 1 to 10: 8/9

Book: 36
Title: Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement
Author: Tanya Erzen
Genre: Sociology, anthropology, ethnology, queer studies, religion. Etc.
One-sentence summary: Tanya Erzen spent close to a year studying New Hope, an all-male residential "ex-gay" program based on the premise that homosexuality is inherently antithetical to living a Christian life and that homosexuality can be "cured" with the help of their program. This book, which was originally her dissertation, puts forth what she learned there with the sensitive but dispassionate attitude of a good social scientist.
Why did you get this book? I read about it on salon.com ages ago and was really struck by the tone of the Salon article: I was so used to liberals having nothing but knee-jerk scorn for the ex-gay movement, and yet the Salon article really took the trouble to explore the nuances of the issue. Since Salon is often not given to terribly nuanced or original analysis when left to its own devices, I was really interested in reading the book that had spurred that review.
Do you like the cover? It's fine - a bride and groom walking into a church. It's a photo from gettyimages.com, so maybe I'm reading into it too much, but there seemed to be a subtle tension in the posture of the bride and groom as they stand side by side that's in keeping with the content of the book.
Did you enjoy the book? Tremendously. This is a really, really interesting piece of sociological research, guys. What I loved most about it was that Erzen didn't go in to prove a point. She had enough theoretical grounding in sociology/anthropology in general and in queer studies in particular that she knew what she was doing, but she went in to learn, rather than to find evidence to support an already-developed viewpoint. As such, this isn't a book about how the ex-gay movement is horrible and it lies to people and it damages people's psyches irreversibly and it should be shut down immediately, like some of the books on the subject. Nor is it a piece of propaganda for the ex-gay movement; it's not politically motivated at all. It's a thoughtful exploration of an issue that's much more complex than most people see it as being. The question, of course, is whether gays can change; the program answers "yes," while most contemporary gay activist programs say "no". I will insert my own viewpoint here and say that queer theory would give a pretty unequivocal "yes" as well: if we assume that sexuality and gender are both fluid and exist on a continuum, why *wouldn't* people be able to change? Erzen looks at the scientific background of the ex-gay movement and explains that the treatment at New Hope, the specific program where she did her fieldwork, is based in the idea that homosexuality exists as the result of "gender deficits" - i.e., that the men in the program were raised with insufficient models of masculinity and that they need healthy male-male relationships and retraining in masculine behavior in order to exist as straight. That, to me, is where the program falls down - the assumption that homosexuality is the result of a deficit of masculinity (or femininity, in women) has been pretty well disproven (the person who developed the theory hadn't actually done any direct research - it was all strictly theoretical). It seemed to be focused on teaching men not to be attracted to other men, rather than on teaching men to be attracted to women, and to me that's backwards. But what I loved about the book was that Erzen was able to divorce her analysis of the inadequacies in the "science" behind the ex-gay movement from her perception of the people in the program. She was able to accept that the men in the program had made a choice to abandon their previous lifestyles because they felt their faith was more important. She made it clear to the men that she wanted to learn from them, and as they warmed to her and came to understand that she wasn't there to judge them, they opened up to her. In the end, she doesn't give you any predetermined conclusions, except for a strong final chapter in which she demonstrates how the ex-gay movement has been hijacked by hardcore fundamentalists like James Dobson and how much that upset a lot of the men in the program, who felt their personal struggles were being misinterpreted and twisted into propaganda for an anti-gay movement that they didn't necessarily support: many of them were not interested in trying to convert other people, they were just trying to live their own lives as best they knew how. I don't mean to imply that she whitewashes the fact that many of these men grew up in stern fundamentalist homes/atmospheres that colored their thinking about the issues, because that's in the book too. The thing is that in the end, Erzen leaves it up to the reader to decide what they think of the movement and of the choice these men are making. What she's doing is providing us with a really complex and well-researched portrayal of what the ex-gay movement looks like from the inside, and I found it incredibly valuable and thought-provoking.
Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? Yes. She hasn't written anything else yet, but I'd be interested to see what else she publishes. If it's on a subject I'm interested in, I'm there.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? It's a library book, but I may get my own copy at some point.
Anything else? The only thing that I wished Erzen had done more of in this book would have been to put direct transcriptions of interviews with program members in the narrative. I don't know if it really would have fit, but I would have liked to get to know each of the men in the program a little better. We got to know them somewhat, of course, but I would have liked to read case studies on each of them, honestly. I got to wondering if I should work on something like that.
Number of pages: 293
Total pages for the year: 10697
Scale of 1 to 10: 9

Book: 33
Title: Cheaper By the Dozen
Author: Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Genre: Memoir
One-sentence summary: The Gilbreth family has twelve children, a father who is an expert in motion study and time conservation and who rules the family as any good patriarch ought, and a sweet mother who defers to the father in all things and comforts the kids when they get hit! Ain't it sweet?
Why did you get this book? I'd read bits of it in stores and thought it seemed funny, and it was on PaperbackSwap.
Do you like the cover? Eh, whatever, kind of a faux-Norman Rockwell thing.
Did you enjoy the book? I did, despite my rather disdainful summary above. It's very much a memoir of a turn-of-the-century family (I guess it stretches from shortly after 1900 to 1920 or so, IIRC), and despite my ragging on the dad who hits the kids and the mom who tends to their bruises, I recognize that times were different then and that what would read as abusive and creepy now was kind of expected of parents then. I do kind of wonder what might be behind the Pleasantville nostalgia here, but I don't really think it's anything too sinister. (I mean, anything sinister in this particular family. The patriarchal societal structures that created this particular family are sinister enough.) The writing is good, and I love a lot of the anecdotes. This book reminds me a lot of my grandparents; the kinds of stories they love to tell, the yearning for a simpler world. It was a very enjoyable read.
Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? Yes, but have they written anything else?
Are you keeping it or passing it on? Keeping.
Anything else? Basically, when you strip away all my pseudosociological musings, this is just a cute, funny, easy read. I liked it.
Scale of 1 to 10: 9, just because it's so good at being what it's trying to be.
Number of pages: 207
Total pages for the year: 9414

Book: 32
Title: On Michael Jackson
Author: Margo Jefferson
Genre: Social science, cultural studies, biography
One-sentence summary: This is at once a biography of Michael Jackson, though not at all a comprehensive or chronological one, and an analysis of his impact on society, society's perception of him, and the social and personal roots of both his talents and his pathologies.
Why did you get this book? I find Michael Jackson to be a fascinating cultural phenomenon, honestly: both who/what he is, and what society wants him to be/has made him into.
Do you like the cover? Silver text on a white background? Sure, whatever. I guess it's a nice little link between Jackson's shiny larger-than-life persona and the this-is-a-serious-cultural-analysis-not-some-pop-biography tone the book is going for.
Did you enjoy the book? I did. Jefferson's a great writer and her observations are astute. I wish she would have delved more deeply into them, though - the book is short and I felt like though everything she said was true and insightful, there was a lot more to be said, a lot deeper she could have gone. But it was quite good.
Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? Yes, and yes, if she wrote something else I was interested in.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? Keeping it. No idea where to shelve it though. Cultural studies? Biography? I have no idea.
Anything else? I actually do feel like I understand Michael Jackson a little better, having read this book. And I consider that no small feat. Nice job, Margo Jefferson.
Scale of 1 to 10: 8/9
Number of pages: 146
Total pages for the year: 9207

Book: 31
Title: Fledgling
Author: Octavia Butler
Genre: Sci-fi/fantasy
One-sentence summary: Shori Matthews appears to be a ten-year-old black girl, stricken with amnesia after suffering a head wound during an attack on her home that left the rest of her family dead and her house burned to the ground. Even through her amnesia, Shori knows this is not exactly what she is; in the course of the book she learns the word "vampire", as well as some of the history of the alien race that that word's meaning inadequately represents.
Why did you get this book? I am, as has been noted, an Octavia Butler fan.
Do you like the cover? I do, actually. I can't tell if it was designed specifically for this book or not: an (apparently) young girl's feet walking down some stairs, with tongues of flame licking at the hem of her dress. It could reference the beginning of the book, or it could be just a random picture someone picked out because it looked striking. That said, it is indeed striking.
Did you enjoy the book? Yes, this was excellent. It's a take on vampire mythology, but because it's Butler, the vampires' motivations are all too human, even as they are quite clearly a different race. And, you know, they're a "different race" in the sense that they are an independent civilization that has coexisted alongside humans for thousands of years, and they maintain a symbiotic relationship with humans in a way that both challenges and illuminates conventional standards of morality, and it's all very matter-of-fact and un-sensationalized. Classic Butler, in other words. This is her last book, and though it may not be quite as good as Kindred, the book that really made her name, I think it's close. I still think Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents constitute her best work though.
Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? I already bought another one of her books. I'm going to run out soon.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? Keeping.
Anything else? The fact that this woman is dead, and at such a young age, is just not fair.
Scale of 1 to 10: 9
Number of pages: 310
Total pages for the year: 9061