2016 - Ode to a BatSh-t Crazy Year

Ah, 2016. What can I say about it? While it actually hasn't been a terrible year for me personally, it certainly has been a tumultuous one for both America and the world at large. One of the few upsides was the Chicago Cubs finally winning a World Series. America sorely needed that, because 2016 was also the year that, after an exhausting, bitter and divisive election, we elected Donald Trump as the next President of the United States. Well, some of us did. Without getting too political here, I will just say that both the tone of the election and the results (just in terms of a business man with no political experience winning) were unpresidented. Yeah, I had to go there.

Things weren't any less tumultuous on the world stage, with Great Britain voting to leave the European Union, terrorism abroad and the refuge crisis in Syria, among other things. The news was hard to take sometimes, leaving people turning to lighter topics like celebrities.


Oh, right. One of the most notable things about 2016 was that it was also the year of what seemed to be a thousand celebrity deaths. Some of the most shocking had been David Bowie, Alan Rickman, and Price in rapid succession...and then George Michael was taken from us, on Christmas Day. As I write this on 12/27, I'm just praying that there are no more*. Grim Reaper of the rich and famous, I think we've had enough.
It's been hard for me to take all the famous-person deaths straight, so I've resorted to trying to categorize them, and this list is far from comprehensive:


Music
George Michael

Prince

David Bowie

Leonard Cohen

Natalie Cole

Merle Haggard

Phife Dawg
Christina Grimmie


Acting

Alan Rickman

Gene Wilder
Garry Shandling
Florence Henderson
Alan Thicke
Gary Marshall


Athletics
Muhammad Ali
Pat Summitt
Arnold Palmer


Public Figures and Miscellaneous

John Glenn

Antonin Scalia

Phyllis Schlafly

Gwen Ifill

Jack Chick
Elie Wiesel

Yikes.

Time Magazine called 2016 the #yearofthereaper, and a CNN article quoted a celebrity obituary author who stated that "As of September 30, the total number of celebrity deaths so far in 2016 is 71.That's more than the total number of celebrity deaths for the full year in any of the other years I looked at."

She must have had an exhausting year this year. It's certainly been an exhausting year for many on social media, as hash tags like the above attest to.  With all the memes though, John Oliver perhaps did it best, with a sketch of comedians and regular citizens literally flipping off 2016 (it starts around the 24-minute mark here, and in case you couldn't figure it out already, warning: language).

At least the comedians had lots of material this year? I dunno, it's been heavy with mourning and civil unrest, but maybe that's exactly where we need to find humor where we can.

What do I want in 2017? To quote the Goo Goo Dolls, "just a chance that maybe we'll find better days."


*Edit: Ricky Harris, the actor most known for his role on "Everybody Hates Chris," passed yesterday, December 26. Aaargh.

Edit 2: It looks like it is official that Carrie Fisher has passed away after her December 23 heart attack. I just have no words. I would ask 2016 to please not make me update this anymore (c'mon, 1 week left!), but 2016 shows no mercy.

Edit 3: And Carrie Fisher's mother, Debbie Reynolds died the day afterwards. So sad, but at least they're together again. Also, I included Natalie Cole in the list above, but she actually died on New Year's Eve of 2015. 2016 was getting a head start?



Superman, Where Are You Now?

To say it's been a crazy week for America is putting it lightly.


There's a lot that could be said, but I don't have a lot of words right now. Some of the best words I do have come from a song written 30 years ago*.


There's too many men, too many people
Making too many problems
And there's not much love to go around
Can't you see this is the land of confusion?
Now, this is the world we live in
And these are the hands we're given
Use them and let's start trying
To make it a place worth fighting for

*Originally recorded by Genesis in 1986; covered by Disturbed in I think 2006 because nostalgia. But it really goes to show that maybe things haven't changed that much after all.

Goodreads Book Review: Big Little Lies

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Australian author Liane Moriarty's novel Big Little Lies is a hard book to peg, but that's what makes it refreshing. I went into it expecting a traditional "whodunit" plot, but while the story has a major whodunit element, it is essentially a story of secrets and lies and the far-reaching ramifications they can have on individuals, families and communities. All the while it deals with themes ranging from bullying and body images to domestic violence and verbal degradation while somehow never seeming too heavy.

As the novel opens, the reader learns that a parents' trivia night fundraiser event at an elementary school ended in bloodshed and death. In contrast to the typical thriller or murder mystery, however, Moriarty leaves a mystery not only "whodunit" but exactly what happened and who the victim(s) are. From there she flashes back to six months before the trivia night and begins to uncover the events that lead up to the tragedy.

The novel largely follows three main characters, each parents of a kindergartener at Pirriwwie Public School. Bold, passionate and fiery Madeline has a five-year-old daughter who is in the same kindergarten class as the daughter of her ex-husband and his new yogi wife. In additional, her teenage daughter seems to be choosing her ex-husband over her, a major point of tension for Madeline.

Madeline's closest friend in the school community is wealthy and beautiful Celeste, the mother of rambunctious twin boys. Celeste seems to lead a charmed life, but her picture perfect family is not what it seems. On orientation day the two women befriend Jane, a single mother who is new to the community, and quickly take her "under their wing." The three become increasingly close and the reader is taken deeper into the secrets of the families of Pirriwee Public School as the trivia day beckons.

Yeah, there's is definitely a lot going on in Big Little Lies. Somehow Moriarty makes all the individual elements of the story come together. Mostly. Storylines involving Madeline's tension with her teenage daughter at times seem tacked on, as does the relationship between Jane and the local barista she initially presumes to be gay. And some of the characters lives end up intersecting in ways that are a bit too neat to seem plausible. However, Moriarty weaves multiple storylines better than most authors I've read, and the three "leading ladies" and their friendship draw the reader in.

The reader is also introduced to several minor characters, including school parents and teachers and the detective investigating the "incident" at the trivia night. An interesting feature of Big Little Lies is the snippets of conversation at the end of each chapter where characters gossip and speculate about what happened to lead to the mayhem and catastrophe at the trivia night. The reader gets to know many characters through these snippets, and although many of these minor characters come across as caricatures rather than fully-fleshed characters, they are caricatures that Moriarty's largely female readership will relate too. For instance, there is Gabrielle, who is obsessed with dieting and with her weight. There are the "career moms" and the "stay at home moms" (and one stay at home dad). No, Big Little Lies is not "chic lit," in the shallow, pejorative sense in which the term is often used. It is a novel with a female-lead plot and themes that women will tend to relate to, but the story also has universal appeal.

Liane Moriarty has accomplished something ambitious with Big Little Lies. It is at once gripping, page turning, funny, complex and multi-layered.

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Goodreads Book Review - Girl in Translation

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For me, the biggest problem with Jean Kwok's Girl in Translation is that the love story felt contrived and instead of adding to our understanding of protagonist Kimberly as a girl caught between two worlds, it just distracted from her larger story. Actually when I think of it, many of the characters in the book felt contrived rather than true-to-life, but because the love story took up much of the ending (including a major twist) it really stood out as out of place. Girl in Translation does contain some poignant insights into life as a first-generation immigrant grappling with poverty and ambition, but they were not as fully-realized as they could have been.

The entire novel spans almost two decades, if we count the last chapter set "twelve years later." When it opens, Kimberly is an 11-year-old who, along with her mother, has just arrived in Brooklyn from Hong Kong. (Her father passed away when she was very young). Kimberly's Aunt Peggy has helped the two family members make a life in America, but it turns out that this life includes a squalid, vermin-infested, heat-lacking apartment and a job in a Chinatown clothing factory (yes, this means child labor).

Because Kimberly had displayed exceptional academic talent in Hong Kong, she decides to use this talent to work to better her family. It is a long path up for a girl who speaks and understands little English and struggles to fit in socially and culturally at school. However, after a few years in public school, Kimberly's smarts land her a full scholarship to a prestigious private secondary school.

An early adversary in the novel turns out to Aunt Paula, who happens to be the owner of the factory. It turns out that Aunt Paula has been purposefully holding Kimberly and her Ma back (not helping them find a safer apartment, demanding more and more work without more pay) out of a jealous spite. The reasons for Paula's jealousy are briefly explored, but for the most part she comes across as a two-dimensional stock villain.

It is at the factory that Kimberly meets Matt, the love interest mentioned above. We see her feelings for Matt develop over her pre-teen years, but by the time the two actually get together (there is "another woman" named Vivian who seems to only exist for dramatic/romantic tension) their interactions seem to be reduced to infatuation. This would be understandable if it were just their teenage relationship that is described this way, but even 12 years after Kimberly makes a fateful decision impacting their future, the descriptions are still along the lines of "I stood outside his apartment because he was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen").

This relationship could have been woven into the story in a more believable way and furthered the conflict between Kimberly's ambitions and her experiences of first love, but it just didn't resonate for me.

There is a lot of push between Kimberly's desire to fit in to with her classmates and her desire to be a dutiful daughter, but again the clichés of popular kids, parties and "fooling around" vs. studying got in the way. It was as if Kimberly were behaving the way a first-generation Chinese American teenager was "supposed" to behave rather than how a full-fleshed human being actually would.

The parts of the novel that worked the best were the ones that really allowed me to get inside the experiences of a young Chinese immigrant (the "girl in translation" of the title). When Kwok introduced Chinese turns of phrase or elements like family foods or celebrations like Chinese New Year, it made the novel a little more believable. There were some vivid descriptions of places (from the squalid apartment to Kimberly's first visit to Manhattan to her private school campus), but no grounding of the novel in time. I assumed it was set in the present-day, but there were no clues and it could really have been any time in the late 20th or early 21st century).

Girl in Translation was a quick and mostly enjoyable read, but the ending frustrated me and the entirety of the novel could have been more true-to-life. The ideas, fully realized with full-fleshed characters and more realistic relationships, could make for a truly moving novel, but as it is Girl in Translation is just so-so.



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Goodreads Book Review: We Were Liars

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow. This is the first time in awhile that a book ending has genuinely shocked me.

We Were Liars is billed as a young adult suspense novel, but it goes beyond the typical young adult novel in theme and tone, and it cannot be pinned down to "suspense": it borrows from family drama, classic tragedies like "Wuthering Heights," and fairy tales in addition to more typical thrillers like "Gone Girl" (that twist ending!). There are some elements that to some might be considered pretentious, but I thought they made E. Lockhart's novel unique in a sea of cookie-cutter young adult lit.

At it's most basic, We Were Liars is the story of four wealthy teens who summer with their families on a private island off the coast of Massachusetts. Cadence, Johnny, and Mirren are cousins and the grandchildren of the distinguished Harris Sinclair, the owner of the island. Gat is a step-cousin, and his Indian heritage makes him the family outsider in the eyes of prejudiced patriarch Sinclair. Nevertheless, the four teens form an inseparable connection.

The novel is narrated from Cadence's perspective and shifted between the present, where Cadence is 17 years old, and flashbacks to her 15th summer on the island. Cadence suffers from migraines, which result, she has been told, from a swimming accident that happened that 15th summer. In addition to her migraines, she has lost most of her memories of the time surrounding that accident. She only knows that she was discovered injured on the beach.

Memory loss has been used in a lot of suspense novels (the central protagonist in The Girl on the Train suffered from alcoholic blackouts), and it can come across as a too-easy, gimmicky set-up. However, We Were Liars explores more than just the mystery behind Cadence's accident and her missing memories. As it unfolds, we are drawn into the hidden dysfunctions in Cadence's family, where the appearance of normalcy is exalted above all else.

The novel also revolves around the bonds of friendship between Cadence and her cousins, and her budding romance with Gat. I found the whole "step-cousin" angle to be a little icky, honestly, even though the two are not biologically related (Gat is Cadence's aunt's boyfriend's child). And I felt that instead of developing the connection between Cadence and Gat, Lockhart relied a bit too much on the forbidden-love with a family outsider angle. Indead, Gat references Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights in describing Grandpa Sinclair's disdain for him. Nevertheless, this theme is timeless, and it is interesting to see a modern spin on it.

Lockhart also uses the symbolism of fairy tales to depict the Sinclair family. After her accident, Cadence begins to write these fairy stories, all variations on a king with three daughters. The parallels to her own family, where her grandfather has three daughters, are obvious, but each short story (no more than a few paragraphs) contributes to the reader's understanding of the Sinclair family and their secrets and lies.

I won't spoil the ending. Suffice it to say that here is where the novel departs from strict realism, and while I didn't find the ending 100% plausible, it makes up for that in its emotional impact and its shocking twist.

We Were Liars is a book that can't be put in a box. Readers expecting a typical young adult novel or a typical suspense novel may be disappointed, but those with an open mind will find a book they won't soon forget.


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Bucket List

My friend Athena posted this on Facebook; I'm filling it out and posting it here. They called it a "bucket list," but some of these, like "cry yourself to sleep" or "get divorced" I wouldn't exactly put on a bucket list. Whatever. The ones I've done are marked with an "X".

Fired a gun
Gone on a blind date X
Skipped school  (Yeah, I was a goodie two-shoes; I don't think I even did Senior Skip Day.)
Watched someone give birth
Watched someone dying X
Visited Canada X
Visited Hawaii (couldn't afford to when my friends went :()
Visited Europe X
Visited Las Vegas (unfortunately a recent Vegas trip was cancelled due to a loss in my friend's family)
Visited Asia
Visited Africa
Visited Florida X
Visited Mexico
Visited Australia (my parents went without me :(. But I can't fault my mom for taking her dream anniversary trip)
Seen the Grand Canyon in person
Flown in a helicopter
Served on a jury
Visited L.A.
Been to New York City X
Cried yourself to sleep X
Recently colored with pencils X (adult coloring books FTW!)
Sang karaoke X
Paid for a meal with coins only X (If fast food counts than I'm sure I have)
Made prank phone calls
Laughed so much you cried X
Caught Snowflake's on tongue X (arrgh at the misused apostrophe)
Had children
Had a pet X
Been skinny dipping
Repelled down a building/cliff
Been downhill skiing X
Been water skiing X
Been camping in a tent X
Driven a motorcycle
Jumped out of a PLANE
Gone to a drive-in movie X
Done something that could have killed you X (in Athena's words: "isn't driving a car something that could kill me?")
Done something that you will regret for the rest of your life (no regrets)
Rode an elephant
Rode a camel
Eaten just cookies or cake or ice cream for dinner X
Been on TV X (I think some of my band concerts were on local tv...)
Been in newspapers X (If honor roll lists or school papers count)
Stolen any traffic signs
Been in a car accident X
Stayed in Hospital (if they mean overnight, I have not thankfully)
Donated blood (I should...my mom does all the time despite a major fear of needles, so I have no excuse)
Payed a fine in the past 12 months X
Gotten a piercing X (only ears...)
Gotten a Tattoo
Driven a standard car X
Ever owned your dream car
Been Married
Been divorced
Fell in love X
Paid for a strangers meal
Driven over 100mph
Worked in a pub
Been scuba diving
Found a dead body
Lived on your own X
Swam with the Dolphins
Parasailing Snorkeling X
Flown over Volcanoes
Visited Alaska
Visited the Bahamas X
Visited Mount Rushmore
Visited Yellowstone

Goodreads Book Review: The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Paula Hawkins' novel The Girl on the Train has been getting a lot of comparisons to Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. It's a mystery/thriller narrated from multiple perspectives, provides insight into troubled marriages and characters who aren't who they seem, and has been adapted into a film to come out this October. But whereas Gone Girl's twistedness satisfied on multiple levels, The Girl on the Train for me, while immensely readable, never really rose above the level of beach-read thriller. I'd give it three-and-a-half stars, but since Goodreads doesn't allow for half-stars, I'm rounding down to 3.

The premise of The Girl on the Train is intriguing, and the narrative direction Hawkins takes was ambitious. The novel shifts narration between three different characters and from different time frames. It opens from the perspective of Rachel, the "girl on the train." Here is where Hawkins makes use of the unreliable narration that Flynn used in Gone Girl. Rachel is a young woman who takes a train to and from London every day. As she rides the train, it stops by a house in the neighborhood where she used to live, and Rachel watches the residents: a young, attractive couple who often spend time in their yard or on their patio. She begins fantasizing about their lives and even names them: "Jess" and "Jason." But one day "Jess" (who is actually named Megan) disappears, and Rachel realizes how little she actually knew about her life.

Rachel goes to the police to provide witness to events she saw unfolding in Megan's yard, but as we soon learn, she is not the most reliable witness or narrator: she is an alcoholic prone to blackouts. As the story unfolds, we learn more about Megan and how her path intersected with that of Rachel, her ex-husband, and his new family. And we learn about the secrets that kept in all their lives.

The contrast between fantasy and reality and the drive to live vicariously through other people's lives are interesting themes but ones that I didn't think the novel took far enough. Rachel creates voyeuristic fantasies about "Jess" and "Jason" as a distraction from her pain and loneliness as a recent divorcee, but these fantasies are interrupted early on in the novel when Jess/Megan disappears. As in Gone Girl, characters' lives are built upon layers of secrets and lies, and nothing is as it seems, but this also didn't seem to be explored in as much depth as it could have been.

The train is clearly central to the story, and yet it's symbolism was yet another thing that didn't seem fully explored. Rachel's train rides are the center of her day, providing predictability to a life that has otherwise unraveled. In contrast, for Megan the train she lives so close to reflects her restlessness and yearning for escape. I wish Hawkins would have run with these themes a bit more.

The narrative structure of the novel is one element that did work for me. It's always a risk for authors to use multiple narrators, but each narrator (Rachel, Megan, and Rachel's ex-husband's new wife, Anna) has her own distinct voice, and the pieces of the story come together as new details and perspectives unfold.

In both Rachel and Megan, Hawkins has created characters who, while deeply flawed and not exactly "likable," were complex, layered and compelling. Equally compelling is Kamal, Megan's therapist and an early suspect. A man with a troubled past, Kamal exhibits both deep compassion and a concerning lack of boundaries. Anna, on the other hand, is both unlikable (coming across as smug and self-satisfied in her new life) and flat. And the other main male characters, Rachel's ex-husband, Tom and Megan's husband, Scott, are portrayed as stereotypically controlling and domineering, but there is little exploration of what's behind these traits.

The Girl on the Train is definitely a page-turner, but the promising premise wasn't fully realized for me.




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Superbowl 50 Ads - PuppyBabyMonkey!

I am continuing my tradition of watching the Super Bowl primarily for the commercials, and then blogging my response. I did enjoy seeing the Denver Broncos win this year, not only because of my high school friend who abandoned me  the DC area for Denver but because they needed some redemption for their terrible playing in the Bowl a couple years ago. But truly, the ads are much more interesting to me than that football stuff.


Even with that being said, I didn't find too many standout ads this year. And no Clydesdales :(. But there were singing sheep (!), and many, many dogs. Dogs seemed to be the theme of this year's crop of ads.


That and ads on products relieving digestive upsets. There were only two, but it seemed like a lot. But considering that ads for products fighting IBS and related issues have really been all over the place for a couple years now, it's not surprising they would make their way to the Super Bowl. I mean, the food associated with the big game is not the most digestive friendly to begin with.


But back to the dogs. My favorite of the dog ads had to be the Heinz ad featuring "wiener dogs" running into the arms of loving humans in Heinz ketchup condiments. It was both unexpected and adorable.


And then there was Honda Ridgeline, the creator of the Queen-singing sheep ad. I mean who doesn't like singing sheep?


Mountain Dew KickStart's "PuppyBabyMonkey" was mildly creepy but so over-the-top in it's ridiculousness that it made me laugh out loud.


There were a few ads not featuring animals or crazy animal hybrids that got my attention.


Jeep's 75-year anniversary ads struck a fitting nostalgic tone.


After the Miss Universe fiasco where Steve Harvey announced the wrong winner, he was maybe, possibly able to spin it to his advantage and divert attention from some of those internet memes with his role in T-Mobile's Super Bowl spot.  We shall see.


Another favorite of mine was the Audi ad featuring the late David Bowie's song "Starman".


Upon reflection, there were more memorable ads than I thought. Some were so stupid as to be funny, some played up the adorable factor, and some were thoughtfully moving. I guess 2016 was a winning year for Super Bowl ads after all.