Goodreads Book Review: Gone Girl

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl is a #1 New York Times bestseller which has now been adapted into a film starring Ben Affleck. The novel's popularity should come as no surprise - after a few false starts, Flynn takes the reader on a twisted ride in which nothing and no one is as it seems.

The novel opens on the 5th wedding anniversary of Amy Elliott and Nick Dunne, who have recently moved to Missouri from New York City. The tone, rather than one of happy anticipation, is immediately ominous - and then we find out Amy has disappeared.

Nick insists he is innocent, but as detectives investigate and details unfold, his story and his nervous behavior begin to look more and more suspicious, and we witness the unraveling of what he tries to convince the public is a happy marriage. But Nick and Amy's is not just the ordinary marriage gone sour, but, as we learn, something much more sinister.

After the initial suspense (the girl is gone!), the early chapters of Gone Girl stalled a bit for me, seeming to get weighed down in insignificant details. But the mystery unfolded, things that seemed implausible, cheesy, or insignificant took on new significance. Take the Amazing Amy children's book series through which Amy's parents have amassed a fortune. The books, frankly, sound ridiculous - but through them, the Elliotts have created an idealized, fantasy version of their daughter. "Amazing Amy" is a girl and later young woman who always has the right answer, always does the right thing, and living in the shadow of her "amazing" counterpart serves as motivation for much of what "real" Amy does.

Through her use of unreliable narration, Flynn masterfully screws with the reader's head. The story is told alternately by Nick in real time and by Amy in a series of diary entries dated from 2005, when she first meets Nick, to shortly before her disappearance. Both Nick and Amy are prone to frequent omissions and outright lies, and soon the reader doesn't know whose story to believe.

Flynn manages to do many things with Gone Girl. The story is as much a psychological thriller as a classic whodunit story. It also serves as an interesting commentary on the media circus surrounding "unsolved mysteries" and crime stories, from the Ellen Abbot show (think Nancy Grace) to the sleazy defense attorney Nick hires to the ever-shifting public opinion and the paparazzi perpetually parked on Nick's lawn. It even delves into gender relations in both subtle and more overt ways - the most overt being Nick's misogynistic, Alzheimer's riddled father, prone to uncoherent rants against "bitches" who have wronged him. (Note: major spoilers in the link prior).

I've come across a lot of people who really did not like the ending of Gone Girl, which I won't spoil. I'll depart from popular opinion here. I can't say I "enjoyed" the novel's ending (or in some ways, lack of an ending). But in some ways it seemed perfectly fitting to the story that the ending would be as ominous, foreboding, and uncertain as the beginning. After all, Gone Girl is a story that sticks in your mind long after it is "finished."


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Goodreads Book Review: The Giver

The Giver by Lois Lowry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I figure that now that the film version of The Giver is almost out, it's time for me to write a review of the book. I'm going to try to keep this about just the book - if I see the movie I'm going to try to evaluate that on it's own standing even though I'm not entirely pleased with some of the choices they've apparently made with it. I'm also going to just review The Giver on its own as a novel, even though it's the first in a four-book series. I finally did get around to reading the other books in the series, and though they take things in an interesting direction and provide some closure that The Giver on its own lacks, in some ways I prefer The Giver as its own independent story.

I read this book when I was 13, and it is one of the books or maybe the book from childhood that has made the most lasting impression on me. It's just such a simply written, yet powerful story, written at a level suitable for middle schoolers but with themes much more mature than the average young adult novel.

In drawing the reader into protagonist Jonas' world, Lois Lowry shows that sometimes the simplest writing is the most evocative. Jonas is a twelve-year-old boy, and in some ways he seems like a typical preteen boy, but in the community he lives in, everything is perfect and orderly. There is no war, hardship, or poverty, and everyone knows their place. Their future is set out by the community leaders.

But as the novel opens prior to the ceremony where the "Twelves" will receive their vocational assignments, Jonas is feeling apprehensive. And when he receives the role of "The Receiver" to be trained under the wise, aged "Giver," his perfect world is turned upside down.

Jonas's role as the Receiver is to receive memories from "the time before." Every time he meets with the Giver, he receives a memory of something his community no longer has. These memories start out simple - pets, Christmas, sledding - and gradually become more poignant and emotional as Jonas experiences everything from familial love to loss, fear, and pain. As he continues with the Giver, Jonas begins to question all that he has accepted about his community and his life.

I think the reason The Giver works so well is that the reader experiences everything with Jonas. So when Jonas first begins to see flickers of color (yes, all color was stricken from the community in the name of sameness) we imagine what it would be like not to know the color red. From little details that we take for granted to powerful emotions, Lowry makes us question what we would really trade away in search of a "perfect" world.

Yes, some things about Jonas's community don't "make sense." I'm not entirely clear how they have removed color from the community, how memories are transmitted from the Giver to Jonas, etc. And then there are the pills that every community resident takes when they experience their first "stirrings" (sexual urges). I had thought these pills were strictly for controlling or suppressing their sexuality, but both The Giver and later books in the series suggest that they prevent people from forming deep attachments or emotions at all. So why are they not taken until puberty, to prevent children from bonding with the people who raise them but can't be really called "parents"?

However. I've never been one to need dystopian literature to be realistic, and in the case of The Giver adds to the sense of mystery. It is the same for the purposefully up-in-the-air ending. Later books in the series do provide closure as to what happens to Jonas and to Gabriel, the baby Jonas's father had been caring for. However, I almost prefer the way The Giver ends on a note of mystery and wonder.

5 stars for being one of the most powerful books of my childhood/adolescence.


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Perfectionism, Creativity, Crafting, & Bottlecap Magnets

Perfectionism is definitely something I can relate to.While it can get me doing things merely in an effort to impress others, my style of perfectionism is more likely to relentlessly compare myself to others, determine I don't "add" up, and then decide something is not worth the effort because I can't do it as well as so many others. (Graduate school was an especially tough time for me regarding this, by the way). Obviously, this is a very limiting habit to have, and I often find it competing with my desire to create. Perfectionism in fact feels to me like the enemy of creativity, of taking risk, trying new things, or doing things from the sheer love of doing them rather than out of a need for illusive perfection.

So I'm trying to feed my inner creativity and starve my perfectionism. As noted previously, I like to dabble in crafts. I'm not a craft blogger and don't intend to be. For one thing, my camera phone and photography skills are a little lacking. However, I enjoy making things, and since I have a blog AND a Pinterest account, I can share them with people just to share something that makes me happy, not in an effort to compete. Yeah, there are so many people out there so much "better" at crafting than me, but that's ok.

My current/ongoing project is bottle cap magnets, pictured below.

You may have seen various bottle cap products in stores, from magnets to key chains. You can decorate the front or the back of bottle caps (from old beer or old-fashioned soda bottles, yay for recycling!) with anything from photos to rhinestones to scrapbook paper.

The ones I make are pretty simplistic, actually, and I double the recycling effect by finding pictures that appeal to me from old magazines. You can even use old junk mail images. Then I just cut the image into a circle the size of the bottle cap, fold it slightly around the inside of the bottle cap and glue it. Craft stores carry pre-cut magnets with adhesive on one side, so I just stick that on the back and stick the magnet on the fridge. Simple, cheap, and fun!

Some of mine are a bit messier looking because I used too much glue, making the paper bubble up. For a smoother,  more professional effect, you can buy Epoxy Dots and stick them on top of your image. Or make them the cheap and easy way, like I do. :). Either way, these magnets are a fun way to personalize your fridge, and they make great gifts too.

bottle cap magnets

 

In Pursuit of Health: Weight Vs. Total Fitness

This post brought to you by a friend of mine's wanting to lose weight even though she's at a perfectly healthy BMI. Granted, her choices are her choices, and she seems in control enough and to have a healthy enough perspective to not push any weight loss too far. However, when someone thinner than me (for the record, at around 140 pounds and 5 foot 1, I've just crossed into that "overweight" category) is dissatisfied with their body to the point of wanting to diet...I can't help but cringe inside.

I cringe because I feel that somehow we've lost sight of the true goal of health and have put the focus all on a number on a scale, which is a rather lacking (or at least limited) measure of health imo. I cringe because as a woman I see this obsessive focus on pursuit of the "ideal body" all around me. The distorted images are all around in the media, and while I think most people know that these ideals are 1) not attainable to most and 2) not even necessarily a reflection of a model's reality, we've still bought into the lie that a healthy body has to look a certain way.

There's something almost subversive about declaring acceptance for one's body as it is. If a woman (especially, but men can struggle with this too) says that, people respond like she is "letting herself go" and doesn't care about her health. But paradoxically, if we treat our bodies right, we will arrive at the weight that's healthy for us. And care for our bodies begins first with acceptance. I love the approach of Health at Any Size - the pursuit of health rather than thinness. I'd also like to give a shout-out to dietician Rebecca Scritchfield (a fellow JHU MA in Communications alum!) for embracing these ideals.

It is easier said than done. I admittedly would be happy to lose weight myself. It's not something I'm actively striving for, however. That is partially because when I do strive to lose weight, it doesn't happen, but when I don't (like suffering a mild depressive bought and losing my appetite) that's when I end up losing the pounds. I can't help but think that's not healthy. But yes, I would like flatter abs, a more toned back, and to be "safely" within the "normal" BMI again (all my weight goes to my mid-section, and of course my chest.

But what I am trying to strive for is health - health in all forms, mental, emotional, and spiritual included. Health to me means nurturing my body instead of trying to mold it into something it's not. It means being active and moving my body as it was meant to move. It means feeding it when it's hungry (no deprivation diets!) and fueling it with healthy, nurturing things. It means allowing myself treats, but recognizing that some of the stuff I put in my body is just empty, useless calories - I'm looking at you, Mountain Dew I gulped on an empty stomach for a quick caffeine fix the other day. It means getting adequate rest, allowing myself down time when I need it - not pushing myself beyond my limits in an effort to "master" my body. And when I treat my body right, I feel better, and, I believe, look better.

It goes against American ideals to say this, but so much about our bodies isn't really in our control anyway. I'm short and busty - this is the body I was given. While I can tone through fitness or diet to try to bring down my weight, that only goes so far. So I choose to embrace the body I was given, to nurture it into the fullness of health.

Goodreads Review: The Silver Linings Playbook

The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So Ken does movie reviews and I do the reviews of books-turned-to-movies...

I wanted to see the enormously popular film version of The Silver Linings Playbook starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, but of course never got around to it. But as soon as I discovered it was a book before it was a film, I put the novel on my reading list. I still haven't gotten around to seeing the movie, but the book is every bit as sweet and quirky as the movie trailers seemed. With his debut novel, Matthew Quick has created what is at one part love story, one part compassionate take on mental illness, one part look at the passions of Philadelphia Eagles fans, and all parts addictively readable story about the silver linings that aren't the ones we are expecting.

The novel's main strength is its narration, as it gets inside the head of a mentally unstable but endearingly optimistic and goodhearted man. When The Silver Linings Playbook begins, narrator Pat Peoples has just returned to his parents' house in New Jersey upon his release from what he calls "the bad place," a Baltimore mental institution. In the film, Pat's diagnosis is bipolar disorder, but the novel does not give Pat a diagnosis. It is obvious, however, that he is quite out of touch with reality, to the point of having no sense of how long he spent in the institution. Despite this and his tendency to outbursts of violence upon hearing Kenny G music, Pat is determined to better himself, and the trip Quick gives the reader inside this character's psyche is compassionate and respectful, humorous and at times hilarious without being condescending.

As the novel's title suggests, Pat is devoted to a philosophy of silver linings and unfettered optimism. Headless of what everyone around him says, his one goal upon returning home is reunion with his estranged wife, Nikki. But then he meets Tiffany, a recently widowed woman with demons of her own, who is set on changing Pat's life in ways he hadn't anticipated.

In his effort to woo back English teacher Nikki, Pat begins reading classic literature, from The Great Gatsby to The Scarlet Letter to The Bell Jar, and his interpretation of these novels according to his silver linings philosophy is in my mind a brilliant way for Quick to establish Pat's worldview and his mental state.

While we don't receive the same opportunity to live inside the heads of the other characters, they are equally easy to root for, or at times to want to scream at. Tiffany is sullen and foul-mouthed and yet obviously sensitive and vulnerable as well. Pat's mom is patient, strong, and compassionate, while his dad is temperamental and distant and bases his moods and treatment of his loved ones upon how the Eagles are doing. I even developed a strong picture of Nikki in my head through Pat's detailed stories and descriptions. Some characters, like Pat's therapist Cliff, who also happens to be an Eagles fan and his "black friend" Danny, seem less well-rounded and believable, but they too are memorable.

Non-football fans may not be interested in the large number of scenes in the novel dealing with the Philadelphia Eagles, but this serves to ground the book in time and place and makes Pat's character (although maybe not his over-the-top father's) seem more believable. The Eagles, win or lose, play as much of a role in Pat's life outside the mental institution as Tiffany does and as Nikki did in his old life.

As the novel unfolds, Pat slowly comes to grips with what brought him to the mental institution and with the new reality of his. While his story does not have the happy ending he was expecting, reunion with Nikki, it nevertheless affirms love and silver linings. It is not the conventional happy-ending-fairy-tale type story, but that's what makes The Silver Linings Playbook so refreshing, believable, and true.

I would rank the novel 4.5 out of 5 stars, but since Goodreads doesn't allow for half-stars, 4 stars it is.

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Father's Day Gift: Painted Ceramic Mushroom

I have realized that my need for creativity needs many more outlets, or rather, it needs to be put into practice more. Michael's Crafts (or really any craft store, Michael's just happens to be my most frequented) is a goldmine for the kind of crafty projects I wish I were doing more of. Holidays of all kinds, however, bring out my inner crafty girl for many reasons, the main one being that handmade gifts are usually both more affordable and more fun than their store-bought counterparts.

And so I made this painted ceramic mushroom garden thingamajig for a Fathers' Day gift. Perfect for my gardening lover dad, perfect for my budget and my need to be creative/crafty.

These whimsical ceramic mushrooms, along with owls, gnomes, and the like, are popping up wherever garden gifts and supplies are sold, but they are often upwards of $20, whereas a plain ceramic mushroom at Michael's was only $3.99. I already had acrylic paints, so I used those to paint mine. It's easy to customize with any colors/patterns you like.

That's really all you need to make a gift that is fun, whimsical, creative and personal for any garden/decorating lover in your life.

Dollar Stores Rule...What to Buy

Awhile ago, my friend Athena wrote a facebook note about what she buys and does not buy at the dollar store. As someone on a budget, dollar stores are awesome, and so I thought I'd write my own list of what's worth buying there. This is part my own opinion based on personal experience and part based on general value: what my seem like a great deal may not be if you consider price vs. amount. Finally, this is based on my experiences at Dollar Tree - unlike some "dollar stores" which are really just discount stores, everything at Dollar Tree really is just $1.

So, what to buy? As most people on a budget know, some things it's good to be cheap on, while some things a better-quality or value product is worth the splurge. Overall, though, I've found Dollar Tree to be great for basic household and toiletry items. Here's what I buy, and what I pass on:

Good Buys

Household Goods

Their dish liquids and detergents and laundry detergents have worked well for me, and are great cost savers when compared to purchasing them at a big box store or grocery store. I haven't used any of their other cleaning supplies, and depending on the product, it might be worth spending more elsewhere. 

Athena disagreed with me here, saying that she thought Dollar Tree paper towels were too flimsy, but they have suited my needs, as have zip-lock plastic bags. 

I've never bought their Tupperware, but it seems to be a good value. 

So do many of their home organization goods. I have two mesh laundry bags I bought a few months ago. Admittedly, one has been accumulating holes at the top, but that's probably due to me overfilling it. 

Also, lint rollers. And plastic hangers.

Office Supplies

I definitely choose the dollar store over Staples and the like for basic office supplies like pens/pencils, envelopes, etc.  Any teachers out there who need to purchase classroom supplies out of their own pocket? Dollar Store to the rescue.

Toiletries

Toothbrushes are definitely a thing to buy at the dollar store! Dollar Tree carries toothbrushes from brands like Colgate, and less familiar brands in packs of two or three. 

My hairbrush is also from the dollar store - don't knock it.

Dental floss, mouthwash, and hand soap are also good buys.

Gifts

The dollar store can be a decent place for gifts, depending on your budget, the recipient, and the occasion. Or for party favors - normally I would spend a bit more on a "nicer" gift, but a mug from the dollar store for that co-worker you feel obligated to get a Christmas gift for? Why not? Also, greeting cards are a great bargain at the dollar store - compare a card for $1 to a $3.99 Hallmark card. At Christmas they have boxes of cards as well.

Pass On:

Most Food Items 

My dad once bought a bag of shredded "cheese" from the Dollar Tree. "Cheese" is in quotes because the cheese was so processed as to be less "cheese" than "cheese product", and came complete with a warning that "this product is not intended to melt."

So, yeah, the Dollar Tree does have a large freezer section and a smaller refrigerated section, as well as non-perishable foods, but it's mostly processed crap. I do buy their Arizona Iced Teas, as well as a few other beverages, and their frozen garlic bread isn't all bad. They've got bargains on brand name candy, too. Other than that, though? Pass.

Most Pet Items

Pet toys are fine, and their cat food I've purchased in a pinch, but their pet food is limited and not great quality or value.

Cosmetics, Bath & Body, and Feminine Care, Depending on Personal Preferences

There are some cosmetic and bath and body products I've liked from the dollar store. Nail polish remover? Fine. Their mascara and chap stick suit me fine, too. But their selection of other cosmetics is limited, and, in my experience, not great (tried their nail polish once, but I'd much sooner purchase a moderately-priced brand like Revlon over dollar store stuff).

I don't buy their shampoos either. I usually stick with my $4.00 or so Herbal Essences, but even if I didn't, there are other better deals on shampoo/conditioner out there. For instance, Dollar Tree carries V05, but I found the comparable Suave for only 89 cents a bottle at Target.

Any males reading this who find this TMI or irrelevant, you can skip this paragraph...but I have purchased tampons and pads at the dollar store. However, the boxes are small and they only carry store brands. I think our lady parts are worth more of a splurge.

I do like some of the dollar store body washes and lotions, however.

I would write on what to buy at thrift stores, but I'll buy pretty much anything, minus underwear or swimwear (eww) there.