Audiobook Review: The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo

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Rating: 3 out of 5

To say that I like memoirs by female comedians is an understatement. I’ve listened to all the most popular audiobooks, including those by Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Samantha Bee, Sarah Silverman, Mindy Kaling, and Chelsea Handler.

So color me surprised that it took me eight months to get around to Amy Schumer’s The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo.

I’ve been a fan of Schumer’s stand-up and have enjoyed watching clips from her show, so I was confident that I’d enjoy this book.

Memoirs are successful when they’re relatable, when they illustrate the arc from starving artist to established fame with a sense of groundedness. After all, nobody wants to read the memoir of a spoiled brat who had everything handed to her and has absolutely no understanding of how the average person lives. (Exhibit A: Ivanka Trump).

Amy is certainly no Ivanka. In fact, it was interesting to hear that her parents accumulated their wealth from their luxury baby furniture business but lost it all to the point where she recalls her dad getting his sportscar repossessed when she was young.

This riches-to-rags-to-riches story brands Schumer as an underdog who had to crawl out of her family’s financial ashes and climb her way to the top. And after listening to all her anecdotes about bombing in comedy clubs and obsessively perfecting her jokes, you can tell how hard she works.

You never get the sense that she takes her fame for granted. For example, after working in the service industry for years, she makes a point to tip extremely well. She supports causes that matter to her and came to the aid of those affected by the 2015 shooting at a film screening of her movie Trainwreck.

If you’re under the impression that Schumer is a sex-crazed party girl with tons of stories about boozing and one night stands, then you’ll be disappointed with this book. Unlike Chelsea Handler, Schumer spends a great deal distancing herself from her onscreen persona and prefers to discuss more serious topics.

Some of these stories can be told with humor, like her penchant for shoplifting that led to her grand larceny arrest at age 21. But others are uncomfortable and downright depressing.

I appreciated hearing her open up about her father’s alcoholism and multiple sclerosis, and my heart broke for her after learning that her first sexual experience was being raped by a former boyfriend.

These stories make her real, but they’re not the superficial “Stars, They’re Just Like Us!” tabloid tales you might expect to read. If you’re looking for a laugh-out-loud fest, you’re better off sticking to Schumer’s stand-up.

With that in mind, I’d recommend this book, because I learned a ton about a woman who seems like a genuine, kind-hearted person who’s passionate about her craft. She’s also an unapologetic feminist who has faced countless criticisms about her body—including the tramp stamp that gave the book its title—and refuses to be anyone other than herself.

The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo doesn’t quite enter the echelon of comedic memoirs that made me laugh until I cried, but it sends an empowering message to readers, and to women especially.

To Ms. Schumer: Get it, girl. Wishing you all the best!

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Book Review: The Book of Etta

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Rating: 5 out of 5

Last year I dubbed Meg Elison’s The Book of the Unnamed Midwife as my favorite read of 2016, so it’s no surprise that I was super psyched to read its sequel. The second novel in The Road to Nowhere series takes place a century after the time of the original midwife, and it was a thrill to experience how this world has changed.

The book features Etta, who feels stifled by the glorification of women after the plague decimated most of the female population. In a dystopic world where women are scarce, the residents of the city called Nowhere have decided that the only roles worth valuing are mothers and midwives. After all, keeping the human race from going extinct is a top priority.

Etta prefers to contribute to society in a different way, by raiding nearby cities for much-needed supplies and saving women and children from sex slavery. This has always been a man’s job, but Etta has always felt more comfortable as Eddy, her identity on the road.

Initially, Etta considers Eddy as more of a means of survival, but as their journey merges, the gender binary fades away. Elison deftly portrays the struggle of a black trans man who has experienced sexual trauma and must balance his feminine and masculine natures within societies that define these natures differently.

It was so interesting to compare Eddy to the original midwife, because although their strengths are similar, they are derived from unique ideologies. Eddy has a great heart, but his rigid dichotomy of good vs. evil is often at odds in situations with plenty of grey area. These ethical dilemmas raise several thoughtful questions, like whether negotiating with sex slavers is a form of enablement or protection.

And if you’re like me who has little experience with trans literary characters (recommendations are welcome!), this novel is inclusive without being heavy-handed. In fact, it’s refreshing that Eddy himself does not have all the answers to gender identity and even has a poor knee-jerk reaction when a trans female love interest comes out to him. The reader’s mind widens as Eddy’s does, making him a wonderfully flawed, relatable protagonist.

I consider Meg Elison a good colleague and friend of mine, so I may be biased when I say that her novel has everything you could want in a post-apocalyptic tale: diverse, multi-dimensional characters, amazing world-building and a level of suspense that rises to an explosive climax.

When Eddy marches on Estiel (formerly St. Louis) to take on the Lion, the tyrannical leader of the sex slavers who keeps lions and tigers as pets, in order to save his loved ones, I couldn’t read fast enough. Those last 100 pages flew by, and I literally gasped at every twist and turn.

All in all, this is a phenomenal sequel that lives up to its predecessor, and I cannot wait for the next installment. I’m calling it now — get on this bandwagon immediately, because I imagine that The Road to Nowhere will lead to somewhere special.

Book Review: My Not So Perfect Life

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Rating: 5 out of 5

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Every time I read another Sophie Kinsella novel, I think that she can’t possibly get any better, and then she simply does. And what’s even more amazing than her writing is the journey it took to hone her craft.

Before she was the pseudonymous author of the bestselling Shopaholic series, she was known as Madeleine Wickham.

If that name doesn’t ring any bells, that’s probably for the best. Wickham is the writer of 40 Love, one of the lowest rated novels on Goodreads.

But over 20 years after the publication of that flop, Kinsella is now considered the queen of chick lit. Her latest novel My Not So Perfect Life tells the story of Katie Brenner, a young marketing professional from the English countryside just trying to make it in London and live up to her Instagram feed.

While her social media posts feature fancy meals and luxe locations, her real life is much bleaker with an entry-level salary, tiny apartment, and eccentric roommates. And just when she thinks she might be getting a big break at work, she’s fired by her uber-posh boss who can’t even remember her name.

Tucking her tail between her legs, she returns to her hometown to help her family launch a glamping resort and nurse her bruised ego. That is, until Demeter books a reservation and doesn’t recognize her own staff in farmgirl clothes. What’s a burned employee to do?

What starts off as a juicy revenge tale morphs into something with much more substance. There are humor and romance, of course, but there’s also insightful commentary on  Millennial social issues, like the fear of missing out and the urge to present your ideal self online.

As someone who left a rural town to navigate a marketing career in the big city, this book was especially relatable. If you’ve ever been frustrated by professional setbacks or envious of seemingly more successful colleagues, this story is a great reminder that everyone is struggling in some way. As the cliche goes, don’t compare your behind-the-scenes to someone else’s highlight reel!

I highly recommend My Not So Perfect Life as the oh-so-perfect lighthearted read. If you love it and want to check out more of Sophie Kinsella’s hits, read my reviews of Wedding Night and I’ve Got Your Number.

Book Review: Red Rising

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15839976Rating: 2 out of 5

It saddens me when a close friend of mine recommends a book to me, and I can’t enjoy it no matter how hard I try. And believe me, I tried.

In this case, I was not only given Red Rising as a Christmas gift, but also the entire dystopian trilogy by Pierce Brown, and let’s just say that I’m not looking forward to the sequels.

As a fan of dystopia and science fiction, I was optimistic about this novel at first, but the longer I read, the more I realized that it was a cardboard cutout of The Hunger Games on Mars.

(Not that the setting even mattered. Other than a few references to gravity, this story was just another tired war tale.)

If eye-rolling was a sport, I’d win an Olympic medal reading this drivel. It’s difficult to tally all my complaints about Red Rising, so instead of trying to create full paragraphs around them, let me just list the reasons why I couldn’t stand this novel.

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  • A trite caste system based on colors, of all things. Golds are the best, Reds are angry, and Pinks are sex workers. Ho-hum, yawn.
  • Speaking of originality, all the Gold children are divided into houses based on Greco-Roman mythological figures. Because why bother with the hassles of world-building when you can just copy and paste?
  • The so-called protagonist, Darrow, is the best miner—sorry, Helldiver—there ever was. How do we know this? Don’t worry, he tells us five billion times.
  • Helldiver is just one of countless nonsense words that Brown invents to sound cool. The jargon isn’t describing anything new, so it’s yet another distraction.
  • The misogyny and homophobia in this book abound. The only way these outer space frat bros can ridicule each other is by using pejorative terms for women or gay men, because femininity is the worst of all sins apparently.
  • As for the actual female characters, they all fall into these categories: martyr, love interest, backstabber or whore. The only one who can be considered “strong” is called Mustang, because it’s better to be associated with horses than women.
  • Darrow is the absolute worst. Imagine if Ender from Ender’s Game wasn’t a bullied genius who just needed a few lessons in empathy, but rather a straight-up pompous asshole? I so wished that this book wasn’t in first-person present, because being in that narcissistic head of his made me want to blow my own brains out.

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Okay, I’m going to stop there, because although I could rant for pages, it would only make me grumpier. If I could put a positive spin on this, it’s that if a piece of utter crap like Red Rising can get published, then my writing certainly can too!

Has anyone else read Red Rising? For a bestseller with its own upcoming movie franchise, I’m curious to hear whether my opinion is unpopular or right on point among fellow book bloggers. Share your thoughts in the comments!

Book Review: The Runaway Princess

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Rating: 3 out of 5

When the world seems to be falling apart, it’s natural to attempt to run away from it all. For me, my escape takes the form of light-hearted chick-lit about outlandish situations and love that’s too good to be true.

Hester Browne’s The Runaway Princess doesn’t compare to her other novels, like The Little Lady Agency series and Honeymoon Hotel, but it’s a nice break from reality.

It tells the story of Amy Wilde, a gardener from a small town just trying to expand her business. When she meets Leo, a handsome man at a party who’s interested in her work, she considers him merely as a potential client.

She never imagined that he’d be Leopold Wolfsburg, prince of the fictional kingdom of Nirona and one of Europe’s most eligible royals. When their professional relationship turns romantic, she is quickly thrust into the spotlight.

Faced with paparazzi invading her privacy and strangers insulting her online, she becomes overwhelmed by the consequences of overnight fame. As their whirlwind romance propels her closer to the chapel, she must decide whether love is worth sacrificing her and her family’s well-being.

The premise of this novel was interesting, and I enjoyed the dynamics between Amy and Leo’s swarmy brother and conniving sister. For the most part, the secondary characters were well-developed and showed dimensionality, which is often missing from love stories.

But most importantly, I appreciated Amy’s strong sense of self and her dedication to her family, roommate and job regardless of her potential princess status. She makes sure to speak up when her boyfriend tries fixing problems by throwing money around and refuses to live as a kept woman. Amy is certainly not one to be swept off her feet, and her groundedness is downright refreshing.

However, at over 400 pages, The Runaway Princess is too long for its genre, and it drags in places. I was also annoyed that it attempted to heighten drama by unnecessarily withholding information: the reason behind the disappearance of Amy’s troubled sister, for example, wasn’t nearly shocking enough to warrant such mystery.

Although this wasn’t Browne’s best work, it succeeded in briefly distracting me from the clusterfuck of this new presidency. Let’s just say that it’s horrifying when it feels like 1984, not 2017. Make dystopias fiction again!

2016 Goal Recap: How Did I Do?

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Image: Lara Casey

Last year I learned a lot about goal setting, mostly about why it doesn’t work. This fact was difficult for me to come to terms with, considering how much of an overachiever I am. However, when you’re ambitious, it’s easy to take on so many projects and tasks that decision fatigue sets in, and you question why you’re even working toward these objectives in the first place.

In 2017, I am determined to care less about achieving arbitrary goals and more about implementing successful systems. It truly is about the journey, not the destination, because it’s your daily habits that lead to meaningful accomplishments.

If we’re just looking at how many of my 2016 goals I crossed off my list, then I only hit a 50% pass rate. More importantly, though, I realized which goals were actual priorities and which ones were added merely to fill a “top ten” list. The sad part is that the goals that really matter to me are the ones that went uncompleted. That desperately needs to change, so I am more focused than ever on the steps that it takes to reach those goals, no matter how small.

So for what it’s worth, here’s the final tally:

1. Read 20 more books: PASS

I’ve hit this quota for several years now, and it seems to work for me. I read one book per month with my book club and a handful of others in between meetups. I’ve already blogged my reading recap of 2016, and for the most part, the selection was okay. A few excellent novels, but overall a mediocre reading experience.

2. Don’t buy any new books for myself until I’ve read everything I currently own: PASS

I thought that this goal would be difficult to stick to, but I received enough books and gift cards from loved ones that I didn’t have to spend a dime on my favorite hobby last year. And although this is not an important goal to maintain, I still have half a dozen books from my Christmas present haul that will keep me entertained for a few more months.

3. Read 10 new authors: PASS

I broke out of my comfort zone last year by committing half of my reading to new authors. Some I loved (Meg Elison, Paula Hawkins), others were hit or miss (Rainbow Rowell, Neil Gaiman, Jojo Moyes), but most were, unfortunately, forgettable (Mary Norris, Anne Brontë, Gabrielle Zevin, J. Kent Messum, Charlie Jane Anders).

4. Reach 100,000 total blog views: FAIL

In 2016, I gained 15,332 more views: not an impressive amount, but about average for me. I needed to earn 22,835 views to reach a total of 100,000 since I began blogging, which was very much a stretch goal. Since I’m over 92,000 total views now, I imagine that I’ll hit 100k in 2017, but I’ll be scaling back on Book Club Babe, so losing views is a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

5. Blog at least once per week: PASS

Even after taking a month-long hiatus in November for NaNoWriMo, I was able to blog 55 times in the 52 weeks of the year. The two most popular posts in 2016 were interviews with author Meg Elison and Recycle Bookstore in San Jose, and my most popular Top Ten Tuesday post was about the characters I love, but other people don’t.

6. Original goal: Write 10,000 words of my novel per month. New goal: Write 45,000 words before 2017: FAIL

It pains me to admit that I only wrote about 5,000 words in 2016, almost all in Q3, the brief time period when I wasn’t searching for or adjusting to a new job, or preparing to move into a new place. I’ve quickly learned that 10,000 words per month is too ambitious, and I’m better off slowly working my way up to that goal. This year I’m committing to the very small baby step of 100 words per day instead, because enacting a regular writing habit is the key to future success.

7. Complete the first draft of the manuscript of my novel: FAIL

Obviously, I didn’t complete my manuscript in 2016, so I’m not going to continue beating myself up for failing this goal. On the axis of productivity, writing a novel falls under the “important, but not urgent” category and always gets pushed aside for tasks that are “urgent and important” like work deadlines, or worse, activities like checking social media that are “neither urgent nor important.” I will certainly make a better attempt at prioritizing my personal goals this year.

8. Visit 5 new bookstores: FAIL

You can tell that towards the end of this list is where my goals become less meaningful. Visiting new bookstores is fun, but not life-changing by any means. I made a trek to two local bookstores and one in Rome during my spring vacation, so I’m appreciative of the memories I made. It’s always something I try to do when traveling, so I’m sure that I’ll continue doing so without needing to add extra pressure on myself with an arbitrary quantity.

9. Brush up on my Latin (goal abandoned): FAIL

Why I even bothered with this goal is beyond me, but I don’t have the heart to discard my old Latin textbooks from college. I will most likely never study this language again, but I enjoyed the two years that I did tremendously. Cogito ergo sum, but in this case, I did not think realistically about this goal and abandoned it without a hint of guilt.

10. Learn conversational Greek and Italian: PASS…ish

To better navigate through my two-week adventure to Greece and Italy last year, I tried picking up the native languages. After using Duolingo for a few months, the app deemed me about 35% fluent in Italian, but there are few online resources that teach Greek, so I just taught myself a few basic phrases. Not that any of this training really mattered, since both countries are so accustomed to American tourists that they prefer to speak to you in English anyway to make everything easier.

2016 GOAL RECAP: Passed 5 goals; failed 5 goals (50% success rate)

Do I consider 2016 a successful year? Not in the traditional sense of reaching the goals that I set, but definitely from a self-awareness standpoint. I’m grateful for the experience, because it taught me that I need to try things differently this year if I want to see a dramatic transformation. 2017 will be the year of system-setting, not goal-setting: progress is made by incrementally improving every day, so I’m committing to baby steps, not giant leaps for mankind.

This means that I will sadly be devoting less time to this blog. I will still check in to post my book reviews but mostly as maintenance rather than engagement in the book blogging community. I never intended to make money with Book Club Babe, but its stagnant growth and lack of ROI is becoming a larger opportunity cost than the pleasure I gain from blogging.

I love my followers so much and am thankful for their support.I’ll always enjoy book-blogging, but it’s about time that I publish a book of my own for others to blog about! One day I hope that you are as excited to read a novel of mine as I am to share my fiction with the world.

Knowing when to step back can save yourself from burnout and resentment, so I appreciate your understanding as I focus on my greatest passion. I wish you all a fantastic 2017!

Book Review: Fangirl

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Rating: 3 out of 5

What’s worse? Not liking a book that everybody loves by an author you’ve never read before, or by an author you already respect? I’ve experienced both circumstances this past year, and the latter is far more disappointing.

After falling in love with Eleanor & Park, I knew that I had to read more from beloved author Rainbow Rowell. Fangirl seemed like another slam dunk: a coming-of-age story about an introverted writer of fanfiction, something that’s right up my alley. But the more I kept reading, the more I realized: great premise, terrible execution.

Let’s the discuss the fanfiction first. I’m no stranger to the genre; in fact, I read a ton of fanfics in high school, usually about Harry Potter. Fanfiction.net currently has over 757,000 Harry Potter fanfics—by far the most popular subject—so it’s not surprising that Rowell created a Harry Potter lookalike with Simon Snow.

The problem is that Simon Snow comes off as a cheap knockoff and becomes more of a distraction. Even worse, the fanfiction excerpts between chapters do not move the plot forward whatsoever, so I found myself skipping over them. Why read about a subpar copycat when the real wizard wunderkind already exists?

I appreciated that Cath’s fanfiction of choice was slash, meaning that her characters were gay even though their original counterparts were not. The “slash” refers to the relationship or “ship” of the story. For example, I enjoy reading Harry Potter slash fanfics that ship Remus/Sirius, Harry/Draco, and Hermione/Ginny.

But let’s be honest with ourselves. I bet that the vast majority of fanfics in existence are erotic in nature, so imagine the letdown I felt knowing that Cath was a virginal ball of nerves and the only wand-waving her fanfiction featured was of the literal variety.

I would have much preferred if Fangirl catered more to adults than young adults because I am now way too old to find Cath’s anxiety about kissing a boy endearing. Everyone around her is telling her to grow up, and so was I.

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but despite being an underdog, Cath is goddamn annoying. She uses her social anxiety to justify being rude to people and acts high-and-mighty when it comes to premarital sex and even the slightest amount of underage drinking. I can empathize with the struggle to make friends in college and survive small talk, but goodness, Cath should get herself a therapist, pronto.

What also frustrated me about Cath was that this supposed do-gooder cannot complete an original writing assignment if her life depended on it. Or at the very least, her grades, since she flat-out refuses to follow instructions. She thinks that she’s such a special snowflake because she can’t create her own characters. Cry me a river. I cannot imagine that any actual writers of fanfiction think or act this way.

Rowell is a master at writing honest interactions between characters, and it’s the supporting actors that save this story from being a complete flop. Levi is an absolute gem who deserves a better love interest, and Reagan the roommate should have been the star of the show. All the members of Cath’s immediate family, from her bipolar dad and estranged mom to her hard-partying twin sister Wren, were more interesting than she was, and toward the end, I was so desperate for this book to have multiple POVs. Anything to get out of the head of a naive girl who’d rather die of malnutrition than ask where the cafeteria is located.

Eleanor & Park was a heartbreakingly beautiful tale of high school sweethearts that felt real, featuring a girl who faced trauma and was forced to mature far past her age. Compared to Eleanor, Cath is a whiny child who sees everything in black and white and avoids her problems instead of overcoming them.

Don’t get me wrong: Rainbow Rowell is an excellent author, and my irritation with Fangirl’s protagonist is proof that she can unlock an emotional response. Unfortunately, I’m guessing that my response was not the intended one. I think to save myself from future disappointment, I’ll stick to Rowell’s adult novels from now on.