The Friendship List

 The Friendship List by Susan Mallery  384 pages

Ellen Fox and Unity Leandre have been best friends “practically since birth,” but lately they have been in a rut.

Ellen hasn’t had the easiest of lives. Pregnant at seventeen, she has given up love and sex in order to raise her soon, Cooper, who is now seventeen. They do okay. All she wants out of the rest of her life is for Coop to go to college and not have a great life—for him to fly as she was never able. But one afternoon, she overhears Coop talking with a friend that he may not get to the university of his choice because his mother needs him too much.

But Coop is wrong, Besides Unity, Ellen has Keith Kinne, a coach at the same school where she teaches, and, not ideally, Coop’s coach.  I can’t say I know what sport Coop played, but I’m sure it was mentioned somewhere.  Not only are Ellen and Keith co-workers, Keith also has a seventeen year old, a daughter he is raising on his own after her mother abandons them.

Unity is Ellen’s opposite in almost everything but the rut. She lives in her late husband’s mother’s house, still filled with all his things. She even sleeps in his childhood room, unwilling and unable to let go of her grief. Emotionally she hasn’t progressed much in the three years Stuart was killed in action in Afghanistan.

One afternoon, after a fight, Unity creates “The Friendship List,”  a bucket-like list that will prove to Cooper that she can get along without him just fine. The women “make a pact to challenge each other to use the summer to make some changes.” For Ellen, it all begins with a bus trip to visit colleges with  Keith, Cooper and the rest of the senior athletes.  For Unity, it begins with meeting the great-nephew of one of ther clients and to think about boxing up Stuart’s things.

“The Friendship List” is a fun, breezy read, with a few moments of drama thrown in to make it a complete story.  For me, there were way too many sex scenes, and it seemed that sex domainted the second half of the novel.  Therefore, “The Friendship List”  receives 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Face It

Face It: A Memoir by Debbie Harry     368 pages

The life story of the lead singer of the group, Blondie, tells all or if not all a whole lot of what she has been up to.    She has had a Forest Gump existence in some ways in how she was right smack in the middle of a lot of momentous happenings with a lot of very famous people.   She was great friends with Andy Warhol and shared his Factory and Studio 54 days.    She was at Woodstock and hung out with all the cool heads of that event.   She was there at the beginning of the Punk Rock movement and still gleefully declares she is Punk forever.    She hung out with Iggy Pop, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols.   She was buds with David Bowie.   She talks about the drugs she did, and how she went out and scored heroin at night and would bring it back to the hospital and hit up her boyfriend who was in there and had such a high tolerance for drug use that she figured he needed a boost of heroin to help really take the pain away.   She talks about her film career including the surprise porno she walked into her then lover's apartment and a guy comes out with a camera with her spread eagle and she wasn't sure whether to be offended or turned on, so she didn't stop the filming.   She talks about the punk look and how folks created it from whatever they found on the street or at Goodwill.   She takes the reader on a historical and often hysterical look at a gutsy life lived voraciously with no regrets and no apologies.   So many lines are crossed and snorted I would suggest this one for adults.

Camgirl

Camgirl by Isa Mazzei   288 pages

At 23 years old, Isa Mazzei lacked any purpose or direction and was searching for an identity. But how to combine her compulsion for attention and seduction? She decided to embrace her salacious image and make some money off it, becoming a camgirl.

I read an e-galley of this book that is described as "a candid and hilarious memoir of sex work, shame, and self-discovery set in the colorful world of live-streaming camgirls."  I admit it: I was curious. It was definitely a memoir of self-discovery through stripping, playing games, and having sex on camera --- and I found it to be boring. I never warmed to the author and found this memoir to be narcissistic to the point of revulsion. I didn't see much self-growth, even as the author pushes herself to more extreme behavior. Instead, this book came off as the memoir of someone who can never get enough attention and when they feel attention on them is waning, resorts to more and more outrageous behavior. I found the way she behaved towards friends to be pretty deplorable most of the time. She treats strangers better, but only because she wants something from them.

I'm obviously not the person this book is written for (and I am not the enthusiastic reviewer from Booklist, either).  I read this book on vacation and kept reading partly out of curiosity to see if the author would experience any personal growth. Also, mainly because the hotel's wi-fi was weak, so to go back and download a fresh book was a lengthy process.

Elementary Particles

The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq, translated by Frank Wynne, 264 pages

Michel Houellebecq's novel of the twilight of Western civilization is the story of the nearly parallel lives of a pair of half-brothers, one focused on seemingly abstract scientific theories and phenomena, the other preoccupied with fantasies of sexual conquests, the former oddly detached, the latter pathetically desperate.  Each is, in related ways, less than fully human.

The Elementary Particles is a portrait of a dying world that has abandoned the intellectual and moral to pursue the physical to the exclusion of all else.  Houellebecq writes with a clinical objectivity, analyzing his characters rather than sympathizing - or inviting the reader to sympathize - with them.  Unfortunately, like Chuck Palahniuk, his attempts to shock his readers sometimes seem desperate.  The novel might be called pornographic in that it is explicit without being erotic, simultaneously obsessed with sex and pervaded by a sense of futility.  From this bleak vision, Houellebecq offers no hope of renewal or escape.

Trainspotting

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, 344 pages

Welsh's signature plotless novel is composed entirely of brief vignettes, only tenuously connected by the common characters, that are sometimes humorous, sometimes hideous, sometimes horrifying, but most often some combination of the three.  The protagonists are a circle of lowlifes, petty criminals, drug abusers, and thugs, who survive if they do not thrive in the maze of Leith's streets where even the minister is a time-serving functionary at the crematory.  The total effect is that of a three dimensional portrait of life under "the law ay the dragon".  And when you're trapped in the dragon's den with no hope of escape, why not get comfortable as the dragon eats you, from the legs up even?

Endless Love

Endless Love by Scott Spencer, 418 pages

At the age of seventeen, David burned down his girlfriend's house.  It was no accident, but deliberate arson - a cry for attention born out of desperate need.  He hoped the fire would end his month-long exile from her family and her bed, but instead it resulted in a two year stay in a mental institution and a court order barring him from contacting any member of the Butterfield family.  But the power of David's passion is such that nothing will keep him from Jade - not his psychiatrist, not his parole officer, and definitely not her father.

It is a cliche that love - or, at least, erotic love - is a form of madness, and Spencer mercilessly exposes the truth behind the cliche.  The mad love of David and Jade is truly "endless" - it smashes through all boundaries and consumes everything that is not itself, ultimately destroying two families.  Spencer somehow manages to capture the qualities that make such endless love simultaneously fascinating and terrifying.

Girls and Sex

Girls and Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape by Peggy Orenstein.  236 pages (before notes)

"With casual hookups and campus rape relentlessly in the news, parents can be forgiven for feeling anxious about their young daughters. They’re also fearful about opening up a dialog. Not Orenstein. A contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and the New York Times best-selling author of books like Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Orenstein spoke to psychologists, academics, and other experts in the field and yes, 70 young women, to offer an in-depth picture of “girls and sex” today."

I don't usually just take the summary of a book from Goodreads, but I figured that for this book, it made the most sense.    I had been reading a lot about this book, and then heard the author on a Slate podcast, so I was curious about what this book would be like.   I found it a combination of things: fascinating, scary, a bit depressing . . . and seriously, I think it should be required reading for a lot of parents.   Strike that; even if you don't have a daughter, read this book.  It was really interesting to read what some of the girls that Orenstein interviewed had to say, and there were a bunch of things that I found surprising (and sad).

This made for an interesting read, but I think the most powerful thing about the book is that it creates an opportunity for some dialogue, and hopefully, some determination towards making some positive changes.

The Guest Room

The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian.  318 pages

This story focuses on multiple viewpoints after a horrific event.   We have Richard Chapman, who has decided to host his younger brother's bachelor party, complete with Russian strippers.   We also have the viewpoint of Alexandra, one of the strippers.  Finally, there is Kristin, Richard's wife.

The bachelor party has all of the correct elements for something bad to happen: a bunch of drunk men, two young strippers, alcohol . . . and when one of the young women stabs their Russian bodyguards to death and then flees the house, life will never be the same for anyone involved.  Now, Richard's job puts him on indefinite leave and his wife finds himself unable to forgive him for the intimate moment he shared with one of the girls.   However, the person in the most danger is Alexandra, on the run trying to escape both the police and her gangster captors.

Typical of this author, I found this story to be compelling, fast-paced, and with a few twists.  I felt he really did a good job of capturing the three different voices of the characters, so that their viewpoints felt authentic.  Alexandra's story, in particular, is heartbreaking, and I appreciated that the author didn't shy away from any of the ugliness.   It is a fact that young women are trapped into sexual slavery all over the world, and it's not a pretty situation.

The front of the book has a quote from author Geraldine Brooks which says this book" Couples the urgency of a compulsively readable crime thriller with a quiet meditation on the meaning of family."  I think this is true, and that the author does a great job of making a story which is a page-turner, but then which sticks in your mind long after you've closed the book.

Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

 

Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans by Gary Krist    448 pages

I’ve always been fascinated with New Orleans. It’s such a contradictory city, with a touch of evil hovering over it, and an unsavory feel that often makes me nervous to visit. Yet, the foods that come from that part of the country are unparalleled.

Until I read Gary Krist’s nonfiction piece, Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans, I had come to believe that the debauchery of the 1960s through the ‘70s was at its height there. To me, and what I knew about the city, New Orleans made Las Vegas seem like a night out for nuns and priests.

Krist focuses on a scant thirty years, from 1890 to 1920. When I first realized that the book 448 and that 105 of them were the bibliography, notes, and index, I was a little overwhelmed, afraid that the writing would be too deep for me to sink my teeth into. However, Krist’s has written an easy-to-read narrative that held me attention from the beginning.

I enjoyed reading/learning about such characters and places as Storyville (where the city tried to coral its vice) and Tom Anderson (its unofficial mayor). There were the madams like Lulu White and Josie Arlington. There were the saloons and gambling houses. There was the immigrant population---Italians, whom too seemed to be in the same mess today’s illegals are in. I ws mesmerized by the corruption that ran rampart from the slums to the highest echelons of state government. Old Huey Long was a saint compared to some men back then; they make today’s politicians looks like humble old ladies.

I knew that New Orleans was a port-of-entry for many Italians, and they lived in slums and ghettos that reminded me of New York’s tenements. And I had learned of “Little Sicily” from a PBS special, The Italian-Americans.

There are three areas in the book that I really enjoyed reading: First, of course, are the jazzmen. Guys like Robert Charles, Buddy Bolden, Jellyroll Martin---how they created the music form that we now know as jazz, and how hard it was a musician wanted more than a gig in a whore house.

Second, was the Mafia or the Black-Hand. Krist could have delved into that more in my opinion, but still the rise and fall still fascinated me.

Third, the serial killer, The Axeman, seemed to target the Italians.  Brutality knows no generation.

Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans is an easy read that I highly recommend. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review.