A Spark of Light

A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult  369 pages

The day starts like any other at the Center, a women's reproductive health services clinic. Then, late in the morning, a desperate man bursts through the door brandishing a gun and taking the people in the clinic hostage.  Rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and starts making a plan to communicate with the gunman --- only to realized that his fifteen year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic with Hugh's sister, Bex.  These two are sharing the next hours of their lives with several other characters, including a doctor at the clinic, a woman who has gone for a follow-up diagnosis, and an anti-abortion protester who is in disguise (hoping to get evidence that the clinic is up to no good).

Picoult tells this story backwards, so you get story from the viewpoint of several characters throughout the day --- except told hour by hour, working backwards through the standoff. As each hour is rewound, you get to know the different characters and why they have come to clinic, as well as how they help each other through this horrifying experience. Picoult makes the characters feel so real that this almost felt like a nonfiction book about a real hostage situation.  I have read other books by her and appreciate that she doesn't shy away from difficult issues and also that she can find different perspectives on those issues to show in one story.

Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman

Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman by Anne Helen Petersen.    304 pages.

"You know the type: the woman who won't shut up, who's too brazen, too opinionated, too much. She's the unruly woman, and she embodies one of the most provocative and powerful forms of womanhood today. In Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud, Anne Helen Petersen uses the lens of unruliness to explore the ascension of pop culture powerhouses like Lena Dunham, Nicki Minaj, and Kim Kardashian, exploring why the public loves to love (and hate) these controversial figures. With its brisk, incisive analysis, Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud will be a conversation-starting book on what makes and breaks celebrity today."  (per Goodreads)

I admit it: I don't know who all of the women are that Petersen references.  However, that didn't stop me from finding this an interesting and thought-provoking book.  Several times, I felt like turning to someone and saying, "Yeah, how about this.  Or that. What's up with that?"  Petersen makes some good points about how women are perceived in society, but also how they are compared, picked apart, analyzed and seemingly always found to be at fault in some way.  Definitely a book that I'd recommend to readers who enjoy reading Lindy West.

Love Minus Eighty

Love Minus Eighty, by Will McIntosh, 432 pages

In the "not-that-distant" future, cryogenics has evolved in such a way that corpses can be frozen and revived, for a hefty amount of money.  For young, attractive women who died without freezing insurance, their bodies are frozen and preserved for a dating service, where wealthy men can court them and bring them back to life if they like what they see.  This is a notion that is so reprehensible, it doesn't seem that unrealistic.  There are a few intersecting story lines in this book, the main one being that of Rob, who accidentally kills a woman in a car accident and spends all of his money and time visiting her as penance.  I liked the idea of this story,which is what it originated as- a short story; but the execution fell flat for me.