Category: Non-Fiction

Memoirs, Non-Fiction, We Chit Chat

We Chit Chat – You Got Anything Stronger? by Gabrielle Union

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Leggy: I really enjoyed Gabrielle Union’s first book. I even named it one of my favorite books of the year, the year it came out and I listened to it 5 times! So I was very excited to listen to this one.

Taynement: I honestly am still always shocked when you mention that you listen to books multiple times. Like how?? But yes, I was in the same boat as you. We’re Going to Need More Wine was so good, I immediately got on the waiting list for this one.

Leggy: I was disappointed. I did not think this book was a worthy sequel. I for sure did not need more wine.

Taynement: Ha ha. Or something stronger. They were quite different. Quite frankly, this one was unnecessary.

Leggy: So unnecessary and quite repetitive. Why did she have to revisit Bring it On? She already had an essay about this movie in her first book, which was perfect? Why are we rehashing it all over again? I guess it’s because it’s her only mainstream movie.

Taynement: It’s funny you say that because that was my favorite story. Not sure what that says about the book itself but I didn’t find a lot of the stories compelling. It just didn’t grab me.

Leggy: The only story I found compelling was about her surrogate journey, the rest of the book was just not needed.

Taynement: I enjoyed the surrogate story as well, which is what she started with but it went downhill from there.

Leggy: I’m sure as a celebrity and a black one at that, Gabrielle Union has multiple stories from her life to pull from, so I don’t understand the essays she chose to publish. They didn’t make any sense to me at all. Also this entire book reads very performative. It did not seem genuine. It’s almost like she’s writing for a particular crowd.

Taynement: She unfortunately did the thing where the best part of the book is what she used as promo, so even if you didn’t read the book, you already read the best part. I have always thought Gabrielle Union was performative but she could pull it off in We’re Going to Need More Wine because it was personal stories. In this book, she suffered greatly from a lack of direction. She wasn’t sure if she wanted it to be about race or personal and even with the personal it wasn’t completely her story. I learned more about her stepdaughter in this book than her.

Leggy: Yup. It’s as if she went about collecting all the twitter hot topics and then wrote very impersonal and contrived stories about them. I was so bored. I kept waiting for her to turn the book back towards her and it just never got there. Also, do you believe her when she said the woman she is now would have left Dwyane?

Taynement: It wasn’t more so I didn’t believe her. It was more so it didn’t make sense to me? If in fact that is true, the woman you are now, can still leave? From the book and interviews she has done, I did not get the sense that she is over that whole situation.

Leggy: Exactly. That’s how I felt. So what’s stopping you from leaving now? I think she thinks the audience this book is for, would hate that she stayed. But it’s your decision, it’s your marriage. You have to own the fact that you stayed and recognize that you don’t owe anybody any explanation.

Taynement: Yep. You chose to stay so screw everybody else.

Leggy: She sounded so angry with Dwyane in this book, I was a bit taken aback by it. All while trying to convince us that she’s done the work to make the relationship stronger and better.

Taynement: When she said that people have accused her of not talking about the break baby, I looked around cos I was definitely one of them and then she described it as a trauma. I am ashamed to say I never thought about the angle that he had a baby while they were going through conception struggles. That’s deep.

Leggy: Yeah that’s insane. I can’t imagine how she felt about that.

Taynement: In summary, I don’t think this book was as sincere as the first and the sincerity is what made the first so great.

Leggy: Yes, this book was extremely performative. I wish she hadn’t written it. I did not enjoy it and it sucks because Gabrielle really is a good writer.

Taynement: It definitely was a struggle to read and I have told people I don’t recommend it.

Leggy: I wish she had written something totally different and personal.

Taynement: Last thing, if you do decide to read the book I think we should let people know that it is very heavy on racial topics.

Leggy: Very heavy. Almost all the stories veered into a commentary on race.

Taynement: And I think we need to mention because if you are mood readers like us, sometimes you have to prepare your mind to read certain topics and it’s easy to think this would be a light hearted book because of We’re Going to Need More Wine.

Leggy:If you think this is going to be a fun and compelling book like her first one, just skip it. It’s nothing like it.

Taynement: What she said.

Leggy: Go read her twitter threads instead. It’s just that but in long form.

Taynement & Leggy

african author, Nigerian Author, Non-Fiction, Self Help

We Chit Chat – Bamboozled by Jesus: How God Tricked Me into the Life of My Dreams by Yvonne Orji

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Leggy: How did we end up with this title?

Taynement: I recommended it.

Leggy: Oh right. You did. We both did it on audio too. What were your preconceived notions of the book and was it what you thought it would be?

Taynement: As usual, I had no knowledge of what the book was about. I just assumed it was a memoir. I remember wondering why anyone would care about an Yvonne Orji memoir.

Leggy: Lmaoooo. Taynement! I didn’t know what it would be about either. I wondered why someone so young in the industry was writing memoir.

Taynement: I’m not a fan of hers per se, so I honestly can’t tell you what compelled me to read this. My FOMO spirit is strong.

Leggy: I only read it because you told me too. Would never have. Also, it’s literally called “Bamboozled by Jesus” and I was still shocked when it turned out to be a religious book.

Taynement: I will say that this was a pleasant surprise for me.

Leggy: Oh really? You liked it? I’m shocked!

Taynement: Haha! I’m shocked myself.

Leggy: At first I was going to DNF it. I remember complaining that I would have never finished it if we weren’t doing a chit chat on it but then I just kinda got into it.

Taynement: Here’s the thing, I think the premise was a good one. It was a self help book wrapped in religion that was not preachy with sprinkles of hip hop culture. It worked for me.

Leggy: I didn’t love it but I certainly enjoyed following her journey. It’s quite interesting how dogged she is because there were a lot of times I feel like I would have given up. Also, she’s quite trusting in God, a lot of the things she believed in would have never worked for me. Like giving up her rent because God said so.

Taynement: So, in the beginning when she is laying the premise of the book, she said something like even if you don’t believe in the Word don’t think this book isn’t for you and I think she was wrong about that. It worked for me because I like to consider myself a person of faith, albeit a weak one, but she’s on a level of faith I aspire to be on. If you aren’t religious at all, this book will make you break out in hives because you will be ready to prove why it was something else and not God.

Leggy: Definitely. You should not read this one if you’re not religious. I believe in God but even I was turned off by the many Bible passages so I can’t imagine how this book could possibly work for someone who doesn’t believe.

Taynement: I wasn’t. I actually complained to my husband that I need to do better in reading my Bible. I really liked how she wove Bible passages into every day scenarios.

Leggy: This is how you know you’re a better Christian than me

Taynement: I should also add that sometimes a book works for you depending on your headspace and I read this book at a time where I need crazy faith like hers and it encouraged me.

Leggy: Also, I thought she must be very familiar with the Bible to be able to tell these stories in this way. It was very well done if you know the Bible and that’s why I fully consider this book a religious book. I also liked the Insecure parts of the book which is what I was actually looking forward to. I wanted to hear how she booked the role.

Taynement: I would kill to know who the actress was that peaked at audition 1. Now, my gripe with the Insecure parts – which is where she addresses what I have always wondered with her, which is her choice as a person of faith with highly sexualized scenes. Her explanation didn’t answer my questions, AT ALL. I still can’t reconcile that she had a conversation with God and He told her she’s being used to send a message? I think that’s when she used the analogy that Denzel wasn’t a murderer but played one.

Leggy: Did you read where she said she started looking forward to the sex scenes? and enjoying them? I was like what?! And God had to be like this isn’t a loophole.

Taynement: I appreciated her honesty. Ha ha. Body no be firewood.

Leggy: I really hope her faith in regards to finding a life partner comes through because I felt quite weird reading all of that. I’m hoping it all works out for her but what if God doesn’t want her to have romantic love in her life? Would it affect her faith?

Taynement: I hope her faith will carry her through if that’s not the case for her. There’s something I wondered – Based on her comedy special, I could have sworn I saw her mum and dad but in the book there was barely a mention of her dad.

Leggy: I have a feeling she didn’t want to discuss her family directly. It was obvious they just came around when she became successful. Her mum and dad are still together though.

Taynement: I just thought it was odd that she didn’t mention her dad except jointly as parents but she definitely had a lot of mom stories.

Leggy: Oh, I didn’t notice at all. Just noticed that she limited giving concrete details of her family and their reactions to her decision and just generally mentioned that they wanted her to go get a Masters and a regular job. I got the feeling she was trying to spare them the embarrassment but I can only imagine – they are Nigerian parents after all.

Taynement: I think that makes sense given it wasn’t necessarily a memoir – more like a collection of essays. She gave just enough regarding upbringing and how it contributed to her career path. Did you have a favorite story of hers?

Leggy: I really enjoyed her Insecure journey since that was what I really wanted to read about. Second best was when she was raising money to make a pilot for the first gen show she had been shopping around.

Taynement: My favorite story was the one about finding her dream house. It truly resonated with me because it was a metaphor. Overall, I’d describe this book as the book I didn’t think I needed but I did. Trust me, I’m still surprised myself. I gave it 4 stars.

Leggy: Wow. It really resonated with you. I didn’t feel that strongly about it. I gave it 2 stars.

Let us know if you have read this one or you’re planning to!

Taynement & Leggy

Non-Fiction, Self Help

Book Review: Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb

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“But part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself—to let go of the limiting stories you’ve told yourself about who you are so that you aren’t trapped by them, so you can live your life and not the story you’ve been telling yourself about your life.”

Lori Gottlieb is a therapist in LA. She starts the book by giving us a brief history of her career which did not start out in medicine. She seems to have lucky breaks aiming to be a journalist but finds herself being a TV writer most notably on Friends and ER. For those who don’t know, ER is a medical show and Gottlieb who was already feeling discontent with her job, finds herself intrigued by medicine and goes to medical school to become a therapist.

Gottlieb goes through a bad breakup that throws her for a loop and she starts seeing a therapist, Wendell who lets her view her life through a different lens. Gottlieb introduces us to four different patients of hers – an obnoxious Hollywood TV producer, a young newlywed woman with terminal cancer, a pessimistic senior citizen who has threatened suicide and a young woman who makes bad dating choices. With these four patients, Gottlieb manages to tell a story about her, us, them and life in general.

“Relationships in life don’t really end, even if you never see the person again. Every person you’ve been close to lives on somewhere inside you. Your past lovers, your parents, your friends, people both alive and dead (symbolically or literally)–all of them evoke memories, conscious or not.”

This book started out slow but I had heard so many good things about it and since I am trying to increase my non fiction reads, I was going to stick it through. Sticking it through was worth it because it was so good. I am so fascinated by the human psyche and this book fed every human psyche appetite I did. I am most in awe of how Gottlieb managed to pick the right four stories with which to tell a story, while also, in some ways wrote a memoir while giving us life nuggets along the way and giving us a window into what life as a therapist is like.

“Peace. it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. it means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”

I mentioned memoir because while the book seems like it could be about her patients, she does a good job in talking about herself – flaws and all and we get a good sense of who she is. By no means do I think she tried to make herself look like a saint or a therapist that has it all figured out. I don’t think we got it all (I have read that in her previous books, she has written about how hard it was for her to find a partner – which may give context to why she took the break up so hard) but I do think because the focus was on the patients, she gave enough and didn’t want to make herself the focal point.

“Don’t judge your feelings; notice them. Use them as your map. Don’t be afraid of the truth.”

Now what killed me the entire book was trying to figure out who the Hollywood producer, John was. I was thinking of all the clues dropped and finally gave up which led me to the other thing. If names were changed, I am sure other things were changed so they couldn’t be identified and it makes you wonder, so how much alteration was made to the stories? I also kept wondering how she was able to get permission to tell the stories. Even though this wasn’t the original story she was going to write, it still made me wonder if in some way knowing it would be for a novel, did that impact how she went through the process?

“Above all, I didn’t want to fall into the trap that Buddhists call idiot compassion – an apt phrase, given John’s worldview. In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him or her a loving truth bomb when needed.”

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I did it on audio and the narration was fantastic. It was very compelling and I felt invested in most of the characters. I took away some nuggets and life lessons from this book. I am not entirely sold on Gottlieb, given her experience in Hollywood and what I mean by that is I don’t know if we know her fully as a person. I think she knows the machine and how to engineer it and I am okay with it. If this was a true proper memoir, then maybe it would bother me. Not surprisingly, the book has been optioned for TV by Eva Longoria. If you are looking for part memoir, part self help, part sounds like fiction with good storytelling – pick this one up.

Taynement

Book Related Topics, christmas, Fiction, literary fiction, Non-Fiction, Self Help

‘Tis The Season – Gift Ideas For The Book Lovers In Your Life

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Wow! We can’t believe that Christmas is round the corner. The world is still burning all around us but the fact that we survived this hellish year, only means we deserve an actual Merry Christmas for real. In a bid to make the holiday as close to normal as possible, most of us are still planning to give gifts. Good thing gifts are socially distant conducive. As we do every year, we have curated a list to make gift giving easier for the book lover in your life.

Cookbooks

Cookbooks are great to gift because everyone loves a good cookbook even if they have no plans of cooking from it. Pictured above are some of the cookbooks we loved this year. A lot of the recipes are easy to make with ingredients you can get from your local grocery store so anyone can cook through these or just admire the pictures and dream about cooking through them!

Here are some cookbooks we recommend:

  • The Full Plate by Ayesha Curry (this is very basic and the recipes are all under 1 hour but utterly delicious!)
  • Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking by Toni Tipton-Martin
  • Modern Comfort Food by Ina Garten (she’s a household name and she knows good food!)
  • Home Style Cookery by Matty Matheson
  • The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food: A Cookbook by Marcus Samuelsson

Coffee Table Books:

Noone is visiting but because we are spending so much time at home, it’s always good to have aesthetically pleasing, conversation starters ready for when people do start coming over: There were so many coffee table books we loved this year apart from the two pictured above! Some of them are listed below:

Celebrating Blackness

With the kind of year we’ve had, this would be a great time to gift books that’ll help people learn a little more about their neighbors, and it doesn’t have to be very heavy books about race. Support and gift them books from their favorite black authors:

Fiction

Non-Fiction

  • I Don’t Want to Die Poor by Michael Arceneaux
  • Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby
  • Any Black Classic like anything from Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes. Support black art!

Reading Related Knick Knacks

  • Reading Rests
  • Reading Lights
  • Holiday Lettering Artist Pens
  • Or this amazing reading journal from Etsy! (Also, there’s always collectibles in your loved ones’ favorite books that are widely available on sites like Etsy!)
  • They love Harry Potter? Get them this amazing collectible quidditch set!
  • Love Game of Thrones? Get them this miniature Game of Thrones iron throne!
  • From stickers, to bookmarks to stationeries. Visit The Seasonal Pages and you are sure to find something at such affordable prices (Support Small Businesses!)

Good Ol’ Fiction and Non-Fiction Books

The first step to choosing a book for a loved one is finding out what they actually enjoy reading. Find out the genre they’re most comfortable in, the last thing they read from that genre that they actually loved then try to find them something in the vein. There are so many blogs (LIKE OURS!) that are great resources for reading different reviews and making a suggestion. There’s always nonfiction books on topics they’d enjoy like TV shows, books from their favorite personalities (podcasters, reality show characters, athletes etc.) and if all else fails, get a gift card to their favorite book store (Shop locally if possible!)

Self Help

As we’re getting into the new year, a lot of people might be interested in reading books that might help them achieve whatever goals they’re currently setting for the next year. Self help is always a safe go to as a gift. Just be careful what titles you gift them! LOL.

Here are some of our favorite self help books from 2020:

  • Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who’s Been There by Tara Schuster
  • Wisdom from a Humble Jellyfish: And Other Self-Care Rituals from Nature by Rani Shah (considering we’re currently living through a pandemic and are looking for different ways to protect our mental health and develop a self care routine, I highly recommend this one!)
  • Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life by Mary Kondo and Scott Sonenshein
  • Untamed by Glennon Doyle

For The Nostalgic (and possibly older reader in your life)

Book Sets of Old Favorites like Tom Clancy, Ken Follet, Mary Higgins Clark etc.

Don’t Forget Yourself!

While you are shopping for everyone else, don’t forget to get yourself something. We are all hoping for a better year and whatever you need to help you plan, read better or remind yourself of the bad ass you are, here are some journals, notebooks (if you would like to take notes/quotes from the many books on your TBR list) and inspirational cards that are great gift ideas.

Hope this was helpful and you find some great ideas on here. Let us know if you have any questions or got some inspiration from the list. Happy Holidays!!

Taynement & Leggy

Book Related Topics, Historical, Memoirs, Non-Fiction, Uncategorized

Book Review: Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

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“We are more than just our genes. We are, in some way, a product of the people who surround us—the people we’re forced to grow up with, and the people we choose to be with later.”

Don and Mimi Galvin were an average middle class family living out what seemed to them at the time, their American dream. After World War II, Don moved his family to Colorado for his work with the Air Force and there, they created their large catholic family. Mimi went on to have 12 children, the oldest born in 1945 and the youngest in 1965.

Mimi tried to create a good domestic life for their children. Encouraging structure, hard work, and an interest in sports. Their family was huge enough to be well known and also well respected in the community but behind close doors was a different story – psychological breakdowns, abuse that went unnoticed by the parents, violence between the boys. By the mid 70’s, 6 of the 10 boys had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and were in and out of hospitals.

“And so I was crushed,” Mimi said. “Because I thought I was such a good mother. I baked a cake and a pie every night. Or at least had Jell-O with whipped cream.”

The Galvins became popular in the debate of nature vs nurture in the psychiatry field concerning schizophrenia. A lot of the theories in those days, laid a lot of blame on the mothers. A lot of psychiatrists, even without a suitable peer reviewed study, were quite convinced that children developed schizophrenia because they had an overbearing mother that they tried so hard to please that they lost touch of reality. This was a very sexist theory and completely discounted the presence of fathers in the house. The theory also prevented a lot of people from going to get help early because a lot of mothers feared they were going to be blamed for their children’s condition.

“They have been warehoused where nobody can really deal with them,” he said. Here was the real reason, he thought, why big pharma could afford to be fickle about finding new drugs for schizophrenia—why decades come and go without anyone even finding new drug targets. These patients, he realized, can’t advocate for themselves.”

What went on inside the Galvin family house led to them being one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. We see the medical field move and evolve as we follow their family story over the years. As we talk about the past and present protocol for schizophrenia patients from lobotomies to institutionalization and the ebb and flow of shock therapy in mental health.

We also see the harm this sickness brought to even the healthy people in the family and the innocent bystanders too. We follow scientists as they start looking for genetic markers for schizophrenia and find a compromise to the nature/nurture debate.

“For a family, schizophrenia is, primarily, a felt experience, as if the foundation of the family is permanently tilted in the direction of the sick family member. Even if just one child has schizophrenia, everything about the internal logic of that family changes.”

This book contains a lot of abuse, so consider this a trigger warning. There’s a lot of domestic violence, physical abuse, sexual abuse (we also see abuse from a catholic priest) etc. I found this book to be very compelling and very readable. I did this one on audio which is how I do most non fiction books I read. Even though there is a lot of science in this book, I do not think it bogs down this book in anyway. I actually think the science elevates it.

I completely recommend this book and hope we as a community think about the way we treat our mentally ill. This book is also a huge indictment of the pharmacology industry for their non interest in putting money into developing more drugs to help with a wide variety of mental health illnesses because of how difficult the trial process is. I gave this one 4 stars on Goodreads.

 

Leggy

Non-Fiction

Book Review: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

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Three Women follows the stories of 3 American women and their sex lives and desires.

“We pretend to want things we don’t want so nobody can see us not getting what we need.”

Lina – A suburban wife and stay at home mom who is tired of being in a passionless marriage with a husband who refuses to kiss her on the mouth. She reconnects with an old flame on Facebook, Aidan and begins a torrid affair.

Maggie – A 16 year old who gets through the scandal of dating a 24 year old Marine, begins to have an affair with her married high school teacher, Aaron Knodel when she turns 17. Years later, when she is 23, Aaron is named Teacher of the Year and Maggie is compelled to file charges against him.

Sloane – A successful restaurant owner who is obsessed with being thin is happily married to a man who likes watching her have sex with other men. Sloane feels she is genuinely happy but wonders every now and then if she really is happy with this arrangement.

So this book is marketed as an exploration of female desire and sexuality that took Taddeo almost 8 years to write and these three women are real life women who shared their stories with her. To be honest, I did not know that till I was done with the book and was browsing the bookstore and could not find the book in the Fiction section. Instead, I found it under “Women Studies” and that took me by surprise.

In delving into interviews, it would appear that Taddeo’s goal was to explore and shine truth on where women stand with sexuality and desire via these women’s stories. Well for one, these women are all white women with two of them having a Catholic background, so how diverse is it? I think in one of the Maggie chapters there is a line that talks about how even when being a victim of sexual assault, you have to be the  right kind of victim – young, pretty and in most cases, white.

I digress, my point is this book didn’t seem analytical and I don’t think I got any insight or point of view. It really read fictional and almost salacious as the sex scenes were very well detailed. In fact, based on description all the women seemed really good at sex and good for them on that.

“If people are denied certain parts of relationships they need as children, they hunt for these parts as adults.”

The best thing about this book was the writing. Props to Taddeo for her writing style. It was fully descriptive. I liked how each character got a book end description in terms of giving us background on their childhood and their present day. I felt like I understood each character regardless of whatever non traditional actions they took because Taddeo fully immersed us in their way of thinking. Each character seemed to be so clear on their exact thoughts and feelings and it was enjoyable reading through.

“This takes the air from her but then he approaches. The problem, she’s starting to understand, is that a man will never let you fall completely into hell. He will scoop you up right before you drop the final inch so that you cannot blame him for sending you there. He keeps you in a diner like purgatory instead, waiting and hoping and taking orders.”

Lina was the character I found myself most annoyed with. I mean yay for getting her groove back with Aidan but Aidan was such a jerk. The quote above described their relationship, and she gave him so much control, it was infuriating! It was so uncomfortable reading how desperate she was for his affection and attention and knowing he knew how desperate she was.

“The main problem for Maggie, which several bystanders observe, is that she is too aggressive. Victims aren’t supposed to be snarly. She is crying, but not torrentially, not as if her vagina were brutalized. She is not crying appropriately.”

I found Maggie’s story the most compelling and her story was probably the most common. It was a reminder that we tend to think teenagers should know better but it’s easy to seek affection any way you can get it especially from someone older who has picked out and groomed their prey.

“One inheritance of living under the male gaze for centuries is that heterosexual women often look at other women the way a man would.”

While Sloane seemed very into inviting other people in their bed, she seemed to be at war with herself on whether it was what she really wanted or what her husband wanted. Her background inferred this was of her own volition but as we get to learn about her past, it’s hard as a reader to understand what her head space was.

“Women shouldn’t judge each others lives, if we haven’t been through one another’s fires.”

Overall, I enjoyed this book and I went through it pretty quickly. I think if you go into it expecting a female empowerment, social experiment diving deep into women’s heads, you will be disappointed. But if you just go into it thinking of it as a fictional read and letting yourself lean into the characters and their stories, you’ll enjoy it more.

Taynement

Memoirs, Non-Fiction

Book Review: Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover and Me by Adrienne Brodeur

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Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me

“Deception takes commitment, vigilance, and a very good memory. To keep the truth buried, you must tend to it. For years and years, my job was to pile on sand – fistfuls, shovelfuls, bucketfuls, whatever the moment necessitated – in an effort to keep my mother’s secret buried.”

On a hot summer night when the author was 14, her mother (Malabar) woke her up to inform her that her husband’s best friend had just kissed her. She wasn’t sad about the fact, she was happy and giddy and demanded happiness from her daughter too. From that summer onwards, Brodeur became a very willing participant to her mother’s lies, betrayal and affair that spanned more than a decade, orchestrating avenues for her mother to cheat on her husband with his best friend.

In Wild Game, Brodeur reflects upon the very disjointed and convoluted relationship with her mother, Malabar. Our mothers leave an indelible mark on us including fingerprints of their own shortcomings and it’s left to us to either break the chain or continue in the cycle.

“I knew only what pleased my mother; I didn’t have a moral compass. It would be years before I understood the forces that shaped who she was and who I became and recognized the hurt that we both caused.”

I found this book to be an easy and short read. It is less than 300 pages and reads like fiction. I found the relationship between the author and her mother very compelling. Brodeur’s personal life suffers enormously because she spends most of her young life lying for her mother and to everyone around her who cared about her. Her mother would confide in her the most disturbing details of her affair and I just found that a fascinating thing for an adult woman to do to a girl who was barely a teenager. I also found this detail indicting of every adult who knew Brodeur. They basically played a huge part in her mother’s affairs and never called it out for how inappropriate it was.

“Don’t ever forget that you and I are two halves of one whole.”

I found Malabar fascinating. I was not wooed by her charm though and found it confusing that anyone would ever find her charming, I just thought she was very manipulative. It was obvious that she loved nobody but herself and put her own needs above everyone else’s. She was a classic narcissistic person. She dangled her love as a prize her daughter would win for helping her lie her way through life. It was also surprising to me how long her daughter put up with her antics. At 14, I felt sympathy for her but at 26? I was simply over it.

“‘Tell me what it’s like,’ I said, even though we’d had this conversation before and I’d witnessed firsthand how the volatile forces of passion and infidelity had give my mother exuberance. I just loved to hear her talk about it.” 

Ultimately, I felt very detached reading this book. Even though I was appalled at the level of involvement this 14 year old had in this affair and the unfairness of it all, it just felt like I was watching a soap opera. I did not feel an emotional connection to this book at all. I found it all very shallow. Summers in Cape Cod, living in mansions, private schools, Ivy league schools. I felt like I was reading about the life of the rich and the famous. Everything ultimately came off as shallow. I just didn’t consider this to be a memorable memoir, I think you need more than a messed up rich and published mother to create one. I gave this book a 3 star rating on good reads.

 

Leggy

 

Non-Fiction, We Chit Chat

My Day At The 2018 National Book Festival

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Warning: Lengthy and photo heavy post

I am not from the area so I had never heard of this awesome event. A friend mentioned it to me two days before and I knew I had to make my way to it. It had an impressive and robust line up and best of all, it was free!

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It is basically a day long event, held every year in DC, from 8am – 7.30pm that’s all about books. It’s broken out into many different sections by genre such as Teens, Fiction, Science Fiction, Poetry and many more. There are different authors lined up to speak in sessions where they talk about themselves, their book, read excerpts and answer questions from the audience.

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The convention center is so huge that getting from one end to the other was a job in itself. The event does have a substantial number of volunteers who were very helpful in navigating me around. I also downloaded the event app to get alerts on any changes (which happened as Amy Tan subbed for Madeline Albright and I got the alert too late and didn’t make it in to see her) but maps were on hand and signs everywhere.

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My first stop was to see Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage (you can read our review here) and she was hands down the best person I saw that day. The event made me realize that just because you are a writer does not mean you are an eloquent speaker but this does not apply to Jones. She was fantastic and captivated the room and even people who had not read the book were eager to. She shared her struggles in finding an audience and how her life legit changed within a year.

I went up to ask a question and asked if she thought Celestial and Roy would have made it in marriage if he had never gone to jail, she said “who knows? But I think so” but I think she misunderstood my question as she went on to answer how it’s much harder to succeed at any thing being black so having the stigma of a jail sentence would probably have made it harder. I wasn’t going to be the one to correct her in a room full of hundreds.

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Next, I went into the Understanding Our World section as I knew no author in that area. I wandered into Sujatha Gidla’s session. She spoke on her book which is based on the caste system in India and living life as an “Untouchable”. It was an underwhelming session. Her excerpt was so long and she isn’t the best reader and kept stumbling over words. Overall, I left the room with no interest in reading her book, even though it was an interesting subject.

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Roxane Gay looks very uninterested but she was actually a bit funny. Can I also mention every session had an ALS rep signing for people hard of hearing. So cool.

I don’t think I have ever read a graphic novel or comic in my life but I headed over to that section as Roxane Gay was in session and it was about her Black Panther strip. Roxane was herself and as expected an outspoken advocate for black people, women, non size zero and worked that into most of her answers. I was however interested in a comic she said she is working on that features 3 generations of women who become thieves.

I then wandered around to the kids sections and there was a cool parade of states where states had their own booths and kids were given a map and they could go from booth to booth to get their maps stamped.

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View from the top for the passport of states

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I thought New Mexico had a cool aesthetic

 

If you have been reading this blog you know that I do not buy books as mentioned here so I had no business being at the book signings but I snuck in to take some pics.

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Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko

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Amy Tan best known for Joyluck Club

I was really looking forward to seeing Celeste Ng as I have just read Little Fires Everywhere which I absolutely loved (here). The room was packed so I didn’t get a good seat like the other ones and she seemed nice but she wasn’t a really captivating speaker. My friend wasn’t convinced to read her book.

Her session was moderated by Rumaan Alam, author of Rich and Pretty (which I didn’t think was a very good book, seemed like a man imagining how women operate) and although her book centered around race and was expected it took over a huge portion of the conversation which was good and bad because Alam did say he didn’t want to make her reductive to just race but proceeded to do just that. I did like a line she said where she said if there is anything she is an advocate of, she is an advocate of empathy.

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Overall, although long, I think it was well worth it. I like how inclusive the event was and when I say inclusive, I mean in all ways. It warmed my heart to see kids and their parents, just happy to be around books and an event for them to do with their parents. There were a lot of diversity with authors of color and women fully represented. There was even a booth that shared info on the National Library for The Blind and Handicapped.

It’s a cool way to also learn things and expand your mind on things you have never thought about. Seeing authors beyond the characters they put on paper is also an experience. So basically, if this ever rolls around in your area I’d recommend you attending and experiencing it for yourself.

Let me know if you have any questions and in the mean time…more pictures!

 

Taynement

 

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One of the lines

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One of the kid authors

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PBS was on hand doing interviews

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Snuck a pic of Madeleine Albright as she waited for her interview. She had just come from John McCain’s funeral.

Non-Fiction

We Chit Chat – Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies In A Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

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Image result for bad blood book

Taynement: So I didn’t have this book on my radar until you brought it to my attention.

Leggy: Why did you decide to pick it up after I mentioned it?

Taynement: Because I knew about the Theranos story and figured it’d be an interesting read.

Leggy: Me too. The story was fascinating to me. How this woman got away with so much and with very little check points is ridiculous. I wanted to read more on the topic so when I heard the journalist who blew the lid off this story was coming out with a book, I was intrigued.

Taynement: Yeah, it’s a shame we don’t get to hear her side but I thought Carreyrou did a pretty good job of getting facts together from reliable sources – really pissed off sources too.

Leggy: I wish I could have heard her motivation too.

Taynement: There were so many facets to this story. I think the glimpse of her father gave insight into why she was ruthless. Her dad seemed to have a mean streak in him when he approached his lawyer friend on her behalf and tried to get their family friend’s son fired from his law firm. I think he was secretly proud of everything she did regardless of the swindling.

But I do think the book also goes to show how much power being white in America gives you. Because there is absolutely no reason this woman kept raising funds in millions and had investors of high caliber without having a single viable product.

Leggy: Can we talk about Tyler Shultz’s grandfather? How insane was it that he believed Holmes over his own grandson who actually worked there and saw that Holmes was a fraud. Even though Tyler brought another employee who corroborated his story, his father still believed Holmes. Even going as far as inviting Holmes to his birthday party and not extending an invite to his own grandson.

She must have been super charming and they wanted to believe that they were changing the world. I’m sure after being in business for so long they wanted to believe they were finally investing in the one business that would actually help human kind or also there’s a possibility that every single one of those men were dumb as rocks. Take your pick.

Taynement: They all talked about how charming she is but she must have been REALLY charming because I don’t understand how she got fired and talked her way back in and then fired everyone who had been against her once they gave her another chance as CEO. Savage!

Leggy: Seriously, if she hadn’t been fucking with human life, was just developing some app and scamming all these old men for their money I would have been rooting for her. But for you to knowingly fuck with sick people and have no remorse at all. I can’t root for you. You’re a psychopath.

Taynement: That’s the other thing. Is this pure human savagery or do you think there’s a mental health issue at play? I’m asking this question because of the fact that this was done in the health sector and it was lives at stake. She also doesn’t seem very remorseful even now and still claims she did nothing wrong.

Leggy: I don’t know but she’s certainly a girl who knew what she wanted from a very young age and it blows my mind that she never seemed remorseful. She just kept lying in the face of so much proof. Can we talk about her “boyfriend” please? How much hand do you think he really had in the whole operation?

Taynement: I think he helped her execute, was her cheerleader and took pleasure from it. He’s definitely a sadist and I want to know who he pays to scrub his past off the internet.

Leggy: Dude, I googled him and barely saw anything on him at all. I think they fed off of each other.

Taynement: Another thing I wondered is Silicon Valley is a small world, how come people kept going to work for Theranos despite the high turnover?

Leggy: And the kind of people they got to work for them?! People who were huge and well regarded! I just don’t understand. I think it’s probably the need to be a part of something big.

Taynement: Some guy came out of retirement after he had worked for Apple just to be a part of her board. Nahhh, Elizabeth Holmes must be something!

By the way, you guys should Youtube one of her interviews and listen to her voice. It sounds weird on purpose because she had it in her head that she had to have a deep voice like a man to command attention in a male dominated world

Leggy: She must be. She’s almost like a cult leader. Also, she hired a lot of international students that needed that H1B1 status.

Taynement: I think that was mostly Sunny’s doing, has his name written all over it. As an immigrant himself, he knew it was the fastest way to gain “loyalty”. Fear was his modus operandi. He sounds like a terrible, terrible man.

Leggy: Terrible and he wasn’t even charismatic. He was just terrible and literally had nothing going for him, he wasn’t smart, nothing! Can we talk about Walgreens and Safeway? Those may have been the dumbest companies in the entire book especially Walgreens. They hired an outside consultant to evaluate the deal they had with Theranos and then totally ignored his warnings.

Taynement: They deserve everything that happened to them.

Leggy: Everything! I was so flabbergasted the entire time. How does that happen?

Taynement: And then they agreed to build the health centers in the contract at their own expense and there was no product. They never asked to see the product and the results coming from it.

Leggy: I can’t imagine them not even asking to see a full demonstration of what they were letting into their stores and then they didn’t even ask to tour the Theranos labs! How do you pay millions of dollars for a product you’ve never seen in action? And they were faking results! How did the people there keep working in this company with their conscience intact? These were people’s lives, people’s actual money, people getting unnecessary procedures and having to go to the emergency room based on the test results you were giving them.

Taynement: I am surprised Theranos is still in existence.

Leggy: Yup, all they did was remove her as CEO but it’s still business as usual. She’s working on building another company. White privilege is a hell of a thing!

Taynement: Overall, I thought it was a good read. I audio’d it and I enjoyed it very much.

Leggy: I audio’d it too and told everyone I recommended it to, to do the same. You don’t even need to have heard of the company before, to enjoy this book. It’s fascinating and the author gives you enough background for you to follow along. It reads like fiction. 

Taynement: But it’s even more intriguing because it’s real life.

Leggy: Ended up giving it 4 stars on Goodreads and have been recommending it to everybody

Have you guys read this book? If you have, what did you think? If you haven’t, did this review pique your interest? Will you be picking it up? Be encouraged to leave a comment 🙂

 

Taynement & Leggy