Reading Lolita in Tehran Review

Nonfiction

Author: Azar Nafisi

356 pages

Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the girls in Azar Nafisi's living room risked removing their veils and immersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. In this extraordinary memoir, their stories become intertwined with the ones they are reading. Reading Lolita in Tehran is a remarkable exploration of resilience in the face of tyranny and a celebration of the liberating power of literature.

Rereadable!

            I was fortunate enough to read this book during a couple of really rainy days this summer. I became completely absorbed in Nafisi’s world. Couped up in my house, I began to imagine the vaguest sense of what Nafisi and her girls must have felt, imagining what it would be like to walk out my door and find my world altered beyond recognition. The idea that I could walk out my door everyday fully covered and become like a ghost or to rebel or to be perceived as rebelling and suffer abuse and injustice, taken away to an uncertain fate, was frightening.

To be clear, I haven’t read all the books that Nafisi taught, but the ones I had read became even more interesting and enlightening in the context of Tehran. The class debate Nafisi facilitated was especially eye-opening and oddly comparable to my limited experience as a teaching intern and student in similar debates.

Of course, I can’t wait to catch up to Nafisi’s reading list so that I may enjoy this book even more in rereads. For those of you that haven’t read any of the books discussed in this one and don’t have a background in literary analysis, I am still torn as to my recommendation. While the sections on Tehran’s history as experienced by Nafisi are indeed heartbreaking, powerful, and sublime, I can see that there will be those who don’t have the patience for the intellectual literary portions of the book. And while I understand that those sections might be difficult or tedious, I pity you, for this is a beautiful novel. I suppose, in the end, you’ll have to decide for yourself. I know I have.

Three Cups of Tea Review

Nonfiction

By: Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

349 pages

Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools—especially for girls—that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson’s quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit.

Rereadable!

            To be completely honest, the introduction's excess praise read like a love letter and made me a little nauseous and more than a little dubious about reading this book. Granted, I was already a little dubious about the idea of a white American man going to "fix" other countries. What if this book was nothing more than an ego boost and big pat on the back? Come to find out, I shouldn’t have worried. 

Greg's actions and results speak for themselves. The writing was lovely and visual, especially when it focused on the landscapes of these areas. The book won me over not only with Greg's determination to work alongside the people and cultures of these countries in a non-aggressive way through education but also the time the book took to flesh out a balanced picture of the Middle East.

David Oliver Relin, the primary author, could have so easily glossed over the nature scenes or the wide cast of characters that Greg encountered, and I was glad to find how much time he took in detailing these people and giving credit to those that helped Greg along the way. By the end of the book, I felt that I was equally educated and inspired.

While I believe the book could have pushed Greg’s character further which could have added some more depth instead of leaning on his heroism, I understand that they obviously wanted success and awareness for the cause, and America certainly loves its heroes. (There are a few hints of Greg’s flaws such as lack of delegation skills/care for his health/timeliness and spending so much time away from his family, but I believe the book would have benefited from more detail). 

Overall, I appreciated the journey it took me on into foreign lands and cultures that have become unfairly deemed as only dangerous and barbaric. I am happy to have read this book, and I would definitely recommend it.

            Now, to address the allegations against Greg Mortenson and this book. I had only heard the faintest whispers of the controversy before I read this book. I purposely read it and reviewed it before looking at the issues surrounding it. I did this so I could try to stay unbiased while reading it and I’m glad I did.

For those who don’t know, there are allegations (I’m not how much has been proved at this point) that there were large exaggerations and omissions in the book and that Greg Mortenson greatly mismanaged money for his projects. And while I cannot condone lying, I cannot help but think about the good this man and this book has done. The number of schools he built and that are still in operation might not be true, but there were schools built and there are still schools in operation. Other details might be wrong as well, but the book still felt much more balanced and respectful toward the people and countries it talks about than I ever heard in the media on the “War in the Middle East”.

It’s such a shame that a controversy like this exists for a book that I think did and can do a lot of good. I felt so much more educated and inspired after reading this book. No matter what they end up finding on the book or Mortenson, that inspiration isn’t false. So while I cannot judge Mortenson and I don’t want to, I am here to judge the book, and I would still recommend the book. While this controversy might mean you should lend it from a friend or rent it from the library, I think it still works as an interesting read, a compelling cause, and education on a part of the world that is misrepresented and ignored.    

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed Review

Memoir
336 pages

     At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State — and she would do it alone.
Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

Completion: A+
Writing/Style: A
Characters: A+
Plot/Pacing: A-
World-building/Atmosphere: A+
Sub-genres (Romance, Humor, Mystery, etc.): A+

Final Grade: A+ Get Thee to a Bookstore!

As I read this night after night during my last couple weeks of my college semester, I felt like I really went hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail with Cheryl Strayed. Strayed is a devastatingly good writer, making me cry only thirty pages into the memoir. 

From the odd encounters with people and wildlife to the stunning views, the writing transported me into this place and moment in time. The pacing with content like this must have been tricky, and this book could have easily become episodic and distant or tedious in its sporadic events. However, the reading of this novel was more like a smooth car ride: I was able to feel the distant gained, going up and down the heights and valleys with none of the motion sickness. Strayed effortlessly describes the grind of the trail, the surprise of these wild characters and events, and the emotional and spiritual residence such an experience carries.

I will keep this review brief for I would hate to spoil the experience nor do I want my relentless praise to turn any of you away from it. So, I suppose I will end the review on this: read it. Who do I recommend this memoir to? People.

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed Review

Nonfiction

304 pages

Life can be hard: your lover cheats on you; you lose a family member; you can’t pay the bills—and it can be great: you’ve had the hottest sex of your life; you get that plum job; you muster the courage to write your novel. Sugar—the once-anonymous online columnist at The Rumpus, now revealed as Cheryl Strayed, author of the bestselling memoir Wild—is the person thousands turn to for advice. Tiny Beautiful Things brings the best of Dear Sugar in one place and includes never-before-published columns and a new introduction by Steve Almond.  Rich with humor, insight, compassion—and absolute honesty—this book is a balm for everything life throws our way.

Completion: A+
Writing/Style: A+
Characters: A+
Plot/Pacing: A
World-building/Atmosphere: A
Subgenres (Romance, Humor, Mystery, etc.): B+

Final Grade: A+ Get thee to a Bookstore!

Love, love, love, love, love, love. This novel is a collection of writing from an advice column called Dear Sugar. The success of the column is solely due to the generosity and compassion Cheryl Strayed greets each of her readers with. She opens up her life and shares personal stories. She gives hard truths. She admits her faults, frequently and loudly. Unlike the stereotypical advice columnist, Strayed gives the reader the feeling of being in the trenches with you, sharing tips on how to make it through. She never glosses over a question with a vague but polite answer. She never gives the cliched, shallow response. She never gives the answer you expect. She is able to do all this because she is giving you a part of herself. Her writing is beautiful and heart-breaking. She’s not afraid to curse or use vernacular or follow up with a story and then turn around and punch you in the gut. The miracle comes in that punch. You will find that her words ring true, and they hurt more than anything because you can feel the truth in them. I cried. I laughed. I cried some more. I had no trouble at all finishing this book. Just make sure you have some tissues. As well, since they are separate letters, you can read this book in one sitting or in piecemeal.
I would recommend this book to everyone because each letter will hit home in a different way, and I believe that in the years to come I will find that different letters will speak to me and that the same letters will affect me in different ways. Even if you are unsure about a book like this, I would STILL recommend you check it out.

I Was A Child: A Memoir by Bruce Eric Kaplan Review

Memoir

208 pages

Expected publication: April 14th, 2015

Here is the first non-fiction book by Bruce Eric Kaplan.
It is a book wholly unique in form and feeling.
This memoir is both full of wonder and anxiety, and is altogether side-splitting and heart-breaking.
Above all, it captures what it was like for Bruce Eric Kaplan, and perhaps some of you, to be a child.

Completion: A+
Writing/Style: A
Characters: A
Plot/Pacing: N/A
World-building/Atmosphere: N/A
Sub-genres (Romance, Mystery, Humor, etc.): N/A

Final Grade: A Get Thee to a Bookstore!

I Was A Child: A Memoir is deceptively simple, so much so that it renders my normal grading structure obsolete. This memoir is a series of moments and pictures that peek into the time and childhood of its author Kaplan, culminating in an unexpected turn of pathos and a quiet heart-tugging end. Much like childhood, the novel at first appears to have little direction other than sporadic details that both highlight the charm of nostalgia and a slightly darker undercurrent. This book was read in one sitting, and I feel that is how I would recommend reading it. It is short, but the lack of a strong event-driven plot builds a tension within the reader that is rewarded in the end. The writing style suits the content as it is simple but revealing of a child’s mindset. I, for one, did not know anything about Kaplan before reading this book but found it quite enjoyable nonetheless. As well, I was not yet born during the time of Kaplan’s childhood so the small details he gives help to create an image of the time period and Kaplan’s life as well as an universal sense of childhood.
    All of this being said, this memoir might not be for everyone. It is small and quiet. If there is a mystery in it, it is that small mystery that we all live our lives with, not knowing where they will end up. If that sounds like story you can appreciate, then definitely pick it up.

**ARC was provided through a Goodreads giveaway for an honest review. **

The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison Review

Memoir

207 pages

New York Times Bestseller

We meet at airports. We meet in cities where we've never been before. We meet where no one will recognize us.

A "man of God" is how someone described my father to me. I don 't remember who. Not my mother. I'm young enough that I take the words to mean he has magical properties and that he is good, better than other people.

With his hand under my chin, my father draws my face toward his own. He touches his lips to mine. I stiffen.

I am frightened by the kiss. I know it wrong, and its wrongness is what lets me know, too, that it is a secret.

Grade: A-  Get thee to a bookstore!/Must Read

This is a dark, dark book. I will give a warning that it is probably not for the young or extremely sensitive, but I leave that at your discretion. This was a brilliant recommendation by my Creative Nonfiction teacher. This memoir is so dark, sensitive, beautiful, and insightful. In my eyes, the perfect combination. There is a glimmer of hope and beauty in a true story like this where someone rises from such darkness. Harrison’s writing is immediately engrossing, and my heart aches just as much at the context of each sentence as the sentence itself. Her words punch you in the gut and stay with you for days. I needed the ending and the relief of her closing lines and was amazed with myself on just how much I needed it. It was if I was holding my breath underwater the whole way through reading of it. I wiggled, I squirmed, I cried.

Due to the material, there will be some people who will never read this. And that’s okay. Also, while for me it was good enough to own, for some people it might be too dark to read more than once. Harrison opens up her life and soul in this piece which had me turning each page in a trance. I admire her bravery in telling her story and the skill of her telling demands this book to be read.

Completion: A+

I couldn't not finish this book. Just knowing what it was about made it impossible for me to not know how it ended. The memoir was so easy to read and accessible that I read it in one sitting.

Writing/Style: A+

For such difficult, unimaginable content, Harrison handles it with such grace and beauty in her language. She knows just how to angle the camera so to speak and she reveals just enough on that cautious line between tragically vivid and horrifically indigestible. She knows at what moments to give detail and at what points to look away.

Characters: A-

I hate her family. I HATE her dad. Although, that’s probably a given. I am amazed at her ability to distance herself in order to flesh out her family and the depth of their characters. I felt like I understood them (to an extent) because they were presented with all of the complexities and contradictions that real people have. 

Plot/Pacing: B+

For some, the content will be too much and I don’t blame them. For those who can get past it, the structure of the memoir goes back and forth in time to show the full picture of Harrison’s relationship with her family and her incestuous relationship with her father. However, I do feel personally that the back and forth did not do much for me other than slow down the natural chronological progression of the story.

World-Building/Atmosphere: A-

The atmosphere is intense. I would not recommend reading this in one sitting like I did. Harrison is a little too good in making everything feel real and vivid.

Sub-genres (Romance, Humor, Mystery, etc.): B+

This memoir does not have much in the way of sub-genres. That is partly why it is so hard to read because there is not much to take your mind off the horrible and disgusting reality of what this father did to his daughter. There is not really any humor or romance or mystery. Normally, I love how sub-genres can take a book to the next level; and yet, this book doesn't really need any of that.

Question Time!

1. Does this sound like a book for you?

2. What books, if any, have you read that could be labeled dark?

Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson Review

Memoir

363 pages

New York Times Bestseller

Jenny Lawson realized that the most mortifying moments of our lives—the ones we’d like to pretend never happened—are in fact the ones that define us. In the #1 New York Times bestseller, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson takes readers on a hilarious journey recalling her bizarre upbringing in rural Texas, her devastatingly awkward high school years, and her relationship with her long-suffering husband, Victor. Chapters include: “Stanley the Magical, Talking Squirrel”; “A Series of Angry Post-It Notes to My Husband”; “My Vagina Is Fine. Thanks for Asking”; “And Then I Snuck a Dead Cuban Alligator on an Airplane.” Pictures with captions (no one would believe these things without proof) accompany the text.

Grade: A-  Get thee to a bookstore!

Stop. Like seriously stop reading. Get this book. Like NOW, people! Move it, move it!

Still here? I guess you want to know why I recommend it? Well, okay, I’ll try not to rave too much about it.

The equation goes like this humor + bizarre true stories = literary cocaine. No, seriously, it’s true. The problem with reviewing a book like this is humor is hard to explain and quantify, and I don’t want to take the surprise out of the weird stories. I guess the best indicator is the chapter titles with such classics as “Thanks for the Zombies, Jesus” and “It Wasn't Even My Crack”. Sounds like fun, right? Or maybe I should start with her thank-you bit which reads:

I want to thank everyone who helped me create this book, except for that guy who yelled at me in Kmart when I was eight because he thought I was being “too rowdy”.

You’re an asshole, sir.

If those tidbits don’t sound like your cup of tea, I would recommend you still read this book. For my Creative Nonfiction class I had to read the chapter called “Jenkins, You Motherfucker”, and I was hooked. (Now that I've written that down it does sound really weird, but just trust me — this random stranger on the internet telling you what to do — it’s really good.) Plus, my one friend who’s picky about everything liked it so that totally means you will too. (To my picky friend: you know it’s true. Besides, I’m trying to persuade people here so I had to mention that a picky person liked it. That’s as close as I can give to a guarantee to the five random people who are going to read this.)

So, all in all, why are you still here? Go read it!

Completion: A+

Read all the things. Even the introduction. Even the chapter titles. Even the bonus chapter. It is all amazing.

Writing/Style: B+

Her style matched her humor perfectly. Sometimes I cracked up so hard I had to stop for a moment.

Characters: A-

Now, in this case, her characters are real people. I feel like I know so much about her and her family. I’m worried about her father and his craziness. I admire how good-natured her husband is. I love how Lawson unabashedly shares her quirks, loves, problems, sadness, and happiness with the world.

Plot/Pacing: B+

When you buy this book, you are really buying Jenny Lawson. Her stories are wonderful, but she as a narrator seems to become the story all to herself. She consistently goes off on tangents and tends to ramble. Oddly, whenever I would start to wonder about it, she would make me laugh so hard I would forget. Though I will warn that if you go into this looking for a traditional story you won’t find it. You will find some touching moments, but it’s real strength is putting you on a roller coaster of weird stories and pitch perfect humor.

World-Building/Atmosphere: B

Her life in rural Texas almost seems made up. She has lived quite the life, and she has fully captured the craziness and utter absurdity of her family and the situations she has run into. I could picture everything.

Sub-genres (Romance, Humor, Mystery, etc.): A+

OMG THE HUMOR! YES, THAT DID REQUIRE ALL CAPS. The humor made this memoir. It is so unique and made each page more fun and laugh out loud than it really should have been. Her life is fascinating, and while it wasn't a mystery per se, I was always surprised at what ridiculous story she had next.

Question Time!

1. What did you guys think of this book?

2. What is the funniest book you have ever read?