That Just Happened!

Welcome, welcome, welcome to 2011.  What a year this is going to be!  And to start it all off, I am going to host a giveaway on my blog!  WOOT!  Yes, it’s my first giveaway, but I think you’re going to like it.  Well, if you like reading books, that is. 

A while back I received a copy of the book Middlesex from Jenners @ Life … With Books.  It is a well-worn copy and a thrill to win because she wrote this innovative blog post about it with Sandy from You GOTTA Read This.

Written by the same author who wrote The Virgin Suicides,  this book is a Pullitzer Prize winner. 

“”I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver”s license…records my first name simply as Cal.”"
So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, “Middlesex “is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.

Chapters.Indigo

This book did not disappoint.  It was so well written and the characters described so vividly.  Eugenides ability to describe what is going on inside Cal’s head as she discovers “she” is a “he” is so moving, and I imagine, quite accurate.  I am sure no one who is going through something like that can describe all that they are thinking and feeling, but I would hope that they would read this book and say, “yeah, kind of like that.”  He gives a voice to a minority, one that is still persecuted and vilified today.  Although we don’t have freak shows anymore, there are definitely groups that are still considered “freaks” by many.  We consider ourselves a pretty inclusive society.  Martin Luther “had a dream”, women are successful in the workplace, even gay people have the right to marry (here in Ontario, at least), but there is still such a long way to go, no time to pat ourselves on the back just yet.  People who don’t fall into “normal” gender roles are looked down on.  There isn’t a lot of dialogue on people born with gender disorders and the immediate response is to “fix it”.

One of the things I really liked about Cal is the fact that he decided he didn’t want surgery to “fix” anything.  That living as he did was good enough and all the problems that go with it would be better than living a lie and being reassigned as a woman.  Cal’s journey is not so easy (he is a teenage girl, after all), it’s difficult enough being a teenager and going through puberty, without wondering why you are so obviously different.  The other thing I really liked about this book was Cal’s relationships with others and how having a relationship as a teenage girl was just as fraught with mines as a relationship he tries to develop as an adult male.  Yeah, being a teenage girl is hard and I can relate.

The book doesn’t just focus on Cal, Eugenides spends a lot of time telling the story of the family and how Cal ended up being born with this abnormailty.  A persecuted family, his granparents flee to find a better life, but history ends up repeating itself in the felationships formed within the family.  War, incest, and failure managed to follow them across the ocean with this mutated gene.

Jenners didn’t disappoint, as usual her recommendation was great.  I loved this book so much I would like to pass it on to one of you!  I would hope that in turn you would pass it on to someone else, because I really feel that this is a book worth reading.

I am giving away my one copy of Middlesex  by Jeffrey Eugenides.  It is open internationally (see inclusive like the book!).  All you have to do is leave a comment with your email address to be entered to win.  If you are a follower you get an extra entry, just leave a separate comment to let me know.  The deadline is January 30th at 11:59pm est and the draw will be on January 31st.  Good luck and tell your friends!

Yeah, That Just Happened!

Day 4 of Happiness Week (Check out Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3) and I’m going to let you in on something I learned in first year of university.  It’s not a secret, and I am sure there are many out there who know this, but it  definitely hits home for first year students who did not budget properly in the first semester and struggle through the second.  This wonderful piece of advice is this…Free Sh*t is Good Sh*t. 

Yes, Free Sh*t is Good Sh*t.  It doesn’t matter if you need it.  It doesn’t matter if you think you’ll ever use it.  It doesn’t matter if the mere sight of it is turning your stomach and you think, “I would starve before I would eat that pudding!”  Because you will starve.  And then you’ll eat it.  Or wear it, or use it, or sell it, or trade it.  Free Sh*t always comes in handy.  Sometimes you think you’ll like it and you end up loving  it and wondering how you ever lived without it.

BBAW was a few short weeks ago and I had a great time checking out blogs and following along all week.  I was also lucky enough to win, not one, but three  giveaways.  The first book I won was: The Fashion File: Advice, Tips, and Inspiration from the Costume Designer of Mad Men by Janie Bryant.  It has these great illustrations throughout and awesome tips about dressing for your body type, making vintage modern, and an inside look into  Mad Men.  Hurrah!

The second book I won was an autographed copy of Personal Demons by Lisa Desrochers and it came with two tattoos: one Team Gabe and one Team Luc.  This was a fantastic book and I can’t wait to read the next book in the trilogy.  And now I have a signed copy!  This one is a Must Read and I’m not sure which tattoo I want to wear.  Who do I support?!  I think I’m Team Gabe.  He seemed like the underdog and as much as I like a bad boy, a good boy can be so much more fun.  Check out the tag line for it: “If you had to choose between Heaven and Hell, which would it be? …Are you sure about that?”  Love it! 

The third book I won hasn’t arrived yet, but I am anxiously awaiting it.  I also have another review coming next week for a book I won on a blog giveaway.  If it weren’t for the giveaway I probably never would have picked up Personal Demons, but man, am I glad I did. 

Yeah, That Just Happened!

Bender, Aimee.  The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.  Doubelday (2010).

On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.

RandomHouse.com

My Mom has always said, “Never  bake cookies when you are angry.  It shows in your cookies.  Your cookies will be hard and give people tummy-aches.”  Growing up, this was the general rule and one that was strictly enforced.  Looking back, it was probably because my Mom didn’t want to have to deal with my sour attitude (I swear I got teen angst at 8  ) or fights between Stephtastic and myself. 

When I came across this book I knew I had to read it.  (I usually give credit where credit is due, but for some reason I didn’t make note of which blog I saw this on first, so if it was you, thank you very much.)  Rose can taste people’s deepest, darkest feelings in anything they cook and it makes eating very difficult, especially when faced with eating stuff made by her family.  I thought this was a really well-written book.  There was a few pages there near the end that I thought were a little bit of a stretch, but I liked the overall feel to the book.   The ending is bitter-sweet, but I think it was perfect for the story.

I just made apple pie over here and as I waited for it to bake I couldn’t help but think about this novel.  I think it will probably be at the forefront of my mind each time I bake now, along with my Mom’s cautionary words.  I tried to think happy thoughts, but if Rose were to taste the pie it would probably taste like anxiety.  I always worry too much about what it will taste like and if people will like it.  Thank goodness I made two because now I can taste it before I give one to Stephtastic…in apology for all the tummy ache cookies from my youth. 

I say this book is a Must Read.  It had a great premise, was well-written and I enjoyed it overall.