Lesson 3

Invincible Summer
by Hannah Moskowitz
Simon Pulse, 2011
269 pages

So many times, this book carried me right to the brink of LOVING it, but never quite managed it, and I'm sad to say that by the time I finished, it had failed to even make me like it.  I really wanted to do so, too, because there were aspects of the story that I thought were awesome, and a couple of characters that I really liked, but in the end, this novel just set my teeth on edge, like fingernails scratching on a chalkboard. *sigh*

It is the story of two families who own adjacent summer beach houses and spend their summer vacations there together each year. Though we get little hints and reminiscences of summers when the older children of each family were small and the younger ones hadn't even been thought of yet, the story doesn't begin until just before the narrator-protagonist's 15th birthday. The entire book consists solely of the stories of that and the following three summers, the interactions of various family members and between several members of the two different families.

It's difficult to fully explain my disappointment with this book without striking out into the treacherous waters of SPOILERS, so I will simply say that [A] I thought one of my favorite characters deserved a MUCH better outcome than they got, and [B] I felt that this book conveys some VERY disturbing messages to and about women, especially those who are high-school and college-aged. While I absolutely do not believe in censorship or banning books, I really think that any teens who read this book really need some extensive parental guidance and discussion while they do so.

One thing that I really DID love about the book was the way that three of the characters bonded over the writings of one author whose works have now become classics. If you've ever had that kind of experience, you'll know for yourself how it can happen and what an extraordinary feeling it engenders. When something truly inspires, the reader can spend months or even years engrossed in a single author's oeuvre and worldview. Even when you finally outgrow it, or your first passion for it cools a bit because new pieces constantly extend your horizons still further, there is always a certain attachment, a certain frisson of the old excitment and ardor whenever the book, poem, essay, or author is mentioned.

This bibliomaniac obsession with a newly-discovered author was the part of the book that I most enjoyed and with which I could be identify and empathize BY FAR, and it is one of the strongest and longest-running themes in the novel (hence my hopes throughout that I would end up liking the work much more than I ultimately did). Invincible Summer actually made me WILDLY curious to investigate the writings of the narrator's muse, and that in itself makes reading this book time well-spent, in my opinion. Unfortunately, however, I cannot in all honesty actually recommend this book.

Lesson 2

Yes, she's back, o few but loyal gang of readers!  And I feel so much better that I'd swear I've had a complete body transplant, except that if I had, and I were still this overweight, I'd be REALLY pissed!  What I have acquired instead is a personal trainer/nutritionist, and the drive to get up and change things every day.  Thank God for recovery in all its forms. When HE decides to get you well, He doesn't mess around!

The next logical question should now be, "How's the Re-Education Reading Challenge going?", especially since those of you who contributed to the reading list put a fair bit of time and thought into which books to add.  The answer is, slow but steady. According to my Goodreads challenge widget, I am woefully behind, as you might imagine, but after a month of post-surgical fog, my keen reading appetite returned to me, and so I have been faithfully plunging ahead throughout the end of March and all of April so far. I may not finish in this calendar year, but I'm not ready to concede yet--we've got a lot of year left!--and if I don't finish in 2013, I've decided to extend the project until I HAVE read them all. I feel I owe that much to the list's contributors, and to myself.  Meanwhile, I can use my laptop again, so let the reviews commence!

Speak
by Laurie Halse Anderson
Square Fish, 2011
198 pages

Another book that is certainly not light reading, Speak is the year-long journey of one girl learning to value herself, to defend herself no matter what it costs her, and to find herself sufficient company when she and the "cliques" in her high school discover they have absolutely no interest in each other.

Once again, we are dealing with the aftermath of an assault, of physical and emotional abuse, but in this book, the author rips away the facade of safety and respectability of the American education system as it currently exists.  All the million tiny opportunities afforded to abusive personalities in all-too-frequently unsupervised moments are portrayed with such poignant accuracy that it's clear the author still remembers her own high school experience with startling (and no doubt, often painful!) clarity.  Her descriptions of bullying, verbal abuse, and especially, of learning ways to hide in plain sight in large group situations such as the cafeteria, certainly resonated with me. Based on the book's brief introduction, this novel has obviously done the same for many, MANY others in the decade since it was first published, particularly for people who suffered far worse things in public school than I ever did.

Reviewers of this book often mention Laurie Halse Anderson's dry, caustic humor, with which she infuses her protagonist here, and it's a good thing she does; otherwise, this book would be so depressing that it might be impossible to finish! It's a seminal work that helped shine light on a cultural evil from which this country suffers--none of which makes it COMFORTABLE reading by any means. Just as it should be.

No More Spoons!

My dear friends, after keeping you waiting for FAR too long, I am back with the big announcement! I am NOT a Spoonie anymore! In other words, I did NOT have a mysterious, undiagnosable illness that will be with me permanently--I had a giant lump of scar tissue, surrounding the mesh my body had rejected from the previous FAILED hernia repair! It had pulled my digestive organs all different directions out of their proper places, not enough to damage them but enough to create the past 10 months' worth of mounting nausea and pain. The surgery has finally been successfully carried out, I am several weeks into recovery, and I am SO grateful to God and my surgeons that it's finished. I am also VERY grateful to my friends and family for helping me survive and finally escape this nightmare. And for those of you who may be wondering, I AM still progressing with my Re-Education Reading Challenge, and am nearly finished with "To Kill a Mockingbird." I see what all the fuss was about on this one. Reviews coming as soon as I can comfortably use my laptop again!

Surgery Announcement & Reading Update

First off, I have wonderful news--my surgery has been moved up a full two weeks, to January 30!!!!! Thus proving once again that there IS indeed a God, & He hasn't given up caring about me.

In other news, I have begun the second book on THE LIST, & may I say that you guys certainly didn't give me a bunch of fluff to read, did you? :D "Speak", by Laurie Halse Anderson, is profoundly serious from its very first lines. If it has been as influential in YA in the 12 years since it was published as I'm hearing, then it certainly is high time that I read it. All I can say is, I'm glad that I've had enough time for my horrible memories of public school to have stopped giving me nightmares before I started reading this!

Lesson 1

Hurray! I've officially finished my first book for My Re-Education Challenge! (Please note that links to all my reviews for this challenge will be available on the Challenge homepage. Reviews of any other books I read for the year will be linked on my "Reviews" tab, as usual.)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

by Stephen Chbosky
MTV Books/Gallery Books 2012
213 pages

Well! We're certainly starting off the year with a bang! This book is definitely NOT a fluffy, light-hearted read. For most of my way through it, all I could think was that it reminded me of J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy in its unrelenting sobriety and human tragedies, only on a smaller, less cynical scale, because this book's protagonist and first-person narrator, Charlie, is very sweet and certainly an innocent.

But Stephen Chbosky is a very talented, subtle, even sly author. I immediately felt that Charlie was a sympathetic character; before long, however, Chbosky had me truly caring about many of his characters, through the vehicle of Charlie's deep and sincere love for them. Charlie is a beginning freshman in high school, and scared about this big change in his life. He has problems the full nature of which are slowly revealed over the course of the novel, and this is another element of similarity between this book and The Casual Vacancy, touching as it does on issues of mental health.

By the time I was 2/3 of the way through this book, I could barely put it down to deal with little trifles like eating and sleeping!  It may have many of the typical hallmarks, even cliches, of an average YA "coming-of-age" tale, but it's very intelligently constructed, and is simply an interesting, well-crafted story, though NOT for the faint of heart.

On a personal note, I identified very clearly with the mental health problems Chbosky adresses, though mine began for very different reasons than those named in the book.  It was very interesting to me, even though it was also saddening, to see from the inside how things develop as a result of abuse, rather than from fear for terminally ill parents and surviving a natural disaster, which were my particular triggers for 20+ years of emotional ill health. I sincerely hope, now that this book has been made into a major Hollywood film, that it will greatly help to raise awareness concerning mental health problems in adults and especially in teenagers and children. In all their mental romanticizations about the supposed "carefree innocence of children," too many adults never realize that traumatic events have as great an effect on children as on anyone else. Worst of all, the child's suffering often goes unnoticed and therefore undiagnosed; kids may not comprehend what is happening to them, don't know how to ask for help, and frequently act out in ways and for reasons that even they don't understand. It is vital that both adults and children receive treatment as soon as physically possible after a traumatic event, because the longer the emotional wound festers, the greater the chance of serious, even irreparable repercussions.

Moreover, the stigma that our society still attaches to emotional and mental health problems--in the 21st century, for God's sake!--has got to stop. It makes it much more difficult for people to get the help they need, or to lead a normal life. Some employers are too nervous to take the "risk" of giving them a job. Mental health professionals actually have to advise their clients NEVER to mention their illness at work, for fear that an applicant might be denied or an employee fired on those grounds, even if the company would invent some other, less harsh-sounding reason for their action. As I said, I sincerely hope that this powerful book, and the very popular film adaptation of it which has now been released, will go some way toward changing the status quo.

Readin' Books and Feelin' Foolish

(with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)

Oh, my dear friends, it meant so much to me to open my Blogger dashboard today and see so many votes of confidence and promises of prayers for me! It also made me feel like even more of an idiot to have to admit that *drumroll*

my damn surgery got postponed until February 14th!

And to my utter chagrin, it was all my fault.  I was supposed to discontinue one of my regular medications several days before the surgery, and just simply forgot all about those instructions until about 36 hours before I was supposed to check in to the hospital!  It has taken me this long to get over wanting to kick myself and throw things, to work up the courage to admit my utter foolishness here, especially after all your kind words in support of me.  But, I have those encouraging notes now to carry with me next month when I do finally check into the hospital, and to keep my courage up when I get nervous about the whole thing.  So thank you to ALL of you, my knights in shining armour!

The upshot of all of this is that I'm still living with all the symptoms I've been dealing with for almost a year now, and therefore not really feeling up to blogging much. NEVER FEAR, however, because I am already plugging away at the Master List you all generously helped me compile for my 2013 Re-Education Challenge.  I'm nearly finished with the first book, already!  I'm reading them in the order in which you sent the recommendations in to me, which seemed only fair, but I also have the list available on Goodreads in a format which allows you to sort them by title or author.  I will try to put up a post when I start each book, to let you know how I'm progressing on the list, and will definitely be posting a review for each one unless some calamity strikes.  Thank you for your faith in me, and your support.  Hope you're having a wonderful 2013 so far!

Currently Reading:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Radio Silence

Beloved friends and readers, provided that my dumb mistake in forgetting one of my pre-op instructions doesn't throw everything off schedule, I'll be going into major surgery tomorrow, & thus will be absent from the internet for a few days. Never fear, however, for as soon as I am able, I am eagerly looking forward to beginning "My Re-Education Reading Challenge," attacking the Master List that you compiled for me with all my energy and gusto. Happy New Year, & be praying for me/wish me luck, please!

Pathetic Fan Girl Dies Happy

And THIS is why I Tweet, people!  For all time, I now have documentary evidence that Richard Schiff, once "Toby Ziegler" of The West Wing, one of the members of my Crushes Hall of Fame, addressed me personally, even though he doesn't have a clue who I am and couldn't care less!  *gasp, scream, swoon, cue the closing credits*

2012 Reading Challenge Crunch Time

Friends, I don't know about you, but now that the weather is turning crisp and my daughter keeps telling me she wants a pumpkin costume for Hallowe'en, I'm suddenly lifting my head up as if I'd fallen asleep with my head on my desk at work, looking sleepily around me, and noticing that 2012 begins to grow old.  It's nearly November, for heaven's sake, and how far along have YOU gotten in all of your reading challenges?  Yes, it's a bewildering thought, isn't it?  For those 5 of you who have already finished and read 30 more books than you estimated on your Goodreads goal, Hermione would be proud.  For everyone else, you can cheer yourself up by checking out the following list of books that I'm supposed to finished between now and December 31st.  Even better, I have predictably left all the hardest ones until last.  Wish me luck, she said sardonically...

• The Confessions of St. Augustine of Hippo
• The Life of St. Columba by St. Adamnan of Iona
• Ecclesiastical History of the English People by the Venerable Bede
• History of the Franks by St. Gregory of Tours
• Beowulf
• History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth
• Pastoral Care by Pope St. Gregory the Great
• The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
• Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory
• The Alexiad of Anna Comnena
• The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan

By Agatha Christie:

• The Sittaford Mystery
• The Golden Ball and Other Stories
• Destination Unknown
• Ordeal by Innocence

• Arabella by Georgette Heyer
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

By Debbie Macomber

• 311 Pelican Court
• 44 Cranberry Point
• 50 Harbor Street
• 6 Rainier Drive
• 74 Seaside Avenue
• 8 Sandpiper Way
• 92 Pacific Boulevard
• 1022 Evergreen Place
• 1105 Yakima Street
• 1225 Christmas Tree Lane

• King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by H.G. Wells
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
• The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
• The Odyssey by Homer
• Angel Time by Anne Rice
• The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
• Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
• Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

So, that's all.  In two months.  Right.  It'll be the coldest day Hell's ever seen if I manage to finish it all in that amount of time.  But, I am still busily reading away on the list, believe it or not, and I mean to get through as much of it as I can.  Also, I've already bumped a couple of the items onto 2013's My Re-Education Challenge (they are written in purple in the list above).  I'll get them next year, if not this.  Of course, it was just the old story, wasn't it?  "The best laid plans"...  When I signed on to read all of this, I wasn't expecting to lose basically an entire year of my life to a mystery illness which we still have yet to diagnose.  The search goes on.  But I think I actually made a respectable showing, considering the actual percentage of 2012 I spent in hospital and emergency rooms!  On to 2013.

My Re-Education Reading Challenge

Faithful few readers, I'd like to tell you a little story, and ask you how you all think it should end.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who was raised as the daughter of a fundamentalist Southern Indiana Pentecostal preacher, who spent at least as much time in scary little fundamentalist schools as she did in public school--actually, a fair bit more, come to add it up.  She was assigned lots of readings describing an Earth that is only 6,000 years old, "proving" that dinosaurs and human beings once co-existed, and discussing how Noah's Ark is still stranded on a mountain in Turkey, but the mean Turkish government won't let a bunch of Americans climb around all over their mountain and prove it.  Curiously absent from the girl's reading were books written for children throughout the history of the English-speaking world, as well as classics not written for children that are usually assigned in school to teach students to stretch their minds and their critical thinking skills.  Not a single Shakespearean play, narry a mention of modern authors like Kafka or Virginia Woolf, none of the childhood favorites by Frances Hodgson Burnett managed to slip through the net of censorship cast around the girl's plastic young mind.

Some of these gaps were filled in when the young woman finally decided to attend a state-sponsored, liberal arts university.  By the time she finished her BA and three MAs, she'd read more Poe, more "Norton Anthologies," more about Yellow Wallpaper than she ever wanted to, really.  Nevertheless, the now 35-year-old book blogger is still finding books all the time about which her peers say, "Oh, yeah, I read that in high school!"  And in this season when a book blogger's fancy turns to thoughts of next year's reading challenges, this particular blogger is hoping to form a cooperative challenge with the help of her loyal readers.  Are you willing to help me in a "Re-Education Challenge"?

You guys are basically the bosses on this challenge, but I think we should set out a few basic ground rules, just to keep things running well and make sure I live up to the spirit of the thing.  So, here we go:

1.  You don't have to have a blog to challenge me; you just need to visit this blog and leave comments relating to my "Re-Education."

2.  Since this is supposed to be about exposing me to ideas that I should have encountered a long time ago, let's please restrict this to books that any well-educated American should have read before graduating high school.  In other words, if you cannot imagine HOW I've survived this long without reading 50 Shades of Grey, I'm sorry, but you still can't recommend it.  Any teacher who required his or her students to read a book about S&M would get quickly fired, and we all know it.  Still, I think this leaves you with a lot of leeway, anything from standard YA to Dickensian favorites.

3.  If by some miracle I already managed to read the book you suggest somewhere along the way, I won't be adding it to the challenge, because that would basically be me cheating, now wouldn't it?

4.  Limit 5 suggestions per contributor, please.  I'm setting the cut-off at 100 books, as I know I could never get through more than that in 2013.

5.  I reserve the right to reject anything that would simply give me too many nightmares, like Stephen King's It, which I have always known myself too well to ever try to read.  (Surely that wouldn't really fit the qualifications, anyway.)

So, come help out a poor, deprived, recovering fundamentalist and add your suggestions.  The suggestion box is open through December 31, 2012, after which I will gather the titles, weed through duplicates and ones I've already read, and announce the master list in a post.  You're welcome to read along, if you like, and leave us links to your own posts!  Meanwhile, I will update the list periodically, with reviews, as I plow my way through.