jodiwilldare's reviews
1523 reviews

For about 30 of my 38 years here on Earth, I’ve been convinced that I read Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume. I read a lot of Judy Blume when I was a kid. Who didn’t?
Whenever people would mention that their favorite Blume book was Tiger Eyes, I’d eye them a little warily. Really? I’d think. I’m all for moving toast through the air with your mind and all, but come on! Telekinesis is no match for Farley Drexel Hatcher (aka Superfudge).

Then, last month, the story about Tiger Eyes being made into a movie hit the Internet and everyone was drooling about how awesome this just might be. When I read about the movie and saw nary a mention of telekinesis, I began to get a little suspicious.

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There’s a certain kind of glee that comes in discovering that the new writer you’ve recently fallen in love with has another book you can read. We need a work for this. When I was eighteen and first read John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany I nearly crapped my pants with joy when I realized he had six other books I could read.

Wahoo!

I was pretty close to pants-crapping-excited when Marcy Dermansky’s Twins landed in my hot little hands. I loved Bad Marie (so did Christa), and to have another book she’d written to read so quickly made me ecstatic.
Anyway, I’m happy to report that Twins does not disappoint. I’m also happy to report that Dermanksy (along with Gina Frangello) is one book away from making it to my favorite authors’ list (remember you need three books to make the list).

Here’s why Dermansky’s books are so damn good: She has the ability to create real, flawed characters you care about and then puts them in imminent peril. It’s so awesome.

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The Ushers are a family in decline. Mother Biddy’s having an affair, William’s just been kicked out of Oxford, Amy’s waging a battle with their father over his refusal to invest in her architecture firm, Sam, the adopted son is never allowed to forget that he’s not “one of them,” and then there’s Grandma Martha.

As they settle in for Christmas dinner, the Ushers listen as their downstairs neighbors beat each other to death. Literally. However, this doesn’t deter the Ushers from their petty family bickering over the Christmas pudding. Only Sam is moved enough by the screams emanating from the downstairs apartment to investigate. By that time, however, he’s too late.

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It’s impossible to review Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique in 2010. I’ve been trying to come up with the words for weeks now.

Women have gotten PhDs dissecting this book, what it meant to women in 1963, and the repercussions of its publication. I cannot measure its goodness or badness in a few pithy sentences. In fact, I even have a hard time being critical about the book’s many flaws — mainly that it’s written for and about white, upper-middle class, straight, college-educated women. Plus, it seems, Friedan seems to think education is only for those white, upper-middle class, straight women.

Despite its flaws, I want to press this book into the hands of every woman I know (and a lot of the men). Ladies, we’re still perpetuating and falling victim to the Feminine Mystique. You should read it. Everyone should read it, not just to see how far we’ve come but how far we have yet to go.

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As a 6’5″ woman, I am drawn to stories about the incredibly tall, or Giants as they are called. It’s the same thing that drew me to Beverly Cleary’s Beezus when I was a child, the ability to find comfort in a fictional kindred spirit when one cannot be found in your actual life.

It’s why The Giant’s House by Elizabeth McCracken is in the top five of my all-time favorite novels. It’s why I picked up Matt Kindt’s excellent graphic novel 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man even though I could tell from the cover it was going to break my heart.

Since this is a graphic novel, let’s talk about the cover for a moment. What you can’t see from the image up there is that the cover is die-cut. The window is actually a window, and when you pop open the cover, you’re greeted with Craig Pressgang, the giant man, staring forlornly into space. Close the cover and he’s peeking into the living room of his own home. A home he is too big to fit into anymore.

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In Eleanor Brown’s The Weird Sisters three women, the Andreas sisters, return to their childhood home to care for their mother who is fighting breast cancer. Named after Shakespeare characters by their Shakes-professor father, they quickly fall into their childhood roles. Rosalind, or Rose, is the competent, bossy oldest. Bianca, or Bean, is the invisible middle child looking for attention. Cordelia, or Cordy, is the flighty, beloved baby.

While they return home under the aegis of helping mom, each sister is also fleeing her personal demons. Rose is faced with a fiance who wants her to move to England where he’s landed a two-year gig at Oxford. Bean runs from New York a few steps ahead of her creditors after being fired from her job for embezzlement, and Cordy returns after years of aimless wandering with a bun in the oven.

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When I was a kid my sister and I used to watch the TV show “Gidget” every day after school. It was sandwiched between something like “The Flintstones” and “Bewitched” on TBS or one of those cable channels that shows two-decade old reruns.

Being Minnesota teens of the 80s I can only surmise that our adoration of the show was all due to the perky charm of Sally Field. We really loved the show and when my sister got Gidget – The Complete Series on DVD for Christmas, we dove in with gusto. It’s still as charming and entertaining as it was in the 80s (yes, I realize the show originally aired in the 60s).

It was during some rampant googling to find every bit of Gidget trivia we could find that I discovered the tv series (and movies) were inspired by a novel. It took me roughly 18 seconds to order up a used copy of Gidget by Frederick Kohner, who was a screenwriter and father to the actual Gidget.

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Colin Singleton is a recently-graduated high schooler/former child prodigy who has just been dumped by Katherine. The nineteenth Katherine he has dated. He calls her K-19. Hasan is Colin’s Muslim best friend who convinces him that the only cure for his depression is a road trip.

Adding to Colin’s depression is that fact that while he was a child prodigy he never become a genius (he explains the difference in great, and entertaining detail in the book). He’s determined to have his Eureka! moment and discover something that will cement his intelligence in the annals of history for all time.

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Endings are hard.

As a writer I’ve never managed to write a decent one. I blame that on Journalism school and inverted pyramid where we were taught to sort of quit rather than bring a story to a nice conclusion.

As a reader I’ve been tough on writers whose endings let me down, like a Russian gymnastics judge I’d be on the look out for the slightest ankle twitch, a bobble of the knee. I wanted the authors I read to stick the landing and if they didn’t I’d deduct major points.

This is a long way to explain that I loved Karen Russell’s Swamplandia! even though the ending was disappointing. But the journey there is so good that not even a dud ending could ruin the magic she creates.

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