47. JPod

JPod (Douglas Coupland, 2006)

JPod was fun. It's definitely similar to Microserfs, as so many others have mentioned. That was a selling point for me, as I really liked Microserfs, the second best in Coupland's oeuvre. I still maintain that Shampoo Planet is the best Coupland and that Generation X is actually kind of boring. All true.

This time around, I actually enjoyed reading the weird stuff interspersed in the narrative. I'm not sure whether that means my attention span is improving or the weird stuff is getting more interesting. There's no plot worth describing. The characters and dialogue are what kept me interested. It's definitely a lightweight book full of pop culture references and a very odd self-referential storyline. It's like meta-meta. Don't read this unless stuff like that doesn't bug you. I liked it, but can see why it's annoying.

46. In Persuasion Nation

In Persuasion Nation (George Saunders, 2006)

Last year at Bumbershoot, I went to the George Saunders reading because my friends Melanie and Ed wanted to go. I hadn't read any of his stuff and didn't really know what to expect. It turns out he's an excellent reader, and his work really lends itself to being read aloud. I read the first piece, "I Can Speak," out loud to my friend the other day, and while I don't think I'm all that good a reader, it was kind of fun. Anyway, after the reading, I was all excited and bought In Persuasion Nation and stood in line for Saunders to sign it. Then I forgot all about it, even though a different friend lent me two more of his books, which sit unread in my living room stack. (That reminds me I need to finish them so I can return them when I go back to Seattle at the end of the month.) I came across my untouched copy of In Persuasion Nation again recently when I was organizing my luggage. It seems I tucked the book into the outside pocket of my littlest suitcase, which I guess I didn't unpack completely. So I decided it was about time to read it.

I found this collection a bit uneven. Some of the stories are great, but others left me cold. I particularly disliked "The Red Bow." Don't get me wrong; the best stories made up for the ones I didn't love. I'd definitely recommend Saunders after reading this and I'm looking forward to Pastoralia and CivilWarLand. Maybe books of short stories just aren't totally my thing. I have a really hard time finishing them. In fact, I've started and stalled on three other collections that sit here on my nightstand, mocking me. I always like reading one or two, but then get hungry for the satisfaction of an entire novel and move on without finishing.

45. We Are So Crashing Your Bar Mitzvah!

We Are So Crashing your Bar Mitzvah! (Fiona Rosenbloom, 2007)

I didn't love this book. It was a really quick read (I read it in fewer than 40 minutes) and was pretty simplistic. All the action took place in the first week or so of Stacy and her best friend Lydia's eighth grade year. The two of them came home from a fun summer at camp to find that their other best friend, Kelly, has officially joined the cool girl group they were all on the periphery of the previous year. The "Chicas" are typical vapid followers with a mean girl queen named Kym.

When Kym's equally assy cousin Eben hands out invitations to his ultra-posh bar mitzvah, the Chicas are invited, but Stacy and Lydia are snubbed. So the crashing plan is born. I think the idea for the story could have worked, but the one-dimensional characters, Stacy's unrealistic epiphany, and the neatly tied up ending made the whole thing kind of lame. There's a lot better YA stuff than this.

44. Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking

Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking (Aoibheann Sweeney, 2007)

My daily NYT habit has led me to a lot of good books this year. I read this review and immediately requested AOTITUS. That title is way to long for me to keep typing out. I have a weakness for first novels, even though a good one inevitably leaves me waiting years for the author's next attempt. So maddening.

This one's about Miranda, a kind of weird, lonely girl who lives on a tiny Maine island with her father, who's translating Ovid's Metamorphoses. Her mother died when Miranda was three, in what could have been an accident or might have been a suicide. Ovid's stories are woven into Miranda's in a wonderfully natural way. Miranda's father is withdrawn and interested only in his work and she's actually being raised by Mr. Blackwell, a mysterious friend of her father's. When Miranda graduates from high school, her father sends her to New York City to work at a library he founded years before. There, she meets people from her father's past and starts to realize the truth behind the her parents' mysterious past and how they ended up in Maine.

Coming of age stories can be painful and trite, but this one is lovely. I liked that the novel was separated into three sections (The Age of Silver, The Age of Bronze, and the Age of Steel), each named for parts of the origin of the world according to Book One of Metamorphoses, and each of which represents a different part of Miranda's story. It's clever without knocking you over the head. Sweeney has a real gift for language that's both spare and descriptive, and her facility with allusion is really amazing. I usually don't like books that use one source so extensively, maybe because I haven't read enough of the canon to be familiar with most of what's used, but this time it worked for me. Maybe that's because I've read Ovid more than once, and am pretty familiar with Greek mythology in general. But the book is definitely good, and through Miranda, Sweeney sneaks in enough explanation and interpretation that you don't even need to know the stories before coming to this book.

43. In the Drink

In the Drink (Kate Christensen, 1999)

The New York Times reviewed Christensen's new book, which sounded interesting, so I requested it from the library along with her first novel, In the Drink. The blurbs on the jacket almost convinced me to give it a pass, but I'm glad I pressed on. Several reviews compare Claudia, our heroine, to Bridget Jones, but that's to be expected now that BJ is considered the prototype for chick lit protags. Claudia and Bridget aren't really all that alike except that they're both in debt and prone to making poor decisions.

Claudia's a different kind of mess, though. She drinks too much, has a terrible job she's terrible at, and spends her money on takeout and vodka instead of rent. She's unfortunately too believable. One thing that makes this book a little different from true chic lit is that it's really not a romance. It's kind of lightweight and quick, but it's not dumb. I liked it.

42. The Brooklyn Follies

The Brooklyn Follies (Paul Auster, 2006)

Hey, two NYC books in a row. I don't know about you, but I often have amazing affection for authors I studied in school. I took a lot of really amazing classes in college, one of which was on narratives of the city. We read Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, and I've loved him and wanted to read more of him ever since. I just ordered some of his stuff for the library and snagged this one off the new books shelf as soon as it came in.

Read this book! It's all about family, especially the family you create for yourself. It's about having your heart broken, over and over, and figuring out how to go on and finally heal. I loved it. There's no way I can describe it without sounding cheesy. It should have read as cheesy, but it doesn't. Basically, the protagonist/narrator is Nathan Glass, who has survived cancer but has nothing to live for and no real plan for his life. He moves to Brooklyn and starts making re-making connections with other people. I can't describe it. Just read it.

41. The New Yorkers

The New Yorkers (Cathleen Schine, 2007)

Several years back, I read Cathleen Schine's The Love Letter. I remember liking it, but most of the details escape me now. Of course I remember the love letter the woman found in a book and the affair she has with a very young man, but I don't really remember the tone of the book or the quality of Schine's writing. My lingering impression was that it was chick lit, light and easy.

I thought The New Yorkers would be similar. The conceit, characters linked together through their dogs, was appealing. I was expecting more chick lit, but that's not what I got. The (human) characters are all lonely and fragile, lacking many firm connections to other people. I felt for them even though I didn't really like any of them very much, but it was wearing to keep reading through their sadness. The tenuous connections the characters make with one another are interesting--some grow stronger and some break completely.

These relationships brought back memories of my neighborhood on Capitol Hill, where I knew people on sight, and even talked to them regularly, but we hardly ever even exchanged names. I guess that kind of acquaintance is a pretty urban phenomenon, but probably more so in certain cities. The dogs in the story really add another layer of authenticity. I can't count the number of times I knew a person and his dog by sight, but we only ever introduced the dogs by name.

40. The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl (Barry Lyga, 2006)

Fanboy is a fifteen year old kid with one friend to his name, who's unhappily living with his pregnant mother and stepfather following his parents' divorce, is alternately bullied and ignored at school, and is obsessed with/writing comic books. Excuse me--graphic novels. Goth Girl is the fellow outcast who befriends him. The teenage alienation rings really true here. Nothing's exaggerated and the characters seem three-dimensional. It wasn't predictable and kept me interested the whole way through. So many YA titles seem to fall apart at the end. So I liked it.

The only problem I had with the book is that I kept comparing it to Hard Love, which features an angsty kid dealing with divorced parents, who has only one friend, and meets a cool and mysterious girl, and is obsessed with/writing zines. And as Hard Love is one of my all-time favorite books EVER, Fanboy and Goth Girl suffer from my comparison.

39. Why Moms are Weird

Why Moms are Weird (Pamela Ribon, 2006)

I started this before bed with the intention of reading a chapter or two, but now it's 4am and I'm finished. I should know better; I can do the chapter-by-chapter routine with heavy, serious books, but not chick lit.

This has been on my list for a while. I was once a huge pamie.com reader, loved Pamie's Gilmore Girls recaps on TWoP, and laughed hysterically through her first novel, Why Girls Are Weird. (I have three words for you: tiny wooden hand.) Maybe my expectations were too high, but I didn't love this. Don't get me wrong, Pamie--er, Pamela--is an excellent writer. She's great at capturing what so many of us have thought or felt, only in a really beautiful and clear way. Like this:

I've been romanced, dumped, caressed, fondled, and destroyed in the confines of my car. It's the shell that protects me when the rest of the world can seem so infinite. When everything in love becomes too chaotic, I can take a man to the smallest place that can contain us, force him to look at me and tell me the truth.

Lovely, no? But wait. Benny, the protagonist, is achingly real. But I hated her family. Hated. I started to hate her for letting them treat her like crap over and over. Yeah, maybe that's real, too. Still, I thought the book was a downer. Not even the love interest, who was kind of an ass himself, kept me that interested. The alternate love interest was a total jackass and I was annoyed every time he entered a scene. I guess I was hoping for more ha-ha funny instead of mean funny. Huh.