The Country of Ice Cream Star

 

The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a unique book! Written in Ice Cream's language (which resembles English enough to be understandable, but unique enough to seem like an authentic iteration of it), we learn of a world where a virus that attacks humans when they reach adulthood (18-20), and leaves a world of children trying to recreate a society. Newman portrays quite a few of these adulterated recreations: the scroungers, the militants, the townies, the religious, and the organized and political. The interaction of some of these societies is interesting enough, but gets complicated when vaccinated Russians (and thus adults) come into the picture. (Nevermind that the roos as they are called are white, while all the other remaining children are black). The story is harsh; these are children dealing with war and sex and a pervasive disease. Ice Cream is a literally a star--her many mercurial moods, her intense love that both saves and ruins those around her, her fight and unwillingness to give up. Were there some plot holes? yes. Did some characters seem extraneous and seem to disappear? yes, (I'm looking at you El Mayor). Did I wish for a second book to recount what Ice Cream told us in the last few pages? yes, yes, and yes please. But above all, all the major stars for the beautiful new language that Newman created for this place--I started thinking to myself in it and that is bone.

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Feel like an endless scream somehow ( a car ride).

restless with good life (the trees).

Wilson

Wilson by A. Scott Berg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I always really liked Wilson, with his 14 points and his dogged determination to forge peace as a quixotic ideal. (His top hat and pince nez didn't hurt). I didn't know if that was just my 17-year-old take of a page and a half written about him in my history book, or what a deeper look into the 28th president would reveal. Turns out my knee-jerk assessment was pretty spot on. Wilson was enormously idealistic and his integrity to his beliefs was truly remarkable. His black and white outlook on life may have been his downfall however. Not because he refused to compromise, necessarily, but because he trusted others around him implicitly and then they invariably let him down, and he was never able to forgive them. Thus he lost associations that could have helped him as well as the respect of others who saw him as petty and vindictive. He was not a perfect man, but I still admire him for truly trying the best he could do what he saw as right.

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"We live by poetry, not by prose, and we live only as we see visions."

"War isn't declared in the name of God; it is a human affair entirely."

"Do the thing that is audacious to the utmost point of risk and daring, because that is exactly the thing that the other side does not understand.  And you will by the audacity of method when you cannot win by circumspection and prudence."

Our Endless and Proper Work

Our Endless and Proper Work: Starting (and Sticking to) Your Writing Practice by Ron Hogan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was not as structured as I thought it might be. It was more like a conversation with someone who has some success in writing and publishing. Still, it did have some good motivation, if only to remind you why you are writing in the first place.

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I’m saying that you’re creating a space in your life where insight is attainable, but more importantly where you can become the person who is capable of recognizing those insights, then acting upon them.

Pay attention to what happens around you, for sure, but also pay attention to what it stirs within you, because that’s where you will find yourself. And if you’re having trouble finding yourself, give some thought to how and where you’re looking, and don’t be afraid of changing one or the other . . . or both.

How are you wasting time and energy that could be better applied toward your writing—and what prevents you from abandoning those wasteful practices?

Listen: You’re a smart, creative person, and, deep down, you know what your imagination needs in order to flourish. You need to commit yourself to creating a life that enables you to surround yourself with that nourishment—but, also, don’t simply surround yourself with it, feed yourself. All the inspirational books, all the supportive relationships . . . none of that will do you any good if you keep all your potential bottled up.

You need to believe, deep down, that you can do it, then you need to give yourself permission to do it—and that involves clearing space and time in your life to devote to your writing practice, because it is a thing that matters.

“The higher the level of suffering, the more it seems we are willing to open up and offer the true versions of ourselves.”

House of Earth and Blood

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This is a DNF. In fact, I was only 6% in when I stopped. Thanks to GR reviewers, I decided not to go on. Nothing happened in the first 3 chapters, except lots of swearing, stock (gorgeous) characters who did not strike me as likable--abusing their positions of power, taking drugs, and feeling sorry for themselves.

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Shuggie Bain

 

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Winner of the Man Booker Award for 2020, it is beautifully observed and written. The slow decay of a woman bent on slowly destroying herself with alcohol and so desperate not to be alone that she pushes everyone away from her. Her young boy trying to make sense of his mercurial mother and a world where he doesn't quite fit in. It's the violence too of the times and the place, the violence of poverty and of desperation and shame. It ends on a hopeful note but most of it is bleak--only the beauty of the writing keeps you reading.

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The Old Plantation

 The old plantation

dressed in a recent coat of whitewash,

shutters an identical shade of original green,

braced by golden beams of new wood 

as it slightly lists to the left

due to foundational errors.

The whole affair cordoned off.

A restoration of remembrance 

     or nostalgia;

     admiration

     or a recognition--

of weathered stairs polished with 

    plain worn shoes

    beating

    steady rhythm

    behind a staccato of kid leather boots;

of ledgers laid open to

   columns of profits

   as straight as

   harrowed furrows;

of windows peering out 

    at fields sprouting snow--

    a harvest of clouds--

    while wraiths creep amongst fog

    under the relentless glare of

    barren sockets 

 framed in green and white.

Caste

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wilkerson does a great job of having Americans confront the historical atrocities of slavery. Having the institution of slavery rub shoulders with the Holocaust and the Indian caste system and come out as the worst definitely makes me as an American feel shame and sadness for our past collective behavior. She also does a pretty good job of illustrating how the caste system still exists in America and I won't deny that . However, she also seems to equate anyone that voted for Trump as at least a closet racist and that anyone who was ever rude or mean to her did so because she is black. While I definitely won't discount her feelings (and some definitely were racist actions against her), nor will I even try to defend That Man (although Hillary Clinton was no real choice, either), I sometimes as a white person despair as to what I can do to make the situation better. I sometimes feel like the constant listing of slights, mini-aggressions, even blatant racism is counted against any white person, so that I feel so shameful of my skin, that a gulf between me and a black person has widened instead of shrunk. I am more terrified of inadvertently offending a person of color now that I think twice about engaging them in conversation. Even now I am certain someone is misunderstanding what I am trying to say. I will keep reading about race because with each book I understand better a different point of view and I can empathize just a little bit more.

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At first, religion, not race as we now know it, defined the status of people in the colonies.  Christianity, as a proxy for Europeans, generally exempted European workers from lifetime enslavement.  This initial distinction is what condemned, first, indigenous people, and, then, Africans, most of whom were not Christian upon arrival, to the lowest rung of an emerging hierarchy before the concept of race had congealed to justify their eventual debasement.

Their lives were to some degree a lie and in dehumanizing these people whom they regarded as beasts of the field, they dehumanized themselves.

The elevation of others amounts to a demotion of oneself, thus equality feels like a demotion.

seeing whatever is happening to them as, say, a black problem, rather than a human problem, unwittingly endangering everyone.

Pachinko

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed the first half of this novel about South Korean immigrants in Japan. The setting was new to me, and the set up was well-thought out, different and yet relatable. But then it evolved into more like vignettes of Korean-Japanese without a lot of preamble or follow-through. Even the characters that carried over from the first half seemed to change too drastically to be accounted for, making them almost different people. I would have preferred less breadth and more focus. Also, for a novel named Pachinko, and the game parlors playing a integral role in several of the characters lives, there was little description of the job or the game. I even had to google it to understand what it was. However, overall the experiences of this family opened my eyes to a different history and made me care.

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Saga

 

Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The characters are the best in this graphic novel, and the action keeps going. It opens with a bang, has unique and interesting plot points, and comedy sprinkled throughout. It deals with prejudice, war, environment, violence, and family. The drawings are amazing and I loved the take on the spider-woman. However, it is just a bit too crude for me to continue this saga.

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running to stand still

 

Running on a treadmill

standing stock-still

I tell myself I am safe

from judgement, as though my slow progress

would offend, my stretched Lycra

would distress

I tell myself I am safe 

from runner's knee, and muscle pulls

concrete is too hard to fall

one trip to make me crawl

I tell myself it is easy 

drinks at hand, music wired

as though carrying what I need and desire

is too heavy

I tell myself it is easy

course predestined, speed anticipated

No sudden turns, dogs, streets gated

Even the seasons don't change

I don't change

I get nowhere.

Family Furnishings

Family Furnishings: Selected Stories, 1995-2014 by Alice Munro
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Alice Munro has perfected the realistic short story and though this collection contains 24 they are each perfection. I give her the Willa Cather award. Her stories often carry the tension between the expectation of a woman's role and her longing for something more fulfilling. In "The Children Stay" raw protagonist contemplates bringing her play's script on a beach outing with her children, but "then laid it down. She was afraid that she would get too absorbed in it and take her eyes off the children for a moment too long." This desire to be a good mother, a good wife, a good daughter, and the desire to realize one's own dreams and desires often chafes up against one another. Family Furnishings is also the perfect title because so many of these stories deal with family and a sense of place. The later stories become more and more autobiographical, but they all deal with the inheritance of expectations and responsibilities as well as personality and proclivities that are passed along family lines. I could, and probably should, expand what I mean by everything I just wrote, but I won't and encourage you to read a Munro story whenever possible.

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Mosquitoland

 

a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18718848-mosquitoland" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">Mosquitoland by David Arnold
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this YA novel about Mim who is trying to reunite with her mother after a divorce. Mim's father worries about Mim's quirkiness, that it is a harbinger of mental illness prevalent in his family. So with Mim as an unreliable narrator we embark with her on a crazy road trip full of adventures and a crew of pals she picks up along the way. All in all, it is just purely enjoyable. Do I like that one of the pals has Down-syndrome which they treat well, (yay), but also (and is even stated) as sort of a pet, no. Still, it emphasizes that we are all a bit crazy, we all have problems, we are all doing the best we can (even the evil step-mother). It is a refreshingly original, sensitive, funny, thoroughly satisfying book.
FYI: Does have some language. Although not jarringly so.

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