Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner

10 CommentsSaturday • February 20, 2010 • by michelle

I really loved Jennifer Weiner‘s first two books Good in Bed and In Her Shoes, so I was beyond excited to get an email asking if I’d like a review copy of her latest effort, Best Friends Forever.

Here is a quick plot summary from the book jacket:

Addie Downs and Valerie Adler will be best friends forever. That’s what Addie believes after Valerie moves across the street when they’re both nine years old. But in the wake of betrayal during their teenage years, Val is swept into the popular crowd, while mousy, sullen Addie becomes her school’s scapegoat.

Flash-forward fifteen years. Valerie Adler has found a measure of fame and fortune working as the weathergirl at the local TV station. Addie Downs lives alone in her parents’ house in their small hometown of Pleasant Ridge, Illinois, caring for a troubled brother and trying to meet Prince Charming on the Internet. She’s just returned from Bad Date #6 when she opens her door to find her long-gone best friend standing there, a terrified look on her face and blood on the sleeve of her coat. “Something horrible has happened,” Val tells Addie, “and you’re the only one who can help.”

I dove into this book with excitement and was still excited through the first few chapters as I got to know Addie and Val . . . but then I lost excitement as I, well, got to know Addie and Val.

I just didn’t connect with these characters or care what happened to them. I found them both to be rather pathetic in their own ways and cliché at that; needless to say, I didn’t find myself rooting for either one of them.

I also found the plot contrived and strange (unbelievable might be the word I’m looking for here), and I *really* wasn’t feeling the continual back story via flashbacks (I was always taught this was a huge no-no in storytelling and now I see why). When it comes down to it, the actual action in this book would probably fill 50 pages or so–and unfortunately that particular action seemed absurd at times.

All that said, I didn’t have any trouble picking the book back up again once I put it down or even finishing it, which I must attribute to Weiner’s writing; I love her conversational style and storytelling–I just didn’t particularly like *this* story or its characters.

Overall, this is still an OK book for the beach or to pass a weekend afternoon or two, but I’m sorry to say I did expect more from Weiner. If you’re looking to pick up her writing for the first time, be sure to go with one of her first two efforts and leave this one for later down the line, if at all.

I give this three espresso cups out of five, and do look forward to Weiner’s next book.

Commemorating the Real Moonwalkers: Andrew Smith’s Moon Dust

13 CommentsMonday • July 20, 2009 • by michelle

Let’s cut right to the chase here: many of you reading this weren’t even alive on July 20, 1969.

Neither was I.

And for that reason, it’s simply impossible for us, who have always known moon landings to be possible but have never seen one live, to grasp what those days leading up to the Apollo 11 mission felt like and the wave of emotions that swirled through the 500 million people watching Neil Armstrong take his “one small step.”

But that doesn’t stop me, who has always had a fascination with the final frontier, from trying to imagine.

And one summer day in 2006, I got a little help from my old friend William, he of the orgasmic Ionian Sea view.

In one of our many morning conversations over cappuccino the year before, I had told William that one of my earliest career aspirations had been to be an astronaut; I waxed poetic about Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama (surely a uniquely American concept, no?), and how if I had been able to attend (it wasn’t even remotely financially possible), my whole future coulda woulda shoulda blah blah blah.

Well, when William came back down here the following summer, he brought me a copy of Andrew Smith’s Moon Dust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth from England; I had never even heard of it. He insisted that it was all the rage in the UK, and, indeed, it was shortlisted for the British Book Awards Best Read of 2006.

Moon Dust is Andrew Smith’s account of what has become of the remaining Moonwalkers–only nine of the twelve men who have walked on the moon’s surface from 1969-1972 are still alive to tell their stories.

Smith was inspired to pursue this idea because of what happened during a 1999 interview with Charlie Duke, who became the 10th man to walk on the moon with Apollo 16. In the course of the meeting, Duke received a call with news that Pete Conrad, third man on the moon with Apollo 12, had died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident in Ojai, California. “Ojai,” incidentally, is a Native American word for moon.

Duke plainly stated, “Now there’s only nine of us,” words that stuck in Smith’s head for years. Then he finally decided to pursue the answer to the question, “Where do you go after you’ve been to the Moon?” by tracking down all the surviving Moonwalkers to see how their lives were changed by their experiences and what they’ve been doing since their lunar days.

I devoured this book that summer, and I still think about it periodically, but it wasn’t until the coming of the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing that I picked it up again.

Just like the first time, I became fully engrossed in the stories of these extraordinary men who accomplished things I can’t begin to wrap my head around. Smith does a fantastic job of transporting the reader right there before, during, and after the moon landings, putting human faces, dreams, and feelings to names I’d only heard of.

Yes, Smith’s narrative could have been a little less about him and apparently there are some rather glaring factual errors (not that I could have picked them out), but none of that mattered to me. All I wanted to do was sit down with the Moonwalkers and just listen, and Smith’s Moon Dust gave me the chance to do just that — in many instances leaving me with even more questions about the men who walked on the moon, the space program’s past, present, and future, conspiracy theorists’ beliefs that the moon landings were a hoax and never actually happened, and so many other things I hadn’t even considered before I read the book.

Just like an excellent nonfiction book should.

Whether you were alive or not on July 20, 1969, I highly recommend this book for an amazing look into the minds, hearts, and souls of nine of the 12 most interesting men to have ever walked the earth — and the moon.

What do you associate with the July 20, 1969 moon landing?

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Passeggiata by G.G. Husak

6 CommentsMonday • June 29, 2009 • by michelle

Remember back when G.G. Husak, author of Passeggiata: Strolling Through Italy, guest posted here? Well today we’re talking more about the book; here is my review:

Passeggiata by G.G. Husak is a memoir about the author and her husband’s travels through Italy, to which they return every year. The book covers their visits to Florence, the Italian Riviera, Siena, Assisi, Orvieto, Naples, and more; from big cities to small hill towns, they’ve done it, and you can read about it.

Husak’s love for the Bel Paese and all it offers really shines through her tales—and especially in the fact that she and her husband continue to choose Italy instead of other destinations. “Italy has been a theme that enriches our shared experiences by being integrated into our lives after we get home,” Husak writes.

The book can be a bit slow-moving in parts as Husak seems to want to fit in all the details—and perhaps justifiably so, as the details in Italy are certainly not to be missed. Still, the editing could have been stronger as some parts seemed repetitive or simply went on for a bit too long without enriching the overall story.

For this reason, I recommend reading this book a chapter at a time, taking in each destination by itself and giving yourself time to reflect on their journeys; imagine yourself sharing a caffè with G.G. and her husband in Florence or walking for miles around a huge wall in Siena that blocks off the old city from the train station.

This book would be especially good for novice travelers to Italy, even for those who have yet to make their first visit. Many of Husak’s stories involve the types of mishaps, confusions, and glitches that often accompany Italian travel tales; newbie travelers will find it particularly encouraging to know that even when things look dire, they’ll eventually work out—and that strikes, changes in schedules, etc. are just normal, Italian travel experiences that everyone battles.

I give this three espresso cups out of five, mostly because I would have liked it to have been edited better; I enjoyed reading about Husak’s experiences, but aside from the fact that the narrative could have been much tighter, there are also quite a few Italian mistakes (gender, incorrect place names, words sometimes confused with similar Spanish words). This is a pet peeve of mine and could potentially make this book confusing for those newbie travelers I mentioned.

Still, true Italophiles will find a lot to like in this passeggiata through Italy; indeed, it could even be used as a supplemental guidebook as it covers so many wonderful Italian locations.

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