Queen Latifah is a fabulously respected, savvy businesswoman. She is an Oscar-nominated actress, a Grammy winner, a Cover Girl, and a self-made entrepreneur. She has been an inspiration to many women and young girls throughout the years as she has proven time and again that you can become a successful woman without compromising yourself or your standards in order to fit into some magic mold society insists you must fit into.
Queen Latifah has been a positive role model when it comes to body image and body acceptance. That in itself was the reason why I was excited to read her newest book, Put on Your Crown. The book, she says, is “a wake-up call to empowerment”, written predominantly for young women after noticing the severe lack of self esteem held by young women, which she believes is an epidemic throughout the US. She wrote this book for those young women who need to know that as you learn and grow from the experiences of your past, you can use them to turn yourself into a strong, confident woman.
Put on Your Crown is not a typical self help book. It is not a book of pages upon pages of bullet points on how to miraculously find self confidence and start treating yourself like a queen. It is not written in a tone that screams “I’m a professional and I have all the answers, so listen to me and your life will become awesome!” While it could be classified as a self help book, the premise of Put on Your Crown has to do with moments in our lives that essentially make us who we are and how to take those moments and, regardless of how devastating or surreal, use them to better our lives and appreciate what we have in our lives.
Queen Latifah shares pivotal moments in her own life that fall under one of eight topics, which she has set up as chapters throughout her book. The moments range from the way her parents had treated her and her brother the same without leaving one of them left out, to the openness of her family and their unwavering support throughout her life, to finding out who her true friends were after she had become a celebrity, to the times she worked herself too hard and had burnt out when she was trying to launch her recording studio and then again when she had to appear for photographs and interviews, to becoming very wealthy and suddenly finding out she had gone completely broke, to going to see her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and to the sudden and tragic death of her brother. These moments, as well as many others that have shaped Queen Latifah into the woman she stands proud as today, are listed under the categories of success, beauty, money, love, fear, loss, strength and joy.
As she reflects on her past and the moments she has had in her life that have made her who she is today, she lends not only the stories of these moments to the reader, but also advice and compassion. Essentially, this should have been a great book for young women. The premise of the book is good, the morals of her stories are fantastic and she does touch upon very important topics, such as drugs, prostitution and violence breaking out everywhere in her hometown and telling her readers about her mother, who is also her best friend, who has always been a teacher and who has also committed herself to helping young people who were plagued by drugs and violence and has helped them. Realistically, I found this book to be filled with tiny, redeeming morsels among a book that, as a whole, I found dry, repetitive and boring. The hardcover edition of this book is small and at 197 pages where, if it were laid out in a standard 8×11″ book would make up even less pages, was pretty painful to get through. While I don’t have too much time to sit down and read a book to begin with, I could easily get through something of this size in a few days. Instead, Put on Your Crown took me a month to read and most of that time I spent staring at the book when I did have time to sit down with it, willing myself to pick it up and keep on reading.
I can definitely appreciate the tone of her book; it was not written by a psychologist or a trained professional, but straight from the source. Queen Latifah writes solely in her own voice, as you would imagine she would speak to someone who was talking to her in-person. While I typically enjoy what Queen Latifah has had to say in the past (not including her recent comment about how we need to stop “beating up” Chris Brown, of course), I think this book would have made a better blog–something a great deal shorter. I do not think that she had enough content to fill a book with, since I found her going back to the same stories, anecdotes and scenarios several times throughout the book and it got boring pretty fast.
Despite my boredom with Put on Your Crown, I was looking for something specific within its pages. I wanted her to elaborate more on body image and body acceptance. As a full-figured woman who has actually made a career for herself in Hollywood, she is widely seen as a role model for young women who has not given in to society’s need for thinness. Very early in the book she dedicated a section of her book to the topic, that topic being entitled Real Women Have Curves. She speaks about the pressure to lose weight that she felt throughout her career, frequently being told to lose weight by studio executives, but she had remained adamant on keeping her figure. As long as she was healthy, she liked her size. End of story. That is the Queen Latifah I was looking for. On the second-to-last page of her book, she erased that entire section on how much she liked the size she was and didn’t want to lose weight. In writing to her 19-year-old former-self, she writes, “Dana. Do you know who you are? Guess who you get to be! And guess what, you even get to lose weight!”
I’m sorry, but excuse me? Did I read that correctly? Wait, I went back and looked and yes, I did! For a woman who has solidified herself as a champion of body acceptance to end an entire book she has just written on that note is not only a letdown; it is absolutely devastating for any young woman who feels she is not pretty enough or thin enough and picked up this book thinking it would be something different.
This giveaway is now closed.
I recently had the opportunity to review the recently-published memoir, Foxy, by the ever-fabulous Pam Grier. Whether you know her from her roles in Coffy, Foxy Brown, Jackie Brown or Showtime’s The L Word, chances are, you have heard of Pam Grier and you have marveled at her ability to truly become the character she is portraying, either in film, television or even in theater.
Pam Grier didn’t come from a wealthy or already-famous family; she was raised in very modest surroundings in Colorado, her father was serving in the Air Force and she was moving around every two years at a time where segregation was at an all-time high. She had a dream to go to college and while trying to earn a living in California, where she had moved to attend UCLA film school and to become an actress. It is only because of her determination and extremely hard and merciless work that Pam Grier is the recognizable and admired woman she is today.
Now is your chance to get to know the Pam Grier you may have not known before and to get an intimate look inside her childhood, her upbringing and the road she traveled to move up within the entertainment industry. We have 5 copies of Foxy to give away thanks to the Hachette Book Group.
To win a copy of Foxy by Pam Grier, all you have to do is leave a comment telling us what movie or television show you loved seeing Pam Grier in. [REQUIRED]
Since Pam Grier has been appearing in film and television since the early 1970′s, this shouldn’t be too hard of a challenge and if you need some help jogging your memory, check out her entire portfolio on Internet Movie Database.
Additional Entries: [Leave a separate comment for each additional entry.]
- Leave a comment telling us why you want to win a copy of Foxy.
- Blog about this giveaway and about Foxy with a link back to this post and to our full book review.
- Tweet about this giveaway. Feel free to use the following pre-written tweet or write your own and leave a comment with a link to your Twitter status.
Win a copy of Foxy by Pam Grier from @WomanTribune: http://tinyurl.com/2ecdloa 5 winners! ends 5/5
This giveaway ends Wednesday, May 5th at 11:59PM EST. This giveaway is open to all US and Canadian residents over the age of 18. The winners will be contacted by email and have 48 hours (2 days) to respond with their mailing address. If I don’t hear back from the winners within that time, another winner will be selected.
Full Contest Disclaimer
Pam Grier is known for a lot of things. She is known as a truly gifted, hard-working, dedicated and passionate actor. She is known for being at the forefront of the blaxploitation scene, for her role as Coffy, Foxy Brown and for Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, a role, it turns out, that Tarantino wrote specifically for her. She is also known as Kit Porter, the ex-alcoholic and known singer who turns her life around and truly re-discovers herself within a group of supporting and loving friends, who just so happen to be lesbians, in Showtime’s The L Word.
I knew Pam Grier mostly as Kit Porter, being much too young to have known her work as she was just a twinkle in a B-movie producer’s eye, but I was still thoroughly excited to get to know Pam Grier, the person and the actor, when I had the opportunity to review her newly-published memoir, Foxy: My Life in Three Acts. That in itself shows how Pam Grier transcends generations; her vast portfolio truly contains something for everyone, regardless of their age or their personal entertainment preferences.
Grier begins her memoir naturally, in the early years of her life–years 1949 to 1970. She grew up with her father serving in the Air Force, which allowed her family to see and experience everything this country, as well as other countries, had to offer, but at a time where people of color were forbidden to experience something as simple as public transportation. She recalled a specific experience when she lived in Columbus, Ohio at a time where segregation was at an all-time high and her family had been given a lovely place to live on base, but only because upon meeting her father, his superiors thought he was Caucasian, when he was really biracial. When they found out that her family were people of color, they promptly told her father that he would have to make other living arrangements off base. It was at this time, when Pam Grier was just five years old, where she realized that being a person of color came with many obstacles and she and her family ran into the racial wall throughout her childhood.
While Grier and her family moved every two years because of her father being active in the Air Force, she had always considered Colorado home, although she did spend some time in Wyoming on her family’s farm, which was also where she climbed onto her first horse and fell in love for a lifetime. While living with her Aunt Mennon, a compulsive, irresponsible and generally angry “wild child”, in the projects of Denver, Colorado with her mother, father and brother, as well as with her cousins, she was six years old when she was first raped by her three male cousins in the home when her mother was out and her aunt had left the children unattended. She was saved by the telephone repairman, who had come into the house and barged into the room when he had heard what was going on, after an appointment to fix the telephone wiring had not been cancelled. Grier never told a soul about what had happened to her, not fully comprehending what had happened. After being raped, she developed a stutter and consistently went out of her way to make herself unattractive to the boys, and to men as she grew older.
Her introverted behavior didn’t stop until she was much older and after losing her stutter, her introverted-self returned when she was raped again at eighteen years old, while out on one of her first dates with a family friend. Again, she didn’t tell anyone what had happened to her, this time, in fear of her family going out and killing her attacker and her need to keep peace within her family, as her parents divorced and she saw her mother struggling to complete her nursing degree.
After competing in and winning a beauty pageant, purely for the prize money she needed to fulfill her hopes of going to college to study film and to become an actress, Grier was offered the chance to move to Hollywood. She took the plunge and moved to California, quickly snatching up as many jobs as she could possibly work, as well as attend groups and meetings with UCLA students studying film on campus, although she was not a student.
While dating now basketball household name, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who when she met him was just named Lew, Grier landed her first acting job, a “B-movie”, The Big Doll House. After completing that movie, she was immediately hired by the same people behind the first movie, for her second, Women in Cages. It was also at this time when Lew, now Kareem, was consistently pressuring her into converting to Islam and to be an obedient wife he could take care of; but Grier never wanted anyone to take care of herself, being a driven and strong-willed woman with goals of her own that needed fulfilling. She and Kareem inevitably split when he gave her an ultimatum to marry him, or else he would be marrying a Muslim woman who had already been prepared for him–and he would be marrying this woman on Pam Grier’s birthday of all days. Needless to say, she declined his offer, as painful as it was, because regardless of how open her mind was to the idea, the more she read the books Kareem had given her about converting and what would be expected of her, the more she thought that the religion was degrading and oppressive towards women and Kareem married a woman he did not know for his religion.
Pam Grier mentions a great deal about the importance of the women’s liberation movement and her mother sending her information on the movement and the advancement of women. She also mentions a cameo appearance Gloria Steinem made on The L Word, asking who has fought harder for womanhood than Gloria Steinem? But these statements in conjunction with one particular statement really left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Almost off-handedly, Grier mentions her sexual relationship with a man as a grown woman and says that women should wait to have sex until they can be with a good man because if they don’t and have too much sex at a young age, they will be too stretched out for sex to be pleasurable. This is actually rather offensive, since feminism has a great deal to do with sexual liberation, as well as liberation from the patriarchy. To warn that you will be too stretched out for it to be pleasurable feels more like a back-peddle from feminism and sexual liberation. While this may seem like a very tiny issue and may not even catch the attention of most who read her memoir, it is still embedded in my mind and it’s still rubbing me the wrong way.
Grier has been involved in long-term relationships with many men who had not been worthy of not just her, but of any self-respecting woman and after reading about her experiences watching boyfriends like Freddie Prinze Sr. and Richard Pryor fall down the long and dirty road of deadly drugs and self-destructive behavior, you have to respect a woman for following her logic instead of purely her heart and knowing that as much as she wished she could save the men she loved throughout her life, that sometimes you have to let them go and make their own decisions and having to be more of a mother than a partner to a man is something no woman should be expected to do. It was when she was in a relationship with Richard Pryor, who at the time had been doing so much cocaine that it was present in his seminal fluid, that Grier was told by her gynecologist that she would have to stop having a sexual relationship with him unless he wore a condom or she could die because the cocaine was showing up inside of her and was destroying her reproductive organs. Throughout Foxy, Pam Grier consistently proves to herself that she is stronger and more self-aware than she could ever possibly give herself credit for.
Pam Grier is a survivor. A survivor of repeated sexual assault, as well as a survivor of cervical cancer that she found she had when dating a man named Phillip who let his mother live in poverty, having to carry one light bulb from room to room when she needed to see around her house while he was raking in millions, and who also stood Grier up after she had come out of surgery. But Pam Grier consistently triumphed, throwing herself into winning the fight of her life and consistently shining in every finished product that emerges where we are able to see her dedication and hard work pay off. Grier is an underdog; a woman who came from very little, but with one dream and a great deal of hard work, she succeeded in what she set out to do in her life and she just keeps on shining.
Powell’s Books is an independent book store with six physical locations and a remarkable online presence. They are always doing what they can to help authors, readers and the planet. They are partnered with Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit program that works with publishers, paper mills and printers to make positive and green transformations within the book industry, like using paper that is recycled and/or certified by the Forest Stewardship Council instead of endangered forest fiber.
But that isn’t all that makes Powell’s green they also purchase Clean Wind Power, offsetting 165,000 pounds of CO2 each year, they have been using bio diesel fuel in their delivery trucks that make daily rounds to Powell’s stores and warehouses since 2006, every Powell’s employee is awarded a discount on bus passes, available as a pre-tax deduction, encouraging all of their employees to use public transportation for their work commute or they can be given an annual bicycle maintenance subsidy. In October of 2008, Powell’s began work on a 100kW solar project at the NW Portland warehouse, which is one of the largest solar arrays in Oregon, with 540 photovoltaic panels supplying approximately 25% of the building’s electric needs. And that’s just the beginning because Powell’s has a whole lot more greening planned to take care of everything from waste prevention to purchasing recycled products.
Needless to say, Powell’s Books is a pretty awesome, green company you can feel proud to buy from.
So why don’t you buy from them tomorrow while an awesome Earth Day promotion is going on? That’s right–an awesome promotion to celebrate Earth Day!
Until April 22nd, buy any three used books at Powell’s and get a free reusable Powell’s tote!
Buying used books instead of brand new books helps the planet because publishers don’t have to keep printing new copies of books and you’re conserving the copies already in circulation. If no one is reading a particular book you want to get your hands on, why not get it and of course, when buying used books, you can get them for a fraction of the price they normally sell for, which is a huge plus! Another great thing about Powell’s is that I have bought several used books from Amazon and more often than not, they are totally beat up and I’m lucky I could even read some of them, but with Powell’s, I never received a copy of a used book that wasn’t almost new.
And who couldn’t use more books, right? So get to buying and get your free Powell’s tote!
This giveaway is now closed.
Back in February 2009, I was introduced to a book that broke rules and exposed secret lives. It was a book of acceptance and stripped away stigma constantly being enforced on girls and women today. It was a book all about first periods.
Have you ever noticed that all commercials for menstrual products focus on how discreet their product is and because their product is easier to hide than their competitor’s from onlookers and those you may be around who could possibly suspect that you have your period, is the reason why you need to purchase their brand instead of their competitor’s? It seems that whenever the topic of menstruation comes up in our society, we immediately are told that we must be discreet about it? It’s rather odd that something that happens within the bodies of (almost) every single woman in the world is still associated with something that needs to be shoved to the back of the closet and is still something that women are told by society is dirty or vulgar.
There is no shame in menstruation and when I had the opportunity to read and review My Little Red Book, an anthology of more than 90 short stories, essays and recollections from women and teens all over the world, I celebrated exactly that.
My Little Red Book has become a New York Times best seller, which is refreshing and exciting, knowing that there are enough people out there who are ready to give up the stigma surrounding menstruation and who are buying this book for themselves, for their daughters, granddaughters and friends; and now I want to spread the love. Thanks to Hachette Book Group, I have the opportunity to give away 10 copies of the new edition of My Little Red Book.
To win a copy of My Little Red Book, all you have to do is leave a comment telling us about your first period. [REQUIRED]
Don’t worry, I know that there are some people out there who don’t want to divulge that information or who feel out of their comfort zone in doing so, so feel free to provide as little or as much information as possible. You can say something like ‘I was 12 and I was skiing while on family vacation.’ See? Easy! Also, for those of you who want to enter to win a copy of My Little Red Book but have never experienced having a period (hello fabulous men out there!) just leave us a comment telling us who you want to give this book to if you win it, or of course, if you’re keeping it for yourself. There’s no shame in being a man and wanting to read this book, after all!
Because we are giving away 10 copies of this book to 10 different winners, there is only one method of entry into this giveaway.
This giveaway ends Wednesday, April 14th at 11:59PM EST. This giveaway is open to all US and Canada residents over the age of 18. The winner will be contacted by email and has 48 hours to respond with their necessary information. If no action is taken and I don’t hear back from you, another winner will be picked.
Full Contest Disclaimer
This review can also be seen on the Pajama Mommy Community.
College admissions counselor Eugenia “Genie” Michaels is in her late-thirties–one of only two women admissions counselors in the office of Thoreau College over the age of thirty-five–and has been the committed, unwavering rock for her boyfriend of four years, Hugh. Hugh Spencer is a cleaned up, bordering on downright prissy English man who, yes, does resemble Hugh Grant; he teaches English at Thoreau and is also an aspiring writer. Genie and Hugh, while not married, work much like a married couple, as couples who have been together a certain number of years often do, and while working feverishly through the night on his novel, Hopeful, Kansas, while keeping a day job, Genie did not bring up the possibility of marriage to Hugh and opted instead, to simply wait, thinking that her patience would pay off in the end, in the sum of a romantic proposal.
Hugh finally makes it big, becoming a celebrity while his novel, Hopeful, Kansas tops the best seller lists. While on a book tour he is interviewed on national television by Barbara Walters, where she prompts Hugh to propose to the love of his life. The only problem is, he doesn’t propose to Genie.
While still in shock after not hearing from Hugh after watching him propose to someone else on national television beside Barbara Walters, Genie’s best friend, the loud, mouthy Patty Pugliese, who no one in Genie’s family seems to be able to stand, comes to Genie’s rescue. Well, sort of. As Patty shows up with tequila in tow, Genie calls Hugh to get some answers and is faced with his awful truth; that he had never said he was committed to Genie for the four years they were together and worst of all, that he had never been sexually attracted to her. Getting very little answers at all, Patty edges Genie into The Sleeping Beauty Proposal; instead of having to go through the shame and embarrassment of telling those she loves and other inquisitive minds that instead of proposing, Hugh had actually dumped her, she would let people think whatever they wanted and not correct those who assume Genie and Hugh are engaged. In short: Genie will pretend to be engaged to Hugh; but before Genie can actually agree to this, Patty starts fielding phone calls coming in to congratulate Genie, telling everyone that Genie is thrilled and excited about her upcoming nuptials.
As her mother and sister rush to “help” Genie plan her upcoming wedding, her brother introduces her to a beautiful house he and his colleague Nick have just finished working on, before it goes on the real estate market. Throughout the book, Genie and Nick have a flirtation going on that you can’t help but root on and as we see Genie go deeper down the rabbit hole in regard to Nick, we see just how fast Genie’s charade of her faux-engagement may backfire.
Sarah Strohmeyer has successfully written some of the most compellingly real characters I have come across in chick lit, possibly ever. They are characters who often take themselves too seriously, who question themselves, who stumble and who struggle to pick themselves back up again. Genie is a character who can easily be any number of women I know; women who merely do not know what they are capable of or who are too afraid to dig deep within themselves to find out. Her best friend Patty is a best friend I firmly believe we all would love to have; someone who continuously pushes us, but is always there when you’ve stumbled, and Hugh symbolized that mistake every woman has made at least once that they can look back on and laugh about–and thank their lucky stars they got out when they did.
The Sleeping Beauty Proposal is an incredibly fast-paced read that will make you laugh out loud and shows women everywhere that they can do whatever they want; like purchase their own home, go for that big promotion (and get it!) and buy their own diamond rings without having to wait for a man to either do it for them, buy it for them, or give them permission.
Jane Jarvis and her best friend Allison are true blue friends ’till the end who always have each other’s backs and who can confide anything in each other. Attending Saint Teresa’s Preparatory School for Girls, the two are used to sticking out in a crowd, but now in the most positive way, being quirky in both their attitudes, as well as in their looks, so when the school holds their annual Big-Little celebration where Bigs (upper classmen) pair up with Littles (lower classmen) with the means to be more or less mentors to these younger girls, super confident Jane is immediately fearful for her less-confident friend, who she knows gets very nervous in any situation, not to mention an entire school event that, in essence, is based on your popularity.
During the Big-Little celebration, Allison seems to have it all together after showing Jane that she had received a cupcake in her locker with a note asking her to be a Big to an unnamed freshman. But Jane’s initial fears for her friend are reassured after Allison, waiting for her Little to come up and introduce herself fails to show, she throws up all over one of the freshman girls coming in her direction after nearly every other senior girl had obtained a Little. After Allison runs to the bathroom, Jane runs after to be there for her best friend, giving up any chance of getting a Little of her own. While trying to console Allison, who has barricaded herself inside a stall, a new sophomore student named Lanalee asks about Allison and after Jane tells her that Allison did not get a Little, Lanalee offers herself up, saying that she wasn’t able to get a Big anyway.
Lanalee seems to have appeared on the scene at Saint Teresa’s Preparatory School for Girls just in time. She is cool, calm and collected and even the most popular of girls in the school are fascinated with her, after she tells them a story of coming from another school primarily made up of rich socialites. She instantly becomes a great friend to Allison and to Jane alike, but Allison is spending less and less time with Jane and Allison starts to worry about this girl who she thought she had known so well; especially after Allison comes to school with her usual unruly hair cut into a short, dyed-red bob and is rocking an entirely new, obviously expensive wardrobe with matching, equally expensive accessories. Allison’s entire situation becomes even hairier to Jane when she follows Allison out of a small cafe, to see her go directly to Jane’s ex-boyfriend’s Elton’s house, who is now Allison’s new boyfriend.
As a series of weird and random events take place, Jane is left wondering what has happened to her friend to have made her become this completely new person she hardly recognizes (or sees) anymore. As her curiosity grows, she meets a very strange and at first, even somewhat stalker-like freshman named Owen and after ignoring him for a while, she realizes quickly that she needs Owen–because he happens to know exactly what has happened to Allison and is one of very few links Jane has to piece everything together. It is with Owen’s help that Jane comes to find out that Allison has made a deal with the devil–literally and it all started with that single cupcake in Allison’s locker on Big-Little Day. Now, it’s up to Jane to save the best friend she knows is still hidden inside of this new, but not-so-improved Allison, even if it means sacrificing herself.
I had Devilish sitting on my bookshelf for a little while before picking it up to read. I thought it was yet another young adult beach read; something that I would read through in a few sittings and be done with, it not really leaving such a lasting impression. Needless to say, I was wrong. The cover of the book is superb, especially since it does hold a great deal of meaning for the story itself, but you don’t know that when you first pick it, giving it that intriguing feel before you read it and a much more complex, full-circle feeling after.
It is an intelligent, fast-paced, thrilling read that will keep you turning the page again and again. This is the first book I have read by Maureen Johnson, but I am beyond intrigued and very excited to pick up another one of her books. She truly has a gift for playing with suspense and keeps you thinking and laughing throughout the entire book. Johnson’s characters, even her evil, do-no-gooders, are fun and will keep you switching sides on who to root for because you really like these diverse and very well-rounded characters.
Devilish was very much aptly-timed for me, just finishing it right after Valentine’s Day and not knowing exactly why I was craving cupcakes so much; it took my partner asking me what I expected from reading a book every day with a delicious cupcake pictured on the cover. While Devilish did initially present itself to be a not-so-remarkable read that I’ve read a thousand times before, it was anything but. I surprised even myself with how much I truly enjoyed this book.
Although Dream Life is a sequel to Lauren Mechling’s first book, Dream Girl, Dream Life is the first book I have read in the supernatural journey that is Claire Voyante’s world. That being said, Mechling first and foremost succeeded in creating a book that you can pick up and jump right into, without needing any back story from the first publication in the series.
Claire is a typical high school girl with a not-so-typical gift; ever since her grandmother, Kiki, gave her an onyx and ivory cameo necklace, Claire has been having black and white dreams that are major tips in solving some pretty influential mysteries. To make Dream Life even more intriguing, Claire isn’t just solving mysteries around New York, she (albeit, mistakenly) aligns herself with a secret society of do-gooders called the Blue Moons, who give her quite the mystery to solve–find a missing pink iPod that holds the secrets of a new and absolutely huge project to save the Brooklyn Bridge from real estate developer slimeball, Sink Landon.
Admittedly, Dream Life was a little slow to start for me, which I attribute to not reading the first book and really not knowing the who knew each other so well. However, the book surprised me with its ability to catch–and keep–my attention to the end. Claire is a remarkable and rememberable heroine that you find yourself rooting for in her entire series of problems, not just with solving mysteries, but also rifts with her friends, her complicated boy troubles and dealing with her eccentric parents. Through reading so many young adult books and seeing the amount of quirkiness young adult authors portray in their parental characters, it is my belief that YA authors write parents with the exaggerated qualities they had in parents growing up, with a myriad of additional attributes they wished their parents had and Dream Life had that ten-fold with a Paris-crazed mother with a love of the Zodiac and her parents’ insane Paris-themed house parties. But most of all, I fell in absolute love with Claire’s grandmother, Kiki, who reminds me of every genuinely close friend I have ever had that I could divulge anything to without feeling a hint of judgment.
Lauren Mechling not only presents a fabulous mystery novel that captures the attention of young adults and older adults alike, but also is the first author since the creators of Sex and the City to turn New York City into a character in itself. Being the wannabe-fashionista that I am (read: If I had money, oh the clothes, shoes and accessories I would buy), I really enjoyed the fashion appearances in this book as well. Kiki’s hand-me-down vintage dresses Claire wears and the footwear described in her best friend Becca’s wardrobe are enough to make even the savviest of fashionistas swoon.
I loved being given the opportunity to be a fly on the wall in Claire’s life; from her stance as a Half Moon in the Blue Moon society, solving a mystery that proved me wrong when I thought I had everything figured out, to finally figuring out who she is as a person and knowing her own level of morality, which makes Claire completely and utterly real.
I would recommend this book to anyone craving a serving of hilarious, page-turning, on-the-edge-of-your-seat read that lets you breathe a sigh of relief when you think things can’t get much worse.
I must preface this by saying that I know very little when it comes to cooking, never mind French cooking. I know enough to prepare something with very simple instructions, but for the most part my partner does the majority of any cooking that involves more than boil water, add noodles, wait until noodles are tender and cover with sauce. In addition to my lack of culinary expertise, I also knew very little about Julia Child when starting this book, so one could assume that this would not be a book that I would be interested in, if not having to force myself through. However, I surprisingly took to this book very well because you don’t have to know pretty much anything about cooking, French cooking or Julia Child to enjoy the humor and biting cynicism of Julie Powell and her ability to bring you on the journey, the upheaval, the frustrations and the victories that became her life.
Julie Powell was just a temp secretary working at a government office full of Republicans in a post-9/11 era where, among other things like filing, she answered phone calls about people’s ideas for the September 11th memorial that had not yet been placed where the World Trade Center towers once stood. Living with her husband, three cats and what one could assume to be a minor drinking and chain-smoking problem, she worked a thankless job and lived a mundane life in a crappy apartment. She lived the life so many people are currently and will continue to live–getting by without doing much of significance.
But that’s where we get Julie Powell’s life all wrong. Of course she did not mean to do something of so much significance, but she did strive to do something. While being told she had a condition that would make it difficult to impossible to have a child after the age of thirty, and being twenty-nine, she set out on a mission to restore her ambition, change her life and save her soul… by cooking all 524 recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I.
As she details her way through dish after dish, through long and excruciatingly-detailed pages on the insides of marrow bones and how to really go about stealing the lives of lobsters before turning them into delectable French cuisine, Julie & Julia is the kind of book you pick up on a rainy day when you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning, so you don’t and allow yourself to relax the morning and early-afternoon away in bed with a good book.
A memoir was the perfect thing for Julie Powell to write, being an honest and often self-deprecating woman who bears it all and isn’t ashamed of it. However, on this same note she did write in the author’s note that throughout the book she did just make things up but of course, does not touch on what is made up and what is true-to-life. That did not necessarily have a negative impact on my overall enjoyment of this book because as I found myself laughing during certain passages and then wondering if that had really happened or not, I realized that if it had, well, that would have been hilarious and if not, then Julie Powell is equipped with a great and witty imagination–And she is.
Her blog that inspired the book, the Julie/Julia Project gained a great deal of media attention towards the ending months of her project. She prepared dinner for newspaper columnists she had admired and even missed the last episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to do it. Her blog garnered a great deal of attention from people whom she called bleeders that cheered her on and also pleaded with her not to make aspic-and-anything ever again.
More-so than the art of French cooking, I was more intrigued by Julie Powell the woman. I enjoyed her anecdotes and expletive-filled tangents about her boring and thankless job, her varied and equally satisfying and satisfied friends and of course, a husband in which she portrays to be the textbook definition of perfect. While I had seen the trailer for the movie before picking up the book, I was actually quite thrilled to see that the real Julie Powell was not as wholesome as Amy Adams portrays on the silver screen.
Julie & Julia is a satisfying journey of discovery full of laugh-out-loud tales and lists of foods I am certain I will never let grace my dinner plate.
C. Leigh Purtill, the author of both Love, Meg and All About Vee (both of which we absolutely loved!) has just kicked off a bookish experiment that we couldn’t be happier about. Purtill’s novel, All About Vee was not written to be it’s own short novel, Vee was actually just another character in a bigger book entitled Fat Girls in L.A. and it goes without saying that while we did appearances of the other characters throughout All About Vee, the book itself was just what you could assume from the title–All about Veronica May.
But now we get to hear the stories of all of the girls we were introduced to in All About Vee with Purtill’s bookish experiment which will release a part of the sequel, The Rise of Ginny Cooper every Monday in January. Best of all, especially for people who already spend way too much money on books, The Rise of Ginny Cooper is completely free and is available for download exclusively at The Story Siren, a huge website dedicated to young adult books, reviews, author interviews, contests and more.
Download your free copy of The Rise of Ginny Cooper part 1
The Story Siren is also giving you an opportunity to win a signed copy of the first book in the series, All About Vee. From now until January 25th, anyone 13 years of age or older can enter to win the signed copy of the book here.
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