Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews

Insatiable

2009-10-05T09:42:00-05:00

Having experienced eating disorders in high school and college, I immediately agreed to review Insatiable: A Young Mother's Struggle with Anorexia, when it appeared on the e-mail of upcoming titles.

Erica Rivera's memoir is very raw, surprisingly raw, considering she describes leaving her two young daughters alone and sleeping in her house while she went on pre-dawn, 90-minute runs. Brave, but necessary, because without that level of detail, it's hard to appreciate how this mental illness -- for that's what eating disorders really are -- can distort reality for those who suffer from them.

Rivera describes chewing and spitting, binging and starving with self-deprecating prose both disarming and disturbing. Her recollections brought back a lot of my own memories, and I was surprised at how similar our inner voices were.

The ending left me wanting follow-up, but that's how eating disorders work -- you're never really sure if they're gone forever. You just keep eating and hope for the best.

The Cat's Pajamas: 101 of the World's Cutest Cats

2009-09-24T10:25:27-05:00

I've had photographer Rachel Hale's coffee-table book, The Cat's Pajamas, for a really embarrassingly long time. But there's a reason the review has taken so long.

My daughter made off with it. From the moment I got it, she was transfixed by pictures of cute kittehs in all sorts of poses. Some sweet, some just shockingly beautiful. She'd page through them while I worked, cooing and gahing for seriously forty-five minutes straight.

Each photo is accompanied by a description of the breed in the picture, so if you or a friend is looking to invest in a beautiful cat (or just like looking at them), this book is more beautiful than any other breeds book I've ever seen. Or if you're just an LOLCats fan and like looking at cute stuff, this works, too.

I'd better hide the book before it disappears again.

WalkingFish Fishing Journal

2009-09-24T10:18:04-05:00

Blondie loves to fish and has been talking about teaching the little angel to fish for a while now, so when WalkingFish Books contacted me about reviewing their Fishing Journal, I said what the hey?

Let's just get this on the table: I don't fish. So I'm not really sure what's important in a fishing journal. However, this seems pretty thorough -- leaving spaces to document who you fished with, how many you caught, released, kept, weights, tides, moon phases -- crazy stuff.

I also really liked how at the bottom of each page is a little picture and description of different kinds of fish, including their scientific names. I imagine that could be pretty entertaining while you're waiting for the fish to bite.

So Blondie, come on down. We're all ready for you.

Child Care Today

2009-09-24T10:10:46-05:00

I'm just going to come right out and say I'm not going to do Penelope Leach's new book, Child Care Today: Getting It Right for Everyone, justice.

Child care is one of my political pet projects. I believe every parent should have access to quality child care if America wants to compete on a global level with its own workforce. The financial and mental burden placed on parents to locate and finance child care good enough to feel comfortable leaving kids and going to work is insane. It's the most difficult thing I've ever dealt with, and I have the means to afford quality care. I don't work weird hours or swing shifts. I have a vehicle that I can use to drive to my child care provider's location. I'm one of the lucky ones -- and I still think it's horrible and it sucks and I've never been more terrified than when my daughter was in what I considered to be a subpar facility as a baby because there were no other options.

I didn't make it through Leach's incredibly well researched book. It was much more academic than I expected it to be, but that's fine -- it's an amazing resource and one that I intend to go to when writing on this subject in the future. Leach digs through crazy volumes of research in the U.K. and the U.S. and talks about child care on a global level -- giving me insight into how other countries handle child care and how we might improve things in our own country.

So, I apologize to you, Ms. Leach -- you really killed it with this book, and I did not have the mental energy to get through it, but I'm very happy to own it and intend to use it as a resource to make me smarter in the future.

Evolution Rx: A Practical Guide to Harnessing Our Innate Capacity for Health and Healing

2009-09-24T10:00:14-05:00

Ever since I read The Moral Animal, I've been interested in how evolution has shaped human behavior. Enter Dr. William Miller's book, Evolution Rx, which I got recently for review.

Dr. Miller, who teaches a related class at the University of California, Santa Barbara, believes our bodies are mostly equipped to heal themselves, with the exception of dangers that weren't around in the caveman games (such as burns, smoking, and eating too much food). Too much food, indeed, seems to top the list of dangers.

Some of Miller's advice I liked, such as the idea that sun exposure and a little wine are actually good for you. Other ideas, such as Miller's description of morning sickness, made me want to dismiss all his ideas completely, because he was clearly guessing about the morning sickness.

As I've seen in my patients, an understanding that her discomfort is good for her baby -- along with sticking to easily assimilated foods -- eases symptoms without medication, in most cases.

LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE

Anyway.

Overall, Miller's book is an easy and entertaining read, but it seems, like most of these books, to be too generalized. True, flitting about in the sun worked for our hairy, coarse-skinned forebears, but they didn't have to deal with air pollution or holes in the ozone layer. They may have survived toxic food, but they probably didn't do it easily or painlessly. We don't know. They didn't have Flip Video. And since they didn't, it seems flippant and overreaching to assume just because they were adapted to their environment that it -- like morning sickness -- was anything but suffering.

April & Oliver

2009-09-10T16:59:57-05:00

Freshman novels. New writers. New FICTION writers. I chose April & Oliver from the list of possible review books for all of those reasons. Will it be good? I always wonder. Do first-time novelists ever make it?

Some of them do.

April & Oliver is Tess Callahan's first novel. If you like sexual tension and stories of lifelong friends, this is the read for you.

The writing is tight, tighter than the plot. I got a little lost with the nuances of how April & Oliver are connected -- there are family ties that aren't really family ties, and I think the story would've actually been stronger without the opening death of April's brother, Buddy. So many things happen in this book over such a short period of time I got lost a little. But the sentences were so lovely I got over it pretty fast.

What I didn't like about it? Somewhere along the line, I stopped identifying with April. I have this problem in my own writing -- writing from close third and drawing every other character as more complex and sympathetic than the heroine -- and so maybe I'm hypersensitive to it in other people's writing -- but it seemed to stand out here. Everyone was always saying how tough April was, and I couldn't tell if it was an act or if she really didn't care anymore. If she doesn't care, how can I care about her?

What did I like about it? The writing.

"A picture was taped to the back of the tank. At first April thought it was a landscape. Then she recognized the hills as hips, the river a seam between a woman's thighs. Her nipples were pink as pieces of coral, her hair lemon blond. The walls of the tank were stained with algae. An angel drifted, fins folded, kissing the surface for air. April wondered if fish could drown."

What else did I like? The story of April AND Oliver. The twists! The turns! The longing! THE ENDING!

The ending.

LOVED THE ENDING!

Here's to hoping Callahan is sitting at her laptop writing another novel right now.

K2W Home Repair Workshops

2009-08-30T20:27:29-05:00

Seriously, this past weekend I had some real fun at K2W Workshops in Overland Park. I got to knock holes in stuff, and nobody told me I was doing it wrong. It totally rocked.

(Note to readers: This was a a review workshop. In other words: I didn't pay for it.)

Average Jane wields her drill.

I was really excited about the basic repair workshop, primarily because I was going to learn to patch holes in drywall. If you'll recall, I'm good at creating them.

Move along, now. Nothing to see here.

So anyway, this class went from 9-4. It was serious business. I attended along with a bunch of strangers and Average Jane and Cagey. We sat at cute little desks with lots of tools.

Totally not your high school shop class.

Next, they let us write on the walls behind us.

See that towel rod? I installed it, all by myself.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Next, we learned to repair holes in drywall.

Learning how to make the hole SQUARE.

Krista's patch looks awesome.

Julie demos the "California patch."

Some things you learn too late in life.

Next, we moved on to electricity. We learned to install a new switch, a new outlet, and a light fixture.

I must say, I was really good at this. Shockingly good.

HA HA.

First fixture.

Second fixture.

Kelli also did a lovely job.

We finally finished by exploring the glory that is plumbing. Many disgusting stories followed, some of which involved dental floss.

Lunch was served, and the retail value for my instruction was $135.00. Beloved was all, "What? You didn't get any tools?" But I thought the class was worth the money and my time. To not have to call an electrician or plumber for every little thing is immensely worth it to me, and not everyone has my husband or my father at their disposal.

And honestly, even though I'm surrounded by handy males, I like to be able to do things MYSELF. I loved it. It was a long day, though -- if you can divide it up, you might try doing that. Divorce party? College graduation? Girls' Night Out? Go for it. I recommend.

Starbelly Maternity Tees

2009-08-28T16:09:15-05:00

My best friend is pregnant, so I was delighted when local company Starbelly asked if I wanted to review their high-design maternity tees.

Cute, eh? There are four designers -- this one is Sarah's. It's hard to see the writing in this photo, but it says "My best feature." And as anyone who has been pregnant knows, your bump may not be your BEST feature, but it's the first thing people look at after oh, the sixth month or so. Might as well slap something cute on it, right?

The tee itself is very thin and very soft, 100% cotton. I was a little concerned it would be very small (I asked for a medium for my petite friend, just because so many things are just too small when you're pregnant). As a test, I put it on myself (I wear a medium) and shoved a pillow in there, too. Still fit! The tag says to wash before wearing, though, and I'll be it shrinks just a bit, so go larger rather than smaller on the sizing.

The other thing I liked about the tee was its length. No need to worry about pregnancy plumber-butt, which can also be a problem.

The drawback? It is really thin. The black one I got isn't see-through, but I'm guessing you wouldn't want to wear your red-white-and-blue bra underneath a white version, no matter how great your rack is looking these days.

And Finally! Punkster Giveaway Winner

2009-08-21T13:41:22-05:00

I am so sorry I am WAY OVERDUE on announcing the Punkster giveaway winner. And the winner is ... number 5!

SARAH!

Thanks everyone for participating!

Punkster: Giveaway

2009-08-07T10:10:28-05:00

The good folks at Punkster sent me a bunch of super-soft onesies, t-shirts and baby-sized flannel shirts for review. They're pretty cute.

The shirts are 100% organic and so so soft. I don't have a baby, so I haven't washed any of these or road-tested them, so this is more of a giveaway than a review. Enter a comment until midnight Central on August 18 to win.

If you want to purchase something else from Punkster's friend Acoustic Kid, use coupon code ONLINELAUNCH at checkout for a 25% discount.

Good luck!