The BookFetish Blog

2020 y’all. It’s already one for the history books. I hope you and your loved ones are well. I hope you’re staying home if you can. I hope you’re reading a lot.

I’ve been reading a lot! But I’ve been remiss in posting. And one of my “20 in 2020” goals is to blog every book I read this year.

I’m on book 13 right now, and not one post blogged! Guess I better get on it. Pitter patter, as they say on Letterkenny.

There’s an author interview coming soon, too.

Atomic Habits by James Clear

There were some changes I wanted to make in my life a few months ago, and I needed help getting motivated to do them. I forget exactly how I came across Atomic Habits, but I used an Audible credit and downloaded the book.

It’s an easy listen, only a few hours, but I found it worthwhile. Some of the advice Clear gives is things we have all heard before, but his strategies for making habits stick were game-changers for me. I found them practical and easy to use.

I’m using them today, in fact, and have been every day since I finished the book. Despite life being upended in its current chaos.

If there’s something you’d like to change in your own life, I recommend Atomic Habits. The audiobook was great, the narration straightforward and easy to listen to. But I think it’s worth buying or downloading a copy of the book as well, especially if you want to refer back to it. And you may very well want to do just that.

Y’all. This book. This Book. It is definitely outside some people’s comfort zone, but I absolutely loved it. Finished it in a day and have told so many people to read it.

I adore the writing style. It’s non-fiction that reads like prose, the result of the “immersive reporting mentioned below.

From the book summary:

“In suburban Indiana we meet Lina, a homemaker and mother of two whose marriage, after a decade, has lost its passion. Starved for affection, Lina battles daily panic attacks and, after reconnecting with an old flame through social media, embarks on an affair that quickly becomes all-consuming. In North Dakota we meet Maggie, a seventeen-year-old high school student who allegedly has a clandestine physical relationship with her handsome, married English teacher; the ensuing criminal trial will turn their quiet community upside down. Finally, in an exclusive enclave of the Northeast, we meet Sloane—a gorgeous, successful, and refined restaurant owner—who is happily married to a man who likes to watch her have sex with other men and women.

Based on years of immersive reporting and told with astonishing frankness and immediacy, Three Women is both a feat of journalism and a triumph of storytelling, brimming with nuance and empathy. “A work of deep observation, long conversations, and a kind of journalistic alchemy” (Kate Tuttle, NPR), Three Women introduces us to three unforgettable women—and one remarkable writer—whose experiences remind us that we are not alone.”

I found the stories to be intriguing and heartbreaking. It feels almost voyeuristic reading such intimate details of these women’s lives, but at the same time, I think it was very brave of them to share their stories. I think there are a fair number of readers who will relate to Maggie, Lina, and Sloane.

There are times the book is hard to read. Minor spoilers here…..

Lina, for example, is so consumed by her affair, she can’t see that her lover is not in love with her, even though she’s convinced she is in love with him. Maggie was taken advantage of more than once. And I don’t think Sloane is as happy as she wants to be in her marriage.

I’ll be honest, my friend Lisa didn’t love this book- like I said, it won’t be for everyone, but I’m glad I chose it as a recent book of the month. If you’ve been on the fence about this one, give it a chance.

Do you remember the song “I’ve Never Been to Me” by Charlene? I HATE this song. Viscerally. With a passion. I remember the first time I heard it. I was in college, years after the song was popular, and I thought it was a joke. It’s bad. I feel like you should know that going into this review. I detest this song.

You may be asking why, if I so adamantly dislike the song, would I choose to read the book about the artist and the song? Because to be funny, my friend Kenneth gave it to me for my birthday. I’m a good friend, so I read it. And as much as I loathe the song, I went into reading the book with an open mind. Maybe Charlene’s story would change my mind (BIG maybe), or at least make me a little less hostile towards the song. It did not. So if you love this song and you love Charlene (who I am sure is a perfectly lovely person in real life) you may want to stop reading now.

The song “I’ve Never Been To Me“, if you’re unfamiliar, is all about how a woman who lives the high life and is successful isn’t really content, and will end up alone and empty because she’s not married with a child or children- that is what completes her. You can see the lyrics here. This book is supposed to show the parallels between Charlene’s life and the song. Except it doesn’t, and I don’t think Charlene sees that.

And now, finally, onto the review.

Charlene wrote this book with someone called Jordan Paramor. A Google search shows me that Jordan is a ghost writer and journalist. Apparently there was a publisher, but I feel there’s scant evidence of a decent editor.

One thing I want to address early is that Charlene clearly suffers from some form of mental illness- she often refers to crippling depression she suffers and that her mother suffered. Anything that I say in this review is not intended to make light of any form of mental illness, but I am going to offer my opinion on some of her choices and decisions.

The first thing that bugged me about this book is that Charlene is American. She grew up in Los Angeles. She’s lived in the UK (her husband is British) but currently lives in California- and has for years. Yet the book, likely due to Jordan Paramor living in the UK, uses UK spellings and slang. It’s pretentious and precious.

There are things that felt contrived or didn’t really ring true to me in the book. The story starts out with how much Charlene’s family loved her and she loves them, but everyone at school hates her and bullies her for no good reason. She’s friendless. Like a lot of young girls, she is critical of her looks. But in the midst of all her angst about her looks, someone nominates her for a “Miss Dream Girl” competition and she goes all in for it and wins first place. That comes across like faking not liking your looks but secretly knowing people think you’re attractive and you know it, too.

As a teenager, she starts trying to meet famous people and is hanging out with guys far too old for her. She falls madly in love with a wannabe musician with a drug problem, alienates her family, gets pregnant and runs off with her boyfriend, marries him, and lives in extreme poverty while trying to make it in the music business because she wants to be a STAR. She names her daughter Chadney (yes) and has the sense to let the father’s parents raise Chadney because Charlene and her husband are clearly not mentally or financially prepared to raise a child. And the husband’s an abusive addict (because of course he is).

Here’s the first instance of a lack of editing in the book. Charlene goes on and on about how much she loves her horses (the only thing she was good at aside from singing, and who ground her and bring her peace) but when she finally (rightly) leaves the abusive husband for the first time, she says “… I even left my car and my horses behind. But I felt like I didn’t need them. This was going to be a new life for me, and I could always replace anything I needed.”

This bothered me so much and is an early example of where I felt an editor would have come in handy. To so cavalierly dismiss “beloved” animals as not needed and replaceable makes Charlene sound soulless. I understand getting out of an abusive situation often means leaving with only the clothes on your back. I’m not judging for leaving the animals behind. I’m judging the tone with which this part was written.

The narrative in this book is colloquial and repetitive. Wonder/Wonderful were used 66 times in the book. Happy occurs 81 times. Two consecutive paragraphs start with “I ended up…” The book needs some serious editing.

But I think what bothered me most is that Charlene comes across vapid and entitled and she doesn’t learn from her mistakes.

As is typical of some kinds of women, and reminiscent of her earlier “no one at school liked me”, any time Charlene shares a stage with a woman more famous than she, that more famous woman doesn’t like/ignores/is mean to Charlene. I’d almost say it was slightly racist because she calls out Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross, but she also includes Petula Clark in the mix so I think Charlene just has a victim complex. Of course all the famous men she name drops are charming and adore her.

After her tumultuous marriage and a few other misadventures, Charlene predictably finds god. She attributes recovering from a serious illness to god’s magical powers and then talks about giving her life over to him, yet thinks nothing of carrying on for years with a married man, which seems a bit at odds with one of the Ten Commandments.

The thing that grated my nerves the most in the book, though, is Charlene wants success and fame and money more than anything else- in fact, she feels like she deserves them.

“All this success and money I’m owed? I have to get it back.” Note that she signed a bad contract, ignoring advice to have a qualified lawyer review it and make sure it was fair and didn’t put her in financial jeopardy. It cost her heavily, but again, she’s the victim and doesn’t acknowledge that it was stupid to not read the contract and more stupid still to not have a lawyer read it.

“I know that I’ve lost so much in my pursuit of fame and fortune, but I just want what is owed to me. I lost out on so much money, and my career should not have gone the way it did. I was good, I had talent, and I still do.”

“I know myself pretty well and so I know that once I’ve had more success, I’ll be able to let out a deep breath and say ‘I’ve done it. The battle is won and the quest is over.’ I know it’s hard for people to understand that and people try to analyze me or tell me to let go of things, but it’s not that easy. I lost what I should have had – and should still have now- because of a bad contract.“

Yet, she never seems to learn from her mistakes. She jumps at any opportunity that she thinks will make her famous without vetting it. When she’s paid any advance of any sort, she appears to spend it all and save none of it, so she and her current husband and their children don’t have a financial safety net. She separates her family for months at a time while she pursues these half baked ideas that she wants to make her famous.

It’s almost laughable since in her song, being content with a man who loves you and children is what should complete a woman. She still is the person she’s preaching about not being- but that she thinks she is.

“I think until you learn lessons in life you will keep making the same mistakes. Somewhere along the way I must have subconsciously realized I deserved more.”

There’s a lot more I could say, but I think you get the point with what I’ve written here. I’ve Never Been to Me is, I think, another attempt at fame and money, but instead is more of a discontented mother cursing at her life. I still hate the song.

When I read this one, people compared it to A Star Is Born. While a few points are similar, I don’t think it is a fair comparison. I think Daisy Jones and The Six stands in its own right.

How best to describe this one? It’s like reading an episode of the old VH1 show, Behind the Music. You get the backstory, the inside story, the triumph, and the heartbreak. You’re just reading it and imagining the video clips.

I enjoyed reading this one. The beginning was a little slow but it picked up, and I found myself turning the pages. I enjoyed getting to know the characters, with their current commentary interspersed with the words and actions of the past.

I felt it bittersweet towards the end, but also a satisfying ending. After all, life is bittersweet. I read this one in about a day. It was a perfect vacation read, but I’m a little mad at myself for letting it sit on the shelf so long. If you like stories of how the band got together, and what tore them apart, then Daisy Jones and The Six may be a perfect read for you.

The Gifted School is a good vacation read, but if I were grading it, I’d give it at best a solid B. The book summary led me to believe it was going to be something different than it was, but once I adjusted my expectations, I enjoyed it. It certainly does feed into the craziness that can exist around getting little Dunstan into the “right” school.

Maybe it’s reality TV, like the Real Housewives of whatever city, that made me skew my expectations for this book, but I expected it to be more outrageous. Now that I think on it to write the review, though, I’m beginning to think I didn’t appropriately appreciate some of the nuance. The book does an excellent job illustrating how white privilege will glom onto any number of opportunities to show how woke they are, without really understanding the ramifications of their actions.

Bruce Holsinger gives us some deeply flawed characters who use some horrible judgement, and some of them find redemption. He shows us how parents out of synch in how to raise their children can harm their marriage and their families. He reminds us again, that on the Internet, nothing is private.

As I read this book, I was disappointed that it didn’t meet my original expectations, but thinking about it here, there are more messages to be gleaned from it than I first recognized. Certainly one is that it is possible and incumbent on many of us to be better people. Upon reflection, I’d give this school a B+.