Book #7:

He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys
Author: Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo
Simon & Schuster, 2006

My sister said to me the other day, "If you had a magical genie on your shoulder that could offer you anything and it would happen right away, what would you want?"

I couldn't give her a straight answer. I came up with a few scenarios, but everything seemed to involve hardships or complications I wasn't willing to face. She let me think about what I wanted, but allowed me to see what it meant to get it. I stumbled and mumbled and contradicted myself. I swore a fair bit. So what, she ended up saying, do you really want?

Her point was to remind me of the realities of life. That nothing is so simple, and that pinpointing what we want, what we truly, ultimately desire for ourselves, comes with a road that's not always easy to follow. A road -- oh God how I hated this discovery -- that is not always even possible. She wanted me, really, to see the bigger picture. And to be more realistic about that picture.

Ugh -- doesn't it suck when someone cracks you out of your fantasy world? When someone is able to counter every fantasy-based notion you have? You say one thing, they counter it with solid arguments. You argue, they argue back. And they keep arguing until you sit silent and fold, because they're right. "You can't start," my sister says, "until you know where you want to finish."

I complained: But I can't do it!

She came back with: "Of course you can. You have no other choice,"

My point? My sister, turns out, is like my very own Greg Behrendt, just a text message away from ultimate, uncompromising truth. This is the way it is -- see it now. Greg's book with Liz Tuccillo does not contain the advice I need just at this point, but even if you're not looking for guy-advice, Greg's no-bullshit style is a great motivator to get yourself together and start separating the good from the bad in your life. That's what I got from this one, anyway. And I decided just how useful the thing would have been ten years ago when I was wrapped up that "does he love me" cycle of girlie crap. Greg's advice: If he does love you, you'll never be asking that question. It's so true, too. Greg lets us know that a dude that wants you will let you know evey way he can. And if you've ever been loved, ever been pursued, ever known what it means to really be wanted -- you'll understand the truth of that.

I enjoyed that -- Greg's breaking down of Guy Behaviour. And it's really not that complicated. If he's into you, he'll show it. Full stop. The book is written mainly in Q&A, with a deluded woman asking Greg if her abusive/non-committal/busy/married/sick/scared/rich/poor/young/old man is into her. And Greg tells it like it is -- he's doesn't want to go out with you, calls you fat, has a wife, says he's scared, forgets to ring, never makes dates, sleeps on the couch... then he's not that into you and a fox like you deserves more.

Well, you wanna say, if it were only so simple, but then you realise it is.

Downside? It's assumed in the book that women are perfect. Greg goes out of his way to remind us chicks of how hot we are and how wanted we are and how wasting time on non-committal men is just wasting our foxy energy. So the book misses when it comes to looking at women themselves, and their complexities. Not every woman is a smart, sexy, successful Liz Tuccillo. Some of us come with scars. I don't think it's entirely fair to blame male behaviour solely on maleness, which I feel this book at times does. But then Greg's not a psychologist, and I think his audience here probably is women like Liz Tuccillo who have much of their shit together already and just need the man part of the puzzle to slot in and fit.

It's a small criticism, though, because this is, essentially, a lighthearted look at truth in dating and romance. And Greg's forthrightness is addictive. He won't let you wallow, he won't let you question and back answer and excuse. He'll just give you fun, straightforward truth.

He should write a book with my sister.

Book #6:

Dear Writer
Author: Carmel Bird
Penguin, 1988

Book #5:

The Will to Whatevs: A Guide to Modern Life
Author: Eugene Mirman
HarperCollins, 2009

Reading this for review / interview.

Okay, so I elected to read this for review because Eugene Mirman is in Flight of the Conchords, but I had no idea it would actually be funny. And not just funny, but so funny, I spat chocolate milk at one point. It happened during Eugene discussion about naming his band Guy Whose Face Ate Sex. It's just that mad.

It's been ages since I've been forced to read passages from a book aloud to people because something is just so funny it has to be shared. You just have to pass on the gift of funny to someone else. Eugene Mirman is like that. It's silly, innocent humour that just had me excited to pick up the book each night.

And the advice wasn't too bad either. See my upcoming review and interview at PopMatters. Link to come.

Book #4:

The Energy of Slaves
Author: Leonard Cohen
Jonathan Cape, 1972

Of all the pieces collected here, this one hit me hardest. Seems I have a new favourite every time I read the book.

Welcome to these lines
Welcome to these lines
There is a war on
but I'll try to make you comfortable
Don't follow my conversation
it's just nervousness
Didn't I make love to you
when we were students of the East
Yes the house is different
the village will be taken soon
I've removed whatever
might give comfort to the enemy
We are alone
until the times change
and those who have been betrayed
come back like pilgrims to this moment
when we did not yield
and call the darkness poetry.

Book #3:

The Wave
Author: Todd Strasser (writing as Morton Rhue)

Man, oh man. I grabbed this out to read because, at work, I received a preview screener for a brand new film version of the story, only this time set in Germany. To see the originally American story (it's based on an incident at a Palo Alto school) that centres heavily on Nazi conditioning during World War II suddenly set in actual Germany -- well, that I had to see, and fast.

But I needed a new familiarity with the story. While the book is very much a work of young adult fiction, it's still quite heavy, and still full of adult themes and ideas. A rebellious teacher of the John Keating variety, Ben Ross, decides to try out an experiment with his class. The kids don't think a Holocaust-type event could ever occur in contemporary society because Hitler's brand of conditioning would never fly with a modern army. Ross subtley begin to run his class as if training soldiers and before he knows it, and before the kids know it, they're standing to attention when he says so, reading their homework every night in order to answer questions rapid-fire when called upon, and even saluting their fair teacher in the hallways. It's all part of the "Wave".

The experiment works a little too well, and problems begin to arise when the entire school becomes "Wave" mad. The kids want in, and those that don't find themselves in creepy trouble. Clearly, setting the same story in Germany is going to bring new and different, and difficult, themes to the fore. I am halfway through the movie at the moment, and already it's more complex than it's YA starting point.

It's rather a tame book for the big themes it investigates. I thought the climax was a bit watery, and would have enjoyed Rhue taking the kids and their madness to the sorts of places Robert Cormier was never afraid to go. The end of The Chocolate War, for instance, is a hard read. This book isn't so much. You know Ross will win out, and that's fine, but how he gets there isn't nearly as confronting as it could be. But then it is based on fact, so if the depiction of the final moments of the "Wave" is as it happened, then I shouldn't really complain.

Still, it's a creepy book. And creepier still that it actually happened. You can read more about the real-life "wave" in this interview at Ron Jones' website, or at the Guardian.

Book #2

Black Water
Author: Joyce Carol Oates
Penguin, 1993

As Steve and I are both reading Let the Right One In, and often both want to read the same copy of that book at the same time, I picked something else for those times when he gets to the little vampires first.

Book #1

Let the Right One In
Author: John Ajvide Lindqvist
Quercus, 2008

First book down for the year. I've started on a high note, too, with a book that quite literally kept me up nights thinking about just how it's author successfully mixed such graphic images and sweet-natured romance. Okay, so, it was the images of plasma-leaking eyeballs and bodies in bathtubs that had me jumping at every midnight noise, but still ...

The gist: Oskar feels the rage of any bullied schoolkid, fantisizing about getting his own back against the baddies in putrid, violent ways. Eli moves in next door, and her first encounter with Oskar is following one of his fantasy attacks. Eli is an outsider, too, and she and Oskar forge a connection. Eli, we learn, is a vampire, and her caretaker, Hakan, exists to satisfy her bloody needs. He kills for her and is eventually caught, leaving Eli all alone, and in need. Oskar and Eli get closer, while Eli's "influence" on the community gets a bit, well ... out of control. And there's much more going on -- bullies wanting revenge, kids wanting guidance, a dead man with a acid-burned face refusing to stay down. It's so heavily layered that as each story nears it's end, the tension becomes almost unbearable as they begin to converge.

This is a horror story and a love story. And the blending of those elements is very clever, if not slightly schizophrenic. There were moments I felt bile rising in my throat, closing the book and my eyes to shake away some ultra-confronting images. Other times, though, I dropped my cynical shoulders and sat back in awe as Lindqvist's characters so valiantly declared love through unthinkable acts of loyalty. Loyalty is probably at the heart of the story, love and horror aside. Characters risk their lives to help one another, enter dangerous situations to save one another, kill to be closer to each other.

And while vampires abound, the book does not feel like a supernatural tale. Lindqvist recreated his life in 1981 Blackeberg, and comments frequently on the political and social climates, the social concerns of a small town, and some alternative family structures (two key characters in the book, Oskar and Tommy, do not have fathers at home). There's a reality to the story, even if Sweden itself has an otherworldy air for an outsider like myself, that makes you believe vampires exist here, brought in to shake up the middling status quo. All romanticised vampire lore is scrapped for the very basics, and so Eli's struggle feels real. We're not sidetracked by garlic necklaces and stakes through hearts -- she lives and dies, for the most part, as we do, and because of this, we feel for her even as she bites into the necks of characters we come to love.

I grabbed the book because I was so gripped by the movie trailer. And I'm so happy I did that as the film, which I watched almost as soon as I finished reading, centres itself so firmly on Oskar and Eli that those layers I mentioned pretty much don't exist. The film is beautiful, though I found it slightly flawed (Hakan's character remains almost unexplained, for instance). Its beauty has much to do with its portrayal of Oskar and Eli's relationship. I worried that due to their ages, their romance might not translate so well, but it does.

So, all in all, not a bad start to my reading year.