Ladyslott

• Rated 4 stars

“Portia de Rossi is probably more famous as the wife of Ellen Degeneres than she is for her acting roles, but that’s a shame because she is a very talented actress. This book is about her struggles growing up, questioning her sexual identity and her later years as a Hollywood success on the Ally McBeal show, hiding the fact that she was a lesbian and her ensuing battle with anorexia.

This book was often very difficult to read, but it did give me some insight in to how the mind of an anorexic works. The deprivation that Ms. de Rossi subjects herself to, combined with the never-ending exercise is truly astounding. Through her telling of this story we can really learn what a destructive illness anorexia is, as she lets us into her mind and thought prosesses. It is however not a story of her treatment as she doesn’t discuss what occurred during the time she sought therapy, only moving on to her happiness with her current life. It is also a book that should not be read by anyone who suffers from or has signs of becoming anorexic, because the book goes into great detail of Portia’s regimen and could trigger something in a person who has the illness.

I enjoyed the author’s writing style, it’s not an “I’m famous and you aren’t” tone but clearly lets you see how celebrities and idols are just as human as you and I and everyone struggles with their demons, some more successfully than others.

The book does explore the burden that the media and Hollywood put on appearance and the pressure women feel to be a ‘perfect’ size 0. Portia literally almost starved herself to death because she didn’t want to be a size 8, as that was obese by Hollywood standards; a size that over half the woman in this country would be only to happy to achieve. That Portia was able to come through this trial with therapy and the love of a good person, who happens to be a woman, is a testament to the human spirit.

Overall a very good, if at times gut wrenching, story that is well told and ultimately inspiring
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Ladyslott wrote this review 8 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“I love sweeping family sagas and I have been enjoying the "Rose Trilogy" that began with The Tea Rose and concludes with this the final book in the series. I am so sorry to say that this was a huge letdown and disappointing conclusion.

Because it is the third book there will be spoilers in the review, so if you haven't read the other two books be wary.

The first two books focused on the story of Fiona and Joe, star crossed lovers who are separated by misunderstandings and timing. The second book was the equally intriguing story of India Selwyn-Jones and her love affair with the notorious gangster Sid Malone.

Book three focuses on Seamus Finnegan and Willa Alden, and opens about eight years after the catastrophic accident that severely injured Willa. The difference in the books is that Fiona and India were strong female protagonists, always ready to stand up for their principles, their rights and their families. Willa Alden on the other hand spends most of this book feeling sorry for herself and dealing with life by drowning her sorrows with drugs and alcohol. Every time the book focused on her I cringed. Her poor me attitude, abrasiveness and melancholy was so tiresome I literally couldn't wait for her story to come to an end, unfortunately that took the entire book.

The best parts of the book were those that focused on the original main characters of Fiona and Joe and their children, now adults, and the parts where Sid and India were the focus. In addition even though this is historical fiction it doesn't mean that every famous historical personage from this time had to cross paths with the Bristow's and the Finnegan's. I mean really, Willa Alden, a severely handicapped woman is allowed to travel with T.E. Lawrence as he crosses the deserts of Arabia? Eye rolling did occur. In addition that handicap seemed to come and go quite often, there were things that happened where no mention is made of it at all, which just seemed preposterous. Also there was an over the top spy story that came to an unbelievable conclusion.

So three stars for the memory of a good series and I'm sad to see it end, but if I never read about Seamie and Willa again it will be just fine with me.
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Ladyslott wrote this review 9 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“
I’m a fan of the American version of the TV show The Office, and love the character of Kelly Kapoor, who is portrayed by Mindy Kaling. I also follow Mindy on Twitter, so obviously when I found out that she had written a memoir I knew I was going to read it as soon as I could. Fortunately Mindy’s book was just delightful.

The book is written as if Mindy was hanging out with you and telling tales about her growing up, trying to break into show business in New York and eventual success Off-Broadway and later on television. It’s light and breezy but at the same makes some very astute observations about life, friendships and romantic relationships. There are stories and lists and random thoughts throughout, some sarcastic and others just laugh out loud funny.

This is a quick read and I really related to a lot of her essays. One of my favorite things about this book is that she doesn’t hide her light under a bushel or pretend to be someone she isn’t and it comes through on every page.

It’s been a good year for funny women; Mindy and Tina Fey’s books; the success of Bridesmaids, written for and about women, with a great cast of truly talented and funny women. It just goes to prove what I have always known - that women really do have a great sense of humor.
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Ladyslott wrote this review 9 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“The Likeness is Tana French’s sequel to In the Woods, a book I read several years ago and really enjoyed. I’m sorry to say that this book did not measure up. There are some spoilers ahead, so if you plan to read the first book then proceed at your own risk.

The story begins several months after the events at the end of In the Woods. Cassie Maddox is working Domestic Crimes after her last case “blew up”. She has a boyfriend and has settled into a new life, even if she still has feelings for Rob, her former partner. When a young woman is found murdered she bears an uncanny resemblance to Cassie and she is persuade to go undercover, posing as the murdered woman.

That’s the bare bones of the plot, but there were enough holes in this plot to drive a truck through. To believe that a woman could pose as another woman and live with her four roommates and nobody suspects a thing is mind-boggling. It gets even more confusing when it turns out the murdered woman is actually using a persona that Cassie had used years ago in another undercover case. When Cassie finds a vital piece of evidence on her first day she withholds that information from her boss. That police officer trying to get back in good graces with her superiors would withhold key information for no fathomable reason was unbelievable. And don’t get me started on Frank Mackey, Cassie’s boss. He is supposed to be an old style police officer, but the fact that he called Cassie babe at every turn drove me crazy. Since when does a superior officer speak like that? It was extremely annoying. The four roommates that Cassie/Lexi lived with were strange to put it mildly. What century did they come from? Their lifestyle was like a country manor from 1900 England, Downton Abby except with cell phones. Throwing in a plotline about a dead girl from 100 years ago that all the villagers were still up in arms about only served to confuse the situation.

French can write beautifully, however there is no need to write three paragraphs when a few sentences would do. I would find my eyes glazing over at times, wishing the author would please, please get to the point. To say that about 100 pages could have been cut from this book is no exaggeration. The foreshadowing also got tiresome. The most puzzling thing of all was why Cassie seemed to want to become Lexi; the author threw in a lot of psycho babble that did nothing to move the plot forward.

The ending was anti-climatic and after all the foreshadowing pretty much a foregone conclusion. About the only person in this book I liked was Cassie’s boyfriend Sam, he was the only one who didn’t seem like a caricature, except now that I think about it he was a little too good to be true.

A disappointment after In the Woods, scores the stars more for the bits of the book that were beautifully written, if you could find them beneath all the dross.
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Ladyslott wrote this review 9 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“
Berlin, 1933; Roosevelt has just started his first term as President and is in need of an Ambassador to Germany. Because of the unstable situation in Germany at the time there were very few persons interested in the position and many who turned it down. When the name of William Dodd was put forth, Roosevelt, desperate to fill the spot, offered the position and Dodd accepted. To say he was unprepared for the job is an understatement.

Dodd was a Professor of History at the University of Chicago. He accepted the Ambassadorship, expecting to have ample time to complete work on his opus on the American South. Arriving in Berlin in 1933 his main job was to try and get the German government to not default on their massive debts to American banks. The rise of the Nazi party and Hitler’s unrelenting thirst for power took his plans in completely different direction.

As usual Larson takes history and presents it in a novelistic manner. Wrapping the story around the family life of the Dodd’s, William his wife Martha as well as his son Bill and daughter also named Martha, provides an intimate look at the changes in German society during the 4 years Dodd was posted to Germany. We see a lot of the changes in the country through the eyes of the Dodd’s plus many other ‘average’ people.

I probably have the standard knowledge of the events leading up to the U.S. entry into the war, most learned in school and a lot gleaned from reading, especially books about the Holocaust since I am Jewish. This book provided a look at the rise of the Nazi Party and an eye-opening lesson in the rampant anti-Semitism prevalent in the United States at that time, particularly within the government.

I can’t honestly say I enjoyed this book, mostly due to the subject matter, however I think it is a book that anyone interested in the history of this time period should read. A larger problem for me was I heartily disliked Martha Dodd, the daughter. In spite of all the things she witnessed happening around her she was very enamored of the Nazi party and had several romantic liaisons with many high-powered Nazi officials. It is only after the ‘Night of Long Knives”, when many of Hitler’s enemies are murdered does she finally begin to awaken to the nightmare that was starting to unfold in Europe.

What I did take away from this book was the number of missed opportunities our government had to stop Hitler and his regime. In addition as ineffectual as Dodd was he did warn many in the State Department of the rising tide of hatred and because he was not a member of the diplomatic inner-circle much of his advice was ignored. As often in politics, it’s not what you know it’s whom you know.

Overall an interesting account of a period in our history told through the eyes of a family caught “In the Garden of the Beasts”.
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Ladyslott wrote this review 9 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“I’m a fan of Ellen Degeneres, I enjoy her show and her sense of humor. Looking for a light book after reading a rather dark one I felt this would fit the bill. While it was a good antidote it wasn’t as entertaining as I had hoped.
A mix of stand up bits and random musings it was often silly rather than funny. The structure of the book was nonexistent. I laughed out loud a few times but I think I was expecting more depth since, as she mentions in her intro to the book, a lot has happened in her life over the past few years; yet much of that is barely touched on. The chapters I enjoyed the most were those that did have more substance to them. I liked her discussion of why she did American Idol and why she left. I liked the chapter about why she and Portia are not going to have children. These chapters were funny but also really interesting. The chapter about sounds – not funny at all.

I listened to this book, read by Ellen and I’m glad I did listen to the audio because I don’t think I would have liked this book if I’d read it. Having Ellen read her own words gave it a little more pizzazz, but overall it was a disappointment.
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Ladyslott wrote this review Sunday, November 13, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“In this sequel to Fragile we are once again in The Hollows, a small town in the suburbs of NYC. It’s a nice town, but it’s harboring some unsavory secrets.

Jones Cooper has retired from the police force and slowly becomes enmeshed in the case of a woman who disappeared twenty years earlier. Michael Holt is the adult son of the missing woman, he is obsessed with learning what happened to her. Jones’ wife Maggie is the therapist to a troubled teen newly relocated to The Hollows with her mother who is recovering from a bitter divorce. And then there is the young wife who is keeping secret the fact that her husband is abusing her. All of these storylines become entwined and at the center of them all is Jones and Eloise Montgomery, a woman who has psychic visions.

I really enjoyed this book, more than I liked the first book in the series. This book was much more of a mystery and I enjoyed the pacing of the book, the way the tension ratchets up and a sense of impending disaster hangs over it all. The last few chapters just fly by.

I’ve read all of Lisa Unger’s books, starting with Beautiful Lies. I enjoyed the earlier books but it seemed like the plots were becoming very similar in tone, so I am glad that with Fragile and now Darkness, My Old Friend she is moving in a different direction and I am enjoying the change of pace.
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Ladyslott wrote this review Sunday, November 13, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 3 stars

“Christine wakes up every morning with no memory of the past 20 years of her life. She thinks she is 20 years old, still in college. Each day her husband Ben must tell her who she is and fill her in on her life. Every night she goes to sleep knowing that she will wake up with all her memories gone again. Eventually she finds a journal she has been keeping; when she opens it the first sentence is “Don’t trust Ben.” With the help of her doctor Christine slowly (ever so slowly) tries to put together the bits and pieces of memories that she has trying to understand what has happened to her. Are they true memories? Who should be trusted; the loyal husband or the unreliable narrator Christine?

Sounds good right? And in fact for about 1/3 of the book it is. About that point I was wondering if there was something wrong with my memory because I was having déjà vu all over again. Every chapter started almost identically to the previous chapter. My eyes would glaze over until I got to the one point in the chapter that was different from the one before. By the time I got to the end I was wishing I could forget the weeks I had spent slogging through this “thriller”, that was unfortunately not very thrilling.

I thought in some spots the writing was good, but the pacing was tedious. Also it isn’t beneficial to a thriller when you figure out most of the ending half way through the book. Towards the end the book took some dramatic twists and turns that you’ve probably seen on a Made for TV Movie of the Week. My eyes were rolling so much I was getting dizzy. One major plot point that I just couldn’t comprehend is how Christine had lived like this for 20 years, it would seem that something more could have been done to help her in all that time and then all of a sudden everything in her life is solved so easily in a rather short period of time. It was quite unrealistic. So it was for me an average read, maybe a bit below average. Nothing outstanding or that I will remember after a few months.
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Ladyslott wrote this review Saturday, November 12, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“What can one add to all the accolades this book has been getting? To say that Le Cirque des Reves, The Circus of Dreams was magical would be an understatement. It is a fantastical creation from the opening lines to the very last word.
What I loved most about this book was overwhelming admiration for this author’s
Talent in creating a world that doesn’t exist but one I completely believed in. I want to go to this circus, to see the various tents. I want to walk in the Ice Garden, to walk in the hall with the snow, see The Wishing Tree, walk among the clouds and be there for the bonfire. I was so immersed in this world I didn’t want the book to end.

The narrative of the book takes a little getting used to, it is split in two parts; Marco and Celia’s story and that of the various characters of the circus; the second story is of Bailey, a young boy who falls in love with the circus. This narrative begins at a later point in time until eventually the two storylines merge. It takes patience to get to the point when all the threads of the story finally begin to come together.

My only quibble would be the lack of character development, there was so much more I wanted to know about a number of the people of the circus. It seemed at times their descriptions or purpose was rather vague and not well defined. But that is really a minor complaint.

I listened to the audio version of the book, narrated by the brilliant Jim Dale who breathes life into every book he ‘performs’. Fantasy is not one of my favorite genres but for me this book defines fantastical. Without a doubt one of my favorite reads this year.
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Ladyslott wrote this review Saturday, November 12, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 5 stars

“
I love it when a book is so vivid and atmospheric that you can envision every scene, hear the music, and see the smoky haze of cigarettes hanging over it all. In Rules of Civility Amor Towles writes a love letter to New York in all its black and white 1938 glory.

Katey and Eve are two young women toiling in the city, rooming together in a women only boarding house and just trying to get by and maybe have some fun. Eve is more free spirited, Katey more level headed but they are the best of friends. One eventful New Year’s Eve they meet Tinker Grey, a handsome and personable young man who travels in a different social circle. As the three become fast friends Tinker introduces them to some of the finer things in life and a small rivalry begins between Katey and Eve for Tinker’s affections. One night something happens that sets in motion events that will change the three of them forever.

I really enjoyed this book, told through the eyes of Katey as she slowly makes her way up the social ladder by virtue of her friendship with Tinker. The book focuses on one year only, from New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Eve. It’s filled with the kind of witty conversations you would see in those old black and white movies with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn or Carole Lombard. Katey is the moral compass we rely on as she finds a way to live her life with purpose, but also comes to enjoy the finer things in life. She is the voice of reason, but she is not perfect. She makes some mistakes, but who doesn’t? Some are more foolish than others, but it makes her all the more human.

As the year comes to an end we have watched all the participants make choices for better or worse with no simple solutions to the complexities of life. The Rules of Civility poses questions about what is true and what is a mask, and how those rules are often used to cover one’s true nature. It also explores how the seemingly simple choices we make can define our lives.

I’ve read a lot of comparisons of this book to The Great Gatsby, and I can see that but I actually thought about Wharton more while reading it. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, its depiction of a city I love and the beauty of the language the author used to set the stage. It’s definitely one of my top reads of this year.
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Ladyslott wrote this review Tuesday, November 8, 2011. ( reply | permalink )