Posted in Reviews

Review: The Wrong End of the Table by Ayser Salman

The Wrong End of the Table: A Mostly Comic Memoir of a Muslim Arab American Woman Just Trying to Fit in by Ayser Salman


Recommended: yep!
for a perspective of a woman across her years, for a perspective of a Muslim woman who lives in Saudi Arabia and the United States during her life, for an approachable and welcoming look at her life and how being an immigrant affected but did not define her life

Summary

You know that feeling of being at the wrong end of the table? Like you’re at a party but all the good stuff is happening out of earshot (#FOMO)? That’s life—especially for an immigrant.

What happens when a shy, awkward Arab girl with a weird name and an unfortunate propensity toward facial hair is uprooted from her comfortable (albeit fascist-regimed) homeland of Iraq and thrust into the cold, alien town of Columbus, Ohio—with its Egg McMuffins, Barbie dolls, and kids playing doctor everywhere you turned?

This is Ayser Salman’s story. First comes Emigration, then Naturalization, and finally Assimilation—trying to fit in among her blonde-haired, blue-eyed counterparts, and always feeling left out. On her journey to Americanhood, Ayser sees more naked butts at pre-kindergarten daycare that she would like, breaks one of her parents’ rules (“Thou shalt not participate as an actor in the school musical where a male cast member rests his head in thy lap”), and other things good Muslim Arab girls are not supposed to do. And, after the 9/11 attacks, she experiences the isolation of being a Muslim in her own country. It takes hours of therapy, fifty-five rounds of electrolysis, and some ill-advised romantic dalliances for Ayser to grow into a modern Arab American woman who embraces her cultural differences.

Part memoir and part how-not-to guide, The Wrong End of the Table is everything you wanted to know about Arabs but were afraid to ask, with chapters such as “Tattoos and Other National Security Risks,” “You Can’t Blame Everything on Your Period; Sometimes You’re Going to Be a Crazy Bitch: and Other Advice from Mom,” and even an open letter to Trump. This is the story of every American outsider on a path to find themselves in a country of beautiful diversity.

Thoughts

One of the points Salman makes a few times in this book is that her religion or heritage or gender or relationship status do not define her. They’re a part of what make her her but they aren’t the be-all end-all.

That would be her neuroses.

I kid! I’m pretty sure she would enjoy that joke, because she makes a lot similar to it throughout her stories, and those added a lot to this as well. I always love to laugh of course, and it seems that being able to laugh at yourself and your life is a critical skill at times. Especially the times when laughing seems impossible. Salman leans into that a lot, and the result is a roughly chronological tale of her life from a teeny child to a whole-ass adult that makes you really care about her and her journey. Or at least, I did. I was just curious to know more about her, and this totally scratched that itch.

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Posted in Reviews

Review: Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob

Recommended: yep
for hard conversations in an easier to follow format, for that insight children can sometimes give to complex issues

Summary

Mira Jacob’s touching, often humorous, and utterly unique graphic memoir takes readers on her journey as a first-generation American. At an increasingly fraught time for immigrants and their families, Good Talk delves into the difficult conversations about race, sex, love, and family that seem to be unavoidable these days.

Inspired by her popular BuzzFeed piece “37 Difficult Questions from My Mixed-Raced Son,” here are Jacob’s responses to her six-year-old, Zakir, who asks if the new president hates brown boys like him; uncomfortable relationship advice from her parents, who came to the United States from India one month into their arranged marriage; and the imaginary therapy sessions she has with celebrities from Bill Murray to Madonna. Jacob also investigates her own past, from her memories of being the only non-white fifth grader to win a Daughters of the American Revolution essay contest to how it felt to be a brown-skinned New Yorker on 9/11. As earnest and moving as they are sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, these are the stories that have formed one American life.

Thoughts

I originally read this in 2020, and it was a lot harder at that point to get through it because a lot of the pain of racism and horridness in the United States was closer at hand and pressing all the time. I think things are still kind of politically and socially horrid, but in different ways now. So this still wasn’t super easy to read. Granted, it probably never will be.

The art is a sort of collage style that totally fills each page. It’s occasionally a bit more abstract, with skylines or symbolic aspects overlaid with the conversation bubbles of text. I found it really effective in conveying location and tone, and it often felt like it had a surprising amount of movement to it.

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Posted in Reviews

Review: This Is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships by Matthew Fray

This Is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships by Matthew Fray


Recommended: yes!!
For anyone who interacts with other humans, for anyone who wants to have better relationships of all kinds with others (friendship, coworkers, roommates, etc), for anyone in a long-term relationship or who wants to be, for anyone who shares a living space with other humans

Summary

Good people can be bad at relationships.

One night during his divorce, after one too many vodkas and a call with a phone-in-therapist who told him to “journal his feelings,” Matthew Fray started a blog. He needed to figure out how his ex-wife went from the eighteen-year-old college freshman who adored him to the angry woman who thought he was an asshole and left him. As he pieced together the story of his marriage and its end, Matthew began to realize a hard truth: even though he was a decent guy, he was a bad husband.

As he shared raw, uncomfortable, and darkly humorous first-person stories about the lessons he’d learned from his failed marriage, a peculiar thing happened. Matthew started to gain a following. In January 2016 a post he wrote–“She Divorced Me Because I left the Dishes by the Sink”–went viral and was read over four million times.

Filtered through the lens of his own surprising, life-changing experience and his years counseling couples, This Is How Your Marriage Ends exposes the root problem of so many relationships that go wrong. We simply haven’t been taught any of the necessary skills, Matthew explains. In fact, it is sometimes the assumption that we are acting on good intentions that causes us to alienate our partners and foment mistrust.

With the humorous, entertaining, and counterintuitive approach of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, and the practical insights of The 5 Love Languages, This is How Your Marriage Ends helps readers identify relationship-killing behavior patterns in their own lives, and offers solutions to break free from the cycles of dysfunction and destruction. It is must-read for every partner no matter what stage-beginning, middle, or even end–of your relationship.

Thoughts

Thoughts:
I found this book and author, probably like many, through a New York Times article about his blog post titled “She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink” which he even acknowledges in his book as being part of what got him known. He has an updated version in the book which I appreciated, as it toned down and removed some of the bitterness that still lingered at the original time of writing as well as the man-woman dichotomy presented. He makes room for relationships of all kinds in his book, and that was critical because it’s truly applicable in so many ways.

Look, y’all, I’m not married and frankly I don’t ever plan to be. BUT, I am in a long-term monogamous relationship sharing a house and finances and stuff so it’s basically marriage just without the government being involved. So for me, reading this book was a way to get some advice and more formal tips on being in a relationship. I think I’m doing okay so far, but it’s a skill, and not one I’ve ever had teaching on. I decided to change that, and goddamn was it awesome.

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Posted in Reviews

Review: Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard by Tom Felton

Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard by Tom Felton

Recommended: yup!
For Harry Potter fans, for a behind-the-scenes look at film life particularly when young, for a gentle memoir that’s treated with teasing humor and sensitivity

Summary

From Borrower to wizard, Tom Felton’s adolescence was anything but ordinary. His early rise to fame saw him catapulted into the limelight aged just twelve when he landed the iconic role of Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films.

Speaking with candour and his own trademark humour, Tom shares his experience of growing up on screen and as part of the wizarding world for the very first time. He tells all about his big break, what filming was really like and the lasting friendships he made during ten years as part of the franchise, as well as the highs and lows of fame and the reality of navigating adult life after filming finished.

Prepare to meet a real-life wizard.

Thoughts

Woman at book club: Ugh, my library hold for Tom Felton’s book is MONTHS away still!
[I glance over and see the title is Beyond the Wand and has a moody picture of a man — and assume it’s some kind of light paranormal erotica)
Me: Who’s Tom Felton?
Another woman: Draco!!!
Me: ???
Me: OH!!!
Me: (places my own hold and is pleased that it’s only a few weeks away)

Y’all this is yet another book I did not expect to read, but boy am I happy I did! If you’re somehow here and also not sure who Tom Felton / Draco is, it’s the actor who plays antagonist Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies. I was curious about this because: 1. sure, I like Harry Potter; 2. I’ve been really enjoying my tv / movie related nonfiction in the past few months; and 3. his character is largely portrayed as a hated villain, so I’m extremely curious to take a little peek behind the curtain and see what his experience of it was like.

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Posted in Reviews

Review: How to be Married by Jo Piazza (nonfiction!)

How to Be Married: What I Learned from Real Women on Five Continents about Building a Happy Marriage by Jo Piazza

Recommended: absolutely
for people who do or do not want to get married, for people who are already married, for people who are interested in people, for good advice on creating healthy and loving long term relationships of any kind, for a really lovely read about love around the world and from different people

Summary

At age thirty-four, Jo Piazza got her romantic-comedy ending when she met the man of her dreams on a boat in the Galapagos Islands and was engaged three months later. But before long, Jo found herself riddled with questions. How do you make a marriage work in a world where you no longer need to be married? How does an independent, strong-willed feminist become someone’s partner–all the time?

In the tradition of writers such as Nora Ephron and Elizabeth Gilbert, award-winning journalist and nationally bestselling author Jo Piazza writes a provocative memoir of a real first year of marriage that will forever change the way we look at matrimony.

A travel editor constantly on the move, Jo journeys to twenty countries on five continents to figure out what modern marriage means. Throughout this stunning, funny, warm, and wise personal narrative, she gleans wisdom from matrilineal tribeswomen, French ladies who lunch, Orthodox Jewish moms, Swedish stay-at-home dads, polygamous warriors, and Dutch prostitutes.

Written with refreshing candor, elegant prose, astute reporting, and hilarious insight into the human psyche, How to Be Married offers an honest portrait of an utterly charming couple. When life throws more at them than they ever expected–a terrifying health diagnosis, sick parents to care for, unemployment–they ultimately create a fresh understanding of what it means to be equal partners during the good and bad times.

Thoughts

For perspective, I don’t want to get married. I’m in a long term relationship and plan to stay with this person, but as for marriage? I’m not interested, and I’d say I’m even somewhat against it (for myself). One of the biggest reasons for that was always a bit hard for me to express properly, but this book put it into simple concise words for me:

There was something appealing about actively choosing your partner again and again.

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Posted in Reviews

2 Second Review: My Inner Sky by Mari Andrew

My Inner Sky: On Embracing Day, Night, and All the Times in Between by Mari Andrew

Summary

A whole, beautiful life is only made possible by the wide spectrum of feelings that exist between joy and sorrow. In this insightful and warm book, writer and illustrator Mari Andrew explores all the emotions that make up a life, in the process offering insights about trauma and healing, the meaning of home and the challenges of loneliness, finding love in the most unexpected of places–from birds nesting on a sculpture to a ride on the subway–and a resounding case for why sometimes you have to put yourself in the path of magic.

My Inner Sky empowers us to transform everything that’s happened to us into something meaningful, reassurance that even in our darkest times, there’s light and beauty to be found.

Thoughts

Made me feel a lot of feels. Inspired, energetic, depressed, cautious, pessimistic, hopeful, grateful, touched. Possibly my favorite element of this was the beauty of the physical book itself. It’s truly so gorgeous to look at. Since I found Mari Andrew through her art originally, then her writing after, I love seeing that she found a way to incorporate both into a printed version. Even the page numbers change color for each section to match the theme, and it’s touches like that in the printed hardback that I loved. Of course the inside content matched. I feel like this could be useful to have on hand any time I need a dose of determination, or gratitude, or a reminder of the goodness of humanity. This will probably be a purchase soon because I always need good books on hand for the dark days of winter.

The blurb gives a good impression of the emotions and mood of the book, but not the concrete content. Mari talks about her travels and mental health as she is in her young adulthood. She also focuses on her healing journey after a life-changing physical injury, which is the sort of triggering point and framework for a lot of this.

Posted in Reviews

Review: I Named My Dog Pushkin by Margarita Gokun Silver

I Named My Dog Pushkin by Margarita Gokun Silver

Recommended: yes!
For a how-to on getting out of Soviet Russia, for culture clash and integration stories told with a smile and a wink, for a lot of general Russian culture and lifestyle information

Summary

Buy a pair of Levi’s, lose the Russian accent, and turn yourself into an American. Really, how difficult could it be?

Fake an exit visa, fool the Soviet authorities, pack enough sausage to last through immigration, buy a one-way Aeroflot ticket, and the rest will sort itself out. That was the gist of every Soviet-Jewish immigrant’s plan in the 1980s, Margarita’s included. Despite her father’s protestations that they’d get caught and thrown into a gulag, she convinced her family to follow that plan.

When they arrived in the US, Margarita had a clearly defined objective – become fully American as soon as possible, and leave her Soviet past behind. But she soon learned that finding her new voice was harder than escaping the Soviet secret police.

She finds herself changing her name to fit in, disappointing her parents who expect her to become a doctor, a lawyer, an investment banker and a classical pianist – all at the same time, learning to date without hang-ups (there is no sex in the Soviet Union), parenting her own daughter ‘while too Russian’, and not being able to let go of old habits (never, ever throw anything away because you might use it again). Most importantly, she finds that no matter how hard you try not to become your parents, you end up just like them anyway.

Thoughts

This book had been on my list for a long time, and I don’t even remember how I originally found it. I am so glad I finally can around to reading it, because I was just as good as I had hoped it would be! Granted, I had no idea who/what “pushkin” was or why that would matter but I got the sense this would be filled with humor and I was correct.

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Posted in Reviews

Review: As You Wish by Cary Elwes

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes

Recommended: Yes!!
For fans of The Princess Bride, for insight into a movie set and the process from before-start to twnety-years-after-finish, for the chance to listen to Cary Elwes’ soothing voice for about eight hours

Summary

The Princess Bride has been a family favorite for close to three decades. Ranked by the American Film Institute as one of the top 100 Greatest Love Stories and by the Writers Guild of America as one of the top 100 screenplays of all time, The Princess Bride will continue to resonate with audiences for years to come.

Cary Elwes was inspired to share his memories and give fans an unprecedented look into the creation of the film while participating in the twenty-fifth anniversary cast reunion. In As You Wish he has created an enchanting experience; in addition to never-before seen photos and interviews with his fellow cast mates, there are plenty of set secrets and backstage stories.

With a foreword by Rob Reiner and a limited edition original poster by acclaimed artist Shepard Fairey, As You Wish is a must-have for all fans of this beloved film.

Thoughts

I have listened to, I think, 3 audiobooks in my life besides this one (and one I ended up switching to a printed copy about halfway through to finish). So I have no idea why I decided to grab the audiobook version of this book and start listening. However, I am so glad I did! This is basically exactly what I never knew I’d want in an audiobook. I suppose if I’m going to listen to one that isn’t narrated by Stefan Rudnicki, Cary Elwes is a pretty good follow-up! And in honor of my successful audiobook foray, I voice-to-text wrote this review. 🙂

Cary narrates the majority of the book, as most stories are from his perspective. However, multiple other people who were involved in the movie include stories of their own, and their own perspectives on ones that carry tells. In the audiobook, most of them read their extracts and those who are unable to have a dedicated person to speak for them. This made it really easy to tell when it swapped, though they also said each person’s name before it was their words that came. It was really fun to hear everybody’s voices though, as it felt more like a group conversation and made it really engaging and almost interactive.

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Posted in Reviews

Review: Will by Will Smith

Will by Will Smith


Recommended: yep!
for a book that will change the way you see Will Smith for better or for worse, for a lot of self-discovery that might even help you, for interesting tidbits and insight into some of the projects Smith has worked on in his life

Summary

One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned. Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had.

Will Smith’s transformation from a West Philadelphia kid to one of the biggest rap stars of his era, and then one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood history, is an epic tale—but it’s only half the story.

Will Smith thought, with good reason, that he had won at life: not only was his own success unparalleled, his whole family was at the pinnacle of the entertainment world. Only they didn’t see it that way: they felt more like star performers in his circus, a seven-days-a-week job they hadn’t signed up for. It turned out Will Smith’s education wasn’t nearly over.

Thoughts

First off, a warning or at least an informational tidbit: this is not a fun, silly book. If you, like me, thought this might be a lighthearted and warm peek behind the curtain at some of the projects Will has worked on, interspersed with humor and love, you are very wrong. I was very wrong.

Frankly, I’ll never see Will Smith the same way again, and that’s because I’ll now see him as a whole person instead of a collection of on-screen personalities and characters.

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Posted in Fast-Forward Friday

Fast Forward Friday: Have I Told You This Already? by Lauren Graham (11/15/22)

WELL IT’S BEEN A MINUTE SINCE I HAD A BOOK I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO…

Hey y’all! In contrast to Throwback Thursday, I like to use Fridays to look forward to an upcoming release that I’m excited about! Today’s is Have I Told You This Already? by Lauren Graham!
Expected Release: November 15, 2022

Why wait on this one?

  • Oddly, no, I have never seen Gilmore Girls and have no idea who Lauren Graham is. That’s not a pull for me here. Although I am curious to see if, after reading this, I’ll end up wanting to watch the Gilmore Girls for the first time, which could be fun if there are some stories of insight on the show in this collection.
  • A big part of my interest here is in my recently found love of essay collections. While saying that makes me feel super boring, it really comes down to the fact that I just love hearing people’s stories, and the collections tend to allow a person’s voice to really shine through in different ways.
  • I also recently finished The Office BFFs by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey and that certainly did spike me off on another watch through of The Office. Women in entertainment seems to be my theme in reading right now, and judging by how popular the tv series was (is?) and some of the examples in the blurb, I think this will be fun and heartfelt and lovely.

Summary

Candid, insightful, and wildly entertaining essays about life, love, and lessons learned as an actress in Hollywood, from the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and New York Times bestselling author of Talking as Fast as I Can.

With her signature sense of humor and down-to-earth storytelling, Lauren Graham opens up about her years working in the entertainment business—from the sublime to the ridiculous—and shares personal stories about everything from family and friendship to the challenges of aging gracefully in Hollywood. In “RIP Barneys New York,” she writes about an early job as a salesperson at the legendary department store — and the time she inadvertently shoplifted; in “Ne Oublie” she warns us about the perils of coming from an extremely forgetful family; and in “Actor-y Factory” she recounts what a day in the life of an actor looks like (unless you’re Brad Pitt).

Filled with surprising anecdotes, sage advice, and laugh-out-loud observations, Graham’s latest collection of all-new, original essays showcases the winning charm and wit that she’s known for.