Published in 2012, the nonfiction book "Spirituality Beyond Science and Religion," by William Pillow, is like reading the author's scattered journal nPublished in 2012, the nonfiction book "Spirituality Beyond Science and Religion," by William Pillow, is like reading the author's scattered journal notes on the subject of "spirituality," a topic of research inspired by Pillows's sudden urgency to discover if there really is "life after death," which was prompted by the death of his beloved wife, Betty, after Pillow had led a long and successful career in industries that had nothing to do with questions of spirituality or religion.
While this was a rather rough read, and I certainly didn't like the author's hateful stance on Islam, I don't feel the need to just bash on this book. An uncle asked me to read it. I can see why a book like this has a lot of value for people, my uncle included.
I was a religious studies major in college, so this book is.... not for me, to put it mildly. But I'm glad this book exists for the people who love it or need it.
Pillow died in February 2022, and after reading this book, I am certain that as he died, Betty's soul was the first one to lovingly greet him in Heaven. RIP William Pillow.
Coming in at #1 on the New York Times' list of the 10 Best Books of 2024 is Miranda July's novel, "All Fours."
I hit so maOof. This one was not for me.
Coming in at #1 on the New York Times' list of the 10 Best Books of 2024 is Miranda July's novel, "All Fours."
I hit so many successive DNF points trying to struggle-bus my way through this, it amazes me that I made it all the way to page 254 (of 322 pages total) before the text became so repulsive and awful that I could not continue at all.
(For those who have read the book, this is the scene in which the protagonist and her husband, Harris, are cutting the hair from around their dog's anus together, and the mounds of "impacted shit" are described in detail.)
The unnamed protagonist has a lot of unnamed, unaddressed problems in this text. Primary among them are limerence (which is blamed on perimenopause), all of the emotional immaturity and shame that leads to limerence, a deeply ingrained Madonna/Whore complex that destroys any enjoyment she might have during sex with her husband, and the profound entitlement of someone who is emotionally two years old.
I am not the audience for this novel. I personally give this book negative stars.
This was solely a market research read. For that reason, I give it three stars, recognizing that I am not the audience for this.
I honestly hated "All Fours." The page I DNF'd on made me feel physically sick to my stomach. Reading this book is hell.
I enjoyed "Poverty, by America" (first published in March 2023) even more than "Evicted."
I was finally able to buy a copy of "Poverty, Excellent book!
I enjoyed "Poverty, by America" (first published in March 2023) even more than "Evicted."
I was finally able to buy a copy of "Poverty, by America" in November 2024, just a few days before Thanksgiving. With the second term of Donald Trump on the horizon, it became increasingly harder to finish it, and I had to put the book down after sixty pages, and take a long break.
I picked it up again in February 2025, and finished it before Matthew Desmond appeared on The Daily Show on March 3, 2025. I thought Desmond did a great job articulating some of the main ideas in this book during his interview with Jon Stewart.
Desmond has spoken elsewhere on "Poverty, by America," like Amanpour and Company and Democracy Now!, but it's especially nice to see him interviewed on The Daily Show.
Vast swaths of America now view the poor as parasites, not as a vital resource and a treasure of our country. Instead of viewing our fellow citizens as important and worthy of investment, we view them as garbage and want them to die. It's a sickening mindset to have.
I'm not sure how to change that mindset, but it's running rampant in the U.S. right now.
First published in 1992, "The Broken Circle: A True Story of Murder and Magic in Indian Country," by Rodney Barker, is a nonfiction account of the horFirst published in 1992, "The Broken Circle: A True Story of Murder and Magic in Indian Country," by Rodney Barker, is a nonfiction account of the horrific torture and murder of three Native American men in Farmington, New Mexico, in 1974. The event is still known as "the Chokecherry Massacre."
The three Navajo men were tortured and killed by three young white teenage boys who attended the local high school. None of the boys served any time in prison. When their lack of punishment was announced, the outrage was immediate -- and highly disturbing to the white population.
This is a great book. An incredibly important book.
I wish the author had used the real names of the three killers. I don't know why the murderers are all given pseudonyms in this book. To protect their families? I have no idea. The choice didn't make any sense to me, and was honestly upsetting, given what these three people did.
I intended to finish reading this, but the content is so heavy and morally repulsive that completing the book is just not right for me at this time.
DNF on page 140 (of 354 total pages).
For me personally, this is a four-star read, because I dock the book an entire star for inexplicably changing the names of the killers. I think a book like this should use the real names of the murderers.
But this is definitely a five-star read, so I'm rating it five.
Published in 2021, "Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping," by Matthew Salesses, is a tool for examining racism within Published in 2021, "Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping," by Matthew Salesses, is a tool for examining racism within modern American MFA programs.
I admit that I didn't quite know what this book was when I picked it up. I thought the book would be more of a toolkit about how power works in publishing, building upon voices like Myriam Gurba's and the authors who rallied around her. I started off reading the book very carefully, and then realized within twenty pages or so that this book simply wasn't for me.
As to the "rethinking" part of the title, most of the book is full of standard writing advice that I have read before, especially the second half of the book.
"Craft in the Real World" has a large fan base among literary writers and teachers. I'm glad that this book exists for those who love it, and are using it for the important anti-racism work in MFA programs and writing workshops.
First published in September 2008, during the Republican National Convention, "American Wife," the third novel by Curtis Sittenfeld, is a fictionalizeFirst published in September 2008, during the Republican National Convention, "American Wife," the third novel by Curtis Sittenfeld, is a fictionalized version of the life of then-current First Lady Laura Bush.
Since I am no fan of George W. Bush or his wife, I actively avoided this novel until 2024, when my book club chose "American Wife" for our October read.
In the novel, the fictional version of Laura Bush is named Alice Lindgren, and she and Charlie Blackwell (George W.) grow up and live in Wisconsin, not Texas.
The first 35 pages of this 555-page tome were incredibly boring to me. It took a lot of willpower not to DNF.
By page 56, I felt like the plot had finally turned on, and I sped through reading most of the book. Sittenfeld is an incredible writer. Her formidable skills are definitely on display here.
But I agree with other reviewers who state that by page 433, when 'Part IV: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue' begins, the pacing and enjoyable qualities of this novel grind to a halt.
Part IV is the most overtly political section of the novel, when the book focuses more on glossing over the backlash against George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq. There is no mention of the really ugly stuff. No Abu Ghraib. No Guantanamo. No CIA black sites. No Patriot Act. Sittenfeld clearly wanted her reader to humanize Charlie Blackwell, and continue to like him, I guess. But her deliberate choice to avoid so much of the evil of the Bush presidency had the opposite effect, in my case: I swung back into my entrenched hatred of George W., and the idea of reading 'fiction' suddenly vanished.
Although the middle sections of the book do an excellent job of exposing the casual racism and (to a lesser extent) the entrenched classism that Alice Lindgren is exposed to, and Charlie Blackwell and his family definitely come across as well-to-do racists, that material ends up falling flat. In Part IV, the novel never mentions Hurricane Katrina, or the 20,000 votes for Al Gore from African Americans that were thrown out in Florida in 2000 in order for Jeb Bush to hand the election win over to his brother, via the Supreme Court. (There is no Jeb Bush pulling election strings in this novel.)
Instead of furthering any examination of race, class, or any of the book's other themes around the brutality of George W. Bush's presidency, the novel takes the reader into the wish-fulfillment revisionist history that seems deliberately intended to redeem the legacy of Laura Bush. Sittenfeld has Alice expose to the reader that she never voted for her own husband to be president. Alice also publicly meets with a character based on Cindy Sheehan (in the novel, this is an African American man named Edgar Franklin), and tells him: "I think you're right. [The Iraq War wasn't a cause worth dying for.] It's time for us to end the war and bring home the troops." (page 534)
Even in the alternate version of Laura Bush presented in this novel, I did not find it believable that Alice would do this.
This scene of Alice's open defiance against her husband was obviously meant to be the women's-fiction-version of the wish-fulfillment revisionist history of "Inglourious Basterds" (the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film), but I found Alice's behavior so unbelievable as to be anticlimactic. As journalist Christopher Hitchens said of the experience of watching "Inglourious Basterds," I felt the same way reading the entirety of Part IV in "American Wife": it is like "sitting in the dark having a great pot of warm piss emptied very slowly over your head."
I knew almost nothing about Laura Bush before reading this novel. I had to look up whether or not Laura Bush had ever had an abortion, since Alice's abortion plays such an important role in the book. (Laura Bush never had an abortion.)
Reading "American Wife" in October 2024, with the Republicans currently running Donald Trump for U.S. President against Kamala Harris, took me on an interesting and often super disturbing journey down the memory lane of Republican politics.
I think the Republican Party is completely morally bankrupt, soulless, and vicious, and the party's abhorrent behavior was no less on display from 2000 to 2008, when George W. Bush was its leader.
Laura Bush has never come out against her husband or his policies. Though there are currently a lot of Republicans (and former Republicans) who have. This also goes for former U.S. President Donald Trump, for that matter.
I think this novel would've been better served if Sittenfeld had been brave enough to envision a likeable librarian named Alice who could still endorse torture, unjust war, racist responses to hurricanes, stealing elections, and the other shit that George W. Bush and Donald Trump stand for. Like, you can be BOTH, you know: you can be likeable and charming and possessed of talking a good talk, and still justify the evil deeds of the Republican Party. Plenty of people do it, all day every day. I would say Laura Bush is among them.
I would have rather seen that complexity on display than the Laura Bush redemption narrative that Curtis Sittenfeld penned.
So much of this novel was excellent, and read like the kind of complicated romance novel that literary fiction excels at. It's a real shame that I ended up just hating this book. "American Wife" is a fantasy barf-fest for a pre-Black-Lives-Matter USA. Also, a pre-"Evicted" USA, because you better believe that I kept thinking of Matthew Desmond's investigative work in Milwaukee every time the Blackwells were in residence or visiting there.
Sittenfeld wrote this book when she wrote it, and she could not see the future, of course.
I'll give her this: she did an excellent job making me see why anyone would marry George W. There is such a massive dose of wish fulfillment in Charlie Blackwell's initial characterization that he reads like a fantasy lover straight out of chick lit.
Human beings can make any sacrifice necessary to hold on to a relationship, romantic or otherwise. Sittenfeld doesn't take away Alice's soul for the price of her marriage. But in real life, that is definitely what it would take for me to believe in her union. I don't think she could have stayed married to a man that she secretly didn't even vote for, or a man that she would publicly defy the way that Alice does in this novel.
I'm sad that I spent so much time reading this book. It left such a bad taste in my mouth that I'm sure I'll have forgotten most of it within a few months.
First published in 2014, with a second edition in 2017, "The Co-Parenting Handbook: Raising Well-Adjusted and Resilient Kids from Little Ones to YoungFirst published in 2014, with a second edition in 2017, "The Co-Parenting Handbook: Raising Well-Adjusted and Resilient Kids from Little Ones to Young Adults through Divorce or Separation," by Karen Bonnell, is a useful resource for anyone looking for a guide to co-parenting.
It took me two months to finish this book, even though it isn't that long, and I had a high desire to read it. I found the book incredibly triggering to read, since my life experience and my lived reality are erased from the pages.
The author lives in a world in which severe child abuse and complete parental abandonment do not exist, and are not situations that need to be mentioned or accounted for in any way. The author truly believes that all parents "love" their children, and that mentally ill parents (narcissists, sociopaths, etc.) will "come around" and learn how to communicate better if the other parent simply practices accepting them as they are.
The author truly believes that there are not parents out there who literally tell their children that they hate them, beat them until they require hospital treatment, and abandon them at various ages.
I could go on, but... blech, no. It's painful and it's a waste of my time.
I think this book is ideal for people who were themselves raised by "good enough" parents (as the book describes the term) and had healthy communication in their partnerships before their children were born. If you and your co-parent are "good enough" parents already, before separation: then this book is for you.
Earlier this year, without my consent, a judge appointed me to be a parental supervisor for an 8-year-old child who has been in a high-conflict custody battle ever since her parents separated, which happened when she was four months old. For eight years, these parents have launched pure hatred at each other, every single day. Their contempt and violence toward each other have led to police involvement, restraining orders, constant terror, and court orders that are consistently disregarded and violated at every turn.
Both parents have been court-ordered to take co-parenting classes and get counseling for themselves. Both parents adamantly refuse. They are incredibly abusive, treat their child as weaponized property, struggle with substance abuse and undiagnosed, severe mental illness, cannot hold down a job or pay their own rent, both require family members to house them and provide for their basic needs.
Upon finishing this book, I know that neither one of them could ever read "The Co-Parenting Handbook." Not only because they already think they know everything there is to know about parenting, and each one thinks they are the most amazing parent ever (and proudly proclaim themselves to be so), but everything about this book would be massively enraging to them, because each page assumes that *all* parents *already know* how to put their child first in their life: to prioritize their child's needs over their own. And I'm sorry, but no. That is not accurate. Reproduction does not cure mental illness. Reproduction does not cure a person's emotional immaturity or suddenly make them able to have empathy for another person, including their own children.
I know this author is a good person. And I know this book is a good book for the right audience.
But that audience does not include me, or anyone who grew up in the type of chaotic, abusive, completely dysfunctional home I grew up in, with bouts of homelessness and severe mental illness, sexual violence and addictions.
"The Co-Parenting Handbook" does not exist in a world in which both parents of a child might be actively damaging their child, a world in which both parents are completely incapable of learning, growing, and "doing better" due to untreated mental illness.
This is a book for best-case-scenario separations, in which the worst thing a one-home family is dealing with might be a secret affair that broke up a marriage. Would that we could all live in that kind of simplicity.
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