theresidentbookworm's reviews
3261 reviews

As far as American Girl books go, this is a gem. Mysteries are not high on my list of preferred genres, but this one had me captivated. I appreciate American Girl writing longer and more substantial books, and I actually learned a lot from this addition to Samantha's story. I didn't know much about the history of elevators or why there are sometimes not a thirteenth floor in hotels. Samantha will always be my favorite American Girl, and I'm still mourning her retirement. Recommended!

Yet another Salvation Army find... You gotta love the deal! *smiles* Anyway, I read this Sunday night instead of doing my homework, and while I was glad for the distraction, this was nothing special. Frankly, I've read enough novels with a Jessie Lou lately. In fact, this sister dynamic in this reminds me somewhat of the one in Durable Goods. Of course, there's also the popular boy who you can't even figure out why Jessie Lou likes and the annoying little kid who was thrown in for no random reason. The highlight of this book for me was the grandpa. He was hilarious, and I could appreciative his humor since I don't have a grandpa of my own. Ultimately, this was an okay to spend an hour or so, but it's nothing spectacular, and nothing I would recommend.

A little known fact about me: I was actually born in Detroit, not the area surrounding it, but in the city at Sinai Grace Hospital. It's a sad commentary on Detroit that my mom is very ashamed of this fact. She often emphasizes when she tells the story of my birth that her doctor had two offices (one in Detroit and one in Northville where we lived) and that the day I came the doctor just happened to be in Detroit. Often she tells me to lie about it and say I was born in Northville or Livonia, but I usually don't. I've grown up mostly in Oakland County, one of the richest counties in the state, and so my exposure to Detroit is much more limited than Charlie LeDuff's or even my dad.

My dad's family lived in Allen Park, a suburb of Detroit, until he was a freshman in high school. It was the 1970s, and everything in the city started to get a little rougher. My grandparents made to the move to Livonia where much of our family still lives. My dad can drive down old streets in his neighborhood and the city and tell you what used to be there: a bar he and his friends liked to go to, a store that sold nice suits, the convenience store where he'd run errands for his sisters for some pocket money... All I seem to see is dilapidated buildings and foreclosure signs. It may be because it is technically my birthplace or that it was once the hometown of my family, but I always get cagey when people start talking about Detroit. It seems like experts and reporters and filmmakers are all interested in finding the source of decay in the city and fixing it, but they can never seem to understand it because they aren't from here. It really isn't something that can be understood by an outsider.

Charlie LeDuff is from here. He sees the city with all its flaws and quirks and people who have been given up on but haven't seemed to give up just yet. He shows us the corruption and the incompetency of the city government in Detroit, but he also shows the underfunded and understaffed police force and firemen who persist in what seem to be hapless jobs for a city they still continue to love. Some may say that LeDuff's portrayal of Detroit is too dark, too grim, blind to the good in the city. There is good in Detroit. To me, there is nothing better than sitting the nosebleed seats with my dad at Comerica Park on a nice summer day watching the Tigers play and enjoying dinner at Lafayette's Coney Island afterwards. I love spending the day exploring the exhibits at the Detroit Institute of Art because something new seems to be revealed to me every time I go. Still, even though I love these things about the city, I know that LeDuff is right in his assessment of the city because whenever I drive home from these places all I can see is abandoned buildings with boarded up windows and graffiti. As he points out, it makes no sense to report on what's supposed to be normal like art when firefighters have boots with holes and your mayor is on trial.

Here's some the lessons I've learned in my Detroit experience. You never stop for a red light when driving home from a game or concert at night. You harden your heart when you see homeless people sitting on the street because if you give money to all of them you'd go home with nothing in your wallet. Sometimes you'll cave if they have a young kid with them, but you still never let them see how much money you have on you. When you volunteer to hand out food in the inner-city, you wear close-toed shoes because the lot and sidewalks are littered with empty syringes and glass. When you hand out said food, some of the recipients will scare you because they are high or drunk or a combination of both. Others will make you sad like the woman with two young kids who have no shoes and the old man with empty jaundiced eyes. That day of volunteering is so mentally taxing that you and your friends drive home in complete silence. You can never bring yourself to go back again.

My only real problem with the book is that I would've liked the narrative to be a little more tightly focused. Occasionally the cases and such got jumbled in my head. Still, LeDuff does what few have cared to do with Detroit: he humanizes it. He gives a face to the unemployed and the homeless and points out that they're really no different than anyone else these days. Most of all, LeDuff captures the spirit of both Detroit and Michigan in general. In Michigan, we have cold weather and a crappy economy and a slew of other problems, but we're still here. We're still standing. And so is Detroit. If I had to pick an unofficial state motto, it would be this: "Times are tough, but so are we."

Detroit: An American Autopsy is a read for both those from Detroit and those wondering where exactly the Motor City went wrong. It satisfies both the hunger for answers and the desire of a more nuanced representation of Detroit. I would like to see more books like this.

I absolutely love Jack Kerouac's writing. I love the flow of it all, the easiness his story telling has, the pure beauty of his sentences. For me, reading Kerouac is like revisiting an old friend who always has plenty of new stories to tell me every time we meet. During On the Road, I got to know and admire that friend for his free spirit and his prose. In The Dharma Bums, I met that friend again, but it felt off, like that friend had been through a major experience and couldn't accurately explain it to me.

Kerouac's writing is as captivating as it was in On the Road, but it gets drowned out on occasion by its heavy religious influence. I know very little about Buddhism. I'm currently taking a World Religions class that will cover this topic, but when I was reading The Dharma Bums I was completely lost. I still enjoyed going on adventures with Kerouac, but I didn't always understand why he was going on them. I honestly did not like any of the characters (mostly because the Buddhism makes no sense to me and that what seems to drive everyone), but it was certainly interesting.

Definitely not my favorite Kerouac. I'll continue to read his work though. I just won't be rereading this one ten million times like I did with On the Road.

A Review in Seven Words

Didn't care about dinos much. Still don't.

I may be in the minority on this one, but I found Elizabeth Gilbert's lauded memoir to be shallow and self-indulgent. My mother read it and abandoned it, but I decided to give it a shot anyway. I should have listened to my mother. I don't think Gilbert is a bad writer. I've heard good things about her novels and other writings. I just think this was not for me. Not recommended!

Okay overall. Sometimes the nagging about Princess Mary got repetitive, but this is probably because I read a similar book in Mary's point of view first. Interesting series. Recommend for younger readers.

I think Bill, Charlie's teacher in Perks of Being a Wallflower , gave the best advice for reading Ayn Rand that a teacher has ever given: “Try to be a filter, not a sponge." If you ever attempt to read Ayn Rand and especially Atlas Shrugged, I'd take this tip to heart. It's what I try to do when I read her novels. I focus on the writing, the characters, and the plot and block out the crazy philosophy stuff (because it is crazy, and I will not get into further discussions on this). If nothing else, reading Ayn Rand teaches to separate yourself from the author's intent.

I first tackled Ayn Rand in middle school. I started with The Fountainhead and then decided to read the (definitely) more intense Atlas Shrugged. My only explanation for this is that I was a very bookish preteen always looking for a challenge. School was boring, and I try to educate myself in what I read. Also, I watched Gilmore Girls and heard Rory and Jess argue about it. I won't deny what an effect that show has had on my library. I remember the looks I would get from teachers seeing me read the mass paperback with tiny print.

Atlas Shrugged is bigger in scope than The Fountainhead and certainly more ambitious as a novel. The main question plaguing the novel is this: Who is John Galt? The plot of the novel revolves around the idea of all the creators and movers and shakers of the world deciding they'd had enough and leaving the rest of the world to fend for themselves. Rand attempts to imbue her philosophies here, but I'm not sure it works as well as she would like it to. The world she purposes is complex and compelling, but I'm not ever sure I really bought into it. I just never thought it was that plausible.

What earns Atlas Shrugged four stars from me is the writing itself. Ayn Rand may be a political nut, and her philosophies may be complete crock, but she is a good writer. No matter what else I think of her, I will always think she is a good writer. Rand has an exceptional concept of pace and plot. Her stories, though long, stay moving when they're not being weighed down by 40 page monologues (yes, this book has one of those). Dagny Taggart is a character that fascinates me against my will. Rand women always feel like she sculpted them out of ice and forgot to add a heart. Dagny is a typical Rand woman, but there is also something more to her. She just won't give up. She is determined to keep her railroads running come hell or high water, and her struggle is possibly the most interesting thing in the novel. She is a beautiful women who uses men without really using them because it's equally advantageous for her. You sort of get the vibe at the end of the novel that she is in a relationship with three different men, and it's never a decision that is emphasized or judged. Francisco d'Anconia, Hank Rearden, even John Galt... They are not the center of her world. They are merely part of it. In that respect, Rand gets a gold star.

There is a lot of debate of whether we should read Ayn Rand or not. It's certainly a hot button literary topic (with almost everyone on each political side having an opinion on it). Here's my two cents. Is Ayn Rand a little crazy? Yes. Does her work have some literary merit? Yes. Should it be read by young people? Maybe. I think that's an individual decision. There's something to be learned from it. It just depends how you decide to read it. Just, whatever you choose to read, please do be a filter and not a sponge.

The Clique reminds me of everything that is both fascinating and terrible about middle school. I was never that into these books. I was a pretty advanced reader, and the petty drama of Lisi Harrison's bestselling series never interested me much. I did have friends who swore by these books though, and I did read a few of them. To me, The Clique is like a hyper-reality version of the real world. Apparently middle schoolers in this universe wear and obsess over designer brands (something I still don't do at 19), and it's almost funny how hard they try. Claire is the only one out of all of them who even makes sense as a preteen girl. Also, the comebacks kind of make me want to curl up in a ball and die. Has anyone ever talked like this? Shouldn't adults talk to teenagers before they decide how to speak? I guess the fun of the Clique is how completely ridiculous it is. I just wish it was more self-aware. Recommended for middle schoolers, I guess. (Not really. There's so much better. Please don't hold this up as your favorite series. Please!)

If you didn't cry reading this or watching the Disney adaptation, I don't think you have a heart. I'd go see a doctor and get that checked out. Both versions are recommended, but I do prefer the film and a cute young Josh Hutchinson.