Book: Good Grief

published: april 2005 (paperback)



i read this book at least a year after it was published. i happened to have an advanced readers copy lying around my apartment and grabbed it one day at random. it's pretty much chick lit, although deeper than average chick lit, definately. not really my usual thing, but it kept me reading, so that's a good sign. fiction in general doesn't always keep me reading.

the first part of the book was the best, in my opinion. the lead character loses her husband and goes into a downward spiral that lands her into a perminant pajama mode (hence the book cover). she depiction of her fall into depression is almost scary becuase i could totally picture myself or someone i know going to that place if something that terrible happened. it was very a clear and heavy desciption, despite wry humor tossed it. the best way i can describe how it got to me: as i was sitting on my bed reading this, i a couple times had to break it up into groups of a couple pages in order to get through it, and it made me miss mark. it made me lonely.

now, not that the rest of the book is bad. it's just less poignant. the lead character is a young-ish woman who is spunky (once she gets out of her pj's) and gets herself into all sorts of scrapes and picks up a teenager to mentor who keeps her on her toes. the second half of the books continues the wry humor and has also a nice first-person tone...you can picture a person actually thinking these things.

i will say that the ending seems a bit too perfect, but i suppose not entirely unlikely. it manages to not be entirely cheesy.

all in all i liked it enough to make it a staff pick for the store, both because the first part of the book affected me so much, but also because it's the kind of thing that sells well as a staff pick, i'll admit it.

Movie: Jarhead

starts: 11/04/05 (saw free sneak preview)



I hadn't intended to start this with a movie, but since i actually saw a movie today...here we go.

Jarhead is based on book written (i think) by a marine who was involved in the first gulf war (is it just called the gulf war now, and we're calling the current nonsense the iraq war in order to distinguish?).

it's hard for me to give a good comment on this because in general i have a hard time with war movies. i find it difficult to sit through scenes of people waiting to have their heads blown off their shoulders or people who already have had their head blown off there shoulders, or people having total mental breakdowns 'cause they can't handle some of the above. should i ever be unfortunate enough to be waiting to have my head blown off my shoulders, i am nearly positive that i would go stark raving friggin' nuts.

i imagine that there will be a few government types who won't care for the movie, as it depicts the marines as not having enough or functioning equipment a few times. i think that these are important things to point out, i just wonder, with the u.s. military being such a seemingly untouchable giant, what difference it makes if all the civilians knew that all the non-civilians are each doing their own unique sitting duck impression.

at any rate, it definately held my attention, definately made liberal use of all the sorts of language (love that f-word) and bizzare activities you would expect out of a group of men under bizzarely high stress (and/or druken fraternity boys...hazing, drinking, naked for no reason...) and isn't going to make anyone think "gee, this war stuff is pretty neat", which i think is quite good.

get a professional opinion: NPR review