Writing Essays

Or, OMG I think I'm forgetting all of my French and my essay writing skills!

Has this happened to anyone else after graduating from college?  I intend to do grad school as soon as I can, but I don't want to forget everything before then. 

I was culling some old documents from my computer earlier and found a bunch of old essays I'd written for French lit classes.  Long essays, with awesome French grammar where I made awesome points about the books/plays/maximes I had to read in class.  And you know what?  I felt nostalgic.  I miss writing literary analysis essays in French.  So. Much.  And now I'm terrified that I'm going to forget it all.  I mean, I was that girl in school who spent hours perfecting her essays and her French grammar.  I got good grades.  I got praise from teachers.  I don't want it all to be a waste. 

Maybe I should start writing essays in French on my own.  My only issue?  Coming up with essay topics.  I've always hated that. 

What are your thoughts?  Has this ever happened to you?  And do you know of any good sources with lists of awesome essay topics for French lit? (seriously, someone should make one)

Review: The Technologists by Matthew Pearl

I was lucky enough to receive an advanced copy of Matthew Pearl's latest book, The Technologists.   This was my first experience reading something by him, but I had pretty high expectations because one of my best friends is pretty much obsessed with his books.  I read this right at the new year, which is funny because last year at the same time I read another similar book and also adored it (it was called The Anatomy of Ghosts and my review can be found here).  So basically, Marcus Mansfield, young Civil War veteran, is just months away from graduating as the first class of Boston's new Institute of Technology.  The students in the small graduating class are all used to Bostonians being wary of them and not really trusting them, but when strange incidents and deaths start happening in the city that seem to be related to science, the students all realize that they need to get to the bottom of the crimes, or be held accountable themselves, and then the school will close.  So Marcus and his friends, including younger student Miss Swallow, set out to find the super smart but kind of crazy person who is responsible for the crimes and destruction.

This is a perfect example of the kind of book I adore.  First, college campus back in the olden days.  Second, mystery.  Third, history, especially since Pearl based his characters off of real students at the university.  Basically, I ate it up and it was awesome.  There were so many times when I was like, "OMG it's this person!!" only to find that, in fact, the culprit was still lurking in Boston's shadows somewhere.  Love.

I adored the setting, in 1800s Boston, right after the Civil War.  I also loved the characters, and how Marcus had fought in the Civil War.  He is scared by it, but trying to make a better life for himself.  His friends, Bob, Edwin, and Miss Swallow, were all instantly likeable, like they were friends of mine as well as Marcus.  I also loved Hammie, who tries so hard to be a part of their group and is often hilarious.  The Institute of Technology also has its rivals over at Harvard, and I loved the scenes where they bickered and basically tried to one-up each other. 

This is the kind of book you want to talk about as you're reading it.  I kept being like, "OMG, I can't believe this is happening!  OMG could it be?!"  But of course I had no one to discuss this with. 

All in all, I adored this book, as you can probably tell.  This was my first time reading anything by Matthew Pearl, and I can't wait to pick of The Dante Club, which is my friend's favorite book of his.  Have you read anything by him?  Have you read The Technologists, and what did you think of it?

And I ate this one up so quickly, that I didn't even remember to pause to write down my favorite passages or quotes!

P.S. It seems my old laptop cord is working at the moment, so I am charging my computer that has been completely empty of battery power for the last few weeks.  Even better, the new cord shipped today!  Yay!  So I will back on the internet reading your blog posts and whatnot soon :)

Thanks for your patience :)

Adult Dystopian?

I was talking with a coworker the other day (who also happens to be a big reader), and we were discussing dystopian novels.  It seems to us that there are ton of young adult dystopians, but not so many adult ones.  I'm sure they are out there and we just don't know about them.  So, I was wondering if any of my dear readers could recommend some (besides Margaret Atwood, we both already adore her).

So, do you know of any really good adult dystopians?  No offense to YA ones (we like those too!), we just would like to read more that are geared more toward adults, with adult characters :)

Thanks!

P.S., my laptop cord has stopped working and my computer is out of battery life.  I've ordered another one, but it probably won't be here for a few more days.  That's why my blogging has been sporadic the past few weeks.  In case anyone was wondering ;)

Review: MWF Seeking BFF by Rachel Bertsche

Rachel Bertsche's MWF Seeking BFF: MY Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend was one of my favorite reads of 2011.  I read it over the Christmas holiday, and it was the perfect read.  Basically, the book chronicals Bertsche's quest for a new best friend after moving to a new city with her husband and leaving behind all of her best buds.  She realizes how lonely she is without a friend to call up to hang out with at a moment's notice, so she decides to go on one "friend date" a week for an entire year.  Bertsche enrolls in clubs, classes, etc. in the hopes of meeting potential new friends.  It is a super fun and very hilarious read.

When I picked up MWF, I was expecting a light, fluffy read.  I figured I'd like it, but it wouldn't be anything special.  Turns out, it's anything but, and it turned into one of my favorite books, and sort of changed the way I think about friends.  I was affected by the book immediately.  Bertsche goes into detail about how much she loves hanging out with her husband, but how she misses having those conversations you can only have with your best girlfriends.  We get a very intimate look at her own life, which made me love the book more because I felt close to the author.  This book encouraged me to see my friends more, because I've been lazy about getting together with them for a long time. 

I loved Bertsche's take on making friends after college.  Having just graduated last May, I realized how right she was when she said that it's a lot harder to make new friends once you're out of school.  Of course, I still live in my hometown and have my bffs around me, but eventually I know I'll be living in a new city with no close friends nearby. 

Bertsche is a hilarious author.  She's a confident woman, yet she has no problems writing about how awkward she can be at times when meeting new potential friends on "friend dates".  It makes you think back to first date moments with guys, and I loved how honest she was about how intimidated friend dates can be, even more so than dates with guys.  I really loved how she slowly emerged from being kind of shy on first friend dates to feeling completely comfortable. 

What was really intriguing was when Bertsche started thinking about what made her click with potential friends and what made dates awkward and not go so well.  She also backed this up with articles about friendship.  Some of the things she mentioned for clicking with people were obvious, like having things in common, like a shared love of reading.  However, she said that having common dislikes was a big factor in clicking as well.  Sometimes though, having things in common doesn't gaurantee you'll hit it off.  Bertsche said that the friend dates that turned into true friendships always involved a lot of laughter.  Which makes sense if you think about it.  If you're not laughing with someone, you're not having fun with them. 

There were a few parts that were super emotional, especially for me.  Bertsche lost her father a few years ago, just like I lost mine, and the chapter where she goes home for Thanksgiving and feels his loss a ton, I completely connected with that, especially since I read that particular passage on Christmas day, when I was really missing my own dad. 

Basically, I loved this book so much.  It is very easy to read but it is also super informative, and I felt like Rachel and I were friends by the end.  Especially since we're both apparently obsessed with Law and Order SVU....I read this in 2 sittings and couldn't put it down.  I've also been recommending it like crazy.  I love it, especially since it's the main reason why I've been seeing my friends so much in the new year!

Have you read MWF Seeking Bff?  Check out Rachel Bertsche's blog about searching for friends: http://mwfseekingbff.com/

Favorite quotes: 

Page XV: That's the bestfriendship test, I think.  The "what are we doing today?" phone call.  If you have that, you have someone with whom it is implied you will spend the day or at least an hour.  That's the level of BFF I'm in the market for.

Page 99: In that same email, Gina wrote, "I'm not sure what your thoughts are on meeting in public, but you're welcome to come to my place if you'd like."  Um, my thoughts on meeting someone who found me over the Internet in public are very positive.  I'm sure she was just trying to be friendly, but I wanted to write, "I'd actually rather not come to your house sixty miles away from my husband and family so you can chop me up into pieces in your basement, but thanks for the offer.  I've seen that episode of SVU.

Page 111: ...and afterward I offer rides home, which makes me realize that a) I must be getting more comfortable-there was a time I'd worry I was coming on too strong-and b) they might think this is all a ploy to drive them to a torture den in an undisclosed location.  But they accept, and I've careful not to lock the doors as soon as they get in the car.  Like I said, I've seen that episode of SVU.

Page 230: Before this year I never would have signed up to speed-friend.  It would have seemed too desperate, too contrived, and too unlikely that I'd connect with anyone who could really be a BFF.  But once I decided to dedicate this year of my life to forging friendships, I committed to doing everything I can-no matter how scary or pathetic or absurd it seems.  You never know, right?  And I can't conduct a complete search wihout following every lead.  (Don't say all those Law and Order marathons never taught me anything.)

Page 257: I recently came across an essay in which author Ann Patchett beautifully sums up the crux of what I hope will emerge in the final months of this search.  "Here's my idea of real intimacy," she writes.  "It's not the person who calls to say, 'I'm having an affair'; it's the friend who calls to say, 'Why do I have four jars of pickles in my refrigerator?'"

Page 309: Holidays are usually the hardest for me and seeing other dads in action-our Thanksgiving dinner was filled with great ones-always hurts the most, so I want some alone time to process the pain.  I wish I didn't get jealous, that I didn't immediately think of all that I've lost when I see happy families.  Maybe one day, when Matt is the great dad wowing me at my own family table, I won't.  But today I'm feeling a giant void and I want to try and close it up, or at least start filling it, if only for a few minutes. 

Review: The Moment by Douglas Kennedy

Because I am super behind on review writing, I'm saving a bit of time on this reviewing-writing binge by using the blurb from the back of the book.  Sorry for my unorginality ;)

"When I mysterious box arrives in the mail, a solitary American writer haunted by the long shadows of Cold War Berlin is forced to grapple with a past-and an intense love affair-he has never discussed with another living soul.  Readers will lose themselvs in the richly complex moral layers of The Moment from its 'evocative prose' to its 'spellbending finish'".

So that's kind of a bad description.  Not bad persay, but it doesn't really explain what the book is about.  Basically, Thomas Nesbitt is a 50 year old travel writer, and we are introduced to him following the death of his father.  He's just come into some inheritance money and decides on a whim to buy a little house in Maine.  Without telling his wife.  He doesn't go back home.  Then he gets a package from his publicist from Germany, and suddenly Thomas finds himself lost in the memory of a few months spent in Germany when he was in his 20s.  And I basically just did my own plot summary when I just said I wasn't going to.  Ha.

The majority of the book takes place in the 1980s when Thomas is in Berlin working on a book about the city.  It was a very moving, very emotional book.  The writing was just stunning.  Even if the story doesn't grab your attention immediately, I say give this a shot because the writing is amazing.  Like, it's drool worthy.  I have some examples coming up.  This was also a very depressing read.  Like so depressing that I had to keep putting it down.  Of course I think that's in part due to the fact that I read it around the holidays, and right after my grandmother's death.  So I was feeling super emotional at the time and couldn't always take the depessing things going on in this book.

The story I loved.  There were parts where it did drag, but then there were those parts where I just could not put the book down.  The draggy parts were few and far between and the "I can't put this down to go back to work from my lunch break" parts were often.

As for the setting, I LOVED.  Kennedy was able to completely capture the feel and the scene of 1980s Berlin.  I of course wasn't even around back when the Wall was around, but I felt like I had been in Berlin and experienced it for myself while reading this book.  The Wall itself is like its own character.  It is always present, always there, and very real.  It's hard to explain because I've never really read a book where the author was so able to make a "character" out of an inatimate object.  The Wall was so oppressive, and you feel that as you are reading.  Of course there's also the world on the other side of the Wall in East Berlin, where the Wall, yes, is keeping out a lot of ideas and materials and whatnot, but it's also creating a close, tight-knit community within its borders.

The characters were super awesome.  Thomas, for example, is very likeable and I totally felt for him whenever he felt distressed.  Yet he's also super annoying at times, which totally works for him because he's a journalist and has that personality.  He is constantly asking blantant, straight foward questions, almost like he's interogating someone.  But it's who he is.  Just curious.  Petra, Thomas's love interest, was a very complicated character.  Without giving anything away, I still don't really understand why she did some of the things she did.  But then I'm not a mother, so..  Without a doubt, my favorite character was Alastair, Thomas's roommate.  He is so hilarious, but deep down he is super sensitive underneath his sarcasm.  He's also a lot wiser that Thomas originally gives him credit for.

I loved this book.  I was really routing for a happy ending to Thomas and Petra's love story.  Obviously, I knew it wouldn't happen.  Because when the book starts, Thomas is married to someone completely different.  It was depresssing.  The book's title was so fitting.  It is filled with "moments"-the moment you meet the love of your life and feel that immediate spark.  The moment the relationship ends.  Each event is just a little moment in your life, but it is still a very important and life-altering one. 

Douglas Kennedy's The Moment was such a great book that left me feeling more emotional toward any book I've read in a long time.  I definitely think you should give it a try.  Have you read any of Kennedy's other books?

Thanks a bunch to the people at Atria books for offering me a copy of the book for review!

A few favorite quotes:

Page 108: That was the curious thing about life in the West.  So many of us with the right educational and socioeconomical opportunities chose to close ourselves off into lives we didn't want, complaining how we had become enslaved by mortgages, car payments, children.  Whereas over here...well, entrapment had a rather different meaning in East Berlin.

Page 195: One of the complexities of falling in love is that you cannot help but look for subtext in everything said between the two of you.  In that very early stage of a romance-when you know you are infatuated, when you sense (but don't have definite proof) that it's mutual, and you so desperately want it all to come right-you turn into a specialist in advance semiotics, trying to decipher every meaning behind the words that pass to and fro.

Page 211-212: "You love her, don't you?"
"Is it that obvious?"
"You are a lucky man to feel that.  Me-I've never felt that.  Never once."
"And you're still single?"
"No-married to the same woman for twenty-five years.  So I envy you."
"But say it doesn't work out?"
"At least you now know what it feels to feel that."

Page 376: But isn't that always the Last Chance Saloon hope of anyone facing a terminal situation?  Tomorrow I will wake up and the tumor will be gone.  Tomorrow I will wake up and she will be in bed next to me.  How we always hope for something to contradict the most terrible truths we have to face.  How we all privately believe in anything to counter reality at its most concrete.

Page 390: I said nothing.  Getting all the subtexts behind my silence, Stan simply gripped by arm and said, "You will find a way of living with the sense of loss."

Page 427: A snowy day.  Snow-the great temporary purifier.  The world goes silent and is baptized white.

The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson

Note to Self: Don't read Mom's library books......  Unless you want her to return the one you're reading before you write down your favorite quotes.  Seriously, because then you end up like me, who finds that the book is always checked out of the library, and then eventually forgets you have a book review to write.

This should be a review of The Lantern, a book I seriously loved, even if the main character's BF got on my nerves at times.  I read this book in August maybe?  Yeah.

Basically, it's been so long and I don't have a copy of the book, so no real review.  Just me promising that while I don't remember everything, I remember loving it :)