L is Hooked on Slice

Okay, okay, I know.  I’ve completely caved to the Bethenny Frankel hype.  I’m completely hooked on her show, and now am reading her books.  Pathetic! 

 

For those who don’t know, Slice TV has tons of reality crap – Real Desperate Housewives of insert city name here, Bethenny, Party Mamas, Project Runway, Little Miss Perfect gag, etc. etc. It’s basically train wreck TV and I just can’t stop watching!

 

So when Bethenny’s latest book came out this March, I had to put it on hold at the public library.  No surprise, there wasn’t much waiting for the book when it came in.  A Place of Yes lists 10 rules for getting everything you want out of life (in fact I think that’s the book’s subtitle) and is all about approaching everything you do from “a place of yes”, or positivity and empowerment.  The book addresses various noise issues we have, like food noise, money noise, childhood noise, etc., and encourages us to address our past hurts, failures, and patterns so that we can move forward and get the wonderful life we’ve always wanted and deserve.  Bethenny’s approach in showing us how to do this, is to parade her life story before us, so that we can learn from her mistakes.  Well, as entertaining as Bethenny’s life is, she’s no expert psychologist, and so her knock-off pop psychology fails to fully deliver. 

 

Don’t get me wrong.  I love Bethenny.  I love what’s she’s doing with her line of Skinnygirl Margaritas and healthful eating message, and her show is just good, plain fun.  It’s the chance to peak through someone’s curtains, into their home, to see all the horrors and triumphs of their lives.  It’s tabloid viewing at its best!  But when it comes to writing a book to help people (namely women) improve their lives, well Bethenny should have stuck to what she knows best – food.  Because as much as I enjoyed reading about her life, there wasn’t much meat on the bones of life-altering, meaningful messages this book supposedly offers.  As a neighbour once said to me of these types of books, “you have to take the meat and leave the bones.”  In other words, take what’s important, what speaks to you and leave the rest.  Unfortunately, I left a lot of this book because rather than being full of advice it really was just all Bethenny all the time.  Quite entertaining, fans will definitely enjoy this book.

 

Guilty pleasure -- check.  Lessons learned or adopted? -- not so much.

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L J

 

 

TBR = 5

WPL = 15

Gail Vaz-Oxlade as the teacher in a Peanuts cartoon

* a very apropos cartoon from http://www.gocomics.com/peanuts

 

Wa wa wa waaaa.  I love Gail.  I devoured her Debt-Free Forever book, implemented her suggestions and have since changed my life immensely (2 credit cards paid off with just my line of credit to go, and all that in only 6 months!!).  So as I got to thinking about saving for retirement and will I have enough, I decided to read her latest book, Never Too Late: Take Control of Your Retirement and Your Future.   Now, I’m no math whiz but I do feel confident that I understand investments enough to choose wisely for myself, but as I read Gail’s book, I started to hear the teacher from the Peanuts cartoon in my head:  wa wa wa wa waaaaa.  Now perhaps it’s just that I’ve been ill lately and unable to grasp all of Gail’s knowledge, but I really struggled to get through this book and came out the end feeling like I didn’t know nothin’ about money and investing.  So the confidence boost I was hoping to get, and the tips on improving my portfolio I was hoping to take from the book fizzled quickly.  Gail was just too technical for me. 

 

If you read the book and make better sense of it than I did, please enlighten me.  Or perhaps I’ll tackle it again later this summer when I’m back in fighting form.

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L J

 

 

TBR = 5

WPL = 14

L Takes a Walk Down Memory Lane

Some weeks ago I stumbled across news of a most epic proportion.  Sweet Valley High, that teen romance series I so loved so much as a kid may be made into a movie.  Yup, Jessica and Elizabeth might just be coming to a big screen near you.  YAY!!!  Okay, so I am that much of a geek that I had to hunt down a copy of the first ever book in the series, Double Love, so I could re-read it and remember what all the fuss was about.  And remember I did, but mostly just what a geek I was at the age of twelve.  Sigh.  I was first introduced to the Wakefield twins when my sister started buying the books.  My sister, ten years older than me, was not much of a reader and I think she thought these short little books would peak her interest enough to actually get her reading.  It wasn’t long though before I got my twelve-year-old hands on the books and fell in love with the series and the characters – who didn’t love Elizabeth?  Okay she was just a little too goody two shoes, playing victim to her evil twin who I abhorred, but really, Jessica did have all the fun.  And then there was Todd.  Sigh.  I always fell for those boy-next-door heartthrobs….

 

Rereading Double Love, I realized just how much of a geek I was back then as whole sentences read so familiarly it was like I’d just read the book … but then I had read and re-read the first dozen ad nauseum because sister dearest was such a slooowww reader, that I could read five books to her one, and she wouldn’t buy more until she read the ones already purchased, so I had no choice but to read them again and again and again (I actually remember reading one of the books out loud to her, as she was working on a quilt, thinking this would help her get through the books faster.  I mean, really, who would quilt when they could read about Jessica’s latest shenanigans?) 

 

Anyway, Double Love introduces us to the Wakefield twins and their classmates in fictional Sweet Valley, California, a land of perpetual sunshine and beautiful people.  Head cheerleader Jessica likes Todd, captain of the basketball team and is desperate to get him to ask her to the upcoming dance, even though whenever Todd calls their house or runs into the girls in the halls of Sweet Valley High, it’s Elizabeth he wants to talk to.  But Elizabeth doesn’t like Todd, so Jessica is free and clear to go after him … right?  What follows is the usual teen heartache as Elizabeth and Todd navigate the rocky road to romance.

 

Considering there are about a couple hundred books written in the series and all its spin-offs, I won’t be continuing this trip down memory lane, but I will be looking forward to the movie, which I hear is being written by Diablo Cody who also penned the screenplay for Juno so I couldn’t be more excited!!

 

Till next time, happy reading.

L J

 

 

 

TBR = 5

WPL = 13

L plays catch-up

Just when I think it’s time to set aside the J.D. Robb books, out comes one that reminds me just what I love about them.  Treachery in Death is J.D. Robb at her best, weaving in just about everything I like about the series and characters.  Eve Dallas is at her kick-ass best, and Roarke is her ever steady, loving, supportive post with just enough print time of his own to make reading this book extra enjoyable.

 

Eve’s stalwart partner, the ever steady Peabody, Detective Delia has overheard a couple of dirty cops plotting death.  While Eve generally stands for murder, this time, she must protect the blue line and route out a squad full of the dirtiest of dirty cops – cop killers. 

 

While I generally don’t like knowing who-done-it right off the bat, Robb makes it work in this latest installment to the series, which is a satisfying read of one-up-man-ship between opposing lieutenants.  It’s good cop verse bad cop at Robb’s finest and a very satisfying read.

 

Till next time, happy reading,

L J

 

 

TBR = 5

WPL = 12

The Color Purple

 

I read Alice Walker’s pivotal novel The Color Purple for a Women’s Studies course called Gal Pal’s: Women and Friendship.  I saw the movie, starring Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, many years ago so vaguely recalled the story.  The book is a beautifully written epistolary novel about the struggles of four women spanning several decades in the early 1900s.  Celie, the female protagonist, tells her story first in letters addressed to God, then later to her sister Nettie.  The story begins when Celie is twelve, and pregnant with her second child by her father who has told her she better not tell anyone except God, or it would break her mother’s heart. 

 

Celie’s children are taken from her at birth and she is soon married off to local widower, Mister, in need of a woman to clean, cook and look after his children.  Tragedy strikes when Mister preys on Celie’s younger sister Nettie.  Not wanting Nettie to go through what she did, Celie helps Nettie get out, but is soon left alone to undergo abuse and neglect by Mister and his bratty children.  The years pass, and Mister’s oldest boy brings home a bride, the feisty Sofia, who refuses to be a battered wife.  This is Celie’s first opportunity to realize women do not have to be slaves to their men.

 

Although Celie is brutalized by the men in her life, she finds solace in the female friendships she forms, the “sisters” she bonds with and who together transform each other’s lives, giving Celie the much needed strength to fling off male oppression and stand on her own two feet as a strong independent woman.

 

The Color Purple is a truly wonderful read about the strength of female friendship and the redemption and reconciliation that can arise from true hardship.

 

Till next time, happy reading,

L J

 

 

TBR = 5

WPL = 11

What L’s been reading lately

 

Not a whole heck of a lot, actually.  I have been grossly neglectful of this poor blog, but only because I’ve been reading academic articles on ethical hacking, net neutrality, free speech and porn in libraries.  Needless to say, the coursework this semester has kept me from reading for fun.  But I have managed to fit in a quick book or two here and there, namely Skinny Bitch and The SkinnyGirl Dish.

 

I am so addicted to Slice TV.  Sad but true.  Several months ago I spent a quiet Saturday afternoon glued to a Real Housewives of New York marathon.  Yes, it was misspent time, wherein I wasted several hours of my life which I will never get back, but it’s like watching a train wreck.  I just couldn’t tear my eyes away.  Then I saw the ads for Bethenny Getting Married?, a reality show focused on the more famous housewife of New York, Bethenny Frankel.  I quickly became obsessed.  I clearly have no life.  It’s my dirty little secret laid bare, please be gentle with your criticism.

 

Bethenny (I have to use her first name, cause it’s like we’re best buds!) is a cook and founder of the SkinnyGirl Margarita, a line of 100 calorie cocktails that’s taken New York and now elsewhere in the States by storm.  She advocates a healthful eating plan that helps you lower the fat, while not skimping on the taste.  I’m not a complete convert, but her book The SkinnyGirl Dish, which is a cookbook companion to her Naturally Thin “diet” book, takes any recipe and shows you how to modify it using the ingredients you have on hand.  Just what this new-to-the-whole-cooking-thing girl needs to gain confidence in the kitchen.  This book is a great take on the traditional cookbook and I’m eager to try some of her offerings.

 

While checking out Bethenny’s other books on Amazon, I came across a mention for Skinny Bitch, which is a similar philosophy to The SkinnyGirl Dish.  Essentially these books are not about dieting and setting up yet another diet meal plan for those who have some pounds to shed, but instead look at how you can make your favourites less fatty and caloric.  Bethenny advocates the “taste everything, eat nothing” philosophy, in that you shouldn’t deny yourself any type of food, or make food your enemy, but that you should have some, in moderation, but fill up on good, healthy food like veggies.

 

In Skinny Bitch, former Ford models Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin also advocate not denying yourself previously labeled “bad” food, but to eat in moderation and consider healthier choices – namely vegan choices.  Skinny Bitch is blatantly vegan and is not a read for the weak stomached as it graphically details the hell that is the killing room floor in most slaughterhouses, not to mention just what crap is put in our food chain (antibiotics, growth hormones, bacteria, etc).  It’s enough to make this meat eater seriously consider going full vegan (in fact, while reading the book, I had to give my dog extra cuddles to ease my guilty conscience). 

 

Both books are a refreshing take on “diet” books.  Rather than giving you a list of don’ts and foods to avoid eating, or put you on ridiculously restricting diets (anti-carbs, super low cals, etc), they focus more on the psychology of eating – eat when you’re hungry, not when you’re stressed; think about what you are eating and why; think about your food choices – what’s healthy, what isn’t and how food makes you feel.  When food stops becoming your enemy or your friend, but is just food, only then can you obtain the skinny girl, or skinny bitch you were naturally meant to be (oh and neither book expects you to weigh yourself obsessively, count calories, weigh food, or obtain a specific weight/size). 

 

In April Bethenny Ever After starts up.  I’ll be hooked again.  Don’t laugh.  And don’t call me on Saturdays either, cause I’ll be watching Slice. 

 

Till next time, happy watching, er reading!

L J

 

TBR = 4

WPL = 11

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Picking up where The Girl Who Played with Fire left off, Larsson’s third novel blows it right out of the water.  A gravely injured Lisbeth Salander slowly recuperates in hospital while Mikael Blomkvist searches for the truth behind a government conspiracy buried within Sweden’s Security Police.  A small, elite group of SIS officers formed a secret agency in the 60s to deal with spies and stumbled across the Russian defector Alexander Zalachenko.  Zalachenko, who worked for Russia’s GRU (similar to KGB) sold information in return for absolute immunity, including freedom to commit crimes against the citizens of Sweden.  As a result Zalachenko’s daughter, Lisbeth Salander, was grossly denied her civil rights and locked up in a psychiatric hospital at the age of twelve for fear she would leak the truth of Zalachenko’s existence.  Now in her 20s and still a ward of the state, Lisbeth faces re-incarceration in a mental ward by those who still protect Zalachenko and must fight to regain her life and freedom.

 

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest is the very best of spy novels, with so many intricate twists and turns and revelations, it will keep you turning the pages until the very end.  Larsson is a master storyteller who has polished off his trilogy with his best writing yet. 

 

Till next time, happy reading,

L J

 

 

TBR = 4

WPL = 9