The Social Animal

The Social Animal by David Brooks
Fiction (sort of)

I know I haven’t posted a lot in a while because things have been so busy with school, so I decided to just make some of the reviews short so I can get through more books.  I always want to make sure that I have time to read, even if I might not have a lot of time to write long reviews. Right now I am reading Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, which argues that humans are prone to making systematic irrational errors, so I will probably have more to add to this review when I am done with it.

 In The Social Animal, David Brooks follows the lives of two fictional characters, Harold and Erica, while examining human behavior through psychology, sociology, and biology. Brooks argues that human behavior can largely be understood by looking at the brain on a subconscious level. Brooks uses the lives of Harold and Erica as tools in order to demonstrate these patterns of behavior in action. Brooks's book provides interesting insight into the society that we live in and our own actions.

Lean In and Wonder Women

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg and

Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection by Debora L. Spar

Nonfiction

Sheryl Sandberg combines personal experiences with data and figures to explain why so few women are in leadership positions. The stories and anecdotes are possibly the best part of the book because they connect the reader to an influential COO and depict a softer image of Sandberg. Instead of being a self-help guru, Sandberg acknowledges her own flaws and her own struggles by being open and authentic. She admits that she doesn’t have all the answers, which makes her success seem more achievable and not as distant. Sandberg debunks the myth of doing it all and challenges the double standard to which women are held.

Debora L. Spar also presents a feminist view of the working woman’s condition in her book, Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection. Spar summarizes how past efforts to empower women ironically have led to women trying to conform to many different roles.  Instead of escaping the role of a domestic goddess, women are now expected to be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company as well as the CEO of a home. Being free to pursue careers that were originally shut off from them didn’t liberate women in the way they intended. Instead, it added additional burdens.

Although these books came out a few years ago, they are especially relevant now given the current political climate.

In Order to Live

In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park

Non Fiction

Yeonmi Park’s memoir describes her escape from North Korea to China at thirteen, her harrowing life in China, her trek through the Gobi Desert, and eventually her adjustment to life as a college student and human rights activist. This remarkable journey depicts the horrors that she faced in North Korea and as a sex slave in China. These hardships include the psychological and physical struggles of escaping North Korea and her past.

            Some people have criticized Yeonmi for inconsistencies in her accounts to the media. Some of these inconsistencies are as minor as statements that her mom had a Chanel handbag while in North Korea, but some are more significant, such as her claim that she saw dead bodies in a river. A particularly significant inconsistency involves her saying that she witnessed the execution of her friend’s mom when she was nine (in 2002), although there have not been any large scale executions in North Korea since 2000.

As a girl, Yeonmi may have actually believed that her mom had a Chanel handbag and only realized that the handbag was a knockoff when the press pointed out the improbability. In her book, Yeonmi said that the bags were probably knockoffs. As for seeing dead bodies in the river on the way to school, a reporter said that he traveled to North Korea and didn’t see any corpses in the river. That may have been true when the reporter visited, but during her childhood, Yeonmi might have seen a few dead bodies in the river.

The location of the execution and the reason for it have also been inconsistent, but Yeonmi has been through hardships that hardly anyone has experienced, which could have muddled her memory. This execution was not mentioned in the book.

There have been various other inconsistencies, which could be the result of PTSD or she could have just plain forgotten. The point is, Yeonmi has very little reason to lie about her experiences in North Korea. Yeonmi mentions that even though she is in South Korea now, North Korea still watches her.  Merely speaking out puts her safety in danger, and even if an event didn’t happen to her, it may have happened to another defector or another citizen of North Korea. Yeonmi confesses at the end of her book that she can’t hide her past, but instead should use it to bring attention to the atrocities that are happening inside North Korea.

We Were Liars

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Fiction

The Sinclairs are perfect. They live on a private island and are rich, beautiful, and skilled at hiding secrets. Cadence has spent nearly every summer of her childhood on her grandparents’ private island and is used to holding herself together in times of stress. She spends the summer with her cousins, Mirren and Johnny, as well as Gat, who is not quite a family friend due to his poor background. After an accident, Cadence develops amnesia and is unable to remember a major event at the end of her last summer. As Cadence tries to piece together what happened, we learn that some secrets are too big to remain hidden.

Lockhart creates a world that is puzzling and confusing, leaving the reader as much in the dark as Cadence is about what happened the previous summer.  This confusion escalates and culminates until the world the reader was made to believe was true comes crashing down, revealing one never expected. Lockhart uses language that is poetic and beautiful, but at the same time creates a division between the reader and the characters. This makes it difficult to understand and relate to the characters, which may be Lockhart’s intent. Everybody lies to keep up appearances.  In the end, Cadence realizes that while lies may seem to make life better, living requires the truth.

Go Set a Watchman

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
Fiction

To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favorite books, so you can imagine how excited I was for Go Set a Watchman. It was hard to compare the two because the style and substance were so different. I found it easier to view Go Set a Watchman as a separate book and the flashbacks as bonus material for To Kill a Mockingbird. Familiar characters like Jem and Dill make few appearances in these flashbacks and the characters that are still around are hardly recognizable, such as Atticus. Scout even goes by a different name (Jean Louise), but she is still recognizable and the similarities between her younger self are believable.

             The voice in Go Set a Watchman was inconsistent and the story was less of a narrative than To Kill a Mockingbird. The voice in the flashbacks was entertaining, while the other parts of the book were almost boring in tone, similar to a voice-over in a documentary. This inconsistency in the book made it seem more like a first draft than a finished novel, which it likely was. I found Go Set a Watchman to be more autobiographical and less fictional than To Kill a Mockingbird, and probably closer to Lee’s actual experiences during that period. As much as the general public would like to believe, it’s unlikely that there were many people during the 1930s in the South who resembled Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. The Atticus in Go Set a Watchman was probably closer to the personality of a typical lawyer in the South for the time. From these two books, Lee gives us two versions of Atticus, one who is an ideal and a symbol of justice, and the other that is an actual person who holds the beliefs and values of his environment.

What makes To Kill a Mockingbird great literature is that Lee was able to take her observations of the South and transform them into universal themes. Go Set a Watchman is an early step in the evolution of Harper Lee’s writing, and it is best to view it as that.

Code Name Verity

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Fiction

      I highly enjoyed this book because of the characters and most importantly, because of the ending. I feel that there are 5 things that I should cover so as a reader you are mentally prepared to fully embrace the amazingness of this book.

      The first thing is the plot. Code Name Verity takes place in England during World War 2 and is about two friends. One is a spy and the other is a pilot. We quickly learn that Verity, which is her code name, is a spy. While on a mission she is forced to abandon Maddie, the pilot, and is captured by the Gestapo when she looks the wrong way while crossing a street. Which leads to the second thing, the book is split into two parts. The first part is told by Verity and her narration is part of her confession to the Gestapo. Because I was not prepared for the switch between narrators, I was shocked because you become very attached to Verity and I didn’t feel that same attachment to Maddie the pilot, but both characters are very developed and enjoyable, it was just shocking at first. The third thing is almost the worst mistake I have ever made while reading a book. It is almost as bad as reading the last chapter, and that is I read the acknowledgements at the back of the book. It’s not really called the acknowledgements it’s really called the Author’s Debriefing, and in it a small thing is revealed which completely ruins the end of Verity’s narration and I really regret it. I believe that there was a very good chance that I could have cried if I hadn’t read the end. The fourth thing is the ending. At the end of the book either your heart will break and you will cry, or your mind will explode, or you will go into a coma similar to how I did and sit in the corner of your room hyperventilating. The plot is so carefully thought out, you don’t realize what is happening until everything is right in front of you, so it is very much like a puzzle, which is why I highly recommend reading the book several times, which is the fifth and final request. The first read should be solely for enjoyment, the second should be to notice the small details that you didn’t notice the first time. And then if you want, repeat Steps 1 and 2.   

The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

Nonfiction

The Glass Castle is a memoir about the author’s experiences growing up in a poor and peculiar family. They constantly move and uproot their lives. Her dad is an alcoholic but is still faithful to the family, and he wrote a blueprint to a glass castle that he promises to someday build. Her mom is a self-proclaimed artist who is first seen digging through a Dumpster. Because of her parents’ poor choices they live in abject poverty. Her unconventional childhood results in her siblings and Jeannette sticking close together and having to fend for themselves. The book is full of alarming tales of parenting, such as the one where Jeannette is three years old and she learns to boil hot dogs by herself in their trailer. While she is standing on a chair to reach the stove, her skirt catches on fire. She is admitted to the hospital with severe burns. Her dad is disappointed because he insists that she should have seen the local Navajo witch doctor instead. After Jeannette spends six weeks in the hospital recovering, her dad breaks into the hospital, grabs her and bolts for the door, while nurses and doctors yell at him to stop. Some of the events in The Glass Castle are so comical and unbelievable that you feel a great deal of respect for the author for being able to rise above her past.

The Walls family may be unconventional, poor, and slightly eccentric, but it is never boring.