May 2007 50 Books

Category: 50 Books

23. I’m Not Julia Roberts by Laura Ruby
I thought this book was going to be hilarious. It had some really funny parts, but mostly it wasn’t funny. It was a good book, just, it was kinda like….remember when the movie Parenthood came out? And remember how the previews made it look hilarious? And remember when you watched it how it did have funny parts, but also it was like, real and serious? That was this book. The jacket cover made it sound really funny.

Like I say, it was a good book. I’ve never had to think about ex-husbands and step-moms and dads and pain in the ass kids before. The book really showed how awkward and helpless adults can be.

And like usual, I have to complain that there was TOO many characters in the book. And as if it wasn’t bad enough with all the characters, they were all “related” in some divorced way. So and so married Whatshername’s ex-husband who’s daughter is dating Such and so’s son. Meanwhile Such and so has remarried That Guy with the Bitch Daughter and the ex-wife is a total nut job.

Yeah but like, 15 of those. Still, I’m giving it 2 Cansecos cos it was entertaining as well as a bit thought provoking…even if i was duped by the jacket…just like I was duped by Ron Howard.

22. Just Play Ball by Joe Garagiola

Yay for baseball books! Even bad baseball books are pretty enjoyable…even Canseco’s shitfest of a book was fun to read.

This book, while not well-written exactly, was easy and kinda fun to read. Lemme ‘splain. First off, he says that he’s been around all the old timers and that they all compare the “good ol’ days” to today’s baseball and that that isn’t fair and that he won’t do that in his book and the he proceeds to do EXACTLY that for oh, the whole book. So that was lame. Not that I have a problem with someone talking about the old days, nay, I love that stuff. But don’t say that you’re not like that and not all about comparing that which is uncomparable, and then turn around and compare new rules and old games.

Another thing that bothered me about this book was the chapters were all about different things like umpires, pitchers, Yogi Berra etc. Which is great but then he’d go off on these tangents about the DH rule or interleague play and it just didn’t gel.

He admits that he wasn’t a great player. So it’s nice that he’s not arrogant or all “I know what I’m talking about because I’m a living legend.”  He IS a good storyteller, which is probably why he’s been in broadcasting for so long. He remembers everything! And it was a nice change of pace from other baseball books I read which tends to be more junk about the Yankees.

It should be noted that the library has put this book in the biography section. I don’t think it belongs there really because it’s not really about his life as much as it’s just him going on and on about baseball. It should go in the non-fiction stacks with the other baseball books, 796.357…which is a number I’ve had memorized since I was a wee fleegan who loved reading anything on baseball.

21. Don’t Look Down by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer
Laura has read, i think, all or most of Jennifer Crusie’s books. Laura has pretty good taste in most things so I thought I’d try out one of these books. I really liked this book until about the last 100 pages. It just got way too busy and dumb. DUMB. The characters were all funny and sarcastic and witty and everything; it was the story that got ridiculous.

The main chick, Lucy, is a director who has to take over shooting an action movie cos the original director had a heart attack. Her ex-husband is the stunt co-ordinator. Her sister also works on the set. The main actor is an idiot. And his stunt double is a military guy who ends up with the hots for Lucy which is fine because she thinks he’s hot too. The ex-husband wants Lucy back, and also he’s crazy. This is all on the jacket cover so I’m not spoiling anything for you. Also, there’s WonderWoman underwear. I’m sorry, WonderWear.

Like I said, it was really enjoyable up until the last 100 pages or so. The only reason I finished it was to see if they could ACTUALLY end the book or not. I’ll probably try another one of her books before I write her off as a “good start, poor finish” author.

The next book that they’re writing together is due out this summer, and it’s called Agnes and the Hitman. That sounds funny. I’ll give that one a go.

20. Summer Crossing by Truman Capote
This is one of those posthumously published works that’s miraculously found in a garage sale in Miami by some antique collector who bought a box filled with old notebooks. It was something like that anyway. Which of course, makes you wary of the whole deal in the first place. If it wasn’t good enough for Mr. Capote to publish while he was alive why would it get any better when he’s dead?

So it’s a novel about a summer in New York City in either the late ’40s or maybe in the ’50s, it doesn’t matter. The main character is Grady McNeil, a 17 year old girl who’s parents and older sister don’t understand her at all. They are rich and she’s apathetic and it very much had the feel of all those 1950s movies about kids with parents who don’t get it. I’m looking at you, Rebel Without a Cause. Have you seen that movie? It’s not that good. James Dean is all, “YOU’RE TEARING ME APART!” and I’m all, “Why? ‘Cos your dad asked you a question? Either go smoke some weed, screw a girl, race a car, or get a summer job okay? Just do SOMETHING, I don’t care, but stop being a mopey little bitch.” Why is that movie a “classic”? Anyone? Was it meant to be a horror movie for parents?

Right well, back to Summer Crossing. So Grady’s parents go to Europe for the summer and Grady talks them into letting her stay home alone. She proceeds to screw around with the parking lot attendant…they get married in Jersey…for no reason really. Then they kinda play house at her parent’s apartment while they’re on vacation. Then it kind of hints around that she’s pregnant and then they smoke some weed with one of the dude’s old army buddies and while they’re out joy riding she gets a little crazy in that Jim Stark kind of way and she grabs the wheel and the guy’s all ,”What are you doing?! You’ll kill us all!” and she’s all, “I know.”

the end.

Honestly, the ending was the best part.


That reminds me, a guy checked out the audiobook of The Bell Jar at the library the other day. I REALLY wanted to say, “Are you sure you want to do this?” But I didn’t ‘cos heck, it’s happened to the best of us. At least this slob was going to have Maggie Gyllenhaal read it to him.

19. Him Her Him Again The End of Him by Patricia Marx
If you think that I checked out this book because of it’s title you’d be wrong. Well, you’d be half wrong. Not only was the title funny but the cover was orange (my fave), and we all know I’m a sucker for the cover.

This is one of the only books I’ve read where I HATED the characters but actually enjoyed reading the book. So that amazed me. I was also amazed that the book was published, at all really, cos I’m pretty sure if anyone turned it in to say, any collegiate creative writing class the teacher would’ve been all, “Yeah, turn this back in when you’ve named AND DESCRIBED the narrator and also you need to describe the other characters as well. Yeah no, I know what you mean about being creative and it’s your “artistic choice” and all NOT to describe, and in some cases name, your characters…but in the REAL world no one gets away with that. You’ll never be published.”

So the narrator is never named or described. It starts out with her in graduate school in England. She meets this total jackass egomaniac named Eugene and falls in love with him…even though it’s obvious he’s a douche who doesn’t love her. She never graduates and ten years later she’s still enamoured with Eugene. She never gets a real job and blah blah blah I know I can’t believe I finished the book either, but like I said, I really DID enjoy the book. It was very funny. The story itself isn’t funny. In fact, it’s shitty really. But the characters were well, just that, characters. Some of them seemed so bizarre that I can’t help but believe these people really do exist.

And I think every page had at least one sentence that was just amazingly perfect. It was clever, and as I’ve said before, good or bad i’m a sucker for clever.

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