I Read It So You Don’t Have To: Bookworm by Robin Yeatman

When I came across Robin Yeatman’s novel Bookworm at my local library, I thought I had come across my ideal book, a story about a woman who escapes into the world of books when real life isn’t so great. Bookworm turned out to be this book.

Meet our protagonist Victoria. She works a few days a week as a massage therapist at a local spa. She sees her job as a dead-end, almost beneath her, but doesn’t have the ambition to find a new job.

But why should she? Victoria is married to Eric, a prosperous high-powered attorney who is currently trying to make partner at his firm. He’s totally stressed out, and of course, brings his stress home.

As Bookworm begins, Victoria and Eric have hit a rough patch in their marriage. The two (not) love birds are totally unsuited for each other. In fact, their marriage seems more like it was arranged by Victoria’s in-laws and her hyper-careerist, status-seeking parents.

To escape the daily grind of her loveless marriage and her crappy job, Victoria loses herself in books. While at one of her favorite cafes, she notices a handsome man reading the same book she is, incidentally a book she hates. Victoria decides right then and there that this fellow reader is her soulmate. She must be with him.

However, there is one thing standing in her way. That’s right, her husband Eric. Victoria goes into the most nefarious areas of her mind and fantasizes about Eric’s deadly demise. She even messes with Eric’s car. And even though Eric could have died in a car crash, he doesn’t quite figure out Victoria wants him dead. Despite being a highly-educated lawyer, Eric doesn’t come across as very bright.

Throughout all of this, Victoria fantasizes about the man she saw at the care. She even has weird nocturnal trysts with him through some oddball astral projection. Huh?

However, Victoria’s fantasies about this mystery man come to fruition when she has a chance meeting with him. The man in question is named Luke, and he is a woodworker with his own shop. Victoria and Luke get to know each other, and she even buys a huge book shelf from him thinking Eric won’t notice. Victoria and Luke soon start a clandestine affair, Victoria telling Luke that she’s going through a divorce. Of course, Victoria is still married to Eric. And instead of asking Eric for a divorce, she is imagining him suffering some awful death. She definitely wants him dead after gets proof Eric might be having an affair with her ditzy, breast-implanted friend, Holly.

Will Victoria divorce Eric? Will Eric fall into a volcano? Will Victoria and Luke end up being a true-blue couple?

Egad, who cares? I sure don’t. While reading Bookworm, I couldn’t give damn about Victoria and her predicament. I’m all for flawed characters, but Victoria is such a drip. She’s not the kind of protagonist you can root for. Victoria has all the depth of a kiddie pool and is very bitchy and judgmental towards others when it came to their looks. I got rather peeved of Victoria making rude observations about uni-boobs, dandruff in people’s hair, pilled clothing, and if I read about Eric’s puffy nipples one more time, I was going to projectile vomit.

Speaking of Eric, when it comes to him and Victoria, these two people didn’t even seem to like each other let alone love each other. Marriages often hit rocky moments and some are better off ending, but Victoria and Eric should have never made a pit stop at the Chapel of Love.

As for Victoria’s new love with Luke? I’m sure Victoria would have grown bored of him, find him riddled with too many faults, and would have pondered his demise.

Bookworm just couldn’t make up its mind if it was chick lit, a dark comedy, or a combo platter of the two. No matter what, it’s just not well written enough for me to give a shit. Unfortunately, Bookworm is more worm than book.

I Read it So You Don’t Have To: Careers for Women by Joanna Scott

When I came across Joanna Scott’s novel Careers for Women, I was immediately intrigued. The cover showed the lower halves of women in midi skirts and sensible heels making me think of the TV show Mad Men or Rona Jaffe’s novel The Best of Everything. But you can’t judge a book by cover as the cliché goes, and perhaps this novel would have been better left on the library shelf.

Careers for Women started out promising. Maggie Gleason has just arrive to New York City from Cleveland in the late 1950s. She gets a job as a secretary at the Port Authority. She is also mentored by the Port Authority’s head of Public Relations, Lee K. Jaffe, or Mrs. J as she’s called. Mrs. J asks Maggie to take new hire Pauline Moreau under her wing. Pauline has arrived to New York City with a young daughter in tow and a shameful secret.

Mrs. J has big dreams. She envisions a towering skyscraper dotting lower Manhattan’s sky. Yep, you guessed it. The World Trade Center. And she goes through great lengths to make this happen.

As for Maggie, she befriends Pauline and acts a de facto auntie to Pauline’s daughter, Sonia. Sonia has a lot of health and disability issues, and taking care of her overwhelms Pauline. And it isn’t long before Pauline abandons Sonia and Maggie has to take care of her, which she does and remains committed to getting the education and help Sonia desperately needs.

And then Careers for Women goes all over the place. We also get a story in upstate New York, where an aluminum plant is poisoning the environment and somehow this is connected to the World Trade Center. And wouldn’t you know it. one of the executives of the aluminum plant, Bob Whittaker, just happens to be the father of Sonia. Pauline was his secretary and he got her pregnant one night when he convinced her a condom wasn’t necessary. This man is married has a stepson, and there was no way he was going to be there for Sonia other than giving Pauline some money to get away.

Furthering the confusion, is Bob’s wife, Kay, her son Robert, Robert’s fiancée, and the fiancée’s dead father whose demise may have come from working at the aluminum plant. Scott also brings up environmental degradation, the plight of some Native Americans, a factory fire, a murder of one main character, and finally 9/11 and the death and destruction surrounding the World Trade Center.

While reading Careers for Women I felt like I was being thrown all over the place. It’s as if Scott was trying to cram too many stories into one book, and not a single one was thoroughly thought out about in a way that made sense. I couldn’t keep track of whether we were in the 1950s, 1960s, or 1970s. Some characters just came and went. Maggie narrates the story in first person, but the others were in third person, and at other times, Scott addressed to reader.

By the end of Careers for Women, I just didn’t care how the novel would play out, which is a shame. There are so many women who made inroads back the 1950s-1970s, and their stories do deserve to be told. But not in the slapdash manner of Careers for Women.

I Read It So You Don’t Have To: Multiple Choice by Claire Cook

Once again I was treated to a book that was complete hammered shit. Now Multiple Choice by Claire Cook sounded promising. The protagonist, March Monroe, has decided to go back to college at the same time her daughter Olivia is starting her freshman year. No, they’re not going to the same college. Olivia is attending Boston University and March is attending the local community college. But things get really weird when both March and Olivia end up as interns at a local radio station. Wait, don’t most people do internships when they are seniors in college? I guess things have changed since I matriculated at my alma mater.

To say Olivia is pissed to find her mom interning at the same is a bit of an understatement. Olivia is mortified and annoyed. And she acts more like a 13-year-old going through puberty than a young woman in her first year of college. For some odd reason, the bickering between March and Olivia inspires the powers that be at the radio station to give these two their own radio show. Why the station would give two untested, inexperienced amateurs a radio show over more qualified candidates is beyond me.

March and Olivia’s show is called, “I’m Rubber, You’re Glue,” a show that’s supposed to be about the relationships between mothers and daughters. The two don’t exactly know what they are doing, and in the show doesn’t come across as very riveting. But for some reason, they are encouraged to keep doing their show and they even get photographed for a huge billboard to advertise “I’m Rubber, You’re Glue.”

March has other things going on beyond her internship and the radio show. As mentioned, March is going to college. She has a hard time connecting to her fellow students due to most of them being much younger, but she does manage to make friends with an older lady named Etta. And though March enjoys most of her classes, she’s having difficulty with her quantum physics class.

March is married to a man named Jeff and also has a son named Jackson. The Monroe family also has a bird named Flighty and a cat named Feral that somehow fit into the story, but not really.

To make some money, March works as a directionality coach, which is a pretentious way to call oneself a life coach. However, March seems to need more direction than some of her clients, especially in the way she treats one of them in a very condescending manner.

Despite March and Olivia going to school and having a radio show, nothing much happens in Multiple Choice. Just when you think the action will pick up, the story falls flat and doesn’t go anywhere. The dialogue is insipid, and many of the characters aren’t fleshed out to make them interesting. And both March and Olivia are not pleasant people who you would want to spend time with even though I’m sure Cook was writing them to be relatable. Olivia is a whiny brat and March never seems to stand up for her. March is also really judgmental towards other people. She makes snot-nosed comments about a photographer hired to take pictures of her and Olivia for the billboard. I guess March was expecting Annie Liebowitz to waste her time and talents on two nobodies.

So should you read Multiple Choice? Yes? No? The answer is easy. No!

I Read It So You Don’t Have To: How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell

Whenever I write a book review I remind myself an actual human being wrote this book-remember to be empathetic in your review, be fair, be firm.

But when it comes to Cat Marnell’s memoir How To Murder Your Life…well, screw being nice. As the kids say, “I can’t even.”

Now I’m a pretty caring and compassionate person, especially when it comes to someone in a cruel grip of addiction and mental health issues. I’ve read countless books about people dealing with these issues and I know people in real life who have dealt with these issues. And have offered an open-mind and a shoulder to cry on to them.

Knowing a smidge about Marnell due to my interest and experience in both fashion and media I picked up How to Murder Your Life thinking it would be a book about a young woman’s harrowing journey through addiction while trying to make a living in two very challenging industries while also dealing with personal issues like family, education, friends, love and various mundane tasks like paying the bills and making sure the fridge is full.

I thought How To Murder Your Life would convey how Marnell finally realized she had a problem and had a someone or several someones intervene and tell her she needs to get help. I thought it would be a tale of Marnell agreeing to get help, go to rehab and at turns deal with breakthroughs and breakdowns finally arriving on some type of sobriety and doing everything in her power to stay that way. I expected wisdom, clarity, vulnerability and redemption. I was at the very least, hoping for a well-written book.

I got none of these things.

Marnell grew up posh and privileged in the DC area. Her family is both loving and at times infuriating. Marnell, as a child, seems to be silly, fun, creative and like any kid, a bit of a handful. Well, aren’t we all? From a very young age Marnell is interested in the fashion/beauty industry and develops a passion for magazines, going to the point of creating her own ‘zine.

When she reaches her teens she decides to attend boarding school and soon after goes into a tailspin, some of it where she is truly a victim (she loses her virginity to what seems to be date rape), but most of it where she is a willing and enthusiastic participant. Lazy, obnoxious, and fully entitled, Marnell barely graduates high school, can’t quite get into a proper college and gets addicted to various substances thinking it makes her dangerous, edgy and glamorous like she’s the Edie Sedgwick of the modern age.

But despite her lack of education, talent and mastery of anything other than taking an alphabet of any drug she comes across, Marnell gets an enviable gig working for Lucky magazine. Much of her easy entry is due to being privileged, white, thin and spoiled and well-connected. Granted, this isn’t exactly rare in the world of media and fashion.

Thus, Marnell continues to be a complete trainwreck, professionally, personally and romantically. From her early days with Lucky to later on where Marnell is working for the website xoJane under the “legendary” Jane Pratt.

Drugged out her gourd, Marnell’s life is a collection of missed deadlines and missed periods. But instead of being horrified by her life, she seems almost proud. And sadly, she is coddled by nearly everyone in her realm and as How to Murder Your Life reaches its conclusion, Marnell is still a fucking junkie!

Well, isn’t that a trip? Is How to Murder Your Life well-written? No. Marnell’s writing is distraught, callow, unenlightened and so purple Prince would probably say, “Okay, that’s enough.” And the name dropping of celebs, high priced cosmetics and designer duds just made me roll my eyes. Your not only one to apply MAC to your lips, Marnell. It doesn’t make your special (As I type this I’m wearing Chanel no. 5. Yes, you may touch the hem of my ancient Limited sweater).

Fortunately, there are countless on books about drug addiction that are worthy of your time. How to Murder Your Life is clearly not one of them.

 

 

I Read It So You Don’t Have To: Miss O’Dell-My Hard Days and Long Nights with the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and the Women They Loved by Chris O’Dell

I’ve always been interested in reading rock and roll memoirs, especially by people who were behind the scenes. But when these books are written by women they are usually written by wives, girlfriends and groupies. Now I like these books; Pamela Des Barres’ I’m With the Band is one of my favorites. But I want to read books by women who actually worked in the music business. So when I came across Chris O’Dell’s Miss O’Dell: My Hard Days and Long Nights With the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and the Women They Loved I thought I had hit the jackpot. Chris O’Dell worked for the Beatles’ Apple Records and managed several rock tours. Surely, she’d have some great insight on what it was like to be a women in a mostly man’s world and perhaps provide some inspiration to young women who want to do more than provide favors to roadies and rockers. Sadly, Chris O’Dell’s memoir turned out to be a huge disappointment.

Miss O’Dell begins in the late 1960s. O’Dell is living in Los Angeles. A chance meeting with Beatles’ insider, Derek Taylor, leads to her getting a job in London at the Beatles’ fledgling Apple Records. It’s never quite established why Taylor thought she’d be such an asset. Did she already have the experience and impressive professional track record? Or was it because she was an attractive blonde? Okay, I shouldn’t hate. Given the chance, I would have jumped at this opportunity.

While at Apple O’Dell does things that are done at any other office. She answers phones, delivers messages and procures lunches. But she also gets to do lots of cool things. When the Beatles played their infamous concert on top of the Apple building, O’Dell was right there with them, soaking up all that rock and roll energy. Any Beatles fan would give his or her eye teeth for such an experience. Lots of rock gods and goddesses roamed the halls of Apple, and O’Dell can’t help but get a little bit fan girlish over the famous people she met. I can’t say I blame her for this. If I had gotten a job at U2’s Principle Management, I would have been squee city. “OMG! Bono said ‘hi’ to me! I can’t wait to tell my mom!”

However, O’Dell soon gets bored and high tails it back to LA. She lives with musician Leon Russell for a time. He had written the song “Pisces Apple Lady” in her honor. Unfortunately, the relationship soon sours. Bored once again, O’Dell begs to get her Apple job back, and is off to London. This turned out to be a common theme with O’Dell. She goes to London, gets bored. She goes to LA, gets bored. Rinse and repeat.

It’s not long before O’Dell is managing major rock tours. She manages tours for Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the Rolling Stones, and later in the book, Echo and the Bunnymen. Not surprisingly, debauchery was a huge part of these tours. Music seemed to take a back seat to snorting up cocaine and sleeping with any available musician, not too mention a lot of fighting among band members and tour staff.

No book about the 1960s and 1970s would be complete without a lot of passages about drugs and sex. Miss O’Dell is no different. However, instead of finding these passages shocking or salacious, I was bored. Reading about endless drug and alcohol-fueled happenings was truly tedious. I could barely stifle my yawns. O’Dell also slept with lots of musicians. Ho-hum. By the time O’Dell mentioned she slept Mick Jagger, I thought, “Who hasn’t? Mick Jagger has probably slept with every third person on the planet. That man would shag a shoe.”

O’Dell also writes about the intense friendships she had with many musicians and their wives/girlfriends, especially George Harrison and Pattie Boyd and Ringo Starr and his wife Maureen. She describes in very full detail of the long conversations she had with these people and the fun times they had. But she seemed more like a free-loader than a good friend. She takes a considerable loan from George Harrison, and never pays him back. While house-sitting for Eric Clapton, she decides to paint his kitchen yellow and orange and then runs off. She later stiffs him on a hotel bill. She constantly took advantage of her rock and roll friends’ generosity, never showing any appreciation. And when she later sleeps with Ringo Starr while he is still married to one of her friends, I wanted to shake her.

It doesn’t help the book’s writing itself is clumsy and amateurish. But what I couldn’t take was the lack of character development on the part of O’Dell. Sure, she does get over drugs and alcohol addiction, but this turning point in her life is given a scant few pages. Never once does she show any remorse for her actions or any semblance of growing as a person. O’Dell is very self-absorbed but not exactly self-aware. Also, she totally ignores the huge cultural and social changes of the era. O’Dell’s memoir takes place during “I am Women. Hear Me Roar” second wave feminism, yet she never mentions what it was like to break ground as a woman in the world of music. I don’t know if all the drugs dulled her memory or she couldn’t be arsed to care.

I wanted to love this book, but I almost threw it across the room. Miss O’Dell isn’t inspiring or even that interesting. However, I do hold hope that a woman who was a true pioneer in the behind-the-scenes world of music will write her memoir. Suzanne de Passe, please write your memoir.

I Read It So You Don’t Have To: Geek Girls Unite-How Fangirls, Bookworms, Indie Chicks and Other Misfits Are Taking Over the World by Leslie Simon

For the longest time the world of geeks was a “Boys Only” club. Guys could be passionate, or let’s say, geeky over music, comics, science fiction, film, technology and books, but the girls could only get passionate over shoes and chocolate. But now the ladies are staking their claim and the world of geek-dom, and they are proud to do so.

Being a bit of a geek myself (at least when it comes to books, politics, baking, fashion, film and crafting) I was delighted to come across Leslie Simon’s Geek Girls Unite: How Fangirls, Bookworms, Indie Chicks, and Other Misfits are Taking Over the World. However, after reading it; I’m less than delighted.

Simon starts off Geek Girls Unite defining what exactly a geek is. Simon defines geek as, “a person who is wildly passionate about an activity, interest, or scientific field and strives to be an expert in said avocation.”

Simon then devotes individual chapters to different types of geeks. There is the fangirl geek who obsesses over anything from World of Warcraft to Star Wars to Hello Kitty. The film, music or literary geeks are pretty self-explanatory. There is the funny girl geek who loves Tina Fey and there is also the domestic diva who is devoted to cooking, baking, crafting and gardening. Simon also provides different subsets of geek-dom, which include fashionista, political, retro, technology and athletic geeks. Apparently, these geeks are only geek-lite; they don’t deserve their own individual chapters.

Each chapter with a little quiz testing your knowledge (spoiler alert: the “right” answer is always C). Apparently you can’t be the proper geek if you get any answer wrong.

Simon then defines each geek in very rigid terms. For instance, I earn my film geek street cred by knowing Alice Guy-Blaché was the first woman to run her own film production studio, but my cred is on shaky ground because I have yet to upgrade my DVD player to Blu-Ray.

Truly bothersome is Simon’s idea of frenemies, the type of non-geeks who are foes to geek girls everywhere. I found this offensive. Someone who has different taste and different interests than I do is not some kind of adversary. We can celebrate being a geek without slamming other people.

And in the spirit of Cosmo magazine, Simon describes the perfect guy for the geek girl, not quite realizing that not all geek girls are straight. Nor are people attracted to perfect carbon copies of themselves. A literary geek girl can fall in love with a sports nut.

While reading Geek Girls Unite, I couldn’t help but think of Simon as not as a geek but of a “cool” girl lowering herself to let us lower life forms know, “ hey, it’s okay to be different.” I thought her idea of starting a sorority of girl geeks, or as Simon puts it, a geek girl guild, was just silly.

Now perhaps this book is skewing towards a younger audience and I’m just too old. As a teenager I would have loved to have found a book that said it’s cool to care about things other than the homecoming game or becoming prom queen. There are some positive moments to Geek Girls Unite. The book provides resources including websites, movies, music, books and magazines that might interest the reader. I did like some of the quotes from girl geeks. Simon also names notable lady geeks who rule their realms and are worthy of checking out. On a local note, Simon mentions Milwaukee’s Faythe Levine’s documentary on crafting Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY Art, Craft and Design.

However, these positive elements can’t make up for Simon’s snotty tone. There’s enough divisiveness in the world. Let’s not bring into the domain of geek-dom. Geek Girls Unite is just “Mean Girls” disguised as “You Go, Girl.” Geek girls of all kinds deserve so much better.

 

I Read It So You Don’t Have To: The Simplicity Primer: 365 Ideas for Making Life More Livable by Patrice Lewis

Always on the hunt for books on simplifying one’s life, especially in a chaotic and stressful world, I was initially excited to come across Patrice Lewis’ book The Simplicity Primer: 365 Ideas for Making Life More Livable. Sadly, this book was a huge disappointment.

On a positive note, Ms. Lewis is a decent writer. And I like how her primer is divided into several sections on topics like marriage, raising children, running a household, the workplace, and saving money. These passages are brief and easily-digestible. The reader can freely read this book piecemeal instead of reading from beginning to end.

However, I soon found Lewis’ advice repetitive and her tone to be snotty and self-satisfied. First, Lewis hardly breaks new ground with “The Simplicity Primer.” Instead of providing concrete, step-by-step advice on how to simplify, be frugal, etc., Lewis offers common sense that most of us already know—don’t break the law, discipline your kids, wear your seat belt, and live within your means. Now even if we don’t always use common sense, most of us learned these things children.

Secondly, Lewis is quite smug. There is nothing wrong with enjoying one’s life and being proud of one’s choices, but in “The Simplicity Primer” Lewis exhibits a moral superiority that is off-putting. Lewis lives on a twenty acre homestead in Idaho where she and her husband own a woodworking business. Her family raises all their own food, and Lewis home-schools her two daughters. Sure, that’s wonderful…for her. But I could have lived without Lewis’ dismissive attitude towards those of us who don’t live like her. Not everyone is suited for the country life. I find I’m more suited to living in a city where I can walk just a few short blocks to the grocery store, my favorite coffee shop, and the local library. Lewis seems convinced city dwellers don’t have any connection to nature, but I live only a few blocks from Lake Michigan—talk about being able to connect with nature.

Thirdly, Lewis admonishes us not to gossip but I found this book quite “gossipy.”  Lewis often mentions friends and acquaintances and the bad choices they made, the kind of choices she would never make because she is just so perfect. But what really got under my skin was how she described a former employee of hers as “slow…not a mental giant.” Though she did praise his amazing work ethic, I couldn’t help but wonder why she had to mention that he was less than bright. I thought it was rather unnecessary and quite cruel.

Lewis also has a blog called “Rural Revolution: In-Your-Face Stuff from an Opinionated Rural North Idaho Housewife.” I read a few of her posts, and she is quite sanctimonious and imperious in her blog and she definitely has her devoted followers. However, “The Simplicity Primer” might have been a more satisfying read if Lewis softened her tone and wrote with more humility. After all, this is a book that can be found at libraries and bookstores by people who have never read her blog. And I’d hardly be surprised if they, too, would find Lewis’ superior tone a complete turn-off.

While reading The Simplicity Primer I couldn’t help but think of Deborah Niemann’s vastly superior book Eco-Thrifty: Cheaper, Greener Choices for a Happier, Healthier Life. Like Lewis, Niemann lives on a huge homestead (only in Illinois, not Idaho) and grows her own food, raises livestock and homeschooled her children. However, Niemann actually gives out sound advice that is easily doable, not a bunch of common sense admonishments we already know. Also, unlike Lewis, Niemann writes in an inviting tone that is friendly, down-to-earth and open-minded.

The Simplicity Primer, simply not worth your time or your book-buying dollars.

Writer’s Block

Summer is usually a pretty busy time for me, and the summer of 2014 is no different. I had a low-key 4th of July, but a couple of friends from out of town visited me on Sunday, and we had a lot of fun. I had dinner with some friends from church this past Monday. And a couple of friends of mine are having a BBS/potluck this Saturday. And yes, I’m bringing my sugar mint cookies.

However, I am working on some book reviews. Two are for novels, one a historical romance and the other a YA novel set in the 1980s. And I’m also working on a review for a non-fiction book that is so odious it is just begging for the “I Read It So You Don’t Have To” treatment.

And of course, I’m always on the prowl for other books to read and review. In fact, I set up a notepad on my smart phone that has a huge list of books that I want to read. That will keep me busy.

 

I Read It So You Don’t Have To: How To Rock Braces and Glasses by Meg Haston

Middle school. It sucked, didn’t it? And for Kacey Simon, head Queen Bee at Marquette Middle School, middle school is about to suck big time.

In Meg Haston’s How to Rock Braces and Glasses, Kacey Simon and her coterie of mean girls rule the halls of Marquette. However, it is Kacey who is the Alpha and she won’t let you forget it. She’s got the lead in Marquette’s production of “Guys and Dolls” where her co-star is the school hottie, Quinn. She’s a budding journalist and has her own show at her school’s television network news program. On her show Kacey doles out unforgiving advice to Marquette’s lowly peons not blessed to be as cool as her. In other words, Kacey Simon is a bitch on wheels.

However, Kacey’s life takes a tragic turn when an eye infection due to some messed-up contacts requires her to wear glasses and some wayward wisdom teeth call for braces.

Glasses and braces, you ask? What’s the big deal about glasses and braces? Lots of kids (and adults) wear glasses and braces. It’s hardly a big calamity to be overcome.

Yet, for our young protagonist, glasses and braces are a one-way street to loserdom, and soon Kacey’s friends Molly, Liv and Nessa reject her. Due to a braces-induced lisp, Kacey loses her coveted lead in “Guys and Dolls” and her news segment is put on hold. And it doesn’t help that a video of Kacey and all her lisping glory goes viral and Molly is now Marquette’s new “It Girl.” That skank even takes over the lead in “Guys and Dolls.” The nerve!

Well, Kacey refuses to be usurped and is hell-bent on retaining her Queen Bee status no matter the consequences. To do this, Kacey recruits her old friend Paige, who she threw under the bus back in fifth grade. For some odd reason, Paige doesn’t hold a grudge against Kacey and using political campaigning skills that would make Karl Rove blush, comes up with some schemes to make sure Kacey reaches the upper echelon of popularity.

At the same time, Kacey befriends a fellow student and musician named Zander. Even though Kacey had derisively coined Zander with the nickname “Skinny Jeans” due to his choice of trousers, he introduces her to cool local music venues and vintage vinyl record stores. Zander also invites Kacey to sing lead in his band. And even though Kacey’s former bestie Molly has a major crush on Zander, Kacey finds herself drawn to this rock and roll rebel.

Throughout this ordeal, Kacey wonders if she will be a loser forever or will she grasp the golden ring of popularity that is so rightly hers. Will she realize she’s a mean girl and needs to change or will she claim her snotty remarks are just her way of “keeping it real?” And will she ever get rid of those pesky glasses, braces and that horrific lisp?

To be honest I didn’t care if Kacey got her comeuppance, regained her Queen Girl status or learned a lesson worthy of one of those old “After School Specials” I watched when I was her age. I found Kacey a loathsome character—shallow, malicious, rude and spoiled. However, I did get an idea of how “Chicks on the Right” got their start.

I don’t expect characters to be perfect and to make the best decisions. In fact, I prefer that they don’t. It makes for more interesting reading. But I do expect a bit more nuance and dimension; Haston doesn’t seem capable of doing this. For a brief moment, I thought Haston was writing a parody of a middle school mean girl, but parody seems something beyond Haston’s skill set.

Furthermore, I found a lot of the plot points and other characters totally unrealistic. First off, braces are pretty much a rite of passage for most kids, especially those from upper middle class families like Kacey’s. Also, glasses are downright fashionable these days so I couldn’t imagine a kid being teased. Even I didn’t get teased when I started wearing glasses as a middle-schooler, and this was back in the stone age.

And though some teasing of Kacey seemed a bit realistic, I couldn’t imagine Molly, Nessa and Liv abandoning her completely even though she’s kind of snotty towards them at times. And I was also perplexed on how Paige was so willing to help Kacey regain her popularity after being rejected so cruelly. I think it would be more realistic if Paige held a grudge and refused to help her traitorous former friend.

I was also befuddled by the lack of adult guidance towards Kacey and her friends. I counted around only two adults in this book. One was Kacey’s mother who rarely called Kacey out on her odious behavior. Instead, Kacey’s mom kept coddling her special snowflake and convincing her that everyone else wants to emulate her. I guess Kacey’s mom wanted to be a “cool mom.” The other adult was a teacher called Sean who’s pretty much just a cardboard cutout. With bullying such a pressing topic today you would think someone would try to discipline Kacey about her foul behavior towards her peers. Perhaps Marquette Middle School is just another “Lord of the Flies” but one with smart phones, fruity lip gloss, and skinny jeans.

According to How to Rock Braces and Glasses’ book jacket a sequel was slated to come out in 2012 and the book was made into a short-lived TV show for Nickelodeon. Needless to say, I won’t be reading the sequel or I’m glad the TV show was cancelled. There are countless books (and TV programs) that show young people in an honest and compelling way. How to Rock Braces and Glasses did not do this. In fact, it sucked.

Or as a lisping Kacey Simon would say, “It thucked.”

I Read It So You Don’t Have To: How to Be a Hepburn in a Hilton World-The Art of Living with Style, Class, and Grace by Jordan Christy

The late, great wit Dorothy Parker once claimed, “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” Well, every once in a while I’m going to come across a book that should truly be thrown with great force. Hence, I’m starting a new series: I Read It So You Don’t Have To.

I do not want to write bad reviews, but sometimes I am compelled to because I come across a book so odious that I want to keep other people from wasting their time from reading total dreck. Please avoid the following dreck:

In a world of D-list celebs like table-tossing Real Housewives, teen moms turned porn stars, and famewhores whose last name starts with K, it can be a miracle to find a celebrity we can look up to for her talent, compassion, elegance and all-around good manners. No wonder so many people still look up to Audrey Hepburn even though she’s passed away over twenty years ago.

I am a huge fan of the late Miss Hepburn so at first I was thrilled to find Jordan Christy’s How to Be a Hepburn in a Hilton World: The Art of Living with Style, Class, and Grace. Because if there is one thing we can use more in this world it is style, class and grace.

Sadly, Christy’s book is less about style, class and grace and more about slut-shaming and ripping apart other women, or as Christy snidely puts it “Stupid Girls”. Throughout this book Christy cattily calls out women she deems cheap and low-class. What makes a woman cheap and low-class? Apparently a woman is cheap and low-class if she owns a bedazzled cell phone, wears a mini-skirt and dances on top of tables at nightclubs. Christy also spends time whining about her lack of popularity in high school while ripping apart a couple of her class nemeses who she’s convinced are still horrible bitches. Gee, Christy those two horrible bitches could have grown up to be perfectly nice people who live responsible, decent lives. Did you even think of that?

Well, I guess not. Christy doesn’t quite grasp on how people change over the course of their lives, and she also barely touches on how Hepburn can truly inspire us to be our best selves. Instead she name drops celebrities, and behooves the reader to invest in pricey, materialistic items. Christy just has to brag about one of her designer handbags and how everyone is jealous of it. She also intersperses this book with vapid, pointless personality quizzes that make those quizzes you find in Cosmo look like the New York State bar exam.

When Christy isn’t discussing celebrities, offering advice on fashion, or encouraging us to take her pointless quizzes, she’s telling us how to behave in the workplace or how to find and keep a man. When it comes to our jobs we should work hard, take on challenging projects and exude a professional attitude. I’m sure your mother taught you the same things. And even when discussing the workplace, Christy can’t refrain from ripping apart another “stupid girl”-her former intern whose antics sound completely made up (or Christy was too stupid to get references from her intern’s former employers or professors).

And what’s Christy’s advice on nabbing that elusive man, the ring and a trip down the aisle? Well, never call or text a guy because then he’ll think you’re a crazed stalker. Instead, let the guy ask you out a dozen times even though you’re not interested because eventually you acquiesce. Christy’s male input comes from mostly her husband, a half of dozen guys with the same mindset, and rock musician John Mayer. Yes, John Mayer; you might remember him as the guy who called actress Kerry Washington “white girl crazy” and his ex-girlfriend Jessica Simpson “sexual napalm.” Ugh.

Ultimately, this book is more about Christy’s fabulous and perfect life and less about Audrey Hepburn. Audrey Hepburn is not a brand to sell books; she was a complex human being. She barely survived World War II as a child. Her parents divorced when she was young. She was estranged from her father and had an icy relationship with her mother. She was married and divorced twice and suffered from several miscarriages.

On-screen, Hepburn was so much more than a fashionable gamine. In her most notable role, Holly Golightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” she pretty much plays a call girl. In “A Nun’s Story,” Audrey plays Sister Luke, a woman who at times doubts her faith and her vocation. And in “The Children’s Hour,” Hepburn and Shirley MacClaine play headmistresses who are accused of having a lesbian relationship-pretty heady stuff for the mid-1960s.

Off-screen, Hepburn could be bawdy, admitted she sometimes cussed, smoked, and enjoyed a glass of Scotch. She was a devoted mom to her sons Sean and Luca, loved to garden, paint and cook, and spent her final years with the love of her life Robert Wolders.

And what was truly inspiring about Hepburn, was her tireless work for UNICEF to help children in third world countries obtain proper nutrition, healthcare and education. If only Christy would have spent more time discussing this aspect of Hepburn’s life rather than ripping apart women who bedazzle their cell phones or telling us what eye shadow we should wear. Hepburn’s memory deserves so much more than the vacuous, judgmental and mean-spirited musings in How to Be a Hepburn in a Hilton World-The Art of Living with Style, Class, and Grace.

Cleansing the Palate

Instead of reading Christy’s awful books just go to the source-Audrey Hepburn herself! Just click to find books on Audrey Hepburn. Happy reading!