Book 132: Oprah: A Biography

Oprah: A Biography, by Kitty Kelley

This book is like watching reality television. It’s so bad, but you just can’t stop.

I can’t find one redeeming thing about this book; the author is clearly biased against her subject, writing one negative chapter after another. Anything good Oprah has done is mentioned briefly, and followed by pages of criticism on why she did it, why it wasn’t good enough, etc. There are also a large amount of pages devoted to describing Oprah’s lavish lifestyle, including the money spent to decorate her houses, her wardrobe, trips, expensive shopping sprees, etc.

Kelley focuses on the seedier side of Oprah’s life, the “dark secrets” she claims the celebrity talk show host is hiding. Oprah is probably hiding secrets, but I’ll do more reading before I believe everything Kelley wrote.

That said, I somehow couldn’t quit reading, but the whole time I was, my brain kept telling me, “Brain cells are dying!” Sensationalism at its best.

Well wait, there might indeed be one redeeming feature of this biography. Hopefully it will encourage people to take a deeper look at Oprah, and read between the lines a little.

1/5.

Book 88: All Things at Once

All Things at Once, by Mika Brzezinski

The best part of this book is Mika’s honesty, especially her no-holds barred recounting of a terrible accident with her and her baby, caused due to Mika’s exhaustion of stretching herself too thin. But that’s really the only positive of this book – it’s very short, doesn’t contain much of substance, and just generally left me wondering what I had read.

The message Mika’s trying to promote is don’t wait to have children, and that you can have all things at once…but the message isn’t very effective. Admitting that she doesn’t see her children all that much (in fact, while covering the events of September 11, 2001, she didn’t see them for 20+ days), it appears as if the children are mostly taken care of by domestic help. Mika even writes about an experience where her nine-year-old daughter scheduled her own dentist appointment, rather than waiting for mommy to get around to it. Her year of being a stay-at-home mother failed miserably, as she couldn’t cook, do laundry, houseclean, and thought that helping them with homework was hard. She admits she preferred being the “fun” parent, doing water balloon parties or such to make up for missing important events in her kids lives. Mika says she isn’t cut out to be a full-time, stay-at-home mother, so I wonder why she wanted kids at all. She wrote about wanting them, and wanting a family in her early 20s, but never said exactly why.

The most interesting parts to me where the descriptions of Mika’s parents, Emilie and Zgibniew. It sounds like they had a fascinating home life, and encouraged their children to pursue academics and other interests. I would’ve preferred to read a book about either of them more than their daughter.

I’m left wondering if she got a book deal only because of “Morning Joe’s” popularity; is Willie Geist next in the lineup?

1/5.

Book 74: Star Wars: Rogue Planet

Star Wars: Rogue Planet, by Greg Bear

I’ve read this book a few times over the years since it was published in 2000, and it’s never felt quite like a “Star Wars” book for me. I’m happy Bear has only written one book in the Extended Universe, as his writing just doesn’t fit.

The focus of this book is on Zonama Sekot, a sentient planet that grows spaceships. Anakin and Obi-Wan are sent there to investigate the disappearance of another Jedi Knight, Vergere, but instead are caught up in the planet’s fight for survival. The idea of Zonama Sekot is intriguing, but a whole book focused on the planet got old fast.

“Rogue Planet” also features Tarkin and Raith Sienar, who mount an expedition to Zonama Sekot in order to secure the planet’s amazing ships. This side plot gets tiresome quickly, and Bear doesn’t capture Tarkin’s essence or bearing, and instead paints him as a stiff bore.

The chapter structure irritated me a bit, as in 330 pages there are 67 chapters, some consisting of only a single page. It was a little jarring. Bear attempts to foreshadow Anakin’s descent to the Dark Side with a mysterious trial, but it doesn’t really fit with the rest of the EU. The Coda at the end feels tacked on and unnecessary, and also untrue. I was happy to reach the end of the book, but there’s not that much that happens in “Rogue Planet.” It’s as if I slogged through a boring book for nothing.

1/5.

Book 64: Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession

Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, by Julie Powell

Julie Powell’s penchant for whining carries from her previous novel into “Cleaving.” While reading the book, I actually felt very bogged down and depressed, especially after seeing page after page of her whining about her troubled marriage and pathetic affair. I call her affair pathetic because even after it’s clear the other man doesn’t want her, she stalks him, writes to him, texts him, and doesn’t give up for two years (and the reader gets to hear about it *every* time she tries to contact him). Perhaps writing “Cleaving” was a form of therapy for Powell, but it’s the sort of writing that should stay in a blog or diary, not in a book.

I wanted to like this book. After not particularly enjoying Powell’s first novel, “Julie and Julia,” I had hoped that she would show something worthy of having published a second book. But “Cleaving” fell flat for me, like an unsharpened knife slicing into bread. The main subject, butchering, is only somewhat interesting, and I think the reader is overdosed on descriptions and techniques on how to break up this animal, or how to cut down that animal. My eyes started glazing over after the fifth or sixth long passage of yet another butchering story.

I had read the prologue of “Cleaving” in my copy of “Julie and Julia,” and it caught my attention, but for me that was probably the best part of the book. The other employees at Fleisher’s are far more interesting than Powell herself, and I did enjoy reading her stories about them. However her trips to different countries are recounted in a so-so manner, including way too many experiences of men finding her attractive. Do I really need to hear that a Maasai warrior finds her pretty, after hearing that Ukrainian and Argentinian men do as well?

If I were her, I certainly wouldn’t want such details of my life spewed on a page, published for anyone and everyone to read. But I suppose it does take guts to publicly talk about an affair, her marriage troubles, her husband’s lover, anonymous sex, etc., and her use of butchering as a way to find herself. I’m just not sure if it’s good literary material; the liberal sprinkling of Buffy metaphors certainly doesn’t help.

I’d say get “Cleaving” out from the library if you’re determined to read it, before parting with your money.

1/5.

Book 63: Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, by Julie Powell

My biggest warning for you if you read this book: Do NOT read it while eating. Just don’t. While it is a book about food, there are some very…icky experiences recounted that killed my appetite.

While reading, I was constantly left with the feeling that Powell’s words are better left on screen in her blog, or maybe part of a comedy routine. The best passages in the book are her imaginary retellings of Julia and Paul Child’s relationship, but those sparse stories can’t rescue the rest of it. The writing is overdone with huge doses of navel gazing. And yes I understand this is a memoir, but the amount of bitching borders on the insane. She wrote that a blog is a blank check for whining, and that’s where it should have stayed.

Julie is so whiny and immature that it’s hard to care about her at all, and indeed I didn’t by the end of the book. Her husband is a saint for putting up with all the fights, crying fits, and worse that she made him endure over her year of cooking all the recipes in “Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I.” I’m sure he wanted to kick himself more than once for supporting the idea.

Her acknowledgment in the Author’s Note that sometimes she just plain made stuff up didn’t start the novel off well for me, and I was further disgusted with many of the episodes she described.

For once, the movie version of a book is better than the actual book – it’s clear the writers of the “Julie and Julia” screenplay spent a lot of time cleaning up Powell’s memoir and making a presentable story.

If you’re looking for a real culinary memoir, read “My Life in France,” by Julia Child.

1/5.

Book 39: Meredith Gentry 5: Mistral’s Kiss

Meredith Gentry #5: Mistral’s Kiss, by Laurell K. Hamilton

“Mistral’s Kiss” is a slim volume in the Meredith Gentry series, and feels like a novella instead of a novel. More a collection of scenes than a flowing story, the book finally gets Merry and her men out of the sithen, where they have spent the last two books. But that move comes at the very end of the book, and before then we are given quite a few sex scenes, the first starting a mere 25 pages in.

Yet again I’m having trouble figuring out what to say about “Mistral’s Kiss.” I finished it two days ago, and that to me is the best indicator that it’s pretty mediocre. There just isn’t a lot of plot; instead it’s as if the author got tired of mucking around inside of faerie, so she put some scenes together, had some more magic happen, and gets set up for the next book in the series. The time mechanic introduced in the last book, where time passes slower or faster in the sithen as Merry wishes comes into effect again here, as when the gang leaves the Unseelie sithen, they have missed the visit to the Seelie and goblin courts that have been mentioned in the last two books. I’m just left feeling disappointed after finishing “Mistral’s Kiss.”

1/5.

Book 36: Night World 2: Daughters of Darkness

Night World #2: Daughters of Darkness, by L. J. Smith

For me, “Daughters of Darkness” is the one sour note in Smith’s Night World series. It was the one book in the nine book series that I had to force myself to finish (I am obsessive about finishing everything I read).

The concept is interesting, but I feel it could have used better execution. As with all Night World books, the protagonist is female. Mary-Lynette is a human and unaware of the secret world of vampires, werewolves, and other spooky things that exist around her. She thinks she lives in the quietest, most boring town in the world, but that’s all about to change when a series of startling events happens.

When the next door neighbor goes missing just as her three nieces arrive in town, and Mary-Lynette sees them burying something in the backyard, she’s immediately suspicious. Unable to leave the mystery alone, she heads next door and meets the new arrivals, who further her apprehension about the disappearance of her neighbor. The girls remind her of predators, which is unsurprising as the girls are lamia, or born vampires.

The mystery of who killed the neighbor takes up a good chunk of the book, and in my opinion, is very over used. It just drags on too long, and every time there was a new twist in the whodunit, I kept thinking, “Okay, that’s the end of it now…no, wait…there’s more. Sigh.”

Ash Redfern also makes an appearance in this book (some readers may remember him from “Night World #1: Secret Vampire,” where he waylaid Poppy), and is a starring character along with his sisters. Initially he’s on the hunt for the three sisters, who ran away from a vampire enclave. Ash is characterized as the ultimate vampire – humans are vermin and nothing more, to him. Mary-Lynette takes an immediate dislike to him when meeting him for the first time. And here’s where the potentially interesting concept comes in – Ash and Mary-Lynette are soulmates, but unlike Smith’s other couples, the two can’t stand each other.

But something about this book just didn’t do it for me. Maybe it was the overly drawn out murder mystery. Or maybe it was that the main character, Mary-Lynette, seemed dry. Or maybe even what seemed interesting – soulmates disliking each other – somehow doesn’t fit in a series that’s about finding your soulmate.

1/5.

Book 18: World of Warcraft: Cycle of Hatred

World of Warcraft: Cycle of Hatred, by Keith R. A. DeCandido

Set a year prior to the opening of the World of Warcraft MMO, “Cycle of Hatred” would perhaps better be titled “Cycle of Blah.” Unlike most novels set in the Warcraft universe, this one doesn’t really add anything at all to the world.

The plot is mediocre and has no twists or turns – it’s straightforwardly flat. You easily guess what’s going to happen. Jaina Proudmoore and Thrall aren’t true to their established characterization; it feels like the author didn’t do any research before writing this book. There are three strong female characters in the book; DeCandido constantly harps on how a woman has to work harder than a man to be in power. It’s very overdone, and I was rolling my eyes the second time it came up, let alone the third, the fourth, etc. The characters and plot feel very flat, very one dimensional.

For me, this is the worst of the World of Warcraft novels. I’ve read all multiple times, and this is my least favorite and the least enjoyable. It’s blah – not good, not bad – just blah. If you’re a WoW player, or curious about the universe, and want to read some of the books, I recommend you pick something other than this one.

1/5.