The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

BOOK: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
AUTHOR: Stieg Larsson

GRADE: A+

I’ll admit it; I’m a book snob. I revolt against reading hyped up book phenomena on principle. The more people raving about a particular book, the less likely I am to join the masses. Stieg Larsoon’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was no exception. I was dead set against reading it. That is, until a friend literally insisted I read it (in addition to instituting a coffee bet that I’d be blown away by it). 600 pages and 48 hours later, I sat staring at my ceiling awe stricken and stunned by the absolute genius captured on every single page. Next, I was clamoring for the second installment in the trilogy – which I fully intent to devour this evening. I am a big enough person to admit I was wrong. Dead wrong.

What catapults The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo into a whole new realm of literary excellence is the expert encapsulation of multiple genres into one compelling literary extravaganza. At it’s most basic level, it’s a detective thriller. But Larsson adds equal doses of lust and romance, psychological mystery and class structure evaluation. Larsson takes the reader captive within the first hundred pages and refuses to see us free.. even after the last pages winds down. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo haunted me for days – until I secured the second installment in the trilogy (The Girl Who Played With Fire).

Currently, I am almost 200 pages into The Girl Who Played With Fire and am equally entranced. This trilogy may be one of the best in the last 10 years or so. I can say with complete certainty that this is by far the most stunningly genius piece of literature I’ve read in years. If you are not on your way to the bookstore as you read this, then you are a fool!!!

Self-Made Man

BOOK: Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Journey Into Manhood and Back Again
AUTHOR: Norah Vincent

GRADE: B+

Walking a day in a man’s shoes is like cruising down easy street. Right? No cat-calls from the homeless and just plan class-less. Freedom from the societal dictates to be a size 0 (on a “fat day”, at that). No PMS or cramps. The ability to bed anyone in sight without being labeled a “slut.” The list could go on and on. Who among us ladies has not fantasized about living a man’s life?

After spending a night dressed in drag on a dare, Norah Vincent becomes so fascinated by the experience that she decides to spend the next eighteen months living as a man. Vincent assumes the name “Ned” (after a bizarre childhood nickname), visits costume and makeup artists to create a believable outside appearance and works with a voice coach from Julliard before embarking on her infiltration into the spaces and situations women never see.

She decided to focus her exploration on the following: friendship, sex, love, life, work and self. She joins a men’s bowling league to learn about male friendships and a host of strip clubs to learn about sex. She infiltrates a monastery for life lessons and joins a mens retreat for self exploration. She dates women and gets a balls-to-the-wall sales job. What she discovers is not the joy and ease she expected; but the shocking difficulty of being male – even in a man’s world. She emerges exhausted to the point of a mental breakdown which lands her in the psych ward for 16 days.

Self-Made Man is an honest and unflinching debunking of all the erroneous beliefs surrounding men. As opposed to walking away bitter and jealous over the male advantages, Norah Vincent comes away with sympathy, compassion and sadness at her discoveries. I was shocked, amused and riveted. I would recommend this for all.

Mom Still Likes You Best

BOOK: Mom Still Likes You Best: The Unfinished Business Between Siblings

AUTHOR: Jane Isay

GRADE: C+

Pulled in by the title (I mean, who hasn’t thought that at least a dozen times… a year), I curled up in bed eager to learn exactly what unfinished business lies between me and my own sister (who is two years younger than I). Now, don’t get me wrong – there is no spectacular rift between us. I believe we share a run of the mill on and off again closeness. She drives me insane… and I adore her. I’d wager the same goes for her. Still, the idea of a book solving all of our woes is immensely appealing.

Isay’s main talking point is that the behavior we develop in our early childhood years (what she calls “crib behavior”) replays itself over and over the remainder of our lives. Mom Still Likes You Best is organized chronologically in content and follows the travails of various case studies from infancy to death.

Isay’s explorations and explanations are interesting but not ground-breaking. I laughed a little and rolled my eyes more than once or twice, but overall was not all that impressed by the final product. Given the fact that it is a short read, read it if it sparks an interest in you – but don’t worry your missing out on the keys to sisterhood (or brotherhood) if you don’t.

Girl Meets God

BOOK: Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life
AUTHOR: Lauren F. Winner

GRADE: A+

Girl Meets God has earned the title of “My New Favorite Book.”

Lauren Winner grew up the child of a Reform Jewish father and a lapsed Southern Baptist mother before converting to a life of Orthodox Judaism in her twenties. She followed the Orthodox lifestyle to the letter: keeping Sabbath and Kosher, studying the Talmud and other vital Jewish texts religiously and attending all required (and multiple optional) services. Even so, while immersing herself in Judaism, she finds herself inexplicably drawn towards Christianity. After investigating the religion thoroughly, she takes the tremendous leap of faith and leaves behind everything she knows and loves in order to convert to an entirely different (and largely unknown) religion. In the process, she loses close friends, the support of her parents and the man she loves.

While content with Christianity, Winner discovers she cannot just mentally discard those Jewish experiences which have shaped her life. Thus, she is left with the even more daunting task of figuring out how to reconcile her Jewish experiences and beliefs inside the Christian religion. She searches for multi-denominational congregations but finds them lacking. She reads books on everything she can think of – but nothing is making the two mesh in a way that makes sense to her – until she finally works out a path that works for her – and watching her do so is nothing short of awe inspiring.

As she takes us on her journey with her, Winner does a superb job of explaining each religion. She gives the reader a crash course on Judaism and Catholicism. She takes us through the holy texts of each and offers theories on how she learned to best apply them to her life. She serves up an objective and respectful discourse on both denominations. I learned more in this one book than I did in four years of religious training in high school.

I relate most with Winner because of her search for answers in books. Like me, she takes to the library to find God (whatever that means to her at the time). Girl Meets God flew by as I watched a bookworm like myself find a path to God that makes sense to her. Absolutely inspirational. A must read.

Falling Into Manholes

BOOK: Falling Into Manholes: The Memoir of a Bad/Good Girl
AUTHOR: Wendy Merrill

GRADE: D

You know that friend you have with whom it takes every ounce of willpower not to strangle every time she cries over doing the exact same thing she was crying over last week, and the week before, and the week before that? We all have one (hopefully, no more than that) and Wendy Merrill is that girl. What promises to be a humorous jaunt through the sad/ridiculous/strange dating world, turns out to be no more than self occupied navel gazing. Merrill recovers from a variety of addictions, but it’s hard to properly appreciate her accomplishments when every other chapter is another tale of woe over mommy/daddy issues and their projection on to the poor men she traps in her insanity. I had a terribly difficult time rooting for Ms. Merrill by the end because I was simply sick of her and grateful to be finished with the book. I don’t pen bad reviews often (it goes against my people pleasing quirk), but I’m at a serious loss to come up with praise for this work.