Just Pretend – Tori Sharp

Writing three reviews in a row is something that I rarely get to do, since I rarely accumulate so many read books at once, but it’s a lot of fun because I am on a roll.

Just Pretend is a graphic memoir and already when I realized that, I was a little in love. I love memoirs, I love graphic novels, so a graphic memoir, to me, is like a special butterfly that landed on my hand instead of that beautiful flower that was next to me. It chose me. It recognized MY beauty.

I probably should not place my self-worth on whether a butterfly lands on me or a flower, but all that say that whenever I do get to hold a graphic memoir in my hands, I feel hella special. I am worthy of this human creation. (Also, if my writing seems a little tangled right now, it’s possibly because I just reviewed Little Weirds by Jenny Slate and that’s just a normal after-effect.)

So Tori Sharp’s graphic memoir explores her middle school friendships and family dynamics. Her parents are separated, and luckily so since they cannot stand each other. Her father is more detached: she’s not very close to him and she’s about to be even less close. She’s good friends with this one girl at her school, and they like to write stories together, then act them out, but her friend is having issues of her own and there are many ups and downs happening in Tori’s life.

This book reminded me of Shannon Hale’s Real Friends, since Shannon and Tori have similar personalities—they are both shy, quiet, love to read and write and struggle sometimes in the friendship department (welcome to the club, sista). But if I was to compare—which of course I will and do—I would say that this truly does not hold a candle to Shannon Hale’s graphic memoir. It is well-enough-executed and I did find the themes the author explored to be meaningful, but it’s very conflict-centered. The author herself even said at the end of the book that she believes stories to be that way, and so she decided to forgo too many happy memories in favour of those tense-filled ones that really affected her the most and added, I guess, the most to the storyline.

Here I have to disagree. I don’t think that stories NEED to revolve around conflict or that they always do. That would be sad, really. What about people who meet and have a wonderful relationship from the get-go? Do they not have a ‘‘story’’ because their moments are filled with joy more than aggression and sadness and tension? I do admit that some conflicts are more internal, so not as obvious, and yes we’re all dealing with our own respective stuff, but I think this memoir would have really benefitted from more beauty and happiness to balance things out.

Overall, it’s a good book, with cute illustrations and a main character we slowly get to know and care about, but it is similar to Shannon Hale’s Real Friends in many ways and if I was to choose between the two, well, you know which one that would be.

(On another note, I think I will refrain from writing three reviews in a row next time as it does jumble my thought process a little – LOT.)

Thank you Hachette Book Group Canada for the copy in exchange for a review, as always.

Little Weirds – Jenny Slate

This book is weird. I’m sure you saw that coming a little—what with that title and all—but it’s good to repeat because it truly is Weird with a capital w. Not just because Jenny Slate’s writing is uncharacterizable. Something between poetry and prose, making me wonder if this was a memoir or collection of poetry. Or both? But also because of the highly sexual and tremendously unexpected imagery. The kind that makes you wonder if a human being wrote this or a half-human, half-giraffe with an addiction for chocolate poutine and a need to externalize every single one of their half-human, half-giraffe thoughts.

If your instinct tells you—shit, this review is getting really weird and I don’t think I have the stomach for it—please do exit on your left. But if you are intrigued, please proceed, continue, go ahead, have fun, enjoy your moments of imaginary bliss and disconnection from human life, in favour of papery disillusion and a not-drug-induced cheeseburger atmosphere.

You might, at some point, actually wonder what the hell I’m talking about. Who the hell is this Jenny Slate whose writing seems to have completely taken over my brain and destroyed my coherent cells and turned me into an ice cream cone collecting food from the sky. Well, you would be very right in wondering that, and certainly at times I did ask myself the same thing about Jenny Slate herself. But then my infected brain realized that to understand the incomprehensible, one must become incomprehensible in return and let our minds be attacked by the crazy.

In all seriousness, I seriously enjoyed this. It is an experiencefirst and foremost. BUT, and here’s the thing that surprised me the most, Jenny Slate had some actually meaningful and insightful things to say through the vacuum of weird thoughts. And the good thing is that, because they were so unexpected, most of them stood out like a naked Barbie doll on the cover of a book in a room full of horny teenagers (that did happen, everyone was staring, it was a real social experiment). Here is one such quote for you to admire and ponder:

I jumped out of their hands and into their mouths and I yelled EAT ME way before they even had a chance to get horny and notice me and lift me up. – page 41

You might reconsider your subscription to my blog after reading that. Really, that’s what she considers worth admiring and pondering? Okay, chill, I can’t write down the entire mind-shattering context, but really think about it before jumping off your horse. When I read that, I immediately thought of how hard I try in friendships. How desperate I am to have a meaningful connection that I don’t let anyone really miss me or want me, maybe because I’m scared that if I give them too much space, I’m also giving them too much opportunity to completely forget about me. But that’s something I’ll be discussing with my therapist.

Cheers.

(Oh, yes, and please read this book because I loved it.)

Thank you Hachette Book Group Canada for allowing me to experience Jenny Slate in exchange for what you probably wished was more comprehensible of a review, but I hope you will forgive me.

Negative Review: Chasing Wonder – Ginger Stache

Sometimes I know I have matured through the books that I pick up and enjoy. For instance, two years ago, I started reading a lot of memoirs, and though I would read them before—here and there—I would choose them very carefully and they were mostly from celebrities that I was familiar with. Now, I pretty much crave them, along with fiction novels. I have also started reading more adult fiction, which is a genre I typically stayed away from in favour of Young Adult and Middle Grade fiction.

Chasing Wonder: Small Steps Toward a Life of Big Adventures is not a book I would have held in my hands three years ago. Adventure, who needs adventure? I have a college degree to attend to, and a job on campus, and a hobby that steals my time (not that I mind). It’s easy for me to remember what my life was like three years ago, because nothing really happened, so remembering one specific day was like remembering the entire year.

So I am happy with myself for doing steps toward, yes, chasing wonder so to speak, and one of them includes reading this book. Now, although I think the world does need books like this one, I don’t think this one particular book was needed. That’s harsh, I know, I don’t typically tell readers that a book’s existence has little importance, especially not when I start my reviews in such a positive manner, but that is how I feel right now. Though the author has good intentions—she certainly wants us to enjoy life and face our fears and all that stuff—her execution can only be characterized as superficial.

This book actually reminded me a lot of Admiral William H. McRaven’s latest nonfiction The Hero Code, in the sense that the author discusses one theme and shows some examples to illustrate that. I found great meaning in Admiral McRaven’s publication, but in Stache’s I only found rushing. Though she does give examples from her own personal life that show us she’s overcome obstacles, those examples are typically super short and, sometimes, are simply enumerated, as though an afterthought. Not only that, but the way she speaks about fear-related topics is quite… and here I want to say immature but that’s a strange word to use for a book that means so well so I’ll default to superficial, once again. Predictable, too.

Here is a random quote that illustrates what I’m trying to say. It’s random because there are quite a lot of these. Warning: she uses a LOT of adjectives throughout the book.

I am certainly nothing special, but I remember always believing that God had something wonderful and very specific planned just for me. But here is what you may not know—He has all these things for you too. You weren’t born just to fade into the background. God loves you just as much. And he has amazing adventures for YOU. – page 13

Ugh. I mean thank you for saying those things, that’s very nice, but that’s not very convincing, and throughout the book I felt like there was more telling of obvious, everyone-knows-that things and little actual showing (again, because of the short examples that lacked depth). Overall, this is a self-help that lacks edge or grit or whatever gives something authority and prevents you from cringing. And my reaction is certainly not due to all the God talk. In fact, I adored Bamboozled by Jesus. That shit convinced me and there were lots of Bible references. It had spunk, something this book could have used a lot more of.

Thank you Hachette Book Group Canada for the copy in exchange for a review.