Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns

She’s baaaaack!

It’s been ten years since Andy Sachs ditched her thankless job at Runway magazine, telling the evil Miranda Priestly to “f— off!” while standing in the streets of Paris. When we last saw her, she was a twenty-something who had gotten her first dose of reality. She was trying to piece her life back together and follow her dream of becoming a serious journalist.

Oh, how a decade can change a person. After trying (and failing) to get her foot in the door of Serious Journalism, Andy has found her niche writing about the wedding industry. She’s now best friends with her former Runway nemesis, Emily, and the two have managed to build a high-end wedding magazine, The Plunge. But the biggest change of all is Andy’s love life: she’s about to be married to a playboy media mogul named Max Harrison. Against all odds, the two seem perfect for eachother.

Then, on the day of her wedding, Andy stumbles across a letter that changes her perception of everything: her soon-to-be mother-in-law doesn’t want the wedding to happen; Andy apparently isn’t good enough for their established, moneyed family. The revelation is enough to throw Andy into a tailspin. Meanwhile the success of The Plunge has caught the eye of The Devil herself; Miranda has also risen in the ranks over the last decade, and now she’s more powerful than ever.

Top Ten Tuesday: Vive la France!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Today’s topic is the top ten books on your summer TBR list. Last year, I bought the beautiful clothbound Penguin Classics edition of Les Misérables and was saving it for this summer. I started reading it June 2 and am a little over halfway through. Reading the book has put me in a French mood, so seven of the books on my list are set in France:

1. Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery* – I’m eager to revisit some of the cast of The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I loved that book.
2. How the French Invented Love by Marilyn Yalom* – I’m always up for French-related cultural nonfiction, and this book sounds amazing.
3. Jacob’s Folly by Rebecca Miller – I pre-ordered this and have had it for months but haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I was waiting for the spring semester to be over, so this one’s pretty high on my TBR list.
4. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo* – This is what inspired the direction of my summer reading, so of course it has to go on the list!
5. Lotería by Mario Alberto Zambrano – This book comes out in July. I have an advance copy, and just skimming, I’m already intrigued by how the book is set up.
6. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert* – I got the much-hyped Lydia Davis translation of this book a couple of years ago, but it’s been sitting on my shelf ever since. Hopefully, this is the year I get to it!
7. The Most Beautiful Walk in the World by John Baxter* – I’ve read two of Baxter’s books. I love him because his travel writing straight-up transports you to France.
8. Perfume by Patrick Süskind* – This has been on my shelf for years. I snagged a copy at a library sale a little after the movie came out…if the movie is that twisted, I imagine the book is even more awesome.
9. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving – I’m one of the few people on earth who has never read this book. The Estella Society is doing a readalong in July, so I’m in! *dusts off copy*
10. The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris by Leïla Marouane* – I got a copy of this a few of months ago for the Europa Editions challenge, and it’s also high up on my list.

* Vive la France!

The Wonder Bread Summer

It’s 1983, and Allie is a student struggling to make ends meet. Her ex-boyfriend stole $7,000 from her, so now she has no way of paying her rent or tuition. She and her best friend have been slaving away at a Berkeley dress shop that’s actually a drug front. In one afternoon it all comes crashing down: her boss refuses to pay her the money she’s owed, and she bolts from the store with a Wonder Bread bag filled with pure cocaine.

Her boss sends a hitman named Vice Versa on her tail, and Allie sets off to LA in search of her parents, hoping that they’ll know what to do. Her father is aloof and hard to track down, and her unreliable mother left them long ago to be a tambourine player in a band that’s currently opening for Billy Idol. In her frantic search for her parents, she’ll also come across an old friend from high school, a paraplegic pornographer (who brings to mind Larry Flynt), and a hot surfer dude who turns out to be a dealer who wants her stash.

The Wonder Bread Summer wants to be that kind of book: an irreverent, zany whirlwind of an adventure that keeps readers entertained with all of its ridiculous scenarios. I do think Blau has the skills to have pulled it off. Unfortunately, what many call “satire,” some call hipster racism. And this book smacks of it.

The Interestings

In 1974, six teenagers meet at an arts camp in the Berkshires. The privileged brother and sister duo, Ash and Goodman Wolf, are at the center of the group. Cathy Kiplinger is the sexy dancer who’s attending camp on scholarship; she and Goodman have a passionate and sometimes explosive fling going on. Jonah Bay is the quiet son of a famous folk singer, and Ethan Figman is a talented young animator. Rounding out the group is Jules Jacobson, a plain and awkward girl from Long Island who’s mourning the recent death of her father. She doesn’t know how or why this glamorous and talented group decided to invite her into their fold, but they did. The Interestings, as they dub themselves that summer, become inseparable and will continue to meet at the palatial Wolf residence in Manhattan when summer comes to an end. Some of the group will become closer as they age, while a couple will drift off, but they’ll be linked for the rest of their lives.

One of the central questions that Wolitzer explores in the book is, what happens to talent as one gets older? Generally speaking, most people don’t go on to make a successful career of the talents they were praised for as teenagers. It’s a lesson that the book’s central character, Jules, struggles to cope with all the way through middle age. While her dear friends Ethan and Ash make it to that rare stratosphere of fame and fortune, Jules own talents don’t translate as well to adulthood and she’s forced to find a new direction in life. Her happiness for her friends’ success aside, jealousy is always bubbling just beneath the surface.

Sexy Feminism

Yesterday, my review of Sexy Feminism: A Girl’s Guide to Love, Success, and Style was published at Bitch Media. Since Bitch is one of my favorite magazines ever, I, for one, am totally psyched! Check it out.

Quickies: A Guide to Being Born & The Great Gatsby

A Guide to Being Born by Ramona Ausubel

Publisher/Year: Riverhead, 2013
Format: ARC
Pages: 208
Source: Publisher

What it is: A collection of eleven strange short stories related to the cycle of life. The stories are organized into four themes: birth, gestation, conception, and love.

Why I read it: Ausubel has been on my radar for a while now; I’m still dying to read her first book, No One Is Here Except All of Us. Since I’m a fan of short stories (especially weird ones), I wanted to give this a try.

What I thought: This was an uneven collection for me, but there’s no denying that Ausubel is an amazing writer. Many of the stories have elements of magical realism, but even the ones that don’t have something strange in them. Either way, they all illustrate various elements of human nature in unexpected ways. Some of my favorites were “Poppyseed,” about a couple who decides to subject their mentally disabled  eight-year-old daughter to a hysterectomy (probably the most twisted story in the collection, but also the one with the most haunting impact on me); “Atria,” story with fantastical elements about a teen who claims she got pregnant as the result of a made-up rape rather than a one-time fling; and “Tributaries,” about a community of people who grow an extra arm every time they fall in love.

Would appeal to: Aimee Bender & Miranda July fans.

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The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Publisher/Year: Scribner, 2003 (Originally published in 1925)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 216
Source: Purchase

What it is: Nick Carraway moves into a modest little house along the Long Island Sound for the summer and gets drawn in by his mysterious next-door neighbor, a self-made millionaire named Jay Gatsby who’s known for his lavish parties. Meanwhile, Gatsby is madly in love with Nick’s cousin, Daisy Buchanan; the two have a history together. Daisy is already married, but Gatsby hopes his newfound wealth and dazzling success will be enough to win her back.

Why I read it: It’s been on my shelves forever and I never had to read it in high school, making me feel like one of the few people on Earth who had never read the book. Basically, I wanted to get to it before I saw Luhrmann’s movie.

What I thought: Meh. I know this is terrible, but this is one of those rare occasions where I liked the movie better (and why not dig myself deeper: I also think the cover is fugly). I know it’s a classic, plus green light symbolism and contemporarily-relevant themes and blah blah blah, but…*shrug*.

If you’re a fan, you might also like: The Great Lenore by J.M. Tohline, which draws inspiration from The Great Gatsby. I read it last year before having read Gatsby, and in retrospect, I appreciate elements of The Great Lenore much more now that I have a better frame of reference for it. (Also in retrospect? I like Lenore more than Gatsby. So there.)

The Alley of Love and Yellow Jasmines

Like many of Shohreh Aghdashloo’s non-Iranian fans, I first became aware of her in 2003 when House of Sand and Fog was released. Her performance garnered a well-deserved Academy Award nomination, and she’s been working steadily in Hollywood ever since. But before being cast in House of Sand and Fog, Aghdashloo was already a beloved personality in the Iranian American community, working nonstop with her playwright husband to produce his Iranian-themed plays around the world. And before that, she was an established actress in Iran, fleeing the country and starting over in the United States after the Islamic Revolution.

The Alley of Love and Yellow Jasmines recounts Aghdashloo’s life growing up in pre-revolution Tehran (the title is a reference to this happier time and remains a symbol of her hope for a free Iran). Although “Shohreh” means “famous” in Farsi, her parents wanted her to be anything but: acting wasn’t considered an appropriate career for a young woman of her affluent upbringing, and she was expected to become a doctor. Still, she knew she wanted to be an actress ever since she was a child. Though her parents expressly forbid her from pursuing an acting career, her first husband, Aydin Aghdashloo, a worldly and forward-thinking artist, was supportive of her acting aspirations. They were a perfect match for each other, and both of their careers took off.

Then, in 1978, the Islamic Revolution began. Artists, actors, students, and educators were all disappearing or being taken in for questioning under the new regime, but her husband loved Iran and refused to leave. As someone who vocally opposed what was happening to her country, it was becoming increasingly apparent that Shohreh needed to leave; to stay would mean putting her husband, family, and friends in danger. She made the difficult decision to leave her husband behind in Iran and escaped to Europe, then eventually made her way to the United States to try making it in Hollywood.

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen

Lucy Knisley has lived the kind of foodie life I often fantasize about. As the daughter of an artist-turned-chef mother and fine dining-obsessed father, she’s always had a special relationship with food. Hers were the type of parents who fed their infant daughter poached salmon in cream following her baptism and saw to it that their daughter cultivated an adventurous palate and a lifelong appreciation for food. Relish, Knisley’s second graphic memoir, traces the role food has had in her life by recounting some of her most memorable food-related experiences.

I’m just going to come right out and say it: I loved this book. Loved the colorful artwork, loved the writing, loved the recipes, loved it all! Knisley writes about food — everything from McDonald’s to $250 prix fixe dinners — in a humorous and down-to-earth way. What really holds it together is the book’s heart: you can tell that she loves everything she’s writing about and wants you to love it, too.

Another thing that really shines through is Knisley’s relationship with her parents, especially her mother. Her parents divorced when she was young; her father stayed in Manhattan, while she and her mother moved to upstate New York to start over in the Catskills. There her mother truly thrived, planting her own garden, raising chickens, and working with local farmers while running a catering business. By her side the whole time was Lucy, learning the ropes of country life and developing a more organic relationship with food and food production. Meanwhile, visits to Manhattan and trips abroad with her father exposed her to the other side of food since he loved fine dining. It’s about as well-rounded a food education as one could ever hope for.

And the Mountains Echoed

Khaled Hosseini’s latest novel, And the Mountains Echoed, begins with a bedtime story about a difficult decision. Could a father give up his favorite child in order to save all of his other children, even though it would mean a certain death for his favorite child? The story sets the tone for the rest of the novel: In 1952, two children and their father begin the long journey from the fictional village of Shadbagh to Kabul. After the childrens’ mother died following little Pari’s birth, Abdullah and his three-year-old sister have always been inseparable. That will soon change in Kabul, where the father will sell Pari off to a wealthy, childless couple.

The book then breaks off into a nonlinear format, jumping back and forth from past to present as it follows the circle of people who have been affected by this decision: Abdullah and Pari; their father, Saboor, who can’t seem to fully love his children following his first wife’s death; their stepuncle, Nabi, who arranged the sale; their stepmother, Parwana, who lives with the burden of past decisions but cannot love Abdullah and Pari as her own children; Mr. and Mrs. Wahdati, Pari’s adoptive parents; Iqbal, Abdullah and Pari’s stepbrother; and Dr. Markos Varvaris, a Greek plastic surgeon working with an NGO in present-day Kabul. It’s not always immediately clear who these people are or why they play such a prominent role in the story, but all of them are somehow linked to that fateful day in 1952.

Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire

On one end of the spectrum of stereotypes Asian American women must deal with, there’s Exotic. Subservient. Quiet. Model Minority. On the other, Manipulative. Overbearing. Dragon Lady (a reference to Empress Dowager Tzu-hsi of China). Missing from these common images are the voices of actual Asian women, who came to bear the brunt of these stereotypes through centuries of colonialism and racism.

Published in 1997, Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire is a collection of essays and interviews from Asian American activists. Many express their frustrations with white feminism (the mainstream feminism most people are familiar with), and some reject the feminist label altogether. Several of the authors also express frustration at people’s reactions to the Asian American feminist movement: within their own cultures, claiming oneself as “feminist” can be seen as unfeminine and offensive. In society in general, some have trouble even wrapping their heads around the concept of “Asian American feminism;” the term just seems so incompatible with stereotypes of Asian women. However, as all of the authors prove, feminist activism has been around a long time in the Asian community, and the Asian American feminist movement continues to grow.

The book is split into four parts: Strategies and Visions; An Agenda for Change; Global Perspectives; and Awakening to Power. Regardless of the theme of each section, there is definite overlap in the essays. The Asian American feminism that all of these activists speak of has a global aspect; yes, these women are based in the U.S., but because so much of their work focuses on issues related to immigration and labor rights, an awareness of different cultures and issues is necessary.