Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes

Goodreads Summary:

The mega-talented creator of Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal and executive producer of How to Get Away With Murder chronicles how saying YES for one year changed her life―and how it can change yours, too.

With three hit shows on television and three children at home, the uber-talented Shonda Rhimes had lots of good reasons to say NO when an unexpected invitation arrived. Hollywood party? No. Speaking engagement? No. Media appearances? No.

And there was the side-benefit of saying No for an introvert like Shonda: nothing new to fear.

Then Shonda’s sister laid down a challenge: just for one year, try to say YES to the unexpected invitations that come your way. Shonda reluctantly agreed―and the result was nothing short of transformative. In Year of Yes, Shonda Rhimes chronicles the powerful impact saying yes had on every aspect of her life―and how we can all change our lives with one little word. Yes.


My Thoughts:
Shonda Rhimes is an amazing woman. I was already a Shondaland Productions fan. I watch Grey's, Scandal, and How To Get Away with Murder. She writes characters in really relate-able ways and she has always shown diversity in races, lifestyle, and personality. I didn't know much about Shonda as a person. I assumed she was an extrovert and living it up in Hollywood. I have no idea why I assumed that because I was so very very wrong. Shonda like most writers lives in her head and finds it all too easy to stay there for long stretches of time and only peak her head out when needed.

I found a lot of myself in her story. I say No way more than I should. I am not ready to say Yes but this book has gotten me a step closer to living out loud the way I used to. Shonda has a unique voice and her style is unmistakable. I found myself laughing with her and crying with her. 

I would recommend this book to everyone. Yes, everyone, but specifically people who may be a little stuck and needing a boost. This book is a straight up bright light at the end of a dark tunnel.


While writing this review I was watching another episode of Gilmore Girls.

Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own by by Kate Bolick

***I received this book free from the publisher in exchange for a review, however, this has not swayed my opinion in anyway***

Goodreads Summary:

“Whom to marry, and when will it happen—these two questions define every woman’s existence.” So begins Spinster, a revelatory and slyly erudite look at the pleasures and possibilities of remaining single. Using her own experiences as a starting point, journalist and cultural critic Kate Bolick invites us into her carefully considered, passionately lived life, weaving together the past and present to examine why­ she—along with over 100 million American women, whose ranks keep growing—remains unmarried.

This unprecedented demographic shift, Bolick explains, is the logical outcome of hundreds of years of change that has neither been fully understood, nor appreciated. Spinster introduces a cast of pioneering women from the last century whose genius, tenacity, and flair for drama have emboldened Bolick to fashion her life on her own terms: columnist Neith Boyce, essayist Maeve Brennan, social visionary Charlotte Perkins Gilman, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and novelist Edith Wharton. By animating their unconventional ideas and choices, Bolick shows us that contemporary debates about settling down, and having it all, are timeless—the crucible upon which all thoughtful women have tried for centuries to forge a good life.

Intellectually substantial and deeply personal, Spinster is both an unreservedly inquisitive memoir and a broader cultural exploration that asks us to acknowledge the opportunities within ourselves to live authentically. Bolick offers us a way back into our own lives—a chance to see those splendid years when we were young and unencumbered, or middle-aged and finally left to our own devices, for what they really are: unbounded and our own to savor.

My Thoughts:

I want to start off with saying that whom to marry and when it will happen have never defined my existence. I could relate to some of Spinster, but not all. I am not sure I bought the the sweeping generalizations made based off of a hand full of individual women most of whom are dead and therefore can't clarify or explain their positions. This being said, I liked Spinster if for no other reason that it got me thinking about things I may never have thought about otherwise.

Often, I think women my age and older think that we all have the same experiences when it comes to marriage and commitment and then it is those freaks among us who dare to go against the norm. I am not sure this is the case. I do think that women have often been silenced, as pointed out either intentionally or implied in this book. I do think that silence has been misunderstood. In reading this book I examined my own thoughts about marriage and what it means to women as a whole as well as me specifically.

Personally, I never wanted to get married. I found a partner I love and I want to share my life with but marriage wasn't ever something I needed or wanted. Things worked out the way they did because I, just like many of the women in the book, am a pragmatist. Getting married gave me health insurance (in a time before Obamacare), tuition reduction at my University (where my husband works), and rights which are not granted to single people. I wanted my husband, who knows me best, making the hard choices for me if things ever came to that. Many women get married for pragmatic reasons, and many more get married for romantic reasons. In reading Spinster I felt a little judged by the author, but I don't think that was her intent. I think it is hard to write about something so big and yet so personal without offending someone.

I really enjoyed the exploration of single womanhood through the words and lives of female writers. I don't know if Kate Bolick exactly expressed what those writers thought or felt, but ultimately that wasn't the point of her book. Kate was on a journey herself and took the words of others as inspiration. I don't think writers should expect to be fully understood and this book is a perfect example of that. A good book isn't defined by agreement with the author, but perhaps how much the author gets us thinking. We writers never know if someone will fully get our meaning, personally, I love when someone finds something of themselves in my writing.

I thought a lot about this book as I was reading it. I thought a lot about it for weeks after I finished reading it. I re-read several sections before finally sitting down to finish this review. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone looking for an interesting take on a subject that isn't talked about enough or even fully explored. I don't know that her views are universal, they weren't for me, but I think perhaps they may hit home for a lot of women. Examination of society and why we do what we do is always worthwhile.

I want to point out I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

While writing this review I was listening to my upstairs neighbor move out and clean her apartment and a 90's mix on google radio.

Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe

Goodreads Summary:

A teen idol at fifteen, an international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences as a painfully misunderstood child actor in Ohio uprooted to the wild counterculture of mid-seventies Malibu, where he embarked on his unrelenting pursuit of a career in Hollywood.

The Outsiders placed Lowe at the birth of the modern youth movement in the entertainment industry. During his time on The West Wing, he witnessed the surreal nexus of show business and politics both on the set and in the actual White House. And in between are deft and humorous stories of the wild excesses that marked the eighties, leading to his quest for family and sobriety.

Never mean-spirited or salacious, Lowe delivers unexpected glimpses into his successes, disappointments, relationships, and one-of-a-kind encounters with people who shaped our world over the last twenty-five years. These stories are as entertaining as they are unforgettable.

My Thoughts:

I have a crush on Rob Lowe. Not the Brat Pack Rob Lowe but the West Wing Rob Lowe. Now I also have a little bit of a crush on the real Rob Lowe.

He is honest, and in some ways, raw in his telling of his stories. You really get a sense of the man while oddly you still feel like there is something more to learn about and from Rob Lowe. Well written, entertaining, and thought provoking. An all around good read, well done Rob Lowe.

At no point did I feel like his stories were name dropping stories so much as someone navigating a world that is both just like mine and entirely different than mine. Reading this book humanized Rob Lowe for me and made me respect him. I have always liked the way he looked and acted in the West Wing, but now I just like him as a person. I think that is actually quite hard for the celebrity folk to achieve, expression of being normal people while owning the ways that they are different and their experiences are rather rarefied.

Overall a great read. I would recommend this book to fans of Rob Lowe and fans of biography. 

While writing this review I was listening to Miles Davis.

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Goodreads Summary:

David Sedaris' move to Paris from New York inspired these hilarious pieces, including the title essay, about his attempts to learn French from a sadistic teacher who declares that every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section. His family is another inspiration. You Can't Kill the Rooster is a portrait of his brother, who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers of food and cashiers with six-inch fingernails.

My Thoughts:

I recently re-read this for my book club. I decided to listen to the audio-book, as read by the author, rather than read it again. In a lot of ways this made the book entirely new to me and I suggest fans of the book give it a listen. Hearing these stories from the author changed some of the take away for me from my first reading. I don't mean this in a bad way, but in a great way. I think so often a voice on the page can't quite hit the same spot in the heart as actually hearing someone talk about their lives.

A friend of mine gave me a hard time for rating this book a 4 out of 5 on goodreads. I would say it is a 4.5 and I only take that half a point off because occasionally David Sedaris is so honest that it was uncomfortable even for me. This book ran through a lot of emotions for me, some I am sure were intended while others may not have been. I was forced into some of my own nostalgia while listening to some of his stories.

Over all I would recommend this book to everyone, additionally, I think you should give the audio-book a listen if you haven't read it in a long time. You might find as I did something new in it.

While writing this review I was listening to a bastard stray cat meowing its face off in the hallway of my building.

Considering Hate: Violence, Goodness, and Justice in American Culture and Politics by Kay Whitlock and Michael Bronski

Goodreads Summary:

Over the centuries American society has been plagued by brutality fueled by disregard for the humanity of others: systemic violence against slaves, Native peoples, and immigrants. More recent examples include the Steubenville rape case and the murders of Matthew Shepard, Jennifer Daugherty, Marcelo Lucero, and Trayvon Martin. Most Americans see such acts as driven by hate. But is this right? Longtime activists and political theorists Kay Whitlock and Michael Bronski boldly assert that American society's reliance on the framework of hate to explain these acts is wrongheaded, misleading, and ultimately harmful.

All too often Americans choose to believe that terrible cruelty is aberrant, caused primarily by “extremists” and misfits. The inevitable remedy of intensified government-based policing, increased surveillance, and harsher punishments has never worked and does not work now. Stand Your Ground laws, the US prison system; police harassment of people of color, women, and LGBT people; and the so-called War on Terror demonstrate that they themselves are forms of institutionalized violence.

Considering Hate challenges easy assumptions and failed solutions, arguing that “hate violence” reflects existing cultural norms. Drawing upon social science, philosophy, theology, film, and literature, the authors examine how hate and common, even ordinary, forms of individual and group violence are excused and normalized in popular culture and political discussion. This massive denial of brutal reality profoundly warps society's ideas about goodness and justice.

Considering Hate daringly invites readers to think differently—to redefine the meaning of justice within a new framework of transformative imagination, collective responsibility, and civic goodness.

My Thoughts:

I wish I had this book while I was still in college. I loved the challenges posed to every day thinking and the possibilities of changes presented in this book. I can easily see this book working in a wide variety of Social Science classes and I would highly recommend this for an upper division writing course. 

I read the book twice and found myself sharing quotes frequently. Considering Hate makes us all look at ourselves and our institutions with a new lens. While I am not saying you should buy into their ideas completely I do think that taking a different approach to how you look at the world around you is always a worthwhile exercise. The perpetuation of violence is an issue that needs to be tackled on both the large scale and the small. 

This book blew my mind and I am happier for it.

I would recommend this book to everyone, but particularly those looking for a read that is thought provoking, well written, and informative in a way that isn't textbook dry. I think the common person could easily read this book as it doesn't feel like it was written for academics. 

While writing this review I was listening to the calm sounds of the pond outside my door.

I should note that I did receive this book as an ARC but have since pre-ordered the book in hard copy to keep with my textbooks from school.

HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton By Jonathan Allen

Goodreads Summary:

The mesmerizing story of Hillary Clinton's political rebirth, based on eyewitness accounts from deep inside her inner circle.

Hillary Clinton’s surprising defeat in the 2008 Democratic primary brought her to the nadir of her political career, vanquished by a much younger opponent whose message of change and cutting-edge tech team ran circles around her stodgy campaign. And yet, six years later, she has reemerged as an even more powerful and influential figure, a formidable stateswoman and the presumed front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, marking one of the great political comebacks in history.

The story of Hillary’s phoenixlike rise is at the heart of HRC, a riveting political biography that journeys into the heart of “Hillaryland” to discover a brilliant strategist at work. Masterfully unfolded by Politico’s Jonathan Allen and The Hill’s Amie Parnes from more than two hundred top-access interviews with Hillary’s intimates, colleagues, supporters, and enemies,HRC portrays a seasoned operator who negotiates political and diplomatic worlds with equal savvy. Loathed by the Obama team in the wake of the primary, Hillary worked to become the president’s greatest ally, their fates intertwined in the work of reestablishing America on the world stage. HRCputs readers in the room with Hillary during the most intense and pivotal moments of this era, as she mulls the president-elect’s offer to join the administration, pulls the strings to build a coalition for his war against Libya, and scrambles to deal with the fallout from the terrible events in Benghazi—all while keeping one eye focused on 2016.

HRC offers a rare look inside the merciless Clinton political machine, as Bill Clinton handled the messy business of avenging Hillary’s primary loss while she tried to remain above the partisan fray. Exploring her friendships and alliances with Robert Gates, David Petraeus, Leon Panetta, Joe Biden, and the president himself, Allen and Parnes show how Hillary fundamentally transformed the State Department through the force of her celebrity and her unparalleled knowledge of how power works in Washington. Filled with deep reporting and immersive storytelling, this remarkable portrait of the most important female politician in American history is an essential inside look at the woman who may be our next president.

My Thoughts:
I have always liked Hillary and Bill Clinton. I wondered what kind of strength it took to keep your identity when your husband is president. I have always admired the way that she handled the problems of life, as privately as possible with as much strength as possible. I mention this only as a way of knowing my upfront bias about Hilary Clinton. I won't pretend that I have no such bias.

This book gave us the clear image of a strong woman dealing with unique circumstances. Through the accounts of those closest to Hillary we start to understand the drive, ambition, and personal dedication of Hillary.

Hillary has shown us time and again that she can not be knocked down for long. She shows true integrity and intelligence by always learning from her mistakes. Failed Presidential campaigns have withered lesser people. Hillary has set the stage for her next campaign if she chooses to run. This book shows us her education on how to improve and win next time.

Above all, I think this book humanizes Hillary in a way that not many other books have. Meaning, this book shows that Hillary is a fighter, and sometimes you have to fight hard and dirty. This is human nature, often it is something that is looked down on but honestly I don't think that it should be. Play the game but don't get lost in it is the lens of this book.

I would recommend this book to fans of Hillary and those who don't know much about her. I don't think overly conservative people would love this book, but independent voters could at least get a better picture of Hillary.

While writing this review I was listening to this song.

I Remember Nothing: and other Reflections by Nora Ephron

Goodreads Summary:

Nora Ephron returns with her first book since the astounding success of I Feel Bad About My Neck, taking a cool, hard, hilarious look at the past, the present, and the future, bemoaning the vicissitudes of modern life, and recalling with her signature clarity and wisdom everything she hasn’t (yet) forgotten.

Ephron writes about falling hard for a way of life (“Journalism: A Love Story”) and about breaking up even harder with the men in her life (“The D Word”); lists “Twenty-five Things People Have a Shocking Capacity to Be Surprised by Over and Over Again” (“There is no explaining the stock market but people try”; “You can never know the truth of anyone’s marriage, including your own”; “Cary Grant was Jewish”; “Men cheat”); reveals the alarming evolution, a decade after she wrote and directedYou’ve Got Mail, of her relationship with her in-box (“The Six Stages of E-Mail”); and asks the age-old question, which came first, the chicken soup or the cold? All the while, she gives candid, edgy voice to everything women who have reached a certain age have been thinking . . . but rarely acknowledging.

Filled with insights and observations that instantly ring true—and could have come only from Nora Ephron—I Remember Nothing is pure joy.

My Thoughts:

I can't read Nora Ephron's writing all night but I love reading her work in small doses. That is mostly because her style is lot like my own thinking and one can only take so much of the same or similar voice.

I laughed a lot and thought a lot about the stories. It was interesting to get her account of what it was like to graduate college and end up as a mail girl because they weren't allowed to write like the men.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes an honest book with a bit of edge in tone.

While writing this review I was listening to Dust in the Wind by Kansas.

Orange Is The New Black by Piper Kerman

Goodreads Summary:

With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187–424—one of the millions of people who disappear “down the rabbit hole” of the American penal system. From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and at times enraging, Kerman’s story offers a rare look into the lives of women in prison—why it is we lock so many away and what happens to them when they’re there.

My Thoughts:

I picked this book up because I marathoned the Netflix series and finished it over a weekend. I wanted to know more about the truth behind that series. 

I loved this book. I learned so much about prison, the legal system workings, and the strength of people. The women in this book are stronger than I will ever be, they are serving time for a variety of reason and they are handling that with grace. I left this read wanting to get involved in fixing the prison system. At the very least you realize how close a lot of us are to getting locked up and not really deserving it. People make stupid mistakes but I don't think throwing everyone in jail is the answer to those mistakes.

I recommend this book to EVERYONE. I found it heartbreaking and fascinating.

While writing this review I was listening to nothing, it was awesome.

Basically I suck ass, not in the porn way, but in the bad book blogger way.

I haven't been writing reviews pretty much all summer. This is because I suck book blogger ass. I took the summer and expanded my brain around social statistics and public administration via online courses so that I can graduate at the end of this year rather than next summer. I want to be done with college, it is a 14 year journey and I really want it to be over, for at least a little while. So this brings me back to my point that I suck book blogger ass. I have been reading, I am certain that my fun reads got me through my summer classes.

The following are books I read and thought were rad so you should read them too:

As you can see I fell in love with Sarah Addison Allen and continued my love for Sarah Dessen. I want to point your attention to Friendship Bread by Darien Gee. I really loved this book, it made my heart feel warm after reading it. I read Jenny McCarthy when I needed a guilty or naughty giggle.

The following are books that I read for school and one that I read for fun but I wouldn't recommend it.

And lastly, I read a book that I am totally neutral about and therefore will not recommend or discourage you from reading it.

Overall, I liked most of what I read. I am just not a fan of Gillian Flynn so I should stop reading her books. I just feel too grim after reading her books. The books I read for class about inequality made me hate republicans and democrats, so business as normal. I do not love being on the poor end of those theories so that was intense for me personally. Obviously I would never suggest someone read a social statistics book, but if you are forced to read this particular book it isn't as awful as most. I even laughed once while reading it which is a huge step up from crying.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling

Goodreads Summary:

Mindy Kaling has lived many lives: the obedient child of immigrant professionals, a timid chubster afraid of her own bike, a Ben Affleck–impersonating Off-Broadway performer and playwright, and, finally, a comedy writer and actress prone to starting fights with her friends and coworkers with the sentence “Can I just say one last thing about this, and then I swear I’ll shut up about it?”

Perhaps you want to know what Mindy thinks makes a great best friend (someone who will fill your prescription in the middle of the night), or what makes a great guy (one who is aware of all elderly people in any room at any time and acts accordingly), or what is the perfect amount of fame (so famous you can never get convicted of murder in a court of law), or how to maintain a trim figure (you will not find that information in these pages). If so, you’ve come to the right book, mostly!

In Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy invites readers on a tour of her life and her unscientific observations on romance, friendship, and Hollywood, with several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls. Mindy Kaling really is just a Girl Next Door—not so much literally anywhere in the continental United States, but definitely if you live in India or Sri Lanka.

My Thoughts:

I found the writing style good but at points times annoying. Which is really my impression of this entire book. Some of the recounts of Mindy's life were legitimately funny but honestly she doesn't know how to end a story in a way that maintains the funny. Often I would finish a story thinking, "huh, well that happened" and then I went back to reading homework instead of this book.

I think this genre of comics telling how they became funny is just a little over done and is becoming tired. I don't mean that as an attack on Mindy, she is sometimes funny. I just want something that isn't so formulaic. The funniest part of of Mindy's book is the honest part at the beginning where she talks about possible reasons people are reading her book. She says something about you have just finished Chelsea Handler's book so now what? If only this book was as good as any of Chelsea Handlers.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless they are a die hard fan of Mindy Kaling.

While writing this review I was listening to Aretha Franklin.

Required Reading for Spring Semester 2013

The following are the books that I will be reading for my four classes this semester. This looks like it will be an intense semester of reading. I may not have a lot of time for fun reading for a few months.