Jessica Reviews Yes Please by Amy Poehler (Audio book)

    I am an SNL junkie. I love old episodes with Dan Aykroyd and  Gilda Radner, through Chris Farley, Molly Shannon, Will Farrell, and all the way through to Kristen Wiig, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon and even the current cast. So, when I figured out how to use my credits on Audible.com (I had racked up 5 book credits) two of the books I got were written by SNL cast members.

    Amy Poehler is my favorite of the Amy/Tina duo. They are amazing as a team, but head to head? I'd pick Amy every time. This is one time when I would suggest the audio book over the paper/ebook versions. Amy reads her own book with some additional famous voices thrown in for effect and her parents even make a guest appearance.

  Amy is a great story teller and I feel like we are totally friends now. She sat in my car with me while I drove to work for 4 days and told me about her life and gave me advice. She made me laugh...a lot! She was touching and warm and I loved every minute of it.

    The last chapter of the book was recorded in front of a live audience at the Upright Citizens Brigade, which adds to the performance in a huge way.

    My favorite part of SNL is when the characters break. When they are trying so hard to stifle a laugh I am usually cracking up to the point of tears. The live reading at the end has Amy laughing and that laugh is contagious. There are audio clips of some SNL skits, which is a total bonus.

    Amy is real and honest while still being funny and entertaining. I highly recommend this audio book. It is just too good to pass up. I would even venture to say that if you are not already a member of Audible.com, you should sign up for your free trial and use your one free book credit to get this book.

Jessica Reviews Paper Towns by John Green

 
 I have been on a John Green kick lately. I decided I needed to read all of his books because I loved The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska so much. Paper Towns is in production as the second movie based on a John Green Novel. After reading all of the novels, I have to say I wish they would have chosen to make Looking for Alaska.
   
    Quentin Jacobsen and Margot Roth Spiegelman were always neighbors. As children they are friends and the story begins with a shared traumatic experience. Flash forward to high school and the two rarely speak. Quentin is a non-instrument playing band geek, while Margot is an A-lister.

    Margot is also a bit of a flighty trouble maker with a dramatic flair. One night she involves Quentin in a pre-planned revenge plot after she discovers some of her friends are not as loyal as she had thought. Quentin is confused about why she chose him for this adventure, but he goes along.

    The next day Margot is gone. No one seems surprised, even her parents and the police. She has run away many times and her parents are kind of douche bags and say they don't care where she went...they are changing the locks anyway.

    Quentin wants to find her, and after he finds a clue - left by Margot, he enlists his friends t help him find her by following the clues she has laid out for him.

    It is hard not to give spoilers in these reviews, so I will write about the writing. John Green creates great characters. Quentin is timid and plain...possibly even boring. Margot is a ball of mystery and personality. They work together as a teenage love story, because he loves her without knowing her and as he finds out more about her he just becomes more and more intrigued.

    The secondary characters are nice and round and play important supporting roles. Radar was my favorite with his strange parents who collect black santas, and his obsession with his information database.

    Here is the part where I admit to cheating. I did not read this book I listened to the audio book. I feel that the performance may have hurt my opinion of the book. This is the case for most audio books, but I would have no time to read anything for pleasure if I didn't cheat. That being said, if you don't have time to read the book, go for the audio book. The performance wasn't bad. I just always fee like I would have pictured characters differently if I had read the book. The voices change my perception.

    The story line is easy to follow, but I was at a loss with Margot in the end. Everything with her seems performed, likening her to the character of Augustus Waters in The Fault in Our Stars. It feels like everything she does is meant to be noticed and she is not happy when the little things she is doing for attention are missed.

    All in all I enjoyed the story. I will wait for the movie to come out On Demand, but I am happy for John Green's success. He deserves his fandom because he is a good role model for young geeks everywhere.

Jessica Reviews An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

An Abundance of Katherines was the third John Green book I have read. (The Fault In Our Stars and Looking For Alaska, being first and second respectively) You could say that I am a fan of his work and you would be right. I enjoy how he captures the feeling of being a teenager. I am not young. I turn 35 in a few weeks and I am probably a little beyond his demographic, but that has never stopped me. After hitting the new release section in any library or book store, you can generally find me in the YA section.

Fair warning I did not actually READ this book. I listened to it. I imagine the book had more visual assistance with all of the graphing and anagramming that went on. Hearing it explained in detail didn't really keep me connected to the story at some points so that did take away a little bit from my enjoyment.

Child prodigy Collin and his only friend Hassan take off on a road trip after Collin is dumped by the 19th Katherine he has dated. Collin is broken hearted and Hassan wants to help him, but also wants to get away for a while, himself.
The two end up in Gutshot, Tennessee, where the meet Lindsey Lee Wells. I'm not big on the spoilers, so I will just say that the build up takes just enough time, you are learning about the 19 Katherines while you are also engulfed in the current story. You are rooting for Collin to pull his head out of his ass and realize that there is something right in front of him that can plug the big hole in his gut that he keeps talking about.
The secret cave scenes are the best. Throwing you back to the butterflies in the stomach feeling of when your hand brushes against your crush's hand. The ending is satisfying and in the style of John Green, it also leaves you with questions about what happens to the characters after the story. But, don't bother trying to ask him. He is known to stick with his assertion that the story belongs to the reader after the writing is done. It is what you make it.

I jumped right in to Paper Towns as soon as I finished An Abundance of Katherines. I'm on a John Green kick, so check back for a review of Paper Towns coming soon.

New Book List

The new book list is now available below. Join us and read the books that interest you, and write a review when you are finished. Skip the books you don't want to read, or don't have time for. Never feel guilty for your lack of participation. This is the point of this club, and those are the rules.

If I Stay by Gayle Forman - "In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen ­year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces- to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make. Heartwrenchingly beautiful, this will change the way you look at life, love, and family. Now a major motion picture starring Chloe Grace Moretz, Mia's story will stay with you for a long, long time."

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt - "Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love—and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.
The Goldfinch is a mesmerizing, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate."

 

Paper Towns by John Green - "When Margo Roth Spiegelman beckons Quentin Jacobsen in the middle of the night—dressed like a ninja and plotting an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows her. Margo’s always planned extravagantly, and, until now, she’s always planned solo. After a lifetime of loving Margo from afar, things are finally looking up for Q . . . until day breaks and she has vanished. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mystery. But there are clues. And they’re for Q. Printz Medalist John Green returns with the trademark brilliant wit and heart-stopping emotional honesty that have inspired a new generation of readers."

That is all for now. If you write a review, please email it to thelazmombookclub@gmail.com with a photo and it may be published on the blog.

**All photos and descriptions taken from www.bn.com where all of these books can be purchased.

Gone Girl Review - by Jessica

This review is full of spoilers! You have been warned.

Gone Girl is the second book I have read by Gillian Flynn.

I was expecting a dark book with a twist and I got what I wanted. The dark female lead is something I appreciate from Flynn, because she does it so well. Her leading ladies are always smart, but disturbed. Their horrifying deeds garner a certain respect, because of their craftiness and genius.

The story is told from two perspectives, which isn’t unheard of but in this case it is so revealing and it is also where we get the twist. Flynn likes to play with the reader and she is great at getting our support to flip flop from character to character as she reveals a little bit at a time over the course of the book.

We think Nick is guilty, then see that it is Amy. We support Nick even though he is a cheater. We don’t know if there is a baby or not, so we don’t want Amy to die, but we are happy when she is mugged. Of course she has someone to help her (Desi Collings), and he is such a creep that we almost root for Amy again, but then the way she handles him makes us feel bad for him and hate her again. We hate the cops, then like the cops because they are so wrong and then they get it, but can’t do anything about it all.

This book is like a roller coaster.

The ending threw me for a loop. When I first finished the book I was pissed at how Flynn ended it. I wanted justice. I wanted an arrest or a death. Some type of revenge to wrap it all up.

After settling down I came to love the ending for a few reasons.

1)      Nick was not smart enough to entrap Amy and get her arrested. My want of justice wasn’t going to change that.

2)      Nick was not the kind of person who would kill and Flynn stayed true to that character.

3)      There was a baby that Nick felt responsible for protecting. He needed to stay and make sure nothing happened to that baby. Amy was totally the kind of person who would throw herself down the stairs and kill the baby and blame it on Nick.

I did see the movie and I think they did an excellent job of translating the book to screen. There are always details that are lost in translation, but I didn’t miss anything.

I would like to read Dark Places and let Gillian Flynn mess with my mind and emotions some more. I enjoy her writing because she has a knack at combining darkness and refreshing originality that makes me feel equally pissed and satisfied.

This is embarrassing

I told someone about this book club today and now I wish I hadn't. I am so behind. I vow to have a new list of books by the end of this week. I also vow to finish the two reviews that I have banked in my drafts folder. "The Silver Linings Playbook" and "Gone Girl" reviews coming soon!

The Fault in Our Stars - Reviewed by Jessica

This was my second reading of The Fault In Our Stars. Let me tell you that knowing how the book ends, does not lessen the number of tears that fall on the pages. This is a sad book. If you have a soul, you will cry at least a little. Being a YA novel does not mean the subject matter is "dumbed down" at all. John Green writes for teenagers, and he believes teenagers are just as intelligent as adults. I was lucky enough to have this novel assigned as required reading for my college English class this semester, so I was able to read it without feeling guilty for ignoring my schoolwork for personal reading time. I was also "lucky" enough to have been assigned an eight page paper on the book. I will not bore you with any of my insight into the relationship between John Green, his character Peter Van Houten, and the philosophical works of Soren Kierkegaard. I will say that I highly recommend this book to everyone. It is smart, funny, and truthful. It will make you want to read more from John Green. (I suggest starting with Looking for Alaska) The characters are brilliantly written and authentic. Green does an amazing job writing from a young girls perspective. Hazel feels amazingly real, and Augustus has this romantic, insightful, yet performed personality. The teenaged girl inside you will fall for him instantly. For those of you less inclined to reading, you are in luck because the movie comes out June 2014. If you do read the book and you need answers about something I suggest visiting John Green's website here. (unless you want to know what happens to any of the characters after the book ends - in this case the website is useless)