The Gatecrasher, by Madeleine Wickham

I'm not as much of a chick-lit devotee as I used to be, but I still enjoy a hot pink book every once in a while. The Gatecrasher was written by Madeleine Wickham, a.k.a. Sophie Kinsella of Shopaholic fame. This book is exactly what I expected it to be: a fizzy, pink mental cocktail. There's really not a lot to say about it. But I will say this: the titular character, Fleur Daxeny (awesome name, by the way), crashes funerals in order to prey on grieving millionaires. Revolting behavior, and yet she still manages to be more sympathetic (though not by much) than poor bereaved Leo from the last book I read.

Random Acts, continued

Oh, goodness. It turns out that my early enthusiasm for this book was at least partially unwarranted. Random Acts of Heroic Love is a novel made up of two stories, which is the only reason why I'm still reading it. One story is told by Moritz, an Austrian World War I POW who is valiantly trekking across Russia (uphill, both ways) back to his love, Lotte. The other is told by Leo, a whiny jackass. Said jackass has lost his beloved Eleni while traveling in South America. His grief is compounded by guilt; he believes (and he has a point) that something he innocently requested was directly responsible for Eleni's death. The early scenes, in which he appoints himself guardian over Eleni's body as it is prepared for burial and flown back to her native Greece, are really heart-wrenching (hence the near-tears on p. 14). The problem starts after he returns home to England and starts acting like, well, a total dick. He rudely rebuffs his father's attempts to relate his own story of grieving (I'm convinced that Leo's father is Moritz's son; I'm also convinced that this is supposed to be some sort of big reveal later in the book--nice try), and in the oddest display of jerkitude, he attacks a truck driver, since apparently all truck drivers are now responsible for Eleni's death. Fortunately, the truck driver delivers a beat-down; that was pretty satisfying.

The worst of all is how Leo treats his patient, self-sacrificing friend, Hannah. He pours his heart out to her, which reminds her of her mother's death of cancer when Hannah was only ten. She kindly chooses to quash her own feelings of grief rather than hijack the moment from Leo, and he decides that her awkwardness means that she is falling in love with him. This might be amusing or sweet if Leo weren't such a douche. When she reveals the real reason behind her behavior, this is Prince Charming's response:

"But I've poured my heart out to you and the very least you could do is reciprocate...you've been patronizing me. It should be equal. I've given so much time, so much of myself to you, and you're giving me nothing in return" (Scheinmann 187).

Really? Wow. All of the sympathy I had for Leo in the early pages of the book has evaporated. However, the story of Moritz's journey is still pretty good, so I'll keep reading to see where that ends up (though I'm pretty sure I already know).

Random Acts of Heroic Love, by Danny Scheinmann

I've just started this one. The title is gagworthy, but the first 28 pages are fantastic! When an author can get you to the brink of tears on page 14, you know he has a gift. I'll post more as things develop.

Still Alice, by Lisa Genova

Still Alice is the story of a 50-year-old Harvard professor who is stricken with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Though it's told in third person, the novel is Alice's story and reflects the degradation of her memory. Her husband, John, seems like a jerk at times, but that's probably because the reader is seeing things through Alice's eyes, and she is the ultimate unreliable narrator (though she's not really the narrator--you know what I mean). I'd love to read the same story from John's point of view; I'm sure it would be heartbreaking.

Lisa Genova is an Alzheimer's researcher, so I worried that this book would be more of a public service announcement than a work of literature. Fortunately, I was wrong. In addition to being informative, the book is very well written; this is far from a Lifetime disease-of-the-week movie. Alice's story is compelling without being saccharine, and Genova never spoon-feeds the reader. In one scene after her diagnosis, Alice enters a classrooms, sits down, and waits for the professor to show up. Eventually all the students leave, and the reader is left wondering: Is this Alice's own class that she has forgotten she is teaching? Is this a memory of Alice as a student? Is this a seminar she is attending? Much later in the book, we learn almost in passing that Alice went into her own class and sat down as though she were a student and not the professor. The reveal is almost an afterthought.

So anyway, this book is sad but sweet and well worth your time.