The Second Coming, plus an addition to my Must List

I will admit that I am terrible about declaring a book amazing and wonderful based on a good first chapter or so. Oftentimes the rest of the book doesn't merit the gushing I did about the beginning, and I feel bad about recommending it to everyone I know. However, I refuse to believe that this is the case with Jonathan Tropper's This is Where I Leave You. Holy crap, this book is amazing. The way Tropper writes is better than just about anything I have ever encountered. Of course, I am only on page 44, but I don't think I've ever read a better 44 pages. I've heard critics describe a book as searing, but I've never thought that myself until I read Tropper's description of Judd Foxman walking in on his wife in bed with his boss. The entire chapter is wrenching and heartbreaking, but also laugh-out-loud funny in places. Chapter 3 begins, "My marriage ended the way these things do: with paramedics and cheesecake." Please read it so you can find out the purpose for the cheesecake (heartbreaking) and where it ended up (hilarious). Also: flaming testicles. What more can I say?

[Here's what more I can say: Judd's brother is described as "the Paul McCartney of our family: better-looking than the rest of us, always facing a different direction in pictures, and occasionally rumored to be dead" (Tropper 4).]

Oh, and my Must List: I have to add Hoyt from True Blood. On a show that often goes too far for me (Bill and Lorena's '20s tryst? Gag, vomit, shudder), his sweet manner with Jessica is a nice counterbalance. His relationship with his wicked-witch mother is great, too. I loved the scene in the last episode in which he goes through the laundry list of everyone she hates: "You hate African Americans!" "Shh! That's a secret!" I almost fell off the couch.

Catching up, yet again

It's a red-letter day: I picked up three books I had requested at the library today. Yay! So my reading menu in the next couple of weeks will include Jennifer Weiner's Best Friends Forever (Weiner is the queen of brainy-yet-breezy chick lit), Jonathan Tropper's This is Where I Leave You (good buzz on that one), and Trenton Lee Stewart's The Mysterious Benedict Society (a kid's book, but it seems interesting). In addition to those, my fantastic almost-lawyer friend lent me Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Pulitzer Prize winner) and Jen Lancaster's Bright Lights, Big Ass (doesn't the title just say it all?). I'm thrilled to have a packed shelf, but this means that my Ulysses project might have to fall by the waistline (as a former colleague of my mother's would say). I still want to read it a bit at a time (unless it just grabs me and I can't put it down), but with so much highly anticipated reading at my fingertips, I just don't know how that's going to work out. I'm still going to read it, though--I mean it!

Wow, I think I OD'd on parentheses in that last paragraph. (Such a shame.) Anyway, I've finished the following books in the last week or so:

• Miss Harper Can Do It, by Jane Berentson: As I mentioned in my last post, the first half of this book is fan-freaking-tastic. Annie Harper is a young elementary school teacher who is attempting to write a memoir during her boyfriend's deployment. Her voice is so engaging, and I could really relate to her. She does not feel like an army girlfriend; I never really felt like an army wife. On p. 8, she describes the day that David, her boyfriend, left:

"That morning there had been this big flag-waving, yellow-ribbon, send-off hoopla. I hated it. I hated the other women waving yellow ribbons and white handkerchiefs. Actual cloth handkerchiefs! Who even uses those anymore?"

When Mark left for Iraq, I went through something similar. Someone was walking around passing out tiny flags, and I remember thinking, "Please don't give me one of those." I'm just not a flag waver. Anyway, I could see that Annie and I had a lot in common. As the book continues, though, it takes a turn toward the conventional. It's still enjoyable, but it doesn't live up to the promise of the first half of the book.

• In Her Own Sweet Time, by Rachel Lehmann-Haupt: This is part-journalism, part-memoir detailing Lehmann-Haupt's quest for possible motherhood. Definitely interesting, and it gives you a lot to think about. For example, Dr. Eleonora Porcu, the Italian doctor who pioneered egg-freezing technology, doesn't feel that women should actually use it. She believes that society should change to allow women to have children young without derailing their careers. Like I said, interesting. However, like that supermom/slacker mom book I wrote about a while back, it really details a problem mostly encountered by the affluent.
• Twenties Girl, by Sophie Kinsella: It's still summer--don't judge me!

A challenge (to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield!)

According to the inimitable Mark Twain (actually, he is imitable, since Hal Holbrooke's been doing it for decades, but--already!--I digress), "A classic is something everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read." I laughed when I first saw that quotation, because I had recently had that exact thought about James Joyce's Ulysses. I really want to be a person who has read it, but I've never necessarily wanted to put in the work to make that happen. Well, I have decided that, no matter how long it takes or how crazy it drives me, I am going to be a person who has read Ulysses. My attitude toward this project can be summed up by those inspirational words from the other "Ulysses," hence the title of this post. I am not going to yield, no matter how loopy the stream-of-consciousness narration gets, and I will post here about the experience.

So far, I have checked the book out of the library. I'm afraid the easy part is over.

My poor neglected blog

You would think that summer would be the perfect time to catch up on my blog, and yet that has not been the case. I have been reading like a fiend, but I've been too sorry to write about it. Oh, well. Just for the sake of keeping tabs, this is what I've read lately:

• The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters: A good read, but I got really frustrated with the main character.
• Heart and Soul, by Mave Binchy: I love Maeve Binchy! She's probably my favorite guilty pleasure author. There's something so comforting about her books, and I love how everyone is always "mad" or "desperate."
• The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff: My Big Love addiction leads me to read anything I can about polygamy and the FLDS. See, TV is not bad for you.
• The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros: I assigned it to my students for summer reading, so I figured I should read it myself.
• The Mating Habits of the North American WASP, by Lauren Lipton: Chick lit at its finest. I seriously did have a hard time putting it down; not much got done the day I read this.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling (like I needed to tell you that): I just saw The Half-Blood Prince, and I couldn't remember what came next. It was my first re-read of a Harry Potter book, and it turns out they are just as addictive the second time around.
• Living La Vida Lola, by Misa Ramirez: I read Janet Evanovich. Misa Ramirez, you're no Janet Evanovich.
• The Local News, by Miriam Gershow: A high school student deals with her brother's disappearance. This is all complicated by the fact that she doesn't really like her brother.
• Miss Harper Can Do It, by Jane Berentson: I just started it this morning, and already I am in love. The main character is me. Can't wait to read more!

I think that's it. I've been doing a horrible job of keeping track.