"Be careful whose advice you buy but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past fr"Be careful whose advice you buy but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth." --Mary Schmich.
I'm trying, Mary. I really am.
Oh, screw it.
This was the most stressful book I've ever read. I haven't been thrown into such a fucking frenzy of hatred since The Book Thief, and as with The Book Thief, I'm astounded that audiences en masse are embracing such codswollop.
I'm baffled as to why this is a bestseller. My best guess is that Marie Kondo targeted the most materialistic generation in the history of humanity, and they've since passed the book on to their equally superficial, spiritually empty, and stuff-obsessed grandchildren, who have made the fucking thing go viral.
At this point, we should just accept the fact that when our fellow countrymen gobble up 4 million copies of a book, it's garbage.
Seriously. Stupid just hit a whole new level.
But before I go tearing the book and its semi-literate fans to pieces, let's be fair: I'm not the intended audience. Other than the fact that I'm an unduly harsh critic of everything I read (I like to call that using my brain, but whatever), I already live minimally: I live in one of the rainiest cities in the country, but I will never buy an umbrella; except for 4 absolute favorites, all of my books are in the Cloud; knick-knacks make make me want to smack someone, the mismatched mess of an "eclectic" decorating style nauseates me, and I never buy anything unless I need it or love it. My house is almost always immaculate, and I don't do clutter. Excess "stuff" stresses me out to no end.
As I read Kondo's book, I realized that I'm not the typical American drowning in an excess of useless crap. (Living in Europe and trading continents 4 times in your 20s can do that to a person). So why wasn't I nodding in agreement with her guide to decluttering?
You mean it's not obvious? Come on, people!
Good God. When Americans' capacity for critical thinking has reached the level of blindly adopting all things Marie Kondo/KonMari, we've got bigger problems than "too much stuff."
Look. There's no such thing as the "KonMari method for tidying up." Her ideas should only strike you as new if you've ignored the folding techniques of every retail store you've ever entered, or you've never poked through a Feng Shui catalog. Saying that you follow the "KonMari method for tidying up" is like saying you follow the "Harpo method for finding your spirit" or the "Martha Stewart Omnimedia method" of crafting Christmas ornaments out of pinecones and pipe cleaners.
There is no KonMari method, you idiots. This isn't some ancient Japanese art of decluttering put forth by one diminutive woman from Tokyo. Marie Kondo was , and KonMari isn't a method, it's a media company.
I'm not bothered by the woman-as-the-face-of-a-media-company thing. It's been done before. (Oprah and Martha Stewart, anyone?) What disgusts me about this book is the deception behind it. I don't dig Oprah, but at least she got people talking about uncomfortable topics like sexual assault and racism, among other things. And at least Martha Stewart was candid about her perfectionism and relentless focus on her business functioning as coping mechanisms during an ugly divorce. But Kondo? This chick is packaging her brand of crazy as the path to joy.
I mean, peddling your mental illness as the new normal? Damn, that's cold.
Look. If you're an American with an abundance of junk, you're normal. You're fine. Marie Kondo wants you to have a problem with your junk so she can make money. Dealing with her issues doesn't make her rich -- selling you her psychosis does.
Do you really believe Kondo found joy in decluttering when she says her cleaning obsession started at age 5, and was a "custom [she] maintained even after entering high school," as she "sat on the floor for hours sorting things"? If you're going to ignore the fact that Kondo chose cleaning over normal after-school activities--a job, calling boys, playing sports--it's easy to brush aside her mention of having a teenage breakdown because her room wasn't clean enough. (Um, that's not a happy kid). Path to joy indeed.
But we don't need to psychoanalyze the early years. Kondo admits that her passion for tidying "was motivated by a desire for recognition from [her] parents," and that she "had an unusually strong attachment to things" rather than people. (Hi, sad). But is a childless 20-something/former souvenir salesperson, fresh out of an unhappy childhood, really the one you want leading you down the supposed path to joy? Think about what this chick is saying:
"The purpose of a letter is fulfilled the moment it is received. By now, the person who wrote it has long forgotten what he or she wrote and even the letter's very existence." Jesus. That's a bleak outlook on life. But I guess Kondo is right. My grandma doesn't give a shit about the letters she wrote me--she's dead. Then again, I don't hold on to letters from grandma for her sake.
"Aim for perfection." Jesus CHRIST. The only thing I hate more than knick-knacks and the eclectic is a living space created with "perfection" in mind. "Perfect" living spaces are stressful. They're goddamned mausoleums void of character and humanity. There's a little genius in a (small) organized mess. A tad bit of clutter is humanizing. There can be beauty in a bit of chaos. Hey, Marie, here's an idea: get outside more. Perfection is a fleeting organic moment: a newborn baby, a sunset, the Fibonacci sequence in the florets of a flower. It's not some state you declutter your way into.
"Move all of your storage units into your closet. This is where I usually put steel racks, bookcases, and cupboards or shelves, which can also be used to store books." This. Right here. This is exactly why I found this book so goddamned irritating. Passages like this made my immaculate and clutter-free city apartment feel like it wasn't good enough. Take my bookcase. I hate bookcases. I view them as a way of storing junk, and in my 30-something years, I've only seen one bookcase done well. But I have a bookcase for my 6 year-old. (No goddamn way am I going to put his books on the Cloud, giving him another excuse to stare at a screen). I was never bothered by the bookcase until I read Kondo's book, but now I can't wait until we can throw the damn thing away. And moving it out of sight will magically make me hate it less? Yeah, no. This is my son's house, too. Sorry, Marie, I'm not going let your book make me miserable about a kid's bookcase. I'll go back to not noticing it. Thanks.
Never, ever tie up your stockings. Never, ever ball up your socks. God! Who the fuck cares about how they fold their socks? I'd love to scribble all over Kondo's walls just to see what she'd do.
"Transform your closet into your own private space, one that gives you the thrill of pleasure. Heh. An organized closet sparking a "thrill of pleasure"? I'd recommend another human being or a battery-powered...never mind, get your "thrill of pleasure" wherever, it's not my business.
"When you stand in front of a closet that has been reorganized...your heart will beat faster and the cells in your body buzz with energy." Isn't it weird that Kondo describes an organized closet with words generally associated with falling in love/physical intimacy? Well, that's...fucked up, but whatever. I had an altogether different experience. When I upgraded to a new apartment a few months ago, I organized my hall closet. Afterwards, I stood there wondering if I'd accomplished anything or just wasted a bunch of time. When my 6 year-old wandered up and, near tears said, "When you clean, we don't get to play," I went ahead and decided on the latter.
This is the routine I follow every day when I return home from work. First, I unlock the door and announce to my house, 'I'm home!' Picking up the pair of shoes I wore yesterday...I say, 'Thank you very much for you hard work,' and put them away...I put my jacket and dress on a hanger, say 'Good job!'...I put [my handbag] on the top shelf of the closet, saying 'You did well. Have a good rest.'" Um. She's talking to her stuff. What the f%$#?!?! And why are Americans so quick to dismiss Kondo's talking to inanimate objects as some cultural quirk? No one talks to their shit in Japan unless they're certifiably nuts.
"The best way to choose what to keep and what to throw away is totake each item in one's hand and ask: 'Does this spark joy?'" LOL, the "wisdom" of people under 30. Anyone knows this is fucking ridiculous. I mean, give me a break! Going all slash and burn on your life, save for items that "spark joy?" I wonder what people who've lost everything in a fire would say about that? I'm sure people who survived major disasters would *totally* enlighten you about the *joy* sparked from their stuff. Obviously, if your mountain of junk makes you miserable, your stuff owns you. But if you Kondo-ize your house until you only have things that "bring you joy," your reduced pile of stuff still owns you. Face it. If you're looking for joy in the material, you don't need Marie Kondo--you need to reevaluate your life.
Okay, fine. Maybe I'm being unfair.
People are indeed affected by their environment, and decluttering can feel satisfying, even cleansing. But look who's telling you how to go about it: a chick whose childhood obsession with cleaning came from trying to please others, whose sole work experience includes selling junk at shrines, and whose descriptions of "joy" include rules, repetition, ritual, and talking to inanimate objects.
Yeah. They make medication for that.
At this point, I should pick up Marie Kondo's book and ask myself whether it sparks joy. Well, no, it actually sparks rage. To the trash with it, then!
In 70 pages, Three Cups of Deceit managed to destroy one of my heroes--and I don't mean Greg Mortenson, whom the book intends to demonize. Instead, thIn 70 pages, Three Cups of Deceit managed to destroy one of my heroes--and I don't mean Greg Mortenson, whom the book intends to demonize. Instead, the fallen hero here is author Jon Krakauer, thanks to this ebook, which left me queasy with disgust.
We all know that it's nothing new for me to hate an author, but Three Cups of Deceit is different because I've been an ardent Jon Krakauer fan since I was 17. When 20 years of admiration are undone in a 70-page ebook, it's is a weird place to be.
When Krakaeur appeared on 60 Minutes in 2011 accusing Greg Mortenson of 5 different types of fraud, I did what most probably did: I assumed Krakauer was right and shut off the TV. But I didn't follow the scandal, or Greg Mortenson's subsequent fall from grace. I bought Three Cups of Deceit last year because I love Krakauer's writing, not because I cared about the content.
Now that I’ve finally gotten around to reading it, I do care about the content—and I don't think I'll pick up another Jon Krakauer book...ever.
What the hell happened in 70 pages that managed to turn me against my longtime favorite author? To answer that, we have to look back on Krakauer's writing over the last several years.
After writing two of the greatest adventure stories of the 20th century, Krakaeur shifted dramatically. It started in 2003, when he swapped adventure writing for expose-style journalism. That shift in subject also marked a change in tone: his curiosity-driven prose morphed into rage-driven narratives. Yet Krakauer's anger fit the topics he was covering. Shock and outrage work well in Under the Banner of Heaven and Missoula. And though Krakauer's anger borders on crampy adolescent whining in Where Men Win Glory, his rage is understandable, perhaps even relatable.
But there's something unsettling about the depth of Krakauer's anger in Three Cups of Deceit. Turn to any page, and you'll find barely-contained fury. But instead of fitting with the text, that fury undermines Krakaeur's credibility: the book doesn't read like an investigation, but like a screeching demand for justice by an author out for blood and hell-bent on revenge.
What gives me the right to make such a claim, other than the fact that it's apparent on every page?
Well, I've been reading pissed-off Jon Krakauer books for a long time. I know his style, and I recognize his shortcomings as a writer. He's particularly gifted at persuasion, which he achieves by intertwining facts with subtle plays on readers' emotions. That makes for effective storytelling, but it's shitty journalism. And it's particularly shitty in this book, where Krakauer distorts the truth, and then data dumps in order to pass off his emotions as facts.
Trying to separate facts from an author's feelings is hard, not to mention irritating.
But let's see if we can give it a shot anyway.
Fact 1: Krakauer has an integrity / credibility problem Before we start, let's remember that Krakauer isn't an academic, or a formally trained researcher or journalist. (He got an Environmental Studies degree in 1976, and he worked for Outside Magazine for a while). He's just some guy who writes books based on research gleaned from surfing the Internet. The lack of training and credentials is important, because it calls into question Krakaeur's competence. This is an important consideration, as many of Krakauer's sources in Three Cups of Deceit have accused him of distorting facts, twisting words, and purposefully misquoting them.
Fact 2: Greg Mortenson doesn't know how to run a nonprofit The only fact in Krakauer's verbal slaughter of Greg Mortenson is this: Mortenson never should have been in a leadership position at the CAI. *That's it.* Mortenson was a visionary, a brilliant fundraiser, and excellent at executing projects, but he was notoriously bad at planning, project management/follow-up, staffing, and bookkeeping. He lacked the necessary experience to be in a leadership position, but he stayed in that role because he created the charity.
Krakauer says that "to a number of people, Mortenson's [irresponsible work performance] was more pathological than quirky." (Whoa! That sounds serious...and ominous! Who are these mystery people? Have you got a direct quote? Wait a minute....opinion stated as fact! A claim you can't prove, presented as truth! Good one! You almost got me there, Jon!) Well, that's stupid. Mortenson's inability to plan, his disregard for rules, his lack of followup, and his obliviousness to financial realities sound like classic symptoms of adult ADHD--that's essentially a learning disability, and hardly indicative of some evil embezzling mastermind.
In any case, Krakauer proves nothing.
Let's get back to our fact-hunt.
Fact 3: Greg Mortenson repaid the CAI and stepped down from its board
An faulted Mortenson not for fraud, not for misappropriating or embezzling funds, but for misusing funds--aka, sloppy bookkeeping, aka a screwup.
That's it.
Mortenson .
Isn't that kind of open and shut?
Wow. It seems Krakauer wrote himself into a frenzy over something pretty...minor.
Fact 4: Three Cups of Tea isn't a literary fraud Few things make me giddier than a phony writer being outed, but Three Cups of Tea was never selling fiction as truth. (Krakauer would say my assertion "demonstrates how difficult it is to correct a false belief after...having made an emotional investment in that belief." OMG, manipulative jerk).
So what of Krakauer's accusation that entire sections of Three Cups of Tea were fabricated?
Um. Duh? I mean, come on, Jonny-boy, you're not telling me you believed that whole kidnapped-by-the-Taliban bit, are you? Oh no...you didn't fall for the Mother Teresa tale, did you? Christ, Jon, you should have been able to spot bullshit on the first page! I mean, aren't you supposed to be smart or something??
I'm not siding with Three Cups of Tea out of some emotional investment (I have none), but because it was obvious from page 1 that the story was largely horseshit.
It was so glaringly obvious that in 2006, I couldn't even get past the first chapter for months: the "Christ-like figure descending the mountain" imagery set off my b.s. detector big time. And that was little 26 year-old, pre-graduate degree me, so spotting bullshit clearly didn't require expertise or careful reading. When I finally read the introduction, where co-author David Oliver Relin explains that he took creative license because Mortenson was impossible to track down, I was finally able to read the book.
Um....an author admitting in the 2006 intro that he used literary license? Uh....the publishing process itself, which requires stories to change again to meet editors'/publishers' requirements?
Humor me, Jon: How is that a scandal? How is that fabrication?
Hey, Jon? It's not Relin's fault you fell for the fantastic claims in the book. It's your fault. You may be an engaging writer, but you're a bad reader.
Fact 5: No good came from Three Cups of Deceit Here's the result of Krakauer's bad reading and irresponsible reporting: the reputational hit cost the , which meant that countless Afghan and Pakistani girls . Closer to home, the stress from Krakaeur's expose gave Mortenson a heart attack (literally), Mortenson's 12 year-old daughter tried to kill herself, and Mortenson's coauthor David Oliver put his head on some railroad tracks.
WOW! Taking down a man, his daughter, his life's work, a charity, the benefactors of that charity, and a fine writer, all in 70 pages? That's got to be some kind of record. Clearly, awesome stuff happens when a personal vendetta is the driving force behind your book!
And I suppose Mortenson should be the one to bear the blame for all of it? Not Krakauer, though, right? I mean, don't shoot the messenger...right?
Well. Maybe we need to rethink that philosophy, especially when the messenger is a goddamned jerk.
Yes, I'm pointing the finger at Krakauer. Yes, I'm saying he's responsible for the negative repercussions of his book.
Fact 6: Jon Krakauer was one of my favorite writers....
...but now I want to tell him off. I'd say:
Hey, Jon, I get you. Seriously. There are 3 things unleash the crazy in me: people who lie, authors who try to bullshit me, and people who mess with my money. You think (but can't prove) that you got all 3 offenses from Mortenson in one fell swoop. Believe me. I feel your rage.
But here's the thing, Jon. You're not an untouchable, or somehow exempt from the rules because you're a best-selling author. Writers--all of us--have some degree of responsibility for what we write. If you were really concerned about misdeeds by Mortenson, you could have pursued the legal route. But you didn't. You wrote a sensationalist, manipulative ebook in which you let your rage distort the facts, while you tout your assumptions as the truth--and you did it not out of concern for the CAI or its donors, but because you wanted revenge. Even worse? Not only do you refuse to accept responsibility for *any* of the tragic fallout from your book, but you've managed to convince yourself that what you've done in Three Cups of Deceipt is noble.
That's cowardly and immature. And sick.
Fact 7: Why I'll (probably) never read another book by Jon Krakauer I think I only ever liked Krakauer's books because there was something so familiar about them. (No, I'm not projecting--I'm recognizing similarities). I know what it's like to show the world how tough you are by pouring rage into dangerous endeavors and extreme sports. And I've lived the pattern Krakaeur describes: convincing yourself that brooding and obsession fuel good research; allowing frenzied rage to drive your quest for the truth; adopting the conviction that exposing a liar is noble and good.
The problem with rage-fueled moralistic quests is that we all misfire at some point, and the wrong people get hurt. Krakauer misfired big time here, and he doesn't even see it.
I asked Krakauer last week if Three Cups of Deceit was worth it, despite the tragic fallout. He looked me in the eye and said, "Yes, absolutely" before launching into some explanation. His response was enough to make my flesh crawl. I stopped listening.
Krakauer's response unsettled me because I realized that he's writing from a dark place. And he's in deep. This book isn't just Krakauer's compulsive hunger to tear down someone else. It's Krakauer's attempt to undermine your faith in someone who was actually doing good.
Krakauer wants you to join him in that dark place where he resides. After all, dark places are no fun when you're all alone.
That's horrible.
After 20 years of championing Krakauer, I now feel like the gullible reader, taken in and emotionally manipulated by my favorite writer. But let's give credit where credit is due. At least Krakauer is talented enough to perfectly articulate how that feels: "It's difficult to correct a false belief after people have made an emotional investment in that belief being true. When our heroes turn out to be sleazebags self-deception is easier than facing the facts."
After two years of waiting for Sarah Waters' new novel to come out, reading this actually made me want to cry a little. I don't know what to say. WhenAfter two years of waiting for Sarah Waters' new novel to come out, reading this actually made me want to cry a little. I don't know what to say. When a book this terrible is written by an author that we know is capable of so much more, it feels like a personal affront.
After a fantastic debut and decades of decent novels, what the hell went so wrong with The Paying Guests? How could our fair Sarah do this to us?
It's all pretty simple. The problem with this book is that Sarah Waters got famous. Seriously.
Think about it.
Waters is adored in the literary world, half of her books have been turned into BBC dramas, and she's got more awards up the wazoo than Teen Mom Farrah has glass dongs up the ... nevermind. My point is, Sarah Waters is powerful enough that no one questions her any more. The New York Times, FT, and the Guardian are going to laud her no matter what she writes -- making her clean up the crap isn't worth the trouble.
And judging from The Paying Guests, no editor dared email her to let her know she was repeating herself on every goddamn page, or to suggest she rewrite some of the suckier parts.
The result is a multitude of cringe-worthy passages:
"She seemed to have lost a layer of skin, to be kissing not simply with her lips but with her nerves, her muscles, her blood." (EW).
"They smiled at each other across the table, and some sort of shift occurred between them. There was a quickening, a livening – Frances could think of nothing to compare it with save some culinary process. It was like the white of an egg growing pearly in hot water, a milk sauce thickening in the pan." (Huh? How romantic).
"It was like being parched, and touching water, like being famished, and holding food." (Sigh. Goddammit).
I'm sure some junior editor making 20 grand a year at some London publishing house wasn't about to fire off an email to the great Sarah Waters saying,
"Hi S—
Just got the feedback from the boys upstairs.
Please rework the above-mentioned passages, cut about 30 pages from the melodramatic self-induced abortion scene (it seems all you do is repeat the words "moan" and "pale" and "blood" for several pages), make it harder to see the stupid plot twist coming from 100 pages away, and narrow the last 250 pp. of legal drivel down to 75.
Also, can you go for something other than the 1920s English domestic novel? It's duller than deadly nightshade.
Finally, please give the two main characters personalities so that readers can tell them apart. Perhaps make them more lifelike--characters that readers can despise, root for, or at least care about--and less like words on the page.
Happy to receive your rewrites by Monday at 5. Cheers."
Yeah. I didn't think so.
Since the people working for her won't say anything, I will. Sarah, you're great when you try. So please try harder.
With Three Cups of Tea, I had to stop and start over three different times in order to convince myself that it was aSee if you notice a pattern here.
With Three Cups of Tea, I had to stop and start over three different times in order to convince myself that it was a true story. Something about Greg Mortenson descending from a mountain like some biblical figure to a group of adoring villagers just didn't ring true for me. I even found myself thinking of how easy it would be for Mortenson to pocket the cash he was getting to build schools, but brushed aside my own suspicions, thinking that no one would do such a thing. I should have listened to myself. Instead, I was eventually won over by the beautiful writing and I bought in, hook line and sinker. This was of my favorites for years. Oops.
Princess was an equally gripping read, and totally un-put-downable. Yet a third of the way through, my bullshit detector went off. I tossed the book in the trash because I don't appreciate being sold fiction passed off as non-fiction by some white chick from Georgia with a save-the-poor-brown-women-of-the-Middle-East complex because the publishers would rather get rich from the author's book sales instead of exposing her for a lying sack of crap. For someone, anyone, to expose the author, an actual American would have to speak Arabic (ha!), travel to Saudi Arabia, and start asking the royal family some questions. Yeah, that'll happen. Just keep rolling in the cash, guys. Ugh. Whatever.
Good ol' Ingrid Betancourt wrote an enthralling, beautiful, and touching book that was impossible to put down. Even in this one, a little close reading reveals the author to be full of it at times: there are several accounts of other captives that contradict Betancourt's memoir, her writing reads like fiction, and everything she swears by are events that are impossible to verify. At least with Ingrid, we can blame extreme trauma for her half-truths. Hell, we can even forgive her because she's a politician: we expect her to lie.
1. So well-written that it's impossible to put down -- Check 2. Written about a far away and inaccessible place -- Check 3. Because said place is so far away and inaccessible, the story is nearly impossible to verify -- Check 4. READS A LOT LIKE FICTION -- CHECK CHECK CHECK
Know why fake memoirs are so good? Because they're fucking fiction, that's why. Like all of the other too-good-to-be-true "memoirs" or "journalism" books, Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai is just a bunch of shit the author made up. Read the first ten pages. You'll see what I'm talking about.
You know those books that are a complete chore to read? The ones you'll do anything -- playing Words with Friends, cleaning the house, scrubbing toileYou know those books that are a complete chore to read? The ones you'll do anything -- playing Words with Friends, cleaning the house, scrubbing toilets -- to avoid reading? Then a few weeks go by and you've gotten dumber, because in doing your damnedest to avoid reading said book, menial tasks have turned your brain to mush?
Yeah.
Gone Girl has gone to my "sucked" shelf.
Look. If I want to hear about bored, unhappily married people, I'll talk to my married friends or delve into something by a capable writer. If I want horror and suspense, I'll drop all pretenses and hit up the master.
I can't deal with a slow-moving plot about a neurotic suburban housewife and her (justifiably) distant husband. I can't deal with lines like "She blew more smoke toward me, a lazy game of cancer catch," or "When I think of my wife, I always think of her head....It was what the Victorians would call a finely-shaped head." (Hey, Gillian, next time you write from a male point of view, try to remember that guys notice T&A and not the shape of a woman's head. GAHHHHHD!)
Then there's the issue with the character named Margo, or Go for short. What a pain in the ass when sentences start with her name. It seems like a verb, then you go on to realize that it's the chick with the annoying name. i.e., "Go walked across the bar," "Go loves to read," "Go was now pantomiming dick-slapping my wife." Right.
I downloaded this because of the New York Times article claiming that this erotic novel "electrified women across the country." I just had to see what
I downloaded this because of the New York Times article claiming that this erotic novel "electrified women across the country." I just had to see what all the buzz was about. Erotic thriller? Hey, bring it on.
Sigh.
This is the best you can do? Seriously?
This book reads like the sexual fantasy of a virgin Twilight fan... oh wait, . Gotcha. That explains the crappy writing, the lack of character development, the slow as sludge plot, and the dullest sex in print. If this book is truly "relighting a fire under a lot of marriages" in America, I'm even more worried for the sate of our fair nation.
Jesus Christ.
Look. Real women read The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. Or we find the good stuff in Ken Follett and pretend we read it for the plot. Or we go for old reliable: the bodice-ripper. But at least we know where to go for something we can friggin use.
****Update: 25/3/2012: The massive thread that follows just totally reaffirms every point I made in the review. All of this from a writer whose work a****Update: 25/3/2012: The massive thread that follows just totally reaffirms every point I made in the review. All of this from a writer whose work appears in the New York Times? Nice. Enjoy.****
****Update: 21/3/2012: I need to give credit where credit is due. For an eloquent and informative review (NOT AUTHORED BY ME) of Brave Girl Eating that, unlike my review, places facts over rage, please see
For scathing snark and wrath, my review is below.****
***Sigh. Let's do this. Oh, and Harriet Brown, I hope you read this. I really, really do. Though I doubt it would do you any good.*** (Update: she has read it, contacted me and unleashed her fans on me. I was right: it didn't do any good.)
Brave Girls Eating is Harriet Brown's memoir about her experiences with her daughter's anorexia.
This book gave me nightmares: I literally had dreams that I was in a therapy session with Harriet Brown, screaming at her while she laughed and smiled away. The positive reviews of this book on goodreads have left me absolutely dumbfounded.
Here's the deal.
Decades of psychological studies done on anorexia paint a picture of family dysfunction that brings about the disorder. More or less, the typical story goes like this: one parent -- usually the mother -- is overbearing, controlling, suffocating, lacks boundaries, is the center of the family's attention, and is totally entrenched in denial about any problems existing within herself or her family. (Narcissistic Personality Disorder, anyone?) Right around the time of puberty, when the normal progression is for the child to separate from the parents and form an identity of her own, the child enters into crisis. She wants to become her own person but has no idea who she is because she's never been allowed to be herself: she's been who others (i.e., mom) want her to be. She has NO identity.
Additional family dysfunction only enhances the child's difficulties. The family dysfunction likely never created a problem before because the child was, well, still a child. It's when the kids start to grow up, see that something is wrong in the family, and are unable to articulate it, that anorexia comes about. Hey, some kids do drugs. Some smoke. Some go the other way and excel at sports. Whatever. But most kids in this kind of situation end up with an eating disorder because food is the only thing in their lives that they can control. (For example, mom may make herself the center of attention when her daughter takes first place at a gymnastics meet...but mom can't make her daughter put an apple in her mouth, chew it, and swallow it.) Like a toddler who cries because he can't express himself, the anorexic starves because she can't articulate her feelings.
The problem?
Well, among others things, when parents finally figure out that their kid is sick, it's too late. The child has adopted a coping mechanism that she can't shake despite the fact that it's making her miserable. Why can't she shake it? Well, starving (and the mental torture one must inflict upon oneself to continue starving) make a person half crazy. Even better? The fact that she's never been allowed to have an identity? Well, guess what the anorexia has become? It becomes her identity. Then the sufferer is so mentally screwed up from the starving/anorexia-thinking that she's even more at a loss to understand why she does this to herself, what drove her to do it in the first place, and why she can't stop.
Enter Harriet Brown, whom I suspect is one of those above-mentioned overbearing narcissistic mothers. That's just my guess, given that only an extremely narcissistic and controlling mother would take the one thing that her daughter clings for an identity (the anorexia) and make it her own. And publish a book about it. And make that book all about herself. And see nothing wrong with that fact.
A little reading between the lines in this book tells you a lot about Harriet Brown. You see, from the beginning, she tells us that anorexia "chose" her daughter and not vice versa. Harriet also says that while her family had a little dysfunction, it was nothing out of the ordinary. No. Not her family. She insists they simply don't fit the anorexic family profile. (Translation: Harriet is blameless.) Yet Harriet leaves us so very many clues to the contrary that she renders own her claims laughable.
1) The book's title alone should tell you that mom's got a penchant for drama. If that's not enough to convince you, consider some of the following gems: Every time her daughter eats it's like she's "jumping from thirty-thousand feet. Without a parachute" ; "If I'd had a gun in my hand, I swear I would have pulled the trigger" ; "Every day was fraught now, strewn with mine fields and tears." Yikes. If that's just the drama on the page, imagine what it's like to live in a house with and be the daughter of this woman.
2) Here's a little hint as to what kind of mom we're dealing with. To illustrate the anorexic's typical family dynamic, Harriet gives us an example of a girl who told her mother that she wanted to be a flight attendant when she grew up and mom replied, "that's not good enough." (Shock, the daughter developed anorexia, probably after a lifetime of dealing with such *loving* encouragement.) Instead of noticing the meanness in the mother's statement, Harriet writes, "I wonder if there's a mother anywhere in America who has actively supported every single one of her daughter's choices." (ARGHGHGHGH!!!!)
3) Some other hints that something's up with this mom and her kids? --Her daughter's first anxiety attack/anorexic meltdown happens on Mother's Day. Symbolic much? --The girl is in her teens and still calls Harriet "mommy." --The sick daughter would "rather be with her family than her friends" on Halloween. Huh?? She's a TEENAGER who chooses family over friends? Hello, red flag. --The very pseudonym that Harriet gives her daughter in the book infantilizes the girl even more: "Kitty." Like a pet. Like a baby. --Oh, and Harriet is quick to tell us that when it came to writing the book, her daughter "overcame her own preference for privacy out of a wish to help others." Sure she did. She "overcame" what she valued and wanted so that she could give mama Harriet what she wanted. And the brilliance? Harriet has herself (and probably the kid, too) convinced that it's what the daughter wants. Narcissism at its finest. Fuck me. --On that note, it took me all of 3 minutes to find "Kitty's" true identity with Google. If Harriet really did care about concealing her daughter's identity, wouldn't she have done a little more to hide her than simply changing the name? It almost makes me think Harriet enjoys the attention. Shocking.
4) Apparently, a lot of other people noticed her daughter's anorexia long before Harriet did. One friend tells her as much. Instead of using this moment to do a little reflection and self-evaluation as to why she, as the mother, never saw it happening, Harriet's reaction is, "I feel like slapping her. No, punching her in the mouth. No, garroting her." (Jesus H. Christ.)
5) Harriet is sure her family is not the cause of the anorexia, despite the fact that nurses write "mother in denial" on her daughter's charts. Harriet is sure that it's not the family despite the five plus decades of research on the disease that basically says, "If your kid is anorexic, you fucked up." (Yes, the research, the case studies, the psychologists, and everyone else -- they're wrong, wrong, wrong.) She's sure it's not the family despite the fact that her other daughter screams "It's your fault my sister is anorexic!" before tearing down the street screaming at the top of her lungs that her parents are horrible.
Well. PHEW. Now that Harriet has shown us that the cause of her daughter's illness is not because she's a narcissistic "take-all-the-credit-and-none-of-the-blame" mom, Harriet can adopt the radical new "Family-Based Treatment." In FBT, the parents take complete charge of all of the child's meals ... because that's just what an anorexic needs: more control from mom. What a wonderful way to go against the stacks of research that say "it's not about the food," and, well, make it about the food.
FBT is great for Harriet because, according to developers of the method, there's "no need to know [the cause of anorexia] in order to treat the illness." Oh! Perfect! So her daughter never needs to learn why she's sick, what triggers her anorexia, and what changes to make in her life in order to sustain her recovery! YAY! That pesky "why?" that plagues all anorexics can just be swept under the carpet! It'll all be fine as long as she just eats! HOORAY!
Wow. That sounds a lot like not vaccinating your child, treating the onslaught of illnesses that follow with sugar pills, and all the while wondering why your kid keeps getting sick. Heh. Fixing the surface issue instead of repairing the problem at the source. Gee. Great idea.
Are you surprised to hear that her daughter relapsed again and again?
What kills me, absolutely KILLS me, is that the daughter repeatedly asked to go to inpatient therapy and the parents continuously refused. God forbid they relinquish control and let their daughter develop the skills necessary for recovery. Could it be that they're afraid of what will surface if the daughter were to go and learn for herself just why she's sick?
And why is she sick? That doesn't matter, according to Harriet, but our author gives us a little clue anyway: "I don't think I'm one of those mothers who believes she's close with her child when actually the child loathes her." (PSSSSST. Harriet. Think again. You just nailed it.)
300-some pages of infuriating, self-serving denial. My heart really goes out to Harriet's daughter.
Room has been called "remarkable," and "sensational." It was not only shortlisted for the Booker Prize, but it was also chosen as a Favorite Book of 2Room has been called "remarkable," and "sensational." It was not only shortlisted for the Booker Prize, but it was also chosen as a Favorite Book of 2010 by our fair goodreads community, proving once again that heads are up asses in of literary critics and readers everywhere.
How this book is anything but blither is beyond me.
The reality is that the plot for this book was ripped from the headlines, based on the stories of , , and the . Emma Donoghue was given a $2 million advance to write Room. With cash in hand and only a plot outline, clearly no one gave a shit if the final work were good or not. What a better way to save face than to tout a piece of crap book you actually paid someone to write as a "gem." UGH. In the end, all we have is yet another author exploiting and getting rich off of the real life tragedies of others. I suppose I wouldn't mind so much -- hey, I may even cheer it on -- if it were done well. In this case, it was done horribly.
You see, if you truly do want to hear the blabbering of a 5 year-old for 300 pages, then you immediately need to change careers and become a kindergarten teacher. Look. It takes talent to write in the voice of a child, which is precisely why so few authors are successful at it. When a good author writes from a child's perspective, the book becomes a classic. Think about it. J.D. Salinger, Harper Lee, Roald Dahl, and James Joyce. As for the rest of them? The child narrator is nothing more than a laughable gimmick.
Emma Donoghue falls flat on her face -- and drags us down with her -- for an entire novel with that very gimmick. I don't have patience for "silly penis is always standing up in the morning. I push him down," nor "penis floats," and especially not "my poo is hard to push out." I don't care for rambling recounts of Dylan the Digger and Dora the Explorer, either. Further, I found it odd that a child who is remarkably well-versed in the narrative would have such huge inconsistencies in his spoken English, many times sounding like a 3 year-old while at other times having perfect grammar. Huh? Finally, I got rather annoyed by Capitalizing Nouns and Other Objects in the Room, I found it Distracting and Annoying, and to me it screams Piss Poor Writer. Don't forget to throw in some of Donoghue's own politics for fun: our 5 year-old is still breastfeeding and he loves to tell us which boob produces the creamiest milk. Don't be disgusted. After all, it's natural! And let's not forget the most blatant and frankly, lame, self-insertion by an author into her own novel: Noreen is a kind and clever nurse who hails from merry ol' Ireland, just like our author. BARF.
Forgive me for not passionately hating this book more. Quite simply, it bored the hell out of me. I spent half the time wishing someone would throw the narrator back in the room so he'd shut the hell up. I spent the other half wanting to slap Donoghue's publishers. Suffice to say....
I wonder how much money Palahniuk made on sales of this piece of shit from fools like me who wanted to give the author one morHonestly, what the FUCK?
I wonder how much money Palahniuk made on sales of this piece of shit from fools like me who wanted to give the author one more chance.
Behold, one sentence (just pages after the ass-rape scene in mangled English in the Wal-Mart bathroom): "Here worship shrine, all male neck must bind around with knotted banner, silk banner knotted at windpipe so dangle two long strands down chest to waistband trouser." I get that the main chartacter is supposed to be a Chinese exchange student... Given that I teach ESL students, I'm also pretty sure the main character could just look up "tie" in the dictionary instead of having this long-winded, confusing mess of words.
Like most people, I bought this book because I was intrigued by the true story of murder in a good Victorian family, and the detective mystery that foLike most people, I bought this book because I was intrigued by the true story of murder in a good Victorian family, and the detective mystery that followed.
I didn't pay for 200 pages of what read like some friggin mediocre senior honors thesis. I don't care about how the murder turned up in Wiklie Collins, I don't care what Dickens thought about the crime, I don't care which novels it inspired. This book was just saturated with end-notes, footnotes, and quotes ... not that they were distracting from the story itself. There just wasn't any real story here, and the comparisons to literature and all extras are filler.
The best parts of the book deal with the actual crime and the suspects -- probably a total of 90 un-put-downable pages. The rest? ZZZzzzzZZZZZzzzz....
Any more like this and I'll be creating an "I want my money back" shelf....more
**spoiler alert** UPDATE: AUG 26, 2016: This review has been here 8 years, has 18 pages of 854 comments and 764 likes. There's no outrage for you to a**spoiler alert** UPDATE: AUG 26, 2016: This review has been here 8 years, has 18 pages of 854 comments and 764 likes. There's no outrage for you to add in the comments section that hasn't already been addressed. If you want to talk about the book, or why you liked it, or anything else, feel free.
UPDATE: FEB 17, 2014: I wrote this review 4 years ago on a foreign keyboad, so I'm well aware that I spelled Chekhov's name wrong. I'm not going to fix it, so please don't drive my review further up in the rankings by commenting on the misspelling. You're very dear, but I know his name is Anton and not Antonin. On that same note, you don't need to add comments telling me that I didn't like the book because I "don't know how to read" and "don't understand metaphors." I actually have an M.A. in in English Lit, so I do know how to read -- much better than you do, in fact. Now quit bothering me before I go get my PhD and then really turn into a credential-touting ass.
UPDATE: JULY 10, 2013: To all jr. high students who find themselves grossly offended by my review: please remember that every time you leave a comment here, you push my review up even higher in the rankings. Please save us both time and energy by not commenting. Thnx.
This was the biggest piece of garbage I've ever read after The Kite Runner. Just as with The Kite Runner, I'm (somewhat) shocked that this book is a bestseller and has been given awards, chewed up and swallowed by the literary masses and regarded as greatness. Riiiight.
The whole thing can be summed up as the story of a girl who sometimes steals books coming of age during the Holocaust. Throw in the snarky narration by Death (nifty trick except that it doesn't work), a few half-assed drawings of birdies and swastikas, senseless and often laughable prose that sounds like it was pulled from the "poetry" journal of a self-important 15 year-old, and a cast of characters that throughout are like watching cardboard cutouts walking around VERY SLOWLY, and that's the novel.
Here are some humble observations.
First, chances are that you, Mr. Zusak, are not Antonin Chekhov. You are, therefore, incapable of properly describing the weather for use as a literary device, and you end up sounding like an asshole. Don't believe me?
"I like a chocolate-colored sky. Dark, dark chocolate." Really? Do you, now?
"The sky was dripping. Like a tap that a child has tried it’s hardest to turn off but hasn’t quite managed.” Really?? Wow. Next you'll tell me that the rain was like a shower. I'm moved.
"Oh, how the clouds stumbled in and assembled stupidly in the sky. Great obese clouds." Yes. Stupid, obese clouds! They need an education and a healthy diet!
Next, chances are that you, Mr. Zusak, are not William Styron or any one of the other small handful of authors that can get away with Holocaust fiction. They've done their research, had some inkling of writing ability, and were able to tell fascinating stories. You invented a fake town in Germany (probably so you didn't have to do any research) and told a long-winded and poorly-written story, and in 500+ pages you couldn't even make it to 1945, so you sloppily dropped off and wrapped it up in 1943. What's the point of writing historical fiction if you can't even stay within the basic confines of that hisotrical event? For me, this does nothing more than trivialize the mass murder of over 6 million people. Maybe that's why a 30 year-old Australian shouldn't write about the Holocaust. But that's just me. Moving on.
But what really makes this book expensive toilet paper is the bad writing which is to be found not just in bizarre descriptions of the weather, but really on every page. Some personal favorites?
"The breakfast colored sun."
"Somewhere inside her were the souls of words."
"The oldened young man." WTF?!!?
"He crawled to a disfigured figure."
"Her words were motionless."
"It smelled like friendship." (Remind me to sniff my friends next time I see them.)
"A multitude of words and sentences were at her fingertips." (HUH?)
"Pinecones littered the ground like cookies."
Sigh.
All of this is quite funny coming from a book where the main character supposedly learns the importance of words. Further, I love that the protagonist comes to the conclusion that Hitler "would be nothing without words." Really? REALLY? Would Hitler be nothing without WORDS? What about self-loathing, misplaced blame and hatred, an ideology, xenophobia, charisma, an army, and a pride-injured nation willing to listen? Don't those count for something??
The shit-storm comes to an end when a bomb lands on our fictional town, wiping out everyone save for the sometimes book-thief main character. Of course. Because weak writers who don't know how to end their story just kill everyone off for a clean break and some nice emotional manipulation. Written for maximum tear-jerking effect, our main character spews out some great lines when she sees the death and destruction around her:
To her dead mother, "God damn it, you were so beautiful."
To her dead best friend as she shakes him, "Wake up! I love you! Wake up!" (Didn't I see the same thing in that movie My Girl?)
Then she profoundly notes that her dead father "...was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones."
And this kind of angsty adolescent prose just never ended! It went on and on to form the one long-ass, senseless, disjointed story.
But that's ok. Take it all the junk, give it a quirky narrator, an obscure and mysterious title, throw in a Jew on the run from Nazis who likes to draw silly pictures of birds and swastikas, and market it all as Holocaust lit. Ahh, the packaging of bullshit makes for such a sweet best seller.
Swallow it down, America. Put it on the shelf next to The Kite Runner. You love this. You live for this.
Oh yah. I forgot about this one. Wow man. This sucked like no book has ever sucked before.
So, this chick who works at Hard Copy calls an ex who is noOh yah. I forgot about this one. Wow man. This sucked like no book has ever sucked before.
So, this chick who works at Hard Copy calls an ex who is now living in Moscow. He's a boozer. She's sad. She feels betrayed that an old flame from college didn't have a fairy tale ending. Boo-hoo.
For the best review EVER of this shit-storm of a book, go to
or
Seriously. I hate this woman. Literally, I want my money back for this crappy book ... or the opportunity to beat her over the head with it. ...more
La Petite Américaine
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