Digging through the self-help and psychology sections of Half-Price Books can be a tedious affair. I have found that Shambhala Publications rarely goes wrong with a book, and Miriam Greenspan’s Healing Through the Dark Emotions is a gem. There are few psychological professionals that truly embrace a holistic healing approach, and Greenspan is a leader in that regard. This book helps facilitate one’s healing by facing and learning from one’s dark emotions rather than running away from or masking feelings of despair, anger, or sadness.

Greenspan writes with honesty and offers a career’s worth of experience to back up her conclusions. Greenspan weaves clinical examples and an entire section of practical steps for one to use in helping face their dark emotions. Greenspan neither clings to a scientific framework nor a sentimental New Age blindness. However, this came at a price for the reader. Rather than simply offer contrasting worldviews, Greenspan allows jaded cynicism to filter into her commentary.

The glib New Age message that everybody can heal themselves only furthered this sense that Jody was somehow spiritually inferior to others: “I felt my physical illness was a sign of moral or spiritual weakness.” (p. 148)

Greenspan’s commentary is not helpful, as it serves to alienate and chide a population. Furthermore, Greenspan is showing a weakness here often shared with the New Age group she is demeaning by equating healing with curing. I understand her concern because I can see her intention of warning about telling people they can cure themselves; this can be a safety issue. However, healing is a different story, and people can, with help from others, do a lot to facilitate their own healing. This is a minor point in what is otherwise a quality healing book. However, it serves as a reminder to always be on guard to filter out unnecessary commentary.

First I will start with the facts, and then I’ll insert an embarrassing confession, just to keep things interesting. So here’s the facts: Erik Thompson is a local music writer. He writes for City Pages, The Line of Best Fit, This is Fake DIY, and he used to write for Culture Bully. Don’t worry, if that’s too much to take in all a once, you can just hit up Erik’s Tumblr, Your Bird Can Sing where he very kindly keeps track of his latest reviews.

But, like I said, Erik’s more than a musicgeek. He’s a musicgeek who reads which is why we’ve got him answering our 6 questions this week.

What book(s) are you currently reading?
Solar by Ian McEwan, Blues & Chaos: The Music Writing of Robert Palmer by Robert Palmer, The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution That Will Begin The World Again by Robert W. McChesney & John Nichols, Empire Of Illusion: The End Of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle by Chris Hedges.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Who?
Don’t laugh, but I guess that Pippi Longstocking was my first literary crush (and caused me to continually have a soft-spot for redheads). As I got older, I pined for Anna Karenina, and felt like I could’ve been the man to save her, as well as Becky Thatcher from Tom Sawyer, she was just a sassy little spitfire.

If your favorite author came to Minnesota, who would it be and what bar would you take him/her to?
Dave Eggers is my favorite author, not only because of the incredible books that he’s written, but because of what he’s done with the fame and fortune that his work has brought him. He has set up 826 Valencia writing programs throughout the US, giving kids the opportunity to write and be creative in a completely nurturing and safe environment. That freedom and encouragement is truly one of the best gifts you can give to a child. I respect him immensely, and would probably take him to Eden, the outside bar at the Chambers. On a beautiful night in Minneapolis, there is not a better spot to be in the city.

What was your first favorite book?
My first favorite book was Charlotte’s Web, which I distinctly remember my dad reading to me. As far as my first favorite books that I read myself, I’d have to say any of the early Hardy Boys mystery series-I became obsessed with reading/collecting them all. Most of my early allowances went to buying those books in hardcover.

Let’s say Fahrenheit 451 comes to life, which book would you become in order to save it from annihilation?
Wow, this is a tough question. But I’d have to go with Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. The book is quite simply a perfect work of literature, and my favorite book of all time.

What is one book you haven’t read but want to read before you die?
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I used to think that the jest Wallace was referring to is that no one actually finishes his book. But I think I need to form a book club with some friends in order to read it-having a support group helped quite a bit with Ulysses, and would probably assist me in finishing this daunting work as well.

Insatiable by Meg Cabot is the kind of vampire lite schlock that chaps my hide. How the hell can you have a vampire book with no sexual tension at all and no biting, no draining of blood? The only reason Stephenie Meyer got away with that shit is because she was writing about teenagers and tapped into every woman’s genetic memory of what falling in love at that age was like.

Congratulations Ms. Cabot, you are the last on the bandwagon. I understand that you’re a young adult writer, so stick with what you know. Writing an adult vampire book requires more that rehashing what other writers have done. Oh, you have a heroine that has a supernatural power? Gee, that doesn’t sound at all like Sookie Stackhouse (who gets mentioned in Insatiable by the way, several times). And your heroine’s name is Meena? Really, just like in Dracula? Oh and the big bad vampire is the son of Dracula? Are you fucking kidding me?

Everything Cabot writes about in Insatiable has been done and done better, even by barely passable mediocre writers. Her plot is thin, her characters weak, and her dialog is a bore. By the time she writers her big action sequence – a dragon in a church – I was so resentful and angry at its predictability I nearly scrubbed the enamel off my tub.

I don’t usually hate books, but I hated this. I hated it more than Mary Janice Davidson’s Undead and Unwed – and that’s saying something, believe me.

Do yourself a favor. If you want a schlocky, poorly written vampire book that doesn’t stray from the most basic formula, go here. At least put yourself into it and have a good laugh.

This book was one of the options for out lit. circle books in reading class. I was on the waiting list for The Book Thief. When the time came to read the book, I was super excited to start this book. From the description my teacher gave us, challenging and about the holocaust, it sounded like a book that would interest me, so I picked it.

The Book Thief is about a girl named Liesel, whose brother tragically died in the beginning of the book and her mom left her at a foster home. She lived with the Hubermans, Hans, who plays accordion, and Rosa, who swears a lot. In memory of her brother, Liesel keeps a book called “The Gravediggers’ Handbook” that she found on the ground after her brother’s burial. Hans taught Liesel how to read that book. After that, she is hooked on reading. She will do anything to get a book that even means stealing one. At Nazi ceremonies where they burn books she would take one. That is how her friend Rudy came up with the nickname, The Book Thief, for her. Hans and Rose decide that they will take in a Jewish man named Max. Liesel seems unsure of him at first, but then he grows into her best friend. He even starts to attend the reading lessons in the basement with Hans and Liesel. Liesel loves her family.

I thought you should know that the narrator of this book is Death. I think the book was okay, not my favorite book I have read this year. The whole book was okay there were parts that were really good and exciting and parts that were just boring. The ending is what got me to like it less. It was just kind of happy and coincidental. Everyone said the book was so good, but I didn’t think that. It definitely was different from other books I have read. I loved that parts where the kids like Liesel and Rudy swear both in English and German. Nobody cared if they swore or not. I think the book would be a 3 ½ out of 5 stars.

Warning: Bold proclamation ahead, proceed with caution. Thus far, six months into the year, Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad is my second favorite novel of 2010 (Peter Bognanni’s The House of Tomorrow is my favorite so far).

A novel comprised of linked short stories that circle around record exec Bennie Salazar and his assistant Sasha, A Visit from the Goon Squad is inventive, engaging, and fun to read. What makes Egan so wonderful is that she manages to be experimental and fresh while never making the reader question whether what she’s doing is total bullshit or totally genius. It’s 100% total genius. The kind of writing and innovation that makes you wonder, how does she get away with this?

One of the stories is told entirely as PowerPoint slides. It’s a story that’s kind of sad and kind of funny and since it comes later in the book and furthers the adventures of two earlier characters (Sasha and Drew) wholly satisfying. At first it feels like a gimmick, but as I turned the page on each new slide and the story slowly unwound, I was all “wow, this is brilliant.”

While these stories spin out from Bennie Salazar, it’s Sasha who steals the show for me. Every story that features her in some ancillary way is my one of my favorites. A kleptomaniac with a bad case of wanderlust we get to see Sasha at different points in her life: a rebellious teen lost in Naples, a twentysomething college student, a thirtysomething trying to find her way through life and romance in New York City, and a mother. While all these stories are not specifically about Sasha she’s the thread that runs through them.

This is not to give short shrift to Bennie, he’s interesting in his own light. The final story that takes place in 2020 when Bennie is in his sixties in nothing short of breathtaking. Awash in a world run by marketing, specifically marketing to the preverbal set (pointers), where people are more comfortable speaking through text messages (in text speak) through their ever-present handsets, Bennie tries to bring people together through music. It’s the kind of story with a culminating scene that will give you goosebumps. So wonderful.

It’s always so hard to write about a book you really loved. I’m not entirely sure why. I can’t pinpoint with a few words what was so awesome about it. It might be the way Egan seamlessly blends so many writing styles (there’s a second person story, first person, the powerpoint, a magazine article) without ever seeming too writerly. She stays true to telling stories without coming off as clever. It’s a wonder to behold because oftentimes it seems when authors get “experimental” it comes off as edgy for the sake of edginess and the story gets lost in the craft.

That doesn’t happen here, and that might be exactly why I loved this one. Each story was better than the one before it. Just read it. It’s amazing.

So, I have books I can review but I’m just not in the mood today. So here’s some book news type things.

• First, Ben Greenman is reading at The Loft tonight at 8 p.m. You should go. I’m going, Jeff (who answered our 6 questions yesterday is going, my friend Karlyn is going. Why don’t you want to go? And if that’s not incentive enough his new collection What He’s Poised to Do starts out with a Paul Westerberg lyric. Specifically one from “Can’t Hardly Wait.”
• There’s some shuffling going around at at our local indie publishers.
• Finally, Scott Pilgrim Avatar Creator. Can I get a hell yeah?

Every other week we are inundated with stories about the death of the novel and the book and the short story. On the opposite week we get stories about how someone is bringing it all back to life. Most of these stories are predicated on the idea that people don’t read anymore. Somewhere along the way reading got a bad rap. . . it’s something boring, lonely, socially-awkward nerds do because they don’t have anything better to do with their time.

Okay, okay, I’m gonna stop rambling about Jeff now. Just three more things: 1.) he blogs about books for Forbes, 2.) He has a personal blog, the awesomely named Mustache Robots, and 3.) Books & Bars next meets on July 13 where they’ll discuss The Magicians by Lev Grossman (who will Skype into the meeting to chat with the bookclubbers).

1. What book(s) are you currently reading?
Just finished: Scott Pilgrim Vols. 1-5 by Bryan Lee O’Malley and The Magicians by Lev Grossman.

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Who?
I guess I’ll admit one. “Face it, you just hit the jackpot, Tiger.” Mary Jane Watson of The Amazing Spider-Man, but don’t think that means Kirsten Dunst. I only have to say one, right?

3. If your favorite author came to Minnesota, who would it be and what bar would you take him/her to?
Favorite author to drink with might be Nick Hornby. We’d probably go to The Depot and First Avenue to enhance our musical conversation.

4. What was your first favorite book?
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was like a light going on regarding the comic potential in classic literature.

5. Let’s say Fahrenheit 451 comes to life, which book would you become in order to save it from annihilation?
“Fahrenheit 451 comes to life.” Sorry, couldn’t resist an Airplane joke. But how you could resist the temptation to become The Bible? What powers would you wield? Would you be at least as powerful as The Ark of the Covenant? Just think of your Nazi killing abilities.

6. What is one book you haven’t read but want to read before you die?
Whatever Oprah tells me on my deathbed, but hopefully first hers, to read. How about those Harry Potter books? I heard they’re good.

Actually, how about the one my sons or I haven’t written yet. Because I’ve tried twice and given up on Infinite Jest.

In the early 2000s, Meghan Daum did something totally unprecedented. She busted past a bunch of dead male authors with flapper fetishes, and Margaret Atwood, to land a spot in my Top 5 Favorite Books of All Time list with her collection of contemporary essays: My Misspent Youth.

It’s not a Pulitzer Prize-winning mix; There is a good chance you’ve never heard of it. But is a real gem, with pieces on the financial woes of residual college tuition and renting in New York City on a freelance writer’s income, and another memorable bit where she likens the idea of carpeting to a gross kid from elementary school. She’s funny, the way you want funny to be: subtle, conversational, doled out in moderation. And she was recognizable. It wasn’t my life she was writing about, but it was a life I recognized.

[Unfortunately she followed this with fiction that smacked dangerously close to her own life: Woman ditches out on the fast lane, lands in Lincoln, Neb., meets a dude in a flannel shirt and lives in an old farmhouse. And in the process learns a thing or two about love. It was a total three-star meh-fest.]

Daum is back doing what should be doing, conversational nonfiction writing, with what is ultimately an essay-ish love letter to house shopping and the places where she has lived, Life Would be Perfect If I Lived in that House.

Daum’s fascination with all-things-home gets an organic start, with her mother dragging her to open houses on the weekends. When she goes off to college, she averages more than one move per school-year: Dorm rooms, attics, summer apartments in the city. She follows a hankering for space to Nebraska and falls in love with old farmhouses. Then it’s off to Los Angeles, back to Nebraska, Los Angeles again. Rentals, dog-and-house-sitting gigs, and eventual ownership.

In a world filled with books about lipstick, high heels, and vampires, Daum’s motivation is solely for a fixer-upper that she can mold into something that totally mirrors who she is. While there is a bit of her romantic life on these pages, it’s super secondary. She cared less about her own appearance, she admits, that the appearance of the space where she was living. At one point she postpones a second date until she moves into her new place. And sometimes this causes a crisis of identity:

It was the dirty truth about my relentless search for ‘domestic integrity.’ It was this awful fact: you cannot pursue authenticity at the same time you are pursuing fabulousness. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot be the down-home farm girl and the queen of lower Fifth Avenue at the same time. You cannot be Maggie O’Connell (the floatplane-piloting, pixie-haircut-sporting, flannel-shirt-wearing cutie from ‘Northern Exposure’) and also Carrie Bradshaw from ‘Sex and the City.’ You cannot be Dorothy Parker and also Willa Cather. To attempt to be both of these things is to be not only neither, but in fact nothing.”

It is a niche topic, a different sort of addiction memoir, and very much a risk. If I didn’t know Meghan Daum’s writing, I’m not sure this book would ever leap off the shelf and into my hot hands. But it did, and Daum, for my money, remains one of the best voices in modern essay writing.

Off We Go into the Wild Blue Yonder is a new novel by Travis Nichols, with the title taken from a popular World War II bomber song. The story is told through a group of letters written to Luddie, a Polish woman, who hid the main character’s grandfather from Nazi’s during the war. The main character is a self-described ‘good man’ with plain brown hair and mossy sideburns, and also ‘Madame Psychosis,’ a woman correspondent between the past and the present. The letters are very bizarre and skip from the past to the present to an alternate what-could-have-been reality. The reader sees a version of reality through the eyes of someone who neglects all linear forms and instead tells the story in swirls. They are more comprehensible when one reads them like journal entries rather than missives.

The constant repetition in the letters makes it feel like Nichols is trying with every ounce of his being to get the story out to the world and completely understood. It also makes us feel the mania in the main character. This strange correspondence with Luddie gives the reader flash-backs into the young boy’s life before he starts to go through some very formative mental changes. Whether Madame Psychosis lives in harmony with the good man, is in contention.

With this kind of main character it isn’t surprising that the book has a chaotic-feel, and one might even like to imagine that Nichols dropped a bit of acid on his tongue while he sat typing this disjointed memoir of the grandson of a WWII pilot. Sections of this novel read like prose, which is quite appealing, but the abstract qualities of the story with its very mish-mash nature, are its main weakness. Style-wise, it is impressive, but for the purpose of actually telling a story, it is confusing.

Though the main character is troubled, he (and she) actually seems to have a healthy relationship with his grandfather and his girlfriend, Bernadette, who joins them on the journey to Poland and the past. After much airport hassle, the group gets off the ground, and encounters more difficulty with language-barriers, hearing aids, rusty memories, and faulty maps. An unexpected tenderness fills the pages as this unlikely trio searches for Luddie.

Some really great elements appear when the history of Poland is explored. The idea of learning a language is analyzed, as well as, what people seem to be and actually are. Stereo-types are dissected and the writing seems more concise. One could even say this novel is comparable to German for Travelers, in its examination of post-war culture and American generations exploring this past history. In Off We Go into the Wild Blue Yonder, Nichols shows us that sometimes the destination matters just as much as the journey.

Whenever I read psychology books, I am wary of putting in the effort only to just waste my time. For every quality data-driven and well-argued psychology book, there are possibly ten other failures that pander to the latest psychological trend. Whether they fail from poor data analysis or simply rehash known issues, junk psychology books line the shelves of used book stores and perpetually spread bad information.

Paul Bloom’s How Pleasure Works falls somewhere in the middle. Bloom’s work lacked specific citations for the data and ideas he presented in the text, making it difficult to verify the exact information that was used from his sources. Instead of these citations, Bloom offered a notes section where he linked sources with page numbers. This became a problem when I tried to find out where Bloom obtained his information about Aztec cannibalism. What I have found in my studies on indigenous people is that many people make claims about native people without having any quality scholarship to back it up. Instead, most people rely on myths about indigenous people to bolster their claims, further perpetuating indigenous oppression.

Bloom’s information about Aztec cannibalism came from a 1985 book written by anthropologist Marvin Harris called Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture. While Harris is certainly not an expert in indigenous studies, he is a staunch supporter of the assertion that Aztecs were cannibals. Bloom failed to mention that there is much controversy regarding this particular subject, making Bloom the latest contributor to stereotypes that define Aztecs only in a cannibalistic context.

This is unfortunate because Bloom’s book is all about looking at contexts to explain why we take pleasure in the things we do. Bloom often concluded that our pleasures are constructed using a mixture of biological development, culture, and personal experience. This mixture makes us give objects essences they do not really have. In our society today, we need more books like this that provide an alternative to dichotomous thinking. However, if these books rely on oppressive stereotypes to help make its case, it’s not worth the effort.

I was excited and nervous to read Justin Cronin’s The Passage. In the press, this 800-page behemoth was touted as being the “it” book of the summer, the one everyone should read. Like blockbuster movies, books declared must-reads for everyone often leave me annoyed and wondering why I wasted my time.

While I don’t think The Passage is a must-read for everyone, I definitely didn’t waste my time reading it.

The first act of The Passage was amazing. Secretly, the Army was experimenting on death-row prisoners with a virus, one that would turn them into immortal killing machines. After twelve prisoners were tested, the virus was perfected and inserted into a six-year-old girl. The girl, who we’re told about at the opening of the novel, will become the Girl from Nowhere, the One Who Walked In, the First and Last and Only, and will live a thousand years. The original twelve test subjects were to be eliminated, but things went horribly wrong.

Justin Cronin Reading
7 p.m., Thursday, June 17
Barnes & Noble HarMar Mall
2100 North Snelling Ave, Roseville, MN 55113

Then, in the middle of the action, The Passage jumps ahead a century, to a small, sheltered, walled community believing themselves to be the last humans alive. Always shrouded in light, since light keeps away the the blood-sucking vampires they call “virals,” The Passage almost turns into an old western. Modern conveniences are gone, books depicting life as it was before are destroyed, horses are the means of transportation, and there is no such thing as television, movies, or music.

The second act of the book was not as exciting as the first. Some soap opera-like moments and family drama take over, and the action is not as intriguing. It was more like the tiny roller coaster inside the Mall of America, fun at times, but not as thrilling as the Wild Thing at Valleyfair. (How’s that for some Minnesota references?)

The third act of the book, when the people of the walled community turn against each other and some leave and explore the outside world, picks up again, and at one point I found myself not being able to stop turning the pages for hours at a time.

I did have one minor annoyance throughout the novel. Sure, in different centuries people speak differently and new slang words are created, but the slang word the walled community used was so annoying. “Flyers,” they’d often say, supposedly where we’d say shit, damn, or fuck, but the problem is that they still say shit, damn, and fuck, and flyers seemed juvenile in comparison. I kept waiting for it to be followed by, “Flyers, Shaggy, we need to get out of here!” Just like lolcats, people who take pictures of their restaurant food, and people who say “nom nom” before they eat, it made me cringe each time I read it. I think it’s supposed to reference the vampires, which is probably supposed to give it some credence as a swear word, but it just didn’t seem to fit and I hated it.

That annoyance aside, overall this epic story involving government conspiracies, family drama, danger around every corner (especially in the dark), and vampires (real vampires, not the fake, lovelorn ones you’ve read about lately), was really great. I especially liked the fact that the vampires were more like animals and the whole novel wasn’t about them. People who don’t like vampire novels will love this, while people who long for vampire literature might find it lacking, though the story is still good so both groups of people should enjoy this.

Midway through reading the novel I heard it was going to be part of a trilogy, and the mild cliffhanger ending had me saying, “Son of a bitch,” because I was left with an illusion of something bad happening to good people and I have to wait to see what happens. I hope the next novel comes out soon.

The opening sentence of Imperial Bedrooms is enough to give an old Bret Easton Ellis-ophile chills: “They had made a movie about us.” Unfortunately, by the end of the first page, his 25-year reunion for the cold, drug-addled, pretty and pretty-wealthy sociopaths from Less Than Zero becomes something that would look best hitting a wall at about 45 miles per hour.

Ellis discounts the narrator of his most popular novel with a a handful of clacks on the keyboard of his Mac. (How do we know it’s a Mac? There isn’t a single interview with the literary Brat Packer that doesn’t mention the gleaming computer machines on the desk of his stark Hollywood condo. The universe is, like, thrilled that he isn’t writing on a typewriter anymore or something).

Our old friend Clay, as narrator of Imperial Bedrooms, explains that he wasn’t the narrator in Less Than Zero, as one would assume from reading the novel. No, there was a hanger-on who chronicled the posse’s exploits — which were true, Clay concedes — and this hanger on’s impressions of the group were tainted by all things Blair: First, his lack of reciprocated feelings for her, followed by his resentment for Clay when Blair turned back to him. Blah. Blah. Bullshit. Don’t over explain it. Don’t break one of my favorite books, dude.

What follows is a mess of words that are equal parts disappointing and enthralling, resulting in something that is disappointingly enthralling. Or vice versa.

Clay has become disillusioned with New York City, and goes home to LA to help cast a movie he’s written, “The Listeners.” Of course, his world remains small, and he finds himself accidentally running into the crowd he used to run with:

There’s his ex-girlfriend Blair, still pissed about something that happened two years ago. A residual resentment that only someone who hasn’t gotten over someone can feel. Now she is married to that dick Trent; Julian, last seen getting diddled by male-on-male hobbyists for phat cash, is still skulking around making bad decisions; And Rip, a drug dealer of yesteryear, has developed a sort of Don Corleone-ishness within this clique — if not the entire movie industry, if not all of Los Angeles, if not the world.

Clay meets a mysterious blonde named Rain, who looks like every other blonde. He takes her actress aspirations and parlays it into lots and lots of sexy time. When she isn’t in the mood, he dumps tequila down her throat and reminds her of how he can make her famous. Meanwhile, he’s getting anonymous foreboding text messages, a blue jeep has a permanent spot idling at his curb. Someone’s rifling through his refrigerator and Blair, Julian, and Rip all have some advice for him concerning each other, and the blonde.

Car chases, strange bruising patterns, hangovers, text messages … Blah. Blah. Blah. And then, suddenly, well beyond the spoiler point, it gets good. Clay, who spent Less Than Zero as a teenager thrust into adult-sized issues is now an adult (in a hoodie, listening to The Fray, his thumb muscles engorged from frequent texting syndrome) playing telephone, he-said-she-said, and other games that happen in the basements where American teenagers like to chill. The difference is that now, the guy who once stoically left the scene of a gang bang and unblinkingly watch snuff films is shedding his passivity and tapping into his inner Patrick Bateman.

So much of Imperial Bedrooms feels like someone left the microphone on after they were done recording. A series of “and then, and then, and thens” that have as much variety as a a notebook filled with a year’s worth of to-do lists. (Granted, these are the to-do lists of the beautiful fucked up people who drink too much and drive too fast and snort too much). So when something finally does happen, it’s like finding the hidden track.

Usually when I discover books based on the author’s Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay, it’s something about the music he or she choose that captures my attention. Or, most likely, the author picks music that I really like and I figure since they have good taste in music they must be able to write a decent book (this is not always true).

With Heidi W. Durrow’s essay it wasn’t the music she selected, it was the title of the book that caused me to gasp and then clutch at my heart. As soon as I saw the words The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, I developed tunnel vision and my brain convinced me that it was a Chuck Klosterman novel based on that shitty short story he included in Chuck Klosterman IV.

Once my vision cleared and my sanity returned, I figured the least I could do was read Durrow’s novel after lumping it in with Klosterman based on title alone.

I’m happy to report that The Girl Who Fell From the Sky is leagues better than Klosterman’s story about a girl who seemingly fell from the sky.

In Durrow’s novel, a young girl, Rachel, is sent to live with her Grandma in Portland, Oregon. She’s sent there after most of her family, her Danish mother, younger brother, and baby sister, dies in a tragic fall from the roof of a Chicago apartment building. Her dad, a black man stationed overseas, is conspicuously absent.

Rachel has a tough time adjusting to life with Grandma in Portland. Not only is she grieving the loss of her mother, someone Grandma doesn’t have many kinds words for, but she’s doing it in the midst of people she’s never met before. More than that, Rachel really struggles with her identity not as an orphan so much but as a blue-eyed, light-skinned black girl.

There’s a lot of mystery surrounding what exactly happened that night on the roof, and the mystery unfolds told in shifting narratives through Rachel’s point of view as well as Brick, a young neighbor boy who saw the fall, Nella’s, Rachel’s mom, journals, and Laronne, Nella’s boss.

Each viewpoint character reveals a little more about the mystery surrounding Rachel’s family, which is nice as a reader. However, sometimes it felt a little confusing. I was never sure if I could fully trust the information revealed by the other characters. While I really liked the character of Brick, I wanted to spend most of the time with Rachel. Plus, Nella’s journals kind of confused me.

Plot-wise I think Durrow brings up a lot of questions she doesn’t ever answer, or at least answer with any sort of concreteness. I’m still not entirely sure why Rachel’s dad stayed away after the accident, or why he and Nella were separated in the first place. I have an educated guess, but it’s still a guess. More than anything I really wanted to know how Nella and her three children ended up in Chicago.

I’m having a tough time coming up with an actual opinion about this book. It was one of those that I enjoyed reading. The characters are interesting and the writing’s good, and yet I feel somewhat unsettled about the whole thing. I can only pin that vague sense of unease on some of the plot twists and turns. There’s a lot of tragedy in this book. I’m not sure if there are any hard fast rules about how many characters an author can kill off before it becomes gratuitous, but some of the death here felt unnecessary. I’m not sure what purpose it served.

Ultimately, I’m unsure about what the crux of the story was. Is it about Rachel coming to terms with her bi-racialness? Is she supposed to find out these dark family secrets that the reader learns from other characters? I’m not sure she does either. Which is probably why I feel unsettled, because I spent a good amount of time reading a book I enjoyed, but after finishing it I’m not entirely sure what happened. Weird.

Admittedly, I remember very little from the 1970s beyond having panel walls in our kitchen, and matted mustard carpeting in the living room. So, luckily, I am able to see beyond the frustrations of sexually stifled housewife Sandy Pressman, and instead take Judy Blume’s hidden-in-the-hamper novel from the era for something better: Wifey is Pure. Comic. Gold.

The book opens with Sandy Pressman looking out her window upon waking, and finding a man wearing just a bed sheet — which he quickly sheds — and a stars and stripes helmet, standing on the edge of her yard. He precedes to coax himself toward the proverbial second base, then zip away naked on his motorcycle. She calls her husband, who then calls the police. When a cop stops by to get her statement, Sandy recounts the “crime scene” and adds the final detail that defines the tone of the rest of the book.

“I just remembered … he was left handed,” she tells the sergeant.

Well, well, wellsy, Lady Hot Pants Pressman. You noticed. Rawr.

This experience kicks off a sexual something. Not an awakening, per se. Sandy took some pretty experimental tours around the old block back in the day with a super-creative lad named Shep. But she has gained a sort of sexual acceptance: that her three minutes of Saturday night special — which her blase husband Norman tops off with gargling, scrubbing, and air freshener — is no match for the memories of her time with no-holds barred Shep. Meanwhile, all around her, the mens are sitting up and taking notice of the Jackie O. lookalike. Her body becomes a sort of scratching post for those who inhale her pheromones. And a good time is had by all.

This causes an understandable amount of disdain for her mousy master of a husband, who does things like cut out photographs of hairstyles from magazines for her to consider, and push her toward more time at the Country Club, where she should be learning to play golf and tennis and socializing with the sophisticates.

What a delicious, hokey, and charming read from the woman who taught us all how they strapped on maxi pads in the old-fashioned days. Thankfully we don’t have to hide it on a high shelf anymore. It’s so hard to imagine a time when this novel wasn’t the height of hilarity.

Once I chewed through every Scott Pilgrim book currently available, I felt a little bereft. What was I going to do? I couldn’t just jump into another graphic novel. What if it wasn’t funny enough? What if there wasn’t any magical-realismesque video game action? What if, what if it wasn’t any good?

Lucky for me the answer came in the form of a big box of graphic novels from Largehearted boy. In that treasure trove, I unearthed Lost At Sea, Bryan Lee O’Malley’s first book.

It was the perfect balm for my Scott Pilgrim withdrawal.

How so? Because it was the not so bad, not so good way to get over my Scottaholism.

Lost at Sea is a road trip graphic novel about four Canadian teens driving home from California. The star of the book is Raleigh, an intellectually gifted 18-year-old who has no soul. At least she doesn’t think she has a soul, she’s pretty sure a cat stole it when she was younger.

She happened upon this trio of classmates coincidence in California, where Raleigh was supposed to be visiting her estranged father but instead had hooked up with her Internet boyfriend.

What I liked about this one is that you can see glimpses of Scott Pilgrim in it. The friendships where affection is shown through acerbic wit and sarcasm, the floundering hero looking trying to come of age, and the littlest bit of music.

What I didn’t like about this one is that it feels really floaty. A lot of questions are brought up or insinuated but never fully explained or answered. At one point Raleigh vaguely mentions that her mother sold her (and her sisters) to a man in the very same Oregon town the group is stuck in after their car breaks down. Is this true? I can’t tell.

I’m not entirely sure what really happened with the Internet boyfriend either. Like I said it’s kind of floaty.

However, there is a scene towards the end of the book where the group is trying to capture stray cats in the hopes of helping Raleigh get her soul back. It’s beautiful, funny, and poignant. Probably worth the price of reading the book alone. It so perfectly captures the lengths true friends will go to when you’re in need.

This is one of those books I’d probably have adored when I was about twenty-two. There’s just something about the hopeless romanticism, the melodrama, and the what’s it all mean-ness of it that will appeal to young people who are at that point in their lives. Which, I guess, kind of makes sense, since the book is aimed at the late-teen crowd.

Like I said, it’s okay. There are worse ways to spend an hour. However, if you’re looking for a good step down from Scott Pilgrim while you wait the arrival of the last one, it’s absolutely perfect.