2015 book club books – part two

Books, Just Me

Here’s the second half of my book club’s monthly books for 2015 – see part one here.

July: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Summary: We follow an anonymous and disturbed protagonist who suffers from insomnia. As a “treatment” for his sleeplessness, he goes to support groups for serious diseases, pretending he has suffers from ailments like testicular cancer. At one of the groups he meets Marla, who is essentially doing the same thing. Then, he meets Tyler Durden. One day, Tyler says, “I want you to hit me as hard as you can,” and the two then form a Fight Club, where men everywhere can get out their aggressions by beating the shit out of each other on a routine basis.

Ian’s take: I think seeing the movie first spoiled the book for me, though it’s usually the other way around. I’ve never been a huge fan of Palahniuk’s writing style, and Fight Club was no different. The stream of consciousness narration was technically well done, but I was often left having to read and reread sections just to get at the point the narrator was trying to make. Of course, that’s a good sign of an unreliable narrator (and this one is as unreliable as they come), but it was more jarring than immersive for me. Great story, great characters, but the writing style just popped me out of the story a little too often.

Ian’s rating: 6 disestablishmentarians out of 10.

My take: Although enjoyed by many, I found it a bit hard to get into. The narrator is indeed horrifically unreliable, and I too find Palahniuk’s writing style to get in the way of the story – as Ian indicated, it’s so jarring that you’re constantly reminded that you’re reading a book; you can’t get immersed in the story. Palahniuk has a very unique way of writing that just isn’t for me. At the end, I feel like things weren’t really resolved and I still had lots of questions.

My rating: 5 out 10.

Different recommendation: I chose the book for the book club because I had recently read and really enjoyed Palahniuk’s Beautiful You. Whether you like his style or not, I’d highly recommend checking that one out. It’s one of those books where when you put it down after finishing you have to ask yourself, “What the f*** just happened?” Mind. Blown.

August: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Summary: This classic self help book from 1936 highlights the notion that people don’t really change. As the title implies, it’s about how to maneuver your social and work relationships to be as successful as possible. The book is divided into three sections: Six Ways to make People Like You, Twelve Ways to Win People to Your Way of Thinking, and Nine Ways to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment.

Ian’s take:  A change of pace from our usual fiction-filled list, this “how to” book actually has a lot of good advice. Most tips are fairly self-explanatory: remember names, be interested in people, smile, etc. This stuff is pretty obvious to anyone with an ounce of social grace, but for it to be written down and for us to be reminded of it is good practice, especially because so few people actually do it. And holy shit did this guy love Teddy Roosevelt. Every other example was about something Teddy (aka God’s gift to self-help books) did or said. All in all, some good advice… but nothing that’s going to help me get laid.

Ian’s rating: 5 non-existent new friends out of 10.

My take: I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I liked the layout of how it’s organized, I appreciated how he gave specific examples for each piece of advice given, and I liked how the advice flowed naturally – by which I mean, as Ian said, a lot of it is self-intuitive or common sense. But in a good way. As I read I found myself saying, “Yes, of course,” and “That makes sense.” 

Although still applicable to people and the way they operate today, the outdatedness of the book was a bit off putting for me. I could have related better to the examples given if they weren’t (literally) on Abraham Lincoln. If someone did a revamp or second edition of this book, I’d be first in line.

My rating: 8 out of 10.

September: Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Summary: In a futuristic, apocalyptic world, there is something out there that drives people mad once they lay eyes on it. They literally go insane and harm themselves and others. As everyone dies off, those left board up their windows and use blindfolds on the rare occasion they risk going outside.

Malorie has two young children and lives by a river. The book switches back and forth from Malorie’s life when this all began, when she was pregnant, to five years later/present day. We learn how she ended up at the house alone even though she was with others, and how she struggles to leave the house and travel along the river to another destination (blindfolded, of course).

Ian’s take:  My frontrunner for best book of 2015. [Note from me: He wrote that before reading December’s book – he ended up liking the last book even more!] The premise was fresh, the story well told, and the characters rich. I did find one of the characters a bit flat for my taste (basically being present explicitly to precipitate a major plot development later in the book) but everyone else was well developed. The periods where the characters are required work without sight were extremely well written and provide just the right level of fright. In one scene, even something as mundane as getting water from a well a short distance away is a study in tension and terror. I wasn’t a huge fan of the book’s climax (again partly because of the aforementioned contrived character) but as whole the story was expertly told.

Ian’s rating: 9 blindfolds out of 10.

My take: This wasn’t omigosh-I-love-it-I-can’t-put-it-down for me, but I did like it immensely. The switching from present day to five years ago was well done. The descriptions, the writing style, the fear – all compelling. As Ian mentioned, one particular scene involving getting water from a well (while blindfolded) was very well done and really evoked some terror for me. The horror this book brings out is in not being able to see that which you are afraid of – you are very much in the dark, literally and figuratively.

My rating: Also 9 out of 10.

October: A Trick of the Mind by Penny Hancock

Summary: Ellie is one of those OCD-type people who develops intense anxiety worrying if they turned the oven off or not after leaving the house. One evening, Ellie thinks she might have hit something with her car, but forces herself not to go back and check – she always goes back, and everything is always fine. Then, she hears on the news that someone was hit by a car on that road that night. Full of guilt, Ellie visits the young man, Patrick, in the hospital and begins a relationship with him without telling him she’s the one who hit him. As she struggles with whether or not to tell him, she begins to realize that he’s not who he appears to be, either.

Ian’s take: Another mystery in the “I can’t remember” vein. Again I’m driven to frustration by the contrived reasons the main character has to use to get themselves into the plot of the book. I mean, I sometimes forget whether I closed the garage door when leaving for work in the morning, but not knowing whether you hit a person with your car is a little ridiculous. The main character’s best friend says it best: “If you hit someone, you would know it, not just think ‘maybe.’ ”  When the plot did finally pick up in the latter half of the novel, it simply was hard for me to get back into because I was so mad at the main character for her idiocy. Maybe that was kind of the point and a sign of good writing, but it just popped me out of the story for too long to get back in. 

Ian’s rating: 4 foggy English roads out of 10.

My take: I really wanted to like this one, but there were a few things that made the story hard to believe. Like, when Ellie visits Patrick in the hospital and they start to see each other – he has absolutely no friends or family visiting him but this doesn’t seem weird to her. She thought she saw a Facebook photo of him with a girlfriend, but there’s no mention of her otherwise looking up his social media/online presence. She doesn’t appear to research him at all even when it’s clear he’s a sketchball. When things go south, she heaves herself into a controlling relationship instead of backing up or asking her friends for help, which made her much more unlikable for me. That all being said, I like Hancock’s writing style and it did keep me engaged and reading until the end.

My rating: 8 out of 10.

Different recommendation: As with Fight Club, I was inspired to pick this book because I had recently read a different one by the same author…that turned out to be much better. Instead of A Trick of the Mind, give Kept in the Dark a try. An attractive older woman flirts with a 15-year-old – the nephew of a friend – who comes to her house to borrow something. At first, I thought they were going in the direction of an older woman/younger man affair, but she actually kidnaps him and the story goes in another direction. And I loved the ending.

November: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Summary: This guy Shadow is getting out of prison. He finds out his wife cheated on him while he was away, dying just days before he was to be released – from giving road head to her suitor, causing them to crash in a car accident. Then, Shadow bops around the country with this sketchy guy Wednesday. That is literally the extent of the plot as far as I could understand it.

Ian’s take: What can I really say? I didn’t care about the characters, the plot was pointless, and the writing style was abhorrent. I was extremely disappointed as I’ve heard such good things about Neil Gaiman, and this novel in particular, but it just did not live up to the hype. It was so bad and couldn’t hold my attention to the point that I didn’t even finish. This book makes Lick look like Gone with the Wind.

Ian’s rating: 1 book in my trash out of 10.

My take: Yeah this one was pretty bad. It was coincidentally the first book I ever listened to on audio, so for the first few chapters I tried to chalk it up to that being the reason why I couldn’t get into it. But, no. It was just really bad, boring, and confusing.

My rating: 2 out of 10.

December: Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Summary: In the beginning, it’s made clear that a serious and deadly incident took place at Trivia Night for parents at an elementary school. The book then details the events leading up to that night, following three women who have kids in kindergarten: Celeste, who is drop dead beautiful but hides dark secrets about her abusive marriage; Madeline, who can be too feisty for her own good, willing to fight to the death for her friends and loved ones; and Jane, a younger, single mom, struggling to find her place among these older, sophisticated women.

Although there are elements of horror and dread running throughout the story, it is laugh out loud funny. The parental politics of elementary school, the relationships, the dialogue…everything is all so spot on and relatable you’ll feel like you’ve popped right into this coastal Australian town.

Ian’s take: 

This was the best book of the year, beating Bird Box by a wide margin. This novel did so much right that it’s going to be hard not to gush. The themes explored were gripping; each one strikes home because we confront them all in our everyday lives. Pettyness. Passive aggression. Bullying. Rumors, gossip, hearsay. Abuse. These problems aren’t world conquering super villains or supernatural horrors; they’re all things that any reader can relate to, and have probably even experienced themselves at some point – familiar evils. Evils that stem from escalating small problems out of proportion into “big” problems, or from rationalizing major issues into “little” problems; evils that grow from the lies we tell each other, and the lies we tell ourselves.
 
Don’t let all this talk about evil fool you though – despite some very “heavy” topics, the author is able to weave humor and levity in flawlessly, even while tightening your stomach with nervousness for the next calamity. I personally had a visceral reaction to the plot, especially while reading the latter half of the book. I was physically anxious on behalf of some of the characters – and that’s why this story works. The characters are so real and well written that you can’t help but identify with them. Many of the books we read this year had very bland characters, who remained stiff and wooden throughout – they were just devices present to further the plot. Reading this book was a breath of fresh air because the story came from the characters, rather than the other way around.
 
Ultimately, Big Little Lies is a very human tale and captivated me from beginning to end. Go read it. And clear your calendar, because you’re going to have trouble putting it down.
 
Ian’s rating: 10 blonde bobs out of 10.
 
My take: After the worst book of the year in November, we are redeemed with the best book of the year in the last month. Ian explained it so much better than I can. I’m so in awe of books like this I don’t even trust myself to put into words how great it is. I end up saying things like, “Just trust me and read this one. I’m a big reader. I know what I’m talking about. This book is it.” But really, just trust me and read it.
 
One thing I will say, jumping off of Ian’s thoughts on the characters: Years ago as a kid when I was just starting to think about writing a novel myself, I read about how there’s a divide between writers who believe the plot carries the story forward, and others who believe it’s the characters – I used to stand behind the plot being the more important element.
 
But I was wrong. It is the characters. Characters are everything. Absolutely everything. Big Little Lies nails it nails it nails it with the characters.
 
My rating: 10 out of 10, only cause I can’t go higher.