Self-Inflicted Wounds

On Saturday, I finished reading Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation by Aisha Tyler. Let me start this off by saying I have a bit of a girl crush on this lady. While I may have seen her in some random show (she was Jake's mom on Glee?!), I really became a fan just from her voice (she is Lana in Archer). From there, I found her comedy act, which is hilarious. (As a warning, her act is a bit on the risque side but, in my opinion, that just makes it better.) From there, I found her podcast. And that led me to her books. Yes, she has more than one. But this is the one I chose to read first. Self-Inflicted Wounds is a comedic re-telling of Ms. Tyler's life. Each chapter is a story. Each story is always funny and always has a moral to learn. Generally, the moral is "If you don't even try, you will never succeed." I wish I could name my favorite story but they are all too good to compare. Though I do admit I fully laughed out loud when she broke her arm snowboarding after her husband told her not to. ("Don't tell me what to do!") I also found myself chuckling at her stories of her college a cappella group days. Mostly because, despite the 6 year age difference between us, a cappella groups were still the same when I was in college. My school didn't have an a cappella group though or I probably would have joined.

When I finished the book on Saturday afternoon, I was actually a bit sad that it was over. However, I did recommend the book to my almost-12-year old daughter. Yes, there are a few references to binge drinking and sex but there isn't anything particularly graphic in the book. Some people might think it makes me a bad mother. I think the message of "Work Hard - Try Everything - Don't Give Up Easily" is something that needs to be handed down to the next generation. Kids don't look at their parents and see how hard they have worked to attain what they did. Heck, they can't even look at most celebrities to see the hard work. Here is someplace that she can read about the failures and the successes. Here she can learn that one failed attempt doesn't make you a failure. It just means you get to fix your mistakes and try again.

An Abundance of Katherines

I am trying really hard to read more books. It has been a long time since I sat down and truly read a book. The first book I read was The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Since I enjoyed that book so much (seriously, go read it), I decided to give another Green book a try. So I picked up his second book, An Abundance of Katherines. It is the story of Colin, a (somewhat former) child prodigy who has a tendency to date girls named Katherine. He has dated nineteen of them, to be specific. When Katherine XIX dumps him (as all Katherines do), Colin falls into a depression. His not-a-terrorist Muslim friend, Hassan, suggests they take a summer road trip as a change of pace. The duo ends up in Gutshot, Tennessee, thanks to a roadside attraction featuring the grave of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This is where they meet Lindsey Lee Wells, the Archduke's tour guide, a paramedic in training, and overall celebrity in Gutshot. Colin, who is still extremely smart despite his not-a-genius-not-a-prodigy state of being, decides to become a genius by creating the Theorem of Underlying Katherine Probability. This theorem is supposed to predict a future relationship between any two people. Lindsey's mother gives the boys a job for the summer. They need to interview various residents of Gutshot to get an oral history of the town. Even though that sounds like a horribly boring job, the boys find much more than they ever expected.

I will start out saying that I didn't like this book nearly as much as I liked The Fault in Our Stars. That isn't to say this is a terrible book, though. I'm not a big fan of math so a lot of the information revolving around The Theorem went right over my head. While the math does take up quite a bit of space in the book, it isn't everything. The story of Colin finding himself and Hassan figuring out what to do with his life and Lindsey finding out who she is are all very interesting.

Actually, my biggest problem with the book was the footnotes. I read the book on my Kindle. So for every footnote, I would have to page forward to the end of the chapter to read it, then try to page back to where I was. Obviously, this wouldn't be such a huge problem if you were reading a paper version of the book but I'm not sure how many people read paper books anymore. My 11-year old daughter is the only person I know that still prefers paper books to electronic ones.

If you can look past the footnote issue, I'd recommend giving the book a try. It isn't for everyone. My daughter didn't like it as much as I did but she didn't dislike it either. It doesn't read quite as fast as TFiOS and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I liked it and I hope there's something in there for you too.

The Fault in our Stars

Once again, I am working from home thanks to the snow. This week will be an awful weather week. At least I have some things to take my mind off the snow. One of these is the trailer for the movie version of "The Fault in our Stars." TFIOS is an awesome book by John Green. Both my daughter and I read the book and loved it. Shortly after my daughter finished it, the trailer arrived on YouTube. The movie premieres on June 6 and I can't wait to see it.

Here is the trailer. I highly recommend reading the book. It is a very quick read and it is so so good.

Dresden Files

My husband has been listening to the audiobooks of the Dresden series of books. Whenever we travel together, he'll put on a book for me to "read." They are quite funny. One of the books we recently listened to had a war between the different factions of fairies. Fairies, in this world, are weak against steel. Dresden equipped some pixies with utility knives. Since the pixies were holding the plastic casing, they didn't get harmed by the metal. When they cut one of the fairies with the blade though..... The books are read by James Marsters, also known as Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He is really good. If you get a chance to listen to the books, do it. You won't regret it.