Divergent. Insurgent. Convergent?

Posted on March 15th, 2013

I have so little time these days to read all the YA novels that are popping up faster than the countless rashes and weird viruses plaguing the under-two’s of San Francisco’s rec center scene. So little time that when a book is THAT GOOD, and I CAN’T PUT IT DOWN, I feel obligated to tell the world — or, at least, my twitter followers — about it. If you haven’t heard about Veronica Roth’s Divergent already, go directly to your Amazon account, download it to your e-reading device of choice, and prepare to not do anything else until you’ve finished it and its sequel, Insurgent. It’s like Hunger Games, but slightly less disturbing, equally thrilling, and (in my opinion) just as addictive.

The first thing to note about Divergent is that its author is literally like, 25. That is so impressive and, at the same time, depressing, that I feel the need to mention it so that you don’t discover that on your own, completely unprepared, and then cry all alone in a Radio Shack somewhere, like I did. (There are a million reasons to be in a Radio Shack. I don’t get why you’d question that). The book is set in a dystopian world where its heroine, 16-year-old Beatrice Prior, has to choose one faction, or tribe, to devote her life to — and the one she chooses may not be the one she was born into. Which means that her choice may separate her from her family forever. It probably won’t surprise you IF YOU’VE EVER READ A BOOK BEFORE that Beatrice ends up forsaking her family to choose a radically different faction — and she quickly finds that the initiation into this new tribe is more life-and-death than she ever imagined. On top of that, she learns a secret about herself, that she’s “Divergent,” and though she barely understands what that means, she knows it puts her in great danger, and she can’t even tell her crush about it, which is way harsh.

What I loved the most about the book was the way Roth continued to change things up and surprise me with new twists and turns, but they always seemed organic, and not forced. I didn’t feel manipulated or kicked around, and for the most part, I was more than willing to go along on her thrilling, fast-paced and, at points, super twisted journey. I also loved Insurgent, but I think it’s really selfish of Roth to not have finished book 3 yet and make us wait until October 22nd for its “official release.” Whatever that means. (I don’t really think you’re selfish, Veronica. I totally heart you, in fact. But okay, maybe your actions are a little selfish and you could take a time out to reconsider them).*

MY CONCLUSION: Read the book! And then read the second book. And then try to figure out {SPOILER ALERT!} what’s on the other side of the fence. I’m guessing giant, creepy, adult-sized babies.

*Actually I idolize you and this is said completely in jest please don’t hate me.

Categories: Books

This Had Better Not Be 40

Posted on January 10th, 2013

“Hey, remember that annoying couple in that Judd Apatow movie about the loser who got the hot chick pregnant? No? Well, we made a movie about them anyway.” That pretty much sums up This is 40, Judd Apatow‘s latest flick starring his rotating cast of family members (wife Leslie Mann plays opposite Paul Rudd, along with her and Apatow’s two kids, who were also in Knocked Up. You may know Maude Apatow from Twitter fame. Or you may not because you don’t follow thirteen-year-olds. Whatever).

I’d been vaguely excited about this film for a few reasons: 1) I heart Paul Rudd (especially in I Love You, Man. That’s great cinema) 2) Leslie Mann, though the definition of shrill (seriously, look it up), is consistently funny and 3) I may still be seven years away (okay, six) from 40, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel that number hovering over me like some Harry Potter ghost trying to creep me the hell out. In fact, I’m probably the target audience for this film, and it makes sense: the years between 30 and 40 feel like this intense time warp where all these huge milestones happen, both great (marriage, homes, careers, kids) and not-so-great (divorce, mortgage payments, failed careers, kids). It’s a loaded decade, and who in this age bracket wouldn’t want to watch a movie that might offer some kind of magical insight into making it awesome? We all want to watch that movie. Unfortunately, This is 40 isn’t it. Sure, it’s got some signature Apatow humor and in some places, it felt so uncomfortable and cringe-inducing that I think it really succeeded. Main characters Peter and Debbie are facing some real-world crises (he’s hiding their financial struggles from her; she’s upset about Pete’s cholesterol levels but secretly smokes) — their bodies are betraying them, their kids are betraying them, their careers are shit and they’re so resentful and unhappy, they do the only thing they can: they take it out on each other.

The only problem is that it’s difficult to sympathize with either one of them, and films with unlikable main characters are a hard sell. I do think it’s somewhat telling — about what, I’m not sure, but stay with me here — that Ethan spent most of the movie (justifiably) complaining that Leslie Mann’s character was the most annoying woman alive, and I spent it (justifiably) wishing my fantasies about Paul Rudd hadn’t just been irreparably dashed by the snarky, unkind Pete. We could each easily see Pete and Debbie resorting to typical husband/wife stereotypes, and once the credits started to roll, I reminded myself to a) let Ethan spend as much time in the bathroom as he wants and b) never get mad if he ever uses Viagra for sport.

Ethan listened to an NPR interview with Apatow that I didn’t hear because I don’t have time for scintillating radio interviews unless they happen to be on between 7:44 and 8:15am, but he told me that Apatow calls the movie somewhat autobiographical (though I sincerely hope he and Mann don’t hate each other as much as these two). Apatow is 45, so it makes sense that this film started percolating around his own 40th birthday. And while I don’t think it was a complete and total bust, it sure was depressing. Towards the end, Ethan and I were a little shellshocked as we both looked over at each other and said something to the effect of, “We’d better not be like that when we’re 40.” They key to not being like that (as learned from this film’s loud-and-clear message)? Don’t lie to each other. If you can’t afford your house, sell it. Don’t swear so much in front of your kids if you don’t want them to swear back, and don’t make goals for each other that you read off a piece of paper, ’cause let’s face it — nobody likes that. Oh, and don’t complain so much about your shitty life in your 7 million dollar house. Because that makes you sound sort of like a douche. (A Paul Rudd douche. But still).

OVERALL RATING OF THIS FILM IN MY OPINION: C. That’s probably generous. But Iris Aaptow is a cutie. She lends the film some street cred.

Categories: Film and TV

The Fault in Our Stars: “Juno” Meets “The Big C”

Posted on October 30th, 2012

When I discover a book that I end up reading in 2-3 days flat (even when I really, really don’t have time for it), I just have to talk about it.* John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars is one such book. Written by an author who appears to be kind of a god of the young adult genre, this book about kids with cancer makes My Sister’s Keeper look like the worst book ever written (which it was) and also makes the topic of two kids with cancer falling in love not only palatable but surprisingly uplifting. It’s sad, too; it’s heartbreaking and it’s raw, and it’ll hit you where it hurts, but it’s also so charming you just wish these characters were real (though if they were, they might be too cool for you. They’d definitely be too cool for me).

The story goes like this: Hazel is 16 and has terminal cancer (and an oxygen tank she has to lug around with her 24-7). At a support group for kids with the big c, she meets and falls for Augustus Waters, the first boy to ever turn her on in real life. (He’s sexy, by the way, that Augustus. Reeaal sexy. He also has a prosthetic leg, a side effect of his bone cancer). Here’s the thing about Hazel and Augustus: they’re crazy smart, they’re well-read, they’re insightful and hilarious and MAYBE THE MOST INTERESTING TEENAGERS YOU’VE EVER MET. I love me some Bella, but that girl is as boring as a doormat compared to Hazel. Hazel’s like Juno but better. Gus is like Michael Cera but sexier. Case in point? HE WALKS AROUND WITH A CIGARETTE IN HIS MOUTH ALL THE TIME BUT NEVER LIGHTS IT BECAUSE HE WANTS TO PUT THE KILLING THING IN HIS TEETH BUT NOT GIVE IT THE POWER TO KILL HIM. It’s a metaphor, and Augustus Waters loves metaphor. (What teenager doesn’t?) Hazel and Augustus are just so quirky and unique and thoughtfully-ironic and un-cheesy, you want to bottle them and send them off to every young adult author as a template for non-generic dialogue writing. She uses words like “hamartia” (that means fatal flaw); he explains that his previous girlfriend, who died of cancer, “is not longer suffering from personhood.”

Their witty banter aside, this story is super compelling because you just want things to work out for these two sweet kids, dammit! And yet, you sense from the very beginning that it won’t, that it can’t — because both of them have cancer, but both aren’t living, and both aren’t dying. It’s a progressively sadder and sadder story as you watch them grow to love each other like crazy, even as they fight their respective illnesses.

The book has some hamartias, of course — sometimes you get the feeling these characters are just a tad (or a lot) more witty than is humanly possible. And sometimes, the story is so sad, it just kind of hurts. But it’s also the kind of book that might just make you happier than you already were to be alive.

*Assuming that book is not sTORItelling, in which case I will never, ever talk about it.

Categories: Books

Mommyproof

Posted on October 25th, 2012

I started a new blog. It’s called Mommyproof. It’s about parenting. You can check it out here. I’ll still be blogging at rebeccahanover.com, but I’ll save the posts about poop for the parentally-inclined (or at least the parentally-curious).

Categories: Personal

The Casual Vacancy Book Review

Posted on October 15th, 2012

J.K. Rowling wrote a book for adults. I reviewed it here (text is below) and explained why I just didn’t dig it. (For the record, I still want to have lunch with Jo so I can ask her whether her family ever plays Quidditch in the back yard and what happens if you whisper a killing curse. I still love her and I still love Harry. Don’t ever doubt it).

“It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I’m obsessed with Harry Potter. I own a pair of plastic Potter glasses. I considered Hermione as a middle name for my baby (don’t worry, I had a boy). I once stood in line at the Astor Place Barnes and Noble at midnight to get the latest installment of my beloved series (I was 24. Everyone else was 16). It was there, in New York, that I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the first time, in the wake of September 11th. Call it a lifeline, call it escapism — I devoured every page of the series without even realizing how important Harry’s world would eventually become to me. A few years later, I couldn’t have imagined a life where the word “Hogwarts” wasn’t part of the everyday vernacular. Often dark, even heartbreaking, Harry’s world — the one Rowling painstakingly imagined — was a refuge. An ode to hope, and joy, and laughter. A world that got kids reading again and reminded all of us that trying to be good isn’t just a futile act — it matters. So it was with great anticipation that I downloaded The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling’s new adult novel, to my iPad and started reading.

Let me start by saying that I don’t agree with any of the naysayers who are either offended by a little bit of swearing (grow up), traumatized by the idea of their children picking up the book (don’t let them), or randomly angry at Rowling for not stamping a disclaimer across the cover that it’s a different genre or that it costs $17.99 on Kindle (I’m not going to even dignify that one with a response). But I do have an embarrassing confession to make, one that’s probably not even legal to admit in a book review: about sixty pages in, I quit the book.

I figured six days would be plenty of time to read and write a review of a 512-page book — a Rowling book — but I didn’t count on it being so relentlessly depressing. J.K.’s latest tome is grim (really grim), and it lacks that one piece of the puzzle — the special sauce, if you will — that made Harry Potter so irresistible: hope. There’s no joy in this book, no heart. It’s a depressing tale of small-minded people in a fictional town in modern England, and it tackles every shocking topic out there, from rape, to abuse, to suicide and drug addiction. A strange blend of genres, the book feels at times like political satire, at others like straight-up tragedy. Rowling stated that the novel was originally titled “Responsibility,” and that gives us a pretty good idea of what her goal was with the book: to make a case for human kindness. To expose modern England’s underbelly by juxtaposing biting social commentary with extreme dysfunction. I admire Rowling’s mission here to the nth degree — I just don’t think she pulls it off in a compelling narrative. Her characters are so unlikable, there’s nothing, and no one, to sink your teeth into. Her descriptions (the three-year-old’s crusty bottom; the condom gleaming in the sun) feel like poverty porn: too over-the-top, and they don’t hold their weight.

While many critics have panned the book, others applaud it. I won’t claim that my subjective opinion is the right one. In fact, there may be a whole audience of readers out there who love this book. I just doubt they’re the same ones who loved Harry Potter. Because that’s essentially the problem: most Potter fanatics don’t want to read a book as bleak as this one — because it’s just not the kind of book we like.

I still heart Jo Rowling. I still think her 2008 Harvard Commencement address, which I got to attend thanks to some very powerful magic, is amazetown. I just didn’t love this book, or even like it. Final confession: I heard the finale was Thomas Hardy-dismal, so I flipped to the end. Let’s just say it was the opposite of uplifting. (But hey, maybe I’m under the spell of a powerful Confundus Charm. If you loved this book, tell me why I’m wrong. Because I’d really love to be).”

Categories: Books