Turn Around Bright Eyes

Buy the book.

Don’t even read the rest of this review. Just go buy it immediately. While you’re at it, buy all of Rob Sheffield’s books, too. Just give him your money and let him write beautiful words and tell your friends about them. You won’t regret it.

This is the second of Sheffield’s books that I’ve read (here's the first one) and as soon as this plane lands, I’m buying the other one. I have to; I literally started this book when my plane took off from Spokane. By the time I landed in Denver, I had skipped out on a planned nap and burned through 180 pages. Less than an hour into this leg of my flight, it’s done and sitting beside me like a baby bird* that I want to protect and cherish (*that’s not a good analogy for me. I don’t like birds. Maybe a baby lamb. Mmm… lamb…)

Sheffield is a music guy. He writes for Rolling Stone and you can feel through his words that music seeps out of every pore. The first book I read broke my heart over and over again. Love is a Mixed Tape tells the story of Rob and his wife. They married young and lived a young couple’s dream, punctuated by music and mixed tapes (youngsters: I’m sorry you missed out on mixed tapes. Mixed tapes are not spotify playlists. Mixed tapes aren’t even mixed cd’s. Mixed tapes are EVERYTHING.) Their love story comes to a gut-wrenching halt when she dies – at 31- from a pulmonary embolism. Their love – and, their music – remain. But, everything sounds different now.

This book picks up years later, as Sheffield himself is coming back to life. It’s about meeting the next great love of his life and finding the happiness he thought he’d never again achieve. The book is also about his other true love: karaoke. And, how karaoke got him out of his spotless apartment and back into the world.

Now, we’re getting somewhere.

You can scoff at karaoke and pass it off as corny. But, guess what? That’s the freaking point! Of course karaoke is corny and often terrible and also the most fun you’ll ever have in your life. And, love it or hate it (you love it, you know it), this book will have you seeing the whole thing differently. You’ll appreciate so much more the value of putting away every inhibition and, even for just a few minutes, being a damn rock star.

I’m a bit of a karaoke early adopter. A ham since birth who happens to really enjoy the sound of my own voice, I had a karaoke machine in my room in middle school. Two tape players, so I could get the next song cued up. And, I would freaking JAM. No cheesy hairbrush lip-sycning for this girl. I would pick up that real (plastic) microphone and BELT THAT SHIT OUT. In high school, we’d sing karaoke on Jessica Willis’s laser disc karaoke machine. We would all sing along until, about an hour in, all my friends would be sitting on the couch staring blankly as I proudly declared “I’m gonna do one more!”

Even now at 39, I’ll turn up some serious Pat Benatar at Karaoke. Really feeling it? Grab a Kleenex, y’all, because End of the Road is about be all up in your face. Just a few months ago, a group of highly-skilled, highly-respected broadcast professionals and I found ourselves in the basement of a dingy bar in DC’s Adams Morgan neighborhood, cranking out hit after hit in a private karaoke room. Music – preferably a bit off-key – is the great equalizer.

And, that’s what so much of this book is all about. How karaoke can turn off all those inhibitions and make us stars. About how we find ourselves rooting for tone-deaf strangers and providing the background vocals for old men. He also subtly drops his love of the often-ignored TLC slow jam “Red Light Special.” He had me at T-Boz.

Sheffield is the music geek in all of us who happens to have a gift for eloquent writing. Is it a love story about his new wife and how singing karaoke has helped define their relationship? Or a love story about how it feels to sing Neil Diamond? It’s never just one thing. And, that’s why I love it.

I learned about music here, as I did with Sheffield’s other book. I learned about family. I learned about finding love. And, I learned that you can’t call karaoke a guilty pleasure if you don’t feel guilty about it to begin with.

Reconstructing Amelia

I’ll keep it brief.

This wasn’t for me.

Mind you, I cranked through this book and, thanks to a road trip to visit family, had a few hours in the car to burn through a couple hundred pages. But, in the end, it left me feeling meh.

It didn’t start out that way.

Reconstructing Amelia gets underway with a jolt. In the early pages, a New York City single mom has her world rocked to its core when her daughter jumps to her death from the roof of her posh private school. The question is simply, “why did she jump?” It quickly turns to “Did she really jump – or was she pushed?”

After the shock of that event, the book winds its way backwards. We read about life as a teenager from Amelia’s perspective and look for clues hidden in cryptic Facebook posts. We see mom’s side of things as she reaches back not only to the days before her daughter’s accident, but her life before she became Amelia’s mom. All of it is supposed to lead us to what happened on that roof and the truth about Amelia. Because I knew I was leading to that inevitiable reveal, I was turning pages quickly to get there. Then, I was turning pages quickly to just get done with the thing.

It wasn’t bad. It was just not great. I feel like the characters and even the plot relied too much on cliché (adolescent parties and secret clubs, single mom who works too much, etc.) When the author did reveal a few plot twists at the end, they just felt forced. I should have written down what I liked so much about the book before I finished it. I know it was a good start and kept me interested, but if it was a movie, I would have turned it off and read a book instead.

The Road

Exhale.

It's going to be awhile before I digest this one.

Am I the last person on the planet to read this book? I feel like I've probably picked it up 1,000 times over the years, ready to read it. But, I worried it was too dark and I'm not generally a fan of post-apocalyptic settings. Still, I feel like it's one of those books you have to read. Now, that I've read it?

Exhale.

You probably know the plot by now. I mean, the thing won a Pulitzer, for crying out loud. But, in case you don't know... The Road is a journey of father and son through a world destroyed years ago by an unexplained force. We never know how it happened or exactly how long ago. We don't know how old the boy is and we never learn either of their names. And, maybe that's the point. Their names don't really matter anymore to anyone other than each other. What's the point of a calendar when the days are stretched into oblivion?

Like sharks, the man and the boy have to stay moving. Where are they going doesn't really matter. They just keep moving to avoid the danger that lurks inside every abandoned house and around every bend in that road.

Perpetually cold and endlessly gray, the world they occupy is all the boy has ever known. His father is his entire world. Each is acutely aware that they can't survive without the other. A pistol is all they have to protect themselves from roaming bands of bad guys. Not just bad guys, though. Cannibals.

I found myself racing through this book, wanting something in the end. I knew all along, however, that I wasn't going to get a satisfying conclusion. The world wasn't going to "undestroy" itself. Instead, like the man and his son, I found myself sometimes scared to turn the page, afraid of what I would find on the other side.

Along the way, they find relics of the world that has fallen away, in maps and canned goods and abandoned trains and left-behind treasures. They live because of what's left by those who could not survive. And, as readers, we discover the absolute worst of mankind that appears to emerge when societal norms fall away.

Did I like this book? Like isn't the right word. A couple of scenes depicted in this book would make you something of a monster for saying you "liked" it. So, how do I feel about it?

It's complicated.

Do I appreciate the work? Absolutely. It's brilliant in both concept and execution. But, it's disturbing as hell, too. And, somehow unsatisfying. 

I'm glad I read it. I won't read it again. And, whether or not you choose to read it, you're probably right.

The Power

What would happen if everything was different? If the patriarchy was upended and the women ruled all? Would it truly be, as many have said, a kinder, gentler world? Would our innate kindness prevail? This book examines that question in ways only a brilliant storyteller could imagine.

In The Power, it happens in a flash - literally. Young girls around the world develop a power that initially can't be explained. They can generate electricity from inside themselves, giving them the power to fight off almost anyone. You cheer for them initially, as victims of rape can stun and kill their attackers by summoning this power from within. You watch as entire societies are upended. Then, you hope against hope they won't do what others in power have done for centuries.

It's that quote above that stuck with me throughout. As the women slowly gain power and take over the world, you hold you breath and hope they choose a better path. Momentum builds towards the inevitable, yet you still hope someone will come in and stop it. And, you hope that "we" turn out to be better than "them."

A friend and co-worker gave me this book the day before I flew across the country. I opened it before my flight took off and immediately knew I wouldn't be napping on this flight. I couldn't read it fast enough, as I watched through that open slit between my fingerprints, fearful of what was to come.

The jacket of this book says it will make you rethink everything. It did not oversell. Beautifully written, completely unique and perfectly timed with the #MeToo movement, it's food for thought wrapped in literature. 

Good Booty

I'll admit, it's the cover that caught my attention. I was wandering through my local library on a snowy Sunday morning, looking for a non-fiction book to round out my stack. I don't know exactly what I was looking for, but a bright pink cover snagged my attention. It helped, too, that the words GOOD BOOTY were written in huge letters on the side. I'd like to say I knew it was about music.

I'd be lying.

But, I was instantly intrigued to learn what the book was actually about. Written by an NPR music critic, Good Booty tells the story of sex and music and how the two are intertwined throughout American history. Yeah, I thought. I should check this out.

We've all had that moment - when you realize what that song is really about. For me, it was probably Madonna's Open Your Heart video. I was in about 4th grade and my best friend and I would try to recreate the video in her basement. Have you seen that video? Looking back, I'm sure our parents would have been horrified to see us work that backwards chair! But, it's a rite of passage in many ways, to realize the sexuality that music represents.

Ann Powers' book starts before the civil war on the streets of New Orleans. Slaves brought the music and movements of Africa to the city, mixing that with stiff American culture of the day. Over time, the cultures collided, often on the dance floor before it did in the rest of society. Powers describes how music evolved through the decades, from the sexual undertones of the Charleston to the free love movement of Haight-Ashbury in the 1960's. She brings it all the way up to Beyonce, with a long discussion about the influence of the Single Ladies on the music and videos that would follow.

It's hard to decipher when you read it which comes first, the cultural change or the music. Which is the chicken and which is the egg? Either way, you watch society evolve from buttoned up to free to closed off in the age of AIDS - and, to the autotune robot that defines pop princess Britney Spears.

This book reads like a text book. You could imagine it being assigned by a a professor in that cool college class you should have taken. You can envision listening to tracks and writing papers on their influence. But, academic as the framework is, it's still terribly fascinating, too. And, a good reminder that the best songs will move more than just your soul.