Book Review 4: Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner

Jennifer Weiner writes what is sometimes promoted as "literary chick lit." What it really is are (usually) pretty serious stories that revolve around women. I still think her best effort was her first, Good in Bed, which pretty seriously tackled the topic of obesity, or at least tried to. Refreshingly, it did NOT start with an unhappy fat heroine and end with a skinny happy one. However, it also didn't bother with the distinction of real obesity and just bigness. It's a medical fact that some people we would consider "fat" are in fact perfectly healthy. But I digress. Her second effort, In Her Shoes was just stupid and I have no idea why they made a movie out of it. And I digress again.

Little Earthquakes revolves around a trio of pregnant women and how their lives change when they have babies. Becky is a successful chef whose mother-in-law keeps wanting to commandeer--um, everything. Kelly is a power planner who is thrown for a loop when her husband loses his prior to their child's birth, epically tightening financial issues and when she has to return to work. Ayinde is a former reporter now married to a football star, who now can't go back to work because she'd more of a curiosity to viewers (what's she wearing? how's she losing the weight?) rather than a truly serious reporter. And lastly there's Lia, whose own baby has died, and how she comes to terms with this when she meets the other women.

So here's a question for us: Why don't we take this stuff seriously? Anyone will acknowledge that parenthood, particularly for women, is one of the hardest, most demanding tasks in the world, and one that lasts ALL YOUR LIFE. So why is a book like this considered fluffy?

That said, it's not particularly well-written. Real, I suppose, but not well-written. I think it would help if the men's points of view were actually given now and again so we could actually compare what was going through their minds. I also simultaneously admire/am annoyed with little details about what men do--like do the laundry but forget to dry it, or fold it but don't put it up because they assume the women will do it (I guess). Maybe it's a generational thing but I don't see guys really doing this, or if they do being men we'd have to view as being the really worthy guys.

So: It's like reading about all the friends you can't stand. Most of the time you think how you'd fix everything if only they'd listen to you.

Book Review 5: Son of a Witch by Gregory Macguire

This is the sequel to Wicked which I totally loved. The sequel, though, as sequels do, left me cold. Liir may or may not be Elphaba's son and no one really knows, he spends most of the book looking for his half-sister Nor who he never finds, and there's a lot of half-arsed political and religious blah-blah that is concluded with a quote from Thomas Jefferson at the end.

Greg needs to spend some quality time with Joss Whedon.