Compelling and thought-provoking...but with an annoying main character. Can't have it all.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

More of a 3.5, but the ending helped. Also, even though I didn't really like the main characters, I found the story and writing compelling. Also, it's told chronologically! Huzzah!

From a young age, Steph knows that she wants to go to space. She's being raised by a single mother in Oklahoma; a Cherokee, she's focused on this quest while those around her deal with their history, both as Native Americans and their own personal journeys and the history of their specific people. The book is mostly told from Steph's point of view, but we get a bunch of chapters from that of her college girlfriend, and we later have interspersed emails and social media posts from others to get glimpses into their lives.

Steph is laser-focused on her goal; it makes it hard for the people around her (from a friend/love interest: "We eat snacks, I talk, and you sit here giving me absolutely nothing, like you're in the witness protection program" and "You're funny. At least, I've decided you are. You're cute. You mean well, I think") and it makes her hard to like ("It's good to be well-rounded, I thought, when you are a person with no dreams"), though her discipline is admirable. She does eventually grow, but it takes the vast, vast majority of the book...and a shark attack, which is about the last thing I expected in this book 

We also get a lot of Kayla, Steph's sister. Young Kayla is into art and is very interested in her Native ancestry. She doesn't have the dreams Steph does and lives a completely different life. A lot of the book is dealing with your personal history, about how Steph and Kayla's mother tells the story of their ancestors, and gave me a lot to reflect on, about how we think of our ancestors:

• "He said to stop thinking of our tribe as its history"
• "Kayla still looked to our ancestors as fighters, people whose every complexity could be forgiven in their fight to survive"
• "...these people didn't live for you to use them for whatever point you're out to make. If we met them today, I think we'd disagree on a lot of things"
• "I've been trying to learn more about them, to understand them not as the ancestors, but as people"

This hit particularly close to home for me; I recently visited the house of an ancestor who was killed on the first day of the American Revolution, a story I knew. When my husband and I got a tour of his house, we learned that evidence shows that an enslaved person lived there, too. I'm still grappling with that.

So while I didn't like Steph, I liked a lot of what she was dealing with. She never grappled with being gay, per se, but there was a lot of trying to figure out if other people were gay and the period where civil unions were a thing but gay marriage wasn't, and how she felt about that. (It also gave us this quote from Steph's mom: "I know haircuts like that are sacred to the lesbian people.") I liked seeing her relationship with her heritage in contrast with her sister's, and how both seemed extreme, if in opposite ways. Dealing with our own stories and traumas and history was central to the book.

This is particularly true for Della, Steph's college girlfriend. Her parents (or maybe just father?) was Native American, but her birth mother gave her up for adoption, and she spent her earliest years caught up in court battles between her adoptive, Mormon parents and her Indian father. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and Della winds up spending a lot of time grappling with her religion and upbringing and beliefs and family, and what they all mean to her. I found her story compelling, possibly moreso than Steph's. I was very very happy to have a check-in with Della late in the book, to see where she wound up.

I also liked Steph and Della's college story, spending time with NASA (the Native American student group at their school; Steph's mother's reaction to the name was perfection) and seeing how everyone there interacted, with their different backgrounds. What about their college experience was like mine, if a few years later, what was different?

So while the book (i.e., Steph herself) was frustrating, it's a book worth picking up. It goes some unexpected places and I'm bummed there are scenes we didn't get to see and it gave me a lot to think about.

Thank you to Avid Reader Press and NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for my opinion.

A Merry old time at Shakespeare

One of my absolute favorite DC actresses is Felicia Curry. I saw her as Eponine in Les Mis at Signature back in 2008 and was blown away. I've been fortunate to see her in many shows and roles since then, and was delighted when I saw that she'd be in Merry Wives at Shakespeare Theatre. Further, Merry Wives of Windsor is a Shakespeare play with which I have basically zero familiarity; I know it involves Falstaff, from the Henry IV plays, but that's about all. So I was excited to see the play.

I was rewarded, because Merry Wives was a delight. It's a very typical Shakespeare comedy. Like Play On, it features an all-Black cast and is set in Harlem (though in present day, not in the 1920s, which is appropriate--Merry Wives of Windsor is apparently the only contemporary play Shakespeare wrote). It clocks in at a bit under 2 hours and is kept to a single act, which I appreciate; this kind of farce works better when momentum is allowed to build and play out quickly. (It also benefits from audience members not getting a ton of time to contemplate plot points.)

Jacob Ming-Trent and Felicia Curry in Merry Wives at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo by Teresa Castracane Photography.

In the play, Falstaff (Jacob Ming-Trent) tries to seduce two wealthy women, Madam Page (Oneika Phillips) and Madam Ford (Curry), both of whom are happily married. He decides to do this by sending them identical love letters. They're best friends, so immediately realize what he's done, but decide to mess with him. Mr. Page is a jealous guy and gets wind of Falstaff's plan, so decides to pretend he's someone else to see if he can find out if his wife is cheating on him. Meanwhile, a bunch of people want to marry Anne Page (Peyton Rowe), partly because she's beautiful and partly because her dad is rich. 

The play was adapted by Jocelyn Bioh; over 90% of the text is Shakespeare and while some of what was added by Bioh is obvious (mentions of LeBron James, etc.), it isn't always super clear where Shakespeare ends and Bioh begins. The program notes that the original play is 88% prose, unusually high for Shakespeare. It all flows together incredibly well. 

One standout for me is Shaka Zu, who begins the play with some African drumming, drawing the audience into the play and messing with us at the same time: the perfect combination for this farce. He pops up throughout the play and is an absolute delight.

The play itself is delightfully gay, only some of which is a slight stray from the original text. Anne's true love is played by a woman, and the show ends with two of her other suitors unintentionally marrying other men. Nobody seems upset about it (and it seems that's how the original play ends as well). There's a lot of excellent physical humor, plus an excellent African dance sequence.

I didn't love the many comments throughout the play about how fat Falstaff is, though of course that's one of his defining characteristics. It's all derogatory and unnecessary, in my opinion, and I wouldn't have been upset if Bioh had edited those out. It did make it interesting to me that the actress playing Anne Page--the object of many people's desire, described numerous times as beautiful and attractive--is plus-sized. If that's how the creative team chose to counter the negative depiction of Falstaff's size, I'm pretty good with that. Though again...I could've just done without the fat jokes.

As people exited the theater after the show, the talk was unanimously of what a good time they had and how fun the show was. It's definitely worth checking out. 

Wild for Jane, less wild for this book

⭐⭐⭐

Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane is a bit of a mess. Essentially, author Devoney Looser wants the world to know that Jane Austen was the not the quiet, retiring writer some of her descendants portrayed her as; she wants the world to think of Austen as being "wild." It's in the title and Looser uses the word over and over and over, many times in situations where it is, at best, a stretch. And the book itself is a random collection (though one that I could see making a solid syllabus for an Austen course); it starts out with discussions of Austen's writings, including her juvenilia, writings other than the main six novels, and some writings that may or may not be Austen, then moves into discussions of her family (both during and after her lifetime), and finishes with a collection of chapters on random topics from rumors of Austen having a lover in Switzerland to Austen films that were never made to the use of Austen in court cases to Austen-related erotica.

A lot of my issue with it is that Looser is clearly pushing against a portrayal of Austen largely created by Austen's nephew James Edward Austen Leigh, who wrote of his aunt "Jane Austen lived in entire seclusion from the literary world: neither by correspondence, nor by personal intercourse was she known to any contemporary authors" (Ch. 15). People think of Austen as "staid," so Looser wrote this that we might think of Austen as wild. I don't hate the argument, honestly, but Looser is trying so hard to make it happen that the reader can't help but roll their eyes a bit.

In the early chapters, Looser goes through Austen's writing and highlights where she thinks Austen's wildness shows through. I appreciated the discussions of the juvenilia and other lesser-known works, where you can really see Austen be less staid, as it were, than in her novels. But in the chapters on the books, Looser makes some assertions that I don't think the material warrants.

I found some of the later chapters more interesting, if less directly reflecting Austen. Looser has a chapter on Austen used in both pro- and anti-slavery and pro- and anti-suffrage arguments and clearly wants to show the Austen as being abolitionist and pro-suffrage. There's a lot of interesting material about the relationship of the Austens to slavery and the abolitionist movement, but I don't know that Jane Austen's nephew being an abolitionist is necessarily reflective of anything. (I did like this, though, from the section on the suffrage movement:

It's true Cambridge then was stuffed to the gills with adult children of dead authors and intellectuals, including descendants of Charles Darwin. The Austen Leighs rubbed elbows with many there who had fascinating family and friendly literary connections. Nevertheless, her saying something publicly under the Austen surname would have added weight to the anti-suffrage movement." [Ch. 18])

There were also chapters on what Austen's relatives were up to--marrying into the French aristocracy, someone who was possibly a spy, someone who was accused of shoplifting and had a high-profile court case--as well as Jane possibly having some interaction with progressive-type authors. "Look!" Looser says, pointing at these. "Jane Austen had a wild life!" By which she means...Jane Austen had knowledge of these things, and wrote letters about them, and had some nice visits with people who were involved. I don't know that it necessarily makes Jane Austen herself "wild."

And admittedly, I got annoyed with Looser patting herself on the back throughout the book, mentioning new information that she herself unearthed in research! And like, good job finding a reference to Jane Austen that nobody in the past 250 years has before; that honestly is pretty impressive. She just mentions it a bit more than I'd like; there's a "Be impressed!" tone that didn't sit well with me.

There's some good, new information in here, and Looser does a good job of putting Jane Austen in context of the world where she lived and about which she wrote. But the book is uneven and is sometimes a bit of a slog, unfortunately. Still worth a read by Janeites, though I'd recommend picking and choosing chapters.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

The blog is also a Muppet stan

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Really a 3.5; I'm honestly still debating between 3 and 4. The story of Muppets in Moscow is a fascinating one: just after the fall of the Soviet Union, author Natasha Lance (Rogoff), with a background solely in documentary filmmaking, starts working to bring Sesame Street to the former USSR. There are a million problems and countless logistics to deal with, from finding someone to help fund it and getting a broadcast partner to the basics of scripts and actors and sets and studios. A lot of the issues in the book come down to getting buy-in from various players in Russia, but there are also things like potential partners (multiple) being assassinated.

Understandably, this is all incredibly frustrating for Natasha. She's worked in Russia/the USSR before and has contacts and friends there, many of whom help her in this quest. But there are so many dead ends, promising leads cut short.

And then there's trying to find staff to work on the project. Despite having spent years in the USSR and loving Russia and its people and culture (she writes, "Russians embrace life as they do because history has taught them how just one false step can plunge them into unimaginable misfortune; therefore, they live more passionately than most people living in free and open societies" [p. 151]), Natasha is incredibly caught off-guard by the hostility of stakeholders to the idea of bringing in Sesame Street, to airing a show that's not filled with violent puppets and has optimistic children ("One of our producers had recently told me, 'Happy is not a Russian concept'" [p. 232]), to anything, really, promoting capitalism.

What fascinated me about this book was that tension in these adults who've lived their lives in the USSR, under the strict rule of the Communist party there and how they push back at the incredibly rapid influx of everything after the breakup of the Soviet Union. It makes sense, of course, and I was right there with Natasha in her bewilderment at some of the attitudes--though I guess I would've expected more from Natasha. She's good at acknowledging when other people point thing out to her about the context for her collaborators.

But the reason I had a hard time with the book was that I consistently found myself frustrated by Natasha herself. Her portrayal of herself is how someone would describe themselves when they're dealing with imposter syndrome; she clearly has the expertise to get this project done but she's always doubting herself. Every now and then there are glimpses of her as others see her and I'm just bummed we spent a lot more time with her panicking over the latest developments (again, understandably) and a lot less time seeing what she did when not having high-level meetings. At the end of the book, there's a reference to the studio where the show was filmed and she mentioned having climbed a ladder countless times. She...did? Doing what? That's what I want to see. We see her sitting in on meetings as people work through things and occasionally tentatively providing an opinion; we do not see very much (or any) of her leading, which is something she clearly did.

I also got annoyed at her describing her relationship with her husband, Ken; they meet early in the project, and they both travel a lot for work, but throughout the book she has to deal with crises and panics and he calms her down and gives her perspective and it happens over and over again, occasionally with him clearly worried about her and how she's prioritizing her relationship and her job. (For the record, they are still married, which is nice!)

To wit, she gets pregnant and spends the entire pregnancy ignoring and/or denying that fact. As she's on the verge of giving birth, she reflects

Gradually I realize what's upsetting me: I'm entirely unprepared for motherhood. Even the most unmaternal of women would have given more thought to having a baby than I have. They'd probably have at least understood that during the ninth month, a baby would arrive. To his credit, Ken has tried many times to speak with me about the baby--about how the baby would change the way we live, what our priorities are, and how we spend our time--but I've refused to acknowledge this, continuing my denial that "the baby won't change anything." (p. 314)

This is sort of the essence of her portrayal of herself (harsh!) and her relationship. On the one hand, it's nice that she doesn't feel the need to show herself without any weakness. On the other hand, this takes up a lot of the book.

In the end, I definitely the dissenter in my book club for having those kind of negative opinions (though I see others in the Goodreads comments) and there is a lot to get out of this book. It's incredibly depressing to reflect on where Russia is today, and where the United States is today, abandoning things like USAID, which was key to get Ulitsa Sezam going, and, of course, PBS itself. 

Feeling no pain in this production of Damn Yankees

Two of the things I enjoy the most are baseball and musical theater, so naturally I've long been intrigued by Damn Yankees, a show that really isn't performed much lately. (Other than by my husband's high school back in 2001. Though I assume other schools have probably performed it in the last 25 years, too.) Luckily, Arena Stage has just opened a new production (what they're calling a "revisal") of the show.

Written in the 1950s, it's the story of Joe Boyd, a huge fan of the Washington Senators (then an American League team; the old saying was that Washington was "first in war, first in peace, last in the American League"), who bemoans the "damn Yankees" who always win. After saying he'd sell his soul for "one good long ball hitter" on the team, a guy named Applegate shows up to help him do just that. Joe leaves his wife, Meg, and becomes Joe Hardy, a young slugger who's quickly welcomed onto the Senators. Joe loves playing for the Senators, but desperately misses his wife...even as Lola, a seductress who also sold her soul to Applegate, tries to change his mind.

My understanding is that the Arena wants to bring the show to Broadway, which hasn't had a revival of it since the 1990s. With that in mind, they brought in a team to update the show; now set in 2000, Joe is a big Orioles fan, and is dealing with the knowledge that his father was a Negro Leagues player who toiled in MLB's minor leagues due to his race. They also change a bit of the scandal in Act Two, so the show touches on steroids (though that wouldn't really be an issue until later in the 2000s), and they tweaked the song order in the second act (source: my husband).

Changing the team from the Senators to the Orioles? I was ALL IN. It was truly delightful watching the actors on stage wearing Orioles uniforms and gear. I would've liked a few more lines that would personalize it to Baltimore (why not have Joe Hardy hit the warehouse?), but seriously, it was a joy. Orioles fans, get thee to Arena.

Alysha Umphress (Gloria Thorpe) and the company of "Damn Yankees" at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman.

I honestly can't say enough good things about the cast. Rob McClure is clearly having a blast playing Applegate, and he impresses. Applegate is a fun role, to be sure, and he makes the most of it; he's generally playing it fun, but there are times when the menace comes through. 

The other standout in the cast for me is Ana Villafañe as Lola. Her voice? Amazing. Her dancing? Phenomenal. Her acting? On. Point. The script could make Lola and Joe's relationship a bit stronger, I think, though their "Two Lost Souls" was a highlight, particularly for Jordan Donica as Joe Hardy. 

Donica's voice is fantastic; an absolute dream (and it only makes me crankier about The Gilded Age not being a musical; I need the Peggy/Dr. Kirkland duet!). However, the role of Joe Hardy isn't a particularly flashy one. Donica gave an interview where he said he played Applegate in high school and was bummed he didn't get the role of Joe Hardy--he wanted the lead. His director told him "You’re a great actor and we need that for Applegate." And look, I'm not saying that playing Joe Hardy doesn't require acting skills, but it's just a quieter role, as this young man deals with pining for the wife he left, a woman he hangs out with but whom he can't tell the truth. But "Two Lost Souls" was the only time I really felt his charisma.

The show itself is sweet, with Joe's love of his wife Meg being his driving force. Joe's Orioles teammates were fun, even if nothing about the story is, you know, how baseball works. And I liked the nod to the Fosse choreography in "Who's Got the Pain." Overall, it's a really fun show and I'm really glad I got to see it. I hope it makes its way to Broadway. 

Also, kudos to whoever create the preshow/intermission playlist. The songs were just completely correct; I was very much brought back to my late college years. Spot on. 

The show the Kennedy Center needs

I sat watching Parade, and as soon as the first song ended, I found myself thinking, "Why am I doing this to myself? This story is so depressing." I remember having the same exact thought the last time I saw this show. 

(Though at the same time, I'm like, "The 2011 production at Ford's was so good! I had the best time with that show! So fun!")

So why do I do it to myself? It's because the show is just that good. Jason Robert Brown's songs are phenomenal; I get them in my head on the regular and then get annoyed that "The Old Red Hills of Home" is such a catchy song. And the story is told so well.

Parade is a true story. When I tell people the plot, they're bewildered at it being a musical, and I don't blame them. It's the story of Leo Frank (Max Chernin), found guilty of murdering a 13-year-old girl who worked in the pencil factory where he was superintendent in 1913, and his wife Lucille (Talia Suskauer), who did all she could to get him exonerated. But after his death sentence was commuted to life in prison, a mob found him and lynched him. Leo Frank was Jewish, and from Brooklyn, living in Atlanta less than 50 years after the end of the Civil War.

It's currently playing at the Kennedy Center and while the current direction of that institution is, um, not great, it's the perfect place for the show right now. Brown has a great post on his Facebook about the meaning of the piece. Watching it, Leo Frank's story resonates strongly over 100 years after it happened--in the bored newspaperman who's excited to have a big story to cover, in the would-be politician/media owner inciting the crowds to rise against the outsider Jew, in the Black bystanders who see what's happening and bemoan the lack of attention given to the injustices inflicted upon them, in the district attorney who finds an someone to blame for crime whether or not he did it. But there's also the governor who goes against the prevailing opinion and stands up for truth, even when it costs him his position. And a sweet love story.

The staging of the show--a national tour of the recent Broadway revival--is excellent. The set itself is incredibly simple, with just a small raised platform and occasional furniture. The show relies heavily on projections, both to give backdrops for the various settings but also to show us pictures of the actual people involved. I was particularly struck when the other pencil factory girls had their pictures shown, labeled as "Mary's Co-Workers." These are teenage girls, maybe 14 or 15 years old. That they're working in a factory is horrific. (That parts of the country have passed laws to make this legal again is even more horrific.)

The performances themselves were fantastic--consistently, all around. I may have preferred Euan Morton's transformation in the Ford's production during "Come Up to My Office" a touch, but I can't complain about Chernin or Suskauer in any way. "All the Wasted Time" is a favorite of mine, and heavens, the two of them had some chemistry during that song.

Talia Suskauer and Max Chernin--get these two a room! Photo by Joan Marcus.

Most of the cast was on the stage most of the time, with the main action on the raised platform as the rest of the cast frequently sat on the sides; they were generally, but not always, involved in the action from there. Particularly noticeable was that the Black actors did not participate in many of the songs, especially in the first act. They would look at each other with "Can you believe this?!"-type faces that were just perfect. This is a show where it's worth watching everyone who's on the stage at any given time.

It's a hard show but it's a great show and one well worth your time and money. 

Authors: It's OK to tell a story chronologically

⭐⭐⭐

I don't know if it's just the books I've read lately, but I'm kind of over storytelling that involves a lot of time jumps. Most books tend to jump between "present" and "past" and follow the "past" story fairly chronologically. How to Start a Fire, by Lisa Lutz, tells the story of college friends Anna, Kate, and George, and time hops all over the place; looking at the table of contents, it goes 2005, 1993, 2011, 2002, 1999, 1990, 2006, 2000, 2010, 1994, 1998, and on and on. (I am very grateful that Lutz starts each chapter with the year and location, at least.) I was helped a bit because the main characters are my sister's age, so I could use that to ground myself. Even so, I spent the first chunk of the book annoyed by all the jumping around. Does your story not hold up to just being told in a straightforward manner? It was frustrating having to spend so much energy trying to figure out where in the timeline things happened and trying to remember who characters were when they popped up 100 pages after being introduced. And then I found out there's a character list and non-spoilery timeline in the back of the book! Unbelievable.

I liked the plot of the book pretty well and found the character dynamics interesting. I loved Kate's relationship with her grandfather, and the friend group relatable, particularly how sometimes one character wanted to interact with one friend but not another. That said, I want to know the characters more. The book jumps away from the storyline at moments when things got interesting, and it made me feel a bit removed from the characters. I feel like I got to know the core three women well enough, but there were moments of growth that we didn't actually get to see. I also wish the characters were a bit less one-note. I honestly don't know how much any of them grew or changed. I didn't particularly like any of the main three women; I did like Colin, Anna's brother, and would happily have read a book about him.

Additionally, it seems that the core of the story, and what the friendship ultimately centers around, is the night that George is attacked, Kate kills the attacker, and they all think it's because Anna left the door unlocked. Lutz leaves this as the central mystery around which the book revolves, but it gets lost amongst everything else. It's really the turning point for all three women, but the reader is just trying to figure out what's going on. After reading the whole book, you can see how it all comes together. But...why couldn't we have gotten the story chronologically? It's just frustrating.

Also, related, per the timeline in the back of the book, Anna starts sleeping with George's dad BEFORE Malcolm dies??? That...is very surprising to me.

The writing itself I liked well enough; a friend in my book club has read a lot of Lutz's other books and recommended those more than this one, and I would definitely check one of them out. 

Dance on, Play On!

There's a character in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, or What You Will, named Duke Orsino. You know who else is named Duke? Duke Ellington. Play On!, currently playing at Signature Theatre, conceived by Sheldon Epps, with a book by Cheryl L. West and music by Duke Ellington, is loosely based on Twelfth Night. It's Harlem in the 1920s and Viola (Jalisa Williams) wants to be a songwriter. Her uncle Jester (Wesley J. Barnes) scoffs at the idea of a woman being a songwriter, so she decides to approach the famous Duke at Vy-man, and quickly falls for him.

Duke, meanwhile, is in love with Lady Liv (Awa Sal Secka), a performer at the Cotton Club, who puts her staff (orchestra conductor Sweets [Derrick D. Truby, Jr.], dresser Miss Mary [Kanysha Williams], and club manager Rev [Chuckie Benson]) through the ringer. Duke sends Vy(man) to bring a song to Liv, who takes a fancy to the young man. Hijinks ensue.

As soon as Barnes and the ensemble came on stage at the top of the show wearing tap shoes, I was in. You can't go wrong with Duke Ellington music, of course, and the dancing in this is incredible; Barnes is fantastic. "Take the 'A' Train" is a masterpiece; the combination of the song and the choreography is excellent. I just wish there were more tapping! 

This really is a loose adaptation; I expected it to hew a bit closer to Shakespeare, but the play is really just an inspiration for this. There's no twin brother, various characters are combined, some beats echo the Shakespeare, but it's honestly best to put it out of your mind. (Like, I spent a large chunk of the first act wondering when Vy's twin brother would show up. Spoiler: He doesn't.) 

Unfortunately, a lot of the plot didn't particularly work for me. Vy is our main character, but I couldn't really tell why she fell for Duke. Lady Liv is awful to most of the people around her, but I think we're supposed to forgive her for that after a monologue about how everyone only sees her as a performer not a person. Except that we've seen how she treats the people who work for her, and I can't forgive it that easily. Duke doesn't really have a personality other than "in love with Lady Liv"; they have a history, but we never learn anything about it. We actually don't get any backstory for pretty much any characters.

Wesley J. Barnes as Jester and Derrick D. Truby Jr. as Sweets. Photo by Christopher Mueller.

The supporting characters are a lot more fun. Sweets, Mary, Jester, and Rev are all wonderful. Sweets and Mary have a falling-out that's unconvincingly patched up, but I honestly didn't care because their relationship at least had some depth. I'm intrigued by Rev--I want his full backstory!--but we again aren't given much info. All we know about Jester is that he's with one woman and cheats on her, but his tap dancing is so good that I don't even care. Sweets and Jester's "Rocks in my Bed" (pictured) is super fun.

It's all a bit frothy. There are glimpses of deeper stories and storytelling, but there's no there there. It's a show you'll watch and enjoy, but stopping to think about makes the problems with the book all pop up. But honestly, the dancing, choreography, singing, and music are all enough to make it worth the ticket.

Not one of Weiner's greatest, but still a good time

⭐⭐⭐⭐

More of a 3.5, but Jennifer Weiner's The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits was an excellent book for reading on vacation--I read this on long train rides and in a hotel at the end of long days of touristing, and this was perfect for that.

Zoe Grossberg wants to be a famous singer; she has the look but not the talent. Cassie Grossberg is a music prodigy, but is overweight and (probably) neurodivergent. Zoe talks Cassie into performing once; naturally this leads to incredible success, which ends abruptly after a year. The book jumps between 2024, when Zoe's daughter Cherry is pursuing fame herself and the sisters are estranged, and the story of the Griffin Sisters (because obviously they couldn't be the Grossberg Sisters).

I really enjoyed the story of the band and their rise and the peeks into the process of becoming a successful band in the early 00s. However, the big knock on this book is the somewhat pat characterization, particularly when Zoe and Cassie are in their early 20s. Their relationship was interesting, but they themselves at that point come across mostly single-dimensional. Even later, in 2024, Cassie remains a bit flat, possibly because she's hidden herself away. (Really, Cassie doesn't have much of a personality at any point in the book, which is a bummer.) Zoe is now a PTA mom, with three kids and a stepson (and, honestly, I probably could've done without that subplot). Her story after the end of the Griffin Sisters was probably the most interesting part of the book. Cherry is consistently fairly awful, even giving grace for her being an 18-year-old.

That said, I really liked the complexities of the various relationships--Zoe and Cassie, Zoe and Cherry, the various bandmates, Zoe and Cassie's family (with their parents, with their great-aunt), Zoe and her husband. I also really enjoyed the book's overall vibe.

So, not Weiner's best, but still well worth the read. Also, I read the hardcover version of this with really cool graphics on the sides of the pages so it looked neat when it was closed. Good job to the production team. Also, I rememeber Weiner asking on social media for potential band names in the early 00s, so it was neat to see that come to fruition.

Not shying away from the "crime" in "true crime"

⭐⭐⭐

Essentially, Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers is Caroline Fraser making the argument that the rise of serial killers in the 1960s and 1970s is because of pollution. She largely focuses on sexual serial killers in the Pacific Northwest, linking their depravities to the presence of smelters and leaded gasoline. She largely focuses on Ted Bundy, that most quintessential of serial killers, but discusses many others, including the Green River Killer, I-5 Killer, BTK, and Night Stalker.

Unlike the trend in recent true crime, Fraser very much focuses on the killers, their lives and upbringings--logically, since she's arguing that the pollution in their childhoods helped make them the monsters they became. She intersperses their stories with that of her own upbringing just outside Seattle, as well as with the story of ASARCO, a mining, smelting, and refining company. There's also a lot about the bridges around Seattle, particularly the dangerous Lacey V. Murrow Floating Bridge. Like, there is just a LOT of discussing the various accidents on it.

In detail. Fatal accidents, non-fatal accidents. Fraser writes about what happened in a lot of them. Similarly, she does NOT shy away from getting into the details of what the serial killers did to their victims. I read a lot of this book in a fairly compressed amount of time, and I going to the point where I just kind of let the horrors wash over me; it's really too much to contemplate.

And it felt unnecessary. Fraser's language at times was a bit flowery for me and the way she wrote about some of the attacks and murders and deaths struck me the wrong way. The level of detail she gave just seemed gratuitous. It was a LOT to read.

What Fraser did well was make the argument that companies like ASARCO should be regarded as equally evil as men like Ted Bundy. They knowingly polluted the air, the water, the land; they covered up the proof. They killed many more than the serial killers could dream of.

Did Fraser succeed in making the connection between companies like ASARCO and the rise of depraved serial killers? It's hard to tell because the book is case after case of correlation, which isn't the same as causation. Fraser focuses on the Pacific Northwest (and, for some reason, something called the Olympic-Wallowa Lineament, basically a "zone of crustal weakness" [p. 3], which Fraser refers to as "a route wreathed in bodies" [p. 4], as though the ground itself causes evil), but doesn't do a good job of comparing the emissions in Tacoma to those of similar facilities in other parts of the country (except El Paso). Plus, there are a lot of other reasons we've seen fewer serial killers (though how they're defined seems nebulous at best) in the past 30 or 40 years, like the increase of security cameras and people having phones on them and the "stranger danger" narratives of the 1980s that have been ingrained in children for years.

Still, I appreciated having the narrative laid out for me, and I honestly didn't know a ton about Ted Bundy (just sort of the broad strokes of his story and whatever I learned from The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy: The Shocking Inside Story). The book was engrossing, I'll certainly give it that. An interesting addition to the true crime canon.