Book Review- Freeman Hall's Retail Hell

In Retail Hell, author Freeman Hall recounts his fifteen years selling handbags at a major department store that he has named "The Big Fancy". If you do a minimal amount of digging, it's easy to figure out the store and location of his former employer. This also happens to be my former employer and location, which made reading this book all the more interesting and held me back from writing this review until I had resigned.

The book was highly entertaining to read and I breezed right through it. It is all very heightened for comedic effect or possible a result of his frustrations. I actually felt like some of the customers in the book, had to be the same customers that I have helped in my department. I have read other reviews that criticized Hall as being racist in his descriptions of the customers. He does have some cringe worthy descriptions and should have treaded more carefully. However, I feel like Hall was trying to vent his frustrations and went about it the wrong way. The store is located in a very multicultural community and one that has heavy tourism traffic. This can be a mixed blessing. On the upside, it's great to meet people from all over the world. On the downside, it's often exceedingly frustrating to communicate with language and cultural barriers. You quickly learn that different cultures have different expectations when it comes to the shopping experience and sometimes those expectations clash with store policies! I could relate to Hall's frustrations.

Hall's dealings with his fellow coworkers and managers did not match with my experience. It seems that there has been a recent management overhaul. I was with the company for 4 1/2 months and had nothing but positive experiences with management. I also really liked the a majority of my coworkers, both in my immediate department and the adjacent departments. Having spent many years in the work force, I think this job is like any other job, it goes through cycles of good and bad times.

Although clever the first couple of times, I didn't care for Hall's overuse of the Screenplay format. It was creative the first time and then felt like a gimmick and filler to lengthen the book. It was unnecessary and killed the pacing.

There was a section in Hall's book that struck a chord with me and was ultimately a catalyst in my resignation. He wrote about his dreams of screenwriting and how working in retail hell left him too exhausted to get anything done. I spent my entire time with the company feeling completely physically and mentally drained. I've never had a job take so much out of me. I've also never put so much in for so little return. I've been told by many long time employees that it used to be a lucrative job. When the economy was strong and when the buyers were picking great merchandise, everyone in the store was making really great money. Times are different now.

Hall made me see that I was pushing aside family, friends and dreams for a job that was giving me so little in return. This is not a bash on The Big Fancy, as there seem to be many people who are happy working there. There are many people who enjoy working with fashion and customer service. I am in a lucky position to be able to take the time to find a job that will make me happy.

I loved Hall's Tips for Shoppers. Yes, Yes, Yes!!! Learn and live by those rules!

Book Review- Meg Abbott's Dare Me

I was motivated to buy Megan Abbott's Dare Me based on a positive magazine review. In usually don't go for non-fiction crime or mystery stories, but this one caught my eye and I am glad it did.

Abbott's novel centers around a group of high school cheerleaders, whose dynamics shift when a new coach is brought into their lives. The murder mystery aspect of the book is secondary to the relationship between the girls and the coach.

This book is cringe worthy. The interplay between the girls with each other, the girls with men and the girls with their coach is all very uncomfortable. None of the characters in the book are likeable. The girls spend an inordinate amount of time focused on cutting others down to rise on the pecking order. The coach, in her late twenties and in a very unhappy marriage, isn't better than her young charges. She gets herself in the thick of the teenage drama, as she attempts to fit in and revert back to her youth.

This story has characters who cross boundaries left and right. Nothing is even remotely appropriate!

Although it's highly uncomfortable to read, this book is impossible to put down. It's a page turner, in a pulpy beach read sort of way. I bought it for my flight to Canada and plowed right through it, thoroughly enjoying it.

I am not sure if the characters ring true or if it even matters. I went to an arts high school and nothing about the characters rings true to my experience. I hope that the characters are not common place in most high schools or a true reflection of teenagers today, that would be scary!

I absolutely recommend this book and look forward to reading more of Abbott's novels.

Book Review- Lisa Napoli's Radio Shangri-La

I have a soft spot for travel memoirs, especially ones that involve quirky, fish-out-of-water scenarios. Lisa Napoli's Radio Shangri-La documents the author's many trips to the country of Bhutan, the self- proclaimed "Happiest Kingdom on Earth."

Bhutan is a country that is not accessible to the average tourist. It's difficult to obtain a visa and if you are allowed in, there is a heavy daily tax levied on visitors. Napoli managed to gain entry by way of her career in radio and arrived to help the nations first station geared towards Bhutanese youth, radio Kuzoo. Radio Kuzoo became a phenomenon in Bhutan, as it allowed the citizens in a very closed culture, access to the outside world, When Napoli was visiting in 2008, the country was beginning to let in the modern world and changes were happening rapidly.

The book is as much about Bhutan's changes, as the changes in Napoli's own life. It is very reflective, especially with regards to Napoli's younger Bhutanese friends. Napoli is in her forties and reflecting on the decisions made in her youth and focused on how to spend the second half of her life. This is especially profound in the last half of the book, when Napoli befriends Ngawang, a young adult, who is trying to carve out her own future and in the process makes life altering decisions.

The contemplative tone of the memoir, also has a lot to say on the idea of happiness and what it means of different people. Bhutan claims to be the "Happiest Kingdom on Earth" and when Napoli first arrives, she goes in with a rather, western, hippy notion that it's because the people are unplugged from modern distractions. Bhutan does eschew many of the trappings of modern society, but it's more deep rooted cultural priorities of family and belonging that give the citizens a sense of happiness. If Napoli write another book, ten or twenty years from now, it may give us a very different view of Bhutan, as the outside world becomes a bigger part of daily life. However, at this junction, it doesn't seem that any negative affects have invaded.

The afterword could have easily been a jumping point for a new book. It was actually quite surprising. Napoli met with a family of Bhutan refuges in Tuscon, Arizona, who told their story about being forced out of the country twenty years ago. Bhutan made it very uncomfortable for their ethnic Nepalese citizens to live in the country, forcing them to flee Bhutan and find safe havens in other countries. This happened to approximately 1/6th of the population of Bhutan, many of whom, wish that they could return home despite being unwated in their home country. Reading about this, made the whole "Happiest Kingdom.." bit sound like even more P.R. nonsense than it did initially.

This being said, the idea of whether or not it is the Happiest Kingdom is irrelevant. Napoli's book is about herself and the individuals that she encounters. It is a micro, not a macro view of her experience of the culture of Bhutan. In the end, the concept of Happiness is vast and impossible to define. It is an individual feeling and absurd to apply to an entire country.