Book Review- Alana Massey's All The Lives I Want

Thank You to Grand Central Publishing for providing me with a copy of Alana Massey's, All The Lives I Want: Essays About My Best Friends Who Happen To Be Famous Strangers, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- In her essay collection, All The Lives I Want: Essays About My Best Friends Who Happen to Be Famous Strangers, Alana Massey explores female icons, and their role in popular culture. She looks at how these celebrities influence us, and how society molds them, making the idea of celebrity a process of compartmentalizing and dehumanizing. She also explores how celebrities have impacted her own life. 

LIKE- I like Massey's concept for All The Lives I Want, how she doesn't simply explore the idea of celebrity, but chooses celebrities that have made a direct impact on her. It's often seen as bad taste to admit that you've been influenced, or even take an interest in celebrities, but whether people admit it or not, I find it to be a rare thing that a person is not at least a little affected or interested in celebrity culture. I find Massey's willingness to admit this about herself and explore it, to be refreshing.

The last essay in the book, On Joan Didion and Personal Mythology as Survival, had my full attention. This essay is by far Massey's most personal, as she recalls her love of Didion ( who doesn't love Didion?), to a time in her life where she was in a toxic relationship with a drug addict. Massey also eloquently writes about Los Angeles and New York. Sure, some of the things she says about my beloved Los Angeles are not the most flattering, and I don't agree with her assessment of it being a fake city. When I hear someone refer to Los Angeles as a false place, I know in my heart that they don't understand my hometown. This aside, Massey writes poetically about the desert landscape of Southern California and juxtaposes it with the pulsing city of Manhattan. It's beautifully written and made me slow down to fully absorb the impact of her rich descriptions. 

When writing about female celebrity bodies, Massey does not hold back from sharing her own anorexia. Her descriptions of her obsession with thinness are grotesque, yet she does not make apologies for feeling this way. She owns her obsession. I was repulsed and saddened by her confession, yet at the same time, I admire the brazen quality of her writing. For better or worse, this is how pop culture has made an impact on her, and there is no need to apologize or feel shame. 

DISLIKE- When I requested All The Lives I Want, on Netgalley, I requested it for the premise alone. I was completely unfamiliar with Massey and to be honest, even after reading her book and doing a Google search, I'm not sure that I know a lot about her. To this end, her collection read as if I should have prior knowledge of her, as if she is a well-know celebrity. She drops bits of information about herself, such as being a former stripper, her battle with anorexia, or that she went to seminary school; but none of this adds up for me to really understand who she is or why I should care about her essays. Either this collection needs context or perhaps I'm just out of the loop. The essays are uneven in regard to those that have a personal vibe, and those that are more academic in tone. All The Lives I Want would have been much stronger, if the essays had all been more personal.

All of the celebrities that Massey profiles are ones that will be well known to most readers, which works as it makes All The Lives I Want, accessible, however, it's also material that has been done to death. Do we need another essay about Scarlett Johansson's sex-symbol status, or another one explaining the mistake in vilifying Courtney Love? Massey adds little to the conversation. Again, if she had gone a more personal route, I think I would have found relevance, but her often academic approach was dull and off-putting. 

RECOMMEND- No. I loved the concept of, All The Lives I Want, but I found it to be a tedious read. Massey didn't leave me with a different perspective, and there isn't enough personal content to make me interested in her as a narrator. All The Lives I Want, could have been a much more engaging read, if she had placed herself at the center of exploring her interest in celebrities. 

Book Review- Colleen Oakley's Close Enough to Touch

Thank You to Gallery Books for providing me with an advanced copy of Colleen Oakley's novel, Close Enough to Touch, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- Just a few months before her high school graduation, Jubilee Jenkins received her first kiss, and it nearly killed her. Jubilee has a rare allergy; she is allergic to other people. If she touches another person, she breaks out into a blistering rash, and doctor's fear that it could also send her into anaphylactic shock leading to death.

 After her brush with death, she becomes a recluse. Soon, her mother moves to another state, allowing Jubilee to stay in their home and mailing her monthly support checks. Jubilee takes college courses online and has all of her shopping delivered, so that she never has a need to leave the safety of her home.

Fast forward nine years; Jubilee gets a phone call that her mother has died. The house has been paid off and the deed is transferred to Jubilee's name, however without the monthly checks, Jubilee must venture out of her home and find a job. She runs into a former classmate, who recommends her for a job at the local library. One night, on her bike ride home from work, Jubilee notices a little boy drowning in a river, and without thinking of her own safety, she rescues him. The little boy, Ajah and his father, Eric, befriend Jubilee and she begins to realize the impact of human connection, something that she had closed-off for so many years.

LIKE- Close Enough to Touch is a beautiful and imaginative story. Oakley has a keen sense of empathy and is able to create characters with deep emotional lives. I didn't realize until I had finished the story, that an allergy to humans doesn't exist, at least not in the way that Jubilee experiences her affliction. This is where I felt Oakley brought her story-world to life, giving Jubilee a substantial fear in her life threatening situation, and also inflicting her with abandonment issues. Jubilee's stakes are high. Since she cannot allow people to come near her, she creates what she thinks is a good life, filled with her books and communicating online with her college courses. She's not simply sitting in her home, depressed, or at least she doesn't realize that she might be depressed, because in her eyes, she has purpose and fulfillment. It's not until she is forced out of her home, that she realizes that her life can be bigger, that she can dare to dream bigger.

This scenario rattled me on a personal level. Although I don't have an allergy to people and I've never spent years without leaving my home, I do get into ruts, where I stay inside. Currently this is happening due to our relocation to Portland. I feel somewhat unsafe in my downtown neighborhood, so I rarely leave our apartment building. I have groceries delivered, and unless I'm going out with my husband, I generally stay inside. On this small level, I could understand Jubilee's anxiety and wanting to stay in her comfort zone. It made me realize that I should try harder to do things outside of that comfort zone.

With the addition of Eric and Ajah, Oakley has brought together an unlikely trio. Eric is recently divorced and desperate to reconnect with his teenage daughter. Eric is a bit awkward and has a tendency to be attracted to unavailable women. He has adopted his best friend's son, Ajah, who is a bright, inquisitive kid, but having trouble coping with his parent's death. In his mourning, Ajah becomes fixated on the X-Men comics and with the idea that he might have super powers. The growing romance between Eric and Jubilee is beautiful and complicated. It's filled with devastating blows, cringe-worthy missteps, and moments that will make your heart explode with the warm fuzzies. It's also really sexy. This isn't at all erotica, but Close Enough to Touch, has some very erotic scenes. 

DISLIKE- What about Michael, a man that enters Jubilee's life at the very end of the story. Michael seems like a really great guy, who loves Jubilee, but he gets screwed over. I wish the little bit about Michael at the end had been left out, it cast a shadow over the last few pages of the story, which I otherwise loved.

RECOMMEND- Yes! Close Enough to Touch is a beautiful, affecting story with memorable characters. I enjoyed it so much, that I immediately purchased Oakley's first novel, Before I Go. I needed more Oakley!

Book Review- Doug Mack's The Not-Quite States of America: Dispatches from the Territories and Other Far-Flung Outposts of the USA

Thank You to W.W. Norton & Company for providing me with an advanced copy of Doug Mack's The Not-Quite States of America: Dispatches from the Territories and Other Far-Flung Outposts of the USA, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- Doug Mack's The Not-Quite States of America: Dispatches from the Territories and Other Far-Flung Outposts of the USA, is part travelogue and part history lesson. Mack travels to Puerto Rico, The U.S. Virgin Islands, America Samoa, The Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam, to meet the people who inhabit these lands that are "not-quite part of America," and to better understand their history and culture. 

LIKE- I consider myself fairly knowledgeable when it comes to US History, but Mack has opened my eyes. I had no idea that the United States still has so many territories or that it is so darn muddled regarding the rights of the people living in these areas. I felt a little relieved, when early in his book, Mack, a travel writer, admitted to also being unaware of the full extent of these territories. This made me feel less clueless and in good company. I enjoyed tagging along with Mack, as he visits these islands. Mack's sense of humor and his interactions with the locals, blends well with the history and politics of each island.

Admittedly, some of the politics and legal talk of territories can get a little dry and very confusing, however, Mack puts it out in layman terms, so if I read it carefully, I felt like I was gaining an understanding. My overall impression of the situation is that it is complicated and there is no one solution. I was surprised by the high number of people from the territories serving in the US armed forces, yet depending on where they live, they may not have very many rights. I was shocked by how the rights can vary dramatically from each territory, depending on status ( incorporated/ unincorporated, commonwealth, organized/ unorganized). Seeing how messy this all is, coupled with a general lack of interest or knowledge that most US citizens have towards the territories, I doubt we will be adding any new states in the near future. It's even presumptuous to think that people in the territories necessarily want statehood. Mack is perceptive with his noting how the idea of colonization is very distasteful and not politically correct, yet colonies are essentially what America still has, even if we call them territories and try to play "out of sight, out of mind." 

Some of the history, for example the connection between World War 2 and Guam, was familiar. Currently, with North Korea ramping up its nuclear capabilities, and other nations in the Pacific, feeling on edge, these small islands are becoming more valuable for their strategic positioning in future wars. Each country wants to grab what they can in the Pacific for their own security. Mack speaks of this towards the end of his book and it gave me the chills. Speaking of chills, I was gutted when I read about the thousands of Japanese citizens, including families with small children, committing suicide off of a cliff in Saipan (Northern Mariana Islands) after learning that they had lost WW2. I'm sure that story will forever stick with me. 

DISLIKE- Nothing. The Not-Quite States of America has left me a better informed citizen, it has given me a new perspective. 

RECOMMEND- If you're an American citizen, you should definitely add The Not-Quite States of America, to your reading list. Mack is an entertaining writer and his book is important.