Old Babes in the Woods by Margaret Atwood

Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023--San Antonio

Old Babes in the Woods by Margaret Atwood is a collection of short stores which was named a Top Book of the year by the BBC.  Some of the stories are very creative.  Some are hilarious.  Some are interesting, but maybe a bit too mundane (or maybe just a bit too long to maintain interest).  My reactions went up and down over and over.  When I really liked a story, I couldn't wait to get to the next one.  When a story seemed to drag on too long, I would count the pages to see how many more until the end of that one.  Overall, I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Blackouts by Justin Torres

Thursday, Nov. 23, 2023--San Antonio

I finished reading Blackouts by Justin Torres last night.  When I was about 25% of the way through the book, it was named the winner of the National Book Award for this year.  It's not a traditional novel; many reviewers have called it an experimental novel.  It is built around a meeting of two men who originally met when they were both in a psychiatric hospital--when one was a teenager and the other was a middle-aged adult.  The older man is now dying in a facility called The Palace and the younger one, who has now middle aged, has come to say goodbye to his friend.  But both men have a need.  They need to share their lives with each other in an attempt to make sense out of what has happened to the two of them throughout their lives and to other homosexual and bisexual men and women throughout time as a result of society's efforts to justify, classify, and treat the existence of the sexual orientations of non-straight people.  Stories of real persons who were actually part of this history are introduced--ones who strived to prove that sexuality differences are normal and ones who tried to connect them to aberrations.  The use of eugenics is discussed.  Ethnicity differences come into the story.  The title of the book comes from two aspects of the story:  1)  From published books that had most of the print blacked out because of the discussion of non-heterosexuality being considered worth censoring, and 2) From the fact that the younger man, of Puerto Rican descent, was committed to the asylum not because he was gay but because he suffered from blackouts that seemed to be a common form of hysteria for people from Puerto Rico.  It's not a book that is easy to read.  But it is fascinating how the author has brought all of this together in such a complex story.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

 Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023--San Antonio

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld is centered around the life of a writer for a weekly satire comedy show on TV (like Saturday Night Live).  She is a 38-year-old woman who is happy with her life and her professional success in general, but, although having been married once and had a long-time fuck buddy, she has never had a fulfilling love life.  After working for 10 years at the show, there is a guest star for the week, a singer whose music she doesn't particularly like, who is both the guest host and the musical guest.  In her role as a writer, she finds herself writing skits that he will be in and also helping him with a skit he has been working on and wants to submit.  She is feeling something going on between the two of them, but doesn't trust that it is actually happening.  He may be feeling the same way, but is not communicating it well.  The question is whether they were really both interested in each other or not.  It's going to take time and more awkward encounters to find out.  It was fun to read, but is not great literature.  Still, I gave it 4 stars out of 5.

The One by John Marrs

Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023--San Antonio

The One by John Marrs seemed so familiar for the first 3 chapters or so.  Even one of the sentences at the end of one of the chapters made me think I had read it before.  But I searched through my records I keep of books I have read and it wasn't on the list.  And I checked the Netflix filmed version of it to see if I had watched that, but I hadn't.  So I kept reading and it started to seem "fresh."  I'm wondering if I read part of it and quit it sometime in the past.  It is an interesting novel, but I wouldn't call it a very good one.  It is set in the future when a researcher has discovered a mutation in a gene that allows her through gene analysis to match each person in the world with their ideal lover.  People download an app, spit on a swap and spit on it, send that in, and wait for an email to tell them who their perfect match is.  The book followed about 5 couples who have been matched.  It's strange that the "one perfect match" could be anywhere in the world but is often within the same region of a country where they both live, but that would be the only way the stories could be told; otherwise, most people would not have the money to travel travel around the world to meet their true match.  It's an okay book to read with some exciting twists regarding the matched couples.  Then it ends with uncertainty regarding what is going to happen to some of the characters.  I gave the book 3 stars out of 5.