Book Review: "Greenlights" by Matthew McConaughey

Alright, alright, alright...

Greenlights is exactly what you’d expect a memoir from Matthew McConaughey to be like, and that’s pretty great.

I’ve been a McConaughey fan since he appeared as Drew Barrymore’s boyfriend in the movie Boys on the Side. Aside from his obvious aesthetic gifts (I saw him once in person during his dirty, shoeless days in Austin and he was still totally magnetic) and his acting talent, I’ve always thought him to be one of the bluntest, funniest, most cerebral celebrities out there. (Look up his Oscar acceptance speech on YouTube to see what I mean.)

Greenlights is, as he puts it, “fifty years of my sights and seems, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops. It’s a love letter. To life.”

This is at turns funny, blunt, insightful, emotional, and even so outrageous you wonder if he’s being completely truthful (although it wouldn’t surprise you if he is). But while he’s definitely a what-you-see is what-you-get type of guy, what you get is a man who clearly operates by the strong code of morals and behaviors he was raised with.

I thought this was such a great read, but don’t go in expecting a tell-all: he has nothing to say about any of his costars or collaborators. And that honestly was fine with me, because I wouldn't expect him to be that type of guy.

I’m not normally an audiobook guy, but how could I pass up buying the audio of this to hear that voice read his own words? Obviously if you're not a fan of his this may not work, but I really enjoyed it. And I don't read very many memoirs at all!

Book Review: "Broken People" by Sam Lansky

What does it take to “fix” our problems? Is such a fix even possible? These questions are at the core of Broken People, Sam Lansky's debut novel.

Sam is a writer in Los Angeles. He wrote a memoir about his struggles with addiction in his teens and how difficult it is to stay sober. It sold modestly but it didn’t make him a household name.

Now 28, he can’t remember the last time he was happy. His ideas for a second book don’t work, he’s worried he might lose his magazine job, he can’t find a relationship, and he’s so unhappy with his body he’s convinced the entire gay community will reject him because he’s fat. His unhappiness is practically debilitating.

"Maybe some people are just born self-hating and self-destructive and we die that way. And so we go to therapy and twelve-step groups and we take antidepressants and anxiety meds and we journal and go to yoga and exercise and take baths and drink pressed juices and repeat affirmations to ourselves in the mirror and listen to Brené Brown podcasts. But we're just swimming against the tide, because the darkness always comes back. All we ever do is learn to manage the symptoms."

At a dinner party one night, he hears about a shaman who supposedly can fix people’s problems over the course of a weekend. It certainly seems too good to be true, but signs keep pointing him toward taking a chance.

He and an acquaintance spend the weekend with the shaman, and Sam hopes this will be the answer to his problems. But is the key to happiness reopening old wounds, prodding insecurities, and confronting hidden trauma, or is the shaman really summoning his power?

This was a thought-provoking, emotional book that raised some interesting questions. I honestly was expecting there to be much more trauma revealed than there was, and I don’t know that I bought the whole concept of “fixing.”

It’s a well-written book but I never quite connected with it as much as I would’ve liked. Still, it’s another intriguing book for Pride Reads!!

Book Review: "Journey: A Novel" by Andrew Zimmerman

What a tremendously thought-provoking read!

I’m honored to participate on the blog tour for this book, and thank Get Red PR, Radius Book Group, and Andy Zimmerman for advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review!

Paul is driven, a workaholic, on a path to become the CEO of an immense technology company. You’ve seen his type before—always on conference calls or emails, barely listening to a word anyone around him says, neglecting his needy wife and teenage son.

When talking with some friends visiting from the English town of Glastonbury—a mystical mecca of sorts—he learns of a woman working as a soul reader. According to Paul’s friend, this woman’s work has greatly affected others’ lives. Although he usually has disdain for the spiritual "woo woo" world, he is intrigued by the idea of having his soul read.

His encounter with Cynthia, the soul reader, changes him. He starts to recognize the value of slowing down, nurturing his soul, appreciating his wife and children more. But he doesn’t do it at the expense of his job—he just tries to shift his priorities as much as possible in the midst of the pressure.

As his awakening of sorts continues he makes some fascinating discoveries about himself and his life, and his wife both enjoys and feels threatened by his new path.

Can you achieve spiritual satisfaction simultaneously with happiness in your personal and professional life? Does making yourself vulnerable always signify weakness?

I’m not much into the spiritual world but I found this to be a quick, thought-provoking read which definitely has me re-evaluating my priorities a bit.

Book Review: "Fresh Complaint" by Jeffrey Eugenides

Ever since Jeffrey Eugenides burst on to the literary scene in the early 1990s with The Virgin Suicides, he's proven himself to be an expert commentator on the foibles of the human condition, sex, adolescence, relationships, family dynamics, and, at times, the often-mundane challenges of everyday life. He further cemented that reputation with Middlesex and The Marriage Plot, so when I heard that he'd finally be coming out with a short story collection, I was excited to see if he'd be able to capture this same kind of magic in short form.

The verdict? His stories, some of which were written as early as 1996, definitely demonstrate his talent for creating memorable characters and vivid dialogue. Some have a dreamier quality, while others are more moving and poignant. The challenge is, not all of the stories are that interesting, so while you can savor Eugenides' storytelling ability, you might find yourself wondering what the point was in some cases.

Among my favorites in the collection: "Baster," about a woman in her 40s who decides it's time to use a somewhat unorthodox way of getting pregnant, and how that decision affects a former boyfriend; "Complainers," which chronicles the decades-long relationship between two women, and how one responds when the other's infirmities start impacting her independence and her spirit; "Air Mail," the story of a young man's observations as he searches for enlightenment while traveling the world; "Find the Bad Guy," about a man trying to rebuild his marriage; and the title story, about a young girl's desire to escape her immigrant family's customs, so she makes an impetuous decision which turns a British physicist's life upside down.

At their best, Eugenides draws you into the stories from their very first sentence, creating tension and empathetic characters whose lives and situations you become invested in. When the stories didn't work for me, they just didn't quite capture my attention (one seemed like an excerpt from Middlesex or an early outtake), or I didn't quite understand what he was trying to say. Fortunately the good stories outnumbered the weaker ones, but some of the weaker ones made the collection feel a little bogged down.

Eugenides is one of those authors who tends to take a while between novels. I hope that since Fresh Complaint was mostly a collection of previously written material, we won't have to wait much longer for a new book. (The Marriage Plot was released in 2011.) Still, these stories are a nice way to tide you over until the next book comes along, if you're one of those who could use a Eugenides fix.

Book Review: "Between Here and the Yellow Sea" by Nic Pizzolatto

Before he created the acclaimed television series True Detective (at least the first season), before he wrote the superlative thriller Galveston (read my original review from 2011), Nic Pizzolatto wrote a short story collection called Between Here and the Yellow Sea in 2005.

It's always really interesting to me to read an author's early work, especially when you've read their more recent books. Sometimes you see them struggling to take control of their storytelling ability, their voice, their imagery, and other times you find flashes of genius, genius which becomes even more pronounced as their career progresses. Pizzolatto's collection of nine stories (apparently Amazon has another version of the collection with two stories not included in the original, but I didn't read that one) is moving, poignant, and thought-provoking, and a number of stories pack a punch.

The characters in these stories are struggling—with loss, adolescence, demons real or imagined, and, of course, all types of relationships. All but one of the stories worked for me, although I had a number of favorites, including: "Ghost Birds," in which a park ranger and BASE jumper wrestles with emotional crises and confronts the fears instigated by his risk-taking girlfriend; "1987, The Races," which tells of a young boy forced to provide emotional stability and companionship to his father, who has been slower to recover following his divorce from the boy's mother; "Two Shores," in which a young man struggles to understand his feelings (and control his curiosity) after the reappearance of an old girlfriend; "Amy's Watch," about a teenage girl forced to make sense of the various relationships in her life; and the fantastic title story, which follows a young man and his high school football coach as they drive to California, ostensibly to kidnap the coach's daughter and bring her back to Texas where she belongs.

I read a lot, but even when a book is really well-written and enjoyable, after I finish reading it I sometimes have trouble recalling specific plot points. But a few days after finishing Between Here and the Yellow Sea, I can't seem to get some of these stories out of my head. I've said before that the true sign of an excellent story collection for me is if I can envision some of the stories as full-length novels, and I definitely could here with more than a few of them.

Pizzolatto has real storytelling talent. If you've not read Galveston, I'd definitely encourage you to. Beyond that, I hope that he can fit in another novel or story collection sometime in the future, between his television and film writing gigs. This guy deserves to be read as well as have his work come to life on the big and small screens.

Book Review: "Thirteen Ways of Looking" by Colum McCann

Full disclosure: I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House for making it available!

Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin was a highly heralded, award-winning novel that I never could get into. I tried several separate times to read it and could never get past the first few pages. But seeing so many glowing reviews of his new short story collection, Thirteen Ways of Looking, from a number of Goodreads friends whose opinions I value, I thought I needed to give this a shot. Haven't we all struggled to read at least one critically acclaimed book out there?

There were moments when reading the title novella which opened the collection that I wondered if for some reason McCann's writing was somehow impenetrable to me. The story of the last morning in the life of a retired judge (he doesn't know that, of course), which juxtaposed his reflections on his career, his late wife, his family, and the miseries of old age with the investigation into his death had flashes of brilliance, but I found the character a little too pompous and long-winded. After a while I grew weary of his verbosity, but the tautness of the other half of the story kept me from giving up on this collection. I also found the ending a little disappointing, but McCann's writing was at once both vivid and languid.

The three remaining stories in this collection are absolutely exquisite. I honestly don't know which of them I loved the most, because each had such beautiful, moving moments. "What Time Is It Now, Where You Are?" is two stories in one—a bird's eye view into the creative process of a writer as they develop a short story, little by little, and the actual story itself as it unfolds, a tale about a young Marine in Afghanistan planning to call home when the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve. (But it is so much more.) "Sh'khol" tells the story of a mother whose biggest nightmare appears to come true when her deaf son disappears early one morning while they are vacationing together in Ireland, and she fears the worst. In "Treaty," an elderly nun must confront a tragic period of her life that occurred more than 35 years before, when she catches a glimpse of a suddenly familiar man on television.

McCann's use of language and imagery is breathtaking at times, and I found these three stories in particular immensely moving and memorable. I almost wish each was as long as the title novella, as I wanted more time with these characters and their stories. What's even more amazing is the fact that McCann himself was assaulted while writing this collection, and as he reflects in the afterword, some stories were written before the incident and some after.

As he puts it, "For all its imagined moments, literature works in unimaginable ways." I'd agree completely. So much of this book touched me in many, many ways, and I am grateful for the opportunity to read it.

Book Review: "One to Go" by Mike Pace

The crime/thriller genre is full of a lot of books that seem rather similar, to the point where at times you can't easily distinguish books you've read from those you haven't. Mike Pace's One to Go is not one of those books. Sure, it's utterly implausible (at least I hope so) and it goes off the rails toward the end, but it takes you on one hell of a ride, and is unlike any other book I've read, mashing together the crime/thriller genre with a bit of the paranormal.

Tom Booker is a new attorney at one of the more powerful law firms in Washington, DC. He's rotating through the firm's different specialties, hoping to find his niche and make an impression on those in charge. Deciding to be a lawyer at a later age than many, he wants to succeed yet still wants to be a good father to his young daughter, especially now that he and his wife are divorced.

Rushing to meet his daughter and her friends at a museum one Saturday, he stops to text his wife that he's on his way (although running late), and he inadvertently winds up drifting into oncoming traffic, causing an accident on the Memorial Bridge. An accident with a truck as well as a minivan driven by his sister-in-law, carrying his daughter and her friends. The minivan tips on its side, starts leaking gasoline, and is on the verge of plummeting into the Potomac River below.

Can Tom shake off his own injuries fast enough to save his daughter? Suddenly time inexplicably freezes, and he encounters a perky couple, Britney and Chad. They give Tom the option to reverse time and save everyone involved in the crash. But this offer is not without its cost—to repay for the four lives he will save, he must kill a person every other week. It doesn't matter who he kills, he just has to kill someone. And if he doesn't, one of the minivan's passengers will be killed instead, which again puts his daughter at risk.

He has to be hallucinating, right? Tom quickly sees that this utterly unbelievable situation is all too real, and he must take Britney and Chad's bargain seriously. But how will he find people who deserve to die? And how will he work up the courage to kill them when he's never really even fired a gun? He must turn himself from an upstanding lawyer into a serial killer in just a matter of days, and he can't caught, or he'll put his daughter in danger. And then he finds himself in the middle of another situation that threatens his freedom and his daughter's life.

One to Go jolts you from the start, and keeps your adrenaline pumping throughout. Tom is not your average everyday murderer—he thinks he can go about killing like he's seen it done on television and in the movies, but he finds it much more difficult than he'd even imagine, and as he finds, the devil is definitely in the details. I liked the fact that Pace didn't change Tom's character too much as the story unfolded. Pace does a great job ratcheting up the tension throughout, and there are some good action scenes.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit, but I found part of the story's resolution tremendously predictable (I figured it would go one of two ways) and then the outrageous elements of the plot were just a little too outrageous. But if you can completely suspend your disbelief (and I mean completely), you'll probably agree this is a book unlike many you've seen in this genre.

I look forward to seeing what Pace thinks of next!

Book Review: "The Snow Queen" by Michael Cunningham

Barrett and Tyler Meeks are brothers. They're different in many ways—Barrett, who is gay, hasn't been able to settle down enough in his life to pursue a serious vocation, while Tyler is a struggling musician, obsessed with what is going on in the world around him. But they're also fairly similar, as both brothers are fiercely protective of each other (owing to a promise each made separately to their mother when they were younger), and neither is utterly satisfied with the direction their life is taking.

Tyler's fiancé, Beth, is dying. There's still some hope that she may beat her disease, but no one is optimistic enough to say so. Tyler's main task is to write a wedding song for Beth, one that won't seem maudlin or overly sentimental, despite the situation. He has been Beth's caregiver, her watchdog, her guardian angel, but he isn't sure what his life would be without her. And despite promises made to everyone, Tyler uses cocaine more often than he should, as he feels it gives him more clarity and enables his creative process. But, of course, he's not addicted.

"It seems possible that all the surprises (he didn't exactly plan on being an unknown musician at forty-three, living in eroticized chastity with his dying girlfriend and his younger brother, who has turned, by slow degrees, from a young wizard into a tired middle-aged magician, summoning doves out of a hat for the ten thousandth time) have been part of an inscrutable effort, too immense to see; some accumulation of lost chances and canceled plans and girls who were almost but not quite, all of which seemed random at the time but have brought him here, to this window, to his difficult but interesting life..."

Meanwhile, Barrett, dealing with the surprising (to him) demise of another relationship, sees a mysterious light in the sky while walking through Central Park one night. He knows it isn't a star or a comet or a plane, and almost believes it is some sort of signal from God, although he cannot figure out what it means. Desperate to understand the meaning of that light, he finds himself turning to spirituality and religion to try and find some answers.

The Snow Queen tells the story of Barrett, Tyler, and Beth, as each searches for fulfillment and the chance to understand their own destiny. The book spans from Election Day in 2004 through Election Day in 2008, and follows the three of them (along with a few of their circle of friends) as they struggle to find meaning in their lives. It's a tremendously introspective book, one which demonstrates (much like life) that there are no easy answers, and the answers are different for each of us. It's a poignant, moving story that definitely makes you think.

Michael Cunningham is one of my favorite authors. So many times in reading The Snow Queen, I was utterly mesmerized by the poetry of his language, even in describing simple emotions or situations. I enjoyed this book, although not as much as some of his others, like The Hours, A Home at the End of the World, and By Nightfall, but I was still moved, intrigued, and amazed by Cunningham's storytelling. Tremendously interesting read.

Book Review: "Foreign Gods, Inc." by Okey Ndibe

Don't mess with the deities, for you know not what they'll do.

Ikechukwu "Ike" Uzondu is a Nigerian taxi driver in Brooklyn. He's having a tough time of it. Educated at Amherst College, intelligent and ambitious, he is determined to make a better life for himself, but he is unable to get a job because his accent is so thick. Instead of marrying for love, he married for the possibility of a green card, yet wound up with a shrewish wife, who constantly demanded money, accused him of having affairs, cheated on him, and divorced him, taking much of his savings.

But now the rent is due, his gambling debts have him strapped for money, and the emails from his sister and mother back in Nigeria begging for money are becoming increasingly more strident and demanding. Inspired by an article about Foreign Gods, Inc.—a tony New York gallery that specializes in the purchase and sale of deities from foreign countries, Ike decides his best hope for fortune and comfort is to return home to Nigeria and steal Ngene, his ancestral village's war idol. After all, as he has read, "In a postmodern world, even gods and sacred objects must travel or lose their vitality; any deity that remained stuck in its place and original purpose would soon become moribund."

Ike's return home to his village is not as smooth as he had hoped. He nearly gets arrested several times in the airport because he refuses to give customs officials and others the bribes they expect. His mother and sister have fallen under the influence of a corrupt, maniacal Christian preacher, who has captivated many in his village with promises of salvation and talk of the devil. And his mother is at war with Ike's uncle and grandmother, as she has been led to believe by the preacher that they were responsible for Ike's father's death because they worship Ngene, not Jesus.

Foreign Gods, Inc. is in part a meditation on what it's like to be an immigrant in the U.S., and part a reflection on what it's like to return home to a country and a culture you tried so hard to leave behind. At times the book is satirical, as it pokes fun at the mangled English the characters use ("Now I have to be a fantastic hostage by tabulating a drink in front of you," one of Ike's friends says) and their fascination and disbelief at American ways. Toward the end of the book, it turns metaphorical, as Ike begins to experience—or is he simply imagining—the consequences of stealing Ngene away from the village.

Okey Ndibe tells an amusing and intriguing story which may have more roots in truth than I'd imagine. It ran a little slow in places, but Ike's character is fascinating, and his plight made for a compelling read.

Book Review: "The Empty Chair: Two Novellas" by Bruce Wagner

"If it were possible to hold all of the people's stories all of the time in one's head, heart and hands, there is no doubt that in the end, each would be unvanquishably linked by a single, religious detail."

In The Empty Chair, Bruce Wagner tells of the Buddhist spiritual journeys taken by two utterly disparate people. Both stories, which happens years apart from each other, are linked in a tenuous way which might strain your memory a little bit, and are told to a fictional Bruce Wagner.

The first novella is the story of an aging gay Buddhist in Big Sur, California. He has led a difficult life, having been repeatedly molested by a priest in his local church, which led him to experience panic attacks as an adult. But he pursued a somewhat romantic relationship with a woman who was enchanted by Buddhism, and had a son, who was the center of their universe. As his wife taught a basic form of Buddhism in prisons (including San Quentin) and then in schools, he raised their son as a stay-at-home father. But their lives were rocked when their 12-year-old son committed suicide, and he has been unable to settle down since that tragedy, traveling in a Volkswagen bus.

The second novella follows Queenie, a larger-than-life woman who was a wild child, sleeping around with dangerous men and taking drugs. She met Kura, a criminal who longs to become a saint, when he saved her life after she was attacked by a boyfriend outside of a nightclub. Kura rescued her, took care of her, and brought her to India on his search for his spiritual guru. Although she ultimately left Kura to follow his own spiritual journey, she always thought of him, and when he calls her 27 years later to ask her to join him in finding the guru again (who has disappeared), she doesn't blink an eye.

I just didn't get this book. Admittedly, I don't know much about Buddhism, but while the book is upfront about its subject matter, I expected the religion to be touched on in a more superficial way, more an Eat, Pray, Love-type of journey than one that delves so deeply in its details. Buddhist terms and figures are used repeatedly without any real background—I honestly felt like the book should have come with a prerequisite that you know a certain amount first.

Wagner's literary device of a narrator recounting the stories he is told as if they're being told to him at that moment didn't work for me either. The narratives were tremendously stream-of-consciousness, which made them difficult to follow. In the first novella, for example, the main character went on extended riffs about the Beat poets and his relationship with the widow of Beat figure Neal Cassady, which detracted from the meat of the plot. And while his son's suicide was tragic, the way it was told, and the details he used, made me uncomfortable at times.

I've never read any of Wagner's books before, but I recognize his ability to give his characters strong voices, so I may try a different one. All of the reviews I've seen of this book have been tremendously positive, so it may be my lack of spiritual awareness buffered me from the book's appeal.

Book Review: "At the Bottom of Everything" by Ben Dolnick

Adam and Thomas were best friends when they were growing up in Washington, DC. Thomas was one of the brightest kids in their prep school—quirky, unique, aloof—and Adam welcomed the opportunity to try and crack his shell. Plus, Adam envied Thomas' stable home life, a mother committed to social justice and a father who values his intelligence.

Their friendship was fairly intense until high school, when Adam began focusing on sports, girls, and parties, and Thomas continued down his own path. Yet partly out of obligation and partly out of nostalgia, the boys still got together briefly, and their encounters became focused more on mischief and pranks. One night, one of their schemes goes dangerously out of control, and the aftereffects cause their friendship to end. And while Adam can move beyond the incident, it affects Thomas far more intensely.

Fast forward 10 years, and Adam's life isn't quite going in the direction he had hoped. Lonely and depressed after his breakup with his girlfriend, bored in his job as an academic tutor, he begins a brief affair with one of his students' mothers which, as you might imagine, doesn't end well. He is unsure what to do with his life or what to make of himself. A chance encounter with Thomas' mother brings his former friendship back into his mind, especially as she asks for Adam's help to try and find Thomas, who has apparently disappeared to India.

"'What I really want to make sure you know is just that your old friend, skinny Thomas Pell, is drowning. We all are, and we're reaching out to you for help.'"

But Adam thinks, "'Your old friend is drowning.' Well, so was I."

With nothing to keep him in the U.S., Adam embarks on a journey to find and rescue his old friend, and follows his trail to India. But when he discovers why Thomas has made the journey, and how he has changed in 10 years, Adam realizes that bringing Thomas home is just the tip of the iceberg. And along the way, Adam confronts some of his own mental and emotional issues, and he realizes he is as much in need of rescue as Thomas may be.

How far would you go for an old friend? How much do the events of our childhood affect us later in life? Ben Dolnick's At the Bottom of Everything is a book about finding yourself in the midst of trying to help someone else, and how much our lives can turn on just one single incident.

I really enjoyed the beginning of this book as Adam reflected on both his current situation and reminisced about his friendship with Thomas, but I felt as if once he went to India, the book lost its focus. A great deal of time was spent on spiritual issues, as Thomas had sought the guidance of a guru in India, but it almost seemed like a wholly separate story than what the book initially was about. I thought Thomas in particular was a fascinating and heartbreaking character, and the way Dolnick illustrated Thomas' mental state, and how it affected both of his parents, was tremendously well done.

What I've liked about Dolnick's earlier books is his ability to capture everyday situations and "regular" people, and make you care about them. He does that in At the Bottom of Everything, although the book loses its way just as its narrator is trying to find his.