Book Review: "Life is Like a Musical: How to Live, Love, and Lead Like a Star" by Tim Federle

I have been in love with the theater since my highly regarded performance as Sir Joseph in Marlboro Elementary School's production of HMS Pinafore. My rendition of "I Am the Monarch of the Sea" brought the house down, as much as I can remember, seeing I was in 4th grade at the time.

Growing up in New Jersey, I was fortunate enough to get to see Broadway shows fairly often, and I was persuasive enough that my parents or grandmother bought me the original cast album, which I quickly devoured and memorized every single word of. And even though I never pursued acting as a career, I have had my Tony Award acceptance speech written since I was about 14.

With all of that in mind, even though I don't read self-help books, I couldn't resist reading Life is Like a Musical, described as "a self-help guide—with jazz hands!" The advice that Tim Federle shares in this book doesn't require experience in the theater, knowledge of the theater, or even enjoyment of the theater. Instead, he applies lessons he learned in his years as a performer, dance captain, director's assistant, and playwright to "real life," and the results are entertaining.

"First off, the key to approximately 90 percent of adulthood is appearing more interested in something than you actually are. Seriously. So, hack number one: When you are attempting to appear at worst neutral or at best enthusiastic—especially when you don't feel particularly jazzed about something—simply uncross your arms. That's it." (From Chapter 9, "Don't Cross Your Arms When the Director is Talking.")

Federle's advice isn't necessarily earth-shattering. You don't have to know the lyrics to any musical or even have set foot in the theater in order to identify with at least some of what Federle is saying.

The book focuses a lot on living your best life, prizing courage over confidence, treating everyone—even those who don't seem important—as if they were, and recognizing that "no" doesn't always mean "never" (except in social situations). But even though I'm fairly cynical and jaded, I still found some helpful perspectives here, things I'll try to remember in the heat of the moment, no matter what that moment is.

"We either mistrust people's enthusiasm for us or, worse, we vastly undervalue what it means to be appreciated, constantly looking over our shoulders for an even deeper high. We think there must be something wrong with people if they think there's something so right about us." (From Chapter 23, "Go Where the Love Is.")

The book is tremendously easy to read, and is written in a friendly, humorous, breezy style. Federle punctuates his "lessons" with his own experience, good and bad, from moments of triumph to moments of defeat. And sometimes he shares interesting anecdotes while sharing advice, like:

"When Bob Fosse had a bald spot, he put on a stylish hat. Where's your bald spot? Or blind spot? Or thing that you can barely accept about yourself? Go put a hat on it, and make it something beautiful." (From Chapter 6, "Turn Your Weaknesses into Strengths.")

I found this book enjoyable and, dare I say, even helpful. It's perfect for someone wondering how to get to the next step in their career or relationship, someone struggling with confidence issues, or someone considering or stepping into a leadership role for the first time. Plus, there are jazz hands, too!

Book Review: "The Music Shop" by Rachel Joyce

"Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent."

—Victor Hugo

Music has always been one of my greatest passions, alongside my love of reading. I have the largest iPod Apple ever made, and it doesn't accommodate my entire music collection—how can I get rid of a song?

For me, music is such a trigger of emotion, and a specific song can easily transport me to a time, a place, a special memory. So why it took me so long to read Rachel Joyce's lovely The Music Shop, I'll never know.

"Frank could not play music, he could not read a score, he had no practical knowledge whatsoever, but when he sat in front of a customer and truly listened, he heard a kind of song. He wasn't talking a full-blown symphony. It would be a few notes; at the most, a strain. And it didn't happen all the time, only when he let go of being Frank and inhabited a space that was more in the middle. It had been this way ever since he could remember."

Frank owns a record shop on a rapidly deteriorating, dead-end street in a London suburb. It's the late 1980s, and vinyl is struggling to survive over cassettes and the increasingly popular CD, but Frank is a purist. He'll never sell anything other than records, despite the reps from the different labels trying to convince him that he's making a huge mistake. Vinyl sounds the best, and provides so much more of an experience for the listener.

Even though his store, and the other stores that surround it, isn't doing that well financially, the store serves as a gathering place for people in the neighborhood, people who come to Frank in need of help, and he finds them the exact song they need, even when they don't know it. Into this chaos one afternoon comes a beautiful woman, Ilse Brauchmann. Frank feels an instant connection to her, with her regal bearing and her slight German accent. He finds himself thinking of her constantly, yet Ilse talks of a fiancée, and clearly has secrets she doesn't want to divulge.

Nearly all his life, Frank has never let anyone get too close to him, for fear of getting hurt as he had in his past. But he has fallen head over heels in love with Ilse, despite the fact that he knows next to nothing about her. When she asks him to give her music lessons, after some initial reluctance, he dives in wholeheartedly, teaching Ilse about all different songs, artists, and genres of music, and sharing the way those songs made him feel. It is the closest he can come to sharing his heart with her.

As he tries to come to terms with his feelings, Frank is struggling financially to keep the store afloat, to fight those who refuse to sell him records because he won't buy CDs. He tries to keep his neighbors feeling secure despite the street's falling into greater disrepair, and a development company making everyone offers to buy their property to build something new. When Frank finds out that Ilse isn't quite whom she says she is, it threatens to debilitate Frank for good, as the betrayal opens old wounds and revives old hurts he had never quite gotten past.

"Sometimes all that people needed was to know they were not alone. Other times it was more a question of keeping them in touch with their feelings until they wore them out—people clung to what was familiar, even when it was painful."

The Music Shop is a book with such heart and charm, such vivid characters, and it was truly such a lovely read. Joyce perfectly captures the mood of London in the late 1980s, as the gulf between the haves and the have-nots grew ever wider. She also captures the passion of a true music lover, the beauty of friendship, and the walls we build around our heart to protect ourselves after we've been hurt too many times.

As I learned from one of her earlier books, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (see my review), Joyce is a consummate storyteller who draws you in and makes you care about her characters. One character in particular, Frank's employee Kit, felt strangely underdeveloped, and you never really understood him despite his key role in the plot.

I did feel the story took a little too long to truly get going, and then dragged a bit toward its conclusion. But in the end, even if I wasn't surprised by the ending, the book really touched my heart, and the music lover in me savored every note. The Music Shop is one of those books that felt like a warm hug, kind of like Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of AJ Fikry.

Book Review: "My Name is Venus Black" by Heather Lloyd

Yes, me, too, Tom! This was such a great book!

One night in 1980, 13-year-old Venus Black's life, and the life of her family, changes dramatically when she commits a crime. She doesn't want to talk about it, but the media can't get enough of it. It's a surprise to many who know Venus well, because she is a straight-A student who dreams of being an astronaut. Her crime, and her subsequent refusal to talk about that night, or the events which led up to it, strains her already-difficult relationship with her mother, Inez, whom Venus blames for everything.

"A few days ago, I was hanging out by my school locker, gossiping about boys with my girlfriends. My biggest worry was how to talk Inez into buying me a new pair of Jordache jeans. Now I'm locked up with junior criminals, I've been labeled a violent offender, and my biggest worry is getting beat up."

To make matters worse, Venus' seven-year-old stepbrother, Leo, who is developmentally disabled (in modern vernacular he'd probably be diagnosed as autistic), has gone missing. No one knows what happened to him or where he could have gone, but it's just another thing Venus blames herself for (and Inez blames Venus as well).

Five years later, Venus is released from prison and is determined to make a fresh start, as someone new. She has a fake ID and a suitcase of used clothes, and what she wants is to find a job, make some money, and then move from Washington State to California, where no one will know who she was or what she did. She all too quickly finds that it's not easy to start over when you haven't resolved your own issues, or said the things you've needed to say.

She gets a job and starts to settle in, and meets both a young girl who reminds her a little of herself when she was younger, and a man who is interested in her romantically, although she knows she must keep him at arm's length. But after a while she realizes that she can't escape her guilt or hurt, and she needs to do everything she can to try and find Leo, to see if he's even alive five years later.

My Name is Venus Black is powerful, moving, and utterly compelling. It's a story of second chances, of forgiveness and regret, fear of rejection and fear that someone will discover the secrets you've kept hidden. It's a story of family and friendship, of realizing you are worthy of happiness and love, and that you can't push people away forever. It's also a story of how people we least expect can rescue us.

From the book's very first sentence I was completely hooked on Venus' story. Venus is a complex character but she is so easy to become enamored of, and root for, despite what she did when she was younger. I was so happy that Heather Lloyd made the choice to focus more on Venus after prison than have to endure the young woman-in-prison clichés. There are a number of memorable characters other than Venus—Inez, Leo, Piper, Danny, and two other characters I won't mention for fear of spoiling their role in the story. I did feel as if the character of Tinker seemed to be little more than a device to advance part of the story; I'm still not completely clear on his motivations to do what he did.

Lloyd doesn't quite settle for wrapping everything up with a neat bow, she doesn't take a heavy-handed approach with describing her characters' flaws, and allows you to come to your own conclusions about whether they should be considered guilty or not. There were a few times I worried she was going to sacrifice the integrity of her story for some quick drama, and I was so glad she didn't.

All in all, this is a beautifully written, memorable, moving story, and Venus Black is truly unforgettable.

NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Book Review: "Everything Here is Beautiful" by Mira T. Lee

I'm not crying, you're crying.

"But it was impossible to know the truth of another's interior life. Wasn't it?"

Miranda has always looked after her younger sister, Lucia. When Miranda and her mother first emigrated to America from China, her mother was pregnant with Lucia, and Miranda considered it her responsibility to protect the baby, even before it was born. And so it went throughout their childhood, as their mother strove to provide them a better life. Miranda was the sensible, sturdy one; Lucia was creative, dreamy, emotional.

After their mother died, Miranda knows her sister is still her responsibility. When her sister starts behaving erratically, becoming paranoid, hearing voices, Miranda steps in, ensures she gets the treatment and the medicines she needs to keep her life on course. But since Lucia is an adult, Miranda doesn't have the control, can't make her do what is best, can't keep her safe if she doesn't want to be.

Impetuous as ever, Lucia meets and marries Yonah, an older Israeli man who runs a health food store in New York. He is devoted to Lucia and has no idea of the tumult she keeps at bay. When she becomes ill again, it is Miranda who comes to the rescue, but once again, she must stand by, powerless, as Yonah heeds Lucia's wishes and releases her from the hospital. But when Lucia decides she wants something different, and leaves Yonah and their life behind, all Miranda can do is wait until everything falls apart again.

How much can one person be expected to sacrifice for a loved one? How much abuse can you tolerate being hurled at you by someone you are trying to take care of, even when you know they don't mean the things they say? Miranda's life is lived in stops and starts as she waits for the next crisis to emerge.

Lucia then meets Manny, a young Ecuadorian immigrant, and has a baby with him. But after her illness rears its head again, and she pushes Miranda away, she realizes that perhaps moving to Ecuador will make everything better. For a while it does, but Lucia can never escape the fact that she lives with mental illness, no matter how she tries to fight those who want what is best for her. Meanwhile, Miranda must decide whether she should continue to be her sister's keeper when needed, constantly disrupting her own life.

Told in shifting points of view, Everything Here is Beautiful is a poignant, powerful, beautifully written account of living with mental illness and the toll it takes on everyone around the individual. It has an almost epic feel at times, traveling through continents and through time, but at its core, this is a simple, moving story about the relationship between two sisters, the push-and-pull of familial obligations.

At times I thought the pacing felt a little slow, but Mira T. Lee tells her story so skillfully, and makes you care about characters even as they aren't entirely sympathetic. It is hard to believe that this is Lee's debut novel, because everything feels true and flows smoothly.

There are many books, both fiction and nonfiction, which chronicle the effects of mental illness and the sacrifices required of caregivers and loved ones. Everything Here is Beautiful is an important addition to that canon, but it never feels heavy-handed or preachy. And darned if you won't wipe a tear or two away at the same time!

2017 Oscar Nominations: What happened

This morning, Tiffany Haddish and Andy Serkis announced the nominations for the 90th Academy Awards. Despite Haddish's trouble pronouncing certain names (she was funny but after a while I felt bad for the nominees whose names were being mangled), I thought she and Serkis did a great job, much better than the convoluted announcement from last year.

Yesterday I posted a list of my predictions for the Oscar nominations in the major categories. I certainly didn't expect to be totally right (it's always a bit of a crapshoot), but I didn't do that badly. There were some surprises, some definite snubs (a few of which incensed me), and some exciting milestones as well.

For example, Rachel Morrison became the first female cinematographer nominated (for Mudbound) ever. Christopher Plummer is the oldest acting nominee ever, at 88. Mary J. Blige became the first person to be nominated for an acting award and Best Original Song in the same year. Lesley Manville and Gary Oldman, who used to be married to each other, are the first couple since Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to be nominated for acting Oscars in the same year. Fun stuff.

And now on to the nominations:

Best Picture
Call Me By Your Name
The Darkest Hour Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Analysis: I went 7/9 in my predictions, picking The Big Sick and I, Tonya instead of The Darkest Hour and Phantom Thread. The latter film's success in the nominations was a bit of a surprise, particularly here and in Best Director.


Best Actor
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Gary Oldman, The Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Analysis: I went 4/5 here, although I did say that there was a possibility James Franco would get left out for Denzel Washington, whether because of the allegations of sexual impropriety and harassment or because Academy voters thought his performance was too light. With his eighth nomination, Washington breaks his own record as the most-nominated African-American actor. I'm super excited about Chalamet and Kaluuya's nominations, and if this really is Day-Lewis' last film ever as he's said, I'm glad he was nominated.


Best Actress
Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Meryl Streep, The Post

Analysis: I went 5/5 here. Streep gets her 21st nomination, amazingly. I'm pleased with this category although I wouldn't have minded seeing Annette Bening or Jessica Chastain in Streep's slot.


Best Supporting Actor
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Analysis: I went 3/5 here, mainly because I voted with my heart and not my head. I truly am sad that Michael Stuhlbarg and Armie Hammer (in that order) were passed over for Call Me By Your Name. Neither Harrelson or Plummer's nominations surprised me; Harrelson played the slightly more sympathetic ying to McDormand and Rockwell's yang, and Plummer, essentially, was given an atta boy nomination for stepping in for Kevin Spacey and shooting all of his scenes in seven days. (If I'm being honest, I thought Plummer's performance was a little too C. Montgomery Burns in The Simpsons for me.)


Best Supporting Actress
Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

Analysis: I went 4/5 here. I did mention Lesley Manville as a possibility, but I was pulling for Holly Hunter to get in for The Big Sick. While I loved Allison Janney's performance and she seems the one to beat, should Laurie Metcalf win the Oscar, she'll be three-fourths of the way to the EGOT, as she has already won Emmys and a Tony. Just saying.


Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread
Guillermo Del Toro, The Shape of Water
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Jordan Peele, Get Out

Analysis: Again, I went 4/5 here. I did say I expected the Oscar nominees to differ slightly from the Directors' Guild Award nominations—I just didn't think Martin McDonagh (for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) would be the one to get snubbed. I had mentioned Anderson as an outside possibility; I am still a little surprised, however, at how well his film fared today. I'm disappointed, although not surprised, that Luca Guadagnino didn't get nominated for Call Me By Your Name, but I'm thrilled for Gerwig, Peele, Del Toro, and Nolan.


Who will win? The Oscars will be handed out March 4.

Book Review: "Don't Call Us Dead: Poems" by Danez Smith

After reading Rupi Kaur's gorgeous Milk and Honey (see my review), my first encounter with poetry in quite some time, I decided to delve a little deeper into the genre.

I picked up Danez Smith's Don't Call Us Dead, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry in 2017. At turns searing, sensual, provocative, tragic, and evocative, Smith's collection is a potent commentary on race, sexuality, violence, prejudice, promiscuity, homophobia, AIDS, and death. Some of the poems absolutely took my breath away, and some painted immensely vivid pictures in my mind.

i know when the wind feels
as if it's made of hands

& i feel like i'm made of water
it's you trying to save me

from drowning in myself, but i can't
wed wind. i'm not water.

The above stanzas are from "summer, somewhere," an epic poem of sorts, which envisions an afterlife for young black men killed by police. It is emotional, anger-inducing, and tremendously thought-provoking, and Smith's language conveys both the peace and security this new world provides, while at the same time recognizing the tragedies that brought those to this place.

here, there's no language
for officer or law, no color to call white.

if snow fell, it'd fall black. please, don't call
us dead, call us alive someplace better.

we say our own names when we pray.
we go out for sweets & come back.

Other poems deal with men struggling to fight their sexuality, yet succumbing to promiscuity, to risky sex and furtive hookups that they know could doom them. The poem "bare," deals with taking that risk.

if love is a room
of broken glass, leave me to dance
until my feet are memory.

Smith's words are sometimes brutal, sometimes explicitly sexual, sometimes painful. This may not be a collection for everyone, but it should be, because it helped me think about the families left behind when their children are lost to violence, the men raised to be masculine but who struggle with embracing the reality of who they are, how those diagnosed with HIV and AIDS struggle with their mortality.

Not every poem worked for me, but those that did left me mesmerized. Smith is an absolutely incredible writer, and I'll definitely pick up another of his collections. This is poetry that may make you uncomfortable, but it dazzles at the same time.

2017 Oscar Nominations: What I think...

Tomorrow isn't just another Tuesday: the Oscar nominations will be announced in the morning.

I've been reasonably (ha) obsessed with the Oscars since the 1980s, and so we make an effort to see every movie and performance nominated for the major awards before the Oscar telecast. (If what happens tomorrow is what I think, we won't have much more to see, thanks to a very movie-heavy holiday season.)

(I also have this stupid human trick that I can recite all of the nominees for the major categories—Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, and Director—from every year since the Oscars began in 1927. Seriously.)

But I digress.

For a while now, I've been making my predictions for which movies and performances I think will get nominated, then after the nominations are announced I come back and analyze how well I did. (Note: this isn't necessary who I think deserves to get nominated; often there's a pretty gap between what I want and what actually happens, because the Oscars are as much about paying back old slights, trying to take advantage of popularity, and other crazy politics as they are about who gave the best performances. But I digress.)

So, here's what I think will happen tomorrow around 8:38 a.m. ET. I know there's bound to be a surprise and/or disappointment (for me) or two, so...

Best Picture
The Big Sick
Call Me By Your Name
Dunkirk
Get Out
I, Tonya
Lady Bird
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Analysis: Since 2009, the Oscars have played coy with the number of films that get nominated for Best Picture. Using a preferential ballot, they'll allow as few as five and as many as ten nominees based on a threshold. I've predicted nine, but wouldn't be surprised if as few as six get nominated. Mudbound is another movie being talked about as a potential nominee, but since it was released by Netflix, that may be its disadvantage. Phantom Thread is another outside possibility.


Best Actor
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
James Franco, The Disaster Artist
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Gary Oldman, The Darkest Hour

Analysis: I feel secure about Chalamet, Kaluuya, and Oldman, and reasonably secure about Day-Lewis. The fifth spot would have belonged unequivocally to James Franco until the multiple allegations of sexual impropriety surfaced a few weeks back. However, since the story broke one day before voting ended, I think he'll probably still sneak in amidst the five. If not, I'd expect to see either Denzel Washington for Roman J. Israel, Esq. or, if the film resonates with Oscar voters, Tom Hanks for The Post. (Amazingly, Hanks hasn't been nominated in 18 years.)


Best Actress
Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Meryl Streep, The Post

Analysis: I feel secure about three of these nominees—Hawkins, McDormand, and Ronan—and feel Robbie is a fairly sure bet. Once again, it's that fifth slot that bewilders me. I would have thought Streep would be nearly certain to nab her 21st nomination, but The Post hasn't caught fire with many film critics or awards groups. While I still think she'll make the cut, other possibilities are Judi Dench, playing Queen Victoria yet again in Victoria and Abdul, Jessica Chastain in Molly's Game, or Michelle Williams for All the Money in the World. And if I had my way, you'd see perenially overlooked Annette Bening on the list for Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool. Break, heart, yet again...


Best Supporting Actor
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Armie Hammer, Call Me By Your Name
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Michael Stuhlbarg, Call Me By Your Name

Analysis: So I'm going against the grain here and predicting what I want to happen. I have a feeling that Stuhlbarg, despite having the scene of the movie in Call Me By Your Name and also appearing in The Post and The Shape of Water will get overlooked, and Armie Hammer might as well. This will upset me a great deal. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see either of them and/or Richard Jenkins passed over for Christopher Plummer, who redid all of Kevin Spacey's scenes in All the Money in the World, Woody Harrelson for his smaller, somewhat-more-sympathetic part in Three Billboards, and 2015 winner Mark Rylance, who could ride the waves if Dunkirk gets lots of nominations tomorrow. And never count out Michael Shannon for The Shape of Water.


Best Supporting Actress
Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Holly Hunter, The Big Sick
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

Analysis: Janney and Metcalf are the two sure things here. I think 2011 winner Spencer will get her third nomination, and I believe Hunter will ride the popularity of her little movie that could. Blige was nominated for both Golden Globe and SAG Award, but she may be hurt by the fact that the film is released by Netflix. Hong Chau has gotten great reviews (and Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations) for Downsizing, but she's the only thing mentioned positively related to her film. Other possibilities are Lesley Manville for Phantom Thread, Tiffany Haddish for Girls Trip, getting the Melissa McCarthy-type nod, or possibly Kristin Scott Thomas for her turn as Clemmie Churchill in The Darkest Hour.


Best Director
Guillermo Del Toro, The Shape of Water
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Jordan Peele, Get Out

Analysis: The five nominees I selected are also the five nominees for the Directors' Guild Award. Rarely do those nominees match the Oscar nominees completely, so I think there will be at least one person snubbed, and it may very well be Nolan, who has been passed over a few times in his career. (I hope it's not Gerwig or Peele that gets snubbed.) Who could replace Nolan or other snub-ees? I'd honestly love to see Luca Guadagnino get nominated for Call Me By Your Name, and it would be incredible to see Dee Rees get nominated for Mudbound alongside Gerwig, for two female Best Director nominees for the first time in history. Other surprises could include Paul Thomas Anderson for Phantom Thread or even two-time winner Steven Spielberg for The Post, although I doubt it.


And there you have it! Check back tomorrow to see which noms excited me, which enraged me, and which shocked me.