God Is Disappointed in You

God Is Disappointed in You, by Mark Russell and Shannon Wheeler

This is a funny retelling of each of the books of the Bible, in a highly accessible, irreverent, and humorous way. If you're willing to flex the way the Bible is interpreted, and you have a great sense of humor, you'll enjoy this book. It's sort of like a Cliff's Notes told via Tina Fey...written by humorist Mark Russell with cartoons by the New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened

Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir, by Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess)

You need to avoid this book if:

--You are easily offended by foul language.
--You are an ardent animal lover.
--You are a literalist. (Did it bother you that Dan Brown took liberties with history in The DaVinci Code?)
--You take things or life too seriously.

Jenny Lawson, otherwise know as The Bloggess, has written a hilarious memoir about what it's like to:

• Grow up in the wilds of Texas, with a father who is a taxidermist
• Be so poor she wore bread sack shoes (still trying to picture those)
• Become completely accustomed to running into the interior of a deer carcass, acquiring pet raccoons, having a just-killed squirrel turned into a puppet named Stanley, and having your dad throw a baby bobcat at your prospective husband on his first visit
• Be spoiled rotten by her grandma
• Feel socially awkward and like an outcast throughout school
• Be loved intensely by her parents and have a happy, although extremely crazy, childhood
• Try to rescue her just-died dog from swarming vultures
• Lock her husband out of the car while he battles a supposedly dead but very alive rattlesnake--and then get mad at him!
• Battle an anxiety disorder
• Try to convince her husband to pee around the house to keep out the snakes
• Set her oven on fire at least twice
• Keep her beloved dead dog from being devoured by hungry, aggressive vultures
• Buy a huge metal chicken because she's so annoyed with her husband who didn't want her to buy more towels
• Be diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and struggle with treatment
• Suffer from three miscarriages before carrying a baby to term
• Have silly, nonsensical fights with her husband via post-it notes

As Lawson describes herself in her author bio, "Author Jenny Larson relaxes at home. Her husband glares off camera and asks whether that's his toothbrush. Her husband should probably get his priorities straight. And go get her a margarita. Even if it's three a.m. Seriously, Victor, go get me a margarita. Also, the people who published this book probably shouldn't have let the author write her own biography. Poor planning on their part, I'd say."

If she's to be believed (which is questionable), she and Victor treat each other horribly, frequently with foul language. But I don't really believe much of that. After telling many a wild story, she confesses that only one tiny piece of the story is true. I tried this exaggeration-of-the-truth tactic recently myself, and it's not easy! It seems to come fairly easily to Lawson, though. She's a master!

The writing style is very casual (ADD-like, really), with frequent parenthetical phrases, postscripts, and notes from "the editor." She talks about her vagina fairly frequently and has a sentimental yearning for tacky taxidermy such as dead Cuban baby alligators and mice in Shakespeare outfits (see cover). She also has a tendency to tell wild, inappropriate stories at dinner parties, especially those involving her husband's employer or colleagues.

I really enjoyed this book, but it's not for everyone! Check out her blog if you're curious. If it makes you laugh, you'll like the book.

You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up

You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up,
by Annabelle Gurwitch and Jeff Kahn

I checked this book out of the library not so much for the great title (which my eight-year-old found hilarious) or the main story (about two comedic writers/actors who are married to each other and fight about nearly everything) but primarily because Gurwitch and Kahn have a child with VACTERLS Syndrome, like our little friend Zacary. Their son Ezra was born without an anus, in addition to several other birth defects (he has only one kidney, which is undersized). The first year of Ezra's life, this couple argued constantly in the midst of all their stress and seemed to blame each other for what was going on.

The basis for a lot of humor is complaining, really, so it's ironic that I chose to read a book full of complaining during my own "complaint-free Lent." The book is written alternately in Gurwitch's and Kahn's point of view (He says/She Says), and it is amusing at times to see how differently they remember certain situations. That happens to us sometimes too. But that's where the comparisons stop. We are not bickerers or nitpickers. I think we've found a way to ignore the little things and focus on the best in each other, for the most part. (I do not mean to say we never argue or get annoyed by things the other person does, but we are veritable saints compared to these two.)

Maybe it's being Jewish, or being comedians, or living in southern California. These people complain about everything. Now granted they also wouldn't be that easy to live with either! Kahn comes across as a sex-crazed frat boy at times, whereas Gurwitch appears to be uptight and overly opinionated. I'm sure that much of what they write about is completely over the top, because it's more funny that way.

In the end of the book, they admit that in spite of it all, they really love each other flaws and all. As they quote, some studies have found that as many as 70 percent of marriages dissolve when they have a medically fragile child. I've found that to be true in our personal circle of acquaintances from our NICU family support group. It tests a relationship like nothing else can. These two have survived that (their son is now 11 and doing well), so I think they'll be fine...even though they're not always very nice to each other. We know other couples like that, too...as long as each person gives as good as he or she gets, they seem to thrive on that banter.

I'll stick with my calmer, more respectful marriage though, thank you very much!

Bossypants: Tina Fey kicks bossy butt!

Bossypants, by Tina Fey
My rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

I didn't notice until I actually started reading this book that Tina Fey has man hands and man arms on the front cover of this book. Ugh!! Shows how (un)observant I am.

Bossypants is part memoir, part show biz story, and nearly all funny. She wanders throughout her life, haphazardly, telling the reader stories and sharing observations.

She starts out by sharing her growing-up stories and photos--I always find it amazing to look at school photos of glamorous celebrities. I mean, who knew? They so clearly did NOT look glamorous in their school photos! Fey had a very normal childhool, raised by two Republican but also tolerant parents. They welcomed all of Fey's gay and lesbian friends through her high school years, especially during the summers when she was involved with a local theater group.

After college, Fey goes off to Chicago to make her millions and begins by working at the YMCA with a coworker, Donna, who loved to complain. However, "do not try to get ahead of Donna and initiate the complaining, no matter how sure she'll agree. Because Donna will leave you hanging every time.

ME: Can you believe they're cutting our lunch down to half an hour, lowering our pay by 10 percent, taking away our insurance, and making us eat dirt?!

DONNA: I don't go to doctors. I like dirt anyway, so...fine by me." 

I know people like this, and they drive me CRAZY!!

Fey begins working at Second City Comedy Club and learns the rules of improv, which she shares with the reader. The first rule of improvisation is AGREE. "Always agree and SAY YES. When you're improvising, this means you are required to agree with whatever your partner has created. So if we're improvising and I say, 'Freeze, I have a gun,' and you say, 'That's not a gun. It's your finger...,' our improvised scene has ground to a halt...but if you say, 'The gun I gave you for Christmas! You bastard!,' then we have started a scene because we have AGREED that my finger is in fact a Christmas gun." Fey then shares that "as an improviser, I always find it jarring when I meet someone in real life whose first answer is 'no.'...What kind of way is that to live?"

Fey shares interesting observations about working with men in comedy, some positive and some negative. When she first started working at SNL, the writers actively discouraged having too many women in sketches and heaven forbid, not just two women alone. (They claimed that people wouldn't want to watch two women in a sketch.) Fey broke a lot of glass ceilings when she became one of SNL's head writers. And then when the sketch of Fey and Amy Poehler and Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton shot the ratings through the roof, Fey was vindicated.

I could have done without the image of men peeing in cups and leaving said cups on the bookshelves in their office. WTF? Are they too lazy to go to the restroom? Why on earth would you want to have pee-filled cups all over your office? Clearly, these men are not married. Or gay.

When Fey moved onto 30 Rock, she had a lot more power about the way things would go (hence the name, Bossypants). People often ask her if it's hard being the boss (as executive producer of 30 Rock). She ponders whether anyone ever asks Donald Trump the same question. She's proud of her "little show," in which all of the people look normal (unlike Friends or Desperate Housewives, among others). "I've never understood why every character being 'hot' was necessary for enjoying a TV show. It's the same reason I don't get Hooters. Why do we need to enjoy chicken wings and boobies at the same time? Yes, they are a natural and beautiful part of the human experience. And so are boobies. But why at the same time?"

During one very insane weekend of her life, she (1) scheduled and shot a critical Oprah appearance on 30 Rock, (2) learned Friday she would be appearing as Sarah Palin on SNL the next day--with almost no time to prepare, and (3) planned and hosted her daughter's birthday party on Sunday. She discusses her ambivalence about the Sarah Palin period...and how her Republican parents' initial excitement eventually turned to dread...and how she feels about women in politics and leadership. When Palin herself appeared on SNL one night, Fey insisted that she be protected from what she was sure would be a studio filled with loud boos. (Palin's first appearance was backstage, so the audience weren't sure if she was there in the studio or not.)

"In my opinion, the most meaningful moment for women in the 2008 campaign was not Governor Palin's convention speech or Hillary Clinton conceding her 1,896 delegates. The moment most emblematic of how things have changed for women in America was nine-months-pregnant Amy Poehler rapping as Sarah Palin and tearing the roof off the place."

This completely resonates with me and is akin to how I recall with fondness seeing our pregnant pastor in the pulpit, preaching to a community of Lutherans and Roman Catholics (who certainly had never had a pregnant pastor before). There's just no way you can not realize that you're listening to a WOMAN when she is pregnant.

In short, this was a highly enjoyable light read and makes me want to go watch all those Tina Fey/Amy Poehler SNL sketches all over again!

Everything Is Going to Be Great: Too bad the book wasn't...

Everything Is Going to Be Great,
by Rachel Shukert

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

After graduating from college, Rachel Shukert gets an unpaid, unrewarding "job" as an actor in a play, and after a run in New York, the play is staged in Vienna, Austria, and Zurich, Switzerland. After that, she journeys to Amsterdam, where much of the action takes place.

Shukert, a Jewish girl from Omaha, Nebraska, drinks heavily, smokes some, sleeps around, and generally parties her way indiscriminately through Europe. Halfway through this book, I questioned myself: why am I still reading this book? Silly me. I kept thinking it was going to get better.

Perhaps part of the problem is that it was supposed to be funny, and I've realized that I am not easily amused. (Take, for example, my feelings about David Sedaris.) I guess I don't find drinking until you end up in the hospital with broken bones...or sleeping with a Viennese man old enough to be your father and whose ancestors' whereabouts during the war you question...to be amusing. 

Upon visiting the Anne Frank museum with her parents in tow, Schukert observes: "Say what you will about the horrors of the concentration camps, they might at least present some interesting networking opportunities. But to be trapped for years in five rooms with your family was a torment I could scarcely fathom." Interesting networking opportunities? I do not understand how Shukert, as a Jewish woman, can even joke about something like that.

I did learn some new information in the book: that of the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas, which is akin to Santa Claus. What is most startling about this tradition is that Sinterklaas is accompanied by the character of "Zwarte Piet," a man in blackface who is Sinterklaas' "servant." Yes, blackface. See below. In recent years, this racist tradition has been debated in Holland and elsewhere, but it still continues. Many Dutch people insist that there's nothing wrong with this tradition. In fact, speaking of David Sedaris, he wrote about this oddity in Esquire.



Zwarte Pieten in Holland

Schukert has an ill-fated, pointless affair with an American, Pete (no relation to Zwarte Piet), who was living with his long-term girlfriend. Everyone around her--certainly the reader--could see that the relationship was worthless and he was an asshole. When Pete breaks up with her (repeatedly), she enters into a deep depression. That's when I knew I should have given up on this book long ago. I just didn't care, and I didn't really like this person. Maybe I would like her now, years later, assuming that she's grown up a little. Who knows?

She ultimately meets the man she ends up marrying in Amsterdam--he's a Jewish South African named Ben. About the only thing I could relate to in the book was at the end, when she wrote about how "showing up in Omaha while involved in a marriage-track relationship with a well-mannered, gainfully employed, age-appropriate coreligionist who is on paper virtually identical to whomever they would have arranged for you to marry a hundred years ago in the shtetl will...dispel any doubts your parents may still harbor about the viability of your future." She calls her grandmother to wish her happy birthday and after first throwing her off the trail by saying her new boyfriend is African (at which her grandma panics), then she informs her that her new boyfriend's name is Abramowitz...and her grandma screams.

I have a great relationship with my parents (especially compared to Scukert's, although I suspect some of what she was writing was purely for laughs), so it's not completely the same. But I do have to admit that it's gratifying to end up marrying someone whom your parents actually like and approve of!

Conclusion: not my cup of tea. I couldn't care about this woman or the way she was wasting her youth away. Lovers of David Sedaris, however, might find it amusing.