Thirteen Reasons Why

Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher

I read this book because it got my 17-year-old son hooked on reading again. Before Hannah commits suicide, she creates a series of audiotapes explaining to 13 different people how they contributed to her decision...with instructions that they pass the tapes along to next person on the list.

The book alternates between Hannah's voice, explaining her "13 reasons why," and the perspective of Clay, one of the people on the list. I found this constant going back and forth to be a little distracting.

Many people LOVE this book, but I was not as taken with it. Toward the end of the book I actually started scanning it...not a good sign! Some people have said that it glamorizes suicide, and I can see their point.

It does shed some light on the plight of a teenage girl who is receiving unwanted attention from boys and is often objectified and not treated with respect. It also shows how desperately teenagers need real friendship and love (she was lacking both).

Typical of many young adult novels, parents hardly ever appeared or were mentioned in the book...which I thought seemed strange. What part did Hannah's parents play in her life? Did she leave a suicide note for them? As a parent myself, I couldn't help but note this strange lack of adult figures.

Some of her "reasons" seemed inconsequential, and in fact they made me think of all the people in the world who endure far, far worse than what Hannah had...yet they endure and survive.

From what I know about suicide, it usually happens because the person is deeply depressed...yet the book does not touch on Hannah's depression. I felt that her relationships with many of the thirteen, including the main character, were not fleshed out.

So I was disappointed. I'm glad it got my son reading again, but it wasn't really my cup of tea.

Oryx and Crake

Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood

It is telling that I didn't realize Oryx and Crake was a trilogy and was upset to discover its open ending...even though two of my friends (including the book group member who nominated this book) had told me it was the first in a trilogy. I think I heard "science fiction," and I just blocked out the rest. :) But it's the kind of science fiction I'm drawn to: dystopia.

In fact, Margaret Atwood prefers to call this "speculative fiction" rather than science fiction, because science fiction involves things that are unlikely to happen or impossible, while speculative fiction is about things that could actually happen or were possible on earth...not about outer space. And that is exactly why this book is so frightening.

Oryx and Crake are actually minor characters in this book...the protagonist is Jimmy, or Snowman, and much of it takes place after most of humanity has been decimated by a plague brought on by humans' obsession with genetically engineering everything that moves (and doesn't). Cloning has gone wild, as has the pharmaceutical industry. Corporations run the world, and the powerless live in the "Pleeblands," like the "districts" in The Hunger Games. Crake has invented a new breed of (sort of) humans, who are like an open book--they are innocent and dull, and they lack drama or sexual longing. In short, they are incredibly boring, and they are all Snowman has for company in the end of the world.

The characters are deeply flawed and did not experience childhood love, and as we discussed at my book group meeting, brilliant scientist Crake and ethereal, distant Oryx are not particularly likeable or easy to understand. Jimmy/Snowman's and Crake's love for Oryx, whom they first encounter while watching kiddie porn (yes!), reminded me of the shallow foreign men who went to Japan to meet women, and often stayed there...they sought the type of woman who adored them unquestioningly, were more submissive, and didn't question their actions or words. I have a difficult time understanding men who fall for these types of women, like Jimmy and Crake. And I found it all too disturbing and depressing that kiddie porn and sexual trafficking would exist into the future. But as we know, desperate times call for desperate measures...and sex is a commodity.

While I was toward the end of this novel, I read about a timely, depressing NASA-funded study that predicts the collapse of civilization in a few decades and warns about the depletion of the world's resources and society dividing into the elite and commoners (all of which are essential elements of this book). (Now NASA is trying to distance itself from this study, probably because the agency doesn't want to be accused of being fatalistic, even though Margaret Atwood doesn't mind that.)

I've been reading Margaret Atwood for 30 years, and she is an exceptional writer. I've heard that the books only get better as they progress...and now that she's gotten me hooked, I will be reading the rest of the trilogy. But I might have to recover from this one first. It makes me truly worried for my children and grandchildren, because I can see these things happening so easily.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

I've been wanting to read this book for awhile--many of my friends have given it high ratings on Goodreads--and another friend recently urged me to read it after she'd read it for her book group. I'm glad I finally got around to it.

It's the story of Junior, who is keenly intelligent and creative in spite of being brain damaged at birth. He doesn't fit in well on the Spokane Indian Reservation and soon finds a way to go to the white school nearby. His community is not happy with him to say the least, including his best friend, who feels betrayed. It reminded me of a high school friend who got really hurt when I went away to college. 

But in spite of the alcoholism, incessant poverty, and too frequent deaths around him--even making it hard for him to get a ride to and from school--Junior excels in his white school. He has the advantage of two parents (and a grandma) who love him, even though his dad is a sad alcoholic. 

In addition to the stellar, well-crafted writing (which was distinctly better than the last young person's book I read, My Basmati Bat Mitzvah), Alexie has included cartoons by artist Ellen Forney as Junior's art. The drawings bring the text to life and help the reader understand Junior better. 

I love stories of redemption in spite of overwhelming odds, and this is an excellent example of that genre.

My Basmati Bat Mitzvah

My Basmati Bat Mitzvah, by Paula L. Freedman

Drawn to this book because of its cover and title, I found it to be a light middle-grade read. Tara Feinstein is studying for her Bat Mitzvah while grappling with her combined Indian-Jewish heritage. 

From what my middle grade novelist husband tells me, it's unusual to have an intact, happily married set of parents in these types of books, as Tara does. Her parents are caring, engaged, and funny, and she worries a lot about disappointing them. She also has a supportive extended family, both Indian and Jewish. Furthermore, her rabbi is great--so it's a positive depiction of religion as well.

Her life is full of friendship drama, especially as she comes to realize that her best friend, Ben-o, has a crush on her.

Ultimately, Tara discovers that doubt does not mean a loss of faith, and she finds a way to happily marry both cultures in her Bat Mitzvah.

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, by Sheryl Sandberg

Every woman needs to read this book. Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, admits that she didn't

always call herself a feminist. Like many other women of her generation (a bit younger than me), she thought that feminism was not necessary any more because we'd achieved equality. Then she learned how naive she was.

Sandberg has been broadly criticized for being blind to her own privilege, but I didn't find this to be true. She repeatedly says that not everyone has had the advantages she has (including a nanny to care for her children, and a supportive husband). She does have privilege and a very different perspective than blue-collar single moms, but she owns up to that. She has a different perspective than lower-income, less-educated women, but she's writing from her own experience, and many of her lessons apply to us all. It's especially hard for these women to "lean in," but the wisdom and inspiration in the book can help them too.

Sandberg tackles the systemic issues of sexism and backs them up with personal stories and research. The personal stories were fascinating...such as going to financial offices where they'd never had a woman ask to use a bathroom, or discovering--on a corporate jet--that her children had lice, or revealing the fact that she was brought to tears and comforted once by Mark Zuckerberg, who gave her a hug (and she was then criticized for that!). 

Here's just a bit of the compelling research I noted in the book, which is packed full of footnotes:

• In the last decade, child care costs have risen twice as fast as the median income of families with children.
• When the Harvard Business School surveyed alumni, they found that 91% of the men's graduates were employed, while only 81% of the women graduates from the early 2000s were employed, and only 49% of those who graduated in the early 1990s were working full-time. Highly educated women drop out of the workforce in droves, contributing to the leadership gender gap.
• 40% of employed  moms lack sick days and vacation, and 50% of them are unable to take time to care for a sick child.
• Only 1/2 of employed moms receive maternity leave pay.

This morning I heard on NPR that women make closer salaries to men's when they first start working after college graduation, but the income gap spreads as the years go on. This study explains.

Sandberg's also been accused of blaming women, but I didn't find that either. She issues a challenge for all of us to lean in, to rise to the challenge, to be confident in ourselves and the choices we make, and strive for greater equality in the workplace and in our broader culture at large. 

She also calls on men to lean in and calls out the stereotypes they face if they choose to stay home with the kids. She says that men need to speak up, set new pathways, and demand paternity leave. She quotes Gloria Steinem, "Now we know that women can do what men can do, but we don't know that men can do what women can do."  The revolution will happen one family at a time...younger generations appear to be more eager to be real partners in parenting.

One of the new Getty images from the "Lean In Collection"

She clarifies that "doing it all" is a myth. Women have to make choices, but Sandberg hopes that women will stay in the workforce. In fact, women who work outside the home spend more time with their kids today than our moms did in the 1960s and 1970s. An employed mom spends about the same time on primary child care as a non-employed mom in 1975.

Since I finished the book, Sandberg has been in the news again with her great work with Getty Images to create positive images of women in stock photos (the "Lean In Collection"), and for her "Ban Bossy" campaign in partnership with the Girl Scouts.

”When a girl tries to lead, she is often labelled bossy. Boys are seldom called bossy because a boy taking the role of a boss does not surprise or offend. As someone who was called this for much of my childhood, I know that it is not a compliment. The stories of my childhood bossiness are told (and retold) with great amusement.“

So yes, Sandberg might be a privileged, educated, white woman, but she is doing good work...necessary and overdue work, prompting women and men to look at our status quo and realize that many things are not right. She is using her position to advance the cause of women in the workplace and society, and this is to be applauded.