Review: Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Michael Pollan

A pocket compendium of food wisdom-from the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food

Michael Pollan, our nation's most trusted resource for food-related issues, offers this indispensible guide for anyone concerned about health and food. Simple, sensible, and easy to use, Food Rules is a set of memorable rules for eating wisely, many drawn from a variety of ethnic or cultural traditions. Whether at the supermarket or an all-you-can-eat-buffet, this handy, pocket-size resource is the perfect guide for anyone who would like to become more mindful of the food we eat.

Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual is a short and (not so big on the) sweet(s) little book. Written for those who are eager to learn more about the food they’re putting into their body, but aren’t interested in a lot of research, the rules are presented in a clear and easy to follow format. The length of this book is both an advantage and a disadvantage for the book in my opinion. The short length allows the reader to learn simple guidelines they can follow right away without having to analyze too much; but not every rule is so easily simplified, and I think that is why Michael makes a habit to mention a lot of exceptions in this book, and also points readers interested in knowing more to his longer book on the subject titled The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Yet the most important rule of all that Michael gives can certainly sum up the entire book in a second:

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Rating: 3/5

Review: Rebel Angels (Gemma Doyle #2) by Libba Bray

Ah, Christmas! Gemma Doyle is looking forward to a holiday from Spence Academy, spending time with her friends in the city, attending ritzy balls, and on a somber note, tending to her ailing father. As she prepares to ring in the New Year, 1896, a handsome young man, Lord Denby, has set his sights on Gemma, or so it seems. Yet amidst the distractions of London, Gemma’s visions intensify–visions of three girls dressed in white, to whom something horrific has happened, something only the realms can explain. . . .

Rebel Angels is the second book in the Gemma Doyle series and takes Gemma and her friends out of their boarding school and out on to the streets of London. When she’s not in the Realms battling water nymphs or in London vying for the attention of Simon Middleton Gemma finds herself visiting a very mad girl named Nell Hawkins. Nell is a patient at a local institution where Gemma’s brother is employed. I found the loss of the boarding school setting did not do this continuation any favors, a certain feeling was lost along with the school and its creaking floor boards and closed down wings, but the institution was a welcome change from the fantasy of the Realms and put a very interesting spin on Gemma’s adventures. For me this book did not meet the expectations that I had for the series after finishing A Great and Terrible Beauty but it was still enjoyable. Gemma Doyle continues to be a refreshing YA series full of clever characters and unexpected twists and turns.

Rating: 3.5/5

Review: Moral Disorder and Other Stories by Margaret Atwood

In these ten interrelated stories Atwood traces the course of a life and also the lives intertwined with it, while evoking the drama and the humour that colour common experiences — the birth of a baby, divorce and remarriage, old age and death. With settings ranging from Toronto, northern Quebec, and rural Ontario, the stories begin in the present, as a couple no longer young situate themselves in a larger world no longer safe. Then the narrative goes back in time to the forties and moves chronologically forward toward the present.

Moral Disorder and Other Stories follows one woman named Nell through different periods of her life. In the form of several short stories we see her as a child taking care of those around her, as an adult finding her way on her own, as a mistress, and a wife and mother and everything in between. We glimpse at quirky pieces of furniture that come to define a part of her life, at a mattress on the floor of her lover’s home and how knitting a cover for it can quickly become an agreement, a choice made, a path taken. While reading this I felt like a bit of a voyeur; like I was seeing through Nell’s eyes as she was looking back over all of the moments she’d lived that were important to her, and all the time she had no idea I was there sharing her secrets; secrets that prove it’s not only the happy moments that define us and set us on our course. As Nell says when thinking back on a particular memory…

“Yet I think of that period as having been a happy time in my life… Happy is the wrong word. Important.”

Margaret Atwood is brilliant with words and captures perfectly an average life and all the emotions that come along with it. I haven’t read anything by her previous to this but I definitely plan to check out more of her work now that I’ve finished this collection. I’ve just started Oryx & Crake and I’m really enjoying it so far.

Rating: 4/5

Review: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Young Katniss Everdeen has survived the dreaded Hunger Games not once, but twice, but even now she can find no relief. In fact, the dangers seem to be escalating: President Snow has declared an all-out war on Katniss, her family, her friends, and all the oppressed people of District 12. The thrill-packed final installment of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy will keep young hearts pounding.


THIS REVIEW INCLUDES MAJOR SPOILERS. COVER YOUR EYES AND RUN AWAY SCREAMING IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THIS BOOK YET.

I’m really satisfied with this conclusion and I’m really glad I picked up this series. All three books certainly kept me on the edge of my seat even if there were some things I didn’t like about each. Most of what I didn’t like had to do with Katniss. I find her fickle which can be hard to stomach when you come to care about the characters that she’s hurting. Not the finest quality in a heroine but she does make up for it with her courageous attitude. I’m happy I got the ending I wanted with Peeta but “You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know.” springs to mind. I gotta say I didn’t like that there wasn’t a lot of Peeta and his humor in this book but I am glad that we got to know Gale a little bit. I kept expecting him to betray her and in a way I guess he did in the end.

I hope the peace lasted but that may be a wild hope. Hopefully it lasted through their children’s lifetimes and theirs at least. I hate the idea of Finnick and Annie’s boy or either of Katniss and Peeta’s children being put into the games.

I guess what the ending came down to is the question of whether or not peace can really last? Coin was no better than Snow. Can we remember the lives lost and have no more struggles for power? I doubt it. There will always be those who see the “big picture” and see people as numbers or faceless sacrifices. The problem is that no one is faceless. Gale found that out when it was a possibility that he was inadvertently responsible for Prim’s death. He was willing to make weapons that would take out numbers of people for the cause. I think there will also always be those who, whether by nature or nurture, have gone corrupt somehow and are too thirsty for power and control to let peace rule.

Also how do we as humans find the balance between turning the other cheek completely and letting ourselves be ruled by a desire for vengeance? I loved this series for bringing up these questions and presenting them in such an enjoyable way with great characters. I’m definitely sad that it’s over but pleased with its end.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

Review: Atonement by Ian McEwan

On a summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment’s flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives and her precocious imagination bring about a crime that will change all their lives, a crime whose repercussions Atonement follows through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century.

McEwan’s prose is so beautiful and intricate. Rarely do writers and their particular styles stand out to me but his is so unique to him that it is impossible not to notice. The descriptions are so detailed and vivid that you almost feel as though you’re right there with the characters. His writing just flows and I thought the switching between narrators was brilliant. I saw the movie before reading the novel and can honestly say I enjoyed the book a lot more. The cinematography was gorgeous but you miss so much without the written words.
Rating: 5/5

Review: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

As a child, Kathy—now thirty-one years old—lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.

I struggled with part of this book only because the complacency of the characters bothered me. I love a good rebellion. However that wasn’t what this book was about. Slow paced but never boring I think this is an important read for its subject matter. I’d recommend it to anyone who is a fan of reading books that look at our basic human rights and how the world could be if things were only a little different.

Rating: 3.5/5

Review: The Secret Lives of People in Love by Simon Van Booy

The Secret Lives of People in Love is the first short story collection by award-winning writer Simon Van Booy. These stories, set in Kentucky, New York, Paris, Rome, and Greece, are a perfect synthesis of grace, intensity, atmosphere, and compassion. Love, loss, frailty, human contact, and isolation are Van Booy's themes. In radiant prose he writes about the difficult choices we make in order to retain our humanity and about the redemptive power of love in a violent world.



This book forces you to fall in love.
Then quickly you must go.

I was compiling a list of my favorite stories from the book but the list grew too long. French Artist Killed In Sunday’s Earthquake stuck out to me the most. It was not only the most poignant of all the stories but I believe it was also the shortest in the collection. You can read it for free here.

Rating: 5/5

Review: Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O' Connor

Flannery O'Connor was working on Everything That Rises Must Converge at the time of her death. This collection is an exquisite legacy from a genius of the American short story, in which she scrutinizes territory familiar to her readers: race, faith, and morality. The stories encompass the comic and the tragic, the beautiful and the grotesque; each carries her highly individual stamp and could have been written by no one else.

I read this book after seeing it on the television show LOST. A few stories stuck out to me (A View Of The Woods, The Comforts Of Home and The Lame Shall Enter First) but the rest left me somewhat empty. In each story I felt I knew what was coming and it left things tasting a bit stale. I am still interested in checking out some more of Flannery's work; perhaps this particular collection just wasn't for me.

Rating: 2.5/5 + 4815162342 bonus points for holding Jacob’s attention because he’s quite a busy man + 50 bonus points for the quote “I wouldn’t milk a cow to save your soul from Hell.” Total: LOST.

Review: Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro

Ten superb new stories by one of our most beloved and admired writers—the winner of the 2009 Man Booker International Prize.

In the first story a young wife and mother receives release from the unbearable pain of losing her three children from a most surprising source. In another, a young woman, in the aftermath of an unusual and humiliating seduction, reacts in a clever if less-than-admirable fashion. Other stories uncover the “deep-holes” in a marriage, the unsuspected cruelty of children, and how a boy’s disfigured face provides both the good things in his life and the bad. And in the long title story, we accompany Sophia Kovalevsky—a late-nineteenth-century Russian émigré and mathematician—on a winter journey that takes her from the Riviera, where she visits her lover, to Paris, Germany, and, Denmark, where she has a fateful meeting with a local doctor, and finally to Sweden, where she teaches at the only university in Europe willing to employ a female mathematician.

Alice Munro has a propensity for diving into the seedy underbelly of the human condition with her writing; exploring our addictions to love, to abuse, to our own insecurities and to other various parts of life that seem unimportant to those around us. This was my first foray into reading collections of short stories and with only one story in the collection that I genuinely disliked I was not disappointed. I plan on checking out more of her work in the future.

Rating: 4/5