Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Holy crap, what a roller coaster ride! I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying that there are no good guys in this book--the characters range from flawed to dysfunctional to seriously fucked up. What starts as a mystery--and remains that for half the book, with tons of satisfying twists and turns to leave the reader guessing--evolves into a character study of how day-to-day disappointments and compromises can fuel the flames of dysfunction and draw two people into an ever-tightening spiral of codependent hatred and madness and need. I was never quite sure what was coming next, with shifting truths filtered through the lenses of a narcissist and a sociopath--two narrators, both unreliable narrators...though unreliable in the way all of us, no matter how (presumably) sane, are, filtering reality through our own needs, desires, beliefs, and what we would like to believe, especially about ourselves. That is to say, these people in this book are crazy...but sometimes they don't seem any crazier than oneself, and isn't that a little scary? This book is like a drug, a simultaneous adrenalin rush and mindfuck.

Just go read it.



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Blink and You'll Miss the Critical Reading

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Not too long ago Malcolm Gladwell spoke at a professional meeting I attended. When he was done, I turned to a colleague and said, "He just said the same thing I've been saying for years. He just has better anecdotes." While I don't claim to have known everything that is in Blink, there was an awful lot in it that I knew from other sources. He collected it nicely, but in many cases skimmed the surface.

For example, he talks about research showing that a doctor who doesn't interact well with his patients, doesn't hear them out and make them feel well listened to, is more likely to be sued. He concludes that:

Next time you meet a doctor, and you sit down in his office and he starts to talk, if you have the sense that he isn't listening to you, that he's talking down to you, and that he isn't treating you with respect, listen to that feeling. You have thin-sliced him and found him wanting.

While it's likely true that you're not going to have a good relationship with that doctor, that's not what the research Gladwell cited was about: the research was about likelihood of being sued, not quality of care. Never mentioned was the possibility that patients may be making the determination whether to sue or forgive equally (in)competent doctors based on whether they liked the doctor.

Later, Gladwell discusses the IAT, a test that is intended to measure bias by having the subject place things in columns. In the example Gladwell gives, the reader first places things in one of two columns marked "Male or Career" and "Female or Family." Then the reader gets a list with columns labeled "Male or Family" and "Female or Career," which he asserts the reader will complete less quickly, indicating bias about gender roles.

I did in fact complete the second list more slowly, but I noted as well that I hesitated at one point because the page broke in the middle of the list and I couldn't remember which column was which (the column heads weren't repeated on the verso page) and had to flip back. That serendipity of the print page led me to wonder: what about spatial bias? I know which side "male," for example, was in in the first list; to what degree might I hesitate or be wrong because I want to put things where they were before? There is a body of research on how people place words in space (which I know about through a linguist classmate; thanks to her, I will never be able to watch someone talk with their hands without noting how they use the space around them to position things in space and time). I assume the researchers who developed the IAT are aware of that research and have attempted to control for spatial bias, but Gladwell doesn't address what seemed to me like an obvious question. More obvious, though, was the potential role of priming: that first pair of list sets the expectation for "career" belonging with "male," and Gladwell discussed priming--showing something to the subject that affects his or her expectations and skews how they respond to what follows--earlier in the book. It seems like a massive oversight not to address how the researchers control for that in this test. Gladwell finds the results of the IAT, especially regarding racial bias, shocking and enlightening. If it's accurate, then I do too--but the fact that he doesn't address an issue that seems so obvious in the context of his book just left me wondering whether it was the researchers or Gladwell who overlooked an important flaw.

Toward the end of the book he mentions Gavin de Becker, security consultant and author of the brilliant book The Gift of Fear. He quotes de Becker on how bodyguards react and are trained to react, but doesn't cite the compelling opening anecdote from de Becker's book, or much else from the book, even though de Becker's book, whose premise is that you can protect yourself by listening to your instincts, makes a powerful case for the entire concept of this book. (Especially de Becker's opening story. I defy you to forget that.) I had spent much of the book thinking, "I wonder if he knows about The Gift of Fear." Finally, on page 230, he mentions it in identifying de Becker, but never says a word about what's in de Becker's book. So he knows about the book, but perhaps hasn't read it? When it's so apropos of his own book? Such an odd omission.

Not to say that you shouldn't read Blink--it contains a ton of interesting information and valuable food for thought. But read it with a critical eye, not just a blink.



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Yeah, I've Been Doing Some Reading

For a while it seemed that I was finding little or no time to read; finishing a book took months. This was so alien to who I am--the girl who used to go to the library and take home as many books as she could carry who grew up to be the girl whose most valuable benefit was the employee discount on books--as to be troubling. And in fact it was symptomatic of stress, unhappiness, mild depression. But the corner has been turned, and so has the page. I've been reading like a maniac.

And once started, ebooks make it oh, so easy to continue. See an interesting review? Download a sample chapter right away so I don't forget the book. Finished one book in a series/by an author that I really enjoy? Download the next one and start reading on the spot. Inexplicably awake in the night? No need to go out to get a book. My iPad and/or my Nook live beside the bed at night. I still buy print books (brought home a pile from Wiscon, mostly anthologies) but increasingly, ebooks are becoming a bigger percentage of what I read. All the convenience factors above, and I don't have to find more shelf space.

Anyway, that's why you are seeing my Goodreads reviews here. Not all of them, just some: books I particularly want to recommend, books that made me think about something, and books that disappointed me for a specific reason. Not that this is turning into a book blog; just want to share now that I am reading--and feeling like myself again after a long hiatus from myselfness--again.

You'll Want to Diverge from the Series . . .

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I assume the Divergent series is a trilogy, because this book has all sorts of "middle" problems. The plot becomes convoluted and confusing and events seem to be more convenient than realistic. Characters do things that don't make sense because the plot demands it, and the emotional arc is more like a series of mood swings.

The book is also troubled with the same kind of technical errors I cited in my review of Divergent: careless geography and weak world-building. We learn at the end of this book a little more about the world outside Chicago (well, that it exists), which just highlights the fact that no one has asked any questions or mentioned anything about it until this point. Which feels like lazy writing to me. Once again, I want to know where the editor was: under the influence of a simulation in which this book appears better than it is?

I think I'm most disappointed because what started out with an interesting premise and engaging characters has by this point completely fallen apart. I wanted this to be a good book, and I'm peeved that it could have been, but isn't.

Rather than experience my disappointment, go read a better book. Try Unwind or The Testament of Jessie Lamb instead.



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Another Book Review: Divergent

Divergent by Veronica Roth

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Intriguing premise (the reduced population of the city of Chicago is separated into factions, each of which values one quality above all) and an engaging lead character (Tris Prior, raised in the selfless and charitable Abnegation faction but opting to leave her family behind to become Dauntless, who are all about strength and courage) and a reasonable solid story, but marred by carelessness and weak world-building.

Although the author lives in Chicago, according to her bio, she gets basic things about the city wrong: e.g., someone turns south toward the marsh that Lake Michigan has become. (FYI, there is nowhere in the Chicago area where the lake is south; the one thing Chicagoans always say in giving directions is "The lake is always east.") One wonders where the copy editor was on that one. In general, the geography is fuzzy, with a few major landmarks thrown in but the sense of their geographic relationship is unclear and sometimes plain inaccurate.

More critical to the story is that it isn't until near the end of the second book in the series (Insurgent) that there's any intimation of a world beyond downtown Chicago. No one ever mentions it, no one ever discusses or wonders about the past or the outside world; we the readers wonder about how the lake became a marsh and society broke down and whether the factions exist in other cities or just Chicago, and simply what do these people know/believe about the outside world and their history? This rings false to the characters and smacks of an inexperienced author withholding information for the sake of the plot. One wonders where the editor was on that one. I'm not sure overall that the author has even thought through the logistics of her closed society very thoroughly. For example, the Erudite faction builds and uses computer technology; but the raw materials for computers aren't mined in the Chicago area or in some cases in the U.S., so there must be some outside trade, but there's never any indication of it. Or the fact that everyone has all the clothes and shoes they need, but there's no indication where the materials come from or where they are made and by whom. There is cake mix in the Dauntless headquarters and the factionless eat canned food: but the food delivered from the Amity, who are the suppliers of food for everyone, appears to be only fresh produce. Too many things like this that aren't completely thought out make this feel like a first-draft manuscript rather than a finished book.

All that said, I found Tris, though mercurial, an engaging character and the idea of a society divided this way a fascinating idea. The plot (despite certain convenient events) drew me along enough that I wanted to read the second book. (Which I did.)



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