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The last thing Lexi Smart remembers was being a frizzy-haired, snaggle-toothed, badly paid young professional with a loser boyfriend. But one day she wakes up to a completely different life: a great job, capped teeth, an amazing house and…a handsome husband?
Courtesy of a nasty bump on the head, Lexi has amnesia. She’s completely forgotten the last three years of her life and has woken up in the hospital with straight, glossy hair, a platinum American Express card, and a Louis Vuitton purse. Her lips also seem to be plumper than she remembers… but she has more important things to deal with. Like trying to remember her husband. Or comprehend how her little sister went from being a sweet little girl to a law-breaking smart ass. Or why all her friends hate her.
Lexi soon realizes that she’s become a no-carb-eating-bitch-boss-from-hell who may or may not be having an affair with one of her husband’s business partners and has managed to alienate all her old friends. Her new life is filled with beige suits, perfect chignons and a computerized pet (less mess). Lexi’s just trying to figure out what the hell happened in the last three years.
Remember Me? is the latest book from Sophie Kinsella, the author of the Shopaholic books. I am a HUGE fan of the Shopoholic books and picked up Remember Me? the first day it was out. It’s an entertaining book packed with awkward moments, a lot of wit, and the expected slice of romance. There’s not as much verve as there is in the Shopaholic books, but it’s a great story with interesting characters…and a little bit of a mystery that explains Lexie’s great transformation.
Pink Think: Becoming a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons is a fascinating result of author Lynn Peril’s obsession with collecting retro advertising and advice books from the 40’s through the 70’s. In Peril’s words, Pink think “is a set of ideas and behaviors about what constitutes proper female behavior.”
Women were subjected to these pink think ideals from every angle of society, “advice writers, manufacturers of toys and other consumer products, experts in many walks of life, and the public at large…” Society held incredibly high and restrictive standards for women to be feminine, which meant to be gentle, soft, delicate, nurturing. Society believed that women could “desire no greater destiny than to glory in their own femininity.” And the color pink became specifically associated with femininity everywhere. There was no escaping it.
Society seemed to fear that if women worked, or became too independent, the world would come crashing down around us. Work outside of the home was made to seem more like a distraction- a way to spend your time until you get married instead of being a way to feel fulfilled. A 1950 ad for U.S. Savings Bonds read “when a young girl goes to work, she is apt to look on her job pretty much as a fill-in between maturity and marriage.”
Peril includes in the book a test that was in the February 1960 issue of Seventeen magazine entitled How Do You Rate as a Girl? It includes thought-provoking questions like “Do you listen responsively to a story you have heard before rather than squash the pleasure of the boy who is telling it?” and “In a serious discussion which includes both sexes, can you keep from being overpowering even though you know a great deal on the subject?” If you scored perfectly you are deemed a “veritable flower of femininity.” I took the quiz myself and scored five to seven yeses- “there are a few thorns.” Couldn’t be prouder.
It was almost frightening to read about the advice that “experts” were giving to women about how to be “feminine.” Essayist Louis Paine Benjamin wrote in 1947, “[Women] will know how to whip up a tasty meal, a new dress…turn a shirt collar or paint a living room…woman’s skill and interest in her home life can be just as stimulating and ego-rewarding as a successful profession in the business world.” All those experts were forceful that women would be unable to find anything other than being a wife and mother as completely satisfying. Of course some women did, and do, find being a stay-at-home mom satisfying. But, whereas we have the choice now, in the 40’s work outside the home was automatically considered unfeminine.
Peril also looks at how advertisers targeted women by associating their products with helping to create the perfect family. She looks at the experts advice on sex-ed and a girls reputation. And in an effort to look at all perspectives, Peril delves a bit into how boys and men also had specific standards of behavior they were expected to live up to. But that’s a far less interesting chapter.
Obviously, things have changed. Women can choose to stay home with their kids, have a career outside the house, or do both. But this book also made me wonder about how things haven’t changed. Television ads for cleaning products always show women looking completely satisfied after finally being able to get their kitchen floors sparkling. But how often do you see men featured in ads like these? And fashion advertisements consistently display thin, beautiful women with flawless skin and glossy hair. These unrealistic pictures, which have been airbrushed to death, are the new impossible standards women face. And of course, the age old question. Career and a family: can women have it all?
Pink Think is not just an interesting and enjoyable read. It was truly thought-provoking and made me realize that even though women have earned more independence and respect in society, we are still faced with, and have to fight against, pink think.
I’ve never met Diane Johnson, author of Into a Paris Quartier: Reine Margot’s Chapel and other Haunts of St.-Germain and Le Divorce, but we do have something in common; we both love Paris. And while I’ve only ever dreamed about walking by the Seine and eating croissants at cafe’s in the famous walking city, Johnson lives it. She splits her time between San Fransisco and Paris and Into a Paris Quartier is her own love letter to the beauty of the city. For Johnson, the history and architecture is part of what makes Paris so special to her. It’s rich past is embedded in every part of the present- you can’t escape it. Janet Flanner, the New Yorker correspondent, wrote, “The streets sing, the stones talk. The houses drip history, glory, romance.”
In Johnson’s introduction, she writes that “the City of Light has haunted the American imagination from the days of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.” Johnson is just another American that has fallen under the influence of the city’s allure. Johnson’s apartment is on Rue Bonaparte in the historic and famous neighborhood of St.-Germain-des-Pres. Jefferson lived just a few doors down two hundred years earlier and Franklin just around the corner. The spirit of Sartre, Beauvoir, Wilde, Piaf and Wharton still vibrate around every corner.
From her apartment window, Johnson can see an old chapel built by Queen Margot in 1608 and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. She is a stone’s throw from Louvre, the Insitut de France, the Pont Neuf and other famous landmarks. Every building has a story, a rich history. The influence of great figures in history are in the streets they walked and they linger in the buildings they built.
Johnson begins her book with a question: What is it about Paris? Into a Paris Quartier is Johnson’s own search for what Paris means to her- what it is that keeps her coming back every year- what made her fall in love with the city and consider it home.
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen has it all- romance, jealous husbands, murder… the circus, an elephant with a penchant for alchohol and so much more.
The novel follows Jacob Jankowski, an old man (unhappily) living in a nursing home. He gets occasional, unmemorable visits from his children and finds comfort in complaining about the food. One fine day the circus comes to town. As they begin to set up the tent right across from the nursing home, Jacob’s mind slips back and forth between the present and the past.
When Jacob was in college, his parents were killed in a car accident. Reeling from the news, he walks out of his final college exam before becoming a veterinarian and runs away. He stumbles on a passing train, jumps on, and interrupts a group of circus folk. After narrowly escaping being tossed from the moving train by a muscly circus worker, Jacob joins the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth (which turns out to NOT be the most spectacular show) as the new vet. Soon, Jacob finds himself with a roommate who harbors an intense dislike for him, falling for a beautiful circus perfomer (who happens to be married to a very jealous man) and almost getting his arm taken off by a tiger.
Water for Elephants is an original, creative novel- a real page-turner, filled with great descriptions and an interesting cast of characters. But the story goes further than a behind-the-scenes drama at the circus. The treatment of the animals often mirrors that of the circus workers. They are treated as a commodity- without humanity. But the struggle, compassion and developing relationship between the workers and the animals adds real beauty to the novel. It’ll get you from the first paragraph and keep you gripped until the last page.
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