Reviews and Comments

I kind of loved this book but I must confess, I don't actually know what it was about. Yes of course there is the surface story that is simple enough. But I don't think that's what this book is trying to say. I must think about this more and perhaps read this again.

It reminded me of To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf which is another book that is more than it first appears. I suppose I should read that one again too.

More later if I figure out what I want to say. Right now, I'm thinking it's about the nature of reality, how we create our own reality, our lives, and live in them but as we create it we destroy it anew by our own expectations and limitations of understanding. We destroy by striving and yearning towards and miss living in the here and now. Is there an absolute reality that plays out when we are not experiencing? It's about how artists create but cannot be forced to create. If an artists creates but his vision is not understood the way they meant it, does it really matter if the art brings an understanding to the viewer/reader/listener? Is this meta?

This is a short book. Read it.

2 1/2 stars

Eh, I don't know about this one... I take that back, actually, I do know this... I am not the intended audience for this book. And it was written in such a specific way that unless you are a gay, upwardly mobile millenial man it would be hard to relate to the particular angst the main character Sam possesses and ruminates about ENDLESSLY. And jeez the superficial desires for the trappings of wealth, the tiresome designer name dropping...idk it made the characters seems so one dimensional and shallow.

The ayahuaska ceremony was quite a bastardisation of the quest of a real seeker, like ayahuaska-lite for dabblers in truth. There was no there there. Sam's problems were mundane, we all feel like he does at times. We don't need an ayahuaska ceremony to come to the realization that we're all human and struggling and should cut ourselves some slack.

The writing was good but the story of Sam dragged on and I lost patience with his pathetic inner dialog.

Very believable. So much so, that when I told my husband about this book I was reading, he thought I was describing a new toy on the market. I would not be surprised to see something very similar to this in the store soon. Will not be surprised to find out all the ways this goes bad... exactly as depicted in this book.

Many of us are addicted to social media. Many of us seek some sort of dialog or interaction with the people on the other side of the keyboard. We're "lonely". We're interested in the new and novel not the same old same old. We want to live vicariously. We want to project how perfect our lives seem. Most of the time we are existing in some netherworld, neither here nor there. We're not in the moment, experiencing what is going on around us. We're interacting with nobody and everybody except the people in the room with us.

It's weird. Probably very unhealthy as well. One hundred years from now historians will say "wtf".

We've had, as toys for our son when he was a little boy, both Furby and Tamagochees.

This is a thought provoking book, and it's good, but I was not blown away. It could have used some character development and a little more in the way of plot.

2 1/2 stars
Ok, first of all, this book is trash. hahaha I can't believe I finished it to tell the truth. I listened to the audiobook and the narration was compelling enough so I kept going. Then, basically wanted to find out how it would end. Then, just WANTED it to end. But it is trash nonetheless and in many ways. In addition, it is too unbelievable and too long.

This definitely is not the book I wanted to read. There could be a compelling story of two girls who become best friends, love each other, understand each other, need each other. I was that girl as a teenager. I had a best friend that I loved above all others. Thought about her all the time. Wrote letters to her every day. Felt more myself with her, finally, for the first time in my life didn't have to pretend to be someone I was not. Basically, gave up all other friends because that kind of friendship now felt so shallow, phoney, "superficial" we said to each other. Not like what we had together. We completely "got" each other, were on the same "brainwave" we said. We got in trouble together doing stupid teenage things like ditching school and when her parents forbade her to be with me, it was so painful, our parting. It pains me, still to this day, because I loved her so. I am not exaggerating when I say it changed the trajectory of my life.

So I get that kind of teenage girl obsession and devotion. That kind of friendship is our first time falling in love basically. And, if we were different people, maybe it could have become a physical love as well, but we weren't those girls. Times were different back then and it would have been too weird for 2 catholic schoolgirls. I also do not think every teen girl has this kind of friend. Some people are just not wired that way. They like the more superficial girl friend and save this kind of devotion for their first love affair.

I don't know, teens are sexual, sure, but the sex scenes in this book were so over the top to the point of laughable. It's possible perhaps, maybe some teens are like this, but it definitely was not my experience. Sex as a teen is painful and slightly embarrassing fumblings. And in fact, for me, I was way more interested in the partying and the getting high than I was in the getting laid. So maybe it was just me. I didn't learn to have "real sex" until I was married. But as I say, times were different back then. I'm old, lol.

And the whole devil worshipping angle was just superfluous and silly. Not needed. There were also plot-holes and weird things that had to happen to drive the plot forward (mother/daughter swim party...what?) that were obvious and clunky. Not only that but there was some real sloppy police work in that town, I'll tell you what. haha And if you're going to describe what it's like to be on drugs, make sure you've tried said drug yourself so you can be accurate, jeez.

So, I guess read this if you are looking for an over the top tale of teenage life. Know, going into this, it's not going to be a heartfelt story of two girls who love each other and painfully, move on. It's more a voyeuristc view of girls gone wild in the early 1990s with Nirvana supplying the soundtrack. Kinda trashy, mindless diversion. Not what I thought I was going to read. Not what I wanted to read. So I'm going to hold that against this book haha.

Not just beautiful photographs. Not just interesting, moody pictures of ugly, blighted places. But within each photograph are in depth stories of a certain place in time, the people of that place, the homes inwhich these people live, the factories inwhich these people work, the trains for which these people stop and wait begrudgingly. I don't have to scrutinize these pictures for the stories to form. I could, myself, be just right around the corner of any one of these photos, looking out the picture window of a bungalow, driving by on some side street, tending a backyard garden. Or as a child, prowling and poking around the forbidden places... the undersides and footings of bridges, the elevated tracks of the South Shore commuter train, the dumping grounds and marshlands where we built forts and smoked our first cigarettes stolen from our parents.

I am a Calumet Region Rat, born and raised in East Chicago and living now in Chesterton, Indiana. Never far from the steel mills, never far from Lake Michigan, never far from the Grand Calumet or the Little Calumet Rivers. Never far from a shifting north wind off the lake, changing the weather on a storm front, bringing the sulfury smell of coke gas, naptha odor of oil refineries, or on some days, a burnt metal smell. Flying home from Arizona to South Bend airport we flew right over those rivers and mills I knew so well. With Lake Michigan a hazy darkness on the horizon, I was happy to see the distinctive Y shape of the Indiana Harbor ship canal, the BP (Standard Oil/Amoco) oil refinery, where for many years, my husband helped run the #4 Ultraformer, breaking cyclical carbon rings in huge reactors and yes Inland Steel (it will always be Inland to me) the main employer of my birth city where my father spent most of his working years, himself born and raised in the shadows of that mill.

This region shaped me. This region is still my home. Looking at the pictures I instinctively knew in which city they were taken. They are all very samey but they are all subtly different from each other. It is so familiar to me. Both good and bad, it is what shaped the person I am today. It is home.