Girl Code by Gonzales & Houser *****

GirlCode: Gaming, Going Viral, and Getting It Done by Andrea Gonzales and Sophie Houser recounts the story of two high school girls from New York City who signed up for a summer coding program with Girls Who Code (GWC)…and their project goes viral. They are interviewed by the press, make television appearances, and are invited to Silicon Valley. They are role models for any girls who might consider a career in high technology. The book is full of examples of successful women in technology and career advice.

Their story highlights the paradox of women attracted to coding. At the junior high and high school level, girls are neither encouraged nor welcomed. With a few exceptions, especially if they are not in a place like New York City or San Francisco, they are wildly outnumbered and left on their own. However, if they make it to college Computer Science and into the job market. Their support and outlook significantly improve.

Andrea and Sophie were on their own, and one has to wonder what happened to the other girls who went through the GWC program with them. However, once their game went viral, once they were a proven success, they were inundated with mentors and other opportunities.

This book is especially important for girls who are on the path, but not yet recognized. It contains much of the advice vital to success, but not generally available to high school students.

A must read for any junior high or high school girl considering a career in STEM. Note: Their 2014 viral game is Tampon Run.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.

Flat Broke with Two Goats by Jennifer McGaha ***

The crash of 2008 ejected an English college teacher and her accountant husband from their upper-middle-class life of suburbs and private schools to fifty acres and a rundown cabin in the Appalachian Mountains. Through trial and error and Google, they learned to raise chickens and goats and tomatoes. Between the chapters, the author shares recipes.

The book opens with the author’s first marriage to an abusive husband and her second marriage to a controlling husband who reveals that the family owes a six-figure amount in back taxes. She escapes the second husband to a good job with financial stability in another state, but ultimately returns to the mountains.

The book bounces between family stories of many generations struggling to survive in the mountains and her contemporary experience learning how to be a farmer. Each time she tries something new, such as raising chickens for eggs, or goats for milk, or farming vegetables, she always does her research. However, when she begins the projects, she always ignores the research, and it always is disastrous.

The author makes an interesting observation in the beginning of the book which makes me consider this memoir as a cautionary tale for parents. “And while what I should have learned from living a relatively privileged childhood was the value of hard work and frugality, what I learned instead was that money was not something with which I needed to be overly concerned. If and when I needed it, it would magically appear--like a genie.”

Another comment much later supports this interpretation. “Perhaps, to a more reasonable person, my grandmother’s stories might have seemed more like cautionary tales than inspirational ones.”

Personal note:  Though alcoholism is not mentioned in the book, virtually every occasion, either good or bad is accompanied by alcohol. I wondered if this was a cause or an effect.

Flat Broke with Two Goats by Jennifer McGaha is a rambling memoir glorifying the life of poor farmers. Also, a cautionary tale for people who do not take advice.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations. 

The City of Brass by S A Chakraborty ***

Nahri, Banu Nahida, is the last surviving member of a race of healers, long thought extinct. Darayavahoush is a 1,400-year-old magical warrior, remembered, cursed, and feared. Prince Alizayd al Qahtani (Ali) is the king’s second son, religious, empathic, and ultimately dispensable. In a world dominated by magical and racial tribalism, these three all seek justice for the oppressed classes (shafit) and races (daevas). This is book one of three, nothing is resolved, though the adventure is dramatic.

Nahri is a poor orphan and thief of Cairo, reminiscent of Disney’s Aladdin. The story diverges as soon as she summons her djinn, Dara. He leads her on a quest to the magical City of Brass, where he promises that she will be safe. Their journey is hindered by the marauding ifrit and other magical beings while being helped by Dara’s magical powers. For example, some of their travels employ a flying carpet (Aladdin again). Between her healing powers and his strength, they arrive, but their troubles only get more complex, even though both are revered for their power in the present, and remembrance of past glory.

Ali has removed himself from the palace politics, attending the Citadel (military academy) and dedicating himself to an ascetic religious life. He gets involved with a rebel, terrorist group working to free the shafit underclass. When Nahri and Dara arrive, he is drawn to the girl and sympathetic to the djinn. All this exacerbated the tension between him and his father and his brother.

The three main characters were regularly in jeopardy, but there was so much magic, I found it hard to be concerned. Dara, particularly, regularly showed whatever new power might be convenient. Both Nahri and the reader had no idea what to expect next, as Dara called upon new powers, and other characters conveniently were resurrected.

Nahri develops strong feelings for both male figures.

The City of Brass by S A Chakraborty is a broad-ranging fantasy from the slums of Cairo to the magical, ancient City of Brass. A complex culture based on the Middle East and drawing on all the area’s history.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations. 

Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Grigg Gilmore *****

Catherine Grace Cline was the preacher’s daughter in the small town of Ringgold, Georgia. Her mother died when she was six. Her experience told her if God was omnipotent or not didn’t matter, because he didn’t listen to her. “So every night before I went to bed I got down on my knees and begged the Lord to find me a way out of this town. And every morning, I woke up in the same old place.” Eventually she leaves Ringgold, and eventually, she learns that everything she believed was wrong.

Catherine Grace found it difficult to be the motherless, preacher’s daughter in a small town. “You are the preacher’s daughter and with that comes a certain amount of responsibility.” The responsibility weighed heavily on her. “I hate being the preacher’s daughter.” She kept expecting some privilege from her position, but it never came. “Being the preacher’s daughter had never been an advantage, at least not as far as I could tell.”

With her mother gone, many women befriended her. Gloria Jean was a close friend of her mother who gave Catherine Grace advice on how to be a woman and took her shopping. Miss Haines was her Sunday School teacher. Martha Ann was her younger sister. Miss Mabie took her in when she finally left Ringgold. Aside from her father, almost all the characters, good and bad, are women.

The book has four parts: growing up in Ringgold, moving to Atlanta, revelations (where Catherine Grace discovers that everything she believed was wrong), and redemption.

Looking for Salvation at the DairyQueen by Susan Grigg Gilmore is a coming-of-age story of surprising revelations and heart-warming redemptions.

For my expanded notes: http://1book42day.blogspot.com/2018/08/dreamers-of-day-by-mary-doria-russell.html

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations. 

The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy Reichert ****

TheCoincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy Reichert is a romantic comedy from the initial meet-cute, to the mistaken identities and misunderstandings, to the inevitable happy ending. Coconut Cake opens with Elizabeth Louella Johnson “Lou” engaged to Devlin who everyone can see is wrong…except for Lou. Through an unlikely set of coincidences, she breaks up with Mr. Wrong and meets Al, Mr. Right…but will she ever recognize this fortunate turn of events?

Lou has invested everything she has in her dream, having her own restaurant, Luella’s. Much of the story is about running the restaurant: recipes, shopping, staffing, customers, and menus. Mr. Right writes a scathing review which ultimately puts Luella’s out of business.

Mr. Right is from England and Lou is a Milwaukee native. After they meet, they continue to see each other on the pretense that he doesn’t appreciate her favorite city. They go to baseball games, restaurants, festivals, and museums. All which involve food and none which discloses her job as a restauranteur nor his as a food critic.

The author professes that she “loves to write stories that end well.” In this, she definitely succeeds.

A Rom-Com in book form with plenty of food and Milwaukee.

When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman *****

When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman is told by Eleanor Maud, born 1968, in two parts, one starting 1975 and the other from 1995. Elly is an observer and eventually a writer. Most of the action happens to the people around her. She begins as a precocious girl, cynical and sassy. As she ages, life becomes more somber and serious. She lives and overcomes numerous obstacles following this advice, “You can hold on to anything…to make you carry on.”

Eleanor Maud has a brother five years her senior, a mother, and a father. Her best friend is Jenny Penny. Her father’s sister, Nancy, is a lesbian movie star. Nancy is in love with Eleanor’s mother, her brother’s wife. Eleanor’s brother’s boyfriend is Charlie Hunter. Elly uses their personal crises as inspiration for a weekly newspaper column, cementing her role as an observer.

These people suffer breakups, being kidnapped, imprisonment, amnesia, blindness, death… Through it all Elly observes, carries on, and finds humor and hope,

As a young girl, she is her own person. When cast as the innkeeper in the school Christmas pageant, she ad-libbed…

“Yes,” I said, “I have a room, with a little lovely view at an excellent rate” … two thousand years of Christianity was instantly challenged as I led Mary and Joseph towards a double en-suite with a TV and minibar.

When she met a family friend who could “read anything,” palms, tarot cards… Eleanor wondered, “books?”

A story of perseverance and victory with themes of religion, sexuality, and struggle.

No Time to Spare by Ursula Le Guin *****

No Time to Spare is a 2017 collection of essays by octogenarian Ursula Le Guin (died 1/22/2018). The essays range from light topics like her cat to heavy ones like war, hunger, and income inequality. The subtitle “Thinking about what matters” is well chosen as Le Guin approaches each topic analytically often with surprising results.

The collection opens with a skewering of the privileged, elitist assumptions of a 60^th-reunion questionnaire sent out by Harvard, followed by the folly of You’re only as old as you think you are. “Actually, I’ve never heard anyone over seventy say that.”

Later, in an essay on profanity in literature, she retells the story about Dorothy Parker’s comment to Norman Mailer about his use of fug in The Naked and the Dead, “Are you the young man who doesn’t know how to spell fuck?”

In another essay, she demolishes the idea of economic growth as a goal. Unending growth doesn’t work in in the natural world. “[The current generation] has seen growth capitalism return to its origins, providing security for none but the strongest profiteers.”

Cats? “I don’t look for much obedience from a cat; the relationship isn’t based on rank or a dominance hierarchy as with dogs and cats have no guilt and very little shame.”

A delightful collection in support of liberal and egalitarian ideals by someone who grew up in Berkeley California and has pet cats.

Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt ***

Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt? Let’s start with Mr. Chartwell. He is a black Labrador, six-foot-seven standing in his hind legs. He speaks English and only appears to the two main characters: Winston Churchill (you remember him) and Esther Hammerhaus (librarian and secretary at the House of Commons Library). This a fantasy novel about depression, as personified by Mr. Chartwell.

The book is very British, from the vocabulary (boxroom, brogues, quag, factotum, doorcase…) to the life of Winston Churchill, who British readers will know that he died six months after this story takes place. While the subject is universal, the book makes it specifically British.

Mr Chartwell, the personification of depression, is also a ill-behaved dog, chewing on clothes and furnishings, tracking mud everywhere…

He cracked at the bone with the egg-sized molars at the rear of his mouth…The bone crushed into fragments…Splinters scattered over the table and cards, teeth grating.

A very British novel about two peoples’ struggles with depression without explicitly mentioning depression. I found the talking, invisible dog confusing.

The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman ****

In 1950, Maggie Hughes is sixteen and pregnant. This is unacceptable. The pregnancy must be hidden, and the baby cannot be kept. To make matters worse, the corrupt Quebec government together with the Catholic Church exploited these “orphans.” The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman follows Maggie’s and her daughter’s (Elodie) miserable lives for decades.

Maggie’s mother is French, and her father is English. The English are educated, proud, and privileged. They call the French “Pepsi,” cheap and sweet.  This conflict permeates the book, but real villains are the sadistic nuns.

In the end, Elodie plans to write a book the expose and punish the nuns. This book reads like the book she would have written.

A book of abuse, rape, and dysfunction…with a happy ending. Misery and rescue.