fledgling, by octavia e. butler: this is a book about a vampire, shori, that looks like a young black girl but who is in fact much older and has amnesia. normally i like butler's spare and no-nonsense writing style, and i admit i seriously enjoy a good vampire book, but this leaves me nonplussed. i don't know, i can't quite get into it. i kind of don't care why shori has amnesia, who her people were, or why she was badly injured and left for dead. there was a bit of controversy when this book came out because physically shori is described as looking like an 8-10 year old girl, but has sex with an adult man. the scenes aren't graphic by any means (it reads like your basic harlequin, only much tamer), and honestly i find the story boring enough that i don't care. i'm only four chapters into the book, though, and i know i'll finish it so maybe it will win me over. although to be honest, i'm tempted to just go ahead and return it.
rescuing patty hearst, virginia holman: memoir about a girl who's mom has a psychotic break and kidnaps her kids to live in a cabin and prepare for a secret war, in which they will be in charge of helping the orphans. i first heard part of this story as a short on this american life, and then put this book on my amazon wishlist and forgot about it. i'm sad i did; it's a quick read, sad like most memoirs are these days, and an interesting look at what it's like to have a parent with severe mental illness. the chapters are arranged like a series of short vignettes, and go back in forth in time from the seventies to now. even though it is at heart a sad story about a mother who needs help and doesn't get it until it's way too late (by the time she's diagnosed and gets medical attention she's so far gone that not much helps), the book doesn't wallow in a lot of self-pity or "why me?" i would recommend this book to anyone who likes augusten burroughs, david sedaris, david rakoff, sarah vowell, etc.
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