Pretentiousness, Thy Name is Me (Or, Why I Don't Like Orange is the New Black, the TV Show)

Pretentiousness, Thy Name is Me 

Or, Why I Don't Like Orange is the New Black, the TV Show

Has anyone actually read Orange is the New Black and still like the Netflix show? Ok, better question, has anyone read the memoir? No? Just me? Ok well they are both about a blonde woman named Piper who delivered a suitcase full of drug money for her girlfriend Nora. Ten years later Nora turns her in and Piper ends up in jail.

Here's a problem I have. I listened to this on an audiobook and talked to someone who read the book and watched the show and while I said that an episode one plot point did not happen in the book, she argued that it absolutely had happened. I'm not sure that my listening skills were top notch while I listened to this book, so take that grain of salt and read my opinion.

The major theme I took away form the memoir was how normal everyone was, how boring prison (jail?) was, and I questioned the needs of  those in prison and how well those needs are being met.

For example, going into this book I thought "oh, white collar prison is not so bad. They have cable! They have everything!"
But the beauty of Orange is the New Black (the book) is that you see the agony of boredom and the beauty of the community that is created by the women of the prison. I felt like Piper made friends and while bad things happened, people generally looked after each other.
But maybe I spaced out while running and wasn't listening during the bad parts.

The Golem and the Jinni (4.5)

I started listening to this way way back in October, and it was the perfect after-rehearsal book to listen to. I'd been working hard for hours, now it was time for someone to entertain me! I had a whole system, I would listen to the news in the morning on my way to work, I would sing in the afternoon on my way to rehearsal, and then I would listen to a story at night on my way home.

This worked for the first third of the audiobook. It started slow, because it's long and there's a lot to cover. Halfway through part two my show ended so I had one less commute to listen to things. Which meant I stopped doing my wonderfully productive and necessary singing and instead listened to this story. By Part Three, the only thing I listened to in the car was this book. I wanted to fall asleep listening to it but I was loathe to miss anything. I listened to it at the gym or on runs, I listened to it while cleaning, anything where I was alone. It still took me what felt like forever to finish because it was so long, but I loved it.

New York City

The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker, moves between a few different narrators far flung through the world, and sometimes through time, and during the course of the story these strands are knit together into a seamless story. We start with The Golem, a being made of clay with the strength of a dozen men, usually meant to protect its master above all else. This golem, however, was built to be the wife of a lonely, wealthy man moving to America. He wakes her during the journey, then dies and she is left alone, masterless, purposeless and completely brand new set adrift in a world she doesn’t understand. In America, she is taken in by Rabbi Avram Meyer, who names her Chava, and knows what she is, and teaches her how to become part of the world.

Then there is the Jinni, a powerful creature made of fire who comes out of a flask that a tinsmith was trying to fix. We see his story in the present as well as the distant past, before he was put in the flask he has been trapped in for hundreds of years. Now he is trapped in human form with an iron band about his wrist. Boutros Arbeely, the tinsmith, takes him in as an apprentice, but the jinni, who Arbeely names Ahmad, doesn’t need as much help as the Golem, and runs about New York creating mischief as he always has.

kinda like this guy...

Until one day, the golem and the jinni meet. Their unlikely friendship, the woman made of earth created to be obedient and the man made of fire who could fly about the world in an instant and enter the dreams of men and toy with them, is necessary for both as they are each the only creature of their kind, who never need to eat or sleep as humans do, but are forced to live among them and hide their true natures.

And one day, Yehudah Schaalman, the golem’s creator, decides that he is getting too old and must find a way to live forever. He’s known since he was a young man that God was angry with him, and he would find nothing but eternal suffering on the other side of this life, so he needed to find the key to eternal life. He creates a spell which leads him to New York City, the golem, and the jinni.

It is a beautiful story that weaves in themes of god, creators, natures, predestination, and free will. 

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (5)

 Well I just started my free trial of Audible. So far I’m pretty excited. Also, so far I haven’t paid for anything so that makes it extra exciting.

What is Audible?

Basically Audible is like Netflix, but for audiobooks. And you keep the book. And you only get (X) number amount (I chose one). So basically you’re just buying audiobooks at a steeply discounted rate because you’re signing on to buy one (or whatever you choose) a month.

I would think it was even cooler if it was more like Netflix/the library and you get one at a time. I realize that the library has this through OverDrive, but I’ve never gotten overdrive to work with audiobooks so either a) I’m an idiot or b) it’s a bad service. (Now I feel my bi-annual need to try it again.)

What I like about it is that you deal in terms of credits. So I’m signed up for one credit a month, 1 audiobook is 1 credit, so if it takes me a little over a month to listen to the audiobook, I still have my 1 saved up. If I don’t listen to audiobooks for a month after that, now I have 2, and then if it gets cold and I sit around knitting and binge-listening to audiobooks, I can blow through those two I have saved up.

Why are you such a geek, Jana?

I have a really hard time running. I get so bored. And I saw this little graphic about people who listen to audiobooks and it reminded me that I should try running with an audiobook. I figured I would probably like it because I loved running with Zombies, Run! but then I realized I was running out of episodes and stopped using it because I wanted to save it for an extra special run (read: I stopped running). So, naturally, the audiobook I chose was World War Z, in sticking with the running-from zombies theme.

I come here to read reviews, not have you try to sell me things

Right, right, sorry. World War Z is written as a history of the zombie war, with many short stories loosely strung together by the researcher, Max Brooks.

And I am loving this in audiobook style. I feel that this is the only way to read this book, actually. The full title is World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. It is meant to be listened to. The voice actors are great, and there’s a teensy bit of soundtrack between chapters.

Normally, I have a hard time with the short story format (as you heard from my This is How You Lose Her review). I just can’t read a string of short stories the same way I can marathon-read a book. It feels weird dipping in and out of characters like that. So I’ll try and set up a system for how to read them, like at bedtime, but it generally falls apart if I haven’t finished it by the end of a week. What’s great about this is I have a system set up, I can listen to it while I’m running or in the car. Hopefully I will run often enough that this works, and the biggest problem is that when I’m done running I want to keep listening to it. And there are so many things you can do while listening to audiobooks! Cleaning! Cooking! All of these things I am pretty bad at doing because you can’t do them while your nose is shoved in a book.

It also helps keep me away from my major vice of sitting and reading the entirety of facebook, which I do a lot, but less when I have a good book to shove my nose into. You can’t read and listen at the same time, though lord knows I’ve tried.

RUN. FASTER.

What I really love about World War Z is that you get the adventure of zombies without that really horrifying apocalyptic moments that you get in most zombie movies. The “oh god, they’re going to win, we’re all going to die, and even if we live what’s the point since all we’re going to do for the rest of our miserable existence is keep fighting,” moment. I hate that moment. It is too depressing and stressful. This book is written after the zombie war, telling stories of the survivors. So the voices you hear are people who lived. They’ve seen some really horrifying things, so it’s still kind of terrifying and depressing (I was almost crying during one of my runs), but at least you know that your narrators have survived, and soon you will find out how the zombies were eradicated and humanity was rebuilt. Or whatever happened. I’m only ¼ of the way through the book. You’re right, I shouldn’t write a review on ¼ of a book. Sue me. 

UPDATE: Ok, I didn't actually post this before I finished the audiobook, but I liked what I wrote so I'm just going to post it anyway. All I have to add is that I wish I had binge-listened to it because whenever I "save" something and try not to burn through it even though I want to, I basically stop listening to it or reading it. Also I got OverDrive to work. The library app on my phone is my new best friend. Except if I try to check out an e-book it gives me the stupid non-kindle version which I can't read on my kindle which defeats the whole purpose. But audiobooks work fine. 

Yay! library your technology has caught up with the rest of the world. 

The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd (4)

UPDATE ON AUDIOBOOKS

Now that I've actually been driving around places, I really, really like audiobooks. I go through at least one a month and it's awesome. This book is the first one I actually took out of my car and played at home, and it was kind of nice to fall asleep listening to it. However, I then had to figure out where I was in the CD when I fell asleep, which was annoying. My car saves my place, which is super convenient. Before, when I was bus-ing everywhere I tried uploading a book to my ipod to listen to, which was really nice except when I listened to music in between and completely lost my place. Which was even harder to find because I sometimes didn't even remember which cd I was on. It was a sad adventure and I never finished that book ("The Prime of Miss. Jean Brodie") even though it was only 3 CDs long. I am a failure.

UPDATE ON THE BLOG

I'm thinking about just writing about whatever I feel like, instead of just randomly talking about the books I read. I may also still talk about the books I read. Or maybe I'll just start another blog that is only about me. Thoughts?

ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT THE BOOK I READ:

 

I wish I was a cool, blog-savvy person who knew how to write this next to the ginormous picture of the book, but I'm not. *sigh* 

Maybe I'll revoke my previous statement about liking audiobooks. I feel less of a response to this book then I usually do when I read books. Usually I read them much faster than it takes me to listen to the book, since I only listen while I'm driving. I think I may have given it a 5 if I actually read it, but since I didn't, I didn't really know what I wanted to rate it, because I didn't remember how much I liked it...maybe I'm just weird.

Short Jananopsis (where I tell you what I think is important, which may not be what Amazon or the back of the book says its about):
Basically, this girl deals with her mom dying and hating her dad and the South sucking and no one liking her or her only friend, who happens to be an older black woman named Rosaleen. She runs away from home because Rosaleen tries to register to vote and ends up getting arrested and Lily (the girl) thinks she's going to get killed in jail, probably because she is (she spit on a white man's shoe who just so happens to think that black people shouldn't vote. Or have rights. Or not be slaves.). They end up living with these sisters who make honey and they just pretend like they aren't running from the cops.

I think You'll Like this Book if You Like:
-Ya-Ya Sisterhood
-other Sue Monk Kidd novels
-fun cultures

You May Not Like This Book if You Don't Like:
-women (or women sitting around talking)
-coming-of-age stories
-bees
-sad things occasionally happening. (It's not a totally depressing book, but I definitely cried)

Coming up Next:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (which so far is amazing. I don't know why I'm writing this instead of reading it.)
OR PERHAPS -
one of the many books I've already read and haven't written anything about because I'm lazy. And had a broken laptop.

And after that:
I really want to read a laugh-till-you-pee book. Like Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging. But for adults. So more like Bridget Jone's Diary. Maybe I'll read the second one?

I also need a car-audiobook. For that I kind of like books I've been putting off for awhile. But now I've been out of school and actually reading so that list is dwindling fast. Perhaps Patty Clark, Ha Ha Ha? I don't want anything super depressing because crying on your way to work is awkward. Suggestions?

Yours in absolute nerdiness,
Jana :D