Review: Slimed!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age

Slimed!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age by Mathew Klickstein

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



If you're between 23-33 and spent the first 8ish years of your life watching Nickelodeon then go read this book. It was a delightful trip down memory lane. The "golden age" of Nick stops right around the ending of Clarissa Explains it All and started during You Can't Do That On Television. This book was just interview after interview with all the people involved (actors, producers, animators) in You Can't Do That On Television, Welcome Freshman, Out of Control, Nick Arcade, Roundhouse, Double Dare, Wild & Crazy Kids, Clarissa Explains it All, Salute Your Shorts, Hey Dude!, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Rugrats, Doug and Ren & Stimpy. It was so interesting.

What's amazing is all the child actors seem to be completely normal people now. Most of them went on to college and if any of them stayed in the business it was as Production Assistants and Producers. The people who were really screwed up by Nickelodeon? The adults! OMG it sounds crazy. Backstabbing and bickering and being just downright cruel to one another. You'd never know the animosity that came out of RUGRATS! The backstabbing that happened with Ren & Stimpy.

This books covers everything from what Slime is made of (eww), to diversity on Nick, the music, the costumes- Pete & Pete's costume designed does Mad Men's costumes now. It's so interesting. For the adults at the time they of course seem the least effected, all the actors apparently still get approached on the street by not 30-somethings telling them how big a fan they were of their shows.

This book probably doesn't really deserve 5 stars, but it gets it because I'm a nostalgia sucker. What this book reminded me of- I will forever long for the day when the entire series of Pete & Pete is on DVD (right now only two seasons are grrr), Clarissa had the best fashion sense in the world, and Marc Summers is a bad ass.



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Review: The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This is the scariest book I've read in years. I can't remember the last time a book so thoroughly creeped me out but still made me love every second of it. I was kinda over dystopian novels but when assigned my Book Buddy for the month we both had had this one sitting on our shelves for a while. So I jumped into it. She's taking her time with it which I can totally understand, but once I figured out what was going on I just had to get away from it.

Imagine a future where women have all their rights taken away. Where they are no longer allowed to work, no longer allowed to own money, property, even their own kids. A large number of men and women seem to have become infertile and the fertile few are taken and given to high ranking married couples that need children. Veiled by extreme religious officials as what God wanted, women here for procreation, cooking, cleaning, or marrying. These are the only roles they have! Or I guess raising up the ones to be procreators.

The story was some what scattered and told in bits and pieces that make it really suspenseful. You never really know what's going to come next. At the end you get kinda the "historian's perspective" hundreds of years later with people criticizing the authenticity of the "tale" as a woman's confession when she escapes the world. But you don't ever really know what happens to her, which is frustrating but at the same time the way I wanted the book to end.

The most terrifying thing is you can imagine this happening. You can imagine one day are our rights slowly disintegrate this happening to different groups of people. We don't get a lot of back story on what lead up to this, or the period right before the period that lead to this. But what happened the day of the takeover we get and it's horrifying.

I had a very strong reaction to this book that I wasn't expecting. It gave me nightmares. I can't imagine a world that I wouldn't be allowed to work- or maybe the problem is I can see it too easily. If I couldn't work what would I be? For god's sake if I couldn't read what would I bed?



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My Story.

Today at work I had the opportunity to take 10 minutes out of our staff meeting and talk a little bit about who I am and why I am the way I am.  Too many ams.  I told Haley about a week ago that I was doing this and she was like "oh how are you going to do that?" I said I'd probably talk about adoption because I thought that'd be easier than talking about how music defines me, or why I love student affairs, or about my college roommate dying, or about how I'm divorced.  Adoption is easier, I talk about it all the time.  She didn't think I could keep it under 10 minutes, but I think I did okay.  But it was harder than I thought.

Being adopted isn't something that happened to me.  It's just who I am.  I've never blamed any of my problems on being adopted and I've always acknowledged how lucky I am that I get to be adopted and get to have a ton of people in my life who love me and I get to love right back.

So I went into it just creating a simple powerpoint of pictures of everyone.  Mama, dad, Deirdre, Bridget and Hail.  My stepbrothers and stepsister were in there, as well as Willy, Grace and Jonah.  Not wanting to get too much into Haley story I did include a picture of her Zack and Scott and briefly introduced them.

But I didn't really think about the presentation of it too much before hand because I talk about adoption all the time, it's a normal part of conversations to me.  "Oh my birthfamily this, my birthmom does this and mom does this" It's just normal for me so I was very shocked when explaining my family or my story I got a little teary eyed about it.

I can't really remember everything I said, but I hope I got across how lucky I feel that I'm adopted and how important it is in defining me, and if I didn't get that across then hopefully I at least got across that love and family are the most important things in my world.  That the more people in your life that you can love and that love you back the better.

Review: Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury

Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury by Sam Weller

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I had super high hopes for this book. I love Ray Bradbury and I thought short stories in his style would be an awesome quick read. But since this thing took me forever to read I guess not. So many of the stores were wonderful and amazing but others to me were duds. My faves are below

Sam Weller - The Girl In The Funeral Parlor- sweet, super sweet.
David Morrell - The Companions- BEST SHORT STORY EVER!
Thomas F. Monteleone - The Exchange- Beautiful
Lee Martin - Cat on a Bad Couch- very touching
Joe Hill - By The Silver Water Of Lake Champlain- OMG Creepy!
John McNally - The Phone Call- Creepy & awesome.
Gary Braunbeck - Fat Man And Little Boy- LOVED! I could picture it all.
Bonnie Jo Campbell - The Tattoo- LOVE
Audrey Niffenegger - Backwards In Seville
Julia Keller - Hayleigh's Dad- ahhhh creepy!
Dave Eggers - Who Knocks?- SCARY
Bayo Ojikutu - Reservation 2020
Kelly Link - Two Houses- Loved this story totally fun, creepy in a way you easily see coming.

I really liked the creepy scary ones, which is unusual for me. But as a whole this was a really great collection, but some just didn't hit the mark with me.




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Review: The Girl You Left Behind

The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Binge reading can be dangerous. Getting wrapped up in stories, not wanting them to end, becoming too attached to characters and the events in a book. Reading itself is totally dangerous. Books leave deep impressions on the heart and soul.

Jojo Moyes, again you mess with my heart. Not as badly as in [b:Me Before You|12649718|Me Before You|Jojo Moyes|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1359617637s/12649718.jpg|17763198] gosh but there are a hundred ways this book could have gone in that direction easily.

A story about war, about loss, about restitution and art. I can't think of things that go together more. Do yourself a favor and just read it.



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Review: The History of Love

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was a beautiful book. A complicated, woven love story. Filled with lonely people who were unable to be with the ones they loved. It was just sad. Heartbreaking really. The main character Leo was able to escape the Nazis and more to America to be with the one he loved, but she had already found someone else. As the story unfolds- completely out of order- I kept getting so frustrated cause I had no idea what was going on. There's a seemingly unconnected little girl trying to play matchmaker to her mother, who finally ties back into Leo's story in the last 50 pages. It's a beautiful tragedy and I'm so glad Deirdre gave it to me, but it's also so unbelievably sad.



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Review: The Silver Linings Playbook

The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Love. I loved this book. I loved the movie but the book was so much more. A short book, a short chapters book. It was perfect. You really get inside Pat's head and it sounds real, true and honest. It was great.

After going through a traumatic experience with his wife, Pat ends up in a mental institution to recover. He loses years of his life forgetting what is too painful to remember. He suffers from severe depression, delusion and anger. The book is his perspective and few letters between him and another. The book chronicles his recovery once he leaves the mental institution and the difficulties it causes his family and himself.

Yah there's LOTS of football talk. As someone who HATES football it honestly didn't really bother me. It was interesting to see how fanatical people can be about sports. Even in my most outrageous love for my Spurs I'm not like that.

What I loved about this book was it's honesty. Recovery from a mental illness is not immediate, it can't all be solved by medication and it can't all be solved by therapy. I believe in therapy and abhor overmedicating but understand that some people need both. The book was painful to read at times, because someone who is suffering from delusions can talk themselves into anything at certain times, you'll make excuses and make bets with yourself. You'll tell yourself if you just change yourself it'll be better and so hearing Pat's mind as he had these arguments and wagers with himself was hard. Because once you're on the other side you know that's not how it works. You have to do the work. If you keep deluding yourself it wont happen. It took Pat 5+ months in this book plus the 3 years he was institutionalized but that's because he wouldn't do the work.

I loved this book. It was so good. I own the movie, it was one of the first movies I saw by myself when I moved to college station and I remember it meant a lot to me then. The book does now too.



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