I don't know. I love this author. and even though i've read this book, i keep forgetting that i have read it, pick it up again, and get flustered because i discover i've read it before. so i guess that means it's not that good. because even as i write this, i can't tell you what the novella's about. or the stories.

birthed fully formed, chbosky's perks is stunning. this is what young adult fiction, at its best, can do.

there's a plain old coming of age story, and then subtext, and queers who are real people, and mix tapes, and a love that feels like it might could be real, and also a horrifying underlying reality that is a kind of beckoning drop into the abyss. chbosky is masterful: stripped, and pointed. never sentimental, unless you call emotional upheaval sentiment.

this book was my bible all summer of 2006. i felt small and incomplete without it. i discovered these people: ayelet waldman, kelly link, jason roberts, and poppy z. brite. the atwood, d'ambrosio, and oates are gorgeous, as well. now, when i look at the book on my shelf, i feel warm.

i think i'm searching for these stories all over the place - the fabulous, the surreal, the ghosty-headed - but still literary. still full of something else entirely.

How do you feel about parables? How do you feel about large green men from the sea, and radios talking to you as you chop carrots for a salad? How do you feel about avocados?

I think this novella is close to perfect.

i'm rereading this, and it's still just as good. though, i will say this. i have an old edition, and it's got this picture of a red-headed awkward looking girl on the front. she's heavyset, wearing bad glasses, and she's got kind of a sweetly ironic look on her face.

the cover above (the newer one) seems to totally ignore the fact that the main character of this book, on the first page, calls herself a blimp. that she has wire rimmed glasses, and mousy hair, and is afraid she will always be a blimp. the girl depicted above has a wonky eye, but she's skinny as hell, and is wearing pink. her hair looks kind of messy, but clean and cut. except for the eye, she looks the way all girls are depicted in the media.

blimps do not sell books, but they should.

this the most disturbing, harrowing book i've ever read. i still don't think i can read it again in its entirety. you should, though. it will give you a whole new respect for the author of "marlys."

don't go in expecting something justified, something wound around your finger and neatly tied. just go in and be all right with where you go.

nina's hand. my aunt's name is nina, so i was immediately drawn to this story about her hand. and i wasn't disappointed, because this hand has a consciousness of its own, and also kind of a death wish. poor nina.

michel faber is careful and precise in his stories - i think as careful and precise as in his novels/novellas. and that's something.

the introduction "how do you know?" is great for the classroom - it's a speech jamison green gives to a group of skeptical college kids. some of the kids know he's ftm, and some don't.

why it's teachable:

content: an exploration of how gender is constructed socially and biologically.

style: a speech that makes a compelling "devil's advocate" argument. engaging and funny.

i don't remember when i read this.

i remember equating this kid with the kid who walks into the ocean at the end of "my ishmael."

this is a terribly helpful book in the classroom. i use a couple of chapters from this book for my students of 1320 (non majors who are supposed to learn to write about literature).

the theory is both solid and entertaining, and foster's references marry pop culture with great books in a way that doesn't pander or patronize. also, the great books are not all by white american men, and foster consciously uses non-sexist language throughout.

some of these essays are terrific, some not so great. there are a few "intro to gender politics and theory" essays that are perfect for parents and friends who are confused and/or enraged by the idea of a continuum.

the essay called "transie" is good for the classroom because it's an intimate, unsentimental personal essay about self and outside perceptions of transgendered folks - set up as question and answer. the writing is tight and focused.

thanks to my awesome brother, this book is currently playing in my truck's new cd player. i'm confused about it, though. or rather, the back cover. why don't they tell the reader what it's really about?

it is not marketed as speculative fiction, and i wonder how many great books i miss because the back cover makes the inside seem like any old rosamunde pilcher falling in love in the english countryside kind of story. i've picked this book up a thousand times and read the back. and then i've put it back down again. well, thank god for the relatively slim selection at the public library.

it's a different book from remains of the day, to be sure.

so, despite the intentionally misleading back cover, i have to say not that it's not really that different of a book from remains of the day. it's written in a distinctly victorian manner, with all the richness and texture of place, nuanced conversation, important flashbacks consisting of nothing in particular. the isolation of the characters lent itself well to the form.

but i was tired, by the end, of paragraphs that began with "if i had only known then what i know now..." and so forth.

i think i'll think about it. it was a great truck book.

it's about the bread and the fire and the little dog, and i really miss that dog.

i can't review this book. i can only read it a lot.

am i allowed to be critical of a book of such monumental importance?

if i am, i have to say that i've read about three hundred books by better writers. but i've never read one about a teenaged ftm who is transitioning with pride and courage.

so, i'm conflicted.

issue driven books. morals. badly written dialogue. woefully pedestrian metaphors about christmas, babies, and napoleon dynamite.

then, pride and courage and sadness and confusion and good friends and family coming around.

what to say?

at first it was horrifying, and then i became immune to all the prophecies straight from god.

i'm left feeling like i should talk to a mormon again and see just what is wahat.

krakauer delievers, in this book, a well researched history of the church, but i'm left feeling like it might be a distorted one, as well.

The illustrations are fabulous in this book. And I have to give props to a writer who will dedicate an entire story to a word problem. And then another to the an alphabetical list of rules for living well: "Rules of Thumb."

"B: Be ironic whenever possible...conversations not filled with witty repartee and self-congratulatory laughter are seldom worth having."

i love monsters, and this book has a great one. i'm currently trying to argue (in a paper) that this book has something to do with magical realism, but i don't think i'm convincing anybody.

this book messes with form, with fairy tale, with biblical myth, with pop psychology, with the enlightenment. it's stunningly written, because it's about smell, and it's not boring.

i'd say suskind is to scent what proulx is to landscape.

Worth it just for the essay on Patricia Highsmith.

this book is about pavlovian experimentation on teenagers. it's got that great pre-internet dystopian future feel about it - the one where there are a lot of isolated video screens and buttons, but no real idea that the world would be connected the way it has become.

there are a lot of stairs in this book, and a couple of proto-gay characters, and a toilet that flushes constantly. and meat pellets.

i'm a fan of william sleator, though i wish i'd come across this book when i was younger. this book genuinely fucked up my brother when he was in about the fifth grade.

the macintosh list is in here, and a discussion about WHY these systems of power are important to discuss.

the intro is good for classrooms - just because the writer addresses the reasons people are uncomfortable discussing race and power in the same room.

under all the faggoty homo bender language that makes my ears hurt is the story of an aspiring poet, a stutterer, and his hangman.

i've never read anything that so aptly addresses the stuttering/stammering condition, ever, and it feels like now i've been waiting for it. this book is worth it just for the chapter called "hangman."

plus, david mitchell's language is unafraid of the fantastic, unafraid of the pathetic, unafraid of the onomotopaea.

now that i'm done listening to it, i can say i really loved this book. truly.

at times, this book is acutely painful and well paced. and at times, not so much.

his journey out of christianity is interesting to read, and i think an ex-protestant might find a lot to chew on here.

my brother gave me this book, and he loves a quiet, beautiful story. this is a quiet, beautiful story, delicate. i read it again every year.

i'm a closet coupland fan. i listened to this book a long, long time ago, on a fated trip to nova scotia, and i was moved.

i was similarly moved by girlfriend in a coma. but i think i'm in the minority, here.

wow. i couldn't read past about 75 pages.

i think i must require pictures in my post modern novels.

i read this book for the first time in seventh grade. it was on my brother's shelf, and i stole it. i did a report on it for my language arts class that spring.

because i liked it, but i did not understand it. it was as if someone had blindfolded me and dropped something good tasting in my mouth, but wouldn't tell me what it was afterward.

i read "lord of the flies" that year, too, and found it gave me much the same feeling.

i just listened to "a separate peace" again, and found it no less confounding. i'm not sure if it's a good thing, or a bad one, that all these years and papers and books and stories later, i feel exactly the same way about this book.

this book kicked my ass.

I need more books about camp. fiction, nonfiction, stories, whatever you know. can you help me?