32. 100 Things You Aren’t Supposed to Know, by Russ Kick. This book is as conspiratorial as it sounds. Various organizations are trying to keep various things quiet, but buried deep within public and long-forgotten records are confessions, admissions, records of mishaps to ensure never happen again. Honestly, I can’t remember that many of the things the book told me about. And I can tell you that some of them (though I don’t know how many) are not that well researched and have exaggerated implications. But I do love their complete debunking of the myth that Freud was in any way useful to his patients.
33. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. Excellent book. A long one, but very very good. Told from the perspective of two black maids, Minny and Aibileen, and one aspiring white journalist, Eugenia (more commonly “Miss Skeeter”), the story is about writing an exposé in Jackson, Mississippi, about what it is like to be a black maid working for a white family. There is a worthy opponent, Miss Hilly Holbrook, and a star-crossed love object, Stuart Whitworth, and a list of rules for black maids to avoid getting fired, like “No sass mouthing,” and my personal favorite, “It’s nobody’s business.” I have been told by several people that the movie is good, and that it adheres closely to the book. I have even been told by one person that it is better than the book because it is funnier. Eh, read it, I say.
34. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. In post-war, post-natural-disaster North America, now known as Panem, the centralized and ridiculously oppressive government in the Capitol stifles potential rebellions on the part of the twelve more remote districts by reminding them every year of their weakness and helplessness. To do this, they take two children from each district and enter them into a gladiatoresque fight to the death. And if they do not kill each other, their deaths in the arena will be arranged by the Gamemakers, who will release wild animals, or cut off the water supply, or any number of other things until there is only one person left (who, incidentally, will receive fame, fortune, and provisions for their starving districtmates). The main character Katniss Everdeen (They all have stupid names. It’s the future. You get used to it… kinda.) volunteers to enter the battle, known as the Hunger Games, in order to spare her younger sister from having to go. The other child from her district is a boy who has a crush on her. It may sound trite, and admittedly a lot of the book reads like it was designed around being great for the big screen, but in with the drama is actually a good number of important themes, like maintaining your own will while coerced as a kind of rebellion, or schadenfreude as a form of entertainment, and artificially established class inequality. I’m reading the second one now, which so far is a more flamboyant version of the first one, with much more focus on political unrest. Not as good, but I’m still having a hard time putting it down.
Completely unrelated: So, I had a sex dream last night about a character on Glee. Yup. And in a much-less-creepy-than-it-sounds way, it got me thinking about relationships that I have let more or less dissolve, and that this is a habit of mine I wish I fought harder against. I wish I were still as close to Rebecca, Tanner, Leah, Chris, Claire, Emma, Heidi and Dallas as I used to be. And I wasn’t even that close to Heidi or Dallas at the time, but I know I could have gotten closer to them, and I wish I had taken the opportunity. And I wish I would have gotten closer to Elle, Julie, Amy, Justin, several Andersians, and Aaron while I was at it. And this summer, Trevor, Troy, Jeb and Jordan for sure. I need to get better at friendship.
…I wonder how many of the above are on Twitter? It’s a shallow connection, I know, but now I’m in a different state and I’ve never been great at friendship anyway, so it’s a start.
