A Tempest in a Teapot

Or rather, make that a tiger in a teapot.  For the past six months or so, mothers across the U.S. have been up in arms about Yale professor Amy Chua's memoir of motherhood.  You see, Amy is a Chinese-American who raised in the strictest of households and decided to continue that tradition with her own daughters.  Here's the game-plan she used:

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.

Now don't mistakenly believe that Amy believes this was the *right* way to raise her children.  After all, this is a memoir and that involves a lot of introspection.  But she does it with humor and humility making this one of the most fascinating (and laugh-out-loud funny) memoirs we've read in a long, long time.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother simply oozes controversy.  A lot of controversy.  But we've found that most of that stems from mothers judging other mothers.  Amy has been lauded as an example to parents everywhere, but she's also been accused of child abuse.  When taken as the memoir was intended, you'll get a glimpse into another parenting style....one that it's hard to argue with the results, but you question whether the results are worth it.

And when we get right down to it, who amongst us parental-types hasn't reflected whether or not we were furthering the best interests of our child?  A Reader's Respite refuses to judge, lest someone (say, for example, child protective services) come along and judge us.

Rarely does a book so controversial live up to all the hoopla.  If you're a parent, we'd call it a must-read.

Notable Non-Fiction

Reading memoirs can be a tricky proposition.  The author simply has to have some sort of compelling experience that makes you, the reader, want to pick up the book and learn more.  Generally, a reader wants to learn more about the author if

a.  they are some sort of celebrity (this is especially true in American culture); or
b. they overcame some sort of adversity and serve as an inspiration to others.

Mary Karr's latest installment of what has become a trilogy of memoirs falls into that last category.  She overcame a horrendous childhood (she chronicled that in her best-seller The Liars' Club in 1995), struggled through adolescence (that part was covered in Cherry in 2000), and triumphed over alcoholism in later life - and this is the subject of her latest best-selling memoir, Lit.

Being neither an alcoholic (okay, yet) nor suffering an abusive childhood, A Reader's Respite simply didn't see  where we had anything at all in common with Mary Karr.  In fact, we might not have even turned the first page had the book not made The New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2009 list.

But we did turn that first page.  And then another, and another.  And while we had no frame of reference with Karr's alcoholism and childhood demons, we did find a common ground in an unexpected place:  religion.  In a big way, Lit is about the role that religion/God/a higher power played in Mary's recovery.  A self-proclaimed agnostic, one of Mary's biggest obstacles in recovery was figuring out all of the God stuff.  All of a sudden, she had A Reader's Respite's attention in a vice-grip.

She relates her struggle with spirituality in a way we've never quite experienced before.  Soul-rendering observations mixed with humor and a healthy dose of common sense make the latter part of the book (or the God Part, as we like to call it) riveting.  We couldn't put it down.

And we'd like to think that this book changed us in some small way.  Or maybe a large way.

There's a reason this one made the NYT list.  It's a book that once read, you won't forget.


Dear FTC Guy,
A publicist sent me this book.  Bite me.
Sincerely,
A Reader's Respite

********

If you'd like a chance to read a gently-used copy of this memoir, leave us a comment below and we'll draw a random winner on March 17th.  All entrants welcome!

We're feeling rather evangelical today....

While A Reader's Respite makes no religious claims whatsoever, we do enjoy reading some of the more *ahem* extreme ends of the theological spectrum. It may have to do with our evangelical upbringing (nothing like a Mormon family marrying into a bunch of evangelical Baptists for sheer entertainment value), but whatever the reason, here are a few compelling reads we've had our nose stuck into the past few weeks.

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University, by Kevin Roose.

We downloaded this book to our Amazonian Devil Device after reading a compelling review on At Home With Books. And it was worth it. Author Kevin Roose was a journalism major at Brown University when he decided to see what all the evangelical hoopla was about down at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, a four year college in Virginia and the largest evangelical university in the world, and he documents his experiences here.


You just can't escape the humor in a secular student of the world being thrown into what he calls "Bible Boot Camp." Roose's biblical knowledge was scant as best, "...I knew the basics of the Genesis story (Adam names the animals, Eve bites an apple, and we all break into jazz squares), I could probably have named the four Gospels if you have me a minute or two, but that's where my Bible knowledge ended." Suffice it to say that his learning curve was pretty steep.


But rather than approaching the experiment with malice (satirist P.J. O'Rourke is credited here with comparing making fun of born-again Christians to "hunting dairy cows with a high-powered rifle and scope"), Roose makes a concerted effort to open his mind to new experiences and the payoff is a big one.


While he doesn't experience any kind of religious epiphany while at Liberty, he does learn the value of reserving judgement and practicing compassion. Despite taking biology classes that spend all their time refuting evolution and attending groups like Every Man's Battle (to combat the sin of masturbation), Roose strips away the stereotypes to reveal young, college-aged students just trying to find their place in this world, much like their secular counterparts.


Highly recommended for the humor and the compassion, A Reader's Respite heartily encourages you to read this one.

I'm Perfect, You're Doomed, by Kyria Abrahams

Switching denominations here, we moved on to Kyria Abrahams hysterical account of growing up as a Jehovah's Witness. Abrahams goes less for insight and more for the humor (of which there is apparently endless fodder in this particular religious sect) in this memoir, poking fun at her childhood and young adult years spent in bewildrement over the myriad of rules and regulations set forth by doctrine.

Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, and Elie Wiesel were all considered bad associations. Not only did they not worship Jehovah, but they were activists, which meant they didn't trust in God to make changes on this earth and felt the need to take matters into their own hands. They were turning people away from Jehovah.

My father said this is probably why John Lennon was shot, becase God knew he was too close to bringing peace to the whole world.

The point was, if someone wasn't a Jehovah's Witnesses, he was going to die at Armageddon, and there was no point in befriending the condemned.

I'm Perfect, You're Doomed, by Kyria Abrahams

While you won't find any great philosophical revelations here, you will find slapstick comedy that will keep you in stitches. Light-hearted and irreverant, Abrahams bears no obvious malice over her upbringing, she simply sees the humor in it. And there's definately something to be said for that.

Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer

One last book, here, this one written by Jon Krakauer (he of Into Thin Air and Into the Wild fame). For those of you who like your religious exposes on the more serious side, Under the Banner of Heaven is not to be missed.

Part true crime, part Mormon expose, this book focuses on the pockets of fundamentalist Mormons that have flourished in years past in Utah, Idaho and the Four Corners area. Wrapped around the murder of a young Mormon woman and her infant daughter committed by fundamentalists, the more sordid side of this sect is uncovered in this compelling book.

Although heartbreaking in it's details, this book is difficult to put down once you turn the first page and since the capture of fundamentalist leader Warren Jeffs in the years following publication of this book ,there is much follow-up available on the internet for those who find this tale as riveting as we did.

We're happy to be able to offer a copy of Kyria Abrahams' memoir I'm Perfect, You're Doomed to TWO lucky winners. Just leave us a comment telling us why you'd like to read this one and on July 13th, we'll announce two random winners (international peeps are welcome, too!).

Review: The Mighty Queens of Freeville

The Mighty Queens of Freeville, by Amy Dickinson







The Down and Dirty

These are the loose memoirs of Amy Dickinson, the woman chosen to replace advice columnist extraordinaire Ann Landers. Her childhood, failed marriage, single motherhood and wayward pets are all fair game for this humorous look-back at her life before and after Ask Amy.

I wondered if there was a military academy somewhere in the Maine woods that would accept an oversize toddler with anger management issues. I had it all figured out. I would drop Emily off along with her Beauty and the Beast backpack. Then I would drive quickly away and go to a roadside diner, sit at the counter, and eat a big piece of pie. All by myself.
The Mighty Queens of Freeville, by Amy Dickinson

The Literary Criticism

Billed as a memoir, Dickinson's book is perhaps better described as a loose collection of cute anecdotes about her family, her divorce, her pets, or anything else that comes to mind. Pieced together a bit haphazardly, Dickinson nonetheless has a sharp, witty voice that shines through no matter the seriousness of the subject matter:

Though divorce runs through my clan like an aggressive chromosome, I had never been exposed to family ugliness of any sort, partly because my parents' divorce happened after my father simply and suddenly walked away from our home. I never saw my parents argue before, during, or after their split. One advantage to actual abandonment is that it cuts down on marital discord. In order to fight with my father, my mother would have had to to locate him first.
The Mighty Queens of Freeville, by Amy Dickinson

The ex-husband gets repeatedly skewered throughout the book (apparently time, in fact, does not heal all wounds), but that's the price one pays when an ex-spouse has a national platform on which to skew as she wishes.

While the anectdotes were very enjoyable, there is a lack of focus on the original focus of the book, namely the female family members who inspire the title. The snippets of aunts, sisters and especially her mother leave you feeling it just wasn't enough. What the reader does get, however, is a snapshot of life that is easy to relate to and produces a chuckle or two.



Our Recommendation

If you love humor applied to the human condition, we're willing to bet you'd enjoy this one, as long as you don't have expectations of a thorough and introspective autobiography. Uplifting and never trite, Amy Dickinson touches on struggles common to all of us, meets those troubles head-on and shows us why we should never, ever give up.

Available in bookstores today.





Title: The Mighty Queens of Freeville
Author: Amy Dickinson
ISBN-13: 978-1401322854
240 pages
Publisher: Hyperion
Date: February 3, 2009



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Word Lily
Bermudaonion's Weblog
The Bluestocking Society
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Never Without a Book
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