"Sometimes a Few Must Be Sacrificed for the Greater Good"

I wouldn't necessarily say that historical fiction (written in current times) would be my go-to literary genre. Maybe this is because I feel a lot of it skews toward WWII and sometimes, they feel as though they blend together (I know, I know, I need to just widen my scope of what I'm looking at for historical fiction). But The Lost Girls of Paris was bequeathed to me and not necessarily what I would have chosen, so here we are, reading a WWII historical fiction novel. 

And surprisingly, I enjoyed it very much. I usually do, so I don't know what I'm griping about. The story is about a group of female secret agents operating out of England and who were deployed into France to act as operatives and radio operators, supporting the resistance. Women were only considered for these jobs because they would be able to function more effectively given that no one would suspect women to be spies (women can't do that, can they??). Also as part of the novel, a few years after the war has ended, a young woman finds a suitcase in Grand Central Station with photographs of the women (not knowing the origin of the photos or their stories) and is determined to uncover who they are. She uncovers a betrayal has occurred, but by who and why?

The twist of the betrayal was really what had me hooked into the novel. A bit of a mystery thrown in there. And given that everyone was a spy and had something to gain, it felt like it could have been anyone. The book seemed very meticulously researched which gave it a very strong feeling of authenticity. But knowing that this was based on true events gives such a level of awe to the courage of these women - to know that they had to be terrified every moment while they were doing what they were doing and yet doing it anyway is the hallmark of bravery. So while much is celebrated about the armed forces who fought to win the war, I do enjoy hearing these types of stories of all of the other everyday people who fought in different, maybe more subtle ways, but still showed remarkable levels of courage nonetheless. 

I am using The Lost Girls of Paris for the PopSugar Reading Challenge prompt of "book with 'Girl' in the title." 

Switching back to the book lists, up next is The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall. Happy reading!  

"I Feel Sad for People and the Queer Part We Play in Our Own Disasters."

It's always interesting to me that through the course of reading the books on my book lists, that I come across a book that I never in a million years would have picked up myself and it ends up being something that I am enthralled with. I would put White Noise into that camp. I'm so so glad that this novel was one that I read.

Consumerism, capitalism, misinformation, herd mentality, technology, self-centeredness, bright and shiny everything, ie, the constant white noise drowning out our ability to hear our own thoughts. And the ridiculousness of it all given that we're all just going to die anyway. A commentary on our modern culture that is centered around throw-away convenience at the expense of human connection. There is so much packed into this novel, it feels like one that would benefit from a second reading. And kind of amazing that, while written in the 1980s, it's so appropriate today (even moreso). 

The book is chock full of dark, observational humor, taking our everyday, heightening it to almost cringe-worthy levels. The Gladney family, helmed by Jack, a professor of Hitler, and his fourth wife, Babette, and their Brady Bunch-esque children from all of their many previous marriages navigate their modern world, when along comes the Airborne Toxic Event, a literal black cloud of toxins (metaphor much?) that centers over their small town and all the residents are forced to flee to avoid...to avoid what? They don't really know. The contents of the cloud are unclear and the symptoms of exposure change by the minute. Jack finds out later that his choice to put gas in the car during their evacuation may have exposed him to unsafe levels of the toxin that may or may not cause him to die in 30 years (mind you, he's in his mid 40s, so dying in 30 years would put him at the normal human lifespan anyway). This leads him to heighten his already manic obsession/fear of death. Similarly, his wife has an obsessive fear of dying (especially before her husband), so much so that she takes an investigational drug to block out this fear of death.  

The one thing that this book managed to do was to give me a pearl of wisdom that felt like an "ah ha" moment. And that very rarely happens to me. And even more rarely happens from something that I read in a fiction novel. But the most profound thing I took away from this book was the idea that life is not important and not of value without death. If we lived forever, nothing would mean anything anymore - you would have unlimited time to see and do everything, so all of those moments wouldn't achieve the level of importance that they currently do. Death is the inevitable anchor that forces us to live our lives to the fullest and to be grateful for the lives that we do have. I have found myself thinking about this a lot since finishing the book.

I really can't say enough great things about the book - highly recommend. And I'm excited to see the movie. I've heard that it stays very faithful to the novel, which if executed well, would be a remarkable feat. 

I'm using White Noise to fulfill the PopSugar Challenge prompt of a book becoming a TV series or movie in 2023 (ok so technically it was released on December 30th, 2022, but imma count it anyway). 

Next up is a quick sojourn from the lists to read The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff. My parents were moving a couple months ago and my mom unloaded a handful of books to me, so I'm happy to dig into those too. 

180 to go.  

"Everything Human Was Imperfect and Ultimately Absurd."

I started reading Fear of Flying last summer, shortly after finishing Portnoy's Complaint. And within the first two pages, I knew that I wasn't ready for another novel of similar ilk. A restless, unhappy woman who has no problem with repeated infidelity against her husband, either real or imagined. 

Now, I have absolutely no problem with vulgar. With blunt, often shocking discussions about sex. Or even with literary stories about infidelity. But I think it was just too much of the same thing within a short time frame. Oddly enough, Portnoy was even mentioned in this book, so apparently the similarities were not just me connecting the two that I happened to read in close proximity and were the author connecting them herself. 

The novel is about Isadora Wing, who is attending a psychiatric conference in Vienna with her husband. We find out early while she's on the plane there that many of the conference attendees have either been Isadora's lover, or her shrink, or both. At the conference, Isadora meets Adrian, a free-spirited, tell-it-like-it-is shrink with a penchant for analyzing her (although in fairness, all of the shrinks do) and they commence a torrid love affair in full view of everyone, including her husband, Bennett. Per Adrian's request, she leaves her husband and they take off together to drive around Europe together for the duration of the summer. The entire time they're gone, Isadora has constant emotional turmoil about all of her past and current relationships, much of which she shares with Adrian. 

And while the above describes the actual storyline of the book, it's really so much more about relationships and the maintenance of one's identity while in them, particularly for the woman. I found the character of Isadora insufferable and I don't know if I've ever wanted to crawl through a book and smack someone as much as I wanted to smack her. She constantly wallows in self-pity, insecurity, and the banality of life yet mocked and derided all others - married women, mothers, people at the beach just enjoying themselves. Projecting her misery onto others. There was so much I really disliked about the book when it came to how it was written - it felt like just a lot of whining and bitching about things while being 100% completely self-aware that you're the problem (insert sound clip of Taylor Swift's, "It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me," here). 

But when it came to a lot of the observations about identity in relationships, there were some snippets that I did enjoy and putting it into context of being written in the early 1970s, it was interesting to see how much of that has changed in 50 years. Particularly about women having to be married for any kind of stability, but the author takes it even farther that women need to be in a relationship to have any kind of emotional stability as well. And that seemed to be the biggest thing that the character of Isadora was railing against. I ended up liking the book more than I thought I would when I set it aside last year but definitely not one I would recommend to others or would want to read again.

And so onto the next. Which is White Noise by Don Delillo. 

A friend of mine introduced me to the PopSugar Reading Challenge, which is a list of 50 reading prompts, to try to read one book for each prompt during 2023. I am delighted and excited to give this a shot! Although reading 50 books in one year would be about double what I did last year. But we'll see how it goes! And I must admit that just plotting it out takes quite a bit of time. So I'll be counting Fear of Flying for the prompt of "A book you meant to read in 2022."

181 to go!