Book Reviews

Cringe

Lizzie — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:32:27 -0700

Edited by Sarah Brown
Review by Lizzie
Cringe is that feeling you get when you read an old diary and think, oh my god, why was I so
a) precocious
b) bitchy
c) melodramatic
d) into Doogie Howser

Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me Chelsea

Lizzie — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:21:06 -0700

Chelsea Handler’s Ketel One infused crassness takes you to the unlikely territory of peekapoo blow jobs and beyond.

Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me Chelsea is the bildungsroman of a mouthy chick from New Jersey with a serious lack of tact. Chelsea Handler, E! host and self-professed borderline drunk, begins her nutty memoir with a web of grade school lies about Goldie Hawn and ends it with a wild midget accompanied night on the town. And yes, there is a chapter dealing with the rather unsettling topic of discovering that your boyfriend has received a blow job from a dog.

Three Words to Describe It: Brash vulgar fun

Indicative Quote: “I want to raise midget awareness and prevent their further exploitation by others. I am deeply offended by midget pornography and by people who hire midget strippers for bachelor parties. That type of behavior really crosses the line in my book. What I’m truly interested in is dressing them in evening wear, more along the lines of the attire Miss Piggy used to wear on The Muppet Show, or the little man from Monopoly. I’m talking about tuxedos, sequined ball gowns, and fedoras.”

Something to Tell You by Hanif Kureishi

Lizzie — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:02:20 -0700

Review by Lizzie
As a psychotherapist, Jamal’s job is to listen to the neuroses and perversions of Londoners living in a post-millennial climate of identity crisis. Former intellectuals and leftist revolutionaries – disillusioned with Tony Blair’s war, baffled by religious fundamentalists, and ignored in a world of celebrity obsession – abscond meaning in favour of pursuing pure bodily pleasure in fetish clubs and decadent mansions. Jamal is not immune to this sense of weariness. Separated from his wife and pushed away by his laddish son, his mind drifts to his student days. Back when he loved fiercely, and committed a murder for which he was never caught. Can he escape the guilt and what-ifs of the past? Or should he embrace his history: his Rabelaisian sister, his criminal best friends, his long lost love and his deepest, darkest secret?

The Gargoyle

Lizzie — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:37:09 -0700

By Andrew Davidson

Review by Lizzie

I Still Have A Suitcase in Berlin

Lizzie — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:03:39 -0700

By Stephens Gerard Malone
Review by Lizzie

In a Nutshell: It’s 1932. Naïve Haligonian and inept plumber Michael Renner is shipped off to Berlin with a mission: to protect his grandmother’s will from her too close for comfort doctor. Quickly, he’s swept up into the uninhibited energy of 1930s Berlin. He cruises cabarets, relishes the spectacle of marching brown shirts, and debates with socialists at coffeehouses. By the time it dawns on Michael that his auction house job is reaping benefits from fleeing Jews and that his friends from the sexual underworld are disappearing, it may be too late to return to Canada.

Life with My Sister Madonna

Lizzie — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:33:35 -0700

By: Christopher Ciccone

Review by Lizzie

In a nutshell: Madonna’s dirty laundry receives a mighty airing here by her (formerly) nearest and dearest sibling, Christopher. He’s well qualified to do so, given that he’s not only her brother, but has also been her backup dancer, dresser, interior designer, confidante and tour director. Anecdotes range from dull excuses for name dropping (The Spice Girls ate hot dogs during their show’s intermission, gasp!), to captivatingly bizarre tidbits (who knew Madonna had a habit of writing vituperative faxes?).

STUNT by Claudia Dey

haleyc — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:02:29 -0700

by Haley Cullingham
IN A NUTSHELL: 9 year old Eugenia and her father, Portraitist Sheb Wooly Ledoux, make Toronto their playground, fishing by the lakeshore, tightroping through abandoned buildings, and infusing the city with magic and mystery, until one day, Sheb disappears. Leaving only a note to her beautiful sister, Immaculata, and mother, Mink, behind, Eugenia is convinced Sheb meant to take her with him. After Sheb disappears, Mink holds a funeral for him, and leaves the girls as well. The novel follows Eugenia and Immaculata, both of whom age nine years after their mother leaves. The girls find love, comfort, darkness, and belonging in their journey away from their parents and their first home, and Eugenia unravels the mystery of her father’s birth in Northern Ontario, seeking out 1.1. Finbar Me The Three, the magician Sheb believed was his father. Eugenia’s journey takes her from a lover named Samuel Station in a houseboat moored at the Toronto Islands, to the Bedou Inn, filled with cats, canaries, velvet and smoke, and as she discovers Sheb’s past, she also discovers who she is.

SAILOR GIRL by Sheree-Lee Olson

Jen — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:33:06 -0700

Review by Jen McNeely

In A Nutshell: It's 1981 in Toronto and 19 year old Kate McLeod leaves the hot garbage stink of Parkdale to work as a porter aboard a Great Lake freighter; a most grueling job consisting of pot scrubbing, potato peeling and airing out the laundry of unkept sailors. A summer job to pay for art school becomes an adventure and exploration into the rough landscapes of wild waters, tumultuous relationships and the current of life amongst hard lived seamen. Though not a typical place for a girl with soft skin and perky bosom, Kate toils away and meets the steel tough surroundings with tenacious force, both fueled and soothed by the lens of her camera, her youthful sexual desires and laced in cigarette smoke and vodka. She learns the value of a hard day's work and is introduced to gritty folk who opt for cod jigging, as opposed to drooling over Princess Diana. Pulling into desolate forgotten port towns lined with sleazy strip bars and primal men, Kate evolves from an apathetic pajama clad drifter into a young woman with the kind of strength that can split the waves and whose character deepens and rocks with a new found life that proves much more raw and honest then the girl she left on land.

Promise of the Wolves

Thu, 3 Jul 2008 14:48:32 -0700

by Dorothy Hearst

Review by Lizzie

In A Nutshell: Fourteen thousand years ago, wolves roaming the Wide Valley are anxious about the arrogance of humans. When Kaala, a plucky pup of mixed blood, is born with a half-moon marking the pack wonders if she’s an omen of good or bad fortune. The alpha male, Ruqquo, is wary and tries to restrict her pack status. But with her instinctual fondness for humans, and smarts, can Kaala be controlled? Awhooooo!

Chasing Harry Winston

Lizzie McNeely — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:53:23 -0700

By Lauren Weisberger

Review by Lizzie

In A Nutshell: On the brink of their thirties, three attractive best friends in Manhattan seek love, passion and career success. Sound familiar? Leigh (aka Miranda): TiVo addicted workaholic suffocated by her perfect on paper boyfriend. Adriana (aka Brazilian – ethnically, not pubically – version of Samantha): sexually adventurous with a disposable income. Emmy (aka Charlotte): an embryo obsessed serial monogamist who turns a new leaf and pledges to sleep with one guy per continent, excluding Antartica.