Review: Wasted

Marya Hornbacher was severely anorexic and bulimic from the age of nine into her college years. In this memoir she attempts to explain the experience of having an eating disorder. The picture is grim. Hornbacher cannot locate a single cause for her eating disorder. Certainly there are plenty of the regularly-accepted influences: a family that's weird about food, a society in which women are rewarded for being quiet and skinny, and so on. While living at boarding school Hornbacher was surrounded by girls with eating disorders, hers, too, was already formed. By the time she was in college Hornbacher was nearly dead.

The portrait of eating disorders that emerges from this memoir is complex and frightening. There are no simple causes and no simple answers. It is scary how easy it is for Hornbacher, as a desperately ill girl, to fall under the radar of anyone's ability to help, even parents and doctors. Hornbacher's analysis of her disease is thoughtful. She makes interesting points, and argues that anorexia in not, necessarily, an effort to remain a child. Light reading this is not, but essential for those who would like to understand more about eating disorders.

Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (Harper, 2006) ISBN: 0060858796 

Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

I'd heard a great deal about this book, and visually it is quite exciting. The book is full of bizarre vintage photographs. Unfortunately, the story doesn't live ups to the photographs. Angsty teenager Jacob Portman goes to Wales to try and find out about his grandfather's past. A refugee from the Nazis, Abe Portman grew up in a children's home in Wales presided over by the enigmatic Miss Peregrine. A mysterious abandoned manse, time travel, and a new girlfriend will all help Jacob unravel the truth about his grandfather and himself. 

While there are elements of fancy added to the characters, the basic story is, rather, basic. There's lots of reviews that compare this book to X-Men, and yes, that's pretty much it. More problematically, this reads like a child's story. The book is classified as young adult, and that appears to be the one constituency that is not served. The pictures are not as integral to the story as their volume might have one believe. It seems like Riggs often wrote the plot around the pictures, and that doesn't necessarily make for the best plot choices.

Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Quirk, 2011) ISBN: 1594746036 

Review: The Bride's Kimono

Rei Shimura is back solving antiques-based mysteries. This time she is a courier for antique kimono from a Tokyo museum to an exhibition in Washington. Rei discovers that the collection includes Kimono belonging to a courtier's wife and mistress. One of the kimono is stolen, a Japanese woman goes missing, and Rei has to try and preserve her reputation in the antiques community. The appearance of an ex-boyfriend adds to the drama.

I really enjoy this series. It is smart and enmeshed in the Tokyo art world. That said, that fact that the police are not involved in this fiasco is absolutely unbelievable. So too was the interaction on the airplane that puts Rei in contact with the murder victim.

Sujata Massey, The Bride's Kimono (Harper, 2001) ISBN: 0060199334 

Review: Inside Edge

This is Brennan's expose on figure skating, the figure skating of the 1990s, that is. Basically, Brennan finds all sorts of corruption in the highest levels of the sport. Judges trade support for skaters from each others' factions. The Cold War may be over but it was still alive and well in 1990s figure skating, as formerly communist countries aligned as did the US, Canada, and western Europe.

Of all the things to say about this book, the most important is that it is out of date. Michelle Kwan was an up-and-coming teenager when this was written. This book was written pre-IJS, and that's only one of the many things that has changed in the sport. While I don't deny that there are still problems and accusations of favoritism, IJS has solved, or at least greatly lessened the kinds of judging problems Brennan illustrates. For the figure skating fan of 2013 this book reads more like a historical document.

My main issue was a much more esoteric one. For all the time that she spent researching and reporting on figure skating, I never really felt like Brennan had a deep, emotional connection to the sport. While she recognizes the difficulty of the sport, Brennan just never seemed to have the spiritual attachment that is evident among figure skaters and many fans. I really think this book could have been written more effectively by someone with that emotional attachment. That's why people do this crazy thing, where they whiz around a slippery surface on quarter-inch blades. There's something in the body movements and the music that makes the moment transcendent.

Christine Brennan, Inside Edge: A Revealing Journey into the Secret World of Figure Skating (Anchor, 1997) ISBN: 0385486073 

Review: The Sisters

This is an epic family saga, covering three generations of women. Early in the twentieth century sisters Mabel and Bertie fight poverty and their stepfather's sexual advances in rural Kentucky. Elder sister Mabel makes a daring plan for the sisters' escape from their stepfather's violence. An accidentally missed message creates disastrous consequences, consequences that will reshape life for generations of women.

The story of Mabel and Bertie, their daughters and their granddaughters, sucked me in and kept me interested to the end. Jensen provides an interesting and fast-moving plot. I did find it sometimes difficult to understand Bertie's absolutely refusal to communicate with her sister. Her obstinacy has grave consequences, and it's hard for me to imagine behaving in the same way. At the end I found Bertie and Mabel and their generation to be the most interesting. All in all, an engaging book and well worth reading.

Nancy Jensen, The Sisters (St. Martins, 2011) ISBN: 0312542704 

Review: Cocaine Blues

In 1920s Melbourne pilot and daredevil Phryne Fisher is employed ot investigate a young woman's mysterious illness. It seems that her husband might be slowly poisoning her. Fisher camps out in a luxury hotel and befriends a couple of precocious cabbies, who help her solve the mystery. Quickly Phryne is drawn into the Melbourne underworld, looking to uncover the source of the cocaine trade, as well as an illegal abortionist who is butchering young women.

I had no idea what to expect from this book, and I was pleasantly surprised. The characters are delightfully eccentric. Phryne gets up to all sorts of antics, and there are plenty of descriptions of 1920s high society. The mystery was also intriguing, as there was no one obvious suspect. Overall, I found this book to be quite satisfactory, and I will read more of the series.

Kerry Greenwood, Cocaine Blues (Poisoned Pen Press, 2007) ISBN: 159058385X 

Review: Death of a Maid

Those who have enjoyed previous books in this series will likely enjoy this one too. It has all of the elements of the typical Hamish Macbeth mystery. A miserable person dies and everyone is relieved. Hamish investigates and finds that the local cleaner was a far more nefarious woman than anyone thought. Hamish continues to have woman problems and fights with Blair.

There are a few new elements. A new police sergeant has arrived in Strathbane. Blair seems to have worn out his welcome, and I can never figure out why he hasn't been fired yet. I'm getting a bit tired of Hamish's woman problems. He's unable to commit, and weasels out of commitment whenever he's in danger of coming too close. The mysteries are still entertaining, but the side plots are getting a bit tired. Hamish needs to get Priscilla back once and for all.

M.C. Beaton, Death of a Maid (Grand Central, 2008) ISBN: 0446615471