Orchid Fever by Eric Hansen

Overall rating- B: The Orchid World is fascinating but Hansen's storytelling needs some work.

“You can get off alcohol, drugs, women, food, and cars but once you’re hooked on orchids, you’re finished. You never get off orchids...never.” And so begins Orchid Fever (both the book and the ‘illness’ itself) and how Orchids have seduced the horticultural industry for the past two centuries with their beauty, delicate nature, pollination process, seductive scents, and in some cases, their rarity.

Catasetum denticulatum

Because of those reasons (and probably more), Orchids also tend to give people ‘orchid fever,’ which is not so much a sickness as much as it is a name for the obsession.  Travel writer and author Eric Hanen explains it best by stating, “in the same way orchids attract specific insects to help them pollinate by producing signature scents, people are also attracted to these scents, which then induces ‘orchid fever’ in many. They soon find they have no choice but to collect orchids, feed them, love them, and stay entranced by their beauty for the rest of time…these orchid people are referred to as hobbyists but they cater to the needs of their beloved orchids with a single minded devotion that blurs between love and lunacy.”

Vanda dearii

This becomes truer than Henson could have ever imagined as he explores everywhere from the Borneo rainforest to study the rarest of orchids, to the Orchid shows where fat judges with chubby fingers handle these delicate flowers and criticize them on the smallest of details.  Although the Orchid judges seemed a little ridiculous, Hansen met an interesting man, Joe Kunish, who really gave perspective as to where their obsession landed on the crazy scale, “…the only people that are weirder than us are the dog show people…and we are not a distant second by any means.”

Oncidium papilio

Everywhere he went, Hansen met an amazing array of people who were involved in the orchid world, for better or for worse: there were the scientists who just wanted to study, observe, and understand them; the appreciators who were entranced by their beauty and/or scent; the growers who doted on them like their own lived depended on it; and then the politicians, making so many ridiculous regulations and restrictions that people had to choice but to break the rules in order to follow them.  

Paphiopedilum malipoense

I found so much of what he was saying fascinating; getting an insider’s look at this amazing world of people who treat the orchids like their children and the effects these flowers had on their followers. However, there were a couple huge problems that really hurt the way the story could be interpreted. (Fiction or non-fiction, your story has to flow and have a point, or else the reader will become bored and all will be for nothing.)

Tolumnia scandens

For one thing, the structure of the book was all wrong.  He had all of the right material; it just wasn’t arranged in the right order.  Remember in the beginning of this review where I gave Hansen’s description of Orchid fever? Yeah, well, a quarter of the way through the book, he says that along with a description of that makes an orchid so different from other flowers. That is something you say in the beginning; to not only pull the reader in but also to set them up for what the book will be focusing on.  But no…instead, he places important information in random spots of the book, making parts of his book dry and stagnant. 

Ansellia africana

If that wasn’t bad enough, he makes one of the worst mistakes an author can make: he extended the ending. The second to last chapter would have been the perfect ending; everything has come full circle and I felt a sigh of relief.  But once again, no…I turn the page and see what so many authors before him have done and it rarely turns out well: they get the ‘one more thing’ syndrome.  What that means is they drag the story out by adding ‘one more thing’ to make the story even better, when instead they overcompensate and make the reader want to scream. And he didn’t just add ANY chapter…he added one that was TRIPLE the length of the other chapters. That’s like hiking up a mountain, thinking you’ve reached the top only to see that you still have a long ways to go and you’re exhausted, ready to be done already.

Maxillaria huebschii

Despite its flaws, Hansen’s journey was not made in vain. He brought awareness to this amazing and intricate world of Orchids and how such beauty can help the world. Orchids have more uses than we know of and if Hansen and others who have Orchid Fever stray away from the politics and focus on the orchids themselves, then they may be able to start a revolution toward a better planet and better future for us all.

~Shelly-Beans

Newspaper Blackout by Austin Kleon

Overall- A+ : Newspaper Blackout is like highlighting in reverse; instead of brightening what he  wants to see, Austin Kleon blacks out what he doesn't and makes art of what is left.

Although this style of poetry has been around since the 1760’s, Austin Kleon had the accidental fortune of bringing this to the mainstream market.  To best describe what Newspaper Blackout is, NPR’s Morning Edition explains, “Instead of starting with a blank page, Poet Austin Kleon grabs The New York Times and a permanent marker and eliminates the words he doesn’t need.”  (Eliminates the words he doesn’t need…I love the way that sounds.)

There are over 150 poems but I only talk about 3 for one big reason: finding the Newspaper Blackout poems from this collection wasn't easy. (I know that sounds hard to believe but because this style of poetry has exploded, there are a lot of Newspaper Blackouts out there not by Austin Kleon so I had to try and remember which ones were his...) 

The poems range from hilarious to sentimental and since poetry is as visual as it is auditory, I’ll show you some examples of his amazing Newspaper Blackout Poetry and give a brief interpretation of each. (And in case the poems are hard to read, I wrote the words normally below the poems.)

"His Wife Appears"

"His wife appears, nude in the moonlight, then they have a hot-fudge sundae and do The twist."

First off, I love how the background is not 100% blackened out;  you can see some traces of the previous story, which makes this poetry seem that much more raw and impressive.  This poem itself is fantastic and makes me think of a couple doing exactly what the poem describes! (I can't believe he found THAT in a boring newspaper article!)

"Catching Fireflies"

"Catching fireflies saves everything for one fleeting night. 2 thin circus freaks with unrelenting grins. I remember floating-the play so full of potential, you and me out after the lights."

Gorgeous. This poem is absolutely gorgeous.  I'm not sure if this was his interpretation but having the white spots in the blackness as fireflies really gives the poem dimension and life. It also plays into our childhood memories of the darkness and the fireflies flashing their little lights on warm summer nights; just wonderful in general.

"All You Can Do"

"In love, all you can do is fail so badly the first time the rest you don't mind at all."

Another amazing poem. I'm sure this rings true with all of us; With our first boyfriend/girlfriend, we make the most mistakes but all we can do is learn from them and move on. (That's my interpretation, at least.)

Here's the big question that I couldn't help but wonder while reading this beautiful poetry collection: What the heck were the articles he took the poems from? I'd love to see what the original source was next to each one so I could REALLY appreciate what he extracted from them.  Was it something about politics? An animal rescue story?  Maybe that's Kleon's intention; have the reader guessing and laughing at how he found this poetry embedded in a plain old newspaper article. 

It will never cease to amaze me how the most profound statements in life are hidden between the lines, and thanks to Austin Kleon, he's rediscovered the secret to bringing them back to the surface.

~Shelly-Beans

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Overall- A: Sedaris' true stories of growing up with his crazy family in Raleigh, NC is one not to miss!

There are so many things to love about Me Talk Pretty One Day: the honesty in the stories, the simplicity in the writing, and the realistic characters that are so extraordinary they seem fictional. Above all else, though, I loved that this non-fictional collection stemmed away from the typical memoir: Sedaris doesn't start off by saying, "I was born on a cold November night," instead, he starts with, "In 5th grade, I had a sadistic speech therapist," which immediately made me wonder what happened to him in a previous life to make that his fortune.

Let’s start with the first story, Go Carolina.  5^th grader David Therarith had a lisp (Clever, huh?) and speech therapist Miss Chrissy Samson (It’s oddly appropriate, if you think about it) had been put in charge of helping David with his speech impediment.  There’s a problem though…she took more pleasure in making him and other boys self-conscious of their speech impediments than she did actually helping them.  So, to avoid the bullying, David expanded his vocabulary so he didn’t have to say anything with an ‘s’ sound in it. Example: Yes became correct, please became with your kind permission, and forget about plurals.   When Miss Samson noticed this, she began to play games, trying to trip him up.  Eventually, she gets him to say “I’m thorry,” which ruins everything. And his mother? How does she take this ‘harassment?’ She says, “You’ve got to admit that you really are a sucker.”  Nice mom, huh?

His childhood wasn’t the only one in his family who seemed to have unrealistic moments… all of his siblings did, especially his sister, Amy. In the short story, Shiner like a Diamond, David explains how Amy liked to impersonate others by dressing up in costume, wearing prosthetics, makeup, etc. and she did all of this simply out of amusement.   In contrast to her free-spirited lifestyle, their father was so insecure about his daughter's appearances (especially Amy's) that his "concerns" bordered on verbal abuse, saying things like, "Look at you, you’re the size of a house. Two more pounds and you won’t be able to cross state lines without a trucking license.” Admirably, Amy never took his comments to heart (unlike her sisters who, understandably, cried when told such horrible things). In fact, (out of humor, not malice) she played a practical joke on him by wearing a fat suit for the week she came home to visit; his veins popping with how upset he was over her ‘weight gain.’ On her last day, she took the fat suit off and let him breathe again.   Amy's qualities match those of endless heroines and characters in fictitious stories I’ve read over the years but reading of a real-life ordinary woman, like herself, who fearlessly rides above society's expectations, serves to be an inspiration to us all.

After reading several of these stories, I really thought these stories were fictional with his family members as characters because of how crazy these scenarios were.  As I ventured on, however, I realized they border the line between fiction and nonfiction with the stories being so crazy and ridiculous that they have to be true, even if we don't believe it.

All in all, Sedaris’ stories were honest and addicting.  He managed to show that inside everyone lies the peculiar idiosyncrasies that makes each of us individuals. Growing up is tough, but figuring out who we are as individuals is even tougher, so don’t focus on the big picture; focus on the moments that will eventually create the big picture.

~Shelly-Beans

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Overall Rating: B. Great as a novel, underwhelming as a thriller.

Book titles are more important than people realize.  Their mission is to evoke intrigue, attract the reader, and make them wonder what the story is about all within a word or a sentence. The Girl on the Train is a great example of that; when I first scanned the title, I thought, “Who is this girl?  What happens on the train?”  So my imagination began to shape different scenarios of what could be held within these pages…and I should have stopped there, because this novel that held such great hope turned out to be just another ‘wannabe’ thriller. 

The story of The Girl on the Train is simple enough: English commuter and alcoholic Rachel Watson’s life has gone to shambles, and she has done nothing to make it better.  Her husband divorced her because of her alcoholism (the causes behind it don’t make it more justifiable but a bit more understandable), his mistress moved into their home after she was kicked out, and now she spends her free time pretending to go to work by riding the train to and from London.  As she looks out the window, she makes careful observations of the scenery and takes a special interest in the new neighbors a couple of doors down from her old house; giving them fake names, (Jason and Jess) and an imaginary life that placates her own fantasies.

One morning on the train, Rachel noticed  Megan (aka Jess) outside with another man, which becomes the catalyst to a string of terrible events. (Hence the name, The Girl on the Train…) Soon there's a disappearance, and Rachel gets in over her head by not understanding the difference between being helpful and being a pest, especially in an investigation where she may be a suspect.

What saved this novel was the writing and the pace.  Hawkins knew how to get you sucked into the story, (which may come from her 15 years’ experience as a journalist) and relate to the characters on some pretty deep levels. She’s so good with conjuring emotion that I found myself steaming with frustration toward Rachel’s character.  If the story was centered on her, why not make her a strong heroine?  Why make her a pathetic alcoholic who, granted was a good person, lets her poor judgement affect her decisions?  If she was to have started off this way and then grow into a stronger, more confident person, then I would feel differently, but there was no growth in Rachel.  Yes, she was able to take down her own demons by the end but I don’t give her credit for doing so. She didn’t go searching for them to become a better person, she took them down because they were right there in her face and had no choice.

            It may not sound like it but The Girl on the Train was honestly a good, solid novel.  As I said, there are great characters (despite Rachel’s shortcomings) that are extremely real and complex, a great pace that will keep you reading to the end, and a decent twist that will leave you momentarily satisfied.  Unfortunately, compared to other thrillers I’ve read, this did not stand up to them and made me wonder if this novel should have been about a different girl on a different train.

~Shelly-Beans

I'm BACK!

Hello lovely readers!

As most of you may know, almost a year ago I stopped writing in the blog because of some really negative feedback I received and at the time, it took the fire out of me to write my reviews.

My father wouldn't let me give up, though.  For the past year, he gently insisted that I try again, that I am a great writer and I shouldn't stop because some jerk was rude to me.  I can't thank my dad enough, because now I'M BACK and ready to start cranking out those reviews!

Things are going to change, though.  As you can tell, I changed the background and I'm also going to change the way I write the reviews.  I don't want to break down and analyze different categories before the actual review like I did before.  There will still be a picture of the book and an overall 'grade' with a small description after it, but that's it.

I'm going to start writing for me and if you like it, that's fantastic and I appreciate your support.  If you don't, oh well.  Nothing is going to stop me now, so I hope you enjoy my reviews as much as I enjoy doing this!

If there are any books you'd like me to review, let me know and I'll mention you in the review!

Thank you again everyone. Enjoy!

~Shelly-Beans