GIVEAWAY and Book Review: Hungry by Darlene Barnes

Title: Hungry
Author: Darlene Barnes
Publisher: Hyperion
Publication Date: August 6, 2013
Source: copy received for honest review through TLC Book Tours

Plot Summary from Goodreads:

Newly arrived in Seattle, Darlene Barnes stumbles on a job ad for a cook at the Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity on the University of Washington campus, a prospect most serious food professionals would automatically reject. But Barnes envisions something other than kegs and corn dogs; she sees an opportunity to bring fresh, real food to an audience accustomed to "Asian Surprise" and other unidentifiable casseroles dropped off by a catering service. And she also sees a chance to reinvent herself, by turning a maligned job into meaningful work of her own creation: "I was the new girl and didn't know or care about the rules." 

Naively expecting a universally appreciative audience, Barnes finds a more exasperatingly challenging environment: The kitchen is nasty, the basement is scary, and the customers are not always cooperative. Undaunted, she gives as good as she gets with these foul-mouthed and irreverent--but also funny and sensitive--guys. Her passion for real food and her sharp tongue make her kitchen a magnet for the brothers, new recruits, and sorority girls tired of frozen dinners. 

Laugh-out-loud funny and poignant, Hungry offers a female perspective on the real lives of young men, tells a tale of a woman's determined struggle to find purpose, and explores the many ways that food feeds us.

My Review:

My interest in this book was twofold.  First, FOOD!  FOOD MEMOIR!  YES!  Always a winner for me.  Second, cook in a fraternity house.  I was not affiliated with Greek life while in college, but my husband was in a fraternity.  He went to a different university than I did, so I didn't see his experiences first-hand, but I've heard an awful lot of stories--including those about the food.  So I was very interested to read this and compare notes with him afterwards.

Hungry is a fun, witty memoir that also requires you to concentrate on not salivating on the pages while you read.  I sometimes have a hard time with memoirs that are written too soon after the events that they describe, because they give me the sense that the author lacks enough self-awareness to write about the subject with any sort of distance.  However, that is not the case here.  Barnes is unflinchingly honest about both her triumphs and mistakes throughout her tenure as cook to the Alpha Sigma Phi brothers, and her appealing candor is laced with a humor that makes it even more entertaining to read.  Barnes has been blogging about her adventures in the fraternity house for a while already, and her comfort in writing about the subject shines through in this book.

I was impressed by her determination to bring fresh, local ingredients to the Alpha Sig house.  Barnes's typical menus for the brothers are NOT what you would ever expect to see on Greek Row.  And it was not at all easy for her to produce these creative, delicious meals--between picky eaters, stubborn food suppliers, and unreliable kitchen help, she had her work cut out for her.  But she never lost sight of her ultimate goal, and I found that admirable.  (And by the way, based on the number of stories my husband has shared about the deep-fryer in his fraternity kitchen...no, he was not eating like this when he was in college.  Sadly.)

My only noted downside to the content of this memoir came near the end.  I felt like things got a little rushed in the last chapter or two as it began to wrap up.  I started to get confused about the timeline and whether Barnes was still the cook at the fraternity or not.  I can see how she probably didn't want to get repetitive at the end (since she had already related so many similar stories by that point), but the last section just felt slightly less polished than the rest.

Beyond the memoir itself, one of the best additions to this book is in the RECIPES.  Barnes scatters some relevant ones throughout the text, and that's where the salivation comes in, my friends.  I am moving this book to the "cookbooks" section of my Kindle, in order to remind myself to make every darn creation that she included.  If she doesn't inspire you to get in the kitchen, nothing will.

So, do I want Darlene Barnes to be my BFF?  I dunno, this lady has got a sass-mouth on her that I'm not sure I could handle.  But does this memoir make me want her to be my chef mentor for life?  You freakin' bet.

Much thanks to Lisa and TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour!

Check out the other blogs on this book tour HERE.  And connect with Darlene Barnes on her website and Twitter.

GIVEAWAY TIME!

TLC Book Tours is offering up a copy of Hungry, which is pretty awesome of them, I'd say.  Just use the Rafflecopter below to enter.  US/Canada residents only please.  Giveaway ends the night of September 4, 2013!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Review: The Banks of Certain Rivers by Jon Harrison

Title: The Banks of Certain Rivers
Author: Jon Harrison
Publisher: self-published by the author
Publication Date: March 19, 2013
Source: copy received from an outside party for an honest review

Plot Summary from Goodreads:

Neil Kazenzakis is barely holding his life together: ever since an accident left his wife profoundly disabled, he's been doing his best as a single dad and popular high school teacher. He's also been dealing with Lauren Downey, his sort-of girlfriend of the past two years who's pushing for a commitment—and for Neil to finally tell his son Christopher about their secret relationship.

Neil's carefully balanced world begins to fall apart when some questionable footage of him is anonymously posted to YouTube...just as Chris learns about Lauren in the worst possible way. Doubting his own recollection of the events in the online video and threatened with the loss of his job and the ability to care for his wife, Neil must find a way to prove the truth to his family, his community, and himself as he struggles to regain the splintered trust of his son.

My Review:

You all know that I am very, very, very (you might say very) picky about reading self-published novels for review.  So, the fact that this one made it through my tighter-than-a-chastity-belt screening process says something right off the bat.  When I read the description, it immediately grabbed me--it sounded like a great family drama, and a little different from those in the women's fiction genre (my typical source for relationship dramatics).

Soon after jumping into this novel, my remaining worries about its self-published status were banished.  Neil's story takes off like a shot, and within a few pages I was immersed in his complicated world.  However, even though the plot snowballs quickly in the beginning, Harrison does a great job leaving some details and events for later, allowing the full saga to unfold slowly throughout the book.  I loved the feeling of constantly uncovering new twists, even when I wasn't looking for them.  Admittedly, there were a few parts about halfway through where I felt things were maybe a little TOO drawn out, but for the most part, the book keeps a solid pace.

There are a lot of complicated issues warring against each other in Neil's life.  Disabled wife, secret girlfriend, teenage son on the verge of going to college, incriminating videos of him at work...a book with this many issues has the potential to fall flat if the author doesn't handle them with care.  I've read some novels like that that end up feeling either too overzealous (the issues didn't mesh into one story well), or too perfunctory (not enough time was spent on each issue to make it feel important).  Thankfully, Harrison blended all of these issues into one seamless narrative.  They all interconnected extremely well, and made the novel feel fuller, rather than too ambitious.

I only have one complaint to share: I felt like the ending was rushed.  After such an intricate, well-paced story, the conclusion ramps up and ties together far too fast (especially the conclusion as related to Neil's work woes).  The actual events involved in the ending were satisfying--that wasn't an issue.  But I just wish a little more time had been taken to get there, in order to make it feel more in line with the rest of the novel.

Bottom line: this novel is wonderfully complex, but it still has a contemporary and fast-moving plot.  The characters are engaging and clearly-voiced.  The ending wasn't perfect, but I was willing to overlook it in my overall rating because of how much I loved the rest.  If you have doubts about picking this up because it's self-published, do yourself a favor and put them aside.  This novel will take some time to unfold itself, but I promise it's worth the wait!

Have you read any great family dramas lately?

IT'S MY BLOGOVERSARY! I come bearing gifts!

One year!  ONE YEAR, PEEPS!  You've been reading my crazy banter for a whole 365 days.

Today is my first blogoversary, and I shall begin the celebration with some Tony Toni Tone:

(My husband serenades that amazingness to me every year on our wedding anniversary (mainly just the chorus, in a beautifully off-key rendition, but still, IT'S THE THOUGHT), and I feel it's only fair that you be given the same appreciation.)

Well, what a year it has been.  I won't do a long post going over all my stats, but in that time I've managed to review 98 books.  DANG!  If I knew I was that close, I would have let the lead out the last week or two and gotten it up to 100.  Ah, well, maybe next year.  (Maybe not, with two kids.  Okay, whatever.)

I've had lots of highlights, namely connecting with several authors (Honest Toddler being a potential fave) and of course, with fellow bloggers and readers.  I know my life is going to be busy in the upcoming 12 months, but I can't wait to keep growing the blog and getting to know more of you!

So what is an anniversary celebration without GIFTS??

As a token of appreciation for all of you, my loyal and probably a little off-kilter followers, I am offering up an INTERNATIONAL GIVEAWAY!  Up to $20 for you to spend on Amazon.  Boo-yah.  I wish it could be more, but you know, moving expenses and BLAH BLAH BLAH.  Anyway, if you're anything like me, you already know how to maximize a dollar on book spending at Amazon.

Since this is in celebration of my followers...obviously, you have to follow me.  (New followers welcome!)  But there are other optional entries as well.  Just use the Rafflecopter below (giveaway ends 8/31).

KEEP READING, MAH BABIES!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

GIVEAWAY and Book Review: The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan

Title: The Panopticon
Author: Jenni Fagan
Publisher: Hogarth
Publication Date: July 23, 2013
Source: copy received for honest review through TLC Book Tours

Plot Summary from Goodreads:

Anais Hendricks, fifteen, is in the back of a police car. She is headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders. She can't remember what’s happened, but across town a policewoman lies in a coma and Anais’s school uniform is covered in blood.

Raised in foster care from birth and moved through twenty-three placements before she even turned seven, Anais has been let down by just about every adult she has ever met. Now a counter-culture outlaw, she knows that she can only rely on herself. And yet despite the parade of horrors visited upon her early life, she greets the world with the witty, fierce insight of a survivor.

Anais finds a sense of belonging among the residents of the Panopticon – they form intense bonds, and she soon becomes part of an ad hoc family. Together, they struggle against the adults that keep them confined. When she looks up at the watchtower that looms over the residents though, Anais knows her fate: she is an anonymous part of an experiment, and she always was. Now it seems that the experiment is closing in.

My Review:

Have you seen the movie Trainspotting?  My immediate thought upon finishing the first chapter of The Panopticon was that Anais Hendricks would be a great extra in Trainspotting.  Her funny/crude/witty Scottish voice is a perfect fit.  (Plus, you know, the whole drug thing.  That too.)

This could just be because I'm a lame American who associates cool Scottish accents with Ewan McGregor movies.  Sorry for that.  But after that intro, you have to admit you're at least a LITTLE intrigued.

I wasn't sure what to think of this novel in the beginning.  Should I focus on the question of whether Anais beat up the policewoman or not?  Should I concentrate on the awful realities of the foster system that are depicted in the novel?  Or should I just focus on Anais as a character?  My advice to you, as a reader, is to go with option #3.  The "mystery" of the policewoman's injury is relatively unimportant...the details about the foster system are compelling for sure...but Anais is the star here.  As a protagonist, she really shines.

Anais is lost within the foster system, and having lived without any family or solidity for so long, she is now at the point where she is struggling to determine her lot in life.  The social workers and the courts no longer see her as a person capable of intelligent or wholesome action--she is a lost cause to them.  But inside, she knows she is able to do something more--even if the rest of the world refuses to see it.  Watching her battle with this internally throughout the novel is both fascinating and heartbreaking.

Heartbreaking: because all Anais really wants in the world is for someone to be watching her, and to care.  Despite her hard outward facade, this is what lies underneath.  Jenni Fagan does a great job melding this confused inner persona with Anais's tougher outer shell, and I think that's part of what makes her characterization so great.

The ending is perfection.  It doesn't wrap everything up perfectly, but it gives you enough to imagine what the end result could be for Anais's future.  (Okay, and it also makes you want to throw your fist up and give her an "EFF YEAH!"  That's a plus.)

My only warning: the language is not for the faint of heart, and there are some very R-rated scenes involved (drugs, sex, you name it).  However, it's all relevant to Anais's history and lifestyle, so it's not gratuitous in any way.  If you can handle that, I'd say it's worth working through the graphic parts to give this one a try.

This is a solid 4-star for me on Goodreads.  It took me a while to see where it was going, but in the end, I found myself with compelling story, and a main character who is getting added to my short list of favorite protagonists.

Much thanks to Lisa and TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour!

Check out the other blogs on this book tour HERE.  And connect with Jenni Fagan on her website and Twitter.

GIVEAWAY TIME!

TLC Book Tours is offering up a copy of The Panopticon, which is pretty awesome of them, I'd say.  Just use the Rafflecopter below to enter.  US residents only please.  Giveaway ends the night of August 27, 2013!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Wassup, 1990? I have a PEN PAL!

Today, I just wanted to quickly share with you all a very cool activity that I've gotten myself involved with this month.  Stormy over at Book.Blog.Bake has started a Book Blog Pen Pal Exchange.  How flippin' cool is that?

I had several pen pals in elementary school...you know, back in the time when you could still show off your Lisa Frank stationery and the Interwebs didn't take over the world with skeezy chat rooms yet.  I remember how EXCITED I would get whenever a letter came in the mail for me from these faraway "friends".  So when Stormy proposed this idea, I was totally game.

Tell me these postcards were not THE BUSINESS back in the day.

Each month that you sign up for the exchange (you don't have to do it every month), you get assigned a new pen pal (also another book blogger).  Then, for that month, the two of you trade letters, chatting about books and whatever else.  Pretty neat-o concept.

This month, I am paired with Katie from Doing Dewey.  Her blog was new to me when we got paired, and I am happy that the exchange helped me discover it!  She is trying to read one book from every number in the Dewey Decimal System.  SAY WHUT?  I know.  Kudos to her.  We've each written one letter so far, and I'm looking forward to a bit more snail-mail chatting before our month is up.

Fellow bloggers, are any of you doing this exchange?  And if you're not a blogger, tell me about your last pen pal!

Wondrous Words Wednesday (41)

Welcome back, wordy friends!

Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by BermudaOnion each week. It's an opportunity to share new words you've encountered in your reading, or highlight words that you particularly enjoy.

Here are three of my favorite new-to-me words from The Uninvited by Liz Jensen.  All definitions from Dictionary.com.

1. eiderdown. "Meteorologists confirmed that a conjunction of volcanic eruptions near Iceland and Japan had dimmed the stratosphere, stifling Europe with an eiderdown of ash."  
noun
1. down, or soft feathers, from the breast of the female eider duck.
2. a heavy quilt or comforter, especially one filled with eiderdown.
3. a warm, lightweight knitted or woven fabric of wool, cotton, or man-made fibers, napped on one or both sides, used for sleepwear, infant's clothing, etc.

I actually came across this word in one of Small Fry's books recently too.  Basically, a specific type of blanket.

2. subsidence. "Subsidence has skewed the gravestones so that barely any stand at right angles."
noun
This is a noun form of the verb "subside", one meaning of which is "to sink to a low or lower level."

When I first read this, I thought it has something to do with the word "subsidize" just based on the look of the word...but never occurred to me that it was linked with "subside", which is pretty easy to figure out.

3. bladderwrack. "Twenty or thirty of them are coming into view, shoaling by the black stone, naked or in rags, with clumps of salty bladderwrack on their heads and wet ribbons of seaweed or strings of bones around their necks."

noun

any of several seaweeds of the genera Fucus and Ascophyllum, esp F. vesiculosus, that grow in the intertidal regions of rocky shores and have branched brown fronds with air bladders.

Super fun word for seaweed!  Nice!

What are your new words this week?

Monday reading update...

Hope you all had a great weekend!  What's everybody reading today?

Reading is definitely at a slow pace around here lately, but as we get into a routine in our rental house, it's picking up a bit.  Last week (our first week here) we found 4 (FOUR!) natural gas leaks in the basement and kitchen (thankfully fixed now), and have been working around the many carpenters, painters, and flooring repairers that have been coming in and out.  Yes, the last tenants were real winners.

But otherwise, things are calming down, I found my new local library (HOORAY!  More on that soon), I am no longer huffing gas fumes, and today is my first official day flying solo as a stay-at-home-mom (husband started his new job this morning).  All exciting things!  Though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited to move into our actual house next month...

Anyway, my current read:

The Banks of Certain Rivers by Jon Harrison

Neil Kazenzakis is barely holding his life together: ever since an accident left his wife profoundly disabled, he's been doing his best as a single dad and popular high school teacher. He's also been dealing with Lauren Downey, his sort-of girlfriend of the past two years who's pushing for a commitment—and for Neil to finally tell his son Christopher about their secret relationship.

Neil's carefully balanced world begins to fall apart when some questionable footage of him is anonymously posted to YouTube...just as Chris learns about Lauren in the worst possible way. Doubting his own recollection of the events in the online video and threatened with the loss of his job and the ability to care for his wife, Neil must find a way to prove the truth to his family, his community, and himself as he struggles to regain the splintered trust of his son.
Heartbreaking, poignant, and written with devastating humor and warmth, The Banks of Certain Rivers is a shattering story of memory, loss, and just how far a man will go to show the people closest to him the meaning of love.(from Goodreads)

I received a copy of this novel for review a while back, and finally got around to starting it last week.  It's Harrison's debut novel and I am really enjoying it so far.  The story is taking a while to unfold, but I love the characters and don't mind meandering my way through their journey.  Hopefully a full review for you later this week!

What will I be reading next?

Likely going to be The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan.  I'm on the TLC tour for August 20, and with my lethargic reading pace lately, I better start it soon!  :)

After that, I have a few possibilities and tour books lined up, including Hungry by Darlene Barnes, Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa, and The Smart One by Jennifer Close.

What are you reading this week, friends?