California by Eden Lepucki

Sometimes it feels like divine destiny when certain books enter into our lives, what I shall hereto forth refer to as "book-estiny." Or maybe it just seems that way to us over-analytical, bibliophile, Virgo types, but after reading Eden Lepucki's California, "book-estiny" is the only way to describe my interaction with this compelling, gripping, thought-provoking, haunting peek at a very real near future.

I first heard about California back in 2014 when it was a New Release and Lepucki stopped by The Colbert Report on her book tour. I don't remember any part of the interview but I accept any and all book recommendations, especially from one of my favorite TV personalities. I picked it up cheap with an Amazon gift card then it sat on my shelf for the next two years. Although California would have been as equally relatable back in 2014 as it is now, with the recent death of the Occupy Wall Street movement that's only accomplishment was the degradation of millennials, it couldn't possibly have predicted the political tide of the 2016 Presidential election. Or could/did it?

What could have easily been a cheesy, overly-dramatic homage to what could very well be our near future, is actually quite frightening when you realize it was written two years ago and you suddenly have flashbacks to reading 1984. But rather than distinguish an obvious hero and villain - the winners and loser of the last several years, if you will - Lepucki artfully crafts a desolate and untamed world in which everyone loses under the guise of victory and supreme rule (*cough* President Trump *cough, cough*). And although the story and landscape scream of apocalyptic end-times, it is actually only the result of a political apocalypse skillfully detailed by Lepucki as the best and worst principles to be born from any modern-day revolution. So while California may have gotten lost in the sea of Fifty Shades of Grey and Game of Thrones, Lepucki's startling portrayal of a world controlled by fear would make for excellent discussion material in any University Sociology course. While that was mostly what propelled me through this book, it wasn't why I picked it up in the first place, thus divine book-estiny.

A few years ago I wanted to spend the summer reading non-fiction and now it's become habit; I find the season to be synonymous with WWII and getting lost in the jungle, thus I admit to committing the cardinal book sin of judging California by its cover.

There was very little jungle-roaming involved, nor was it a theme or anything Lepucki put any sort of focus on aside from describing the ravaged LA now-countryside. What did stand out for me, however, was the many possible ways to analytically dissect this novel. Like, the impact children have on a society, both biologically and in terms of culture, and how they alter our perceptions, reality, and the combining of the two; or the fundamentals of each prominent ideology and why no one idea is the perfect formula for a Utopian society; or how and why there is no such thing as a Utopian society, and that despite a revolution, history still has more to teach us, most importantly that we will always rely on each other if our species is to survive. But in spite of all of this, the book as a whole lacked structure and offered very little incentive for the reader to keep going.

I noted early on that although I didn't "feel" the usual "click," I did find myself blindly moving through the book, similar to the way Cal and Frida moved through their daily existence. But while they asked very little questions, I asked many, especially when the book neared the end and it became clear Lepucki had no intentions of wrapping everything up a nice, happy ending. It is hard to determine if she had aspirations of a sequel, or if she just realized that in order to wrap each story up in a nice, little ending package she'd need to write at least 100 more pages and just decided to quit instead. Or maybe that is the final lesson she is trying to teach us - that cycles will continue in the face of insanity; doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results no matter how much planning is involved.

While the lessons gleaned from California abound both in 2014 and in present-day, I felt the hitting to be too close to home, and as much doom and gloom as watching the news. It's possible I might have felt differently had I read the book two years ago but, like 1984, this book will probably always find a way to be culturally relevant.

Book-estiny.

Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams

Some are intent on traveling the world. And some are not.

But thanks goes to those who are, for they pave a path of enlightenment, education, spirituality, and desire for the rest of us to gaze at, admire, and add to our Bucket List. While exploration is not a new phenomenon - the greatest discoveries have been made simply from the desire to see what lies beyond the horizon - the means and ways of world travel has dramatically evolved. These days, even the most remote forests, desolate mountain ranges, and raging rivers will find what Mark Adams' travel companion in Turn Right at Machu Picchu referred to as "Martini Explorers" - those looking to see the world but still have a warm bed and even warmer meal to return to. In Machu Picchu, Adams falls somewhere in between - lacking the intensity and adventure (and stupidity) of Theodore Roosevelt and his River of Doubt while still suffering the worn shoes, blisters, interesting cuisine, camping, and life-or-death uncertainty of any serious trip into the wilderness. And while the world would have me believe that I'm wasting my life by not scrambling to see all of the Seven Wonders of the World, I'm perfectly happy to let people like Adams, Roosevelt, and Strayed (Wild) do the humping and provide me with exquisite imagery and history, both of which Adams did not skimp on.

With discovery comes more questions, a problem that seemed to be the central theme of Turn Right at Machu Picchu. Adams' original intent was to retrace the steps of 1911's Hiram Bingham, III, suddenly widely discredited for discovering the ancient ruins, then accused of grave-robbing them as well as the area's surrounding ruins. While attempting to clear up Bingham's story, Adams instead encountered an atmosphere much like if he were to ask an American about the upcoming election - everyone has an opinion and their own theory. Adams peppers Peruvian history appropriately throughout his story, though it can get bit meaty and tough for the reader to digest.

Written like one of the more sophisticated blogs of present-day, with several laugh-out-loud moments, Turn Right at Machu Picchu is more an account of Adams taking a history lesson than a raucous journey of exploration, routinely skipping over large chunks of time presumably because nothing particularly noteworthy happened. Only him and his Editor will ever know... And while Adams does an admirable job of detailing his surroundings at any given moment, he struggles to articulate the vast beauty and enormity of his experience, which the reader can either find frustrating or titillating. And although nothing about this book is edge-of-your-seat excitement like that of Frozen In Time or Lost in Shangri-La, the cultural and historical significance of this part of the world is not lost, but rather put on display, as Adams made the Inca Trail sound like the line for Disneyland's Splash Mountain.

This book's main takeaway is the awe-inspiring history of the Incas and how they unknowingly ended up impacting the rest of the world with unrelenting beauty, seemingly ingenious engineering, and the marriage of the two, something Adams described impeccably and seemed to put the most focus on. If nothing else, he definitely lights the fire under the ass of even the most reticent modern-day explorer.

Turn Right at Machu Picchu satisfied a square on my all-important Reading Bingo chart, thus solidifying my Couch Explorer status. But if they ever do bring martinis on explorations and possible discoveries, my travel-ass might just end up being lit. Until then, happy hiking! I can't wait to read about it when you're done...

The Burning Air by Erin Kelly

Every once in awhile I find myself in the mood for a good mind fuck. Usually when I'm in a particularly dark mood, I find myself gravitating towards books of a similar theme, like when I picked up Gillian Flynn's Dark Places. Although I felt the pull of that in the dead of January, I found myself craving a Gone Girl-esque book in the dead of summer so I picked up Erin Kelly's The Burning Air, a book I took a chance on because it was on the Dollar Tree bookshelf so I couldn't justify *not* buying it. After reading the inside flap and the goodreads.com synopsis, my expectations were fairly low and I thought I had it all figured out, not at all prepared for Kelly to take me on the literary ride of my life.

Kelly's The Burning Air is in a word, brilliant. Having read Gone Girl, the epitome of psychological thriller, and having polished off last summer's literary pop culture hit, and soon-to-be-movie-produced-by-Reese-Witherspoon, The Girl on the Train, I naively had little hope that another author would be able to weave such an intricate, creepy, and dark tale about the lengths we go to for family. But I am now willing to start my own campaign to add this to Reese's long list of projects. Or at least make it a Lifetime movie.

Split into four points of view, Kelly subjects the reader to movie-like, heart-pumping, surprise scenes - like a white face reflected through a black window - from the get-go. Banking on the already large creep-factor of being set in a BFE London barn, readers start out on the edge of their seats and have little elsewhere to go until they take a break from reading to let their hearts begin to still. With any large family, secrets are what rule the MacBrides, who are coming together to spread the ashes of their matriarch. Of course, things go less than smoothly and what are originally perceived to be horrible coincidences are revealed as dark, vengeful spirits working like puppet masters behind the scenes.

Written clearly and concisely, with fluid details that are rarely confusing, Kelly creates a haunting and sinister world that gives us goosebumps and makes our blood run cold, but manages to steer clear of horrifically gruesomely, unnecessary violence. The Burning Air enters Kelly into the foray of stiff competition among Stephen King and other Masters of the Plot Twist, gently manipulating readers' brains and down-right tricking them, then offering one last surprise on the second-to-final page.

While Far Barn is definitely not a place I'd like to visit - nor the MacBrides a family I'd like to befriend - this Couch Explorer will definitely visit another dark world created by Erin Kelly.

Blind Your Ponies by Stanley Gordon West

Most novels make you wait for the inevitable explanation of the title in a miss-it-if-you-blink, blow-your-mind kind of moment. Blind Your Ponies by Stanley Gordon West waited no such time, revealing the meaning of the title in the sadness-packed, depressing, foreshadowing-of-self-loathing beginning that carried through the rest of the novel; well, at least the first 469 pages, which is about all I was able to stand.

Last year my good friend and fellow bibliophile and I decided to play Reading Bingo, in which one square was labeled, "A book a friend RAVES about." Having her - as well as others in my book club - speak its praises, I concluded there was no better book to satisfy that square than Ponies. While that still may be true, I definitely don't share their affinity for this particular work, and will be using it for the 500+ pages square instead.

Since I'm afflicted with the most common, yet most severe, mental illness known today - called Life - I found the immediate beginning of Blind Your Ponies to be an instant turn-off. Not only did my lips physically curl in disgust just looking at the cover - as I now knew what the title meant - but the very thought of reading the book became the last thing I wanted to do behind laundry, watching PBS Kids, or just staring off into space. I didn't even actually finish the book, not being the least bit interested in the assumed climactic ending, something that is supposedly guaranteed in all books. From skimming and reading the few paragraphs I could tolerate, I was able to gather that the ending would have provided little in turning the tide for me on whether or not I felt anything positive towards this book. Generally speaking, the ending lacked any sort of real conclusion beyond the ending of the basketball season.

Reading this novel reminded me of my high school days, only not those spent cheering on the basketball court, but those spent shoveling metaphorical bullshit into my English papers in preparation for blowing the minds of my future college professors. My Junior Year English teacher called me out on it, if only he had been available to West, he could have saved him an entire novel's worth of overly-contrived crap.

Old, hopeless competition - check!
Will-they-or-won't-they romance - check!
Tragic death - check!
Cancer - check!
Rape - check!

West cornered the market on sad story lines, which may have accounted for the unnecessary page-length, and was an excuse for the turgid, overly-dramatic, incredibly unrealistic plot-twists and accompanying metaphors that littered the story like so much garbage along a majestic mountain highway. (See.) About 150-pages in, I found myself confused as to why this book came so highly-recommended. And although it usually takes me about 60-pages to get hooked on a book, I held out Willow-Creekian-style hope and forged ahead.

Close to the halfway point is when I started to vaguely understand - though completely disagree with - why a lot of people would put this book on their Top-Ten list. West narrated the ebb and flow of life as someone who has lived it, but with particular focus on human suffering, even as he attempted to do the exact opposite. Unfortunately his message of "life sucks but there are moments worth celebrating," got lost amongst his obvious unseasoned abilities as a writer. West ended countless sentences with awkward prepositions, used an inordinate and pointless amount of sentence fragments, and let the cart run away with the horse in terms of metaphors. His imagery flowed well, but only in the places you don't want (Tom's horse, anyone?!?); and while the story, about love, life, taking a village, teamwork, and loss, is more than just about basketball, the execution came off more like a Hallmark-movie gone wrong. The only places where West put nose to the grindstone and propelled the story forward were the game scenes - at one point I actually found myself shoveling handfuls of popcorn into my mouth with excitement. But ultimately anything even remotely climactic could be seen a mile away and was met with an inevitable eye-roll and tall glass of wine to accompany the cheese. And after awhile, following the book's general theme of extreme excess, even the game scenes became too much.

My experience with Blind Your Ponies was similar to that of reading Outlander in that I found an uncontrollable desire to mark out every arbitrary sentence and/or word and watch the book magically (and blessedly) shrink by half and become remarkably more interesting. But that would mean I would need to put more focus into this book and I just can't do that; as West reminds us, life is just too short.

I rode off into the sunset on my pony with this book, hopeful for it's unfolding, but wound up plummeting (albeit slowly and boringly) off the cliff instead.

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

Your first thought upon cracking open this biographical work is, "Wow, I can't believe this was written in 1959! This could be about [insert current year here]!" I mean, after your actual initial thought of, "I'm reading a piece of culturally significant material that enlightens me to the world beyond my own backyard, go me!"

But as the story develops, cultural implications give way to a bland overview of 1960's Deep South racism, spectral division, and a sense of hatred that would be powerful and life-altering had the story execution been even remotely interesting.

What would have ordinarily been a rather quick read ended up dragging on slower than the buses that begrudgingly carted Mr. Griffin around Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and the like. Distantly telling of the obstacles he encountered after altering his white skin to become black - colored bathrooms miles away from convenient, denied cups of coffee or glasses of water, looks of disgust from obvious strangers - Mr. Griffin spoke more of the general segregation and corresponding consequences of blacks - oftentimes horrific - than of his own, often horrific, experiences. And although they were shocking in nature, Griffins' portrayal of them was distant, vague, and lacked the sort of intensity one would expect from a white man going from his seemingly privileged existence to the suppressed, harsh life of a 1960's Negro man; especially coming from his own personal journal.

Afforded the luxury of being able to switch from black to white skin, Griffin instead wasted it by describing his experiences is generic prose, as if he were standing outside a window looking in. Constructed as his personal journal throughout his seven-week experiment, his freedom to paint a more specific picture of 1960's racial injustice was supremely wasted, though he was still subjected to his own brand of racism once the experiment was made public. Not until the epilogue, which I almost didn't read, did Mr. Griffin delve deep into what his experiment revealed, why, and any possible moves toward national harmony, though he stopped short of making any actual suggestions.

Obviously this work was culturally significant in it's 1960's publication, and is still relevant today, which is both sad and promising. Sad because we're dealing with the same issues as a nation over 50-year later, and promising because although racial harmony alludes us, and springs up in new, ugly ways, our ability to recognize the problem of judging someone based on skin color alone is what separates us from the animals. But, if we're being honest, animals have us beat in this area; I've never seen a dog attack another dog simply for being black.