I’ve had my eye on this book since it came out last November — not only have I been a fan of the American version of The Office since the beginning of the show, but the cover design on Mindy Kaling‘s book is just so darn cute!

I have always really liked Mindy Kaling, and after reading her book, I think I like her precisely because she manages to be very funny while still unabashedly being a girly girl.

Some of my favourite parts of the book are when Mindy describes interacting with Amy Poehler, another admirable hilarious woman.

I also really appreciate the self-deprecating side of Mindy’s humour. In a section called “Alternate Titles for This Book” she lists: When Your Boyfriend Fits into Your Jeans and Other Atrocities, Sometimes You Just Have to Put on Lip Gloss and Pretend to be Psyched, So You’ve Juts Finished Chelsea Handler’s Book, Now What?, and There Has Ceased to Be a Difference Between My Awake Clothes and My Asleep Clothes as potential options.

I also particularly enjoyed Mindy’s chapter on “Irish Exits.” She explains: “an Irish exit is when you leave a party without telling anyone (and presumably it is because you are too drunk to form words)… I think Irish exits should actually be de rigeur, except the drunk part.” All of my hometown friends and I know a fellow who made quite a habit out of Irish exits, but usually with some surprise plot twists included, amirite? Anyway, I like Mindy’s justification a lot: “The reason I pull Irish exits is not because I think I am too busy and cool to be bothered with pleasantries. It’s that when there is a gathering of more than thirty people, I don’t want to waste your time with hellos and good-byes. I think it’s actually the more polite thing to do, because I’m not coercing partygoers into some big farewell moment with me.” (159-160). This could be something I could get behind!

Anyways, I think Mindy Kaling is very cool, and I hope she continues to find success with her new show. Here is one of my favourite Kelly Kapoor clips from The Office:

 
Kaling, Mindy. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Ohter Concerns). New York: Crown Archetype, 2011.

I’ve been putting off reviewing this novel for weeks… I’ve even finished reading a couple of other books since finishing this one. I’ve been putting it off because I’m really not sure how I feel about it. Jeffrey Eugenides is a masterful writer, but I still feel oddly unsure about his latest novel, The Marriage Plot. It is either a work of subtle creative genius, or it is a boring, easy-way-out effort. For me, there isn’t a place for this novel between those extremes…

Here is your warning, because I don’t think I can write about this book without using SPOILERS, so please be forewarned, if you have an interest in reading this one, that I will be unreservedly using SPOILERS in the rest of this blog post.

I was going to pass this novel up, because I tend to feel pretty suspicious of books that too obviously pander to my demographic. Seeing that the protagonist of The Marriage Plot, Madeleine Hanna, was and English student made me disinterested in the story off the bat. However, one day I noticed the bookstore I was working at was stocked with signed copies of The Marriage Plot, and I guess that was that.

The novel essentially sets up and revolves around a love triangle, where Madeleine Hanna is the apex. She navigates her world of academia in the 1980′s, and as a scholar in Victorian literature, holds out for some ideal romantic plot line to develop in her own life. She discards one man, Mitchell, who remains wildly in love with her, while she works on her relationship with her bipolar boyfriend, Leonard.

Mitchell, a religious studies graduate, travels the world after graduating in an effort to forget about Madeleine. While he can’t seem to get over her, things get rocky for Madeleine and Leonard, a biologist.  I was interested in this set-up, given that it created a neat dichotomy between the scientific and the spiritual world. However, while I was personally rooting for Leonard (and for science), I strongly felt that Madeleine would choose Mitchell and I would be a disappointed reader.

Instead, Eugenides turned Leonard into the bad guy, who cracks under his psychological issues and ends up leaving Madeleine in a tough spot. Enter Mitchell, now the official good guy, to clean up the pieces. He is ecstatic to be a part of Madeleine’s life again, but he can feel that she still just doesn’t love him.

At 406 pages, this novel should have been cut by at least 100 pages. Where and what should have been be cut, I’m not sure, but man oh man… I read right to the very end of this novel, even though at times I wondered if I was enjoying it at all. I read to the end because I had to know which poor sap Madeleine ended up with. With her snooty privileged upbringing, and her self-satisfied and entitled attitude, I was baffled as to why anyone would bother carrying a torch for her, so to speak. She just isn’t that great of a girl, and is not at all an endearing character. So finally, on the very last page, while Mitchell is finding out that he will never have Madeleine the way he wants to, “He looked at Madeleine. She wasn’t so special, maybe. She was his ideal, but an early conception of it, and he would get over it in time” (Eugenides 406).

So there it is. I’m not sure if I should be frustrated, at having read 400+ pages to confirm my own opinion, or impressed that Eugenides kept me reading, despite centering his novel around such a hate-able protagonist.

Eugenides, Jeffrey. The Marriage Plot. Toronto: Knopf, 2011.

There’s something especially magical about reading a novel that takes place in a real setting, one you know and love. This was my entire basis for choosing to read When Fenelon Falls by Dorothy Ellen Palmer.

While my family’s cottage is on Cameron Lake, adjacent to the town of Fenelon Falls, the March family cottage that sets the scene in Where Fenelon Falls is set on Balsam Lake, one lock over, or just north past Rosedale on Hwy. 35.

Of course, there were the familiar landmarks (OMG, I worked at that marina!), and the insider’s look at a family tradition on the culmination of the drive up to the cottage. Where the protagonist, Jordan’s family would call out rhymes and puns based on their surrounding landmarks, my family would always compete to be the first to see the lake and shout, originally, “I see the lake first!” These are the details that make cottaging what it is, and what gets passed on in a family of cottagers.

Much more than just a nostalgic trip through the Kawartha Lakes region, When Fenelon Falls is a complex and literary novel, wading through identity issues that plague Jordan, the novel’s 14 year old protagonist, as told through the eyes of her (unreliable) narrator brother.

Adopted at age 3 by her parents when they had trouble conceiving, developmentally challenged Jordan spent her summers at the March cottage compound (an out-building for every extended family-unit), surrounded by her able-bodied and less-than-familial cousins. With little to no support from her immediate family, and an ice-queen for an adoptive mother, Jordan obsesses over her birth story, writing numerous possible (and sometimes very famous) scenarios for her biological conception.

The idyllic summer setting gives way as Jordan fails to deal with the pressures mounting against her, including being denied her ticket to see Burton Cummings and the Guess Who perform live at the CNE (remember, it’s 1969).

I don’t want to give away any spoilers here. The ending of the novel can be seen as a sad one, but it is definitely unexpected, and worth unpacking in a post-modern, literary way. It’s clear that a lot of thought, research, and personal emotion went into writing the novel, and I think Dorothy Ellen Palmer does an excellent job of striking a balance between waxing poetic about beautiful Canadiana and building a complex story, using many layers, and carefully crafted sentences. I look forward to reading more of her work.

Palmer, Dorothy Ellen. When Fenelon Falls. Toronto: Coach House Books, 2011.

So, I recently decided that I’d like to start 2012 off with a bang by giving my blog a little makeover! I’m going to take a little time out to freshen things up around here, but in the meantime I’ll be reading When Fenelon Falls by Dorothy Ellen Palmer.

I had heard about this book, and since my family’s cottage is near Fenelon Falls I thought seriously about reading it but had decided to pass, for fear that it would be like another cringe-worthy Northern Ontario tale I had read once called Minnow Lake, which un-ironically included aliens. Enough said.

Anyways, I changed my mind when I read a quick review of this book and Ms. Palmer in an “Underrated Canadian Books of 2011″ article that I can no longer seem to find. If I manage to locate it, I’ll come back here and provide a link. Reading this article and wishing for summer days at the cottage convinced me to give it a shot. Hopefully soon, my first post on my shiny new made-over blog will be a review of When Fenelon Falls. Thanks!