Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Set in the late 1800s in Niger, Okonkwo lived in one of the nine villages of the Igbo people named Umuofia and had managed to become successful on his own by borrowing yam seeds from a richer man and from his mother's family in order to farm his land.  He also at one point wrestled the great Amalinze the Cat and threw him from the ring making him famous.  His fields flourished and he was able to pay back what he owed and one day he became his own man with three wives and some titles to go with them.  His dream is to get all four titles and be the man with the highest honor in the village.

His father was lazy and had no titles and owed money to everyone.  Okonkwo was ashamed of his father and while no one held what your father was against you--everyone was their own man--he felt the specter of his father over him and did everything to prevent himself from being like his shiftless father who played the flute and died a dishonorable death.

Okonkwo's first son, Nwoye had a bit of his grandfather in him and Oknokwo tried to beat it out of him with some success.  But this son will wind up being a disappointment to him.  His daughter, Eximima, by his second wife he believes has the temperament to be a good son but sadly was born a daughter.  She also is born very sick until the local medicine man helps her out, which is good since his second wife had had many stillborns and this was her only child.

In another village, a man kills a man from this village's wife so compensation is agreed upon instead of going to war. A woman is sent over to be his wife and a young man is sent over as well. This man is Ikemefuna and he comes to live with Okonkwo for three years until the village has decided what to do with him.  He is to be killed, likely because Okonkwo broke the Peace Weak by shooting his gun at his second wife.  He pays compensation but that may not be enough, the boy needs to be sacrificed as well. The elder of the village tells Oknokwo that he is not to touch him because the boy calls him father and it would be wrong.  But when it comes time to kill him Oknokwo lets his sense of not wanting to look weak overtake him and he strikes the boy causing his own downfall.

I had been looking forward to reading this book because I had heard great things about this book, but I found it rather boring and plodding.  It does pick up at the end when the white men come and try to make a mess of things.  It will really piss you off, at least it did me.  But that section is very small and it's at the very end.  He uses the descriptions of the village as building blocks that will be affected by the white people coming in with their religion.  This book just didn't live up to expectations.  I give it three and a half out of five stars.

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Things-Fall-Apart-Chinua-Achebe/dp/0385474547/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2H30XVDDO0NKJ&keywords=things+fall+apart+by+chinua+achebe&qid=1551278951&s=gateway&sprefix=things+%2Caps%2C178&sr=8-1

Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe

This exceptionally written book starts with Lowe's childhood in Ohio and his parent's marriage breaking up when he is but five-years-old leaving him and his brother Chad only seeing their father every other weekend.  His mother will go on to marry another man, Bill with whom she will have a son Micah.  He would act in local theater productions and college shows and be treated as a freak for wanting to be an actor.  When he's thirteen his mother would divorce Bill and uproot them and move them to Point Dume just outside of Malibu (but not the glamorous Malibu of today) where a surprise awaits them.  The doctor she was seeing at the allergy clinic she went to when she was sick is there and they're going to get married.  His once fierce mother would develop a habit of spending her days writing things not meant to be read or being sick in bed with something that could not be defined.

He still gets crap for wanting to be an actor in Malibu a place where the cool kids want to be surfers.  He starts to go on auditions for stuff but doesn't get callbacks.  Until finally he gets a gig as an Extra in a Coke commercial.  It pays $2,500. He frames the check.  Now, this is when he starts to name drop.  He meets up with the Sheen brothers Emilio and Charlie and the Penn brothers Sean and Chris who make movies and he will eventually get asked to be in the Sheen brother home movies.  Or going out with Jennifer Grant, daughter of Dyan Cannon and Cary Grant and meeting her famous father, but not really knowing who he was. Or meeting John Dykstra the special effects coordinator for Star Wars whom his aunt and uncle worked for and getting to see a rough cut of the movie and the special effects set before the movie comes out.

He gets a role on an ABC TV show in 1979 called A New Kind of Family that would last maybe twelve episodes but would give him some popularity and introduces him to Janet Jackson his co-star.  ABC love him enough to put a hold on him for another series but that falls through and instead, they use him for Afterschool Specials.  His first is the one about the teenage dad.

This will lead him to get his foot in the door to an audition to a movie being made by Francis Ford Coppola called The Outsiders based on the book by S.E. Hinton.  He's auditioning for one of the coveted roles of the brothers, Sodapop Curtis.  The scene is one where the brothers are together and he tells them how he feels and cries.  He's not sure he can cry on cue, but he does and nails the audition and gets to go to New York City to compete for the role there.  He's going up against Tom Cruise and others.  He and Tom have become friends since Tom, Tommy Howell and Emilio are all going up for parts and all hang out together.  When Tom tanks the audition for Sodapop and he nails it he gets the role.  Unfortunately, most of his role will end up on the cutting room floor, though if you want to watch the whole thing with the deleted scenes watch the DVD The Outsiders: The Complete Novel.  He spends a great deal of time in this section describing his time making this movie and it's fascinating to read.

He'll go on to name drop many times and continue on with his movie career and how he got The West Wing and what went wrong there and his alcohol abuse problems and how he sought help for that and meeting the woman, Sheryl, who would change his life forever giving him two sons and a family to keep him grounded.  He even goes a little bit into his political activism, but not too much.  I wasn't surprised to find that he has rewritten scripts as this book is so beautifully written and with such skill.  You do get a real sense of who he is in as much as he lets you in which is pretty far but not so far you feel as though its too much information.  This is an excellent book and I give it five out of five stars.

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Only-Tell-Friends-Autobiography-ebook/dp/B004OA62VS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1551108457&sr=8-1&keywords=stories+i+only+tell+my+friends+by+rob+lowe     

Ultimate Spider-Man Vol 5: Public Scrutiny by Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), Mark Bagley (Penciler), Art Thibert (Inker), and Transparency Digital (Colorist)

In the previous comic, Harry has been sent away when Norman supposedly died. But now he's back and Harry has no memory of anything.  Norman comes to Peter and tells him that he is no longer Spider-Man but that he works for him or he will hurt Aunt Mae and Mary Jane.  Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. tells Peter that Norman wants Peter to kill him and one night on a bridge they have a confrontation with Mary Jane in the balance who falls and is rescued by Peter.  Mary Jane is having nightmares nearly daily about that night.

The Rhino is terrorizing New York and Peter is stuck trying to sneak out of school to race to the rescue.  On his way out he runs into Gwen Stacy who is crying in the dumpsters because her parents are likely getting divorced.  Wishing he could offer her comfort he tells Mary Jane to go down to her instead and finally rushes off to the rhino only to have Iron Man beat him to it.

But that won't be his biggest problem.  There's a Spider-Man going around robbing places and giving him a bad name. And when he shows up to defend himself he gets shot by the police. His healing factor only works so fast and he needs help so he calls Mary Jane who takes him to the hospital where he disappears once they treat him.  He's still hurt and he has an imposter to deal with.

This is an interesting comic in that it doesn't really have one of the typical bad guys from the Marvel Universe.  It isn't often that a superhero has to deal with someone pretending to be him and doing bad things.  Bendis, as usual, has written a good story that also wraps in Mary Jane's jealousy over Gwen Stacy and Gwen's problems at home with her dad who imposes rules on her and her mom who seems not to care at all for her.  I still think the color is off and the art is a little odd with the eyes. But it's only enough to take this book down a half a star and giving it four and a half stars out of five.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Spider-Man-Vol-Scrutiny-Graphic-ebook/dp/B00AAJR3R4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1550848712&sr=8-2&keywords=ultimate+spider-man+vol+5+public

Star Wars Vol 9: Hope Dies by Kieron Gillen (Writer), Salvador Larroca (Artist), Guru-eFX (Colorist), Java Tartaglia (Colorist), Cam Smith (Inker), VC's Clayton Cowles (Letterer), Cullen Bunn (Writer), Ario Anindito (Artist), Roland Boschi (Artist), Marc Laming (Artist), Jordan Boyd (Colorist), and Andres Mossa (Colorist)

The much-loved king of Mon Cala was murdered at the hands of the Empire causing an open revolt on the planet.  A well-timed counterattack by Admiral Ackbar as well as the help from Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo, the Mon Calamari's fleet are now prepared to fight with the Rebel Alliance.  The Rebels owe their victory in part to Queen Trios of Shu-Torun and her defection to the cause. But can they trust her?

While Leia tries to make Queen Trios more comfortable on the ship, Han, Chewie, and C3PO are off making a deal with some questionable people. Luke is getting ready for his aerial acrobatics show for the entire fleet that has met to talk.  But when it is time to go to hyperspace they can't move.  Something is blocking them.

And then an Imperial fleet appears with Darth Vader leading them.  The Rebels quickly figure out that Queen Trios sold them out and go after her but she escapes in an escape pod.  Worse, the bay doors are sealed keeping the fighter planes from exiting and fighting.  They've lost com signals between the ships too.

Han arrives just as a ship has been obliterated.  He fights off attacks but a tie fighter with Vader in it gets on his tail and he can't shake him.  Then Luke finds out that if they just fly at the bay doors they will open so he heads out to do just that and then others follow him.  But they have no way of getting this information to other ships.  Luke finds a way to send a message to the other ships about the bay doors in space and soon other ships are sending out fighters too.

Leia meanwhile is working on getting the data needed to unlock the hyperdrive.  Will they succeed in getting their forces out of there before losing too many ships?  Also included is Annual IV where Sansa has found an old lightsaber that belonged to a really bad Sith Lord.  There were two of them and she figured to make twice the profit so she sold the first one to the Empire and the second one to a collector who knew there was a second lightsaber and comes after her.  Soon she has the collector and the Empire after her and Luke Skywalker happens to be there picking up credits for the Rebel Alliance and picks up the lightsaber and feels its evil. 

This is a great comic that leaves you on the edge of your seat wondering what is going to happen next and whether or not they can pull it off.  Queen Trios proves to be more complex a character than seen at first too.  I really enjoyed the Annual comic a lot too.  It was really entertaining as only a Sansa led comic can be.  Overall this was a fabulous book and I give it five out of five stars. 

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Vol-Hope-2015-ebook/dp/B07JHG4HYS/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=star+wars+hope+dies&qid=1550512706&s=gateway&sr=8-1

The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian

Set in the fall of 2000 this novel tells the tale of the disappearance of Annalee Ahlberg who one night just got up and walked away.  The thing is she was a sleepwalker but only when her husband wasn't in bed with her.  She had sought help at a sleep clinic and believed her sleepwalking to be under control with medication so her husband felt safe after four years to go on a conference trip for a job as an English professor at a local college in near where the small town in which they lived in Vermont.

The search party finds a piece of her nightgown on a branch on the road going toward the river.  Once twenty-one-year-old Lianna, the narrator of this book, got her mother down from the top of the bridge when she had sleepwalked naked.  She also stopped her from turning the entire azalea bush from being spray painted completely silver in front of the house.  But that night she didn't hear her mother get up and go sleepwalking and she's feeling the guilt.

The state trooper detective working the case, Gavin Rikert knew her mother because he too sleepwalks and the two met at the sleep clinic.  She finds out about sleep sex in which the sleeper wants sex in their sleep and will sleepwalk to look for it.  Gavin insists that they were merely a support group for each other and that nothing happened between the two of them, but Lianna wonders.  Meanwhile, Gavin is asking her out on dates and she is accepting.

Back at home, Lianna's dad drinks himself to sleep and her twelve-year-old sister Paige who at first was out searching for clues when her mother went missing is now changing into someone who is bitter and hardened and not caring about anything.  Except perhaps what happened to their mother which is still a mystery. Did she really sleepwalk into the river? If so where is the body?  Or did she leave her family?  Or did something more sinister happen?  Throughout the book are a page written for each chapter that is like a diary supposedly written by Annalee that deals with how she felt about her sleepwalking and sleep sex.

This book meanders like it's in a fog which I realize that the main character Lianna is in as her grief over her mother that she can't quite express because the reality of it isn't there without a body.   But that doesn't make for good reading.  It tries to build up suspense but fails to do so.  There is a twist at the end that I didn't see coming and I appreciated the creativity of it.  Overall this is just an okay book.  It's short so it has that going for it.  I give it three and a half stars out of five.

Quotes

People survive by being callous, not kind, he sometimes told his students, not trying to be dismissive of the species, but realistic.  How, he lectured, could we ever face the morning if we did not grow inured to the monstrosities tha marked the world daily: tsunamis and plane crashes and terrorism and war?

-Chris Bohjamlian (The Sleepwalker p 10)

Sometimes I’m not sure which hits us harder that relief when we wake up from a nighmare and realize it was just a dream, or the sadness when we wake up from a good dream—a really good dream—and realize that nothing was real.

-Chris Bohjamlian (The Sleepwalker p 46)

 Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Sleepwalker-Novel-Chris-Bohjalian-ebook/dp/B01FPGY5TK/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=1NF4IWPCI7DL8&keywords=the+sleepwalker+bohjalian&qid=1550502337&s=gateway&sprefix=the+sleepwalker%2Caps%2C174&sr=8-1-fkmrnull

Batman: The Killing Joke The Deluxe Edition by Alan Moore (Writer), Brian Bollard (Artist and Colorist), Richard Starkings (Letterer)

The comic opens with Batman going to Arkham Asylum to visit with the Joker and talk over their future.  He believes that one day one of them will kill the other and he's looking for another way out of this situation.  Then he realizes that he isn't talking to the Joker at all but someone dressed up as the Joker.  When the Joker's face appears in the comic it is glorious in its color and design and size and really makes a statement.

The Joker, of course, is up to no good.  He has bought and fixed up a carnival.  But first, he goes to Commisher Gordon's house where his librarian daughter Barbara is and he shoots Barbara and takes pictures of her naked and kidnaps Gordon and takes him to the carnival and puts him on a ride where he flashes the pictures of his daughter trying to drive him mad.

Batman follows the clues to find the Joker and the inevitable tete a tete happens between the two.  The Joker is trying to prove that you can drive someone mad in one day.  Interspersed between this story is a sepia-tinted story of a stand up comic and his pregnant wife trying to make it and how he takes a questionable job to try to make money to get them a better place to live.  This comic doesn't hold back and I like that about it.  It takes risks like shooting Barbara.  But as Batman said at the beginning of the book the two will have their moment to either kill each other or not at the end and the author's choice for an ending is an interesting one.  I do have to say that the use of colors is incredible with the theme of red following throughout the book which is the Joker's color.  Also included is a short comic about a man who wants to test his theory on good versus evil out and is written and drawn by Brian Bollard.  I have to give this book a five out of five stars. 

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Batman-Killing-Deluxe-Alan-Moore-ebook/dp/B009POHHRG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=32XBEFTV7QK81&keywords=the+killing+joke&qid=1550235850&s=gateway&sprefix=the+killing+joke%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-1

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

This book opens in 1997 with the tenents of the Richardson family the Warrens, Mia and Pearl, leaving at night and dropping off the key in the mailbox.  Then the next day the Richardson house is on fire and it was set by the youngest Richardson child, Izzy, leaving Lexie, Trip, Moody, and their parents, Elena, and Bill without a home.  But what else would you expect from Izzy?  She is always doing crazy things and seeming to let her mother down constantly and be a genuine screw up her entire life.  Her mother has her reasons for criticizing her and it comes from a place of love but Izzy doesn't know that or feel that.

Now, what led up to these events?  Mia is an artist whose medium is photography and she and Pearl travel constantly in search of artistic endeavors.  But this time Mia has promised Pearl that they will stay put and her sophomore daughter can finish high school in one place.  But what a place it is. Shaker Heights, Ohio is not reality.  It's its own world.  Where you have to be a certain kind of person to stay there.  Everything is planned in this suburb of Cleveland including what you can paint your house or where you can put your trash can or you'll be charged if your grass gets a certain length.

The big story in this novel is how a friend of Mia's Bebe Chow who had given up her child to the fire department during the winter because she was suffering from postpartum depression and had no money for food or diapers for her child and thought she was doing the best thing for her.  Well, a local family was given her daughter to adopt. Bebe who had lost her job gets another job and cleans herself up and goes to every fire department looking for her baby but has no luck.

Then Mia who has taken some work cleaning and making dinner at the Richardsons hears that the Richardson's friends are adopting a baby that was found at a fire station and Mia tells Bebe.  Bebe goes to the press and causes a huge commotion.  It will cause a split in the town as Bebe fights for her child back and Bill Richardson, a lawyer, represents the adopting family.

Elena who is close friends with the adopted mother and believes in following the rules to a tee cannot believe it when she finds that Mia is behind Bebe's claim.  So she becomes out to get Mia and begins to research her life as Elena is a journalist at a small local paper.  Pearl first makes friends with Moody a quiet young man who fits his name.  He is not popular like his older brother Trip or sister Lexie.  Thinking that he is not enough to dazzle Pearl he introduces her to his family at his house and that is the beginning of the end.  Moody is in love with Pearl who is attracted to Trip.  Lexie who is a bit shallow will find her own life turned upside down and needing Pearl's help.  Izzy falls in love with Mia as a mother figure and begins to work with her on photography projects.

This book is just plain amazing in its characterization.  The characters are so fully realized and realistic that you feel as though you know them.  The story is rich and compelling especially the way Pearl is seduced by the Richardsons.  In a way, she is an innocent no matter how much she has seen of America.  And why Izzy sets fire to the house is perfect.  This is one of those incredible and special books that don't come along very often.  I highly recommend reading it. I give it five out of five stars. 

Quotes

Being allowed to do something and knowing how to do it are not the same thing.

-Celeste Ng (Little Fires Everywhere p 63)

I do not get the obsession [over babies]. They eat. They sleep. They poop. They cry. I’d rather have a dog.

-Celeste Ng (Little Fires Everywhere p 122)

Parents learned to survive touching their children less and less…It was the way of things, Mia thought to herself, but how hard it was. The occasional embrace, a head leaned for just a moment on your shoulder, when what you wanted more than anything was to press them to you and hold them so tight you fused together and could never be taken apart.  It was like training yourself to live on the smell of an apple alone, when what you really wanted was to devour it, to sink your teeth into it and consume it, seeds, core, and all.

-Celeste Ng (Little Fires Everywhere p 248-9)

But the problem with rules, he reflected, was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time there were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure which side of the line you stood on.

-Celeste Ng (Little Fires Everywhere p 269)

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Little-Fires-Everywhere-Celeste-Ng-ebook/dp/B01N4VW75U/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1H4O08YT2AKNW&keywords=little+fires+everywhere+by+celeste+ng&qid=1550064604&s=gateway&sprefix=little+fires+%2Caps%2C179&sr=8-1