Let's Bust a Recap : Hillbilly Elegy

All right, y'all, over here in the States it's what we call "Super Tuesday" and if you haven't cast your vote already, I hope you have plans to do so at some point today. I can't think of a better recap to post today than the memoir of one of the vice presidential candidates. I had no intentions of reading this book this year (or possibly ever, I got it for free out of a stack of books someone was getting rid of), but when Trump announced back in July that J.D. Vance would be his running mate, I remembered I already had this wildly popular memoir sitting on my shelf, figured now was as good a time as any to read it, and determined to pick it up before the election. 

And I did, back in September, but ugh. Where to start? I have a lot of thoughts about this, and they're not particularly positive. On the one hand, it was easy to read and you have to admire someone who claws his way out of poverty and makes something of himself, but on the other hand, the only reason he called this book "Hillbilly Elegy" is because "White Trash Elegy" doesn't have the same ring and probably wouldn't sell.

And that's not me being ugly. Vance says as much himself in the introduction to his book when he writes, "Americans call them hillbillies, rednecks, or white trash. I call them neighbors, friends, and family." Now, I won't get into the nitty-gritty of it with y'all, but down here in the South, "hillbilly", "redneck", and "white trash" have different connotations for most of us and I would hardly lump them all together as being the same class of people. But that's really neither here nor there. I would venture to say that his beloved Mamaw and Papaw, who he dedicates Hillbilly Elegy to, would roll in their graves if they knew he aired their private business all over the country (and world?) the way he did and even turned the circus into a huge movie.

Vance opens his introduction admitting that publishing a "memoir" at the ripe age of thirty-one is absurd and I agree with him there. He wrote this book before he even went into politics or had any children. He says himself that he hasn't done anything great or anything worth paying money to read about. 

And then he proceeds to write a whole book about how white trash his family is and how he got out of the cycle of poverty in the Rust Belt through the Marines, Ohio State University, and eventually Yale Law School. 

And I mean, good for him. Truly. If half of what he writes is true, then the fact that he worked his way up and out is commendable. 

But honestly, he's just not a likable guy and reading his memoir turned me from being indifferent about just another U.S. senator I didn't know much about, to rolling my eyes at another clichéd politician. Literally in 2016, his memoir dragged politicians and their ilk through the mud, and he outspokenly opposed a Trump presidency in the press. But just a few years later, he's running for the Senate, and now he's Trump's vice presidential running-mate? Can you say whiplash? 

And let me be clear: this post is not intended as some kind of smear campaign against Vance and an endorsement for Tim Walz. Kamala's running-mate is an even bigger joke than J.D. Vance. My point is: it's hard to be an American and not get cynical about our political landscape. While I'm thankful for the privilege to vote and having a say in the composition of my country's government, I can't say I'm particularly excited about anyone I'm voting for as I head to the polls today. It is what it is.

Hillbilly Elegy is *ahem* colorful, and an entertaining read, but I ultimately walked away from it scratching my head as to why Trump chose Vance to be his running-mate. Then again, I'm still out here astounded that I live in a world where Donald Trump was the president of the United States of America...and is running again. Politics, am I right?

I guess I'll wrap this up by reiterating my encouragement to get out and vote. Be informed. Read books. Keep your head down. Make good choices. And God help us all. 

Pumpkin Carving 2024

Happy Halloween! 

We're taking a break from book recaps today for our annual pumpkin carving post! This year's pumpkin carving was extra-fun and extra-chaotic because four of our favorite girls are staying with us for a couple weeks. They (and their parents) are in the middle of flipping a house—in another state!—to move in to and so we naturally demanded that they come stay with us while their parents are in the midst of closings and packing and moving and unpacking and all that goes along with it. The last time we got to carve pumpkins with these fabulous nieces of ours was back in 2020 so it was about time we did this again.

This year, we decided to throw paint into the mix and what we ended up with was one pumpkin just carved, no paint. Two pumpkins just painted, no carving. And three pumpkins carved and painted. It was a mess, but it was a fun mess and I hope these girlies always remember Halloween 2024 with Uncle Cody and Auntie Hannah. 

Uncle Cody came in clutch with a silly dad joke. We all had gotten busy taking the tops off our pumpkins and cleaning them out, with Uncle Cody on hand to assist, but his own pumpkin was nowhere in sight. The girls and I kept pestering him sweetly asking him when he was going to start his pumpkin and what he was going to do, but he said he was waiting for the inspiration to hit. When it finally did, he ended up painting his pumpkin and finishing before all of us. Typical. I decided to commemorate this special year by carving 2024 and four hearts to always remember carving pumpkins with our four sweethearts.

Our creative girls ended up with an upside down melty ice cream cone, Agnes and Lucy from the Despicable Me franchise, and Bluey. 

I absolutely adore how these silly, colorful pumpkins turned out, and I wouldn't trade one second of the mess or the chaos or the resulting cleanup and exhaustion. These pumpkins may end up on our Christmas card. The brainstorming and giggles and paint-covered hands (and faces!) are memories I'll treasure forever.

Have fun trick-or-treating tonight or just stuffing yourself with candy or whatever it is you do in your neck of the woods!

October 30,

Let's Bust a Recap : Dandelion Wine

Is Ray Bradbury my favorite author now? That is the question I found myself asking as Dandelion Wine immediately became one of my All-Time Favorite Books while reading it this summer. A few years ago, I read my first Bradbury—Something Wicked This Way Comes—and while I wouldn't necessarily say it's an All-Time Favorite Book, it did contain one of my All-Time Favorite Literary Scenes. When Dandelion Wine fell out of the TBR Jar right at the beginning of summer, I once again found myself immersed in the perfect book at the perfect time, and I savored Ray Bradbury's 1957 novel slowly over July and August. 

I say "novel" but Dandelion Wine could also be accurately described as a series of short stories loosely connected by their summer setting and the Spaulding family. The book centers around Douglas Spaulding, age 12, in the summer of 1928 in his small hometown of Green Town, Illinois, and his exploration of and attempt to capture his own coming of age in his journal with the help of his younger brother Tom. Just as Douglas' grandfather's homemade dandelion wine in the book serves as a metaphor for all the distilled joys of summer, so Dandelion Wine the novel itself is nostalgia distilled. I fell in love with it from the very first words, and sipped it slowly all summer long. When I finished reading it, I immediately ordered The Martian Chronicles.

I don't have much else to say. After reading Something Wicked This Way Comes and now Dandelion Wine, I feel confident in saying that Bradbury is a master of evoking a sense of place and memory in his writing, and he somehow manages to spill the human heart onto the page. Even though I've never been a twelve year old boy, or lived any summers before 1987, or seen a small Illinois town; Dandelion Wine somehow took me straight back to my own childhood summers, running wild over my small Central Florida town with my brothers and all my best friends, and living as hard as I could before school started again in the fall. Dandelion Wine should be read outside—preferably on a front porch—and stretched to last as long as possible, just like we wanted to stretch those childhood summers out forever. 

Despite Dandelion Wine winning a spot on my All-Time Favorites list, I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone. That often is the case with my favorite books. I feel more protective of them, and don't want someone who won't appreciate it reading it. So if you pick this one up, don't come to me to do anything other than praise its beauty because you will not find a willing audience in me. Dandelion Wine is a treasure. 

What are some of your All-Time Favorite Books?

Also, I just have to include this fun fact: our main character in Dandelion Wine was Ray Bradbury's childhood version of himself and he named him after himself and his father, "Douglas" being Bradbury's middle name, and "Spaulding" being his dad's middle name. Just another reason to love this little gem of a novel. 

Let's Bust a Recap : The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror

"Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is one of the most famous pieces of English literature, and is considered to be a defining book of the Gothic horror genre." So says wikipedia and so say I. I would even venture to say that Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson is one of the most well-known authors of all time. Even if you haven't personally read his work, you're likely to recognize titles like Treasure Island or Kidnapped and know what they're about. 

I had never actually read Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for myself, but was familiar with the plot given how famous it is, and when Cody suggested we read it together during the power outage caused by Hurricane Helene, I immediately agreed. 

The story is narrated by a character called Gabriel Utterson, a lawyer and upstanding citizen who is friends with the titular Dr Jekyll. He becomes concerned for his friend's welfare after drawing up Jekyll's will and worrying that he is being blackmailed by a shady character called Hyde whom Jekyll has named his sole beneficiary in the event of his death or disappearance. Jekyll refuses to talk about it, but when Hyde murders another of Utterson's clients, Utterson confronts Jekyll directly. Hyde then disappears for a while, but through a twisty series of events, we learn that Hyde is Jekyll's evil alter ego and that because Jekyll has indulged this evil version of himself for so long, that side of his personality is taking over Jekyll completely. 

It's a fascinating study on good versus evil and the depravity of man. Stevenson posits through the character of Dr Jekyll that every human being has a great capacity for evil that they can either struggle against daily or completely succumb to. An interesting point to note is that the Dr Jekyll side of the dual Jekyll/Hyde personality is not completely good but has to face the normal human struggle of overcoming sin in his life; whereas the opposing personality of Mr Hyde is completely wicked and enjoys his wickedness—there is nothing good about him. 

Because I knew the famous story so well before reading it, the big reveal wasn't as shocking as I imagine it was for its original 19th century audience. But I was utterly fascinated by the plot nonetheless. 

The next story in this small collection is "The Body Snatcher", a short story first published in 1884. The characters in this story were based on criminals employed by the surgeon Robert Knox around the time of the notorious Burke and Hare murders in the early 19th century. Basically, this surgeon was buying corpses from these murderers to dissect during his anatomy lectures. In Stevenson's fictionalized short story, we see this play out from the perspective of the students employed to collect the corpses and pay the suppliers of these bodies. When the main character Fettes recognizes one of the bodies and is convinced that the woman must have been murdered, his comrade Macfarlane talks him out of reporting it, then later uses this against Fettes when Macfarlane himself kills a man and then brings the body in to Fettes for dissection and payment.

"The Body Snatcher" is a case study of the human conscience as both men are overcome with the guilt of what they've done. I found both Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde and Body Snatcher stories all the more interesting knowing that Stevenson himself rebelled against formal religion and his parents' teaching and called himself an atheist for a time before ultimately coming back to some form of his faith later in his life. 

After "The Body Snatcher", Robert Louis Stevenson's short story "Olalla" first published in 1885 was included in this collection. "Olalla" is a Gothic romance. In it, an unnamed Scottish soldier is telling his story of taking up residence with a once-noble local Spanish family at his doctor's recommendation during his convalescence. Although he is offered a room under the stipulation that he remain a stranger to the family, he is heartily welcomed by the son and soon begins a casual friendliness with the mother as well. When he finally catches a glimpse of the daughter, he immediately falls madly in love with her and she with him. But after a terrifying scene in which the mother attacks the soldier, Olalla begs him to leave. 

"Olalla" has sometimes been interpreted as a vampire story, however Stevenson's narrator clearly regards the mother's actions as the basest of animal instincts and does not ascribe any supernatural reasons to her behavior. For pure entertainment value, I enjoyed "Olalla" the most in this collection because I knew nothing about it and had no idea what was going to happen.

Finally, an abridged version of Stevenson's 1888 essay "A Chapter on Dreams" was included at the end of this collection. This contains some of his musings on dreams and nightmares and how he often remembered his dreams and adapted them into his work. It makes sense that this was included since "Olalla" and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde were both based on dreams Stevenson had. It was interesting to read, but I wish they had just included the entire essay instead of an abridged version. 

All in all, a great little collection and much spookier, in my opinion, than The Haunting of Hill House. 

Have you read any of Robert Louis Stevenson's work? Am I the only one who thinks of The Pagemaster whenever Jekyll and Hyde crop up in pop culture references? 

Let's Bust a Recap : The Haunting of Hill House

This week's theme is *sPooKy sEasOn* and today we're talking about the definitive haunted house story. Shirley Jackson's 1959 Gothic horror classic The Haunting of Hill House is widely considered to be one of the best ghost stories ever written. Famous authors including Stephen King and Neil Gaiman have talked about how this book scared the pants off them and I'll be honest with you at the outset: I don't get it. At best, The Haunting of Hill House was mildly unsettling. 

But that's just one reader's opinion. 

Admittedly, I generally stay away from "horror" but I love a good Gothic classic, and for its place in that canon, I've had Shirley Jackson's famous haunted house story sitting on my shelf for a few years now. My husband expressed interest in reading it before watching the popular Netflix adaptation and so we eventually decided to read it aloud together. Maybe that took away from the creepiness of it? We still haven't watched the series which I understand is more inspired by the novel than an actual adaptation of the material. 

In The Haunting of Hill House, we're introduced to socially awkward Eleanor Vance who is on her way to Hill House to participate in a study being put on by one Dr. John Montague to investigate the claims of supernatural happenings at Hill House. The good doctor is hoping to find actual scientific evidence of the existence of the supernatural, and he has invited a list of people known to have had paranormal experiences to come and live with him there. Only Eleanor and one other young woman named Theodora have accepted this invitation, and they go to join Dr. Montague and the young heir to the estate, Luke Sanderson, to stay in Hill House for a few weeks. 

And weird stuff happens. But is it actually happening or is Eleanor imagining it? Or are the other inmates of the house tricking Eleanor? Maybe even drugging her? As Dr. Montague slowly unfolds to his guests the dark history of their abode, we the readers begin to wonder if Eleanor will meet a grisly fate similar to the predecessors of Hill House. And why won't the Dudleys—the husband and wife caretaker and housekeeper duo—stay anywhere near the house at night?

As Cody and I read through this short novel, it was interesting to speculate about what was going on in the spooky mansion. Many of the strange occurrences are described by Jackson only vaguely which I guess adds to the creep factor? My favorite part of the book was when Dr. Montague's ridiculous wife shows up with her companion, Arthur Parker, the headmaster of a boys' school, to take charge of the investigation and they basically do a bunch of séances to commune with the spirits at Hill House. They were a riot. I also enjoyed any time Mrs. Dudley graced the page. Unlike the sinister housekeeper Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca who sent shivers up and down my spine, I found Hill House's Mrs. Dudley and her insistent repetitions of her boundaries more comical than unnerving. 

All in all, it was fine. For me personally, the true value in The Haunting of Hill House lay in the many suppositions you could make about the vague happenings at Hill House. Conjecturing with Cody about the "reality" of what was happening to Eleanor or where we thought Jackson was going to take her novel was the best part of reading this book. Is it the greatest ghost story of all time? I can't say but I certainly didn't lose any sleep over it. 

What book scares the pants off you?

Let's Bust a Recap : The Secret Life of Bees

Next up in the I-Read-This-Book-Solely-to-Watch-the-Movie Tour is Sue Monk Kidd's 2001 debut novel The Secret Life of Bees. My sister Lyndsey read this several years ago and highly recommended it so when I happened upon it in a Little Free Library a couple years ago, I snagged it to add to my never-ending unread shelf. I didn't even realize that there was a wildly popular film adaptation until I happened upon it at one of my local Friends of the Library bookstores a couple months ago. I went ahead and snagged that too but didn't plan on getting to the book or the movie before the end of this year. 

But then my mom came over looking for a book to borrow for a trip. And I was all, "Oh hey, I just got the movie adaptation of The Secret Life of Bees, but I have to read the book first so you should read it and then I'll read it and then we'll watch the movie together." So that's exactly what we did. I even pulled my BFF Christina into the scheme and she read it and watched it with us too. 

First of all, my sister Lyndsey was right: The Secret Life of Bees is an excellent book. Set in South Carolina in 1964, we follow our fourteen year old protagonist Lily Owens on a journey to find her mother. Her entire young life has been shaped by her mother's devastating death when she was just four years old, and after the black woman who has raised her gets in trouble with the town's racist jackweeds when she tries to sign up to vote, Lily and Rosaleen find themselves on a pilgrimage to Tiburon, South Carolina where they end up at the Boatwright sisters' honey farm. 

I fell in love with Lily and Rosaleen. And I fell in love with August, June, and May Boatwright. I fell in love with the Daughters of Mary. And with Zach too. Sue Monk Kidd has a true gift. Her 1964 setting in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement perfectly informed the story she was telling without being heavy-handed. Lily's tender coming-of-age throughout the novel was superbly wrought as well. I felt for every single character fleshed out on the page, and I ached for the injustice of it all. Of motherlessness. Of ignorance. Of abandonment. Of rejection. The Secret Life of Bees is such a beautiful book.

And the 2008 film adaptation was equally beautiful. After we finished watching it, I announced that whoever was in charge of bringing The Secret Life of Bees to life on the screen should be in charge of every book-to-film adaptation for the rest of time. While I wouldn't say it was as well-cast as Far From the Madding Crowd (Queen Latifah is not how I pictured August, and Jennifer Hudson was too sweet to play Rosaleen, although Alicia Keys and Sophie Okonedo killed it as June and May) the screenplay was the créme de la créme of film adaptations and you could see the love that every single person involved—including the actors—had for the book. This was a low-budget movie and all the leads took significant pay cuts to be involved. 

Beautiful book, beautiful film. If ever you were going to read a book and follow it up by watching the movie, this is the combo to do it for. This would be especially great for a book club. I had interesting discussions with both my mom and Christina after finishing the book and then again after finishing the movie to compare and contrast. The Secret Life of Bees isn't all rainbows and butterflies; there is some very hard content including suicide, domestic abuse, and extremely ugly racism, but if you can stomach it, I'd highly recommend it. 

What's your favorite book/movie adaptation combo? As in, you loved the book and thought the adaptation did it justice?

Let's Bust a Recap : Far From the Madding Crowd

Halfway through October already? Say it ain't so. I can't believe we only have two and a half months left in 2024. It's high time we moved to a Tuesday/Thursday posting schedule because I am so behind on recaps. The chances of me ending this year caught up around here are slim to none, but we'll give it the old college try like always. This week, I want to talk about book to film adaptations because 2024 has unintentionally become my personal Read the Book Before I Watch the Movie Year, and you know what? I don't hate it and I also don't see this trend ending any time soon. I already have at least two books slated for next year that fall into this category and it's just fun. It envelops two of my favorite hobbies. If y'all think my home library is out of control, don't even get me started on our DVD collection. My siblings call me the family archivist because I like my physical media, okay? I won't apologize for it. 

But where were we? About to start a recap? Let's get back to that.

Today's subject is the 1874 Thomas Hardy classic Far From the Madding Crowd. And why do I have three copies pictured? Because I definitely suckered my sister-in-law into reading this with me and when she brought her copy home from the library, my mother totally stole it and joined in which resulted in me checking out another copy for Caroline to read. And in case you, like me, need to know every single detail about every single thing: my copy is the red one in the middle, my mom read the Macmillan Collector's edition on the top, and my sister read the shabby green copy on the bottom.

Far From the Madding Crowd is the third Thomas Hardy novel I've read. My first introduction to his work was back in 2017 when I read Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Which I loved. I followed that up by reading The Return of the Native in 2018. Which was a total slog. So I took a break from Hardy even though I had three more of his novels sitting on my shelf. But at the beginning of the summer, I picked up the 2015 film adaptation from my Friends of the Library for a measly fifty cents and immediately convinced my sister to buddy-read it with me so we could watch the movie together. And it fell somewhere in between. I definitely enjoyed it more than The Return of the Native but it can't touch Hardy's masterpiece, Tess of the D'Urbervilles. 

In Far From the Madding Crowd, we meet Bathsheba Everdeen who is a stone-cold fox. She ends up inheriting a large farm from her uncle and determines to become a successful, independent lady-farmer—obviously a rarity in 19th century rural England—but the crux of the plot centers around the three very different men who fall in love with her and attempt to woo her. Gabriel Oak, a hard on his luck shepherd who after a devastating reversal of fortune finds himself in Bathsheba's employ; William Boldwood, a prosperous, middle-aged farmer whose estate borders Bathsheba's; and Frank Troy, a dashing sergeant stationed in nearby Weatherbury. Will Bathsheba relinquish her cherished independence and get married? And if so, who wins her heart? You'll have to read it to find that out. Hardy fills out his novel with a host of colorful characters including all the salt-of-the-earth men who work Bathsheba's farm. These guys were my mom's favorite part of the book. They were hilarious and she was very disappointed that the malt house scene was not included in the film. 

And speaking of the film, we watched it this past weekend and we all agreed that it was very well done. I think it goes without saying that the book is always better, but you could tell that a lot of care was taken when adapting it for the screen, and the actors chosen acted the crap out of it. We were all on the edge of our seats the whole movie, including my mother-in-law who did not read the book. While it felt a little rushed and Carey Mulligan did not fit my mental picture of Bathsheba Everdeen, overall the movie was excellent. Mulligan, Schoenaerts, Sheen, and Sturridge did a phenomenal job of bringing the four principal characters to life. Even despite Mulligan not looking like the Bathsheba I pictured, the casting for this film was perfection.  

If you're only going to read one Thomas Hardy in your life, I'd direct you to Tess of the D'Urbervilles. But Far From the Madding Crowd was a good time and slightly lighter than the absolute tragedy that is Tess's life. If you like a good classic, I'd recommend it, and for a wonderful period piece, definitely check out the 2015 adaptation starring Carey Mulligan. 

Do you read the classics? Who's your favorite 19th century author?