March 2019 books

Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood by Rose George
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I did not expect to like this book so much, but I ended up binge-reading it in that most inhospitable of environments: an AIRPLANE. I was travel-weary and vaguely travel-annoyed and physically uncomfortable and yet I could not put this book down. Bravo. Here's a sentence that really encapsulates what this book is like, and about:

"Educated girls are like yeast in the dough of sustainable, successful development (even dough kneaded by a menstruating woman)."

Informative, aware of social injustice and the importance of change, and not afraid to poke fun at itself! I am so here for this.

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Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison—Solitary Confinement, a Sham Trial, High-Stakes Diplomacy, and the Extraordinary Efforts It Took to Get Me Out by Jason Rezaian
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

(It hurts to give a memoir a bad review, and even more so a memoir of captivity. So let me preface this review by saying that I have nothing but respect for Rezaian and all he endured. I am sure it was even more difficult and complicated than he detailed in this book and anything negative I write here is directed toward the book and how he portrays himself and events in it, not him on a personal level or his lived experiences.)

I told Jeremy early on that this book was really good. Then today I told him I finished it and that I didn't like (almost hated) it. What changed? Well, it's simple: I got to know the author. You see, this memoir is one of those books where you find yourself not really wanting to spend time with the author's overt presence! But guess what, this author's overt presence is on every page because a) it's a memoir, of b) his time in prison. There is no escape to be had, and he is insufferable.

Let me be more specific: in this book he comes off as culturally insensitive at best/racist at worst. He is misogynistic. He is petty. He is mean. And he takes every opportunity to be sarcastic or to show contempt. You know it's getting bad when you start noticing these things and then say to yourself, "well, but he IS unjustly imprisoned in Iran" and then you reply to yourself "...but still."

So yes, but still. Here is an example of cultural insensitivity that made me gasp out loud:

"Due to a difference in the number of days between the Islamic lunar calendar and the accurate one that the rest of the world - the world that has long understood and accepted that the Earth revolves around the sun - uses..." My dude! I don't even know what to say to this!

Here are some examples of him never missing a chance to disparage a woman in the room:

[When he meets his wife and her friends/sisters] "It wasn't long before the door opened and a bunch of branded shopping bags entered the suite accompanied by three young Iranian women: two with fair complexions and lacking any kind of discernable energy, and one whose skin seemed to glow from being in the desert sun's rays." Why the mention of skin color here? Why complain about a woman's lack of pertness in his presence? Why the shopping bags?

[When he meets the prosecuting attorney] "[The other attorney] had been replaced by a young, wiry, and uppity mustached female in a black chador...She kept going, livid, squawking like some kind of rabid bird..." He has plenty of bad things to say about the male attorneys, too, but none of them are uppity and they never squawk. And the mustache...I just...why?? This woman - excuse me, FEMALE - is doing her lawyer stuff the best that she can and she's doing it in a CHADOR. Maybe she couldn't be bothered to wax her upper lip before showing up in court?!?

He makes fun of the way his Iranian guards speak and pronounce English. This hurt my heart. I have read books where such teasing is done in a funny, endearing way that adds color to the setting, but here, it's just mean.

These issues aside, there are hints here of a book I would have liked more. One of the things I like about captivity narratives is learning more about what happens when people have nowhere to go but inside their own minds. Terry Waite in Taken on Trust applied his hostage-mediation strategies to his own situation. The hostages in Guests of the Ayatollah read All Of The Books. Amanda Lindhout built her House in the Sky. There is very little of that here. Every once in a while there was a throwaway line about the pidgin language he cobbled together to communicate with his cellmates, or how he preferred certain kinds of books over others. I wanted to hear so much more about that! But there seemed to be no place in this book for introspection, structure, and noble striving; instead, there was just rage, pettiness, and contempt.

I think what Rezaian went through was horrible and I'm very glad he was released. And he doesn't owe me or anyone else the book we wish he had written. But I do wish I had read the Wikipedia article instead of this book.

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American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent by Tamer Elnoury
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A really valuable look into an undercover counter-terrorism investigation! I enjoyed reading about someone doing his extremely dangerous job, extremely well. And there is a lot to think about here re: regular old Islam vs. extremist Islam as experienced by the key players in the book. I did think the writing dragged on a bit but it was definitely worth reading.

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Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a lovely audiobook! I almost can't imagine reading this on paper without having all the songs played on harmonica/piano for me. I enjoyed all three of the main stories but I think Ivy's was my favorite.

At times the grownups come across as slightly one-dimensional in this book, and so things can get a little judge-y. But that's not necessarily a bad thing in a book meant for young readers - presenting things in black and white makes sense when you're eleven and you're reading about Nazis.

This book reminded me a lot of The Friendship Doll, by the way. Read that book if you liked this one!

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