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What I've been reading: Books No. 17-18
Jun. 15th, 2021 10:10 amBook No. 17 was "Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America" by John Waters. At age 66, filmmaker John Waters decides he is going to reprise the hitchhiking adventures of his youth by hitchhiking from his home in Baltimore to his apartment in San Francisco. Several friends and colleagues tell him he's nuts, but he does it anyway. The account of what really happened is preceded by two novellas. In the first novella, he imagines the best possible rides - kooky characters who are safe drivers and want to finance his next film for instance. In the second, he imagines how bad things could get, from terrible drivers to being caught in a vice squad raid at a rest area.
Finally, you get down to what happened in a series of real rides across America, which are neither as great as the greatest rides he'd imagined and nowhere near as bad as the bad rides he'd imagined. He learns that middle-aged heterosexual men can love and praise their wives, that many people in Middle America have no idea who he is and think he's a delusional bum, and most people are actually pretty nice.
Two things made this a 4-star read rather than a 5-star read. One was that I felt it dragged a bit in the middle, especially in the "Bad Ride" section, where you're just waiting for him to wrap it up and get to what really happened. The second is an icky bit of fatphobia on Waters' part in the last third of the book. Overall, though, this was a really entertaining read/listen. I loved that the audiobook was read by the author. Recommended to John Waters' fans, but do be aware that if he only recorded what really happened, the book would be one-third the length it turned out to be.
Book No. 18 was "Storm of Locusts" (The Sixth World #2) by Rebecca Roanhorse. In the second installment of this series by Rebecca Roanhorse, all Maggie Hoskie wants to do on her day off is relax, but her friend and sometimes colleague Hastiin calls upon her to go see about a bad guy called The White Locust. About the same time, Maggie finds out that both the young medicine man, Kai, and Caleb, son of the local saloonkeeper Grace, have gone missing. And the two incidents seem to be related. Maggie accepts custodianship of an orphan girl named Ben who has clan powers that make her an excellent tracker, and goes on an adventure with Ben and Caleb's older siblings, Rissa and Clive to rescue Kai and save the world from whatever dastardly plan the White Locust is cooking up.
I loved, loved, loved the first book in this series and though I had several other books lined up to read, moved the second in the series up because I really wanted to find out what was next for Maggie. I'm really excited to see what else Roanhorse has up her sleeve for Maggie in future installments. Highly recommended.
( The other books I've read so far this year: )
Finally, you get down to what happened in a series of real rides across America, which are neither as great as the greatest rides he'd imagined and nowhere near as bad as the bad rides he'd imagined. He learns that middle-aged heterosexual men can love and praise their wives, that many people in Middle America have no idea who he is and think he's a delusional bum, and most people are actually pretty nice.
Two things made this a 4-star read rather than a 5-star read. One was that I felt it dragged a bit in the middle, especially in the "Bad Ride" section, where you're just waiting for him to wrap it up and get to what really happened. The second is an icky bit of fatphobia on Waters' part in the last third of the book. Overall, though, this was a really entertaining read/listen. I loved that the audiobook was read by the author. Recommended to John Waters' fans, but do be aware that if he only recorded what really happened, the book would be one-third the length it turned out to be.
Book No. 18 was "Storm of Locusts" (The Sixth World #2) by Rebecca Roanhorse. In the second installment of this series by Rebecca Roanhorse, all Maggie Hoskie wants to do on her day off is relax, but her friend and sometimes colleague Hastiin calls upon her to go see about a bad guy called The White Locust. About the same time, Maggie finds out that both the young medicine man, Kai, and Caleb, son of the local saloonkeeper Grace, have gone missing. And the two incidents seem to be related. Maggie accepts custodianship of an orphan girl named Ben who has clan powers that make her an excellent tracker, and goes on an adventure with Ben and Caleb's older siblings, Rissa and Clive to rescue Kai and save the world from whatever dastardly plan the White Locust is cooking up.
I loved, loved, loved the first book in this series and though I had several other books lined up to read, moved the second in the series up because I really wanted to find out what was next for Maggie. I'm really excited to see what else Roanhorse has up her sleeve for Maggie in future installments. Highly recommended.
( The other books I've read so far this year: )
