approval junkie

June 21, 2016

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Favorite 2016 Releases So Far This Year

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by The Broke and The Bookish! I’m actually barely squeaking this one out: I’ve only read about 15 books published in 2016 at all (I’m doing some backlog catching up!), so here are the best ten I’ve read, some of which I haven’t even gotten to publish my reviews for here yet!

The Serpent King: I loved this YA novel about a group of outcast teenage friends in the rural South and only wish I had been 16 when I read it for the first time because I would have loved it all the more.

Enchanted Islands: This piece of WWII-era historical fiction based on a real person is written beautifully and has the kind rich character development I can’t resist. Not your typical WWII by a long shot (it takes place in American and the Galapagos Islands, not Europe).

The Big Rewind: Fun, witty, engaging, light…I’ve recommended this as a beach read more than once and I stand by that: put it in your tote bag and bring it along to the water!

The Winged Histories: This loose sequel is slow to start and get yourself oriented in, but the writing is just heartbreakingly lovely and it is very worth it to stick with it even if you can’t get into it at first.

And After Many Days: I love books that work on multiple time tracks, and the way this novel parallels a family’s despair when a beloved son disappears with the lives of his parents and the choice they made during their younger years

Private Citizens: Millennials (especially those on the older edge, like me) are finally old enough to have biting satire written about us by one of our own. Thought-provoking and skewering at the same time.

Mr. Splitfoot: This wasn’t always the most even book to read, but it was haunting and as I thought it might, it’s stuck with me since I read it.

On The Edge of Gone: A teenage biracial autistic girl with a drug-addict mother and a transgender sister could seem like melodrama in the wrong hands. But in Corinne Duyvis’, Denise and her family are real and relatable. A fresh take on the “end of the world” drama.

Approval Junkie: With super well-known comedians, there’s such high expectations for these kinds of books of short essays to be just incredible from top to bottom. Faith Salie’s lower profile makes the genuine humor of hers a pleasant surprise

Thirst: Living out west, especially with the protracted drought we’ve seen lately, makes you wonder about a world without fresh water. The pacing is spotty, but the horror is real and visceral.

April 19, 2016

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books That Will Make You Laugh

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by The Broke and The Bookish! This week’s topic was a struggle for me, honestly. I’m not super into comedy-type books, so this was really hard for me to put together. But I got to ten!

Bossypants: Tina Fey is amazing. Weekend Update, Mean Girls, 30 Rock. She’s a total role model: super smart, successful, best friends with Amy Poehler, cute husband and adorable kids…it really doesn’t get more #goals than that. Reading her witty prose is about as close as I’m ever going to get to hanging out with her and having her tell me stories, so of course I love it.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?: Mindy Kaling feels like a Tina junior to me. She’s not my role model so much, she’s more the person I wish was my best friend because she’s so relatable and her humor feels so spot on with my life…she’s only about five years older than me, so her words resonate with me hard and are usually really applicable to my life. This is more wry chuckling than full-on cackle, but it’s wonderful and I really liked it.

My Horizontal Life: My dad actually used to watch Chelsea Lately, and when I was living with him after law school trying to get a job, we’d hang out and watch it together. Which might not have always been the best idea, Chelsea Handler gets pretty bawdy. She’s much more so in this, her first book, which I enjoyed enough to buy her second which promptly underwhelmed me. I haven’t tried another one of her books since, but if you’re into dirty humor, this is great.

Approval Junkie: Like I said in my review, it wasn’t a sidebuster, but that Bill O’Reilly chapter and when she talks about her feelings about her husband’s dog are both really funny.

My Booky Wook: As a Yank, I was mostly aware of Russell Brand for some MTV VMA hosting, which as I recall fell pretty flat, and of course, his marriage to Katy Perry. But before he came to our shores, he was quite a celebrity in his own right in the UK. His memoirs of his sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll lifestyle before he got clean made me chortle like a crazy person on the airplane when I read this.

Bridget Jones’ Diary: Moving out of the realm of “books written by comedians” and into the realm of “books that are just funny”. I found the sequel to be a little much and the third book so unpromising that I have no interest at all in reading it, but the O.G. Bridget Jones is a classic for a reason. Helen Fielding’s chronicle of Bridget’s quest to smoke less, lose weight, and find a man is filled with actual laughing out loud moments.

Angus, Thongs, And Full Frontal Snogging (series): I remember picking up the first one at a bookstore in a mall on vacation with my mom in California. I was 13 or 14, and Georgia Nicholson’s exploits made me cry I was laughing so hard. The whole series is a little hit or miss (with the usual decline in quality near the end that seems to happen in an extended series), but there are enough truly hysterical moments to keep on reading!

Lamb: Religion can be a sensitive subject, and if your Christian faith is very meaningful to you, this is probably not the right book. But if you’re comfortable laughing about the misadventures that Christopher Moore concocts for Jesus and Biff (the Lord’s childhood bestie), this is a delightful and irreverent treat!

Catherine, Called Birdy: This is an older book, and much more middle-grade focused, but that’s because I first read it in middle school. It’s held a special place in my heart ever since. Catherine is clever, witty, and determined to make sure that her parents plans to marry her off to one of her disgusting prospective suitors don’t come to fruition. There’s some heart along with the humor, but it’s mostly humor and it’s really funny.

Hyperbole And A Half: If you’ve never visited Allie Brosh’s website, you need to stop now and go there immediately. After you’re done making sure you didn’t pee a little because you’re laughing so hard, you should think about buying her book. It’s mostly repeats of what’s online, but it’s somehow even better to hold it in your hands while you’re shaking with laughter.

March 24, 2016

Book 17: Approval Junkie

“I was weirdly comforted by the fact that my new husband chalked up most of my distasteful behavior to my being possessed by the devil himself. It was as if he saw the best in me, and my best self was haplessly caught in an evil stranglehold that made me do things like show up sullen to the party his network threw to celebrate his show that I wasn’t on, as aggressively passive-aggressive as I could appear.”

Dates read: January 11-14, 2016

Rating: 6/10

I want people to like me. My friends (obviously), people at work, the people reading this. I’m pretty sure I should be embarrassed by how much it matters to me what people think, but it does matter all the same. The older I get, the more I’m okay with the idea that since some people aren’t really my cup of tea, it’s fair that I’m not everyone’s cup of tea either. But that means that I’m okay with about 2% of people not liking me, maybe 3% as a worst-case scenario. Everyone else, I’m going to go ahead and need your approval.

Which is why I was intrigued enough by the title of this book to put it on my to-read list, even though comedian essay/memoir isn’t the end of the reading pool I do more than lightly dip my toes in very often. Faith Salie’s Approval Junkie chronicles her lifelong pursuit of other people’s regard, from her childhood acting career, to her determination to win her high school’s Miss Aphrodite crown, to trying to build a career as an actress in Hollywood, her relationship with her first husband, her divorce, remarriage, and eventual family life with children. Her writing voice is strong, sure, and entertaining, and she doesn’t just go for funny (although when she does, her chapter about trying to win over Bill O’Reilly is a highlight). She also hits pathos, describing her difficulties dealing with the death of her mother when she was 26 and her struggle to conceive a child; as well as life advice, in her chapter about how to conduct an interview/genuinely listen to other people.

At the end of the day, I remembered why I don’t usually read these kind of books unless they’re by people I already love, like Mindy Kaling and Tina Fey. Even with their books, I find myself smirking wryly rather than actually laughing out loud. It’s really hard to be laugh out loud funny in print…the only comedy book I can actually remember triggering more than the occasional light chuckle was My Horizontal Life. I’m not super into Chelsea Handler, but that book was hysterical. Salie’s book is pretty decent, but not up to the Kaling/Fey level. On the whole it’s more funny than not, and it’s entertaining if not particularly memorable. I’d recommend this for a slightly older crowd…a lot of its humor deals with divorce, fertility treatments, and childrearing. While it can certainly be appreciated by people who haven’t had those experiences (like me), I feel like it would be most enjoyable for people who can relate better.

Tell me, blog friends…have there been any books by comedians that have actually made you laugh out loud?

**I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review**

Note: Review cross-posted at Cannonball Read

On the Blog

Join the Listt