orange is the new black

May 18, 2021

Top Ten Tuesday: Book Titles That Are Complete Sentences

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week, we’re highlighting titles that are complete sentences. I’ve broken mine below into two sections…first up, books from my endless to-be-read pile, then books I’ve already read!

This Is How You Lose Her

What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?

The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty

Everything Is Illuminated

You Should Have Known

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Me Talk Pretty One Day

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Orange Is The New Black

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

April 5, 2018

Book 123: Orange Is The New Black

“It was a weird place, the all-female society with a handful of strange men, the military-style living, the predominant ‘ghetto’ vibe (both urban and rural) through a female lens, the mix of every age, from silly young girls to old grandmas, all thrown together with varying levels of tolerance. Crazy concentrations of people inspire crazy behavior.”

Dates read: February 2-6, 2017

Rating: 7/10

My mother is a pharmacist, but she was also a single parent to my sister and I. Most retail pharmacy jobs require nights and weekends, which were a no-go, so she worked for the State. Which meant working mostly in prisons and psychiatric facilities. Pharmacists have relatively little interaction with the prisoner population, but she still had interesting stories about what it was like to work on the inside. Now that I’m an adult, I can’t imagine how weird it must have been to go to jail every day, Monday through Friday, as her job.

But of course, there’s a world of difference between working at a prison and living inside of one. Piper Kerman’s memoir, Orange Is The New Black, chronicles the latter: just about a year of doing time at a minimum security women’s prison in New England. This book was the basis of the Netflix show of the same name, but it’s a very different piece of media. Like any memoir, it’s rooted in the author’s personal experience. So while many of the characters, and even some of the incidents, will be familiar to those who watch the show, the book is really all about Piper.

Which, for me at least, worked just fine. She doesn’t spend much time dwelling on her crime, but rather focuses her attention on what it actually means to be a prisoner. What comes through the most strongly is the dehumanization, going from being a person with autonomy to a number at the mercy of the system. There’s virtually no privacy, there are strip searches required for every visit with someone from the outside world, the smallest concessions are subject to the capricious whims of prison officials. While many of the women are due to be released relatively soon, there’s no meaningful rehabilitation or real preparation to be re-integrated into the outside world.

It really makes you think about what the point of prison actually is. Kerman’s case, in particular, was a crime that was nearly a decade behind her by the time she actually saw the inside of a cell. She had long since ceased to be a threat to society, so protecting the world from her by putting her away clearly wasn’t the point. The near-total neglect of actual education or career prep that might enable women to be able to quickly secure a job that might keep them out of the kinds of situations that landed them in prison in the first place shows that rehabilitation isn’t what’s going on. Our ever-growing prison population shows that deterrence isn’t working. So it’s just punitive then. And what point does that actually serve? Do most people feel like it’s a moral victory to imprison low-level drug offenders, with all the costs that it entails?

Kerman is a good writer, and is more sympathetic than her television portrayal would suggest. She accepts her guilt for her crime, and while she’s certainly surprised and upset that her brief stint with crime comes back to haunt her years later, once she’s gotten used to the idea, she’s mostly regretful about the impact it has on her family and loved ones. She takes the reader inside a world that most of us won’t ever experience, and renders it with empathy and humor. This is a solid read, and as long as you’re not expecting it to be just like the show, I’d definitely recommend it.

Tell me, blog friends…do you anyone that’s ever been incarcerated?

One year ago, I was reading: Moonglow

Two years ago, I was reading: Suspicious Minds

February 28, 2017

A Month In The Life: February 2017

First of all, I’d like to wish my mom a happy birthday today! Now that we’re one sixth of the way through 2017, it seems like time is moving both incredibly fast and incredibly slow. February is, of course, a short month, but it really flew by even more than usual, right? You might be wondering why you’re seeing this today instead of a Top Ten Tuesday. TTT is actually on hiatus for the next two weeks, which works out fine for me because I am busy busy busy. Let’s look at what’s happened in the last month, eh?

In Books…

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: Technically, I finished this the last day of January, after my monthly summary went live. But we’ll count it in with February. Anyways, this nonfiction book tells the story of American Indians in the West during the Manifest Destiny period. It’s a much different take on that period than we got in school, and relentlessly depressing as everyone knows the Indians are going to ultimately lose and get pushed back and back and back. But it’s an important and worthwhile read to get some perspective on history from the side of the conquered.
Marlena (ARC): This book has gotten a lot of buzz, but I found it to tread very similar ground as Emma Cline’s The Girls, and not as effectively. Julie Buntin’s language lacks the raw power of Cline’s, and even though her story is probably ultimately the stronger one, it suffers in comparison. Which was extra disappointing to me because I’ve got a soft spot for books set in Michigan, but this one just didn’t live up to the hype for me.
Orange Is The New Black: This memoir inspired the TV show, and it’s important to remember that they are very different works. The book is, like all memoirs, centered in one person’s experience, so although we see some familiar figures in the text, it’s all focused on Piper. I enjoyed it for what it was.
Flowertown: This is a mystery/thriller type about what becomes of a small Midwestern community after a disasterous chemical spill, and it’s better than what I would have expected from an Amazon imprint. Not amazing, but compelling.
Between The World And Me: Ta-Nehisi Coates is a writer who challenges me, and this book pushed me to think in ways outside of my usual lens on the world. This was a book club selection, and I was super bummed that professional obligations meant I couldn’t attend this month because I would have relished the opportunity to talk about this book’s searing language and powerful ideas in a group.
Zealot: Reza Aslan takes a look at who Jesus actually was, grounded in the reality of his time in history, and it’s fascinating to think about one of the most familiar figures in our culture from a more grounded perspective.
Nefertiti: This book tells the story of the legendary queen of Ancient Egypt from the perspective of her younger sister. Hearkens back to The Other Boleyn Girl in many ways, and never really takes off very effectively. I’ve got more Michelle Moran on my TBR, so I hope she’s grown a bit as a writer since this book.
The Bear and the Nightingale (ARC): This book, which mashes up a Cinderella story with Russian folklore, created a fantastic character in Vasya and was an engrossing read, delightful enough in many ways to cover up some plotting issues. It’s going to be a trilogy, apparently, which has me excited to read the follow-ups.

In Life…

The only real thing to report is that our legislative session has begun! In Nevada, they meet every other year for 120 days (including weekends), so it’s 4 very intense months of 10-12 hour days on a regular basis…not to mention a 40 minute commute each way, and even longer days on deadlines. It’s always interesting and I love my job but this is a hard grind. It’s even worse for the people from Las Vegas who have to be away from their family and friends…I can’t imagine how much tougher it would be to not be able to come home to my husband and dog every night!

One Thing…

My favorite musical artist, hands down, is Ryan Adams. I’ve seen him live four times and was really bummed that his touring schedule brings him to my general area (well, the Bay Area anyways, which is about a five hour drive) right before session ends: exactly when I won’t be able to go! But he released his latest album, Prisoner, this month, and I’m always happy to take the opportunity to plug Ryan in the hopes that other people might get the same enjoyment out of him that I do!

Gratuitous Pug Picture:

On the Blog

Join the Listt