Ugh! What was her name?!

You know how that actress that plays Lindsay in Freaks and Geeks looks familiar? So you google, “who does linda cardellini look like.” The first hit? Ellen Page of Juno.  Bingo.

Published by First Second (thus meeting the challenge), Same Difference by Derek Kirk Kim takes us back to a time before iphones and instant gratification.

It’s the spring of 2000. Simon and Nancy are hanging out in Oakland, eating pho, and reminiscing about high school. Nancy reveals she’s been corresponding with a stranger named Ben who’s been sending obsessive love letters to the former occupant of her apartment. After receiving a more elaborate care package from Ben, Nancy convinces Simon they should go find this guy who happens to live in Simon’s home town. 

Simon’s reluctance proves prescient when he’s hailed as a long-lost buddy by former classmates who made fun of him in high school and runs into a girl who he treated badly. Despite these setbacks, they actually end up finding Ben. The consequences of coming clean to him, however, remain a little cloudy.

Although a few of the visual gags are a little over the top (i.e. “I felt like such a dick”), most of them cleverly reveal the self-absorption of our young adult selves.  References to Bill Nye, M.U.S.C.L.E , and Dead Poet’s Society evoke the early 90s. Simon also reveals what it was like to grow up in a Korean-American household: “What’re you talking about? Every Korean kid grows up eating raw ramen! It’s our Ritz!”

And in that time before iphones, Simon’s exuberance is palpable when he triumphantly remembers the name of the girl from Weird Science he was trying to think of 42 pages earlier.

Longstockings, Please

Picking a book for this week’s challenge of reading the first book in a new-to-you YA series was almost too easy. When it comes to YA literature, you can’t go wrong picking up something written by The Longstockings. Although they no longer maintain their blog, you can find references to them in the acknowledgment pages of each other’s books or interviews.

Jenny Han’s series The Summer I Turned Pretty begins (as all summer books worth their salt) with a family pulling up in front of a beach house. Belly and her brother have been spending summers with her mother’s best friend and her two sons for as long as she can remember.  However, this summer their relationship shifts as they begin looking to her as a peer rather than a little sister. As the teens relish their new independence, the moms take it easy, spending entire days indoors watching movies.  Distracted by a new boyfriend and an ongoing crush, Belly doesn’t realize until summer is almost over that not everything is as it seems.

Although the plot may seem predictable with its unrequited crushes and dying mothers, Han doesn’t dismiss the turmoil of teen emotions or neglect to portray the tensions of family dynamics. With flashbacks, she also gives the characters not only a shared history but depth as they mature. However, they all still have some growing up to do. As I’m sure we’ll see in the second book of the series. 

Study Break

While I’ve had a month off from writing this blog, I haven’t been slacking off on my reading. From microagressions and power to virtues and race, I’ve been trying to assimilate a variety of provocative thinkers and ideas. Having finally selected my ethics project topic and written three of the four papers I need to finish the quarter, I decided to pick up Sourdough by Robin Sloan for a tiny study break. 

There went my afternoon.

But at least I was able to check off the challenge for a one-sitting book.

When Lois Clary lands her dream job as a software engineer in San Francisco, she never expected to be so lonely or exhausted. A phone call to Clement Street Soup and Sourdough introduces her to two brothers who end up providing not just nightly nourishment, but a new vocation. When the brothers are deported, they leave Lois a magical sourdough starter. Soon her bread baking turns from hobby to venture. Her draining days in front of a screen are replaced by the sensory explosion of mornings spent baking at a new underground food market.  

Reading this book reminded me of the first bread book I bought in college. For a semester or so I actually did bake bread every week. However I was never so ambitious as to try a sourdough starter. Now that my kids are interested in baking maybe we can make that our summer project. After I finish all my assigned reading.