Girls Like Us

Reading The Rainbow: Book 10
Title: Girls Like Us
Author: Rachel Lloyd
Medium: Book

Girls Like Us is a poignant look into the commercial sexual exploitation of youth in the United States. It doesn’t come across as a “woe is me, look at how difficult my life is/was” instead it presents facts intermixed with personal stories of Rachel Lloyd and other young women (really girls) who have been commercially sexually exploited.

It’s a heartbreaking book when you realize how young most of the girls that Lloyd’s non-profit GEMS deals with, how so many fall into a life of prostitution and drugs simply because they are seeking something that everyone should have, love. One of the reason this book was so effective is that Lloyd herself was in the sex industry, working as an exotic dancer and later as a prostitute, it’s not written as a sterile, clinical work that distances itself from the subjects and the subject matter. Lloyd’s book is in your face, gritty and often ugly. It makes you want to cry, to hope and to do something all at the same time.

Overall Rating: 4/5

Then They Came For Me

Reading The Rainbow: Book 9
Title: Then They Came For Me
Author: Maziar Bahari
Medium: Audiobook

Readers, I’m a terrible blogger, I did not mean to abandon you for almost three months! A lot has been going on in my life. But rest assured, I’ve actually been reading quite a bit.

When Maziar Bahari left for Iran in 2009 to cover the elections he didn’t expect to be arrested, jailed, tortured and accused of being a spy for the CIA and Newsweek. Bahari was just an Iranian born journalist trying to cover what he felt would be an important time for his country.

Honestly, I read this book way back in February and hadn’t wanted to post about it because while I feel horrible for Mr. Bahari and what he went through, this book really just didn’t do it for me. I understand that in a stressful situation you’d think a lot about your pregnant wife and your future baby and if you’ll see them or not, but the book could have been a lot shorter if he hadn’t gone on about it so much.

It gets bonus points for having a lot of good Iranian history about the Ayatollah and Western influence.

Overall Rating: 3/5

When She Woke

Reading The Rainbow: Book 8
Title: When She Woke
Author: Hillary Jordan
Medium: Audiobook

When Hannah Payne wakes up she is a Red. For the crime of ending her pregnancy she is sentenced to be mono-chromed for sixteen years, a process that involves the injection of a virus that changes her skin color to a bright unmistakeable red. When She Woke is a beautiful mixture of Margaret Atwoods The Handmaid’s Tale, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter topped with just a hint of Orwell’s 1984. The story weaves back and forth between Hannah’s life before she is turned into a Red, and after, as she struggles to survive in the world.

When She Woke follows the same basic concept of The Scarlet Letter, replacing Hester Prynn with Hannah Payne. Hannah’s affair is also with her religious leader. However, Jordan crafts a novel that corrected all of the things I disliked about The Scarlet Letter while adding a modern dystopic twist.

First and foremost, perspective, one of my greatest pet peeves about The Scarlett Letter was that while it was about Hester Prynn, she actually says very little and it really follows the men around giving a male perspective about her life. By putting the words in Hannah’s mouth, Jordan creates a very different work, that I actually found more enjoyable in parts. I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending of the book, but I understand why Jordan took that route.

But I do have to give this book to one of my older sisters, who always had a soft spot for The Scarlet Letter

Overall Rating: 4/5

Speed Dating

Reading the Rainbow: Book 7
Title: Speed Dating
Author: Nancy Warren
Medium: e-Book

I was going to just skip over this one, why you ask, because it was just awful, but Nancy Warren does technically count under my criteria for Reading the Rainbow so not including this book would make me feel disingenuous.

Speed Dating is a NASCAR romance, which I didn’t actually have a problem reading even though I’m not a fan of romance novels or NASCAR. I wasn’t expecting anything high-brow from this book and yet it still somehow managed to fall short of my minuscule expectations.

Kendall Clarke is our heroine, she’s an award winning actuary and is engaged to Marvin, a co-worker, and who we learn in the first chapter has been cheating on her with some other co-worker and he’s managed to get flat barely a character, co-worker pregnant. So of course, he dumps poor Kendall actually using the words “delicate state”. Oh readers if that doesn’t make you want to throw up in your mouths then keep reading because it gets better.

Kendall manages to run into Dylan Hargreave, a fictional NASCAR driver, who manages to convince her to be his date to his ex-wife’s wedding. Actually, that’s an understatement, thinking that she’s an actress, he convinces her to pretend to be hopelessly in love with him. Of course his ex-wife is still in love with him, she basically says so right before she marries some other hapless chump, who actually loves Dylans’ ex-wife.

Have you recovered from gagging yet? I barely have but I must brave on. Kendall rejects her award because she feels like she failed at doing whatever her job was, really it was absolutely stupid and no one with any self-esteem would have done what she did, it’s just silly. She ends up following Dylan around on the NASCAR circuit and giving him kisses for good luck but they’re magic kisses and he starts winning races or something stupid.

This book was painful to read, I was at least hoping for really awkward NASCAR or any type of car references during the romantic scenes, but no.

Actually, there were no romantic scenes, Kendall and Dylan were about as romantic as two ducks watching paint dry. There weren’t any hilarious awkward references to clutches or pit stops or anything. Actually, if you’re looking for a romance novel with any type of physical intimacy mentioned then this isn’t the book for you because it has none.

Overall Rating: 1/5 WTF did I just read
Classification: Female Authors, Horrible books, Romance

First Love: A Gothic Tale

Reading The Rainbow: Book 6
Title: First Love: A Gothic Tale
Author: Joyce Carol Oates
Medium: Book

I didn’t mean to grab another Oates book so quickly after finishing Zombie, but First Love: A Gothic Tale I was able to procure for free and since I looked like a quick read I jumped right in. The story follows Josie, an eleven-year-old girl who, with her mother, have moved in with her Great Aunt and her cousin Jared.

Oates tries to draw this odd parallel between Josie and Jared and Eve and Satan, with Jared first appearing to her as a huge black snake. I decided to take that metaphor as an awakening for Josie, because otherwise, it’s just awkward.

Really, awkward is the best word to describe this book. It’s really what I’d consider to be Gothic or romantic but it was a really short read and I don’t really regret it. I’ve read “better” books about child sexual abuse but this one manages to portray a pretty disturbing relationship between Josie and her cousin Jared.

Overall Rating: 2/5

Pemba’s Song: A Ghost Story

Reading The Rainbow: Book 5
Title: Pemba’s Song: A Ghost Story
Author: Marilyn Nelson and Tonya Cherie Hegamin
Medium: Book

Pemba’s Song: A Ghost Story is the story of Pemba a young African American teenager who has recently moved with her mother from Brooklyn, New York to the small town of Colchester, Connecticut where her mother plans on teaching at the Colored School. While in the new house Pemba starts seeing glimpses of another girl looking at her in the mirror. This other girl is Phyllis, an eighteenth century slave who lived in the same house hundreds of years before. She’s trying to tell Pemba something, but Pemba might be too scared to find out.

This story really wasn’t scary, or tense, or even creepy. Granted it’s a young adult book, and it is well written but nothing about it caused me any real concern. Even the scenes where her head is pounding and she’s about to pass out were just there. Nothing heart pounding. Maybe it’s because I read this so close to reading something as creepy and tense as Joyce Carol Oates’ Zombie but the ghost part of this story just wasn’t doing it for me.

Overall rating: 2/5 – it was okay
Classification: African American Authors
Female Authors
Young Adult
Horror?

Flight

Reading The Rainbow: Book 4
Title: Flight
Author: Sherman Alexie
Medium: Audiobook

It was only a matter of time before I picked up another Sherman Alexie. Between last years and reading Reservation Blues for an English class in college I consider myself to be fond of Alexie’s work.

Flight follows fifteen-year-old Zits as he wakes up in yet another foster home. Zits is half-Native American Indian and half Irish and 100% miserable. His mother died when he was six of cancer and his father took off the day he was born. Zits, looking for acceptance teams up with Justice, a white troublemaker who he meets in jail.

Under Justice’s pressure, Zits takes two guns, one paintball and one real to rob a bank. Somehow Zits finds himself transported through space and time, again and again, learning the value of life and death. Zits finds himself in the bodies of several people, including an FBI Agent, a mute Native American boy during General Custer’s Last Stand, and a pilot who is cheating on his wife named Jimmy. All of these events change Zits and makes you hope that he gets a second chance.

Overall Rating: 3/5
Classifications: Native American
Young Adult