Category Archives: Pop Culture Homework Assignment

Review: Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

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I am halfway through my Pop Culture Homework Assignment!

This book repeatedly punched me in the stomach.

Eleanor and Park meet when Eleanor gets on the bus for her first day at the new school.  Eleanor immediately gets on the wrong side of the cool kids on the bus by almost sitting in someone else’s spot.  Park growls at her to just sit down next to him.  Everything after that awkward and totally real meeting is beautiful and painful and awkward and wonderful.  Eleanor and Park are so fucking cute together I actually just swore at you in a review of a YA novel.  This was a beautiful, painful and real novel about teen romance. It was also a novel about negotiating identity (when you’re not really sure how to be what people think you are.  Are you that thing?  Are you not?  Does it matter?), being there for your loved ones, and dealing with crappy things in your life.
This book was great also great because of the main characters.  Eleanor is a chubby red head and Park is half Korean.  Others have talked about the need for diverse characters in teen novels and I think this is a good example.
Spoiler alert and trigger alert:  This book deals with domestic violence in a very honest and very real way.
More spoilers ahead.
Eleanor and Park’s relationship grows slowly over a few months.  At first, they are just sharing a seat on the bus.  Then, they are sharing comic books.  Then, they were sharing comic books and music.  (I’m actually making a mix tape inspired by the music mentioned in the book.)  It just snowballs from there.  Eleanor loves her time on the bus because she hates being at home with her Mother’s husband, who is an alcoholic and a wife beater.  The story builds until it becomes obvious that the creepiest of the awful things that have been happening to Eleanor aren’t being done by the awful girls in Eleanor’s gym class but are being done by Eleanor’s step dad.
I cried and cried and cried throughout this book.  The relationship between Eleanor and Park was wonderful.  Eleanor’s relationship with DeNice and Beebi was great.  Park’s parents were A+ and their attempts to interact with their son’s first real girlfriend were awkward and beautiful and also very real.  Sabrina, Eleanor’s mom, was heartbreaking.  (At one point she tells Eleanor she’s so lucky and good for staying away from boys and then implies that there are two types of women in the world:  women who are with a man and brave women who aren’t.  I think my heart is still breaking from that interaction between mother and daughter.)  Eleanor’s brothers and sisters were also heartbreaking.
God, this book.  It was so good.  It was so good, I’m still crying over it.

Review: Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

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I ripped through this novel like a knife through tissue paper. it was so good. Better than good. It was a delight.

The book takes in 1999 and early 2000.  Lincoln works for the newspaper in Omaha in the IT department. Most of what he does is monitor the webfence, a program designed to monitor internally for the inappropriate use of email. Everyone at the paper now has email and the higher ups are worried people will abuse it. Mostly what Lincoln does is he checks the folder, sends out warnings, and then does whatever he wants for the rest of his shift.
Beth is a reporter for the newspaper who inappropriately uses her email. Well, she uses it for personal messages and not just for business. Most of the time she emails her friend and coworker Jennifer.  Lincoln sees the messages but decides not to say anything. And, then he just keeps reading them and reading them.
When I figured out the premise of the book, that Lincoln basically falls in love with this woman by snooping on her emails I thought, “Oh. That is so gross.”  Because it is. But, everything we know about Beth we know from her emails that Lincoln reads. That is the only way she’s in the story. And, she’s easy to like. Beth is smart and she is funny and she really cares about her friend Jennifer. Thankfully, the creepiness of snooping through someone’s email is actually discussed in the book. There are moral compass characters (who play d&d!) There are comic relief characters (Justin, Lincoln’s friend, is fantastic. As is Lincoln’s mother. And, Lincoln’s lunch buddy Delores.).
SPOILERS AHEAD!
The subplots about Jennifer’s marriage and complex relationship with having children was wonderful and something that I would like to see more of in literature and media. The decision to have children is really huge and shouldn’t be taken lightly and so to have it discussed at all (and to have a woman’s doubts about having children discussed) was amazing.

And, the subplot about Beth’s partner Chris was infuriating. If someone is “just too much” for you. Break up with them.  Don’t try to make them feel bad about it. Ugh. What a jackass.

This book had everything and I’m so happy that it was part of my pop culture homework assignment!

I got to meet Rainbow Rowell 

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In a perfect set of coincidences, I am visiting my parents in Cedar Rapids, IA. Rainbow Rowell is speaking in Cedar Rapids, IA. Oh and the library’s ebook of Attachments became available. So, I read the first three chapters before heading out.  To start, I wasn’t sure if she would read or give a talk or answer questions.  Rowell did mostly questions and answers and she started by answering a question that she gets a lot: how did you become a novelist.

I knew immediately that I was going to like her because she had on a dress with trees on it (I found out at the signing it was from eShakti) and a large cat face necklace. Normally, I am loath to be the kind of person who judges people by what they’re wearing but plus-size women who have cultivated a sense of style (especially ones that are my age or older and remember a time when all plus-size clothing was hideous) are always cool even if I don’t like them.

Rainbow Rowell chatting with the room


So, Rowell started out by telling us about her life before her books were published as a journalist who for awhile had a gig covering Western Iowa for an Omaha paper. It was great to hear her tales of the hijinx that we get up to in the middle of the nation. (We had a Pork Queen who was a vegetarian.  If that’s not funny to you, you’re either not from here or you’re not from here and you guessed wrong as to what a Pork Queen is.)

Then she took questions from the audience. She gave advice to young authors. She talked about her favorite fandoms (Sherlock). She talked her X- men-Mary Sue-self-insert fan fic she wrote as a teen.  I laughed so much I was so excited to continue reading Attachments.

After Rowell’s talk she signed books. There was a long line and it was great that she signed so many books. I don’t usually fangirl (especially not over an author whose books I’ve not finished) but I stood in that really long line to tell her how much I enjoyed her talk, get my book signed and to get my picture taken.
Yup, I’m that kind of nerd.

Rainbow Rowell and Kate being a total Fangirl.

Pop Culture Homework Assignment for Beth

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Any basic analysis of this site will clue you into one fact: Beth reads (and reviews) way more than I do. For the past few years or so, she has been my go-to for book recommendations. First, because she has really good taste and knows how to sniff out hits (she recommended Hunger Games and Divergent to me before they were big. She also got me hooked on Bone Season and the Shades of London and countless other series that, ultimately, I’m thankful for even if I’m annoyed after I’ve finished a book and have to wait for the next one). And, second because she is honest and she will not sugar coat it that when a book doesn’t live up to expectations. I have read a lot of really fun books because of her suggestions so suggesting books to her is a real responsibility.

When we proposed this challenge, Beth and I asked each other about a number of different books and authors. I found out that Beth has never read one of my favorite travel memoirs, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. This led me to a theme for my books: travel.

Bookending the assignment are two travel memoirs that feature hiking. Since we don’t come from a hiking kind of family, these will both probably feel like a way weird choice for her. But, hiking is the backdrop to the story in these narratives. Beth will be starting with Wild by Cheryl Strayed and ending with A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. Both of these books I enjoyed immensely but I am interested in her opinions on them. The middle two books are both from different genres (and don’t involve hiking). I picked Wild because I think it is a beautiful narrative about family and personal growth. Book 2 is Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott (travel as a metaphor for spiritual growth!). I picked this because I thought this book was full of essays that were funny and touching. Book 3 is 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson, a fictional tale of a young adult doing some traveling to say goodbye to a loved one. So, travel, family. This book is funny and touching and full of adventure. A great summer read! Finally, A Walk in the Woods is a fun story about two middle aged dudes walking the Appalachian Trail. It is funny, it is touching, and it is informative.

So, the list is:

Book 1: Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Book 2:Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
Book 3: 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
Book 4: A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson.

There you go, Beth! I hope you love them as much I did! Or, not! Whatever! I can’t wait to hear what you think!

Pop Culture Homework Assignment for Kate

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So Kate,

I’ve thought long and hard about what your assignment was going to be.  At first I thought I would assign you a series that I’ve recommended to you.  I know over the years I have given you books that you haven’t read or finished but I’ve sort of lost track of what you have read and what you haven’t.  So then I thought maybe I would assign you to a new series I have read that you would like but I wanted to assign you a series that has been completed.  Which narrows things down quite a bit.  I’ve gone all over the pros and cons of each series and couldn’t come up with a clear favorite.  So, then I thought maybe I would assign you to finish a series that I know you haven’t finished like the Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare but I think it’s only the last book in both of those series left for you to read and that’s not enough for summer.  Plus, that might be kind of mean, since I know why you haven’t finished the Mortal Instruments and I respect your decision not to.  It wouldn’t be right for me to force you to do so that idea was brushed aside.  Then I got a brilliant idea, thanks to twitter.  Well, a tweet from Rainbow Rowell.  Now, I don’t actually remember what she actually said or what it was about but she is usually thoughtful and clever. It made me think, have you read any of her books? I didn’t think so and well that needs to be corrected.

So, Kate your Pop Culture Homework Assignment is to read all four of her books in order of them being published (if possible).  All of her books are standalone with the only thing common with all of them is the state of Nebraska.  What I like about them is that even though they are in the most romances, they never feature your classic beauties.  All her leads are curvy, tall, have big foreheads and such.  They are very much set in reality with characters who are dealing with the same issues as you and I that they seem so real and well, since most take place in the Nebraska there are a lot of Midwestern humor that only those of us who grew up here could really appreciate.  You’ll  start with Attachments and get to know Lincoln and Beth (what a lovely name!) then go on to Eleanor and Park and probably cry over both of them and then laugh and cry with Levi and Cath in Fangirl and then end your summer with Landline with Georgie and Neal.  I know you will love all of them and I can’t wait to read and hear all your observations.

There you go, get to work.

Pop Culture Homework Assignment

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Summer is upon us, Dearest Readers! Ah, summer, those halcyon days when school is out, the days are long, and you can read whatever you want all day long! Or, you could as a child but now you are adult and have them same constraints in the summer as you had in the winter. (Before someone points that I am, in fact, still in school let me preempt you stating that *because* school is out, this is prime data collection time for me, which means I have even more work to do now, all of it work I have to do someplace not where I live. Lucky me! (No, really, Lucky me!) Also, apologies about that crazy run-on sentence.)

But, we here at StackExLifeEx are planning a summer time reading challenge. We’re calling it the Pop Culture Homework Assignment. (Hat-tip to our friends, B and E, who have been giving each other pop culture homework assignments for years.) The assignments will be different for each of us: we will be assigning each other things outside of our comfort zones. We’ll post reading updates this summer and you’re more than welcome to join us. (Either by challenging yourself or by reading along with one of us.)

So, Dearest Readers, what makes you excited for summer? What summer reads do you have in your queue?