So, Russell Brand’s third book is about the state of the world and what we can all do to change it. He does his usual comedy schtick but he also presents the views of public figures, past and present, who are advocating for change. I checked this book out from the library to listen to while I cleaned my apartment and but I found myself often just listening. There were many touching and poignant things in the novel. Brand gets personal and talks about painful breakups and relationships and his history of addiction. He gets global and he talks about alternative energy and failures in many governmental systems world wide. One of the things that he keeps coming back to is small groups of people coming together to take care of themselves and effect change.
To be quite honest, I was very touched by this book. I found that it stuck with me long after I had put it down.
When people have to take to the streets because they are being injured or killed by a police service that is not part of the community and not serving the community the system isn’t working. When congress can spend an entire session not passing bills, not appointing people to positions that need to be filled, not taking care of veterans, and not debating or discussing any issues that affect the lives of the people that they actually represent, the system isn’t working. When we expect students to get a college degree to get a good job but that college degree will set them back thousands and thousands of dollars into debt (and when that degree is no guarantee that a good job will ever be available), the system is broken. When apples are shipped to another continent to be processed and then shipped back to be sold (or fish are caught, frozen, shipped to another continent thawed, scaled and boned, refrozen and shipped back) the system isn’t working. Or, maybe it is working and it is just a stupid system.
I think we can all agree that at least some of those things sound crazy. I mean, at least the fish and the apple thing. I hope the other things as well.
So, the question is, if the system isn’t working, how do we as people, come together and fix the system or change the system or make the system work? The big question that we all have ask ourselves is what are the things that are important to us? How do we center those important things in our lives and in our policies? How do we create a government that is on the same page as we are?
Brand has some suggestions but three of the things that he keeps coming back to are meditation, people coming together to change something, and love.
These are things that have been on my mind recently. Meditation because I have become increasingly aware of how some sort of meditation practice could benefit me. People coming together because of all of the movements that are rolling and changing things (#blacklivesmatter, #sayhername, and #lovewins as possible examples). Love for a possibly bizarre reason. I have about one year left on my PhD and I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’m going to do next. All of that thinking about the future has really highlighted what is important to me and it turns out that what’s important to me is a need to be near people I love. One of the things I took from reading this book was that, yes, the world is in an awful state and it can be an awful place. But, it doesn’t have to be. We can work together to make it better. We can be there for each other, we can support each other and we don’t have to take any of this as, “that’s just the way the world works.” Naw. The world works the way we work and if we want to change something, we should.
This book was full of a lot of really quotable things that as a listener I kept coming back to like: “Sometimes you have to realize that the only power you have in a situation is the power to make it worse.” (Or, not.) I could not have heard this quote a better time. Sometimes, you just have to be reminded that your only options are to be a dick or to be a compassionate human being.
In a discussion of suffragette Emily Davison who worked the get women the vote in England, Brand pointed out that were former leaders of past revolutions to be magically transported in time to now that they might not be encouraging people to vote but rather to riot. It is important to remember that even leaders of peaceful movements did not countenance peace in all instances and that we need to be very careful not to take their life’s work out of context. (We especially need to be careful not to take their life’s work out of context in order to silence a vocal minority that is looking to be heard or that is looking for justice.)
But, the best part of this book for me was maybe how personal it was. Brand reminds you over and over again that you don’t need a perfect solution now, that you can start where you are, that you can do something small and that you, right now, are enough and that you do not need to change. You are okay. I was a little surprised at first by how affected I was to hear that. But, I think we get messages every day about how inadequate we are and we are so habituated to seeing and hearing them that we don’t even question them. Having a weirdo comedian who has had many hilarious (possibly unintentionally so) hairstyles remind me to begin where I am was oddly comforting. Knowing that this guy, who is probably a total dick, is trying his best for his community, was moving. Listening to Brand talk about his many fuck ups and shortcomings was oddly empowering.
Brand reminds us that, “This is your planet, you can change it if you want to. You can change it by doing loads of drug or having it off with loads of women or going on a murderous rampage with a licensed weapon. Doesn’t it make more sense though to change it by binding together with your fellow man and working to create a society that is fair and just? Of course it does!”
So, if you’re interested in hearing a comedian discuss the work of forward-thinking people and talk about revolution, meditation, and power structures, I highly recommend this book.
I checked the audio for this book out from the Buffalo and Erie County Public Libraries.
In another retelling of a fairy tale, Mechanica takes on Cinderella. Nicolette is forced to be a servant in her own home and is called Mechanica by her evil stepsisters. Nicolette is an inventor and thanks to her mother’s secret workroom, she starts to invent inventions that could one day buy her way out of her servitude. Along the way she meets the Prince and his best friend and they help her sell her wares. It’s a good idea for a novel. I like many changes from the story. Nicolette isn’t at home waiting for the Prince to come rescue her. She uses her own brain to create inventions that will help her win her freedom and there is a surprising twist at the end that has to do with her and the Prince. I won’t spoil it but it really took me by surprise. Either then that though, there isn’t really anything else to make this stand out. I kept waiting for the something more to happen. I like the message of the novel, though. That girls don’t need a boy to rescue her. They can do that themselves by using their own skills and smarts and that alone might be worth the read.
I’m going to be brief because I don’t want to be spoilery and also want to wait until Kate finishes it to talk in more detail. I will say it was a truly powerful novel. A dystopian novel set on the African continent. 
There are some authors that other authors just swoon over. Nova Ren Suma is one of them and I really don’t get it. Her prose is quite beautiful but I’ve always had a hard time getting into her books and they are not that memorable after I have read them. The only thing I remember about the other book I have read by her, Imaginary Girls was that it had a good ending and I think one of the girls died for the other. The common thread of these books is that her characters are shrouded in mystery. I’m not sure what I’m missing. It’s not that I don’t like her books but I don’t find them to be as wonderful as I they are supposed to be. Then again, reading is subjective. What someone likes someone else might not.
I have finished reading Reawakened but since it doesn’t come out until August I’m going to hold my review of it. So instead, I’m going to talk about Colleen Houck’s other series The Tiger’s Saga. The as-of-now four piece series follows Kelsey, your normal American teenage girl who travels to India to try to break a 300 year old Indian Curse. In the first book, Tiger’s Curse, Kelsey gets a summer job working for a circus, whose main attraction is a white tiger. She is immediately drawn to the tiger, not realizing that the Tiger is actually a 300+ year old Indian Prince named Ren. Ren was cursed by the evil Lokesh, who was trying to take over his kingdom and take the mysterious Amulet. He has been trapped inside a Tiger’s body ever since and is only himself for 24 minutes a day. Kelsey and Ren set out to solve the prophecy and break the curse under the watchful eye of the Goddess Durga to free Ren from his bondage. Of course it’s not that simple. Lokesh is still out there, searching for the amulet to gain the ultimate power. Ren’s brother, Kishan was also cursed, though he has been living as a tiger in the Indian jungle. And the tasks to breaking the curse are fraught with danger, magic and myths. They take them to places all around India and even Nepal and even mythical places like Shangri-La. With each successful completion of a task the brothers gain more time as themselves until they break the curse and no longer can become a tiger.
I fell in love with the series. It’s kind of a mix of Twilight and Indian Jones. I know an odd mix. It has the romance element but also the action and adventure element that keeps it exciting. Kelsey falls for Ren but is reluctant to express her feelings. Her parents died a couple of years ago and has since had trouble opening up to new people in fear that they will also leave her. Ren is an honest, sweet man who wants to do the right thing for his kingdom and others but after centuries as a tiger, you can’t blame him for fighting for what he wants. Their chemistry is apparent from almost their first meeting, which I’m counting as a Tiger. Complications of course happen when they meet Kishan. Ren and Kishan were not on the best of terms when they were cursed. There are obviously going to be some bad feelings when one brother tries to steal the other brother’s fiance. Even 300 years as tigers is not enough time to heal those wounds. Of course it doesn’t help that they both fall in love with Kelsey. It’s your classic love triangle. The good girl, who falls in love with the good brother and the bad brother. Their tiger’s fur even signifies who’s who. Ren is a white tiger and Ren is a black. As the series progresses, they become more than just good and bad. Kishan has lived in the jungle for all those years because he can’t face what he did. Houck makes a good case for why each brother would be a good match for Kelsey but there is never any doubt who she truly loves and will eventually end up with. As for the villian, Lokesh, he’s your typical bent on world domination villian and the lengths he will go to get what he wants are kinda frightening. Ren and Kishan have been supported by Mr. Kadam. His parents personal guard, who continued to live thanks to part of the Amulet he was given from the family and Nilima, Mr. Kadam several greats granddaughter. They provide a stability to the story. Nothing would get done without them.
I will say this for Nick Gautier. His life is never boring. He would tell you that is a bad thing but it’s way too entertaining. I don’t know even where to begin to talk about this book without spoiling the previous books so I’ll keep this short. I’ve already 
Ember is the kind of character that is likeably annoying. On the one hand she’s brave, loyal and fierce. Her wide-eyed curiosity is charming. On the other hand, she’s stubborn and doesn’t know how to listen to directions which usually leads to something bad happening. Whether it directly leads to it or is just enough to distract her friends that make them make stupid mistakes, It always leads to trouble. Despite her faults I’m still rooting for her. After the cut contains spoilers for Rogue and the first book Talon. So if you haven’t read Talon and planning on it, best not to read further.
