Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook by Anthony Bourdain

From Goodreads:  "In the ten years since his classic Kitchen Confidential first alerted us to the idiosyncrasies and lurking perils of eating out, from Monday fish to the breadbasket conspiracy, much has changed for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business—and for Anthony Bourdain. Medium Raw explores these changes, moving back and forth from the author's bad old days to the present. Tracking his own strange and unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-traveling professional eater and drinker, and even to fatherhood, Bourdain takes no prisoners as he dissects what he's seen, pausing along the way for a series of confessions, rants, investigations, and interrogations of some of the most controversial figures in food."


I enjoyed Kitchen Confidential and Anthony Bourdain's very real and vivid anger.  I find that I respond to people who write angrily, as I'm sure most of us do.  My husband also enjoyed the book, as a huge fan of cooking and food.  So, when our son spilled a container of mustard all over this book at Barnes and Noble, it was clearly a sign from the book gods that we were intended to buy it.

Medium Raw is a collection of essays relating to his previous book, his current life, the enemies and friends he's made, how he's changed over the years, and some updated thoughts on food and the people who work with it.  Quite honestly, the best bits are his thoughts on food and the related industry.  The chapter labeled Lust made me want to eat morning, noon, and night.  A chapter regarding a man who worked fish prep for Eric Ripert's Le Bernardin is delightful for several reasons including Bourdain's own awe and respect for the man's skill.  Bourdain manages very effectively to get across his feelings and his opinions when his essays relate to food.  You can practically feel his weariness at the idea of tasting menus when you read the chapter on Per Se.

I was less impressed with his chapter on David Chang.  Unlike the essays in which he slams a person eloquently (Alice Waters and Alan Richman get their own special chapters) so that you understand the hate in his heart, his chapter about David Chang is almost loving, but I have no further understand of that love than David himself is a hater.  (Do haters like to stick together?)

Finally, his chapters on himself are more hit or miss.  Some do not speak to me at all because I have no experience being either an underpaid, overworked, coked out chef or a very rich, powerful, and influential writer.  Others, like his chapter on dancing with his two year old daughter, speak powerfully to me as it highlights the fact that having a child can change your whole life outlook.

I really can't recommend this book enough if you like books on food or the cooking industry.  Also, read this if you like anger.  I really do like anger when it is not directed at me.

Verdict: 9.  It made me think and I enjoyed it.  There are very few books that I could say more of.

Thoughts:  While some of the book is cohesive and attempts to segue from one chapter to another, it really is best to treat each individual chapter as its own essay and leave it at that.  Also, I love angry writing.  I just identify with it so well.

Comfort Reads: Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward

From Amazon's website:  "With the banishment of Evil from the realms, the final victory of Good is assured-unless a few stalwart antiheroes can save the world from a serious and potentially fatal imbalance. First novelist Forward explores the complications that arise from a surfeit of "goodness" in the world. The result is a skewed version of the epic fantasy that features an assassin, a thief, an evil sorceress, a dark knight, and an implacable druid as the villains-turned-heroes who must restore the delicate balance of opposing forces before their world disappears in a blinding flash of Goodness and Light. Fans of role-playing games will recognize many familiar conventions in this seriocomic fantasy adventure. A candidate for fantasy collections in large libraries."

Rather hilariously, I've already reviewed this book, and I hadn't realized it until I went to the Amazon page and saw my own review for it there!  I will paste my review in and add a few thoughts.

In a twist on the usual fantasy story, Forward's heroes are not classically good-hearted heroes, but instead villains. Including an assassin, an evil sorceress, a greedy thief, and a black knight, the main characters are likable and intriguing. They band together to save the world from destruction by the powers of good.

In the beginning, I found the characters one-dimensional. However, as the story quickly unfolded, I was fascinated to see that both character introspection and interaction developed their personalities to an amazing degree. After that, even minor, short-lived characters managed to grab my attention fully.

There are a number of sly digs at other fantasy works, which make Villains By Necessity an even funnier book if you're well-read in fantasy novels.

I wrote that review in 2000 when I apparently was unable to actually remember plot points or characters from the book.  Villains by Necessity does many things wrong.  I won't lie to you.  It's not extremely well written.  There are many plot holes if you think about it too long.  I think the author confuses the nature of good and evil with law and chaos (which is a no, no especially since the author is clearly a fan of early Dungeons and Dragons.)  However, it's still fun if you're well-read in fantasy. 

I can't really recommend that you buy it since it is rather expensive (having been out of print for ages), but if you know anyone who owns it, or if your library has it, try to read it if you like fantasy or Dungeons and Dragons.  It's take on concepts present in most fantasy novels is interesting and refreshing. 

I will admit that when I was younger, a particular favorite of mine included the skewering of Dragonlance that was more meaningful because I had just finished reading the original Dragonlance trilogy.  Nowadays, I enjoy Sam (the book's main character and an assassin) and relationships with the other villains around him much more.  The parody has become less enjoyable, but the things I considered boring at that time have become more.  Such is life. 

Resenting The Hero by Moira J. Moore

From the author's website:  "Dunleavy Mallorough has trained her entire life to be a Shield, and she approaches her role with discipline and a wry sense of humor she generally keeps to herself. Lord Shintaro Karish is handsome, charismatic, and the last Source Dunleavy wanted as a partner. The Pair is assigned to High Scape, a city so besieged by disasters that seven bonded Pairs are needed to combat it. But when an inexplicable force strikes down every other Source and Shield, Dunleavy and Shintaro much put aside their differences in order to defeat the unnatural and the unexpected."

Look at that stupid silly cover.  Look at that title.  I know what you're thinking, because I thought it too.  I'm sure that everyone who passes this novel in the bookstore thinks the same thing, if it's even on the shelves.  "That's a comedic fantasy."  Maybe you thought it was a childish Piers Anthony pun filled level of humor.  Maybe you thought it more mature and sophisticated humor like Pratchett or Christopher Moore.  I thought it looked incredibly silly myself and the copy on the back of the book didn't help matters.  I read the back several times at the store and passed it by each damned time.  Then, the bloggers started to chat about it and it seemed it wasn't a comedic fantasy at all and many of them seemed to either hate it or love it.

This novel is actually just plan old fantasy.  And how you like it might depend upon how much you like the main character of Lee and how well you're willing to forgive her foibles and prejudices.  As for me, I'm a forgiving sort when I like a main character, and I did.

When we're introduced to her, she's at the beginning of being forced into a permanent non-optional working relationship with a man whom has been the source of a lot of gossip, both positive and negative.  Lee is an introverted, quiet, reliable, and naive person.  She takes the gossip as gospel and it causes both her and Taro (a name I hated since I kept thinking of taro plants and now I will only be calling him Karish from here on in) a world of problems, further complicated by the fact that the two of them are both very good at their respective jobs.  Yes, there are times I wanted to force Lee to see Karish for what he was.  When she does make concessions and when she realizes that she is prejudiced, you can see her trying to force him into what she expects him to be, even though this is not to her advantage.

Humorously, the novel is really about the relationship (non-romantic) between these two people, but Karish spends a great deal of the novel out of commission, so it really comes down to Lee and her feelings about the relationship they have.  Yes, there is a mystery and there is a villain, but the important meat of the novel is how Karish and Lee get along. 

I felt the writing was a bit weak, in a tell don't show way, and I had given it a seven or eight in my head when I realized that I wasn't blogging about it or moving it off my GoodReads list because I kept enjoying picking it up to read a section from it again and I was enjoying it more than any of the other books that I was supposed to be reading.  That says a lot to me.  Mostly it says that I tried to buy the sequel at Barnes and Noble today and they didn't have it.  Hello, library.  Get me the next two, please!

Verdict:  9.  I've read many better written books, but ask many how many I've enjoyed as much?

Thoughts:  I'm still shocked at the horrifying covers they've given this series as well as the little press besides bloggers who are clearly (and deservedly) infatuated with it.

Lee and Taro books

1. Resenting the Hero
2. The Hero Strikes Back

Comfort Reads: Dramacon by Svetlana Chmakova

From the author's website:  "When Christie settles in the Artist Alley of her first ever anime convention, she only sees it as an opportunity to promote the comic she had started with her boyfriend. But conventions are never what you expect and soon the whirlwind of events sweeps Christie off her feet and changes her life. Who is the mysterious cosplayer that won't even take off his sunglasses indoors? What do you do when you fall in love with a guy who is going to be miles away from you in just a couple of days?"

Fun fact:  when you get to link to a manga artist's website, it usually is a graphic beauty as opposed to the eyesore many an author's page can be.   Today, while perusing my list of read books, I decided to put up another comfort read, but a vastly different one than last time.  Instead of a much older, almost classic novel of a young woman, I wanted to tell you all about another weakness I have -- a love of mangas about teens. 

When I first picked this up, I wasn't too hopeful. It was an OEL (Original English Language) manga, and I had been biased to the Japanese mangas prior to reading Dramacon. However, Johanna at Comics Worth Reading highly recommended it and I so rarely disagree with her when it comes to manga that it seemed silly to not try it.

It was the most perfect manga I had ever read.  I hadn't even conceived of a manga possibly being as good as Dramacon.  Prior to reading it, I had decided manga was good for light reading and somewhat silly romances, but, after reading, I knew manga could tell a hell of a story if it wanted to.

Christie's adventures at an anime convention are easy to relate to even if you've never been to a con before (I never have).  Her first meetings with Matt made my stomach flutter, as it was easy to see that she could easily fall in love with this guy she had just met.  Both Christie and Matt are simply so well-realized.  Their interactions feel real and their feelings come across as legitimate.  After all, isn't it silly to get super attached to a guy you've just met, when he lives across the country?

The other people that Christie meets and befriends also come across as real people, not simply characters fulfilling needed roles. Quite truthfully, this is even better done in the second and third volume, but even in the first volume, it's obvious that Chmakova can write a believable character and their personality in just a few short panels.

To top it all off, the art is pretty good for this series too.  All the characters were easily differentiated and the scenes easy to follow.  God knows it's hard to say that about a lot of comics!  If you've never read a manga, I heartily suggest starting with this one.  Just don't fall in love too hard.  You're not going to find many of this quality.

The Boys Next Door by Jennifer Echols

From the author's website:  "Lori lives for summertime at her family's lake house. She spends all season wakeboarding, swimming, and hanging with her friends--including the two hotties in the cabin next door. With the Vader brothers, Lori's always been one of the guys.

But while Lori and the "baby" brother, Adam, are inseparable friends, she can't deny a secret crush on Sean, the older Vader boy. This year Sean's been paying Lori a lot of attention, and not in a brotherly way.

But just as Lori decides to prove to Sean she's girlfriend material, she realizes that her role as girl friend to Adam may be even more important. And by trying so hard for the perfect summer romance, she could be going way overboard..."

I started this book highly suspicious of it. I've heard numerous wonderful praise for Echols and her writing, and the covers look nice enough at the book store, but most of the summaries of her books have made me snooze or say to myself, "boring". When I read what Wondrous Reads thought of The Boys Next Door, I was intrigued. Here was a concept that I could get behind. As I told my husband later, I'm always a huge fan of friends turned romantic interests in my fiction. (Almost as much as I love hateful enemies turned epic romantic lovers, in fact!)

However, with the book in hand, with its vaguely silly cartoonish cover, I was prepare to be underwhelmed. Well, you all know what is said about judging books by their covers. I started the book with disinterest, but only a few chapters later, I was more than into the story. In fact, I read the book twice in a row because I loved it so much. What did I love? Lori, Adam, McGillicuddy, and the relationships between this long time group of friends! Lori and Adam felt real. They had real flaws, but real passions. I hate reading a book and being told what the main character is passionate about or what their flaws are but then never seeing these flaws or passions put into action in the book. Here, you get the feel for the characters' adoration of wakeboarding, Adam's ADHD, the main romance, Lori's need for female friends.

Also, this romance is smoking. I mentally cheered whenever Adam and Lori hooked up, and whenever Lori thought about the brothers. I knew I was a goner when it ended and I was like, "But I want to know more!"

The only, only, only quibble I have with the whole book is how quickly it wrapped up at the end. I think I was so angry at certain characters that Lori's willingness to forgive drove me a little mad. Perhaps I just don't want characters I find understandable to be better than me, though. (I say with a smile!)


Verdict:  9.  I am so so happy that book bloggers love Jennifer Echols because now I know about her and I've read this book.

Thoughts: This book has a sequel! I've already ordered it from my library.