New Year, New 30 Day Book Challenge, Day 16

Day 16: Favorite Female Character

Liz:

Hey look! I get to go first today! Gianna's love connection attempts to find me a soul mate will have to wait at least a paragraph or two. (I've convinced friends to play board games with me for the first time in six months and need to finish my half of the post before Gianna's ready.) 

Today's topic is our favorite female character, and this one's easy for me. I'm going to reveal here for the first time that Stieg Larsson modeled his protagonist from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo after me.  Naturally I love myself.  Shall we look at the evidence?

Liz....beth.

1. Lizbeth Salander. It even sounds like Elizabeth Sullivan.
2. Lizbeth has a twin sister named Camilla. I have a twin sister named Kathryn.
3. Lizbeth is brilliant.  I know, this one's obvious.
4. Lizbeth is socially awkward and tends to behave outside the bounds of social norms. I once gave a presentation to nuns in which I discussed Harry Hole.
5. We have rage issues.
6. We are both single. Daniel Craig may or may not have been our true love.
7. Lizbeth has a dragon tattoo. The dragon is my Chinese Zodiac sign.
8. Lizbeth's heritage is dark, the daughter of a Russian mobster and prostitute. I grew up in East Texas.
9. Gianna is in love with Lizbeth. Gianna is in love with me.

I feel such relief. The truth shall set you free and all that. Please don't send me fan letters, though. I want to maintain my privacy. 

Gianna:

I try not to read books with female protagonists, so this category will be tough.  Okay the first few that come to mind, and I know Liz is going to totally make fun of mine, but she only makes fun of me because she has a not so secret crush on me. Also, I have not seen Liz’s picks yet, but twenty bucks says she picks Mrs. Dalloway. [wow....how wrong was I?]

Okay, you are a punk if you don’t love every single female character in Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café. Ruth, Idgie, Evelyn, Mrs. Threadgoode, and of course ‘secrets in the sauce’ Sipsey.

I love Lillian from one of my favorite novels, Away by Amy Bloom. I think Lillian is the kind of woman (or man, really) that I aspire to. She’s smart and fearless. She escapes Russia after the murder of her entire family, including her daughter. While in New York she meets a woman who claims Lillian’s daughter is still alive in Russia. Lillian is able to “negotiate” transportation all the way to Alaska, but with no other option she must walk the rest of the way along the Telegraph Trail toward Siberia. 

The last two thoughts in my head about awesome ladies are; Jo, from  Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, and pretty much any woman that Margaret Atwood writes. If you have to ask why you’re in trouble.

Days of Love...and Lack Thereof, Day 13

Gianna:


Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg


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"Suck it Prop 8" - Ruth and Idgie

[True story: Gianna and I ate dinner together tonight since she was in Houston for some sales calls.  We ordered dessert to go.  When she dropped me off at my car, I realized that my slice of Italian cream cake was still in her car as she drove off.  That crazed person honking and flashing her brights on Bissonnet at 8:34 pm tonight?  That was a woman who loves her cream cheese frosting.  It's good cake.  Anyway, I am not going to comment on Gianna's entry for today.  You can ask her about it if you want.  In fact, I dare you to fill up our Facebook page with comments!]

Liz:

When I was in college I had to take four semesters of a foreign language.  I chose German because my high school friend Jon was learning German and I like 20th Century history.  It turned out that I really hated studying  the language...perhaps because my German I and German IV professor was Turkish (German was her second language, English her third) and every time she was tired or had a cold she'd slip into Turkish.  I never knew what the hell she was saying.  One semester we were given a passage from a story to translate to English.  I spent all weekend trying to make some sense out of the thing.  There was a guy and he was sitting at a door and he couldn't go through the door and what the hell?  Anyway, the next semester, for a world literature class, I read Kafka's The Trial. 

Kafka has a place among the greats of world literature, but this is the guy who also wrote about a man transforming into a roach.  Love story?  Not so much.  On the other hand, if you really want to confound your lover, give him/her The Trial (and if you secretly hate your lover, give a copy in German).  

30 More Days Book Challenge: Day 6

Day 6: Chick Lit

Gianna:

I guess in many ways the term "chick lit" has become a dirty word – or to many it simply means a novel that tilts more toward the romantic. To that I say…uh, well maybe. I don’t read a lot of what may be considered chick lit but I have read some. I read the first Sophie Kinsella novel, Confessions of a Shopaholic, and found it to be pretty funny. I also recently read a book called My Husband’s Sweethearts by Bridget Asher, which had a great twist to the average chick lit novel. A woman’s ex-husband who she thought was the love of her life (until she realized he was cheating on her) calls her to tell her he is dying and he wants to spend his last days with her. So she gets drunk and decides "Sure, I will help take care of him in his last days but so will all these women he cheated on me with." So she begins calling all of these women and says, “Hey, you were there for the good times, how about you show up for the bad?” Well, the women actually start showing up to help care for him.

But as a favorite chick lit book – and I am only choosing this book because I really don’t think men read either of these two books (but they could, I think)--I would have to say either The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank (this is an example of a book I picked up and bought because I loved the cover, by the way) or Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg. Melissa Bank is a very good writer; I have read this one and The Wonder Spot. She is incredibly funny and dead on with dialogue. As a side note, it took Banks over a decade to write her first book. She was hit by a car while riding her bicycle and suffered post concussion syndrome, which effected her short term memory and her vocabulary. Anyway, I really do love Girls’ Guide and would easily recommend it for anyone.

Now Fried Green Tomatoes on the other hand…..this might be more of a pure Southern novel than chick lit…but you know….there is some girl action in here and that is my kind of chick lit. This is Fannie Flagg’s best book, and while Mary Louise Parker may be slinging weed these days…I will never be able to re-read this book without picturing her as Ruth to Mary Stuart Masterson’s Idgie. Of course I can’t watch the movie without seeing Kathy Bates hobbling James Caan in Misery….okay it's getting off the rails a bit. But my point is the book is a classic. Would also recommend this on audio – if you are the sort.

Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing and Fried Green Tomatoes. Those are my picks.

Liz:

I hate the expression "chick lit" and generally am of the opinion that books are not written for poultry.  However, I will acknowledge that some women tend to like a certain type of book, and that type of book tends to have a pink cover.  Or soft focus.  I hate soft focus.  Those pink-covered books tend to be love stories and they tend to deal with women's issues and relationships.  By that criteria, I too have selected two titles. 

I've previously mentioned David Nicholls's novel One Day here, and more than a year after I read it I still feel strongly that it's a great read.  It's the story of Dex and Emma told over the course of 20 years, each chapter checking in on the pair on July 15th of that year.  The novel is funny, charming, and heartbreaking, and it's soon to be a major motion picture starring Anne Hathaway and the dreamy Jim Sturgess.  I've recommended this book to several friends and they still talk to me...occasionally, anyway.

Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close is a new release; it went on sale last week.  That's a plus--you haven't read it yet.  Also, Jennifer Close works at Politics & Prose in Washington, DC, and you should love your booksellers.  I was shocked by how much I loved this book.  These linked short stories totally nail the experiences of a group of women in their 20's as friends begin to wed.  There are the weddings, and the horrible showers, and the even worse bride's maids dresses, and the humorous hell of your friend's happiest day.  I have kept a running total of the amount of money I've spent on wedding showers, wedding gifts, destination weddings, wedding attire, etc, etc, etc, over the last ten years, and some day I'm going to collect some reciprocity.  I think I need a book nerd shower and all of my friends will buy me book stuff and make me cookies and I will NOT write thank you notes.  Anyway, Girls in White Dresses is great and you should pick up a copy soon.