New Year, New 30 Day Book Challenge Day 2

Day 2: A Book That You've Read More Than Three Times

Gianna:

Just as luck would have it, there are exactly three books that I have read three times! Just looking at this short list, it's obvious I have a type, and I am an incredibly well-rounded person. 

The Holy Bible 

Lonesome Dove

Rubyfruit Jungle 

Now, just because I know so many of our readers have also read the Bible and Lonesome Dove (some in the same weekend if you're like me!), I will focus on the last book on my list, Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown. 

Gianna, Rita Mae
does not approve of
your theft.

No I didn't read this novel in a tough college level literature class as one may expect. I first read it in a dark corner of a library when I was in high school. I then went back and read it in the same library, in a different dark corner. I then stole it from that very same library so I could read it a third time. I then returned it to the library two days later so it would never be found on my person. 

Now, just because I can, I own a copy but have yet to read it a fourth time. Not as fun I guess.

[Correction: Gianna has not read Lonesome Dove, even though I've been bugging her about it FOR YEARS.  She has not read it three times.  She has not read it ONE time.  Nonetheless, she works for UT Press, which has published several books on Lonesome Dove.  She's a liar.]

[Correction: If Gianna has read the Bible, it's obvious that the holy book had only adverse influences in her life. I'm going out on a limb and saying that Gianna is a liar.  Isn't lying a sin?]

Liz:

I almost never reread now.  Rarely I will read a book a second time, such as when I was a member of a book group. So I'm going back to college for my pick, which is Sula by Toni Morrison.  I read it for a Women's Lit class, read it again for the comprehensive lit exam that English majors had to pass, and I read it for a book group after I graduated from school.  A few years ago, I listened to the audiobook of Sula because Toni Morrison reads it and hearing an author's work in her voice made it fresh once more.

Gianna the Liar will agree with me that Sula is a wonderful book about friendship, love, and anger.  It's a book of powerful women, damaged people trying to survive, quirky characters, and two incredible friends, Nel and Sula.

Days of Love...and Lack Thereof, Day 3

Gianna:

Rita Mae Brown

This one goes out to the ladies. More specifically to the ladies who love ladies. Even more specifically to the ladies who love ladies who love to read about ladies loving ladies. Actually... dudes may like this as well. 
Oh Rita Mae Rita Mae...how you saved my sixteen year old ass with this book. Rubyfruit Jungle was Rita Mae Brown's "It Gets Better" message to me. Molly Bolt is adopted by a poor southern couple who aren't so keen on their unapologetic, smart ass, athletic daughter who also beats up boys. In high school, Molly dated a hot cheerleader and then was thrown out of college for terrible morals (oh but man oh man what a way to get kicked out). Molly eventually  moves to New York and you know how it goes...it gets better. She dates many lovely ladies, pursues a film career and meets other 'mos along the way. Yeah, it go a lot better. Oh, and she never becomes a Yankees fan so this novel is safe to read.

Great gift for your obviously gay daughter. Just give in, Ellen is making everyone gay and there is nothing you can do about it. 

Liz:


One of my all-time favorite writers is Joyce Carol Oates, and one of my all-time favorite books from the prolific Ms. Oates is We Were the Mulvaneys.  Oates is known for exposing the American dream and its shortcomings, often violently.  She is a dark writer, but she also writes with great emotion.  Many of her books are contemporary masterpieces, most are also entertaining, and if there were any justice she'd win a Nobel Prize for her many contributions to the American literary canon. But let's talk about the Mulvaneys.

Joyce Carol Oates

We Were the Mulvaneys actually starts with the All-American family--loving parents and three kids living on a bucolic farm as the kids attend high school, the boys playing football or graduating as valedictorian, and the daughter, Marianne, becoming a popular cheerleader.  They are a family who love each other, would do anything for each other.  And then, on prom night, Marianne is assaulted.


The novel is narrated by the adult youngest child, Judd, as he tries to piece together how his loving family disintegrated into lonely, lost souls.  Marianne is sent away because her father can't overcome the horror of what happened to her.  She takes her beloved cat, her only companion from the life she used to live.  Throughout, she longs for the family she once knew even as she manages to find a sort of peace and resolution.  The farm is gone, the Mulvaneys scattered, but once, once they were a family.

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 18

Day 18: Book You're Most Embarrassed To Say You Like

Gianna:

I don't know that I am that embarrassed, but considering that I couldn't find the book on the author's website for a good bit I would say SHE IS.

....but Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle. What can I say? It's a lesbian right of passage and it's bad. It's bad. The main character "dates" a mother and daughter. It really makes you wonder about Rita Mae doesn't it? Oh and before you go judging me...there is more...I also read Sudden Death which is about...you got it, a closeted lesbian tennis star (which I believe was written around the time Ms. Brown was dating Martina Navratilova...yes she was once in the closet). So gossipy this blog, right?! Anyway, they are terrible and I may re-read them again.  [For the record, Rubyfruit Jungle was included on the reading list for the comprehensive literature test I had to pass in order to graduate with an English degree.  I never considered it embarrassing...but now I'm questioning whether my degree is embarrassing.]

Liz:

...I give up?  I scoured my library and either I don't embarrass easily or my books aren't embarrassing.  I don't read a lot of embarrassing = bad books, and usually I would agree that harshly reviewed books aren't any good.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've read some bad (embarrassing) books, but I didn't like them.  I guess we could approach this subject from the vantage of embarrassing = age inappropriate, in which case I choose Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd.  There's nothing wrong with this book; it's sweeping historical fiction spanning prehistory to contemporary times in England.  When I was in the sixth grade, my favorite teacher recognized how bored I was in the middle school library selections and loaned me some books.  I think she forgot that their were some sexy times (about six pages out of six hundred) in there.  My mother saw me reading this book, but she was never going to read it and I didn't worry about getting caught with a naughty book.  I didn't know about how the spines on mass markets crack at the places where they are opened the most, though.  In college my mother cleaned out my room to turn it into her sewing room and she found my never returned copy of Sarum...and the glorious scene of a large (wink) Flemish man visiting the town wench.  That was an awkward conversation.