#54: Generation Debt

Generation Debt: Why Now Is A Terrible Time to Be Young 

by Anya Kamenetz

(New York: Riverhead Books/ Penguin, 2008)

Summary:
"In this thoroughly researched and rousing manifesto, Anya Kamenetz chronicles and questions the plight of the new 'youth class': 18 — to 29-year-olds who are drowning in debt and therefore seemingly unable to 'grow up.' Many older adults perceive today's youth as immature slackers, 'twixters,' or 'boomerang kids,' who simply cannot get their act together, but Kamenetz argues that this perception is a misinformed stereotype.

"Numerous economic factors have combined to create a perfect storm for the financial and personal lives of America's youth: a college degree is essential for employment yet financially crippling to many, government grants for education are at an all-time low, Social Security and Medicare are on their deathbeds, and our parents and grandparents are retiring earlier and living longer. How will we get ourselves out of this mess? By analyzing and explaining the causes of this phenomenon, Kamenetz demonstrates the urgent need for people to begin investing in our nation's youth. Generation Debt will get you thinking in new ways about American values — and America's future."

Table of Contents:

1. Why Generation Debt?
2. College on Credit
3. Low Wage Jobs
4. Temp Gigs ...
5. ... Without Benefits
6. Federal Rip-Offs: Deficits, Social Security, Medicare
7. Family Troubles: Love and Independence
8. Waking Up and Taking Charge

My Take:
As usual, I'm going to find a cop-out:  The Frugal Law Student's blog says it better than I can (especially as it's been about a month since I read it). In a nutshell, makes some interesting points but is a bit on the whiny side in places, especially when making a crisis out of problems faced chiefly by the privileged. (The whole book isn't like this, but it gets there in places and they're the ones where I found the whining particularly grating.)

#53: The Interruption of Everything

The Interruption of Everything, by Terry McMillan  

(New York: Viking, 2005)

 

Summary:

Since Terry McMillan’s breakout novel Waiting to Exhale surged onto the bestseller lists, critics and readers alike have been captivated by her irreverent, hilarious, pitch-perfect tales of women’s lives and contemporary issues. With The Interruption of Everything, her sixth novel, McMillan takes on the fault lines of midlife and family life, reminds us once again of the redeeming power of friendship, and turns her eye toward the dilemma of how a woman starts to put her own needs higher on the to-do list while not shortchanging everyone else.

"Marilyn Grimes, wife and mother of three, has made a career of deferring her dreams to build a suburban California home and lifestyle with her husband, Leon. She troubleshoots for her grown kids, cares for her live-in mother-in-law, Arthurine (and elderly poodle, Snuffy); keeps tabs on her girlfriends Paulette and Bunny and her own aging mother and foster sister—all the while holding down a part-time job. But at forty-four, Marilyn’s got too much on her plate and nothing to feed her passion. She feels like she’s about ready to jump. She’s just not sure where.

Highly entertaining, deeply human, a page-turner full of heart and soul, The Interruption of Everything is vintage Terry McMillan—and a triumphant testament to the fact that the detour is the path, and living life 'by the numbers' never quite adds up."

Opening Line:
"The only reason I'm sitting on a toilet seat in the handicapped stall of the ladies' room is because I'm hiding."

My Take:
One of my more expensive finds from the May booksale at the Boston Public Library (think I paid a dollar for it), and a highly entertaining read. Things do tend to wrap up a bit too neatly and quickly at the end, which is often a peeve of mine, but it wasn't necessarily a bad ending -- just one that might have benefited from a loose end or 2.

 

#52: When She Woke

When She Woke, by Hillary Jordan (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2011)

 

Summary:

"From the author whose international bestseller, Mudbound, so hauntingly re-created America’s past comes a stunning creation of America in the near future, where faith, love, and sexuality have fallen prey to politics.

"Hannah Payne’s life has been devoted to church and family, but after her arrest, she awakens to a nightmare: she is lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, and cameras are broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for home observing new Chromes — criminals whose skin color has been genetically altered to match the class of their crime — is a new and sinister form of entertainment. Hannah is a Red; her crime is murder. The victim, says the state of Texas, was her unborn child, and Hannah is determined to protect the identity of the father — a public figure with whom she’s shared a fierce and forbidden love.

"When She Woke is a stunning story about a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate an America of a not-too-distant future, where the line between church and state has been eradicated and convicted felons are released back into the population after being 'chromed.' In seeking a path to safety in an alien and hostile world, Hannah unknowingly embarks on a path of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she has held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes the personal."

Opening Lines: 
"When she woke, she was red. Not flushed, not sunburned, but the solid, declarative red of a stop sign."

My Take:
Spectacular, contemporary/ dystopian reimagining of The Scarlet Letter.

#51: Julia's Child

Julia's Child, by Sarah Pinneo (New York: Plume, 2012)

Summary:

"A delectable comedy for every woman who has ever wondered if buying that $6 box of organic crackers makes her a hero or a sucker.

 "Julia Bailey is a mompreneur with too many principles and too little time. Her fledgling company, Julia’s Child, makes organic toddler meals with names like Gentle Lentil and Give Peas a Chance. But before she realizes her dream of seeing them on the shelves of Whole Foods, she will have to make peace between her professional aspirations and her toughest food critics: the two little boys waiting at home. Is it possible to save the world while turning a profit?

Julia's Child is a warmhearted, laugh-out-loud story about motherhood’s choices: organic vs. local, paper vs. plastic, staying at home vs. risking it all."

Opening Line:

"Though I wasn't familiar with the neighborhood, St. Agatha's was easily found in the middle of a leafy Brooklyn street."

My Take:

Funny little book -- really does, as Publisher's Weekly put it, "[Skewer] the cult of the child with an insider’s eye." Unfortunately, as this was the third or fourth BookLite in a row I read a few weeks back, the moment has passed and it seems hardly worth it to go back and remember enough detail to illustrate what I liked about it. If the summary sounds like it might be funny, you might enjoy it.

#50: Home Front

Home Front, by Kristin Hannah (New York:  St. Martin's Press, 2012)

Summary:
"All marriages have a breaking point. All families have wounds. All wars have a cost…


"In her bestselling novels Kristin Hannah has plumbed the depths of friendship, the loyalty of sisters, and the secrets mothers keep. Now, in her most emotionally powerful story yet, she explores the intimate landscape of a troubled marriage -- with this provocative and timely portrait of a husband and wife, in love and at war.


"Like many couples, Michael and Jolene have to face the pressures of everyday life — children, careers, bills, chores — even as their twelve year marriage is falling apart. Then an unexpected deployment sends Jolene deep into harm’s way and leaves defense attorney Michael at home, unaccustomed to being a single parent to their two girls. As a mother, it agonizes Jolene to leave her family, but as a soldier she has always understood the true meaning of duty. In her letters home, she paints a rose-colored version of her life on the front lines, shielding her family from the truth. But war will change Jolene in ways that none of them could have foreseen. When tragedy strikes, Michael must face his darkest fear and fight a battle of his own -- for everything that matters to his family.


"At once a profoundly honest look at modern marriage and a dramatic exploration of the price of war on an ordinary American family, Home Front is a story of love, loss, heroism, honor and ultimately, hope."

Opening Line:
"On her forty-first birthday, as on every other day, Jolene Zarkades woke before the dawn."

My Take:
Chick lit that doesn't leave you feeling like you've overindulged in Haagen-Dasz when you're done. A good beach or airline read.  

#49: Lone Wolf

Lone Wolf, by Jodi Picoult (New York: Atria Books, 2012)

Summary:
"Edward Warren, 23, has been living in Thailand for five years, a prodigal son who left his family after an irreparable fight with his father, Luke. But he gets a frantic phone call: His dad lies comatose in a NH hospital, gravely injured in the same accident that has also injured his younger sister Cara.

"Cara, 17, still holds a grudge against her brother, since his departure led to her parents’ divorce. In the aftermath, she’s lived with her father – an animal conservationist who became famous after living with a wild wolf pack in the Canadian wild. It is impossible for her to reconcile the still, broken man in the hospital bed with her vibrant, dynamic father.

"With Luke’s chances for recovery dwindling, Cara wants to wait for a miracle. But Edward wants to terminate life support and donate his father’s organs. Is he motivated by altruism, or revenge? And to what lengths will his sister go to stop him from making an irrevocable decision?

"Lone Wolf looks at the intersection between medical science and moral choices. If we can keep people who have no hope for recovery alive artificially, should they also be allowed to die artificially? Does the potential to save someone else’s life with a donated organ balance the act of hastening another’s death? And finally, when a father’s life hangs in the balance, which sibling should get to decide his fate?"

Opening Line:
"In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have freed the tiger."

My Take:
Granted, that's a cool opening line -- but a review for this one is hardly worth my time or my reader's. (Dontcha like how I manage to be both self-deprecating and poke tongue-in-cheek fun at the apostrophe abuse that so grates on the nerves of the grammarians among us there?) It's a Jodi Picoult book, and you either like that sort of thing or you don't. I do now and again but don't expect the earth to move (unless the dizziness from the author's shifting-fonts-to-represent-different-characters technique counts).

#48: Another Piece of My Heart

Another Piece of My Heart, by Jane Green (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2012)

Summary:
"Andi has spent much of her adult life looking for the perfect man, and at thirty-seven, she's finally found him. Ethan--divorced with two daughters, Emily and Sophia--is a devoted father and even better husband. Always hoping one day she would be a mother, Andi embraces the girls like they were her own. But in Emily’s eyes, Andi is an obstacle to her father’s love, and Emily will do whatever it takes to break her down. When the dynamics between the two escalate, they threaten everything Andi believes about love, family, and motherhood—leaving both women standing at a crossroad in their lives…and in their hearts."

Opening Lines:
"The sheets are drenched. Again. Andi takes a long time to wake up, drifting in and out, aware she is hot, then freezing, then finally, when she moves into a state of consciousness, wet."


My Take:
Entertaining but forgettable fluff. (I think this and the next few were the result of a brain-dead phase I had, after a missed connection and a hellacious night in Newark stole half of a precious weekend home with my family.) Till I looked up the title online and read the jacket blurb (the book itself's been returned to the libe long ago) I'd forgotten exactly which one this was. The character's names and a vague memory of reading it in JFK and/or the Syracuse airport brought it back a little ways, but there's not much else I can say about it. The literary equivalent of a movie you won't bother going to see in the theater, but would watch at home some night when there's not much else on.