Stitch Fix Customer Service

I am sad to report that the jeans that looked so great from my last Stitch Fix didn't work out. I wore them around the house for a couple of hours the Sunday after I got them and by the end of that time they had gotten all stretched out and were sagging in the crotch and rubbing against my inner thigh in a most unpleasant way. I agonized about it for a while and tried to search online for other people's experiences. It didn't seem like anyone had ever tried to send anything back after they already sent back the other items - Stitch Fix didn't even address this possibility in their FAQ's. I reached out to Katie, but she had also never had that experience. She suggested I email customer service directly and just ask them, which was next on my list of ideas anyway. I had already received an email from customer service because I had rated my last Fix as "unsatisfying." It was nice of them to reach out, but at first blush, I also found that email "unsatisfying," as it was clearly generic and told me to do things I already had done, namely writing the stylist a note to let her know if there are any trends, styles, or items I was coveting. I pointed this out in the first part of my reply, saying "Thanks for the follow-up. I was very happy with my first Fix, even though only two items ended up being keepers. I was disappointed that the second Fix wasn't as successful, but please know that I am not angry about this. I get that this is a process and these things happen. I will try to be more specific (although I think I was pretty specific last time and both my style profile and pinterest page pretty clearly reflect my style interests)."

Maybe not the most well written of paragraphs, but it got the point across and when Erin, one of the customer service reps, replied, she noted "I see that you've been leaving great feedback on the items you are receiving and that is the best way to help you stylist improve on her selections so that we can send you pieces you love! If you have any additional feedback or suggestions for your stylist, feel free to let me know and I would be happy to help build your style profile." I appreciated that she took the time to check and offered to provide additional help. She then went on to offer to send the jeans in a smaller size or I could return them for a full refund. Since the jeans were just hovering on the edge of what I consider "too short" (I'm weird like that and I think we've already covered this), I decided a smaller size wouldn't work and I opted for the refund. Erin immediately sent me a return label to print out so all I had to do was buy a padded enveloped at the UPS store and we were good to go. Now, I don't know if "full refund" includes the $20 styling fee, but I'm okay with it either way. The process was easy; the rep was responsive; and I am walking away satisfied and still looking forward to September's Fix. In my note to the stylist, I will make sure to emphasize patterns, request no more blue denim (if they want to send another color, that's fine) and perhaps some transitional items, and include the direct link to the Cosima wore it page. I can't remember if I've linked to it before, but just in case, here it is.

Stitch Fix #2 - Sophomore Slump

I haven't posted in quite a while...not because I haven't wanted to, but because life has just been too busy around here with summer winding done and back to school looming ahead. Can I just say how utterly wrong the school calendar is out here in the heartland? The first day of school should be the Wednesday after Labor Day, no ifs, ands, or buts. August is too hot to go back and June is too soon to be out. The pools haven't warmed up yet and it's all just wrong. But unfortunately, I am not in charge. So next week it is. Sigh. However, I am taking the time to post because Stitch Fix, everybody!

If you are not familiar with Stitch Fix, here’s the deal: Stitch Fix is an online personal styling service. You can subscribe for regular Fixes or just schedule them as you like. You fill out an extensive online profile of your tastes, sizes, and budget preferences and for a $20 fee, one of their stylist puts together a box of 5 clothing and accessory items to ship right to your door! You have 3 days to try things on, solicit opinions, balance your budget, whatever — you send back anything that doesn’t work for you in a prepaid envelope, and keep whatever you love! Your $20 styling fee is applied to anything you decide to keep, and if you buy the whole box of items you get 25% off the entire box! Prices vary but they say the average cost per item is $55 – 65. If you haven’t ever tried it and are interested, please consider using my referral link. If you use my link to schedule a Fix, I get a $25 credit towards my next purchase! (Note that I do not receive any compensation for reviewing this service; I just enjoy doing it).

Last month was so fun even though I didn't keep everything that I was really psyched for the next one. The shipping notification came while we were on vacation in the Smoky Mountains and I of course peeked ahead and looked up pictures of what I was getting, all on my phone with very spotty coverage. At first blush, I was quite disappointed in what was coming my way, but resolved to keep an open mind since you never really know until you see the clothes on you. Plus there is no guarantee that what images you happen to find on Google are, in fact, the articles of clothing you are about to receive. That said....

First up, the Elisha Zipper Accent Structured Satchel in...let's just call this color tangerine. And let's just say I don't like it for me. Katie has the exact same bag in a lovely shade of teal and I think it's adorable, but both colors are definitely spring colors and therefore not very useful as a brand new item in August (and please know, I am pretty much an idiot when it comes to shoes and handbags so I don't actually care about this stuff, but I also know I am not drawn to these colors as the weather cools down). Plus, this bag is huge and not designed as a crossbody. I am all about the crossbody bag, which does not mean a very structured bag with an optional strap to put across your body. That just looks weird. My daughter looked at it and just shook her head. Verdict: returned.

One of the (many) weird things about this Fix is that it's a different stylist than last time. Katie assured me that this happens and I'm okay with it, but this stylist didn't appear to have looked at any of the Pinterest stuff or even read the feedback I gave on my last Fix. Well, she read one part where I asked for some tops to match the fantastic maxi skirt and she claimed that both tops matched it. Let's examine this claim, shall we?

This is the LaRoux Dolman Knit Top in peach. I guess you could make an argument that the color matches the skirt - in the picture it appears to, but in person, no. Plus it's way too big to pair with a maxi skirt. The cut does nothing for me either way (as you will see when it's paired with the jeans) - too boxy and the line up the middle of the shirt pulls in a strange way. The color is also very blah. As Katie said, it's basically the same color as my skin and there's just something disturbing about that! And from the back, it looks like pajamas. Verdict: returned.

Here is the shirt again, but this time with the Maribel Straight Leg Jean...well, hello, jeans!

They are stretchy, well fitted, and a definite keeper. Katie, my daughter, and the husband are all in agreement. Katie's exact comment was: They look "ditch-an-older-pair" level amazing. So there's a bright spot! Verdict: kept!

Then the Henri Surplice Ruche Sides Knit Top happened. I was intrigued by this one when I peeked beforehand, but the actual experience of it was pretty awful. It hits me in all the wrong places in the front - I look very wide in the hips and stomach here and very small in the bust...I prefer shirts that have the opposite effect! The shoulders have all kinds of weirdness going on - zoom in on the picture to see - I have really wide shoulders and it takes a lot to make them look too thin, but this shirt did it. Plus the color is awful. Gray is a tough one for me - it has to have a lot of blue in it to work, I think - whatever it is, this shirt didn't have it.

Which is frankly too bad because the back is pretty great. Sigh... But let's bear in mind that the stylist said it would pair with that maxi skirt. I didn't even try because the colors aren't close and the fits would have given me nightmares. Verdict: returned.

Anyway, last but not least we have the Harper Bootcut Pant, shown with the same shirt because why not? These pants aren't terrible. The problem here is that she seems to have mistaken me for someone who works outside the home. If I worked in an office, these would be close to a winner, but I don't. And I already have several pairs of black pants in my closet that I never, ever wear. So I certainly don't need one more. Plus there is the issue of the actual fit of these pants. They are very comfy, but a little big, especially in the waist, as you can see from the last picture. Verdict: returned.

So there it is. Only one out of five, which is too bad. I'll admit, I was more disappointed at first than the situation merited. As Katie and I messaged back and forth about this, she said she had the same experience when she first started, feeling "WHY DON'T YOU GET ME I WANT YOU TO SO MUCH" which is it exactly. There is something almost weirdly parental about this service, where I have someone to understand and pay attention to what I need and take care of it so I don't have to. Because being an adult sucks. So when they don't get it, it's pretty easy to get all those childhood needs triggered in the strangest way. But recognizing it as such helped me move past that pretty quickly. Because I am an adult and can take care of myself and this person doesn't know me at all (although I will point out again the stuff on the Pinterest board....if it's all Cosima from Orphan Black, I really don't need black office pants!). And as an adult, I can give feedback and be understanding of the process to make it more a conversation rather than the demands of a petulant child. As I said to Katie, it puts a whole new spin on the term "retail therapy"!

An American Childhood

Like most people, I suspect, I have a very love/hate relationship with Facebook. Right now, as we are in the midst of a presidential election cycle, it is very, VERY easy to hate FB. I weary of the utter nonsense and the hateful, lying memes that people share without a second thought. I have no problem with your opinion differing than mine (even though I'm right, of course) - what I do have a problem with is you posting things that are simply not true (and this also goes for people who DO agree with my opinion!). It's not hard to fact check things, although I realize that would get in the way of your own agenda, but please try. And after I or someone else point out said falsehood, have the good grace to remove said post. Or at least acknowledge the mistake. The world is hard enough to navigate these days. As many a meme says, you are entitled to your own opinion, of course - you are not, however, entitled to your own facts. And neither am I.

That is the dark side of FB. There is, mercifully, the bright side, the part that I love - being able to connect with friends from all facets of my life, even though we are scattered all over the globe. In my first Stitch Fix post, I referenced my friend, Katie, several times. While she calls me her oldest friend in the best sense of the term, I cannot return the favor because FB has allowed me to reconnect with Amy, who lived down the street from me when I was little little and was my best friend until I turned seven and we moved away. I actually have a post about that street that I haven't published yet - but I'm getting ahead of myself.

As I resurrect this blog, part of my motivation is to write down stories for my daughter so she will always have them. Doing it publicly like this will allow other players in these stories to add their perceptions and reminiscences, if they so choose. And it is because of FB (and the internet in general, obviously) that they will be able to do this. I started this conversation with Katie a couple of days ago, as I was writing the Stitch Fix entry, and I told her that I would start this Wednesday. So here we are. It's now Friday as it took me a couple of days to write it all.

I need to flip back to the political thing for just a sec, though. One of the popular motifs these days is that there is "real" America ('Murica) and then there is the rest of us - the lefty liberal, do gooder, communist, atheist, freedom haters who are out to destroy this country. Ugh. I will freely admit to being many of the epithets thrown at me and I wear them proudly. But it doesn't mean I hate the United States or freedom or even Christians. It doesn't mean I am not a "real" American - can we please note for a moment that the title of this whole blog is Apple Pie for Dessert? I love apple pie, I go to baseball games, and I had what was probably a very typical American childhood in the 1970's.

See how it came back around?

While I have tasked Katie with writing the actual story of how we met because she just tells it better than I do - I can tell you it involved catching caterpillars, woolly bears to be exact. When you touch those suckers, they curl up into a ball and look just like tribbles from "Star Trek."

Katie and I were two years apart (we still are - duh -  but somehow the age gap doesn't seem so meaningful as it did then); although we played together for many, many years, in my mind I am always nine and she is seven - fourth and second grades, respectively. This makes her utterly fascinating to my daughter who is currently nine. I watch my daughter now and while there is much more girl drama than I ever had at that age, I am still envious of the ease with which children can form friendships. A simple "do you want to play" and they are off and running, which was exactly how Katie and I proceeded. We both loved to read, adored music, and had vivid imaginations that we gave free rein to at every available opportunity. We spent the bulk of every summer outside, exploring the woods that ran through our back yards and culminated at the end of the cul de sac in a forest that seemed huge at the time. The cul de sac (or turnaround, as we called it then) is no longer there; when I was in high school, a road was built to connect our neighborhood with the one above it. But looking at Google maps, it appears that the woods are still alive and well - and I just did some more googling and learned something I never, ever knew - those woods actually have a name! Three Falls Woods...because, as I was about to point out, once you got inside the woods and followed the right trail, you came to the falls. We didn't go all the way out to the falls every time we went on the trails - my memory is that they were a hang out spot for teenagers at the time. I definitely remember seeing a beer ball or two when we would go!

The creek that the falls fed into ran behind the houses across the street from mine and flooded at least twice that I can remember when I lived there. The big one was in October 1981, seventh grade. I remember it started in the night and my dad came and woke us all up to see. My sister, who is four years older, thought he was waking her up to go to school so she showered and did her hair and got dressed and everything before she realized what was going on. She was pissed. I just thought it was cool. The next day, Katie and I met up and put garbage bags around our legs to wade in the water. A news truck came by and filmed us and we DID get on the air briefly. When we returned to school, someone asked me about it and was quite scornful about the garbage bags...I wasn't cool then and I'm not cool now. What can you do? This is a video compilation of news footage from the flood. However, we are not in it. I guess it wasn't Channel 3 that came by. And there seems to be a lot more footage of East Syracuse than Manlius, but it's still interesting.

Most of the time, the creek was pretty tame. We played in it and around it. There was a lot of shale in the creek, which was fun to hit with another rock and watch slice apart in a way that rocks didn't seem like they should do. Often in our outdoor adventures, we were joined by our friend, Jeremy, who lived across the street from me. They say the average person eats a pound of dirt a year - I'm fairly certain the three of us ate more than our fair share growing up. I don't think we were ever clean during the summer.

Indoors, Katie and I were enchanted by many things, among them: music, books, Muppets, Atari, Legos, Darci dolls, and a new channel on our cable system, HBO. I'll get to each of these at a future time, I hope, because they all deserve their time on the stage. But I have to say that music is my most enduring memory as it formed the framework around which we built so many of our adventures. We played most often at her house, which was a super groovy split level built in 1966, according to Zillow. The stereo and her parents' awesome record collection lived on the lower level and we spent hours upon hours listening to music, lip synching to the songs (dying of embarrassment when her brother would catch us), and weaving elaborate tales that incorporated the songs into something we just called "The Game."

"The Game" had no fixed plot line or rules. We could play it indoors or out, with or without music (although I always thought it was better with music). Our roles varied, depending on what we were obsessed with at the time. For one period of time, it was crucial that Aslan, from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, play a role and we probably fought over who got to be Lucy and who got to be Susan (it's always better to be Lucy. Always.) We really liked Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan for a while. As we got a little older and fell in love with magazines like Teen Beat and Tiger Beat, our focus shifted more to pop culture figures and we would become Olivia Newton-John and Catherine Bach or the two girls from ABBA. We were rarely the celebrities living their regular lives (and by rarely, I mean never), but instead were having grand adventures that were usually influenced by books or movies. Some I can recall are Jaws and The Omen (we can talk about the inappropriate entertainment we consumed at another time, but I should point out here that we discovered the soundtrack to Hair at an age where none of it made sense and we tried to look the words up in the dictionary and it STILL didn't make sense...which didn't stop us from adoring it and singing it at the top of our lungs). And as I said, this was always better with music and we always found a way to work the songs into the narrative. Because when you are about to be eaten by a 20 foot great white, you should sing! Clearly, we anticipated Disaster! A Musical by about 40 years.

This is merely a start. But you have to start somewhere, right? Memory is a funny, tricky thing and I am sure I am misremembering things and others can feel free to clarify. I am also sure there are many things I am forgetting and I hope, as I said above, that others will share their stories as well.

Book Response: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

As I relaunch this blog, I have enjoyed reading the few posts I published five years ago. In the very first post, This I Believe, I pointed out that I had put some of the reviews from another, older blog on GoodReads, but they didn't seem to make much sense out of context. I still agree with this, so I am migrating them back, bit by bit (there aren't that many of them, so it shouldn't take long). I don't really know what order I wrote them in back then, so I'm just starting with the first one I added to GoodReads, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I don't even know how many times I've reread these books at this point because I love them so much. A couple of things to point out, though, since this was first written NINE YEARS AGO...

• I have since acquired a British copy. Well, I guess technically it belongs to my daughter as the Easter bunny brought it to her when we spent Easter in London in 2015. It's fun to read, just to see the little differences in language. 
• As the above would imply, E has read and loved them all. I think we might have started a little younger than seven - we began with the audio book versions, which, if you haven't listened to them, you must, must, must! They are all read by Jim Dale who is, bluntly, a genius. She moved on to reading them on her own and as she finished each book, she was allowed to see the movie version. Hermione is her favorite, which proves I am raising her right. 
• I did a whole sermon about Harry Potter and humanist parenting at our UU church. Perhaps at some point I will post that here as well. 

So with that said, let's step back in time...

It's the summer of 2007 and the Harry Potter zeitgeist has reached its zenith (zzzzzz!). If there are original comments out there about this stuff, I'd love to see them!

Obviously, there is no need to rehash the plot of book one: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It is a real pity, though, that the publishers didn't think Americans would gravitate to the original title: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. It's way cooler, IMO, and I would still love to own a Brit copy of the book. I'll put that on my list along with all the American ones I also don't own.

A few thoughts on re-reading book one:

1. Lots of fun to go back to the beginning and see how many clues are around for what comes later. Maybe clues isn't exactly the right word, but it will suffice. Fun to meet everyone again for the first time.

2. Why do they never TELL any of the adults what is going on? So many things could be avoided if they'd just confide in someone! Drives me nuts. And sometimes I think Dumbledore is the most irresponsible grown-up on the planet! Goodness gracious!

3. The movies are incredibly well cast. Normally I am bothered when re-reading after seeing the movie version of something b/c I can't find the characters the way I had imagined them again. I don't mind with these. Who else could Snape be but Alan Rickman? Love him! The only "miss" - and it isn't their fault - is poor Neville Longbottom. No way anyone could have anticipated that growth spurt! It does make it hard to read him as mousy and timid and so forth when that huge hulking kid is in my head.

4. The stuff about Harry's parents is much harder to read now that I am a parent myself. 'Nuff said about that.

5. I still don't like the more kiddy aspects of the book. Namely, the cave troll and the troll boogers on Harry's wand. Yeah, kinda funny, but also stupid. I blame the movie for this moment bugging me more this time around. They made too big a deal of it. But then, I'm not the target demographic, am I?

I wonder if it is possible to discuss the books apart from the movies at this point. The books are better, but the movies are improving. They're finding the heart the books have had all along, which is what makes them so wonderful. I love Harry's discoveries of life - friendship and learning and everything else. I can't wait until E is seven and we can start reading these books together (seven is the age J.K. Rowling herself feels is the right one to start, so I'll trust her on that).

Onto the next (which is really the same book all over again. Things don't really get rocking and rolling until book three)!

Stitch Fix #1!

So...yeah...it's been a loooong time on this blog. So long I kinda forgot I had it. But it still exists and it seems like the perfect place to post about my entree into the world of Stitch Fix. I joined courtesy of my friend, Katie and the below paragraph is copied directly from her fantastic blog: https://alltheserenity.wordpress.com/ (other than the referral link - that's mine b/c I'm not that selfless).

If you are not familiar with Stitch Fix, here’s the deal: Stitch Fix is an online personal styling service. You can subscribe for regular Fixes or just schedule them as you like. You fill out an extensive online profile of your tastes, sizes, and budget preferences and for a $20 fee, one of their stylist puts together a box of 5 clothing and accessory items to ship right to your door! You have 3 days to try things on, solicit opinions, balance your budget, whatever — you send back anything that doesn’t work for you in a prepaid envelope, and keep whatever you love! Your $20 styling fee is applied to anything you decide to keep, and if you buy the whole box of items you get 25% off the entire box! Prices vary but they say the average cost per item is $55 – 65. If you haven’t ever tried it and are interested, please consider using my referral link. If you use my link to schedule a Fix, I get a $25 credit towards my next purchase! (Note that I do not receive any compensation for reviewing this service; I just enjoy doing it).

So why am I doing this? For a long time, I was a devoted shopper at a local boutique in my little town. I have lots of fun pieces from there. But lately, the owner seems to be catering much more to the teen crowd (she's always done a thriving prom dress business) and those styles don't work for me. She is also hiring a lot of teenagers who will tell me things look great on me that don't. And I don't need that. So it was time for a change. Plus I don't really like shopping all that much. Therefore having someone else do it for me and it comes right to my house is a win-win all around.

In my style profile, I checked off a lot of casual/boho looks. Since I don't work outside the home, I don't need clothes suitable for the office, which means I can just get a lot of fun stuff. I also finally joined the dark side, aka Pinterest, and started pinning looks I like, which includes a whole lot of Cosima from "Orphan Black." Apparently all her stuff comes from Anthropologie, in case I ever feel like venturing to the mall. But onto the actual clothes!

First up: the THML Sanuk Lattice Detail Top. I thought this was going to be white b/c I peeked at my Fix before it arrived and googled all the stuff and every picture of this top was white. But it was navy with a red stripe. My stylist, Staci, recommended pairing this shirt with the jeans she sent, but I started with the pants I had on (white linen from Old Navy). (BTW - full disclosure, my 9 year-old daughter took most of these pictures so the quality is what it is!)

I liked it with the white pants - it's a nice flowy summer look. However, the top is fairly sheer, even in the dark color, and I have LOTS of navy tops already. So then I tried it with the Dear John Kyleigh Straight Leg Jean she sent.

Meh. I actually tried it on again later with some other bottoms and while I liked it, I didn't LOVE it. My daughter just said it didn't seem like my style. I realized there are lots of tops out there so...VERDICT: RETURN.

But here is more of the jeans:

I really like the way these fit up top. But they are kinda wide at the bottom - too wide to be really straight leg. Katie's comment was: "I love the way they fit you above the knee, but the wide leg/wide cuff around your dainty ankles feels a little Huckleberry Finn." My husband agreed. Plus they were too short to do anything except cuff them. There are better jeans out there. So even though you will continue to see these jeans in the pictures...VERDICT: RETURN.

Next up: the Diaz Crochet Detail Top. Another shirt I thought was coming in white. But it, too, is navy.

I so wanted to love this shirt. I SHOULD love this shirt. As soon as he saw it in the pile, the husband said it looked like a me shirt. But...no. The shoulders are fussy and weirdly poofy. Husband thought I had shoulder pads in. I have wide shoulders already so that's no good. Katie referred to it as "grandma chic" - she got the same shirt in white and sent it back.

So, alas, VERDICT: RETURN

But then we got to the Loveappella Contrast Trim Knit Top.

Yes all around from everyone. So fun. I love the fit, the feel, the look. VERDICT: KEEP!

Last up, the Loveappella Deanne Printed Maxi Skirt.

I love maxi skirts and dresses. Love them, love them, love them. The colors in this one are great - plenty of choices to pair with a top: black, white, tan, blue, maroon. It's super comfy and fits really well. VERDICT: KEEP!`

And there it is. My first fix and my first attempt at blogging about it. Full disclosure: I keep looking at Katie's blog and wanting to copy everything about it b/c it's all great. But she just hit Fix #40 and this is only my first, so I'll let myself be okay with the uninteresting formatting and tweak things as we go along. And it's nice to have this blog back in action...maybe someday I'll even write about books again.

Sister: A Waste of My Time

I recently did something I never do. I read a book because there was an advertisement for it in the New York Times Book Review. Not a review. Just an ad. With blurbs. That made it sound like a good book. I was duped.

I also blame many of the Goodreads readers since I checked out what some of them were saying before I read the book. My opinion of Goodreads readers has now gone down a bit.

I know I have no one to blame but myself and rest assured that I will never do something so silly again. I remember seeing ads for books on the subway and thinking what a weird thing it is to advertise books that way. Who would read a book on a billboard? It wasn't like I ever saw some great book that everyone was raving about on the subway station ads. Usually thrillers and such. Which isn't really my genre and so I was sucked in even more by the Goodreads review that called it something like a thriller for people who don't like thrillers. They made it sound literary.

Again, no one but myself to blame.

So anyway. The book is Sister: A Novel by Rosamund Lupton. And right away we have the first thing that annoyed me. The "A Novel" thing after the colon. Really? You needed to tell me that? I wouldn't have figured it out even though the book is, you know, fiction?

It started vaguely promising (I'm not going to do a plot recap at all - if you care enough, you can go on Amazon or Goodreads and find one). Seemed well enough written with interesting things like:

"No, from the start I was clearly a Beatrice, sensible and unembellished in Times New Roman, with no one hiding inside. Dad chose the name Arabella before I was born. The reality must have been a disappointment." p. 3

and

"But that’s what his “discretion” always was – disownership hiding behind a more acceptable noun." p. 13

But then things started to horribly wrong. The narrator is supposed to be some kind of marketing person living in New York. So every color is described by its Panetone number with some vague commentary about how to ordinary people it looked like beige, but was actually Panetone number blah blah blah. And then as if this wasn't annoying enough, it gets dropped midway through in favor of random literary references that just need to show how smart she (whether author or narrator I'm not sure) is. And THEN she decides that what she really always wanted to be an architect. Okay then. What's next? I always wanted to be a lumberjack!

 

But I digress.

After a while (a short while), I gave up trying to underline anything of interest and instead just starting making the Kindle version of margin notes. And I love that you can do that in library books, btw. I think it is actually amusing to see those notes so here you go:

Me: Clinque, Panetone, Pixar – these brand names are so jarring especially when the rest of the writing is quite good. At times.
p. 11 (Ah, so naive and hopeful)

Me: Really? Triffids? p. 32 (Seriously, I have to agree with me here. Triffids??? Who does that?)

Me: And now sudden random literary references: Mad Hatter, Auden, Ancient Mariner p. 56 (But it's too late to impress me. You already said triffids)

"…boiling up the bunnies "
Me: sigh… p. 73

"…Chagall print in the kitchen"
Me: Fine art now! p. 77

"They actually use words like that: “saving” and “owing her life to,” comic-book words that are in danger of turning me into someone who wears pants on the outside of her tights, switches outfits and personas in telephone booths and has web coming out of her wrists."
Me: That’s how you do it. p. 105 (I think the point I was trying to make there was that you didn't need to work so hard on name dropping the pop culture references, that you could find a broader theme that the reader then renders specific in his/her own mind)

"…Kafkaesque turned ordinary"
Me: Ummmm…okay p. 141

"I hadn’t been in a public place since you’d died and the loud voices and the laughter made me feel vulnerable."
Me: Doesn’t she work in a bar? p. 151 (Yeah, about that one. One of the first things she does is go take her dead sister's job at the bar b/c that happens a lot. And aren't bars full of, let me see, loud voices and laughter? What the hell?)

"I reminded you I studied literature, didn’t I?"
Me: ugh p. 190

"She was framed for her own suicide."
Me: Huh??? p. 227 (If someone can explain this to me, I'm happy to listen.)

"Not just a double but a triple negative. His oratory wasn’t an impressive as he believed it to be."
Me: Thank you for the commentary. p. 238 (Pot, meet Kettle)

"…Proust’s tea-soaked petites madeleines"
Me: sigh… p. 246

"Surely a good therapist should produce a Dorian Gray-style portrait from under the couch so the patient can see the person they really are."
Me: Stop trying so hard!!!p. 260

"We get to St. James’s Park, which looks like that scene from Mary Poppins, all blossom and buds and blue sky with white meringue clouds. "
Me: No. p. 272 (What if I, the reader, have never seen Mary Poppins?)

"I thought of Donne chastising the busy old fool of a sun for making him leave his lover and marveled that his poetry now applied to me."
Me: pllltthhh p. 293

Really makes you want to go read it, doesn't it? What is even more mystifying is that I went and found the New York Times review of this and they seemed to like it. So clearly part of my problem is that I just don't like thrillers. I'm not much of a beach read person. I know it's an art form in its own right to be able to produce such page turners, but they just don't do it for me.

At least I didn't buy the book!

Flashback Review

Note to self - do not start a new blog right at the beginning of the holiday season. Self will not have enough to time to actually read books, let alone post about them in any coherent fashion, especially once The Child is out of school.

So, with that said, I'm going to repost one of the original reviews from when I had this blog way long ago. It's for the fourth Harry Potter book, Goblet of Fire, and a review which for some reason people seemed to enjoy a lot on Goodreads.

Hope everyone had a good holiday season. As soon as I can organize my thoughts, I'll post a new review. In the meantime, from August 2007...



Now THAT'S a book!  The groove that J.K. Rowling starts to find in HP 3 is fully realized in 4.  Partly it's that the kids (and therefore the readers) are getting older so she can delve into more adult, complex themes and situations, and partly it's that I think she's really finding her voice.  We finally got our very own HP's, I am happy to report, and it's so funny to look at them all side by side b/c of the HUGE leap in size between 3 and 4.  Then they get a little tricky b/c while 4 and 5 look to be about the same length, the font in Order of the Phoenix is much smaller, hence a longer book.  I just started that one and it honestly feels longer already.  More of a book book and less of a fun afternoon's diversion.  But I like these books as they get both darker and longer.

But to focus on Goblet of Fire specifically for a moment...again, not that I think I can bring anything new to the table in discussing these books.  Nevertheless, I'll throw a few ideas out there just for your reading pleasure.  One thing that struck me, as I mentioned before, was the increasing maturity and complexity of situations and themes.  Clearly having someone die is a huge deal and I found that whole series of events really moving this time around.  I may have last time as well, but I don't remember.  In a way, though, some of the more complex issues feel jarring next to the goofy concepts she originally created.  Calling non-magical people "Muggles," for instance.  It's just a stupid word and yes, it sounds funny and makes kids laugh, but sometimes it's hard to take all these people seriously.  "Mud-bloods" on the other hand is vicious and definitely drives the point home.  I just wonder if she was to do it over again if some of those terms or ideas would change a bit.  Yes, we'd all like to revisit what we did/wrote when we were less sure of ourselves and our voices and ideas, but of course we can't and neither can she.  And what do I know?  She claims she always knew what would happen to Harry, so maybe for her "Muggle" is the ideal word.

Since, as usual, I find it impossible to discuss the books without referencing the films, let me just say that although I hated Dobby in the movie (2?) and was glad to see him mostly cut from subsequent screen incarnations, I really loved him in this one.  The dialogue is actually quite funny and Hermione's whole S.P.E.W. thing just cracks me up.  Yes, I know a lot of people hate it and find it annoying and whatever, but I love it.  Of course she would have a cause like that.  That's who she is!  And poor Winky.  They're weird creatures (and OH how I love Kreacher in the next one!) and I can't decide whether I am with Hermione or everyone else on their "plight."  Either way, I like that they exist; they provide a bit of moral ambiguity in a world that is mostly cleanly divided between good and evil.  You might wonder about people, but for the most part they end up squarely one or the other.  Other than Snape - another great piece of moral ambiguity whose complexity grows from book to book.

I also continue to marvel at Rowling's ability to write about the teenage mind.  Ron and Harry's fight is spot on, as are Hermione's various reactions to it.  And oh these poor boys having to ask the girls to the feast.  I wish I had known when I was in middle school how truly hard it was for boys to talk to girls like that.  Although I probably wouldn't have cared, being the good self-involved teenger that I was.

I still want to go to Hogwarts.