Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invincible by Ursula Vernon

I have found my alter ego and my alter ego is a twelve year old hamster princess. I cannot talk about how amazing this book is. I just can't do it. It's too good. This hamster princess is kick ass. She skydives and when her mom says, "Princesses don't skydive," sassy Harriet comes back with, "I skydive and I'm a princess so of course princesses skydive." AND I LOVE HER FOR IT.

This is definitely a book I'm reading to any future kids I babysit - and if I ever have kids, I'm reading it to them, no question.

(Shout out to my dad for finding this glorious masterpiece.)

Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer

571 pages later. I made it. I finally made it.

I picked up Here I Am so stoked. I love Jonathan Safran Foer's two other books, Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and I figured I'd love this one, too. Cause really I don't just mean love; I mean head over heels in love. Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close were two of the most beautiful books I've ever read. Both made me cry and hurt and laugh and, ugh! Just fall totally in love. But Here I Am.... not so much.

Not only was it way too long for me, but I couldn't get into the story. I didn't connect with any of the characters. I couldn't even empathize with any of them; I couldn't understand their motivations. The connection was totally lacking. I'm wondering if a big part of it is because of how deeply rooted in Jewish culture the book is. I'm probably just totally ignorant to dozens of things I should know (in basically every aspect of life), but maybe I couldn't connect because I didn't understand so much of what was referenced. The middle/end gets really political and if I understand wars and land boundaries and world politics (again, ugh, why do I suck? How can I be so inadequate?) I'm sure it would make all kinds of sense. But I don't know any of that so I felt really lost and couldn't find anything to hold on to - no characters, no subplots, no breakthrough scene, nothing.

There was one part that did stand out to me, but in a not great way. The main character knows sign language. Randomly, about 2/3 of the way into the book, we learn this. It's never mentioned before and once it is mentioned, it gets dropped about 30 pages later. Foer only used it as a metaphorical device. It was so clear to me and I hated it. It was supposed to be this whole thing about hearing but not hearing and communicating without hearing but communicating so much better but blah blah blah. Let's use it as a plot device and nothing more because what else is sign language good for except to promote things in hearing people's lives? It rubbed me the wrong way. Also, I realized I totally hate reading sign language. It shouldn't be written down in descriptive form. It reads as so mechanical. It doesn't communicate the language or feeling or emotion at all.

So eh, I don't recommend Here I Am but if you wanna read Foer, read his first two novels for sure. Please please please.

xxGoogs

P.S. Still waiting on Dunky Doo to make his blog debut...