The news for today: Dave apparently did brilliantly at his first day of work, making three times the money goal that he was supposed to do for the first day. Hill has a job interview on Monday. Good work news all around!

In other news, thanks to post-holidays and whatnot, I've received a bunch of new books. Thank God for distraction. Anyway, I feel like discussing a few of them here. However, I have to warn you that I AM going to comment on the endings, which is of course a BIG SPOILER. Sorry, but dammit, I think those parts are important to mention and I can't vague them up enough for the unspoiled. I'll warn you when those parts come up, but that's the best I can do. Sadly, there are no convenient spoiler tags in Diaryland.

The first one I got into recently was Trans-Sister Radio. (Warning: major spoilage in the plot synopsis of this book here.) It's told from the POV's of Dana, a transsexual man who's going to become a woman soon, Allison, the woman he falls in love with, Will, her ex-husband who still has a bit of a torch for her, and Allison and Will's daughter Carly, who takes it all the best of any of them. Will and Carly work in radio, so this is kind of constructed around an NPR show they did.

The summer before Dana goes on sabbatical in order to transition and get the surgery done, he's teaching a film class that Allison, a grade school teacher (now you know where this is going, don't you? It's always the teachers...), is taking for fun. They soon become quite hot for each other, but Dana doesn't break the news to Allison until it's a bit too late for both of them emotionally. She elects to stay by him/her through transition and then see what happens, since she's heterosexual and has no idea how this could work. Naturally and predictably these days, everyone in town then throws a fit that she's living with Dana. Will's not all that thrilled at the competition himself, though he eventually becomes okay (and later on, more than okay) with the whole thing.

For the most part, it's a good book. Gives you a lot to think about and ponder afterwards, and has a few interesting twists and turns that it goes through. The one thing I'd really critique is that we hardly find out anything about how Allison and Dana fell in love- it's almost fait accompli, and we don't really get into why they'd feel so strongly about each other that Allison would be willing to stay despite her usual lack of lesbian interest. And occasionally there's other incidents mentioned vaguely by one character that isn't gotten into for quite some time later that can be frustrating to not hear about for awhile if it was that important.

All the same, the mental gymnastics everyone goes through is incredibly interesting, especially the viewpoints on what most of us don't go through.

One does have to wonder at the overall message of this book with regards to one subject- does love conquer sexual anatomy? As the bi folks might say, it doesn't matter. In this book, oh boy, does it matter. I know it's not exactly fair to go off about how the author couldn't get into both viewpoints, but I'd say the overall message here is that anatomy DOES matter, more than personality.

Allison realizes that she really just wants a male body to sexually interact with, and she can't really get over that to be okay with Dana having a female one. You can't say she doesn't try, but... in the end, it's doomed. (Though I must admit that I would do the same in her situation.) She even seems to feel like Dana used her for support and a female role model.

And then, in the supreme irony of it all, Will, who didn't like male-Dana, finds himself falling for pretty female-Dana. And Dana, who always figured herself for the literal example of "lesbian in a man's body", finds that with the lack of a penis on her body, she's finally getting interested in penetration... and oddly enough, this is the couple that looks like it'll work out in the end. Laurie/Dana gets into the March/Banks family one way or another... I find the ending rather funny, especially given the mental switching, but it doesn't seem entirely implausible either. I guess Dana was destined to be hetero either way she/he went!

END SPOILER SECTION

One of the other ones in my head these days is Pen Pals, by Olivia Goldsmith. Now this was not a book I would have bought for myself, even though I own almost every one of her books. I saw it in the bookstore, thought "Women in prison? Okay, that is just going to depress me out of my gourd," and put it down. But Mom managed to snag me a cheap copy of it, so, well, I read.

I was crying throughout the entire opening of the book. And I NEVER do that. (Though the fact that I read this book the day of my recent dental visit probably had something to do with that too.) The main character, Jennifer Spencer (oddly enough, while most characters in the book speak in the first person, the "Jennifer" chapters are all told in third. You'd think with her being the protagonist and all...), was a swinging Wall Streeter who happily agreed to take the fall for her boss and her fiance, never thinking that she'd actually (a) go to jail, and (b) that it wouldn't be one of those rumored "country club" jails. Her entry is utterly painful because of her delusions ("I'll expect a laptop to be issued to me here..." that kind of thing.), and even as I was sitting there thinking "My god, woman, how could you be that DUMB as to believe you're going to get out in a few days now?", I was still crying for her.

Olivia Goldsmith's theme in her writing life seems to be women who get screwed over by bad men, and then fight back. In this novel, this comes out as "most women in prison are there because of a man." True enough in this case, as nearly all of the prisoners featured in this book were either booked as co-conspirators when their man committed a crime or shot an abusive husband. Only one seems to be actually not-law-abiding. I�m wondering if this was actually what Goldsmith found happened when she was researching prisons or if the just went into her usual mindset. (Note: Not all men in Goldsmith�s books are bad- there�s quite a few decent ones usually. Only one in this book, but then again there wouldn�t be room for more.)

Meanwhile at the prison, the warden is upset that a company�s going to buy the prison and privatize it. What that means is that (a) they plan to get rid of recreational space and most visiting hours, plus make it difficult for anyone TO visit, (b) plan to move in tons more people, and (c) use the prisoners as unpaid slaves who can�t fight back to make them money. Nasty and yet unstoppable� unless you er, happen to know someone who knows a lot about finances and business and whatnot�

I�m not quite sure what to make of Goldsmith�s portrayal of a women�s prison. As you already know, I�m not much for reading about women in prison (unless reading Brothel counts), nor do I know anything from personal experience about it. I�d have to say that it really varies. On the one hand, it�s bleak, the food sucks, everyone�s in line for the phones, the country club seems to be missing, and abandon all hope ye who enter here. On the other hand, the prisoners seem to be able to mosey around from cell to cell late at night with no qualms, they can cook their own food for dinner, and four-bed cells are only occupied by two people. Somehow I doubt that prison�s quite that easy. Goldsmith definitely gets the mindsets of her main characters down well, though, especially the two lifers imprisoned for killing their abusive husbands and how they deal with their situation.

As you can see, I spent the novel going back and forth between moments of depression, enjoyment, and �Oh, come on, how could that happen?�, which is why I guess I don�t know what to make of this one. Usually Goldsmith�s books tend to be either cheerful urban-fantasy (Flavor of the Month, First Wives Club) or depressive-yet-fun realism (The Bestseller, Young Wives). This one seems to have a mix of it all. I�m not sure on the execution, but I was hooked on the book nonetheless.

After the threat is essentially neutralized� by Jennifer buying out the company and owning the prison she�s incarcerated in!- she continues to run things from behind the scenes with the aid of her �crew� of friends, a stolen cell phone, and eventually her own laptop. At that point, dare I say it, things start to become a fairy tale, where the prisoners get actual wardrobe choices and actual edible food and morning wakeup music and cheerful stuff like that. It�s well, a bit of a stretch (which Goldsmith admits in the afterword), as is the pardons that Jennifer manages to snag for most of her friends. Then again, the pardon not being granted for all was a nice realism touch. And of course, you gotta love blackmail!

END SPOILER SECTION

Our final book review for this evening is The Blue Castle, a rarely-found book by the author of the Anne of Green Gables series. This book is MUCH beloved by the denziens of Chicklit, which is how I became interested in it- well, that and I�d read all of the Anne stuff already.

The main character of this one, Valancy Stirling, is a girl that�s even more cowed than I am. I�m sure y�all think of me as being a timid, frightened creature, but compared to Valancy at the start of this novel I�m a raging biyotch. She�s 29, a not-very-attractive old maid, who is at the mercy of her bitchy, stuck-up, pretentious, demanding family. She can�t get a moment�s peace to read a book, she can�t get anyone to call by her real name instead of the misbegotten nickname of �Doss�, she can�t speak to any relative without being reminded of how pathetically single she is, and she�s never had a happy or loving moment in her life. She lives her life in terror of ticking them off, because she�ll need to be supported by them in her old age.

Until the day that she goes to a renowned heart doctor to ask him about the pains she�s been having, and he has to rush out suddenly because his son got in an accident. He writes her later to break the bad news- that she�s got a bad heart condition, shouldn�t run or have any shocks or exert herself, and that she�ll probably be dead in a year. This of course shocks Valancy, but it�s even worse when she realizes that she�s only ever been miserable. And if she�s only got one year to live left, well� there�s nothing to be afraid of any more then, is there?

So she rebels. She doesn�t tell anyone of her diagnosis, but she starts doing as she pleases and mouthing off to the family. They all think she�s gone crazy, of course, but get even more upset when she moves out and gasp! takes a job housekeeping for the cheerful town drunk and his dying daughter, who got into trouble of the family persuasion once upon a time. She also starts associating with their friend Barney Snaith, who everyone in town seems to think is some kind of criminal, and he is amused enough by the idea not to dissuade them. She falls for him, and after her term of employment is over, asks him to marry her and shows him the letter from the doctor. Hey, it�d only be temporary for him, after all�

It�s an incredibly sweet story, with some twists and turns to it that are pretty well clear and yet somehow subtly foreshadowed. One can�t help but be delighted with Valancy�s wisecracks towards the snotty Stirlings, as well. It�s a feel-good sweet story of rebellion and happiness in the end. (It�s a shame I don�t suck it up a bit more and do the same thing, huh?)

I�m debating whether or not it was too easy for someone to figure out the plot twists in this novel. Some are more obvious than others (gee, Valancy loves reading John Foster�s books, Barney doesn�t want to hear about them and sneaks away a lot during the day�), others are foreshadowed, yet you�re too distracted to think about them most of the time (gee, Valancy sure does a lot of running and dancing and swimming for a girl who�s about to die of shock), and some you might wonder about, but really not be able to confirm until the end so that you are surprised (why does Barney throw out the liniment?). I obviously guessed at most of these, but from what I read on Chicklit, not everyone does. But either way, the surprises in the novel work out happily. She gets a �fairy tale� ending, and yet it�s somehow completely realistic too.

END SPOILER SECTION

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