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The kids are all right

Here’s how I see it. These days the life expectancy for women is somewhere around 86, which means I’m only a little less than a third done with my life, which means I still have two-thirds of said life to live as a full-on responsibility-having adult. Which means it would be fair, considering the math, to at this point in time consider myself a young adult, relatively speaking. Which means, as you may all be guessing by now, one very important thing: It’s totally okay that I keep reading all these novels intended for 13-year-olds.

My younger sister turned me on to the latest in my YA addiction: The Gone series, by Michael Grant. There are six books in the series, five of which are published (the sixth is due out next year) and two of which I’ve now finished. Since I value you people’s time (and it would be difficult to review later books in the series without giving away spoilers) I’ll kind of review the whole concept here, rather than in six separate posts. Also because I’m lazy.

Santa! I know him!

I should admit right off the bat that I have a rather substantial bias when it comes to this week’s read. Modern New York, a veritable handbook for the state of the city’s economy over the last 50 years, was written by Greg David, onetime (and longtime) editor for Crain’s New York Business, where I’ve spent the last eight years of my employed life. Not only was Greg instrumental in the shaping of Crain’s—stories of his reign, laced with professional admiration of his unique management style, still circulate the newsroom—but he was fairly instrumental in my career, which is to say that without his faith in a completely inexperienced Fordham grad (who majored in the rather vaguely labeled “Media, Culture & Society”) I might not have the writing chops/Internet knowledge/general confidence in my own awesomeness that make it possible for me to ramble to you people today. (Also, I was footnoted!)

Extremely sad & incredibly morose

So I got a lot of reading done this weekend. Like kind of an absurd amount. And even though I could totally space these reviews out over the next few weeks, affording myself some much-needed time to, I don’t know, go outdoors or socialize with other human beings, instead I’m just going to blow it all this week and feel like an idiot come June. Because that’s how I roll.

Up until about last year, I actually had no idea that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (ELAIC) was a novel about September 11. Which is fitting since up until last week I had never sat down and watched 9/11 footage, or listened to the recently released audio of air traffic controllers and others who were on the planes. I may be a sick voyeur when it comes to reality shows and celebrity gossip, but plugging in my headphones to hear the dying words of some unsuspecting flight attendant was not my idea of a productive afternoon.

Unfortunately, after reading ELAIC, I felt it was time to bite the bullet. The novel is so wrapped around the tragedy of that day, and the loss of an individual (though fictional) life in it, that it felt weird to not relive the moment in reality, especially since I had never really done so. Naturally, I saw the towers fall in 2001—though I can’t say my 11th-grade self had any real idea of the event’s impact—but afterwards, with the exception of unavoidable news broadcasts and one overblown Oliver Stone movie, I didn’t pursue September 11. There was no need to: Not a week goes by that the tragedy isn’t invoked in some political conversation or happenstance facet of New York City life—bag checks on the subway, liquids refused from air travel, construction delays in lower Manhattan. To spend even a minute proactively pursuing the now decade-old news broadcasts or man-on-the-street footage felt unnecessary, masochistic even.

Just kids stuff

In a bit of fortuitous timing, I finished Patti Smith’s Just Kids the same day that Girls, a new comedy from Lena Dunham/Judd Apatow, premiered on HBO.

Now, these two things aren’t directly related. In fact, they’re not really related at all. Rather, one just made me think of the other, and since the critical reception of Just Kids ran the gamut from appreciative to absolutely glowing—while Girls received less favorable treatment from the likes of Gawker and, you know, viewers—I thought it perhaps an apt time to share the comparison.

For the unfamiliar, Just Kids is a memoir written by artist/poet/musician Patti Smith, about her long relationship-turned-friendship with fellow artist Robert Mapplethorpe, he of controversial photography fame. Smith, now married with children, wrote the book in 2010, nearly 20 years after Robert’s death, and more than forty years after the pair first met in Brooklyn as 20-year-old aspiring artists. Smith’s is a memoir about love, but also about a time and a place—New York in the 1970s—and about coming into one’s own as an artist and an adult. Although we as readers know how the story ends—with success for both subjects and Mapplethorpe’s ultimate death from AIDS—Just Kids isn’t so much focused on the tangible progression of the pair’s respective careers. It’s a glimpse behind the scenes, into the development and maturation of two people who at first glance really are just young and clueless, aspirational and broke, hopeful and driven.

Tower of terror

I’ve been putting off writing this post because I’m not exactly sure how to go about it—reviewing the fifth book in an eight-volume Stephen King series is like trying to explain the intricacies of the third Harry Potter novel to an alien from a planet with no concept of wizards.

If you haven’t heard of, let alone read, the Dark Tower books, then…I’ll admit, I’m not sure what to tell you. What’s your general feeling on 6,000 pages of mutant lobsters, decaying robots, time travel and gunfights? In fact, let me ask you a few questions. Do you like Westerns? Do you like fantasy Westerns? Did you enjoy the movie Cowboys & Aliens? No but really, did you kind of? Like a little bit? Okay well do you like Stephen King? What’s your favorite Stephen King novel? Did you really read that or just see the movie? No it’s okay, it’s a great movie. How would you feel about seeing a Stephen King movie about a Stephen King movie? I know, it’s a little meta. Do you need to sit down?

They should paste that list of questions up in bookstores.