Sigh. I'm reading this because the books I really want to read won't be available at the library until at least Tuesday. Let's just say that the first 35 pages make me want to hurl the book across the room, but maybe there's something that will redeem it. It's not a bad book per se, just not my cup of tea.
Sarah Stern is the epitome of why I cringe when someone says they come from a "sheltered" life. Sheltered, in my opinion, is what makes you make stupid decisions early in life. 'Course, the opposite extreme leaves you in the same boat. I dunno--maybe I'm a freak of nature. My parent's lifestyle and my own shyness left me very sheltered physically, but I've always been allowed to read whatever I wanted. At 12 I graduated myself to the teen shelf and a half dozen books later I decided that teenagers are stupid and hit the adult shelves. 'Course then I learned that adults are gross and/or have this weird idea of what makes for a great adventure (Tolkien influence--the more made up words the better) and wasn't happy until I found the Holy Grail when we switched to the VA Beach library and their teen section is all the books I loved as a child plus soo much more (i.e. anything not a picture book, but without the sex). I have no idea why Norfolk has such a stupid system for separating their teen books.
Anyone who says you can't learn anything from "pulp fiction" is a pompous hipster. Everything those stupid teen books were "supposed" to teach me about life, but really just made me want to hurl, I could usually find either explicitly or implicitly within whatever book I actually enjoyed. Need a rant about why you shouldn't commit suicide because some jealous "frienemy" (is that really how that's spelled?) posts photoshopped raunchy photos of you on the school website? Go read Sherrilyn Kenyon's Infamous. V.C. Andrews' stuff really isn't worth the paper it's written on. And don't get me started on Twilight. Trust me, if you read any of Kenyon's Dark-Hunters books, you'll know what it really means to leave the person you love to save their life (or even offer yourself to Death) with lovely ladies who look at their men and say "Sweetie, I know you mean well, but let the real brains be in charge. 'kay?" and then she proceeds to kick ass, take names, and really show her commitment to him. Not lie on a couch for four months wondering where her life went. GAG!
So yeah...here I am reading something only 40+ year old women would actually enjoy. Maybe I'm just a feminist, but seriously?! Man says day one that he doesn't want to marry and you stick around for 2 years? Ever read Dear Abby?!? It's not a hard equation. I don't mean to make my mother's generation feel bad, but it's obvious that crap like this sells because women want to fantasize about a world where their bad decisions are...okay(?)--that there's some hero who's going to save her from the life she's made for herself.
Yeah, I'm the first to defend the fact that women marrying in the '80s got the damn short end of the stick--do you do as your mother? Or as your independent older sister? You have no clue as to whether to go with the status quo or to strike out on your own is the best choice. Thirty years later, most likely you're realizing that you made a poor decision when you married and threw your own dreams down the toilet, just like your mother did. But I don't know how much good we're doing for them when we give them books like this that say "it's okay to be unhappy in life so long as there's a man to stand by you". But maybe it's a different genre where you find the ladies who go back to school and pick up their lives as though they didn't spend 30 years in a crappy marriage and oh, find the man of their dreams (Hey! I like romances! If the Princess and the Goat-Herder don't get together at the end, I'm highly upset. And I'm still not sure that the Dark-Hunters aren't 'erotica for beginners'.)
There's something else I feel I need to address. When I first picked this book off my mother's shelf, I read thorugh the comments on Good Reads. Someone mentioned being insulted by the fact that N. Dakota isn't like it's protrayed here. They don't all have one room school houses. Well, that's an interesting way to look at it, but still completely wrong. I have a lot of home schooled pen pals, most of whom live in rural areas. I haven't asked them all, but there's only 2 reasons to home school an otherwise average kid (medical and psychological reasons notwithstanding)--the local schools suck or for religious reasons. I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that you could find at least one location within each state in the US where a one room school house for high school could exist comfortably (less than 20 kids from more than one family). So yes, while it would be stupid to say that all of N. Dakota go to school in one room school houses, it is equally ignorant to say that a one room school house is a backwards way to learn. A couple years ago a school with, I guess, 10 kids in it was shown on the news--the kids had better scores because the older ones were teaching the younger ones and it was essentially constant review without the tediousness of review. It's one of the many benefits of homeschooling (actually, my only problem/worry with homeschooling is whether a kid can learn the advanced classes without a qualified teacher--though many families are turning towards "distance learning" rather than true homeschooling (based on my own understanding/use of definitions) to combat this.)
Sarah Stern is the epitome of why I cringe when someone says they come from a "sheltered" life. Sheltered, in my opinion, is what makes you make stupid decisions early in life. 'Course, the opposite extreme leaves you in the same boat. I dunno--maybe I'm a freak of nature. My parent's lifestyle and my own shyness left me very sheltered physically, but I've always been allowed to read whatever I wanted. At 12 I graduated myself to the teen shelf and a half dozen books later I decided that teenagers are stupid and hit the adult shelves. 'Course then I learned that adults are gross and/or have this weird idea of what makes for a great adventure (Tolkien influence--the more made up words the better) and wasn't happy until I found the Holy Grail when we switched to the VA Beach library and their teen section is all the books I loved as a child plus soo much more (i.e. anything not a picture book, but without the sex). I have no idea why Norfolk has such a stupid system for separating their teen books.
Anyone who says you can't learn anything from "pulp fiction" is a pompous hipster. Everything those stupid teen books were "supposed" to teach me about life, but really just made me want to hurl, I could usually find either explicitly or implicitly within whatever book I actually enjoyed. Need a rant about why you shouldn't commit suicide because some jealous "frienemy" (is that really how that's spelled?) posts photoshopped raunchy photos of you on the school website? Go read Sherrilyn Kenyon's Infamous. V.C. Andrews' stuff really isn't worth the paper it's written on. And don't get me started on Twilight. Trust me, if you read any of Kenyon's Dark-Hunters books, you'll know what it really means to leave the person you love to save their life (or even offer yourself to Death) with lovely ladies who look at their men and say "Sweetie, I know you mean well, but let the real brains be in charge. 'kay?" and then she proceeds to kick ass, take names, and really show her commitment to him. Not lie on a couch for four months wondering where her life went. GAG!
So yeah...here I am reading something only 40+ year old women would actually enjoy. Maybe I'm just a feminist, but seriously?! Man says day one that he doesn't want to marry and you stick around for 2 years? Ever read Dear Abby?!? It's not a hard equation. I don't mean to make my mother's generation feel bad, but it's obvious that crap like this sells because women want to fantasize about a world where their bad decisions are...okay(?)--that there's some hero who's going to save her from the life she's made for herself.
Yeah, I'm the first to defend the fact that women marrying in the '80s got the damn short end of the stick--do you do as your mother? Or as your independent older sister? You have no clue as to whether to go with the status quo or to strike out on your own is the best choice. Thirty years later, most likely you're realizing that you made a poor decision when you married and threw your own dreams down the toilet, just like your mother did. But I don't know how much good we're doing for them when we give them books like this that say "it's okay to be unhappy in life so long as there's a man to stand by you". But maybe it's a different genre where you find the ladies who go back to school and pick up their lives as though they didn't spend 30 years in a crappy marriage and oh, find the man of their dreams (Hey! I like romances! If the Princess and the Goat-Herder don't get together at the end, I'm highly upset. And I'm still not sure that the Dark-Hunters aren't 'erotica for beginners'.)
There's something else I feel I need to address. When I first picked this book off my mother's shelf, I read thorugh the comments on Good Reads. Someone mentioned being insulted by the fact that N. Dakota isn't like it's protrayed here. They don't all have one room school houses. Well, that's an interesting way to look at it, but still completely wrong. I have a lot of home schooled pen pals, most of whom live in rural areas. I haven't asked them all, but there's only 2 reasons to home school an otherwise average kid (medical and psychological reasons notwithstanding)--the local schools suck or for religious reasons. I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that you could find at least one location within each state in the US where a one room school house for high school could exist comfortably (less than 20 kids from more than one family). So yes, while it would be stupid to say that all of N. Dakota go to school in one room school houses, it is equally ignorant to say that a one room school house is a backwards way to learn. A couple years ago a school with, I guess, 10 kids in it was shown on the news--the kids had better scores because the older ones were teaching the younger ones and it was essentially constant review without the tediousness of review. It's one of the many benefits of homeschooling (actually, my only problem/worry with homeschooling is whether a kid can learn the advanced classes without a qualified teacher--though many families are turning towards "distance learning" rather than true homeschooling (based on my own understanding/use of definitions) to combat this.)
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