Review: The Host

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



And so ends the only Stephenie Meyer book currently in existence that I think I can finish.



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Review: Landry Park

Landry Park by Bethany Hagen

My rating: 2 of 5 stars




I wanted to like it, but it really doesn't live up to the giants of the genre at all. It's Kansas City setting is just incidental, and there's a troubling anti-Asian thread that made me uncomfortable at nearly every mention.

There are better books for nearly every aspect of this novel, and a lot of the plot here left me rolling my eyes.

Unfortunate.



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Review: My Story

My Story by Elizabeth Smart

My rating: 0 of 5 stars




I can't bring myself to give this a rating using stars. I have seen and heard Elizabeth Smart interviewed multiple times since she's reached adulthood. I have found her to be smart, thoughtful, and very composed when she speaks about what happened to her when she was 14.

That said, this book is not very good, which should probably be laid entirely at the feet of the ghostwriter. I hope it made Elizabeth a lot of money she can put toward her foundation: she's doing the real work of changing minds and lives there. This book isn't likely to do much of that on its own.



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Review: Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery

Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker

My rating: 3 of 5 stars




As a book that explores how women can be sucked into the world of Craigslist sex work despite its obvious risks of disease, pain, and in the case of these women: death. The book struggles in the last third because of the lack of leads/suspects in the case, and there's no satisfying conclusion to the book because there's never been an arrest or even a likely suspect or person of interest. Attempts to make one of the residents of Oak Beach appear like the killer are pretty flat.

It's a well-written book, but it almost feels like it came before it's time. So close in time to the deaths of these women, and without a lot of the answers that a coherent investigation/prosecution would have provided, it's ultimately unsatisfying. I think it would have been better edited down to a piece of long-form journalism.



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Review: Panic

Panic by Lauren Oliver

My rating: 4 of 5 stars




This book is probably the best one that Lauren Oliver has written to date. It has a marvelously evocative setting: in many cases the scene descriptions will hint to you what is going on in a scene long before the action or dialogue take you there. It's believable and yet dark, and the realistic tone grounds what could have otherwise become a silly story. This is the Hunger Games without the fantasy setting. It's a story of poverty, desperation, and the threshold between childhood and adulthood. I really liked it a lot. The only thing that keeps it from five stars is that it either ended too quickly or not quickly enough. The last chapter felt tacked on in a way that either should have been expanded on or excised completely.





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Review: Defy

Defy by Sara B. Larson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I was sort of shocked that this book was categorized as juvenile literature by my library, given how cavalierly it drops ideas like a "rape house" and the ease with which it kills off characters. It started strong and plays with one of my favorite girl-disguised-as-boy tropes, but it bogs down quickly in the particulars of the love triangle, which isn't particularly interesting.

Not sure if I will read on. There's some good here to grow on; I hope that Larson can keep that trajectory and improve as an author.

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Wet-shaving and me

This is part of a new, regular green living series I'll be adding to about changes I've made in my life to be more green. If you can think of a topic you'd like me to write about, don't hesitate to let me know!

For the last several years, I've been looking for ways to make me day-to-day existence greener. I switched from o.b. tampons to flannel reusable pads, and then to a Diva Cup for my menstruation management. I made a concerted effort to switch to organic soaps and shampoos, with varied degrees of success.

But shaving my legs remained a decidedly resource-intensive activity, and it was expensive to boot while using my cartridge razor. I'm a pretty much hippy-feminist, so you'd think I'd be able to give up shaving and be liberated and furry, but I actually really enjoy the feel of shaved legs on clean sheets a great deal.

Giving up shaving wasn't an option for me.

My husband, G., had switched to wet-shaving several years ago, and while I was supportive of that for him, the safety razor scared the crap out of me when it came to shaving my own body parts. But we hit a really tight financial patch while I was in law school and I couldn't afford to replace my Sensor cartridges at the rate I needed to for a good shave. In a pinch one day, I used G's safety razor and a fresh blade from his sizeable stash of razor blades. He'd bought a sample pack when he'd started, then settled in on a blade he preferred pretty quickly and ordered more of those, so we had a lot of spare blades from which to pick.

It wasn't a great shave: I cut myself pretty badly in the exact place I did the very first time I shaved my legs, in fourth grade. One inch-long strip of flesh right up the side of my ankle. It felt in many ways like being reintroduced to the skill, complete with the ointment and the big bandaid strapped over my ankle bone.

That year, on my birthday, he bought me my own safety razor so we didn't have to share: his blade was too heavy for my hand (I have carpal tunnel). I used that, with my own sample pack of razors, for months until I figured out that my birthday razor was too short and maybe still a little too heavy for leg shaving. I read up a lot about wet shaving for women at the reddit sub r/wicked_edge, and deduced that the ideal razor for my leg shaving needs was a Lady Gillette.

Now, the Lady Gillette's production was stopped before I was born, but there's a reasonably good secondhand market in them on eBay. I bid on several, and eventually got lucky and won one in good condition. I sold my birthday razor (with my husband's blessing) to someone on r/Shave_bazaar, and so helped another person make his first foray into wet-shaving with a minimal initial investment.

After some trial and error, I've found the razor and blade combo that works best for me. A couple of weeks ago I ordered what will likely be two years worth of blades and yesterday they arrived. For about a quarter (or less) what I would have paid to keep using the Gillette Sensor, I've been able to switch to a greener alternative that will last me the rest of my life. I'm not sure why more people don't take this route, except that maybe it requires a little experimentation to discover what works for the individual.

Once you've found your combination, though, you'll never have a better shave with the junk you buy at the drugstore. If you're interested in lady wet-shaving, you should take a look at this Beginner's FAQ.