American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee

Karen Abbott

  This is a biography of Gypsy Rose Lee. For those that don’t know, she was a burlesque artist, striptease, author, movie star, and many other things starting during the Roaring Twenties up until her death in 1970. For having “no talent” this women made a success of herself. The book was formatted more like a novel with alternating time periods instead of chronologically. It concentrates mainly on her childhood years and the beginning of her career in burlesque with highlights of her later years.

  To start with, Gypsy Rose Lee was not her real name and her mother was a complete sociopath. “I thought my family was bad” is a common thread in other reviews I’ve seen about this book. Gypsy was born Ellen June Hovick. When her younger sister was born, her mother named the younger sister Ellen June and changed Gypsy’s to Rose Louise. Why? Because she was crazy. There is no other explanation for this woman. She forced her kids to be the best, always pushing June “the talented one” and trying to get rid of Gypsy for not being able to sing or dance well. When money was tight, there are hints of prostitution for herself and the children. She also forged birth certificates for both girls so many times that they were never sure of their real birthdates and ages. There are also mentions of several murders and attempted murders.

  After the Depression begins, June gets tired of her mother’s antics and runs off to get married. Her mother started to push Gypsy into stripping since vaudeville acts were being replaced with much cheaper movies. That starts what is referred to as the “lost year.” I’m assuming it involved much more than just stripping and out and out prostitution. It’s hard to pass judgment on her though, it was the Depression and they were broke. She is eventually discovered by one of the famous Minksy brothers and taken to New York where they remake her into the world’s most famous burlesque dancer.

  There’s tons more and the whole story is fascinating. From the dying of vaudeville and the beginnings of burlesque and trying to rewrite her own history and the relationships with her mother, sister, and the men of her life, the writing was captivating. The sheer amount of information in this book was overwhelming and I had to go back and read between the lines about a lot of things the author hinted at instead of saying outright.            

The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn

The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn 

Robin Maxwell

     Historical Fiction again. I bet you’re all wondering how many complaints I’m going to have with this one considering how little I like Rose of Sebastopol. Let me spoil you on this review and tell you there’s not many.

     This book is told from the point of view of Elizabeth the first. During her first year of ruling England, a retainer of her mother asks for a private audience. She then presents Elizabeth with the diary her mother had kept since she was very young. Most of the story was snippets of Elizabeth and how she was escaping her duties to finish the diary but most of the story was carried by the diary entries themselves. The things in Anne Boleyn’s diary paralleled the things happening during Elizabeth’s reign and gave her the confidence to make several hard decisions that she had been putting off.

N     ow, I know that doesn’t sound like much of a story but I find this kind of thing fascinating so I really enjoyed this book. Anne Boleyn was always a popular and demonized figure in history because of the changes she started in the English church and the things she was executed for. The writing was compelling and the writer made it feel like this could really be parts from Anne Boleyn’s actual diary. If you like historical fiction or stories from this era, I’d say this is a book you should find immediately. If you want to try something new, this is a fairly easy book to become absorbed in so go borrow it from the library as soon as you can. 

Dies the Fire

Dies the Fire

S. M. Stirling

     This book is absolutely brilliant. It’s the first of a series set in the Emberverse. While it is a series, the first three books are a few years apart but the author does a good job of re-capping the previous ones. After that, the books follow exactly where the others left off. This book is about various groups of people living in the Washington/Oregon area dealing with the mysterious ending of technology as we know it. Yes, I’m sure everyone has seen the ads for the TV show called “Revolution.” I assure you aside from the technology does not work aspect, it is completely different.

     Dies the Fire follows three and sometimes four groups of people surviving and coping with the sudden loss of technology and rebuilding civilization. It’s a little chaotic and hard to follow at times as it has a large cast of characters and tends to jump back and forth between them especially during action scenes. There is also a heavy religious overtone. There’s several forms of Christianity and more nature-based religions and even a few cults thrown in for good measure. There’s not much more I can say without spoilers but if you are uncomfortable with any kind of spiritual talk other than your own, this may not be the book for you.

     Now that being said, why do I love this book? Mr. Stirling takes several hugely diverse groups of people and sets them to deal with the worst possible circumstances. The story of how they survive is powerful enough, but when you add in the religious tolerance and how they become a community and forge alliances with other forming governments in the area, it becomes a story that is easy to quickly become engrossed in. His characters are so life-like and his scenery so vivid and his solutions so ingenious that I found myself laughing or crying along with characters. It also made me stop and think “what if I was there?” and “what if this really happened?” and “what happens next?” In my opinion, that is the mark of a great book. 

Radiant

Radiant – James Alan Gardner

     I “borrowed” this book from my dad several years ago when he forgot to cancel some automatic shipment thing from a book club. It turns out to be a good thing because this has become one of my favorite books to reread.

     Many years in the future humans have colonized many worlds and discovered diverse others with alien life on them. There is a catch to all this wonderful exploration though: the League of People. The League consists of an unknown number of powerful alien races or “higher beings” that hold everyone to a high moral standard. If a person demonstrates an callousness for sentient life and tries to leave their planet, they are exterminated immediately. It isn’t just warlike species either, even CEOs who do not test their company’s products thoroughly are subject to the League’s rules; there is no appeal or notification, only execution.

     The Technocracy is one of the human societies in this universe. They deplore the use of implants, bioengineering, and gene shuffling to improve on the human design. Their population is ridiculously simple. Most are caught up in their own pleasures and desires, not really caring about the bigger picture beyond seeing their day to day needs. However, the government still needs explorers to chart new planets and discover new life forms. The Explorer Corps is filled with what can be known as the “rejects” of society; the deformed, the mad but functional, those who just don’t fit in, the expendable ones.

     Ma Youn Suu, the main character, belongs to the Explorer Corps. She is on a routine patrol ship with her partner when they get a distress call. “The Balrog,” a teleporting, moss-like alien who is so intelligent it makes humans look like bugs on the evolutionary scale, has appeared from nowhere on a nearby planet and causing the residents to panic. Youn Suu and her partner are sent to the planet to figure out what the Balrog wants. It turns out that what the Balrog wanted was Youn Suu. It bites and benignly rides along as a presence in her blood stream until Youn Suu, her partner, and her mentor can figure out what this alien intelligence wants. Before they can even report back to their headquarters about the state of Youn Suu’s “infection,” there is another distress call they need to answer. All of the settlers of the nearby planet, Muta, sent out a distress call but are no longer answering. as the closest and most expendable members of the Navy, the group goes to find out what they can and find themselves in more trouble than they ever expected.

     I really enjoy this book because of the way the author demonstrates the differences between the various human societies versus the alien societies. Some of the ones that get mentioned could be us in a few years like the Cashleens calling the newspapers, lawyers, or city hall because they are inconvenienced and have to take a different route home. James Alan Gardner explores the various tenets of the Buddhist faith in the way Youn Suu interacts, investigates, and comes to terms with the alien presence that has invaded her body and the way she saves her party members even though it means losing part of what makes her an individual. This book is actually the fifth in a series which I didn't know until I started to write this review. Clearly, they do not need to be read in order since I was able to follow the story easily. If you like exploring unknown planets and super intelligent aliens with their own agenda, this is definitely a good book to find.