100 Times: A Memoir of Sexism, by Chavisa Woods. Seven Stories Press, 2019

This book is laid out with a very simple format: Woods has put down on paper 100 different instances of sexual harassment and sexual abuse, ranging from discrimination, to verbal abuse to groping to out and out assault. These instances are laid out chronologically, from age 5 to her mid-30s. These have happened everywhere; in school (by a teacher), in places of employment, in bars, and even in her own apartment – by her male roommate who refused to wear pants. And they are not by any means *all* the problems she has had with sexist men. She writes plainly and simply, just laying out what happened with no melodrama attached.



Most women reading this will be horrified, but will also recognize their own lives. Most of us have endured these kinds of discrimination, harassment and assault. I cringed, because I certainly have, from the mildest to the worst. And despite the fact that these things happen to almost all of us, a huge segment of men- even men who are feminists- do not believe that sexual harassment happens. It is so ingrained in our society that it’s become invisible. We mostly shrug it off.



I wish this book were given to each and every middle school student in some kind of health or even civics class. These problems need to become visible, before the kids get out there navigating adult life. Five stars, and kudos to the author.

Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland, by Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus with Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan. Viking, 2015

In the spring of 2003, 17 year old Amanda Berry, walking home from work, was lured into a van by the father of a schoolmate. She was then taken to his house (still believing he was taking her to see her friend), where she was grabbed, brutally raped, and then chained up in the basement. She, and later Gina DeJesus, would remain in this house until 2013. Also there was Michelle Knight, who decided to tell her story on her own, so she is largely absent from these pages.



For ten long years, they were held inside without even a window to look out of. They were chained up, repeatedly raped, not fed nearly enough, terrified the whole time. Amanda had a baby girl while captive. Her rapist, Ariel Castro, was very proud to be a father and doted on the baby- while still keeping Amanda chained up. Amanda tried to raise the little girl with some sense of normalcy, teaching her to read, write, and do arithmetic. Castro enjoyed allowing the girls to watch the TV news when their families were on, begging for the return of their loved ones- an extra little bit of sadism.



The story is nothing short of horrifying. Castro and his treatment of the young women was viscerally revolting to me. The families and the police searched for them for years without finding anything. They despaired that they would never be found, never get out. Castro lied to each of them, telling them how he liked each one better than the others and that the other girls were saying bad things about them, driving a wedge between them so they could only look to him and not have warm feelings for the others. Now, Amanda and Gina are best friends- who else could understand what they have been through?-and have the support of their families again. I’m amazed at how well they have settled back into normal lives. They are very strong people to have survived as they did- I know I could never have survived in their situation.



The book alternates points of view, not just of the two girls, but also third person sections that show what their families, the police, and Castro himself were doing at the time. Amanda kept a diary of sorts; she intended to remember every detail and wrote in notebooks Castro bought her; when she filled those, she wrote on pizza boxes, receipts, and any other piece of paper she could find. The book was riveting; like a bad auto accident, I wanted to look away but couldn’t. Five stars, but very, very hard to read.

Hungry: Eating, Road-Tripping, and Risking It All with the Greatest Chef in the World, by Jeff Gordinier. Tim Duggin Books, 2019

Author Gordinier, Esquire food and drink editor, was having a bit of a mid-life crisis. His marriage had just ended, and he was restless and depressed. Then Rene Redzepi, owner of world famous (but I’m not enough of a foodie-or at least, not a rich enough foodie, to have heard of it) Noma restaurant in Copenhagen. It was 2014 and Redzepi was burnt out, looking for new inspirations, and scared of losing his status as the world’s greatest chef. He decided it was time for a road trip, and Gordinier was invited. The multi-year road trip was hectic, strange, and it pulled him out of his slump.



There were three main stops on the tour: Sydney, arctic Norway, and Mexico. Redzepi wanted to get into what the natives of these places ate, to try and bring something new to the elite world’s palates. He went with the natives of the areas to dig deep into their cuisines, dining on blood sausage, chicken hearts, prickly pears, avocado leaves, tropical fruits, chiles, nuts, palm sugar, tamarind paste, kelp, seawort, ant eggs, and grasshoppers. Then he planned a popup, and gathered his crew of fellow chefs. They tried the things the people brought them, they made new combinations, and they tried cooking them in various ways. Redzepi seems to have a hyperactive energy that he transmits to his crew. The popup runs into troubles, of course, and it ends up costing the select clientele $600 a plate. Which they happily pay, because they revere Redzepi in almost a cult like state.



I found it interesting, but choppy to read. The saga takes place over a couple of years, so Gordinier necessarily jumps in and out of Redzepi’s adventures and his own life. I loved the parts about the food itself. I’m enough of a foodie that it made me hungry to try new foods and make up new combinations, to taste all these great things- minus the ant eggs. I’m not *that* much of a food adventurer. Four stars.

Paris, 7 a.m., by Liza Wieland. Simon & Schuster, 2019

In 1937, two years after graduating from Vassar, Elizabeth Bishop went with some college friends to France. During this time, there was a three week stretch in time where she did not write in her life-long journal. Wieland has taken a look back and imagined what might have happened in that time. She and her friends move around and end up in Paris. Bishop tries to write. An artist friend has a tragic accident. She meets other artists and writers, including Natalie Barney. She falls for a woman who is not available to her. An older woman takes her on as a replacement for her deceased daughter- and as an aide in saving Jews from the invading Nazis.



Even though I realize this is a well written book, it really didn’t draw me in. It’s written in the third person present tense, which I found a bit off putting. Besides that, I was never pulled into the story, and never took to any of the characters. Wieland’s writing has a dreamy quality, like watching the story through a veil of chiffon. I can only give it three stars.

The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un, by Anna Fifield. Hachette Book Group, 2019.

The plump and oddly coiffed dictator Kim Jong Un seems to make the world laugh. This book will change the mind of anyone who reads it. Fifield, who was a correspondent in North Korea for over a decade, is uniquely placed to reveal the horror of North Korean totalitarianism and un-comic a person Un really is.  She talked to sources as varied as his aunt and uncle who raised him while he went to school in Switzerland, the man who was sushi chef for the Kims, who befriended Un when he was a child, and various people who have escaped the country or who do business there. It’s dangerous to speak to reporters if they have any relatives in the country.



It wasn’t easy to learn about Un. He was brought up out of the public eye, entitled amidst vast, showy wealth but lonely. Obsessed with basketball and weapons, a bizarre cult of personality was created around him- that he was an expert marksman at age 3, that at age 8 he drove a truck 80 mph. He wasn’t the obvious choice for heir to the Kim dynasty; he wasn’t the oldest son and he wasn’t son of the first wife. But his mother was ambitious and pushed him to the, well, throne. Family members who might challenge his right to the throne wind up dead- one uncle was quite publically assassinated. Importantly, he understands the modern world of computers and cyber spying.



He supposedly knows everything about everything and runs every aspect of the country, from the minutia of the economy to how nuclear weapons should be built. Despite being raised in insane luxury and having access to whatever he wants, he plays man of the people, meeting the crowds and hugging people. But he is scrupulous about having hotel rooms and other places totally wiped down when he leaves, removing any stray DNA that might give a clue to his health.



Under Un’s rule, there has been a rise in entrepreneurism and markets. Cell phones, bikinis, and plastic surgery are becoming common, and there is a private transport industry to make the markets possible. Businesses are run for profit, and the owners can hire or fire employees, rather than having them assigned by the government. But before this openness took place, he had sealed the borders and cracked down on the internet and TV to terrorize the nation. Freer markets are allowed because, in the end, it boosts Uns income- there are kickbacks and bribery at all levels. With the more open markets has come a drug problem; in a country where most people are still hungry, meth, with its appetite suppressing quality, is hugely popular.



The freeness and prosperity of North Korea is, in many ways, illusory. While huge high rise apartment buildings are being built, they are already falling apart. No one wants to live on any floor above the third or fourth, because the elevators are probably turned off or broken. There are self-criticism sessions every week (shades of Maoism) and huge concentration camps in the areas of North Korea with the worst climates.



But this man stroked Trump’s ego so that Korea got good concessions and Un got to keep all his nukes. The man is not a raving madman- well, not *just* a raving madman- he’s a smart, coldly calculating despot who knows exactly what he’s doing as he builds up his ability to nuke anyone, anywhere. A very interesting book with good research, that I think everyone should read, but it is choppy and jumps around. Four stars.

Clover Blue, by Eldonna Edwards. John Scognamiglio Books, 2019

Blue is not quite 11 when one of his mothers in the communal family gives birth. Made to watch the process, it makes him ask which one of the women he came out of. The Olders get uncomfortable; the leader of the commune, Goji, tells Blue that he’ll find out when he turns 12. On Blue’s 12^th birthday, the commune is disrupted by the arrival of two people. After, Goji tells Blue that he didn’t mean exactly on Blue’s birthday; he’ll tell him when it’s time. Blue finds this odd, because Goji normally treats Blue as an equal and tells the truth about things.



Set in the 1970s in northern California, Blue tells the story of his upbringing and coming into awareness of his past. Blue loves the members of the small commune. He finds out he was adopted when he was 3 but he remembers nothing of his prior life. He doesn’t even know what his birthname was. He only knows his life in the Saffron Freedom Community, which contains a guru, a surfer, a midwife and healer, a Grateful Dead groupie, a Vietnam deserter, and his best friend, a same age girl, Harmony. They live on a few leased acres, growing their food and living simply. All but Goji live in a large treehouse in an oak tree. They believe in peace, love, kindness, and reverence for all living things and the natural world. They all partake in the work needed to keep things running. There is no electricity or running water; they carry water from the springs. They stay off the radar because the State of California does not recognize the way the commune is set up; they’d have pesky questions like who one’s mother is, and why are they living under a tarp with no toilets other than an outhouse. It seems like heaven. Then things get upset when they get a new member and Goji falls for her.



The story is well paced. I loved the characters. The author really got the widening awareness that Blue has as he grows up. The setting is so well depicted I could feel and see the dry grasses and the rains. She shows that all was not sweetness and light; the commune runs into racism, violence, disdain for the hippie’s lifestyle, and the tragedies that can occur when herbal healing just isn’t enough. She also shows how well adjusted a child can be coming from a non-average up bringing; Blue and Harmony are educated well beyond their age level compared to those in regular school.



Basically the story is a coming of age and a search for identity- a search that’s a little harder for Blue than for most kids. He learns that the Olders are not as perfect as he thought, especially Goji. But they have taught him self-reliance, and that’s what he really needs, in the end.



I loved this book. I sat up until 1 a.m. for two nights reading it because I couldn’t put it down. Then, when I went to start this review, I flipped through it to refresh my memory because I read it two months ago. I ended up sitting up until 1 a.m. for two nights again, rereading, because it immediately sucked me in. And I haven’t reread anything for decades! The writing is such that I lived inside Blue, feeling his feelings. A wonderful piece of nostalgia for those of us who grew up in that era, even if not in the way Blue did. I’d give it 6 stars if I could.

Identity Theft: Rediscovering Ourselves After Stroke, by Debra Meyerson, PhD, and Danny Zuckerman. Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2019

‘Identity Theft’ refers to the way that a stroke takes away from who you are- or who you think you are. Suddenly a fit, quick witted person cannot walk, or remember names, or may even lose the ability to talk at all (and the ability to write frequently goes with that, too). The long distance runner cannot get to the bathroom. The family bread winner cannot go to work. The musician can no longer use their hand. And it doesn’t just affect the person with the stroke; it affects the whole family.



Meyerson lost a lot, both physically and mentally. She was an athlete, an author, and a college level lecturer. Eight years on, after very intensive rehab that continues even now, she still struggles to talk or write at times, walks with a limp and a cane, and has limited use of her right arm. She has had to seriously redefine herself. The battle of recovery is both physical and psychological.



This book tells us about her own firsthand experience with stroke. Meyerson’s voice is blended with that of other stroke victims, too, telling their unique stories. Every stroke is different; everyone is different in how they recover and what treatments they are given. The book is part memoir, part textbook on stroke, and part philosophy of life. The emphasis is not just on the physical experience of having and recovering from stroke, but the psychological experience of stroke. There is info on the resources available and the limits of what medicine can do. They point out that improvements can be gained year after year, whereas physical therapy, speech therapy, and occupational therapy usually end after a year.



All in all, it seems like what is important is determination, resilience, positive attitude, and having a supportive network (and good insurance) are most important to recovery. Despite losses in identity, the person must feel they still make a positive difference to others. Meyerson is lucky; her husband’s support is unending, her three adult children are super supportive, and she has the resources to still be taking physical therapy. Excellent book from the victim’s point of view.