“Our scars make us know that our past was for real”
Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice
Karin Tanabe’s The List
In The List, Karin Tanabe tells the story of Adrienne Brown, a woman who leaves her life in New York behind for the chance of a lifetime, a job at the Capitalist. In New York, Adrienne wrote for the magazine Town & Country, she was given free designer clothes and accessories, and encouraged to hae a life outside of work, but something always seemed to be missing. Politics. She loved politics, which is why, when Adrienne got the offer to work at the Capitalist, based in Washington, DC, she didn’t hesitate. The only thing she hesitates about is calling her parents and asking if she can move back home
As it turns out, working at the Capitalist, or the List as everyone calls it, isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Adrienne is assigned to the Style section, which is about as low as you can get. She gets zero respect from her coworkers. They keep their heads down as they pass by and have private conversations in front of Adrienne and the other Style girls, as if they don’t exist. Her job consists of chasing down celebrities at functions, trying to get quotes from them, or accidentally overhearing conversations and turning them into stories. She has to get up at five in the morning, six days a week (her only day off is Saturday), and she’s expected to write at least ten stories a day. If she takes even a second to breathe, her boss is down her throat about not being productive. Where is the fun in that?
One restless night, Adrienne decides to take a drive and stumbles onto what could be the biggest story the Capitalist has ever had…involving one of their employees and a powerful person in office. Adrienne becomes consumed with this, obsessive at times. She even enlists the help of the one person in the world who you wouldn’t expect.
The List, loosely based on Karin Tanabe’s experiences of working at Politico, is fast-paced and witty. Author Sarah Pekkanen describes it as “The Devil Wears Prada meets Capitol Hill,” and I couldn’t agree more. Adrienne thinks that working at the Capitalist is everything that she wanted, and in some ways it is. She learns to write (and think) faster, but she never truly fits in. She doesn’t dress the part of a reporter and she doesn’t completely think like one either. She sits on the story for so long trying to put all of the pieces together to make it perfect, that she almost loses everything. It is only after she is left in a motel room that Adrienne is able to gather all of her strength and finish the job. But even then is a story ever truly finished?
Karin Tanabe has crafted a great story that will grip you until long after the novel ends. A novel that is so gripping, that you can’t put it down, and one that you continue to think about weeks later, is the best that you can get. It also makes you wonder to what extent the truth meets fiction. It is, after all, based on the author’s own experiences. How much of it is fact and how much of it is a figment of Tanabe’s own imagination? The List is a must read for anyone who is looking to lose themselves in a story. It only took my three days to read, which says a lot and I personally cannot wait for her next book.
Friends Forever?
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship. How can you tell the difference between a good friend and a bad one? The ones that will last forever versus the ones that are for right now or have already expired?
I’m not sure if there is a right answer for this because everyone is different – every friendship is different – but I feel like it is simpler than it seems. Your friends are people who are there for you. Period. How they, themselves can express that, or how they choose to, is another story. There may be circumstances that are beyond their control, ones that physically limit their roles in your life.
There are a few people that I can think of who fit into this category; one being my friend John. He and I have known each other for over half of our lives. For a long time, he was my go-to for advice – both personal and about guys. I didn’t always like what he had to say, but a lot of the time he was right (okay, most of the time). He’s in the army so there are long stretches where I don’t hear from him, but that doesn’t make him any less of a friend. Thank goodness I have branched-out a bit, or who knows where I’d be. It also helps that I have a boyfriend that I can talk to about anything, one who actually listens to me, doesn’t judge me and won’t hesitate to tell me when I’m wrong or right.
Then there are the other kind of friends, the ones that are only around when it is convenient for them, ones that are there for the positive things but avoid the negatives. I’ve had friends like these, and I think everyone has. Sometimes it takes a while to recognize the signs, but once you see them, there really is no sense to ignore. Your friends don’t all have to be your best friends for them to count. You can have bus friends, shopping friends, coffee friends, yoga friends…the list is endless really. Just because they may not all have a significant role in your life doesn’t mean they are bad friends. The bad ones are the ones that don’t act like friends, the ones that you need to let go of. Originally, I had started this post towards the end of January, after a huge fight with someone who was supposed to be a good friend. I had been in her wedding party, attended her child’s christening, even hosted her and her then two-year-old in my very un-baby friendly apartment (yes, things were broken and my only set of house-keys was lost temporarily). The fight was on-going, spanning over a month, and really unnecessary, but too many words were said that could not be taken back. I had been there for her when she needed me, but the one time that I could not adhere to something, she couldn’t handle it; the fact that I had tried to be accommodating didn’t matter. It was upsetting to lose her as a friend, but in the end it was the only decision to be made.
I believe that everyone enters your life for a reason, to teach you a lesson that you would otherwise not have learned. Some people will leave your life after you learn those lessons and some will continue onward with you on your journey, be there with you for the good times and the bad, as you close chapters in your life and start new ones. There are some friends that I have had forever, that I’ll always keep a special place for in my heart no matter the distance that grows between us, and some that will fade away into the night and become past memories. Friendships do not have to last forever to be good, but they have to be true friends to last forever.
“That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word.”
-William Kent Krueger, Ordinary Grace
Sarah Pekkanen’s The Best of Us
It had been a while since I had read and enjoyed a new (new to me) chick-lit author. I had tried a few different ones, but none of them seemed to stack up. Then, I was introduced to Sarah Pekkanen’s writing, and subsequently purchased all of her books. One down, three more to read! I’m excited!
In her fourth book, The Best of Us, Pekkanen explores the friendships of four college friends (three women and one man) who travel to Jamaica with their spouses on an all-expenses paid vacation to celebrate the birthday of one of their own.
Tina is married and struggling a bit with the task of raising four young children. Allie has just found out about a life-threatening illness that she may potentially end up with. Savannah’s husband moved out, leaving her for a nurse who works in his hospital – information that she has not shared with anyone. And then there’s Pauline, the wife of Dwight, who, in trying to make him happy, sets up the whole vacation for his birthday with his college friends. Pauline is cold and uninviting, but as we get deeper into the story, we learn that there is much more depth to Pauline, and a secret that she has been hiding for all of her life with Dwight.
Among the reunion of old college friends, the hours spent both on the beach and in the villa, and the non-stop partying, there are darker forces working as well. Secrets emerge (old and new) and each relationship (friendship and romantic) is tested. There is jealousy, betrayal, love and everything in between that you could think of that would emerge when old friends get together.
I had previously read her e-short stories and was really looking forward to seeing how she handled the task of writing something bigger. Given the number of main characters, I was a bit unsure if there would be enough depth to each of them to make them believable, but I was happy to find out that there was. I really enjoyed this book. It is a must read for anyone who likes chick lit, also for people who are fans of Emily Giffin, which I am as well (Pekkanen’s style has been compared to Giffin). The Best of Us is a tale of old friends and what happens to those friendships when you grow up and live separate lives.
Survivor-a-thon
The popular reality show Survivor has been on for quite a while, nearly thirteen years to be exact, but until a few weeks ago, I had never seen one episode despite the popularity of it. It was a Wednesday evening, and Billy and I were flipping through channels trying to decide what to put on. We flipped on Survivor, and since one of our friends is a huge fan of the show, decided to give it a chance. I have to say, it was entertaining. I haven’t turned the new season on since, but Billy has been watching it.
Fast forward to last Thursday. I spent the night (my birthday-eve) in Brooklyn so that I wouldn’t have to lug around an overnight bag to dinner on Friday. Billy pops in a dvd of a previous Survivor season (All Stars) and we become hooked, watching multiple episodes a night, even waking up on Sunday morning at my apartment to watch one. After realizing that there was only one more episode left and that I could not persuade Billy to give me the last dvd before he saw it, I traveled back with him to Brooklyn to have tea (I left my new tea infuser there by accident) and watch the final episode. Although we had already known who was going to win, we were still hooked. I don’t think I’ll ever become obsessed with the show, but I can definitely see myself watching a few seasons of it.
Turning Twenty-Nine
Last Friday, the count-down to the end of my twenties and (gasp) beginning of my thirties commenced. I have never been one to care about age before, so why should it be any different now? Age is only a number after all, and if my birthday was any indication on how the year will go, I say, come on thirty!
It started off like any other week-day, except for the fact that I was wearing a date-dress during the day (covered up with a sweater). After work, I hurried downtown to meet Billy at our favorite restaurant in Little Italy. The food was delicious as usual; we shared a bottle of wine and veal parmigiana, and each had our own pasta. I dream about their pasta. Then we headed to Brooklyn, where I got my present (finally! I had been hearing about said present for about a month). I have the most amazing boyfriend; he bought me a beautiful necklace, and I have to say, my eyes started tearing a little as he put it on me. I’ve never loved something so much or felt so much love from one person. I have not taken the necklace off since. Okay, that’s a lie. I’ve taken it off to shower and sleep since I don’t want anything to happen to it.
A little later, I freshened up my makeup, changed into jeans and we set off to meet friends for drinks. It was a lot of fun, filled with old friends and new, and we were out for quite a while. We ended the night walking home in the rain (more like drizzle), getting into pajamas and eating the rest of my pasta from dinner…and ice cream :). Speaking of ice cream, I also now own an ice cream maker, something that I’ve wanted ever since I was a little girl (my favorite American Girl character made ice cream in one of her books), and cannot wait to make ice cream in the very near future.
Experimentations with Lip Color
I have always been one of those girls who likes neutral make-up. I have loads of lip glosses in a palate of different pinks, shades light enough that you can see a difference, but not so much that you pass by a mirror and think, wow.
Recently, I’ve gotten a bit bored of these pale colors. I’d made multiple trips to Sephora without any luck, mostly due to the fact that there is just too much to choose from, but also because nothing seemed to ever be the right shade. You can only try on so many colors before you get disgusted with all of them.
I was about to give up when I remembered the Body Shop. Most of my make-up (save for mascara…I am addicted to Dior mascara) comes from there, but I had forgotten all about that place – tells you how much I buy make-up. The Body Shop has a location nearish to my office, so I took a stroll over there a couple of weeks ago and was immediately glad I did, despite the fact that all of my colors seemed to be obsolete. I walked away with a new shade of lip gloss (and a few other things) and have since returned and bought a lipstick. These colors aren’t extreme, but they have more pigment than I usually do, and I love them. I’ll definitely be going back there again sometime soon.
Great Gatsby Movie Coming Soon
Ever since I first read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, I’ve been obsessed. With its 1920s glamour and star-crossed lovers, who doesn’t love it?! But really, it’s so much more than that. Despite Daisy and Gatsby’s mutual love for each other, a love that endured years of separation, it is ultimately not enough. Daisy is married to Tom and is not strong enough to leave him. And Gatsby, despite everything, isn’t strong enough either, though he puts up a good façade; no one knows who he really is. There’s also Nick, Daisy’s cousin, who befriends Gatsby, in awe of the fortune and lavish parties, wishing that he could be just like him. But after Nick is thrown into Gatsby’s world and starts to see things behind the façade, he realizes that it’s not what he wants after all.
What I find most interesting of the novel is that there’s so much that is not said, so much that the reader has to think about and realize on their own. It’s truly an amazing work of fiction that Fitzgerald didn’t get nearly enough praise for during his life.
I’ve been waiting for about three years for this film to come out, and thankfully, I have less than a month to go! You can bet that I’ll thumb through the novel again beforehand so it’ll be fresh in my mind, and then, off to the theater I will go! I leave you with a quote from The Great Gatsby…perhaps one of my favorites.
“He smiled understandingly – much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced – or seemed to face – the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.”
–F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
A Quick Book Note
Friday evening, I was obsessing over which book to start next. I literally took all four of my new books, fanned them out in front of me, then went through and looked at the summaries of each, in hopes that that would help me decide. Well, clearly they all sounded good otherwise I wouldn’t have purchased three out of the four of them. The fourth one, I had just received on my Tuesday class, met the author and got her to sign it, who, by-the-way is really nice and funny (and, it appears that we have a fb friend in common). The other three were all by the author that I am newly obsessed with (Sarah Pekkanen). I seriously could not decide. I txted Melissa and called my boyfriend, who both laughed at me and then told me to pick one. I decided to curb the decision in favor of much needed rest, and went to bed, hoping that it would come to me in the morning.
The next day I still could not decide. I sprawled out on my couch and watched TV for a while, then went out to do some errands, since I was in possession of my boyfriend’s car and was going to head to his place later on and lose it…I mean give it back to him. When I got home, I started packing for Billy’s and made a game-time decision. It would be The List by Karin Tanabe; the author that I had met and who signed my book. Turns out, it was totally the right choice.
Can I just say that I am OBSESSED with this book?! I started it yesterday morning (and then on-and-off throughout the day) and am already over a hundred pages in. I’ll write about it when I’m finished (probably by the end of the week), but just wanted to post this quote:
“Could I casually just grab his hand and slip it into mine for the rest of eternity? Or just maybe place it directly on my boob?”
-Karin Tanabe, The List
elizabethsara 