Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive
Stephanie Land, 2019
Hachette
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316505116
Summary
At 28, Stephanie Land's plans of breaking free from the roots of her hometown in the Pacific Northwest to chase her dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer, were cut short when a summer fling turned into an unexpected pregnancy.
She turned to housekeeping to make ends meet, and with a tenacious grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life possible, Stephanie worked days and took classes online to earn a college degree, and began to write relentlessly.
She wrote the true stories that weren't being told: the stories of overworked and underpaid Americans. Of living on food stamps and WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) coupons to eat. Of the government programs that provided her housing, but that doubled as halfway houses.
The aloof government employees who called her lucky for receiving assistance while she didn't feel lucky at all. She wrote to remember the fight, to eventually cut through the deep-rooted stigmas of the working poor.
Maid explores the underbelly of upper-middle class America and the reality of what it's like to be in service to them.
"I'd become a nameless ghost," Stephanie writes about her relationship with her clients, many of whom do not know her from any other cleaner, but who she learns plenty about. As she begins to discover more about her clients' lives-their sadness and love, too-she begins to find hope in her own path.
Her compassionate, unflinching writing as a journalist gives voice to the "servant" worker, and those pursuing the American Dream from below the poverty line. Maid is Stephanie's story, but it's not her alone. It is an inspiring testament to the strength, determination, and ultimate triumph of the human spirit. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1979
• Where—Pacific Northwest, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Montana
• Currently—lives in Missoula, Montana
Journalist Stephanie Land's work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Vox, Salon, and many other outlets. She focuses on social and economic justice as a writing fellow through both the Center for Community Change and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
Her memoir, Maid (2019) is the story of her struggle to raise her daughter as a single woman while working and living in poverty. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
(Starred Review) [H]eartfelt and powerful debut memoir…. Land’s love for her daughter (“We were each other’s moon and sun”) shines brightly through the pages of this beautiful, uplifting story of resilience and survival.
Publishers Weekly
[V]ivid and visceral yet nearly unrelenting memoir…. Land has perhaps succeeded in having her story told by virtue of her eventual triumph in escaping the grind of poverty. Her journey offers an illuminating read that should inspire outrage, hope, and change. —Janet Ingraham Dwyer, State Lib. of Ohio, Columbus
Library Journal
(Starred Review) [D]etailed and insightful…. Some of the most memorable scenes recount the shaming Land received when using the food stamps to purchase groceries.… An important memoir that should be required reading for anyone who has never struggled with poverty.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for MAID … then take off on your own:
1. What do you think of Stephanie Land?
2. What was Land's family background? How, in particular, would you describe her parents and the affect they may have had (or not have had) on the direction of her life?
3. What does this memoir reveal to you about life on the edge—or smack in the middle—of poverty? Consider the humiliations, the fears and anxieties, even hoplessness, and the exhaustion, both physical and mental, of Land's situation. How common do you think her experiences are? To what extent do you believe her poverty was due to her own poor choices?
4. Talk about the rules of the bureaucracy that poor people face when attempting to find assistance. Should those rules be made intentionally difficult in order to discourage their abuse? Or do the rules appear designed purposely to keep poor people mired in poverty?
5. What do you think of Jamie and his threats to apply for custody of Mia?
6. Talk about the ways in which Maid highlights the discrepancies between rich and poor?
7. What is your take-away from reading Land's memoir? Is it an eye-opener, or does it confirm your ideas of life under the poverty?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Code Name: Lise: The Story of the Woman Who Became WWII's Most Highly Decorated Spy
Larry Loftis, 2019
Gallery Books
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501198656
Summary
An extraordinary true story of Odette Sansom, the British spy who operated in occupied France and fell in love with her commanding officer during World War II.
The year is 1942, and World War II is in full swing. Odette Sansom decides to follow in her war hero father’s footsteps by becoming an SOE agent to aid Britain and her beloved homeland, France.
Five failed attempts and one plane crash later, she finally lands in occupied France to begin her mission. It is here that she meets her commanding officer Captain Peter Churchill.
As they successfully complete mission after mission, Peter and Odette fall in love. All the while, they are being hunted by the cunning German secret police sergeant, Hugo Bleicher, who finally succeeds in capturing them.
They are sent to Paris’s Fresnes prison, and from there to concentration camps in Germany where they are starved, beaten, and tortured. But in the face of despair, they never give up hope, their love for each other, or the whereabouts of their colleagues.
In Code Name: Lise, Larry Loftis paints a portrait of true courage, patriotism, and love—of two incredibly heroic people who endured unimaginable horrors and degradations.
He seamlessly weaves together the touching romance between Odette and Peter and the thrilling cat and mouse game between them and Sergeant Bleicher. With this amazing testament to the human spirit, Loftis proves once again that he is adept at writing “nonfiction that reads like a page-turning novel” (Parade). (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Larry Loftis is the author of the nonfiction spy thrillers—Code Name: Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII's Most Highly Decorated Spy (2019); and Into the Lion's Mouth: The True Story of Dusko Popov—World War II Spy, Patriot, and the Real-Life Inspiration for James Bond (2016).
Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Mr. Loftis was a corporate attorney and adjunct professor of law. He received both his B.A. and his J.D. from the University of Florida and currently lives in Orlando, Florida. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Larry Loftis tells it again for a new generation, reweaving the usual account of her wartime activities into a kind of nonfiction thriller.… Mr. Loftis’s writing is frequently difficult to tolerate. He takes a story that is already dramatic and tries to make it more so with cheesy coats of romance and horror.… Fortunately, febrile prose can’t undercut the sheer power of Sansom’s story and of Sansom herself.
Elizabeth Winkler - Wall Street Journal
Extraordinary bravery… made this woman one of World War II's most remarkable spies. That she survived the war was almost miraculous.
Time
Written in the style of a thriller, this is a thrilling account of the exploits of World War II’s most highly decorated spy, Odette Sansom.
Daily Mail (UK)
Loftis gives Sansom the eipc story her experience warrants, full of spycraft, complex and important missions, incredible feats of bravery, and love.
CrimeReads
With evident sympathy, Loftis tells a well-researched, novelistic story of a heroine and patriot.… Swift and entertaining, Loftis’s work reads less like a biography and more like a thriller (photos).
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Reading like a thrilling spy novel and the most exciting sort of non-fiction—well researched, well written, and fast paced enough to keep the pages turning—this will interest fans of the history of espionage, World War II history, military history, women’s history, and biography.
Library Journal
A true-life thriller centers around a defiant woman who spied for Britain.… [T]he author creates a readable page-turner about Odette's dangerous missions.… A vivid history of wartime heroism.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for CODE NAME: LISE … then take off on your own:
1. What prompted Odette Sansom to leave her husband and three young daughters and sign up with SOE?
2. How would you describe Odette? The evaluation following her SOE training referred to her as a loose cannon, arrogant, relentless, and fearless. Do you agree with any/all of those descriptions? What adjectives would you add?
3. Why did SOE recruit Odette? What qualities made her potential spy material?
4. The SOE training program Sansom underwent proved rigorous. How do you think you might have fared? What part of training would you have found most difficult?
5. What do you make of Peter Churchill and the couple's love affair?
6. Talk about the mistake Odette made which resulted in her capture by the Nazis.
7. In what way did her childhood illnesses—polio and blindness—help prepare Odette for the horrific ordeal as a Nazi prisoner?
8. Why didn't the Nazis kill Odette and Peter?
9. Of the many incidents, close calls, lies and ruses, which stand out to you most—in terms of Odette's bravery and cleverness, in terms of danger or recklessness… or anything else in particular?
10. Would you have signed up for the SOE? Would you have been capable or willing to undertake the role of a spy in Nazi occupied territory?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
Dani Shapiro, 2018
Knopf Doubleday Publishing
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781524732714
Summary
A memoir about the staggering family secret uncovered by a genealogy test: an exploration of the urgent ethical questions surrounding fertility treatments and DNA testing, and a profound inquiry of paternity, identity, and love.
What makes us who we are? What combination of memory, history, biology, experience, and that ineffable thing called the soul defines us?
In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had whimsically submitted her DNA for analysis, Dani Shapiro received the stunning news that her father was not her biological father. She woke up one morning and her entire history—the life she had lived—crumbled beneath her.
Inheritance is a book about secrets—secrets within families, kept out of shame or self-protectiveness; secrets we keep from one another in the name of love.
It is the story of a woman's urgent quest to unlock the story of her own identity, a story that has been scrupulously hidden from her for more than fifty years, years she had spent writing brilliantly, and compulsively, on themes of identity and family history.
It is a book about the extraordinary moment we live in—a moment in which science and technology have outpaced not only medical ethics but also the capacities of the human heart to contend with the consequences of what we discover. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 10, 1962
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education— B.A., M.F.A., Sarah Lawrence College
• Currently—lives in Bethlehem, Connecticut
Dani Shapiro is the author of the memoirs Inheritance (2019) Hourglass (2017), Still Writing (2013), Devotion (2010), and Slow Motion (1998). She has also the author of several novels, including Black & White (2007) and Family History (2004).
Shapiro's short fiction, essays, and journalistic pieces have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, One Story, Elle, Vogue, Oprah Magazine, New York Times Book Review, the op-ed pages of the New York Times, and many other publications.
She has taught in the writing programs at Columbia, NYU, the New School, and Wesleyan University; she is cofounder of the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy. In 1997 she married screenwriter Michael Maren. They have one child and live in Litchfield County (Bethlehem), Connecticut. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
(Starred Review) Fascinating…. With thoughtful candor, [Shapiro] explores the ethical questions surrounding sperm donation, the consequences of DNA testing…. This beautifully written, thought-provoking genealogical mystery will captivate readers from the very first pages.
Publishers Weekly
Shapiro surprises us again with her latest meditation. [Through DNA, she] discovered that her father was not her biological father. What results is an exploration of family secrets, a painful rebuilding of her sense of self, and an understanding of how we manage whatever life tosses our way.
Library Journal
(Starred Review) Page after page, Shapiro displays a disarming honesty and an acute desire to know the unknowable.
Booklist
(Starred Review) [A]n origin story that puts everything [Shapiro] previously believed and wrote about herself in fresh perspective.… For all the trauma…, Shapiro recognizes that what she had experienced was "a great story"—one that has inspired her best book.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The title of this book is Inheritance. What does it mean, in the context of the memoir?
2. Shapiro chose two quotes for her epigraph, one from Sylvia Plath and the other from George Orwell. What do they mean individually, and how does each affect your understanding of the other?
3. "You’re still you," Shapiro reminds herself. What does she mean by this?
4. Much of Shapiro’s understanding of herself comes from what she believes to be her lineage. "These ancestors are the foundation upon which I have built my life," she says on page 12. Would Shapiro feel so strongly if her father’s ancestors weren’t so illustrious? How does Shapiro’s understanding of lineage change over the course of the book?
5. Judaism is passed on from mother to child—the father’s religion holds no importance. So why does Shapiro’s sense of her own Jewishness rely so much on her father?
6. Chapter 7 opens with a discussion of the nature of identity. "What combination of memory, history, imagination, experience, subjectivity, genetic substance, and that ineffable thing called the soul makes us who we are?" Shapiro writes on page 27. What do you believe makes you, you?
7. Shapiro follows that passage with another provocative question: "Is who we are the same as who we believe ourselves to be?" What’s your opinion?
8. Identity is one major theme of the book. Another is the corrosive power of secrets. On page 35, Shapiro writes, "All my life I had known there was a secret. What I hadn’t known: the secret was me." What might have changed if Shapiro had known her origins growing up?
9. On page 43, Shapiro quotes a Delmore Schwartz poem. What does this mean? Why is it significant to Shapiro?
What am I now that I was then?
May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day;
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.
10. Throughout the memoir, Shapiro uses literary extracts to illuminate what she feels or thinks—poems by Schwartz and Jane Kenyon, passages from Moby Dick and a novel by Thomas Mann. How does this help your understanding?
11. All her life, people had been telling Shapiro she didn’t look Jewish. If this hadn’t been part of her life already, how do you think she might have reacted to the news from her DNA test?
12. After Shapiro located her biological father, she emailed him almost immediately—against the advice of her friend, a genealogy expert. What do you imagine you would have done?
13. Why was it so important to Shapiro to believe that her parents hadn’t known the truth about her conception?
14. Her discovery leads Shapiro to reconsider her memories of her parents: "Her unsteady gaze, her wide, practiced smile. Her self-consciousness, the way every word seemed rehearsed. His stooped shoulders, the downward turn of his mouth. The way he was never quite present. Her rage. His sorrow. Her brittleness. His fragility. Their screaming fights." (page 100)
15. On page 107, when discussing her father’s marriage to Dorothy, Rabbi Lookstein tells Shapiro, "We thought your father was a hero." Shapiro comes back to her father’s decision to go through with the marriage several times in the book. Why?
16. At her aunt Shirley’s house, Shapiro sees a laminated newspaper clipping about the poem recited in a Chevy ad. (page 133) Why does Shapiro include this detail in the book? What is its significance?
17. On page 188, Shapiro writes, "In time, I will question how it could be possible that Ben—a man of medicine, who specialized in medical ethics—had never considered that he might have biological children." How do you explain that?
18. How does Shapiro’s experience with contemporary reproductive medicine affect the way she judges her parents? What do you imagine future generations will say about our current approach to artificial insemination?
19. What do you make of the similarities between Shapiro and her half sister Emily?
20. On page 226, Shapiro brings up a psychoanalytic phrase, "unthought known." How does this apply to her story?
21. What prompts Shapiro to legally change her first name?
22. Shapiro ends her book with a meditation on the Hebrew word hineni, "Here I am." Why is this phrase so powerful?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Kennedy Debutant
Kerri Maher, 2018
Penguin Publishing
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451492043
Summary
A captivating novel following the exploits of Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy, the forgotten and rebellious daughter of one of America's greatest political dynasties.
London, 1938.
The effervescent "It girl" of London society since her father was named the ambassador, Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy moves in rarified circles, rubbing satin-covered elbows with some of the 20th century's most powerful figures.
Eager to escape the watchful eye of her strict mother, Rose, the antics of her older brothers, Jack and Joe, and the erratic behavior of her sister Rosemary, Kick is ready to strike out on her own and is soon swept off her feet by Billy Hartington, the future Duke of Devonshire.
But their love is forbidden, as Kick's devout Catholic family and Billy's staunchly Protestant one would never approve their match.
When war breaks like a tidal wave across her world, Billy is ripped from her arms as the Kennedys are forced to return to the States. Kick gets work as a journalist and joins the Red Cross to get back to England, where she will have to decide where her true loyalties lie--with family or with love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
In addition to The Kennedy Debutante, Kerri Maher is also the author of This Is Not a Writing Manual: Notes for the Young Writer in the Real World under the name Kerri Majors. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and founded YARN, an award-winning literary journal of short-form YA writing.
A writing professor for many years, she now writes full-time and lives with her daughter in Massachusetts, where apple picking and long walks in the woods are especially fine (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Maher’s assured debut, set against the backdrop of World War II, explores the life of JFK’s younger sister Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy.… [An] immersive, rich portrait of a complex young woman.
Publishers Weekly
The Catholic-Protestant conflict seems quaint compared to the civil and political unrest in today's world, and the romantic tension fizzles in some places, but this coming-of-age story will attract fans of the Kennedy dynasty. —Tina Panik, Avon Free P.L., CT
Library Journal
An engrossing tale of the importance of family, faith, and love in the life of one remarkable woman.
Booklist
Kick emerges as an immensely likable character, and… Maher shows the true cost of war, both for those fighting and those left behind. A romantic and heartbreaking look at an often forgotten American figure.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In these days of Facebook and FaceTime, it is hard to imagine a love like Kick and Billy’s, which endures four years of their being separated by an ocean and a war, with infrequent letters and telegrams their only means of communication. Why do you think their love survives that distance of time and space?
2. Kick often struggles with the relationship between her internal desires and her external image. Where do the internal and external meet for her? Where are they most different? How does Billy deal with the same struggle?
3. Family, religion, and class are powerful forces in Kick’s life. How does she use them to her advantage? In what cases do they undermine her desire for an independent life?
4. Kick makes a number of observations about the differences between her own life and upbringing, and the expectations of her new milieu, English society. How does she use these differences to her advantage? Which ones does she try to minimize?
5. Have you ever been thrown into a new social scene and felt that you had to perform? How did it make you feel? What did you do?
6. Kick has to make a painful decision between her family and her love. Do you think you would make the same choice?
7. In what ways are Kick’s years in England before the war like a "beautiful dream," as she described them in the letter she wrote to her father in 1939? Does the dream continue when she returns during the war?
8. Jack, Joe Jr., and Billy all fight valiantly in World War II, but how are their attitudes toward the war different from one another’s? What do they have in common? What seems to be each man’s primary objective?
9. Kick and her English friends tend to "Keep Calm and Carry On"—or maybe "Party On" is a better description. Why do you think that is possible for them? Do you think the modern sensibility about war would produce the same result today?
10. Kick often envies her older brothers for their independence and freedoms. In what ways have young women today transcended those gender roles? In what ways are they still present?
11. Many women have to reconcile personal desires with the constraints of family and society. What do you think of Kick’s strategy? Do you think she would take the same approach today?
12. How does the Kennedy family as portrayed in the book fit with your own picture of the family? What surprises you?
13. The Kennedy women invest a great deal of time, effort, and money on fashion. What role does fashion play for them?
14. Jack tells John White, "There is Saturday night, and there is Sunday morning. Never the twain shall meet." Do you think Kick agrees?
15. How does the portrayal of Jack as a young man fit or not fit with your image of him as JFK, the man who—as Debo’s mother correctly predicted—became president of the United States?
16. "Some lives are short," Kick writes to Father O’Flaherty from Washington, DC, "and I increasingly feel that it’s essential to live the life it’s in one’s soul to live." In addition to the premature death of Kick’s friend George Mead, what do you think prompts this revelation? Do you think Kick lives the life it’s in her soul to live? Why is she so conflicted about her soul?
(Questions issued by publishers.)
Girl Logic: The Genius and the Absurdity
Iliza Shlesinger, 2017
Hachette Book Group
264 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781602863231
Summary
From breakout stand-up comedian Iliza Shlesinger comes a subversively funny collection of essays and observations on a confident woman's approach to friendship, singlehood, and relationships.
Girl Logic is Iliza's term for the way women obsess over details and situations that men don't necessarily even notice.
She describes it as a characteristically female way of thinking that appears to be contradictory and circuitous but is actually a complicated and highly evolved way of looking at the world.
When confronted with critical decisions about dating, sex, work, even getting dressed in the morning, Iliza argues that women will by nature consider every repercussion of every option before making a move toward what they really want. And that kind of holistic thinking can actually give women an advantage in what is still a male world.
In Iliza's own words: "Understanding Girl Logic is a way of embracing both our aspirations and our contradictions. GL is the desire to be strong and vulnerable. It's wanting to be curvy, but rail thin at the same time. It's striving to kick ass in a man's world while still being loved by the women around you.
"This book is also for me, because apparently expounding on a stage for two hours a night wasn't enough. (Trust me, if I could start a cult I would, but I hate the idea of deliberately dying in a group.)" (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 22, 1983
• Where—Dallas, Texas, USA
• Education—B.A., Emerson College
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Iliza Vie Shlesinger is an American comedian. She was the 2008 winner of NBC's Last Comic Standing and went on to host the syndicated dating show Excused and the TBS comedy/game show Separation Anxiety. Currently, she hosts a late-night talk show called Truth & Iliza on Freeform. In 2017, she published a memoir and collection of humorous essays titled Girl Logic: The Genius and the Absurdity.
Early life
Shlesinger was born in Dallas to a Reform Jewish family. She attended the private Greenhill School and participated on the school's improvisation team and also performed with ComedySportz Dallas. She started college at the University of Kansas for but transferred aftervher freshman year to Emerson College in Boston, where she majored in film. At Emerson, Shelesinger was a member of the campus's comedy sketch group, Jimmy's Traveling All Stars, and refined her writing and editing skills.
Career
Shortly after graduating from Emerson, she moved to Los Angeles, California, to pursue stand-up comedy. Becoming one of the most popular members of the Whiteboy Comedy group of standup comedians in Los Angeles, she headed to the stage at The Improv in Hollywood.
In 2007, Shlesinger won Myspace's "So You Think You're Funny" contest and has been featured as the G4 network's Myspace Girl of the Week. Her television credits include E! Network's Forbes Celebrity 100, TV Guide's America's Next Top Producer, Comedy Central Presents (Season 14 Episode 18), John Oliver's New York Stand Up Show, Byron Allen's Comics Unleashed, and History Channel's History of a Joke. She has written for Heavy.com and had her own show on GOTV's mobile network.
In 2008, Shlesinger became the first woman, and the youngest, winner of NBC's Last Comic Standing, in the series' sixth season. She was twice selected, by other comedians, to compete in the head-to-head eliminations, and won each time. She appeared in The Last Comic Standing Tour.
Shlesinger contributed to Surviving the Holidays, a History Channel holiday special, with Lewis Black, and narrated the 2009 documentary Imagine It!² The Power of Imagination. In 2010, she released an on-demand comedy video, Man Up and Act Like a Lady, and an on-demand comedy album, iliza LIVE, on her website, via The ConneXtion. Around the time of these releases, Shlesinger appeared in a business comedy video series for Slate.
Shlesinger hosted The Weakly News on TheStream.tv from July 7, 2007 to April 9, 2012. She also hosted Excused, a syndicated American reality-based dating competition series, which ran from 2011 to 2013. She co-stars in the 2013 film Paradise and began a podcast called Truth and Iliza in August 2014. Featuring celebrity guests & personal friends, the semi-weekly podcast is a forum for discussing things which bother her and those on the show, with punk theme song performed by Being Mean to Pixley.
Albums
Shlesinger's first comedy album and video, War Paint, was recorded at the Lakewood Theater in Dallas, Texas, and released on Netflix in September, 2013. Her second stand-up special, Freezing Hot, was recorded in Denver, Colorado, and premiered on Netflix in January, 2015. Her third Netflix stand-up special, titled Confirmed Kills, was recorded at The Vic Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, and premiered on Netflix in September, 2016.
Other
Shlesinger was comic co-host of StarTalk Radio Show with Neil DeGrasse Tyson for season 7, episode 12 titled "Cosmic Queries: Galactic Grab Bag," post date: 20 May 2016.
On July 13, 2016, the ABCdigital original short-form digital comedy series Forever 31, created by and starring Shlesinger was released. Truth & Iliza began airing on May 2, 2017. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Released 11/14/2017.)
Book Reviews
Iliza is funny, fierce, and lightning fast, but don't let all that wit and beauty fool you — she's a feminist with the heart of a mommy, a truth teller who just wants us all to feel better so we can get what we want, dammit! She's thought long and hard about why women are so hard on themselves, and she's not afraid to say she's been there herself, which has endeared her already to millions of fans. Take my advice: take her advice. Iliza is a comedian wrapped in social critic wrapped in the good friend you need.
Robbie Myers - Elle, editor in chief
A successful comedian tries to square gender stereotypes with the realities of how women really live…. Unfortunately, the intended lessons are often lost in the author's frenetic chatter.… [T]his reads like a series of theories not yet fully formed.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Girl Logic … then take off on your own:
1. How would you describe the tone of this book? Is it chatty, light, serious, angry, engagingly friendly? Were you pulled in right at the beginning … or a bit further in … or not at all?
2. Are you familiar with Iliza Shlesinger's stand-up comedy? If you are or not, do you think it helps (or would help) readers appreciate Girl Logic? Does she write like a stand-up comedienne talks? Does her brand of comedy translate to the page, or is it lost in translation?
3. Shlesinger talks about her upbringing. How did her childhood and early years prepare her for stand-up, a fiercely competitive and rigorous career?
4. What does she have to say about her treatment on the road by her male counterparts?
5. Some readers have complained that Shlesinger's observations about women are overly generalized and unhelpful. Some found her examples irrelevant — they didn't relate to a pair of designer trousers possibly changing their lives. Does some of the material in the book strike you similarly: as overly broad or irrelevant? Or is this just mild carping? What are your thoughts? Are any of Shlesinger's observations, suggestions, and insights helpful to you? Does age, older or younger, play a role in how a reader might experience the book?
6. How do the workings of the female mind differ from the male mind. Does the explanation ring true — does it make sense to you?
7. So … why are women so hard on themselves?
8. Describe the theory of Girl Logic and its many conundrums. Shlesinger, for instance, believes that women's desires are often in conflict with one another. What are examples from you own life? What else does Shlesinger have to say about GL? Does anything in particular resonate with you?
9. Do you find some of Shlesinger's language offensive, bordering on offensive, or refreshingly honest?
10. What are some of the take away tips you got from Girl Logic? Consider, for example, the author's advice about cultivating both confidence and courage to be different? What else struck you?
11. Is this a book that males, young or old, could or should read? Would you pass it on to one?
(Questions issued by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)