One Up, Two Down.

If I have to read a dud, let it at least be a fast-moving dud! I read two this week. On the up side, I read one that I liked! And it was non-fiction, how about that?

I thought this was such a promising premise, so darkly intriguing and strangely timely. The story is about a young woman, Eileen, who works as a secretary in an all male juvenile detention center. The question on the jacket is something like “can she be persuaded to commit a crime” or something like that. Immediately after starting it I pictured Eileen as a young Kim Davis, and simultaneously the woman at the Dannemora prison that helped those two convicts escape not so long ago. Here’s what: this book was so uncomfortable and vulgar. Eileen is maybe one of the most disgusting creatures I’ve read, just in a purely hygienic sense. She doesn’t shower, talks disgustingly about her bowel movements and periods. Ugh so gross I’d like to forget her. 2 stars.

Another dark one, although you’d never guess it based on the cover. The cover sets it up to read like Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (which I liked). And there are funny parts, to be sure, but it was also so sad and twisted. This is the life’s story of Harriet Chance. Her husband is recently deceased, her children grown and moved out. After her husband’s death, 87-year-old Harriet learns that he had bid on and won an Alaskan cruise. So she decides to invite her best friend and have an adventure. Turns out to be a whacked out trip. 3 stars.

Here is the one I liked! Along with just about everyone else in the nation who has read it. It’s the true story of the mens rowing team from Washington University in the 1930s. Comprised of a bunch of poor farm boys and scholarship students, the team shockingly pushes past its competitors and qualifies for the 1936 Olympic games in Germany. I loved the parallel stories, most heavily the boys in the boat but also the German preparations that went on ahead of the games. If you haven’t read this, you should. 4 stars.