Book Review: Gone Girl

I began reading Gone Girl because I was out of options. That sounds dismissive of the book, which I probably would have read at some point anyway, but it's also the truth. As what was supposed to be a four-day hospital stay with Joey while he recovered from surgery turned into a three-week affair with plenty of down time, I motored through the book I brought with me (Pet Sematary) and the book I bought about a week in (The Art of Fielding). We still had days to go, so I took a walk down to Fenway for my second trip to the Boston University Barnes & Noble. (I feel like I have to state that, yes, as a librarian, I know the public library was an option. But we were close to getting discharged and I didn't want to have to make a side-trip across the city to return a book I hadn't yet finished on our way home.)

I was looking for a sale and found a buy-two-get-one-free table. The first book I noticed was Jim Gaffigan's parenting memoir Dad is Fat, which was exactly the type of book Matt and I read together. Then I saw Gone Girl, which has been on my "I really ought to read that" list since it came out. (The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian, an author that keeps getting recommended to me but who I've never read before, rounded out my three.)

I began reading it in the hospital and Callie, Joey's energetic nurse, noticed it right away. "SO GOOD," she gushed. The next day, Joey was moved to another room. His new nurse saw me reading when she came in to give him some medicine. "That is such a great book," she said, then launched into a confession of her love of thrillers and Dennis Lehane books.

The nursing staff of Boston Children's Hospital wasn't alone. I was told how much I'd love it by friends and by a random woman in the parking lot of a rest stop on the Mass Pike, who knocked on my window while I read in the car waiting for Matt to use the bathroom. She pointed to the book with wide eyes and gave me a thumbs up, mouthing, "SO GOOD," in the exact same way as Callie. It was only moderately terrifying.

So you might say I had high expectations.

And to a degree, it lived up to it. The author - Gillian Flynn - is clearly talented. I'm not really talking about her writing style - although she's talented in that regards, too - but in the even more impressive way in which she parceled out information so that the entire book was one like one long twist.

The story centers on the marriage of Amy and Nick Dunne, recently laid off magazine writers who move from New York City to Nick's tiny hometown in Missouri to care for his ailing parents. On the morning of their fifth anniversary, Amy goes missing. But questions begin arising: Is she dead? Kidnapped? Is Nick responsible? How complicated of a relationship did they have, anyway?

The answer to that last question is very. Amy spent her life as her parents' muse, the real-life subject of a fictionalized children's book series they penned. Nick was the doted-upon son/nephew/brother of the women in his life while hating his toxic father. The book is told in the first person, with chapters alternating between Amy's and Nick's point of view, and it's soon obvious that something is not adding up. Their respective experiences are just so different. So what's really going on?

Gone Girl was extremely unpredictable pretty much throughout, and I commend Flynn's ability to both drop hints early on and not give anything away. My only real qualm is that I hated both Nick and Amy. Hated them. I'm not averse to enjoying something with unlikable protagonists - I'm a huge fan of Breaking Bad and Mad Men, for one. But even the most evil characters have redeeming qualities or at least side characters you can root for. Amy and Nick were both loathsome, and other than possibly Nick's sister Go, the side characters were mostly window dressing. The ending was surprising and not what I think most readers were rooting for, but at that point, I was so irritated by the way it was turning out, I really didn't care. It's like watching drama unfold in front of you. Eventually, you just throw up your arms and say, "Whatever, guys. Have fun."

That being said, I'm not so sunshine-and-rainbowy that I can't appreciate a dark story with unlikable characters, and I really did like the book. I stayed up longer than I meant to last night so I could finish it, and if that's not the sign of a well-crafted story, I don't know what is.

Side note: One of the reasons I wanted to read this book this summer is because the movie is supposed to come out in October. Then, after I finished, I learned that the ending is supposed to be very different (this article goes into that but it's also one big Spoiler Alert for anyone who hasn't read the book). And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. In fact, I'm curious how it turns out, and I'm excited about the idea of Neil Patrick Harris playing Desi Collings and Tyler Perry as Tanner Bolt (Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike play Nick and Amy).

Book Reviews: Kids, Kaling and Christine

I'd like to blame the fact that I was stuck reading the same books for six months on having a new baby that required so much attention and time. It isn't completely untrue; babies have this innate ability to recognize when you're relaxing/settling down to watch TV/going to bed. They wait until you get comfortable, sigh with relief and then....OHMYGOD, MY PACIFIER CAME OUT AND IF IT IS NOT BACK IN MY MOUTH IN ELEVEN SECONDS, YOU WILL FEEL MY WRATH.

So yes, a baby was part of the reason, but I think the more accurate reason is that I just had so much TV to catch up on. Shut up, I know. But when you finally get the baby to sleep and you have an hour until you should go to bed yourself and you're faced with a book you may or may not be totally into OR a completely mind-numbing but entertaining episode of Survivor...well, I think we know where I stand on that. Plus, two of the books I was reading with Matt and the other was one I just didn't love.

Those are my excuses. I'll stop now.

After struggling through those last few months, I've now finished three books in about three weeks. It seems strange to review them all in one shot, but now I'm on a roll and I'm about to go back in the hospital with my son so I'm sure I'll finish two more in about five days, so here we go.

Someone Could Get Hurt by Drew Magary

Source: barnesandnoble.com

I have been a big Drew Magary fan for several years, since I stumbled upon his weekly mailbags on Deadspin. A freelance writer, he's written for a ton of places, and he excels at providing a first-person narrative that is both well-written and extremely hilarious. (For an example of why I love Magary so much, here is a piece he wrote a couple years ago on his attempt to take the SATs as a 35-year-old.) This collection of essays about his own experiences parenting his three young children came out when I got pregnant and it seemed like the perfect marriage of one of my favorite writers and a topic that I was understandably interested in.

At first, that's exactly what it was. We saw Magary read from his book for our anniversary last year and it was great. Then I read the first chapter aloud to Matt while we were on the way to learn about one of Joey's complicated medical issues at an appointment in Boston. The first and last essays are about his youngest child, a boy born with an intestinal disorder that required emergency surgery and a month-long stay in the NICU. Let's just say it hit a little too close to home. We read a few of the essays, but then took a break until we were in a better mindset.

The rest of the book, to be fair, does not have the dire horribleness of the first and last sections. Most are simple snapshots of a life with young children: turning a trip to a grocery store into a race; the ordeal of taking kids absolutely anywhere; his own struggles with feeling inadequate when faced with disciplining his oldest. There's nothing out of the ordinary, but the way he tells it, the stories are fascinating and hilarious. (Also, his final essay about life while his son was in the NICU for 27 days hit the nail so much on the head, it was freakish.) I don't think someone would need to be a parent to enjoy it, although I think anyone who would enjoy it needs a good sense of humor and not to be easily offended.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

Source: crushable.com

This was one of those instances where I knew I'd like this book even before I started it. I find Mindy Kaling fantastic in pretty much every format, and enough people likened this book to Tina Fey's Bossypants that I was prepared. The comparisons are certainly understandable; both women are funny and fabulous, able to emit self-deprecation while showcasing the talent that got them the success they have today. But while you could picture Fey as the awkward band geek who is destined to show everyone up at the 10-year reunion, Kaling is more the drama geek who spends her free time binge-watching comedy sketch shows (which she did) in a room decorated with heart-shaped TigerBeat posters.

Kaling's book offers a little of everything - her childhood, the trajectory of her career (including the story behind her two-woman stage show about a fictionalized version of the relationship between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, which I want more than anything to see live), and random things that pop into her head. She has an entire chapter of selfies from her phone, most taken as a way for her to check whether that zit that appeared six hours before a red-carpet award show was adequately covered with makeup (looks good to me, Mindy!).

Whether or not you'll like this book is completely based on how charming you find Mindy Kaling to be. I personally adore her and so I adore this book. But if you find her annoying or just don't like her, well, it will probably take you even longer than six months to finish.

Christine by Stephen King

Source: Jmj713 on Wikipedia

This was the continuation of my Stephen King chronology experiment, which is still going strong. I probably missed a couple of reviews for books I finished over the past year or so, and I do apologize for that, but be assured that I haven't cheated. I've gone through them all. The fact that I finished Christine is a testament to that.

In addition to all of the excuses listed above, one of the big ones that kept me stuck on Christine is the simple fact that it is one of my least favorite Stephen King novels. It's funny to me that it is often one of the first stories listed when people talk about Stephen King's anthology, although I think it's because its plot is something that can be described in a handful of words. Carrie was the one about the telekinetic girl; The Shining was a haunted hotel; 'Salem's Lot was vampires; and Christine was the possessed car. But it's just not King at his best.

For those that aren't aware, Christine is a 1958 Plymouth Fury originally owned by a slug named Rollie LeBay and eventually purchased as a scrapheap 20 years later by Arnie Cunningham. Arnie is your typical high school nerd - glasses, acne, V-card still in tact. His only friend is Dennis Guilder, a decent-looking football player who dates cheerleaders. Dennis isn't EXACTLY the big man on campus, but he does pretty well for himself. Against Dennis' advice, Arnie is drawn to spend way too much for Christine and it quickly turns his life around: he alienates the parents to whom he had spent a lifetime being subservient; he clears up his acne and gives him enough confidence to start dating the new, beautiful girl in school; it makes him crazy and paranoid so he then ruins that relationship. Oh, and the car seems to fix itself and go after anyone who goes against Arnie.

It's a fine story, but it's not to the King standard for writing. Most of the characters are one-dimensional: Arnie is the classic high school nerd; Dennis is the high school jock with a heart of gold; Leigh Cabot is the beautiful new girl in school; Rollie is the dirty old man. I'm not sure when King wrote the book, but the uselessness of Leigh hearkens back to one of my beefs with 'Salem's Lot, back when King seemed to have difficulty writing women characters that weren't boring. Perhaps even more baffling is the way in which the story is told. The first third is in first person, with Dennis serving as your narrator. But at the end of the act, Dennis is seriously injured in a football game and spends the whole second act in the hospital, and so the story is told via third person. Dennis returns as your narrator in the final third. It seems strange - why not just make the whole story in the third person? 

I'm not crapping on King at the moment. Stephen King at his worst is still 10x better than most writers at their best. But compared to The Stand, Needful Things and some of my other favorites, Christine is something that simply exists.

MasterChef Recap: Wu Tang Clash

Source: ctv.ca/

The advertisements leading up to this week's episode of MasterChef promised archenemies paired with each other in the team challenge. While I was certainly intrigued, it was also pretty obvious that this was enough cog in the Gordon Ramsay/Fox Promo Wagon, where things are always THE BIGGEST BATTLE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF LIFE AND/OR RESTAURANTS. There were, of course, some obvious archenemies on the show. The battles between Leslie and Ahran, mostly fueled by Leslie's insistence of pronouncing the teen's name E-ran or Eye-ran or O-ran or Ramad-an in an infuriating power move, were already legendary, and everyone is archenemies with Courtney. But no one could tell me Big Willie ever had an archenemy in his life, and others like Elise and Victoria and the adorable Scottish Francis also seemed impossible to hate.

Turns out, that was pretty much what happened. With 15 people left, Courtney learned that her victory in last week's Elimination Challenge gave her the ability to pair the rest of the contestants up while sitting the challenge out herself. She immediately set her sights on Christian, one of the strongest people yet and the person who immediately stated he didn't want to have to work with her before realizing she didn't have to work with anyone. She paired him with Francis B, another strong competitor, and the two didn't seem like they disliked each other. I admit, I wondered what Courtney was doing here, but it turns out she and her stilettos have a much better mind for this than me and my moose pajamas.

Courtney's other pairings were Jaimee & Elizabeth; Victoria & Christine; Cutter & Dan; Big Willie & Daniel; Ahran & Leslie (because duh); and Scottish Francis and Elise.

The challenge was to create a surf and turf-style dish, with countless different types of meat and seafood to choose from. Right away, one team's cracks became evident and it's from a strange source: tough, get-er-done Cutter doesn't like loner Dan's wishy-washy attitude and inability to listen to anyone. Their bickering left them with two unrelated pieces of meat and seven items from the pantry, and Cutter spent the next hour trying to refrain himself from pulling Dan's goatee out, one hair at a time.

But let's not focus on the negative. At least not when we're having a moment across the kitchen, because look! Leslie and Ahran are talking to each other and listening to each other! Ahran's eyes have remained unrolled! Leslie is actually responding to Gordon Ramsay's pronunciation lessons of Ahran's name ("AGHHHHH-RAN!!!!!!!"). THEY'RE HUGGING IT OUT! It's like the commercials leading up to this week were completely full of garbage!

Ahran and Leslie's pork belly tostada with crab guacamole earned rave reviews from the judges, as did the dishes from Jaimee and Elizabeth (lamb and red snapper with carrots and kale), and Big Willie and Daniel (seared ahi tuna with buttermilk miso fried chicken). But the big winners were the underwhelming-by-themselves-but-unstoppable-as-a-team duo of Christine and Victoria, whose pork belly and monkfish with green apple risotto was both intriguing and delicious-looking.

The bottom three consisted of Dan and Cutter's venison and tuna and three carrots; Scottish Francis and Elise's rack of lamb with crab risotto, a Francis-style creative dish that was way too complicated for Elise; and Christian and Francis B's boring and non-creative Moroccan spiked rib-eye with king crab. After the judges saved Scottish Francis and Elise, I'm assuming to save us all from having two Francises in another challenge, the final four had to duke it out - individually, this time - in the Pressure Test.

The challenge? Spring rolls. You know, that favorite of Asian cuisine that someone who maybe grew up in China might have some experience making. You could actually see Cutter's head start to split open when he realized that his newfound mortal enemy Dan Wu would have an advantage in the challenge he had hoped would get him eliminated.

Indeed, Dan's spring rolls are alright, but not exactly stellar. Stellar belonged to Christian, who despite never having cooked spring rolls before, knocked it out of the park. Dan's safety was ensured, rather, because of the disasters that were Cutter and Francis B. Cutter had all sorts of problems: one of his rolls exploded in the fryer and he had to make another last-minute, he didn't have enough filling, they were too sweet, there was approximately a teaspoon of dipping sauce for six rolls.

But the hot mess was Francis B. After cooking with an uncharacteristic listlessness in recent days, he turned out a rough set of spring rolls. His big problem came when the fryer didn't cook them fast enough and he tried to speed the process along by searing them in a greased pan. Except the pan never had enough time to heat up itself, so he just had them sitting in cold grease. And while that might work for the Chinese restaurant down the road from me, it's frowned upon in the type of establishments guys like Joe Bastianich frequent.

In the end, Francis was just thismuch worse than Cutter, although I think he was eliminated more for his attitude and lack of fire than by his one terrible dish. Still, it was way earlier than I thought Francis would be leaving, that's for sure.

Dish I'd Most Like to Try: Victoria and Christine's pork belly and monkfish with green apple risotto sounded intriguing and looked delicious. I also can't say no to spring rolls, so put Christian's in my mouth, please.

Dish I Made Myself: Dinner was on the road, so I didn't make it myself. But I highly recommend the shrimp scampi at the Chateau in Westboro. Whatever breading they put on the shrimp should cover everything I ever eat.

MasterChef Recap: Gordon Ramsay and the Mystery of the Stolen Dessert

It's been a bleak week in the world of MasterChef, and I'm not even talking about how I missed blogging while on vacation. Chicago Magazine released an in-depth and heartwrenching piece on the mental health struggles and eventual suicide of Josh Marks, the lovable runner-up from Season Two, a few days ago. (I'd link to it here but every time I try to open it, it crashes my laptop. So here's an analysis of the piece by Color Lines. They include a link to the original story, and if you have a computer that's more trustworthy than mine - and I know you do - click away.)

Monday's episode of MasterChef was not nearly as serious as the new revelations about Marks, but as far as reality cooking shows hosted by Gordon Ramsay, it was a kind of depressing one, thanks to the immediate elimination of someone for making a stupid mistake. Did Tyler knowingly take one of Jaimee's panna cottas out of the freezer? It does seem strange that he put four of his own on the bottom shelf and only took one off the top shelf later, but who knows what people are thinking when they're under stress? Were the judges right in eliminating him without further notice? I see where they're coming from - they certainly can't taste a dish that wasn't cooked by him, which therefore means he didn't complete the challenge. Still, my heart went to him.

But here I am getting too ahead of myself and all weepy on a Monday night. The remaining 16 contestants arrived for the Mystery Box Challenge filled with hopes and dreams. Tyler the country boy would be happy if the box revealed some form of roadkill; Christine was itching to work with some bone marrow because that's not random at all. Nobody yearned for SPAM, and yet that's what they got, in the form of 52 unlabeled aluminum cans of food. It's like getting a Christmas stocking full of individually wrapped gifts, except each gift is heavily processed and has been sitting in its own juices for 5 years.

And it really is like Christmas for the contestants who grew up on canned food, like Big Willie and Elizabeth. Ahran, in typical Ahran fashion, scoffs at the cans. "We only use fresh ingredients at home," the Regina George wannabe sneers. Jaimee doesn't turn away from the cans, but she does waste 20 minutes opening each of them and then staring at them until the SPAM starts to saute itself.

The top three wind up filling out a Papa Bear, Baby Bear and Goldilocks of ingredient usage. On one end of the spectrum is Victoria, a so-far-unseen entity who favors denim shirts buttoned right up to the top. Victoria uses a whopping eight cans of food to create a potted meat fritter with an artichoke and beet salad.

Conversely, Ahran opened one can of fruit cocktail and quit, using the contents as filler in a rolled sponge cake made with stock ingredients. Joe gushed about Ahran's strategy of thinking outside the box and taking full advantage of the stock ingredients; he just couldn't stop talking about how smart she was. I, however, am going to call shenanigans on that. I don't know if Joe took Ahran in the judges' pool at the start of the season, but I think her dish lacked any creativity whatsoever. She found one thing that didn't scare her and then used bland, boring, safe ingredients to go around it. Mixing five different types of processed meat together and deep frying it to make a fritter and murder all of us by heart disease like Victoria takes talent and a strategy; making a sponge cake and shoving one thing in the middle of it takes the ability to make a sponge cake.

All of this is moot since Goldilocks came in the form of Elizabeth and her pretty pink borscht. Food quality aside, Elizabeth deserved to win for her facial expressions while the judges tried her food. Eyes wide while they put the bit in their mouth, moving her whole body as she tries to read whether they liked it from their reactions, her face a combination of relief and horror when they give her the thumbs up. I want Elizabeth to be my personal audience, following me around and reacting to my stories so they seem even more funny/amazing.

With the win, Elizabeth retreated to the pantry, where she was greeted by last year's MasterChef winner Luca and Junior MasterChef winner Alexander. After learning she was exempt from the challenge, she had to assign half of the remaining contestants to one of the two signature dishes of the former champions: Luca's pancetta-wrapped veal and Alexander's passion fruit panna cotta.

We only wind up seeing a few of the finished products. The judges rave over Courtney's veal, and lecture Big Willie on his insistence on cooking his veal twice and drying it out. Christian's panna cotta was bad, a fact he was more than willing to admit himself before the judges could say a word. Cutter's panna cotta was surprisingly good.

Then we got to Jaimee. During the cooking process, Jaimee put three panna cotta's into the freezer to cool, but when she went to retrieve them, only two remained. One of the two immediately sank into the bowl and the other splattered like pudding when she put it on the dish. She was reprimanded for the consistency, although it still tasted good.

Up next was Tyler, whose pudding-like panna cotta looked awfully familiar. Gordon stopped him before anyone tasted it, went to the freezer and found the four panna cottas Tyler had put there. He was the mysterious panna cotta thief. The judges believed him when he said it was a mistake, but the rules state that contestants must plate their own dishes to be judged. Tyler didn't plate his own dish; therefore, he cannot be judged and cannot finish the challenge.

Tyler, for his part, was classy about the whole thing, thanking the judges and apologizing to Jaimee (even giving her a sweet compliment on how he at least knows his plate would have tasted great).

After that, we didn't see anyone else's dishes, but I guess it didn't matter because Courtney won. Her prize? To be dubbed "little miss tippy toes" by Gordon Ramsay, because of course.

Dish I'd Most Like to Try: While Victoria's meat fritters intrigue me, I'd go with Alexander's panna cotta.

Dish I Made Myself: An egg sandwich with American cheese (I'm sure a staple in Ahran's house) and salsa. Not quite Big Willie's eggs benedict, but about as fulfilling a meal as they come.

MasterChef Recap: I Want YOU...to Give Me Pork Chops

www.aceweekly.com

As a reward for making it to the final 20, the MasterChef crew dumped the contestants in the middle of the Mojave Desert, making them trek Lawrence of Arabia-style while Joe, Graham and Gordon arrived by armored truck, with a helicopter escort. Knowing we'll inevitably see our fearless judges arrive by Jet-Ski, hang glider, hot air balloon, and alpaca at some point this season, I'm officially starting the transportation chart now. MasterChef Team Challenge Judge Arrival BINGO? MasterChef Team Challenge Judge Arrival BINGO.

For winning last week's Elimination Challenge, Francis B. (because one Francis is never enough!) got to pick his dream team, even without knowing the actual challenge. He quickly took Cutter and Tyler because they're country boys who know how to handle meat, Victoria because she's a country girl who can handle a grill, Francis Non-B because he's fun, Big Willie because he has finesse, Christine and Elizabeth because we've vaguely heard of them before and two people I'm still not sure exist. (Oh wait, here they are.) Team Everyone Else was then tasked with picking a captain and they chose Daniel because he has all-business hipster glasses.

From there, the judges loaded the teams into the trucks and explained that they'd be serving a meal to 500 service members training in the desert. Somehow, in a truck with these random people, Joe and Gordon still look the most ridiculous in their military helmets, like when the president of a Fortune 500 company puts on a construction helmet and scoops the groundbreaking first dirt on a new project or when a dog wears a wig.

Once they arrive, the team split up and you immediately see the pros and cons of each group. Team Francis starts off with plenty of group unity, with everyone agreeing on making a pork chop with apple cranberry sauce and bacon. macaroni and cheese. Things start falling apart later, when the food actually has to be cooked. First, with limited cooking options, Francis' mac and cheese winds up being a big tub of noodles and partially melted cheese. It's so bad they have to scrap it and make cole slaw, and the sheer magnitude of chopping up 500 servings' worth of cabbage makes everyone's arms fall off.

Their other problem came when they decided to cook the extra-thick-cut pork chops whole, meaning they took forever to actually cook. When they did cook. Which didn't happen for awhile. A lot of soldiers had to choose Team Daniel's plate by default because they either received a raw pork chop or no pork chop at all. Then somebody got the bright idea to butterfly cut the meat so it cooks fast and bingo-bango, they were back in business.

Team Daniel, meanwhile, had their own issues, coming in the form of a certain vest-wearing, Farrah Fawcett-hair-styling, Malibu dad named Leslie. Leslie doesn't want to make chicken like the rest of the team; he wants steak. Leslie thinks Stephani is undercooking the chicken. The only thing worse than an obnoxious guy who disagrees about everything is an obnoxious guy who disagrees about everything and is occasionally right. Chicken was plain and unremarkable. Stephani was definitely undercooking the chicken, much to Gordon's dismay.

In the end, despite missing a bunch of soldiers and serving raw pork to a bunch more, Team Francis took the win, sending Team Daniel to the Pressure Test.

Before we get to the challenge, Captain Daniel has an important decision to make. What three members of his team will he save from having to compete in the Pressure Test? One of them has to be Leslie, right? I mean, he does KNOW EVERYTHING and he did EVERYTHING RIGHT in that challenge that they lost and he's just pretty much the best guy ever. In fact, can Daniel use all three saves on Leslie? One for his vest, one for his hair and one for him? Seems only fair.

Instead, Daniel chose two of the hardest workers on the team - gasp! - Christian and Little Gordon. Then he saves comic book villain Dan because Daniel is intimidated to compete with him in the test.

And that test? It's to make a blueberry pie. Jaimee and her blueberry pie neck tattoo are psyched. Stephani and her complete lack of any blueberry pie-making experience are less so. Elise is torn, having already served a blueberry pie to the judges in the first round that they didn't like. But she loves pie SO MUCH.

Jaimee, Courtney and Leslie were the top tier and saved almost instantly by the judges. Both Daniel and Jordan's pies were a little less consistent, with plenty of downsides but a couple of upsides, too. Not bad for Daniel, who got his pie into the oven way later than everyone else.

Eventually, the loss goes to Stephani, whose bizarre pecan-infused crust and uber-sweet filling did her in. I'm sure her raw chicken during the Team Challenge probably didn't help either.

Dish I'd Most Like to Try: I'm actually not really a blueberry pie person, so I guess I'd try the pork chop dish from the Team Challenge. Preferably one of the cooked ones.

Dish I Made Myself: Leftover BBQ pork tenderloin, leftover garlic and herb rice pilaf, and a mixed greens salad. Nothing says super fun night like food from a microwave!

Bring Back the Ladies of Litchfield!

Today marks the return of Orange is the New Black, the Netflix original series that's about to begin its second season. It also marks the start of a weekend where I will not be seeing or speaking to anyone. I'm modestly crazily obsessed with OITNB - so much so that I watched the first season twice and would probably do so a third time if you really wanted me to. The most recent time was over the past couple of weeks, when I introduced my husband and he was immediately hooked.

How could you not be? For the great uninitiated, OITNB is about life in a minimum-security federal prison for women. We're introduced to the world of Litchfield prison through Piper Chapman, a WASPy woman sentenced to 15 months for a one-time international drug trafficking charge (oh, like you didn't experiment in college, too). Piper is always there, our eyes and ears as we meet new people and experience new facets of prison life, but the real story lies in those around her: the guards and, especially, the other inmates. Each episode in the first season provided a backstory to someone new, giving us a hint at the life they led and how it brought them to Litchfield. The stories are amazing, and the cast is even better.

The first time I watched OITNB's first season was back in September and October and after watching it again so recently, I realized how much I forgot. So here's a primer on the ladies (and gents) of Litchfield and where they each left off.

THE PRISONERS

Piper Chapman

Background: Piper is a self-described WASP, descended from a long line of the same. Constantly looking for adventure and meaning in her life, she stumbles into a bar shortly after college looking for a job. She instead finds Alex, an international drug trafficker. The two hit it off and quickly fall in love. Piper isn't really a part of Alex's business (although she certainly doesn't complain about being trotted around the world like a trophy wife) but agrees to move money across national borders once, as a favor.

Flash forward 10 years and Piper is an NPR-listening, juice-cleansing, fancy-bath-soap-producing blogger engaged to Larry, a freelance writer. She's shocked out of her idyllic life by police and charges and winds up in Litchfield.

Life in Litchfield: Like learning of the wizarding world through Harry Potter's equally unfamiliar eyes, we learn the ins and outs of Litchfield through Piper. She has minor altercations with Red, Crazy Eyes, Janae, Officer Healy, Miss Claudette and others, but she begins to develop her own stories when she starts having an affair with Alex, who happens to be in prison with her. She also has a big feud with Pennsatucky, when what starts as an intense prank war turns into violence and death threats.

Where We Left Off: Rejected by both Larry and Alex and told that she's a bad person by Crazy Eyes, Piper was already having a horrible day when she was attacked and threatened by the insane Pennsatucky. She finally snapped, viciously attacking Pennsatucky. The big question for Piper is what type of punishment she'll receive for the violence? I'm guessing a pretty long stretch in the SHU (solitary).

Alex Vause
International drug trafficker and Piper's ex-girlfriend. She and Piper rekindle their relationship in prison, until Piper realizes Alex was the one who turned her into the police and Alex gets fed up with Piper's manipulation of both her and Larry. After their latest fight, she's no longer speaking to Piper and is possibly starting a relationship with Nicky.

Galina "Red" Reznikov
Originally the most powerful inmate in the prison, Red ran the kitchen, brought in contraband with her food orders and protected a cadre of young women she "adopted" on the inside. Her battle with Officer Pornstache about bringing drugs into the prison leaves her without a job. She reacted poorly to this punishment, sabotaging the kitchen and inadvertently leading to one of her girls getting severely burned in a grease fire. She's gone from most to least powerful throughout the season.

Tiffany "Pennsatucky" Doggett
A drug addict and regular visitor to the abortion clinic landed herself in prison when she shot a nurse after the nurse made a remark about how many abortions she'd received. She was called a hero by pro-life activists and adopted their stance by becoming a born-again Christian. She's also insane and spent much of the season in a prank war with Piper and Alex that led to Alex getting locked in an industrial dryer and Pennsatucky getting admitted to the psych ward. Things escalate and Pennsatucky threatens to kill Piper, only to hit her on the wrong day and wind up getting viciously attacked herself. The biggest cliffhanger of the season: is Pennsatucky still alive after that beatdown?

Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren
Crazy Eyes is an enigma that I hope will have some light shed on it. She's clearly got some mental issues - she's the only person who regularly spends time in the psych ward and returns back to the regular prison population. She stalks Piper early in the season, an act that is at times sweet (writing her poetry, calling her "Dandelion" because she's pretty and yellow, like the weed) and at times terrifying (reacting to Piper's rejection by peeing all over Piper's cell floor). Her parents are well-to-do-looking, elderly white people (Crazy Eyes is black) who call her Suzanne. She provides Piper the most in-depth look at her soul when, after Larry relays some of the terrible things Piper said about her on a radio interview, she claims that the reason they would never work in a relationship is simple: "You're mean."

Daya Diaz (and Aleida Diaz)
Litchfield is a family tradition for the Diaz women, as both Daya and her mother Aleida are both inmates. Their relationship is strained, as Daya spent much of her time raising her younger siblings while her mother hung out with her drug-cooking boyfriend and Daya responded by sleeping with said boyfriend. In Litchfield, Daya quickly falls for Officer Bennett and the two begin a cute flirtation that leads to sex that leads to Daya getting pregnant. Aleida and Red cook up a plan to have Daya "get raped" by Pornstache to both explain the pregnancy and punish Pornstache. Bennett is not happy for obvious reasons, but things end up OK with them after Daya almost gets burned in a grease fire and Bennett realizes how much he still feels for her.

Nicky Nichols
By far one of the most hilarious and entertaining characters. Nicky is a junkie who cleaned up in prison with Red's help. She spent much of the season having an affair with Lorna, who eventually broke her heart. Nicky had a moment with Alex at the end of last season that makes you wonder if they're going to become an item and my favorite television relationship.

Sophia Burset
In for credit card fraud, Sophia's struggles come from a few sources. As a trans woman, she fights with a budget-pressed prison who stop her hormones (she tries to buddy up with Sister Ingalls to get the menopausal nun to share her meds but no dice), and she struggles with a wife who wants to be supportive but also wants to be married to a man and a young son who keeps rejecting her. She's also the prison hairstylist and her buddy-cop routine with Sister Ingalls is fabulous.

Miss Claudette
A stern and serious woman, Claudette worked to bring teenage immigrants to the U.S. to make a new life for themselves. She also murdered someone who abused one of her girls. Claudette is resigned to spending her whole life at Litchfield until the man she's been in love with since she was a child decides he wants to be with her, too. When her parole is denied, however, she snaps and attacks a guard. That gets her sent to maximum security prison, a place no one returns to when they attack a guard. We may have seen the last of Miss Claudette.

Taystee Jefferson
The prison librarian and comic relief. She was paroled midway through the season but purposely got herself arrested again when she realized how little opportunity she had on the outside. Having a known bed and three guaranteed meals a day was more appealing than her freedom. Now that Miss Claudette is out of the picture, Taystee is also Piper's new bunkmate.

Big Boo
Not much is known about Big Boo except she used to date a paroled inmate named Mercy, is occasionally one of Red's girls, and has a dog named Little Boo. I can't figure out the dog, which wears what looks like a therapy vest but seems way too young and untrained to actually BE a therapy dog. I love that there's a dog...I just have no idea how it got there. Anyway, Boo is hilarious, and her best scene is when she has Pennsatucky "heal" her of her lesbian tendencies. Her test to see whether it worked is picturing the U.S. women's soccer team. Boo's the best.

Poussey Washington
It's pronounced poo-SAY! She's best friends with Taystee and is pretty funny (her and Taystee's impersonation of white women is one of my favorite scenes from the season).

Lorna Morello
Forever planning a wedding to a man who hasn't visited her in years, Lorna breaks off her affair with Nicky out of loyalty to her beloved "Christopher." She's one of Red's gang.

Gloria Mendoza
Gloria took over Red's kitchen after she fell on the wrong side of Pornstache and gave jobs to all of her gang. While nobody was able to prove Red sabotaged the kitchen, Gloria knew and instituted a freeze-out of Red's food supply.

Yoga Jones
The yoga instructor of the group, Yoga Jones is as hippy-dippy as you'd expect someone who used to farm marijuana to be. Of course, she has her demons, which come to light when she has a confrontation with Janae. She admits that, while drunk, she shot and killed what she thought was a deer eating her crops but was instead a young child. She and Janae bonded over purposely shocking themselves with a fork and an outlet.

Norma Romano
Red's right-hand woman...until Red burns Gina. Completely mute throughout the season, Norma finally opens up to sing at the end of the Christmas pageant, a la Scrooged.

Janae Watson
Once a track star destined to escape her bad neighborhood with a scholarship, Janae ruined her shot by hanging out with a bad influence - the only boy who ever gave her any attention. Now she's got an attitude about everything and everyone, something that wasn't helped when she spent 10 days in solitary for something Piper did (Piper repaid her by fighting to reopen the prison track). She eventually feuds and then bonds with Yoga Jones.

Sister Ingalls
A nun who is serving for chaining herself to a nuclear power plant as a protest, she is both a moral compass for some characters (Sophia) and someone who's not afraid to go against the norm.

THE GUARDS

Officer Bennett
Considering he is a combat veteran, Officer Bennett is pretty fresh-faced and naive. And, as always, OITNB tests our preconceived notions by having his prosthetic leg be the result of an infection wrought by a dirty hot tub rather than an IED. Bennett develops feelings for Daya, the two have an affair, and Daya becomes pregnant. He's not happy when her solution to the problem is to have sex with Pornstache so she can claim rape and neither will get in trouble, but she still matters to him and she's still carrying his baby.

Pornstache
About as wholesome as his nickname would indicate, Pornstache likes to use his position to gain sexual favors from the inmates. He's also selling drugs on the side, a business that becomes more difficult when they start searching guards. This sparks his battle with Red and leads to Tricia's overdose. Eventually, Red gets to him by convincing Daya to have an affair with him to get him fired. He doesn't lose his job but he does get suspended without pay, and he gets Red to lose her job in the kitchen. He's also decided he's in love with Daya.

Officer Healy
Officer Healy is an inmate counselor, and is assigned to Piper. At first, Piper is one of her favorites; he sees her as a "normal" person, not like the career criminals, low-lifes, and lesbians that otherwise populate the prison. He helps her out until she starts having an affair with Alex and then turns on her. His hatred of lesbian activity is borderline obsessive, a strange thing considering how nontraditional his own marriage is (he has a mail-order wife from Ukraine who hates him). Things come to such a head between him and Piper that he knowingly leaves her alone with a vengeful Pennsatucky, thinking Piper was going to be severely hurt or even murdered.

Officer Caputo
The head of the corrections officers, he's just a little bit sketchy, but definitely not on Pornstache's level. He has kind of an adorable crush on Officer Fischer, and looks heartbroken when she introduces him to her boyfriend in the finale.

Officer Fischer
A midseason addition, Officer Fischer is a sweet woman who catches the eye of Officer Caputo. She also catches the eye of Miss Claudette, who strangles her after losing her parole hearing.

Natalie "Fig" Figueroa
The administrator at Litchfield, who serves as a liaison between the prison's corrections staff and the warden. Fig is mostly concerned with the bottom line and the public image of the prison, even at the expense of safety (when a guard is caught having sex with an inmate, she scoffs when someone refers to it as rape since the prisoner wasn't screaming or crying). She's also stealing money by cutting prison services even though the budget was increased.

Officer Wanda Bell
A harsh-looking female guard having an affair with Officer O'Neill. A good source of comic relief.

THE OUTSIDE

Larry Bloom
Piper's fiance. At first, he seems to enjoy Piper's adventure, which automatically makes his life more interesting. He uses it to get a piece published in the New York Times and get featured on an NPR story about long-distances relationships. But when he learns that Piper is having an affair with Alex, he breaks it off.

Polly Harper
Piper's best friend and business partner. Polly gives birth to a son while Piper is inside. She and her husband Pete are also friends of Larry's and support him as much as they can, as well.

Cal Chapman
Piper's brother and Larry's best friend, Cal lives in the woods, is engaged to a woman who works on an oil rig, and provides advice to Larry, both practical and insane.

MasterChef Recap: Meatloaf, Smeatloaf, Double-Beatloaf

houstonchronicle.com

With each passing episode of MasterChef, the more bothered I get that they skipped over the whole audition part of the show. Usually, by now, we have some kind of idea about at least half of the competitors, at least enough to remember their grandmother taught them how to cook authentic Cajun cuisine or they've been serving souffles at family functions since they were old enough to use the oven.

But no. Instead, I entered the most recent episode, where we're already down to the final 22, remembering only that Courtney used some pretentious term to describe her career as a stripper, Francis had fabulous clothes, and Big Willie looked like a human representation of a good time. Thankfully, that last one only got more true as the episode went on.

The show started with a Mystery Box challenge, where contestants were presented with all the fixings for a fancy dessert: various berries, bananas, lady fingers, chocolate, extracts, honey, etc. They were also presented with the fact that someone was going to be eliminated in this usually non-elimination challenge.

That ain't no thang for Big Willie, who is the sole food preparer in his 13-person household (unlike his useless grandmother and pathetic auntie) and a connoisseur of desserts. Jaimee, who moonlights as a bakery assistant, is equally confident for obvious reasons, although her back story is not nearly as much fun as watching Big Willie make fun of his elderly relatives. After getting teased and bullied throughout childhood, she has a bit of a meekness that is hidden behind tattoos and cooking and, in the case of her ink displaying a mixer, both.

Now, this wouldn't be a Gordon Ramsay-hosted Fox production if there was a little bit of pointless bickering, so Gordon stirs the pot by asking Elizabeth who will go home. Elizabeth doesn't want to say out loud, so she points to Leslie, the stay-at-home dad who favors bright suit vests, a well-coifed silver mane and a chip on his shoulder for no discernible reason. "Why do you think Leslie is going home?" Gordon asks in the loudest possible voice. This sets off Leslie, who starts yelling at and threatening Elizabeth to the point where Gordon has to step back in and tell him to be more mature. And there you have Exhibit A that you're watching MasterChef and not Hell's Kitchen.

Mercifully, the clock stops and they bring up four people: bottom two Cutter and Astrid and top two Courtney and Big Willie.

Oh, you don't know Cutter? Neither do I, because we had a 30 second conversation with him a minute ago and that's it. Apparently he was in the military and looks a little bit like Bradley Cooper's more rugged and not-quite-as-handsome brother. He made cappuccino pudding with biscotti. Gordon is annoyed by it because he sucked up by making a MasterChef logo in the cappuccino's cream. Joe is annoyed because Cutter didn't actually know what biscotti is and served a hard loaf of bread dipped in chocolate.

Astrid's was just a pathetic, undercooked, nasty-looking lemon tart that got her eliminated. Stay tuned for more Cutter!

Courtney (honey cake with mixed berry coulis) and Big Willie (ginger cake with marscapone cream and a berry compote) were the top two dishes, and despite the fact that Willie's cake created a party in Gordon's mouth, Courtney took the win.

Her prize came in three parts: 1) She got to skip the subsequent Elimination Test. 2) She got to choose one of three options that the rest of the competitors would have to make. And 3) she got to choose 10 other competitors to save, leaving the other 10 to compete. Courtney opted to save people in the most backhanded, jerkiest way possible, explaining that each person was being saved because she knew she could beat them, or they weren't that good, or whatever. Some of the folks are familiar: Leslie, Jaimee (and boy, did her snooty remarks about Jaimee smart after learning how poorly Jaimee has been treated by people who look like Courtney throughout her life), little Gordon, Elise, Cutter, Francis, Elizabeth. Then I think she might have saved someone named Iran? Qatar? I don't know who these people are.

Presented with meatballs, meatloaf or hamburger for this ground-meat challenge, Courtney also saddled the 10 remaining contestants with creating a meatloaf dish. One person is excited.

"I make a mean meatloaf. Me and ground beef, we go way back." - Big Willie quote of the night

Big Willie follows that up when he and Gordon taste his in-process loaf. Before Gordon has a chance to react, Big Willie gushes, "Oh, that is good!" I'm going to be very sad when Big Willie is no longer in my life.

While they're cooking, we're also introduced to a few more people. Dan is incredibly snobbish, both about the food he eats and the food he cooks. Almost 100% of his comments were derogatory toward his fellow competitors' dishes. He seems nice. Whitney had to quit culinary school for monetary reasons and somehow thinks tropical fruits in a meatloaf is the way to go. Stephani responds to Joe's criticism of her game plan by getting defensive toward him, toward the saved competitors, and possibly toward you and me.

When it came down to tasting the dishes, we were again inundated with people who had not appeared on our screen before this moment. Dishes that got raves included Christine, Daniel (yup, there's a Dan AND a Daniel kicking around), Big Willie (obviously), and Francis. Yes, there are also TWO Francises. You're killing me, guys. Francis B. (younger, no accent, less crazy-seeming) took a chance by adding burrata cheese and romesco sauce to his meatloaf, something the judges questioned while he cooked but that wound up a success. So much so that Francis took the win.

Those that didn't fare so well were Stephani, Whitney, someone named Jordan, and Dan, whose dish was described as "absolutely disgusting." Somehow, "absolutely disgusting" made it over Whitney's dish, which didn't get rave reviews, but which didn't exactly get decimated as badly as Dan's and Stephani's did. Still, the judges and other contestants must have seen something they didn't televise because everyone seemed to agree that Whitney didn't have the talent. Either way, she's gone.

Dish I'd Most Like to Try: Full disclosure: I hate meatloaf. I can't even eat it. I'm not a terribly picky eater, but that's one food that I just can't even put in my mouth. Meat is not supposed to be a loaf. Just like ham isn't supposed to be shaped like the tin it came in. So that leaves me with Courtney's honey cake.

Dish I Made Myself: Salmon burger! (Don't be impressed - it was a frozen patty and was smothered in BBQ sauce...just like Joe Bastianich makes at home.)

Welcome to TV Tuesdays

Because I live in the land of DVR, everything I watch is at least five days old. I don't think I'm alone in this, although I do find myself avoiding social media after certain shows (even though I'm not really the type to get all bent out of shape by spoilers. If I know something awesome is going to happen, I still want to see how it shakes up).

So the season finale of Bates Motel aired last Monday, a good week before I got around to watching it. I always feel weird watching Bates Motel nowadays, since most of my TV-watching takes place with a fussy baby on my lap. There's nothing weird about watching a show about a mother and son's obsessive, co-dependent relationship that you know ends with the son becoming the mother and murdering guests of his motel with your infant son, right?

"Yes, Joey, a boy's best friend IS his mother!"

For anyone who hasn't seen the finale, you probably should stop here. But I have to say that this show is becoming one of the ones I really look forward to watching. Yes, it's kind of campy, but it's also immensely clever. The innocent teen Norman we met in season one is now coming to grips with the fact that he regularly blacks out and murders people at the urging of some internalized, extreme version of his mother. First it was his father (who kind of deserved it); then his teacher (a sketchy woman but not so deserving). He also killed his friend's dad, but I guess we gloss over that one since it was kind of self-defense. All it took was a few days locked in Nick Ford's water pit to realize his dark side.

The best parts of this show come in the nods to the movie. After Norman realizes he sleep-murders people, he decides to commit suicide. But not before making a fine checklist that includes making amends with his buddy Emma, cleaning up the mess in the basement, and eating apple pie. He also makes things right with his mother, and as they have an impromptu, slightly bizarre waltz in the living room, a taxidermied owl watches from above. Very Psycho.

While the first two full seasons worked to develop the characters of naive Norman, overbearing Norma and misfit Dylan (along with the rest of the most corrupt town in the world), we're now moving on. The drug trade (by far the most boring part of the show) is on the back burner. Dylan is in good with his family again. Norman smoothed Emma's hurt feelings of being left out of the Bates' family drama. And Norman has embraced his dark and murderous side. We know Blair Watson is only the first lustful woman Norman will kill in his life. The question is, how many exist between her and Marion Crane?

Breaking Down Broadway's Walls

Full Disclosure: Yes, I know shows are only considered "Broadway shows" when they take place on Broadway, but when you enter this realm as rarely as I do, you take what you can get. 

For the past nine or so months, things have been a little hectic in our household. First there was the pregnancy bedrest. Then the two months in the hospital. Then, the, you know, baby. So not counting our once-a-month romantic outings to On the Border, my husband and I really haven't had a date since last July.

We broke out of that in style, by attending a production of The Book of Mormon at the Boston Opera House. This was really my first of this type of show, since I'm kind of a pain in the butt when it comes to musicals. I only really like them if they're cartoons or if they're comedies. I think it's because I have a problem suspending disbelief in a story that's supposed to be serious. How can it be serious if, right in the middle of conversation, 50 people appear and start dancing and singing in unison? At least in a cartoon and a comedy, things are already ridiculous so complicated dance numbers don't seem quite so out-of-place.

Which is why Book of Mormon seemed right in my wheelhouse. Co-written by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the guys who write South Park, it has all of the crude, inappropriate humor of...well, an episode of South Park. So of course I was game.

It was a Sunday matinee, which lent itself to some fine people watching. Traditional theater-goers to the Boston Opera House, a beautiful and ornate building in the theater district, were your typical crew - older, wealthier, wearing nicer clothes. We played along and wore nice clothes ourselves. But the fact that we were seeing a play written by the guys from South Park at 1 p.m. on a Sunday meant that the non-regulars were a mish-mash. I saw baseball caps next to ball gowns, jeans next to suits. The woman sitting next to me wore a Doctor Who dress over acid-wash jeans. I love it.

The show itself was fantastic. It had the right amount of over-the-top random humor (in one scene, a character with a tendency to let his imagination get away from him is repremanded by his father, Darth Vader, a couple of hobbits, and Yoda), but the storyline was equally funny. Basically, it follows two Mormon missionaries - the perfect Elder Smith and the bumbling compulsive liar Elder Cunningham - as they complete their service in a Ugandan village. They and the other missionaries struggle with convincing the natives to convert to Mormonism, since the natives are too concerned with things like poverty and famine and murderous warlords and AIDS. You know, typical comedy fodder.

Since it is not technically a trip to Boston without eating in the North End, we grabbed a gift certificate we probably got 5 Christmases ago and ate as al fresco as my perpetually cold body would allow (i.e. next to an open window).

When you have a baby, it's important to be able to step away, to make sure that you retain at least some semblance of the person you were before the baby was born. Our situation is compounded by the amount of challenges facing our boy. But you have to work at it because if you don't, you're just going to become miserable and resentful and that's no good. Maybe we won't go to a "Broadway" show EVERY month, but there's always On the Border.

Book Review: Different Seasons

You might not have read Different Seasons. The four stories included in the anthology are too long to be short stories and too short to be novels - a difficult situation Stephen King talks about in the collections' Afterword - and so they're a funny length to read. And yet I will bet that you could recite the plot of at least two of the stories without even thinking about it.

Indeed, anyone with access to basic cable has seen The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me on loop on TNT and TBS. It seems like you can't do one spin through the dial on a Saturday afternoon without stumbling on Morgan Freeman telling us to "get busy living or get busy dying" or Jerry O'Connell - right in the midst of his awkward stage - waxing prophetic about the allures of cherry Pez. Both stories originated in Different Seasons as the novellas "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" and "The Body," and they are two of the most faithful film adaptations I've ever seen. Stand By Me has some subtle changes and Shawshank has one big one - the role of an Irish redhead named Red was given to Freeman, but I'd argue that if you have a role that involves narration and can give it to Morgan Freeman, you'd be stupid not to in any situation.

For those who don't have basic cable or somehow missed the stories, "Shawshank" tells the story of Andy Dufresne, a successful banker in Maine who gets sent to prison after allegedly killing his wife and the golf pro she was having an affair with. There, he meets the narrator Red, the prisoner with the reputation of getting things from the outside thanks to some connections. Andy uses Red's services to get a rock hammer and polishing cloths so he can take up his outside-the-walls hobby of rock collecting, as well as a rotating collection of posters of the latest "it" girls, starting with Rita Hayworth. The two quickly become close.

Andy's banker skills allow him to make other important friends, namely the warden and guards, who use his expertise for tax help, investment advice and eventually laundering of bribes. In return, Andy gets protection from some of the more violent prisoners, his own private cell, and support of his pet project - the prison library. Everything is going swimmingly until the warden tries to get rid of evidence that could vindicate Andy.

"The Body" is a coming-of-age story about four 12-year-old boys who spend a few days one summer traveling through the woods to find a dead body. It's really more about the journey than the destination, especially for two of the boys: intelligent and thoughtful Gordie, neglected by his parents who always favored his older brother that died earlier that year, and street-smart Chris, with a bad reputation thanks to his alcoholic and abusive father and troublemaking brothers.

These two stories are classics full of emotion and heart and hope and are Exhibits A and B when trying to explain to people that Stephen King is not just a "horror writer."

"Apt Pupil" doesn't have any supernatural elements, but it's a form of horror in its own way. It really belongs in a Richard Bachman collection. It's about a precocious All-American boy with something really dark living inside his soul who becomes obsessed with Nazi Germany. And lucky for him, he discovers that a Nazi war criminal just happens to be hiding out under an assumed name in his very own hometown! The boy, Todd, uses his knowledge to basically blackmail the old man, Dussander, into sharing with him everything he remembers about that time, in grotesque detail. Over time, the two become disturbingly dependent on each other and on the dark stories and memories Dussander shares. This was also made into a movie starring Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro.

The only story I wasn't familiar with was also the one that was most like a typical Stephen King short story. "The Breathing Method" is really two stories in one. The first is an introduction to a strange and mysterious social club that's not really a club by the narrator, a lawyer named David Adley. The club basically consists of a hangout place for a bunch of men where they can shoot pool, drink, read, and do any number of other things. But there is something strange about it: the library is full of books that don't exist outside of the club's walls. The butler/organizer Stevens might not ever leave. And each night ends with everyone in attendance gathering around a fire in the library, where one man tells a story. There isn't a rule about the type of stories that are told, except that the ones told at Christmas are often the strangest.

The second part of the story - sandwiched between David's descriptions of the club - is a story told one Christmas by a member named Emlyn McCarron, an elderly doctor. His story took place in 1935, when he was a younger doctor and a young, unmarried, pregnant woman came into his office. The woman was responsible and mature - paying for her entire doctor's bill after the first appointment, planning for the eventuality of her dismissal of work and home when her sinful situation was discovered, and a studious adoption of McCarron's Lamaze-style breathing method for birth. McCarron grows fond of the woman until her very eventful birth experience.

This is a strange collection of stories for a number of reasons. The length is one, as it's almost like reading four novels back to back. But the styles are also different. As I said before, "Shawshank" and "Body" are non-supernatural, non-horror stories filled with hope and heart. "Apt Pupil" also doesn't have any supernatural elements, but it's dark and has it's own type of horror (and there's not an ounce of heart or hope to be found in it). "The Breathing Method" is very much supernatural and has it's own brand of horror. Four very different stories; one talented writer. Anyone who thinks Stephen King is a one-trick pony should read this collection.

Movie Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

So I watched this movie two Friday movie nights ago, but then, you know, life, and now I'm finally getting around to it. Fun!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower tells the story of a group of friends, but really, just three friends. We first meet Charlie as he's about to embark on his freshman year of high school. He's nervous, because all kids are nervous, but also because he's kind of a loner with no friends. And he has some hinted-at psychological issues that has his parents and siblings occasionally addressing him like he might combust.

In his shop class, he meets Patrick, an outgoing senior, and Patrick introduces him to Sam, Patrick's best friend/stepsister. The three hang out at a football game, and then a dance, and then a party, where Charlie inadvertently eats some pot brownies and opens up to Sam: his best and only friend killed himself the previous summer. Patrick and Sam and their group of misfit friends adopt Charlie into their circle.

Interspersed with happy events from the present are hints at dark moments from each of their paths. Patrick is open about his sexuality, but his boyfriend Brad, a big-shot football player, is not. Brad professes his love of Patrick in private, but when his teammates tease Patrick at school, he says nothing. Sam spent her own freshman year sleeping around with upperclassmen, a result of the sexual abuse she suffered as a child from her father's boss. And in addition to his dead friend, Charlie has even more skeletons in his closet.

Still, things go swimmingly for awhile. Until Charlie realizes he has the hots for Sam right around the same time as another girl in their group, Mary Elizabeth, decides she has the hots for Charlie. One Sadie Hawkins Dance later, he has a girlfriend he doesn't really like and the way he ends the relationship is epic. On the outs with his new and only friends, Charlie begins to deteriorate.

It goes on from there. The movie is a clever pairing of happy-go-lucky coming of age high school story (Speeding through a tunnel! The power of music! First kisses!) with the darkness of reality. We all have our secrets - the outcasts, no matter how outgoing, as well as the perceived "popular" kids (see: Brad; Charlie's sister in an abusive relationship). The final message, though, is one of perseverance and overcoming even the darkest of days, and unlike a lot of teen movies, getting in a petty fight with your friends is NOT the darkest of days.

I wish I had read the book, and I probably still will at some point, but the fact that the book's author directed the film strikes me as a good sign that it's pretty loyal to the story. I didn't recognize many of the actors (I know Charlie was the kid in the Percy Jackson movies and Patrick was the boy in We Need to Talk About Kevin but I haven't seen any of those), and those I did recognize were very different from than their traditional roles. As Sam, Emma Watson was very much not Hermoine Granger; Paul Rudd was almost unrecognizable from his goofy self as Charlie's supportive English teacher. And since the last things I've seen Dylan McDermott in were the first two seasons of American Horror Story, I'm just glad I got through this without an image of him doing something that burns into my brain (pleasuring himself, breastfeeding, you know, the norm).

I still don't know what I just watched...

Before a couple weeks ago, I had never heard of Flowers in the Attic. Apparently, it was THE seminal naughty book that girls hid from adults for the '80s and early '90s, but that was a bit before my time.

It seems like most generations have one of those books. To show you how my own pop culture brain works, it always makes me think of the "Library Cop" episode of Seinfeld, where middle-school-aged Jerry sneakily takes out, and then doesn't return for decades, the sexy Tropic of Cancer. I was took young for that, too. In fact, I can't think of what my generation's forbidden titillation was. I remember Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret being a little risque, but that was because it talked about puberty and periods. Not exactly what every hormonal preteen rushes to read about (at least not for fun).

So, I didn't know Flowers in the Attic, but I don't live under a rock and I read and saw countless things leading up to Lifetime's film version that aired last week. And not just blurbs in Entertainment Weekly, but people I know eagerly anticipating it. I saw the descriptions of the general plot and knew it was sexy and forbidden to those tweens a couple decades ago, but other than that, I just tuned in out of curiosity.

Oh. My. God.

What did I just watch? I have no idea, but frankly, I'm shocked the Foxworth family has lasted this long considering all its inbreeding. I've never thought about incest in my life as much as I did this past week. Yeeeeeeeech.

To the other under-rock-dwellers who missed the Flowers in the Attic phenomenon, it is the story of the Dollanganger family: perfect Dad, perfect Mom and four perfect kids. Did I mention they're perfect? Because they are, indeed, quite perfect.

Until Dad dies in a car accident. Then Mom's true identity as a trophy wife becomes extremely evident to her and oldest daughter Cathy, as she has no money and no skills to get a job. Also, the parents have been charging all that perfect stuff they had so they are actually homeless and possessionless, too. But they're still pretty, thank goodness.

So Mom packs up the kids and heads to her parents house. Nevermind that her parents disowned her when she married Dad and that the kids, until now, didn't even know they HAD grandparents. Oh yeah, and their last name is actually Foxworth. Mom hadn't mentioned that yet? MY BAD.

At the Foxworth estate, Grandpa, who was especially pissed about Mom's marriage, is dying and Mom thinks her only way to survival is to win him back so he puts her back in the will, something he does on the condition that she never had children with her husband. So she and mentally unstable Grandma hide the kids in the attic for, oh, I dunno, a few years.

Grandma's crazy and abusive in all senses of the word - physically, verbally, emotionally. She's also harboring some deep-seeded jealousy over her daughter's close relationship with her father. Was something going on there? I have no idea, but I wouldn't be surprised. Mom becomes even worse. If you don't want to have the end ruined for you, stop now because I'm going to keep going.

SPOILER ALERT

Mom's visits to the kids go from daily to weekly to "hey, we haven't seen Mom in six months!" She shows up one day and announces she married some guy and they honeymooned in Europe. She brings fancy gifts, and then runs back to her money and luxurious life. Meanwhile, Cathy and oldest brother Chris have gone through puberty and start having sex because, um, they're bored and horny? Oh and it's in their blood because - surprise! - the reason Grandpa disapproved of Mom is because her husband (aka Dad) was actually her half-uncle! Fun!

The two youngest kids stop growing because they don't get fresh air, sunlight, or exercise, and then one of them dies. Turns out Mom has been trying to poison them so she can have her fresh life with her new hubby. Even though Grandpa died months ago and nothing is stopping her from letting her kids back into her life.

Eventually, Cathy and Chris devise a way to escape with their remaining sister and start a life. Together. Because they're in love. And siblings. Still. I double-checked.

And that's it. That's the plot of this beloved novel. I mean...I don't even know. I get teenagers with their hormones and changing bodies wanting to read sexy stuff, but incestuous sex? And the book apparently involves a rape between the siblings, too. Gah! The book also happens to be the first in a series that involves the pair getting married and having (adopted, thank God) children of their own.

A lot of times, it takes me awhile to determine whether I liked a book or movie. I'll read or watch it, then kind of think about it over the next few days before I come to the conclusion, "You know what? I kind of hated/loved that." The more I thought about the movie (which people herald as pretty true to the book), the more icky I felt and the weirder I found the whole Flowers in the Attic phenomenon to be. Maybe you had to be there?

Amusing Side Note: Upon watching the movie, I tweeted, "How was Flowers in the Attic a phenomenon? I mean, incest is fun and all, but what the hell? I need a shower and two hours of my life back." (I know, I'm hilarious, right?) Anyway, within about 30 seconds, I got a notification that Mason Dye favorited one of my tweets. Who the hell is Mason Dye? I thought. Apparently, he played Chris in the movie. Well played, Mason Dye. Well played.

Movie Review: On the Waterfront

Finally, it's what you've been waiting 60 years for: my review of On the Waterfront. As a refresher, this is part of my Greatest Movies of All Time? personal challenge, where I made a list of the hundreds of greatest movies made using a combination of American Film Institute lists and Academy Award results. A lot of them, especially the classics, I had never gotten around to seeing and this was my excuse to do so. Plus, there's my OCD and if something comes in a list form, so help me, God, I'm there.

On the Waterfront was ranked No. 3, behind Casablanca and Gone with the Wind.

Basically, the plot follows Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), a dockworker on the waterfront run by mobster Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb). In a previous life, Malloy had been a prizefighter, but at the urging of his brother Charley (Rod Steiger), who also happens to be Friendly's right-hand man, he threw the fight and pretty much threw away his career.

As the movie begins, Malloy is drawing out fellow dockworker Joey Doyle, thinking that Friendly's goons would put a scare in the soon-to-be informant. Instead, they kill him. Malloy's not super happy that he was used as a pawn to kill someone, but such is life on the docks. He soon befriends/dates Joey's sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint), who makes it her goal to figure out what happened to her brother, with the help of the local priest, Father Barry (Karl Malden). Father Barry tries to get the dockworkers to stand up to Friendly and work with the police, but the one guy he convinces soon has a case of whiskey dropped on his head. Those slippery ropes!

Edie and Father Barry set their sights on Malloy as someone to testify and his conscience starts tormenting him. Which makes Friendly's men, including Charley, torment him.

The movie is an entertaining one regardless of context, but when viewed in the era of organized crime and sketchy unions (the story is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper series about a real Mob-run waterfront in New York). The acting is obviously stellar, too, with Brando at his best.

But you don't need me to tell you that. Here are its bonafides, which is what led to its inclusion on the GMoAT? list:

• Won the Academy Award for Best Picture
• Brando won the Academy Award for Best Actor
• Saint won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
• Ranked No. 8 in the AFI list of 100 Greatest Movies in 1998 (and No. 19 10 years later)
• Ranked No. 36 in the AFI list of the Most Inspiring Movies
• Had the No. 3 Most Memorable Quote, according to AFI, for Malloy's "You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am" speech.

Movie Review: The Usual Suspects

No, this movie isn't one of the Greatest of All Time, but it's a classic (in a way) that I've never seen and it was on TV - Sundance, no less, which means F-words and all - and when you're on modified bed rest, you'll watch anything. Like seriously, anything. Do you want to know who my favorite Family Feud host of the past 10 years is? Because thanks to the Game Show Network, I actually have one.

Anyway, yes, this was the first time I had ever seen this movie.

For those in a similar predicament, here's the set-up (pay attention because there will be a test). An explosion on a boat that looks to be a drug deal gone bad leaves just two survivors - a Hungarian gangster with burns on most of his body blubbering about a mysterious criminal mastermind named Keyser Soze and a small-time thief with cerebral palsy (Kevin Spacey). While the Hungarian gives whatever hospital bed testimony he can, including working with a sketch artist, the thief, Verbal Kint, gives testimony to a couple of cops. Most of the movie is a flashback to his tale.

It begins six weeks earlier, when Kint and four other lifetime criminals are put in a lineup for a weapons charge. While in holding, they devise a plan themselves, targeting a ring of crooked cops who transport smugglers throughout New York City. After that goes swimmingly, they attempt to launder the loot with a "fence," who tells them about another job stealing jewels and/or money from a jeweler. Instead they wind up stealing drugs, and they learn that the job came from a lawyer named Kobayashi. The whole thing was a setup by Kobayashi and his client, Keyser Soze, and he (Kobayashi) blackmails each criminal into attacking the aforementioned ship to break up a drug deal between Hungarians and Argentinian gangsters.

Some of the guys take some convincing; one winds up dead before the attack. The real question is what happened on the ship and who is Keyser Soze? Kint gives a brief back history: Soze was a Turkish criminal mastermind. When his Hungarian rivals tried to pressure him by breaking into his house, raping his wife and threatening his family's lives, he responded by killing his family himself, along with all but one of the Hungarians. After that, he became more of a myth than a reality, a legend that some criminals and cops questioned even existed.

I love a good twist, not to mention a good caper, so this movie was right up my alley. Plus, the cast was fantastic - Spacey's crew of criminals include Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Kevin Pollack and Stephen Baldwin, while the investigating cops include Chazz Palminteri, Dan Hedaya and Giancarlo Esposito. But I think what gave me the most enjoyment came after the movie ended, when I checked out its trivia section on IMDB. (Note: If you've never seen this movie before and don't want the end ruined for you, you might not want to click on that link.) Apparently, the director worked very hard to make every single actor think that HE was Keyser Soze, to the point that at least one actor got into a screaming match with the director at the premier because he was so sure it was him. That's just impressive.

Other notables: Kevin Spacey won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (strange, since I thought of him as the main actor, but what do I know?). Either way, not a bad way to spend an afternoon on bed rest.