The Ask
Sam Lipsyte



rating: 3 out of 10 "books"

I recently read this story as part of a book club a few of my friends and I started and from the book summary the story sounded interesting enough. The Ask by Sam Lipsyte is the story of Milo, an awkward loserish type, who works for a mediocre liberal arts college after his own dreams of being an artist fail. He spends his time begging wealthy alumni for money to fund the university's ever expanding art department projects. The Ask as the title refers to, is essentially whatever the college is looking to acquire from a particular alumni as opposed to what the alumni decides to Give. The rising crisis occurs when Milo, who has been fired from the university, is rehired on the condition that he help acquire a big Ask from an old collge roommate who specificially requests Milo's help. Bizzareness ensues as Milo tries to balance work, his crumbling marriage, and his ever curious three year old son as well as everything and anything in between.

I've often wondered what it must be like to work for an alumni organization calling one alumni after another in an attempt to sqeeze whatever bits of charitable money out of them as possible. To me, it seems like a slight variation to telemarketing, and although the story aims at dark humor, sarcasm, and bitter hilarity, the ridiculousness of everyday circumstances Milo finds himself in are more lewd than entertaining. I had a hard time trying to decide if some of the things Lipsyte writes in this novel are for surface level shock value, or if on some underlying level of his psyche Lipsyte is a misogynist.

Overall, there's a moment in this book that pretty much sums up The Ask as a whole. Milo, asks, "if I were the protagonist of a book or movie, it would be hard to like me, to identify with me right?" To which his co-worker, Vargina, (yes you read that name right) replies, "I would never read a book like that, Milo. I can't think of anyone who would. There's no reason for it." Almost as if Lipstye is using this as a disclaimer for any negative critiques, "The Ask" is nothing more than the boring story of a loser told in a narrative whether meaning to or not, reads like a cross between Salinger and Vonnegut. But not in a good way. Anti-hero or not, I did not enjoy this story.

The Other Girl: A Midvale Academy Novel
Sarah Miller



rating: 3.5 out of 10 "books"

Summary From School Library Journal:

Predicting your boyfriend's every wish is easy, especially when you are in his head. Molly knows everything that Gideon thinks, and she uses that to be there when he wants her, to leave when he doesn't, and to fulfill his fantasies when the opportunity arises. However, when she catches him thinking of another girl during an intimate moment, Molly dumps him on the spot. And when a game of spin the bottle goes wrong, Molly ends up inside the head of Pilar, the hottest girl in school, dealing with her insecurities as well as her fantasies about Gideon.—Chris Shoemaker, New York Public Library

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Ok, so I got lazy with my review this time and used a review from School Library Journal on Amazon.com's webpage (this is me giving you credit!) Unlike the reviewer in the above summary, I actually liked this sequel to Inside The Mind of Gideon Rayburn much better. But after trashing the first novel, some of you may be wondering why I even bothered at all to read this next installment of the Midvale Academy (series?)? Well, originally I got The Other Girl from the library only later realizing it was a sequel. So I had the book, why not read it? I was holding out with the hopes that the next book would be better. And I wasn't totally disappointed. However, the book is by no means phenomenal. The characters are still pretty annoying, but there were some pretty humorous moments involving Pilar and a bit more development as far as the plot goes. Unfotunately, I don't think this book would work all that well as a stand-alone story so you could just skip the first story. With that said, I'd recommend that this two part story be skipped altogether (unless Sarah Miller does make this a series and produces more stories).

Inside The Mind of Gideon Rayburn
A Novel by Sarah Miller



rating: 2 out of 10 "books"


When this book first came in for me at my local library, I was a little embarassed to be seen carrying it around to be honest. I have no idea why the publishers would choose to make the cover a close up shot of a girl's chest regardless of the fact that the book basically details the life of a horny teenage boy. There could have been other ways to achieve this effect, especially since the target audience for this story is probably teenage girls (afterall, what teenage girl wouldn't want to know what their male classmate/whatever, is actually thinking?). The only reason I could see this being done is to draw in a more male audience.

With that opening rant, I have to say, Inside The Mind of Gideon Rayburn does not get much better. The premise is interesting: girl mysteriously ends up in boy's mind and uses this advantage to secretly win him over without his even knowing, because she knows what he wants and how he wants it. The narrator states at the very beginning of the story that, "My feelings, though perhaps passionate for someone my age and experience, are pretty normal. But my situation -- that is unique, and that's what puts me in a position to tell you everything. I mean it. Everything you've ever wondered about what guys think (and feared about what they want), I'm going to tell you. You are going to learn what boys say when girls are not in the room and how they feel when they're on top of one. I will, for now, leave out one very crucial thing: who I am. I'm in this story too, and not just inside Gid's head. But there are a lot of girls -- and women -- in this story. Which one am I?" Sounds interesting enough, but the majority of the story is about an oversexed boy trying to get a girl he doesn't even know, to sleep with him in order to win a bet his egotistical, misogynistic roommates set so he can prove himself to them. The romantic part, if you can call it that, is that in the end he happens to have feelings for his "lay."

I hated this story. The happy ending could not make up for the trashiness and sour taste left after reading the beginning to middle of the story. This is not a story for teenagers, at least not high school aged. The kids in the story are supposed to be High School Prep kids, but the story reads more like a dumb Van Wilder or American Pie movie, minus the funny. There's tons of bad language and sex talk, which although I can understand for a book that's supposed to be about what guys think and talk about, I guess I just wasn't expecting as much. If anything, the book is at least honest in that regard. Still, this is not a book you would want to add to your classroom collection or school library. For as much as I didn't enjoy the book Youth In Revolt, at least that one was bizzare and entertaining. You know the phrase, "Don't judge a book by it's cover?" With Inside The Mind of Gideon Rayburn, you should and it will save you a lot of time. I gave this book a rating of 2 out of 10 "books" which I consider generous and only did because while the entire story was lacking, at least the concept was somewhat original.

Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List
By Rachel Cohn and David Levithan


rating: 5.5 out of 10 "books"


This second collaboration between Cohn and Levithan (who co-wrote Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist), tells the story of Naomi, a tough city girl with seemingly little interest in anything other than her friendship with her best gay friend, Ely. Naomi and Ely have practically been best friends since birth. They’ve lived across the hall from each other in their Manhattan apartments all their lives and have shared everything from the collapse of their parents’ marriages to clothing. One thing they will not share however is men. Hence the reason for the creation of the “No Kiss List,” a fool-proof plan against a “Naomi & Ely breakup.” But a series of events threatens the Naomi & Ely relationship and leaves readers clambering to find out whether the damage can be reversed.

This novel and I got off to a rocky start. Within the first few pages I was bombarded with a flurry of symbols and names that left me confused and discouraged. It took a few reads of some very nonsensical sentences accompanied by symbols to figure out for example, that a character named Robin was actually two people, one male one female, distinguished by slightly different symbols. The first chapter gives us a look into Naomi’s train of thought, detailing her knack for lying (“Lies are easier to process”—Naomi), to her indifference towards others. She describes levels of “I love you’s” that she says to various people, but none seem to embody the true meaning of love. Even Naomi’s feelings towards her boyfriend, Bruce the Second (named as such because of the existence of a former boyfriend named Bruce), are less than real. The recklessness of Naomi and Ely is reminiscent of the CW version of Gossip Girl. Ely is hardly any better than Naomi, going through boyfriends quicker than the season’s fashions go out of style.

For the first portion of the novel I didn’t feel the smallest bit of sympathy toward the two main characters and questioned my commitment to finishing the book. However, the two-dimensionality of the characters was rounded out by the inclusion of other characters’ points of view including: Bruce the First, the High School boy who has not been able to sleep ever since he and Naomi broke up forcing him to join a group of fellow insomniacs, nicknamed the “Bruce Society,” in the wee hours of the night; Bruce the Second, Naomi’s current boyfriend, who struggles with his feelings and identity throughout the story and who appears to be the total opposite of Naomi in every way (Bruce on telling the truth: “There is something so intimate about saying the truth out loud. There is something so intimate about hearing the truth said. There is something so intimate about sharing the truth, even if you’re not entirely sure what it means.”); as well as other characters such as the Robins, Gabriel, and Bruce the First’s twin sister, Kelly.

In the end, I really enjoyed this book especially because I felt that it included many truths and lessons. I even grew to enjoy encountering the slew of symbols that accompanied Naomi’s chapters, eager to decode the meanings.