This One Is Mine

By Maria Semple

Back Bay Books

It took me a few days and about 100 pages to feel compelled to read This One Is Mine. Finally, I reached the point when the story could have gone in several directions and I was persuaded to turn each page with anticipation and wondering what would happen next. The story follows the lives of a handful of characters living in Los Angeles and enmeshed in its wealth and superficial façade.

Violet Parry is struggling to find something in her life that makes her feel alive again. She has been married to a successful music producer for years and increasingly she feels he doesn’t hear or care to know her anymore. This is amplified by the fact that she hasn’t worked since her young daughter was born and isn’t sure about her identity. Bringing more confusion is Teddy Reyes, a bass player with a completely different life path. He awakens questions and lust within her that she must navigate throughout the book.

The other main character is Violet’s sister-in-law, Sally. Sally set her sights on an upcoming sports television personality. She believes if she gets him to marry her before his success explodes, it will secure her status and eventually allow her to live the life she wants. Of course, not thinking this plan completely through proves to be a bad move and the situation ends up more complicated than she could have imagined.

There are also some points when the book turns to the point of view of other characters, such as Violet’s husband David or Sally’s ex-boyfriend Kurt. Though it was helpful to see their perspective, the constant switching of first person narratives was a little jarring.

Violet’s husband David turned out to be one of the most complex characters. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to comfort him or hate him. He loved Violet, but didn’t always treat her well. He seemed to grow the most from his experiences and for that I ended up respecting his character.

I believe the book was meant to be a bit of a satire of the poor little rich girl, but I don’t feel it questioned the overly consumer lifestyle of the main characters. Violet consumes without question until she meet Teddy, who happens to be a former junkie that can’t afford to get his car fixed. I appreciate that he isn’t depicted as a stereotypical drug user; the fact that he is an excellent golfer is one thing that helped add depth to his character.

This is Maria Semple’s first novel and it has many strengths. The writing and descriptions are compelling and the dialogue doesn’t seem forced. It’s a good start to Semple’s novel writing career, but it isn’t a book I will be fiercely passing around my circle of friends.

Review by Andrea Hance

Made in Pakistan

Directed by Nasir Khan
Talking Filmain



These days, political analysts on both sides of the aisle are calling Pakistan a failed state. While the “most dangerous place in the world” does face profound political and social turmoil, such sweeping commentary fails to capture the more personal intricacies of the lives of ordinary people living inside the country’s borders. Pakistan is more than the Taliban fighters implementing Sharia law in the Swat Valley, and it’s more than the frequent bombings of embassies and hotels from Islamabad to Karachi. As a way of countering the predominant fundamentalist image of Pakistanis constructed by the global media, filmmaker Nasir Khan recently released a poignant documentary that defies stereotypes and sheds light on some of the common challenges faced by citizens with lofty and patriotic ambitions.

Made in Pakistan presents the way a new generation of young leaders negotiates the conflicting pulls of consumerism, family, politics, gender, religion, and traditionalism. The film follows four educated, upper middle class, young Pakistanis in Lahore—a working mother, a lawyer, an event/PR manager, and a politician—from General Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of a state of emergency and military takeover in November 2007 to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in January 2008. Waleed Khalid is a lawyer and professor at the Pakistan College of Law. He is a devout, but not uncritical, Muslim who has joined others employed in the judicial system to protest government corruption, in part fueled by American aid. In addition to raising her son, Rabia Aamir is the editor of The Fourth Article, a newly established magazine by and for politically savvy Pakistani youth. Aamir is a cultural activist who wants to find solutions to the political, social, and spiritual upheaval in the country. These two characters were the ones with whom I felt most sympathetic.

On the other hand, we have Tara Mahmood, a girl for whom the whole world is one big party waiting to happen, and she’s the one organizing it. Tara provides a lot of comic relief to an otherwise weighty film (at one point she says, "Alcohol is not banned here; it is just not legally sold."), and I was particularly moved when finally given the chance to see beyond her bubbly veneer. By contrast, duplicitous politician Mohsin Warraich provides an ominous, slimy representation of modern Pakistan: The film doesn’t have an outright villain, but if it did he’s be the one. Made in Pakistan is a compelling view of the immense contradictions of modern Pakistani society.

Review by Mandy Van Deven

Originally published in Bitch Magazine

Hello Kitty Must Die

By Angela S. Choi
Tyrus Books

To many, Hello Kitty is a mouthless cat in blue overalls who’s never spotted without her signature red bow, but to twenty-eight-year-old Chinese-American Fiona Yu, the feline is an embodiment of everything she hates and willing to kill for. Author Angela S. Choi makes her publishing debut with the crime novel Hello Kitty Must Die, and while it attacks nearly every stereotype that Asian American women face daily, it leaves a bad aftertaste that not even the saccharine sweet pop culture icon can cure.

Yu is that character readers will love to hate, but it’s not because of her cringing pessimistic personality or how she seems to despise everything that comes her way. Rather, Choi’s book is an unconvincing collection of bland one-liners and exasperating contradictions that fail to depict a tale of family values gone bad.

“My virginity will always be mine,” declares Yu in the first few pages of Hello Kitty Must Die as she decides to eliminate her hymen with a Lidocaine-coated dildo. Yet after making this bold choice that would have empowered some not wanting to wait for Mr. Right, she realizes that there’s no cherry to pop. As a result, Yu decides to have her hymen replaced solely to tear apart her “family honor.” It’s difficult to continue moving forward in the story as this is a poor attempt in showing readers that Yu wants complete control of her body, including the right to take her own virginity.

While it’s acceptable for any female to feel that she shouldn’t have a man just to “make her a woman," it isn’t believable that Yu would go through all this trouble simply to get rid of human tissue. Why would a woman purposely tear her hymen and then spend thousands of dollars to have it replaced just to prove she has full control of her womanhood? Choi doesn’t attempt to convince readers the purpose of making a sudden and very expensive decision, which leaves us wondering if embarking on Yu’s confusing journey is worth it.

Yu complains of her family’s desires to wed her off, yet she, a Yale graduate and corporate lawyer, chooses to live with them. Is this Choi’s way of showing her audience that Yu is just an American girl who won’t leave the bird’s nest and isn’t as independent as she implies? These issues are troubling, yet they’re tossed aside, like the family-picked suitors Yu secretly gets rid of because they’re too fat, hideous, or unable to pay for dinner. There’s one leading man who’s more serial killer than prince charming that does get Vuitton-loving Yu’s heart racing, but even he can’t close this Pandora’s box of problems.

Childhood friend Sean Killroy may relish the hunt for unsuspecting victims, but it’s Yu, not the psychopath she secretly admires, that hits reader’s nerves. It’s difficult to believe that she feels no remorse for the poor “Hello Kitties” in her life, all because they merely represent a fate she refuses to accept. For example, when readers discover that her skin bleaching obsessed cousin Katie was found dead from a broken neck, all Yu could think of was how she saved herself from an unwanted marriage because the morgue isn’t “a good place. They don’t serve fifteen-dollar bellinis there.” She later wonders if “morticians gave their clients pedicures. After all, no one would ever know.”

Yu despises getting set up on blind dates just to walk down the aisle faster and comments how Katie “fainted all the time” because she was 90 pounds, but didn’t mind “the modern version of Chinese foot binding” with Prada, Dior, and Blahnik. We couldn’t help but wonder why she’s willing to stay single, yet goes on tangents over every designer label she owns just to flaunt her looks, which are meant to show her poor excuses for suitors why she’s the catch they’ll never have? This is one major flaw that’s never solved in Hello Kitty Must Die, only displaying Choi’s inability to produce a heart-stopping murder mystery for those seeking a bad ass Bridget Jones or Carrie Bradshaw. We’ll stick with cutesy cartoons any day.

Review by Stephanie Nolasco