Masquerades

Directed by Lyès Salem
Global Film Initiative

The first feature film of Lyès Salem, Masquerades is a lighthearted and quirky comedy about an Algerian gardener, Mounir Mekbek, who dreams of a life beyond the confines of his sleepy village. His arrogance combined with his “responsibility” for a narcoleptic younger sister, Rym, make him the laughingstock of his community. He is a misunderstood dreamer who has aspirations, but can’t quite seem to pull himself together to meet the goals he has set for himself. He blames his humiliation on his sister’s illness and dreams of using the prospect of finding a good match for her to improve his standing in his village.

Following an incident at a wedding, an inebriated Mounir declares to the entire village that he has promised Rym to the wealthy foreigner. As a means of damage control, the family leaves town, in order to return and state that Rym was not interested in the gentleman. However, in order to motivate her sweetheart, Khliffa, to propose to her, Rym declares her intentions to marry the stranger.

Thus, the entire village becomes involved in the exciting lie as everyone wants to be a part of, not only planning the wedding, but the new fortune of the Mekbek family. Salem does a great job of portraying the views and reactions of the village, as well as the aspirations of the other villagers. It becomes evident that Mounir was not ridiculed for his sister, or lack of material wealth, but because of his haughty attitude towards his neighbours. Mounir is swept away in the newfound respect that he earns for commanding the regard of such a highly regarded foreigner. The introduction of the wealthy foreigner is an effective device to show the hypocrisy, but ultimately the desire Mounir has to make a better life for his wife, son, and sister.

The female cast definitely makes the movie more powerful. The character who shines the most is Habiba, Mounir’s wife, played by Rym Takoucht. She sees right through Mounir’s cocky façade, and brings him back to reality from his schemes to gain respect from the village. Her relationship with Mounir represents the realities that she has had to face, despite having been very in love with him at the time of their courtship. I was grateful that the film did not depict her as a bitter hag, but as a woman who is discontented in a sense, but keeps her family grounded in reality. Their relationship provided an interesting parallel to the courtship of Rym and Khliffa. I became disappointed towards the end of the film, because the lie about the wealthy foreigner simply goes away, and Rym ends up with Khliffa, thus providing a clean and happy ending.

Overall, I really enjoyed this film, and I thought it was a great depiction of the restlessness that comes with wanting something more in the face of socioeconomic hardship—something that I feel that many can relate to. It was also refreshing to watch a film in which an Islamic community was not depicted as the barbaric site of oppression of women, but rather showed the complex nuances of life in a small village in a changing world.

Review by Sara Yasin

Wise Teacher, Wise Student: Tibetan Approaches to a Healthy Relationship

By Alexander Berzin
Snow Lion Publications

Wise Teacher, Wise Student by Alexander Berzin explores the intricate and complex relationship between Western students and Eastern teachers. This particular type of relationship has its own unique set of challenges due to language barriers, cultural divides, and occasionally conflicting expectations. Berzin focuses on bridging the gap between the two worlds by exploring the student-teacher relationship through the Tibetan Buddhist outlook and its implications for Western students.

The text explores the basics of Tibetan Buddhism, including what a typical spiritual seeker in traditional Tibet would look like. I appreciated that Berzin provided information about the influence on Chinese occupation of Tibet as a means of bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West. While this occupation is indeed tragic, it has provided the vehicle for Western students to learn about and participate in spiritual rituals and practice. I found this to be an important piece of information for understanding why this particular type of relationship needed special exploration in the first place. According to Berzin, Western spiritual seekers are very different from their Eastern counterparts. Tibetan seekers usually start their spiritual journey and education at a very young age, while most Western students begin their study as adults, after receiving a formal education, and expecting equality and full knowledge of each and every step of the spiritual journey.

After exploring these differences, Berzin touched on foundational concepts and ideas such as the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold Path, rectified terms, including the differences and misconceptions surrounding the terms guru and lama; and laid out basic requirements for a seeker and teacher. While this was only the first of three sections of the book, this one definitely feel the heaviest and most time consuming due to the sheer volume of information it contained. The other two sections explored the dynamics of a healthy relationship with a spiritual teacher, and unhealthy relationship behaviors such as fear, overdependence, and even rebellion. These two I found much more interesting, although somewhat dry.

The section that struck me most was on the importance of establishing a relationship based on respect. Part of establishing a healthy relationship with a mentor is focusing on that mentor’s good qualities and strengths. This is not to say that the student should ignore the bad qualities or shortcomings of their mentor, but that they should mediate and focus their energy on the positive attributes. By dwelling on the negative aspects and things one doesn’t like about their teacher, a student can potentially miss out on the lessons and parts that are positive. I found this to be a great overall piece of advice for engaging in any sort of relationship, be it with a spiritual teacher, a friend, family member, or partner. Many times relationships, of any kind, can be trying and difficult, but if you can focus on the things you appreciate about the person, you’ll be much more willing or in a place to engage in a respectful and healthy manner. Any relationship based on respect, on behalf of both parties engaged, has the greatest chance at being healthy and fruitful for all involved.

On a whole, I found the book to be very overwhelming. There was a lot of important information packed into relatively small sections. At times, it assumed the reader had a slightly greater than basic understanding of Buddhist concepts and practices, but at others, found space to break down actual terms into digestible nuggets of information. Due to this strange assumption about the knowledge base of the reader, I had a difficult time figuring out who the target audience for such a book would be. While I understand the desire to appeal to and be useful to a wider audience, I found it difficult to navigate some of the information. I found it most appropriate for a class at a Dharma center, or an intermediate course on Buddhism.

Review by Liz Martin

I'm Sorry You Feel That Way: The Astonishing but True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother, and Friend to Man and Dog

By Diana Joseph
Berkley Books

Diana Joseph has weekly breakfast dates with her Satanist neighbor, a dog that tirelessly humps everything (including her petrified son), terrible relationships with men (including one that produced the previously mentioned son), and issues with her brothers. Save for the Satanist neighbor and humping dog—perhaps—most of those topics are standard fare for memoirs, and in the first seventy pages of I’m Sorry You Feel That Way, Joseph does not do much to set herself apart from other memoir writers.

The stories Joseph is telling are obviously her own, but she writes with a disinterested tone that is slightly unsettling and boring to read. Then she makes this statement, referring to her battle with OCD and subsequent refusal to continue taking Paxil: “I don’t think it’s ever going to completely go away. I’m not sure I want it to. Because then who would I be? What would I think about? How would I spend my time?” This marks a shift in her writing. She still maintains her dry wit and keeps a slight distance from what she is writing about, but she has a distinct talent for weaving in moments of vulnerability that—because of the straightforward voice she otherwise employs—never feel forced or exploitative.

“It’s Me. It’s Him. It’s Them.” is Joseph’s finest piece in this series of stories. It shows off her ability to not only write vulnerably, but also to write pointedly. She tells the story of her “perverted” friend Andrew, and why she’s not quite sure she can call him a pervert. The story steers away from Andrew and hones in on her discomfort with her buxom figure, and men’s opinion of it, which culminates in this self-exchange:

Do I hide my body under sweaters and sweatshirts and jackets or do I let the world know I’m female and as a female, I have breasts? Why do I feel so self-conscious anytime I wear a color other than black? Do I want to be looked at or not? I don’t know.

And that’s that. She doesn’t know. She offers readers a look into the battle that she fights with her body and doesn’t announce a winner. Because if she were to have some kind of cathartic answer to all of those questions besides “I don’t know,” she would no longer be a non-fiction writer.

It’s that baldfaced honesty that serves Joseph well throughout I’m Sorry You Feel That Way. While I’m curious to see what would happen if she were to bring herself closer to the stories she’s penned, perhaps those moments of honesty and glimpses of vulnerability wouldn’t otherwise be so rewarding to read.

Review by Alyssa Vincent

Hannah Free

Directed by Wendy Jo Carlton
Wolfe Video



If LOGO and the Hallmark Channel had a baby, they would name her Hannah Free.

The story goes like this: an aging lesbian couple, together for four decades, both now find themselves confined to the same nursing home, but unable to see one another. Free-spirited butch Hannah (Sharon Gless) is paralyzed after falling off a roof, and is denied access to her comatose lover Rachel (Maureen Gallagher) by Rachel's bitter born-again Christian daughter Marge (Taylor Miller of TV's All My Children).

Bedridden and lonely, Hannah spends most of her time napping, journaling, reading mail, and talking to an imagined younger version of Rachel (Ann Hagemann). It is through these (highly contrived) plot devices that the audience is taken back into chapters of Hannah's history: her childhood chasing after little blond Rachel through wheat fields, her Depression-era youth happily roughing it in Alaska, her WWII military service as a pilot in the Women's Army Corps. Her younger version is played by relative unknown Kelli Strickland, who spends the majority of her onscreen time locked in tepid PG-13 sex scenes with Hagemann's Rachel.

One day, following a tense interaction with Marge, a young woman named Greta (Jacqui Jackson) wanders into Hannah's room, all wide eyed and with polite questions. She draws out from Hannah her unfortunate circumstances, and quickly offers to come by at 3 a.m. to take Hannah to see Rachel. We soon learn that Greta is not just motivated by altruism; she is Rachel's great-granddaughter, and herself a lesbian. Hannah and Greta strike up a friendship, and Hannah later shares her journals with Greta; more flashbacks ensue. The third act sees Hannah, Marge, and Greta come together to make a very difficult end-of-life decision on behalf of the woman they all hold dear.

Notice my usage of the term third act? It's a common term in references to films, but it is especially appropriate in the case of Hannah Free, a film adapted for the screen by playwright Claudia Allen. Film buffs are aware that play adaptations fall into two distinct categories: those that successfully make the leap from stage to screen (e.g., Crimes of the Heart and Steel Magnolias) and those that don't. Sadly, Hannah Free just doesn't.

I appreciate issues-driven cinema as much as the next bleeding heart liberal. Admittedly, Hannah Free does address a variety of pertinent topics. These include the concepts of a loving versus “legal” family in regard to LGBT relationships and which decisions each partner is allowed to make regarding the other; the general dearth of quality elder care, specifically care for aging LGBT folks; and living openly in rural communities. With its story told by a predominantly female cast, and emphasis placed on both respect for lesbian elders and multi-generational lesbian representation in families with the character of Greta, the film also has a decidedly feminist bent. Still, Hannah Free is heavy-handed—and hokey.

As it relates to issues of health, family, and LGBT equality, Hannah Free is a relevant film. As a worthwhile cinematic experience, however, it falls woefully short.

Review by M. Brianna Stallings

Cotton’s Queer Relations: Same-Sex Intimacy and the Literature of the Southern Plantation, 1936-1968

By Michael P. Bibler
University of Virginia Press

As Michael Bibler mentions in the introduction to Cotton’s Queer Relations, it seems impossible that there could be enough material out there to serve as the basis for such depth of criticism on an incredibly narrow topic. There are a few notable classics that have homoerotic undertones and even some more overt mentions of homosexual encounters that are discussed in works like The Confessions of Nat Turner, but these queer moments seem like blips in what appears to be an otherwise overtly heterosexual literary scape. Is Bibler reading too much into plantation literature? Are his examples only the result of the passionate desire to find queer meaning in texts where none exists? The answer to both questions seems to be no.

Bibler’s arguments are focused and supported with strong evidence from the texts and the work of other critics. But the argument by Bibler is more complex than a simple acknowledgment of the existence of queerness in plantation literature; he argues that the queer subtexts in plantation literature expose wider social injustices in plantation life, and that queer relations also move racial inequality and sexism to the forefront.

Bibler wants to make it clear that same-sex relations here do not necessarily mean homosexual relations. I will allow the reader of Cotton’s Queer Relations to delve more deeply into the complex reasoning behind his assertion; but in a nutshell, he essentially pleads that the closeness of same-sex relations in the textual examples he uses stand in such conflict of the heterosexualized and paternalistic structure of the plantation that they can be defined as queer even if they are not directly homosexual. It is an interesting take, and one that may initially sound like a bit of a stretch.

Terminology notwithstanding, Bibler offers fresh readings of literary classics like Absalom, Absalom! and gives contemporary insight to controversial texts like Styron’s Nat Turner. He digs deep into Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and is able to juxtapose Big Daddy’s simultaneous tolerance of homosexuality with his unabashed lack of respect toward the black servants he employs, effectively layering new meaning on a well-worn text. He picks apart the relationships of white women and their black servants in the works of Lillian Hellman, Katherine Anne Porter, and Margaret Walker, describing them as “romances”—and supports his logic—even though none of the women in the stories share an erotic lesbian moment, or even a kiss. While there are a few minor stretches here and there in Bibler’s text, he overall pleads his case. He certainly does not appear to be afraid of stirring controversy, and does a remarkable job of defending his arguments while he discusses each point.

Review by Emily S. Dunster

Boys Lie: How Not to Get Played

By Belisa Vranich and Holly Eagleson
Health Communications

I was of two minds while reading Boys Lie: on one hand, I appreciated that Belisa Vranich and Holly Eagleson have taken the time to research and write a “cheat sheet” giving young girls a “BS detector” and helping them separate the good apples from the bad ones. On the other hand, the title of the book might lead one to believe that the authors think all boys lie in order to have their way with girls. In their defense, the authors stress that their book is “not a manifesto against guys,” but rather a way to help smart girls deal with the “messy truths about guys and relationships.”

While I recognize that teenagers are exposed to an overwhelming amount of (mis)information from their peers, the Internet, and other sources, I wonder if the negative connotation of the title could have been neutralized in some way. Boys Lie is divided into seventeen chapters entitled Lie #X. The authors cover everything from contraceptives and how to protect yourself against STI's to love and sex in the digital age to the physical and emotional abuse that, sadly, goes on in teen relationships. The authors take statements (lies) that young men regularly tell young women to get them to engage in activities they might not otherwise be willing to engage in as the jumping off point for the topics discussed in each chapter.

For example, Lie #4 is “you can hook up with a friend without having feelings involved.” The authors include a list of different ways a boy might say a particular lie. In this case, he might say, “You can have sex like a man” or “Hook ups with friends don’t count.” The authors discuss what happens to the female brain when a girl is on a “booty call.” When women get physically close to a guy, the authors explain, they experience a rush of happy hormones and neurotransmitters that make them want to increase the frequency of the hookups. Since men don’t have the same physical and emotional reactions to a casual hookup, this creates a situation that often leads to the woman getting hurt and the friendship ending.

Lie #16 is “you need someone to keep you in line.” This chapter is about physical and emotional abuse, and is disturbing in its exploration of the destructive patterns that surface in teen relationships. The authors point out that one out of three teens has reported being the victim of physical or emotional abuse by a romantic partner, and one in five girls has either been involved in a violent relationship or threatened with violence by a partner. According to a recent study, violence against girls on television has increased by 400 percent over the past five years, and digital abuse (e.g., monitoring a partner's online behavior, constantly texting someone to keep tabs on them, and pressuring someone to engage in digital sex) is also on the rise.

Boys Lie includes statements girls can use to counter boys' lies. If you’re a teenager or a parent, this book is a must read. In an ideal world, Boys Lie wouldn’t be necessary, but we have to live in the real world.

Review by Gita Tewari

Theology of the Body

By Donora Hillard
Gold Wake Press

In Theology of the Body, Donora Hillard employs a variety of styles and structures to present a complicated picture of the body, desire, and heterosexual relationships. She makes use of the language of theology and an unrelenting physicality in order to create a sense of faith not beyond the body, but through it of a human divinity that is also at once diabolic. It is no accident that the opening epigraph comes from William Blake.

Within this sequence, Hillard manages to portray women with threatening sexualities as well as women who have been made victims. In portraying women’s surprising and, to some, disturbing strength, she does not erase the brutality. With the lines "You can see muscles/ in my legs from running/ after men like you," “Pursuit” is followed by “Remedy,” which concludes with a literal punch that the tight lines and simple imagery of the first two stanzas allow to have a particularly strong impact on the reader. Reading the last verse for the first time, I jerked back a little as if I had been punched. (This isn’t the only place where I reacted so strongly: take that as a trigger warning.)

The only thing that separates these two poems is a line from Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, taken out of context in order to be made into an opportunity for poetic production and imagination. “Remedy” and the other poems interspersed with lines from this same source do more than dramatize or respond to the line which precedes each: poems and statements interact, forming machines that produce new possibilities for the spirituality of the body. The possibilities, no doubt, would have been heinous to the Pope from whom Hillard so skillfully appropriates. The spirituality of the body, after all, is really just the body and living in it. No need for robes, psalms, or Churches: "Every woman, by virtue of the nuptial meaning of her body, is called in some way to be both a wife and a mother."

This quote from the old Pope is followed by a poem that changes the meaning of the final two terms beyond anything he would have recognized. “Wife” opens, "My husband was a shotgun made of candy./ I wanted to kill his former lovers, especially/ the Strawberry Shortcake-looking one." The only allusion to motherhood made comes a few lines later, "On our anniversary,/ we made love in a kiddie pool full of sugar/ and afterbirth."

This strange and joyful sweetness, interrupted by scars and knives with uncertain intents goes beyond the bounds of traditional and restrictive theologies. In doing so, it represents (particularly since it blends sweetness and at least potential pain) the peculiar strength of Hillard’s theology, whether you take it as a theology or not.

Review by Elizabeth Switaj

Cross-posted with Gender Across Borders

Girl Parts

By John M. Cusick
Candlewick Press

I almost wrote realistic fiction for the category on this book—and it's basically about robots. I know that's a weird start to a review, but that's how I felt about the book. This story is about the Internet age and how it's keeping people connected online... but totally separate in real life. One company decided that the way to cure alienation for the many boys who waste their days online was to create a girl for them! A really hot, really devoted girl.

At first, my feminist sense started going off when I heard the premise. I mean, all a boy wants is a chick to love him? Really? That's all it takes? Surely there's a lot of fallout from that whole idea. And that is what Girl Parts is about: the fallout for one guy and his Companion.

I felt a little better about the idea when all of the problems started showing themselves pertaining to the idea of a robot girlfriend. I'm still a little bothered that there's no dude for the girls who spend way too much time online. I mean, we all know those girls exist (I'm trying not to look in a mirror), so it's hard to believe this company decided to only make girls instead of both sexes. But that's just me, I guess.

One of the reasons Girl Parts feels like realistic fiction is that it deals mostly with relationships and how people create and maintain them. I really liked seeing how all of the different characters interacted with each other. You see each of them from several different viewpoints, which makes the whole thing fit together really well and gives a more complete view of the characters.

I wish Girl Parts were a little longer because I feel like there were some things that could have been hashed out a little more. You get a really unlikely friendship toward the end and I would have liked to see more of how that worked out.

Despite being labeled as Young Adult, I think the subject matter is described in enough detail that it shouldn't be read by middle grade kids. It's a bit too graphic for them. For lack of a more in depth explanation, there's a bit sexual content. Oh, and some drug use as well. Just FYI.

Review by Emily @ The Ninja Librarian

Falling Apart In One Piece: One Optimist’s Journey Through the Hell of Divorce

By Stacy Morrison
Simon & Schuster

I’m one of the many women who have been through divorce so I picked up Stacy Morrison’s memoir Falling Apart in One Piece, about her divorce, with interest. Because few of my friends and family members have experienced divorce, it’s been one long lonely road for me. How do people deal with the guilt? I’ve wondered. How do they stop worrying about their ex—even after they’ve fallen in love with somebody else?

Less literary and more chatty-confessional style—in vogue with the women’s magazines that Morrison has edited all these years (Mirabella and Marie Claire, for example, or, most recently, Redbook)—Morrison relates her tale like a woman sitting down over a cup of tea with a friend. Her story takes us to the heart of despair in the wake of divorce. Though Morrison’s husband didn’t abandon their son, he left her holding the bag for a house that was falling apart around her. Morrison soon realized that she was literally living a metaphor, the house a perfect symbol of her crumbling marriage.

What did I do wrong? Morrison wonders. How could I have believed in marriage, only to be fooled? How could marriage have been just the thing I needed, while my husband felt like it was sucking his soul dry? And, most importantly, How am I ever going to be a single mom? How am I going to afford it? How am I going to get rid of this damned house? Even as she takes a new job as Editor-in-Chief of Redbook Magazine, Morrison wonders if she’s a fraud. Can she promote marriage and family when her own has disintegrated?

Through all her financial struggles, loneliness, self-doubt, and desolation, Morrison works hard not to become bitter or angry, so that she and her former husband can be good parents to their son. She comes through it with hope for the future and a new-found respect for her own abilities to make it through anything.

Falling Apart in One Piece is neither a literary masterpiece nor a self-help manual, but it is another genre somewhere in between those two—a personal story of heartache, loss, and hope, told honestly and thoughtfully. Definitely worth reading for those who have been through divorce and want to understand their own muddled emotions.

Review by Jessica Powers

Sex Appeal: Six Ethical Principles for the 21st Century

By Paul Abramson
Oxford University Press

Sex Appeal flows in an intuitive series of ideas and expresses thoughts that may be obvious, but seem to be seldom practiced. The six logical principles regarding sex for our era outlined in Paul Abramson’s book are not only interesting, but vital to a peaceful coexistence.

If you tried to make a personal guideline for sex using the golden rule, you might get a summation of Abramson’s leading principals: do no harm, celebrate sex, be careful, know yourself, speak up and speak out, and throw no stones. Doing no harm, according to the author, reaches beyond avoiding sexual violence and demands honesty between sexual partners. Abramson encourages readers to be honest with their partners about their history and their expectations. What better way to avoid the spread of STIs and the cliche (but true) image of teenage girls everywhere crying into their pillows, “But he said he loved me.” Every chapter in the book refers back to this idea and seems to spin on an axis around it.

To disarm readers who may assume Abramson is an advocate of having no sex, the author has included an entire chapter encouraging readers to celebrate the act. He argues, though, that the catch to celebrating sex may mean abstaining. For some, that could mean waiting until a certain age, or for others, avoiding it within a certain relationship. The author argues that to really enjoy the amazing experience of intercourse, one has to be mature enough to handle it, which, of course, brings us back to “do no harm,” but also leads into the next idea.

Be careful. When it comes to sex, you don’t even need your mom to tell you this one. Until people are practicing “do no harm” like it’s their job, orgasming comes second to playing safe. So in addition to not hurting others, we don’t hurt ourselves, and the best way to do that is to know ourselves.

“Speak Up and Speak Out” as well as “Throw No Stones” both pull out of the genitals and move into the brain. There’s a lot to understand about sex, Abramson points out, that goes beyond how to do it. These two chapters discuss fairness, protecting oneself and others, ways to avoid or deal with sexual abuse, and harnessing judgment and stigmas around sex—especially as they’re expressed in the US.

While it’s unlikely to happen, the book should probably be part of the curriculum of every high school sex ed class. Occasionally, explanations seem to drag on and some analogies comparing sex to soccer go just a little too far, but the points are valid, clear, and important. Much of what Abramson discusses in this short book may seem blatant to a sexually active adult, but to a young person, the insights (or at least the lessons attached to them) could be huge.

Review by Tatiana Ryckman

How to Get Divorced by 30: My Misguided Attempt at a Starter Marriage

By Sascha Rothchild
Plume

It’s not like someone would seek out this book looking to find advice on how to damage their marriage, but it definitely piques the curiosity of anyone trying to understand how easily a marriage can go awry. How to Get Divorced by 30 is Sascha Rothchild’s personal tale of her short-lived marriage. Surprisingly, it’s not a man-bashing book picking on her ex-husband (some of his faults are mentioned, but not focused upon). Instead, Sascha tells her story by explaining how the various events, influences, and personal insecurities in her own life led to her choosing a relationship that seemed to fill her needs, but resulted in feeding her flaws.

Sascha’s unabashed honesty about herself, especially exposing her quirky personal demons, is highly admirable. Regardless of whether you agree with her viewpoints, you can’t help but revere her accurate self-assessment and the courage it took to write this book. You also can’t help but relate to her inner struggles with self-perception, including weight, looks, and identity. It’s normal for women to have insecurities in these areas, but Sascha takes the exploration further by discovering how her insecurities led to poor relationship choices. Looking to resolve her issues, she’d try to find a sense of security through relationships.

We all tend to choose a partner who counteracts our shortcomings in some way or another, which is why you can’t help but relate to the author. However, what is most interesting about the book is how she focused on the fact that her unhealthy relationship with herself was not only the root cause of her divorce, but also the cause of her marriage (and other failed relationships) in the first place.

By the end of the book you feel like you know Sascha personally. Her influence will cause you to stop and reflect on your own life, the relationships you’ve had, and how your own insecurities may have caused problems in ways you never before realized. I assure you this is a good thing. If we could all look at ourselves with blatant honesty (not harshness nor kindness, just what is) then we would all be better people. We spend too much time pretending to be what others think we should be, lying to ourselves, and trying so hard to measure up that we lose sight of our own needs and happiness. That’s what happened to Sascha.

By sharing her journey of self-discovery (and divorce) Sascha helps readers to more truthfully look at their own lives. Meanwhile, the read is an excitingly entertaining journey. Be prepared to finish the book in one sitting. It’s a fast read, but mostly because you can’t put it down until you've finished it.

Review by Sarah Eve Nichols-Fulghum

The Last River Child

By Lori Ann Bloomfield
Second Story Press

The Last River Child is the story of a town caught up in a legend: they believe there are children possessed by the spirit of the river meant to bring misfortune to everything around them. Everyone is taught to stay away from the river, but a young girl named Peg feels drawn to the river and refuses to believe the story. She becomes an outcast and whenever something goes wrong in the town, it’s blamed on her.

The book begins with the story of Rose, Peg’s mother, who grows up alienated from her family and peers. Her story is told in a few chapters, and then continues with Peg’s own childhood. Her life is full of strange coincidences and unfortunate occurrences, including a meteor hitting the town on the day of her baptism and her mother’s death on the day World War I is declared. The town is affected by the war in all the ways you might expect, but in that time, Peg finds friendship in a boy from a neighboring town and by becoming pen pals with her sister’s husband.

While the story itself is an interesting one, what makes this book compelling are the relationships between the characters. Peg’s mother, Rose, has a bad relationship with her family and is also an outcast in the town she grew up in. As soon as she gets the chance, she takes matters into her own hands, moves away and marries a man with whom she develops a close relationship. When they have children, their relationship becomes strained. Peg’s father resents her and her sister, Sarah, and I couldn’t help but sympathize with him later in the novel as he becomes more aware of his treatment of his daughters and wife.

I can’t discuss the relationships in this book without touching on Peg’s relationship with Sarah. Because of her label as a "river child," Peg grows up spending most of her time by herself because her sister Sarah values her friendships more than the relationship with Peg. They grow up alongside each other, but not really together. When circumstances force them to spend several months alone together, their relationship is put to the test. It’s strengthened at first, but then expectedly splinters.

The one criticism I have of this otherwise great book is the lack of relationships between women. Rose resented her mother, Peg and Sarah aren’t close, Sarah’s more interested in her desire to be with her best friend’s brother than in strengthening the relationship with her best friend, and the only meaningful relationships Peg forms are with men. I was admittedly quite happy to see Peg become friends with anybody by that point in the novel, but it would have been nice to have one healthy relationship between women somewhere in the book.

Despite this, I really did enjoy The Last River Child. It was satisfying to see Peg gain more confidence and take control of her life, just as Rose had done so many years earlier. While the book lacked strong relationships between women, it certainly didn’t lack strong female characters.

Review by frau sally benz

Tune Him In, Turn Him On: Using Intuition to Find and Keep the Man of Your Dreams

By Servet Hasan
Llewellyn Publications

Relationship advice can be a tricky and sensitive topic at times. Over time you learn not to take it from anyone except a small number of entrusted friends. In Servet Hasan's Tune Him In, Turn Him On, the author takes a new approach to dating men: actively developing and applying your intuition. Those of us who rely on our gut feeling and are into spiritual activities, like opening our chakras and visualizing auras, may appreciate Hasan’s blend of spirituality and boy guidance.

I found this book to be geared toward younger women who are feeling lost in their love lives and insecure in their relationship abilities. Hasan offers gentle exercises that give the readers support and energy during difficult moments when they want to stop obsessing over a guy and start focusing on their deeper selves. For example, one of her meditations includes letting go of old relationship baggage by visualizing suitcases filled with past memories floating down a river until they are out of sight. Another exercise is a more traditional golden light meditation that helps readers replenish their inner core and connect with their relationship goals.

I found some of Hasan's confident generalizations about “all men” limiting. These generalizations didn't always make sense to me because I've met men who are “naturally born talkers” or who have admitted they are in love, contrary to Hasan’s assertions. It could be that the book is tailored to help seduce a certain type of man or for women mainly focused on marriage. Either way, creating more distance between the genders with the “us” against “them” perspective and reinforcing heteronormative ideals in the dating game is not something that I happily took away from this book.

Overall, Hasan covers all the dating basics and pushes readers to really think about their own love goals, whatever they may be: opening up to someone new, dating, or marriage. She spends several chapters talking about how women should work on their relationships with themselves before going out to find 'the man of their dreams'. Hasan even guarantees that once you fall in love with yourself, your ideal man will come to you, instead of you having to go out and search for him.

Review by Cinthia Pacheco