Reading is sexy: it’s the end of the world as we know it
22 January 2008I have a rule about not seeing any movies where all of manhattan is destroyed. Like my rule about not reading anything new by thomas harris, this is directly tied to my plan to eliminate all the truly disturbing nightmares I have, leaving me with just the ones about horseback riding (yay!) and all my teeth falling out (boo!). Knowing all of this, you’ll be fascinated (I’m sure) to hear that I was talked into seeing Cloverfield this weekend. I can’t believe I’m going to validate people who are actually interested in this movie-slash-people who think it’s remotely important by putting what I thought of it behind a cut, but, whatever. I guess I’m more considerate than my downstairs neighbors would have you believe.
Anyway, I’m probably going to be reinstating my No Destruction Of My Borough rule for movies shortly. BUT- I have no similar rules for books. Luckily.
I think I gave this book to about 5 different people over Christmas, and described it to a good 20 or so others as my favorite book that I read in ‘07. I’m pretty sure I’m not lying. Listen, guys, this is AWESOME. I kind of don’t even want to tell you what it’s about because I can’t do a good enough job of explaining it, but, whatever: there are zombies. It’s a fake oral history of dozens of people from all over the world that lived through a zombie outbreak. But it’s not, really. It’s about how different countries handle panic and disease and xenophobia and how people respond when put into terrifying situations. I was so freaked out by this book that the way I calmed myself down was by reminding myself that it was about zombies– the root of the “problem” is actually the least frightening part of the book, the worst/ most interesting of it is how people deal with it.
This doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of effing awesome anecdotal zombie asides that I keep talking about, likely ruining the best parts for anyone who hasn’t read it. But, seriously, the level of thought that went into describing a world run over by zombies is REMARKABLE. I’m jealous that I don’t have the kind of brain that says “Naturally, there would be cars parked all over the highways with zombies in them, because when dead people reanimate in their cars, they don’t have the wherewithall to figure out how to get out of their cars, seeing as they have a newly stupid zombie brain and not a human brain, so they’ll just be trapped there, moaning and throwing themselves against the windshield, for all of eternity or until some idiot lets them out.” That might be my single favorite image of anything I read last year. I know. I’m totally messed up, right? Doesn’t matter. This book is amazing.
But reading this means I’m done with my quota of Adult Books for this decade (aside from Eat Pray Love, which I’m currently taking on out of love and respect for my book club’s wishes. As I’m reading this on the subway, I fight the urge to turn to people next to me and go “Listen, I don’t ONLY read best sellers. I read plenty of books. Sometimes I even read books that Oprah hasn’t recommended. I know, I know– I’m wild.” Naturally, as I’m working through my best seller shame, the universe decides to give me a subway ride to Brooklyn during which people can’t stop asking me about it. Specifically, dudes can’t stop asking me about it. {And, no, they weren’t hitting on me. I might have trouble understanding things like daylight savings and currency exchanges, but I can usually tell when someone just wants to know about the book} The first one was like “Is that a chick book? My sister keeps telling me to read it.” He went on to tell me that I had- HAD- to read The Kite Runner. The next guy asked if it was “worth the investment,” which I didn’t know how to approach since it’s not that long and not that expensive. I was like “truthfully, all this book is doing is making me want to visit Italy, and that’s enough of a reason for me to read anything.”) Moving back to kids’ books…
I’ve been wanting to read The True Meaning Of Smekday since it got such a freakin’ great review in the Times– reviews of kids’ books almost never make me want to do anything other than google the reviewer and try to find out what their agenda is, but after this one I was pretty much instantly sold. And for good reason, because thus far, it’s fantastic. I can’t believe it’s reminding me of World War Z because it’s really so perfectly funny, but it has a lot of the same “it’s the end of the world but not really, so how are we going to deal with it?” Benevolent aliens have taken over earth and decided to corral all the humans into predetermined reservation-type areas (America’s was going to be Florida before the aliens decided that they liked oranges too much and changed their mind). Our narrator’s mom has been abducted for her language skills and is now teaching slang terms to cheerfully clueless aliens while her daughter tries to fend for herself. I’m not too far into this but I love it entirely. I’m not a sci-fi or post-apocalyptic kind of girl, but this book is totally doing it for me. Clearly “worth the investment” in any manner of speaking.
4 Responses to “Reading is sexy: it’s the end of the world as we know it”
January 22nd, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Aw I really liked Cloverfield! But I love apocalyptic shit. I seriously start planning out what I would do in the same situation, and it usually ends with me and a few close friends and family members miraculously escaping whatever has destroyed the rest of the world, living in some secluded house for the rest of our lives, perhaps restarting the human genetic pool.
I also constantly used to have that dream about all my teeth falling out. And I’d wake up and have to check in the mirror to make sure it hadn’t really happened.
Being crazy is sexy too.
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:50 am
my favorite zombie moment was the whole THEY ARE JUST WALKING AROUND ON THE OCEAN FLOOR. BECAUSE THEY CAN’T DIE. ACK.
that book is fucking awesome. just above and beyond the awesome.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Wait, did I miss a joke or did you not actually talk about what you thought of Cloverfield behind the cut? I liked it too (in addition to Zander above, not in addition to you).
January 25th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Jesse, you’re totally right, that part got eaten when I did the cut somehow! Here’s a summary: I thought it was crap.