Dad is Fat.

GoodReads Synopsis: In Dad is Fat, stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan, who’s best known for his legendary riffs on Hot Pockets, bacon, manatees, and McDonald's, expresses all the joys and horrors of life with five young children—everything from cousins ("celebrities for little kids") to toddlers’ communication skills (“they always sound like they have traveled by horseback for hours to deliver important news”), to the eating habits of four year olds (“there is no difference between a four year old eating a taco and throwing a taco on the floor”). Reminiscent of Bill Cosby’s Fatherhood,Dad is Fat is sharply observed, explosively funny, and a cry for help from a man who has realized he and his wife are outnumbered in their own home.

My Thoughts: This book was a hilarious peek into parenthood.  Jim Gaffigan is, of course, one of the funniest comics around, and his book was no different.  I definitely recommend it for anyone contemplating parenthood or in the midst of parenthood.  A laugh out loud read.  Five stars.

Columbine.

GoodReads Synopsis: On April 20, 1999, two boys left an indelible stamp on the American psyche. Their goal was simple: to blow up their school, Oklahoma-City style, and to leave "a lasting impression on the world." Their bombs failed, but the ensuing shooting defined a new era of school violence-irrevocably branding every subsequent shooting "another Columbine."

Now, in a riveting piece of journalism nearly ten years in the making, comes the story none of us knew. In this revelatory book, Dave Cullen has delivered a profile of teenage killers that goes to the heart of psychopathology. He lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris, and the quavering, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who went to prom three days earlier and obsessed about love in his journal. 

The result is an astonishing account of two good students with lots of friends, who came to stockpile a basement cache of weapons, to record their raging hatred, and to manipulate every adult who got in their way. They left signs everywhere, described by Cullen with a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of police files, FBI psychologists, and the boy's tapes and diaries, Cullen gives the first complete account of the Columbine tragedy.

In the tradition of Helter Skelter and In Cold Blood, Columbine is destined to become a classic. A close-up portrait of hatred, a community rendered helpless, and the police blunders and cover-ups, it is a compelling and utterly human portrait of two killers--an unforgettable cautionary tale for our times.

My Thoughts:  Wow, this was a fascinating book.  It's incredibly well-researched and well-written.  I found myself in places wishing a bit that the author would stop bouncing back and forth between before and after the shooting.  But by the end of the book, it make complete sense how he peeled back the onion bit by bit instead of chronologically.  

I learned so much about the tragedy, mostly that everything I knew about it was untrue.  Columbine was quite damning to the media and its coverage of such tragic events, and how their poor coverage resulted in so much false belief even ten years later (when this book was published).  

If you're curious about Columbine, school shootings/terrorism, or the psychology of people who commit mass murder, then this would be a great read for you.  I read it in less than three days, despite the heaviness of the subject matter.  Incredibly fascinating and incredibly sad, all in the same book.

Down the Rabbit Hole.

GoodReads Synopsis:  A former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner describes how her years inside the Playboy Mansion went from a fairytale of A-list celebrity parties to an oppressive regime of strict rules, scheduled sex, and a total loss of identity, so much so that she even contemplated suicide.

My Thoughts:  Like many, I watched Girls Next Door with morbid fascination.  Life inside the Playboy Mansion seemed like life on another planet.  With that same curiosity, I was oddly excited to read Holly Madison's book.  She seemed like a genuinely nice person on the show, even if rather dim.  As you can imagine, Holly's tales of her time with Hugh Hefner are not rainbows and unicorns.  Rather, she describes a tyrannical and ruthless Hef with extreme rules and expectations and a gaggle of "girlfriends" who would do anything to climb their way to the top over the others.  I'm glad to read that Holly has seemed to find some normalcy for herself now and has gained some confidence.  The writing is as you would expect-- cliched and clearly biased in many places.  But it's a memoir of a former Playboy bunny.  You're not reading it for it's beautiful prose.  Three stars.

The Witness Wore Red.

GoodReads Synopsis: Rebecca Musser grew up in fear, concealing her family's polygamous lifestyle from the "dangerous" outside world. Covered head-to-toe in strict, modest clothing, she received a rigorous education at Alta Academy, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' school headed by Warren Jeffs. Always seeking to be an obedient Priesthood girl, in her teens she became the nineteenth wife of her people's prophet: 85-year-old Rulon Jeffs, Warren's father. Finally sickened by the abuse she suffered and saw around her, she pulled off a daring escape and sought to build a new life and family.  The church, however, had a way of pulling her back in-and by 2007, Rebecca had no choice but to take the witness stand against the new prophet of the FLDS in order to protect her little sisters and other young girls from being forced to marry at shockingly young ages. The following year, Rebecca and the rest of the world watched as a team of Texas Rangers raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch, a stronghold of the FLDS. Rebecca's subsequent testimony would reveal the horrific secrets taking place behind closed doors of the temple, sending their leaders to prison for years, and Warren Jeffs for life.

My Thoughts: I saw this walking through the library one day and grabbed it on a whim.  And boy am I glad I did.  It was a fascinating account of life in the polygamous cult of the FLDS.  It was so sad to read that people lived life like this and thought it was normal and acceptable.  It made me slightly depressed, but it was such a good book.  Definitely a story worth being told and one that people should hear.

Love Does.

GoodReads Synopsis:  As a college student he spent 16 days in the Pacific Ocean with five guys and a crate of canned meat. As a father he took his kids on a world tour to eat ice cream with heads of state. He made friends in Uganda, and they liked him so much he became the Ugandan consul. He pursued his wife for three years before she agreed to date him. His grades weren't good enough to get into law school, so he sat on a bench outside the Dean's office for seven days until they finally let him enroll. Bob Goff has become something of a legend, and his friends consider him the world's best-kept secret. Those same friends have long insisted he write a book. What follows are paradigm shifts, musings, and stories from one of the world's most delightfully engaging and winsome people. What fuels his impact? Love. But it's not the kind of love that stops at thoughts and feelings. Bob's love takes action. Bob believes "Love Does." When "Love Does," life gets interesting. Each day turns into a hilarious, whimsical, meaningful chance that makes faith simple and real. Each chapter is a story that forms a book, a life. And this is one life you don't want to miss. Light and fun, unique and profound, the lessons drawn from Bob's life and attitude just might inspire you to be secretly incredible, too.

My Thoughts:  I read this after both my husband and my mother told me that I should.  And it was full of some wild and crazy stories.  I love one of the things he said in the book about seeing the "whimsy" in life and just doing crazy things sometimes for the fun of it.  There were funny stories, sad stories, sweet stories, and touching stories.  And despite me not 100% agreeing with some of his theology, I was definitely challenged to DO love.  Not just speak love or feel love, but to actually put feet to feeling.  Great book!

Orange is the New Black.

GoodReads Synopsis-- With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187–424—one of the millions of people who disappear “down the rabbit hole” of the American penal system. From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. 

My Thoughts-- I wanted to love this book.  I wanted it to be a fascinating look into life in the prison system.  But sadly, I felt more like it was 1) a lecture on federal drug laws and mandatory minimums and 2) the author trying to convince us that she was a progressive, true friend to the downtrodden despite her upper-middle class background.  It didn't quite seem sincere to me.  It was a very interesting look into prison life, but not as great as I had hoped.