What Am I Reading – Chapter Nine

Hi Everybody!

I recently finished two of the books that I have been reading for a long time – Blowback by Brad Thor and What Was Your Name Downriver by Anthony Lowe!

Spring is around the corner, so it’s time to start anew with two new books!

One of them is this:

Carry the One by Carol Anshaw is about three siblings and their friends who experience a devastating moment following a wedding. It takes place over 25 years as they deal with this trauma in their owns ways through friendships and love affairs, marriage and divorce, parenthood, holidays, and the modest calamities and triumphs of ordinary days.

Much as I liked the premise, I had a feeling that not much would happen. Now that I’m over halfway through, I can say that it’s more a character study, but with a goal of trying move on. It’s not a bad thing. The Four Sworn: Spring Equinox by Leonore Sagaskie was like an origin story for the main characters. It explained how they got their powers as well as how they met and later formed a group to defeat a powerful villain. Both have thin plots, but the characters are compelling enough that I can look pass that flaw. In Carry the One, each of the siblings – Carmen, Alice, and Nick – deal with the tragedy in different ways. One puts herself into her work, her son, and her family with her second husband; another goes through women while trying to get over her true love; and the other one does drugs. Anyway, I’m hoping they’ll be fine in the end.

I’m listening to the audiobook, and it’s narrated by Renee Raudman. Raudman is best known for voicing Ms. Butterbean in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. At first, I was worried that I might hear that character throughout the novel and not be able to take it seriously. Luckily, that was not the case, for none of the main female characters had that voice. Raudman has a range with voicing Carmen as a woman who acts like she has it together, but in reality doesn’t, while she portrays Alice as more free-spirited, but frustrated with her love life. The men kind of sound the same, but as I have mentioned on this website, voicing audiobooks is hard.

Now, let’s move onto the second and final book of this latest installment…

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell (yes, that’s her real name) is about two high school outcasts who fall in love with each other throughout one school year. One is the new girl in town with unruly red hair, mismatched clothes, and a chaotic family life. The other is the boy at the back of the bus who wears black t-shirts, listens to his headphones, and reads his comics.

This got me hooked from the very beginning. Both Eleanor and Park are very realistic characters who initially don’t like each other for some reason (teenagers, am I right?). Afterwards, their relationship slowly blossoms like those in Korean dramas. I hope their love for each other gets stronger, yet I sense that things will not end well. The opening bit of dialogue is reminiscent of the prologue in Romeo and Juliet.

We now have come to the end of the ninth chapter of “What Am I Reading?”

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Wild Women of Michigan: A History of Spunk and Tenacity Book Review

Today is International Women’s Day. What a better way to celebrate it than reviewing a book that celebrates the women who defied expectations and changed the world. Coincidentally, I have one that just happens to fall into that category, and these women lived in Michigan at some point. It’s called Wild Women of Michigan: A History of Spunk and Tenacity by Norma Lewis. Even though it could have been written better, this book is a highly informative text that honors women who performed extraordinary acts that challenged the world.

Wild Women of Michigan: A History of Spunk and Tenacity ranges from known people like Gilda Radner and Gillian Anderson to the obscure like Anna Howard Shaw and Pearl Kendrick. The book even includes women of color like Sojourner Truth (she lived in Battle Creek until her death), Loney Gordon – an African-American woman who assisted Kendrick with developing the vaccines against diseases like the Whooping Cough, and Madeleine LaFramboise – a mixed Ottawa and French woman who was one of the most successful fur traders in the Northwest Territory in the early 19th century.

Lewis often injects a lot of older woman humor (which is not a bad thing) while telling the stories of these women. For example, when she discusses Lauren Wolfe – the first girl on the winning high school wrestling team because she was eligible for the boys’ team, she mentions, “it’s a safe bet that when in high school, any boys she dated took her word for it when she said no, and she didn’t have to ward off any attempts to engage her in the back-seat Chevy Cha-Cha-Cha” (p. 120). For younger audiences, it’s best to shake your heads and move on.

The one complaint that I have is the structure. In each chapter, there’s always a section that’s devoted to one person, but it will end up talking about others at the end. It could have worked better if Lewis had added other sections to emphasize women, in which not much is known about them outside of what they did, even if it means grouping them into one part. In addition, the book is structured based on topics like crime, sports, and reform. I think it’s fine, but it could be improved if it was structured by era.

I also noticed that the book was rushed editing wise. I noticed some factual errors while reading it. For instance, the author notes that blues singer Sippie Wallace was born in 1888 and died in 1986 at age 88 (p. 113-114). As someone who excelled in math in school, I sensed that something was wrong. A simple Google search confirmed that Wallace was actually born in 1898. A more egregious error occurs when the book talks about Alice Lawrence, who murdered her husband and married her brother Raymond Coates. It mentions that Raymond was from Detroit “but had to come to the eastern part of the state hoping to find work” (p. 129). Alice lived in Holland, which as far as I know, is in the western part of the state. Even if one doesn’t know where Holland is, most readers would know where Detroit is. For a book that has a whole lot of extensive research, I wish that someone had looked over the information just to make sure it was accurate on the most basic level. 

Overall, Wild Women of Michigan: A History of Spunk and Tenacity by Norma Lewis is an essential book for Michigan history. Although it could have been written and edited better, the positive aspect of learning about these wild women in an accessible way outweighs the negatives. I would recommend it to those who want to read more about women who defied expectations and a double must if they live in Michigan (like me). So have a happy International Women’s Day, everybody!

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What Am I Reading – Chapter Eight

Hello Everybody!

What a wonderful first day of March! I’m looking forward to spring, especially to travel more! Even if I’m walking around the block, it’s traveling by pandemic standards. I’ve had traveling on my mind ever since I started reading this book:

Around the World in Eighty Days with Michael Palin by Michael Palin is the book companion to the 1989 BBC series of the same name. In the show, the Monty Python member-turned traveler circumnavigates the globe in the same amount of time as Phileas Fogg – the protagonist of the famous Jules Verne novel of the same name – and using the same modes of transportation that were available in Fogg’s time. Along the way, he describes his joyous and sometimes chaotic experiences.

Pandemic or no pandemic, seeing pictures of Venice and Cairo make me want to travel even though they were taken over 30 years ago. Palin offers hilarious insights into them. For example, in Venice, a photo depicts an older man faced down, and he muses that the mafia probably got to him (forgive me if I misremember the comment).

I also like how every page indicates which part of the world Palin and his Passepartouts (the film crew essentially) are in. For instance, on one page, it lists Day 5: Cornith Canal in Greece as the author talks about going through it. On the next page, it lists Day 5: Athens as he talks about his experiences in that city. It’s good to know that Palin wants readers to know where he’s at all times (in the book of course).

The travelogue makes me want to watch the 7-part BBC series, which is available in its entirely on Amazon Prime. I look forward to hearing Palin’s narrations since I hear his voice constantly while reading the book.

As for the other novel that I’m reading, I finished My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman, and I’m almost done with What Was Your Name Downriver?: Tales of the Shattered Frontier by Anthony Lowe.

We now come to the end of the eighth chapter of “What Am I Reading?”

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Nighthawk Book Review

One of the most prolific authors who passed away last year (and not from COVID-19) was Clive Cussler. With and without credited ghost writers, he wrote over 70 books during his lifetime. These usually involved characters who worked at the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) and tried to save some aspect of the environment. They often utilized scientific knowledge and contained 2 subplots. I can now say that I read my very first Cussler book with Nighthawk – the 14th book in the NUMA Files series. It was a very fun, action-paced novel that one should not read before going to bed.

In Nighthawk, NUMA crew leaders Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala are assigned to locate a highly advanced aircraft, which went missing. The titular aircraft carries antimatter, which was extracted from the upper reaches of the atmosphere and has to remain frozen. If thawed, it will unleash a catastrophe that will have a lingering global impact. The NUMA team along with Russia and China try to find the aircraft before it’s too late.

Before I go any further, I must add that like with Chief Armand Gamache series, the NUMA Files books can stand on their own, but the characters develop throughout. 

The book itself is a very easy read. The scenes move at a quick pace like those in an action/adventure movie. I especially loved the first scene between Kurt and Emma Townsend – the scientist turned agent for the National Security Administration – as they try to run from and fight the Chinese agents. I felt like I was in it as a good book should do. I would love to see this book turned into a film with George Clooney as Kurt, John Cena as Joe, and Jennifer Lawrence as Emma. I think it would be a big draw at the box office.

Having a fiancé who reads Clive Cussler helped me a lot to understand his books. For example, he mentioned that every one of them has a main plot with two subplots. In Nighthawk, the main story is about finding the aircraft, while the minor ones are about the antimatter that could possibly destroy the world when it hits a certain altitude and about the implications of governmental actions without properly considering the past, present, and future.

The latter subplot comes into play in the prologue with the Spaniards giving smallpox to the Inca people in 1525, and later when Kurt, Joe, and Emma go to Peru. They are assisted by Urco – an archaeologist studying the origins and disappearance of the Chachapoya people – with finding the aircraft. However, it turns out that he is the villain, but the book portrays his motivations empathically even if it agrees with the readers that his actions would create more destruction. 

In fact, I came across Bodacious Bookworm’s review of Nighthawk recently, and I’ll let her explain more about Urco:

“This villain … is motivated by tragedy and anger. He is a scientist betrayed by a government agency. An agency he warned about an experiment he worked on. In the government’s effort to keep him quiet, they try to kill him but end up only damaging him mentally and physically. He then turns the tables of the project he created against the three major superpowers- USA, Russia, and China.” (http://bodaciousbookworm.com/book-review-nighthawk-by-clive-cussler-spoilers/)

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Another plus for this book is the humor. It’s sprinkled with quips and retorts up the wazoo. I especially love the banter between Kurt and Emma throughout it. Also, the ending is one of the most hilarious ones that I have ever read in awhile.

I was also amused by the mention of Dirk Pitt in the book. Pitt is the main character of the first series that Cussler ever wrote. I bet the author has a Marvel universe with his characters since most of the main ones work at NUMA.

The only thing that I noticed while reading the book is that if one is going to read it, don’t do it before going to bed. For some, this may not be a big deal, but to others, it is. It contains so many details that I hate to admit this, but I almost missed the subplot about the antimatter. I will be frank. I read the book right before I fall asleep, and I now realize that I should have read it while wide awake. I had a similar feeling while reading So Anyway by John Cleese and vowed never to read nonfiction before I went to bed ever again.

All in all, Nighthawk by Clive Cussler is a very good book and introduction into the Marvel, uh I mean, Cussler universe. It’s full of great action and adventure with a lot of humor thrown in. I would recommend this book to Cussler fans who haven’t read it yet as well as to those who like marine-based suspense books and action/adventure novels with sharp wit. Also, please read this book while awake and not before sleeping. In the meantime, I look forward to more of his books even if they are completely written by someone else. 

RIP Clive Cussler (1931-2020)

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What Am I Reading – Chapter Seven

Hello Everybody!

I hope all of you are staying warm and safe, especially if you live in the eastern part of the United States.

I have been cozying up with What Was Your Name Downriver by Anthony Lowe (almost there!), Blowback by Brad Thor, and Wild Women of Michigan: A History of Spunk and Tenacity by Norma Lewis. Last week, I added this new title:

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman is about Elsa – a 7-year-old girl who is different. Her best and only friend is her brash and crazy grandmother. She tells Elsa stories in the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal. When her grandmother dies and leaves behind letters apologizing to the people she’s wronged, it’s up to Elsa to deliver those notes. They lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, vicious dogs, and totally ordinary old people, but also to the truth about fairytales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

I’ve seen book titles, in which I was so fascinated by them that I wanted to immediately read them. Kill the Farm Boy is an example of this. My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry is different. Not only is it an exciting title, but I also wanted to know the story behind it. With Kill the Farm Boy, I only wanted to read it simply because it was a cool title. My Grandmother invites readers to know what had happened with the grandmother and why she needed to apologize. No other fictional book has done that to me in recent memory.

This is my second Fredrik Backman novel, and I’ve noticed something about his books. They tend to be eccentric on the outside and dark on the inside. Both this title and A Man Called Ove contain stubborn old people as they deal with life in their own idiosyncratic ways. However, as the stories progress, their backstories are revealed piecemeal, and the dark elements are more prevalent. In the latter, Ove tries to kill himself on multiple occasions. In the former, Elsa gets physically bullied by her peers. She even receives notes telling her to kill herself. I know that Elsa is not an old lady, yet I wanted to point out how intense it can get. Even though I’m only a third in My Grandmother, I wouldn’t be surprised if the grandmother’s backstory is sad and dark.

Joan Walker – an English actress – narrates the audiobook. She has voiced other books from Backman like Britt-Marie Was Here and even A Man Called Ove (I’m going to take note of that for an audiobook versus special). For this novel, she does a good job giving vocal distinctions for the female characters. The grandmother sounds like what one would expect for a brash old lady holding a cigarette in her hands, and Elsa is quiet like a mouse. The second part reminded me of how Eric Idle voiced Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Also like Idle, Walker has some volume issues. She could be very quiet in one second, and then raise her voice in the next. I had to adjust the volume multiple times because of this. I’ll see how this performance unfolds, but I’m liking it so far.

We now come to the end of the seventh chapter of “What Am I Reading?”

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The Book of Love: 50 Poems to Fall in Love Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a free PDF copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Love is in the air, and there are many ways to express it. One way is to read poetry (no matter how corny it is), for they come from the most vulnerable and deepest emotions. Shah Asad Rizvi has a new poetry collection called The Book of Love: 50 Poems to Fall in Love. It focuses on love and its many manifestations like longing, becoming one with another, love at first sight, and what it means to be in love. Like his previous work Divan of Shah, it’s a good gateway into this genre.

While I was reading this collection, I decided to listen to the 69 Love Songs album from The Magnetic Fields, which includes the famous indie song “The Book of Love.” However, I stopped halfway through the album when I felt that it was mocking the poetry (not unintentionally of course). The poems were clearly written by someone who felt intensely about love and would express his feelings about it no matter how cliche it sounded. This is in contrast to the album, which was clearly made by a cynical, but sincere guy, who expressed love in more realistic and blunt terms. I mean, the opening line to “The Book of Love” is “The book of love is long and boring.”

I can describe The Book of Love: 50 Poems to Fall in Love as many things, which I’ll get to in a bit, but the two things that I won’t call it are long (it’s a little over 100 pages) and inherently boring. So, in conclusion, if people feel the need to read the collection while listening to music, I would definitely suggest piano music like this collection on YouTube. It’ll set a more romantic mood.

As for the collection itself, I noticed that The Book of Love had similar strengths and weaknesses to its predecessor. The pros included the simple, elegant and (mostly) non-rhyming language, which make them feel like pop songs but with a sonnet tone. They also make the emotions and topics clear without being too obvious. In other words, the words and tone are elevated enough that people who love poetry can relish its every word and cadence, yet blunt enough that it doesn’t disway those who are not as into the genre as much. In addition, it helps that the collection forces people to sit down and actually read them in order to absorb their meanings. Some of my favorite poems were “Origins”, “Gesture”, “Gravity”, and “Doorstep.” 

On the other hand, the main con is that it covers the same aspects, but in different ways. Rizvi also has a tendency to repeat the same metaphors to express his feelings like rainbow and colors as well as summer and breeze. There are variations of I can’t live without you thrown in there as well. This could bore some people. Some of it is understandable since some of the poems in The Book of Love were originally from Divan of Shah. I’m hoping that for future collections, Rizvi expands the ways he expresses himself and how he looks at subjects like love.

Before I finish this review, there’s one more thing that I need to point out. As I mentioned earlier, the title is The Book of Love: 50 Poems to Fall in Love. Technically, there are 49 poems. I noticed that the poems “Envious” and “Home” are the same one right down the wording and comma placement. I don’t know how it slipped under the author’s and editor’s noses, but if one is going to have 50 poems in a collection, have 50 poems. It’s like naming a group Fifth Harmony, but only having four members.

In conclusion, like his previous work, Shah Asad Rizvi’s The Book of Love: 50 Poems to Fall in Love is an accessible poetry collection. It’s elegantly passionate and palatable at the same time. Although there are some minor flaws, I would still recommend it to those who want to start reading poetry as well as to those who love poetry, especially the romantic kind. This book of love is not dull and boring, and I’m sure people will love it if their significant others read it to them.

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What Am I Reading – Chapter Six

Hi Everybody!

I hope everyone is having a great first day of February. I sure am! I just finished Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly! I can’t wait to review it this year!

In the meantime, I’m still chugging along reading What Was Your Name Downriver by Anthony Lowe, Blowback by Brad Thor, and The Book of Love by Shah Asad Rizvi. Luckily, I started a new book that I hope to review for Women’s History Month next month, and it’s called…..

Wild Women of Michigan: A History of Spunk and Tenacity by Norma Lewis is about the women who performed extraordinary acts that challenged and changed the world (they lived in Michigan obviously). It ranges from known people like Gilda Radner and Madame Marie-Therese Cadillac to the obscure like Anna Howard Shaw and Pearl Kendrick. The book even includes women of color like Loney Gordon – an African-American woman who assisted Kendrick with developing the vaccine against the Whooping Cough – and Madeleine LaFramboise – a mixed Odawa and French woman who was one of the most successful fur traders in the Northwest Territory. It’s very informative so far, and I look forward to reading more about these women.

The only complaint that I have is the structure. Sometimes, there will be a section that’s devoted to one person, but it will end up talking about others at the end. Despite that, the positive of learning about these women in an accessible way outweighs that little negative so far.

We now come to the end of the sixth chapter of “What Am I Reading?”

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My Name is Not Easy Book Review

As I have mentioned in prior reviews, fiction allows writers to create stories that are based around certain facts, and they permit readers to take a look at how the people involved feel. Fiction also has the power to bring unknown events to a wider audience. In the case of My Name is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson, it showed the experiences of Alaskan students from the vast region known as the Bush. They had to travel hundreds and even thousands of miles to attend boarding schools for months or years at a time prior to the Molly Hootch settlement of 1976. That required the state of Alaska to fund schools no matter how small the settlement was. As one could imagine, those experiences were not very rosy. The book does a fair job at telling these stories.

My Name is Not Easy is about Aamaugak or “Luke” – an Inupiaq teenager – who is sent to Sacred Heart School – a boarding school hundreds of miles away with his brothers in the early 1960s. The school contains Eskimos (note: the characters in this novel refer to themselves as this), Indians, and white students, who are constantly segregated even in the cafeteria. They are also forced to speak English, and if they disobey, Father Mullen is ready to use his ruler. Luke struggles to survive, but he’s not the only one. There’s the smart aleck and daring leader Amiq, the blond and freckled Chickie, and the quiet and nerdy Junior. All of their stories come together at the school, and things will never be the same.

I really liked the story around Luke. He is the eldest of three, and like any other oldest sibling, he feels the need to look after his brothers. However, his youngest brother Isaac is too young to attend school, so he is essentially kidnapped and adopted by a family in Texas (to be fair, his family could have waited one year before sending Isaac to that school). Luke expresses guilt for not doing more. In addition, as the title implies, his Inupiaq name is not easy to pronounce, and he fears losing his identity. I even felt sad for him when he found out that his other brother Bunna died in a plane crash.

I also liked how subtle the injustices were. Granted, there were scenes, in which characters were smacked with a ruler, but I’m talking about ones that it takes them awhile to realize what had actually happened to them. For example, scientists come to the school to test how the Eskimos can withstand intense cold. One of the experiments that they did involved giving Inuit students a cupful of iodine-131 aka radioactive iodine. The Author’s Note, which provides a lot of context to the story, states that a lot of students ended up having cancer because of this.

The aspect that didn’t work as well as it should have was the fact that it had a lot of narrators. In fact, there are 5 narrators in total throughout the book. Even though these stories need to be told, I didn’t connect to them as much as I hoped because of the constant switching between characters, sometimes even in the same chapter. It didn’t help that Junior – a character emphasized in the summary – didn’t have much of a story until the third act. I feel that the story would have been more concise if Luke was the sole narrator or if him and Chickie (a stand-in for the author) were the main ones. I liked Chickie as a character – a white girl who could be tough and sassy, and she even falls in love with Bunna. 

In addition, I felt that the finale – the earthquake and tsunami – was anticlimactic. I understand that this actually happened in 1964 (Luke’s final year at the school), yet how it was used in the story was underwhelming. It felt like Edwardson was grabbing straws for a climax, and then she did some research and was like, “I know! An earthquake and a tsunami occurred in 1964, so I’ll have the characters react to them.”

Overall, My Name is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson is an average young adult historical fiction novel. It’s clear that the author cares about these experiences. I only wish that there weren’t so many narrators and that the climax was more impactful. Despite my complaints, it did get me interested in learning more about the experiences of Alaskan students in boarding schools in the mid-twentieth century. So yes, I would recommend this to readers who like to read about social justice, PG-13 versions of The Nickel Boys, stories involving Inuits and Native Americans, and the 1960s. 

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What Am I Reading – Chapter Five

Hello Everybody,

I hope everyone’s having a great MLK Jr. Day! I sure am! I will continue to strive for diversity, equality, and inclusion when I review books from all walks of life.

Since the last chapter, I have read a lot of books and audiobooks, but I do have two books to share with you today.

Let’s get started.

The first book on the reading block is The Book of Love: 50 Poems to Fall in Love by Shah Asad Rizvi. It’s the second poetry collection that I’ve read of his, and it focuses on love in its many manifestations. So far, the book is about longing, becoming one with another, love at first sight, and what it means to be in love. I’m halfway through it, so I look forward to seeing how Rizvi expands on this topic. I plan on reviewing it in time for Valentine’s Day.

The second and last novel on the reading block is Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly. This book takes place during World War II – historical fiction’s favorite era. It tells the stories of three women – Caroline Ferriday, Kasia Kuzmerick, and Herta Oberheuser. Caroline is a former Broadway actress who works at the French Consulate in New York City when Hitler invades Poland, and she sets her sight on France. Kasia is a Polish Catholic teenager at the beginning of the war who becomes a courier for the underground resistance movement. Herta is a young German doctor who lands a position at Ravensbruck, yet she finds herself in a male-dominated realm of Nazi secrets and power. Their lives begin to collide when Kasia and her mother and sister are sent to that same concentration camp. As a result, their stories intertwine as Caroline and Kasia seek justice to those history has forgotten.

I’ve read plenty of WWII-based historical fiction, and it’s nice to see one that encompasses a broader view of the people’s experiences throughout that war. It’s also good to read one that emphasizes the home front and the work of women on both sides, despite how deadly some of that actually was. The main characters are fleshed out so far, and I look forward to what happens next and how their stories collide. Some sections can be hard to get through, especially the ones that involve Kasia at Ravensbruck.

I’m listening to the audiobook, and it’s good so far. Cassandra Campbell (from everyone’s favorite book Where the Crawdads Sing) is Caroline, and she voices her like a Hollywood starlet. Kathleen Gati (from General Hospital) plays Kasia with a vague Polish accent, and she captures the emotions that Kasia feels, especially during her time at Ravensbruck. Kathrin Kana – a bilingual German/English actress – takes on the role of Herta. Kana plays her part well as her character deals with the implications of working at a concentration camp.

We now come to the end of the fifth chapter of “What Am I Reading?”

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The Answer Is…Reflections on My Life Book Review

Alex Trebek’s final episodes as host of Jeopardy aired this past week. As a longtime viewer, I wanted to honor his legacy by reviewing The Answer Is…Reflections on My Life – an autobiography that does that as well as reflect on general and Jeopardy-related topics. It was published in July 2020 – less than 4 months prior to his death. Since the book uses a similar structure to that of the famous quiz show, I will do the same thing here. So, here it goes: The answer is… a fabulous book that is both sassy and heartfelt while Alex Trebek reflects on his life and work. What is… my opinion?

The answer is…these sections of a book make a quick read, especially when they are less than 10 pages each. What are…chapters? Seriously, this book definitely fits the needs of people who don’t have much time reading. The short chapters make it easier to take a break and not lose the reader’s place. At 304 pages or 4 discs, they could probably finish it in about a week or two.

What are… my favorite parts? Trebek offers anecdotes about his personal life and his time as host of Jeopardy. One of the parts that I really liked was simply getting to know him. Prior to reading this book, I didn’t know that he was bilingual (his mother was French-Canadian from Ontario), his father was an Ukrainian immigrant, and loved horses and classic movies. 

Some of the other amusing parts were when he talked about certain contestants (like Ken Jennings, James Holzhauer, and Brad Rutter) and incidents that happened on the show, including the time when no one answered the questions relating to football. Also, it’s very telling that he didn’t have a bad word to say about any of the players that he mentions. And of course, he discussed the popularity of his mustache and how the media freaked out when he decided to shave it off. I didn’t know that his facial hair became famous because there hadn’t been a quiz show host who sported that since Groucho Marx. As a Marx Brothers fan, that made me very happy.

Another memorable section was when he discussed his battle with pancreatic cancer. It really showed his mentality in how he deals with being a cancer patient. For example, he talks about disliking using battle as a metaphor since if one doesn’t survive that, then they are considered a loser. To him, the most important thing was getting through treatment, and if he felt that it was time, then he would stop the process.

What are… expectations? I’ve seen some reviewers express some disappointment with Trebek not revealing much of his life. I wasn’t bothered by this since he admitted that the chemo has affected his mental capabilities. He also confessed that he evaded writing a book about his life for a long time because he thought it wasn’t interesting enough. These are probably the reasons why the autobiography has an equal focus on his values as well as his actual story. He kept my interest throughout.

What is… my complaint? Before I address my issue with the book, I want to say that I understand that it was written in 2020 – the year of the coronavirus. Therefore, talking about this disease is inevitable. I didn’t mind Trebek discussing this because let’s face it, it has affected everyone no matter who they are. What annoyed me was when he brought politics into that particular conversation. It’s not that I have a particular bias for/against one party and that he expressed opposing views. I agreed with a lot that he had to say, yet it simply took me out of the book. That’s it. 

What is audiobook narration? Ken Jennings and Alex Trebek narrate the book with the former doing most of the work. I was a little disappointed in that, but knowing that Trebek had been going through chemotherapy and doing Jeopardy at the same time, it probably would have been more exhausting to record an audiobook too. Anyway, Jennings is a perfect choice to read the book not only because he’s the most famous person to come out of the quiz show, but he also has a smart, confident, but friendly voice and can be very funny with his deliveries. Trebek narrates the more intimate portions with the same style that he’s known for – a family member that relatives always look forward to seeing because they bring fun, joy, and knowledge.

All in all, The Answer Is…Reflections on My Life by Alex Trebek is an uplifting and engaging book that does exactly what sets out to do. He reminisces about his personal life and his time on Jeopardy like how I expected the smart and sassy Canadian would. Along with fans of the quiz show, I would recommend it to anybody who has an interest in knowing more about the host himself as well as to those who’ve been through or know someone going through cancer treatment. We’ll all miss him dearly, but the book helps to keep his legacy alive.

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