Love Me Back: A Novel

Love Me Back: A Novel Merritt Tierce 3.5/5	Published September 2014 First Sentence "I met all four of them at an off-site catering event for the opening of their new Minimally Invasive Spine, Back and Neck Group."
Publisher's Description: From "5 Under 35" honoree and Rona Jaffe Award-winner comes an urgent, intensely visceral debut novel about a young waitress whose downward spiral is narrated in electric prose. Marie, a young single mother, lands a job at an upscale Dallas steakhouse. She is preternaturally attuned to the appetites of her patrons, but quickly learns to hide her private struggle behind an easy smile and a crisp white apron. In a world of long hours and late nights, where everything runs on a currency of favors, cash and cachet, Marie gives in to brutally self-destructive impulses. She loses herself in a tangle of bodies and the kind of coke that 'napalms your emotional synapses.' But obliteration—not pleasure—is her goal. Pulsing with fierce, almost feral energy, Love Me Back is an unapologetic portrait of a woman cutting a precarious path through early adulthood.
Dear Reader, Boy, this was gritty. It made me blush, which is pretty hard to do. I love Palahniuk, so this should have been a cake-walk. In truth, it was but I could see SO many readers turn away from this book due to the language and sleazy situations. As dirty as this book is, the truth is... so is real life (especially in the foodservice industry). This novel should be read as a warning as to what life can give you and how you should avoid the crap (a don't end up like this! cautionary tale). We all know someone like Marie, the slutty waitress that has no inhibition and lets people walk all over her. Some will look at her with disgust, others with pity but after reading this book... just MAYBE, the looks will change to understanding. Some people get shit on and others let it happen. This is life. This is the essence of this book. Truth, dirty and real and nothing you can do will stop it from happening. There are times I want to scream at the book and take a chunk out of it with my teeth. Have any of you worked in the food industry? I did briefly, and from my experience this book is pretty dead on. Each little detail of what a day is like during the hustle and bustle of a mealtime is perfectly, horribly accurate. Hard work, end of story. I almost think that the way the job is might have something to do with the drugs, drinking and debauchery that happen, to get away from reality. Nobody wants to live like that forever, right? Theres parts of this book that make me feel grimey, like if I took my finger and rubbed it on the page, it would come back black with grime. I liked this book but do I think this is everyones cup of tea? No way. Do I think it's important to have a book that shows the perspective of a messed up girl working her butt off? Yes. People like this exist and I'll even admit that I've had my moments throughout the years that I can be ashamed of... but should we shy away from the reality of it? No. If you aren't afraid to get your hands dirty (well, maybe more your mind), read this book, I can promise you you'll learn something. Happy Reading, AmberBug

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The Dinner

The Dinner Herman Koch 3.5 / 5	Published 2009 First Sentence "We were going out to dinner."
Publisher's Description: It's a summer's evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse—the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened. Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love. Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable narrator, The Dinner promises to be the topic of countless dinner party debates. Skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy.
Dear Reader, This was one of those books I went into entirely blind: I had no clue what it was about, really, or where it took place or what its general plot idea was.  I knew (duh) that it focused around some people meeting for dinner, and that was about it.  So I was surprised to see that it was actually about two Dutch couples, the males brothers, and not very good brothers to each other, at that.  At least, you can tell that the storyteller isn't a big fan of his older brother, that's for darn sure.  Serge is a politician through and through, and his little brother hates everything about it: how it's changed Serge; how pretentious he is now about wine, food, and his appearance; how everything he does feels like it is for the vote and for no other reason.  The entire book really focuses on this awful incident that the couples' teenage boys perpetrated.  It examines the story from each parent's angle, as they decide how to proceed past the event in the best possible way.  There are several flashback sections where you see The Incident occur and then see how one father deals with it in relation to his own troubled past and his tense relationship with his older brother.  It is fascinating to watch everything become revealed piece by piece through the eyes of this protagonist.  And it certainly makes the reader wonder what sort of person they'd be if they were in the same situation.  How do you deal with family messes?  It's easy to point at other families' flaws, but so much more difficult to look inward at your own. This book reminded me quite a bit of that odd movie Sexy Evil Genius, which my boyfriend and I watched on Netflix a few months back.  (Which apparently went straight to video, not too surprisingly.)  It, too, took place at a restaurant table, and dealt only with a very small group of people.  The viewer watched while the backstory unfolded, told in bits and pieces over the course of a couple of hours.  Very similar plot devices!  But such extremely different stories.   I think it's a neat setting - examining such a small time and space can still yield such an intricate story. Yours, Arianna

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