In case you’re wondering if there’s any connection between the two, well not really, it just happened to be what I’ve read in the last week. But at the same time I believe I’ve picked the fairy tales right after the memoir because I believe our childhood is our very own fairy tale and this memoir wasn’t y dark nor twisted, it definitely was on the crazy side so it only made sense to follow it with some dark fairy tales 🙂

The Other Side of Town by William R. Pope (4*)

When it comes to memoirs, I really like reading those written by ‘non-famous’ people. (Sorry Pope, if you are famous I had no idea, and I still don’t :p). I find they are rich in adventures and maybe lessons we can all learn something from; full of common sense that just makes me feel good about life in general. This one was offered to me by the author and I’ve accepted it mainly because of what I’ve just wrote above. But it turned out I truly enjoyed reading it and it reminded me of my own childhood. Not for the reason you think, though. Yes I am also born in the ’80s but there’s a stark contrast between my own childhood in communist Romania and an American childhood. It reminded me of my childhood because it was like reading about all the silly sitcoms I was watching after the fall of the communism and that’s pretty much the chunk of my childhood that I remember best. Sitcoms like: Save by the bell; 3^rd rock from the Sun; That ’70s show. And if you are like me, coming from a country so different than the US and you’d ever wondered if American kids really acted like that, if they truly had that type of adventures and misfortunes, well this memoir will help you accept that American kids WERE that silly or even worse :p. But at the same time, this book could easily appeal and be enjoyable for your regular American as he/she might find themselves in its pages: “For instance, if Chuck, Kevin, Ralph or Mark required an extra person for a game of Manhunt, I would be there. Or if they needed a lookout so they could launch fireworks at oncoming traffic on interstate 78, they could count on me. If Jeff Lambini needed someone to help polish off the last of his father’s beer behind Benham’s Garage & Service Station, he needn’t look any further”

I really liked the self deprecating tone in which Pope tells his stories. I’ve loved his crazy friends and work related tales. I also loved the honesty and the sarcasm, as that’s the best way to actually look at your past adventures: “Even though my sister was older, she was weaker and more fragile than I was. Actually, scratch that. I was just as fragile, I just did a better job of hiding it, that’s all. Because that’s what men do: they hide their feelings. Or haven’t I made that abundantly clear so far? And I was a man. Well, more like a boy chomping at the bit of manhood.”

“I think everyone would be surprised that some of the toughest kids and high school football players have body image problems or feel physically or sexually inadequate – I left out intellectually inadequate because that might include too many football players.”

There a few annoying things I’d like to mention. Firstly: a good editing is badly needed, lots and lots of typos and other errors that need to be corrected. At times the writing was over simplistic like: “Sometimes I’d see Jim harassing other student, but he was generally pretty cool with me so I wasn’t harassed.”. And last but not least some chapters left me wanting more: there was a nice build up for then to come abruptly to an end, letting me wanting/needing more development. But this are definitely minor – bar the editing, that is imperiously necessary!! and didn’t affect my overall enjoyment of the book. I’d say my rating is a 3.5* but I’ve decided to round it at to 4*, for all the memories it brought back and because it’s a début and I feel it deserves the push 🙂

The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night by Jen Campbell (4*)

When I requested this on NetGalley I had no idea Jen lives and breathes fairy tale. But that shined through in each and every page of this collection. In fact, she makes videos on fairy-tales that can be watched here: click . Fairy tales and fairy tales characters populate the pages of this collection and is amazing how knowledgeable she is and how she can put “fairies” in untaught of places and situations, she can twist them around to amaze us, she can make them modern and can find connections between all sorts of mystical creatures and day to day elements/events. I found all that fascinating.

Many of the stories are rather short and I would hate to spoil things for you, therefore I decided to only mention a few things on the stories I loved the most, hoping that that will give you a bit of insight and convince you this collection is worth reading.

Animals opens the collections. It’s the darkest and the most twisted of them all and if safe to say it’s my favourite. In my view it is about an abusive man trying to tie his woman to him, trying to keep her in love with him by manipulating her heart. And if that sounds relatively strange, that’s because it is. In the world of this story you can change the heart of a person, or yours and still be alive while “inheriting” some of the characteristics of the animal you’ve got your heart from.

“That’s why I bought her heart online. […]’Our Heart are played classical music from the moment they begin to grow. Bred to love. Built to last.’

[…]

I lift it out and the heart spreads itself across my palm like an octopus.

[…]

There isn’t anything quite like holding love in your bare hands.”

And in the most awesome tangle of stories about his life, about his neighbors with a glass heart, his love story and countless fairy-tales like The Six Swans we find out how he is trying to keep hold of a love long gone: “Love needs to be trained in warmth and rhythm and reliability”. Somehow this is a post-modern/dystopian solution to love who went from ‘happy ever after’ to broken relationship and constant search for a happy ever-after to manipulating love to truly last forever: “The prince married the princess, and they loved each other. Until the love ran out. Then they fought, and they cried and they filled themselves with hatred. Thank goodness we no longer love in a world like that.”

Jacob, the second in the collections and my second favourite even if it actually comes rather close to sharing the first place with Animals. While anchored in reality: a boy writing a letter to a weather lady to muse on his life; it’s a exquisite example of the fine judgement of children. I truly love children’s capacity to think outside the box and their cute way of always unmasking adults’ hypocrisy.

Aunt Lobby’s Coffin Hotel: while enjoyable it wasn’t on my most liked list. But I want to mention it because features a Romanian mythical creature: moroaica. A moroaica is pretty much a female vampire, the ghost of a dead person which leaves the grave to draw energy from the living – Dracula rings a bell?! :p)

Margaret and Mary and the End of the World – the unfortunate story of Margaret, a young school girl becoming pregnant and having to give up her child for adoption. While I didn’t enjoy this the most at an emotional level, I’ve enjoyed this tremendously at an intellectual level. I simply LOVED, LOVED the play between Hansel and Gretel, the biblical story of Mary and the birth of Jesus, Christina Rossetti(poet) true story and Margaret’s story. It is really amazing how Jen Campbell manages to connect all sorts of details that you wouldn’t think of: like Gabriel’s feet on fire in the painting with the orange trainers of the person sitting next to her in the gallery and her mother remarks about her cremation. Margaret’s mother plays both the stepmother and the witch from Hansel and Gretel in different parts of the story and probably I loved best the play between God as Jesus’s father and the priest in Margaret’s story. Total coincidence but 2 days before reading this I bought a small illustrated poetry book by Christina Rossetti. Never before have I heard about Christina Rossetti but when I’ve read Margaret and Mary and the End of the World I already had an idea. It was still really nice to learn further about her and her posing for her brother paintings.

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land:

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann’d:

Only remember me; you understand

(fragment from Remember by Christina Rossetti)