Book Blog #411: Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden

 

Title: Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage

Author: Belle Burden

# of Pages: 239 (ebook)

Genre: Nonfiction, Biography

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha’s Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together—building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whisky sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of twenty years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume. In Strangers, Burden revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. Through all of it, she is transformed. The discreet, compliant woman she once was—someone nicknamed “Belle the Good”—gives way to someone braver, someone determined to use her voice.

Review: First, a note on privilege:

A quick search online makes it clear that Belle Burden comes from a very privileged background. She's from generational wealth and is still a highly accomplished woman despite her career taking a backseat in her marriage.

As someone who is NOT one of the ultra-rich, I went into reading this book bracing to have to listen to complaints about problems that wouldn't be relatable. Any financial issues she has won't seem as dire when her family is such a strong support system (not to mention how many trust funds she might actually have). Once again, it all connects back to Burden being extremely privileged. 

So why did I give Strangers 4 stars?

Here's what helped me enjoy this book: while Burden doesn't capture the full picture of her privilege, she's not hiding it. It's very clear that she is from a family of socialites and that her family/life style is of someone very well off. Divorce nothing unique, but having a divorce after being married so long (20 years) AND the suddenness of the separation AND that it was during a socially difficult period (in the middle of the COVID pandemic) made this story stand out. 

The first part of the book hooks the reader in; Burden describes how she is blindsided by her now ex-husband ("James") when he suddenly leaves her and their family despite being in a seemingly happy marriage. I felt so angry on Burden's behalf even if you strip away that she's an unreliable narrator; his unfaithfulness to her and his poor communication to her over why he's divorcing her are undeniable marks against him. This first part alone is a bulk of why this book is 4 stars.

Although many might not be sympathetic to the financial-aspect of Burden's divorce struggle, there's still some meaningful takeaways that apply to people of all income brackets. Financial complacency can put you at the mercy of your ex during a divorce. Prenups should not be a "one and done" agreement, especially as career and family responsibilities shift over time. These lessons aren't particularly unique to Burden's story but are a painful reminder, especially for long term couples who got married during a less progressive time for women.

Overall this was a generally good read, despite it's flaws. Since I haven't read many stories about divorce, this one was particularly interesting, but others might be bored by a story that covers common divorce issues and doesn't get to a clear answer on why "James" actually walked out on their family.

Book Blog #322: Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

 

Title: Bad Blood

Author: John Carreyrou

# of Pages: 300 (hardback)

Genre: Non-fiction, Biography

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup "unicorn" promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at $9 billion, putting Holmes's worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn't work. For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, FDA officials, and her own employees. When Carreyrou, working at The Wall Street Journal, got a tip from a former Theranos employee and started asking questions, both Carreyrou and the Journal were threatened with lawsuits. Undaunted, the newspaper ran the first of dozens of Theranos articles in late 2015. By early 2017, the company's value was zero and Holmes faced potential legal action from the government and her investors. Here is the riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a disturbing cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush frenzy of Silicon Valley.

Review: The first time I heard about Elizabeth Holmes, it was a Reddit post talking about how she faked a deep voice for pretty much her whole career. I watched a video, was mildly amused by how unnatural it sounded (especially knowing it was already fake, and then moved on with my day. 

Fast forward to 2021/2022, Holmes is in all the headlines. I didn't know anything about Theranos and why exactly she was on trial other than running a scam startup and that she was going to great lengths to push back the trial and avoiding going to prison to serve her sentence. I meant to read this book during all of that hype, but didn't get around to it until now coincidentally when there's been a lot of other tech CEO headlines have to plentiful. Crypto CEO Sam Bankman-Fried recently was sentenced for his own type of fraud,  and CEO Sam Altman was ousted from his position at OpenAI for not being trustworthy (exact reason still TBD), and CEO Kyle Vogt of Cruise stepped down not long after the company lost its license to test self-driving cars after one of their vehicles struck a pedestrian. 

Now I know the extent of the scam that Holmes created with Theranos, thanks to Bad Blood. I appreciate Carreyrou doing his due diligence to create a full picture of the scam company. There are many perspectives (employees, potential investors, FDA and military officials) to show all the signs that led to the revelation that Theranos never got passed the "dream" stage for Holmes, despite her promises of having a working product. 

The various perspectives seemed overwhelming at first - each person is introduced to the reader with a bit of background which became exhausting when new people were introduced every chapter. Some of these people mentioned again - some are unimportant after supplying their experiences to the pool. Carreyrou did a pretty good job at reintroducing people as their names came up again in later chapter, so I didn't have much of a problem following what was going on (the hardest name to remember was Carreyrou's since he talks in first person about himself, but other characters might mention his last name). 

What was a little harder to follow was some of the domain specific details. If the reader doesn't have as much background in these areas, it could be slower going reading through the explanations of what's happening in the "development process" (if we can even call it that) of the Theranos products, and this doens't even include the different approvals (patents, license, etc.) of which the average person is likely unfamiliar with. 

Although it's not the most gripping nor the most fun nor the most easy to read nonfiction book I've read, it's definitely more readable than many nonfiction books out there (especially since this is one is more of a biography than autobiography, with the former running the risk of sound too textbook). 

If you're interested in this book, I would recommend giving it a read since it goes over the case in great detail. My only major wish for this book is for it to have been written later to cover the trial period. 

Book Blog #217: Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella

Title: Hit Refresh
Author: Satya Nadella
# of Pages: 273 (hardcover)
Genre: Nonfiction, Technology, Biography
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Synopsis: As told by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Hit Refresh is the story of corporate change and reinvention as well as the story of Nadella’s personal journey, one that is taking place today inside a storied technology company, and one that is coming in all of our lives as intelligent machines become more ambient and more ubiquitous. It’s about how people, organizations and societies can and must hit refresh—transform—in their persistent quest for new energy, new ideas, relevance and renewal. At the core, it’s about us humans and our unique qualities, like empathy, which will become ever more valuable in a world where the torrent of technology will disrupt like never before. As much a humanist as a technologist, Nadella defines his mission and that of the company he leads as empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
Review: Many people say this book is only meant for Microsoft employees.

This is false; Nadella most likely wanted to reach a broader audience as show by his various interviews to promote his book. However, the audience he reaches the best would be those in the tech industry (especially Microsoft employees) and bigwigs.

Hit Refresh reads very much like an essay; Nadella uses words from other credible authors/speakers throughout his book to illustrate ideas he agrees with and ends with a huge call to action for the reader. However, these two aspects combined overshadows Nadella's narrative about himself; although he begins his book with personal anecdotes, the focus slowly slips to the tech industry, including analysis of the FBI-Apple encryption issue and the Sony Picture hack. While these different components of the book may be interesting to some, not all of them have to (nor should be) put into the same book.

An essay may be what some people are looking for, but it did not satisfy my casual reading craving. That being said, I knew going into this book that it was not going to be an enthralling read; however I expected to feel more like I was having a conversation with Nadella rather than reading a formal speech. Although this was not a hard read, it something that only needs to be read once, at most. If you don't fall in the audience I described above, I would recommend you look elsewhere for a book to read in your free time.

Book Blog #216: One Litre of Tears by Aya Kito

Title: One Liter of Tears
Author: Aya Kito
# of Pages: 270 (ebook)
Genre: Nonfiction, memoir, biography
Rating: ★★★★☆
Synopsis: Aya Kitō was diagnosed with a disease called spinocerebellar degeneration when she was 15 years old. The disease causes the person to lose control over their body, but because the person can retain all mental ability the disease acts as a prison. So in the end she cannot eat, walk or talk.Aya keeps a diary of not only what she does but how she feels and the hardships she must endure. Initially, the diary's purpose was for Kitō to chronicle impressions she had about how the disease was affecting her daily life. As the disease progressed, however, the diary became Kitō's outlet for describing the intense personal struggles she underwent in coping, adapting, and ultimately trying to survive her disease. As she notes in one entry, "I write because writing is evidence that I am still alive."
Review: It is always difficult to judge a book by its translation.

I read this book because I watched the J-drama of Anya’s story and wanted to know how accurate its portrayal of her disease is.

(I’m not marking any of this as a spoiler since it’s nonfiction.)

The start of the book is her diary, which reflected similar sentiment I saw in the J-drama version of Aya. However, near the end of the book when the doctor is giving her (interestingly the doctor is male in the drama even though she is female in real life) version of Aya’s life, she recalls how the school administration insisted Aya go to a disabled school. This is also in the drama; however, unlike in the doctor’s retelling where she states that Aya’s peers were “fighting against the move,” many students were portrayed in the drama as reluctantly agreeing that Aya was an inconvenience in school and should be transferred. The way the creators of the drama recreated the events that led up to Aya’s transfer strongly indicate that the transfer was the obvious choice to benefit all parties involved. What I liked about the doctor’s perspective was how she casts a different light on the situation; instead of seeing Aya as an inconvenience, she discusses how Aya’s condition brings out the caring nature in others and how exposure to her serious attitude she developed during the fight for her life could have helped her peers grow and improve in character.

I wasn’t surprised to find the romantic part of the drama to be extremely exaggerated. However, I was surprised by the doctor’s memory of Aya asking if she could get married and of a period of time when a medical student around her age would visit her, hinting toward the possibility of romance. Although it is not on the scale of what was depicted in the drama, it is nice to know it is not completely made up.

Overall, this publication of Aya's diary and her doctor's and mother's account of Aya's life with her disease were exactly what I expected. It is a very quick read, but it is amazing to hear from the perspective a girl who had such a difficult disease to live with.

Book Blog #174: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Title: Into the Wild
Author: Jon Krakauer
# of Pages: 207 (paperback)
Genre: Non-fiction, Biography, Adventure
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Synopsis: In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a party of moose hunters. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and , unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.
Review:

"Eating with gristly meat with our fingers, [Krakauer and his companions] slap at mosquitoes and talk about this peculiar person whom none of them ever met, trying to get a handle on how he came to grief, trying to understand why some people seem to despise him so intensely for having died here." -Krakauer p.180.

Well, writing a book about McCandless isn't helping much either.

I had briefly heard about McCandless before reading Into the Wild and had accidentally watched the ending of the movie a few years ago. I didn't have any passionate feelings toward his story, but I was mildly irked by his stupidity. However, when I heard I had to read a book about McCandless, saying I was disappointed would have been a major understatement. Despite the book's relatively small size, I had no interest in the topic at hand. Before I even started reading, I knew it would be a tedious read.

Before I talk about the content, I would like to discuss the structure; it was all over the place. While it would have been nice if McCandless' fate hadn't been spoiled on the cover of the book (and in the first few chapters, if the reader didn't bother to look at the cover), I understand that the author probably wrote this book with the intention of it being informational instead of an enthralling story for the reader. But Krakauer would skip from the time McCandless was in Alaska, to after his death, to the beginning of the journey, etc. He even threw in some stories in the middle about other people who's situations (and downfalls) were considered to be similar to McCandless'.

And don't even get me started on the story Krakauer told about himself. I know the point of the story was to show why McCandless went out on this crazy adventure (and to show how McCandless wasn't suicidal), but c'mon; it's hard enough to hear about one guy's stupidity. If you want to tell people about your adventure, then write a different book so I don't have to hear about it.

"But the meaning he wrested from existence lay beyond the comfortable path: McCandless distrusted the value of things that came easily. He demanded much of himself - more, in the end, than he could deliver." p.184

Learning about McCandless' story only degraded my view of him; he made up these stupid rules such as how he wouldn't look at a map so that "in his own mind, if nowhere else, the terra would thereby remain incognita" (174). Since he chose to disregard crucial skills/tools to help himself survive, it's his own fault that he ended up dead and doesn't deserve the amount of recognition that he does today. A book AND a movie for this guy? It doesn't make any sense.

Another aspect I found irritating were the statements made by the people who McCandless interacted with on his journey. For example:

 "'[Alex] did a lot of socializing. Sometimes I think it was like he was storing up company for the times when nobody would be around.'" p.44-45

 I don't really care about what these people think now when they're reflecting on McCandless' actions. They're only saying that because they know he spent so much time by himself in Alaska. If they didn't know and just assumed he continued to travel around America, people like Burres would have said he was just social. While the actual statement (and the many like it that were found throughout the book) are not the author's fault, he should have taken the opinionated bits out.

I absolutely do NOT recommend this book.

Book Blog #136: The Glass Castle by Jennette Walls

Title: The Glass Castle
Author: Jeannette Walls
# of Pages: 288 (hardcover)
Genre: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir
Rating: ★★★★☆
Synopsis: When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.
Review: One main thought came to my mind when I was reading this book; this family is crazy.

Now, based on the synopsis, I thought this was going to be a sob story. The cover didn't help as a grudgingly picked up this book. But Walls' approach is fantastic in The Glass Castle. She's not complaining about her life; she's just retelling it the way it was with some of it positive and some of it negative. Just how life is.

The Walls family is so different from my own, I wasn't sure of what to make of it. But I loved it. I didn't realize it, but I didn't know the true way a family like Walls' was like until I read this book. And it shows the reader that you can't label a child based on his or her parents' characteristics, habits, etc.

I urge everyone to read this book!

Book Blog #135: This Star Won't Go Out by Esther Earl with Lori and Wayne Earl

Title: This Star Won't Go Out
Author: Esther Earl with Lori and Wayne Earl
# of Pages: 431 (hardback)
Genre: Non-fiction, YA, Biography
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Synopsis: A collection of the journals, fiction, letters, and sketches of the late Esther Grace Earl, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 16. Photographs and essays by family and friends will help to tell Esther’s story along with an introduction by award-winning author John Green who dedicated his #1 bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars to her.
Review:

"I don't know what I've been doing...people online are still saying things like, 'thank you, you're an inspiration' 'yr amazing' 'wow you're famous' 'you're so beautiful inside and out.' ...But I'm still Estee and I've done nothing else????" -Esther Earl, This Star Won't Go Out, page 305

This quote is defiantly not the most inspiration or positive quote in Esther Earl's This Star Won't Go Out, but it does a good job of summing up the book.

TSWGO is about of girl who, like Hazel from The Fault in Our Stars, finds herself "quite unextraordinary" (Hazel, The Fault in Our Stars). And to some, she would be if it weren't for her cancer. 

And this may or may not be true. I'm not even sure myself. We won't know if she would have ever made as big of an impact on people if she didn't have cancer because she did. Due to this, I am certain of one thought; she was defiantly not unextraordinary. 

I struggled with my opinion on this book. Judging by the time it took me to read it, I know that it wasn't the ideal read because I did not feel pressured to read it, to find out what happened next in her story. But it was by no means a bad book either. 

The quote at the beginning of this book resonates what I felt I learned from her memoir. Esther was just a regular girl with "normal" (because really, what's normal?) interests who happened to be really, really sick. There's often that barrier between people who have cancer and people who don't. Cancer patients are sometimes thought to be too different from others because they're dying, or because people think they need to be pitied, or because people think they're suddenly idol/celebrity, or for whatever reason people have created this division. But they aren't that different. Aren't all of us dying? Haven't we all at some point been been/wanted to be pitied? Aren't celebrities human too?

Of course, everything I'm saying now could be pointless to some of you reading. I'm sure all of us know somewhere in our mind that cancer patients are indeed just like normal people (especially if we have know the people pre-cancer). And now that I go back over what I've written, I realize I lost track of what I originally wanted to say...

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I wanted to know more about Esther, the girl who was a nerdfighter and loved Harry Potter and a lot less of Esther, the inspirational girl who had cancer and was so brave and strong...

That was what frustrates me the most. The majority of the documents used to create this book mostly told her cancer story. The cancer seems to overshadow HER (although it became part of her). But I could hear about the cancer from so many others. I want to know what made the members of Catitude think she was amazing.

I'm giving this book three stars for being interesting overall, but lacking focus on important aspects of Esther's life.

Book Blog #132: The Notorious Benedict Arnold by Steve Sheinkin

Title: The Notorious Benedict Arnold
Author: Steve Sheinkin
# of  Pages: 368 (paperback)
Genres: YA, Non-fiction, Biography
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Synopsis: Most people know that Benedict Arnold was America’s first, most notorious traitor. Few know that he was also one of its greatest war heroes. This accessible biography introduces young readers to the real Arnold: reckless, heroic, and driven. Packed with first-person accounts, astonishing battle scenes, and surprising twists, this is a gripping and true adventure tale.
Review: I had attempted to read this book first in January 2014. I gave up, but decided to give it another shot earlier this month (around September 7).

I've finally finished it.

I'm not really into history, and I had very little interest (and knowledge) on the topic of Benedict Arnold. But it was pretty interesting. Steve Sheinkin is a wonderful writer when it comes to the dry history stuff.

It wouldn't be exactly my first choice for a recreational reading - but then again, I don't usually read non-fiction for fun. If you need/want to read a non-fiction book (assuming that you don't usually read non-fiction for fun either), then I recommend that you give this one a shot!