Review: "The Exvangelicals" by Sarah McCammon

The Exvangelicals by Sarah McCammon
Published March 2024 via St. Martin's Press
★★★★

It's difficult to save a world you're taught to fear and are carefully sheltered from. (loc. 314*)

Growing up, McCammon was one of a large number of American evangelical Christians—deeply religious, deeply conservative, inflexible in views and closely focused on things like purity and politics. Only as she grew older did McCammon begin to understand just how deep and complex the roots ran, and just how twisted. And later, she became one of a growing number of American exvangelicals, a term coined by Blake Christian to describe the droves of disillusioned former churchgoers moving on to other things.

My (liberal, nonreligious) background is quite different from McCammon's, but I did grow up (partially) in the American Midwest, and so hers is one that I recognize instantly. Here, she tells not just her own story of disillusionment and deconstruction and, yes, exvangelicalism, but some of the many, many stories of people who grew up with backgrounds similar to hers. I've done a fair amount of reading in this general vein, so some of the names she discusses are familiar to me, but McCammon writes with not only the thoughtfulness of experience but the precision of her journalistic background.

I particularly appreciate that McCammon works to separate out things that are wrong with...let's call it the application of conservative religion in general...and things that feel specific to white American churches; McCammon covered the 2016 election, and when large swaths of white Christians were backing openly racist and xenophobic (among other things) candidates—and using the power of their religious platforms to do so—it becomes impossible to look at any one of those things in a void.

This is not a book about religion: it's a book about the ways in which people use and abuse religion to in turn use and abuse people, politics, and power. This is something of a theme in books about religion I've read lately, and if this is material that's of interest to you, you're in luck because there's a lot out there—an entire generation growing up to realize that, whatever they do or don't believe now, many of the teachings they grew up with were damaging at best. (Sarah Stankorb's Disobedient Women and Jon Ward's Testimony are not bad places to start for further reading.)

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*I read an ARC, and quotes may not be final.

Review: "The Twins Hit Hollywood" by Jamie Suzanne (created by Francine Pascal)

The Twins Hit Hollywood by Jamie Suzanne (created by Francine Pascal)
First published 1997
★★★

We had a copy of this in the house well into my teenage years, so I remember it better than most of the series. In The Twins Hit Hollywood, Elizabeth and Jessica have the chance to audition for a role that could catapult them into stardom—if they can avoid total sabotage by the other twelve-year-olds in contention.

Jessica is maybe less sociopathic than usual in this one, mostly because the other twins are even worse. The book builds on Breakfast of Enemies, although it manages to get the few Breakfast details it mentions wrong. I have to imagine that the books were being written roughly at the same time, and by the time someone on the editorial team noticed (if ever they did) it was too late.

The filming ends up being a nightmare, and that's the end of the twins' acting careers—but not to fret! They get white velvet sailor suits out of the deal, and yes, I absolutely was obsessed with the idea of this when I read this as a kid. I wasn't sure what a sailor suit was, but I knew that I wanted one, and I wanted it to be velvet. (Shockingly, this never transpired.)

I don't think the Sweet Valley High books ever went the Twins Hit Hollywood Again route, which is sort of too bad—imagine Jessica old enough to be an actual terror on set! But maybe it's just as well. Because...Jessica as a terror on set.

Review: "Ghost Town Living" by Brent Underwood

Ghost Town Living by Brent Underwood
Published March 2024 via Harmony
★★★

In 2018, Underwood bought Cerro Gordo, an abandoned mining town high in the California desert. In 2020, he moved there more or less permanently to start restoration and exploration. (He also started a YouTube channel, which is what led to the traction for this book.) I've been looking forward to this book since well before it was announced; it's a hell of a story, no matter which way you slice it, and I was pretty sure it was only a matter of time.

Underwood writes much as he talks—if you watch his videos, you'll recognize the rhythms and generally be able to hear the book as you read. As much as I enjoy the videos, though, I'm not entirely sold on the book structure. Underwood is a good storyteller, but the book is structured more as connected essays than as a chronological memoir, and there are some strange gaps.

Underwood is passionate about this town and its history, and that passion comes through loud and clear, whether he's talking about rebuilding after a fire or the history of water access in the town. (Why water access? Because it's an isolated desert town, and whether in the 1800s or now, accessing it requires feats of logistics and/or engineering.) But...there's never a basic walkthrough of the town. Never a description of a day in the life in an abandoned mining town—or a day in the life of someone working in that town more than a century ago. A fire is mentioned in passing in early chapters, but it's not until chapter nine, which details that fire, that Underwood talks about the importance of the (main) building that was lost. Readers don't have a chance to feel the weight of that loss in the way that Underwood did—to the reader, it might as well be a random old building that wasn't important enough to describe for the first half of the book, or important enough to include in the map at the beginning.

To an extent I get it—the fire is set up (rightly) as a catalyst, and it's easily the most dramatic moment of the book. A chronological structure would have placed it early in the book (just a few months after Underwood moved permanently to the town), leaving little time to build up to it...but as it stands, there aren't really enough details in the first half of the book to build up to it anyway. Even knowing the overall trajectory I think I would have preferred something more linear (and with fewer oblique comments about things that don't get full stories, like relationships that ended badly).

Because of this I struggled to figure out the ideal reader for this. Make no mistake; there are a lot of people who will enjoy this. But is the ideal reader someone who (like me) has already been following along and can fill in the mental gaps—but already knows the general story? (This may be the reason for the non-linear structure...) Or is the ideal reader someone who has seen one or two articles or YouTube videos and doesn't have preconceived notions—but will have to look up the salt tram to be able to understand its isolation, or the American Hotel to understand what it once was?

Probably the answer is somewhere in between. I imagine this book will do well (and that it will be popular among those already familiar with the story), in any case—it's a place and a story to attract dreamers.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Breakfast of Enemies" by Jamie Suzanne (created by Francine Pascal)

Breakfast of Enemies by Jamie Suzanne (created by Francine Pascal)
First published 1997
★★★

Jessica's going to be a star...the only problem is that because of child labor laws the studio wants twins, not a lone girl. Jessica has a twin, but sharing the spotlight? Nuh-uh.

I only had the vaguest of memories of this one, related mostly to the fact that our copy of The Twins Hit Hollywood, which comes right after this one, stuck around way longer than it had any right to, so I read it multiple times. No big surprises, though: Jessica is completely exhausting, Elizabeth can't act, and it all works out in the end. I suppose the real surprise is that they're hired after their lackluster audition, but then...if anything, I appreciate the lackluster audition, because these are just kids, not professional actors, and I suppose it carries the story along.

Worth noting that the twins spend about half the book getting parental permission to audition for the role and the rest of the book hanging on to the role by the skin of their teeth—the stipulation for auditioning is that they have to get along, which they interpret as "express fervent admiration for everything they hate about each other" and "get their older brother to be mean so that they can defend each other". One can guess from how well this goes just how well their acting careers are going to go...

Review: "Jessica's Cookie Disaster" by Jamie Suzanne (created by Francine Pascal)

Jessica's Cookie Disaster by Jamie Suzanne (created by Francine Pascal)
First published 1995
★★

Jessica's infallible luck strikes again: In Jessica's Cookie Disaster, Jessica accidentally makes cookies so good that she's invited to be on a television show...except, oops, she has no idea how she's done it. Will she come out on top, or will her cookies be a flop?

(Spoiler alert: Jessica always comes out on top.)

Now, the way Jessica goes about trying to recreate these miracle cookies is a bit...questionable...because I guess it doesn't occur to anyone that there wasn't even a hint of pineapple or liquorice in the miracle cookies, or that those things were unlikely to have been at Jessica's cooking station when she had her successful disaster. Also questionable: the fact that the secret ingredients turn out to be (spoiler!) variations on vanilla and almond, and everyone involved acts like they have never had a cookie with these things before. Now, granted, this is Sweet Valley, one of the whitest and most middle-class places known to 80s America, so it's possible...but oh dear. Someone get these people some flavor in their lives.

Perhaps more notable: Jessica makes the honor roll for the first and perhaps last time in her life, so her parents all but throw her a party. Elizabeth sighed again—she couldn't help it. Since Elizabeth was always on the honor roll, no one made a big deal of it anymore. She'd been on the honor roll since second grade, so she didn't get taken to dinner at La Maison Jacques. (31) Elizabeth really gets shafted in these books, doesn't she? She feels guilty if she does anything than be her goody-two-shoes-honor-roll self, but Jessica gets all the attention whether she's creating chaos or toeing the line.

(Actually, when I was in junior high, I remember my parents being really enthusiastic about my sister's four-Bs-and-two-As report card, while sort of shrugging at my two-Bs-and-four-As report card. I didn't learn until much, much later that my sister—who was generally a very rule-abiding, non-boundary-pushing kid—had gone through a phase, at that time, of arguing against homework. Possibly this report card represented a perking up of her grades and they were pleased about it. As an adult I get it, but as a tween I remember feeling quite insulted.)

Elizabeth saves the day, of course, which means that Jessica gets to shine (of course). If I remember correctly, somewhere in the universe—in the Sweet Valley High series, I think—there's a book in which Elizabeth wishes that she'd never been born, and then she sees a sort of alternate-universe version of Sweet Valley in which Steven is deep in trouble, and maybe her parents have split up, and so on and so forth, and it's all because they desperately needed an Elizabeth to save the day...and I guess it all started with things like cookies.

Review: "Unstoppable!" by Maggie Nichols

Unstoppable! by Maggie Nichols
Published January 2024 via Roaring Brook Press
★★★

Nichols is a gymnast, and by the time she was a teenager she was used to exceeding expectations—and then exceeding them again, and again. She had good reason to hope for a spot at the 2016 Olympics. Instead, she became Athlete A in the case against Larry Nasser...and was frozen out of USA Gymnastics, the (now scandal-ridden) governing body for the sport in the US.

As a story, I appreciate this—Nichols is not shy in calling out the many, many people who were complicit in Nasser's actions, from ignoring reports of abuse to explicitly working to discredit victims and protect their abuser. This is one of numerous recent gymnastics memoirs that talks about Nasser's abuses, and the scope is breathtaking. I also hasten to note that Nichols' primary focus is on her life in gymnastics, not on the actions of adults who perpetuated and enabled abuse; Nasser is not (and should not ever be) the beginning or end of her story.

As a book, it's not great. Nichols is well educated and clearly intelligent, but I think her expression comes across better in the gym than on the page. I was so full of emotion. (loc. 1055) It was just so awesome. (loc. 1059) We all stuck our bar dismounts, and it was just like the craziest feeling ever. (loc. 1597) It was just magical. (loc. 1603) I was ecstatic. It was just so super exciting. I was so happy. (loc. 1808) There's a ghostwriter credited on the book, but this might be a case of hewing a little too closely to how a young twentysomething speaks. An okay read for teenage gymnastics fans, but there's quite a lot out there in terms of both gymnastics generally and recent scandals more specifically, and this wouldn't be one of the first books I recommended for those interested in either of those things.

Nichols went on to have an extremely successful college gymnastics career, and it's sort of nice to think that her continued success—and the doors open to her—is a middle finger in the face of USA Gymnastics.

Review: "Cloistered" by Catherine Coldstream

Cloistered by Catherine Coldstream
Published March 2024 via St. Martin's Press
★★★★

On my second afternoon, writes Coldstream of a visit to the priory where she would later take vows, there was a thunderstorm, and the women I saw from my window, flitting across courtyards in their long brown robes, were like ghosts. They barely spoke and their pale faces were as inscrutable as distant moons. I saw them as brave, extraordinary, martyr figures. They belonged to the same forgotten world as the moss growing out of the ancient enclosure wall, and as the ferns that grew, unchecked, at its base, and the dandelions and smaller flowers peeping from its crevices. They belonged to the fields and forests. Above all, they belonged to the silence, and to God. I opened the window. The smell of damp earth rose, reeking of something half forgotten, mixed with spring. (loc. 885*)

Coldstream was perhaps an unusual choice to be a nun: raised in an artistic and academic, non-Catholic household, she took to Catholicism only after her father died and her world upended itself. But when she went in, it was all or nothing: not just Catholicism but a nun, not just a nun but one in a cloistered, largely silent community. And she loved it—loved the silence, loved the isolation, loved the intense focus on religion, loved the honeymoon phase and weathered the loss of that same phase.

Time passes in the monastery like ghosts that move through walls; it seeps through cell doors and stony archways, through bone and marrow, imprinting patience and endurance at every touch. With the shifting of the seasons, and by our second dusky-coloured autumn, we'd turned from eager novices, excited by the novelty of monasticism, to heavy labourers, hands chapped from toil, lips cracked with cold, and faces raw. (loc. 1298)

But nuns, too, are only human, and eventually those cracks spread outward, and outward still, and gradually things changed.

Coldstream is at her best when writing about those early years, and the beauty she found in the bareness and silence of the monastery. She mentions few of the early red flags that many ex-nuns who lived in particularly restrictive (or just pre–Vatican II) describe, and a sense of longing and what if remains: what if this had happened within the community, or that, or if this sister had been given more leeway or that sister less, or if she had begun her journey in a different convent or chosen a less closed order to begin with—would she still be there? Without going into too much detail, I think it's fair to say that it was the bare humanity of isolated religious life that made questions start to grow, and then to proliferate.

Coldstream took a series of vows en route to becoming a fully professed nun, and it left me thinking about the strange way that the Catholic church (or at least some streams of it) makes convent life into a marriage, with each nun in her marital cell and Jesus as the ultimate bigamist...Coldstream didn't go down the aisle in a white gown, as used to be more common, but even if she had that would not have been anywhere near the most final of her vows—which is not the way the church treats a more conventional marriage, leaving me puzzled about why they would put the marriage-to-Jesus bit relatively early in the process. Not for the first time, I find myself thinking that the Catholic church might do better to encourage temporary vows (much the way there are so many short-term Buddhist monks) rather than, as Coldstream describes, making the process a long one but one that nearly always has a goal of permanence. Because—how might Coldstream's journey, or those of any of the women she lived in community with, have been different with the doors still open?

Not always a happy story, but a beautifully written one.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Free Houses in Japan" by Anton Wörmann

Free Houses in Japan by Anton Wörmann
Published November 2023 via Anton in Japan Media
★★★

When Wörmann first visited Japan on a modelling contract, he started dreaming—and when he learned of Japan's surplus of akiya, or abandoned houses, that could be bought for a song, he started scheming. What followed was a new sort of adventure: a day job as a model and a passion-project-turned-profitable buying and renovating properties to rent out.

Now, the title is intentionally misleading. The houses aren't free, but they can be very, very cheap (think tens of thousands of dollars rather than hundreds of thousands of dollars), largely because there isn't cultural value for old houses, so they depreciate quickly, and the value is perceived to be in the land. In choosing to renovate rather than tear down and rebuild, Wörmann was going against the Japanese grain, but it paid off for him.

This is not a memoir: it's structured as something of a how-to guide, with the premise that the reader might be interested in buying and renovating their own akiya in Japan. My preference would have been for memoir, because Wormann's story is genuinely interesting, and I have no plans to renovate a house anywhere, let alone in Japan; I love house-restoration memoirs because they let me live vicariously through people who take on that challenge. If you read this, be aware that Wörmann only really gives details of one of the three places he has so far renovated, and even those details are pretty scattered. The focus is much more on challenges that you might not know to expect when buying and renovating a house.

The material is still fascinating, partly because for all the house-restoration memoirs I've read, they've almost all taken place in the west (with, if I remember correctly, the occasional detour to Morocco). The writing is something of a letdown; it's a 300-page book but with perhaps 150 pages of material, because almost every piece of information is delivered at least twice. As an example, when talking about different investment strategies involving akiya, Wormann says: How it works: find and buy an abandoned house in a central urban area, renovate it, and turn it into an Airbnb. ... This strategy works by buying an abandoned house in a central urban area, then renovating it and turning it into an Airbnb (loc. 783). One of the next 'investment strategies' is about manshons, or flats, rather than houses: How it works: find and buy an old condo in a central location, renovate it, and rent it to a long-term tenant without excessive fees (loc. 829). Repeat for buying an abandoned house and renting it out long-term, etc., etc. While it's interesting to think about the pros and cons of long-term rentals vs. Airbnb, and houses vs. flats (e.g., in Japan it's very hard to set up a flat as an Airbnb, because you need permission from everyone in the building), the structure of the book is extremely repetitive. I wish that this had gone through further editing to eliminate the repetition and leave space for more story: to walk us through each of the properties step by step rather than dribbling out scattershot bits of story, to tell us what it actually means to need to retrofit older properties for contemporary earthquake-resistant building standards, to take us through a day or a week in the life.

Recommended if you have insatiable curiosity about house renovation (that's me!) or living in far-off places (also me!) and are a fast reader who can skim through some of the repetition (...also me), but otherwise you might get more satisfaction from just watching a few of Wörmann's YouTube videos.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Elizabeth's New Hero" by Jamie Suzanne (created by Francine Pascal)

 

Elizabeth's New Hero by Jamie Suzanne (created by Francine Pascal)
First published 1989
★★

I don't think I read this one as a kid, but as an adult I'm curious about portrayals of East Germany, so...here we go. In Elizabeth's New Hero, an East German gymnastics team is in town to visit—and the Wakefields are hosting one of the students! What fun. Despite the title, Elizabeth doesn't have much more of a role here than Jessica (Elizabeth wants to interview Christoph for the sixth-grade newspaper; Jessica wants to invite him to hang out with the Unicorns), and she certainly doesn't have any better an understanding of East Germany than...well, Jessica. I guess someone in the editorial team wanted to maintain the perception that Elizabeth is as important to the series as Jessica.

To be fair...this was published in 1989, presumably shortly before the Berlin Wall came down, and the author clearly had zero idea about East Germany either. Christophe is enamoured with American life, enough so that he declares his intent to defect. But...what concerns him is not the lack of freedoms in the East German state, or the Stasi, or the lack of individual freedoms, or the excellent chance that some of his teammates will be reporting back on his behaviour when they return to East Germany. No, what concerns him is that his father puts too much emphasis on Christophe's gymnastics, and he'd rather learn to play the drums.

That's it, folks. That's Christophe's great concern about East Germany.

So Christophe's mother calls him in California, because there were never any issues with calling the West. And the conversation goes like this, because there was definitely no wire-tapping or Stasi hanging around to make arrests:

"Hello?" said Christophe.

Jessica heard Christophe's mother speaking German, but Christophe quickly interrupted her.

"I'm sorry, but I am going to be an American now," he said sternly. "You must speak to me in English!"

"Christophe, I was so worried when I found out you didn't return home," his mother said, speaking in English now. "I hope you are feeling better. Are you being well taken care of?"

"There is no need to worry about me," Christophe said. "I can take care of myself. I don't ever want to return to East Germany. This is my home now. I will be able to do all the things I have dreamed of." (86–87)

...because that sort of attitude would be nooooo problem for his family even if Christophe were to stay in the US and be (at least theoretically) outside the reach of the Stasi...

I mean, I guess it's also possible that Christophe's family are the Stasi? But although I know that communication barriers eased over time, and this book was published right before the Wall fell, it's hard to imagine that a kid raised in East Germany would be so ready to shout his intentions to defect over a phone line that was almost certainly monitored. (Then again, Christophe doesn't seem to have any issues with East Germany, just with his father being strict, so...)

Not clear whether the publisher wanted to avoid anything with a political bent or if the outliner/writer really just didn't know much about the situation and didn't care to learn, but it ends up feeling like a filler book to give Jessica some time to cook up her next scheme and Elizabeth some time to, IDK, polish her GPA.

Review: "The Music and the Mirror" by Lola Keeley

The Music and the Mirror by Lola Keeley
Published April 2018 via Ylva
★★★

In New York, Anna is thrilled—she's the newest corps member of the Metropolitan Ballet, and she's eager to prove her worth and maybe work her way up the ladder. The last thing she expects is to be catapulted up the ladder by the artistic director, who sees unlimited potential...on the stage, and maybe in the bedroom.

I have a soft spot for ballet books, to say nothing of queer ballet books. It's interested to see the power dynamics here, because usually in a boss/employee romance or an age-gap romance, the older and/or more powerful person will be a man, and the younger and/or less powerful person will be a woman. Here we have two women, which changes the dynamic somewhat: Victoria isn't afraid to throw her weight and power around (she spends a fair amount of time firing people, actually), but—perhaps because the author or editor was concerned about relationship ethics?—she manages to quell her inner asshole enough that there's never a point where Anna worries that if the relationship goes south, so will Anna's position in the company. (Anna should worry about this. She's quite naïve at times, in ways that are unlikely to serve her well in the long run. But at least Victoria is aware of the pitfalls.)

Victoria's meant to be an ice queen, which is not my favorite ever trope but I know is popular. She does get a bit easily impressed for someone who is supposed to be so hardened, though: a quick search for the word "impressed" tells me that Victoria is impressed when: Anna mentions that she was accepted to good art schools; Anna mentions that she's been to another dancer's home; another dancer shows loyalty by offering to report back after meeting someone; Anna picks herself up quickly after some sabotage; Anna has a half-full bottle of vodka rather than a full one; Victoria tells Anna who was behind the sabotage and Anna doesn't react much; Anna knows the difference between traditional and classical; Anna can handle a lift; Anna continues to do well with lifts; the costume designer comes up with something Victoria likes.

There's a lot going on—Anna's sudden promotion from least-experienced corps member to principal, Anna's tragic backstory, Victoria's tragic backstory, a secret aunt(!), glass in pointe shoes, an injury for Anna, an injury for another dancer, Victoria's likely alcohol addiction, another dancer's likely addiction to god knows what, and on and on it goes. At a bare minimum I'd have liked to see the secret aunt plot cut, and maybe also the glass-in-pointe-shoes bit (which just feels a bit clichéd). And then let the characters learn more from each other, maybe, or explore those addictions rather than leaving them hanging, with more than one woman in the book unable to sleep without a hefty dose of substance of choice. Honestly, I'd have been curious about where this might have gone without the romance; Victoria's substance use alone makes me think that she's not in a great place to start something, and I never really got any chemistry between her and Anna. Could have been interesting to see the two of them get to flex their characters a bit without worrying about making them compatible or necessarily even interested in each other as people. But since this is a romance, it's probably one best suited to readers who are into ice queens and age gaps.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.