Janice Eidus

Ugh, glad this only took 2 days for me to read.

Billed as a funny chick-lit type of story about a woman with a philandering husband, a rock star therapist, and a job with an avant-garde theater group, I thought it would be fun. At least quirky and weird.

I was terribly disappointed.

I wanted a strong woman who was going to shake off her insecurities and go out there and find meaning in her life. I wanted to chuckle a bit, too.

Instead, no one in this book is likable. The main character, Babette, is moderately likable but she doesn't seem to like herself. And what's with that sister of hers?

I think we came full circle here by the end of the book. Glad this is not my life. Maybe I was supposed to relate to this somehow or find some sympathy for these New Yorkers, but no. I didn't.… (altro)

Janice Eidus’ short story collection, Vito Loves Geraldine (City Lights Publishers), is a rare accomplishment among works of female discontent stemming from unhappy childhoods and broken relationships that lead to insecure marriages and friendships. In each story, the female protagonist is more or less someone whose life was determined prematurely, either as a girl before puberty (“Davida’s Own”) or as a young wife (“Vanna” and “A Comb and a Snake”). Yet many of the characters still reach the point of self-actualization, manifesting desires long since repressed and joyfully embraced.

The title story, which received an O. Henry Prize, is the classic narrative of a headstrong girl willingly waiting for her lover while he sets off to earn his fame and fortune. While she bides her time in the old neighborhood and her friends marry and bear children (and grandchildren), she follows stories of her high school sweetheart marrying and losing himself to drugs--but only to come back to her in the end. Although a simple story of enduring love between two people, it formally paves the way for the other stories to follow, illustrating the tension between being a woman and the choice to define herself as a person.

Eidus flirts with the notion of womanhood, weaving tales of females trying to find what it is to be a woman, eventually shedding that label and becoming her own self. In stories such as “The Dreaded Female Locker Room Talk,” “The Resolution of Muscle,” and “Safe,” the author demonstrates the minimal differences between men and women in speech, physicality, and life priorities, respectively. Her stories mostly follow the trajectory of women in a state of confusion coming to terms with desires that are not at all “womanly” but are necessary for their wellbeing.

While many of the stories still leave much to be explained, the characters remain flawed and yet relatable women. Just as they wrestle with ideas that attempt to define them, the author reveals their individual natures that desire to be neither masculine nor feminine, but are regardless of gender tendencies overall.… (altro)

Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy:
www.allthingsurbanfantasy.blogspot.com

THE LAST JEWISH VIRGIN was a difficult book for me to write about, if only because I feel like I shouldn’t be reviewing it in the first place. Most of this book felt like an allegory that I couldn’t unlock, or a parable whose moral I didn’t understand. Despite a blurb that made me think this would be more accessible, I can say with confidence that THE LAST JEWISH VIRGIN shouldn’t be classified as Urban Fantasy or Paranormal Romance.

My main point of disconnect with this story was the main character, Lilith. From the outset, it is clear that Lilith is unreliable and melodramatic. Seemingly simple events take place, all the while with Lilith quaking, shuddering, and generally over-acting her own story. When speaking to the Urban Fantasy genre, Lilith is the anti-thesis of heroine that learns and develops throughout the story. If nothing else, her break from reality grows more and more pronounced, and rather than believing that any real paranormal events were taking place around her, I was more convinced that she had an eating disorder, delusions, and an unhealthy obsession with her professor.

I have read books where an unreliable narrator adds spice to the proceedings, and I was able to enjoy untangling their observations from the greater “reality” around them (Iain Bank’s THE WASP FACTORY comes to mind). Unfortunately, THE LAST JEWISH VIRGIN never managed to slip me into that process. The book’s arc did not center on Lilith (or the reader) gaining any greater sense or reality. Rather, we all spin deeper into Lilith’s psychosis without hesitation or clarity. THE LAST JEWISH VIRGIN creates a caricature of an UF heroine in the real world. If Bella were written in the real Forks, Washington, most likely she would have ended up in a mental institution or dead in an alleyway when her blood-drinking, older “boyfriend” showed his true psychotic colors. That was the fate I kept expecting for poor Lilith (and part of me still believes that is Lilith’s “off camera” future).

While I don’t want to give you the impression that THE LAST JEWISH VIRGIN was poorly written, it was certainly not something I would read for pleasure. There are details from the book that I enjoyed and will remember, and as a concept it is an interesting premise, but the process of reading this book was more chore than enjoyment for me.

Sexual Content: Descriptions of sex acts and sexual situations.… (altro)

I don't want to give anything away so I'm not sure how much I can say about it. We spend the whole book wondering, with the narrator, whether her professor is a vampire. In addition to definitely being part of the vampire genre, if only for the style of writing, it is also reminiscent of Pride and Prejudice, with a (perhaps) unreliable narrator, and Jane Eyre, which is filled with contrasting characters, many of them part of the Lilith-Eve dichotomy. All of these books have powerful, silent men and an innocent, young thing. The book also has modern concerns, like mother-daughter relationships, and lots of big city scenery, including a college that sounds very much like FIT; which is why it's not weird enough for me.

Nonetheless, it kept my interest and is worth thinking back now that I can see it whole and not just the details.

Being Jewish is important to Lilith, although she is not at all observant; her mother attends services, writes important books, and is very much a Jewish feminist. Lilith knows about tzedakah and Tikkun Olam, but she talks about the Old Testament, not the Bible. (A nice Jewish girl should know that "Old" only makes sense if there is a "New.")

There are some very tastefully done scenes of lovemaking that mean it's not for children, but fine for teens.… (altro)