I read about this graphic novel in a blog somewhere about the new Archie comic (did you know there's a new Archie comic? I didn't). The person writing about it described it as a cross between the Walking Dead and the Breakfast Club, so of course I had to read it. Volume One: Reagan Youth starts out with a homeless boy named Marcus being pulled off the street and offered a spot in a super secret boarding school to train future assassins. Classes include how to behead, how to poison, things like that. I enjoyed the first volume so much I went online and ordered volumes 2 & 3.
I've never seen a movie with Marlene Dietrich, and I knew absolutely nothing about her life. I picked this one up because I've read other books by Gortner and enjoyed them, and this one looked interesting. It really was. I don't know how true it was, but she seemed like a fascinating woman. Marlene was German and started out in the cabarets in Berlin after World War I. She came to Hollywood in the early 1930s and was a sensation. She spent World War II traveling with the USO and entertaining the Allied troops, rallying them against the Nazis she saw destroying her beloved homeland. She certainly had an unorthodox life: she was bisexual, unashamedly so, had affairs with many of her male and female costars, and remained married her whole life to one man, who lived apart from her and had a lover of his own. It was a lot of fun and now I'm dying to see some of the films she made.
"Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" is one of my all time favorite books, I've read it many times. I read "Little Altars Everywhere" not long after it was published, with the original author photo of Rebecca Wells with blonde hair. I've looked for many, many years for a copy and can't find one anywhere :( I'd love to have it.
Siddalee Walker spoke imprudently during an interview and now her mother, Vivi, has cut her off. Sidda and Vivi's relationship has always been complicated, but now that Sidda is getting ready to direct a play based on female friendships, and she would love her mother's advice and pleads with her to forgive, but Vivi stands firm. She does however send her a scrapbook she's kept of her lifelong friendship with a group of women who call themselves the Ya-Yas.
I love the Ya-Yas. Every time I reread this book, it makes me wish so bad that I had a group of friends like these ladies. They weren't afraid to *live* and take chances and be bold and I wish I could be more like them.
And finally, "Dave Grohl: Times Like His" by Martin James. I was really looking forward to this one, but it was pretty disappointing. I'm not a musician, and it wasn't a traditional biography in any sense. It talked more about his musical influences, bands he played with, things like that. I knew about 10% of the people and bands James mentioned, and I understood absolutely nothing about the recording processes he described. There were a few editing errors that just jumped out at me: basketball star Codi Bryant attended his second wedding (I'm assuming he meant Kobe), Jean Paul Jones was in Led Zeppelin (again, I'm assuming he meant John). Things like that. And of course I had to skip over all the Kurt Cobain suicide nonsense. He went on and on about what might have driven him to it. It's too bad he didn't spend more time looking at the evidence! Oh well. I'm sure this would be a very good book for a professional musician, but for a layperson it was just too much for me. There's a more traditional biography of Grohl that was published a few years ago, I might give that one a shot.
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