Title:
The Undiscovered Goddess
Author:
Michelle Colston
Publisher:
Michelle Colston
Rating:
WARTY
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
I found this novel rather disturbingly addictive when I began it, but as I continued to read it, I found myself fuming at Holly's inertia and vacuity, and at her brain-washed self-loathing induced by hideous societal pressures on women. I seriously hoped, as I got deeper and deeper into it, that Colston would pull something worthy out of this smoldering fire, otherwise, I decided, I would be really pissed at her and depressed about Holly. The worst thing that could happen with this novel, I decided, was that Colston would pull an Ephron and trivialize everything with a pat, middle-class, suburban ending. She didn't do that, but she didn't wise-up Holly, either. Holly was, at the end, even more stupid and shallow than she had been at the begining.
I'm all for discovering goddesses (although my definition of goddess differs significantly, I suspect, from that of most people), so this title intrigued me, and the blurb (which probably lied through its eye-teeth as you know they do) sounded intriguing, sucker that I am, so I took it up. I found Colston's writing style comfortable and easy to get into, although after only one page I had grave doubts about how goddess-like the main character is, or alternatively, what must be wrought upon her in the process of such a discovery, but overall, I liked the writing style even as I railed at a significant number of the things in it. Unfortunately, even this palled and became boring before I had got three-quarters into this. Holly just isn't an interesting person; she never became anyone I cared about or grew interested in knowing.
In general, in reading, it's really important to keep in mind that the characters in a novel are not the author of the novel (although that can happen), and it can be even harder to separate author from character when a novel is written in first person, so I have to fully disclose here that I had the distinct (if possibly erroneous) impression that this is much more of an autobiographical work than your typical first person perspective novel can tend to be. By the completion of the novel, Colston had done nothing to change my views whether the impression I have is erroneous or not.
The protagonist, who is initially anonymous, categorizes herself as "a wife and mother of three" which I found disturbing, especially since she seems to spend her entire time shuttling kids around and doing (or at least planning) household chores. Since she starts out as a stay-at-home wife who performs 1950's style 'wifely duties' who has a problem with alcohol, and who reads laughably shallow female abuse (read: fashion) magazines, there would seem to be ample room for a make-over of a significantly richer hue than I feared might be under consideration here! Unfortuantely, she does nto change in any of these regards. At the end, she is still pretty much the same as when she began, the major change being that she spoils herself more rotten by the end than she did at the beginning, but hey, she spoils herself in different ways so that's progress, right?!
In view of how absurdly early magazines are put out (the "January" issue descending upon us in November), I found it somewhat of a stretch that she's only getting down to reading the January Cosmo actually in January. It's possible, I suppose, but she describes it as a "brand new" edition, which is definitely not a bedfellow of reality where magazines are concerned! I sincerely hope women like this one are not the majority, but this is the impression we’re given - that your typical mid-thirties housewife (not my description!) has nothing more substantial in her head than reading horoscopes and completing shallow quizzes in a magazine pregnant with ads telling women how fat, ugly, and shabbily dressed they are, how bad their skin is ("I never use soap on my face!"), and how thoroughly "trailer-park" their home is unless they rigidly and religiously follow the advice being dispensed therein! Having said that, there is significant evidence to suggest that a disturbingly high proportion of women are raised to see themselves that way even as, paradoxically, they are not fundamentally like that. This obviously needs to be fixed, and if Colston has a solution, then she definitely deserves to be heard!
A problem hit me, curiously enough, on page 13, when someone else hijacked this novel. I was unceremoniously assaulted by someone called Devi Phoenix (honestly? I'm surprised Colston didn’t add a string of academic initials after the name!) the author of yet another pointless self-help work of fiction who comes off like an airhead (and not in a good way) and then she, in turn, is hijacked by "Holly", who is a complete cookie-cutter version of the original main character. This was confusing to me since there was nothing in the opening section to identify who the heck the introductory character was. I'd honestly wondered if it was supposed to be Michelle Colston herself, and Devi and Holly were two other people, but it took only a few pages to get that we'd reverted back to the initial character who turned out to be named Holly. Ooookay! A bit confusing, but nothing tragic.
Devi, curiously, has a bad habit of saying "BLESSED BE" (yes, in block caps), just as Colston/Holly has a habit of saying, Namaste, which is a Hindi phrase meaning roughly, "I adore you in a non sexual way"! Thirty-Four-year-old Holly has three children, is a 1950's style mom, has a serious drinking problem, and a husband who abandons his family for business reasons. She's going through a mid-life crisis and is, after a series of failures in self-help endeavors, committed for unexplained reasons, to reading and following Devi's advice on how to raise a Phoenix from ashes. I was not convinced that this would suffice given that Holly has some serious and highly clichéd issues - the kinds of issue which give me all the reason I need to avoid TV sitcoms like the ten fictional divine plagues visited on the Egyptians.
Holly starts keeping a journal which is this novel. I wonder if it was actually Colston's journal which she figured she could make a few bucks from if she "fictionalized" it, changing a name or an event here and there? This is supposed to be her private, personal journal, yet she's frequently 'bleeping out' her cussing! That defeated my suspension of disbelief more than once. It's weird because on p142, she declares that "fuck" happens to be one of her favorite words yet she's censoring it in her private journal, including on the very page where she claims it's a favorite!? This is not smart writing.
It’s funny because the entry for May 8th (p24), discussing a conversation she had with her husband while she was drunk, actually says "...did he not talk me out it?" - not "...did he not talk me out of it?"! Maybe the book editor was drunk? It would seem so, because at one point Holly talks about not being able to make something because she's out of ingredients and the weather is so bad that she can’t go out (schools are closed, etc), yet two days later, without having gone out in the intervening period, she's making pancakes and baking fudge cake! Somebody lied! I sincerely hope Holly's kids don't get food poisoning from eating the raw eggs in the cake batter, but that's another issue….
Holly both understands (so it would seem) that she has serious problems yet she continues, in the same breath (or same sentence, since she's summarizing in writing), to describe her husband as a good provider (almost in so many words!) upon whom she depends. So she simultaneously degrades herself to dependent status and fails to achieve the realization that her own husband fails to pay her anywhere near enough attention (as his blindness to her 'binge and purge era' testifies quite adequately). After all this, she rather cluelessly questions herself as to why she's not happy when she has "it all" (including "a nice car")!
I think Holly still has a lot to learn about life, including who she is and what she needs, but I guess that's what this crisis is all about! At least she understands how shallow Shawn is when he mindlessly blabbers how perfect she is, yet she's never considered talking about it with him and now, of course, his shallow 'compliments' are simply not enough for her. These thoughts are underlined dramatically when she sits down on May 16th to write a sad list of what she dreams of having, and the first two items on her list are "the perfect body" (in block caps - and not "a" perfect body but "the" perfect body - like there's only one and if she has it, then no other woman can!), and owning an immaculate wardrobe.
Now there's absolutely nothing wrong, and indeed everything right with liking who you are and enjoying your clothes (as long as you're realistic about it!), but if who you should be, what kind of bod you should have, and what you should wear are (however indirectly) defined by men, then what in hell are you thinking of‽ How can you be who you are when your full-time occupation is being someone else's idea of who they think you need to be? Holly's list is amusing in its contradictions, too. She wants to be famous, but she also 'vants to be alone'! Good luck vith that! Her desire for traveling the world, I can get with, but it’s about he only thing on her list which I would have included had I made such a list; then I appear to be a lot happier with myself than Holly is. BTW, I’d love to know how she achieved the impossible by healing diaper rash with homeopathic "remedies"! LoL!
I noted down a few impressions of Holly as I read:
- Holly must have the most irregular periods ever judged by her record of them in her journal.
- Her 'fear' journal is so 'all over the place' that it's scary! I don’t see how she resolves anything.
- Holly is something of a scatter brain.
- Holly colors her hair. It's yet another example of how dissatisfied she is with herself, yet it's one of which she seems oblivious.
- Holly places a rather racist emphasis on "BLUE eyes" (block caps hers) in her husband.
- Holly has a "my room" to which she heads for sanctuary? Does she mean the bedroom? Why does she see it as her room? Does she not routinely sleep with Shawn?
- Holly has a "my office" (for what?)
- Holly is Irish Italian. Seriously? Could she be any more generic?
- Holly's to-do list consists of eight line items, nearly every one of which is a chore. Not that she does them all, but she certainly does more than one.
- Shawn's to do list is 'mow the lawn' and he's done.
- Holly really doesn't seem to interact with Shawn or to do anything, or to go anywhere with him. Is he the problem? Really - is he preventing her from being her goddess, or is it all DIY?
There was one annoying journal entry where we learn (and in great detail) how much Holly hates the beach. She knew she would hate the beach. She hates to go to the beach. See Holly hate the beach. Hate. Hate. Hate. She gets to the beach and...she hates it. My conclusion from this is that she's not only scatter-brained, she's also clueless. She could have stayed home! She could have had the very time to herself that she claims she craves, and let Shawn deal with the kids for a day doing stuff which they all appear to love. What is wrong with her? Will she ever learn?!
And again with Shawn neglecting her in this regard! He could have suggested she stay home and take some self-time, but he insists that she come along. Why is she "carrying a thrashing toddler" and not Shawn? What’s he carrying other than self-satisfaction and a lack of respect for his partner? And why does she have to apologize to him for his complete lack of empathy for how his wife is feeling and what she's going through? Shortly after this, Holly is sitting at home, drinking beer "waiting for Shawn" (who's out mowing the lawn). What's up with that? What, exactly, is she waiting for? I remember thinking at that point that if Holly got off her waiting ass and mowed the lawn, that might take care of a pound or two for her right there. But they probably have a rider mower (which of course, only guys can ever use)….
Holly is most definitely the Beast of Burden in this marriage. Shawn isn't up making lunches and breakfasts for the kids, Holly is. Why does she see nothing wrong in this? Hey, did you know that the body works in 21 day "repair" cycles? No, I didn’t either. Nor do I believe it. Or maybe that's why Holly's periods are out of whack? I guess Holly didn’t reach the part of her self-help which asks if her partner is a dead weight! Instead, she affirms her commitment to him when one of her friends announces that she's separating from hers. This felt like some kind of con-trick to me - misdirect the mark and you get…Leverage! The distance from her husband in this story so far - they way she writes about him (or more revealingly, what she doesn’t write) reminds me of the words from REM's song, Losing My Religion "...the lengths that I will go to, the distance in your eyes...every whisper of every waking hour I'm choosing my confessions...".
Another tragically ignored issue here is still that Holly doesn't have a life. Her entire "life" is a function of the needs of others. She does nothing for herself. She has no job. She has no interests. She never reads (unless it’s psychically self-destructive glossy women's magazines - the ones which typically print the title of the magazine right over the part of the cover model's head where her brain ought to be - you know, above the part where her pores have been surgically removed?). Holly has no interests outside the home except for going on drunken binges with some girlfriends who are apparently doing worse in life than Holly herself is.
There's a third issue here which is unexplored, and which might be the most important of all. No one in the right mind would deny Holly the right to chose her path in life and do the things she feels she needs to do, but Holly isn't operating in a vacuum here either. She's a crucial and integral part of a family, and yet she's embarking upon these self-determined and rather destructive courses without discussing any of it with anyone in her family. This is really selfish of her. No, she can’t be expected to put her life on hold at the whim of others (although in many ways she's already done that), nor, as an adult, should she need to get permission to indulge herself in things which are important to her, but neither does she have the right to inflict suffering on her family on what’s really nothing more than whim and caprice, especially not with no sort of discussion at all with her husband. Are they partners or what? This is a real problem which is left unexplored in this novel. Holly isn’t guiltless here and she comes off looking rather selfish to boot.
But there are worse problems with these bullshit self-help books. They're pretty much always written by people who have no clue about biology or evolution. They're typically written by evangelicals who are self-deluded into thinking they’ve had some sort of personal epiphany which was granted to them and no one else, and they're convinced that their narrow, blinkered view of life can change the world. They also love to trail academic initials after their name. If you look at a book written by a honest-to-goodness doctor or scientist or some such, you never see them lard-up their name space with initials on the cover. Did Stephen Gould, Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, or Stephen Hawking ever trail initials after their name in any of the books they wrote? No. That's how you tell if the writer is honest or is merely a pretentious bullshit artist and poseur who's out to make a fast buck from a fast and loose book.
Yes, granted that the fictional Devi didn’t have initials after her name either, but she's committing another sin: she's presenting fiction as fact with unsupported and undocumented claims about cycles and organics. I'm not saying there isn’t a point in there; we could all lead healthier and more active lives than we do, but the one thing people who write like this persistently and advisedly avoid discussing is that people are healthier and live longer these days than ever before. Our primitive ancestors - the very ones who lived the life these neo-Neanderthals seek to drag us back into, lived short and brutal lives. Their children died by the score. Keep that in mind when planning any major lifestyle change. Having said that, then yes, eating healthier and exercising more is a good thing (as long as you don’t take it to extremes, and as long as you match it to your physical condition and age), but there's nothing evil in some occasional slacking on chores and aims, or in once-in-a-while cheating on your diet plan. The one unavoidable fact is that life is way too short to spend one minute of it being miserable.
Holly's cleansing was as amusing as it was absurd. I weep for women who are put through this by the shysters of this world, and all it would take to fix this is a good science education - the very thing we're screwing our kids out of as annual comparisons of student performance between the US and the rest of the world confirm year after year. Quite clearly the "success" of her cleanse was in that she's now done with it. But neither she nor the author of her travails can actually demonstrate that anything was cleansed - that the condition of her large intestine is any cleaner or healthier now than it was beforehand. It’s all in the head. The misery is over and it's no surprise that she feels so damned good! Duhh! Her yoga seems to server better, but even whilst she's admiring the changes she's wrought, she's still putting on "anti-aging" cream and having artificial extensions added to her eye lashes. Her inner goddess is no doubt dying of neglect at this point, starved of self-love, but maybe that bottle of champagne in mid week and drunk during the day will help? Seriously? Champagne on Tuesday morning? There will be more on her extravagances later!
It seems increasingly that Holly's problem is far less about mind than it is about body, and all of her self-image problems are really those imposed upon her by men: ass too large, breasts too small. Does that sound familiar? She pretty much abandons her budding self-sculpture in favor of once more sitting on her ass doing nothing while someone else works on her at a trip to a day spa. What a betrayal! She plans on spoiling herself rotten (if this alternate torture is your idea of being spoiled, that is) starting with a seaweed wrap (which used to be a food, now it’s a body adornment, apparently). There's absolutely no evidence that this does anything to remove 'toxins', but more to the point, didn’t she ought to be free of 'toxins' after all the 'cleansings' she's done?! Thanks, Holly, for admitting to us, if not to yourself, that those cleansings were a complete waste of time and money, and constituted nothing but a cruel and unusual punishment to yourself and your family.
A face peel is also on the agenda, which is cause for a face palm in my book. Yes, it’s an uncomfortable thought, but whenever you look at another human being, you’re looking at a dead person in the respect that the entire outer layer of skin is dead tissue! Scary thought huh: everyone's a zombie! But that skin is there for a reason as any student of evolution (which Holly definitely is not) will tell you, and if you peel it off, you're exposing the very tender skin underneath to all kinds of assault from, well, 'toxins' in the environment LOL! You're also exposing it to some serious UV irradiation from the sun. Besides, the entire 'fresh" outer layer of your skin that you just exposed will die and replace what you just peeled off. It’s a cycle, so you just wasted your money, Holly.
Hell, if you're so wealthy that you can toss money down drains, then go for it, but please do keep in mind that it isn't the toxic chemicals, or massage, or hot stones, or seaweed that's relaxing you, and making you feel better - it’s the lying around whilst someone fusses over you and makes you feel special that's doing the trick - something her partner and herself ought to be taking turns at doing for each other if he wasn't so preoccupied with his almost permanently away from home job, and she wasn't so self-absorbed twenty-four-seven. So once again we’re back to the poor quality of Holly's relationship with her husband! That's the one thing she (with very very few exceptions) is really making zero effort over. But this is before she mindlessly blabbers on about how important it is to work at a relationship, so maybe she gets it eventually? Nah!
Holly would never make a doctor or a nurse. When her son complains of stiffness in his elbow, it never once enters her head that he has a potential infection - she puts it down to "growing pains" and dismisses it without even offering so much as something to rub on it, or an aspirin, or even a hug. I know it's awful to coddle children excessively, but there are legitimate complaints which they get from time to time and she failed here. Worse, she then translates her pat non-diagnosis into fodder for her journal. I really started not liking her at this point. I’d already been turned off her for her clueless addiction to the fatuous non-science nonsense of homeopathy and to horoscopes (how many times does she claim she's a Libra?), but I never really and honestly disliked her until then. It’s all about her, which is the whole point of this novel, sure, but you know, a novel can be about someone without that person coming-off as self-centered, selfish and even stupid!
Holly needs seriously to read The Vagina Monologues or something along those lines; maybe then she wouldn’t use her remarkable and fascinating primary reproductive organ as the same sort of insult into which men turn it when using a well-known four-letter expletive in a derogatory way about women. The problem is that Holly is being equally clueless when she describes it as her "goddess center"! It’s probably a fact that women have an easier time discussing bowel functions than they do talking about, and actually looking at and appreciating, their vulva and vagina. Holly is a classic exemplar of this. She offered way TMI when discussing her urgent need to visit the bathroom when she was doing her three week cleansing, and she was hilarious when she described a person in front of her farting during her "hot yoga" (no, that's not what you think), but here, when it comes to something important, pleasant, even joyous, and rather interesting for a variety of reasons, she's all embarrassed and clams up (if I can get away with a common term which seems rather inappropriate in this context!)
It’s really sad that the fictional Holly is way too representative of way too many women. I appreciated that Colston included this section, and it actually did a lot to win this novel back into my favor after I started feeling a bit blah about it earlier, but unfortunately this good will wasn't to last.
Lindy, the yoga instructor is a wacko as the other snake oil sales women in this novel. She claims that cells hold memories which is pure, patent, undiluted, unadorned, unadulterated bullshit, and Holly of course, being who she is, swallows it whole. Yes, your cells hold DNA which can be considered 'memory' of a kind, but no, the overwhelming majority of your cells are not neurons so no, they don’t hold memories as we typically envision memories, the don't hold grudges, they don’t remember pain and suffering. But nonetheless, Holly buys this bullshit and cries all the way home thinking that suffering is her friend. In this, Colston undid all of the goodwill I had harbored for her too-hastily glossed over vagina non-monologue.
Holly's sole idea of "Goddess day" is to go blow a wad of money on products with which to pamper herself, so all I learned from this is that she's replaced one set of excesses (such as drinking an over-eating) with another set. It's all about money and this woman is spoiled rotten. How the hell would some poor working-class woman ever even begin to match what Holly takes for granted? At this point I had dropped this novel down on the scale to the level marked "DETESTATION" (yes in block caps). It's always all about Holly, which is really tedious after a while. But there is some unintentional humor in the irony of her behavior. Sometimes I wonder if Colston has written a parody here? If she had it would have been brilliant, but I fear that it's far more of an autobiography than ever it could be a parody. One big laugh was when self obsessed, looks-addicted, superficial and spoiled brat diva Holly has the gall to act in disbelief when her oldest son gets interested in a cheerleader! Honestly? Her measure in my eyes diminishes with every new page at this point, and it's about to really nose dive big time.
Well, I have read some sorry-ass reflections by Holly in this novel, but the truly saddest was on page 175. Note that this is Holly, who has never, ever, ever, EVER, EVER wanted for a dollar in this entire novel so far. Whatever she has selfishly wanted, she has gone right out and bought it without even considering asking Shawn if she can spend his money on it. She has never once hesitated. She has never once had to put something on lay-away or had to put off buying it until the next week or until the next month because of budgetary concerns. She has never once had to rent to buy a single thing. She wants a day at the spas? Call 'em up and book it for the next day, and give no thought to the cost. She wants a new guitar? Head off and spends $160 on one right there and then, and that's not including the gas to drive to a nearby town where they have a guitar shop. Guitar lessons? Go buy 'em, and spare no expense. She wants to drink champagne like it's mineral water? Go right ahead and forget all your vows on alcohol intake. She wants one product after another, she buys it. She wants designer clothes, she buys them. She wants to interrupt meditation by wondering if designer boots are on sale now it’s spring? Go for it! Never once has she thought a single thought about cost or selfishness. With that in mind, read this directly from page 175:
With a heavy heart, I thought about Africa and its many troubles. The disease, the poverty, the lack of water and sanitation, the kids who don’t get told they're loved every day. I'm no doctor or teacher. I don't know how build a school or give vaccinations. I don’t know how to design irrigation fields or harvest rice. I certainly don’t possess the spiritual savvy to tell a village who to worship or how. Nonetheless, I don't think you have to have a PhD when it comes to helping out. If I have no constructive skill to offer, I’d still love to go over there and give everyone I meet a high five.
I honestly lost count of how many shamefully clueless wrongs there are in that one paragraph, and I don’t know if Colston is really this utterly blind, unfeeling, and yes, stupid, or if this is some sort of snide commentary on how utterly blind, unfeeling, and stupid women like Holly are. Like I said, I kept wondering if I was missing a really good parody here, but it rang too true to autobiography to honestly feel like one - and having finished it, it proved to be no parody. Colston/Holly really is this clueless. Lets itemize a few issues here. Right after dissing the entire continent of Africa, she decides to scrap her "research project" and focus on having fun. I am not kidding you. Shallow much, Holly? "Kids who don’t get told they're loved every day"? And that only happens in Africa? She talks of Africa like it’s a country rather than a massive continent of hugely diverse peoples. Just how much of a train-wreck of racist, condescending, self-righteous bullshit can one women create?
She doesn't know how to build a school or give vaccinations? What, she can't learn or go volunteer as a pair of hands, and learn on the job? She doesn't possess the spiritual savvy to tell Africans who they should worship? Honestly? It's religion, for god's sake! It’s all made up by ancient dudes. What’s to know? And even if you did know, where the hell do you get off thinking that Africans need your input on that topic, you self-important bimbo? Hands that come open and ready to share the load will always achieve way-the-hell more than hands that pray tightly clasped together ever will. Yeah, give 'em all a high five, Holly, because that will fix everything and make all those poor African children feel so loved. I can't believe this paragraph. I have to go to the pharmacy and get some anti-nausea pills at this point so I can finish this novel and move on. This one paragraph may have succeeded in completely writing off this entire novel off for me. The only way Colston can save it now is to have Holly die horribly, or have her wake up from a coma.
As if that's not bad enough, Blind clueless Holly decides that the best way to deal with South America (which apparently only has one culture according to Holly's tunnel vision of the world), is to take up salsa dancing. I kid you not. Because when was it EVER about what she could do for someone else? never! It's always been about what she can do for herself. She "addresses" her ignorance of the cultural situation in Mexico by watching a soap on Telemundo which she doesn’t understand because it’s in Spanish. Eating an Indian curry (and getting diarrhea afterwards, because let's face it, turning into a an old trope is all that curry could ever be good for). Clearly spending money on feeding her face is going to have much more impact upon the world than sending that money to an Indian charity. That's her solution to the issues and political problems of the Indian continent which houses over a sixth of the world's population!
She "honors" Italy by pairing an Italian meal with a wine made from a grape originating in Croatia (Zinfandel)! I guess if she listen's to Pink Floyd's The Wall, it could probably take care of China, right? And so we'd have over a third of the world's population covered with just those two acts! She already wears a towel around her hair after a shower, so that has to have the Middle East covered, too, huh? A Popsicle now and then will take care of the Inuit. So we’re making some real progress now! Congratulations Holly. Despite her obvious wealth, Holly never does contribute anything to any charity or volunteer herself for anything that would help anyone but herself. I mean for goodness sakes, she could get books on the subject if she can't afford to go there or give to charities, or at least she could watch an educational show on TV, but now, her solution is a soap opera and really, that tells you everything you need to know about this shallow, unthinking woman.
This woman is so bizarrely bereft of any grasp of reality that she thinks nature - which has been described by others as 'red in tooth and claw' - is really much more like that depicted in a toddler's story book where all the animals get along and everyone is happy and contented. She believes there is no stress and that animals get what they need without asking. Honestly are there really people this stupid and if so how did they ever reach the age of 35? But then this is a woman who considers a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon to be "quality time".
Despite all her efforts towards fitness, when Holly decides to jog back from taking the kids to school, she can't handle it. Just how much training, exactly, has she done? Very little, it would seem. It's only five miles but it's sandy OMG! When she gets back home she complains that her legs are "less stable than a two-story Jell-O mold." What? her editor must have slept through this portion just like me. Someone needs to tell Holly (if it's supposed to be misspelled) or more likely Colston, that unless her legs were less stable than a Jell-O® mold which could tell only two tales, the word she was looking for has an e in it: 'storey'. She has the same problem with 'cut and dried' which she renders as 'cut and dry' which is close, but no cigar, even though that usage is indeed creeping into the language through people like Holly mangling the original term.
She goes on about how, in a storm, the branches of trees may thrash but the roots remain still. Clearly she wasn't in Austin a couple of months back when Onion Creek massively overflowed after torrential rain, and tore through a park wrenching up dozens of young Pecan trees. She clearly hasn’t thought anywhere near enough about Africa and its droughts - but hey, the dead roots remained in place, right? She hasn’t ever heard of a flood in Pakistan or forest fires in the US (but the roots stayed put even though the trees died, right?! She was clearly in a coma when the St Stephen's tsunami slaughtered a quarter million children, women, and men a few years back and tore up their world. Yes, sticking your head far enough into the sand that it deadens reality, and ignoring everything but the fluffy bunnies of life is the smartest way to go, and it's most definitely the lesson learned here!
On page 197 we get the most stupid question ever: is the glass half empty or is it half full? Well it depends on whether you're pouring something into it (in which case it’s half full) or whether you're drinking what you poured, in which case it’s half empty, dim wit! Duhh. But by all means, do go ahead and reduce people's psyches to dumb-ass metaphors if it makes you feel better about yourself.
BTW, there is no evidence that Einstein ever said "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used
when we created them" or its more rational variation: "Problems cannot be solved by the level of awareness that created them". This is a folk quote, but leave it to dumb-ass Holly to fail to actually comprehend even her own fake quote. She's trying to think of ways she can make an impact on a bigger scale than getting her face peeled, and she whines that she is the only one of her friends who recycles, and they bitch about each other in a bitchy way (because, let's face it, they're none of them nice women by Holly's own account), yet never once does Holly grasp the fact that right here is where she could make a difference: by persuading her friends to start recycling and asking them to persuade people they know in turn!
Instead of this, she resolves her global issues by deciding to be nice to a nasty-ass check girl. This is when idiot Holly has tun out of the house to get Gatorade for her sick kid who has stomach flu. Never mind that water is proven to work just fine for re-hydration, a fact which Holly ought to know from her exercising, let's give her stuff that by Holly's own admission has high fructose corn syrup in it! I guess Holly has no faith in those organic healthy foodstuffs after all. Way to go Holly. Now you have the entire globe single-handedly fixed, you can move on to the next clueless waste of time in your ridiculously shallow life. And if you say it's better to light a candle than curse the darkness, bring me the candle and I'll show you where you can light it up - assuming that location isn't as shallow as Holly Goincrediblylightly is.
This novel, which started out really rather interestingly despite some immediate issues, went so slowly and steadily downhill that I reached a point where I had to ask myself why in hell I was reading it, without really understanding how I'd ever let it go so far in the first place. So kudos to Colston for deluding me so successfully, but no, this novel is really boring after about the three-quarter mark, and where it isn't boring it's just plain stupid. But at least the amusement factor helps alleviate the boredom. For example, like when she asks "What does the word 'goddess' mean to you?" - well my answer to that is obvious: anyone who is decidedly not Holly! lol!
As for the first three-quarters, there are enough issues there to make it a dodgy prospect at best. Yes, there were parts I found endearing and entertaining, but ultimately it was never enough for me because i kept on hoping that this would go somewhere and it never did. Holly wasn't anywhere near enough to occupy my mind and get me interested. She was never enough to make me remember her or even want to! If I met Holly at a party I would be making excuses to get away from her pretty much as soon as she opened her mouth. In the final analysis, I really don't care two organic figs about Holly or her life or her lifestyle because there's nothing going on in her life that's merit-worthy. Really, nothing. As I mentioned before, it's all Holly, all the time, and in the most self-obsessed, selfish, clueless way imaginable. This woman is so delusional, so ignorant of reality, and so blinded to life that this whole exercise turns out to be a really good commercial for avoiding the very thing Holly (and by extension, Colston) is selling here! This novel is WARTY!
