Mommy Brain

I haven’t finished reading a book yet in 2008 (can you tell we started school up again? Plus I got hooked on Season 3 of Grey’s Anatomy), but I have finished listening to two audiobooks:

The first was Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin, read by Martin himself. I enjoyed it, but I wish it had been longer. I’m hoping he’ll write another memoir that picks up where the book leaves off, which is at the end of his stand-up career and the beginning of his movie career.

Martin does a great job of describing his early jobs in entertainment and his stand-up career. His descriptions of the energy a person feels when performing live were spot-on and made me miss my theater days in college. He also deals with the fact that a celebrity’s public persona is not who that person is, and how lonely that made him feel at times. People expected the “wild and crazy guy” - and got a serious intellectual instead. I’m sure it was horrible to feel like you disappointed everyone you met. Unlike a lot of celebrity “authors,” Martin can write. For an even better example, check out his novel Shopgirl. (Two other celebrities who can write very well, and whose memoirs are worth reading or listening to, are Alan Alda and Sidney Poitier.) Three out of five stars.

I finished listening to Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult this morning. It was un-put-down-able. I can always tell when this happens with an audio book, because I find myself doing extra chores - or not procrastinating at the regular ones - because I want to get back to listening to it. And I don’t just sit and listen to an audiobook - that would be silly. The whole reason I listen to them is because I can “read” while I’m doing other mindless things like folding laundry and washing dishes. (Just be careful if you’re listening to a murder mystery while doing the dishes, because if your husband walks up behind you and touches your neck, you can actually jump through the ceiling. Trust me.)

In Perfect Match, Picoult deals with the issue of child molestation. Nina Frost is an assistant prosecuting attorney who specializes in child rape and molestation cases. She is frustrated by the way our justice system is designed to protect the accused, often at the expense of the child victim. When her own child is raped, she is faced with a choice: do I take matters into my own hands, or do I trust this imperfect justice system when it comes to my own 5-year-old son?

There are so many thought-provoking issues in this book, and just when you think you know where it’s going, there is a hairpin turn in the plot, and you’re left breathless. The only thing that kept me from giving it five stars is Picoult’s tendency to get a little over-the-top with her metaphors, something I also noticed in Nineteen Minutes. I like metaphor - when it works. Some of hers don’t. Four out of five stars.