Read in October 2010

Stick Figure, by Lori Gottlieb
As far as I can tell, it's difficult to write a memoir about anorexia nervosa without getting monotonously, aimlessly grim. This one is saved by the personality of the author's eleven-year-old self: a very sharp and insightful young person with some biting commentary on her own family, food/body/gender, and middle school social life. The text is based on her own diaries; I'd be very interested to hear how they were changed and added to to make this book. A short but thought-provoking read. Made me very glad that I did my growing up in the nineties and noughties rather than the seventies and eighties.

The Secret of the Old Clock, by Carolyn Keene
I was nuts for Nancy Drew when I was about eight (any of you in that club?), so this wasn't my first time reading through it. The used bookstall at the Saturday market had a shelf of first-edition Nancy Drews which were calling out to me so sweetly that I decided to (re)buy myself one a few weeks ago as a mid-semester bedtime treat. It was kind of fluffy and Nancy was slightly too perfect, of course—and there were some funny vintage-isms like:

"In spite of the expensive clothes she wore, she was anything but attractive, for she was tall and slender to the point of being termed 'skinny.'"

There's also a rather disturbingly stereotyped "Negro" character in one scene. (Childishly lazy and irresponsible, comically clueless, speaks in minstrel, has drinking problem.) Totally did not remember that part. Yikes. Weird to run into that on an otherwise nice read down memory lane.