Salad Love?????

Hello friends,

I know that it's been so long since I drunk book reported you. And I'm sorry! I've been mildly drunk or SUPER drunk recently. But never in the place to talk about the 4 books that I've read - UNTIL NOW.

Let's talk about the latest super awesome book from Blogging For Books, Salad Love by David Bez.

Let's start with the title. This title is fucking terrible. I'm sorry, but SALAD LOVE??? What, do you want,  your ass kicked?? Who even likes salads? NO ONE.

With that said, there's some pretty good recipes in here. I think I've made three recipes from this book so far. One is fucking amazing. I think about it all the time, AND THIS IS A SALAD WE'RE TALKING ABOUT.

Things that I like about this book:

1. There is a photo with every recipe.

2. There are a lot of recipes.

3. Every recipe has an alternative. "Oh, you don't eat meat? Here's a way to make this salad vegetarian friendly. Or fish friendly. I don't know your life."

I know I started this book report guns blazing, but I actually am crazy about this book. I plan to make every dinner for the rest of my life from this book. (Just kidding. That's a lofty goal.)

So let's talk about the three recipes I made.

The first was a pretty basic salad. (A basic salad for a basic bitch.) It had salad bits, fruit like peaches and blueberries, mint, walnuts and cheddar. It was fine. I would eat it again, but I wouldn't dream about it.

The next salad I made was more of a hot salad. It had potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, olives and pesto. It wasn't bad. I ate it three times. but I think it was missing something. Maybe cheese? Everything in my life is missing cheese.

Now, let's talk about the salad I loved.

It starts as a plate of greens. Pile on some jasmine rice. Cut up an avocado and throw on top. Then add a shit ton of chives. Oh hello, hard boiled egg. We're almost complete. We just need the dressing made of sesame oil, soy sauce and wasabi. Now you have a salad that people dream of and eat constantly. Fuck, maybe I CAN call this book Salad Love.

Now, I know this a short review, and I have three other books to talk about, but I am vacationing tomorrow so I need to keep this brief.

Have I talked about this book while drunk? NO, what am I? CRAZY? I don't talk about fucking salads when I'm drunk. I talk about real books. And pizza.

Would I recommend this book while drunk? That's a tough question because rarely, when myself or a friend is drunk, do I say, "FUCK YEAH THIS SALAD ROCKS! SPEAKING OF WHICH, HERE'S A BOOK ABOUT SALADS!!!"

I'm sorry, book, by my drunk standards you don't pass. But by my normal, trying to be healthy standards, YOU SOAR!!! SOAR EAGLE SOAR!!!!!

Ooh, and here are some photos of my salads. Don't worry, the first one is that bomb ass salad I have been referring to. The others you don't even need to look at.

Clean Slate or The Week I Tried Not To Drink Or Eat Anything

Hey Ya'll

It's drunk book review time! We're in the presence of another free book from bloggingforbooks.org: Clean Slate, A Cookbook and Guide, Reset Your Health, Detox Your Body, and Feel Your Best.

Side note, I used to work at Martha Stewart's magazine Body + Soul, or Whole Living, which is what it became after I left. There was this 21 day action plan where you basically cut out anything that tastes good, and I had done it then. This cookbook follows that idea, so why not the fuck try it again.

So, this cook book suggests you detox the shit out of your life. There's a 21 day plan wherein the first week you eat only fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, oil and seasonings. The second week you add in fish and gluten free grains. The third week you add in soy and eggs.

My life has been shitty lately. All I've done is work. When I say that, I mean that. I wake up, go to work, leave work, and go to sleep. I hadn't worked out in weeks so when I got this new cookbook in the mail, I decided to take it to heart. A 21 day detox seemed like the best way to get my life in order.

T-minus 1 day: I go to the grocery store and get shit for the first week. These are the recipes I picked out:

Apple Cucumber and Lemon Smoothie (Perfectly Fine)
Coconut Cherry Smoothie (Good!)

Beet, Avocado, and Arugula Salad with Sunflower Seeds (Good!)

Baked Sweet Potato with Greens (Not bad!)
Cauliflower "Rice" Stir Fry with Pumpkin Seeds (Good at first!)

Most of this stuff was super easy to make. The most difficult was the cauliflower rice, but it was really just throwing that into a food processor. Everything was pretty good for the most part. I was basically just eating smoothies and salads so there's not much to report here. I also was working about 15 hour days, so I can barely even remember what food (or anything) was at this point.

People kept asking me how it felt to give up all this shit and detox. Basically coffee is the hardest to give up cold turkey. I obviously missed getting wasted, but I could handle it. Being tired for four days until I got used to not drinking coffee, that was hard. Otherwise, I was so busy at work that by the time I got to eat, I didn't give a fuck what I was eating. That made for an easy detox. The first week flew by!

Second week though, that's where we are now, and clearly I'm drunk. I couldn't take it. I don't know if the food was bad, or it was week two and I just couldn't handle the food any more, but I hard core quit this shit.

Week two, I made:

Cardamom Quinoa Porridge with Pear (FINE.)
Roasted Vegetables with Quinoa (The worst thing I've ever tasted ever, I basically just threw this away every time I tried to eat it)
Buckwheat Noodles, Bok Choy, and Sweet Potatoes in Miso-Lime Broth (I admittedly fucked this up, and it was super terrible. Although, I don't believe this was a good recipe to start with. Did you know there is a such thing as white sweet potatoes?? I didn't, and I accidentally bought them. They're TERRIBLE. They're basically regular potatoes that are slightly sweet. This might have been better, had I used what the recipe called for. I will not blame Martha for this one.)
Black Cod with Herbs, Zucchini, and Whole Wheat Cous Cous (OMG, AM I EATING GARBAGE?!)

This shit was fucking terrible. Nothing I made this week was worth eating and I felt like dying anytime it was time to eat. This is why I quit. Not because I couldn't handle giving things up, like I said, I've done this detox before. No, I couldn't do it because the thought of eating this garbage from week two made me want to kill myself. I basically just threw everything I made this week away. BONUS, it's easy to lose weight when your diet plan is to make garbage and then just throw it away and eat nothing.

I don't know if I'd consider this cookbook a good one. This morning, I made another recipe from it, Fritatta with Spring Vegetables, but I improvised hard. Basically, I think this book is a good base, but if you stick to the recipes, it's garbage.

So would I recommend this book when drunk? No. No I wouldn't. I didn't enjoy anything I made from it. I wanted to vomit while eating most things. I don't think this is something the author of this book strived for.

Have I talked about this book while drunk? WELL THIS IS A TOUGH ONE. I didn't drink while using this book because I WAS ON A FUCKING DETOX. So I guess the answer is no. Had I been able to drink, would I have talked about this book? Well, the world will never know...


Oh, and here are some pictures of the food I made and what I looked like while eating it (not happy):

Spring Cleaning (Is It Spring Yet?)

We're going to make this VERY brief. It's 2:13am, I'm drunk, and I am not about to get super ranty.

So, I finished a bunch of books so far this year, and I've been very lazy about getting drunk. This is not to say that I haven't been drunk yet this year. The issue is that I've gotten TOO drunk and not been able to accurately discuss these books.

I have two more books to discuss here:

Pastoralia by George Saunders

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbably by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Let's discuss Pastoralia:

This collection of short stories was pretty great. They're all super weird, which I was not suspecting. The first story takes place in this weird, futuristic museum where these people pretend to be cavemen. There's another story that has this weird airplane strip club and a dead aunt that comes back to life and just wants to fuck. There's another that reminded me a lot of Scientology. I laughed a lot while reading these stories, and also felt really alone and sad inside.

I am not doing this collection justice, nor am I making an sense. I finished this book over a month ago and I'm also exhausted and wasted.

Let's cover the main parts here: Pastoralia was great. I'd recommend it drunk or sober and I've talked about it a bit, both drunk and sober. This boy I like, he also read this book recently and I tried to make him talk to me about it, but pretty much failed. I blame it on the fact that I don't think he cares much to talk to me in general though and that this has nothing to do with the book. GEORGE SAUNDERS THIS IS NOT YOUR FAULT.

Anyway, I'm excited to read more of you, Georgie Boy. A+.

Onto Black Swan or The Impact of the Worst Fucking Book I've Read This Year. Oh man. I fucking hate this book. Not worth my time or energy, that's for sure.

The theory itself is very cool and makes total sense. Basically, this dude is all, "You can't predict shit!" His theory is based on the fact that throughout time, everyone always thought there were only white swans in the world. And then one day, OH HELLO BLACK SWAN. And how all of life is like this, that you cannot predict anything because there's always something that you hadn't planned for, some big life changing fact. Yeah, I agree with that. We are not very good at guessing what comes next. Life is unpredictable. Okay, cool Nassim. He talks about how we use history to try to predict the future, but that history is not a good indicator of this. He uses this analogy about turkeys. Like, if for 355 days, a turkey was fed every day, on the 356th day, the turkey would assume that it's going to be fed again. Except that it's Thanksgiving so this turkey is going to be totally murdered. The turkey doesn't know this, this is an unexpected event, yadda yadda. Okay cool, Nassim I'm on board. I get it. And yet, 400 pages later, he's still using these little anecdotes and stories to try to convince me of this theory, even though I was on board from the beginning.

Imagine being at a party, and you're stuck talking to this lame ass dude. Let's call him Nassim. Nassim only has one thing to talk about, and while you agree with him, he just won't shut up about it. He goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on about it. He finds about 200 ways to tell you about it. This idea is not like, SUPER REVOLUTIONARY EITHER, but he spends HOURS trying to convince you of something you basically already agree with because you're not a fucking idiot. That's what reading this book is like.

At one point in the book, Nassim is like, "Hey, if you're not interested in the technical aspect of this theory, skip ahead!" And I was like THANK FUCKING GOD. Any time he suggested I skip part of his book, I did. Because I was miserable. All I wanted to do was find an excuse to leave this party and stop listening to him talk because OMG I GET IT. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT NASSIM, PEOPLE LIKE TRYING TO PREDICT SHIT. PEOPLE LIKE TO PRETEND THEY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT. PEOPLE LOVE TO BE RIGHT. AND BEING RIGHT ABOUT SHIT GET'S PEOPLE OFF, THAT'S WHY THEY DO IT.

OMG, readers, I'm sorry. This book makes me get super capsy, so let's cut this short. I've already lost one friendship over this book (RIP, Andrew. It was good while it lasted.), I don't need to lose anymore. (Side note: If you want to remain friends with me, only recommend good books. Don't be an asshole. Life is too short to read garbage).

Suffice to say, I will not be talking about this book while drunk (I'll mostly be yelling) and I will never ever ever recommend this book. This book is my Jake Gyllenhall. We are never ever ever getting back together, like EVER.

Knock Knock! Who's There? Moosewood Cookbook. Moosewood Cookbook who? Moosewood Cookbook Drunk Book Report!

WOAH READERS!

So here we are, another night, another drunk book report. I got another new cookbook! AND I MADE TWO WHOLE RECIPES FROM IT THIS TIME!!!

The first of the two recipes, I made SUPERBOWL SUNDAY (or let's call it LAMEbowl sunday because the worst team in the history of sports won and we're just going to gloss over that fact (especially because they're cheaters).).  This recipe was for SAMOSAS OMG.

The second of the two recipes I made a few nights ago for MOVIE NIGHT WHAT!!! (Movie night is this great thing where my BFFs come over, we randomly select a movie from a long list using a number generator and an artificial drum roll. This week the movie was BIRDMAN! (Let's just pretend that it's out on DVD so we can gloss over the fact that it was an illegal download.)) This recipe was EGGPLANT CURRY! (Less OMG.)

Let's start with the cookbook though. Moosewood is pretty cool. It apparently is from the 70's (Caution: Not fact checked). It's like, the definitive vegetarian cookbook from those times. All the recipes are hand written (or use a lovely faux handwritten typeface) and there are several illustrations throughout. This is a very lovely touch.

Overall though, I'm not crazy impressed with the food. Both dishes were FINE with a capital F (and I, N, and E). I ate them, but would not add them to the rotation or even recommend them to anyone else. The samosas were absolutely better than the curry, but I don't think that's saying much.

So let's talk process.

Lamebowl sunday, my BFF Jerrsica came by and I started making these little pockets of food. The dough was super easy and so was the filling. Once all that was ready, it was time to construct. I had to buy a FUCKING ROLLING PIN FOR THIS and roll out little balls of dough, fill with the mashed potatoes and then construct the samosa. This was a lot of fucking work. I don't think the juice was worth the squeeze.

Oh, and I kept calling them empanadas the whole day, because I'm a stupid drunk.

So yeah, constructing these little assholes was not fun and I felt exhausted by the time I finished.

We ate them and it was kind of a resounding, "These are fine, but not worth the effort put in. I'd rather just get a samosa at an Indian restaurant."

Next up is Eggplant Curry. After a long day at work, I rush home to make this food before my friends come over for movie night. Warning: this made a fuck ton of food. I had to beg my friends to eat it once they got there.

The recipe was pretty easy to follow. Basically just had to chop some shit, saute it and then was done. It was pretty good, Jerrsica seemed to like it. I enjoyed it eating that night. But then the next day, I ate it for lunch and ended up throwing it away. I don't know if it's the fact that my whole apartment smelled like curry for 36 hours and I just was sick of it, or what, but I don't care for this food. I have two more containers in my fridge that I gag thinking about. This is not a good sign. 

So yeah, overall, I have not been blown away. It's a shame because the book is BEAUTIFUL and there are a lot of delicious sounding recipes, but I'm just not impressed thus far. Maybe I didn't pick correctly (But you know, I don't want to blame myself here.), and I'm sure that I will try another thing from the book at some point, but MEH. 

So have I talked about this book while drunk? Nah, not really. I haven't really talked about this book at all though.

Would I recommend this book (while drunk)? This is, I think, the first book in the history of drunk book reports that I'm going to say: nope. Sorry, Mollie Katzen. I think we found a dud. I don't care WHAT the New York Times Best Seller list says. (Just don't tell them that. I really love the NYTimes and I don't want to disappoint them.) 

So there you have it. If I could sum this cookbook up in one phrase it would be: A basic cookbook for a basic bitch. 

OH I FORGOT: PHOTOS!!!

        

               

(This formation of images took be like, 25 minutes to make. I don't care how it looks.)

The Flamethrowers - Or How I Learned To Grow The Fuck Up

Here we are, back again, dear readers.

(I'm afraid this might be a very deep, sentimental Drunk Book Review. I have a lot of thoughts on this book, which I'm afraid are not going to come across below, as well as a lot of wine in my system. I apologize if this gets too sad and too real.)

Tonight, we have a wonderful installment, with a review of The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner. It was a NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER, WHAT! And a top ten best book of The New York Times Book Review in 2013. AND a National Book Award Finalist.

But enough acclaim, let's get down to brass tacks. This book is fucking fabulous. I felt like, from the second I picked it up to two weeks after finishing it (and beyond), that I was sucked into a whirlwind. The writing is superb. The story is ingenious. The characters are very real and very relatable. I loved this book so much, that after a week's break and 150 pages of reading, I decided that I "couldn't remember what was going on" just so I could start it over again. In fact, several times throughout the book, I'd use that excuse and re-read passages. To say this is one of the most impactful books I've read in recent history, that would be an understatement.

So, this book is super great. It's basically a coming of age story, one in which I felt like I was going through my own coming of age while reading it. The book follows this young woman, Reno, throughout her first year in Manhattan. She just graduated art school and moves to New York to become an artist of the West. She's interested in land art, motorcycles and incorporating her speed into her art. She falls in with a group of artists through her much older boyfriend Sandro, who is the heir to a major Italian motorcycle company, Valera. Through his connections, she returns West to race across the salt flats and ends up crashing her motorcycle. She injects herself with the Valera crew while recovering and ends up racing for them to break the female speed record. They hire her as a model for the company. She returns to New York and Sandro is unhappy with her new role and disapproves of her plans to join the company in Italy. Ultimately they decide to go, tragedy strikes and she ends up following a Valera employee through the riots in Rome, forcing Reno to begin to think for herself and grow the fuck up.

The story is crazy captivating. In the beginning it goes back and forth between the history of the Valera family and Reno's arrival in New York. There's also this really cool mixture of fact and fiction that makes this all feel so real. And having lived in New York as a young woman, fresh out of college, I felt like I could relate. Particularly to the beginning. The author has a perfect way of describing the loneliness of moving to a big city when you're young and lost. Every moment has the opportunity to become something, the city surging around you, while you're completely isolated.

Another aspect of this book that I very much loved was the relatability to Reno. She's this young girl that's still finding herself, and despite the author's strong voice, is very passive. I felt insanely frustrated with her, as I've been with myself throughout my life. She kind of lets these situations happen to her, follows these men into both success and imminent danger and acts as more of a silent observer in her own story. Finally, in the end, she begins to realize that she has her own voice and takes control of her life. The narrative kind of takes on this idea, interrupting her story frequently to jump back to a man's story. Even in the end, her boyfriend Sandro hijacks the narrative and tells his side of the story. As a feminist, I hate this, but I also see the point of it and love the stylistic choice.

(Speaking of feminism, this is a side rant. I read this article that talked about how some consider this book to be a Great American Novel, while others trivialize it, simply because it's a woman writing it. A great point is brought up that when women write about certain themes, they're considered not worthy, but when men write about them, they're celebrated. (Like love.) Total and utter bullshit. This novel is a great american one. It absolutely speaks for a generation, who gives a fuck about whether that generation is mostly women. Don't women take up a majority of the population anyway? (Check out the article: http://www.salon.com/2013/06/05/rachel_kushners_ambitious_new_novel_scares_male_critics/))

Back to the novel. The men in this book are all big giant idiots. But also very common in real life, I know oh so many of them. All the characters, really. I think this is my favorite part about the book, that I know every single character mentioned here. I've met them, fell in love with them, hated them.

The pretentious artists. The New York Characters (with a capital C).

Giddle, the best friend and enemy. The one-woman show.

Sandro, the older gentleman that is looking for someone that is completely and utterly devoted to him. The man that is manipulative and secretive, and as Kushner puts it, "A man who apparently loved women so much he had cheated on [them] the moment it was convenient to do so."

Ronnie. He's my favorite. The self centered man-child that only thinks of himself. He treats his lovers as indisposable things and refuses to think of them as anything other than objects. The most hurtful thing that I've ever read in literature, and only because it's a reality with these types of men:

Sandro was looking at a snapshot of a woman staring intently at the camera, young and blond, and clearly smitten with her picture taker.
"That's not part of my show."
"Just something for you to look at," Sandro said.
"Something for me to look at. Pretty in the face, as they say... I'm keeping her on layaway," Ronnie said, "a layaway plan. She's on reserve, held for me, and I pay in small increments."

It was heartbreaking to follow such a smart young woman remain a secondary character in her own story. It was killer to follow her losses, her missteps, her heartbreaks. There are so many instances throughout the novel where Reno is simply observing and listening to men talk about their thoughts and ideas. Being within her head, the reader is able to see that she has much smarter thoughts and ideas than any of these men. Watching this character grow up through the course of close to 400 pages, I think has helped me to do so as well. I'd like to be more active in the story of my life. And isn't that what a great novel is supposed to do? Keep you captivated, impart some knowledge, and change your life?

COCKTAIL TIME, BITCHES!

Oh shit readers! I wrote this drunk book review last night and TOTALLY FORGOT TO POST IT. I was definitely too drunk to be writing a drunk book review, but hey that's the point right? Good thing that I'm still drunk today so I can post it!

So, my latest book review is of The Essential Bar Book, another wonderful addition to my library from the all wonderful bloggingforbooks.org. Yes, it is a cocktail book and yes, this post is another excuse to drink with my friends!

After attending a very boozy brunch with the Jerrsicas, we reconvene at the apartment and I say, "HEY GUYS, LET ME MAKE YOU SOME SPECIALTY COCKTAILS!"

But let's talk about the book for a second. The book is pretty good, it explains a lot of bar terms and has hundreds of recipes. The design of the book is nice and elegant. It totally feels like it belongs in The Great Gatsby, which, hey! I love! (THE BOOK, NOT THAT HORRENDOUS MOVIE). However, I don't like the fact that there are no pictures in the book. I think that any book with recipes should have pictures. Also, the organization is kind of stupid. It's not based on ingredients or types of alcohol; it's alphabetical. "Oh I want to make a drink with gin!" Let me go through the entire book and see what recipes call for gin. Kind of stupid.

Regardless,  I tried for so many weeks to pick a cocktail and make a drink for friends or family. You would think that his would be easy. It was not.

My family are a bunch of alcoholics; I grew up in bars. No, seriously, I grew up in bars. So when I went home for the holidays, you'd think that me announcing that I needed to make a cocktail for everyone, that would go over well. No, I just got drunk off of red wine and Jameson for two weeks.

So here we are, two weeks later. The Jerrsicas are over and thirsty.

It actually took a while to pick out a cocktail. This had been done over the course of a few days. I had Jerrisca pick out some recipes that sounded good, we picked two and got all the ingredients for those. Oh, side note. Bevmo is the best. I went the other evening and got the ingredients for one drink,  which actually worked for several.

So, my friends come over and I start by making everyone THE EL PRESIDENTE.

The El Presidente is a rum based drink, a cuban drink. It calls for a coupe glass. I don't have one of those. I have several water glasses, a wine glass, and a glass I stole from a bar on a terrible date. I absolutely needed to take my bourbon to go that night. These glasses work for all drinks in the book, no matter what the recipe calls for, because I am not some kind of richie rich with a hundred different kinds of glasses.

People talked about how RUMMY the El Presidente was. We watched football while we drank and it seemed to go by pretty quickly. Everyone seemed to like it, but thought that it was strong. Jerrsica thought that the drink was a pretty color!!

So yeah, the El President was strong. Super strong. But we powered through.



Then I made the Bees Knees. It was super ginny. Nothing special. So far though, it was everyones' favorite, because they liked the honey (thank you Culver City Famers Market.). We started playing games, so that probably helped. Oh, it should be noted that everyone is probably FALL DOWN DRUNK AT THIS POINT.

The last drink I made was for sure the best, The Clover Club. Everyone thought it was super delicious and wanted to drink ten thousand of them. I was nervous about this one because of the egg white, but it was a huge hit. It was probably the easiest too. It was just like, mashed up raspberries, sugar water, lemon juice and gin? I think? I don't know, it tasted like heaven. And Jerrsica and I beat the Jerrsicas in Cranium, so that probably helped.

Overall, I think the cocktail making was a success.

So, would I talk about this book while drunk? Yeah. I mean, similar story to the rest of the reviews, once I needed to write the review, this book was all that I could talk about. I even offered my sisters' bartender boyfriend a guest spot on my blog if he helped me execute and write this review.

Oh, the other ranking is would I recommend this book while drunk. The answer is yes, OBVI. If someone is drunk and looking for a drink, I would totally tell them to check out this book to learn how to make ANY DRINK EVER. Or I would just tell them to go to a bar and order one.

The first ever of it's kind: A drunk book review of Moby Dick

OMG! Looks like Sunday Funday accidentally turned into Drinkday Thinkday!! Is that a thing? I don't think that it is, but it makes sense to me.

ANYWAY, I accidentally drank too much this evening, but looks like it's a win/win because now I can finally review Moby Dick!!

So, I've been reading this book for the past month, and finally finished it a few days ago. Boy was that a chore. Can I just say, that movie Matilda is a total liar. THERE IS NO WAY THAT EIGHT YEAR OLD READ THIS BOOK. I DON'T CARE HOW MANY SUPER POWERS SHE HAD. This is the biggest lie that I have ever witnessed, and I'm pretty sure that it was a deciding factor in me reading this book. "Oh, a fictional eight year old has read it? I can handle it."

Boy, was I mildly wrong. This book is a TOUGH READ. And I like tough reads. I chose to read Infinite Jest during the most drunk year of my life. This book, this book was a way different story.

Ishmael the narrator, incase you've been living under a rock, describes in great detail, so so many things about whales throughout the story that I almost feel like an expert. This book was really hard to get through because of so many digressions. The whole book, I kept thinking about that scene in Catcher in the Rye. DIGRESSION!!!!!! (If you don't know what I'm talking about: READ A FUCKING BOOK.)

But, regardless of the interruptions, and the difficulty of the story, this was a great book. I understand why it's a classic. It was SO MODERN. I remember when I first started it, I was so impressed by how current the language felt. It's totally understandable that this book was ignored in it's time, because it was far too fragmented, it hardly reads like a novel. But that was one thing that I dug about the way it was written, that it jumped around so much. It was super cool, going from narrator to soliloquy to scientific study. It almost felt like reading a thousand books in one.

Plot wise, though, I struggled. There were too many interruptions for me to get borderline obsessed with this book. (I mean, for being called MOBY DICK, where the fuck was the title character? After 400 of 450 pages you finally show your face??? FUCKING RUDE.) I definitely hoped for more excitement. Up until the very end, not too much has happened. Yeah, you guys killed a bunch of whales that don't have books named after them. SUPER COOL.

Still though, I enjoyed this book. The language was incredible. The themes were impressive. I liked all the metaphors too. After I finished this book, I read that it's basically what you want it to mean, that that's why this book is so impressive, that it's just a shell of a lesson. And that really resonated with me, because the book can really be about anything. To me, it's basically about the limits of knowledge. Think about the whale, there is only so much that they know about it, they can only see the surface, yet there is SO MUCH really there. Think about anything in your life: this totally applies.

When I think about the meanings, or how impressive the language is, I like this book. I mean, isn't that why it's a classic? But it was still difficult to read and it felt like a chore. I like the idea of this book more than I actually liked it... (Honestly, I feel like I shouldn't be saying this out loud/in print. THIS IS A GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL AND I'M BASHING IT. DON'T CALL HOMELAND SECURITY. I'M NOT A TERRORIST. OF THE 10 G.A.N.s I'VE READ, I'M OBSESSED WITH THE REST.)

...So onto the ratings:

Did I talk about this book a lot when drunk? Yes. I talked about this book a lot, period. I wanted so badly to finish it. And I complained a lot about it. It was so long and so dull and so time consuming. Oh god, all of those interruptions about whale bones... everyone in my life heard about those. Yet...

Would I recommend this book when drunk? Yes. I mean, to a certain extent. It would depend on the person to whom I was recommending it. Do they like to read? (Really, do they??) Do they like to read difficult books? Do they like the sea? If they're looking for the next Twilight, then no, I wouldn't recommend this book. (Although, why the fuck am I talking to this person? We clearly are not friends.) But if they want a challenge and to read a classic and to love life a little bit more, than yes. Yes, I'd recommend Moby Dick.

THERE, I DID IT! I READ AND REVIEWED MOBY DICK. GOD, I FEEL LIKE AN INCREDIBLE HUMAN BEING!

Now back to books that don't feel quite like a chore.