Assaggio Roma

BUNOA NOTTE!!!

Ciao, lettori! Io ho un libro di cucina, di nome TASTING ROME. Il cibo é delizioso.

Okay, THAT WAS EXHAUSTING. I'll pepe some Italiano throughout this blog post, but Io non scrivo the entire thing in Italiano.

So yeah, Io ho un libro from Blogging for Books called Tasting Rome and I decided ubriocare and make some cibo from it questa sera.

Questo libro looked bellissimo online, and it totally lived up to expectations. Le immagini are spectacular. Io amo the mix of photos di Roma and of il cibo. It depicts la citta that Io amo well.

Once I got un libro, I was uncertain of what cucinare. All of the recipes seemed so great, but very complicated. I wanted to make pizza, but the dough had to sit for OVER VENTIQUATTRO ORE. That just seemed like way too much commitment per me. There was this pasta recipe that sounded really delicious: Ajo, ojo, peperoncino, e pomodori arrostiti. HOWEVER, then Io leggo the description and saw that it is also called "pasta dei cornuti" or THE CUCKOLD'S PASTA. Italian folkore says this pasta is served by cheating wives who do not have time to prepare a proper cena per their husbands. BEING A FEMINIST, I CERTAINLY non cucino this meal. (FUCKING DAGOS.)

I settled on Cacio e Pepe and una insalata con hazelnuts e pecorino. The Cacio e Pepe was super easy to make, it was basically just cooking pasta, grating formaggio, and mixing it all together. It has great flavor, basically like FANCY mac and cheese. La insalata was even easier. I just had to toast the hazelnuts and then throw all the shit together with some olio e succo di limone.

DOPO CENA, I decided to make un cocktail called Cinquieme Arrondissement. It was made with gin, St. Germain, and vino rosso. Or, in altro parole it was FORTE AS FUCK. It was also un bellissimo drink, e molti colori. And now, here we are, very drunk.

So, would I recommend questo libro? Si, il libro é bellissimo. Il cibo é bene e il bevande é forte.

Would Io parlo about questo libro while drunk? Probably. Although, I'm not sure if I would parlo in Italiano. Parlare in Italiano e un difficile especially while drunk.

Here, look at alcuni immagini:

   

USOJ BY PETER BERGEN

Okay, I want to preface this drunk book review by saying that I am not a terrorist nor do I support terrorism. I feel like I need to state this because it's KIND OF HARD to get on the internet, while drunk, and talk about terrorism. But I got this cool book, United States of Jihad from BFB and well, my blog is what is, as my Grandma would say. BUT, I am ALL ABOUT making America great again. And I do NOT mean that in the sense of, "Hey, let's all vote for Donald Trump!" Because THAT guy, he's a fucking terrorist.

Fuck, we're off to a really bad start. I feel like my whole preface is basically what a terrorist would say to make people think he's not a terrorist. I'm now on like 100 watch lists, and so are you. It's a good thing I'm not a terrorist. Terrorist is really hard to type whilst drunk. Too many Rs.

Let's get down to brass tacks. This book is pretty good. I saw Bergen give an interview about this book on the Daily Show a few weeks back, so I was excited to see what he had to say in long form.

The premise is home-grown terror and the spread of ISIS. (P.S. FUCK ISIS, they're the worst. You can't trust anyone without a sense of humor.) An interesting concept, especially with the upcoming election. If you watch any GOP debate, they're all for getting rid of all Muslims, and especially preventing any from coming to the country. But what's interesting about this book is how many terrorists are actually American. Born and raised in the good old U. S. of A.

The history of ISIS is pretty interesting and hearing about what they've done with social media is crazy. I still don't understand why any of these idiots would give up their lives based on a tweet, but there's a lot I don't understand about idiots in general.

The thing I found most interesting and that has been most stuck in my brain since finishing the book is the whole idea of entrapment. Bergen says that most of the planned terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11 have been through the FBI. Basically, they think someone is a terrorist, befriend them, plan an attack and get them to follow through so they can arrest them. It's definitely a gray area. On one hand, I can see the benefit of tricking these people into proving their guilt. Hey! They're (suspected) terrorists after all! On the other, would they have gone through with any of it without that push? Bergen presents some cases that cast serious doubt.

Another thing that I found interesting was the very first story in the book. It's about a young Muslim kid from Chicago that gets caught in the airport trying to leave America to join ISIS. He's arrested at the airport and convicted of terrorism. Around the same time, a very similar situation happened with a young white girl in the states, but the FBI contacted her parents several times before she was arrested, trying to talk her out of it. A whole point was raised about why the Muslim kid was not given the same treatment, why the FBI did not try to use his family to change his mind. The book definitely raised some issues that I would never have thought about, some sympathies with young people that maybe could have had a different outcome. FUCK, see what reason can do to a person???

The most upsetting thing to me was reading about a lot of the inadequacies of our current system. Most of the successful terrorist attacks have been, in some way, predicted or the government has been warned. And in almost all cases, someone from the terrorist's community or family was the one to do so. This is particularly upsetting because of the right-wing nut jobs' attacks on the Muslim community. Ted Cruz's recent schpiel about monitoring the communities, or the entire party's demands to ban Muslims seems unfounded when you look at the evidence. The Muslim community is like any other community, hoping to keep people safe, but they're mostly ignored when they try to help.

The end was a little strange to me though. I enjoyed reading the book, it was really well written, and each section lead with an interesting story, and then created a theme around that story, whether it be social media, or community, etc. However, the last section really veered off course. Bergen dropped the discussion of terrorism, saying that you're so much more likely to die from a mass shooting than you are a terrorist attack, and then began to push his agenda. And hey, I completely agree with his agenda, it just felt a little bizarre. Guns are bad, there are a lot of wack jobs in this country killing a lot of people, more so than ISIS. Bergen, we're totally in agreement. But if you wanted to write a book about gun violence and legislation in America, just do that. No one was holding a gun to your head. (OOOOOOOOOH SEE WHAT I DID THERE!)

However, it did leave me with one amazing stat: "Since 9/11, extremists affiliated with a variety of far-right-wing credos, including white supremacists, antiabortion extremists, and anti-government militants, have killed around the same number of people in the United States as have extremists motivated by al-Qaeda's ideology. As we have seen, by the end of 2015, forty-five people have been killed in jihadist terrorist attacks in the United States, while right-wing racists and antigovernment militants had killed forty-eight."

THAT IS SOME INSANE SHIT. But yeah, Muslims are the problem, not right-wing extremists that tout their second amendment right. SUUUUUURE.

I don't know. I get that terrorism is extremely dangerous, and no one wants another 9/11, but some of the measures that have been used to catch so called terrorists, based on what I've read in this book, seem sketchy as fuck. And some of the means to actually stop ALL kinds of terrorism, seem to be routinely ignored. After reading this book, I just wanted to mail it to every single Republican out there. They clearly all need some education.

Soooooo, would I talk about this book while drunk? I don't know, it's hard. I've been putting off this book review because I'm afraid it's going to put me on like every Homeland Security list. Terrorism is a tough topic, especially when you lack basic motor skills due to massive wine consumption.

Would I recommend this book while drunk? Dude, it was a super easy book to read and it was less than 300 pages. If you're interested in learning about home-grown terror, why the fuck not? I would definitely recommend it to any right-wing nut job in my life. HAHAHA JUST KIDDING, I DON'T ASSOCIATE WITH THOSE TYPES.

Fuck, that was an INTENSE book report. Terrorism really kills... one's buzz.

Thomas Jefferson: Our Most Scumbaggy President

Hello again, readers,

Fuck, twice in one night, we should all be so lucky!

I'm here to discuss my latest Presidential biography: American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis. To begin, I'm super drunk and having a REALLY hard time typing this. However, I have a lot to say about TJ and so am hoping to do so in a timely and sophisticated matter.

FUCK THOMAS JEFFERSON.

I'm sorry, but he was a huge piece of shit. I know that I'm only 3/44, but I'm pretty sure he was our worst President of all time. AND WE HAD THIS GUY NAMED GEORGE W. BUSH IN OFFICE FOR EIGHT FUCKING YEARS.

TJ was terrible. There's not a lot known about him as a youngster, but I'm pretty sure that is because he was the devil incarnate and burnt down all his records himself (I know this isn't true, but bear with me, I'm hammered.) As a young dude, he rode into Philly and became part of the Continental Congress. Basically, no one wanted to waste their time writing the Constitution. Like, John Adams (swoon!) was assigned with the task, and he was all, "Yo, I'm too busy with important shit, let's just have some underling write it for us. It's NBD." And here, entering onto the scene is TJ. He was known for having a really eloquent writing style, and so he was given the job.

At the time, the Constitution didn't mean shit. This only mattered to TJ because he was always blowing smoke up his own ass. From there, he became the Governor of Virginia where he didn't do shit and ran away from the Brits during the army like a little bitch.

Then he was sent abroad as an ambassador, like John Adams, and they became super tight and hung out all the time. John Adams helped him administer some cool deals, and it was a good few years.

Except during this time, TJ was still kind of a piece of shit. He was ALL ABOUT the French Revolution. He thought that government was TERRIBLE and that all these people revolting was a good thing. And I mean, I see that, at that time, it could be construed as a good thing, the people standing up for themselves. But people's HEADS WERE BEING CHOPPED OFF and it definitely lived up to its name as the REIGN OF TERROR and TJ should have never condoned that shit. He had his head so far up the collective Frenchman's ass that he could have never looked at that shit objectively.

Regardless of all that shit, he gave up on France and he returned home. And he kept knocking up his wife and so she died from complications during childbirth and he became super depressed. He didn't do shit for a long time until GDUBS basically begged him to be Secretary of State because everyone was worried he was going to kill himself.

Pretty cool, he was the FIRST Secretary of State. But he didn't really do too much. His big contributions were moving the capital to Virginia and dropping out of the cabinet because he couldn't take the heat. Both of which had to do with his hatred for Alexander Hamilton.

After he knew GDUBS wouldn't be in the White House anymore, he started to put his name out there for Prez. Even though his BFF John Adams was running. This proved to be a huge issue for the two of them and caused a huge rift in their friendship. And TJ was a dick, he would write nasty things about him in the papers, anonymously and basically be an asshole.

John Adams won though, and TJ had to act as his veep. He continued to treat his friend and superior like shit, and he didn't do anything as veep. REAL STAND UP GUY, THAT TJ.

THEN, after John Adam's first term, he devised this huge plan to get himself elected. He shit talked the President, worked with all the Republicans and turned most of the Federalists against John Adams, so he'd be elected. He actually BARELY beat John Adams and was TIED with Aaron Burr. So, like, the huge blight on our early years could have TOTALLY BEEN AVOIDED.

As President, TJ didn't do FUCKING SHIT.

Okay, Louisiana Purchase. But like, Napoleon GAVE that shit to him. Napoleon wanted money and knew we wanted the land so basically was like, "America, HERE YOU GO." TJ is totally revered for the LP, but like, if I found $20 on the street, we wouldn't be talking about how great of a President I was!

His other big accomplishment was lowering the Debt. But that was more his cabinet than what he had to do with it. AND, not that big of a deal. Tackling the National Debt is not something you need to devote your entire Presidency to.

Otherwise, he did some shitty things as Prez. He was fucking terrible to the Native Americans. He was like, "You can stay in our country, but you have to become white. If you don't, we'll destroy you." People give Andrew Jackson a bad rap when it comes to the NAs, but TJ started it all. But you know, he was a dirty fucking racist, so it's to be expected.

He disbanded the Navy which totally FUCKED him over because when France and GB went to war later, we had nothing to protect us. AND AND! When they did go to war, all these issues arrived with trade, and because he was a stubborn fucking dumbass, he issued an embargo on all trade that basically fucked us all in the ass. At that point, he had to basically give up the presidency to Madison, because he was so incompetent.

After his second term, he went back to Monticello and chilled out. He let Adams apologize to him, even though he should have been the one apologizing, and they wrote each other tons of letters in their twilight years like best bros. But throughout these letters, he was a stubborn prick. Adams should have just cut him out, but I get it, HE JUST COULDN'T QUIT HIM. TJ also worked on building UVA and some other projects as an old man, so you know, ACTUAL BENEFITS TO OUR SOCIETY. (Except that, these days, UVA is known for their rape scene. Coincidence? I think not.)

He died within a few hours of his Best Bro Forever, John Adams, on the fucking Fourth of July. It'd be super badass, if John Adams didn't do it first. (Note, TJ actually died first, but like, fuck that dude. John Adams was way better, so I'm putting this as a win in his column. He needs it.)

So like, reading all of this, he wasn't SO BAD. Kind of a shit President, but not a terrible human being... BUT WAIT.

TJ's WHOLE FUCKING LIFE was built around slavery. He came from SO MUCH money, and he had a gazillion slaves. The reason I respect John Adams is because he came from nothing and built what he had by himself. TJ was born into money and had a ton of free labor and STILL couldn't keep his fucking finances together. He was fucking dirt broke all his life and wrung up a MASSIVE debt. TO THE EXTENT THAT ONCE HE DIED THEY SOLD OFF ALL HIS BELONGINGS AND SLAVES TO PAY OFF HIS INSANE DEBT.

He was also a huge fucking hypocrite. He wrote in his original draft of the Constitution that King George was to blame for the slavery problem in America. No dude, it's people like you. He wrote all the time about slavery being an issue but had no problem with having millions of slaves at his mansion. And like, he KNEW that he should free them, but there was no way he could keep profits on his farm without them, so he kept fucking them over.

Not to mention, the whole fucking thing about him sleeping with his slaves. I mean, Ellis didn't seem to think that this was an issue or even a bad thing. He called it a RELATIONSHIP with Sally Hemings. But I'm sorry, when your "GIRLFRIEND" is a piece of PROPERTY there is no way that it's not rape. And the fact that for centuries his family lied about it trying to keep it quiet is disgusting. UGH. I hate TJ.

AND AND, the audacity of this author to say he treated his slaves well was just fucking disgusting. I hated this fucking author. He had such a hard on for TJ that no matter how disgusting TJ was, Ellis just let it slide and said that's how his mind worked. It's like, no, the dude was a piece of shit. Don't praise him.

TJ's whole shpeel was to say one thing, but act a completely different way. Ellis saw this as a very tactical approach to being a politician, but I saw it as being a huge fucking dick wad that doesn't deserve the respect that people pour onto him. He was one of those people that didn't think the federal government should exist, didn't want it to have any power, but wanted to be the center of it. AND then once he was the center of the federal government, would abuse the power when it benefited HIM. It was sick. He was such a fucking hypocrite in every single sense.

I hate that these days, people look back at him as this wonderful founding father. Yeah, he was part of the times, but the country would have been better without him. He was a terrible, no good, piece of shit hypocrite. John Adams was our best founding father and most people think he was a power grubbing sociopath. It's really sad. He was the only one that had the American people's best interest at heart, not his own.

So, after my GIANT rant, let's get into ratings:

Would I talk about this book while drunk? Yeah. A lot. I seriously am on SUCH a Presidential biography kick. And it's all I want to talk about. When I sidle up to a stranger at a bar, I'm all, "What are your thoughts on Thomas Jefferson?" I also find that it's SO relatable to the current political scene, that I'm really happy to be reading these biographies around this time.

Would I recommend this book while drunk? No. I kind of wish that I had picked another TJ biography. This author CLEARLY loved TJ beyond reason. He skipped or glossed over any indiscretion and I felt like it wasn't a really accurate depiction of TJs life. Like, the concept of focusing on a few different periods of his life was cool, but there wasn't even a section on his SECOND TERM. THAT'S FOUR YEARS, BRO. His writing style was nice, but all my notes in the margins were arguments with the author, and that's not how I like to read books.

Well, thank you readers, for listening to my endless rant about Thomas Jefferson, our first piece of shit President. I hope to read Madison soon so that we can discuss. Au Revoir.

Tabasco* Cookbook

Hello readers!!

I just got done with a successful and super fun dinner party! I recently received a cookbook of the Tabasco* persuasion from Blogging for Books, and, let's face it, it was pretty fucking great.

So, my upcoming week is going to be shitty. I'm basically going to be running shit and have an insane deadline SO I figured I might as well have an awesome weekend leading up to it, including getting drunk on a Sunday. I invited my cousin, my high school friend and his girlfriend over for dinner and drinking.

I received the new book on Friday and was SUPER excited about it. There are so many different kinds of recipes: breakfasts, desserts, sauces, entrees, appetizers, drinks, I didn't know what to pick! But, I had to sit down and figure out what to make for my friends.

I decided to make two things for dinner and a dessert because I couldn't pass up a dessert made with hot sauce. I decided to make Scallops in Double Pepper Sauce and the Hot Damn Pesto over Pasta and for dessert the Peppery Gingerbread.

I started drinking immediately today because, fuck this week. And I had a big day of cooking ahead of me. Cousin showed up and then friends showed up almost instantly after (they weren't expected for another hour). Cousin was supposed to bring an electric mixer for the dessert, but forgot, so she was in charge of mixing it by hand. I think besides that, the dessert was SUPER easy, but she was occupied for a while.

Pesto is super easy to make, you just throw a ton of shit in a food processor and throw it over pasta. The scallops were easy, what took the longest was slicing the peppers. Otherwise, I cooked the peppers first and then the scallops and it was done. I was super nervous because I had never made scallops before but no one complained and everyone seemed to like them. Let's see if anyone gets sick tonight.

We drank TONS of wine and ate the food. I harassed everyone into telling me what their favorites were. Ben liked the pesto, Claire liked the scallops and Cousin and I liked the cake best. But everyone seemed into all the food that was there.

I don't think I'd ever make the pesto again. It wasn't spicy, and I make amazing pesto normally, so I'd probably just add Tabasco* to that recipe if I ever wanted spicy pesto. I would make the scallops again, they were tasty, but not like, THE BEST SCALLOPS ever. The cake I would 100% make again, it was like a normal gingerbread, but with a little SPARKLE (spiciness).

The recipes were super easy to follow and cook, but my one gripe is nothing was SUPER spicy. Everything had a slight kick, including dessert, but nothing was spicy, which is what I was hoping for with a Tabasco* cookbook. But it was a fun night, we drank tons of wine and ate a lot and I enjoyed it all.

As for the ratings, it's hard. I've had this book in my possession for like, 3 days. So I haven't talked a lot about it or recommended it when drunk. But that's not to say I wont!

OOOH! And here are some pictures!

*Tabasco the hot sauce, not the region of Mexico (not that any sane person would think that).

J: Or a book I picked because it was named after my first initial.

Let's be clear here. I feel bad calling this a DRUNK book review, because I'm only slightly tipsy. HOWEVER, I did have a handful of wines and if I don't write this review soon, I'm not going to be able to because I finished this book over a month ago.

So, J by Howard Jacobson is a book. I read it. That's a thing.

I did not care for this book. It was described as a 1984 type futuristic story. I mean, YES, it takes place in the FUTURE, but I don't see the comparisons. It was also a Man Booker Prize winner, but it must have been a slow year.

To be frank, I was SUPER excited for this book. I had heard great things! I should have known then that I would be disappointed. It's like Garden State all over again.

I literally did not care about any character in this book or what happened. It was very slow to start and it would just randomly drop story lines. I feel like I can hardly write a good review about it because I don't fully remember what happens, not to mention that I literally could not give less fucks about this book.

Like, there was this whole thing about not being able to say any word that started with the letter J and something happening in the past and the main dude being a product of incest, but literally NONE of this mattered by the end. They also teased this big love between the two main characters and this whole storyline of others plotting for them to be together, but then at the end, he didn't matter, the main chick just needed to get pregnant and then it didn't matter that he killed himself? Seriously, it sounds like I'm just drunkenly trying to make up a story here BUT THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED.

Style wise, it just felt like a rip off of other, more successful authors like Foer. He went back and forth between multiple characters and time periods and letters, but it all just felt disjointed.

Oh!! OH!!! And there was some murderer in the story for no reason whatsoever. Seriously! Somebody got all cut up towards the beginning and there was an investigation and then the killer dude killed the detective, but oh who cares! That didn't matter anyway!

Seriously. This book sucked. I don't think I have one nice thing to say about it. Honestly, the second I read the final page, when the protagonist threw himself off a cliff, I pulled a Lucille Bluth and said, "Good for him!" Just kidding, I said, out loud, TO NO ONE, "Well that was fucking stupid. Glad that's over!" About the book, not the guy killing himself. I think we've established that I don't give a fuck about the characters. Thank god Blogging for Books bequeathed this book onto me, otherwise I would have been pissed I wasted my money.

Soooo, ratings: I think it's pretty clear that I would not get drunk and talk OR recommend this book. Obviously. It's taken me a month to even write this review, and BELIEVE ME, I've gotten drunk HUNDREDS of times. I only wish I had been more motivated to write this review closer to completing the book, it would have been a hell of a lot rantier.

Farewell, dear readers. Soon, we'll be discussing Thomas Jefferson, our most scumbaggy President. Until then.

Sorry Obama, John Adams is our most thankless President.

Hello friends! Here we are again. I READ ANOTHER BOOK. Just kidding, I've read a bunch since we last talked. At least three I think? We went into Franzenland and talked about running and what else? Let me get up and review my list... Okay! Just those two! Well... here we are. I read my SECOND PRESIDENTIAL BIOGRAPHY!! Only (let me google this) 42 more to go!

So, this time around, I read JOHN ADAMS by DAVID MCCULLOUGH. It was awesome. First off, LOVE ME some David McCullough (I have to look down at the book every time I need to spell his name, this is going to get daunting.) Did you know he's from Pittsburgh??? Yeah, that's pretty cool. He's also a pretty exceptional writer. I read his book about the history of the Brooklyn Bridge a while back. It was fantastic. He made even the bends seem really fucking interesting. So of course when I was in the market for a John Adams book, I'd choose the one written by him.

Fun fact, because we all love fun facts: This book was SUPPOSED to be about John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, but DMC LOVED John Adams waaaaaay more and so he decided to change focus and write this book. After reading it, I can totally see why.

So, as of now, John Freakin Adams is my FAVORITE president of the presidential biographies I've read. (Recap: I'm reading all of them in order, so that's just G Dubs and JFA so far.) But JFA was such a better dude than G Dubs.

I don't even know how to begin talking about this book. Let's start off with a little story time:

JFA was a pretty bright kid, son of a farmer, went to Harvard, became a lawyer. You know typical shit for a founding father. He was very outspoken and argumentative, but that's only because he knew his shit. (As my dad would say, "Someone like you who THINKS you know everything makes it really hard for people like me who actually do.") One of my favorite things about him before he became like THE MAN was that after the Boston Massacre, he stepped up to defend the British soldiers. Like, basically, that was a huge deal. EVERYONE hated the Brits, but he knew they deserved a fair trial, whether or not they were scumbags. Like I said, good dude.

He was super against slavery. He grew up poor and was used to hard work and unlike OTHER founding fathers (ahem, GDUBS and THOMAS JEFFERSON) he didn't rely on slaves to build his empire. He never owned slaves and he was super outspoken against it. I find that to be really admirable, or at least compared to all the other shitheads of the time. One of my FAVORITE/MOST ABSURD things I read in this book was that when they were writing the Declaration of Independence, TJ wanted to add this part about the Brits being responsible for slavery in America and JFA was all, "Yo man, I think that's on us."

Oh yeah, and he was also the guy that nominated GDUBS as the commander of the army in the Revolutionary War. No big deal. And you know, obviously was part of writing the freakin DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. Stand up dude, all around.

After the war, JFA became a diplomat for America. He went to France, Holland and eventually Great Britain. And it's basically all because of him that we're an independent nation today. He was away from his family this whole time and worked super hard to not only stop France from asserting their power over the states, but to develop agreements with the other countries to finance and protect our developing nation. I don't want to say that we'd be fucked without him, but we would have been.

AND THEN, GDUBS was "unanimously elected" to the presidency because all those fuckers on the Republican side schemed to get people to vote for him over John Adams. And John Adams was a fucking awesome Veep. He stood by GDUBS side and took all the flack for anything that went wrong.

Then, when it came time for him to be President, everyone shit ALL OVER HIM. It was fucking ridiculous! People in his own party were dicks. The Republicans were dicks. EVEN HIS BFF THOMAS JEFFERSON WAS A DICK. (Side note, Fuck Thomas Jefferson.) People basically treated him like shit. He had a lot of great accomplishments, like, NOT going to war against France and standing our ground as a neutral power. He created the Navy. But no, "he was a power grubbing fuckhead," according to everyone else.

Side note, I see a lot of parallels between Adams and Obama. There was this Republican newspaper that used to write nasty things about John Adams (Hello, Fox News!) and the Republicans did everything in their power to undermine his authority (hmmm sounds familiar) and even people in his own party shit talked him (Go fuck yourself Alexander Hamilton.) ALSO, like Obama, JFA had a KICKASS wife, Abagail. She was smart as hell and talked a lot of sense into Adams when he became a hot head. He obviously loved her a ton, and it was really sad to read about their time apart and when SPOILER ALERT she died before him. One of the truly great loves like Barack and Michelle or Sid and Nancy.

And all these fuckheads schemed their way out of getting him re-elected and putting TJ in power. But JFA got them. He appointed all these cabinet positions like twenty minutes before his term ended as a big giant fuck you.

TJ did a lot to counteract JFA's measures as prez, like disband the Navy and some of his shadier laws like the "Don't Shit Talk the President" law. Eventually, karma got to TJ though. His cronies at the papers turned against him and leaked the story about him fucking his slaves and being a prick. And other countries attacked the US and he sure as fuck wish he had that Navy.

Speaking of TJ, he was an asshole. He and Adams were super tight during the Revolution. They spent tons of time together and had nothing but wonderful things to say about one another. But THEN, JFA gained in popularity and clearly was the successor to GDUBS for the presidency, and so TJ turned on him. He used to write shit anonymously about him in the papers and scheme against him and undermine him. AND THEN once he became President, he realized how hard it was but STILL WOULDN'T APOLOGIZE. He used to write him all these fucked up letters, blaming him for shit he didn't do, and then telling JFA how fucked up it was. FINALLY when they were old, Adams was like, "Bro, I still love you!" and they became BFFs again. (I will admit I teared up when they became bros again. THEY JUST LOVED EACH OTHER SO MUCH!)

CRAZY FUN FACT: They died on the SAME DAY, within hours of one another. on JULY FOURTH.

Another thing that pissed me off is how much they'd twist shit around on Adams. He was a Federalist, yeah, but like, just because he felt that the country needed a strong central government to band together it was NOT BECAUSE HE WANTED TO BE KING. But obviously that was WAY TOO DIFFICULT for those assholes on the Republican side to understand. And people misconstrued his passion for insanity, even WELL AFTER he left office.

So let's recap why I loved John Adams so much:

Smart as fuck.
Totally great lawyer.
Didn't own slaves or stand for slavery.
Basically responsible for US being independent nation.
Loyal veep.
Responsible President, promoting peace during wartime.
Genuine good dude and didn't fuck over his asshole friends.
Did everything for the good of the nation, even if the nation treated him like shit.

So now that I've rambled on and on about John Adams, let's get into our rating system.

Would I talk about this book while drunk? I LITERALLY CANNOT STOP. I am such a fucking nerd. I have such a metaphorical hard on for John Adams that I find myself bringing him up in every single conversation since I finished the first section of this book.

Would I recommend this book while drunk? Hell to the fucking yes. It was really well written and I found it to be super captivating. I liked how much DMC focused on his prime years, rather than shit that didn't matter. Like, Chernow's GDUBS book was good, but some shit about his childhood, I really only needed the bare bones. I also find myself so obsessed with it, that I went out and bought the TJ book today so that I could read it soon because I'm hoping it will be like a sequel.

Alright dudes, I've spent enough time going on and on about our second president. #sorrynotsorry. Night!

A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing - Cabin In The Woods Edition

HEY YINZ! What's going on?

It's been a while since we've been here together. It's not that I don't love you anymore, it's just that I've been busy. I spent some time reading Infinite Jest and that's kept me from you, and I'm sorry. One day soon, I'll spend some time telling you about those days, but for now, let's talk about my latest book from Blogging for Books: A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing.

Readers, I was super excited for this book. I basically am obsessed with the New York Times. When they say a book is a notable book of the year, I AM ALL UP ON IT. So, when BFB was all, hey, AGIAHFT is on our site, I jumped at the opportunity to get it. (Side note: can you tell I've been reading IJ? These abbrevs are OOC (out of control, obvi).)

Here we are, a few weeks later, several glasses of wine deep, and I have to say: I was not nuts about this book.

I am basically a victim of over-excitement. If someone tells me that I'm going to love something, I typically get SO EXCITED about it, it couldn't possibly live up to my VERY LARGE expectations. This is the life of an overly excitable person.

HOWEVER, this book was phenomenal. I can totally see why it made all the best of lists, including my beloved NYT's list. It's exceptionally written. It's really unlike anything I've ever read. I just was absolutely miserable reading it.

Okay, so you know how in the winter, when it's super cold, you don't care how sad you are? It's like, yeah, it's cold, life sucks, let me curl up under this blanket and drink. This book is PERFECT for reading during the winter. However, I started reading this book in the height of LA summer. While the sun was shining, and I was totally enjoying life, I'd pick up this book and want to die. This is a totally seasonal book. And I was reading it in the wrong season.

Should I tell you a little bit about the book? Yeah, I guess so. Okay, so it's all about this young girl and her relationship with her brother. It's told via her perspective, the style of which is like reading her mind, so it feels super intimate. Her brother was born with a brain tumor, not given much time to live, survived it, and it basically ruined her life. She lived in the shadow of this her whole shitty life. Her mother lives for her brother and basically treats the girl like she's the biggest piece of shit ever. And because of this, the girl treats herself like the biggest piece of shit ever. The book follows her from the time she was a small child to her young adult life and she never treats herself well. Seriously, every single time I opened the book I thought to myself, "What else could happen that would make me feel like shit today? Oh, that." It's really hard to read the things she does to herself. Once her brother becomes sick again, she begins to hurt herself even more and it's basically like you're in her shoes, hurting yourself by reading this. Being a young woman, I understand the compulsion she had for her actions, but it did not make reading them first hand any better. I basically wanted to cry or die any second I picked up this book. THIS IS NOT HOW I WANTED TO SPEND THE PAST TWO WEEKS.

The writing style was really remarkable though. It's unlike anything else I've ever read. The best thing I could relate it to is the book Room. Have you read Room? (RED RUM RED RUM (sorry, i'm drunk)). It's this not so great book I read in the book club I destroyed where the narrator is a small child who's whole life has been in this small room. The style is super hard to get into because it's written as though a child would speak. This book does what Room was trying to do, but so much better. Stylistically, it's as though you're in this woman's mind, no matter what her age. It's super fragmented and stream of consciousness, but it's still like poetry it's so beautiful. I'm pretty sure that's what makes it so heartbreaking. It's like reading your own thoughts. If your own thoughts were super fucked up.

Alright, so let's get on to the scoring. Would I talk about this book while drunk? Well, after I finished it this weekend, I did talk a lot about how miserable I was reading it and how seasonal this book is. I'm not sure if that counts.

Would I recommend this book while I'm drunk? Probably not. Although, side note, I have a friend that I know will LOVE this book because he loves depressing shit. But unless I become an alcoholic, I'll probably be sober when I tell him all about it. ENJOY THE SHOUT OUT, HOMIE.

And for good measure, here's a picture of me finishing the book:

Not pictured: my tears. Just kidding, they're there, they filled the hot tub.