1. Read Bottom Up, by Neel Shah & Skye Chatham
This is a really cute contemporary novel. It's short, it's sweet and is extremely easy to read; it's written entirely in emails and text messages and the art in the book is really well done. It was also a really quick read, one of those books where you sit down to read and end up reading close to 100 pages because maybe there wasn't a lot of words on some pages. A cute story about what it's like to date in the iPhone age. Honestly, when I first started Read Bottom Up I hated the two main characters, Elliot and Madeline, for a bunch of different reasons, but the only one that seems to come to mind now is how much of a fuckboy Elliot is. For those unfamiliar with the slang term, fuckboy has many different definitions, and it seems everyone has a different idea of what it is and who they are. To me, a fuckboy is someone who someone dates only for the sex; they are a shitty boyfriend in absolutely every other regard. Most publications define a fuckboy as slang for a womanizer; someone who has no intent on having a real relationship with someone. Elliot is 110% a fuckboy, and I think it was intended that way. It's not that he doesn't want to pursue a relationship with Madeline, it's that he doesn't even comprehend that there are some girls who need effort to be put in a relationship on both sides. As Elliot's friend David remarks, Madeline is not his type of girl because he usually dates girls from Tinder who treat him badly because they, like him, are only interested in him for sex, and Elliot starts to realize this after dating Madeline. Overall, I think Read Bottom Up wanted to explore the science behind the idea of the fuckboy, because it really nailed what it means to be a womanizer and how and why a lot of simple relationships, like Elliot and Madeline's, don't work out. Madeline isn't exactly a great character either, but I also think that was done on purpose to show that they both have baggage. My favorite parts of the book included the supporting characters, David and Madeline's friend Emily, who are a thousand times better than their best friends. I also don't really know how accurate the correspondence was between David and Elliot, because I've honestly never seen or heard two straight men discuss their relationships the way they do. But, at the end of the day, Read Bottom Up is a short and sweet book that anyone who has ever over-analyzed a text will enjoy. 4/5 stars.
2. Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger
I had wanted to read this book ever since I read actress Lauren Graham's contemporary literary debut Someday, Someday, Maybe, whose main character is named Franny and was named after the Franny in Franny and Zooey. I'd also never read a J.D. Salinger book before; I was told by countless people that The Catcher in the Rye is one of those classics that will bore you to tears, so I steered clear of it, but at the same time, I knew Salinger is one of the most well-known authors of his time and I just felt the need to read one of his books, so I chose Franny and Zooey. Honestly, I had no idea that the Zooey in the title is a male character; I had assumed that it was a female name for a female character, but apparently not. The book is split up into two parts, one called Franny and one called Zooey. I really enjoyed the Franny part; Salinger's descriptions were so well written that I could so clearly visualize the scene in my head. It was really good. Then came the Zooey part, which encompassed the majority of the book, which sees the Franny and Zooey characters, brother and sister, interacting. The story itself is nice, but I found the Zooey part dragged along and I was often bored while trudging through it. It was okay, but not great. At least I can say that I've read a J.D. Salinger novel now. 3/5 stars.
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