Fluttering eyelashes.

There is a moment that occurred during my high school Honors English class junior year—a moment that I’m sure stuck only with me, and none of my other classmates—that I’m pretty sure I’ll never forget.  We were explicating aloud some centuries old poetry, and there was a particular stanza, a love scene, that alluded to fluttering eyelashes.  When we reached that point in our analysis, my teacher gave us all a knowing look and said something along the lines of, “And I’m sure you all know what that means.”  Except I didn’t, which I did not hesitate to tell him, me being the zealous classroom participant that I am.  But rather than unravel that twisted prose for me, all he said was, “Come visit after you’ve graduated, and I’ll explain it to you.”

Granted, I did return to my old stomping grounds during my summer and winter breaks from college, and I even saw my old English teacher a few times during those visits, but I always forgot to have him explain that line of poetry to me.

But now, as I wrap up my junior year of college four years later, I realize that I don't need his assistance anymore.  I know what those fluttering eyelashes mean.  And so does Chilean author Isabel Allende, which she clearly demonstrates in her evocative work, Of Love and Shadows.

What's interesting about this novel is the areas in which you can determine what's important to the author, and what information is arbitrary.  I know, for example, that the protagonists (Irene Beltran, a beautiful and gutsy journalist born into the high class, and Francisco Leal, a sensitive psychologist-turned-photographer who comes from a family of hard-working intellectuals...oh, and obviously he's in love with her, but she's engaged to an equally-classed army captain) live somewhere in South America during the early-ish 20th century, and that a revolution against the newly established dictatorship is boiling in the pressure cooker, but nothing more detailed than that. At the same time, I can practically see Irene's long hair cascading down her back, and I get a lump in my throat every time Francisco's mother expresses her love for her youngest son. These are the things that matter to Allende, and as a self-proclaimed romantic (and a self-proclaimed Romantic), I don't hate her for that.

But there's more going on in this almost-300-page read than a south-of-the-equator Romeo and Juliet remake (although I must say, I literally cheered, out loud on the train no less, when "the moment of fluttering eyelashes" finally took place--it was poetic and emotional beyond articulation). Having dabbled in journalism herself, Allende injects the book with captivating mysteries that Beltran and Leal set out to uncover, including a young girl consumed by what can only be described as supernatural epilepsy; the numerous deaths of civilians suspected of resisting the dictatorship; and the ultimate price of seeking to reveal the truth and bring justice. One of my biggest pet peeves is a review or synopsis that gives away the ending, so I'll stop right there with the plot. All I'm going to add is that for me, reading Of Love and Shadows is the literary equivalent of those first moments of getting to know someone intimately. Every movement flows seamlessly into the next, but because it's all so new you absorb and store everything accurately and carefully into the banks of your memory. Her language is rhythmic, illustrative, and quite academic (I felt like I was studying for the GRE in some phrases!), but nonetheless a pleasurable, fantastical story that I can't wait to revisit.

Same blog, slightly different girl.

Hello again! It's been just over a year since that torrid Sacramento summer when I sat hunched over my laptop in the library with dark chocolate and cranberries and gave life to this book blog. Needless to say, a lot has happened since then! I still have an affinity for the fruit-chocolate thing, but my literary tastes have undergone a bit of a metamorphosis that I can only attribute to the crazy couple of semesters I've had. I remember when I used to shudder at the thought of reading non-fiction for leisure; not so much the case anymore. That change actually began with a book I read last summer, The Purity Myth by Jessica Valenti. Her book also ignited within me the fires of feminism and ultimately led me to change my minor from French to Women and Gender Studies (this is going somewhere, I promise). That, combined with my exposure to such prolific and inspiring writers as bell hooks, Truman Capote, and Katherine Boo convinced me of something that you'd think, as a journalist, I would have known for awhile now: real life has every potential of being as captivating as fiction.


Enter my first review of the summer.

I'll admit, when I removed candy-colored tissue paper on my 21st birthday to uncover a paperback copy of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, I was slightly confused. Maybe it was the quizzical look my roommate shot me; maybe it was the mimosa. Don't get me wrong, I'm ALL for women's rights, but I just couldn't wrap my mind around the idea of receiving a birthday gift with the word "oppression" emblazoned across the cover. Then I did my research, and found out that this book, written by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn, both New York Times journalists and the first couple ever to receive a Pulitzer Prize (yeah, I know), is a national bestseller, has been voted one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post in 2009, etc. So as summertime set in and my library fines prevented me from utilizing its services, I cracked it open and began to read.


You know how friends sometimes know you better than you know yourself? Yeah, this was one of those times. Currently eating crow, be back soon.


Half the Sky focuses on three major ways in which women and girls are globally oppressed: sex trafficking and forced prostitution, gender-based violence, and maternal mortality. Although these issues occur on every inhabited continent, they are particularly prevalent in developing countries in Asia and Africa, the locations upon which this book focuses. Having recently done a project on commercial sex trafficking in New York City, I was emotionally prepared for the testimonies I read about 13-year-old girls from Cambodia who think they're going to another country to pick fruit and make money for their families, but end up in a brothel where they are systematically beaten and raped. Same goes for the distraught tales of gender-base violence, which is so deeply embedded in some conservative religions that some surveyed women actually agree that husbands have a right to beat their wives. But the rate at which maternal mortality occurs in countries like Niger (1 in 7 girls and women will die during childbirth here), and the causes of these deaths (enter obstetric fistulas, caused by failed childbirth and results in holes forming between the rectum and vagina, or the bladder and vagina. I considered sparing you the graphic details, but then I realized, that's exactly the problem), truly shook me. I can only imagine the contorted facial expressions I displayed on Muni as I read the visceral tales of young girls left, essentially, to die in huts because the cultures in which they were brought up place women's medical needs at the bottom of its priority list.

But the book isn't all sob stories and sobering statistics. In fact, every chapter concludes with a feature of some phenomenal woman who dedicates her life to combating issues that continue to haunt women. From opening hospitals in East Africa to establishing microcredit programs in Pakistan, these women come from all walks of life (although there did seem to be an initial focus on White, Western women as "the rescuers," which I took a slight issue with) and are united by their lifelong dedication to elevate the status of women worldwide. One of the underlying themes in the book is the idea that to ignore women and their potential to become scholars, doctors, businesswomen--anything they want to be--is to attempt to run a country having only tapped into half its valuable resources. Half the Sky is a call to action like no other, truly a work that transforms how you view the world long before you reach the back cover.


On deck: a heart-wrenching and poetic tale written by an esteemed Latin American author (See? I still love me my love stories!)