The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999) was recommended to me by a friend. I must say I bought the book without reading the description. I had no idea how deep and reflective the book would be. I probably wouldn't have purchased it if it wasn't recommended to me. Stephen Chbosky makes you laugh, feel sad, feel happy. I felt some things were awkward/uncomfortable to read. The more I read, the more I thought this book was simply going to turn out to be a tragedy. But the last few pages were able to put it all in perspective and leaves us with some good lessons. When you are reading this book, you become a wallflower.

The story is narrated by Charlie through letters. He is a freshmen in high school. Charlie is a wallflower. He sees things, he keeps quiet about things, and he understands. He is introverted and overly shy. Through the letters we learn of Charlie's friend who committed suicide, Charlie's experiments with drugs and alcohol, his first experience with a girl, his homosexual friend, and lastly (spoiler) molestation.

Clearly this a deep book with a lot of sensitive issues. Given this was written 12 years ago, I give props to the author for addressing these issues directly. Society still struggles with these today. Still, I don't think this book would satisfy everyone's reading standards. To close this post, I wanted to add that I googled The Perks of Being a Wallflower earlier today, and I saw they are making this book into a movie next year (starring Emma Watson).

My rating for The Perks of Being a Wallflower: 3 stars out of 5. Get it here!

In the Plex by Steven Levy

In the Plex (2011) is an inside view of what Google is all about. It took me just over two weeks to read this book, and I literally read it every day. I cannot remember the last time it took me this long to a read a book that I could not put down. The reason it took a while is there is an incredible amount of information. Everything Google has done up until the beginning of this year is documented. The author has been reporting on the company since they first began and was granted permission to all kinds of inside access at Google.

The book starts with how Google was started by two kids in graduate school at Stanford. He tells stories of them in their offices: from dorm rooms to a lady’s house to above a pizza shop to a real office building. The two founders, Brin and Page, tried to sell Google numerous times, but nobody really wanted it. Eventually they figured out how to make money – advertising. They cracked the code everyone was trying to decipher on the internet. Last year alone they earned $30 BILLION dollars in revenue.

People probably know the basic stuff Google does…the search engine, g-mail, YouTube, Android phones, Chrome browser, blogger, Google Maps and street view. But some other things really stand out: attempting to scan every book in existence (33 million of them); building data centers all over the world; impacting the 2008 presidential election; building a car that can drive itself. It’s amazing how many different things Google does. While their motto has always been “Don’t be evil”, they’ve run into many enemies as they’ve grown into different sectors. In one instance, 133 companies and organizations combined in a lawsuit again Google (their law department has hundreds of employees). The book details every project Google took on, so you really get to understand how things came about.

Brin and Page are very interesting people. Countless times they are described as Montessori kids, which is a unique type of schooling that really spurred their creativity and installed their principles. They are absolutely geniuses, but not typical business leaders. They don’t dress up and are not formal in any way. They have exercise balls in their offices. Brin blesses or rejects each new hire (he did this for all 30,000 employees). They ask ridicules questions in interviews. After reading In the Plex, their actions are justified and it all makes sense.

I will say that if you are not technologically inept, this book would be incredibly confusing. I can see an elderly crew struggling with some of the concepts. Most shocking to me was that Google keeps logs of every search. And they pin-point it to each individuals internet IP address. With their ads, they now install "cookies" that track every website you visit. The book is much more than privacy issues though. If you take the time to learn of Google’s history, you will understand why this intrusiveness is appropriate and in their eyes, completely okay.

I enjoyed the story 100%. I cannot say enough good things about this book. It’s fitting this was a long post. My rating for In the Plex: 5 stars out of 5! Get it here!

Linchpin by Seth Godin

Linchpin (2010) is written by Seth Godin, who has a great blog. He writes short posts, usually a paragraph at most. Sometimes it’s simply a few sentences. I really like his blog. He points out things that are unique and enlightening. He has written a dozen books and is a renowned speaker. He’s the person who coined the term “purple cow”. Linchpin is written similarly to his blog. There are chapters, but in each chapter are short essays. In my opinion, Linchpin is a compilation of musings that could have, maybe should have, been on his blog.

The point of the book is to be a linchpin, someone who is indispensable. Being creative, going beyond what is asked, and overcoming fears of whatever is holding you back. The best part of the book to me was how he describes people as cogs in a machine. In school, we are told what to do, when to do it, and are evaluated on how well we followed the instructions. The same goes in the workplace. People are interchangeable parts in a factory. But that is only a short part of the book. The rest focuses on creating “art”, which he defines as emotional labor and tons of examples of people are who linchpins in their field.

While the book is short and an easy read, I found it to be fluffy and repetitive. I started the book a few months ago, but never got around to finishing it. It’s an easy book to pick up and keep reading because of the writing style of short essays. But it was difficult to get myself to finish it. This wasn’t a book I couldn’t put down. 

My rating for Linchpin: 2 stars out of 5. Read Linchpin here!

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

­­­­Last summer I first heard of Jodi Picoult. I didn’t get around to reading any of her books until winter, when I read Change of Heart. I like her writing style and the way the story gets told. Each chapter is written from a different character’s perspective (including different fonts). You really get into the mindset of each person. House Rules (2010) is the second Jodi Picoult novel I’ve read.

House Rules is about a person with Asperger’s Syndrome who is accused of murder. While I am not sure if the portrayal of Asperger’s is completely accurate, reading from Jacob’s perspective makes you fully aware of what someone with Asperger’s could be thinking and going through. He is fascinated with crime scene analysis and is incredibly smart at deciphering how the crimes occurred. When his tutor is murdered, he is eventually charged and the court trial begins. The book shows the struggle between his family, his disability, and the way others perceive them. Obviously I am not going to tell you the outcome, but I will say I didn’t think it was all that surprising.

Why didn’t I find it surprising? From reading two of Jodi Picoult’s books, I have come to a few conclusions. The story raises a moral question, involves a young and inexperienced lawyer who has romantic feelings with an important character, and the ending turns out fairytale-ish. Not sure if this is true for all of her novels, but just some things I noticed after reading two of her books. I still think House Rules was entertaining; but it was also predictable to me.

On a more personal note, my younger brother has to read Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes for his summer reading book for school. I haven’t read that book yet, but I did look it up online…the story includes a high school shooting, bullying, and suicide (sorry if that’s a spoiler). I am going to read it alongside him to make sure he actually understands the book, but I think it’s a perfect topic for a high school student to read. Kudos to whoever selected it. 

My rating for House Rules: 3 stars out of 5. Read House Rules here!

Moneyball by Michael Lewis

The first book I’m going to review is the 2003 book Moneyball by Michael Lewis, who also wrote The Blind Side. The reason I chose this one first is because it was the first one in the box of books I ordered from Amazon! But really, this book is being made into a movie that’s coming out in September, with Brad Pitt as the main actor. There are already calls for him to win the Oscar for Best Actor. That’s not the reason I wanted to read the book though. The storyline is really intriguing to me.

The book is about the Oakland A’s baseball team and their unprecedented success in the early 2000s even though they were one of the poorest teams in the MLB. Based on a true story, the author gives a behind the scenes look at how they were able to accomplish so much with so little. Michael Lewis gives a lot of background of baseball terminology, as if the reader knew nothing about baseball. I suppose that is good for a novice reader, but as a baseball fan, it makes parts read slow. There’s many statistical references (which is probably why I liked the book so much), but none are overly complicated; he takes the time to explain them and there’s no hard math. A big feature of the book is on the general manager of the Oakland A’s, Billy Beane. At times it can almost seem like a biography. But the books is not a biography about him, as some critics have said. Telling the stories of Billy Beane and individual players makes the storyline much more real and compelling.

I really liked this book because I am a fan of true stories and it highlights the application of statistics. I thought it was interesting that after the book was written, teams from the NBA, NFL, NHL, Fortune 500 companies, Wall Street firms, and Hollywood studios contacted the Oakland Athletics to learn more about their ways. Everyone except other MLB teams, which is really the most shocking part about Moneyball. The “Club” of baseball insiders still felt that the Oakland A's were a fluke. An aberration. Luck. (However, it should be said that the Boston Red Sox quickly adapted Billy Beane’s data-driven strategies shortly after Oakland’s success. Result: two championships.)

I would highly recommend the book for baseball fans, statistics majors, analytical careers, and those interested in learning of efficiency using data. The story truly gives an insider’s view of what it’s like to be in the front office of a MLB team or a player struggling to make it through the minor leagues. 

My rating for Moneyball: 4 stars out of 5. Read Moneyball here!

The First Post

This is my blog. My plan is to review books. I read just about everything, so hopefully you can relate to a few of them. I will try to alternate genres to keep things interesting. The inspiration for this blog is that I've always discussed books I've read with friends, and some people have recommended books for me. This is a way to continue sharing the books that I'm reading. Maybe one of my reviews will give you enough motivation to try reading the book yourself. I'm going to try to review one book a week. If I don't finish a new one during the week, then I will review one that I've recently read before I started this blog. And maybe we'll have a few guest reviews. Who knows. Hope you enjoy it!