Author: Jennifer @ The Relentless Reader

Much Ado About Loving by Jack Murnighan and Maura Kelly

~ Jennifer @ The Relentless Reader ~ 17 Comments
Much Ado About Loving:
What Our Favorite Novels Can Teach You About Date Expectations, Not-So-Good Gatsbys and Love in the Time of Internet Personals
By Jack Murnighan and Maura Kelly
Publisher: Free Press
Publication Date: January 2013
Categories: Sociology, Marriage & Family, Books & Reading, Love & Romance
Source: Free Press
Description:

Finding love should be easier than ever before, given all the freedoms we enjoy. But as it turns out, the more options we have, the more difficult attaining romantic bliss becomes. We wonder: Should we put all our energy into online dating, or hang out in bars to find someone new? Should we settle for a friendship-with-benefits, or refuse to stop looking until we happen upon true love? And if we do manage to achieve the impossible and find a perfect match—soul mate, sexual dynamo, and best buddy all in one—how can we beat the relationship doldrums when they come, as they’re bound to in this hyperactive society?

In our quest to reach romantic nirvana, we turn to self-help manuals, magazines, talk shows, friends, relatives, and shrinks. But we’ve overlooked the true font of wisdom: the timeless stories written by great novelists. That’s where Much Ado About Loving comes in. In its pages, two book lovers who are also advice columnists—Maura Kelly and Jack Murnighan—relay the lessons in life and love that they’ve learned from reading more classic novels than your English teacher, while having far more romantic conundrums than all of Jane Austen’s characters combined. They’ve done the heavy reading—and the recovering from heartbreak—for you.


Now all you need is this book.

My Thoughts:

Is there anything that great literature can’t do? 

According to Maura Kelly and Jack Murnighan* it can teach us some very important lessons about love. I tend to agree. 

Kelly and Murnighan take turns writing the chapters and telling us about their hits and misses in the dating world. They share the triumphs and the failures. All along they tie their romantic adventures to the stories and lessons in classic literature. 

The chapter names made me chuckle and inspired me to keep reading:


Love in the Time of Online Dating
Why Too Much Emailing Can Be Dangerous

Overly Great Expectations
Why Idealizing Someone Can Come Back to Bite You

The Brief Wondrous Life of My Last Relationship
Are Men Genetically Coded to Cheat?

I’m quite fond of books about books and this one was a delight to read. 

*Why aren’t these two dating? I wondered that throughout the whole book!

Review & Giveaway of The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

~ Jennifer @ The Relentless Reader ~ 31 Comments
The Love Song of Jonny Valentine by Teddy Wayne
Publisher: Free Press
Publication Date: February 2013
Categories: Coming of Age, Literary
Source: Free Press
Description:
When Whiting Writers’ Award winner Teddy Wayne published his critically acclaimed debut, Kapitoil, it was hailed as “one of the best novels of [this] generation” by the Boston Globe and was shortlisted for a spate of national prizes.

Jonathan Franzen wrote in The Daily Beast that “no other writer, as far as I know, has invented such a funny and compelling voice and story for [this type of character.]” Now, in The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, Wayne turns his sharp wit, flawless narrative ventriloquism, and humane sensibility to our monstrous obsession with fame.
Megastar Jonny Valentine, eleven-year-old icon of bubblegum pop, knows that the fans don’t love him for who he is. The talented singer’s image, voice, and even hairdo have been relentlessly packaged—by his L.A. label and his hard-partying manager-mother, Jane—into bite-size pabulum. But within the marketing machine, somewhere, Jonny is still a vulnerable little boy, perplexed by his budding sexuality and his heartthrob status, dependent on Jane, and endlessly searching for his absent father in Internet fan sites, lonely emails, and the crowds of faceless fans.

Poignant, brilliant, and viciously funny, told through the eyes of one of the most unforgettable child narrators, this literary masterpiece explores with devastating insight and empathy the underbelly of success in 21st-century America. The Love Song of Jonny Valentine is a tour de force by a standout voice of his generation.

My Thoughts:

We aren’t supposed to judge a book by it’s cover are we? Too bad. Because as soon as I saw this all of my sparkle senses started going off. It’s so shiny and shimmery! The cover was the first thing I loved about this book but it definitely wasn’t the last.

Jonny’s narration is spot-on. His innocence will make you smile and his cynicism will make your heart ache. He is surrounded by people who truly love him but those voices are drowned out by the fans, the marketing, the big machine that keeps him famous.

Every move that Jonny makes is choreographed. Every morsel of food that he eats is mentally cataloged and combated by exercise. Every song that Jonny sings is researched to garner and preserve the most fans. Even though he is fawned over by nearly everyone he meets you sense that he is simply a very lonely little boy.

This book is a scathing commentary on our celebrity worshiping culture that I couldn’t put down.

I do hope you’ll enter the giveaway for this amazing book:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Update: Congrats to Kristin from my little heart melodies! You’re the winner! I’ll be emailing you for your details. I hope you LOVE this book!