It's Not Your Father's Boobtube Anymore

Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Video games are getting more complicated and so are tv shows - and that makes our brains work harder, so Johnson says. [I suspect I read this before because it all sounded really familiar.] Guess it's that entropy thing again - You start out really simple and then things get all complicated and disordered. Our brains have to make sense of non-linear shows like The Sopranos or video games such as ... The Sims, I guess - not sure. I'm not really a gamer. And I don't call Second Life a game. I do understand that once you've defeated a game, you no longer have interest in it and need to move on to another challenge.

There are videos I watch over and over to get all the little references out of, which is what they aim for now, the after-market where it's not enough to watch something once, but over and over so you have to buy the whole video, watch it endlessly, watch it with all the foreign dubbings and subtitles (okay, maybe that's just me), and then blog about it or go to some website where they hash over the finest details (ever go to any of the Harry Potter fan websites?) and write fan fiction. Isn't that just a more adult version of the Whole Reading method?


Good writer; I enjoy his stuff.


View all my reviews.

As an afterthought, I really enjoy the Goodreads site which allows me to copy my whole review I wrote there and paste it in a regular blog, bringing the cover along with it! Yay!

Does My Head Look Big In This?

Instinctively I have picked up a book that fits in perfectly (almost) with my cross-cultural theme: Does My Head Look Big In This by Randa Abdel-Fattah. The owner of the titular head has made the decision to wear the hijab, the headscarf worn by some Muslim women, in the middle of a school year. She realizes that this will only serve to make her stand out even more in her elite prep school in Australia, but she was inspired by Rachel on the television program Friends, when that character showed the courage to wear a hideous bridesmaid's dress at a wedding. Yes, it was just that lame. She made a decision about her faith and culture based on a sit-com episode, but such is the way life works, dunnit?

Appearing to be a challenging read at 360 pages, Abdel-Fattah manages to make this story (Amal is described as "hilarious" but not all that funny to me) warm-hearted, thought-provoking, and quick to read. All manner of Muslims (well, at least a nice cross-section) are portrayed from the Must Assimilate At All Costs to the This Is What Being Muslim Meant In My Village 20 Years Ago. Amal, the titular headowner, can get a bit shrill about what it means to be a modern, Australian-born Muslim, but she is just sixteen and if she didn't scream about how unfair everything was, how believable would she be?

This book is a good fictional introduction to Islam for the Clueless Teen. See? Amal is just like you, obsessed with boys, make-up, clothes (which ones go with her hijab), her hair (even if you can't see it anymore), zits, school, and the magazine Cosmo. Yes, it's a chick book, despite some token sports. We're dealing with the extreme emotions of the teen here. Even Adam, her male friend interest, is willing to talk about his feelings (although he complains about it). The story references the World Trade Center attacks and the bombing of the club in Indonesia. We see Amal cope with the fallout of the latter in the news, which have made her a lightning rod for the hostilities.

More tragically, she watches one of her closest friends badgered by her mother to stop spending so much time on her studies and pick one of the men being constantly paraded in front of her for a husband, get married, and have children. The girl instead has dreams of becoming a doctor, which her mother finds shameful. Her homelife is further darkened by her brother, who is into drugs, alcohol, and fast women. My reaction came right out of "Earth Girls Are Easy": Leave home, kid! It was not that surprising that she did, after being dragged home from a restaurant dinner party in honor of her birthday.

Being "hilarious," everything works out at the end. Polly-Amal helps bring her crabby neighbor and son back together. Okay, it's not as blatant as that. But will her "fat" friend finds true love without having to become anorexic? Will Amal's debate team win? Should Australia become a republic? Will Leila be found beaten and dead or will she return to her repressive home ... and then be found beaten and dead? Does Adam like Amal? Is she leading him on? Will she ever get over her big head? Tune in!

Being teen oriented, there is no shortage of angst, conflict, and pop culture references. On the whole, though, it's an interesting book and another great springboard for discussions on diversity and tolerance.