Eighteen

Finished November 25

Eighteen: A History of Britain in 18 Young Lives by Alice Loxton

This interesting history book encompasses history, biography, and fiction in one book. The author takes the idea of eighteen being the commonly understood age that people become adults and looks at eighteen British people whose achievements made large impacts on Britain, when they were eighteen. The short biographies focus on them at that age, but also discuss what brought them to that place, in terms of both background and personal achievements, and what their lives went on to become and what achievements they made later in their lives. She has chosen people that she could find some information on from that point in their lives, but her choices are all personal favourites as well, people she would want to spend time with. 

Her introduction discusses the idea of adulthood and age being linked, and looks at how this idea changed over time. She also talks about Britain as a country, and it's evolution over time. She also talks about the fictional element of the book here. Between each of the biographical chapters are descriptions of a dinner party, an eighteenth birthday party that each of these people are attending together. Near the end of the book she includes a seating plan for this dinner, and a list of places that were important to one or another of them as well as being worth visiting. Her writing style is conversational and disarming, with references to pop culture as well as posing interesting questions for the reader to think about. 

This book is in many ways aimed at those who are new adults themselves, particularly in the last chapter, and at the end of the book a collection of advice from various people to eighteen year olds is insightful and potentially helpful.

Some of those she included I was familiar with, and others were completely new to me, but I found all of the entries interesting and learned something new even about the people I was previously aware of. This is an historical book that is very approachable and readable and I highly recommend it. 

Push the Envelope

Finished July 27

Push the Envelope by Rochelle Paige

This new adult novel is focused on college-aged Alexa, and is the first in a series focused on her and her friends. Alexa grew up in this college town, raised by her widowed father. He is a pilot and so is Alexa, who is continuing to gain more flying credentials as well as studying business at college to prepare to grow and eventually take on her father's private plane business. She has recently come up with a new gimmick to get bookings, a "Mile High" flight service, where she has short flights that return to the same airport, allowing amorous couples to add some spice to their love life.

Alexa has had a serious boyfriend in the past, but when he cheated and started stalking her when she dumped him, she decided to take some time away from dating. Her best friend Aubrey is very much into the dating scene, not ready for a serious relationship. 

Alexa's father wanted her to more fully experience the college life, so she and Aubrey are in a dorm apartment with a couple of other girls. Aubrey's older brother, Jackson, is a great guy and played a big role protecting her when her earlier relationship became troublesome. Alexa thinks of him as a big brother, which I understood, but would have liked to develop into something else. 

Instead, Alexa is drawn to a newly transferred student in the same fraternity house as Jackson, Drake. Drake has a reputation as a smooth talker and casual dater, not what Alexa is looking for in a relationship, but her pursues her strongly, and the chemistry between them is strong. 

Despite this, I really didn't like Drake. He seldom calls Alexa by her name, calling her 'babe' a lot, which felt to me that he didn't see her as her own person. He was also very possessive and jealous, talking about her like she was property. He seemed to feel his wealth should get him whatever he wanted. The dialogue in the book felt unnatural and stilted or formulaic, and I had a hard time getting through it. 

The whole relationship felt very focused on sex and less about the people, and the characters lacked any depth. I feel there are much better reads for the in the new adult genre which depict more healthy relationships.