Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing up Scieszka

Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing up Scieszka by Jon Scieszka

Jon Scieszka grew up in a  family of boys in Flint, Michigan in the late 1950s. He was the second boy, and thus got a lot of hand-me-downs (and got ot hand down a lot of things.) He went to Catholic school, and then later a military school. He got into trouble in various ways, doing a lot of "boy things". He also fell victim to various aspects of culture of the day. In one case, he ordered a large army set. He eagerly awaited the arrival, only to find they were super tiny. The content and delivery make for an entertaining look into boomer childood.

Skinny: She was starving to fit in...

Skinny: She was starving to fit in... (False Reflections Book 1) by Laura L. Smith

I had this book on my "to read" list with a note that it has a "Bizarre Love Triangle" reference. I wish I could remember how I found out the reference. In the book, the song is mentioned at the very end as a a dance number that the lead character is performing: "It's a jazz routine with a killer beat. You know that 80s tune I've been playing, 'Bizarre Love Triangle'?"

That was it for the reference. The book does name drop a number of songs and artists, including popular bands like the Beatles as well as Christian bands like Audio Adrenaline. the author seems to enjoy doing this, but it is not critical to the story.

As for the book itself, it was not bad. Melissa is a freshman in high school. She is smart and on the dance team. However, she feels that she is too fat. She takes even little comments about weight as something directly towards her. She carefully watches what she eats. She even worries about putting "peaches and cream" lotion or brushing her teeth because that might add weight. Generally she just controls what she takes in. However, there is a case where finds herself indulging in what she feels is too much food and then turns around and vomits up her excess food, and then works to cover it up.

In school, a new boy from Louisiana joins her French class. They fall for each other and begin a budding teen relationship. Things seem to go well. However, after basketball season starts, his parents do not want her spending much time together. This breaks her heart and makes her think that the they have broken up (because, you know, teenagers.) 

She is active on her school's dance team and is going to extra early morning "captain tryout" practices.  Captainship is open to all girls, and she is the only freshman trying out. However, her eating habits end up hurting her. She doesn't eat before the practice and ends up fainting. After the second time, the dance coach sends her home and won't let her come back until her family takes her to the doctor. She sees the doctor, gets diagnosed with an eating disorder and gets ordered to gain more weight. After she makes the effort to comply, her life starts to get back in order. She actively participates in the dance team and can now spend time with her boy again.

The characters in the book are church-going Christians. However, it deals primarily with the "secular" in-school activities. The girl will read her bible in the evening and write in her journal about her life and how some teachings relate to her life. The characters will also occasionally talk about church activities. Church is part of their lives, but the problems are general ones that happen to everyone. 

The Thing About Jellyfish

The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin

A girl has been struggling after the death of her best friend. She wishes she she would have better communicated her last words to her. Because of the this, the girl has decided to be almost totally silent. The story then proceeds in too part. It gradually moves forward in in the current time as well as moving forward from the time the girls first met. They became friends when they were young and were inseparable. They vowed to prevent each other from being "crazy" like boy crazy girls. However, in middle school, the friend goes boy crazy and the protagonist doesn't. Finally, on the last day of school, the protagonist puts frozen urine in the friend's locker, creating a big mess. They never speak again.

On the current timeline, the girl learns about dangerous jellyfish. She wants to talk to an expert in Australia, but freezes up on the phone. She does a report on jellyfish for school, thinking the friend may have died due to a jellyfish sting. The class doesn't get it. She later decides to go to Australia to talk to the scientist there. She buys a ticket and books things, but discovers she doesn't have a visa and can't travel to Australia alone. In this process, she talks to the friend's mom and learns the friend still respected her for being able to be herself. She also is "stuck" with the annoying boy as a lab partner in school. She learns he is managing his ADHD and they become friends. Finally she opens up and talks and goes to the school dance. She even learns that others she thought had it all together have struggles and insecurities too. She is a smart kid, but doesn't know everything, but struggles with the social issues at school.

Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not by Ellie Terry

A girl is moving... again. She has had to move every time her mother breaks up with a boyfriend - and that seems to happen frequently. This time she is starting a new middle school in St. George, Utah. She wears crazy clothes to help distract from her Tourette's tics. Her neighbor is an Asian boy who happens to be student body president at her school. He likes to play baseball and is attracted to the new girl, but reluctant to be seen with her. The other kids at school tease the girl all the time for her clothes and tics. Finally the boy is willing to be seen with the girl. It all comes to head when his friends make fun of her and he punches them. This gets him suspended from school and causes him to lose his leadership position. But now they are good friends. Alas, her mom has married a guy in Nevada and they are going to move soon. The friendship has helped her to be more bold in her new school and be forward about her tics. The story is told in an open narrative style with various verse. It brings together the challenges of coming of age with peer pressure, medical conditions and family issues. There is even a side story of the "mean" girl and the challenges from her history.

The Crossover

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

Two twin boys love basketball. Their dad was a pro basketball player, but his career was cut short due to injuries. He did not want to see a doctor because his father died when he went to the hospital. One of the twin boys gets a girlfriend. This causes some jealousy at the hands of the other which he took out on the basketball court by hitting him with a bad pass. This caused him to be suspended. After a period of atonement, he started to get in a better position with his family. He was playing a game with his dad.  Alas, dad was having health problems and refused to see a doctor.  Dad collapsed and was finally rushed to the hospital. The boy was able to play a big basketball game, but dad passed away. It is a quick moving basketball book that ends with a teerjerker.

Other Words for Home

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

A girl comes with her family from war-torn Syria. She thought she spoke English well, but struggles in Cincinnati. She lives with her relatives who are fully Americanized. These relatives don't know Arabic and don't go to mosque. The girl tries to adjust to life in school and even tries out and makes the school play. She becomes friends with one of the drama weirdos. 

Things get worse when terrorist attacks occur on US soil. People shout slurs at her because she was Arab. She also has to defend her desire to wear a head scarf after she reaches womanhood. She is not forced, but does it because she wants to. 

It is a short tale of the struggles of adapting to a new culture and seeing the difference in perception and skills.

I Am Charlotte Simmons

I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe

A bright girl (Charlotte Simmons) from rural North Carolina goes off to fictional DuPont college, one of the top schools in the United States. There she encounters the prep-school elite that are more concerned with sex and sports than academics. She discovers that her French literature class is conducted in English - and is a popular one for jocks. In the class, she notices a student starts to give a smart answer, then plays dumb jock. The student later hits on her. She resists, but encourages him to not be dumb. (She didn't realize he was a basketball star.)  She switches out of that class and succeeds academically, but becomes disillusioned with the social life. There is plenty of underage drinking and her roommate boots her out in the middle of the night to have sex. She falls to peer pressure with some other girls and attends a frat party. A frat boy comes on to her. She spends time with him, but resists when he tries to get her alone in a room. One more boy, "a dork", comes onto her after running into her at the library and gym.

Despite not trying hard, she has a frat boy, a jock and a nerd all wanting her. They also have some connections to each other. The "dork" is on the newspaper and doing a story related to the frat boy and some bad behavior from the California governor. The dork works as an academic tutor and wrote a paper for the jock. At a tailgate, some boys get in a fight over her. The frat boy ends up stepping him to defend her. She later goes back to thank him. He invites her to an out of town frat formal. There, she ends up getting drunk and having sex with the frat boy. Gossip spreads after that and she feels horrible and loses her friends.

When she goes home for Christmas, she finds that is not home anymore. Her life with the rich kids at school is in a different universe than her rural home life. Her depression is also hitting her, resulting in her being even more distant from her family.

When she returns, her depression hits high gear. She doesn't want to be in her room with the other girls. She can't do much of anything. The dork boy helps save her. She moves in to his apartment (in a non-sexual way). He helps her to improve enough to go to her finals and eventually get mostly out of her depression. Then things flip. The dork tries to spill all beans to a professor regarding the paper he wrote for the jock. However, the professor uses that as an admission of guilt to press charges. Now he is depressed and needs her help. She helps for a bit, but is not as patient as he was. She eventually gets him to read his email and finds that his story about the governor's misdeeds is blowing up and the professor is now willing to drop his charges. As part of this, the frat boy has also become popular in school - but also lost his near-six-figure job.

The novel then jumps to a brief epilogue. The jock has had a career renaissance. He is one of the top players on the team. He is also challenging himself academically. He went against the coach's desires and took an advanced philosophy class. The next semester he challenged himself with even more academically challenging classes. Charlotte is now his girlfriend and has been helping push him to his academic success.

The book is a fairly easy read, but it is long and vulgar. The language is a bizarre combination of profanity and anatomical terms. The characters are mostly caricatures. The only character that experiences real growth is the basketball player who realizes that academics and discipline are valuable - and can improve his on-court performance. The main character spends time stepping out of her zone, but realizes it just made her feel worse. Keeping true to herself is what lead to a better experience. 

The author was a half-century removed from college when he wrote this book. He tried to get some details through research. This was written at a point in time that doesn't exist anymore. Cell phone were just coming into use - but only as phones. Social media was not yet a thing. College athletes still had the mirage of being students and were not yet fully professionalized. The view in the book is already dated. There were also some key details that were just missed. The school had finals after Christmas break. While high schools may do that, almost every college finishes before break. It also stretches credulity that all the "important" guys would be hitting on the same country girl. And would she be so cruel to just ditch the dork (even after telling her family that he was her boyfriend.)  What is the point of a not-quite accurate portrayal of college life with stock characters? Perhaps it is just an exercise in how 70-year old men see college students.

Out of My Mind

Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper

Melody Brooks has cerebral palsy and has little control of her body. However, she has a very bright mind. Much of the book deals with her struggles to live a life where she that recognizes her skills. A doctor thinks she has low mental capacity. However, she has advocates in her family and a friend. The friend helps to let her develop skills. She also helps her to get better ways to communicate.

Melody's school experience is different from others. At first she is isolated with others with disabilities. They have good teachers as well as teachers that treat them like idiots. She eventually gets integrated into the regular school system. She joins the quiz bowl team and is the focus of attention. She is both smart and different and the media loves her. Alas, the teammates don't like that she gets all the attention. They chose to meet without her for breakfast before their flight to the championship. They make it there while Melody misses it. The team doesn't do well. However, this experience, and a subsequent injury to Melody's sister helps her to grow and improve her relationship.

It can be difficult for people to manifest their skills when they have disabilities that make it difficult. Stephen Hawking was known for his smarts, even though he was mostly paralyzed. However, he had lived his youth "normal". Are there other people that have great skills that we cannot view because of physical challenges? On the other hand, we can't pretend that life is the same with them. They need help and can't participate in activities that others can. What sacrifices should others make? How can somebody with disability communicate? This book explores some of these themes from the Melody's view.

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley

Loo grew up with her father. She always seemed to be moving around. She was not sure exactly what her father did, but they did not seem to get along well with other people. Later, through a series of flashbacks and forward activities, we learn more about Loo and her father. He is involved in criminal activity. He is often on the run from his other partners in crime. They try to settle down in the town where Loo's grandma lives, but that becomes challenging. Loo's mom had died before trying to rescue her (after being shot.) Loo discovers the criminal behavior of her dad, and they bond through different actions (both "violent" and "white collar") There is an interesting family dynamic in the book. They love each other. Crime is not something they love, but they are stuck continuing to be involved.

Now Is Not the Time to Panic: A Novel

A teenage girl meets a boy her age in the small town she lives in. They each have an artistic bent and decide to create an artistic flyer that they put all around town. They make hundreds of copies and put it everywhere. Nobody knows what it means or where it came from.

People start to speculate on the origin of the flyer and things start to get crazy. Two teens who were up to no good claim the flyer was connected to some group that abducted them and forced them to do drugs. Others bring guns and start to shoot over them. Eventually a few people die due to the craziness of it.

The girl and the boy have a falling out and lose track of each other. The book then pivots to their adult life. She is now a successful author. An article will be written about the panic identifying her as part of it. She has not told anybody about it and feels stressed about doing so. She goes through the process of reconnecting and discovers it is not as bad as she thought.

The story is well written and hyper-focussed. Our teenage experiences can seem monumental to us. To others, they may not be nearly so important. Even our dark secrets may be known to others. Opening up can be very stressful, but does provide relief.

The Friendship Experiment

The Friendship Experiment by Erin Teagan

Madeline Little loves science. Her beloved scientist grandfather recently passed away and she continues in his tradition of writing SOPs. To make things more interesting, it is time to start Middle School and her best friend is off to a different school. She has struggles navigating the new friendships as well as the death in the family. Meanwhile her older sister just wants to be a cheerleader and hang out with the soccer players. However, she has a bad case of blood-clotting disorder that messes everything up. There are plenty of struggles and a humorous story of a "painting".

One day, just about everything bad happens. When she finally thinks she is making friends, they discover bad things she had written about them. Her sister is rushed to an out of town hospital after her poor attempts to cope with the blood clotting disorder. And to top it off, she may have ruined an important enzyme in her dad's experiment. These all help her to do some soul searching and begin the path towards apology and forgiveness. The boy that likes her big sister is one of the first one that starts out by interacting with the "little sister." They learn to help others and eventually make headway into patching up the relationships. 

Duplex: A Micropowers Novel

Duplex is Orson Scott Card's second micropower novel. The novel feels much more fresh than the recent Ender novel he wrote. It appears this is where is where his interest lies now. In this book, a girl has the ability to change her face so that it is exceptionally beautiful. A boy can defend others from attacks. There is also the ability to sense cats, make people yawn and all sorts of other smaller powers.

The plot centers around a boy who has a rough home life. His parents have separated, his little sister gets on his nerves and his social life is lacking. One day a new girl from Slovenia shows up at school. He befriends her and then discovers she lives next door. He struggles figuring out how to manage the social situation. He figures he needs a car, so asks his dad for a job. His dad encourages him to show responsibility first. He starts by taking out the trash and being nice to his sister.

He later discovers that there is a gang from Slovenia that is after his friend and his mother. He also learns that she can put on her "Helen of Troy" face - and that this is part of a curse that her mother put on her. Luckily, through an incident with a bee, he discovers his defense abilities. They meet up with others that have micropowers, and later have many incidents with the Slovene gang.

Dealing with social cues and hormones can be challenge enough as as awkward teenager. Life or death situations are just the icing on the cake. (Though having the external threats may make the "girl things" easier to deal with.)

The Optimistic Decade

A bunch of teenagers are at a remote summer camp that is also desired by oil companies for shale production. They do a bunch of vulgar teenage things. It is set in the Reagan/Bush years with an undercurrent of Berkeley idealism conflicting with business progress. Most of the characters come across as "brats". After the camp experience, they discover that "camp" people are different than they are in the real world. 

The Lying Life of Adults

The Lying Life of Adults is a very Italian novel. It was originally written in Italian by an Italian author and is set in Naples. It deals with a family that is torn apart due to infidelity in relationships. The central character is the daughter who gradually discovers that the adults are all caught in a variety of "lies". Her father fears that she may turn out like her distant aunt. The daughter then sees the aunt and learns about the affair that this aunt had. She becomes more friendly with the aunt and learns more about her life. At the same time, she gradually comes of age and discovers her sexuality as well and has various types of relationships with boys. Her parents' marriage falls apart as they got caught in "accidental" infidelity with friends. Then the book seems to meander along for a bit before it comes to a conclusion.

Lost and Found

Lost and Found centers on a lonely North Carolina high-schooler, Ezekiel Blast. People avoid him because he has a reputation of stealing things. However, what he does is "find things". He has a "micropower" that leads him to the owner of lost objects. However, he has often been accused of stealing these things that he has found, thus giving him the reputation of a thief. One day, a "grade school kid" attempts to join him on his walk. She sees that people avoid him and wants to join in the bubble. It turns out she is actually a high school student with proportional drawfism. They become friends and she helps him discover more about himself.
One day a cop asks him to help out on a missing-child case. He is not able to find "people" because they are not "lost". (He is offended when people talk about his mom being "lost". She isn't lost. She died in a car crash.) However, he can use the "lost" objects of people to find the owner. Through this involvement he helps bring down a child pornography ring that also sought his friend.
There is not a lot of heavy drama in this book. The events tend to just unfold quickly as you would like. However, the story an exploration of powers makes it something difficult to put down. The micropower support group is especially fun. It is led by a researcher who has the power to determine if somebody has an "innie" or "outie" belly button. There are also participants who can mask smells and make people yawn. These powers are difficult to control, and even more challenging to utilize positively. They all provide a lot of fun to explore. What would be the positive use of a bizarre power? Do these "micropowers" really differ very much from the "powers" that people have today. Isn't being naturually good at basketball or math also a form of micropower? It just doesn't stand out because it is normal.

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James

[plenty of spoilers] Romy Silvers is all alone in a space ship heading towards Earth 2. Her only human companionship comes from messages sent from a psychologist on earth. However, it takes a long time for the messages to travel back and forth, so she spends a lot of time in her own thoughts. She spends a lot of time writing "fan fiction" for one of her favorite shows. She learns that a new ship has been sent after hers. It moves much faster and will catch up with her in a year. It will then dock, and together the ships will arrive on earth two. She is excited to be able to arrive and meet other people before she is too old. She starts to communicate with the captain of the new ship (J). As they become closer and closer, they can almost begin to carry out a normal conversation. She feels she has a strong bond with him and eagerly anticipates meeting him. In her mind, she portrays him as a character in one of her favorite shows. However, as the ship gets closer, she learns that there was a war on earth and a new regime came to power. Her old psychologist no longer communicates with her. However, the new regime begins communications and starts to send proposed efficiency improvements. It does feel a little bit odd that they they would go down to super micro-level improvements from such a great distance away. (If it is taking them a year to get feedback, why would they gradually move to slightly reduce shower times?)

The author does a brilliant job of unfolding the novel. I had a strong desire to know how she ended up all alone in a space ship. The details gradually came out as we learn about her and the history. She had not been entirely truthful in her communications with earth regarding what had happened. The ship had a large number of astronauts in stasis. Her parents were supposed to be caretakers for some time before alternating with another couple. However, her mother became pregnant with her, resulting in them staying primary caretakers for longer. Then the stasis chambers failed and all the astronauts ended up dying. Her mother had gone mad in the process, and also tried to kill embryos and even killed her husband before putting herself in stasis. Romy was haunted by these fears.
The ending of the novel seems to come out of nowhere. All of a sudden, she Romy realizes she has been had. The guy she had been communicating with had been carrying out an elaborate ruse and was really just trying to get there to kill her. His parents died on the ship and he held her responsible. If her mother had not removed her birth control, she would not have been there, and her parents would have done a better job taking care of the other astronauts. He blocked communications with earth, fabricated the wars on earth and kept carrying out different sets of lies. He kept putting on a show, even telling lies as he tried to carry out truth. He managed to kill Romy's mother before Romy killed her.
The psychology of J is baffling. How could he be so caught up in such an elaborate plan of revenge? What were his motives? How was he so clear to not be caught? And how did she manage to find out at the last minute after not having a clue earlier. (She happened to find out by seeing that earth communications were coming from his ship. He later explained that his ship was a relay for them. If she was so "in love" with him, wouldn't she have just trusted that explanation?) And wouldn't those planning the space mission realized the psychological challenges of leaving too small a group of people "alone" on the ship for a long period of time? The novel was so well written. It is a shame that it ended so poorly.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl 

D'oh. I typed a bunch and then it seemed to disappear. Uggh. Lets try again. I had initially thought this book was science fiction. The title seemed science-ish, and the narrator of the audiobook narrates many of Orson Scott Card's science fiction books (hmmm... probably since he is her father.) When there was a statement about someone feeling they were a 70 foot tall tree, a took that literally and was looking for some outlandish space travel. I totally missed the part about the death of a teacher.

The book is written in the style of a college course (with a final exam.) The chapters have titles of literary works, and there are plenty of annotations throughout. It is a great, innovative style that keeps things interesting without distracting from the work.

The narrator of the book is smart girl that loves books and movies, but has very little social experience. This is her coming of age story. Her mom died when she was five and she had lived with her dad, an itinerant college professor. Her senior year in high school, her dad finally agrees to let her settle down in one place, "Stockton, North Carolina."

The one peeve I had with the book is the pseudo-place names. There are abundantly quoted "real" works of literature and movies. However, almost all the names of places and universities are made up. (I even tried to look some up.) I prefer to have my places "real" or non-existent. Having "almost real" places is just annoying.

She tries to fit in with a group of drama nerds that hang around the film teacher. She does stuff with them, and they all have experiences together. At one point, they sneak into an "adult" party, and see somebody die by drowning. This brings the first significant tragedy to the group. Later, the group goes on a camping trip with the favorite teacher. During the trip, the narrator discovers the teacher hanged, and the others get lost. This destroys the balance of the group, and narrator finds herself outcast and looking for answers to how and why. The police deem it a suicide, but she doesn't buy that. Her quest eventually leads her to uncover a link between the teacher, a crime organization, the early murder and her father. After she shares this with her father, he disappears in the night, never to see her again. It turns out that the university work, though real, was cover for her father's work with the organization. She even knew many figures in the organization. She never did find out who had killed the teacher, but she did find out a lot about herself during the course of events.

The style keeps the book interesting. The pacing could use a little work. The start of the book mentions that it is about the murder of the teacher. However, it spends a long time getting there. Once it gets to that point, it quickly zooms to the crime conclusion. There is almost no time spent going down false paths or building up suspense. It seems as if it is a coming-of-age tale that just had to have a murder tacked on to allow it to be a "mystery". This final bit is also the key point that completely changes her relationship with her father (and thus alters her life.) I am fine with the sudden ending, but would have liked to see it balanced with less exposition. (Or if keeping all the earlier parts, it would be nice to balance the ending by exploring the relationships in more detail.) Luckily, the style (and constant literary allusions) kept it interesting, even when the substance slowed down.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Near the end of the novel, the narrator questions why they are fighting the war. He has no beef with the other side. He comes to the conclusion that the Kaiser is fighting it because all leaders have to have a big war under their belts to make it in to the history books.

This realization was a far cry from his initial enthusiasm. On the outset, he was driven by patriotic zeal to go join the army. Once there, he realized it was not all it was cracked up to be. (This reminds me of people who have been eager to enlist in the US military to "fight the terrorists", but then find that things are not so glorious [or even as cut and dry] once they get there.)

The novel provides plenty of portrayal of the fighting and the dangers in trench warfare. There is no glory in the war being fought. There are some minor adventures (like sneaking across a river or pulling pranks on a mean leader), however in these have a somewhat depressing air in the context of the war.

The trip home expresses some of this contrast. The people at home are eager to hear the adventures at the front. They also want to ensure people are properly cared for, even as they die. The soldier, however, does not think of them as "adventures", and has grown to have a 'distant' view of people. (At times he feels "attached" to a person, but then can brush it aside.)

War in this novel is depressingly hard work that abuses both physically and mentally. It is no wonder it was banned by Nazi Germany.

Starman Jones

A young boy gets a new "step-step-father" who decides to sell the family farm and everything they own. The boy decides to run away, with dreams of becoming an "astrogator". He manages to sneak on to a ship as a low-level crew, eventually managing to become an apprentice astrogator. His chief supporter dies of natural causes leaving him more at the mercies of the evil junior astrogator and the past-his-prime captain. These to miscalculate some numbers as they were trying a difficult jump and disregard the boy's correction, leaving them stranded in space. They land on a planet with a livable climate, with seemingly peaceful creatures. However, these creatures try to enslave them, and they realize they must escape. Meanwhile, the other astrogators die and the boy is responsible for returning the ship home through uncharted space. He manages to do this, but still gets fined by the astrogators guild. He does get to keep his post, though he opts for bachelorhood rather than marrying the rich girl from the ship. Ok, so what's the point? It seems to aimed at boys fascinated with technology and space travel who feel tied down with their current surroundings. The boy in this story was content with his life as a farmer, even though he had used his photographic memory to memorize everything needed to travel in space. He eventually achieves his glory, but still has to deal with the challenges of society. There is also the political "anti-union" message. The guilds and unions put in a lot of needless restrictions and inhibitions on people achieving what they are capable of achieving. Even though he was capable of navigating a ship through uncharted space without assistance, he was still fined and forced to resume the role of junior astrogator. What kind of justice is that? We also see a society with 1950s style division of labor and values, along with concerns of regulations and land "takings" Old science fiction also provides an interesting look at how bad we are at predicting the future. Here people use slide rules and lookup tables to calculate binary values to feed to computers so they can fly through remote galaxies. Technology has shifted on a slightly different trajectory.