Well, here we go. Again, I want to apologize before hand, just in case I am dissing your favorite book or author. These are nothing but my opinion and while I think it is pretty darn good, you just may disagree with me. That's ok - I'll like you anyway.
Birdsong - This book just wasn't my thing. It was the tale of a young man who has an affair with a married woman which - big surprise here - doesn't work out. He joins the army and fights in the war and while the writing is fairly good, the book never left me feeling like I got to know any of the characters. It was just words on a page after a while.
The Time Traveller's Wife - Love stories have always been a favorite of mine and this one was very good. Once I figured out how the whole time traveling thing worked, I really enjoyed this book. You want everything to work out so badly that you end up biting off all your fingernails - oops, that might just be me. Anyway, read this one this summer - it's a story not easily forgotten.
Brideshead Revisited - Again, another book I couldn't really get into. No happy ending, no happy people, no happy anything. Not that I always need happiness but I definitely think there is a lot more to life than this book had to offer.
Persuasion - On Mother's Day my mom had given me the movie Pride and Prejudice (the newer one with Kierra Knightley) and I watched it right before I read this book. After watching the movie I was so filled with romanticism that I danced around the room with a dopey grin on my face picturing myself being carried away on the wings of everlasting love and happiness with Mr. Darcy. Then I heard Owen ask Mark "What's wrong with Mommy? Did she fart?" (my boys are obsessed with bodily functions). I was brought back down to earth and so I sat down and began to read Persuasion. My romantic giddiness carried over into the book and I really enjoyed it although it can't touch Pride and Prejudice in my opinion. That Jane really knows how to make a love story work.
The Kite Runner - Now this one was truly surprising. I didn't think I would like it at all. The main character and most of the book are set in Afghanistan and, not to be ignorant, but that culture and life style have never interested me in the slightest. But, since it was on the list, I went ahead and read it. It has been my favorite book so far. I liked it even better than Gone With the Wind. The author is amazing and his writing is truly captivating. It is a sad tale about love and loss, about betrayal and redemption. It made my heart ache with sadness and it made me angry enough to close the book and swear I wasn't going to read any more and it made me happy enough to cry. That is why the book is amazing - it makes you experience all those things and come away better by having done so. Read it - today if you can.
That's all for now. I am currently reading The Grapes of Wrath and trying not to fall asleep. That's probably not fair, after all, I am only on chapter 3. It's just that I am prejudiced against old John Steinbeck. In Junior High I decided to read one of his books - The Red Pony. The horse, the beloved red pony of a little boy, died in chapter 2 or 4 or something like that. What kind of crap is that I ask you!? I didn't even finish the book and in my anger I swore a blood oath (not really - I just swore) that I would never again read a John Steinbeck novel because he obviously couldn't write. Now I find that I still have those feelings of unresolved anger against him and so I am taking it out on The Grapes of Wrath. We'll see if my opinion of old John changes by the end of this book or not.
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