The quality of books I have been reading in recent months has gone a bit downhill, mainly because I don't have time to read a lot. So I tend to gravitate towards easy reads; chick-lit if you will. I love those books, but they don't take a lot of mind power to comprehend. Which is exactly what I need while still muddling through school. But I decided in the calm between the storm (ie before finals start) to try to branch out. I didn't like what I chose.
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Wall
Jeanette wrote her memoir about her life growing up with her probably-mentally-ill-but-is-never-mentioned-as-such mother and her alcoholic yet intelligent (when he's sober) and loving father. He does demonstrate his love, but clearly his priorities are not in line. Jeanette has an older sister, a young bother, and a younger sister and they grow up in utter poverty, though Jeanette doesn't realize this until she is much older. It makes you sad that children can live this way. But it's a very well written book and at least I couldn't make myself hate the father, even after seeing what he put his family through. The mother.... well... that's a different story. I'd like to give her a piece of my mind!
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue.
Not my style. That's really all I can say about this book. It is about a boy who is stolen by a changeling, so the changeling can steal his life and grow up among humans. Meanwhile the human boy is changed into a changeling and forced to live as one of them. The book follows the two stories of the Changeling Henry Day who is living as a human and the human Henry Day who is know a changeling called Aniday. Henry Day lives in fear that someone will find out who he really is (and drags his new wife to Germany to research his former human self) and Aniday longs to be a human again and wants to go home to his mother. Personally, I would skip the book, but then I already said it wasn't my style.
So my adventure into heavier reading did not fare well for me. But after finals are done, I might read Jane Erye or Pride and Prejudice because I haven't read either one. I don't know how I managed to get through high school without having to read them, but I didn't. We'll see if I can get through them now.
3 comments:
I read your comment on Matt's blog that my posting on yours is disconcerting. Well, let me pro-concert it a little by replying on things I've read lately, maybe you'll find one or two of them interesting. On the way over here I read "The Afghan Campaign" by Steven Pressfield, about a grunt in Alexander the Great's army and their most difficult campaign against, well, Afghans back in the day. Andrew might like it, lots of swearing and blood and guts. I also plowed through "Thieves of Baghdad" by Col. Matthew Bogdanos, a Marine who saw action in modern-day Afghanistan and Iraq and spear-headed the recovery effort for items looted from the Museum of Baghdad after the initial invasion. It's quite interesting, part CSI, part Indiana Jones. Out of idle interest, I picked up "World War Z" by Max Brooks, about a fictional global conflict against zombies and how mankind, though humbled, ultimately triumphed. Am I boring you yet?
Okay this sounds even worse now that Ian has left a post with all his adventurous war novels, but in regards to Jane Eyre or Pride & Prejudice, I would go with Pride & Prejudice. Great book and well worth reading. Also, the movie with Kiera Knightley is really good.
I want to see what Jane Eyre is about because my father had to read it in high school and was so tormented by the whole ordeal that he still talks about it. He calls it Jane Eerie. Then again, do I really want to read a terrible book that puts high schoolers through hell when I don't have to? Maybe I will stick with Pride and Prejudice. I'm fairly certain I've seen a movie of it with Colin Firth. Or maybe that was some other British novel. I really don't know.
Or maybe I'll read World War Z about the zombies. I'm always down for a good zombie book. Actually I've never read a zombie book or even watched a zombie movie, but hey, how terrible could the undead be?
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