Tag: literature

I’m sure everyone has experienced this at some point: you start reading a book you’ve heard great things about, or have wanted to read for a long time only to get partway through it and find that it is not nearly as good as you thought it would be, and it is near impossible to get immersed in it. So what do you do?

Many people I know, both avid readers and not, abandon the book, with the logic of “why waste time reading a book you aren’t enjoying when you could switch to a book you’d like better?” That logic makes perfect sense to me but ever the optimist, I like to persevere, thinking that eventually the book will get better. And, if it doesn’t, well then at least I know how the story ends.

But with Will Schwalbe’s The End of Your Life Book Club, the book I had picked to read for Books On The Nightstand’s summer book bingo under the category of a book with only words on the cover, I quit partway through.

The gist of the plot is that Will Schwalbe’s mother is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and he and her end up creating an impromptu two-member book club. They recommend books to one another, and discuss them during his mother’s chemo treatments. The story is incredible, but the writing style is so far from what I like reading that it dulled the story for me to the point where I was counting the number of pages left before the next chapter began. While I have stopped reading it for now, I wrote a post-it note with the title of the book and the page number I got to and stuck it on my bookshelf so that I can always go back and try it again.

In order to fill the gap of a book with only words on the cover, I substituted in Room by Emma Donohue, which I mentioned in my Pre-Paris book haul. I read it over the course of my trip, finishing it just yesterday on the plane home, so expect to see a review of that one soon. It is an incredibly powerful novel, and one that I would have read in one sitting if I could have, but the plane ride over wasn’t long enough.

So, my question of the day is what book did you start reading but didn’t finish???

Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you have a lovely day 🙂 🙂

Now THIS is a good read!!!

I picked this up at Chapters a while back off the award-winners table, but never really gave it much attention. I am awful at this, but sometimes I write off award-winning books as being too dense or heavy for a nice, light read. I mean, come on, if they win something as big as the Man Booker Prize, chances are the plot isn’t simply girl meets boy, girl loves boy, they fight a little, but then live happily every after. You know the story has to have some depth and a new perspective on the ordinary, which sometimes takes me longer to wade through, because I want to understand every word of it. But this novella is actually incredible, and not nearly as daunting as I made it out to be. Ha, and at only 150 pages, I figured I could make it.

This novella is divided into two parts. The first chronicles Tony Webster’s journey through sixth form, his friendship with the brilliant mystery Adrian Finn, and the failure of his first relationship with fellow university student Veronica. The second part takes place forty years later, when Tony receives a solicitor’s letter informing him that he has been left Adrian’s diary in a will. Because of this, Tony is forced to examine his life, and analyze the accuracy of his youthful memories, as his relationship with Veronica is reopened, a relationship he had chosen to erase from the memories of his life. This book largely focuses on the importance of documentation because, as Tony repeatedly states, corroboration is vital for assessing the truthfulness of subjective memory.

What I found really interesting about this novella is the development of Tony as a character. While many of us seek to be unique and stand out, Tony accepts that he is ordinary, and in some cases it can be argued that he is satisfied with being so. He has led a successful life in that he had a good career with a good retirement, a good marriage with a good-natured divorce, and a daughter, Susie, whom he escorted into the domestic safety of marriage. All in all, his life has gone ok. But “I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded,” says Tony, because he knows his life should have been more than just ok. As the sense of his own ending begins to approach, Tony recognizes that the purpose of life is to help us come to terms with its consequent loss, i.e. life is meant to show us that it is not nearly as great and wonderful as we thought it would be when we were young.

Overall, this book is a wonderful rumination on memory, aging, and remorse, and one that I feel I cannot fully relate to yet. When reading the first part, I found it very easy to connect to Tony as he discussed how he believed his emotions should be like those of characters he read about in literature, and how he wondered if he had ever really been in love with Veronica. Those are emotions that make sense to me, because they are felt by all young people at some point. In youth, we map out our futures as being grand lives filled with adventure. However, when reading the second part, I was often left slightly confused, because the sense of my ending is still off in the distance. As a young adult who is still in my “I am invincible and the world is my oyster” phase, I have yet to have reflections on memory and aging of the same nature as those of Tony Webster. I definitely want to read this book again and again every few years, because I know it will be one of those books where I change my opinion of it and see something new in the story every time I read it.

Now for some nifty novella notes:

Opening Paragraph: 

I remember, in no particular order:

-a shiny inner wrist;

– steam rising from a wet sink as a hot frying pan is laughingly tossed into it;

– gouts of sperm circling a plughole, before being sluiced down the full length of a tall house;

– a river rushing nonsensically upstream, its wave and wash lit by half a dozen chasing torchbeams;

– another river, broad and grey, the direction of its flow disguised by a stiff wind exciting the surface;

– bathwater long gone cold behind a locked door;

This last isn’t something I actually saw, but what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.

What I Loved Most: The brevity of this novella in no way compromises the potency of the themes. It may be short, but every sentence is precious, and adds a deeper level of understanding.

What I Loved Least: This is not a critique of the novella itself, but rather a critique of novellas as a whole: their length. Admittedly, I love novellas for the powerful messages they can convey in such a limited number of pages, but this also means that each page and each sentence is all the more important, and should be read with a focused mind, ready to make connections. Unfortunately, I read this book in several choppy sittings, when it deserved a read in one sitting with a cup of hot chocolate perched on a nearby table.

Memorable Line:

History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.

Closing Paragraph:

There is accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond these, there is unrest. There is great unrest. 

Final Thoughts: Simply put, this is an amazing novel. There is no doubt in my mind why it won the 2011 Man Booker Prize, and I hope to re-read it again in years to come to better understand the second part, as Tony questions the veracity of his memories of his youth.

Next up is Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman for a book published in 2015!!!

Finding a romance or love story was actually a bit of a challenge for me, as the majority of by bookshelves house the brain children of authors like Stephen King and Margaret Atwood; not much romance to be found. It turns out I bought this book back in January (January 19th, to be exact, at 5:09pm), and it has been sitting in my TBR pile ever since. Luckily it fit the bill quite nicely.

This little novel is set in the late 1990s–ah, youth– and is told from a very unique perspective. 28-year-old Lincoln O’Neil is hired by The Courier, a local newspaper, for an Internet Security job. Much to his surprise, he learns that his job is to read other people’s email, and write a report every time an email triggers the filter. But why does he not report Jennifer Scribner-Snyder and Beth Fremont for their flagged personal emails? Because their emails are smart and funny, and maybe Lincoln is falling for Beth . . .

Every second chapter or so is the newest flagged email correspondence between Jennifer Scribner-Snyder and Beth Fremont that Lincoln is reading “for work.” Typically, the following chapter is then Lincoln’s reaction to the emails, as well as insight into his personal life.

This novel is the first written by Rainbow Rowell, and it is so impressive how authentic her characters are, while also being extremely likable. Lincoln is the kind of guy that I think many girls would want to read about; he’s geeky and cute, but has a huge heart.

This book may be contemporary adult fiction and have countless cute elements, but elements of sadness are just as abundant. Lincoln happens to hate his job, has moved back home with his mother, and his Dungeons & Dragons campaign members and friends all have families and independent lives. He wants to escape it all, but how can he? And how can he tell Beth how he feels about her when he’s never even met her?

Now for some little tidbits about the book:

Opening Paragraph: 

From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

To: Beth Fremont

Sent: Wed, 08/18/1999 9:06 AM

Subject: Where are you?

Would it kill you to get here before noon? I’m sitting here among the shards of my life as I know it, and you . . . if I know you, you just woke up. You’re probably eating oatmeal and watching Sally Jessy Raphael. E-mail me when you get in, before you do anything else. Don’t even read the comics.

What I Loved Most: This novel is a cute, modern twist on love at first sight. Love at first email is a wonderful, modern chronicle of how love can be found through many mediums. With Facebook and Omegle and dating sites galore, meeting true love through technology is becoming more and more common. But back in the 1990s, I’m sure it was almost unheard-of.

What I Loved Least: At first I was irked that the chapters kept alternating between email format and then normal paragraphs from Lincoln’s perspective, but as I continued reading, I came to really like it, and found that it enhanced the uniqueness of the story.

Memorable Line:

“I didn’t know love could leave the lights on all the time.”

Closing Paragraph: I’m actually not going to share this one because it kind of gives away what I think is the cutest element of the novel. So you’ll just have to read the book yourself to find out this one 🙂 🙂

Final Thoughts: This is just a cute little easy read: perfect for a day at the beach or to pass by the miles of a road trip. But now I want to read Eleanor and Park more than ever. Added to the TBR list.

Next up is The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes for A Booker Prize winner (or made the short list)!!!