Bookish Thoughts

I struggled with this book. It was interesting, and I think it's important. But it also felt a little shallow and contrived. Things were a bit too perfect, whole passages felt like they'd been lifted from a textbook. So while this book was certainly affecting (and yes I cried) it also left me feeling manipulated and distrustful. Which is a shame, because I think there's important information here. But the presentation has me questioning everything. The book follows Alice, a fifty-year old professor of cognitive psychology at Harvard, who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. My only other reference point for this disease is that one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett, had it. So I can't claim to be an expert in any way. But after watching Pratchett struggle for many years, and continue to work and fight and speak out, this book felt rushed. The titular character, Alice, goes from a lecturing professor to unable to recognize her own children in less tha...

Speak  is already considered a classic, appearing in high school classrooms across the country. After reading it, it's easy to see why. This is a short, easy to read book that speaks powerfully about depression and isolation. It's specific in a way that makes it very easy to relate to. The story follows Melinda through her freshman year of high school. Shortly before the year began, she was abandoned by all of her friends. She enters the year as a pariah, shunned by nearly the entire student body. This, coupled with her parents' neglect, causes her to retreat into herself. She doesn't speak unless it's necessary. She doesn't engage with her classes or her teachers. She's just trying to survive, to get through high school and out the other side where things will hopefully be better. Of course, four years is an awfully long time. Especially for a teenager. As the book progresses, she starts to find small ways to move forward, to heal from the trauma she ex...

At it's core, this is a story about a family curse. The book alternates between two timelines. The past timeline details the events that led to the family being cursed and its immediate repercussions. In the present, the latest descendant discovers this curse on his family and takes steps to break it. But breaking the curse might break him. Woven around this skeleton are any number of fantastical elements: a travelling circus, mermaids, and tarot cards. Tying it all together is a book, handed down through generations, lost and found, until it shows up right where it needs to be. This book was slow and atmospheric. There isn't a lot of action, it's more about relationships that are built up and tested, strained and repaired and sometimes broken entirely. It's about the ways your family and history can trap you. The things you need to do to break free and live your own life. I really loved this book. The family saga is epic, and the magic is woven in so subtly you c...

Anne's House of Dreams  was a million times better than Anne of Windy Poplars . I think the latter suffered from a whole lot of nostalgia and a poor balancing of ideas. But this book gets back to what I loved about Anne in the first place. She and Gilbert get married and move into their first home together. They meet their new neighbors and begin to make a life for themselves. This book felt like an actual novel rather than a series of vignettes. It let Anne be human again. A wonderful, irrepressible human who charms everyone she meets and finds ways to solve every problem she comes up against. But it let her be wrong. It let her be disliked (temporarily). It let her experience tragedy and come through the other side. More importantly, this book introduced Miss Cornelia Bryant, who is officially one of my favorite literary characters ever. A spinster who never has a nice word to say about a man or a mean word to say about a woman. She spends all of her free time sewing clothes ...

I liked The Book Thief  so much that I decided to give Zusak's other popular book, I Am the Messenger , a try. First things first, the two books are absolutely nothing alike. I Am the Messenger  is a feel-good coming of age novel with a happy, if strange, ending. The story follows Ed, an under-aged cab driver with no direction in life. Until he starts receiving obscure messages on playing cards that encourage him to perform acts of kindness around his city. Along the way he makes some friends, becomes more involved in his community, and discovers a sense of purpose. There are a few things that I think could have been handled better. A handful of things that made me cringe. But for the most part, this was a surprisingly uplifting and affecting journey. Some of the things Ed does are as simple as buying someone an ice cream cone. Others as complicated as restoring a sense of family duty to a pair of brothers. And through it all is the mystery of who's sending Ed on these mis...

The Outlaws of Sherwood , Robin McKinley's take on the legend of Robin Hood, was a fun bit of escapist reading that I stretched out over Thanksgiving. Unlike her other books, there's no magic or fantastical element here. Which makes sense. Robin Hood isn't a fairy tale so much as a folk hero, and as such he's much more grounded in reality. McKinley attempts something akin to historical fiction here (while acknowledging that some things that are key to the legend aren't exactly historically accurate). I think she mostly succeeds, and I think where she didn't meet my expectations it's my expectations that were wrong. She really does spin an interesting tale, taking into account real concerns and hurdles. She increases the number of female characters, and gives them all interesting stories. (And love interests, because even though this isn't a fairy tale it kind of is). Mostly I liked this book right up until the end, which just didn't work for me. ...

This was a fun collection of short stories for kids, from the very beginning of Terry Pratchett's career. He was still a teen-aged journalist when he wrote these stories for the paper he was working for. The collection was something of a mixed bag. I really liked some of the stories. Others never quite came together for me. Part of that is because I can't help but judge Pratchett's work against his later stuff. Comparing where he was in the beginning of his career to the heights to which he would eventually soar isn't fair, but I can't quite help it. On it's own, this is a wonderful collection of stories that I'll be thrilled to read to my kid in a few years. You can see the seeds of ideas and themes that Pratchett would go on to wrestle with later in life. The stories are cute and funny and often manage to subvert expectations. It'd be nice if there were more girls, but that's something Pratchett eventually got a lot better about.