- Monsters (Caleb Bollenbacher)
Books Read:
- Age of Miracles (Karen Thompson Walker)
- Pardonable Lies (Jacqueline Winspear)
- Messenger of Truth (Jacqueline Winspear)
- Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)
- The Mirror of Merlin (T. A. Barron)
- One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
- Monsters (Caleb Bollenbacher)
December is a very book-friendly month; hence, I have decided to split the post up because I really want to be able to write in detail about some of the books I read at the beginning of the month. This post consists of what I read in Tallahassee and on the flight back to Houston.
Age of Miracles and Gone Girl both caught my eye on the New York Times best-sellers list over the summer (Gone Girl is currently #2 and has been on the list for the past 27 weeks). Now, I take things on the NYT list with a grain of salt (after all, Fifty Shades of Grey is still on there, and you can bet I won't be reading that one), but I also read reviews of both of these books in The Week, which usually does a good job of selecting more literary books. Age of Miracles is the type of book that if it were a movie, I would not be inclined to see at all - disaster movies are right up there with horror flicks and war films on my most-hated list. The book is narrated by a middle school girl and records what happens when the earth's rotation slows. It's an interesting and original idea, and the consequences are explored rather well, but since no one ever finds out why the earth is slowing, no one ever comes up with a solution, and we're left with an ending that doesn't satisfy. Gone Girl is probably most accurately described as a thriller - another genre I have no interest in, yet the review I read was intriguing. The book is certainly a page-turner, and there is a twist with the "killer," who is more of a subtle psychopath than we usually see, but I'm not sure if I would recommend this to anyone. The ending is odd - on the one hand, I didn't like either of the characters, and I think it would have been unrealistic to give either a happy ending, but the end of the book just didn't seem to fit.
The fourth Merlin book was my favorite so far - one more to go! I also enjoyed the third and fourth Maisie Dobbs books, although I thought they were weaker than the first, second, and eighth books. I have three left to read and was expecting to finish them before the end of the month, but the library just recalled one of them...might have to buy it.
I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Monsters on my trip from Tallahassee to Houston a couple of days ago - both are quick reads perfect for traveling! The first was recommended by my dad and describes a day in the 1950s Soviet prison camps. Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned himself, and after he was released and wrote this novel (I would call it a novella, really, at only 140 pages), he had to obtain permission from Khrushev before he could publish it in a magazine. This is the type of book that if I'd read it in high school, I would have had to identify themes and deeper meanings, so it was a pleasure to read it now and just enjoy the themes explored on a less conscious level. Monsters was recommended by my friend Chelsea and written by her friend Caleb. This is a collection of short stories; my favorite was entitled "Jezebel." I find it hard to describe short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just say that this is a collection worth checking out. I didn't like every story, but I am hard to please when it comes to short stories, and I think there is enough variety here that everyone will find one they like. For me, "Jezebel" was worth the $2.99 itself. I believe this collection is only available in e-book form. I have an iPad and a Kindle (the old one with the keyboard) and much preferred the formatting on the iPad.
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