Bloggin 'Bout Books Blog

I'll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan was a very nice, heartfelt novel about the different kinds of love.  Emily Bell is 17 years old. She doesn't really like boys or dating or singing. But when her dad forces her to sing in the church choir, she meets eyes with a boy in the back of the church who seems to be able to see into her soul. After that, she becomes devoted to tracking him down.  My book club ( foreveryoungadult -- in case you too are lonely for a book club) is reading this for our March meeting, so I had to quickly find a copy. (I actually borrowed it from the high school library that I volunteer at because my local public library didn't have a copy!) I basically sat down last night and started reading it so I could finish it sometime this week, and I ended up reading it all last night.  Overall, I enjoyed it, but I still had a couple problems with it. First of all, I would probably classify this as a younger young adult novel or (more likely...

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is probably one of the best books I've ever read. I first read To Kill a Mockingbird in my sophomore year of high school. And it was amazing. I loved it when I read it then. But almost 10 years have passed, and my book club decided to read it, so I sat down Thursday and read it all over again.  And I think I loved it even more this time. There's basically three parts to this story: the first and main part is the childhood of the main character Jean Louise "Scout" Finch. This book was originally published in 1960, but it was set during the 1930s. Scout is a hell of a main character to come out of that time combination. She's sassy and relentless. She's damn near fearless. And she is exactly the opposite of what good society considers a little lady to be. The second part of the story is the tale of Scout's neighbor Boo Radley. He's a shut-in who has become more or less a town legend. Nobody has seen him i...

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is a very interesting short story. I finished it yesterday, and even after mulling it over for a full 24 hours, I'm not sure how I felt about it. On the one hand, the atmosphere was well described. I was sitting outside in the sun, but I could picture the harsh yet beautiful New England winter setting. And hey, unrequited, disastrous love stories are sort of my thing. But on the other hand, this is so much Ethan's story. Like I wasn't even sure if his love was reciprocated until like 10 pages from the end. So I don't know that I would necessarily call it a love story at all. I didn't necessarily dislike the novel, I just really didn't like it either. Anyway, I read it for my book club, and I'm interested to see what type of conversation we have about it. Favorite Quote: "It was intoxicating to find such magic in his clumsy words, and he longed to try new ways of using it."

The Color Purple by Alice Walker is a heart-wrenchingly beautiful tale of love and loss. It's about finding yourself when you think you've hit the lowest point possible. I kind of can't explain how much I liked this book. The summary doesn't make it sound like it'd be my cup of tea, and I know it's a classic, but sometimes classics have endured for stupid reasons. The Color Purple is not one of those classics. It's beautiful and wonderful and I wish I could reach through my computer screen and make everyone read it. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys epistolary novels with immense character development. Favorite Quotes (This is basically just going to be the whole book, sorry): "But I don't know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive." "I make myself wood. I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That's how come I know trees fear man." "I dream of murder, she say, I dream of murder sleep or wak...

Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison by Piper Kerman was (for the most part) surprisingly thoughtful. This was another book club pick, and I was excited to read it because I love the Netflix show which is based on it. So let me just say that Netflix took some pretty big liberties in turning a memoir into a narrative story line. I mean, I should have seen that coming, but I didn't really so I feel like I should warn other people. Kerman goes to jail for a 10 year old offense of carrying drug money across national lines (or something to that affect). Although she knows intellectually at the beginning of the book that what she did was illegal, she doesn't really believe that she should serve prison time for it. But as she goes through her 13 month sentence she begins to realize the lasting consequences of the small role she played in the drug trade business. Kerman does a good job of pointing out the fact that she had it so much better than most of the ...

TW: self-harm Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn was definitely a novel outside of my normal reading habits. Camille Preaker is the protagonist of this novel--she's a cutter who recently finished a stay at a mental health institution. She's gone back to work and as one of her first major assignments, she's sent back to her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri. There's been two little girl murdered and Camille's editor wants to be the first "major" newspaper in on the story. Camille does not have a good relationship with her family. Frankly, Camille does not have a good relationship with herself. She's stopped cutting, but she's turned to alcoholism instead. Camille has no respect for her own body--I mean, I am all for doing what you want with your own body, but only when it isn't a choice made with a self-destructive intent. Camille takes drugs and sleeps with people with the intent to hurt her own body. I wasn't a fan of Sharp Objects. I d...