Book Review: Murder on the Orient Express (Christie)
Have I read this before: Nope. I’m not really a murder mystery/detective book person.
Review: This was pretty good. Probably the most surprising thing was me figuring out the ending before it happened because, like I said, this is not my genre and I’ve never considered myself good at figuring out mysteries. But once some more facts came out about each of the characters, I kinda figured where things were going.
Favorite Part: The pacing was good in this one. It never dragged but also never felt rushed. It held your attention and made you want to keep reading to figure out how everything was going to connect at the end.
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: The Last Tycoon (Fitzgerald)
Have I read this before: Nope. The was another book added in my most recent “300 Books” expansion.
Review: I love Fitzgerald. I love the way he writes. He has this wonderful ability to create a fully realized character in the first sentence written about them or in their first line of dialogue. He also has this carefree feel to his writing that encapsulates the time period in which his stories are set that I’ve never seen replicated quite the same way. This book (or partial book – it was left unfinished at Fitzgerald’s death) is no different in the characters and style. And even though it is incomplete in terms of plot and resolution, because of these unique features, I’d still give it a better score as a book overall than some of the other things I’ve read off my list (*cough* The Adventures of Augie March *cough*) because it still drew me in and made me keep reading.
ALSO, my freaking Kindle faked me out on when the book was going to end. I knew it was an unfinished novel and thus expected an abrupt ending at some point, but beyond that I didn’t know when this ending would be. So I was reading along happily – with my Kindle saying I was still only 68% of the way through – when the actual book ended and the rest of the Kindle edition (which contained discussions of the book as well as some snippets of other works) began. So it was a very abrupt ending, haha. But I was cool with it.
Favorite Part: Another thing I like about Fitzgerald is he just sprinkles in some absolutely beautiful little lines/descriptions every once and a while. Like this one about an earthquake:
“We didn’t get the full shock like at Long Beach where the upper stories of shops were spewed into the streets and small hotels drifted out to sea – but for a full minute our bowels were one with the bowels of the earth – like some nightmare attempt to attach our navel cords again and jerk us back to the womb of creation.”
Love it.
Rating: 7/10
Book Review: Jude the Obscure (Hardy)
Have I read this before: Nope. In fact, this was one of the books I added in my most recent “300 Books” expansion, as I’ve read some Hardy and enjoyed him.
Review: Thomas Hardy. Friend. If the purpose of this book was to introduce one of the most frustrating female characters ever into the vast realm of English literature, mission accomplished. Like…I know Hardy can write enjoyable female characters, as Tess (of d’Urbervilles) and Bathsheba (from Far from the Madding Crowd) were both somewhat frustrating but still enjoyable and “root for”-able.
But fucking Sue, dude. I get that she’s supposed to stand in as a representation of the conflicting influences of religion and sex and marriage on a woman (or a person in general), but I feel like such conflicts could still be portrayed without making me want to punch her through a wall whenever she was in the scene. Even Arabella was obnoxious with how she used Jude and how Jude’s character basically started to deteriorate as soon as he met her.
Just…ugh. Frustrating characters and not in a good way, man. You know it’s rough when the most sympathetic character in a book is a creepy weirdo kid who commits murder-suicide.
Favorite Part: I don’t know if I have one. The fact that they referred to their creepy weirdo kid as “Father Time” was kind of…creepy and weird, I guess.
Rating: 4/10
Book Review: The House of the Seven Gables (Hawthorne)
Have I read this before: I THOUGHT I had, but holy hell, I don’t remember any of this stuff. I do vaguely recall checking this book out of our junior high library, which means it was one of the first books I read on my list way back when and I was probably…twelve? Thirteen? So yeah, who remembers anything about anything involving one’s tween years?
(I do but LET’S NOT GO THERE)
Review: This was good, mainly because I like Hawthorne’s writing style. I like how the house itself was basically described as a living (and haunted) thing and how the Colonel’s portrait on the wall reacted to events taking place in the house. The ending was a bit of a letdown as I was expecting something a little more…not grandiose, necessarily, but impactful.
Favorite Part: Just the writing style. It flowed very nicely and was easy to read in the sense that the style basically prompted you onwards. I like that kind of style.
Rating: 5/10
Book Review: Gulliver’s Travels (Swift)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: So you know the most famous part of this book? The first part when Gulliver goes to Lilliput, the island full of little dudes? That’s the most boring part of this whole story. The visit to the island full of giganto dudes (Brobdingnag) was much more engaging, and the visit to the island full of the talking, rational horses (the Houyhnhms) was the most reflective. So if you can get past the Lilliputians, you’re golden.
Favorite Part: I think the part that stuck with me the most was when Gulliver’s little house (basically a shoebox) on Brobdingnag was scooped up by a giant bird and then dropped into the ocean. He describes this from within the sealed box, unable to see what’s happening, and once he starts feeling his house being towed in the water, he assumes that one of the giant Brobdingnag citizens swam out and is bringing him back to land. But then he hears people speaking English and realizes that human sailors have found him and he calls for them to open the box. They reply that they need some time to try to get it open, and he wonders why they don’t just lift the lid off because he’s so used to being around individuals large enough to do so. Swift portrays that feeling of Gulliver being small so well that I also was like, “why don’t they just take the lid off?” before realizing that Gulliver was back with people his own size, haha. It was a good illusion.
Rating: 5/10
Book Review: For Whom the Bell Tolls (Hemingway)
Have I read this before: Yes! I read this during the summer of 2008. I remember reading it in the Wallace basement during our breaks on that U of I cleaning job.
Review: I vaguely remember that this book’s ending making me cry the first time I read it. It didn’t provoke that reaction at all this time, but it was still an impactful ending. And my opinion of any given book is heavily swayed by its ending. A Handmaid’s Tale? Not a fan, strictly because I hated the ending. A Prayer for Owen Meany? It was good throughout, but the ending nailed it for me and made it one of my favorite books. The ending didn’t “make” this one for me, but it was a good ending and it was a memorable book. I like Hemingway in general.
Favorite Part: Probably the ending, hahaha.
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: Don Quixote (de Cervantes)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: Okay, so I knew nothing about this book other than there was something in there involving windmills and that the word “quixotic” came from it. So I didn’t know what to expect going into it, which made it so much better.
Parts (swaths) of this are absolutely hysterical. It’s easy to feel badly for Don Quixote ‘cause the dude’s delusional, but it’s hard to feel bad for Sancho Panza because he’s in full possession of his faculties but keeps following Don Quixote around EVEN THOUGH THEY ALL GET BEATEN UP LIKE EVERY FIVE PAGES. Y’all should read it if you haven’t. It’s a classic for a reason.
Favorite Part: Like I said, parts of this are absolutely hilarious.
1. Sancho Panza being like “are you absolutely nuts?” when Don Quixote starts charging “knights” – and they’re actually sheep:
Sancho called to him, saying:
“Your grace, come back, Senor Don Quixote, I swear to god you’re charging sheep! Come back, by the wretched father who sired me! What madness is this?”
2. That whole scene when Sancho and Don Quixote puke all over each other.
3. Andres wanting absolutely nothing to do with Don Quixote because misfortune follows him everywhere:
It is certainly true that when he left, he said to Don Quixote:
“For the love of God, Senior Knight Errant, if you ever run into me again, even if you see them chopping me to pieces, don’t help me and don’t come to my aid, but leave me alone with my misfortune; no matter how bad it is, it won’t be worse than what will happen to me when I’m helped by your grace.”
4. When Don Quixote stabs the hell out of a bunch of wine skins while asleep, destroying them all, thinking that they’re parts of a giant.
5. When he absolutely demolished Master Pedro’s puppets because he thought they were real.
Rating: 7/10
Book Review: A Christmas Carol (Dickens)
Have I read this before: Nope! I’ve seen all the standard movie adaptations, though.
Review: So the adaptation that I had in my mind going into this book was the Muppet version, so as was the case when I read Treasure Island, all the characters had their respective Muppet/human voices as they spoke in the book. I was actually surprised at how much of the narration (especially at the start of the book) and dialogue was honored in the adaptations I’ve seen, but I guess that’s part of the classic tale.
Favorite Part: Stave Three, where we follow Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present. I always liked the idea of the Ghost of Christmas Present having such a short life because he only exists in the present and another “present” is always on the horizon.
Rating: 7/10
Book Review: Andersonville (Kantor)
Have I read this before: No. I know we had the book in our junior high library, though, and I considered it during those very first few months of using my Book List. Never did read it, though.
Review: Oof. This book. This was a hard read because basically every chapter was “here’s this soldier’s life from birth until he gets to Andersonville. Get invested in him, he’s interesting. Oops, now he’s died the most horrible death imaginable!”
Of course there was a main storyline threading through the whole thing, but that’s what a majority of this book felt like.
It was very well-written. Very impactful. You don’t really think about those types of prison conditions in the US, even back then, but the real Andersonville Prison was probably even worse than in these fictionalized tales.
Favorite Part: the interaction between Coral and Naz near the end. That whole segment of the book was the most emotional part, in my opinion, because of everything building up to it and how so much of their relationship was built wordlessly and was based on their circumstance and histories instead. Easily the most memorable part of a very memorable book.
Also, these few lines (which was pretty much the only humor in the whole book) between Coral and Naz.
“What’s them?”
“From tropic lands. From many an ancient river, from any a palmy plain.”
“Hain’t you smart with your rhymes and truck!”
“It’s a hymn.”
“Don’t care if it’s a her.”
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: War and Peace (Tolstoy)
Have I read this before: Technically, yes. I read it in either 7th or 8th grade because the kid I liked was reading it and I wanted to be like him. Or with him. Or better than him. It was complicated. Anyway, I finished it and he didn’t but I’ll be damned if I remembered anything other than one of the characters being named Pierre. Note that I discuss my history with this book in this blog post, so you may want to read that first. You know, if you actually care.
Anyway.
Review: Where do I even start with this? Do I start with how there are about 80 characters but they’re all written so distinctly and thoroughly that you truly get a sense of their different personalities and backgrounds? Do I start with the fact that I knew approximately NOTHING about the Napoleonic Wars going into this thing but now all I want to do is read about that period in history in even more detail than it’s described in War and Peace? Do I start with the way Tolstoy portrays how the war effects everyone – especially the young people – is simultaneously so subtle and so blatant that you get both the “during” and “after” perspectives of this chunk of history? Can I talk about how great this particular translation is, because it certainly doesn’t even sound like a translation and sounds like you would suspect Tolstoy wrote it to sound?
WHERE DO I START
I loved this book, friends. Absolutely loved it. It’s been quite a while since a book was that engaging for me (probably not since Lonesome Dove, and before that it had been even longer). I know it’s a massive tome, but if you haven’t read it yet, READ IT.
READ.
IT.
It will capture your soul.
Hell, I don’t even know if I want to read another book for a while. What could compare to this, honestly?
Favorite Part: Again, where do I start? I just checked my Kindle and I have a ton of pages bookmarked for quotes, incidents, and descriptions that I especially liked.
Some are funny, like Bilibin’s discussion of the generals:
“Except for your man Kutuzov, every single column is commanded by a non-Russian. Look at the commanders: Herr General Wimpfen, le comte de Langeron, le prince de Liechtenstein, le prince de Hohenlohe, and then there’s Prshprshprsh-all-consonants-and-no-vowels – like all Polish names.”
Or Pierre thinking he’s destined to destroy Napoleon single-handedly because he did some stuff with numbers and found out their names were the same numerically.
“If you use this system to write out the words l’empereur Napoleon numerically, the sum of the letter-numbers comes to 666 (allowing 5 for the e omitted from le), which makes Napoleon the beast prophesied in the Apocalypse.”
…
Once he applied the system to his own name in its French version, ‘Comte Pierre Besouhof”, but the total was miles out. He changed the spelling, substituting z for s, added de and the article le, but he still couldn’t get what he wanted. Then it occurred to him that if the answer he was looking for was to be found in his name, surely his nationality ought to be mentioned as well. He tried Le russe Besuhof and this came to 671, only five too much and 5 was the value of e, the letter dropped from the definite article in l’empereur Napoleon. Dropping the e again (quite unjustifiably) Pierre got the answer he was after in the phrase l’russe Besuhof – exactly 666! This discovery shook him.”
That’s hilarious.
Many of them are the beginnings of long stretches of philosophical discussion about war (way too long to type here). Especially near the end, Tolstoy interjects every several chapters or so with a chapter dedicated to some sort of philosophical examination of some aspect of war, the character of man, history’s interpretation of events, etc.
There are also parts that I wouldn’t have gotten as much out of if I wasn’t learning French:
“He kissed her hand and called her vous and Sonya. But their eyes when they met were on tu terms and they shared a tender kiss.”
Also, a completely unintentional hilarity was included since the translator (or Tolstoy himself, I’m actually not quite sure) included a “Summary of Chapters” section in which every single chapter gets a one- or two-sentence summary. Some of the summaries are hilarious just because they make no sense unless you know how the chapter is structured (is it part of the plot or is it a “Tolstoy Philosophy Power Hour” section? Or both?). Best example: “Alexander renounces power. Why do bees exist? For no single reason.”
Rating: 9/10. This is in my Top Five.
Book Review: Treasure Island (Stevenson)
Have I read this before: No.
Review: It was impossible to read this without hearing each character in the voice of the Muppet (or human) who voiced them in Muppet Treasure Island. Captain Smollett? Kermit. Mr. Arrow? Sam Eagle. Long John Silver? Tim Curry. Squire Trelawny? Fozzie. I was actually surprised at how closely Muppet Treasure Island followed the actual book. I realize this is more of a review of Muppet voices than anything, haha, but I did enjoy the book! Needs this scene, though.
Favorite Part: Ben Gunn. He was an enjoyable character.
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: The Mill on the Floss (Eliot)
Have I read this before: No.
Review: Of the George Eliot works I’ve read, this is probably my least favorite. I didn’t hate it, but the characters weren’t as engaging as those in Silas Marner or Adam Bede. In some parts Maggie is insufferable (but isn’t that the case for all of us?), but her secret relationship with Philip was genuine and sweet. I also like how she almost seems to “lose her way” given her circumstances, but comes back to her senses despite the consequences she must face. I felt a lot of sympathy for Tom, too.
Favorite Part: I loved Maggie’s and Philip’s walks in the woods. Like I said, that felt like the most genuine and interesting part of the story to me.
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: Lorna Doone (Blackmore)
Have I read this before: Okay, I SWEAR TO GOD I’ve read this before. I distinctly remember propping the U of I Library’s copy up on the elliptical machine at the rec center back in, like, 2007. I swear. But I did NOT remember this book at all, apparently. So.
Review: This is a long-ass book for a relatively simple plot, in my opinion. It meanders all over the damn place at the start with little John Ridd, but I guess it kind of has to in order to set up his back story and socio-economic status. And there’s surprisingly little Lorna Doone for the first portion of the book given that the story is named after her. I guess we get a bunch of her later in the book, though. Am I bad for picturing the Doones like Cletus and his family from The Simpsons?
Favorite Part: This freaking duck part. It sticks out so much from the rest of the book, hahahaha:
“Thereupon Annie and I ran out to see what might be the sense of it. There were thirteen ducks, and ten lily-white (as the fashion then of ducks was), not I mean twenty-three in all, but ten white and three brown-striped ones; and without being nice about their color, they all quacked very movingly.
…
Annie began to cry ‘Dilly, dilly, einy, einy, ducksey,’ according to the burden of a tune they seem to have accepted as the national duck’s anthem; but instead of being soothed by it, they only quacked three times as hard, and ran around till we were giddy.
…
Therefore I knew at once, by the way they were carrying on, that there must be something or other gone wholly amiss in the duck-world.”
(It’s just so freaking random)
Rating: 5/10
Book Review: The Good Soldier (Ford)
Have I read this before: No? This is one of those books that feels super familiar, but I’m not sure if I’ve actually read it, haha. If I have, though, it would have been back at the very start of using my list given how vague my memory is of it (so like 7th grade).
Review: I love the opening line of this book: “This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” Instant hook. There’s so much going on with each of these characters under the surface and so much deception amongst them that it’s almost hard to keep track of it all. I like how even the Wiki article describes the narrator as follows: “he is either a gullible and passionless man who cannot read the emotions of the people around him or a master manipulator who plays the victim.”
Favorite Part: This beautiful line:
“And it was a most remarkable, most moving glance, as if for a moment a lighthouse had looked at me.”
That’s just…that’s so simple and beautiful.
Rating: 5/10
Book Review: Waiting for Godot (Beckett)
Have I read this before: Yes. Couldn’t tell you when, but I’ve read it before.
Review: I…I didn’t enjoy this as much as I remember enjoying it the first time. I remember being much more amused and intrigued when I read it before; this time I was not as invested. I don’t know why. Maybe I had built the story up in my mind to be more than it actually is. Who knows.
Favorite Part: One thing I did still like was the pacing. This moves along at a good clip but, at the same time, seems to not move at all due to where the play is set and how little actual motion occurs during it. It’s an interesting contrast and makes things more interesting.
Rating: 5/10
Book Review: Travels with Charley (Steinbeck)
Have I read this before: No.
Review: This is Steinbeck + dog Charley traveling across the US in a camper. It’s basically the great American road trip with a lot of reflection about the state of America and the American people. He makes sure to note the differences in the people and cultures from state to state, especially as he hits the Midwest and then the West. It’s a summary of the flaws of a country and its people from someone who’s really good at describing the flaws of a country and its people.
Favorite Part: A few good quotes:
“I have always heard that Maine people are rather taciturn, but for this candidate for Mount Rushmore to point twice in an afternoon was to be unbearably talkative.”
After getting a flat tire: “It was obvious that the other tire might go at any moment, and it was Sunday and it was raining and it was Oregon. If the other tire blew, there we were, on a wet and lonesome road, having no recourse except to burst into tears and wait for death.”
“Americans are much more American than they are Northerners, Southerners, Westerners, or Easterners. And descendants of English, Irish, Italian, Jewish, German, Polish are essentially American. This is not patriotic whoop-de-do; it is carefully observed fact. … It is astonishing that this has happened in less than two hundred years and most of it in the last fifty. The American identity is an exact and provable thing.”
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: Sons and Lovers (Lawrence)
Have I read this before: No.
Review: Can a novel include a normal, healthy relationship or is that too boring? Of course, this is the guy who wrote Lady Chatterley’s Lover, so. Paul’s relationship with his mother is the most co-dependent relationship I’ve read about in a long time. I should shut up because I’m super close to my mom too, but not in the oddly terrifying way he is. It’s a pretty sad book if you think about it.
Favorite Part: Pauls’ thoughts on his lover Clara:
“’What is she, after all?’ he said to himself. ‘Here’s the seacoast morning, big and permanent and beautiful; there is she, fretting, always unsatisfied, and temporary as a bubble of foam. What does she mean to me, after all? She represents something, like a bubble of foam represents the sea. But what is she? It’s not her I care for.’”
Rating: 5/10
Book Review: The Razor’s Edge (Maugham)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: I enjoyed this one! I like how Larry is introduced via interactions with several different friends, including Maugham himself. I think this paints a very realistic picture of how a person can be affected by war once said war is over. The other characters were enjoyable as well; you feel sympathy for Gray after the stock market crash, you feel frustrated at Isabel’s treatment of Sophie, and you feel sorry for Elliott both due to his own wants and just in general.
Favorite Part: The opening of Part Six:
“I feel it right to warn the reader that he can very well skip this chapter without losing the thread of such story as I have to tell, since for the most part it is nothing more than the account of a conversation that I had with Larry. I should add, however, that except for this conversation I should perhaps not have thought it worthwhile to write this book.”
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: The Quiet American (Greene)
Have I read this before: No.
Review: Greene has an interesting writing style. I definitely liked this one better than The Power and the Glory. It held my attention better, even though I’m not a huge war novel fan. Perhaps it’s the characters and how Fowler expresses a very real range of opinions of Pyle depending on what’s going on around them and between them.
Favorite Part: Fowler’s and Pyle’s conversations when they were stuck in the guard tower and their eventual escape.
Rating: 5/10
Book Review: Oliver Twist (Dickens)
Have I read this before: I think I had started to read this back in like junior high but couldn’t get into it.
Review: Dickens is good at writing characters who are absolute fart bags but are also so intriguing that you want to see what happens to them (and hope that karma will get them in the end). Sikes is a good example of this. He’s also good at introducing characters and character relationships that are fleeting when first discussed but come up as major plot points (or the main plot point) later. I remember Great Expectations had a few instances of this; Oliver Twist does, too.
Favorite Part: Sikes getting his comeuppance. He bugged me.
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Douglass)
Have I read this before: I think we read some excerpts of this in high school.
Review: I don’t think reading excerpts of this does the narrative justice, as you really do need the whole thing to see exactly how Douglass is shaped by his experiences, especially in terms of his desire to learn to read and write. I actually have no idea why we didn’t just read the whole thing; it’s not that long and it’s so much more impactful in its entirety.
Favorite Part: When Douglass beats the hell out of Covey. Cathartic.
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: A Moveable Feast (Hemingway)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: Want to experience the Lost Generation via Hemingway? Then read this and skip The Sun Also Rises. This is much more real and raw, obviously in part because it’s based on Hemingway’s actual interactions with other prominent individuals of the time. It’s a memoir, and it’s a good one. Also, the Kindle edition has a bunch of photographs and letters at the end, which is super cool.
Favorite Part: His description of F. Scott Fitzgerald:
“Scott was a man then who looked like a boy with a face between handsome and pretty. He had very fair wavy hair, a high forehead, excited and friendly eyes and a delicate long-lipped Irish mouth that, on a girl, would have been the mouth of beauty. His chin was well built and he had good ears and a handsome, almost beautiful, unmarked nose. This should not have added up to a pretty face, but that came from the coloring, the very fair hair and the mouth. The mouth worried you until you knew him and then it worried you more.”
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: The House of Mirth (Wharton)
Have I read this before: No.
Review: Of the characters I’ve disliked in the books on this book list, I believe all of them so far have been dudes. But now we can break that pattern and throw Lily Bart on the “obnoxious as hell” list. Like, I get that that’s kind of the point of her and that she acts as a symbol of the flaws with social standing, moral corruption, etc. But ugh. She was hard to read about.
Favorite Part: With the above in mind, it was nice to see her experience the consequences of her actions over and over, at least until it all builds up and becomes too much for her. Then, of course, it’s sad.
Rating: 5/10
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