Book Review: Hiroshima (Hersey)
Have I read this before: Yes! I can’t remember when, though.
Review: So I don’t think I knew this the first time I read this book (it was a while ago…probably in high school), but the six characters that are followed in the book are real people. I think I had been under the impression that these were six fictional individuals that were introduced to describe the varying experiences and effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on six people who had no real reason to have survived it given where they were in the city. But the fact that they were real people who went through all that they went through makes this book even more impactful. The impact is further developed by the fact that Hersey doesn’t just describe the immediate effects of the bomb on these people but follows them throughout the rest of their lives and discusses all the ways the trauma and the radiation sickness effected them until they died.
Favorite part: I liked the way that the focus skipped from character to character throughout the book but also showed that several of them were actually connected in various ways and interacted in the book.
Rating: 5/10
Book Review: Go Tell It on the Mountain (Baldwin)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: I had trouble getting invested in this book and I’m not exactly sure why. It wasn’t like the writing style is bad or anything like that, but I just had a hard time getting into the story. The first main event/conflict in the book almost seemed disconnected with the rest of the story by the way it was introduced, and I think I just kept expecting the book to go back to that. I was so busy waiting for that that I didn’t even let myself get into the main event of the book. I don’t know. Maybe my brain just reacted to “here’s a book about church and god and Christianity” by kind of checking out.
Favorite part: Baldwin does do a good job of presenting this issue of a minister who is extremely dedicated to god but also very abusive towards his family.
Rating: 4/10
Book Review: Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury)
Have I read this before: Yes, but it was a loooong time ago. I want to say this was one of the first several books I read on my list way back in 7th/8th grade, which means my memory of it is absolutely abysmal.
Review: Actually, now that I think about it, I had no memory of this book. I didn’t remember the main character or even the general plot, apart from the “books are being burned” thing. Apparently my retention levels for books when I was 13/14 was terrible.
ANYWAY. I enjoyed Bradbury’s writing style. Maybe it’s because I’d read Exodus before this, which was super heavy and also had a very blunt style to it, but Bradbury’s prose was a nice change from that (not that I didn’t enjoy Exodus, ‘cause I did).
Favorite part: This line really resonated with me:
With an effort, Montag reminded himself again that this was no fictional episode to be watched on his run to the river; it was in actuality his own chess game he was witnessing, move by move.
I think this stuck out to me so much because this is how I sometimes feel about all this pandemic nonsense. Sometimes it’s like I’m just watching a movie or reading a book in which this pandemic is taking place, and my mind just goes “haha, that sucks, glad that’s not really happening…oh” or “I’m glad I could just fast forward or flip to the end of the book to see what ends up happening…oh.” It’s a weird feeling. Is anyone else getting that feeling on occasion?
Rating: 7/10
Book Review: Exodus (Uris)
Have I read this before: I…think so? Maybe? Perhaps this is a book that I started but didn’t get very far into, because I remember like the first twenty pages but nothing beyond that (and there’s a lot beyond that). So let’s say…no.
Review: Oof. This book. This is basically “let’s tell the long history of suffering of the Jewish people through a handful of characters.” It’s super heavy and very disturbing at parts. I think that it’s definitely something people should read, especially people who aren’t very familiar with all the stuff Jewish people have had to go through throughout history (not just right before/during/right after WWII). Apparently Leon Uris wrote this with the goal to tell the story of Israel, but a lot of praise for the book acknowledges it as propaganda for the existence of Israel as an independent state. And beyond that, I don’t even really know what I can say about this book. It’s long, it’s dense, it’s disturbing, and it will stick in your memory for a long time. Read it.
Favorite part: there’s basically zero humor in this book due to the subject manner, but I did like the bit of humor at the end when the Jews from Yemen were being brought to Israel via plane. They had never seen a plane before and there’s a few pages of lighthearted chaos describing how they are acting while on the plane (lighting fires to celebrate, opening windows, etc.). It’s a bit of levity that really feels earned once you get to that point in the book; it’s like finally there’s some end to some of the suffering.
There’s also this line: Anti-Semitism was synonymous with the history of man, Johann Clement reasoned. It was a part of living – almost a scientific truth. Only the degree and the content varied.
Rating: 7/10
Book Review: Deliverance (Dickey)
Have I read this before: Nope! I think this was a book that I always had trouble finding in hard copy form, but that’s no longer an issue. KINDLE, BABY!!!
Review: I had a vague idea of what this book was about based on references to it in other forms of media I’ve seen, but I didn’t really know exactly what it was about until I read it. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but it was definitely a creepy read. Not the creepiest thing I’ve read, but pretty creepy. The ending wasn’t what I was expecting, either. I don’t want to give too much away for anyone who hasn’t read it, but let me just say that my desire to go into the woods in the deep south has diminished (not like it was high in the first place).
Favorite part: I liked the tension built up around Ed’s climb up out of the gorge and his waiting at the top to do what he needs to do to get himself, Bobby, and Lewis out of the predicament they’re in. It’s a good build up in tension.
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: Cat’s Cradle (Vonnegut)
Have I read this before: Nope. I thought I had, since I remember reading Slaughterhouse Five when I was in junior high and figured I’d read the other Vonnegut novel on my list as well, but as I got into it, I’m pretty sure it was new to me. I’m sure I would have remembered this story.
Review: What a fantastically strange book. It was not at all what I was expecting, though I’m not sure what I was expecting. I love the level of detachment and nonchalant-ness everyone seems to have about everything, including the big thing with the ice-nine (won’t spoil it for anyone). It makes the whole book seem like it’s describing a dream in which the narrator (and everyone else) has no control over anything. If you like black humor and a heavy topic discussed very lightly and humorously, I think you’ll like this one.
Favorite part: the style of this book is very unique. That’s probably my favorite thing. But there are a few passages I liked as well.
This description of Mona is so quick and simple but does so much:
In The Books of Bokonon she is mentioned by name. One thing Bokonon says of her is this: ‘Mona has the simplicity of the all.’
Her dress was white and Greek.
She wore flat sandals on her small brown feet.
Her pale gold hair was lank and long.
Her hips were a lyre.
Oh God.
Peace and plenty forever.
And I liked this discussion of Frank Hoenikker after the narrator got a call from Frank Hoenikker and is discussing it with Castle.
“What was that all about?” asked Castle.
“I haven’t got the slightest idea. Frank Hoenikker wants to see me right away.”
“Take your time. Relax. He’s a moron.”
“He said it was important.”
“How does he know what’s important? I could carve a better man out of a banana.”
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: The Bonfire of the Vanities (Wolfe)
Have I read this before: Nope! First time.
Review: Oof, there’s a lot going on in this book. Not that that’s a bad thing. I knew nothing about the book before I started reading it, and after I was done I looked up some more info on it. Apparently Wolfe was trying to capture 1980s New York the same way Thackerary’s Vanity Fair tried to capture 19th century English society. Having read Vanity Fair, I think Wolfe does a pretty similar job of it. There’s a very serious issue going on at the main heart of the plot, but there’s a lot of humor and satire throughout. Also, a lot of the ideas and issues are still relevant in the US today…maybe even more so than they were, say, ten or twenty years ago, like the differences in wealthy and poor individuals and racial tension.
Favorite part: The style in which the book is written is very engaging and seems to poke fun at itself sometimes. Here are a few quick sections that I felt captured this pretty well:
“Who in the name of God would bring a half-eaten eight-ounce jar of Hellmann’s mayonnaise to a public meeting?”
[Sherman on the elevator with his dog and another owner gets on.]
Browning stepped on. Browning looked Sherman and his country outfit and the dog up and down and said, without a trace of a smile, “Hello, Sherman.”
“Hello, Sherman” was on the end of a ten-foot pole and in a mere four syllables conveyed the message: “You and your clothes and your animal are letting down our new mahogany-paneled elevator.”
[Attorneys in their office.]
“Come on, Larry,” said Andriutti, “tell the truth. Deep down, don’t you wish you were Italian or Irish?”
“Yeah,” said Kramer, “that way I wouldn’t know what the fuck was going on in this fucking place.”
Caughey started laughing. “Well, don’t let Ahab see those shoes, Larry. He’ll have Jeanette issue a fucking memorandum.”
“No, he’ll call a fucking press conference,” said Andriutti.
“That’s always a safe fucking bet.”
And so another fucking day in the fucking Homicide Bureau of the Bronx Fucking District Attorney’s Office was off to a fucking start.
Rating: 7/10
Book Review: The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde)
Have I read this before: Nope! I think I started reading it when I was down in Tucson, but then I moved back up to Moscow and had to return the book to the library, so that was that.
Review: This book was different from what I was expecting it to be. That’s probably because I had a very vague notion of what it was about that had been pieced together by random references to the book and was thus not a super accurate reflection of what the book was actually about. But I enjoyed it. I actually expected things to be expounded upon more (“things” meaning the incidents leading to the change in the thing in the book that changes…hahaha, vague enough? Don’t wanna spoil it) and I think I would have liked it more if there were more details in that respect, but it was still good.
Favorite part: I love the way that youth and beauty were described near the beginning of the book. For example, here’s Lord Henry talking to Dorian about his (Dorian’s) youth:
“It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray.”
“Why?”
“Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing worth having…Some day, when you are old and wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and passion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you will feel it terribly. Now, wherever you go, you charm the world. Will it always be so?…And beauty is a form of Genius – is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it.”
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: A Prayer for Owen Meany (Irving)
Hey, duders! So this was a super long book, which is why it took me about a week to get to another review, but let’s do it.
Have I read this before: Nope! I can’t remember if this was a book I had trouble finding in libraries or was one that just kept getting overlooked on my list, but I this was the first time I’ve ever read it.
Review: you guys. READ. THIS. BOOK. This is easily one of the best books I’ve ever read; it’s probably going to replace the The Ox-Bow Incident as my fifth favorite book. Like I mentioned, it’s a long book. It details the relationship between Owen Meany, a boy who feels like he is god’s instrument and believes that he’s foreseen his own death and the circumstances around it, and John, the narrator. The book goes back and forth between John in the present day (late 80s) and when the two were growing up together as boys/teenagers. It’s hard to summarize because there’s so much that happens and so many little scenes and ideas and phrases and actions, but all of it – all of it – comes together so beautifully in one single ending scene that it’s just perfect. So perfect. So good.
Favorite part: I love the way everything that the book had been working towards comes together in that one scene near the end. It’s done so well that I don’t know if I’ll ever be more satisfied with a “tie together” as I was with this book.
But I won’t spoil that for you. Instead, I’ll list a few humorous moments, because despite the seriousness of everything in this book, it actually is quite funny in places.
Hester, Noah, and Simon are the narrator’s cousins. They’re rambunctious little buggers:
“Last one through the house has to kiss Hester the Molester!” Noah said, and he and Simon were off running. In a panic, I looked at Hester and took off after them.
The narrator discussing why he was hesitant to let his cousins meet Owen:
It seemed to me that they would be driven insane by the sight of him, and when he *spoke*–when they first encountered that voice–I could visualize their reaction only in terms of their inventing ways for Owen to be a projectile.
Owen obviously believes in god, but he is critical and somewhat troubled by the organized church and its approach to belief and the interpretation of the Bible.
“JESUS ALREADY TOLD THE DUMB-SHIT DISCIPLES WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. ‘THE SON OF MAN WILL BE DELIVERED INTO THE HANDS OF MEN, AND THEY WILL KILL HIM…” REMEMBER? THAT WAS IN MARK—RIGHT?”
“Yes, but let’s not say ‘dumb-shit disciples’ in class, Owen,” Mr. Merrill said.
Owen and John attend Gravesend Academy. Everyone there loves Owen except for the headmaster, and there’s a whole big scene where Owen gets the basketball team to move a teacher’s car into the school’s auditorium, which the headmaster has a hell of a time trying to remove. The whole scene is pretty hysterical.
He (the headmaster) sat behind the wheel—with apparent jolts of extreme discomfort assailing him from the region of his lower back—and commanded the faculty to push him.
“Where?” Dan Needham asked the headmaster.
“Down the Jesus Fucking Christly stairs!” Headmaster White cried.
Rating: 9/10
Book Review: The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Wilder)
Kindle-driven reading obsession COMMENCE! Let’s do another review.
Have I read this before: Yes! I read this in 7th grade, I believe. I think it was one of the first books on my “classic books to read” list back when it was in its first iteration.
Review: I only vaguely remember this book, in part because 7th grade was like TWENTY YEARS AGO and in part because I was even more of an idiot back then than I am now and I don’t think I processed this book very well. But it’s good. Basically, a rope bridge collapses with a group of five people on it and a friar who witnessed the incident is interested in trying to determine why those individuals happened to be the ones who were on the bridge when it collapsed. Was there a reason it was, specifically, those five?
Favorite part: I liked the chapter-based focus on each individual (or set of individuals) and how they interrelate. This bit from Esteban really stood out to me as well; I think this stood out to me in 7th grade as well:
“You know,” cried Esteban, leaning across the table, “you’re not allowed to kill yourself; you know you’re not allowed. Everybody knows that. But if you jump into a burning house to save somebody, that wouldn’t be killing yourself. And if you became a matador and the bull caught you that wouldn’t be killing yourself. Only you mustn’t put yourself in the bull’s way on purpose.”
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky)
Have I read this before: Yup! I think this was one of the first books on my list that I read in junior high.
Review: Since I read this in junior high (or really early in high school), it’s obviously been a long time since I’ve read it. And it’s quite a bit different than I remembered it. For some reason, I thought that the crime in question was admitted to fairly early in the book, but I was very wrong, haha. Shows you how much I paid attention in 7th/8th/9th/whatever grade. But it is still a very enjoyable book. Also, as far as “this book has a lot of Russian names” books go, it’s not too bad. Better than War and Peace.
Favorite part: The tension builds nicely throughout the book. I also like how the main character keeps toying with his fate in the sense that he basically outright admits the crime he’s committed but does so in a way that it sounds like he’s just joking.
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: A Separate Peace (Knowles)
Hey, let’s do that thing where I review a thing and stuff.
Have I read this before: No! I’ve been wanting to read it for a long time, but I’ve never been able to find a copy in a library. But we went to Fair’s Fair’s big book warehouse thingy a while back and I finally found a copy. And now I finally had time to read it!
Review: Oh my god this book is glorious. The writing is simple but impactful. The characters are very believable and the relationship between Gene and Phineas is so genuine and natural and…ugh. I love it. This is how I’ve always wanted to write close friendships in my stories.
And the “climax” (if you want to call it that) was very unexpected and thus very heart-punching. It’s a short little book but so very memorable. Love it.
Favorite part: There are a lot of little quotes and moments that I adore in this, but here are a few:
He (Phineas) was disgusted with that summer’s athletic program – a little tennis, some swimming, clumsy softball games, badminton. “Badminton!” he exploded the day it entered the schedule. He said nothing else, but the shocked, outraged, despairing note of anguish in the word said all the rest. “Badminton!”
Bombs in Central Europe were completely unreal to us here, not because we couldn’t imagine it…but because our place here was too fair for us to accept something like that. We spent that summer in complete selfishness, I’m happy to say. The people in the world who could be selfish in the summer of 1942 were a small band, and we took advantage of it.
One day he (Phineas) broke the school swimming record.
…
“A. Hopkins Parker?” Finny squinted up at the name. “I don’t remember any A. Hopkins Parker.”
“He graduated before we got here.”
“You mean that record has been up there the whole time we’ve been at Devon and nobody’s busted it yet?”
…
He said blurringly, “I have a feeling I can swim faster than A. Hopkins Parker.”
Rating: 8/10
Book Review: On the Beach (Shute)
Holy crapples, I read a book! It’s been so long, right? I just checked and my last book review of a book from my “200 Books” list was in 2016.
Ouch.
But finally, thanks to having my first semester off since 2017, I had a chance to read a book!
(This was also a book I checked out from the U of C library back in like December last year and I still have it because the library’s been closed since March due to COVID, so…)
LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Have I read this before: Yes! I read this during my first year at UI, I think. I remember reading it on a band bus as we drove somewhere. Utah? Maybe.
Review: as a very brief summary of what this book is about, it is set in a period after there has been major nuclear war in the northern hemisphere of the world. Everyone in the north is dead (or slowly dying) and the book is from the perspective of several people living in Australia as they wait for the nuclear fallout to reach the southern hemisphere and kill them, too. It’s a very haunting book and does a really good job of showing how these people are still trying to live “normally” despite the fact that they all know they’re going to die very soon. I remember being very impacted by this book when I first read it; it’s stuck with me ever since and was just as good as I remember it being.
Favorite part: There are a few times where the characters talk about what’s eventually going to happen to them (death from radiation) but say that they can’t stop acting like things are “normal.”
“I went to Wilson’s today and bought a hundred daffodils,” she (Mary) said. … “I’m going to put them in that corner by the wall, where Peter took out the tree. It’s sheltered there. But I suppose if we’re all going to die that’s silly.”
…
(This is her friend, Moira) “Well, of course it’s sensible to put them in. You’ll see them anyway, and you’ll sort of feel you’ve done something.”
Mary looked at her gratefully. “Well, that’s what I think. I mean, I couldn’t bear to—to just stop doing things and do nothing. You might as well die now and get it over.”
Moira nodded. “If what they say is right, we’re none of us going to have time to do all that we planned to do. But we can keep on doing it as long as we can.”
And there’s a scene where they’re talking about going fishing but the season hasn’t opened yet, but even though they know they’ll be dead in a few weeks, they want to obey the law and not fish until the season has technically started.
It’s so very…human, I think.
Rating: 7/10
Rogue
Hey y’all, do you want to watch someone review horrible books? Check out KrimsonRogue!
He does regular book reviews and other stuff as well, but I found him through his review of Onision’s Stones to Abbigale.
Here’s the link to his playlist of “oh god these are horrible and they hurt to read.”
I like him; he’s like a mix of five nerdy people I’ve known in my past.
Book Review: The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger)
It’s time for some good old Salinger today!
Have I read this before: Yes! I’ve actually read this twice before—once in high school during my “I am 2 cool 4 school” phase where I hid out in the bathroom during lunch and read books like Catcher in the Rye, and again in 2012 when I was in Tucson.
Review: Oh, Holden Caulfield. I really like the style of this book, how “casual” it’s written and how it’s basically almost like Holden’s stream of consciousness as he goes through the week. I guess that casual nature is part of why the book is considered a classic, though, eh? I also like his snarky humor throughout.
Favorite part: “‘How exciting,’ old Lillian said. Then she introduced me to the Navy guy. His name was Commander Blop or something. He was one of those guys that think they’re being a pansy if they don’t break around forty of your fingers when they shake hands with you. God, I hate that stuff.” I just really like that line, haha.
Rating: 7/10
Book Review: Native Son (Wright)
Book review time! Let’s look at Native Son by Richard Wright.
Have I read this before: I have! I read it in high school sometime. 11th grade? 12th grade? I think it was 12th grade, but I’m not totally sure.
Review: I’m a white chick from Idaho, so I don’t know how valid my opinion is on any of this, but given what’s been going on in the US with the Black Lives Matter movement, I think this is a book that everyone in the country should read right now. Wright puts into words a concept that I think is very central to BLM but is very difficult to understand or even express (especially if you’re white? I don’t know). He’s not using it as an excuse for Bigger’s actions, but he uses it as a way to explain why Bigger did what he did without even knowing why he did what he did. If that makes any sense at all.
Favorite part: There are a few, all related to what I was just talking about.
(This is Jan talking, a white man who actively supports the Civil Rights movement) “I don’t hate you for trying to blame this thing on me…maybe you had good reasons…I don’t know. And maybe in a certain sense, I’m the one who’s really guilty…” (…) “Bigger, I’ve never done anything against you and your people in my life. But I’m a white man and it would be asking too much to ask you not to hate me, when every white man you see hates you.”
(More Jan) “It taught me that it’s your right to hate me, Bigger. I see now that you couldn’t do anything else but that; it was all you had.” (…) “I was in jail grieving for Mary and then I thought of all the black men who’ve been killed, the black men who had to grieve when their people were snatched from them in slavery and since slavery. I thought that if they could stand it, then I ought to.”
This conversation about Bigger:
“A grave wrong has been done to two people who’ve helped Negroes more than anybody I know.”
“I sympathize with you, Mr. Dalton,” Max said. “But killing this boy [Bigger] isn’t going to help you or any of us.”
“I tried to help him,” Mr. Dalton said.
“We wanted to send him to school,” said Mrs. Dalton faintly.
“I know,” Max said. “But those things don’t touch the fundamental problem involved here. This boy comes from an oppressed people. Even if he’s done wrong, we must take that into consideration.”
Rating: 7/10
Book Review: The Chosen (Potok)
Let’s review The Chosen today, shall we?
Have I read this before: I have, but I can’t remember when, exactly. High school, maybe?
Review: This is such a good book. Such an impactful book. I remembered a lot of this book from the first time I’d read it, and that’s saying something, especially considering I read it so long ago that I can’t actually remember when that was. I remember that the ending made me cry last time; it didn’t this time, but it was a very satisfying, complete ending, if that makes any sense. I don’t want to give away too much about this book, but if you’re looking for something thought-provoking that is super well-written and will stick in your brain for a while, read The Chosen.
Favorite part: This quote from Reuven’s father:
“Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye? … I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant.”
Rating: 7.5/10
Book Review: A Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood)
Are you ready for some MARGARET ATWOOD!?!?!?
(You should be.)
Specifically, let’s review A Handmaid’s Tale.
Have I read this before: Indeed. I think I read this in the summer between high school and college. I’m too lazy to check my blog archive. HOW’S THAT FOR OVERACHIEVING?
Review: This book? It’s great…until the ending. I don’t know if it’s just me or if this is something that other people have thought about this book, but I was totally gung-ho and loving everything up until—quite literally—the last two pages. And that was the case both the first time I read it and this last time. I was thinking, during this last read, that my dislike for the ending might just have been because I was 18 and stupid and didn’t appreciate the way the story was finished. BUT NOPE! I got to those last two pages, everything ended, and I was like, “oh. Right. This.” Seriously. The whole book, save those last two pages, is fantastic. But maybe that’s just how I see it. Maybe you’d like the whole thing. Give it a read and see.
Favorite part: Anything but the ending.
Rating: 5/10 (because of the ending)
Book Review: Animal Farm (Orwell)
It’s Orwell time!
Have I read this before: Yes, but a loooong time ago. Like 8th grade or something. I didn’t really remember it very well.
Review: Really, now that I think about it, re-reading this was basically like reading it for the first time, ‘cause I didn’t remember a damn thing from the first time I read it, apart from the characters all being animals and one of them being named Napoleon. But yeah, it’s a good book. Everything escelated very quickly once the animals got control of the farm, but I guess I’d rather have that in a rather short book than have it drawn out too long in a longer book.
Favorite part: I like the repetition throughout the story. By that, I mean not only the repetition of some of the animals’ phrases/songs, but also the repetition of how the pigs justified their actions, how the “all animals are equal” and the Seven Commandments are slowly altered. Very cool.
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: The Ox-Bow Incident (Clark)
WELL TODAY SUCKED.
But let’s not talk about that. Let’s do a book review instead.
Let’s review The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Clark! Spoilers as usual.
Have I read this before: Yes! Summer of 2007.
Review: I like this book, man. It’s technically a western, which is about on par with fantasy in terms of being a genre that I’m not particularly fond of, but it’s a good book. It’s a story about a mob that goes out searching for a group of supposed cattle rustlers and murderers. There is a wide variety of opinions within the mob regarding the legality and moral implications of their plans (lynching the suspected rustlers/murderers once they’re found). Even though the book is written from the perspective of one of the drifters who kind of gets drawn into the mob, you really get a good sense of these different perspectives, especially the perspective of Davies, the man who is most strongly opposed to the lynchings. Despite a decent amount of opposition once they find the three rustling/murdering suspects, the mob ends up lynching them. Once they return to town, they find out that the suspects were telling the truth—they neither rustled any cattle nor murdered anyone.
Favorite part: It’s pretty bad to say this is my favorite part, but I really enjoyed the struggle of Davies as he discusses his guilt with Art (one of the drifters) after they return to town from the lynching.
“There wasn’t proof,” I [Art] said angrily. “You don’t get all set for a hanging and stop for some little feeling you have.”
“You might,” he [Davies] said, “when you’re hanging on a feeling too.”
Rating: 6.5/10
Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God (Hurston)
It’s another book review! Let’s look at Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
Have I read this before: Yes, but I can’t remember when. Which means it was a long time ago.
Review: The further I read into this, the more I remembered it from the first time I read it. I always like the idea of a book in the form of one of the characters just sitting down and relating the entire story; I think you get really immersed in their point of view and how they think. That works really well in this book. Janie sits down with a neighbor and basically relays the rest of the book as a story from her perspective, from her childhood all the way up to what led her to sitting with her neighbor. Since you get everything in her voice (literally), you can really see how she reacts in each relationship she discusses and how she matures through each one.
Favorite part: I like the tone of this book overall, but the small little part that really stuck out to me was the beautiful metaphor Janie describes near the beginning of the book. As a teen, she sees a bee gathering pollen from a cherry blossom, which becomes to her a representation of an ideal relationship. She sees it as a flawless, effortless coming together of two individuals rather than something that requires a lot of work. I just like how this metaphor stuck with her and kept coming up throughout the rest of the book.
Rating: 5.5/10
Book Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Kesey)
BOOK REVIEWWWWWWW~!@!#!@$!#$!\!!!!
(I’m hyper.)
Have I read this before: Yes! High school, I think. 10th grade?
Review: I think I was a little too young to really appreciate this the first time I read it. I like the characters and I like the progression of McMurphy’s antagonism toward Nurse Ratched. I also like how once Chief finally started talking, all the patients basically just took it in stride. It’s a really good book—one of those “classics” that I actually think everyone should.
Favorite part: The fishing trip is pretty great. And it sounds bad to say this, but I also really liked the electroshock therapy part. Not because it was happening, of course, but because I really like the way Kesey shows what the therapy does to Chief’s thought processes while it’s underway. It’s pretty scary.
Rating: 7.5/10
Book Review: The Caine Mutiny (Wouk)
Alright readers, sit your butts down because today we’re reviewing Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny. Spoilers (maybe?) ahead!
Have I read this before: Many times! This is my favorite book, y’all.
Review: Dude. Dude. I love this book. I love Captain Queeg. I’m pretty sure he’s my favorite literary character, apart from maaaaaaaaybe Jay Gatsby. I like the other characters in this book too, especially Maryk. While the plot may take a bit to start up (i.e., the first several chapters are a bit slow), I think the rather gradual introduction of the characters and the situation and Willie himself really help to amplify Queeg’s apparent craziness up to during the eventual mutiny. It also helped to show, once the trial for Maryk was underway, how the men who were against Queeg very quickly felt the ridiculousness of their claims of Queeg’s insanity were once they were all out of danger. The timing and tenseness of the book were really well done, in other words.
AND QUEEG. QUEEG IS GREAT.
Favorite part: The whole thing. But specifically:
- Willie not knowing any of the terminology/slang when he first got on the Caine.
“‘Sir, it was my fault,’ spoke up the boatswain’s mate. He began an alibi which sounded to Willie like this: ‘The port bandersnatch got fouled in the starboard rath when we tried to galumph the cutting cable so as not to trip the snozzle again. I had to unshackle the doppleganger and bend on two snarks instead so we could launch in a hurry.’” - Queeg obsessing about all the wrong things at all the wrong times.
- The way the crew, once they were sick of Queeg, decided to basically make it look like they were responding to his requests/demands when in reality they were being ignored everywhere the captain wasn’t.
“The crew with its vast cunning had already charted most of the habits and pathways of the captain. He was moving now in a curious little circle of compliance that followed him like a spotlight, extending to the range of his eyes and ears; beyond that, the Caine remained the old Caine.” - THE STRAWBERRIES
- The speech/rant Greenwald gives Keefer and Maryk near the end. It gives the lawyer (Greenwald) a lot of depth in very few pages. I like it.
Rating: 10/10
Book Review: Madame Bovary (Flaubert)
Hey, it’s Flaubert time! LET’S DO THIS, Y’ALL. Spoilers as usual.
Have I read this before: Long, long ago, yes. This was probably the second or third book I read off of my original list, so that was likely in 7th or (at latest) 8th grade.
Review: This book is a lot sadder than I remember it being. Maybe because back in 7th grade I had basically zero concept of what a relationship really was (apart from wanting one with a certain someone, but WE WON’T GET INTO THAT) and what it meant to be in one. But this book is basically all about how miserable it can be to be in a relationship that you don’t want but can’t seem to find a way out of. Flaubert does a really excellent job of portraying the misery of Emma Bovary and how desperate she is to really try and find happiness in a relationship—whether that relationship is with her husband or not. I certainly didn’t remember the poison-induced suicide, though.
Also, I know this was written during a totally different time than today and social standards are a bit different, especially for women, but my mind was basically screaming “YOU PEOPLE NEED COMMUNICATION SKILLS” the entire time.
Favorite part: Lots of good quotes in this book, mostly about how much it sucks being unable to find happiness in a relationship.
- Before the wedding, she had believed herself in love. But not having obtained the happiness that should have resulted from that love, she now fancied that she must have been mistaken.
- As their [Emma and Charles, her husband] outward familiarities grew, she began to be inwardly detached, to hold herself more aloof from him.
- And all the time, deep within her, she was waiting for something to happen. … She had no idea what that chance would be, what wind would waft it to her, where it would set her ashore…But every morning when she woke she hoped to find it there. She listened to every sound, started out of bed, and was surprised when nothing came. Then at sunset, sadder every day, she longed for the morrow.
- (During her affair with Leon) They began to talk more of things indifferent to their love. … She would look forward to a profound happiness at next meeting, then have to admit that she felt nothing remarkable.
Rating: 7/10
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