bookshelves: to-read
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bookshelves: to-read
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by Ayn Rand
Wow, Caitlin. You're way more invested in this than I am. I bow to your superior knowledge of Rand, and I never claimed to be an expert. My only point is that the more I think about the Twilight series, the more I think that by attaching herself to Edward, Bella doesn't make herself more powerful, she makes herself weaker (it seems to me), which isn't how it should be. When Edward leaves her, it's her worst nightmare realized and she can't heal herself except through loving Jacob. You may have more well thought-out arguments to prove me wrong and may well have read Rand far more times than I (which was once in high school), but it doesn't seem to me that Bella is OK by herself, which isn't healthy, I don't care what Rand says. /rant. ]]>
bookshelves: goodreads-recommendation, popular-fiction
I wish I could give this 3.5 stars. This book was part Matrix, part Fight Club, part Catch-22, but mostly it's own thing; really original.
Good: I liked the characters, I didn't see the twist coming and was completely baffled and a little bit unsettled by it. It was interesting and thought provoking. Well, I knew there was a twist coming, I just didn't know what it was going to be. And, the writing is really good. I mean, who else can think of calling someone a "geosynchronous shrew." What does that even mean?
Bad: There is A LOT of swearing in it. Like, a lot, a lot. To be honest, I only kept reading it because I was too sick to go to the library to pick up something else. And, the first chapter is in medias res, which is exciting, and then it goes back for 150 pages of sort of boring and seemingly pointless exposition and the only thing that kept me reading was the promise made in chapter 1 of a good story, and that I was sick and had nothing else to read.
But, I don't really regret it. After those almost painful 150 pages, it picks up quite nicely and sails right to the end. ]]>
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Yeah, my sister asked me yesterday to recommend a book, but NOT YA fiction, and I was like, "oh... uh...." ]]>
by Thomas L. Friedman
I don't know how you can read with sick kids. Nora demands that I hold her at all times. And, I have to be standing. At all times. ]]>
"Finally, 200 pages in, it starts getting good."
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bookshelves: goodreads-recommendation
I think the measure of how much I like a book could be how much I hide from my children in order to read it. And, if I have too many more days like yesterday, CPS might come and take my children away.
Flavia de Luce is 11 and when she finds a body in the cucumber patch, she's determined to solve the mystery of who he is and what he's doing there.
The writing is very good, and it's a lot like Harry Potter in that it's technically for children or young adults, but it makes no attempt to dumb anything down (I kept a list of words I had to look up, and it numbered well over 30); except one time. The word was "hesternal." I attempted to look it up but it wasn't in the dictionary. As I kept reading, Flavia says something like, "I remembered that hesternal means 'pertaining to yesterday.'"
You know a book is good when you want to start right over on page one as soon as you finish to pick up everything you missed the first time around.
The only thing I found unrealistic was Flavia's age. After being put in primary, I've met a few 11-year olds, and there is no way even the most sophisticated of them could walk/talk/think/act like Flavia. Oh well. ]]>
bookshelves: to-read
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by Jane Austen
This one is my favorite. ]]>