Bucket’s
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(group member since Feb 13, 2015)
Bucket’s
comments
from the Reading with Style group.
Showing 161-180 of 303
10.6 B2 – Title has 2+ BsWhy Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
Review: This book really spoke to me deeply. It's beautifully and fearlessly written, it's honest and free. It's angry and also deeply empathetic. I was angry and sad as I read. I was also very inspired, to be myself and be comfortable with that. And I was mesmerized by Winterson’s talent. Her words really speak for themselves:
"A tough life needs a tough language - and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers - a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place."
+10 Task
+5 Review
Task total = 15
Season total = 140
(view spoiler)
10.5 I26 – InternationalSay You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan
Review: These stories aren't easy to read, either in content or in style, but they are tender to their (mostly) child narrators while also being bold, and unhesitating in showing the brutal experiences these children go through.
None are perfect, but they all have clear characters, a vibrant setting and/or tone, and a sense built in that the author knows they'll be read by voyeuristic western readers, and he'll give us what we want but he's going to make us work for it.
Each story centers on different characters in a different African country, many facing large national crises (such as Rwandan genocide in the final, brutal heartbreak of a story).
I was fascinated by the language - Akpan uses local terms, slang, French and other non-English words, odd spelling to convey accents, etc, and expects readers to keep up and learn to understand. The dialogue between characters is both a thicket of language and a key element of most of the stories.
In some cases, we know what is happening before the child in the story does - other times it dawns on us as it becomes known to them. These stories are very 'real time' - the overarching motivations, outcomes, historical and political circumstances, etc., for the conflicts depicted are not here. We're right in the thick of it with the people experiencing tragedy, without any seeming rhyme or reason. No 10,000 foot news story view on "foreign conflict" here.
It's hard to recommend these stories - they are a tough and draining read. But if they're what you're looking for, don't hesitate.
+10 Task
+5 Review
Task total = 15
+50 Bingo: First Bingo; I17, I22, I27, I21, I26
Post total = 65
Season total = 125
(view spoiler)
10.4 I21 – First letter of title in INFLOWWritten in Black by K.H. Lim
Review: What a lovely book! This was recommended to me, but looking at the jacket description when I got it had me worried it would be too YA for my taste. So I went in with low expectations and quickly forgot them. This is a great story in many ways:
The characterization of Jonathan - a 10-year-old who is smart to the point of being obnoxious and pompous externally, but deep down is scared and just wants love and acceptance.
The adventure - Jonathan rides in a coffin, walks the Bruneian countryside, rides with teens sniffing glue, etc.
The arc of the story - Jonathan's motivations, decisions, and mistakes are clear and believable throughout. My heart ached for him as he tried to logic and force his way into getting just a short conversation with his mother.
I know others will disagree, but I really appreciated the quiet, open-ended ending.
+10 Task
+5 Review
Task total = 15
Season total = 60
**NOTE: For our Countries of the World group project, this book takes place 100% in Brunei.
(view spoiler)
10.3 I27 – Main character is a private eyeA Sunlit Weapon by Jacqueline Winspear
Review: I'm very invested in Maisie Dobbs as a character (she’s a private “psychologist and investigator”), and as a series, but the mystery tropes that I dislike really crept in to bug me on this one - the arbitrarily withheld information, the luck and coincidence. There's also the occasional quick summary of what has already happened that comes with a series.
I was also bothered here by the blatant comparison of the plight of a Black soldier in the U.S. army in WW2, with the plight of Maisie's young daughter teased at school for her olive-tone skin. Not to say Anna's situation isn't awful but equating the two isn't right. The soldier is up against the culture of an entire nation and legally codified racism, Anna is up against a few mean people. Other than that comparison, race is only lightly touched here, and skittishly.
+10 Task
+5 Review
Task total = 15
Season total = 45
(view spoiler)
10.2 I22 – Title has two wordsThree Women by Marge Piercy
Review: This novel isn't perfect, but it has a lot of good things going for it and a lot to offer. Most impressive is the way Piercy weaves social justice issues into the story without becoming preachy or prescriptive. The characters discuss or live through the moral and legal implications of teen suicide, environmental and divorce law, a case where children are coached to accuse a caregiver of child abuse, death with dignity, infidelity, religious differences, political protest, misogyny and more.
The characters are well-formed and have depth. None are likeable (not a negative for me). I found both Beverly and Suzanne believable throughout, both how they are at the start of the novel and how they change as events unfold. Elena, however, I couldn't get behind. She changes the most, and I couldn't believe in her change.
+10 Task
+5 Review
Task total = 15
Season total = 30
(view spoiler)
10.1 I17 – Title word ends in -ingEverything You Know about Indians Is Wrong by Paul Chaat Smith
Review: Some essays are better than others, but overall they were thought-provoking. I don't know a whole lot about the modern art community, so it was new for me to see the ubiquitous problems of racism and tokenism towards Native Americans through the angle of an art curator.
PCS's style is fabulous. His writing is full of mirth, and the more I read, the more I detected the throw-up-your-hands-and-scream frustration bubbling under the surface. His ideas are often couched (in caveats, humor, or both) but they're bold and logical.
When he says what we know is wrong, he means the way we think of Native Americans as some combination of wise environmentalists, deep spiritualists, drunks, and museum exhibits.
+10 Task
+5 Review
Task total = 15
Season total = 15
(view spoiler)
20.3 Our TownAnthill by Edward O. Wilson (About 85%-ish takes place in Clayville, Alabama. Not a real place, but repeatedly described as a small town and definitely has a small town feel throughout the novel.)
Review: I really wanted to love this, but I just didn't. I'm giving one star for the characters, who were interesting and realistic. The second star is for the 60+ pages of the anthill chronicles, where we get the details of the lives of the ants (and are partly in their perspective).
But the story itself is not very believable, especially the end: which includes a very unrealistic action scene, and a magically-successful solution bringing environmentalists and ultraconservatives together in the deep south. Sure.
My bigger problem though is that the style is so extremely clunky. Stilted dialogue (the whole opening scene made me cringe), the narrative perspective (omniscient? voice of character Fred Norville?) is muddled, the pace is often too fast or too slow, the level of detail is often too little or too much.
Wilson is at his best with the drama of the ants - for me, this was ultimately worth reading for that section.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Post total: 30
Season total: 660
Claimed to date:
10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4(x4) 10.5 – 10.7 - 10.9 -
- - - 15.4 - - - - - 15.10
20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -
10.3 ShakespeareThe Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (#222 on best endings list)
Review: The story was robust and the characters were decent, but overall I come away with the feeling that this was just okay. The first third (Amir and Hassan in childhood) was really good, but as the complexity of the weave of the story increased, the style got clunky.
There's something too blatant or perfect about the coincidences and the mirroring across generations. It has the feel of a superhero story, where the world needs righted or re-balanced.
The author overexplains a bit throughout the novel (and especially at the end) to make sure we hear exactly what he wants to tell us, that we understand his mechanizations and metaphors. I don't love when my work (and fun!) as a reader is taken away like that.
I did appreciate the ending - it's hopeful but not unrealistic. It rings true.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Non-western
+5 Combo 20.7 (see author bio: Khaled Hosseini)
Post total: 35
Season total: 640
Claimed to date:
10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4(x4) 10.5 – 10.7 - 10.9 -
- - - 15.4 - - - - - 15.10
20.1 20.2 - 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -
10.7 Three Favorite WomenJack by Marilynne Robinson (On Toni Morrison’s litmap.)
Review: I'm glad to have finally read this latest Gilead novel, and really enjoyed it. As always, Robinson plumbs the spiritual depths of her focal character. We sit with Jack's flaws, temptations, yearnings and hopes as much as he does. We see how his religious upbringing affected him (and continues to) and the ways he both wrestles with and takes comfort from religiosity.
At heart, though, this novel is a love story. It's a beautiful one. Jack and Della come together slowly and carefully at first, then all in a rush, even though the world will never let them be together. Most readers (me included) will have the benefit of knowing some of what comes next (as seen in Gilead).
I'm doing 4 stars instead of 5 because, while Robinson makes clear that Jack and Della's situation is deeply impacted by racism, it still feels over-simplified. We never sit with Jack's thoughts or feelings on race. I don't buy that Jack has no racism to confront (or hide) and it feels like a big omission when we are neck-deep in Jack's psyche all throughout. Not a fatal flaw, but a bit disappointing.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Post total: 20
Season total: 605
Claimed to date:
10.1 10.2 - 10.4(x4) 10.5 – 10.7 - 10.9 -
- - - 15.4 - - - - - 15.10
20.1 20.2 - 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -
10.1 PopularInto Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer (I used 1997 – it’s #7.)
Review: Krakauer is a fantastic writer. He knows how to bring just the right level of detail to inform and illuminate the narrative but not overwhelm it. The story itself is fascinating and devastating, and Krakauer's participation in it (not just a reporter watching from the side) is part of what makes this such a great book.
Everyone in the book is a real person with a real perspective on what happened, both at the time and (for those who survive) in hindsight. In my opinion, Krakauer is pretty vulnerable in relating mistakes he made, signs he missed, and ways he could have done something differently that might have saved someone. Though Krakauer speculates, we don't have the benefit of really understanding the motives, regrets or perspectives of other people in the book - especially those who died and Krakauer couldn't interview. So I kept that in mind: as much as Krakauer has reasons for what he did or didn't do, others did too. There are no real villains here.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Oldies (pub’d 1997)
Post total: 25
Season total: 585
Claimed to date:
10.1 10.2 - 10.4(x4) 10.5 - - - 10.9 -
- - - 15.4 - - - - - 15.10
20.1 20.2 - 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -
10.5 Database AnniversaryDoomsday Book by Connie Willis (Computers are a focus as the tool used to program and set parameters for “opening the net” to send people back in time and retrieve them later.)
Review: I feel very middling about this book. The creativity is fun, there aren't gaping holes or mistakes in the structure or plot, and some characters (Kivrin, many of the people in the 14th century timeline) are enjoyable. However, in my opinion there are problems in the writing.
There is a great deal of repetition. The same idea or piece of information about medieval history or the time-travel technology of the novel is stated multiple times (to hammer it home to the reader?) This was annoying, but mostly quickly passed over.
The bigger problem to me was that Willis relies VERY heavily on the "delay" crutch to add tension (or page-turner status) to the book. By "delay" crutch, I mean that she has people pass out or communicate unclearly to make sure other characters (and the reader) can't get information they desperately want, and makes strange, hand-wringing excuses for why that information is unobtainable otherwise.
I really hate this strategy, which is super common in sci-fi/fantasy novels. I get why it's used - it makes the reader really want to know what is missing. But it also forces the author to add a lot of filler (to waste time while building to the payoff). It also makes me think the author doesn't like their story enough or think it's good enough to hold reader attention without gimmicks.
This one is definitely good enough -- dropping the delay tactics would make for a shorter and much better story. Something closer to what Octavia E. Butler achieves in her Parable books and Kindred.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Oldies (pub’d 1992)
+5 Jumbo (578 pages)
+5 Combo (10.9 Dual – Half in the 1990s, half in the 14th century)
Post total: 35
Season total: 560
Claimed to date:
- 10.2 - 10.4(x4) 10.5 - - - 10.9 -
- - - 15.4 - - - - - 15.10
20.1 20.2 - 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -
10.4 NameThe Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman
Review: This book is fascinating, sometimes heartbreaking, and very much full of content to wrestle with and think on further. It’s especially relevant to me since I work in health care communication – and furthers my research on doing it better. The still evolving move to focus on health literacy and cultural humility in health care is given clear justification here.
Sure, there are parts of this that are dated. Mainly, Fadiman makes a few old-fashioned language choices, but the central focus and message are still extremely relevant and valuable. The problems with health care and social services this book points out are still not solved.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Oldies (pub’d 1997)
+5 Combo (10.2 Easter)
Post total: 30
Season total: 525
Claimed to date:
- 10.2 - 10.4(x4) - - - - 10.9 -
- - - 15.4 - - - - - 15.10
20.1 20.2 - 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -
20.9 BirthdaysSnow by Orhan Pamuk
Review: The simplest reading of Snow is that it's a political thriller, but it's so expansive in its scope and so thought-provoking that I barely even noticed. Good thing - I'm not into political thrillers. Sometimes humorous, more often full of tension, but most often quiet, calm and cold, like the endless blanket of snow that falls throughout the novel.
The characters are all a bit of a mystery, and purposefully so. We don't see inside their shells, and everyone is hiding something. They are each snowflakes - looking the same but individually forged. We can't know them because they can't know each other. This is really well done and fits the structure of the novel (written by "Orhan" telling the 'true' story of his friend Ka, but based on journaled reminiscences with missing pieces and perspectives).
The love story is doomed, the coup is more theater than tragedy, the poetry is entirely missing, and yet there is so much here to chew on. There's the intensity of the headscarf debate and it's stand-in status for religion vs. secularism. There's the writing process. There's the complexity of love (being in love vs. wanting to be in love vs. pretending to be in love). There's the weather, forcing Kars to come to a standstill. All of these threads bend and shape the characters' decisions and outcomes.
I can see this is not for everyone, but I really enjoyed Pamuk's successful execution of such an ambitious project.
+20 Task (“By the time the meal was over they had made me feel so welcome that I helped myself to a second slice of cake and no one noticed.”)
+10 Review
+10 Non-western
+5 Combo (10.4 Name)
Post total: 45
Season total: 495
Claimed to date:
- 10.2 - 10.4(x3) - - - - 10.9 -
- - - 15.4 - - - - - 15.10
20.1 20.2 - 20.4 - 20.6 - - 20.9 -
15.10 Western AsiaAli and Nino by Kurban Said
Review: This was written in the 1930s and has been compared to Romeo and Juliet, so I really never expected it to feel so modern. Ali and Nino are both beautiful characters, struggling to come to terms with the clash of east and west (Asia and Europe, Islam and Christianity, progressivism and traditionalism, horses and cars) in Azerbaijan.
Their town of Baku (and Azerbaijan in general) is at the epicenter of this change so everyone around them is struggling too - but Ali and Nino moreso. Because he's a Muslim (Shiite), she's a Christian (Greek Orthodox), and they're in love.
I appreciated that the romance was not unmuddied by the very real cultural and religious differences between Ali and Nino. Unlike Romeo and Juliet, where the star-crossed lovers just love, oblivious to the world (and their own previously-held priorities) around them, Ali and Nino work through these things and find ways to resolve their differences and their families' differences. It's still romantic. There are still intense scenes of love and violence. But the novel gives us a clear portrait of Azerbaijan along with these two lovers.
+15 Task
+10 Review
+10 Non-western
+10 Oldies (pub’d 1937)
+20 Group Project bonus (Azerbaijan)
Post total: 65
Season total: 450
Claimed to date:
- 10.2 - 10.4(x3) - - - - 10.9 -
- - - 15.4 - - - - - 15.10
20.1 20.2 - 20.4 - 20.6 - - - -
20.4 The ReiversOutlaws of the Marsh by Shi Nai'an (nice I could start with the sample post!)
Review: Well. At first I enjoyed this. The overarching concept (adventures and battles that ultimately bring 108 heroes together at Liangshan marsh) was interesting and ambitious (a la Boccaccio or Chaucer) without being an overly prescriptive format. The first chapters were interesting too, with different types of adventures and characters with unique traits and foibles. I also appreciated that one of the heroes is a woman. One isn't much, but I expected zero from a story nearly 700 years old.
But halfway through-ish, this became formulaic and repetitive - it lost all it's charm. For the most part, characters stopped having personalities and there were no more interesting adventures. Instead it's battle, recruit the heroes, repeat with many of the same phrases and descriptions used over and over. The gruesome descriptions of violence moved more to the forefront. The magical elements also became a much more frequent and unbelievable part of the narrative. At first, it was really magical realism. Characters were very real but could also lift something incredibly heavy, for example. Later, we have characters moving at hyperspeed and controlling the weather. All of this left me pretty bored.
I think the first half is very much worth a read. In the later volumes, there's really no more to get out of this.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Non-western
+25 Oldies (pub’d 1370)
+25 Jumbo (2149 pages)
+10 Combo (10.4, 20.9: “Cai Fu requested them to come into a room where refreshments were already spread out, and there he offered them wine and cakes.” From chapter 65)
Post total: 100
Season total: 385
Claimed to date:
- 10.2 - 10.4(x3) - - - - 10.9 -
- - - 15.4 - - - - - -
20.1 20.2 - 20.4 - 20.6 - - - -
10.9 DualThe Kingdom by Emmanuel Carrère (one timeline is Carrere’s memoir and takes place in the 1990s/early 2000s, the other is a fictionalized telling of the gospels, and takes place in the decades before and after 0 C.E.)
Review: It was quite good luck that I happened to read this immediately after The Evolution of God. Both books came up in my personal challenge to read books from my TBR chosen by random number generator. They cover much the same ground but in very different ways (though The Evolution of God covers Judaism and Islam somewhat in addition to Christianity, and The Kingdom is really just about Christianity).
While the Evolution of God is mainly factual when it comes to history and speculative on what this means about whether there is or isn't a god, The Kingdom is a tour de force of styles and speculation.
The Kingdom is both a memoir and a semi-fictionalized history of the four gospels. Large sections tell the story of Carrere's lost, then found, then lost again faith - and his love-hate relationship with the gospels, especially Luke and John.
Other large sections are a fiction-esque telling of the gospels. Fiction, because Carrere brings moments and stories to life by adding visual color, detail and dialogue. Often, we are right there in the moment with Jesus or Paul or Luke. At the same time, these sections often read like notes for a screenplay, describing how lights and cameras and motion might embody a film of the story with extra meaning. And (the -esque in fiction-esque), Carrere brings us out of the story over and over to defend or support his telling. He is carefully clear what aspects of his telling are based on known fact vs. largely (but not fully) agreed upon historical theory vs. less agreed upon historical theory vs. Carrere's own theories or complete creative license. It's a fascinating way to write.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Post total: 20
Season total: 285
Claimed to date:
- 10.2 - 10.4(x3) - - - - 10.9 -
- - - 15.4 - - - - - -
20.1 20.2 - - - 20.6 - - - -
20.2 PrizeArrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
Review: Overall, I liked this. Some parts are fascinating while other parts drag. Most characters are interesting but others are filler. None of this is surprising for a book that is meant to read like a detailed biography. There is pretty thorough play-by-play of Martin Arrowsmith's formative years.
In the end, the book is a little wishy-washy in its message against pursuit of corporate and social success. But this was written in 1925, so that makes sense. There's something about achieving said success and then rejecting it being depicted as noble that doesn't resonate anymore. It's not an indictment of the American Dream. Instead, the novel verifies the American Dream but questions the morals of some of those who aim for it (or didn't have to).
+20 Task (won in 1926 – interestingly, Lewis declined)
+10 Review
+10 Oldies (first pub’d 1925)
Post total: 40
Season total: 265
Claimed to date:
- 10.2 - 10.4(x3) - - - - - -
- - - 15.4 - - - - - -
20.1 20.2 - - - 20.6 - - - -
10.4 NameThirty Girls by Susan Minot
Review: Before I started reading, I had a look at the reviews and thought I maybe shouldn't bother -- turns out I was right.
Some of the reviews are over-the-top and creepily voyeuristic about the tragedy of 30 girls abducted in Uganda and their vitriol gave me hope that this would be more nuanced than either tragedy tourism OR eat-pray-love-esque awakening.
I would say it's not entirely either one of those things (though Esther's recovery after talking to Jane is a bit rich) but it's also not really anything else. Minot shies away from both stories. Neither Esther's nor Jane's story is told in a full-throated way. It felt like Minot knew she DIDN'T want to write a racially or culturally problematic book, but didn't really know what she DID want to write.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Post total: 20
Season total: 225
Claimed to date:
- 10.2 - 10.4(x3) - - - - - -
- - - 15.4 - - - - - -
20.1 - - - - 20.6 - - - -
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Bucket wrote: "Kate S wrote: "From Post 185Bucket wrote: "20.1 Pulitzer
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
Review: Jules Verne is fun reading, as lon..."
Ohh, I thought 3+ just meant the title had to have at least 3 words. I misunderstood in a good way - this opens up possibilities! Thanks!
Kate S wrote: "From Post 185Bucket wrote: "20.1 Pulitzer
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
Review: Jules Verne is fun reading, as long as I go in expecting fluff a..."
Hmm, I don't think Journey to the Center of the Earth fits task 10.2 - there's no J or C in EASTER. Did you mean something else?
