End of the year

Well I'm a little late but happy 2012! The last couple months the whole blogging thing fell by the wayside, sadly enough. I'm pretty sure I achieved my goal of reading 25 books in one year, I may have even done more. After this year I realized that I go through cycles with my reading habits. Some months I tear through 3-4 books and others I make my way leisurely through 1. Just these past 3 weeks I have read over 4 books! So who knows, maybe I am on another upward trend of reading. Despite my 'challenge' being over I am going to continue reading and writing about the books that I come across. Hopefully I will have the endurance to keep up with all the writing. In all honesty I shouldn't look at the writing as a chore, instead it should be a place where I can share my love for books. So I bid a fond farewell to 2011 and all the books I read over the year. I am definitely looking forward to 2012 and the many new books it will put in my path!

The Book Thief

Normally I try to write about the books I've read in the order that I finished them. Today I am going to break that rule. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak blew me away. I wrote this post as soon as I could because I want to share The Book Thief with all of you. This book begs to be shared.  I finished it approximately 10 minutes ago, and boy did I cry. There have only been a handful of books that have ever made me cry. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and Watership Down by Richard Adams are a couple titles that come to mind. (And no, I didn't cry when Dumbledore died. Lets get real people, it was bound to happen). In fact, I'll admit to crying like a baby after finishing Of Mice and Men for school when I was a freshman in high school. To this very day I vividly remember trying to explain to my dad as to why I was crying so much over a book.  (Sorry Dad. Haha).

I digress. Back to The Book Thief. It begins with this statement by the narrator "Here is a small fact: You are going to die." If that doesn't draw you in, I don't know what will.

  The narrator of the story is Death, kind of like the grim reaper but not in the traditional sense. Death is more like an innocent witness to the sorrows of human kind, who must clean up the souls left behind. The story takes place in Nazi Germany during WWII, and death is very busy. Yet somehow, a young German girl named Liesel catches his attention and he finds himself returning to her life periodically to see how she is doing. In my opinion, Liesel and the people in her life represent the slew of emotions experienced by the world during a catastrophic event such as WWII. As you can imagine there is a profusion of sorrow, hatred, death and betrayal but glimpses of love, humor and compassion that shine through at the most unsuspected times. Don't get me wrong, this book does not sugar coat the horrors that millions of people experienced during WWII. Instead, it gives a human face to the lives lived and lost during this tumultuous time in our history. If you've read any of my other blog posts you know that I value realism in a book. And this book gives a huge dose of realism, which, as proven by my tears, can be overwhelmingly sad at times. It was such a beautiful and creatively written book that deserves to be read cover to cover. I was not expecting it to evoke the emotions in me that it did. But I am glad that it did, because a good book should do that.

I wont write anymore about this book, because I honestly don't think I could do it justice. I actually borrowed it from a fellow bibliophile friend and now I plan on buying a copy for my own collection.  Just promise me you will do yourself a favor and read it. And heed my advice: you'll want to have a box of tissues near by when you read it.

Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society was written by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. The story beings in 1946, the year after WW2 ended. The novel consists of a series of letters sent back and forth between the protagonist Juliet and the inhabitants of Guernsey Island in the English Channel. During the war Juliet wrote humor columns to help lift the spirits of the British people during the war. Now that the war is over Juliet wants to write a book that is more serious in tone but is struggling for a topic, until one day she receives a letter from a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. During the war Guernsey was occupied by the Germans and was cut off from all communications with England and the  European continent. The members of the literary group write her about their experiences during the long years of occupation. The stories are both funny, sad, extraordinary and at times unbelievable.

The first word that comes to mind when thinking of this book is cute. Second, would sadly have to be contrived. Cute and contrived...not such a good combination. The letters that make up the book are at first a really great idea, 'oh how clever! The whole book is a series of letters". Then you get half way through the book and you can't keep track of who is writing the letters anymore, and honestly you really don't care anymore. I loved the characters, but I couldn't keep any of them straight. I would read a letter and think it was written by one person but find out 5 pages later that I was confused and the plot is all jumbled up. Sometimes I just felt like chucking the book across the room I got so frustrated. Also, no one in real life writes with as much emotion and detail as the characters do in this book. They must have amazing memories to be able to describe exactly what the weather was like, and how the person looked at them, and what they were wearing, and every single word that came out of their mouths or that they even thought!  This book would have been so much better if it wasn't all in letter format. It was a cute idea but in the end it just didn't work, or at least it wasn't realistic at all. I suppose I am probably the only person that thinks bad things about this book, apparently most people love it.  So if you are willing to look past the cutesy-fake-contrivedness ( I know that isn't a word, but I'm using it anyways) of the letters go for it. Some of the stories that are told by the islanders are truly heart wrenching and are worth mucking around in all the letter reading.

Empress Orchid

Empress Orchid is a historical novel covering the first 15 years of the last empress of China, Empress Dowager Cixi's, reign. Before reading this book I knew nothing about Cixi and her legacy. I discovered a world of ritual, wealth, power, deceit and sorrow that existed in the Forbidden City for hundreds of years. I find it infuriating that historically, women in power lives' and personalities are lambasted and spun so as to create a negative and inaccurate portrayal of who they really were. In Empress Orchid and its follow up novel The Last Empress Anchee Min attempts to deconstruct the elaborate lies surround Cixi's reign and portray her as the woman she really was.

Cixi, or Orchid, is the daughter of a minor Manchu noble whose family lost almost everything when her father passed away. In order to save her family from desolation, Orchid presents herself to the Emperor of China, along with thousands of other young women,to be chosen as one of his concubines.  Surprisingly, Orchid is chosen as the fourth wife out of seven. She believes that she is lucky because as wife, unlike the Emperor's hundreds of concubines, she has a chance at winning his heart and bearing him a son. She quickly learns that not everything is at it seems in the Forbidden City, and that love and honesty is not enough to get by. Instead, she must depend on her own cunning, will and passion in order climb to the top of power and gain the Emperors attention. She does this all whilst navigating a social and political minefield where one wrong step can lead to death. 

After finishing Empress Orchid  I delved deeper into Cixi's history and was surprised by what I found. Apparently, it is a widely held belief in modern day China that Cixi was an evil woman and that she was responsible for China's embarrassing defeat in the Boxer Rebellion and the era of foreign spheres of power. I found it hard to believe that she was as horrible as these claims, so I searched harder for more accurate accounts. Within the past decade or so historians have begun to uncover information that proves that she wasn't as horrible a person or ruler as some would like us to believe. Foreign powers published many slanderous accounts of the Empress, so as to justify invading China and taking huge spheres of trade, land, money and power. Many historians believe that if it wasn't for Cixi's leadership, China would have fallen to foreign powers and internal discord much sooner. I plan on trying to find more historically accurate accounts of Cixi when I get a chance to drag myself to the UB library.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

OK, so almost everyone has at least heard of the Millennium trilogy. They've been so heavily promoted that you would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't read one of the books. There have been movies made in Sweden for all three, and the American versions are the in the works. I get it, everyone loves them. What I am about to say may seem like a shock but I might be the only person in the entire world that thought they were only so-so. There I said it! I'm sure to be marked as a literary pariah for admitting it, but I can't lie. I struggled through the first one, I hardly remember any of the second and the third was just 'eh' to me. The only parts that I really enjoyed were from Lisbeth's point of view. I think that the other characters, Blomkvist, Berger, etc. are  unbelievable and  downright annoying. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest just helped to solidify my opinion of the series. Much of the book is spent mucking around in legal issues and following various police officers who in my mind were so similar as to be interchangeable. Meanwhile, Blomkvist is trying to help vindicate Lisbeth, while banging multiple ladies during his free time. Berger is, as always, a powerful woman with a sketchy sexual background that Larsson never misses a chance to remind us of. Lisbeth remains as the only character that I don't find unbelievable or predictable.

It seems obvious to me that Larsson lived vicariously through Mikael Blomkvist. Even though Blomkvist is middle aged and not extremely fit or atractive, he constantly has younger attractive women throwing themselves at him. He is able to have a regular sex buddy on the side, (Erika Berger) who he has been sleeping with for over 20 years without any strings attached. He always finds himself in the middle of a huge story that will put him on top. Not to mention he is BORING. Maybe I am biased but I can't stand him. I find myself rolling my eyes or laughing at how transparent Larsson is being whenever I read Blomkvist's portions of the book. If he's not having sex with random women, he's sitting around brooding while drinking black coffee, eating sandwiches and smoking excessively.

All rants about Blomkvist aside, Larsson's saving grace is Lisbeth Salander. Considering she was created by a man, Lisbeth is an believable and intriguing female lead. She is completely unpredictable which gives the series the kick it needs to stay interesting. As a reader you are always on Lisbeth's side, making her story all the more exciting. She is the only character that I actually care about.  It's really a pity that Larsson wasn't able to complete the series because I read in a interview with his girlfriend that the 4th book was going to explain all of Lisbeth's tattoos.

Read the series for Lisbeth, it's worth mucking around in the other characters' stories for her part alone.

The Giver

The Giver by Lois Lowry was one of those books that seemingly everyone read in school, except me. I don't know how, but it just passed me by. I hadn't given it much thought until recently. I mentioned to a friend that I loved dystopian novels, and she said her favorite book from that genre was The Giver. I figured it would be a quick easy read.

I was immediately struck by how simple the prose in The Giver is. Lowry's style of writing is clear and concise without being slow paced or overtly obvious. The writing evolves with the main character Jonas. At first, Jonas is just like everyone else. He  experiences some emotions but not all of them, and none of his emotions are extreme or complex. Basic human emotions have been systematically eliminated from the population, such as pain, anger, fear, hunger, lust and even love. These feelings have been eradicated by creating a highly controlled society in which everyone must follow strict protocol. Jonas does not entirely understand the concept of death, instead he believes that people are 'released' from the community to a place outside of his little world. All of his life has been planned out stage by stage, and lacks any surprises or spontaneity.

Throughout the first portion of the book, the writing style is much like Jonas, lacking emotional intensity. Lowry states the facts as they appear to Jonas in a way that cannot be questioned, because Jonas cannot question his own identity. That is, he cannot question his identity until he is chosen to become the new Giver in the community. As the Giver, Jonas takes on the responsibility of learning memories of times past. Memories that had been forgotten by the rest of the community so that they could live without pain, anger, fear and suffering. Jonas quickly realizes that along with forgetting the negative things they have forgotten the beautiful happy things such as the ability to perceive color, excitement, and love. As Jonas learns more memories the writing style becomes more human and tangible. As readers we grow along with Jonas, as he begins to see his world with a new understanding.

I have not seen this literary technique used so well before and it gave the story more complexity and dimensions. Although I would have liked to have read this book while I was still in school, I think I can better appreciate it now that I am older. The Giver may have been written as a children's novel, but it still strikes a chord in adult readers. Especially as we get older, we value our memories more than ever before.

Mockingjay

The Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins is the third and final book of The Hunger Games trilogy. Instead of reading the first two parts, I listened to them on my iPod. I was immediately drawn into the story. The Mockingjay was the first book I didn't listen to but read, and now I want to go back and reread all three. These books left a deep impression on me. Once finishing the series I thought about it for days after, replaying the story and it's message in my head. I would recommend this series to anyone who is looking for something different. The trilogy does not follow traditional literary formulas, which I think makes for a much more interesting and refreshing read.

Since the Mockingjay  is the final book I don't want to give anything away for those of you who are interested in reading the first two. I will give a broad synopsis of what the series is about, without giving too much away.

The trilogy is set far in the future where the United States has crumbled and is renamed Panem. The country has been divided up into 12 districts. Each district is in charge of providing goods and services for the Capitol. The Capitol is the main city of Panem, and it is where the totalitarian government resides.

One boy and one girl, between the ages of 11 and 18, are randomly chosen from each district to participate in the annual Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is a vicious event in which all 24 'players' are forced to survive in a arena developed by the Game Makers. Players are forced to kill one another in any way possible, and the last player remaining wins. Not only must they protect themselves from each other, but the arena is riddled with deadly traps set up by the Game Makers to make things more 'interesting'. All the while the Games are broadcast all over Panem for the nation to witness.Traditionally players from the lower number districts win, because they are trained from birth to be ruthless killers. The worst district, 12, hasn't won in over 40 years. A young woman from district 12, Katniss Everdean, puts herself into the games to save her younger sister from death. Little does Katniss know that she is about to change the game for the better and incite rebellion amongst the districts.

The Mockingjay is  darker and more adult in tone than the previous books. A large portion of the book is spent showing how war, violence, loss and death can affect a person.  Collins shows how many the her characters experience symptoms of PTSD (post traumatic stress syndrome). We are taken inside the heads of people who have experienced horrific situations but who must overcome those feelings in order to survive. Collins portrays war for what it really is; brief moments of victory followed by lasting periods of fear, loss and deception. I read many reader reviews of the Mockingjay on Goodreads.com and a lot of people felt that this book was a much too dark ending to the series. I disagree, I felt that it was realistic. Realism is often overlooked in the YA genre, which in my opinion is a mistake. I respect Collins because she was able to break away from the typical YA formula and inserted reality and truth into her story.