I have grading to do. I’m not particularly excited about that, but I actually feel remarkably okay about going back to school on Monday. I’ve been thinking about my students a lot, worrying about some of them, even missing them. It is a good place to be. Please someone remind me of this when everyone behaves horribly next week and I hate everything. January can be rough.
What I can post tonight is this: thoughts on what I read in 2014. This year I read like my life depended on it; sometimes I think it really does.
Men We Reaped, by Jesmyn Ward
READ THIS. NOW. Salvage the Bones was one of the best books I read in 2012, and I had a sense then that this writer has so many more stories to tell. This book contains some of them, and they are important. Ward writes about the loss of five young men -- one of them her brother -- within a short period of time, intertwining their narrative with her own and setting it all against a larger cultural context. She writes from such a different place than I’ve ever experienced, but instead of feeling distanced by this, the humanity in her storytelling resonates on a cellular level.
This book must have been excruciatingly painful to write, but somehow she manages to make it beautiful. I’m in awe of her writing. Read this. Immediately.
Hyperbole and a Half, by Allie Brosh
I’m giving this four stars because I have loved Allie Brosh for years. If I were reading her for the first time, I’d probably give it three.
Some people seem bothered that some of the stories -- maybe half? -- are “recycled” from the blog. That didn’t particularly bother me, because I love the blog (or did when I discovered it and had the pleasure of binging on it for awhile; it was also updated much more regularly). What disappointed me was that my favorite stories aren’t there! No Alot? No scary spiders or pain scale? No “How a fish almost destroyed my childhood”? The new (?) material was entertaining, but it didn’t quite live up to my favorites.
Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell
I liked this very much -- better than I even expected to. But the book wasn’t what I expected at all. It’s touted as a romance, which it is, obviously, but I thought the romance was the weakest part of the story. The story had to have it, I get that -- I guess. And I love Eleanor and Park together; it’s just that I thought the real story here was Eleanor’s, and I found myself really just wanting to read more about her.
I also didn’t expect my heart to be in pieces throughout the entire novel, and I wasn’t prepared for how Rainbow Rowell would accomplish that. I know exactly which of my students is Eleanor, and it broke my heart. I wish she had a Park.
The Sportswriter, by Richard Ford
First of all, I think Richard Ford is a truly great writer. He reminds everyone of John Updike, and I respond to Frank Bascombe much like I respond to Rabbit Angstrom -- that is to say, I’m not someone who needs to love the protagonist in order to love a novel. But I fall hard for books like this -- contemplative and often melancholy reflections of one’s inner life. I love stories that capture the utterly ordinary, and do it in pitch-perfect sentences. In many ways, this reminds me as much of Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood as it reminds me of Updike's Rabbit novels, especially at the end. The beginning and the end of this novel might, in fact, ultimately bump up my rating to 5 stars -- maybe I’ll wait and see how I feel about the other Bascombe novels.
Saint Maybe, by Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler writes about the stories that connect us on a cellular human level, the small things, the lives of ordinary people. Saint Maybe was more or less exactly what I expected -- sad, funny, warm, and a bit predictable. I don’t think I’ve ever taken more than a day or two to read any of her books, because they’re the type that make me want to curl up with a blanket and a mug of tea until I’m finished.
Rose Under Fire, by Elizabeth Wein
This is more of Elizabeth Wein doing what she does best -- writing wonderful characters. The plot is much more linear, and readers won’t find themselves gasping at the surprises in the plot, but the characterization is truly wonderful. (Although I admit I found Rose’s character the least developed, even though she’s telling the story. The women she meets in the concentration camp just shine, though, and Rose functions as a perfect vehicle for their stories--which is kind of the point.) The book is as gut-wrenching as you would expect a novel set in a concentration camp to be, so unlike Code Name Verity it doesn’t make me want to pick it up immediately and reread it -- I’m a bit too wrung-out for that. It did, however, make me want to pick up Code Name Verity and read it again. (An important character in Rose Under Fire made her first appearance in Code Name Verity, for instance, but my memory is a little fuzzy -- I can’t remember if I responded to her in the same way, and things like that are so interesting to me!)
In One Person, by John Irving
At times I thought this would be a three-star book because it took a couple of tries for me to get into it. In the end, though, I thought it was great. One of the things I love about Irving is that he’s so unsubtle about his Irvingisms, like he’s sharing a wink with his reader -- of course there’s a younger man’s love affair with an older woman (though in this case she’s a transgendered older woman). Of course there’s wrestling, a New England prep school, a writer, etc. This time Irving’s main character quotes a couple of passages from his novels which also happen to be passages from John Irving’s novels (Until I Find You, A Prayer for Owen Meany, etc).
But what I love most about John Irving is his ability to humanize the “other”, the outsiders. And he does that beautifully in this book. I also agree that this is possibly his most political book, although I wasn’t thinking of it that way while I was wrapped up in the storytelling. His characters, as always, will stay with me for a long time.
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, by Ann Patchett
Totally cozy reading experience -- took me about two days. I appreciated the range of essays and generally adore Ann Patchett’s nonfiction (although obviously I enjoy her novels as well). Truth and Beauty remains my favorite of her books, but this is solid, and some of the essays are so good. Worth the hardcover, since I can see this becoming one of my comfort reads.
The End of Eve, by Ariel Gore
I could not put this down. Ariel Gore captures so beautifully the rawness and complexity of human connection -- between mothers and daughters, between lovers. It’s not a pretty story she’s telling, but her writing is gorgeous, both poetic and often darkly hilarious. This is a book I’ll read again.
A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki
The premise of this book intrigued me the first time I saw it -- a woman discovers a young girl’s diary that washes ashore in a remote area of the Pacific Northwest. She suspects it might be among the debris from the 2011 tsunami, and as she reads it we are drawn into both her story and the girl’s. This book is part mystery (with some fantastic bits of magical realism) and part meditation on time and the interconnectedness of our lives. Ruth Ozeki is a wonderful storyteller, and this book was hard for me to put down.
The Princes in the Tower, by Alison Weir
I loved reading Richard III for my Shakespeare class in college, and I remember enjoying Josephine Tey’s Daughter of Time years ago, which offers a very different perspective of this “misunderstood” king. However, Tey is a novelist and Alison Weir is an historian, albeit one who makes her bias clear immediately. (For the record, despite my enjoyment of Tey’s novel, I believe Richard III is guilty of his nephews’ murders, too.) This was a fascinating read.
The Impossible Knife of Memory, by Laurie Halse Anderson
I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this, but it fell flat for me from the very beginning. It seemed too much like Laurie Halse Anderson is writing everyone’s generic idea of what teenagers and high schools and teachers and traumatized veterans should be like, rather than what they are; there just wasn’t much room for the characters to step outside their obvious roles. I wasn’t surprised by one single thing in this book, and -- despite the fact that I very much wanted to be -- I wasn’t particularly moved, either.
Tenth of December, by George Saunders
It can be difficult to rate short story collections; inevitably, some of them soar, and then others not so much. This book was astonishing, start to finish. I thought this might be something I’d pick up in between reading other things, read a bit here and there, but once I started the first story I could barely be bothered to even eat lunch until I’d read the entire collection. It’s that good. It’s that powerful.
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra
This is one of the most beautiful, perfectly-crafted novels I have ever read. Anthony Marra has managed to write a story that left me utterly devastated, but never depressed, and quite literally breathless. I couldn’t speak at the end.
Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver
I enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as some of her work. I can’t quite put my finger on why, because I loved the story; it just seemed like a bit of a slog in parts. Sometimes her characters were perfect, and sometimes I couldn’t forget that they were characters in a novel and I couldn’t quite believe in them. But there are some gorgeous parts, and Kingsolver at three stars is still Kingsolver worth reading.
Home, by Marilynne Robinson
I loved Gilead so much that I just assumed this one wouldn’t live up to it, but in the end, I think it surpassed it. Both books stand alone on their own merits, but to go back and see the same scene written from a different perspective, and written so well that it stands on its own, made me appreciate Gilead even more. The characters are so finely drawn and every word rings absolutely true. I love books in which supporting characters from another story have their own stories fully told, and it just works so beautifully here. This book broke my heart more completely than Gilead, but I relished every sentence. (I absolutely cannot wait to read Lila, which is already on my shelf. That might be a lovely Lenten read this year.)
Unpacking the Boxes: A Memoir of a Life in Poetry, by Donald Hall
Some of the parts about Oxford were less interesting, but the last few chapters about grief and aging made this worth reading. (I also learned that The Best Day The Worst Day, his memoir about Jane Kenyon’s illness and death, was originally supposed to be part of this manuscript before it became its own book. This explains why she doesn’t get much space in this one, but the other stands alone so well that I think it was the right choice.)
The Blackwater Lightship, by Colm Tóibín
When I read Tóibín’s The Master a few years ago, it instantly became one of my favorite novels -- so it’s difficult for me to give anything he writes less than five stars. I’m a bit worried that nothing else will live up to The Master for me.
The Blackwater Lightship took me awhile to read, but not because it’s difficult (The Master required much more effort, but every sentence was worth it). It just didn’t quite grab me. It’s the story of a young man named Declan, who is dying of AIDS, and the women in his life -- his sister, mother, and grandmother -- who come together to care for him after years of estrangement. In theory, it’s exactly the kind of story I love to read, one about family dynamics and dysfunction and the layers of our past that shape the people we become. But it lacked something -- the depth I expected, perhaps, or the gorgeous layered prose that characterized The Master.
But this is still a good book, and Tóibín is a wonderful writer, so I still recommend him. I’m just not sure I’d recommend starting with this book if one is new to his work.
The Blazing Word, by Siri Hustvedt
This is the story of Harriet (“Harry”) Burden, an artist overlooked in the art world. Her response is to conduct an experiment in which she presents her art using three different male “masks.” Her work is well received, but when she reveals herself as the artist, she is met with skepticism and even scorn. The story is revealed through multiple perspectives -- a compilation of Harriet’s diaries, interviews conducted with friends and acquaintances, written statements from past friends and lovers and family -- after her death. Each piece reveals a different perspective of who Harriet Burden was and offers clues as to what actually happened between Harriet and Rune, the last and most dangerous “mask.”
I thought that this would be a book I would appreciate, but I didn’t think I would love it as much as I did. I thought it would require significant effort to read (it is full of references to philosophy and art, and footnotes abound!) and it did, but I also couldn’t put it down. I loved the concept, but even more, I loved the storytelling and Hustvedt’s ability to blend this esoteric art world with so much raw human feeling. The different voices are also pitch-perfect. An intellectual page-turner, for sure.
Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel
I think this is a case of “it’s not you, it’s me.” I really wanted to love this book; I just found it so hard to engage with it (evidenced by the fact that it took me nearly a month to get through when I expected it to be more like a two-day read; I had no problem putting it down, though, and I rarely felt like picking it back up). It’s objectively well done, and I thought all the connections to Virginia Woolf would draw me in if nothing else did, but I found all the parts about psychoanalysis really tedious. And I realized that even if they’re conveyed well in drawings, other people’s dreams still aren’t that interesting to me.
I still may give Fun Home a try. Probably I should have started with that one.
For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey, by Richard Blanco
This is a behind-the-scenes look at Richard Blanco’s process of writing three poems to present to the White House, one of which became the Inaugural poem “One Today.” The message that sings through his story is that poetry matters and continues to matter in our contemporary world, and it transcends our differences to unite us.
This could easily be read in a sitting and I enjoyed it, but I found myself wanting either a little more or a little less. It could have been a nice meaty NPR interview, for instance, and at times I grew slightly weary of the litany of names -- and then I met Joe Biden’s brother, and then I met Beyoncé... But actually, what I think I would have really loved is his full life story. I think Richard Blanco should really write his memoir. He has many stories to tell, and I can only hope he’s just beginning.
Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
This book is arguably one of the most important books written during the last century in America, and it has also joined the ranks of my favorite books. I can’t think of a single word to write that can even do it justice.
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, by Jon McGregor
This book has been on my to-read list for such a long time, thanks to a recommendation from a friend. (Thank you, Rachel, forever. I am so glad you put this book on my radar.) Now that I’ve read it I can’t believe it took me so long -- but then again, I believe the right books find us at the right time, and this was without question the right time for me to read this. Once I started I found it almost physically impossible to stop reading. This book is beautiful. How do I even write about it without sounding trite or repeating everything that’s already been said? Yes, it is sheer poetry in prose form. And yes, it does capture the human condition more perfectly than almost anything I’ve ever read. I went into this not really knowing anything about it, and this is one of those books that works best that way.
Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, by Cheryl Strayed
I would not have picked up this book on my own -- advice columns aren’t my thing. I find them condescending or obvious or boring. But a good friend pushed it into my hands and insisted I read it, and flipping through it, I figured, “Well, this won’t take long, and I can just read a bit here and there.” And then I wound up enjoying it quite a bit; her advice is not condescending, and sometimes it is surprising. It’s definitely never boring. Strayed says a lot of good, true, wise things in a voice I liked enough to want to read her memoir.
Astray, by Emma Donoghue
I was hooked after reading the first story (which, though I’m not absolutely sure is my favorite, might actually be the best). The book is divided into three sections: Departures, In Transit, and Arrivals and Aftermaths. Each story focuses on some aspect of a journey -- mostly the emigrant’s journey, though she manages to explore the universal human aspects of what it means to be “astray” in various ways. The book spans a few centuries and two continents, and each story is also based at least loosely on real historical events and people who actually existed (Donoghue includes brief historical notes at the end of each story, tracing the source of her inspiration). I love the way she humanizes so many different kinds of people, and her ability to write convincingly from so many different voices is brilliant (an aspect of Donoghue’s writing we see in Room as well).
The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot
I love Maggie Tulliver and I love George Eliot. Five stars.
The People in the Trees, by Hanya Yanagahara
This is an incredibly difficult book to rate. The narrator is so unreliable and so repugnant from the very beginning that I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep reading; on the other hand, the story was so compelling I couldn’t stop reading, and I must admit I was fascinated by the author’s craft in writing this book. Because while Dr. Norton Perina never became a sympathetic character for me -- and I don’t think he’s meant to (hello, Humbert Humbert anyone?) -- this book was a fascinating glimpse into so many things. I think Carmela Ciuraru gets it exactly right in her NYT review:
The novel examines issues of moral relativism, Western hubris, colonization and ecological disruption in the name of science as it charts the disappearance of the wondrous flora and fauna and the grievous harm done to the indigenous people. Pharmaceutical companies pillage the island, creating turtle breeding farms in their quest to bottle the secret to longevity. But Perina is unrepentant about his role. “I did what any scientist would have done,” he insists.This is a book to be discussed, for sure; I began it on a road trip, and fifty pages in I told my husband to check it out whenever I took the wheel. We passed it back and forth for a few days, and I’m so glad to have someone to process it with.
Provocative and bleak, “The People in the Trees” might leave readers conflicted. It is exhaustingly inventive and almost defiant in its refusal to offer redemption or solace — but that is arguably one of its virtues. This is perhaps less a novel to love than to admire for its sheer audacity.
The Cuckoo’s Calling, by Robert Galbraith
This was a fun mystery, which is exactly what I was in the mood for. It delivered all the usual things fun mysteries do.
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, by Cheryl Strayed
After enjoying Dear Sugar so much, I thought I’d like this a lot more than I actually did. I think that ultimately I liked the idea of the book more than I liked the book itself.
Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng
“Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” So begins Celeste Ng’s debut novel, which is so smoothly written that I read it in just a few sittings. In one sense, it’s a mystery novel, but more than that, it’s a story of mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters. It’s about outsiders, about both fitting in and setting ourselves apart. I’m giving this three stars out of five because while I do love this sort of breathless reading experience that swallows up a day, I actually think there’s more than enough story here for a much longer and more developed novel. Ng is a writer to watch, though, and I still recommend this one.
The Lover’s Dictionary, by David Levithan
I suppose this is technically a YA novel, but it read like poetry. Lovely. True.
Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West, by Cormac McCarthy
This book is without question the most violent novel I’ve ever read. It’s exhausting. It is also magnificent. A century from now we’ll still be reading Cormac McCarthy right alongside William Faulkner, and this is the novel he’ll be remembered for. I was glad to finish this; reading it took something out of me, and it was real work. But it was absolutely worthy of the effort. One reviewer wrote something about wanting to wallpaper her house in his sentences, and I understand what she means.
(I think this is a book that I’ll come back to. Someday. At the same time, if they wind up making a movie out of it, I think I’ll give it a pass.)
Rachel Calof’s Story: Jewish Homesteader on the Northern Plains, by Rachel Calof
This was a fascinating first-person narrative of a Jewish homesteader who traveled from Russia to North Dakota for an arranged marriage in 1894. This is Rachel Bella Calof’s story in her own words, and I read it in a day. Little House on the Prairie this is not; there is nothing romanticized here. Calof writes in a clear, matter-of-fact voice of hardships I can’t imagine living through year after year: arriving to a roofless shack crowded with people she didn’t yet know, being forced to share a bed (wooden planks with chickens underneath, basically) with her future mother-in-law, scraping together bits of dough to cook over a fire stoked with cow dung and grinding barley to substitute for coffee, and ultimately bearing nine children, most of them right there in the shack. She was forced to figure just about everything out for herself, with virtually no support from her new family. The severe isolation of the prairie coupled with the absolute lack of any privacy is unrelenting. And then, of course, there are blizzards and hailstorms, difficult births, and conflicts with her mother-in-law.
But it’s never a depressing book; I think it’s a testament to Calof’s strength and a story of what humans can endure. (I almost laughed when their entire crop was wiped out by a hailstorm and Calof seemed almost cheerful about it. Like, well, we’re all safe! And we were so close this year! Maybe next year we’ll be successful!) It certainly puts things in perspective for me when I feel like complaining about, say, the fact that I haven’t found time to paint my bathroom or whatever. Or anything else.
The epilogue (written by Calof’s youngest son) and two afterwords expanding on the history and context of Calof’s narrative were interesting as well. (My college roommate sent it to me with this note: “I never knew there was a prominent Jewish settlement near Devil’s Lake!” I didn’t either.)
Random, by Tom Leveen
Two stars because once I started reading I found it impossible to stop (I read this in under two hours), and because I’d happily stick this on my classroom shelves. But I think the best YA fiction transcends age, and this reminded me exactly of those R.L. Stine novels I used to read in middle school.
The Flamethrowers, by Rachel Cushner
I loved every single sentence of this book. Rachel Kushner is crazy brilliant.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander
This belongs on the “Every human should read this” shelf, right alongside The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson and Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward. Admittedly, this one took me much longer to read -- it lacked the lyrical prose of the other two -- and it’s pretty relentless in its message. Which, quite frankly, is a devastating one, but it is also, absolutely, a necessary one. We have work to do.
Dangerous Girls, by Abigail Haas
This book was admittedly pretty fun to read in a day and took virtually no effort. But one of the problems is that so many people raved about this book and its surprise ending that even though I didn’t read any spoilers, I was so poised for the HUGE SURPRISE at the end that it wasn’t very surprising at all. The other problem is that I just didn’t think it was a good book. It kind of felt like “Insert generic YA novel here.” It also felt like it was trying too hard to be a fictionalized account of both the Amanda Knox and Natalee Holloway stories in one book.
The Secret Place, by Tana French
4.5 stars for this one, I think. I read most of it in a day, which didn’t make me the most attentive wife or mother, I’m afraid.
Anyway, this is good. I still think Broken Harbor might be my favorite of Tana French’s novels, but The Secret Place is perhaps her most intricately written. I love the same things I’ve loved about all her novels -- the great characterization, the twisty plots, but also just the quality of her prose, her sentences. I do love good sentences. I have zero regrets about buying this is in a nice, shiny hardcover (I was on the waiting list at the library, but I am far, far too impatient) because I think this is one I might well reread.
And all I can think tonight is that I was so lucky to be able to read her first three novels within the same year, and then I only had to wait one more year for Broken Harbor...waiting two years between her fourth and fifth books was tough. My first thought upon reading the last page of this one was “Please, please already have the sixth one written.”
Hate List, by Jennifer Brown
The aftermath of a school shooting, narrated by the shooter’s girlfriend -- who was also shot, and who technically stopped the shooting, even though she started the infamous “Hate List” -- should have been more interesting than it was, but I found the characters flat and the writing bland. A disappointment.
Landline, by Rainbow Rowell
Not earth-shaking, but solidly enjoyable, and pretty much what I expected/hoped for. I’ve been disappointed by the last handful of YA novels I’ve read, so this return to Rainbow Rowell’s voice was lovely. (And I know that this is technically not YA fiction, but her voice was still very much her own.)
The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters
Books by Sarah Waters are best approached without reading much about them beforehand, I think. This was certainly true of Fingersmith (I didn’t know anything about that one before I read it, and I am so glad!) and I think it’s true of this one as well. All you need to know is this: she is an exquisite writer. She manages to write books that are both cozy and thrilling, and she is a master of character and setting. Her sentences delight me. I loved this.
The Bone Clocks, by David Mitchell
I think David Mitchell is brilliant, and I absolutely loved this. I started it six weeks ago, although I read over half of its hefty 600+ pages in a single weekend on two flights -- which is exactly how I read Cloud Atlas for the first time nine years ago. And yes, reading this felt a lot like reading Cloud Atlas in that Mitchell’s latest novel is also comprised of six distinct but interconnected parts or novellas. In this case the protagonist, Holly Sykes, is the dominant thread, and the stories move in chronological order from her teenage years until her 70’s (as opposed to the forward-and-back-again structure of Cloud Atlas), but it’s still a thrilling ride. I was absorbed enough to forget that I hate flying for six hours one weekend, and back home I read carefully and slowly enough to underline, annotate, chuckle, and cry a bit. This book gave me everything I love in a reading experience.
Two years ago I reread Cloud Atlas and found that it absolutely rewarded rereading. I’m certain I’ll feel the same when I return to The Bone Clocks -- I almost want to begin again tonight.
The Silkworm, by Robert Galbraith
I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as The Cuckoo’s Calling; I thought the writing was a bit lazy at times, with too many descriptions of Strike’s hair and his leather couch. And I found the Strike/Robin dynamic less interesting. Then again, I read this because I wanted to read a fun mystery, knowing full well it wouldn’t be Tana French. And it was a fun mystery. I’ll keep reading these, I’m sure.
Maus, by Art Spiegelman
A graphic novel about depicting Spiegelman interviewing his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. I’m currently teaching this to a thoughtful, bright group of freshmen and hoping they understand that this isn’t just a story.
Excavation: A Memoir, by Wendy Ortiz
A powerfully -- even beautifully -- written memoir. Wendy Ortiz tells the raw, painful story of abuse at the hands of her junior high English teacher, a sexual “affair” that continued for years until she herself broke it off. It’s about power, but it’s also about the power of stories and the importance of telling the brave truth about our own lives.
The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History, by Katherine Ashenburg
This was a fun and rather random library find. Ashenburg explores Western culture’s history with hygiene and cleanliness. Her lighthearted tone kept the subject entertaining, even when the information was a bit cringeworthy for our modern ultra-hiegenic sensibilities. A quick, interesting read.
Belzhar, by Meg Wolitzer
I’m a sucker for so many things in this book: boarding school stories, Sylvia Plath, English classes, antique leather journals, and the power of words. I also really like Meg Wolitzer. However, I think I prefer her adult fiction. I like the message in this book, but the ending seemed a bit too easy and the character development isn't as strong as it is in The Interestings.
Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace, by Anne Lamott
At first I was a tiny bit disappointed that this wasn’t a collection of entirely new essays, but the first one I knew I’d read before is one of my all-time favorites and the “selected” essays are well chosen. The new ones are pretty wonderful as well.
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, by Chris Grabenstein
My daughter enjoyed reading this and I thought I would love it; everyone kept saying it was like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but with books! Which it tries to be, but while it is whimsical and fun, it lacks something. I think the very best children’s books have to be more than whimsy and light; they need to make us a little unsettled and uncomfortable, too. We need to wrestle with a little darkness. That’s missing here, and so it doesn’t go much deeper than entertainment for me, and I read for more than that -- and I would have expected a book like this to get that.
Still, it’s fun. It just didn’t quite live up to the high hopes I had for it.
All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
This book is absolutely spectacular. I loved how such an epic story could form from Doerr’s short, lyrical chapters. I loved the way the different story lines fit together. Most of all, I was completely swept away by Doerr’s prose--his sentences left me awestruck.
My reading list for 2015 is already spectacular. I’m starting with Redeployment by Phil Klay and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, but I’m also looking forward to Brian Doyle’s Mink River and Niall William’s History of the Rain. For starters. It’s a pity I have to do things like go to work, but then again, one of my tiny assets as a high school teacher might be my crazy passionate believe that reading books about other people and other lives makes me a better human inside my own.
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