Paper Towns by John Green
Unsure if I was actually going to see the movie, I decided I’d like to read the book first, nonetheless. I really like John Green and I also love reading books my kids have read. And lo and behold, this was a really enjoyable one!
Quentin has lived next door to Margo since he was two, and has been in love with her for most of that time. Unfortunately, it has been years since they’ve spent time together, as Quentin is in his group of mainly extremely funny, slightly nerdy guy friends, and Margo has been in hers (of course, the “cool” crowd). But suddenly, Margo asks him to come on an all-night adventure and then she mysteriously disappears. Quentin finds a number of clues she has apparently left behind just for him and he is determined to find her, whether she’s alive or not.
The writing is great – full of youthful fun and angst and sarcasm and philosophical commentary, some of which is truly profound and some had me laughing out loud. The characters become your friends and you feel a great deal of sympathy and affection for Quentin and his friends. There is quite a bit of discussion about friendship, knowing someone and liking someone for who they really are vs for who you want them to be. A ot of these big ideas are innocently couched in some very ordinary, adolescent goofiness, and that is what makes this young adult novel both accessible and worthwhile.
I really liked this book – now the question is: should I see the movie?
Welcome to Kindread spirits!
This is my online book club… Please let me know what you think about the books I’m reviewing. I’d love to hear your opinion!
I’m also always looking for the next book to read. Please help me compile a list of great books with your suggestions right here in the comments for this post…
Thanks and happy reading!
The 19th Wife (migrated from bookblogger)
The 19th Wife: A Novel by David Ebershoff
This historical fiction novel tells 2 stories: one is a faux autobiographical/historical archival tale of a woman named Ann Eliza Young, who broke off from the Latter-Day Saints to speak out against polygamy. The other is a modern-day murder mystery in which an outcast from a sect of Mormonism is called back to rescue his mother who is accused of killing his father, a polygamist. As the author jumps back and forth between the 2 stories, the 2 become connected by their similar themes. Each in its own way builds up its own suspense and keeps the reader guessing what will happen next.
The author’s use of various means and voices is interesting. He not only switches voices but switches types of accounts of the stories. He uses first person narrator for the current-day story. He uses various “accounts” (fictional autobiographical, letters, diary entries) to give the story of what happened in the 1800’s. And interestingly the story is based on actual memoirs of Ann Eliza Young and historical archives.
The real drama, though, is in the depiction in both of these story lines of the emotional toll that polygamy takes on the wives, the husbands, and worst, the children. The women become obsolete in their own homes and are demoted as each next wife is taken, which of course breeds jealousy, hatred and fear. The men who have a conscience are torn between their true love for their first wives and their lust for more. They struggle with the balance that is impossible to achieve. And the children are basically anonymous numbers, unless of course, they distinguish themselves by being at all different and/or not following the “rules.” Then they are banished from everything they know and love.
I learned so much about the origins of the Mormon religion — how it came to be and how it evolved into what it is today. The issue of polygamy was crucial in its beginnings and while Mormonism has evolved beyond polygamy for the most part, there are sects that one can find throughout the U.S., evidently, that are still practicing this destructive lifestyle. This book helps to articulate how difficult it can be to live in this cultish environment and again how difficult it can be to break away.
The Lost Wife (migrated from bookblogger)
The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman
This is the beautifully written saga of Lenka and Josef who fall in love in the late 1930’s in the romantic city of Prague, just prior to the onset of WWII. The war separates them tragically and the story tells the tale of their lives during and after the war. Lenka is caught in the Nazi web of ghetto, deportation, and concentration camps. The reader feels her hunger and filth and cold along with her, it is made so real. Josef manages to escape to America, but the loss of his family is a silent ache that he secretly bears his whole life. Eventually, life brings them together but only after they have lived thinking the other had died during the war.
This book is a love story but it is filled with well-researched historical fiction, with more history than fiction. Some of the characters that the author has woven into the story were real people that the author learned about in her research of the Holocaust. The author highlights, in particular, the artwork that was done by both the children and the adults in Theresin, the showcase camp set up by the Germans. These brave souls depicted, in their art, the hideous conditions in which they were living and some of their paintings and drawings were able to be leaked out to the world for publication. Many more were uncovered after the inmates were liberated. This book celebrated the many brave souls, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who fought their own artistic battle with their Nazi captors.
What was also unique about this book was how the author highlighted the tragedy not only of those who lived through the concentration camps but also those who escaped but lost family, homes and all that was familiar to them. While those who lived through the camps suffered unimaginable horrors, those who were forced to leave their homes, their possessions, their birthplaces, were also displaced and traumatized in their own ways. Those who came to America had to learn a new language, become familiar with an entirely different culture and learn to cope with the losses they inevitably endured. In addition, the “survivors guilt” must have been overwhelming. I love that this book brought this to light, showing further how the Holocaust caused such far-reaching suffering and tragedy.
Lone Wolf
Lone Wolf, by Jody Picoult.
I LOVE Jody Picoult. She has the uncanny ability to delve into the stickiest of ethical dilemmas and to elicit sympathy on the part of the reader toward each side. I believe it is because she creates such beautifully complex characters, each of whom you want to win.
And in this book, she does it again.
The book revolves around a man who in order to fully study the habits of wolves, leaves his family to live in the wild among them, becoming part of a pack of wolves who take him in as one of their family. After he returns to his own, human family, he has difficulty fitting in and circumstances lead to the breaking up of his family. When he later suffers a severe head injury and is on life support, his son and daughter take up a legal battle to determine who will make the decision of whether or not to end life support.
In addition, throughout the book, the author weaves in various facts about wolves which make them appear more human than we are. Each tidbit is actually quite profound and provides a metaphor for what is happening to the characters in the story. I’m no naturalist, but I do find these facts very interesting. Each little factoid also serves to increase the suspense in the book with each further delay in the progression of the story.
This is yet another craftily woven story by Jody Picoult. You easily come to know and love her characters, you empathize with each side because each side is made valid, and you can’t help staying up late — no matter how late it is and no matter how important your work is the next day! — because you have to find out what happens (and there are a few major surprises!)
While some say Ms. Picoult has something of a formula, I say she uses what works — and it always does!
Welcome to Kindread spirits!
Formerly bookblogger62.blogspot.com, I am now officially kindreadspirits.wordpress.com.
WordPress enables me to continue to blog and you to follow me with ease. You can either just follow me or you can submit your email address and receive an email each time I post a review of a new book I’ve read.
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