Read for: Banned Books Challenge

I’ve been meaning to read this book for a very long time.  It’s been sitting on my night stand (where I keep my TBR in the next month pile) since September because I planned to read it for Banned Books Week.  But I just never got around to it.  But then a friend told me that I had to read When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, but that I should probably reread A Wrinkle in Time first.  So I finally picked it up.  I remember loving this book when I was younger.  In fact, I remember it as one of the books/series’ that made me love reading!  I read it several times and loved it every time, but I was worried that I wouldn’t enjoy it as much as an adult.  But I did!  I think I may like it even more now because I think I have a deeper understanding of the novel now.

I’m surprised that this book has been challenged/banned because it apparently has anti-Christian ideas.  I found it just the opposite.  I think it has very strong religious themes.  People may have been offended by the “witches” and I’m not sure that if this book were published today it would have any problems with it.  They have their hands full with all those evil Harry Potter and Twilight novels!

There were a few things that bothered me about the book but I think it’s mainly because I am not the target audience.  The pacing of certain events were a little too fast for me, with not enough character development but I know it’s perfect pacing for a younger audience.  I think children need the story to happen faster, but they also have a better ability to accept the characters relationships without a whole bunch of lead-up.

I’m so glad I was able to enjoy this book as much as I did as a child and I can’t wait to reread the rest of the series.  I also can’t wait until my oldest is mature enough to read it to him.  I love reading to him my favourites from when I was young and I really hope that by doing this I can teach him to love reading and books as much as I do!  (This is the cover of the copy that I had as a child.)

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Read for: RIP IV and 1% Well Read Challenge

The Moonstone is a huge yellow diamond (valued at 30,000 pounds in 1848 – (I have no idea what that translates to in today’s money but 30,000 pounds today is a lot of money!)  with a history.   Originally set in the forehead of an Indian god who typifies the Moon, the diamond finds its way into the Herncastle family in England.  At the outset of the novel, the diamond has been left to a young lady named Rachel.  The diamond is to be given to her on her birthday.  In the days leading up to the birthday party, three Indians are observed in the vicinity of the house acting suspiciously.  Rachel is given the diamond on her birthday as planned and wears it prominently at the dinner party.  The three Indians show up at the party, claiming to have magic tricks to amuse the party.  After the guests have left, the house is carefully locked up (because of the presence of the diamond and the suspicious Indians) and everyone goes to bed.  The next morning, it is discovered that the diamond is missing.  So begins the search for the missing diamond.  Many people are involved and many people are suspected through out the course of the book.

I really enjoyed this story.  There’s lots of plot twists and turns and I never figured out who had stolen the diamond on my own.  It’s a perfect Victorian mystery!  The characters are believable and likeable and entertaining.  Like The Woman in White, the story is told from the point of view of several of the characters but unlike The Woman in White, I found the flow was so much better and the story was so much more entertaining.  I think my favourite narrator was Gabriel Betteredge, the house steward.  He had an obsession with Robinson Crusoe that was really funny.  The second narrator was Ms. Clack, and ultrareligious, self righteous, interferring woman who I also found to be quite entertaining to read about.  She put her foot in her mouth several times but of course never realized how offensive she’d been.

This was definitely better than The Woman in White, which I didn’t love.  The other thing I truly enjoyed about this book was the particular edition I borrowed from the library.  It was published in 1946 and was donated to the library sometime in the 70′s.  So the pages were soft and yellowed and smelled old, which made reading it that much more fun.  It also had some hilarious illustrations.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Read for: Book club, The Orbis Terrarum Challenge – Russia, and The 1% Well Read Challenge

I’m not really sure what to say about this book.  I’ll start with a short summary but there is so much going on that it’s not really going to cover much!  The book is basically about 3 brothers (possibly four – an illegitimate son who is never confirmed to actually be one of the brothers) and their dead beat dad.  The first half of the book introduces us to the characters and their relationship with their father (and a whole bunch of other stuff – political and theological ideologies and such.)  Finally, halfway through the book, the father is murdered.  The evidence points almost entirely to one of the brothers but as the reader, I had a hard time believing it was him.  The second half of the book is dedicated to the gathering of evidence and the trial with a weird side story that I’m still unsure as to how it was connected to the main story.

First of all this book was LOOONG and there were a lot of parts that really dragged.  I found myself reading the same sentence over and over several times and still not gleaning any meaning out of it.  I have to admit that there were a few (a very few though) times that I allowed myself to skip a few pages of this.  It took me two whole weeks to read this book, which for me, even with this many pages, is a really long time.   I think if I’d had more time to read this week, I might have been able to get more involved in the story and might have enjoyed it more.  (We moved this week though, so maybe not the best time to read this one!)

But, there were times in the novel that is was interesting and I felt compelled to continue reading.  I can see why this is a classic and why it’s stood the test of time, I’m just not sure it was the time in my life to pick it up and get the full experience.  I think it’s one that needs to be read without any interruptions and in a very quiet room.  (Which, with two little boys is so not happening at this house!  My best reading did seem to occur after they had gone to bed and my husband was at work.)

I didn’t really enjoy this book but as I mentioned before I think it was all about timing.

Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary

I just finished reading this with my 6 year old and we loved it!  I read all of the Ramona books when I was younger, but I had forgotten how delightful and funny they are.

In this first book about Ramona she is four and she is really good at annoying her older sister.  From taking one bite out of a whole box of apples to baking her plastic doll into Beezus’ birthday cake, she gets into a lot of trouble!  And Beezus, who has a hard time loving her when she’s causing so much trouble, learns an important lesson about sisters.  We can’t wait to start the next one tomorrow.   I would give this book a 10/10.

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Read for: Obris Terrarum Challenge and 1% Well Read Challenge

I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to read this book!  It was a slow read, but for the most part, I couldn’t put it down.  The story is told by serveral different narrators and each narrator had his/her own voice, which authors don’t always do when they are switching from narrator to narrator.

The story begins in the voice of Walter Hartwright who is walking home late one night and is startled by a woman in white asking for directions to London.  She refuses to tell him her name and just as quickly as she appeared, she is gone.  I can’t even try for a plot summary because there is just too much happening right from the very beginning of the book.  And it never stops happening until the very last page.

There are unexpected twists and turns and although the language and style of the prose are similar to Jane Austen, the story line couldn’t be more different.  The mystery that surrounds the woman in white and her secret hatred of one of the main characters carries the story, but once that is discovered, there’s still more mystery and intrigue!

I would definitely recommend this book and I would give it a 8.5/10.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.

Read for: Gossip Girl

Last week on Gossip Girl, the characters were putting on this play.  The episode was a particularly bad and unbelievable one and I thought they were trying to draw parallels between the play and what was going on in the show.  Since I’d never read the book, or seen the movie or the play, I had no idea what was going on.  I decided I should read the book and then try to understand the episode better.  I still don’t think the episode was all that great but this post is about the book, not Gossip Girl!

The  book takes place among the rich and privileged in New York in the 1870s.  The story begins just as the main character, Newland Archer, has become engaged to his sweetheart, May.  May’s cousin has just arrived from Europe where amidst some scandal, she has left her emotionally abusive husband.  Archer immediately feels an attraction for the cousin, Countess Olenska.  The story is mainly about the struggle Archer experiences as he falls in love with the Countess and realizes that his May, isn’t exactly what he had imagined her to be.

I really didn’t like the story.  I found the characters and their emotions completely unbelievable.  Archer had only a few encounters with the Countess before he was madly in love with her and she with him.  And I say encounters because they hardly even talked to each other.  They just seemed to sit around and stare at each other.  Kind of a strange basis for a love affair.  There just wasn’t any depth to the characters.

I also found the story really slow.  I had a really hard time getting into the story and even then I just kept waiting for something to happen and nothing ever did!  I could tell the whole story in a couple of sentences and there wouldn’t be any important information missing!  But I won’t, because I don’t want to spoil the ending for those of you who may still want to read the book.

This book did win a Pulitzer and in spite of everything else I’ve said about the book, I can see why it did.  The writing is really good.  It was very poetic and the descriptions were particularly good.  At times her writing was satirical as well.  She allowed us to see the ridiculousness of some of the social traditions that existed at that time.

Overall, I think it’s definitely a book worth reading as long as you aren’t expecting much of a story.

Ok, what female doesn’t love this book?  All those who have fallen in love with Mr. Darcy say “aye!”  I know there are some people out there that aren’t huge fans of Jane Austen, but I am not one of them and I would have to say that Pride and Prejudice is my favourite of them all.

Someone read me a really great summary of this book from this website.  It says: (SPOILER ALERT! I try not to post spoilers in these little reviews but I figured that pretty much everybody knows what happens in this book, right?)

Mr. Darcy: Nothing is good enough for me.

Ms. Elizabeth Bennet: I could never marry that proud man.

(They change their minds.)

THE END

Obviously, there is a lot more that goes on in the book, but that is the main idea.  I actually really like the way Austen chose to write the novel.  Although it’s written in the third person, it doesn’t jump around and follow several characters.  Occasionally we are allowed to view the thoughts of other characters, but mainly the book is told from Elizabeth’s point of view.  I love how the reader is able to slowly fall in love with Mr. Darcy, just as Elizabeth does (at least I do, over and over, every time).

I love the way Austen satirizes her characters.  I sort of imagine that some people who read Austen back in the day, didn’t really realize they were being made fun of.  (Sort of like people who read SSB and don’t get it… She was the TAMN of her day!)  I reread this book to write this review and I had forgotten how funny it is!  The very first line in the book is: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”  I’m pretty sure she meant that to be tongue in check.  And I laughed out loud in several other places.  Austen is really very witty.

I really like her characters, they are so believable even nearly 200 years later!  They are people you know.  (At least I know some of the characters in this book!)  And the story is just so great.  Austen sure knew how to tell a good story.  I would recommend this book to anyone who hasn’t already read it, or even hasn’t read it recently.  I really like all of Austen’s works but I think my second favourite would have to be Sense and Sensibility.

I also have to mention the different movie adaptation of this novel.  I have not seen the BBC version (I’m planning on it very soon though) but I’ve heard it’s very good.  I have seen the newest version with Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet.  I really like this one.  I think it’s cast very well and it’s actually pretty true to the book.  Another version I like is Bridget Jones’ Diary (the movie and the book.)