Abandoned Book 6: MWF seeking BFF.......By Rachel Bertsche

I was super excited to read this one.  A story about a girl who moves to a new town and is on a mission to find new friends.  This book is more of a memoir than fiction.  I got about half way through and realized the book was getting into a pattern and that I just couldn't care about the authors problems.  We are just different types of people.

Book 74: The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig

After having such a bang up start in the beginning of the year on the amount I reading, I seem to have hit a lull.  I would start books, and not finish them, but decided that eventually I will go back to them.  I just didn't seem to be able to get into meatier books.  I also was reading a lot more on the internet on MBTI and getting comfortable with it.  So considering all of that I decided to pick up something that probably wasn't going to blow me away and be more plot based and see how I did with it.  That is how I started reading The Fire Sermon.

The Fire Sermon is a book set 400 years in the future after a blast had wiped out much of Earth (So I assume it was Earth, it could have been another planet?).  In this future a mutation has occured and all births are born as twins, with a perfect twin (the alpha) and the deformed lesser twin (the omega).  This book is just part one of the Triolgy, so there was a lot of world building going on.  Truthfully (I am sure I have said this before) I am not a fan of the modern dystopian trilogy.  I find them stretch thin, so they can fill 3 books.  I think the concepts would be more impactful if they were written in one shorter book.  Anyways.  The Fire Sermon fits in with the YA, dystopian novels that are out there.  It is no better or no worse than the others.  I am waiting to see what the second book brings before I can say more.

On a more personal level...It did seem to get me out of my reading rut.  I have already completed 2 more books and looking forward to getting started on another.

Book 73: Wonder by R J Palacio

Wonder by RJ Palacio. 

My daughter's 5th grade class was assigned this book, and it is a book I have been seeing around and I was interested.  Wonder is the story of a boy with a facial deformity who is attending public school for the first time (middle school).  The story is told from the perspectives of his family and classmates which gives an extra dimension to how the story is told.  At times the story can be hard to read, it broke my heart.  I also found the author was trying to be as true to teens and how they would react as best he could. 

Definitely a book that should be read, and I am glad my daughters class had this assignment.

Book 72: The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Green

The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Green is a story of a man who is born in the body of an old man and ages backwards towards his infancy and death.

Ok, I am sure I cannot hide that fact that this book is similar in concept to Benjamin Button.  And I am sure you are guessing that is the reason I picked up this title, and you would be right.  I hate to say I did keep comparing the tales, and that is not fair.  They are books written in different formats (short story vs. novel) written in different centuries (1920's vs. 2010's) and written to explore different relationships (father-sons vs. love) and I try to keep them separate.

The moving factor in Max Tivoli is the relationship Max has with Alice.  He first meets her when she is a young girl and he seemingly is an old man, even though he is her age.  This connection he has is the his main life string.  He crosses her path again when they seem to be the same age, and then again when she is older and he is a child.  It is a fascinating concept and one that I think can be perfected.

I struggle with being able to say what didn't work for me.   Not that the book was a stinker, I was just looking for more emotion to be pulled from me, which is such a crappy thing to say, because it is subjective.  I would recommend this book, and be interested to know how others felt after reading it.  Then I would have them read Benjamin Button (not the movie).

Book 71: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, a Newbury Award winner,  is a book written by a Chinese American and honors the Chinese fable style of story telling.  It is a tale of a young girl who sets off on a journey to lessen the hardships of her parents.  On the journey she learns many lessons, lessons she did not know she needed.  In some ways it reminds me of the Wizard of Oz.  

It is a great book for sharing with your children.  I enjoyed that it is multi-cultural, positive and creative in its telling of a story.  The book also has some questions for discussion already in the back of the book to help prompt dialog.

Book 70: Us by David Nicholls

"Us" is the story of a man who suddenly finds himself in a failing marriage.  He was not aware that it was failing and suddenly finds himself trying to figure out what went wrong.  Not only does his wife want to leave, his only son leaves in the fall for college.  He know realizes that the summer trip through Europe could very well be the last trip his family takes together.

Hmm. for me this story was not as profound as I would have liked.  It wasn't bad, it was a comfortable read and I enjoyed it, it just did not move me and I am sure this is a book that will fade from me sooner than later.  For a book that takes a harder look inside a struggling marriage I would recommend "Everything I Never Told You".

Book 69: The Buried Giant by Kazou Ishiguro

What fortunate timing I had in discovering Ishiguro when I did.  After falling in love with his writing I soon discovered his latest book was soon to be available.  It has been 10 years since he published his last book Never Let Me Go (the start of it all for me).  So I was super excited to finally get my hands on the book and dive in.

The Buried Giant takes place in the unrecorded history of England just after the time of King Arthur and his knights.  A mysterious mist has settled over the land and the inhabitants have difficulty remembering anything that is hours old, they are always living in the present.  An old couple decide to take a journey to visit their son who lives in another village.  On this journey they meet a knight of the round table, a warrior, and a dragon, and try to remember parts of their past.  Is it better to be blissfully unencumbered by the past or filled with memories that may cause pain?

I very much like the book, but I was not sure what I was thinking as I was reading it.  To start with, it did not "suck" me into the story as some of his other works, I struggled to find my footing.  Most of this, I think, is due to his choice of voice.  The characters speak in a stilted manner, one I found hard to follow. The dialogue just did not flow as nicely as some of his other work ( I have found out since that was deliberate).  And even when I came to the books end I was a bit unsure.  But it did not take long for the book to percolate down and become more meaningful for me.  The more I tried to describe it to friends or my husband, I found how much I enjoyed the topic Ishiguro was commenting on.  Memory.  Memory within an individuals life, in a marriage and also in a community and how the loss of memory may be a good thing or at the very least how the loss of memory can change how we live.

I recommend this book, with one caveat.  If you are not familiar with Ishiguro's other works I would start somewhere else and then come to The Buried Giant, but definitely come.