It took years for me to not feel like I needed to finish a book if I didn't like it.
Maybe this mindset starts in school; you don't have the option to put down a book if it's required reading and there's a test (well you CAN but I think it's just as much work to piece together someone else's recaps than to skim through it myself).
Sometimes I quit reading a book because it's not very good: boring writing, cliche storyline, odd pacing. But other times a book is technically good, but something else prevents me from finishing.
Here are some of my non-finishers:
The Kite Runner
This is a fantastically written and moving book. But when it got to the point of a child sexual assault, I just couldn't do it. I understand how it tied into the story, and I understand it was necessary. At the time, it felt too serious. Sometimes I want a book to be entertaining, and that's not entertainment to me. I always meant to go back to it, but who wants to knowingly pick up a book that's so depressing?
Anna Karenina
I've tried, guys. I even got the new edition Oprah promoted. I would read the same parts over and over. I'd look down at the page number and it still read 20. I gave it three tries over the course of two years. I'm still on page 20.
Salem's Lot
Fresh off of reading Stephen King's book On Writing, I thought I'd take on one of his classics. A creepy vampire in a sleepy northeastern town? YES. However, I found his writing about writing far more interesting than what he actually got famous for. I realize Stephen King tells stories in an older style - distanced and meandering with literally dozens of charcters. I lost it when one chapter described what everyone in town had for dinner. We're talking like 30 people. One guy ate canned peas. WHERE IS THE VAMPIRE?!
How about you? What good books have you had trouble making it through?
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
Book Review: How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr
How To Save a Life
Sara Zarr
Published: 2011
Young Adult Contemporary
Each chapter in How to Save a Life alternates between two first person accounts: Jill, who grieves the loss of her father by withdrawing from friends and her boyfriend, and Mandy, a pregnant teen who connects with Jill's mom on an adoption website - Jill's mother wants to move on from her loss by adopting Mandy's baby.
What Jill and her mother don't know about Mandy is although she's technically an adult at 18, Mandy dropped out of school and ran away from an abusive home situation. The website she and Jill's mom communicate through is for people wanting to handle their own adoptions outside usual channels. Jill warns her mother not to trust an adoption with no real paperwork and social worker, but her mother is convinced and invites Mandy to live with them for her last few weeks of pregnancy.
This might seem like a forced premise, but to the author's credit, each character's intentions are detailed so succinctly, I never doubted it. Jill's mother isn't a shrill, irrational woman; she's flawed, but her intentions are to honor her late husband by moving forward with adoption plans they'd already considered before he died. She's aware she could be "filling the void" and embraces this, thinking that helping a struggling teen like Mandy will force her to move on. Jill is rightly confused and angry at her mother. Isn't she enough? Why does her mother need another child? Jill continues to push away the people closest to her, and every day she loses more of the girl she used to be.
When Mandy moves in, there's tension between the girls from the start. Mandy is beautiful but simple-minded with no clear goals for after the baby is born. Jill is harsh and judgemental. Jill starts poking into Mandy's past to find out what she's really up to. Jill's mother is aware of how Mandy's presence affects Jill, and she wonders if she's doing the right thing by helping Mandy. It's clear she's feeling the pressure of navigating life without her pragmatic husband.
The characters' progressions are expertly written, and I appreciate that elements that could have turned cliche were fleshed out and explored in realistic ways. This is a definite recommended read if you like Young Adult Contemporary. I'm quite a fan of Sara Zarr after reading How to Save a Life, and have since then read her novel Sweethearts from a few years back.
Sidenote: Every time I picked up this book, the song by The Fray of the same name popped into my head. Every time!
Sara Zarr
Published: 2011
Young Adult Contemporary
What Jill and her mother don't know about Mandy is although she's technically an adult at 18, Mandy dropped out of school and ran away from an abusive home situation. The website she and Jill's mom communicate through is for people wanting to handle their own adoptions outside usual channels. Jill warns her mother not to trust an adoption with no real paperwork and social worker, but her mother is convinced and invites Mandy to live with them for her last few weeks of pregnancy.
This might seem like a forced premise, but to the author's credit, each character's intentions are detailed so succinctly, I never doubted it. Jill's mother isn't a shrill, irrational woman; she's flawed, but her intentions are to honor her late husband by moving forward with adoption plans they'd already considered before he died. She's aware she could be "filling the void" and embraces this, thinking that helping a struggling teen like Mandy will force her to move on. Jill is rightly confused and angry at her mother. Isn't she enough? Why does her mother need another child? Jill continues to push away the people closest to her, and every day she loses more of the girl she used to be.
When Mandy moves in, there's tension between the girls from the start. Mandy is beautiful but simple-minded with no clear goals for after the baby is born. Jill is harsh and judgemental. Jill starts poking into Mandy's past to find out what she's really up to. Jill's mother is aware of how Mandy's presence affects Jill, and she wonders if she's doing the right thing by helping Mandy. It's clear she's feeling the pressure of navigating life without her pragmatic husband.
The characters' progressions are expertly written, and I appreciate that elements that could have turned cliche were fleshed out and explored in realistic ways. This is a definite recommended read if you like Young Adult Contemporary. I'm quite a fan of Sara Zarr after reading How to Save a Life, and have since then read her novel Sweethearts from a few years back.
Sidenote: Every time I picked up this book, the song by The Fray of the same name popped into my head. Every time!
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