“…; it was something one could do.”
–Toni Morrison
As promised in my last post, I return to my blog with my October reading wrap-up. I am also currently watching the Eagles vs. Cowboys game (GO EAGLES!), so I already know that this post is going to take me awhile to type up, LOL.
I had a really god reading month, having read 7 books in 4 weeks. Granted, 5 of them were pretty short, but 3/5 were dense. Either way, I’m proud of myself, and doubt that November will be as good of a month. But hey, as long as I keep reading, it’s successful to me. The picture above contains 5/7 books I read during the month, the other 2 were from the library.
The first book I read this month was The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling. I like to compare this book to Aesop’s Fables because the book is simply 5 short stories “told to Wizard children” with Dumbledore’s “notes” after each story, explaining the history and morals behind each story. I didn’t rate this book, just because it’s a book of short stories like Aesop’s Fables, and I don’t believe these types of books are meant to be rated. I really did enjoy the stories though.
The next book I read was The Trial by Franz Kafka. First, can we admire the cover on this beauty?!?! I love how simple yet ominous it is. This book is about Josef K., a high ranking bank officer, who is arrested on charges he is not told of. He is told that he is to lead his normal life, and attend hearings when summoned for his trial. However, he refuses to simply settle with the fact he is arrested, and throughout the book, he uses the people in his life to get more information about the charges that were brought upon him.
The totalitarian society in which the book takes place is the main driver of the plot, since in such a society one does not need to be told the charges leading to his/her arrest. The plot brings up a lot of existential meaning as well, and essentially brings about deep meaning throughout the story. If read shallowly, the story doesn’t hold much merit, and can be taken as dry and boring. However, the deeper meaning kept me interested throughout.
Without spoiling too much, in the second to last chapter of the book, there is a character that tells a story, and initially I thought this story was absolutely pointless, and hated that Kafka put it in there. I enjoyed the book prior to this passage a lot, and thought this passage ruined the entire book. But, I refused to accept the fact that this passage was put in without any regard to the story. So, I read my next book of the month, and came back to this passage again and got the point of why it was included, and appreciated it. Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and gave it 4/5.
Next book I read was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I told myself that I was going to re-read the whole story prior to reading the 8th book, despite the fact I was told that it really wasn’t necessary for me to do so. Either way, I wanted to re-read the series again, so I started. No need to summarize, we all know what this book is about. Obviously 5/5, childhood classic.
The title of this post is a quote from the Foreward from this absolutely heartbreaking book, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. This book follows Pecola Breedlove, an 11-year old girl from Lorain, Ohio that wishes everyday for blue eyes. The Breedlove family is known around town for their depressing poverty and familial issues, revolving around the relationship between the husband and wife, Cholly and Pauline. Pecola is known around town to be an ugly child, and the townspeople never fail to remind her of her ugliness. In the beginning of the book, we are introduced to Claudia and Frieda MacTeer, who are schoolmates of Pecola. The MacTeers house Pecola for a short period of time in the beginning because in his drunkenness, Cholly burns the Breedlove’s house down. Claudia, the younger of two, narrates the majority of the story, as both a child and adult, and brings her spunky personality to the story.
When a book is as heart-breaking as this one, it almost pains me to say how much I loved this book. The story is one that resonates in communities of color around the world, but this book especially resonates with the Black community even today, with darker complected women being belittled constantly by not just lighter complected black women, but society in general, telling these women they are not beautiful, and not worthy of respect. I loved the POV that Claudia brought to the story, but even with her spunk and naivete, the sadness of the story shines through. One would hope for a happy ending in the story, (SPOILER) but it never comes to fruition. The writing in this book is absolutely dreamy, the detail and word choice Morrison employs paints such a vivid picture, and is almost poetic. This book was not only my favorite read of the month, but has become one of my favorite books of all-time, and I cannot wait to read Morrison’s other works. 5/5 read, for sure.
In true Halloween spirit, I decided to read a horror story. I have never read a Stephen King book before (don’t judge), so I decided, why not start with The Shining? I’ve also never seen the movie (again, don’t judge), so I decided that I would watch the movie on Halloween in celebration of one of my favorite holidays.
This book follows the Torrance family in their move to Colorado from New England, in which Jack takes a job as a winter caretaker in The Overlook Hotel. He and his wife, Wendy, have been experiencing marital issues, and Wendy has been fighting to keep their marriage and family together. Their son, Danny, has a special ability to read minds and see into the past and future; an ability called “the shining.” Prior to moving to The Overlook Hotel, Danny gets terrible and scary visions, and although not all of his visions come true, we follow the family as they live their life in this hotel.
This book was an absolute pleasure to read. I can see why people enjoy Stephen King’s writing so much: he is descriptive and his character development is done thoroughly. I found the first half of the book slow at times, and the thing that kept my interest were Danny’s visions. I think King’s best aspect in this book, the character development, was what actually kind of held the book back for me. However, after the halfway point, the story picks up tremendously, and the character backstory becomes essential to the understanding of the second half. The second half was absolutely gripping, and it was hard for me to put the book down. I can’t wait to read more Stephen King books, and I gave this one a 4/5.
I’ve heard a lot of great things about Junot Diaz, and was excited to read my first book by him. I wanted to get The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, but it was checked out at my library, so I settled for Drown. This book is a collection of 10 short stories, focusing mainly on Yunior, who moves from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic to a suburban New Jersey town with his mother and brother. The majority of the stories outline the path Yunior takes from childhood to his young adult years, and the decisions he has made that lead him to where he is now.
I really, really wanted to LOVE this book, but I couldn’t. It’s not to say that I didn’t like it, but I just couldn’t appreciate Diaz’s writing as much as I wanted to. My favorite stories were the two about Ysrael (Ysrael and No Face), the title story, in which Yunior explores his sexuality (Drown), and the story that explains Yunior’s father’s background (Negocios). I didn’t really like the stories that took place in the US (except Drown), and although I appreciated them, and can see the importance of discussing all of them, they were just kind of bland and didn’t capture my full attention, despite the short length of all the stories. Despite the fact I didn’t love the book, I definitely appreciate and do believe that everyone should read it, and I gave it a 3/5.
The last book I read this month was Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, a thriller perfect for Fall. This book follows Jason Dessen, a physics professor at a small college in Chicago. Jason lives with his wife, Daniela, and son, Charlie, in North Chicago, and lives a happy and comfortable life. One day, he goes to a bar to congratulate an old friend on receiving a prestigious science award, and on the way back from the bar, he is assaulted and kidnapped. When he wakes up, his wife and son are gone. Throughout the book, Jason fights to find out why he was assaulted and where his family went.
This book was such a gripping and thrilling ride. I’m not a fast reader, and usually a 340 page book will take me a few days to read, but this book was so fast paced and gripping that I read it in 2 days. Blake Crouch did an amazing job developing the main characters just enough to understand their roles, but not bore the reader to tears. The science explanations were kind of hard to understand, which I believe is perfect because science, especially physics, is not a very simple thing to understand. The book did slow down a little in the middle, but not enough for me to put the book down. The end of the book is SO out there and crazy, and I usually am able to predict books, but couldn’t predict this one. This book is becoming a movie, and I cannot wait to see it. I gave this book 4.5/5 stars, and highly recommend it.
These are all the books that I read this month, I’m sorry if the post was kind of lengthy. I may or may not decide to split the books up next month, but we’ll see when I finish a book in November.
If you’ve read any of these books, please let me know what you think of it! I’d love to hear others’ opinions (especially of Drown, I might have to give that one a re-read).
Happy Halloween!
Jess B 