Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon (#15, Just for Fun)

Oh my little friend Steph. Let's just discuss some of the books you have suggested to me over the years.

1) Prep by who the heck cares. I remember sitting on the beach, talking about boys, basking in the sun, and wanting to kill you for not only LETTING me read this book, but actually SUGGESTING it!!!

2) Dogs of Babel . Ditto on the beach, but I believe this was a different summer, yet, you did it again--bad bad bad. She committed suicide! Not fun, not happy, not a beach read. And the whole stealing dogs and cutting them up? I pass.

Really, those are the only two that make me cringe at the thought of the time I lost and can never get back. To your credit, the list of books you have recommended that I did not despise, and even liked is MUCH longer. So now, the question is, where does Diana Gabaldon fall on the continuum?

A week ago I would have listed this as #3. Her writing is mediocre at best, I do enjoy historical fiction, and her characters I like, but they say the silliest and well--MOST SOFT PORN THINGS EVER!!!! Seriously Steph--You needed a boyfriend, BAD!!!!!

But, I am SUCH a sucker for "action" and "suspense" and REALLY??!!!?, the last paragraph of the book just HAD TO GO AND THROW A HOOK.

I hate you Steph.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (#12, Contemporary Literature)

Jonathan Safran Foer might just be my new favorite author. Sadly he has only written two books, Everything Is Illuminated, which I read last year, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which I just finished. Mr. Foer, please write more books. And soon. 

There was so much I liked about this book. Completely unconventional, it is a hodgepodge of different literary techniques set against the dramatic backdrop of the fallout of 9/11. Oskar Schell, our nine year old narrator, spends the book dealing with the death of his father. Foer nailed the childhood voice so well I found myself both laughing and crying at how Oskar describes his world. He refers to the day his father died as "the worst day" and when he gets extremely sad, he says "my boots were really heavy." In addition to Oskar's story, we get strange narratives from both his grandfather and grandmother, and random pictures of doorknobs, houses, the back of people's heads, a person falling from the sky. 

I love the utter strangeness of his writing. I love how his characters are sometimes so matter of fact in their weirdness. The grandfather doesn't speak and has yes and no tattooed on the palms of his hands so he can easily answer yes and no questions. The ending is surprisingly sad and you don't see it coming even though you do because how else can it end when the premise is a little boy learning to deal with his father dying in the 9/11 attacks? 

The Inhabited World by David Long (#11, Contemporary Lit)

David Long's The Inhabited World hooked me with its promise of a ghostly main character. Sadly, it did not deliver--not even in the Lovely Bones sort of way either. Granted, I didn't really think the Lovely Bones was that great, but it was gripping. I blazed through Sebold's novel, fascinated by the gritty details of the tragedy and then the raw descriptions of the aftermath. 

The Inhabited World offered nothing exciting. It started off okay and then just deteriorated. I found myself skimming whole pages and telling myself not to give up. I forced myself to finish this one. Now I sit here typing this, totally unsatisfied with my last read and I remember now that isn't this supposed to be the year of good books? What do you do when you start a really bad one? Should you jump book like you would jump a sinking ship? I was more than halfway through when I realized the book I held in my hands was a dud and I guess I just wanted to add the eleventh notch to my 2008 reading belt. 

So do I make a promise to myself to not finish books that suck? Do I allow myself to quit and not feel reader's remorse? Perhaps the reader's remorse is worse when you finish a book that sucks and know you wasted precious time reading a bad one when you could be enjoying yourself with something that is actually quality. Here's to no more crappy books. 

 

Emma by Jane Austen (#10, British Lit)

On a mission to read all of Austen's novels, Emma brings me to three. Austen finished six complete novels and I feel that it is imperative that I read them all. There is something about being an English major that requires some sort of competency with the classics. Plus, Austen intrigues me. These novels are her life's work and reading them sheds some light onto the woman who defied society, lived by her pen and never married.

My choice of movies lately (Becoming Jane and The Jane Austen Book Club) brought me to the library--on crutches no less--to pick my yearly Austen installment. It was between Sense and Sensibility and Emma. Emma intrigued me because it was the only novel that Austen named after her female heroine and I was curious as to why. I have my own theory of course, but I would need to read the other three to fully present my point. 

The one thing that came out of this reading was the absence of first names. Emma always refers to Mr. Knightly as just that--Mr. Knightly. I think his first name is mentioned once in the beginning and once at the end. And while I know that back then, wives called their husbands Mr. So and So, it struck me as very similar to Sex and the City. What does that say about women? What is it about nicknames? Not that Mr. Knightly is a nickname, but it does keep things from getting too personal. She never calls him George. Are the nicknames we girls use now to refer to the guys in our lives a way of giving us distance from them? Does it keep us from getting too close? One thing I know for sure, though, is that nicknames make it that much more fun. Why date someone named Will when you can really be dating Moped Fred?