Further Attempt and Reading Challenge

Before I get started let's get one thing straight, I'm a really bad blogger. I never post! I'll decide I want to update, do maybe one or two updates, and then nothing for a year, or more! I just never really figured that anyone cared too much. But I've realized something in my old age (I'm not really that old), this is less for other people and more for me. So I've decided to try it again. Let's see if I can be better about updating. Let's see if people actually read it. In January I may even try posting videos on YouTube. I'll use this blog as a prototype for the videos. What I post here will sort of be like my script for what will eventually become videos.

I've also decided that starting in January I will be participating in the 50 book challenge. This is exactly what it sounds like, I am challenging myself to read 50 books in 2014. This means, based completely on the math of the situation, I would have to read 4-5 books a month. It sounds easier than it actually is. I do read on a regular basis but I'm not a very fast reader. Depending on the skill level of the book and how good it is, there has been months where I read only one book. There has also been months where I have not completed a book. This could have been because the book was too long or I just didn't enjoy it. But lately I've been doing really well, I've been reading a lot of books and I think I can do this. I've even developed a plan. A system.

I've heard that the best way to hold yourself to something is to make it public, so what is more public than the internet? Answer: Nothing! So here you go internet, my strategic plan to ensure that I read 50 books in 2014.

Once a month I will read the following:
 -One classic novel (by this I mean something written before 1940 but they will more than likely all be from the 19th century)
 -One piece contemporary fiction (by this I mean something written after 1940, more than likely something from the 21st century)
 -One audiobook (I looked it up audiobooks count towards the challenge) 
-A young adult series consisting of 2-3 novels 

There you have it, my plan. This would mean that each month I would be reading a total of 5-6 books. I think this plan will work because I'm giving myself a buffer. If I don't finish one or two of these books each month I will still be in a good position to complete the challenge. If I do read all these books each month than I will have completed the challenge by October... and the rest is gravy (that's a weird expression).

Some months will have a theme to them like Horror, Fantasy, or Sci Fi while other months will be all over the place. At the start of each month I will post about what the book To Be Read (TBR) are, and at the end of each month I will post a wrap up which will list all the books that I finished and my thoughts on them. On the blog I may post a review immediately but if I eventually start posting videos I will wait till the end of the month for a wrap up. I will supplement this by posting book tags and book hauls so that I have at least one video a week.

I think this will be good. I love a good challenge and lately it feels like all I am motivated to do is read. So let's test my motivation. For the rest of the year I will be testing my system to see how I do with completing the five to six books I plan to read.

So let's do this thing! If you are interested in reading my reviews and tracking my progress follow me. And don't forget to comment, that's how I know you're paying attention.

HAPPY READING!

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

This is the story of the Mirabal sisters: Patria, Dede, Minerva, and Maria Theresa (Mate). The four revolutionary leaders in the Dominican Republic working most of their adult lives fighting against the brutal dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. They became the inspiration for a nation becoming Las Mariposas, the Butterflies a symbol of freedom.

The story begins in the present with a journalist going to visit the last surviving Mirabal sister, Dede, to get the true story of Las Mariposas. She learns about the girls upbringing on a farm in the country, their school days including their first encounter with Trujillo, and their first taste of revolutionary ideas from a young communist professor Minerva was in love with.

Every chapter of the book switches perspective, having each sister take a turn narrating their side of the story. This can often get confusing but because it follows a chronological timeline it's pretty easy to follow.

The most compelling character is definitely Minerva. Her mouth and rash behavior often puts her in a lot of trouble. She is also the first of the sisters to join the movement. At law school she meets Manolo, a leader of the resistance who she teams up with and eventually marries. She is also the brains behind a lot of their plans, even convincing the other sisters to help. Her and Mate are arrested and thrown in prison, one of the best chapters of the book, during a roundup of resistance fighters. It's told from Mate's perspective but Minerva's actions endear her to the reader.

It's hard to categorize the book. I guess it should be called historical fiction. The characters are very real, as are many of the events that take place. The question is how much is real? The author makes no pretense, this is fiction. She was inspired by the women but these are characters of her own imagination. It is very compelling and well-written. I wouldn't exactly call it a page turner but it was a quick read and really engrossing. As a self-described feminist it's great to read a story where women make a difference, and the fact that it's true makes it even better. Check it out if you like historical fiction and/or revolution! Viva Las Mariposas.

Update City!

So first of all... I suck at this. I never update. I have read many books since May and I even wrote a few reviews but I never posted any of them. I suck. I mean no one really reads this anyway, so who the hell cares? If you care post a comment. So it's really only for my benefit anyway. But still, I want to do it. I actually considered doing videos instead, thought they'd be easier, but I don't want to wing my reviews. And if I write them out anyway I may as well post them. So here I am. Back again. First the obligatory update post.

1.) Finished The Lacuna. It was really good. Sad, sweet, well written. It had some unexpected turns toward the end.

2.) Finished Hitchhiker's Guide Series . So Long and Thanks for All the Fish wasn't great. The series without this book would have been better. It's about Arthur Dent's romance... Snoozefest! There is a pretty funny part with Marvin at the end. Mostly Harmless was great though. It was the perfect end to the series. Pure Douglas Adams. Funny, sarcastic, sweet, self-deprecating.

3.) Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova. It was everything I was expecting. Romance, mystery, art, very well-written. Elizabeth Kostova is an amazing author. It wasn't as good as The Historian. The mystery wasn't as mysterious and it was far less Gothic in nature but it was really good. Maybe I had very high hopes considering The Historian is arguably by favorite book of all time. It was really good though. If you're into Impressionism or want a romantic mystery check it out.

4.) The Huger Games. I got in on the ground floor of this one. I'm a freaking snob and I like to read these things before they get huge. I actually really loved it. It's YA fiction but it was really well-written. A dystopian future with a strong female character. There was violence, mystery, and romance. With most series I love the first book, hate the second, and kind of like the last. With this series they keep getting better. There were crazy twists and turns, but it wasn't needlessly dramatic, which I hate. This series I definitely recommend, in fact I have.

5.) Brida was a little bit of a disappointment. I still really like Paolo Coehlo but Brida was not nearly as earth-shattering as The Alchemist. It was okay. Some parts seemed forced and not that deep honestly. I count on Coehlo to be deep and psychological but this was just was meh. There were some decent parts and the witchcraft elements were surprisingly realistic but I wasn't blown away.

6.) A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick. This is the story of a man who puts ad in the paper for a "reliable wife" and the woman who answers it. Right away we learn she's not quite so honest, in fact she wants to kill him. This is completely my type of book. A period piece with some mystery and romance. It was good but a little over-dramatic. I actually had this book recommended to me. It was a pretty decent rec. if you like this kind of book check it out.

7.) The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff. The Tao of Pooh pretty much changed my life. This is a sequel of sorts. It explains the eastern philosophical idea of the Te or virtue and how the meek Piglet (of Pooh fame) embodies it by being of good heart and is brave by not even realizing he's brave. It goes through the other characters and explains how they get in the way of enlightenment. It gives you a lot to think about, it was very good.

8.) The Help by Kathryn Stockett. So I try really hard be ahead of book-to-movie trends. I had meant to read this forever ago but never did. So then the movie came out and everyone raved about it so I knew I had to read it. I mean my mom read this book before me. It's about black maids at the time of segregation. A young woman decides to write a book from the maids perspective outlining exactly the disparaging ways the woman in town treat them even though they do pretty much everything for them. Again, this book was needlessly dramatic. There were entire sections that came out of left field and then it was never touched again. Plus I hated the ending! Like vehemently hated it. Why does everything have to be left open for sequels?

9.) Juliet Naked by Nick Hornby. It's the story of a couple who's been together for a very long time, their relationship getting very stale. A new CD from an old favorite comes between then and he ends up cheating on her. She kicks him out and she ends up meeting someone online that turns out to be the artist of the CD that come between them. It's not normally the type of book that I read but I like Nick Hornby. It was good though. I normally don't like books that are realistic. I like a little mystery, a little magic, unrealistic. But this was unrealistic enough to make me not hate it. It was funny, sweet, and well-written.

10.) The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Steig Larsson. The final book in the Millennium Trilogy. I read the first two forever ago. I started this one and got bored. The first part was really dramatic, then the middle was boring so I stopped reading it. But again I try to be on top of the book-to-movie trend. So when they came out with the first movie everyone started reading the book. I had to finish the series before all the trend-following people. It was really good. The end was a little overly dramatic too, and there was a bunch of side-plots that were kind of silly and pointless. The main storyline was really good and a lot of information was revealed from earlier books. All in all good series if you're into crime dramas or mysteries.

There you have it. All the books I read in 9 months, I think. I may have missed a few, 13 books seems like not very many. Hopefully I'll update more often in the near future.

My Summer 7 (and a half)

I subscribe to this YouTube channel where this guy does vlogs and book reviews. One of the things he is doing, he calls The Summer 15, where he reads fifteen books throughout the summer. I think this is an amazing idea! My reading lately has been very subpar. Every book I seem to pick up I never finish (evidenced by the fact I haven't written a review since the end of January. Every book I pickup I can't seem to finish. But summer is prime time for reading. I'm not sure what it is about warm weather that makes me want to turn the pages of a good book (and even a bad one sometimes). Between vacations, road trips, and beach visits I'm always reading. So, I've decided I'm going to do this, but a little more realistically. You see, fifteen books seems like a lot. I read slow, and it took the guy on YouTube all year to read his fifteen books. So I'm cutting it in half. I'm reading 7.5 books from today (May 1st) till Labor Day (September 5th).

I've learned that the best way to hold yourself accountable is to make it public. So, I'm making it known. These are my intentions, and my books.

0.5.) The Lacuna by Barbara Kingslover: the half book. I've been reading this book periodically since February but really started attacking it last weekend on the train coming back from visiting my parents. It's the story of a boy who is half-American and half-Mexican. He finds himself torn between the two countries and their modern history.

1.) So Long and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams: I have been working my way through the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series. This is Book 4

2.) Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams: Book 5 in the Hitchhiker's Guide series. I plan to finish the series. It is exactly my sense of humor, satirical and self-deprecating.

3.)The Swan Thieves by Elisabeth Kostova: I love this author. She wrote The Historian which is one of my favorite books of all time. She is so imaginative and dark. This one is about Robert Oliver, an artist who attacks a painting and ends up i a psychiatrist's office, refusing to talk. The psychiatrist, an artist himself, begins investigating into the man's past including the his life, love, madness, and why this particular painting. Can't wait!

4.) Brida by Paulo Coelho: I also LOVE this author. He wrote The Alchemist which inspired me to do this whole blog thing in the first place. This is a story about a young girl who is interested in magic but wants to learn more. So she goes in search of great wisdom and her destiny.

5.) Dead Souls by Nicolai Gogol: First the embarassing details as to why. I'm a huge Gilmore Girls fan. This is the book Rory was reading in the episode that she got her Harvard application. Ever since then I've always wanted to read it. It's the story of a Russian man who develops this plan to get rich by buying the names of dead serfs and using that clout to purchase an estate. Gogol is a great satarist. I've read some of this short stories and liked them but he does have a tendency to get a little long, weird, and wordy. I hope I can get through the novel and it's not to dense and uninteresting. If Rory Gilmore can do it, so can I!

6.) My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares: The author of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Series (which I love). I've never read any of her more adult fiction. I mean it is pure chicklit but still. It's the story of a couple who not only falls in love once but many times throughout history, the guy Daniel remembering it all as soon as it happens again.

7.) Finally... Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Two summers ago I read the other Bronte sister's work and loved it. I got this book as a Christmas gift, literally forever ago and it's been haunting me ever since (Gothic pun intended). So I'm taking the plunge and finally reading it. Let's hope it's as good and easy a read as Wuthering Heights. I do love Gothic love stories.

There you have it. The seven and a half books I am reading this summer. Stay tuned for reviews of them. In order to accomplish my goal, I need to read one book every two weeks! Better get reading! And if anyone reads this and wants to participate with me, just write a comment with your 7.5 books or do 15 if you want to show me up!

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

The Magicians by Lev Grossman is the story of Quentin Clearwater, a high school senior in Brooklyn who is bored and depressed with his life. He tries to make his dreary existence a little better by escaping into a series of books about the magical land of Fillory. He becomes so obsessed that he even learns how to do magic tricks. Then one day he gets a mysterious transcript of the unpublished fifth book in the Fillory series which leads him to the real life magical academy of Brakebills. Following a very long and difficult exam he gets accepted into the school and starts learning real magic. Imagine if a person obsessed with the Chronicles of Narnia was accepted to Hogwarts. It completely turns his life around. But Brakebills is not quite the magic he was hoping for. It is a world of arrogance, hedonism, and excess. The characters are constantly unhappy and turning to sex, drugs, and alcohol. And even becoming a real magician can’t make Quentin happy. And just when he thinks he hits rock bottom, that’s when Quentin and his friends find out that not only is Fillory real how to get there. When they arrive they go in search of an adventure that will make it all worthwhile and better, but not even that is what they hoped for.

I’m generally not a fan of books that take a long time to pick up in terms of the action. And while the first 250 pages are devoted to explaining Quentin’s rather mundane magical education, there is no lack of storytelling. There are brief periods of action, like when a terrifying creature from another dimension shows up in the middle of their class, the school wide welters tournament (which is a game sort of like a magical version of chess where they are the pieces), and when Quentin and the fourth years go for a “semester abroad” to Antarctica. And even without little action there was a lot of anticipation. I spent a long time waiting for everything, which I knew was going to go down, to actually happen. And just when I couldn’t take the build-up any longer the action came.

Generally, however, the story is less about the action and more about the characters. The characters are believable in their flawed humanity. Quentin’s main character trait is his perpetual unhappiness, even when he gets his heart’s desire it seems inadequate. Then there is shy and intelligent Alice who prefers to have her nose in a book at all times and excels at magic, the aloof and magically-gifted Eliot whose superiority complex Quentin finds endearing, overly competitive and loud Janet, and Josh the large and not as gifted member of their crew who always feels inadequate next to the rest. Each with their strengths and weaknesses make them fully-formed realistic people that remind me of people I know and traits in my personality that I may or may not like. I became very invested and attached to the characters and their exploits.

While The Magicians references many other well known fantasy series including Harry Potter, the Chronicles of Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, Lord of the Rings, and The Wizard of Oz, it is not the fantasy novel of our childhoods. It is much more adult. It is a darker, rawer, and grittier view of magic. Often times turning the idea that magic can save and make everything better on its head. Learning real magic doesn’t make Quentin’s life better, in fact it may even make it worse. Like all other fantasy books little things mentioned off hand became big things affecting the final outcome. When everything was said and done I was just as depressed as Quentin. When it was over I found myself wanting more because not all the questions were answered and I’m secretly hoping when the next book comes out it will have a happy ending (though I doubt it). All things consider, I really enjoyed this book. I recommend it to anyone who is an avid fantasy fan.

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

Sarah’s Key is the story of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist living in Paris. She is given as an assignment the commemoration of the Vel’ d’Hiv’ on its sixtieth anniversary, something that she knew nothing about. I regrettable admit that I know nothing about it myself (and as a modern history major in college focusing on the post WWII era that is surprising). Anyway she starts investigating and learns all about this dark time in French history where the Vichy government (the fascist regime in charge) instructs the French police to go door-to-door to round up the Jewish families living in the Paris suburbs. They were arrested and imprisoned in the stadium Velodrome D’Hiver (Vel’ d’Hiv’) in appalling conditions before being shipped to holding camps where the parents were separated from the kids all of whom eventually sent directly to Auschwitz. While she investigates, Julia learns that her aloof French husband’s family is somehow connected with the second protagonist, Sarah, a young Jewish girl who is arrested in the Vel’ d’Hiv round-up. Sarah intent on protecting her brother locks him in a cupboard promising she will be back for him. But as time goes by she realizes that is less and less likely unless she can break out of the camp and find her way back to Paris. Julia becomes engrossed in nothing but learning all about Sarah and telling her about how her in-laws helped her. The more she learns, the more her personal life falls apart.

So when I originally picked this book up I thought it fit the mold of most books I read: historical fiction and mystery. But the more I read the book became less mysterious and more emotional. It was like reading someone’s depressing family history, in a good way. I became invested in these characters, and found myself constantly reading so that I could learn more about what would happen to Sarah, her brother, and Julia. New and sad developments threw me for a loop. I almost cried at one point. It truly was an emotional masterpiece. It really captures the terror and atrocity that these families went through.

The book brings up a big debate that many European people have faced over the past seventy years. Is it better to remember or to forget? There is a line in the book that states “no one wants to be reminded of that, nobody wants to think about that.” And while that is true, and to use an old cliché ignorance is bliss, but how can those who were affected by such tragedies easily forget. It took decades for the governments of these countries to admit to their parts in these atrocities of humanity. Another theme that the book centers upon is the need to make right the errors of the past, to somehow make up for what was done and your part in it, whatever that may be.

This book not only explains the terrible events of the Vel’ D’Hiv and the Vichy government but does it in a way so emotionally charged it’s hard to forget. It is told almost effortlessly and reads more like a journal than a fictional story. The beginning is a little bit annoying as it switches back and forth between Julia and Sarah, but by page 160 it focuses entirely on Julia and her search for Sarah. While it is truly heartbreaking at times, I recommend this book to all students of history who want to learn about a terrible time in the past, especially if you have an interest in World War II or the Holocaust. Again with the clichés, those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it.

Speaking with the Angel

A collection of short stories compiled and edited by Nick Hornby. I don’t know why I continuously try to read short story collections. I rarely finish them, and rarely enjoy them. Maybe it’s because I need to get more invested in a story to enjoy it. I don’t like first impressions or quick meetings. Essentially that is what a short story is, a quick first impression of a story or author. Sure, they are complete stories with beginnings, middles, and ends just shorter. It’s not that I crave more, it’s just I don’t enjoy them as much as a really meaty novel. It’s like having a dinner full of appetizers; it’s just not as satisfying.

But I read it anyway. I got Speaking with the Angels at a used book store for only a dollar (sweet deal, right) and I thought I’d give it a try. I like many of the authors who contributed to the books. Hornby, Dave Eggers, Zadie Smith, and Helen Fielding included. Plus there is a story written by Colin Firth. I didn’t know he could write (I mean I knew he played an author in Love, Actually but those are not transferable skills). Plus the stores had really fun sounding titles (Nipple Jesus, Luckybitch, Catholic Guilt (You know You Love It) among them.

Some stories were pretty good. I liked the one by Dave Eggers entitled “After I Was Thrown Into the River and Before I Drowned.” It’s about a dog, told from the dogs perspective. It was interesting and creative. The one by Colin Firth was good too. It was told from the perspective of a young boy about “The Department of Nothing.”

There were also bad stories. One called “The Slave” was so boring I stopped reading it part way through. Also “Catholic Guilt” was written in British slang, in what I’m taking to be a Scottish Accent. And being not British I was taken completely out of the story which I probably otherwise would have enjoyed. Mostly the stories were just dull and not memorable. I don’t remember what they were about, let alone if I liked them.

If you like short stories then I say, definitely read this book. Otherwise, I say avoid it. If you’re like me and you enjoy these authors then just get their actual books. The book however is for a good cause. Nick Hornby compiled the book to benefit a school for autistic children in London. A dollar for every book goes directly to the school. Get the book for no other reason than that.