Showing posts with label john green gets a tag because of the tears. Show all posts
Showing posts with label john green gets a tag because of the tears. Show all posts
2017 Best Reads
Let’s talk very quickly about all the books I gave 5 stars
to in 2017 because YES and also because if you discount Handmaid’s which was a
re-re-re-re-read, there were 10 of them which is a nice number for a round-up
and also points to A Good Reading Year.
I’m going to keep this post pocket sized but shall also link
back to where I’ve chatted about them previously so that I am not repeating
myself. Mostly all you need to know is that THESE BOOKS ARE EXCELLENT.
Books I am looking forward to for the rest of this year...
...even
though my TBR is already the size of Everest and my bookshelves are full. A
list by me.
Basically guys, I am in a reading slump and it’s making me
sad. Seriously, up until yesterday I think I’d read about ten pages in as many
days and I hate when this happens to
me and I have decided to try and get myself out of it by making a list, thanks
to the notes on my phone, of the books I am excited about for the latter part
of this year. Also because this list is generated from said phone notes me of
which are months old, a couple of these books are OUT NOW GO GET THEM.
The Mid Year Freakout Tag
So a thing that happened is that I realised that it’s almost
August and I hadn’t done any kind of halfway-through-the-year-recap because I
am apparently the most tardy ever. So I thought ‘hmm yes best get on that
because better late than never, right’ and figured I’d do it now, and then I've seen this post doing the rounds and decided it was a tag I was just going to steal
because it’s a fun twist on my usual Top
5 Books Jan-June. So pull up a chair and grab a cup of tea (or a gin if
you’re that way inclined which I absolutely am) and let’s chat about the first
half of the year in regards to all things bookish. What fun.
THE MID YEAR FREAKOUT TAG (and how I wish I could make the
pretty graphics that all the other blogs have but whatever I can’t so let’s
just move on).
Top Ten Books to Make You Cry a Sea of Tears.
Top Ten
Tuesday is an excellent weekly Meme hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish –
kudos to them for the idea which is pretty much just an excuse to make lots of bookish lists. I love
lists.
They have a
cute logo and everything but this website is not my friend today and won’t let
me insert the image. Annoying.
Soooo, you
want to know a worrying thing? I’ma tell you one: It was actually difficult
for me to limit this list to just ten books. I wonder if I have a problem. Do I have a problem? Am I really the only person who continues to read books that
shatter her heart into millions of tiny pieces? I can’t be, can I? I mean,
surely everyone loves a book that rips them apart, right? Look at me, looking for justification like I care: let's be real, I'd be totally continuing with the books that make me sadder than a sad person even if I was the only person alive doing so. I can't help it. If a book is going to make me cry so hard I have Wet Neck then I am always going to be all over it. But I'm fairly sure it isn't just me: those books that get
you RIGHT IN THE FEELS, everyone loves to read those books at least once in a
while. I refuse to believe that anything
else is true.
So here,
all ready for the next time you find yourself wanting to cry a sea of tears,
this is my list of ten books that BROKE ME. (I tried to pick a few that I don’t talk
about all the time because a broken
record I do not want to be.)
- Between Shades of Gray (not to be confused with Fifty Shades of Grey, not now, not ever.) This book, oh man, this book. I’m not over it. I will never be over it.
- TFiOS Presented without comment.
- The Cellist of Sarajevo Oh but this book is a good one. It’s kind of incredible. And it hurts.
- Eleanor & Park So good and hurty and beautiful. My love for this book knows no bounds
- The Book Thief I didn’t actually cry at The Book Thief but it made my hands hurt (which is a weird thing that happens when I’m intensely emotional: sad, angry, nervous etcetera. I feel any of those things deeply enough and my actual hands actually hurt. I’m a weirdo.) It made my hands hurt and I loved it, so very much
- A Song for Issy Bradley I read this in an afternoon and felt like I had been broken apart and put carefully back together again. Carys is an incredible talent and this book will make you do the crying thing fo’ sho’
- The Kite Runner I see the words for you, a thousand times over and I swear my eyes fill up.
- The Time Traveller’s Wife Everyone cried at this right? It’s not just me?
- The Siege Why have I not heard more people talking about this book though? My Granny told me to read it and my Granny is never wrong about books. So you know, read it please. Read it and weep like Meatloaf told you to (It’s about the Nazi siege on Leningrad if you wondered and it’s phenomenal.)
- Love Story Oh MY. We probably shouldn’t talk about this, because
talking about it is all it takes to break me. You don’t even want to know the mess I
was in when I actually read it. Don’t look at me. Do not look at me.
& that I guess is that. Sometimes you just need a good old cry and sometimes the books that hurt the most are the books you love the most and so I maintain that despite appearances, this list is a very good list. & if it makes you too sad:
(I do so love OITNB)
Patrick Ness: More Than This
“A book… it’s a world all on its own too. A world made of words, where you live for a while.”
Anyone remember when I discovered John Green and feel hard
into an author!crush that I am yet to recover from?
It’s happened again.
I have discovered – once again late to the party – Patrick
Ness.
Last week I read More Than This,
which, well I kind of want to tell you that there’s no other book like it,
because I think that might be true. Read it then, for no other reason than
that.
I read it because the front cover of my copy says that John
Green is telling me to read it, and I love John Green. You should read it
because it really is excellent.
A boy named Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final
moments, losing his life as the pounding sea claims him. But then he wakes. He
is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is that possible? He remembers
dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he here?
And where is this place? It looks like the suburban English town where he lived
as a child, before an unthinkable tragedy happened and his family moved to America. But
the neighborhood around his old house is overgrown, covered in dust, and
completely abandoned. What’s going on? And why is it that whenever he closes
his eyes, he falls prey to vivid, agonizing memories that seem more real than
the world around him? Seth begins a search for answers, hoping that he might
not be alone, that this might not be the hell he fears it to be, that there
might be more than just this. . . .
It’s so good. So good. The
kind of good that grabs hold of you from the word go and refuses to let go and
had me sat there again, at 31 years old and marvelling at the quality of
fiction out there for young adults right now. Seriously though. Were there
books this good when I was stealing Danielle Steel off my Mum’s shelf and
reading under the covers? (Not that I will ever admit to that if anyone asks.)
There’s a romance that breaks your heart
(and kind of made me want to jump for joy because God, don’t we need more books
out there where the sexuality of the character isn’t a thing that defines him,
or drives the story; where it’s just a thing that is)
and a story that breaks your brain. I want to use
the word mindfuckery: every time you think you know where Ness
is going, he changes direction and leaves you reeling. You know what, I’m saying it: this book is a
mindfuck. & I loved it. It’s hard to review,
actually, because if I tell you too much then I’ll spoil it yet somehow saying
‘the beauty lies in the not having a damn clue what is even happening, just
read it,’ feels like a cop out.
What I will tell you is that this is a book that will make
you feel all the things. It will make you think and it will make you question
and it will make you forget to eat and also sleep and it will make you feel all the things.
It’s a book that is equal parts plot and heart. It works for
me I think, because I am always so much more compelled by tales that explore
grief more than those that explore joy and you never get to relax into this
story, it’s never easy, or happy. You’re
always on the edge because you just don’t know what’s coming next and
throughout all the twists and turns, there’s this constant sense of an
emotional connection: a weight in your chest, a knot in your tummy. A tear, in
fact, in your eye.
“Real life is only ever just real life. Messy. What it means depends on how you look at it. The only thing you’ve got to do is find a way to live there.”
Also, the meta. THE META.
Seth is so aware of how stories are told and how stories work and the way he
interprets what he sees and how he feels; the questions he asks, even of
himself, it’s just so damn clever, and it makes you question things in the same
way: Seth’s journey of confusion and despair and fear and acceptance is a
journey you find yourself going on with him and the question he’s asking are
the questions you’re asking, about this book and every book and your life and
it really is all very cleverly done. Things happen and Seth questions them,
which makes you question them and this constant
questioning makes the story less about the plot and more about the
characters.
It’s a book whose success lies in its excellent structure,
its stunning narrative and its emotional core. It’s….I don’t know. I am just
doing the typing of the words without even really knowing what point I’m even
trying to make. This review is a bad
review. This book is a hard book to review.
Now that I’ve read it though, I want to get my hands on
every word Patrick Ness has ever written and I want to devour each and every
one of them. & I want to go out for coffee with him, if coffee is a thing
he drinks, and I want to ask him just exactly how his brain works, because this
book? It’s something special.
Book of the Year: 2013
First of all, Nashville.
No, wait, first off all
Happy New Year blogosphere. Here is to a 2014 that is super wonderful.
Second of all, Nashville.
I know, I know, I am (always) a little late to the party but this show is immense. Everything about it appeals to
my little country loving heart - why yes. I do have one of those. Of you even
know how many Keith Urban albums are in my car right now? - and I can actually
feel myself getting sucked right in. The story, the characters, the MUSIC. I
need that soundtrack man. Even though I have only actually watched the one
episode, suddenly the cancellation of Smash
seems a little less tragic ;) If you need a show to watch, basically, then Nashville is currently
being repeated.
I wonder what it says
about me, how easily I get immersed in a fictional world. All the books. Nashville. Glee. Brothers & Sisters. House. Once
Upon A Time. Lordy, Once Upon A Time,
that show, though. I might even give it a blog post all to itself, because of
Robert Carlyle who I have loved since his Hamish Macbeth days. Anyway, the
point is that I have begun this year by allowing myself to be sucked into another television show because I cannot
stop with the living inside of the worlds that are not real. Alongside which, Helen and I have just begun The Great Ally McBeal Rewatch of 2014.
Yeah, that’s a thing, a really amazing thing. Ally McBeal was such a great show
and you know what’s funny? The DVD’s aren’t in widescreen, s’like instagram TV.
Ha.
But but but, to the
point, which is (thirdly) what were my favourite books of 2013 I hear you ask.
Actually, I don't, but 2013 was a GOOD year and so I'm going to tell you
anyway.
The Fault in Our Stars introduced me to John Green, who is not only a
man who knows how to use his words but who also seems to be a genuinely awesome
guy. I want to be his friend. Oh who am I kidding? I have a massive author!crush
on the guy. TFiOS is incredible. It broke me, it broke me into more pieces than
I can count, it made me laugh, it made me so sad my chest hurt, it made me cry
so hard I had wet neck. It hurt, it hurt a lot. & I would recommend it to
anybody in a heartbeat.
Wonder is a very special book, it is an important book. It is raw
and honest and real. It's a book I am so glad I read and a book I urge you all
to read. Now. Go, go, go.
The Night Rainbow is the prettiest book I have read on a long
time, it's a re-read for sure.
The Uncommon Reader has left me wondering why it has taken me my whole life to get to know Alan Bennett.
And finally but never
ever finally, Eleanor and Park.
AMAZING. The other four are on no particular order but this is absolutely my
number one. This book is so good I barely know how to explain it. I want to
keep it to myself and I want the world to read it. It's a little piece of
magic.
2014
has a lot of work to do if it wants to come anywhere close to any of these. So
there, go forth and read. I promise they're worth the time.
So you haven't read the books?
“You’ve read the books?”
“I’ve seen the movies.”
Cath rolled her eyes so hard, it hurt. (Actually.) (Maybe because she was still on the edge of tears. On the edge, period.) “So you haven’t read the books.”
“I’m not really a book person.”
“That might be the most idiotic thing you’ve ever said to me”
I have quite a lot of feelings about
Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl. I read her Eleanor & Park earlier this year and I loved it, so much,
you don’t even know. It’s for that reason that I had quite high expectations
for Fangirl. That’s a thing I do you see, I
fall in booklove hard and fast and then set what is probably an
unrealistically high bar, that the poor writer in question has to try and reach
with all their future offerings. Few do. I’m a little sad to say, actually,
that Rowell is not one of the few. Le sigh.
That’s not to say though that I don’t
think this is ‘a good book’ because I do. I just don’t think it’s ‘as good as…’
and that’s irrelevant anyway because I’m not here to make a comparison. What I
am here to say is that I read Fangirl and it
made me feel all the things.
I think the beauty of it is, is that a lot of people will relate to the story and to its
protagonist, Cath.
I could. I could because Cath is like an
extreme version of me. She’s quiet and she’s introverted; she suffers from
social anxiety; she prefers books to people and the written word to the spoken;
things that are new make her feel sick and she lived off protein bars for a
while because she was so scared of navigating the college canteen. I am that
girl. Not to the extremes Cath is but still, so much of the way she feels about
day to life made me just ache with
familiarity.
Most of the time I let my phone go to voice-mail and then send a text right after because some days talking is hard and I hide from the doorbell and the thought of being
in a room full of people I don’t know – or some days even people I know – is
enough to make me come out in a sweat. Sometimes I have plans with people I
actually really want to spend time with and right up until the moment I am
knocking on their actual door I am coming up with excuses in my head, excuses
that will mean I don’t have see them, and
can instead just be home with my book and maybe fire texts back and forth for a
few hours. It’s not because I don’t love
them – I do, I really do – and it’s not because I’m boring or miserable, it’s
just because it’s hard. 95% of the time it feels
like I imagine a parachute jump would: I have to gear myself up to do it – the
being social – and once I do, I love it, and it’s fun and amazing and
exhilarating. & then once it’s over I am drained and
I have to go home and read a book and recharge.
& so for that alone, Cath, of the world of Fangirl, LET ME LOVE YOU.
“Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and mildly socially inept, I'm a complete disaster.”
And then, there is fandom
because, as the title suggests, Cath is a fangirl.
“How do you not like the Internet? That's like saying, 'I don't like things that are convenient. And easy. I don't like having access to all of mankind's recorded discoveries at my fingertips. I don't like light. And knowledge.”
This part of the book was a delight. In a
nutshell, Cath writes fanfiction about her favourite YA books, whereby the hero
is in love with his nemesis. What Rowell has done here is so delightful it had
me squealing; it was delightful because if you try and tell me that Simon Snow is not Harry Potter and this segment of
the story was not born of Harry/Draco then I will laugh very loudly in your
face. I may or may not have done a fair amount of unattractive snorting because
God, it’s so damn obvious that Rowell knows her shit. I would love to know how active she’s been in her particular fandom
of choice.
I – and if you know me then you probably know this – have been
connected to fandoms previously: I’ve been on forums, I’ve read and I have written fanfiction (go on, judge me. I have not a care!); I know what you mean when you say
‘shipping’ (and that ‘you’re not talking about the delivery of a parcel); and if
you ask me who my OTP is I won’t think you’re enquiring after my health. I’ll
probably answer...maybe...perhaps. I might even rant at you about my feelings
about canon (don’t talk to me please, about Nymphadora Tonks)
I was never all
that excited about Harry/Draco myself but I was active enough in the Harry
Potter fandom that they crossed my path and that I recognised the similarities
here. I also know enough to be able to revel in the fandom world that Rowell
has created for Cath. I know what it’s like to ship a pairing that isn’t canon; to read between every single line,; to grab hold
of every single look or glance or word; to wait desperately for the release of a new book and to devour it in one sitting; to send and receive texts along the
lines of ‘what I think is about to happen better not happen’
and then figure out my own ways to right those wrongs. I know what it’s like to fall in
love with a fictional world so much that there’s never quite enough of it. I get
it. I’ve lived it. Again, not to the extremes Cath does, but I get it all the
same.
Cath’s fandom life however, will it kind of eclipses her ‘real’ life –
she has more friends online than off, her latest fanfiction has a worldwide
following – people are wearing it on t-shirts, are accepting her version as canon – and if she has to choose between
going to class/eating/seeing her sister-roommate-boy she likes and Simon Snow,
then she’ll chose Simon Snow every time. Real life doesn’t hold the same appeal
for her as this world she has created for herself on the internet and what
started as a way to continue to let these characters she loves so much live on
outside of the pages of the novel they were born of, has quickly become an
escape: somewhere she can exist whilst real life carries on without her.
You only have to visit LiveJournal or
Archive of Our Own or Fanfiction.net to realise there are probably millions of
people in the world like Cath and that’s what really struck me: Cath is just a girl, she’s a girl that people will read about and
think ‘she’s just like me’ because she’s
normal and flawed and she makes mistakes; nothing out of the ordinary happens
to her, there’s no great revelation or dramatic, well, anything really. There’s
just this girl, like all these other girls out there, and she gets to write her
fanfiction and eat her protein bars and fight with her sister and worry about
her Dad and freak the hell out about growing up and branching out into the big
old world and then, she gets to fall in love.
What its saying this book, is ‘you’re ok. You keep doing what you’re doing and that’s fine, but look,
do the other stuff too, because there are people out there who will enrich your
life and they don’t live behind a computer screen, and, I know it seems scary
but you can have it both ways and that’s OK You will be OK.’ &
for people like Cath, like me, like those other girls reading this book – and I
suspect you will only read this book if you’re a Cath yourself
– that’s an important message. It’s nice to know that it’s OK to live in a
world you’ve created or that has been created by other people like you; that
it’s OK to find real life hard; that you don’t have to be like your extroverted
sibling/lover/friend, because being like you is pretty
fucking awesome. You don’t have to change, you
just have to be. And also, you know, write
your fanfic if you want, just don’t go all EL James all over the place.
It’s like Rainbow Rowell is writing to me,
to you, to us and her insight is incredible.
Or maybe it’s not saying that at all.
Maybe it’s just a book and I am over-analysing as
per.
The point is, the message was there for me and I think I'd have loved the book a million times more if I’d read it ten years ago!
“Real life was something happening in her peripheral vision.”
And then there is the love story and as evidenced
in E&P, Rowell writes first love really
freaking well. Seriously though guys. THE LOVE STORY.
Ha. Honestly, I’ve just wanted an excuse to
put that ^^ on my blog. Howeverrrrr, the lovely love story is lovely and Cath
and her beau are adorable and the slow unfolding of their relationship is
pretty damn sweet. It’s so refreshing to read a love story that’s real. It’s
not OTT and dramatic, nobody watches anybody sleep in a creepy and inappropriate
way, which, wait – I have a quote:
“Reagan was sitting up at Cath's desk when Cath woke up.
"Are you awake?"
"Have you been watching me sleep?"
"Yes, Bella. Are you awake?"
"No.”
There are no dramatics, no overwhelming declarations, promises, heartaches. It’s all so refreshingly simple. Girl meets boy and to quote Kurt Hummel - damn, I’m totally
still a fangirl aren’t I? – a touch of the fingertips is as sexy as it gets.
Pretty much. The touches of the fingertips, the smiles, the glances, the
holding of hands, those are the parts that matter at least. I loved it in
E&P and I love it here: Rowell has this ability to write real, deep and intense attraction without the characters even needing to touch. In
E&P the scenes where Park played with Eleanor’s sleeve made me feel like my
chest was caving in. It’s the same here:
“…he tugged on her sleeve and looked down at their not-quite-touching hands. ‘It’s OK if you’re crazy’ he said softly.‘You don’t even know-‘‘I don’t have to know,’ he said, ‘I’m rooting for you.’”
WHAT IS AIR?
It’s all about the slow build and that’s
what makes it real because it feels real: it’s
not ridiculously fast and on the other side of the coin it’s not overflowing
with angst. It’s just life and it’s super.
“You look so blindingly cute right now, I feel like I need to make a pinhole in a piece of paper just to look at you.”
It Starts and Then It Ends
The Top Ten Tuesday this week - as seen on The Broke and the Bookish deals with the top ten opening and closing line[s], which is a topic that made me go 'ooooh' because whilst the body of a book is obviously of great import, it's how it starts and how it finishes that counts. If it starts awfully then you might not read past that first line and likewise if the ending leaves a bad taste in your mouth then it can taint the whole experience. Also, it made me have to do thinking and remembering because it's not just 'oooh that was a book I liked' it's 'how did it start and how did it finish and were either of those things better than all the other books?'
What a fun way to spend a lunch break, hey?
And so (never in any particular order):
1. I Capture The Castle – I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.
Best opening to a book ever. Possibly. Not only is it a super opening, because let us be real here, who doesn’t want to know what happens after that, it’s also a really great quote. It’s really a really great book too, which helps.
2. A really great book with a very good end: “Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love you.”
3. Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
It’s an opening that hooks you in, because you want to know more about these Dursley folk and what it is about them that makes them feel they need to proclaim their normality. More than than though that it’s what it represents: the first sentence to a series of books that has changed lives; that changed mine.
4. Life of Pi “Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger."
I loved Life of Pi; I loved the journey the book took me on and I loved how the conclusion made me question everything I’d read. The ending just felt right.
5. Looking for Alaska: "Thomas Edison’s last words were: 'It’s very beautiful over there.” I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful'."
John Green, you’ve done it again and I love you. Looking at this book as a whole, making the last words 'last words', is genius and these last words are perfect.
6. The Graveyard Book “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.”
I love you Neil Gaiman, talk about building suspense from the very first second.
7. Deathly Hallows: All was well."
*uncontrollable sobbing* [FYI the epilogue will forever displease me but these three words? God, the first time I read this book they slayed me.]
8. TKAM: He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning."
I just love the whole thing, honestly. Wouldn’t change a word.
9. The Book Thief: "A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR. I am haunted by humans."
I am haunted by humans. I will never be over this book. If you haven't read it, then read it. You need to have read it, and felt it, and lived it to understand why this ending is so heart-hurtingly perfect.
10. The Blind Assassin: Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge."
A good opening line makes you want to know the story. Even now, when I know the story, this opening line makes me want to read on. I love this book so hard.
Top 5 books of 2013 so far.
Can you even believe it's almost the end of June already? Seriously, where does the time even go? I am loving the summer at the moment, now that it's actually here. We're just back from a glorious week in Portugal which was the most fun and this weekend we're off to Scarborough. It's Wimbledon fortnight (and Federer is out which makes my heart sad) and it's warm enough when I get home from work to be able to sit in the yarden with my Kindle and a packet of Drumstick Squashies (erm, yummy) and life is pretty good. Next week Jen is doing an event for More Weird Things in Cheshire and I have booked the day off work to go hang out with her. I shall have a lie in and then drive over and maybe we'll do lunch - Jen, are we doing lunch? - and then hang out with her in the bookshop in the afternoon. I am excited. I haven't seen her face in real life for over a year. Damn geography. Everything that matters is pretty darn rosy.
Anyway, to the point. Around this time of year I like to make a note of the best 5 books I've read so far and see how much the lists changes come December; are the books I read in the first half of the year better than the ones I read in the second?
Anyway, to the point. Around this time of year I like to make a note of the best 5 books I've read so far and see how much the lists changes come December; are the books I read in the first half of the year better than the ones I read in the second?
Here I am, doing just that! So, the bestest books of 2013...so far.
1: Eleanor and Park – which I talk about here
2. TFiOS – again, already reviewed
3.
The Night Rainbow:
This all began when Maman came back from hospital last summer, but she didn't bring back a baby like she promised, she left it at the hospital, along with her happiness
The Night Rainbow makes my heart happy. It’s a little piece of magic, simple and beautiful and sad and perfect. I didn’t want it to end.
The
story is told by Pea. She’s 5 and a half. Her Papa has died and her
Maman is heavily pregnant and grieving both the loss of Pea’s Papa and a
baby she recently lost. Pea and her sister Margot – aged 4 – are left
to run wild in the French summer, they’re desperate to make Maman happy
again bur she barely realises they’re there. The girls befriend a man
from the village and his dog. He becomes exactly what they need but he
has his own past that’s as haunting as the story told in the present.
It’s beautiful I think because Pea’s account of her summer is so
simplistic; her lack of understanding makes the story that much more
poignant although never straying into over-sentimentality. Your heart
breaks for Pea and for Margot, but it breaks for Maman too.
The
beauty lies in the language. I wanted to read every page twice, just to
savour it. You need to read it just to see, because I can’t explain it
to you otherwise. To quote Jen ‘it takes you somewhere new’ and it does.
What Clare King does with words in this novel just blows me away.
Here. Look.
"A blown kiss is not a proper kiss. Hugs and kisses should be hugs and kisses, not breaths of air. I am tired of breaths of air and not enough hugs and kisses."
Also, it has a trailer; watch it.
4. Wonder – which is reviewed here
5. The Silver Linings Playbook: Heartbreaking and heartwarming, like Perks for grown ups, this book is a good good book. I don't want to give too much away, except to tell you that Pat's search for his happy ending will stay with you for a long long time.
And I guess that's that? This post makes me happy inside; this year has been a good year so far, for books. I hope it continues. Also, if you have not read these books thne probably you should do something about that.
Top Ten Books Dealing with Difficult Subjects
This week’s topic for 'Top Ten Tuesday' (yes, I know it's Friday. Whoops.) was ‘Top Ten Books Dealing with Difficult
Subjects’ which plays right into my hands actually, because I read rather a lot
of books dealing with difficult subjects. I was practically rubbing my hands
together because books that are challenging and emotive and punch me right in
the feels? Those are the kinds of books I can’t seem to not read.Often I'll be in a bookshop and Helen will call out to me from the other side of the shop, 'hey, Jo, this is a book about Hitler, you'll love it' and I'll be able to feel everybody's eyes on me as I look around cagily and protesting, like some kind of confused Tinkerbelle: I don't love Hitler, I don't, I don't.
What I do love is being affected by a book. I don't always want to read a book, smile and say 'well, that was good' before moving onto the next one. I like a dystopia that makes me think; I like characters that are raw and funny and human and palpable; and, I like books that break my heart and stay with me for days.
So, have at it. The best of the bunch (today at least):
The Book Thief is one of my favourite books of all time. Set in Nazi Germany, it broke me into tiny pieces. I love it so much I daren’t re-read it. I have no words.
My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece deals beautifully with loss and what that means, particularly to children. S'good. I think I blogged about it when I read it actually because I thought at the time that it was good at what it did. Children deal with death - grandparents, pets, maybe even a parent or a sibling and it's a hard thing to understand - it's hard for adults so it's got to be a million times harder for children. Books like this definitely have a place. It also handles the topic of racism pretty nicely too.The best thing I think is that it remains accessible: the subject matter is tough but the story itself isn't and that's really important.
