Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

This book is told from the POV of nine-year-old Oskar Schell whose father died in one of the towers from the World Trade Center. Most of the book takes place about two years after his father, Thomas, dies. One day, Oskar is in his parents' bedroom and somehow (I don't remember how...not really a memorable book) a blue vase crashes to the floor and gets broken. Inside, there was an envelope with "Black" written on the outside and a key inside. The entire book is devoted to Oskar finding out what this key opens, and he begins by tracking down every person with the last name of Black in NYC. No. Joke. The book also has random flashbacks that take until the last chapter to figure out who wrote what. Quite daunting, in other words. I am not sure how they made a movie out of this, or why, since nothing seems to really matter at the end. It harkens me back to Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan. As in the world of reading, you win some, you lose some. Take note: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/the-15-most-overrated-con_b_672974.html#s123751&title=Jonathan_Safran_Foer. According to this article, supposedly this book is Foer's best book yet. That does not encourage me to read Everything is Illuminated at all! The best part of this book is Oskar's random "inventions." That's pretty much the only saving grace.

Crossed (Matched #2) by Ally Condie

This is the sequal to Matched. Crossed is told from a different point of view than Matched: it goes from third person to first person, alternating between Ky and Cassia's stories/POVs. I found that hard to get used to since the tone is so similar between the two, but whatev.

It starts (and goes) fairly slow compared to its predecessor, but still a lot happens in the book. Cassia is on the hunt for Ky because she loves him and wants to be reunited with him, while Ky is on the hunt for Cassia for the same reason. Ky is bent on getting back to Society, while Cassia is on a mission to get to the Outer Provinces. Cassia beats Ky to the punch and ends up finding him before he finds her. Then the story goes on and on about the Carving, a giant Grand Canyon-eque landmark thing. Cassia is searching/following Ky in it, Ky leaves it, Ky returns into it, Cassia finds him, they go back into the Carving, they meander in the Carving, they leave the Carving, blah blah blah Carving this, Carving that, zzzzz! ANYWAY, they finally make their way out of the Carving and they are on a mission to get to the Rising (an anti-Society outfit). Ky doesn't want to be a part of the Rising, but Cassia wants to be a part of something bigger than herself. Will Ky find it in himself to follow Cassia wherever she decides to go. Will she choose Ky or the Rising?

Nail-biter to the end!

Thankfully, the third installment of this trilogy comes out in November!

Matched (Matched #1) by Ally Condie

Matched is very similar to the Hunger Games trilogy. It is about a girl named Cassia and how her Society has everything rigged set up. Everything is based off of predictions and control of variables. Everyone is poisoned dies on their 80th birthday, those who chose to be Matched (thus the title) are on their 17th birthday and all sign a marriage Contract on their 21st in the hopes that they start popping out kids when they're 24. They don't even have the ability to choose their jobs, everything is what they test in to and also what they are predicted to be. And when I say predicted, I don't mean tarot card, I mean it is what they are most likely to do or become or to match with. ANYWAY, Cassia gets Matched with her close friend Xander. Later when she looks at the microcard that everyone gets with their Match, she sees Xander and then for a split second she sees Ky, another boy she knows. Of course, then she must explore and find out more about Ky and it leads to her to question the Society and how everything is set up and there are no free choices.

This is the first book in the trilogy, the second one came out November, 2011, and the third will come out November, 2012.

Legend (Legend #1) by Marie Lu

So I thought that this was a cute book, but very a la Hunger Games and Matched. The plot was fairly simple. It is a story woven around two main characters, Day and June, and the quest for truth about their country, the Republic (which Day knows more about than June, even though June has been top-ranked in the Republic's military for forever). Of course, it is a love story, with June originally pitted against Day and out to capture him because she believes that he is responsible for her brother's death, but when she does meet him (however, she does not know it is Day since his name is never said), she finds him to be a very kind boy. (They are both 15. This is a YA book.) As to be expected, romance blooms and June must either trust Day and what he says, or believe what the Republic tells her is true.

reading roundup: 2011

Okay, folks. I was not too terribly great at blogging consistently about every book I read, but here are the 29 (!) books I read in 2011 by title:

Appaloosa by Robert B. Parker

Around the Bend by Shirley Jump

Carrie by Stephen King

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

Matched by Ally Condie

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

Sex, Lies, and Online Dating by Rachel Gibson

Sighs Matter by Marianne Stillings

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The Art of Marriage: A Guide to Living Life as Two by Catherine Blyth

The Borrower: A Novel by Rebecca Makkai

The Exile by Diana Gabaldon

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson

The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

The Mercy Room by Gilles Rozier

The Shack by William P. Young

The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno by Ellen Bryson

Things I’d Wish I’d Known Before We Got Married by Gary Chapman

This Book is Overdue! by Marilyn Johnson

Under the Dome by Stephen King

What Alice Knew by Paula Cohen

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

The Exile: An Outlander Graphic Novel by Diana Gabaldon

I have never read a graphic novel before...and am not sure if I will again. I didn't know what was going on through half the book, and most of the characters' names I didn't have a clue about. Ummm...not much else to say, except the end part where the creation of the graphic novel is discussed is pretty interesting...how Gabaldon selected an artist and what scene changes they made, things like that. :)

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

I had a lot more hope for this book when I started it. It is essentially plotless, but is told in an interesting, winding way that draws you in and makes you really understand and relate to the characters...or know relatives who resemble them almost TOO closely. So the story goes that Alice, the matriarch, owns a house in Maine, a house that her husband won on a $50 bet. The husband, Daniel, died ten years prior to the telling of this story. Alice and Daniel had three children, two of who are mentioned significantly: Kathleen and Pat. Kathleen lives in California on her "farm" (a worm farm) with her boyfriend of ten years, Arlo. She has a daughter, Maggie, who lives in New York and is recently impregnated by her on-again, off-again loser boyfriend. Summer comes, and Maggie goes to the house in Maine to figure out life, and tells both Kathleen and Loser Boyfriend in an email she is preggo. In the meantime, Kathleen flies out to "talk some sense into her" aka have an abortion (which she doesn't have), and Loser Boyfriend decides to not be involved. While Kathleen is plotting to go to Maine, Ann Marie (Pat's wife) shows up with dollhouse-making supplies in tow. She has a crush on Steve Brewer, and eventually accidentally makes a drunken move on him in Maine on the Fourth of July. There is a whole lot of other things that happen, like finding out about Alice's sister's death...in the end, all four of the women have secrets, except maybe Kathleen, since it is plain she was not a great mother. I wouldn't really recommend...unless you have nothing better to read, I suppose. But it is definitely intricately written, and well-done, at that.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

This book was TERRIBLE! I do not recommend at ALL!!! It's told in a series of vignettes, none that are really cohesive except they all contain the main character, Esperanza. I had no way of relating to this book, since the community I live in is 90% white and I have never lived in an urban area (the past two places I have lived have had horses as neighbors). I have had no experience with Catholicism, or with hating the house I live in (a big part of the book). Two thumbs down!

Sighs Matter by Marianne Stillings

This book was, amazingly, not as terrible and hoky as one might expect. The beginning of each chapter has a fake definition (like Denile: a river in Egypt) that is puntatic. It's about Claire, a doctor, and Taylor, a police officer. Each fight against their desire for the other, but of course, life-threatening situations occur and thrust them together. After reading this, I am not quite sure where sighs/size matter at all, since that isn't mentioned, although there are two "special" scenes in the book, but nothing over-the-top that goes on for 50 pages each.

The Shack by William P. Young

I felt this book was very heavy-handed in the explaination of religion.

This book is about Mackenzie Allen Philips (who goes by “Mack”) and his quest for improving his relationship with God—even though he initially does not know it. The story begins with the Philips family on a camping trip, sans Mack’s wife Nan. His two teenagers, Josh and Kate, decide to go canoeing and almost immediately it capsizes, trapping one of the teens underneath it. Mack jumps to the rescue, his previous lifeguarding skills kicking in, helping him to save Josh. When all is well, he goes looking for Missy, his six year old daughter who he left coloring in books at the campsite, but she is nowhere to be found. A search is started and a ladybug pin with five dots on its back is found in the coloring book, a similar item that has been found at the scenes of other child abductions (this one being the fifth one, hence the five dots). A deputy states that this is a serial kidnapper and the bodies of the other children, all girls, have never been found. Still, the search continues, taking the party to some desolate places on a reserve, where they stumble upon a run-down hunter’s shack. Inside, they find a blood-stained dress, the exact one that Missy was wearing when she disappeared. Search dogs sniff around the cabin and eventually the search is closed and an empty casket buried. Three years later, Mack goes to check his mail and finds an unstamped letter in his mailbox indicating for him to return to the shack and signed “Papa,” a name that Nan uses to call God (indicating the depth of her relationship with him as Father). On a whim, he goes to the shack and finds everything the same as it was three years previous. After throwing a temper tantrum, he leaves the shack, but is amazed that while he is walking away he feels a strong, warm breeze, as it is the dead of winter with snow everywhere. He turns around and sees that the shack has transformed into a beautiful cabin and the land around it, including the lake, has thawed. It is like it is springtime all around. He goes back to the shack and finds Papa, a rotund black woman; Sarayu, a small, shimmering Asian woman; and Jesus, a man in plaid. Each of these represents one part of the Trinity: Papa as God, Sarayu as the Holy Spirit, and Jesus as himself. During his time at the cabin, he has individual experiences with each of them, allowing him to understand more fully what Christianity really is: a relationship, not rules. This allows him to come to terms with Missy’s death and also his father’s death (of which he orchestrated since his dad beat him when he was young, causing him to poison all of the liquor so his father essentially drank himself to death), along with forgive Missy’s murderer. At the end, Mack is given the choice of staying at the cabin with Papa, Sarayu, and Jesus, or return to the real world and be back with his family and friends. He chooses to go back to his family. The three vacate the cabin, but leave a cup of coffee for Mack to drink, which immediately puts him to sleep. When he awakes, it is the same day as when he arrived in the cabin (although during the time he’s with Papa, Sarayu, and Jesus, two days pass). He drives away, only to be hit by a drunk driver in the nearby town of Joseph. He is life-flighted to Portland where he recovers and tells his story.