July 8, 2011

Case Solved!

First, I want to say that I might be in love with Erik Larson.  It might be too soon to tell but this is two books that I really enjoyed now.  Thunderstruck kept me riveted right until the very end.  Extremely well-written and interesting.  Also, I find the footnotes absolutely enthralling (and humorous).  Read it, people!!

Now for the disappointing news...I started up Faceless Killers and I'm going to have to pronounce it unpalatable.  Hear me out!!  Let me start off by saying that I had high expectations going into this and I think that might partly be why I'm so distraught right now.  I was expecting something dramatic and mindblowingly gut-wrenching.  Instead I get choppy sentences and confusing passages where I have no clue if the person is narrating their thoughts or speaking aloud.  This could all be due to poor translation, however.  Maybe if I was Swedish and reading the original my socks would be rocked right off of my feet.  But I'm not Swedish and my socks are decidedly stuck on (or they would be if it weren't so atrociously hot and humid up here).  I made it forty pages in and to the fourth chapter but I'm going to have to call it quits. 

This is the moment in the blog when I let you in on a secret: if you don't like a book you don't have to plod your way through to the very end.  That's right, folks!  If you've started up a book and you find yourself just wishing that the darn thing was over with already, you might want to just put it down and start something new.  Sooo I'm going to read Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman.  You can probably guess from the title that the book is centered on Mr. & Mrs. Darwin.  What you don't know from the title (or maybe you're familiar with this book and this is all redudant to you) is that this is a nonfiction book for young adults.  WHAT?  Yep, I do believe if you read my intro you will see that I bounce around to all different areas of literature.  I have heard great things about this book and it was on my wish list for forever.  From what I've heard, the story centers on Charles Darwin's wife and how her place in his life shaped him as a man and as a scientist.  I've always found Darwin interesting (I did after all major in Anthropology) but I know almost nothing about his life outside of academia.  I'm going to start this thing up tonight and I'll let you all know how it goes!!

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