I know I have been a bad blogger. I got behind on my book goal, I was given some extra responsibilities at work, and I got a little lazy. So if you can forgive me, let’s move on! I am sure everyone will be excited to know that I was able to complete my 2012 goal of reading 52 books in a year! Since it is a new year and one of my resolutions this year is to do a better job in the blogosphere, I thought I would start the year by sharing with you the best book I read in 2012 and the worst book I read in 2012. If you want to see all of the books I read, you can find them on my goodreads profile.The Best Book I Read in 2012You know how you have someone you are close to, and there is something they want you to do or try, and you every intention of doing it, but you just keep putting it off, and they keep bugging you, and you finally do what they want and realize you were STUPID to put it off so long? Yeah, well, my husband has been trying to get me to read this book since we started dating, and I always put it off, and when I finally read it this summer, I couldn’t believe what I had been missing!Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury published 1957.Set in the summer of 1928, this novel follows the antics of 12 year old Douglas Spaulding in Green Town Illinois (aka smalltown America). Each chapter is a different little story about the town and moves the plot along in the summer a little more. Written with Bradbury’s wonderful lyricism, the book takes you through that first taste of summer and anticipation to the last days the season with its cooler weather and shorter days. Reading this book makes you feel like it is summer, at least the way you remember it as an adult. I am actually glad I read this book when I was on vacation, because otherwise I may have had to take a day off and run barefoot through the grass in the back of my parent’s property. It’s a short read and well worth anytime you want to put into it. His sequel to this Farewell Summer is also sensational and brings the story full circle.
“It
won't work,' Mr. Bentley continued, sipping his tea. 'No matter how
hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here
and now. Time hypnotizes. When you're nine, you think you've always
been nine years old and will always be. When you're thirty, it seems
you've always been balanced there on that bright rim of middle life. And
then when you turn seventy, you are always and forever seventy. You're
in the present, you're trapped in a young now or an old now, but there
is no other now to be seen.”
-Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
The Worst Book I Read in 2012
I just want to preface this book with a clarifying
statement: In general, I find that many of the young adult books on the
market today are well written and enjoyable. Although I don’t read
nearly as many as I used to, I still pick them
up from time to time, especially when my little sister tells me they
are worth it. This one wasn’t. I should have known that no good would
come from reading a book published by MTV.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephan Chbosky published 1999.
This novel follows a boy named Charlie through his
freshman year in high school in the early 1990s. At the beginning he is
an unpopular loner who is struggling with autism and the suicide of a
friend. He is soon befriended by Sam and her
step-brother Patrick who are both seniors and who introduce him to a
lot of new experiences. I mean a lot of new experiences. I mean
through-out the course of this tiny 213 page book Charlie is in some way
exposed to or effected by the following: Alcohol,
smoking, drugs, sex, abuse (both physical and sexual), rape, teenage
pregnancy, abortion, sexuality issues, and more. The further I got
into the pages the more I kept thinking “What else is going to happen to
this poor kid?!” I feel like Chbosky was trying
to tell the story of what it was to grow up in the 1990’s and somehow
told EVERY story of EVERY kid who grew up in the 90s. Don’t get me
wrong, there are some bright spots in the book, I thought the
relationship between Charlie and Patrick was great and I
also thought that the back and forth between Charlie and his older
sister was touching and real. For a book that has been made into a
movie and been on the bestseller list, not to mention touted as
“awesome” by a few facebook posts I have seen, I was very
disappointed. I will probably eventually watch the film, just to see
how it translated onto the big screen, but I am not holding my breath.
"Anyway,
Patrick started driving really fast, and just before we got to the
tunnel, Sam stood up, and the wind turned her dress into ocean waves.
When we hit the tunnel, all the sound got scooped up into a vacuum, and
it was replaced by a song on the tape player. A beautiful song called
"Landslide." When we got out of the tunnel, Sam screamed this really fun
scream, and there it was. Downtown. Lights on buildings and everything
that makes you wonder. Sam sat down and started laughing. Patrick
started laughing. I started laughing. And in that moment, I swear we
were infinite."
-Stephan Chbosky, The Perks of Being a WallflowerUntil Next time....peace!
A couple parts of Dandelion Wine I remember (I read it years ago): the woman who moved in and spoiled Grandma's cooking by trying to make everything in the kitchen scientific (that's in Dandelion Wine, isn't it?), so they all gave her her walking papers; the suspenseful passage about the serial killer and the young woman walking to or from a Chaplin movie.
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You remember it well for reading it so long ago :-) Sometimes when you read a lot some books fade away and it is hard to remember specific things about them (the older I get the harder it becomes). The chapter that I remember best is the one with the old lady and the little girls that taunt her, telling her that she could never have been young. At the end she finally gives in and decides that she must never have been young, she had always been old. Actually, I feel like that story will haunt me forever, it is just awful.
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