First of all, one of my biggest complaints of popular author Nicholas Sparks is his use of short sentences. I HATED The Notebook. What should have been a beautiful story was ruined for me like by passages like "He went to the stove. He dropped the lobster in the pot." (Those may or may not be actual sentences in the book, but you get the idea.) Since I first experienced Sparks' writings I've moved passed that objection. I understand it is simply his writing style and I really try not to let it bother me.Secondly, if you've been around me long enough to get to know me you've probably figured out my thoughts are not always coherent or sequential. Sometimes my brain works faster than my mouth and I get really excited and a little bit flustered when I'm going on and on about something. I often compare myself to a raccoon. Place a shiny object in front of me and I lose my train of thought completely. It happens to me all the time. I also find it very difficult to sit through monotone speakers, boring lectures or read books in which the tone never changes (Read back to Review 2: The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter). This may be why I did not do well in Psychology in college. I loved the subject matter but it was all reading and talking and... boring! The only things I ever remembered were the very interesting things. For instance, one day my professor showed us a picture of Britney Spears. Then he showed us the same picture but her mouth had been turned upside down. You could still tell who she was. This had to do with brain recognition and how we don't use all points of an object to identify it. I've run on a tangent that really has nothing to do with anything... Squirrel!(Sidenote, see UP if you haven't already.)Back on subject: You may recall that I had trouble making it through my last book and I fought it page by page. Other than my psychology textbook I'm not sure I ever read that slowly in my life. The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time by Mark Haddon was a completely different story. Here it is, Sunday, and I'm 4 days ahead of my deadline. The book is finished and I have a satisfied feeling in the pit of my chest. Earlier I mentioned that I have a certain loathing for short sentences that leaves me feeling anxious and annoyed. This book offered the same type literary style, but my reaction to it was completely different. The lead character of this book is Christopher, a young teenager, who has autism. Every thought, albeit short, was calculated and understandably so. He only likes prime numbers. He hates the color yellow. Math is the driving force in his life because it makes sense. Always. His thoughts may have seemed jumbled but once you understood his method of thinking- everything always had the same pattern, the same root. I've worked with children with autism before on several occasions. This may have been the most interesting piece I've read on the subject because it was actually written from the child's point of view. His actions, his groaning, his fits were actually very reasonable in his mind. They made sense to him and they eased his suffering, even if the rest of the world didn't understand. I've often heard that autism is like being trapped in your own world and this offered a perspective into that world that I'd never thought of. The random thoughts I have are just because I have a short attention span. I let myself get ahead of me and it gets me tongue-tied... but Christopher's random thoughts are not random at all. His routines are not set because he has discipline problems or his parents are strict- he has these routines because they help him cope. The noise is too loud, the touching bothers him and the amount of visual stimulation is too much for him to absorb. He knows whats going on but its like the circuit in his mind is on overload. It makes complete sense.The storyline of this book follows a murder that Christopher must solve. What he discovers though is the reasons people do things are driven by feelings which he does not understand. He doesn't know what it means to think ahead or to feel remorse or wonder what if? His life is very matter of fact and void of all useless information. I think that is actually the point that made this book such a great and easy read- there was no useless information. There were no flowery descriptions or over the top tangents (see the first two paragraphs of this post!) I think I found this book refreshing because everything I read is so bogged down in the information I think I need but is not necessary. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. A + B = C. I think we need all the other jumbled mess because it makes us feel better. It soothes our feelings to know how a character really felt deep down even if he was telling us otherwise. How many other characters have you experienced who's thoughts, actions and emotions were one in the same?
I'm not going to tell you how this story ends or any of the twists and turns because I want you to read it. I finished it in just a few hours so its certainly one that won't take you long and I really think you're going to enjoy it. Thanks Katy, for letting me borrow this book! You were right- I loved it! We'll see, later in the spring, how this compares to Jodi Picoults' House Rules. This book, also a murder mystery centered around a young boy with Asperger's Syndrome, will be published in March of this year. Jodi Picoult is my favorite author and you can bet that novel will definitely be on this list! For the record, I got my comment section fixed so feel free to leave your thoughts! This means you, Scott. You said this is the review you were waiting for!3/52 Books
938 Pages Read.
It is only week two and I've already missed my deadline! It had been my hope to update this blog every Thursday- after Grey's Anatomy of course- but that just didn't happen this week. I let myself down, ignored my personal deadlines and pushed this blog off until Friday. I wasn't all that busy, in fact I had two days off work in which I didn't really do all that much... but my reading selection bogged me down more than I imagined it would. In selecting my books for this challenge I really wanted to experience a wide range of literature. I wanted to venture from my usual favorites and really give many different genres a try. My first choice was a book I chose solely on the fact that the author writes in a way that is fun to read... my second choice I really considered before picking it. Recently my mother (the retired librarian) went on a book buying binge. This is not a complaint. My mother's literary shopping sprees may be one of my favorite things about her. These spur of the moment trips are certainly something that only she and I share, as my sisters do not like to read. We've spent countless hours at book stores, used book sales and thrift shops filling our bags and baskets with things that just... look interesting. (I'm going to admit it: We judge books by their covers!) A few weeks ago she called and told me about several purchases she'd made- including a classic that she just knew I'd enjoy. The fact my mother was such a strong proponent of this book made it a fairly easy choice. I couldn't get what she'd said about it off my mind. The book: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. My first thought when I started this novel was that it could be compared to What The Deaf Man Heard (a favorite Hallmark movie of mine). The first chapter centered around the odd relationship of two deaf-mutes in the south. Odd and/or different cultures are something that can be interesting so I kept reading. Then I realized that this book was NOTHING like What The Deaf Man Heard and things got weird. This turned out to be a story about the 5 most pathetically lonely people I've ever met... er, read about. I've had rough times in my life. I've had moments when I was lonely and felt like I didn't know which direction was up... but these people just wallowed in it like a bunch of dirty pigs. Harsh, maybe, but true. If you know me at all you know I have little sympathy for those who have an obvious path out of their negative circumstances yet refuse, time and time again, to take said path. Every character in this book was so full of loathing for any ideas but their own that they wound up lonely and miserable. (I won't say "in the end" on the off chance you want to still read it when I' m done.)It made me so stinkin' sad to read this book and I honestly struggled to get through the pages.... which is odd for me. I can normally digest an entire book in an afternoon. It is my belief that art cannot be judged. It is one of the reasons I left the art department in college and changed my major. Who am I to say someone else's lifelong masterpiece is crap? Who am I to let you tell my my canvas doesn't show heart or emotion? For this reason alone I find if painfully difficult to say that Carson McCullers book is bad. Its not bad. Its an honest take on what many people live and die with- the belief that they, alone, are right and they'd rather go on living their lives than admit that just simply reaching out to someone would completely change their circumstances. I just can't imagine curling up with this book on a chilly afternoon with my favorite blanket and a Dr. Pepper. This was NOT a feel good read.
I will say, at certian points, feel a connection to each of the characters and had great hopes that they'd better themselves... but each character let me down. No one grew. No one changed. They went on this long, twisted journey in and out of each others lives and no one came out of it a stronger or more developed person. I find that so disappointing. But then again, I'm disappointed with real life people who seem to be fighting the same personal battles on repeat, never to gain anything from the last time they went through it. For those of you who are literary nerds like myself- I might compare this book to We Were The Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates. That book took me an entire summer to read! (Both The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and We Were The Mulvaneys were picks on Oprah's Book Club list.... makes me question her taste in literature!)
Oddly enough, it was halfway through this book when I was complaining on the book to my mother, "I hate this! I have no idea where it's going. I don't know what the point is!" when she said to me "I don't remember it either... I just read it in college." Turns out I took the advice of my awesome mother who didn't even remember the storyline in the first place. Guess next time I should probe for a little more information before I take her suggestion... although this is the first book in 25 years she's been wrong about. (I LOVE YOU ANYWAY MOM!)
The next book on my reading list will come from my friend Katy. Yesterday we spent the day at her house addressing Save The Date cards for her wedding. We talked about my challenge and she sent home several of her favorite reads for me to experience. This coming week I'll tackle: The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. Care to read along?!?!
2/52 Books
717 Pages Read
