AboutThe Turn Of the Screw
June, 2005
I honestly started this book last.. winter break? And just never got around to finishing it. It seems to be a sort of Jane Eyre Clone, and I've put it down repeatedly. I aim to finish it before July...
I'm now starting school again and I still have not finished this book. It rates as barely interesting, and, I give up.
Introduction to Organic Laboratory Techniques
June, 2005
If you like chemistry at all, read this! It's written by chemists with a sense of humor. Or maybe it's just chemists. Or maybe that's just me.. but in any case the advice is relevent, the techniques are easy to follow, and the essays are interesting. And it's easier and more fun to read than the Turn of the Screw (see above).
Feed
June, 2005
by M.T. Anderson. This book was pressed desperately into my hands as I was leaving the library, by the children's librarian (okay, kidding. She said "You'll really like this, hangon!"). I had no idea what it was about at the time, but she sold it as this "really cool story about kids who go to the moon and have this instant wireless internet thing in their heads, but they get pop up ads and are constantly being sold things." Okayy. That was mostly accurate, except for that she forgot to mention the story doesn't have a point. Sure, it's a sort of discussion of modern marketing and a possible discussion of humanity (i.e., "Son, this world is going straight to hell.") but really, I could've saved my time.
The Lovely Bones
June, 2005
by Alice Sebold. I have no idea why this book is as popular as it's become. I've had people tell me, "Oh, you have to read this." Maybe its that I just finished a fabulous English course and am therefore bad writing-deprived, but it seems to me that, without the explicit scenes, this would be sorted squarely into the YA-Fiction section at the library. The premise was silly (a dead girl reflects on life after her murder from some 'heaven' perspective. It read almost like a mystery, except that everything is revealed in the beginning, and rather than really going anywhere, basically caused the reader to hang around with the book waiting for the justice thing to happen. In summary, boring, not worth the time.
Me Talk Pretty One Day
June, 2005
by David Sedaris. I picked this book up because Will, my water polo coach recommended it to me on a water polo trip, as a great book for combatting boredom (we were all completely tired of going to Ala Moana Shopping Center by that point, and were spending half a day in the hotel.) He was right. It's novel-lenghted but not a novel per se, in that its chapters are vignettes in the author's life. The stories themselves aren't incredibly humorous by themselves either, since they all at least give the appearanc of having occurred in Sedaris' life. They're not the sort of thing you could retell at a party, say. What makes the tales funny is the way he views the events occurring, and the way he uses language to describe the scenes. This book had me laughing out loud.
Lolita
June, 2005
by Vladimir Nabokov. This book was insanely thick. There were sections in this book that were impossible to get through this book without fast fingers on the dictionary; even then some words were esoteric enough that none of the three dictionaries I used had an entry, and the only google hits referred to the book itself. However the book was amazingly well written, and as a story was more amazingly cohesive than any book I've seen before.
Kite Runner
May, 2005
by Khaled Hosseini. This book was a great read, and only took 13 distracted hours (over car rides, meals, and part of a swim meet). It's an incredibly cutting look at real life, over the course of Afghani history. I read it because it's the required summer reading for AP Composition, but I don't regret it at all and would even like to read the book twice (and actually probably will, before school starts again).