The Time Traveler's Wife

Last month for our book club we read The Time Traveler's Wife. I only asked about joining the book club about a week before it met (total coincidence) and picked up the book the night before. The book is 536 pages and I tried my best to power through it. I read only a little over 300 before we met for book club. Let me first say this: this is not a book to try to power through. In fact, trying to read it so quickly actually gave me a headache, a first.

Here's the description from the back of the book:

A most untraditional love story, this is the celebrated tale of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who involuntarily travels through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate affair endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trap that tests the strength of fate and basks in the bonds of love.

Wow, just reading that as I typed made me feel a little bit ill. I actually disagree with the back of the book on several counts. I don't think the book is a romantic trap. I think what happens in the book is unfair and almost cruel. Henry gets to travel through time and Clare is always left waiting. Always.

Because of the rushed nature in which I read this, I might give it another chance at another time. Maybe. I've got an awful lot of books that I want to read though...

The Book Thief

I just finished this book for the second time. I first read it over a year ago simply because I believe John Green talked about it or because it was a Printz honor book. I listened to it the first time and I really think this helped out a lot. I took German in high school but haven't read or done pronunciation for a while so hearing how to say certain German words was really helpful.

A description of the book from the book itself:

Liesel Meminger is only nine years old when she is taken to live with the Hubermanns, a foster family, on Himmel Street in Molching, Germany in the late 1930s. She arrives with few possessions, but among them is The Grave Digger's Handbook, a book she stole from her brother's burial place. During the years that Liesel lives with the Hubermanns, Hilter becomes more powerful, life on Himmel Street becomes more fearful, and Liesel becomes a full-fledged book thief. She recues books from Nazi book-burnings and steals from the library of the mayor. Liesel is illiterate when she steals her first book, but Hans Hubermann uses her prized books to teach her to read. This is a story of courage, friendship, love, survival, death and grief. This is Liesel's life on Himmel Street, told from Death's point of view.

I highly recommend this book.

Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie

It's the first day of freshman year and Scott Hudson decides that it is in his best interest to write a book of advice to his younger as yet unborn (hopefully brother) sibling on how to make it through freshman year.  

While I never had to deal with a lot of the experiences that are described in this book, I can appreciate the sentiment of where it's coming from.  High school, while 10 years ago, isn't that far away.  Yet.

House of Sand and Fog

I picked up this book at the same time I selected Family and Other Accidents.  I think this was the book that stopped me reading adult fiction for a while.  I selected this book because I know that a movie has been made of it, and while I haven't seen the movie, I've thought about it.  

An ex-Iranian military man dreams of owning his own place and beginning to attain a level of life similar to that which he left behind.  A woman gets wrongly evicted from her house and her house sold at auction.  What would you do to keep your dreams?  What would you do to get your dreams back?  

These are the questions that are the main focus of this book.  While I found this book a very interesting read, it is not happy by any means.  The ending, while not a surprise, was worse because I saw it coming.  Very well written and just goes to show that you don't need a book to be positive for it to be effective.  Actually, now that I think about it, most well written books aren't positive.  Why do you think that is?

Family and Other Accidents

An adult novel!  I told you I read them sometimes!  I found this while browsing at my local library.  I thought that I should give adult fiction a try and then I found this book.  It details the story of two brothers and how they deal with what life hands them.  It begins when the youngest is in high school and goes all the way through marriage, kids, marital problems, and the trials (and support) that family provides in many situations.  Not a book for people that are bothered by any mention of sex, just stating that up front.  It does provide an interesting look at what family means throughout life.

Lock and Key

Lock and Key tells the story of a girl abandoned by her mother and sent to live with her sister and brother-in-law and attend a different school (one that is a lot more expensive than her last).  Will she make friends with anyone at the new school?  Who is the boy that lives next door with his father?  Did her mother really abandon her or did her sister abandon her when she went to college?  All of these questions and more are answered in Sarah Dessen's well written novel.  Check her out!

What I'm Reading

For those of you who know me, you know that ever since I took a Young Adult literature course (and that's what the YA in the tags mean) I have been reading more and more of it.  That's not to say that there isn't good adult fiction/non-fiction out there, because I know it exists.  I have read that too, and will talk about some here.  I just find that I am drawn to YA literature more than Adult for some reason.  However, I will read almost anything that is suggested to me (with the exception of The Tommyknockers because I've tried to read that 4 times and have yet to get past page 75).  

So, feel free to suggest something for me as well.  Once you find I have this blog.  =)