This year I attempted to 2013 Genre Variety Reading Challenge hosted by A Daydreamer's Thoughts, aiming to be Cautious and read 12 books from 12 different genres. And, as of yesterday, I reached that goal! Here's what I read throughout the year:
Classic - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald {review} Historical Fiction - Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel {review} Drama - The Help by Kathryn Stockett {review} Crime - A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton {review} Chick Lit - The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes {review} Espionage - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carre {review} Dystopian - Divergent by Veronica Roth {review} Adventure - Eragon by Christopher Paolini {review} Young Adult - Wither by Lauren Destefano {review} Fantasy - City of Bones by Cassandra Claire {review} Steampunk - The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross {review} Fairy Tales Retold - Scarlet by Marissa Meyer {review}
Eragon (The Inheritance Cycle #1) by Christopher Paolini Release Date: 1st February 2002
Publisher: Random House Format: eBook Pages: 452 Rating: 4.0/5.0 This book was read as part of the 2013 OTS, 2013 EBC, 2013 GVR, 2013 ODY and 2013 BSR Summary from Goodreads:
"One boy . . . One dragon . . .
A world of adventure.
When Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy; perhaps it will buy his family meat for the winter. But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon soon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself.
Overnight his simple life is shattered, and he is thrust into a perilous new world of destiny, magic, and power. With only an ancient sword and the advice of an old storyteller for guidance, Eragon and the fledgling dragon must navigate the dangerous terrain and dark enemies of an Empire ruled by a king whose evil knows no bounds.Can Eragon take up the mantle of the legendary Dragon Riders? The fate of the Empire may rest in his hands."
Review:
At first, this book bothered me. In fact, thinking back on it, this book still bothers me a bit. I may have loved the plot and the characters, but there were some things that hindered my reading experience. Firstly, the writing style. It's a given that what with this being a children's book, that the writing style is going to be simplistic. And at the beginning, this was very, very obvious. I wasn't sure I'd be able to read 450 pages of short paragraphs consisting of He did this. Then he did that. Someone says somthing. Then they did something else. That's what it felt like, and it was painful. Luckily, as the story progressed and the plot became more detailed, that seemed to stop, or become less noticeable. Secondly, I had issues with the relationship between Eragon and Seraphina. It felt like instalove. I know that there is supposed to be an amazing bond between a Rider and his dragon, what with the dragon waiting for the right person to turn up before they even hatch, but I just didn't buy it. Maybe it's because I'm still not sure over what time period the events in this book took place (was it a year or so?), so I didn't feel that there was any natural progression there. Either way, their bond annoyed me at times. Pushing those aside, I did enjoy the plot and the characters. Although it became abundantly clear that this novel was almost entirely a set up for the rest of the series, I still enjoyed the storyline. It was a bit slow at the beginning, but I think once Brom and Eragon teamed up, thats when the plot became interesting. We learnt about the history of the Dragon Riders, we follow Eragon as he learns how to master his powers, and, interestingly, we're told the basis of the entire series storyline through a fortune teller. And lets not forget about the characters. Eragon at times was a bit painful, but overall I thought he was a strong protagonist. I adored Brom, even if I hated how he mysterious he was sometimes. Loved Murtagh, he's pretty cool, and I didn't see the twist involving his character coming. Any other characters who I'm sure will be prominent in the following novels appeared too late for me to form any concrete opinion about them, aside from just liking or disliking them in general. Already I like Arya, just because Eragon does, and for the same reasons I don't like the Twins. I'm interested to hear more from them as the series progresses. Overall, whilst this was mostly filled with backstory and setup for the rest of the series, I really enjoyed it, and I'll definitely be checking out the sequel.
Would you look at that, I've reached the levels I was hoping to reach for three of my challenges. Since the ODY is all about reading more than you did that last year, I'm keeping that one open. Technically I've finished the EBC, and I don't think I'll read enough ebooks to reach the next level by the end of the year, but we'll see. And I've surpassed the highest level for the BSR! So close with the OTS and GVR - won't be long now Here's a list of the books I've read over the past three months, and which challenges they count for: 24. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky OTS, ODY, EBC 25. A Game of Thrones by George R.R MartinOTS, ODY, EBC, BSR 26. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith OTS, ODY 27. A Clash of Kings by George R.R MartinOTS, ODY, EBC, BSR 28. Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor ODY, BSR 29. The Help by Kathryn Stockett OTS, ODY, EBC, BSR 30. A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton OTS, ODY, EBC, GVR, BSR 31. Underworld by Meg Cabot ODY, BSR 32. Legend by Marie Lu OTS, ODY, BSR 33. Withering Tights by Louise Rennison ODY, BSR 34. Wicked by Gregory Maguire OTS, ODY, EBC, BSR
A is for Alibi (Kinsey Millhone #1) by Sue Grafton
Release Date: 1st November 2005
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia Format: eBook Pages: 320 Rating: 4.0/5.0 This book was read as part of the 2013 OTS, 2013 ODY, 2013 EBC, 2013 GVR and 2013 BSR Summary from Goodreads:
"PI Kinsey Milhone, in a pretty California town, gets her first case. Laurence Fife was a slick divorce lawyer and slippery ladies' man until someone killed him. Released from jail after 8 years, his wife Nikki wants the truth. But the trail is cold, and at the end is a chilling twist - a second eight-year-old murder and a brand new corpse."
Review:
It took a while for me to get into this. I wasn't find anything spectacular in the story, and I felt that it was really just going through the motions - Kinsey was finding evidence, formulating some sort of idea as to who the killer was, but then, of course, her theory gets knocked around because things aren't adding up, etc etc. It wasn't really until at least half way through the book that things started to pick up.
Around about here was when some genuine surprises were thrown my way. There were some twists in there that I didn't see coming, even though I had some sort of inkling as to who the killer was. And it wasn't until the final 3 chapters or so that everything fell into place. Kinsey had it all figured out, there was the final showdown that I was expecting, and then very abruptly, the novel ended. Maybe it was just me, but I found that ending very quick, pretty convenient, and it prevented me from seeing some other things I wanted to see - Kinsey explaining it all to Nikki, telling the police - I just think that ending could have been longer, we could have seen some things after. Overall, this was a quick and easy read, and although it took me some time to get really interested in it, I really enjoyed it - my only major qualm is with the ending. Definitely something worth checking out if you're interested in a short, quick crime read.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett Release Date: 28th June 2011
Publisher: Baker and Taylor Format: eBook Pages: 544 Rating: 4.5/5.0 This book was read as part of the 2013 OTS, 2013 ODY, 2013 EBC and 2013 GVR Summary from Goodreads:
"Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step. Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed."
Review:
Coming off from reading Days of Blood and Starlight, this was always going to have to fight an uphill battle. And, surprisingly, this book didn't fail to impress.
The Help is set in the small town of Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s, during the time of the civil rights movement. We follow three ladies - Skeeter, a young aspiring author, and Aibileen and Minny, two black maids working for two white families - as they come together and try to make a difference, however small it may be. I've never read about this period of time before, so that it itself was quite interesting. The racism everywhere - from how the town is segregated into sections based on race, to Hilly's campaign to install additional bathrooms in all houses employing black maids because of their 'diseases' - it's just astounding to read that and think that people used to live like that. And nothing was ever done about it because either a) people had just come to accept the way things were (in Aibileen's case) or b) they just never thought about how wrong it all was (in Skeeter's case). Just that in itself was fascinating to read. I loved each of our three narrators for different reasons. Each had their own little story, and each grew throughout the novel and bridged the gap between the races. Minny grew to care for her employer on a personal level, for the first time. Skeeter grew to really appreciate her childhood maid, Constantine, and see her friends' true colours. And my favourite part by far, Aibileen decided to teach Maw Mobley, the little girl she looked after, that there was no difference between black people and white people. It may have gotten Maw Mobley in trouble a couple of times, but I loved that Aibileen taught her to see people for who they really are, not just the colour of their skin. I loved so very many aspects of this novel, and it's a fascinating read - I'd suggest checking it out (or even just the movie, I heard that was pretty good too).
We're half way through the year! Is it just me, or did that go really fast? Before we know it, it'll be 2014 :O This year I'm partipating in five reading challenges. So far I've managed the following...
Just like the first three months of the year, I think my progress these past three months has been good. I've no doubt that I'll finish my challenges by the end of the year - and it won't be a mad rush like it was last year! Here's a list of the books I've read over the past three months, and which challenges they count for: 15. The Host by Stephenie Meyer OTS, ODY, EBC, BSR 16. The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks OTS, ODY, EBC 17. Insurgent by Veronica Roth OTS, ODY, BSR 18. The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart OTS, ODY, EBC, BSR 19. The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes ODY, GVR 20. Splintered by A.G. Howard ODY, BSR 21. Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl OTS, ODY, BSR 22. Fatal Voyage by Kathy Reichs OTS, ODY, EBC, BSR 23. Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake OTS, ODY, BSR
The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes Release Date: 9th April 2013
Publisher: Penguin Books Format: Paperback Pages: 580 Rating: 4.5/5.0 This book was read as part of the 2013 ODY and 2013 GVR Summary from Amazon:
"As the youngest of the five Walsh girls, Helen has had a tough time finding her way in the world—at thirty-three, she has her job as a private investigator that has proven less than fruitful and after losing her flat, she’s moved back in with Mammy Walsh. Her hunky new boyfriend, Artie, and his three adorable children are a great distraction, but his beautiful ex-wife lives a little too closefor comfort. Meanwhile, Helen runs into her ex-boyfriend Jay Parker and reluctantly signs on to help him locate Wayne Diffney, the recently disappeared fourth member of Ireland’s biggest mid-nineties boy band, Laddz. Of the five Laddz, the Talented One has long gone on to better things, but the Cute One, the Gay One, and the Other One are all busily shunning carbs and rehearsing their reunion tour, and it’s Helen’s job to track down Wayne, the Wacky One. Wayne hasn’t left a trace, and Helen throws herself into the search wholeheartedly, leaving no stone unturned while watching her own life slowly fall apart, one unpaid bill at a time."
Review:
I love Marian Keyes' novels. Quite a few years ago I bought my first Marian Keyes novel, Anybody out There?, and ever since then I've sought out and read all of her novels. So, when I saw that a new novel was being released, I preorded it on The Book Depository and read it pretty much as soon as it got here. And, just as I suspected, I quite enjoyed it. The novel centres on Helen Walsh, a 30-something private investigator who's pretty much hit rock bottom. She struggling for work, but then her ex swoops in and offers her a job to find a missing person, Wayne Diffney. So, over the next 4 or so days, she splits her time between searching for Wayne, spending time with her boyfriend and dealing with her family. I have to say, at first I didn't particularly like Helen - she just seemed snarky and annoying to me. But, as a read further and found out more about her and her back story, I did come to like her. I also enjoyed the reappearance of the Walsh family, who Keyes has centred many of her novels on (each of Helen's 4 sisters have a novel centred around them). I like how Keyes tackles big issues in some of her novels. One of my all time faves, Rachel's Holiday, deals with drug addiction and the rehabilitation process. In this novel, we dealt with depression. I liked how Keyes developed Helen's problem, and I thought that the picture she painted of a depressed person was pretty well done. Helen wasn't the stereotypical depressed person, the sort of person who doesn't do anything and stays in bed all day. She worked well and efficiently at her job, she interacted with her family and was getting along well with her boyfriend. Helen was struggling with some big problems, but from the outset, if you didn't know her you probably wouldn't think that she was depressed. I also liked the mystery aspect of the novel. I honestly didn't know where Wayne was until it was revealed in the novel, and that very rarely happens to me. Some novels these days can be quite predictable in their story lines, and in mystery novels I tend to find that I can predict the endings fairly well. But with this one, I had absolutely no idea. Maybe that's why I loved the ending so much - not only did it fit in quite well with Helen's main storyline, but it surprised me. Overall, I really enjoyed this book, but I had no doubt when I picked it up that I would. I love that Keyes can write fun and entertaining novels that also deal with big issues - they've got a bit of everything really. Her novels really are great, I couldn't recommend them enough.
I think I'm going quite well. Finishing Uglies marked the completion of the BSR Challenge, so I decided to move to the highest level of 20+ books read from series - because the vast majority of the books I read are a part of a series, I think I can easily reach 20+ books. Here's a list of the books I've read so far, and which challenges they count for:
The man he knew as "Control" is dead, and the young Turks who forced him out now run the Circus. But George Smiley isn't quite ready for retirement-especially when a pretty, would-be defector surfaces with a shocking accusation: a Soviet mole has penetrated the highest level of British Intelligence. Relying only on his wits and a small, loyal cadre, Smiley recognizes the hand of Karla—his Moscow Centre nemesis—and sets a trap to catch the traitor."
Review: This book was a bit of a mixed bag for me - some parts I really enjoyed, whilst others I really, really did not. For the first 2/3 or so of the book, I was just really confused - being an espionage novel, there's quite a bit of mystery, which is to be expected, but sometimes it just got way to confusing for me to actually follow the plot. There were so many characters in this novel, that at the beginning I found it hard to a) remember them all and b) discern which were integral to the main story. Ultimately all the characters played some role in the novel, but there were some that I really needed to pay attention too, and at the beginning I found it hard to figure out who these people were. I also found it hard to keep track of what the characters relationships were - at some points, I felt like I needed some sort of diagram showing me how all the characters knew each other. But, once I started reading the last third of the book, things started to come together. Characters that were really integral to the plot became more obvious, the connections being made were easier to remember, the plot started to make sense, and the book just became more interesting. It took me about 3 weeks to read this book, but the majority of that time was dedicated to that first 2/3 that was confusing - once the book picked up, I flew through it in a couple of days. Overall, I can see that this book would appeal to some people, but it wasn't really for me - a tad too many characters, coupled with a plot that was a tad confusing led to a book that was justa tad interesting.
Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2) by Marissa Meyer Release Date: 5th Feb 2013
Publisher: Puffin Books Format: Paperback Pages: 452 Rating: 5.0/5.0 This book was read as part of the 2013 ODY, 2013 GVR and 2013 BSR Summary from Amazon:
"Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She's trying to break out of prison--even though if she succeeds, she'll be the Commonwealth's most wanted fugitive.
Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit's grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn't know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother's whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner."
Review:
This was a fitting sequel to Meyer's debut novel, Cinder. To be honest, I was worried that the introduction of new main characters might interfere with what was already set up in book one, but it all worked out really well. What I love about this series is that each book incorporates a retelling of an old fairytale. Cinder, if you can't tell based from the name, was based on Cinderella, and Scarlet has been based on Red Riding Hood. I was worried a bit when I found this out, because I wondered how Meyer was going to effectively incorporate a new story and new characters, whilst also continuing on the story she began in Cinder. But, Meyer was very clever with how she used the characters of Scarlet (little red riding hood), Wolf (that one's pretty self explanatory) and Scarlet's grandmother Michelle, so that they had significance to the continuing storyline from Cinder. Overall, Meyer continued the fascinating story of Cinder in the second novel in the Lunar Chronicles, and I'm really excited to see where the next novel takes us.
Wolf Hall (Wolf Hall #1) by Hilary Mantel Release Date: 1st April 2010
Publisher: HarperCollins Format: Paperback Pages: 650 Rating: 4.0/5.0 This book was read as part of the 2013 OTS, 2013 ODY and 2013 GVR Summary from Amazon:
"In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power.
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum.
Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death."
Review: I'm actually finding it a bit hard to sort out my thoughts on this book. On the one hand, I really like reading historical fiction and this book was definitely interesting. But on the other, nothing particularly surprised me in this book, and being surprised by the plot is one of the things I most enjoy about reading. Having already watched The Tudors on TV (which is amazing, by the way), I already had some understanding of the going-ons at the Tudor Court, and as a result, I pretty much knew the whole story. Granted, this was told from someone else's perspective, but it all boiled down to the same story. So now I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place, because I just cannot sort out my thoughts on this book. Would I have enjoyed it more had I not seen The Tudors first? Probably, but I really can't be sure. This book was very long and extremely dense for me, and that could have overwhelmed me if I didn't already know the plot. In this sense, having already seen The Tudors pushed me to keep reading this book, because I knew the plot would be interesting. Overall, I think that hardcore historical fans will really enjoy this book, but I wouldn't say this book is for everyone. What I would recommend is watching The Tudors - that show is seriously good.
The Girl in the Steel Corset (The Steampunk Chronicles #1) by Kady Cross Release Date: 17th April 2012
Publisher: Harlequin Teen Format: Paperback Pages: 375 Rating: 4.0/5.0 This book was read as part of the 2013 OTS, 2013 ODY, 2013 GVR and 2013 BSR Summary from Amazon:
"In 1897 England, sixteen-year-old Finley Jayne has no one…except the "thing" inside her
When a young lord tries to take advantage of Finley, she fights back. And wins. But no normal Victorian girl has a darker side that makes her capable of knocking out a full-grown man with one punch.
Only Griffin King sees the magical darkness inside her that says she's special, says she's one ofthem.The orphaned duke takes her in from the gaslit streets, against the wishes of his band of misfits. And Finley thinks she might finally be a part of something, finally fit in—until a criminal mastermind known as the Machinist threatens to tear the group apart…."
Review:
Overall, I thought this was a solid read, and an interesting introduction to the steampunk genre for me. This book had a bit of everything in it - romance, mystery, action and a bit of history - and it all worked really well together to form solid characters and plots. All the characters are likeable (even if they, or rather, one of them acts downright stupid at some points) and the plot, for the most part, is unpredictable. It's only downfall is how easy it is to pick out the villian - as soon as he is introduced, you know it's him. Whilst I did enjoy this book, I didn't feel particularly involved with it as I read. I never really felt immersed in the story; I felt like an outsider just watching in. Quite possibly this is because I haven't read steampunk before, and I didn't find it a genre that was easy to take too. Maybe my next foray into the genre will be different (one can hope!)
Wither (The Chemical Garden Trilogy #1) by Lauren Destefano Release Date: 6th December 2011
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Format: Paperback Pages: 358 Rating: 4.0/5.0 This book was read as part of the 2013 OTS, 2013 ODY, 2013 GVR and 2013 BSR Summary from Amazon:
"By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males born with a lifespan of 25 years, and females a lifespan of 20 years--leaving the world in a state of panic. Geneticists seek a miracle antidote to restorethe human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.
When Rhine is sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Yet her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement; her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next; and Rhine has no way to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive.
Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?"
Review:
I really liked the premise for this story. The dystopian future that the book was set in was really interesting to me, mostly because I thought that the future it presented could (at a stretch) become a reality. What with developments in medicine and scientific advancement, its not entirely crazy to think that one day, all the worlds health problems could be obliterated. But, of course, something goes wrong and now the children of the 'perfect race' are dying young - women die at age 20, men at 25 - of some unknown virus. Enter Rhine, a 16 year old who has been forced to marry a rich 21 year old man. I didn't mind Rhine as a character, and I liked where her story took her, but I also found it a little predictable. Of course there has to be some sort of relationship with a servant, when really she should just be focusing on getting out of this forced marriage and getting back to her brother. Besides this, I did like her character development, especially in regards to her feelings about Linden (a bit of Stockholm syndrome going on there). I've seen in some other reviews that Rhine has been criticised for not taking action, for taking too long to actually escape. Granted, it did take her about a year or so to actually get away, but there was a reason for this. She realised that in order to have a good chance of getting away, she needed to build trust first. She needed to find a way to be allowed off the wives floor, the only level in the house she was allowed on; then Linden needed to trust her enough to actually take her outside the compound, so she could get some sort of idea of where the gate, her only exit, was; and then she needed to figure out a way to get from the house to the gate without raising suspicions. It wasn't simply a matter of jumping out a window and running for it (disregard what happened during the tornado), because she would be captured and she would not have the chance to escape again. Rhine knew she only had one chance, she had to get it right. And in this respect, her plan of escape was a pretty solid plan. When I came to end of the book, I felt like the story was pretty much resolved - I don't really feel the need to continue on with this series. Overall, I liked the majority of the characters, the setting, and the plot (albeit a bit predictable) - it was a good story, but I think it could have done better.
The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald Release Date: 10th April 1925
Publisher: Scribner Format: eBook Pages: 144 Rating: 3.5/5.0 This book was read as part of the 2013 OTS, 2013 ODY, 2013 EBC and 2013 GVR Summary from Goodreads:
"A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.
It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose,The Great Gatsbyis as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem."
Review: This took me longer than I thought it would to get through it. Probably because I didn't enjoy it all that much. Which I find strange, considering this novel is one of the great American classics. I really, really thought that I would like this book more. My problem was with the characters and the plot. The characters themselves, were not all that likeable. I hear that that's the point, but still - I tend to need characters I like, or maybe love to hate, in order to enjoy a book. These characters - I didn't love to hate them, I just disliked them. On top of that, I had some issues with the plot. Now, there were some twists and turns in there that I wasn't expecting - those parts of the novel I enjoyed. But that ending. I just didn't feel like anything had been resolved. We basically ended up back where we started from, and where we started wasn't that great to begin with. I am, however, looking forward to seeing this on film. I think this book could be adapted really well to film - with the added bonus of being able to see scenes not involving our narrator Nick. Overall, the novel was interesting. Read it if these sorts of novels interest you, but if you're like me who felt the need to read the book before you saw the movie, then you can probably give this novel a miss.
