Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Books: March, April

I can't believe I haven't put my March books up yet and it's already May! Two things: I don't really remember the order I read these books in so I just listed them randomly, and I think it's too much to put all the books for a whole year in one post so I think I'll do them two months to a post from now on. Okay? Here they are:

Leadership and Self Deception by The Arbinger Institute
This book was so awesome! It's main message is that even though you are the leader in some situations you still need to think of people as humans and not as objects. Once you deny their humanity you have a tendency to act awfully and yet feel justified. I HIGHLY recommend it to EVERYONE.

Dirty Little Secrets by C.J. Omololu
This is a young adult novel and the dirty secret the title refers to is hoarding. I personally found it interesting because it showed how hoarding is a real mental issue for people. I know people who are hoarders so it was captivating for me. The main character of the story is a 16 year old girl and her mom's a hoarder. So this means there is so much stuff in their house there are only paths through it all! She can't function as a normal teenager because she can't have friends over or even let them come to the front door. The story kinda take a weird turn when the mom dies in the house but the daughter won't call the cops because she's afraid the fact that their house is wall-to-wall stuff will make the news. Even though the ending, which I'm not to to reveal, is weird I still really liked this book.

The Ladies Auxiliary by Tova Mirvis
We read this one for our RS book club. I liked it, didn't love it. It's about a orthodox Jewish community and how they can be elitist and not welcome newcomers. Their attitude was all very sad to me. The main character was annoying to me too. I felt like she had made some mistakes in the past but didn't learn from them, and in an attempt to be "open" about her past inspires the teenage girls to rebel. And the women were such gossipers!! I couldn't handle that at all. Overall, the most enjoyable thing for me was the glimpse into the Jewish rituals. I actually really liked that part, they are so interesting!

River Secrets by Shannon Hale
This one was better than Enna Burning but not as good as The Goose Girl. Razo is an endearing character and it's good to be able to see the relationships started in the first two and how they've progressed.

Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
This trilogy was recommended to me by Jeff's brother Trent. I must say I LOVED the first one, Mistborn, but the other two weren't nearly as satisfying. Vin is an awesome character though. Love her. She's what they call mistborn and can burn metals (like bronze, pewter, etc) internally and have special "powers". The most amazing plot twist was when Vin's love interest, Elend, has a half-brother, Zane, who's also mistborn and tries to persuade her to run away with him. That was totally unexpected and nerve wracking. Zane is not stable! Okay, so overall I liked the trilogy but I did find the story, and fictional world it takes place in, very complex and sometimes distracting. And Brandon Sanderson repeats himself over and over. I like to read book series quickly and so I think that pointed out the repeats. Each book was 500+ pages so I think he intentionally repeated facts to "refresh" our memories but since I'd just read it it really gave away parts of the ending. And I recently heard they're making this into a movie too so that's exciting!

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
This book was gross. It had so many love scenes that were so crudely written I cringed. The idea of the story was great but the author's writing was awful! The two main characters are Clare and Henry. Henry's a time traveler. He can't control anything about it: when he leaves, where he goes or how long he's gone. He meets Clare in real-time when he's 28 and she's 20 but she's known him for a long time. In the future he will travel back to her childhood, 152 times over the course of 12 years. This is the part of the book that was awesome. In a world where time travel exists then this would be possible and the question would arise, what came first? Does she love him because she's known him all her life or because he's right for her? It's an interesting concept! If it wasn't for the horrible writing I think I would have really loved this book.

3 comments:

Katie said...

Looking forward to reading some of these! I had heard something similar from a friend about Time Traveler's Wife (crude scenes). That's too bad. I actually enjoyed the movie more than I expected to, so it's too bad the book is that way.

Have you read Forestborn yet? It was my second favorite in the series (after Goose Girl).

Autumn said...

I haven't read Forestborn yet. I requested it from the library MONTHS ago and I'm still 8th on the list! I think they must have like ONE copy haha.

Ruth said...

Leadership and Self-Deception: Troy had to read it in college and he called it Leadership and Self-Deficcation (sp). But he didn't really read it so who cares what he says. I really liked it. There's actually a longer, religious, more philosophical version called "Bonds that Make Us Free." Very good. Actually, I think I'll make it next on my to-read list. Thanks for the reminder!