January Book Reviews

In the survey about my blog I did recently, you guys responded that you wanted to hear more about the books I read. Cool! I love reading and I’ve had a lot of time to do it lately. Here are my reviews on all the books I read in January 2012. I’m definitely kicking ass on my “read two books a month” New Year’s resolution!

Bossypants by Tina Fey: This book was awesome! The only thing I didn’t like about it was that it felt too short. When I asked for this book for Christmas, I didn’t even really know what it was about. I just wanted it because I love Tina Fey (who doesn’t?) and everybody says it’s awesome. And it was. She was hilarious. If you like Chelsey Handler’s books, then you’ll like Bossypants. The books are really similar except that Tina’s had a lot less nudity and drinking!

The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory: I love Philippa Gregory’s books. I first started getting into her after reading The Other Boleyn Girl (one of my all-time favorite books), and she continues to put out book after book of quality historical fiction. All of her books are about the heroines that lived in the Tudor era of British history, based on real people. I loved that this book included some of the story of Joan of Ark and that it was told from the perspective of the lady-in-waiting.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins: (a little bit of spoiling ahead) I read the two first books of the Hunger Games trilogy in December and enjoyed the series immensely. Although I like the Twilight books and a lot of people compare the two series, they are really nothing alike. I found that I liked Mockingjay the second-best in the trilogy, after Hunger Games coming in first. To me, it seemed that the ending of the series was a little rushed. The author didn’t let us really take witness of the moment when Katniss chooses between Dale and Peeta, so I felt like that part of the story was rushed. I really liked the relationship part of the whole story and the way the author chose to end it made it feel like it wasn’t all that important. There were seriously only a few pages between when Katniss was alone and then when she had children. It was just weird. Overall, though, I loved the series and would highly recommend it to any young adult or adult reader.

Room by Emma Donoghue: This book was really interesting. Through the perspective of a five-year old boy, the novel tells a story about a mother who’s been kidnapped and forced to have sex with her kidnapper every night. Eventually she produces a son who often witnesses the raping of his mother, and eventually is the catalyst of their escape. The second half of the book tells the story of their recovery from their eight-year ordeal in which the boy has never seen outside the shack that they lived in and doesn’t understand the real world. I thought that this book was ground-breaking in that it was told from the perspective of a very young child and that it focused on how the child reacted to the world we consider normal after having known only his mother and one room his entire five years of life. While I didn’t love this book, it was still really good and definitely worth reading.

A Time to Kill by John Grisham: I picked this book up at Salvation Army last month for only a few bucks. After flipping through it, I realized it’s actually the first book he ever wrote. Usually author’s first books are really good, if not their best, so I was excited about reading this one since I’ve read some of his books before, but I ended up being kind of disappointed with the book. It was really long and the ending seemed kind of forced. Parts of it dragged, it wasn’t very suspenseful, and I had to force myself to finish it, if only because I’d already read so much. I definitely wouldn’t recommend it to you guys.

Under the Dome by Steven King: My initial reactions after reading the first 100 pages is that the character Junior is seriously crazy and there are way too many names for me to have to remember. I was hoping it would pick up pace quickly, but I’m still kind of bored reading it. I’m going to give it another hundred pages to make my final decision on it. (Update: I’m almost done! It’s super long so I still have about 100 pages left. I definitely liked it a lot more after I gave it a better chance. A good read, but takes a few hundred pages to really get into.)

P.S. It’s ironic that I’m posting from my Introduction to the Novel class, ha ha!