Oh Hi. Here Are May and June Books!

So, I did a really poor job on my One Book A Week New Year’s Resoution in May, so I didn’t do my typical book reading summaries (plus, I was…..am…. being pretty lazy about the whole blog writing thing in general).  But man, I really killed it in May.  I read so many books!  I don’t even know if I can remember them!!  Luckily for me (and of course for you), I kept track of them with my handy GoodReads.

Now, also in the month of May, I gave up Diet Cokes, thanks to the persuasiveness of one Brittany Dansereau (I am easily persuaded….all you have to do is mention possible weight loss).  Therefore, I don’t know that a diet coke rating is applicable.  I mean, I still understand that diet cokes are the most delicious of the drinks to ever be created, however, I am somewhat like an alcoholic or smoker when it comes to them.  I don’t know that I will ever be able to drink diet coke in moderation.  One sip leads to an entire gallon being gulped down in the span of one day (you might think I am exaggerating, but I am not…I recently estimated the amount of diet coke I was drinking to be one gallon per day….which is why I had to quit cold turkey).  So, I guess I will just have to replace the diet coke rating with s’mores, the most delicious of all the foods.  Same rating scale – 1 to 5 s’mores, with 5 obviously being the best (because the more s’mores the better….wow, that was not on purpose).

Now, due to the quantity of literature I consumed over the past month, my summaries are going to be shorter than normal…especially for the books I did not enjoy.  So, I guess I am just going to start, considering that this has the potential to be the longest blog entry ever created:

The Egyptologist – Arthur Phillips
I have to vote this my least favorite book of the last two months.  I really just did not like the main character.  I mean, I guess the epistle style was an interesting way to develop a distinctly unlikable character, but because you were only ever reading about the character rather than diving into the character’s thoughts and motivations, it was never really clear why certain things were happening.  The only thing that I distinctly remember about the novel was that the main character was stone cold crazy. I give it 2 s’mores.

Eating the Dinosaur – Chuck Klosterman
Ah, Chuck Klosterman, you are always a fall back for an entertaining and quick read.  This is the latest of Klosterman’s books, all of which have been read by me.  While, his style is beginning to wear on me (I mean really, sometimes I just want him to give it a break!), a good Chuck Klosterman essay on the greatness of ABBA or the unrealized brilliance of Nirvana’s In Utero makes you feel simultaneously smarter than everyone around you but dumb for not having those thoughts in the first place.  PLUS!  I learned about the history of football in one of the essays from this book, which I then used to dazzle all my sports obsessed coworkers. Score – 3.5 s’mores.

Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
This is my second Murakami novel, and I found myself thoroughly confused by both.  The author loves to mix the crazy metaphysical with the everyday mundane, which is fun, I guess, but also frustrating when you are trying to, you know, follow a freaking plot. This book is awarded 3 s’mores.

The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1) – Jasper Fforde
Eh.  If I am following the sorority rules of one positive, one negative, one positive critiquing, I will say this:

(1)  Interesting use of the English language.
(2)  Eh.
(3)  Creative.

These aren’t ringing endorsements.  It gets 2 s’mores.

The Irresistible Henry House – Lisa Grunwald
I can see by the next four novels, that we are entering the “oh the middle class have it so rough” genre of my May reading.  This book was probably in the top two of all the novels on this list.  The novel follows the main character (guess what his name is!  Henry House!  Surprising!), who began life as a practice baby in the home economics department of a women’s college.  Growing up with a different mom every week had predictably negative effects on the poor kid’s psyche, and this novel follows him, Forrest Gump style, through his childhood and early adulthood.  It’s good.  Really good. I suggest it.  4.5 s’mores!

The Imperfectionists:  A Novel – Tom Rachman
This book will make you sad.  But, you know, not in a terrible, oh my gosh why is life this rough! sort of way, but more in a, oh my gosh life is so mundane and unpredictable! sort of way.  This secondary tragedy speaks to my specific brand of normalcy and middle class-ness, therefore this novel, detailing the end of a Rome newspaper in a funny yet poignant manner, was made all the more depressing by its approximation of a normal life marred by the tragic nature of just plain living. 4 s’mores.

The Ask:  A Novel – Sam Lipsyte
This author loves twisting sentences into all sorts of interesting and exacting descriptions.  The novel itself is depressing, and not like The Imperfectionists.  Oh no.  This novel is depressing like watching someone self destruct and make terrible decision after decision would be depressing.  But the twisting use of the English language is exciting. I give it 3.5 s’mores for the twisty English but acerbic tone.

Motherless Brooklyn – Jonathan Lethem
This is the other top novel of the month.  I read another Lethem novel earlier this year, and while I did not really enjoy Chronic City nearly as much as this novel, they both share a certain love of words.  By making the main character of Motherless Brooklyn suffer from Tourettes, Lethem seems to revel in the wordplay of rhyming and reversing and entering “EAT ME!” (the main character’s tic of choice) into the dialogue at various points.  It kinda reminded me of my husband, who loves messing around with words way more than normal people.  This book was fast paced while still maintaining the integrity of the main characters and the description. It gets 4.5 s’mores.

A Changed Man – Francine Prose
This novel is written by many points of view, and therefore allows you to fully understand the motivation of just about every character in the book.  Its an interesting juxtaposition to take the action from exactly where it ended in one chapter to the next chapter with a different character’s point of view.  I enjoyed this book and found it a relatively quick read. It gets 4 s’mores.

If interested, here is my book list from:
January
February
March