Fernando Malta Malta itibaren Trudovoy, Krasnodarskiy kray, Rusya, 353343
One of the most important works of 20th Centruy American literature, To Kill a Mockingbird explores the problems of race, class, religion, family, and community in Depression era Alabama. As a must read for many high school students this book enjoys a wide audience, and also a variety of interpretations, but I find its emphasis on family and race to be the most engaging. If you enjoy stories about these topics you will surely enjoy To Kill a Mockingbird.
This was...an enjoyable read. I would probably recommend it to an 8-10 year old. That being said, the plot felt like it might have been lifted from an outline for a sixth book in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet. Which made me sad that it lacked the metaphysical depth that was characteristic of her books. Also, it almost felt like is was still more of an outline than a novel. It had a very few lovely moments that made me want to really like the characters, but they just weren't developed enough. The events in the story felt at times more like they were being listed than described. There were too many references to literary devices, and I understand that that was intentional and a part of the story, but the way it was gone about made me feel like the writer might make a better literary critic or English teacher than novelist. The biggest challenge to my enjoyment of this book though was the sentence structure. When J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis condescend to the reader, we understand that adults all thought they had to condescend to children to write for them back when they were alive, and we forgive them. When every single sentence is subject, verb, object these days, we call it what it is: tedious, sterile and disengaging.
I've been reading a few things in the New Yorker so would like to read more of his work.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is one of those books that came to me at the right time and the right place. Much like when the main characters Joe and Sammy see Citizen Kane for the first time and it changes the way they write and draw, Kavalier and Clay did the same. I got an ARC for it at the bookstore I was working at the time and I had just finished Wonder Boys and The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. To say that I was madly in love with Michael Chabon (as an author) would have put it very, very lightly. His writing, his works, forever changed the way I tell a story. Then I got Kavalier and Clay. Chabon submerges you. He doesn't just pull you under with the details of his settings. No, it's his language. Chabon loves the English language like a painter loves oils or watercolors. He uses the English language to sketch a character or to render in loving detail a place or person. He is a master artist who uses his tools to surround you in a world with people you fall in love with and places you never want to leave. Kavalier and Clay is an ode to classic comic books, to love, to family and heartbreak, and to that wonderful optimism and whimsy we had as young men and women when the world was our oyster and all we had to do was crack it open!
This book ventures away from the normal formula of the books in the series and I found it a little disappointing. Mercy and Adam have been married and are off on a quiet honeymoon out in the wilds, away from Pack problems and stress. At least that was the plan until they get involved in a fight against psycho otter shifters and a sea monster that is killing anyone who ventures into the water. The idea of this plot is fine but I found the execution of it lacking in places. Surely Adam knew better than to accept help from Uncle Mike when planning his honeymoon? Uncle Mike never does favours for people without an ulterior motive, so it's no surprise that he puts Mercy and Adam into the middle of an evil shifter investigation! It didn't feel the same not having the Pack, Stefan and the others around for the whole story. While Adam and Mercy are strong enough characters to carry a book, the plot they were in was too weak for it to work. The new shifter characters that they are working with are not very interesting compared to those we know and love back home, and I struggled to show much interest in them. The story delves into a lot of Native American legends in the area, and deals with Mercy's own heritage. While I found it interesting, I felt there were was too much of it, which slowed down the pacing of the book more than I would like. There seems to be a lot of talk and not a great deal of action for most of the book. When we got to the big fight scene with the sea monster, I was a bit disappointed in it. The odds were stacked so heavily against Mercy and her friends that you never really believed that they could win, so when it is all over, I was left less than satisfied with it. It was ok but it wasn't the great action scene that we have come to expect in the series. So what was good about the book? I liked the start, where the wedding is stressing Mercy out and their friends have big plans for their send off. I liked seeing Adam away from the Pack, where you could see him as a man and not just Pack Leader. It was nice to see how happy he and Mercy are in their relationship. Some of the Native American stuff was interesting and it does fill in the blanks about Mercy's heritage. The book does suffer from a lack of action and a lack of humour and emotion that we usually get from Mercy's friends and Adam's Pack. It is certainly the weakest book in the series.