The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

I really, really wanted to love this book, but I found myself just, well, liking it. It was an excellent story, fantastically well-written, and had some excellent characters. And, believe me, between starting a job and working hard to make sure I spend time with my husband relaxing when I'm home, I really appreciated the shortness of the novel. Still, I couldn't fall in love with this book, possibly due to the fact that I had to read it in small sections during breaks/lunch/downtime at home. I definitely think I may re-read this one in the future when I'm not so busy, and I'm sure that I'll enjoy it much more that way.

The novel traces the story of four Chinese immigrant women and their U.S.-citizen daughters as they work to develop a relationship with the world and with U.S. culture, working against stereotyping in their new home and harsh memories from their old one. Each woman has their own experiences that shape the interactions between the generations. Tan does a fantastic job describing the communication gap between the younger generation and the older based upon changing ideas of social expectations, and I really enjoyed reading about the experiences of different women and comparing them to my own relationship with my mother and other inter-generational relationships I've watched in others.

The writing is simple, which allowed me to focus on the story itself rather than any sort of struggle with the structure of the novel.

I really hope that you look at these other reviews to see what others thought about it!

My rating: 8.5/10

Other reviews:
A Guy's Moleskine Notebook
Book Addiction
Ramya's Bookshelf
(If you've reviewed The Joy Luck Club and I missed you, let me know, and I'll add your review to the links!)

Up next: Maybe some non-fiction or re-reading Kingsolver's The Bean Trees so I can read its sequel Pigs In Heaven. I'll figure it out sometime this evening.

Reading Hiatus?

I just wanted to stop in and explain my lack of posting over the last week or so. I started a new job, and my life is slowly adjusting to the incorporation of 8 hours of non-reading time into my days! It also doesn't help that this past week was chock full of family birthdays and other obligations that kept me from my reading. I think once my schedule gets more routine for me, I'll get back to reading often. I'm already reading during my lunch breaks!

I'm about 1/4 of the way through Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, and since I'm reading it in chunks spread relatively far apart, I admit I'm having problems getting into it/keeping track of the characters' roles, but I'm still generally enjoying it. Now just to find time to read...

Review: His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman

I finally finished reading this book, and it's one of those that I was cursing my reading limitations. I couldn't explain how much I couldn't wait for this trilogy to end--in a completely good way. The novels trace the adventures of Lyra and Will, two very special children for reasons you need to read to find out, as they work within their universe of multiple worlds to fulfill their destinies.

I absolutely fell in love with Lyra and all of the other characters (at least the ones you're supposed to fall in love with) and was rooting for them the whole way, hoping that they'd make the right decisions to help their world to reverse the various troubles caused by various government and religious authorities. That being said, as was highly publicized when the movie came out, these novels are really critical of organized religion (particularly the Catholic Church as you'll see if/when you read the trilogy) and seems to support science and personal accountability more than religious tenets, and, I'll admit, Pullman does sometimes beat you over the head with it. Still, I personally think it's possible to really enjoy this book even if you don't agree with Pullman's religious and political tenets. I also think Pullman did a really fantastic job only allowing the reader to know certain things about characters until it's really the right time for the reader to know it. Sometimes, he foreshadows and tells the story from multiple perspectives (so the reader knows a bit more than the characters about how other worlds/characters are behaving) but allows the reader to question his/her own understanding of the characters and what their role is in the story, whether good or bad.

Although His Dark Materials was technically listed as "Young Adult" at Borders, I really think that other audiences would really enjoy the trilogy. The plot moves quickly, reminding me slightly of Harry Potter (however, unlike Harry [with maybe the exception of Book 6], each individual novel in the trilogy do not stand alone and do not have their own, nicely-tied-together endings [translation: do not expect to be able to read one novel without reading them all at once]) and sucked me into the story right away. I also loved the opportunity to be able to experience "another world" much like mine but completely different in many ways. The novels also provide the ability to really consider whether the basic philosophy contained in this "fantasy" novel could actually be not so "fantastic." I really don't think I'm doing these novels justice, so please please please look at some of these other reviews to find out just how much you should read this book. :)

My rating: 9.9/10

Other reviews:
Bending Bookshelf (here and here)
Book Addiction
Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'?
Just One More Page
Books for Breakfast Drinks for Dinner
*If I missed your review (or mis-linked it), please let me know and I'll add/fix it!

Internetless!

This post will be acting as my apology for using the "Mark all as read" button on my Google Reader for the last few days. Our modem died, and with job stuff and buying a new car (!), we just got around to fixing it last night. Unfortunately, what's left of this week does not contain enough time (so busy!!!) to read through all the missed posts. But I promise, I missed you guys!

I Made a Killing!

I stumbled upon a used book sale benefiting the local historical society, and I could only think one thing: Books! For a good cause! (also known as two things, but you catch my drift). So I headed to one of the cooler places in town, the Agriculture and Industrial Museum (I'm a history major; I'm supposed to think museums are cool!) and bought an ungodly number of books for $4.50...I'm serious, 10 books for $4.50. I probably could have gotten even more to shove into the $1.00 bag, but I was meeting the hubby for lunch and barely made it there on time as it was. They had a really nice set-up of about 7-8 tables containing $1.00 bag (a whole shopping bag...I'm serious!) and tables and tables inside of $0.50 paperbacks and $1.00 hardbacks. I tried to limit myself to stuff that I (a) couldn't get at the local library/was regularly on hold at the local library (b) cost more than $0.50 to buy for a Kindle (which I'm getting for my birthday/Christmas from my dad!) and (c) was highly recommended by someone/read on another's blog/actually on my book wish list/on one of my reading lists. And here's the fruits of my labor:

The books in all their glory (surrounded by way too many other books
--which I will share later)

Just in case some of the titles are unclear, here's the list and my justification for purchase:
1. I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb -- from the list of the Best Beach Books Ever, and was also highly recommended by several bloggers and friends. $0.50

2. Pigs In Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver -- I wrote a term paper on The Bean Trees junior year of high school and loved the book (at least, until I started researching it in our measly little high school library; total pain!) and this one is the follow-up to it. I'll probably have to re-read The Bean Trees before reading this one. $0.50

3. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields -- on the Pulitzer list and 1,001 Books list. $0.50

4. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque -- on the 1,001 Books list and something I've been wanting to read since high school but never got around to buying it/picking it up at the library. $0.50

5. King Jesus by Robert Craves -- I honestly thought this was another book on my wish list, but since I can't return it, I'm gonna read it. Plus, it says controversial in the reviews, and I tend to like those. $0.50

6. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells -- My grandma has been encouraging me to read this (she really liked both the book and the movie), and with the price, I willingly gave in. Also on the Best Beach Books Ever list. $1 bag

7. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan -- This one is on a few of my reading lists (can't remember which) and was recommended by my mother-in-law (along with The Kitchen-God's Wife). Also, not available on Kindle at all. $1 bag

8. The Magus by John Fowles -- One I haven't been able to find at my library/bookstore/Kindle. On 1,001 Books list. $1 bag

9. The Green Mile by Stephen King -- I've been wanting to read this since I saw the movie...a while ago. $0.50

10. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown -- I've been promising my good little historian self that I'd never read this book...but it showed up on the Best Beach Books Ever list, and I rationalized that since it was used, I won't be adding too much to the franchise (indeed, I'm still bitter about Brown casting this book off as "good" history early on in its publishing...). Plus, I'll donate it back next year. $0.50

Now, I just have to finish His Dark Materials and figure out which one to read next (completely ignoring those super-full bookshelves with tons of unread books on them).

Linking to Other Reviews

As a new book blogger, sometimes I'm a little unsure of the "community" aspects of book blogging. It seems that others link to other reviews for their readers to compare, see other viewpoints, etc. How does one do that? I found the Google book blog search engine, which seems to be an excellent resource for getting these links. I've also requested on the main page of the search that my blog be included. Still, it seems like for some of the classics/older/really popular novels, there are just so many potential links to include in every post. How do you decide which ones to include, which ones not to (my Google Reader is not quite up to snuff so I don't think that would be a natural way to limit links right now)?

So, I'm hoping to get some feedback about this, since others seem much more informed about this stuff than I am. :) I added a link in my Zorro post, but I'm not even sure if I should have asked permission, etc. before adding even that. I'm currently slugging through a large (almost 1,000 pages!) book, so I'll have some time to get some feedback before I need to post another review. Let me know what y'all think, and I'll figure out some way to spread some love and provide other opinions about the books I read.

Rating System

I'm doing my best to try and make my rating system as simple, but specific as possible. I found that I was being really limited by the 1-5 star rating system that I had been using. I thought it took far too much for me to call a book "perfect" with a full 5/5 stars, but giving it a 4/5 would be too much like only giving it 80% credit when it probably deserved more than that.

So I'm moving towards a 10 point system, leaving myself room to use decimals as I see fit. I went back and re-labelled my other reviews with the new rating system, and I'll try this out for a while. Hopefully, I'm more satisfied with the flexibility, and I'm able to be more informative with a final rating.

Let me know what you think!