Delirium

I really wanted to love this book.  It had all the makings of a great dystopian novel:  disease, fenced-in cities, rebels, forbidden romance, and unthinkable societal restrictions.  However, I only kinda liked it.  Ever since I couldn't put down the Hunger Games books and read all three of them in one weekend, I've been longing for another tale of dreadful new world order.  I don't know why, but this topic fascinates me.  Another favorite dystopian novel is Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale.  There's something horrifying and thrilling about the idea of people in our country of The United States being restricted and patrolled and ordered to believe in a society that shouldn't exist based on the freedoms instilled in us by our fore fathers.

In Delirium, the United States government has determined that love is a disease.  It is called "Amor Deliria Nervosa" and it's symptoms include (but are not limited to) stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia and hypertension.  There has also been discovered a cure for the disease.  This involves a surgical treatment which removes the part of your brain that feels love.  (I'm a little fuzzy on this detail, since the procedure is never really explained in full.)  Each resident of the United States is required to receive this treatment on or soon after their 18th birthday.  At that point they are matched with a mate and systematically married and forced to procreate.  They then live the rest of their lives in an emotionless daze.

The main character is Lena, a shy "nobody" as she calls herself.  She isn't beautiful like her best friend Hana, and neither does she share Hana's bold personality.  She ridicules Hana for attending secret music parties and abhors the idea of even talking to someone of the opposite sex.  Besides, it's technically illegal to associate yourself with a boy if both of you aren't "cured."  Basically, Lena is just afraid of everything.  One of those skittish types.  She can't wait until her 18th birthday in three months and when she will undergo her treatment to be cured from the possibility of ever catching the love disease.

See, this sounds like an awesome story right?  I mean, if you like this kind of thing, which I do.  I was super excited about this book!  Unfortunately, it just didn't follow through for me.  The book was extremely tedious and cluttered with flowery language and unnecessary pastoral descriptions.  Seriously?  This isn't an 18th century Gothic novel.  Come on!  Let's get to the action already!

I did manage to get through the whole book despite it's dullness because I still kinda wanted to see what would happen in the end.  The storyline was just intriguing enough to hold a thread of my interest.  But to be truthfully honest, if I didn't have a seven-hour train ride on which to read it, I probably wouldn't have finished.  Sorry,  it just wasn't the suspenseful, page-turner I was wishing it would be.  I miss The Hunger Games....

The Help

I loved this book.

It takes place in the early 1960's Mississippi, and is told from the perspective of three different characters.  Two of the voices are those of black maids.  From their perspective we learn something of what it's like to be living in the highly segregated and prejudiced deep South.  Aibileen is the tender-hearted maid for the Leefolt family, and Minny is a hot-tempered maid that can't keep a job because of her sassy mouth.  The third voice is of Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan.  She is a 22 year old white girl that just graduated from college.  She longs to be a hard-hitting journalist, but is resigned to live at home and write a housekeeping column for the local newspaper.  These three women form an unlikely relationship and tell the personalized story of civil rights in Jackson, Mississippi at that time.

For all the seriousness of the theme of the this book, Kathryn Stockett managed to incorporate humor and love-ability in the characters.  We feel horror at how African Americans are treated in this book, but can appreciate the honesty and authenticity of each of the characters.  I'm a sucker for historical fiction, because it tells a side of the story I wouldn't necessarily have ever heard from a history book.  In this book, I discovered just that -- a behind the scenes glimpse of a tumultuous time in our history. I saw familiar scenes such as Martin Luther King, Jr's "I have a dream speech" being told through perspective of Aibileen and Minny.  And I related to Skeeter as she desired to write and make a difference.  I felt so connected to the characters that I found myself crying and laughing and rooting them on throughout the entire novel.

Something Borrowed

If it wasn't for my book club and this one being the May book, I would never in a million years have bought this book to read. And here is the reason why:


Direct quote from back of book...

"Rachel White is the consummate good girl. A hard-working attorney at a large Manhattan law firm and a diligent maid of honor to her charmed best friend Darcy, Rachel has always played by all the rules. Since grade school, she has watched Darcy shine, quietly accepting the sidekick role in their lopsided friendship. But that suddenly changes the night of her thirtieth birthday when Rachel finally confesses her feelings to Darcy's fiance, and is both horrified and thrilled to discover that he feels the same way. As the wedding date draws near, events spiral out of control, and Rachel knows she must make a choice between her heart and conscience. In so doing, she discovers that the lines between right and wrong can be blurry, endings aren't always neat, and sometimes you have to risk everything to be true to yourself."

You see, if I had just picked up this book in the bookstore, I would have immediately put it down after reading that description on the back cover. Actually, come to think of it, I think I did that exact thing a year ago when I saw this book and thought it might be fun to read since I was engaged at that tim and it looked like a wedding story. Um, no. Not at all.

In the first chapter, you meet the main character Rachel and her supposed best friend Darcy and Darcy's fiance Dex. It is Rachel's 30th birthday and she's still single, hates her job, resents Darcy, and apparently has a secret crush on Dex. Major gag-fest from the start. I mean, are these people in high school or in their 30's? In that same chapter, Rachel and Dex get drunk and sleep together after Darcy leaves the party. Okay, what? Slut and Man-Slut!

Thus, the rest of this book is about Rachel and Dex hiding their affair (yes, they continue to have sex behind Darcy's back while Dex and Darcy are still engaged!) and Rachel complaining and whining about how Darcy has just used her their entire lives. Rachel resents Darcy for always being the more popular, more pretty girl, and always getting everything she wants. Rachel, on the other hand has always been in Darcy's shadow and allowed Darcy to walk all over her. Therefore, at the present time, Rachel feels no guilt for sleeping with Darcy's fiance.

I couldn't relate to the book at all. First of all, if Rachel hated Darcy so much, why was she even friends with her? I couldn't understand how Rachel even put up with Darcy's bitchiness for so long. Not to mention, what did Darcy see in Rachel -- a whiny, annoying stick-in-the-mud? I don't even know how they were still friends friends after all these years. They had absolutely nothing in common once they passed the age of nine.

Second of all, the fact that Rachel had no qualms about sleeping with her best-friends fiance, kinda made me hate her and have absolutely no sympathy or respect for her. I know we are supposed to be on Rachel's side because Darcy is such a mean, horrible person, but I hated both of them and thought the entire story was ridiculous.

I know this book is supposed to just be a fun, chick-lit, easy read; so if that's what you're looking for, then by all means take a chance with this book. I personally don't "fun," frivolous tales about people cheating on their fiances. But that's just me.

Honolulu

I finished this book (on CD) last week, and I wish I could still be following the life of Jin. I have to be careful when listening to audio books like this, because they often cause emotional responses, like crying, from me while I'm driving! There was also a part which caused me to feel quite queasy and I had to turn it off while I finished my drive to work that day.

My point is, that this is a very good book and, as I have just mentioned, I can prove it by how much it affected me so emotionally. I laughed, I cried, I felt her pain so much that it made me squeamish!

The book starts in the late 1800's in a small village of Korea. The Japanese empire has taken over, and Jin's family struggles to keep strong in their Korean traditions. This means that girls have almost no worth in society. Their role is to feed the men and maintain the household. They are not permitted to attend school or even to learn to read.

Jin feels trapped and oppressed. She sneaks away to learn how to read from a family friend. Soon she finds out about Picture Brides and how this could be a way for her to escape to America and perhaps attend school. She is 15 years old when she signs a document sealing her to be the wife of Mr. No, a Korean man in Hawaii.

I won't spoil the rest of the story, but it was extremely captivating. There were several times I stayed in the car a few minutes after I had arrived at my destination, so I could listen to a little bit more of the story.

I have read Molokai, by the same author, and I loved that one as well. Alan Brennert is very thorough in his historical facts and provides beautiful descriptions of Hawaii and what life was like on the Islands during the turn of century. In the case of this book - Honolulu - he focuses on the turbulent lives of Asian immigrants and their struggles in Hawaii at this time. It's fascinating and informative. I can't believe what Jin had to overcome and her story is amazing and profound. It is a fictional novel, but I can't help but wonder that this story surely happened to some young Korean woman somewhere in Hawaii at this time.

Grade A. Five Stars!

Year of the Vampire

A few weeks ago, I finally finished the audio-book version of Eclipse. Thank God! That one was a struggle to get through. I decided that I had had enough of the Bella/Edward/Jacob love triangle drama, and that while I will eventually return to read the fourth book just to find out what happens, I need a break from THAT vampire story for now.

So I moved on to the Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels. Seriously, I am obsessed with vampires this year. It's kinda going out of style for the rest of the world, but I am in it full-fledged right now.

The first Sookie Stackhouse book is "Dead Until Dark."

Honestly, I had a really hard time getting into this one just because the writing is so cheesy and choppy, and it didn't get interesting till half-way through. It did manage to hold my attention enough to want to keep reading and to actually want to find out what happens in the rest of the books! I just have to ignore the writing style and chopped off sentence. And book two, "Living Dead in Dallas" was definitely better. I still find it hard to believe that all of a sudden, this innocent Southern girl, Sookie, is involved in all this crazy vampire and supernatural drama. It's a little far-fetched, but also incredibly entertaining to read. In conclusion, the first novel was hard to get through, but now I'm hooked and am going to have to continue on Sookie's journey with her.

The HBO series, True Blood, is supposed to be based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels, but that is a very loosed "based on."

Only some of the story line actually translates to the TV show, and Sookie is much more annoying on the show than in the book. However, it is also very captivating and it is satisfying my vampire lust at the moment. I started to watch this show when it first came out, but I must have only watched a few episodes because half of the stuff I DO NOT remember. Like how when the vampires die they turn into a disgusting pile of stringy goo and globby blood. I think that's actually why I stopped watching it, because it was so gory. What's changed now? I don't know, because it's still pretty gross. Maybe it's because I'm just actually more into the whole vampire thing right now.

I think I'm going to have to be a vampire for Halloween this year.