Before I Fall

Overall opinion:  This book sucked me in and it was a very enjoyable read.  It was a guilty pleasure type book and I couldn't put it down.  It was like a mix of the movies Groundhog Day and Mean Girls.  Very interesting.  However -- all the build-up led to a really disappointing ending.  Not what I was expecting to happen at all, and it totally failed the entire book. 

The premise:  Samantha Kingston is a high school senior and is part of the most popular group of girls in the school.  Her BFF's are Lindsey, Ally, and Elody; and the four of them are definitely "mean girls."  They call underclassmen sluts and whores, and even pick on others in their own class by spreading nasty rumors or dumping beer on their heads.  They smoke, drink, wear inappropriate clothing, flirt with teachers, and of course have sex because apparently this is all the most normal behavior for teenagers nowadays.  I think that's why I was so drawn into the story -- because it was just all so shocking. 

The story starts with Samantha's alarm clock going off on Friday, February 12.  The entire day is described in minute detail, ending with a terrible car crash.  This is when we are to assume that Samantha dies.  However, she wakes up the next morning and realizes it's Friday, February 12... AGAIN. 

This happens for seven days.  As Samantha relives the same day over and over again, she slowly begins to realize how shallow her life is and begins to change.  She spends more time with her family and starts to find love with a boy that she normally brushed off as a "freak." 

It's an intriguing story and I believe there are some good lessons to be learned by young adult audience for which this book is aimed. 

A Moveable Feast

I should have read this book before I read The Paris Wife last year, but in a way, reading that one first helped me understand this one a little bit better I think.

This is a beautiful book about Hemingway's life in 1920's Paris.  Right there are three of my favorite things ever:  Hemingway, Paris, and the 1920's.  I loved this book.  I do admit it took me a bit longer to read it because I kept getting distracted by new, exciting book recommendations from my Entertainment Weekly magazine, but finally I finished it today while sipping cafe au lait (almond lait by the way) outside on the back patio.  I could just imagine I was at an outdoor cafe on the Notre Dame des Champs with "Hem" and Scott (Fitzgerald) watching the Parisians go by and pining away about writing stories.

A Moveable Feast is the posthumously published memoir of Ernest Hemingway.  Although most of his books could be considered to be loosely based on his life, this is truly the autobiographical account of an important part of Hemingway's life.

I have to include some of my favorite passages from this book:

"Now that the bad weather had come, we could leave Paris for a while for a place where this rain would be snow coming down through the pines and covering the road and the high hillsides and at an altitude where we would hear it creak as we walked home at night. (7)"

"All you have to do is write one true sentence.  Write the truest sentence that you know. (12)"


"But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight. (58)"

"'I've been wondering about Dostoyevsky,' I said.  'How can a man write so badly, so unbelievably badly, and make you feel so deeply?' (137)"

"When I saw my wife again standing by the tracks as the train came in by the piled logs at the station, I wished I had died before I loved anyone but her.  She was smiling, the sun on her lovely face tanned by the snow and sun, beautifully built, her hair red gold in the sun, grown out all winter awkwardly and beautifully, and Mr. Bumby standing with her, blond and chunky with winter cheeks looking like a good Vorarlberg boy. (210)"

I almost cried when I read that last passage.  It was at the very end of the book when his marriage was about to fall apart because he was having an affair.  That was the part of The Paris Wife that made me cry too.  Hemingway was such a passionate writer and it shows in his work, but his life was so messed up!  That's how it always is with the brilliant artists isn't it?

Room

This story is told completely from the point of view of a five year-old book named Jack.  I listened to the audio version and the person reading Jack's voice actually sounded like a little boy, which I believe enhanced the story greatly.

Jack and his mother live in an 11 x 11 foot room.  The room is all Jack has ever known.  His mother was kidnapped and placed as a prisoner in this room two years before he was born, and he has never stepped foot outside in all his five years of life.  Every other day or so, Jack describes a man he calls "Old Nick" coming into the locked steel door.  He hides in the wardrobe while Old Nick grunt and the bed where his mother sleeps creaks. 

This was one of those audio books I couldn't stop listening to even when the car stopped and I had reached my destination.  I love these kinds of books.  It's a very interesting story; very moving and chilling.