100 Books in a Year (catch-up post since Jan 1st)
3 / 100 books. 3% done!
1. Bag of Bones by Stephen King
This is an old favorite that I recently found in hardcover and re-read. I idolize Stephen King - here he takes a classic vengeful-ghost plot, interweaves it with the tale of a man in mourning for his wife beginning to learn how to live again, and splices it into a story of a widow and her child that would be trite in anyone else's hands. These elements blend so beautifully that this is one of Lois' favorite books. Yeah, there's some sex in it, which isn't King's forte. But the tenderness in it is lovingly done, and the scary elements really do frighten.
2. The Golden Compass, of the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
This one gets compared to C.S. Lewis too much. Y'know, I read and loved C.S. Lewis' Narnia when I was younger. I'm old enough now to catch the propaganda in the series, but in my opinion, a good story is still a good story. Now, Pullman didn't yank me into the story right away - perhaps because I read plenty of reviews of the movie, and I was kind of waiting for certain scenes to happen. But I did find it hard to put down. The end, of course, made me want to fling the book across the room. Few authors do that to me - King did it in Duma Key and in the end of the Dark Tower series. It's actually a mark of quality - a boring book gets donated. A good book that hurts me gets thrown and cursed at. And if it hurt me, well, that just means the author accomplished his purpose? He led me to love a character, and then reminded me that life is cruel. Regardless, I'm looking forward to the next in the series.
3. Cry to Heaven, by Anne Rice
Yeah, I do own all her books. Even the A.N. Roquelare ones. Wanna make something of it? The fact is, I have never encountered another author whose descriptions are so lush that I close the book feeling slightly drunk. The mind reels with the exotic places and characters Rice conjures. I read this one piecemeal when I was much younger, too impatient to let the story build in its own time. This was the first time I've read it all the way through as it was intended to be read, and I was quietly amazed. That said, I'm not sure Rice achieved all of her thematic goals of challenging the reader's concepts of manhood, justice, vengeance, innocence, and forgiveness. But it was a lovely and thought-provoking read nonetheless.