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Day 18 of the Obsessive Book-Lover's Month of Books
What books have you read where you didn't expect to like them, and then were surprised?
I guess my list got less inspired after day 17--and I know why. Let's try and think of a way to rewrite this, so it's more fun...
You're handed a book, and it looks dull. Serious. Somehow not your thing. But you read on and revelation struck--you liked it. Has this ever happened to you? Tell an unexpected love story...
This has. Books I read for school that I didn't expect to enjoy and then found just as advertised (despite my doubts) include: Hamlet, For Whom The Bell Tolls, The Heart of Darkness, Middlemarch, and Dune.
These books have a common thread: they are written more beautifully or intelligently than anything I had encountered of quite that kind...
For unexpected love story, though, I have to talk about Ender's Game.
never saw this cover in my life before, but it is genius, and needs to be on all the copies of this book
First, you need to understand that sci-fi gives me the creepy crawlies. It's not always a terrible thing, but there's something chilled, mechanical at the core of them [though I generalize, as far as I know it's true], and I like the organic warmth of other fiction better.
Don't think Ender's Game doesn't give me the chilly creeps. But like Dune, that sensation was an experience that pulled me into what was going on in the story.
This story is full of contrasts. It's about the most vicious, brilliant kids of the whole Earth in military school--and yet it is about humanity and the emotions of the most desirable of those children.
It's a story where 'xenocide' of a whole alien force is the entire goal, and they remain a complete icon of an enemy until the last pages--and yet it engages in the love of understanding an enemy, and brings home this emotional epoch with no punches pulled.
***
I don't remember why I ended up reading this book--I don't remember when I read it. This is odd, for me. And this is a book that I think may go under tomorrow's category--I only actually loved it in the second reading, because I tend to enjoy books better the second time through when I know where things are going and can savor the way there a bit more.
But it's probably one of the top ten books I love, because it takes you into the darkness and weakness of being a person as well as being about amazing, strong people.
I'm a sucker for paradox. And as far as I can tell, this is just a really, really good book.