Book Reviews #1

[vivien_sivvus]

Since this week has been half term I've spent a lot of time reading books from the big stack in my room. Three were good, one was outstanding.

"Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" by Lisa See is one of the most poignant books I've ever read. I read it in one go and cried for the last hundred pages.

It's set in nineteenth century China, but looked at

Comments

[anait]

I haven't read any Stephen King, but Shawshank Redemption is a wonderful movie; even if they did leave a lot out, I didn't miss it!

I haven't read those particular war novels. I don't often read war novels or watch war movies (upsetting, bad for my mental health), but I do have one set during WWII for you that is quite good. The Caine Mutiny is An American War Novel, emphasis on the Novel part. It shows the middle-class American everyman serving on a Naval minesweeper on the Pacific Ocean in WWII. Herman Wouk definitely has a modern agenda as a novelist: to show the futility of personal heroism under the massive bureaucracy of the war machinery. Also: human nature is flawed, and readers will laugh and wince as the author shows the absurd poignancy of human conflicts and egos and the idealistic misconceptions of our naive protagonist. That kind of thing. It's very well done, and a great story, as well as a being the snail's-eye-view of a slice of WWII life that I'd never dreamed of. I've read it a bunch of times and I always enjoy it. It won a Pulitzer, if that means anything.

I've read a lot of Canadian literature that involves the World Wars, but it's always a side feature of a novel that is about other things. In the middle, the protagonist has to deal with WWII in some shape or form before moving on to the rest of the story.

Right now I'm reading the new Scott Lynch book. The best thing about it, I have to admit, is the swearing. It's spectacular and amusing. He's also good at teasing with the plot, doling in out in chunks that are not quite large enough to keep the interest going. He builds up to a cliffhanger, and then jumps to another spot in the timeline. --Imo

[anait]

doling it out in chunks that are not quite large enough to keep the interest going.
In order to keep the interest going, I meant to say. :p

[girl_called_sun]

The Scott Lynch book sounds great, I'll have to look out for that.

[anait]

There's two Lock Lamora books out now (by Scott Lynch). They're not my favourite series ever, but they're very imaginative and entertaining to read. I read the first one on a book review by mistful, and she usually has good taste in books.