January Books

I've decided to give a monthly wrap-up on all of the books I complete. I'm hoping to keep this up, so I will be able to write a decent end of the year review on my favorites of 2008.

I was able to complete 6 books in the month of January. I enjoyed reading them all.

My first completion was the final chapter in the Gemma Doyle Trilogy, The Sweet Far Thing. Each book in the trilogy is full of the supernatural and each has managed to give me the creeps (I still come back crawling for more though.) If you like Victorian English boarding school novels, then you should definitely give this trilogy a try. The author Libba Bray is American, but she completed extensive research before writing the books. The books are also full of things that teens love, like forbidden love, religious fanaticism, good vs. evil, self-realization, fantasy, and even some LGBT examples. This book in particular is her longest and does NOT disappoint, with the horrors that are the Realms and the Winterlands. This trilogy is one of my favorite current YA reads and has been since she first published A Great and Terrible Beauty.

I'm not too sure how I escaped my girlhood without reading Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. I remember watching the Winona Rider movie version in my early teens and loved it (Angela of My So Called Life dies! What???) Event though I enjoyed the movie, I never picked up the book on my own, and it was never incorporated into my elementary or middle grades educations. Now, about 12 or so years later, I've remedied this rite of passage. A lot of people aren't too fond of the book, but I really enjoyed reading it. I think all girls find they can identify with one of the March sisters. I feel like a combination between Meg, Jo, and Amy myself. Like most people, I cried when Beth died, and was really happy when Laurie realized he loved Amy and vice versa. Overall it is a great girl book and I'm happy that I've finally read it.

My third January completion was the recent National Book Award winner, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. I was first introduced to Sherman Alexie in college when I had to watch the movie Smoke Signals in a surprisingly interesting multi-cultural comparative literature class (the only non-French literature class I took in college.) Alexie is an extremely engaging writer (on screen and on paper) and he's really done a superb job on his debut YA novel/memoir. The story is about a nerdy 14 year old reservation Indian Arnold Spirit who decides to go to a white high school in a nearby town. It documents all of the new people he meets (popular and nerdy,) while he experiences prejudices on the reservation. I was completely moved by the story and all of the pain (physical and emotional) he endures, while simultaneously laughing because he adds so much humor to the pages. Any book that mentions (from a nerdy character of course) getting metaphorical boners from good books is worth a try! Sherman Alexie is very deserving of the National Book Award for this book in 2007.

I was very excited to read my first E. M. Forster novel, A Room With a View. Out of all of the cities in Italy, Florence has always been least desirable (well, in my mind, as I have yet to visit) to me until now. My favorite scenes were definitely when the women catch the three men at the pond, and of course the first kiss scene between George and Lucy in Italy. The elopement is terribly romantic and I know I'm not the only one who is thankful when Cecil is out of the picture. Edwardian England was an interesting era, as there were many different viewpoints, particularly from women, emerging and Forster does a great job conveying this. I've heard good things about the movie as well, so I'll have to give it a try. It won something like 3 Oscars and Helena Bonham Carter plays Lucy (a far cry from Bellatrix!) so it should be an interesting viewing.

If I begin the month with the supernatural, then I must end the month with the supernatural...

Jane-Emily is a classic ghost story published circa 30 years ago and written by Patricia Clapp. A young woman and her orphaned niece, Jane, are invited to Jane's paternal grandmother's house for the summer. The more Jane and her aunt learn about Emily, another of Jane's aunts, who was insufferable to the point of being evil and who died at a young age, the more the two begin to think that the house and people of the house are being haunted. The story is a quick, but powerful read--enough to freak me out about reflection balls, doll houses, and children who are way too spoiled. I made my mom read this book and she loved it as well. I think I'm a big fan of ghost stories, but feel that they should only be read during fall and winter to get the most out of them. There's something about the cold weather and shorter days that makes scary books even more frightening.

My last completed book of January was The Woman in Black by Susan Hill. This is another, and more frightening, ghost story written in 1983. The main character, Arthur Kipps, is a solicitor who is sent to a small town on the eastern coast of England to settle the affairs of the recluse and now deceased Alice Drablow, who lived in Eel March House on, you guessed it, the marshes. Kipps decides to stay at Eel March House despite a series of conversations with locals who seem to avoid the subject of Drablow and the house with a shudder, and a couple of viewings of of a mysterious woman dressed in black with a decayed, wasted face. What occurs while he stays at the house is very frightening. There is something very creepy about quicksand (thinking back to Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone.) What a horribly scary situation it would be to get stuck and slowly or quickly sink to your death. The book is sad, but a very good read, mainly because of the fright factor. My mom also read this (I've been feeding her the supernatural lately for some reason) and enjoyed it as well. I've seen mixed reviews of this story, so I'm glad I ended up liking it.

February promises some good reads as well. I've already finished another fantastic Marcus Zusak book, I'm reading the humorous Cold Comfort Farm right now, and will soon get into the rest of the Austen novels. I'm very excited about being able to critique the Masterpiece Theatre versions that were debuted in January.