No Country for Old Men

I really liked The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Interesting characters, story, and writing. I decided to read No Country For Old Men. Yikes. This is one of the most violent books I've read in a while. And not redemptive.

It's about a man who comes across a drug deal gone wrong and he ends up taking the money that's left behind. From then on, he's a hunted man by multiple parties to try to recover the money.

On the surface, this book is just about a drug deal. But, going deeper it's about sin, temptation, sociopaths, and making right choices.

I'm not sure what I think about this book. It's not as good as The Road. It's not a book I'd recommend. It's not one I'd go see the movie adaptation. It was fine. A quick read, but I was left disappointed in the end, which is obviously where McCarthy wants you to be. It's just not a comfortable place to be given the topic of the book.

I left this book feeling hopeless and angry, which I don't like to feel. So, I can't give this one a great review.

The Underground Girls of Kabul

I usually stick to fiction novels because I don't have the emotional energy to invest in thinking about an actual, real, life issue. However, I heard an interview with the author of this book and decided to give it a go since it sounded interesting and the middle east is a mess and I wanted to learn more about the culture.

The Underground Girls of Kabul is a book about a reporter who travels to Afghanistan because she heard of an undocumented anthropological issue and wanted to pursue the truth of it: families who dress their daughters as sons. 

Afghanistan is one of the worst places to be a woman. Under the Taliban rule, women couldn't leave their homes unescorted by a man...even it that is a young child. They couldn't show any part of their skin. They couldn't work. They were forcibly married at unthinkably young ages. Ages where girls should still be playing with dolls, not have their own real life one to take care of.

I had always thought that Afghanistan is so oppressive to women because of the Taliban. But this book has shown me that the oppression goes much deeper than whom is ruling the country. It's the culture and the Afghans themselves who are so oppressive.

This is a fantastic book full of tragedy and hope. It's an interesting commentary on the lives of women in Afghanistan. It's also opens a discussion on gender roles, a patriarchal society, and what does it in fact mean to be a woman.

The Road

This is a Pulitzer Prize winner from 2006 and I'm not sure why I've just now heard of this book. Especially since it was adapted to film (starring Viggo Mortensen no less). This book is due to become a classic for sure.

It's about a post-apocalyptic journey of a father and his son across a burned America. Vegetation and animals were all destroyed. There are few people left and many of those have resorted to murder and cannibalism to stay alive. 

While the plot is poignant, compelling and interesting, it's the delivery that is the real star of this novel. The prose is absolutely beautiful.

There is almost no character development which is genius since there is very little human development and life on earth has all but stopped. There's no reason to develop characters and yet you are left with strong feelings one way or the other for just about every person you come in contact with. 

It's written in 3rd person most of the book and the one of my favorite things is that the main characters are never named. There is only 1 name throughout the whole book and that's a fake name that's given.  Never hearing their names shows a depth of literature and thoughtfulness of McCarthy.

The book shows the depth of depravity and the height of love and hope. It evokes raw emotions never fully expressed due to the strength of the Father trying to protect the son. It will be a book that makes you look up other reviews and see how others translated meaning and one that will stick with you. 

Read it. But be forewarned that it's dark and tragic. It's not a happy beach novel. But one well worth reading.

The Children Act

I heard an interview with Ian McEwan on NPR and the book sounded absolutely fascinating. However, when I read it, it was less about the morality of difficult family law cases and more about the judge and her declining marriage.

Judge Finona Maye is a 60-year-old woman who leads the family courts in the UK. She is highly renown in her profession, but her marriage is falling apart. Her husband has come to her and asked for her blessing for him to have a quick affair with a younger woman. She says no and the book is the aftermath of her answer, with some of her difficult cases thrown in. I felt like the personal drama was maddening and boring. The judicial cases were the interesting parts of the book.

The book is sweet in moments, tense at times, and sometimes down right crazy. There is redemption in an interesting way all throughout the book. I'd probably rate it a 3.5 out of 5. That being said, it's almost the perfect book for a book club or to talk about with friends because of the morality of difficult cases throughout and to some extent the drama of her marriage.

Going Public

Going Public is a non-fiction Christian book about putting your child in the very secular and anti-God public schools. I found some of the points to be interesting, but nothing life changing. There were basically examples from his experiences and how they dealt with them, which is good to include in a book, but not be the main point of the book. I might recommend this book to someone who has never thought about the issue and wants a starting point, but not for those who have given any amount of thought to the issue already.

Fallen Women

Fallen Women is a fantastic fiction novel about women's view of prostitution in the early west. It is extremely well written. I don't think it can actually be called historical fiction, although it's halfway there.

I don't have time to write a brief summary, so here's what Amazon.com says:

"It is the spring of 1885 and wealthy New York socialite Beret Osmundsen has been estranged from her younger sister, Lillie, for a year when she gets word from her aunt and uncle that Lillie has died suddenly in Denver.  What they do not tell her is that Lillie had become a prostitute and was brutally murdered in the brothel where she had been living.  When Beret discovers the sordid truth of Lillie’s death, she makes her way to Denver, determined to find her sister’s murderer.  Detective Mick McCauley may not want her involved in the case, but Beret is determined, and the investigation soon takes her from the dangerous, seedy underworld of Denver’s tenderloin to the highest levels of Denver society.  Along the way, Beret not only learns the depths of Lillie’s depravity, but also exposes the sinister side of Gilded Age ambition in the process."

Basically, the novel is a fast paced, thriller of sorts that gives a different perspective of prostitution and what life might have been like for desolate women (either financially or socially) in the late 19th century. I highly recommend this book to those who like prior eras, women's studies, or psychological thrillers.

Ape House

Ape House was an interesting book. It's a quick read, but just okay characters. While most are a little flat and stereotyped, some are more complex and interesting.

The plot itself was fine. A little silly and not very believable. Isabel is a woman who helps run a linguistic project for Bonobos, a primate that is similar to a Chimp. John is a reporter who interviews her for a newspaper piece. Their lives become more entwined than they both thought they would ever be.

I felt like the novel was trying too hard to be an expose' with a thrilling plot. Gruen lost the magic of what could have been in this book. It had potential, but turned out to be just an okay book. The best I can say about it is that it is well researched. The plot, characters, and writing itself fell short.