I Kill the Mockingbird

This is a cute juvenile fiction book and is a great read for book lovers and kids. My 4th grader read it and liked it. I wouldn't call it great literature or a great book, but it's cute. And it has potential to inspire kids to read actually great books. It's about a small group a friends who love the book To Kill a Mockingbird and start a conspiracy to try to get other kids in their town to read it for their summer reading. Their campaign gets more out of control than they anticipated. And their plan ends up working. Overall, a good book for middle elementary aged kids. And I will say that I took some notes on other good books mentioned in this one for my kids to read.

The Shoemaker's Wife

This is your classic immigrant novel about an Italian teenage boy who was forced to immigrate to America and your atypical Italian teenage girl who immigrated with her father in hopes of making money for their family back home in the Italian Alps. The beginning of this book had such potential and I was falling in love with the characters and their endearing personalities. Then they came to America and the book went downhill. If Trigiani had just stuck to the characters of Enzo and Ciro, the book would have been great; the characters development in the beginning was excellent.

But then the author moved the novel into less about the actual story and into more about the culture of Italians. Interesting, to be sure. There were just too many details in the things that don't even matter. All that extraneous detail, along with the length of the novel made it tedious at times. Many times. So much so that by the end of the book, I didn't actually care what happened to anyone, I just wanted the book to end.

I wanted to badly to give this book a raving review. And at points, I could have. Unfortunately, those parts that held the most potential were rushed and forced and written in such a way as to not make you really care.

Girls in White Dresses

This is a book about...uh...I'm not actually sure what the plot was. If I had to describe it, I'd say a dumb book about annoying women and their dysfunctional relationships with men. I usually love dysfunction, but this is dumb dysfunction. Perhaps this is the biggest fluff novel I might have ever read. Don't waste your time people. Even if you need a fluff novel. This one is not worth the time.

One More Thing, The Reason I Jump, By Nightfall, Notes From the Internet Apocalypse

One more thing by Bj Novak. Really really dumb stories. And not even in a funny way. Gave up 3 stories in. Don't waste your time on this one.

The Reason I Jump. This is a book written by a 13 year old boy with Autism. I found it to be self-righteous, unbelievable, and simple. The format was question-answer with a few short stories thrown in. It got old but I felt like I needed to finish it in case that ah ha moment come; I even got close. However, I ended up picking up a good book and by the time I had the opportunity to come back to this one, I wasn't interested. I hate to sound harsh, but I think this kid should have had more help in writing the book or waited until he was a bit older.

By Nightfall. I loved one of Cunningham's other books, The Hours so one day when I was perusing the library looking for a book to read, I migrated to Cunningham to see what else he's written. Oh dear. I couldn't even finish this book. Fifty percent of it I don't understand. No, 75%. The actual story line is somewhat interesting. However, the pretentious commentary is not.

Notes From the Internet Apocalypse. Stupid. Poorly written. Dumb. I usually make myself read to page 50 of a book before stopping. I got to 26. And that was about 25 pages longer than I wanted.

The Boy in the Suitcase

This is a very quick read. Be prepared to stay up too late and neglect responsibilities to finish reading this book.

Mikal is a 3-year-old boy who gets kidnapped. A Red Cross nurse, Nina finds him in a locker and yes, he is in a suitcase. Nina has an obsession with helping people, so she tries to find out where the boy belongs.

It's a Nordic crime fiction book and that's about all I can say about the book. It does get a little confusing as you read it since there are multiple parties involved throughout, but it's easy enough to follow.

My only criticism is that I think some of the book gets lost in translation. My guess is that if you are from Denmark or Lithuania or know a lot about their cultures, you will understand and get this book better than the American lens through which I read it.

I've heard that this may be the first of a series, which would then make this book even better. To see the why behind what makes people the way they are would certainly make Nina a more interesting character. Were it this book alone, Nina would be a little maddening. But if the authors put more background on her story, her characters and this book would come more to life.

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.