Summer Readings, cont'd: Pickard, Zusak
A couple of years ago, when I tried starting up a summer book club for the first time, I signed up for Random House's Reader's Circle, for a free pamphlet with book club recommendations. I got the pamphlet and thought it done with.
A few months later, though, I was surprised to find not a pamphlet, but a book in the mail. It was an advanced copy of The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr. (I haven't read that one yet.) Then, sometime last year, the same thing happened with Snow Flower & the Secret Fan (Lisa See). Seeing as I'm a big one to judge books by their covers, and this one was pretty aesthetically appealing, I actually read it.
I loved it so much that I was really excited about the next, and most recent, free book I received in the mail. I guess I figured that if The Virgin of Small Plains, by Nancy Pickard, was being sent to me like Snow Flower had, it was bound to be just as good. (It only occurred to me later that this probably has very little to do with it compared with the publishers' financial backing.)
It was a disappointment. I won't pretend it was boring -- it read extremely quickly and it was gripping, so I read it all in one night. The story is definitely interesting enough: it's about a 30-something, Abby Reynolds, born and brought up in Small Plains, Kansas -- the ultimate Midwest small town. She's still pretty distraught about her high school boyfriend (turns out to be the love of her life -- who would've thought?) who abandoned her years ago, the day after a teenage girl's dead body was found in a field. Mitch comes back in a shocking turn of events, and a lot of plot twists later, they solve the mystery.
Pickard did a pretty good job foolin' me -- I didn't figure out the culprit until close to the end. The thing is, though, she can't write. I spent a lot of that night wincing, and had I a theoretical desk, I would done a lot of theoretical headdesking. It reads like something written to entertain a middle schooler -- and I'm not talking about YA classics, either. C+.
I guess I was just expecting so much more out of the book. You can see multiple perspectives in the book, but it's not spread out evenly at all; I thought I'd really like reading something set in a small town, but it wasn't woven particularly effectively into the story.
The Book Thief actually was written under the Young Adult category, but Zusak did a much better job with it, in my opinion. It was first suggested a long time ago in a survey I took on LiveJournal, by Merin Bears, but I completely forgot about it until it was again (very enthusiastically) recommended by my friend Drew from school.
It receives an A. It was fantastic. The writing style took a little getting used to; it was pretty different from the other things I'd been reading, and I certainly haven't read anything written from the point of view of Death before. It's full of little footnote-like notes, except they're embedded right into the text of the story.
I also hadn't read anything about such a young person in a while either. Liesel, the main character, is only 11 when the novel starts, and it only takes place within the next few years -- again, at the heart of the Second World War, this time in Himmel, a suburb of Munich. Her story's about book-stealing, but a lot more too.
I'm growing pretty fond of books set during of World War II. I want to read Catch-22 before the end of summer, and maybe look into some more...
A few months later, though, I was surprised to find not a pamphlet, but a book in the mail. It was an advanced copy of The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr. (I haven't read that one yet.) Then, sometime last year, the same thing happened with Snow Flower & the Secret Fan (Lisa See). Seeing as I'm a big one to judge books by their covers, and this one was pretty aesthetically appealing, I actually read it.
I loved it so much that I was really excited about the next, and most recent, free book I received in the mail. I guess I figured that if The Virgin of Small Plains, by Nancy Pickard, was being sent to me like Snow Flower had, it was bound to be just as good. (It only occurred to me later that this probably has very little to do with it compared with the publishers' financial backing.)
It was a disappointment. I won't pretend it was boring -- it read extremely quickly and it was gripping, so I read it all in one night. The story is definitely interesting enough: it's about a 30-something, Abby Reynolds, born and brought up in Small Plains, Kansas -- the ultimate Midwest small town. She's still pretty distraught about her high school boyfriend (turns out to be the love of her life -- who would've thought?) who abandoned her years ago, the day after a teenage girl's dead body was found in a field. Mitch comes back in a shocking turn of events, and a lot of plot twists later, they solve the mystery.
Pickard did a pretty good job foolin' me -- I didn't figure out the culprit until close to the end. The thing is, though, she can't write. I spent a lot of that night wincing, and had I a theoretical desk, I would done a lot of theoretical headdesking. It reads like something written to entertain a middle schooler -- and I'm not talking about YA classics, either. C+.
I guess I was just expecting so much more out of the book. You can see multiple perspectives in the book, but it's not spread out evenly at all; I thought I'd really like reading something set in a small town, but it wasn't woven particularly effectively into the story.
It receives an A. It was fantastic. The writing style took a little getting used to; it was pretty different from the other things I'd been reading, and I certainly haven't read anything written from the point of view of Death before. It's full of little footnote-like notes, except they're embedded right into the text of the story.
I also hadn't read anything about such a young person in a while either. Liesel, the main character, is only 11 when the novel starts, and it only takes place within the next few years -- again, at the heart of the Second World War, this time in Himmel, a suburb of Munich. Her story's about book-stealing, but a lot more too.
I'm growing pretty fond of books set during of World War II. I want to read Catch-22 before the end of summer, and maybe look into some more...
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