• I, Mona Lisa – Jeanne Kalogridis
• Survivor – Chuck Palahniuk
• The Parable of the Sower – Octavia E. Butler
• The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett
• Under the Dome – Stephen King
• A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

­This month’s reading list is a bit ambitious, especially considering that two of the books (Follet’s and King’s) are over 800 pages a piece.  Realistically, I think I can finish Stephen King’s book if I devote some serious time to it, although I need to return it by the 30^th so that I don’t have it hanging around collecting late fees once it is overdue, which it will be by the time we return from our trip to Maryland.

I, Mona Lisa was rather boring. Nothing spectacular. Forgettable, etc. That and I kept getting the time period mixed up with that of The Pillars of the Earth, for some reason. I suppose reading books concurrently doesn’t always work… Oh well.

The Parable of the Sower was actually listed in the comments below the Top 10 Most Disturbing list.  Others had recommended it on the basis that it was incredibly moving/disturbing, so I decided to get it out of the library when I saw it.

It’s about a girl named Lauren who lives in the time during the decline of the States as a powerful nation; the economy has completely collapsed, and the government has turned a blind eye to everyone’s problems. Food is expensive and water is nearly unobtainable. The country is rife with conflict, cannibals, and gangs of thieves, rapists, and arsonists.  The story itself follows Lauren and her daily life, beginning from when she is fifteen and living in a neighborhood that was thought to be safe, and then continuing to when she is on her own, struggling to survive. It essentially reads as a diary of the apocalypse, divided into entries, and chronicling the growth of her own spirituality, a doctrine she comes to name as Earthseed.

The book contains disturbing elements, of course, but overall, is not one I cringed away from or found hard to read. In fact, sometimes I found it a little difficult to force myself through, as it moved a bit slowly.  I found the spiritual aspects of the book interesting and less intrusive than in other books.

So, my final verdict is that while it’s an okay apocalypse book, it does not warrant a spot on the Top 10 Most Disturbing list.

Oh. Survivor by Palahniuk was weird. He’s such a bizarre, off-kilter writer. I can only take so much of Palahniuk before I have to read slightly more mundane fiction.

Under the Dome seems suspiciously like the Simpsons Movie, where an entire town is kept inside a forcefield/dome. I’ve only read the first 100 (out of like… 800) pages, and so I’m not quite sure what the actual story is.

As much as I like King… I feel like he’s becoming very predictable.  Maybe I’m just outgrowing his style or something though.  This is hard for me to admit because to be honest, King was a lot of the reason why I wanted to attempt writing stories… His early work is incredibly inspiring. But lately… Ugh. Especially after Duma Key, I really just stopped paying him attention. I have yet to read Cell, but then again … maybe I’ll just take it out of the library instead of spending $9 on it.

Finally, A Thousand Splendid Suns was my book club pick, and they picked it. So I get to read it again and revel that I picked possibly the best book since Eat, Pray, Love!

That’s all for now.

Categories : adventures, books, lists