A searing, post apocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece. A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~ ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Picture The Walking Dead, but without zombies, and that is The Road. McCarthy does a great job at building a beautiful story about true love and devotion for one's child, showing the great lengths someone would go to to protect their child. It's a good story, especially given McCarthy's unusual dialog patterns. He does an excellent job of building up suspense, and leaving you hanging a bit. You are always worried about what is around the next corner awaiting Pa and Boy. I doubt I could ever read this one again, but it is definitely worth reading at least once. My only real complaint about this book is that there is no back story. You know that they are living in a post-apocalyptic world, with few humans, no animals, and very little vegetation that has not already burned to the ground, but you have no idea how the world ended up in this state. That was a bit annoying. I give this a 4 out of 5.
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Katherine V thought boys were gross Katherine X just wanted to be friends Katherine XVIII dumped him in an e-mail K-19 broke his heart When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun--but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl. Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~ ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Of all the girls Colin has dated, they have all been named Katherine, and their names have never diverged from this spelling, and they've never had a nickname. When the latest Katherine dumps him, he sets off on a summer road trip with his best friend, Hassan, and they end up in podunk Tennessee. After meeting a local girl named Lindsey and her mother, Hassan and Colin are offered a job and place to stay ... With Lindsey and her mother. On top of the job, Colin is also spending his summer creating a math equation that can predict the shelf-life of a relationship, and he uses all 19 of his Katherine's to test his theorem. In an odd turn of events we quickly learn that while Colin has dated 19 girls named Katherine, Lindsey has only dated one boy, her current boyfirend, Colin, referred to as TOS (The Other Colin) by our main character Colin, and Hassan. When I finished this book I initially liked it, for a YA novel. As I sit here and review it, I am starting to realize that there is not a lot to like about this book. The one charming thing I found about this book was all the random pieces of information (ALL THE FOOTNOTES) in this book. As much as I liked them there came a point where they became distracting and started to take away from the story. All that being said, I present to you a break down of the issues I had: 1. Colin's constant whining. If he is not whining about being dumped yet again by a Katherine, he's complaining about being a child prodigy that has not turned into a genius, and that he's wasting his life. Maybe he's wasting his life because he keeps repeating dumb behaviors that always end badly for him. Or maybe it's because instead of doing something real with his life he spent his entire childhood being anti-social and is now spending his summer in podunk Tennessee. 2. Colin and Hassan's word usage. This is a difficult one to explain if you have not read the book, but Colin and Hassan's language primarily revolves around inside jokes, some of which you learn about right away, others you don't read about until nearly the end. The most overused words in this book (you could seriously turn this into a drinking game): Kafir (Hassan's nickname for Colin), "Jewfro", "Fug, Fugging, and Fugger", Katherine, Prodigy, Genius, and the different nicknames they gave to all the teenage boys in Tennessee, which the only one was memorable was TOS. The nickname things was beyond annoying because they weren't just nicknames, they were abbreviated nicknames, such as TOS, and the only time you heard the boy's actually names is when they were first introduced. 3. There are no redeemable characters in this book whatsoever. Colin is a smart, whining, self-absorbed asshole. Hassan is a lazy, wise cracking slob. Lindsey is a hallow shell of a girl whose entire life seems to revolve around TOS who used to call her a dog, and make fun of her. Now her way of getting revenge is to date him. Da fuck?! TOS is a slimy asshole who has been cheating on Lindsey during their entire relationship. Lindsey's mother is absent from her daughter's life as she is trying to keep her business and the town afloat. She's a terrible business owner, but a great people person, expect for when it comes to her daughter, because she realizes her daughter is in an unhealthy relationship, yet says nothing about it. Colin's parents who push him to be this child prodigy but do nothing to help socialize him and support him, outside of giving him books and the means to learn. Katherine 19 might be the only redeemable character as she realizes how screwed up Colin is, and decides to dump his ass. The when he calls her crying and pleading for her to come back, she stands her ground and says no. As she acknowledged, they both have to move on. 4. This plot is so unbelievable. A 17 year old boy, who does not socialize, and who has only had one friend his entire life has managed to date 18 different girls named Katherine, with no deviation of this name or the spelling. This guy has had more relationships than years he has been alive, and somehow they've all had the same name. Maybe if the girls had been named Emily or something that has been more popular over the past 20 years, it might be a little more believable, but I still could not get passed an anti-social guy who admits that he doesn't have many friends because he does not know how to talk to people, has managed to date 18 different girls in such a short period of time. Not to mention that there is no rhyme nor reason for the name Katherine. Even Colin admits there does not seem to be anything about it, "it just happens". So this is the end of my review, turned rant. I originally gave this 4 out of 5, but as I have worked through the review, my final score is a 2 out of 5. The “war with no name” has begun, with human extinction as its goal. The instigator of this war is the Colony, a race of intelligent ants who, for thousands of years, have been silently building an army that would forever eradicate the destructive, oppressive humans. Under the Colony's watchful eye, this utopia will be free of the humans' penchant for violence, exploitation and religious superstition. The final step in the Colony's war effort is transforming the surface animals into high-functioning two-legged beings who rise up to kill their masters. Former housecat turned war hero, Mort(e) is famous for taking on the most dangerous missions and fighting the dreaded human bio-weapon EMSAH. But the true motivation behind his recklessness is his ongoing search for a pre-transformation friend—a dog named Sheba. When he receives a mysterious message from the dwindling human resistance claiming Sheba is alive, he begins a journey that will take him from the remaining human strongholds to the heart of the Colony, where he will discover the source of EMSAH and the ultimate fate of all of earth's creatures. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~ ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ It took me a bit to get through this book, but it was worth it. I loved the premise of it. What happens when all animals become self-aware, and evolve into humanistic forms practically overnight? What happens is the "no-name war", lead by a queen ant. We watch as Mort[e], formally known as Sebastian, a house cat turned war hero, searches for his best friend, Sheba, a dog. The book overall was great. mid-ending got a bit biblical and preachy for my liking, but the best quote I got out of the entire book was "Love is stronger than God". In the end, that is what this book is about; our love for each other, for our pets, for nature, for whatever you love, and how that can drive us to do things that we could never imagine ourselves doing or think we are capable of doing, in both good and bad ways. I recommend this one. If nothing else, it's a kooky little book that has a great premise I give this a 4 out of 5 Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When Marie-Laure is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~ ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ I loved this a lot more than I thought I would. It took me longer to read than normal, but for the first time in a long time I had a book where I felt the need to significantly slow down my reading pace and savor ever single word. It is truly beautifully written. I struggled getting into it in the beginning because the chapters where so short and each chapter was a new character or event that it was a little off-putting (confusing), but it didn't take long for me to immerse myself in it. The relationship between Marie and her grandfather was one of my favorites, and I loved Werner's story line, especially in regards to his relationships with Frederick and Volkheimer. It was nice to read a story about WWII that was not about someone in a concentration camp, or a Jewish person in hiding. Though it is a work of fiction (from what I know) it is historically relevant/accurate, and addresses the lives of a young blind French girl in a city being fought in, and a young man who is forced into what is essentially the Hitler Youth school, and forced to the front lines when he is too young. I am happy that I chose this book. I give this a 4 out of 5. |
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September 2016
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