2016 Reading Challenge Update: Part 2

Before the year ‘leaped’, I was able to read four more books for this month. (My first update for February is here.)

So here are the awesome novels that I have read on and before the 29th. ❤

13th – A classic from the 20th century – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

What is it about: Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior—to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.

What I Love: The depth of the the topic told in an innocent view is just flawless. Now I know the meaning of ‘classic’

What I Don’t Love Much: Honestly, the pace of the first few chapters are a bit slooooow for me.

Wise Words: 

“I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”

“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.”

“People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.”

Rating:      (Good read, definitely!)

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14th – A YA bestseller – Ten Thousand Truths by Susan White

What is it about: “Thirteen-year-old Rachel is bad news, or so her foster care worker tells her. She’s been shuttled from one rotten foster family to another ever since her mother and brother died in a car accident five years ago, and she’s running out of options. So when she gets caught shoplifting and is kicked out of her latest home, the only place left to send her is the last resort for kids like her; a farm in the middle of nowhere run by a disfigured recluse named Amelia Walton, whom Rachel names ‘Warty’ because of the strange lumps covering her face and neck.

Rachel settles into life on the farm, losing herself in daily chores and Amelia’s endless trivia and trying to forget her past and the secret she’s holding inside. But when a letter arrives for her out of the blue, Rachel soon realizes that you can’t hide from your past – or your future.”

What I Love: The descriptions of the lovely farm is just so vivid that it felt I was also there.

The literal ten thousand truths are both entertaining and informative.

What I Don’t Love Much: It is a bit short of that ‘oomph’. That feeling which give readers a book hangover.

Wise Words:

“Most of the beliefs in our shortcomings are spoken much louder from within than from anyone else.”

Rating:     (Good read, definitely!)

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15th – A satirical book – Macarthur by Bob Ong

What is it about: A group of four boys with lives ‘destroyed’ in different ways but are united in ‘drugs’ and in a strong friendship bond.

What I Love: Powerfully written. The language used are explicit yet so real. The twists are jaw-dropping and saddening. The subtle way of tackling friendship within a group of ‘addict’ boys are heartwarming.

What I Don’t Love Much: None.

Rating:      (GREAT read!)

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16th – A science-fiction novel – The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

What is it about: Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn’t thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she’d claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

What I Love: I am no fan of fantasy and the ‘unplanned’ reading of this novel showed me I can love that genre, too.

Neil Gaiman is indeed a skill-full storyteller who can make you angry and scared. His words in this novel are short yet alive.

What I Don’t Love Much: None. 🙂

Wise Words: 

“Books were safe than other people anyway.”

Rating:      (GREAT read!)

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©2016 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.

Photo credit: Pop Sugar, Goodreads, Quote Fancy, Board of Wisdom and Like Success

Story Summary: Goodreads

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What are you favorite reads last month?

Have you read any of this?

Do you agree with me?

🙂

Let’s talk!

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