Books Ahoy

I’ve been a bit of a reading machine lately. In the last month, I’ve finished off 5 books in total. On to the reviews! (As always, spoilers lie beyond here.)

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami: I mentioned this book before and how it was everything I ever dreamed of in a large, sprawling novel. In all honestly though the first half of the book is more interesting than the second half. There’s such a wide range of interesting characters like Ayumi, the Dowager, Fuka-Eri, Komatsu, and Professor Ebisuno. But they all sort of disappear as the novel moves into the second half, focusing on the epic fated love of Aomame and Tengo instead of conspiracies and the nature of writing. Would have preferred more of Ayumi and Aomame picking up guys in expensive bars and less of Tengo visiting his comatose father. And I wish they had explained more of what exactly the Little People were, whether Fuka-Eri was the maza or dohta, why there was a second moon in the sky, etc. But still, excellent read. I’d give it a score of 8/10.

A Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling: I started reading this book and feeling incredibly bored by this tale of small-town plebes and their trivial, insignificant small-town problems. In fact, that’s how I felt for the majority of the book. It just so happened that at some point, I desperately wanted to know what happened to these petty jerks. All the characters were so incredibly flawed that I had no sympathy for most of them. But after a certain point, I wanted everything to turn out alright for these petty jerks, but I knew that wouldn’t happen because it was an adult novel, not a Bollywood movie. So I went on Wikipedia and read the ending, which was probably a good thing because the ending was incredibly saddening and unfulfilling and I would have thrown the book out the window if I hadn’t known beforehand. Read the book if it somehow falls into your lap. Or not, whatever. One can live without it. I give it a score of 6.5/10.

Chronicles of Narnia – Yes, the whole series. I’m not done the whole thing yet (currently I’m in the middle of The Silver Chair) but I have thoughts for the moment. The books I’ve read so far in order are: The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and Voyage of the Dawntreader. Yup, going in published order. I actually read TLWW years ago (and The Magician’s Nephew too) but I think I wasn’t even in high school yet. Aaanyways, yes I’ve been making my way through the series. And obviously I knew going in that the whole series is a giant Bible parallel but man, non-Christian me gets the jibblies sometimes with the heavy-handedness of it all. Lewis is very clear about things he believe are Right and things that are Wrong, and sometimes I just throw my hands in the air at his beliefs. Anyway, the stories are still really engaging. My favourite so far is actually VDT, which I thought I would dislike because sailing = blah. But there was something magical about the journey to the east, the sunlight and the calm sweet waters. PC was most interesting at the beginning and the end, while the middle was a lump of boring. TLWW was interesting as well, but since I had read it once already I had a vague recollection of most of the details, which made it less engaging. Thus far SC has been rather annoying; Eustace and Jill are by far the most annoying and hasty children to grace the series thus far. I miss Lucy, LOL.