Category: - BC Reads!

"East of Eden" by John Steinbeck

2/26/2014

Title: East of Eden
Author: John Steinbeck
Genre: General Fiction
# pages: 640
Date published: 1952
5-star rating: N/A
Would you recommend it: Yes

I recommend East of Eden it to whoever wants to be engrossed in a fascinating story. The book’s true strength, though, lies in its characters, some of the most interesting ever written. Each of John Steinbeck’s characters works as a symbol, though this idea is enacted almost in a postmodern manner; these individuals seem to know that they are symbols, and it is extremely interesting to discover how they handle this realization.

In addition, the book is relatable because the characters are human as well as symbolic. Many try to fight the symbolism attached to their name, and although their struggle between these identities reads almost like philosophy in places, sometimes to the point of being preachy, Steinbeck is able to pull it off without being in the readers’ face. I would argue that the philosophy is even one of the strongest aspects of the book.

In conclusion, I highly suggest this novel. Though many critics see it as an autobiography of sorts, I feel that it is more of an exploration on what it truly means to be free, and by extension, what it means to be human. I recommend it to anyone; Steinbeck is able to focus on a subject as broad as freedom in such a compelling way that it is something everyone can relate to.

Review by Michael Solah, A&S '15

"My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult

2/16/2014

Title: My Sister's Keeper
Author: Jodi Picoult
Genre: Fiction
# pages: 448
Date published: 2005
5-star rating: 3 stars
Would you recommend it: Yes

My Sister’s Keeper: it’s a title I’ve heard over and over in the last five years, from insistent urgings from my family and friends to read the “outstanding” novel, countless utterings of, “Oh my gosh, you haven’t read that?! Well at least tell me you’ve seen the movie.” I even received a copy for my birthday, and then when it was lost somewhere in the black hole that is my room, received another for Christmas. This winter break I finally took the plunge; the time had come for me to read the book that was beloved by millions, if only to stop the constant pressings of my mother.

My Sister’s Keeper is the story about two sisters: Anna, conceived in order to be a bone marrow donor for her sister Kate, who was diagnosed with leukemia. But it does not end there. By age thirteen, Anna has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and other medical procedures all to save the life of her sister. Anna has never had a choice in any of these procedures—until now. This novel is primarily a story about family, pain, and the coming-of-age of a young girl who is not sick but might as well be.

I flew through this book; in fact, I couldn’t put it down. Jodi Picoult’s writing flows so easily and poetically, it completely absorbs the reader in the story, making it difficult to think about anything else.

That being said, I wasn’t blown away by My Sister’s Keeper. Perhaps it was the constant ravings of my family and friends that ballooned my expectations, setting the bar too high for any book to reach. Or maybe it simply isn’t an exceptional novel. I know this opinion is an unpopular, but let me explain. The idea behind the novel is definitely captivating and unique, but I found it to be improbable, even contrived. I could almost see Jodi Picoult’s mind at work, as she sat at her writer’s desk, crafting the story. As with poor acting in films, a contrived plot in a novel takes away the magic and the feeling that what you are reading, or watching on the big screen, is real.

Another complaint I have with My Sister’s Keeper is the dialogue. The profound musings of thirteen-year-old Anna seem too mature, not in a precocious way, but in a way that seems unrealistic and distracts from the novel. All the characters seem to speak in this same, highly intelligent voice, which suggests that Picoult simply gave each character her own voice and did not even try to distinguish between the differences in their ages or gender.

Overall, My Sister’s Keeper is a quick, well-written read that will entertain and engage. Even so, it doesn’t deserve the endless hype and fanfare that is has received in recent years; let along a major motion picture. Perhaps if this novel was less publicized and less popular, and I had lower expectations, this review would have been different. But sadly, I was disappointed.

Review by Brittany Duncan, A&S '16

"The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde

2/4/2014

Title: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Author: Oscar Wilde
Genre: Fiction
# pages: 180
Date published: 1890
5-star rating: 3.5 stars
Would you recommend it:  Yes

            Often considered a classic example of Gothic literature, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray details the consequences of sensual indulgence and uninhibited narcissism. The novel’s title character embodies youth and physical beauty, and is therefore the inspiration for artist Basil Hallward’s latest paintings. Drunk on the adolescent’s intoxicating visage, Basil paints a particularly realistic portrait of Dorian. The painting unintentionally reveals attraction in addition to attractiveness, and Basil therefore wants to hide the portrait from the public eye.

Meanwhile, Lord Henry, a notoriously witty scoundrel, enlightens Dorian about the power and influence that comes with this youth and beauty, and uses his own charm and amusing aphorisms to pervert Dorian’s worldview. Knowing that Dorian cannot bear the thought of losing his handsome features and the associated societal benefits, Lord Henry vocalizes the harsh truth of aging and deterioration, and in an impetuous instant, Dorian wishes to maintain his youthful appearance despite time’s passing; in other words, he wishes to always resemble Basil’s painting.

            The novel then describes Dorian’s descent into Henry’s hedonism and lavish lifestyle. Surrounded by perfumes, fine fabrics, and engrossing literature, Dorian cannot escape indulgence and influence. External forces become internalized, as Dorian begins to speak and act like Lord Henry, vying to preserve his beauty at the cost of his morality. Basil Hallward tries to be the voice of reason and save Dorian from moral decay, but Dorian is too entrenched in debauchery to listen to the self-conscious artist.

Wilde creates a metaphor between reality and art when Dorian finds that the vices he commits in daily life begin to mar Basil’s pristine painting. The youthful gaze that once looked out from the canvas is now sinister, and Dorian comes to realize that the painting assumes the physical mutilation to which his own face is now immune. Though Dorian’s body seems to defy time’s toll, his soul—manifested in the painting—suffers for every sin.

            Wilde plays with art’s power to corrupt, which cleverly adds another layer to the theme, given his medium of expression as a storyteller and an artist. As Dorian sinks deeper into moral degeneration, readers will become frustrated by his continuous inability to resist temptation. While the novel’s ending is predictable, even inevitable, it explores the overwhelming power of external influence and internal desire. With its mix of modern decadence and the harshness of Victorian morality, The Picture of Dorian Gray is both traditional and incredibly bold for its time, as Wilde explores aesthetics, art, and attraction.

Review by Lauren Bly, A&S '15

"To the Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf

12/2/2013

Title: To the Lighthouse
Author: Virginia Woolf
Genre: Fiction
# pages: 312
Date published: 1927 (Republished in 2005)
5-star rating: 5 stars
Would you recommend it: Yes

            For readers who crave action-based plots and traditional narrative progression, To the Lighthouse will prove to be a frustrating and fruitless reading endeavor, as the entire novel revolves around one action: going to the lighthouse. For the open-minded reader, however, the novel is an overwhelmingly profound and rewarding literary experience. What the plot lacks in physical action, it makes up for in emotional and psychological movement, as Woolf uses a free indirect discourse to seamlessly weave in and out of her characters’ psyches.

            Set at Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay’s summer home, To the Lighthouse fuses natural and psychological elements to explore how exterior and interior spaces interact. Mrs. Ramsay is the novel’s life force, as her beauty and natural authority charm the many visitors who frequent the beach house. Mr. Ramsay is decidedly less vivacious, and his preoccupation with academic and paternal failure leads him to constantly (and often annoyingly) crave sympathy from his wife and other female characters. To say that Mrs. Ramsay is solely a dominant and lively housewife would unfairly reduce her intricate character, and the same applies to Mr. Ramsay and his gloomy necessitousness. Both Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay fascinate Lily Briscoe, a visiting artist who exemplifies the frustration that arises from violently opposing emotions that constantly fight to take precedence. Does she love the Ramsays or despise them? Is art the bane of her existence, or is it her true passion?

            Readers will find that the novel is full of these paradoxes—it is almost impossible to concretely define characters. That liminality makes the narrative dynamic (yes, dynamic) and realistic, because Woolf does not shy away from the volatile and often irrational emotions that shape human experience.

            Woolf finds the pulse of the philosophical, psychological, and artistic Modernist movements that emerged after World War I. While the novel does not explicitly focus on war, it does grapple with the daunting existential questions that resulted from loss and disillusionment. The novel’s three sections act as time markers, with the first section representing pre-modern life and the last exemplifying the anxiety and uncertainty of post-war existence. Characters also convey the shift from the “old way” to modernity. Mrs. Ramsay, the traditional homemaker, embodies Victorian creation; Lily, on the other hand, tries to figure out her role as a different kind of artist: the modern painter.

            To the Lighthouse asks readers what remains after devastating loss. How does one go on after dependability and reliability perish? What is creation, and how long will it endure? With her lyricism, Woolf astutely articulates seemingly ineffable emotions, and her representation of the complexities of the human condition is a beautiful depiction of everyday trials and triumphs in the midst of global tragedy. A novel about the numerous forms of creation, artistic and otherwise, To the Lighthouse is a literary masterpiece.

Review by Lauren Bly, A&S '15

"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

12/2/2013

Title: The Kite Runner
Author: Khaled Hosseini
# of pages: 371
Date Published: 2003
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Recommend: Yes

Kite Runner is a heart-breaking story of betrayal, friendship and atonement of sins. The first chapter is rough; it is hard to understand and there is no context given. However, in the next chapter we meet the main characters Amir, Hassan and Baba. Amir and Hassan are best friends and Baba is Amir’s father. Hassan works as a servant with his father in Amir and Baba’s house. The set up is quite pleasant and they seem happy. However, racial tension arises because Hassan is a Hazara boy, therefore seen as a second-class citizen in Afghanistan. This leads Amir to a sense of superiority. Eventually Amir betrays Hassan. The guilt he deals with becomes a central theme of the story.

This book made me cringe at points because of violence and embarrassment. Amir’s character is well rounded and has a level of depth lacked by some of the supporting characters. However, this lack of depth is caused by the skewed view of them by Amir, the narrator. The author uses foreshadowing to keep interest peaked even during the lulls in the plot. The story crosses boundaries and gives voice to the often-silenced culture of Afghanistan. I read this with a group and it fostered great conversation about duty, patriotism, and our perceptions of the Middle East. Hosseini weaves a beautiful story allowing insight into human nature that transcends races.

Review by Caroline Grindrod, CSOM '17

"Sometimes a Great Notion" by Ken Kensy

12/2/2013

Title: Sometimes a Great Notion
Author: Ken Kesey
# pages: 715
Date published: 1964
Stars: 5 out of 5
Would you recommend it? Yes

“Sometimes I live in the country
Sometimes I live in town
Sometimes I have a great notion
To jump into the river and drown”

These are the lines that Ken Kesey uses as an introduction in his fantastic 1964 novel Sometimes a Great Nation. Lines from a song by Lead Belly, they work as a concise summary of the novel as well as an opening into its themes.

Although the work tells of logging community in Oregon, the river surrounding the town is what drives the narrative forward. As we see a family of loggers take over, the only force that seems to have any effect on them is the river. This novel is far more realistic than Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but the character of the river is so vivid and almost visceral that it is hard not be captivated by Kesey’s descriptions: the river becomes a character itself.

In spite of this easily discernable, straightforward plot, in which a family founds a logging community and one of its members seeks revenge against his brother, whom he sees as representative of everything wrong about the community, this plot is secondary to the description of the river, to the way that the description of the town and the town’s surroundings engulf the narrative. At certain moments, the characters’ physical experiences are more important than their emotional development. When one of them swims in the river, for instance, Kesey focuses on the water against his skin.

Overall, Sometimes a Great Nation is a fantastic book and definitely recommended for anyone who likes a good (but long) read.

Review by Michael Solah, A&S '16

"This Is How You Lose Her" by Junot Diaz

11/18/2013

Title: This Is How You Lose Her
Author: Junot Diaz
# pages: 240
Date published: 2012
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Would you recommend it? Yes

Simply put, Junot Diaz is incredible. Thrust into the spotlight by his Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Diaz has only confirmed with his most recent work, This Is How You Lose Her, that he writes more beautifully than any author I have encountered in quite some time. The novel is composed of a series of vignettes centered around his main character, Yunior, who seeks only to love and be loved in return. Through the often shockingly honest and raw narrative, challenging in a way a lot of contemporary fiction doesn’t dare, Diaz captures the human spirit. Despite his characters’ mistakes and flaws, you find yourself root for their success anyway.

Love holds together the many and varied vignettes of This Is How You Lose Her: a mother’s love, a father’s love for the son that he hasn’t claimed, the wrong kind of love, true love, the love you lose, complicated love, and love that keeps you coming back for more, even when it tears you to pieces in the process. There is something so irrevocably human about these stories that you can’t possibly pull yourself away. This is the best kind of fiction, fascinating without feeling overly constructed.

I would definitely recommend this book to everyone. Despite its 240 pages, it flies by. Diaz has found the perfect combination of pulling at your heartstrings while remaining entirely relatable with his flawed, but tough and real protagonist, Yunior. If you want a book that will sweep you away into a world that is entirely different—yet eerily similar—to your own, then This Is How You Lose Her is for you.

Review by Molly Saint, A&S '15

"A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway

10/25/2013

Title: A Farewell to Arms
Author: Ernest Hemingway
# pages: 332
Date published: 1929 (Republished in 1957)
5-star rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Would you recommend it: Yes

            To readers who enjoy happy endings, optimism, and inner peace, please take note that Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms provides none of the above. After finishing the novel, readers realize that Pat’s reaction to the work in the film Silver Linings Playbook is completely justified, and they too may feel an aggressive desire to chuck the whole narrative out the window and resurrect Hemingway to answer one question: Why? In short, Hemingway’s post-war novel makes Life is good, Inc. seem like an ironic joke.

            Nevertheless, to say that A Farewell to Arms provides only frustration and disillusionment would be a gross misrepresentation of a truly harrowing and emotionally complex novel. The retrospective narrative details Lieutenant Frederic Henry’s relationship with war nurse Catherine Barkley and conveys how the war simultaneously brings them together and tears them apart. While Hemingway’s minimalist writing style usually connotes stoicism, A Farewell to Arms represents such an effective union of content and form that his bare prose intensifies his characters’ resistance to World War I’s overwhelming internal and external environment. While Frederic is often a hesitant narrator, not allowing his post-war trauma to flood the narration, his rare but poignant moments of unrestrained emotion illuminate the pervasive effects of war and loss. The novel grapples with the physical and psychological wounds that result from extreme bloodshed and violence, but it also explores what it means to “survive” a war.

Although the retrospective narration makes it apparent that Frederic lives to tell his story, the novel is so tense and tragic throughout that it is easy to question if Frederic will in fact come out alive. Hemingway plays with suspense and memory in a way that emotionally invests the reader in a novel where the narration is otherwise guarded.

A Farewell to Arms puts the reader in the context of World War I, but it also takes the reader outside to a world where war is almost entirely inescapable. Frederic and Catherine take brief respites in hotels and other intimate spaces, but it remains painfully clear that even their relationship is not a complete remedy for the physical and psychological scars they incur.

            A truly Modernist text, A Farewell to Arms illustrates the anxiety, irreparable destruction, and disconnect of war through the lens of Frederic and Catherine’s romance. The heartbreaking end will leave readers questioning humanity itself, but this tragedy is simultaneously the most frustrating and brilliant part of the novel. The injustice and jarring indifference that Frederic faces allow the reader to wrestle with the questions that torment Catherine and Frederic and no doubt plagued Hemingway and his contemporaries, questions we continue to grapple with today.

Review by Lauren Bly, A&S '15

"The Adults" by Alison Espach

4/27/2013

Title: The Adults
Author: Alison Espach
Genre: General Fiction
Pages: 336
Date published: 2011
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Recommended: Yes- but with the warning that this isn’t going to be in the canon anytime soon

I’ve come to the realization that I love a good “coming of age” story, so it’s only natural that I was instantly attracted to The Adults. The novel follows protagonist Emily Vidal as she matures in suburban Connecticut during the 1990s. The author, Alison Espach, describes Emily’s life through her early teens until her late 20s, as she struggles to accept her father walking out on her family.

            Simply put, Espach is an incredible writer. She’s witty, sharp and poignant in her rendering of the inner monologues of a fourteen-year-old girl. She handles such topics as suicide, death and the pains of adolescence with a droll (yet endearing) twist. I found myself having flashbacks to my freshman year of high school due to the wit with which Espach recreates the tone of a young teenager. Her ability to empathize with her protagonist is astounding; I have never had anyone capture my thoughts at fourteen as clearly as she does.

            However, the entire book isn’t relatable. I understand that pedophilia and student teacher relationships have been discussed extensively in other pieces of literature. But in this particular story, it quickly escalates into intense creepiness. Yet this particular student-teacher relationship forms part of the main story line. I can’t divulge more without giving away the plot, but at times, it made my skin crawl and felt unnecessary.

            For the most part, The Adults kept my attention. The beginning of the novel seemed promising, but once I hit the ending, I found myself sorely disappointed. Throughout the first few chapters, I could relate to the character’s tone and perceptions of the world, but by the end, I became so frustrated with her and her decisions that I couldn’t sympathize.

            The other large disappointment is the lack of a definite ending. I’m fine with novels ending in cliffhangers so as to provoke thoughtful ideas and discussion after the novel has concluded, but this novel doesn’t even have a stereotypical cliffhanger. More than an unclear ending, the novel leaves Emily struggling with a multitude of self-inflicted problems and no solutions. I felt like I had invested a lot of time into a protagonist with whom I was aggravated by the end.

            The only reason I would recommend this book is the writing style. The plot is decent, and the ending frustrating, but Epach’s talent with words and descriptions is incredible. Her wit and incredibly poignant prose are what kept me reading until the last page.

Review by Hallie Sullivan, A&S '15

"Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer

4/27/2013

Title: Everything is Illuminated
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Genre: General Fiction
Pages: 276
Date published: 2003
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Recommended: Yes

After reading Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close last year (which is also an excellent book), Jonathan Safran Foer’s writing style intrigued me. While Everything is Illuminated is not in the exact same style per se, the tone has interesting similarities.

            Everything is Illuminated is a unique and beautiful book that is initially confusing but ultimately fascinatingly touching. The story follows the protagonist, a young man named (like the author) Jonathan Safran Foer, who travels to Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. He hires a tour guide, Alex - a native Ukrainian who has not quite mastered the exact meaning of many words in the English language - and Alex’s grandfather. The book follows the story as it is happening from Alex’s point of view, contrasted with a revealing history written in Jonathan Safran Foer’s (the character’s) point of view, as well as letters from Alex to Jonathan. At the beginning the constant switching can be a bit confusing, yet once the reader understands where each piece is coming from the result is an incredible feat of storytelling that adds depth and emotion to the novel; as the story of Jonathan’s grandfather is discovered, the story of Alex and his grandfather is also revealed.

           Everything is Illuminated delves into the idea of who people are, as well as how much work they put into how they want to be perceived by others. Though the book is very enjoyable, it is a bit heavy with mature content throughout, so it would likely not be suitable for younger readers or people who just want something fun and light. Yet for those who are looking for something different and interesting, Everything is Illuminated would be a wonderful option.

Review by Caitlin Mason, A&S '16