A teenage boy’s mother dies when they are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a terrorist bomb goes off. The boy ends up taking “The Goldfinch” – a priceless 17th century painting- in his dream like escape from the museum. The novel follows Theo for the next few decades and his adventures that are always haunted by his possession and obsession with the Goldfinch.
A top novel on most fiction lists for 2013. It is quite a hefty one, 900 pgs + on Overdrive, but I enjoyed it and have been pretty wrapped up in it all week long with my week long cold. It is completely amazing to me the talent someone has to come up with a story like this out of thin air and to write it in such an eloquent way.
I love the last paragraph:
“That life – whatever else it is – is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.”
PJH rating: ***1/2
Set in small country village outside of London, Louisa becomes the caregiver for Will who is a quadriplegic after being a successful businessman and athlete. Louisa learns that Will wants to end his life via assisted suicide and tries to make him less depressed so he will change his mind. Chic lit but not terrible.
Judd returns to his mother’s home to sit shiva for seven days along with his flamboyant mother, two brothers and a sister and their assorted families and significant others. Typical and over the top mayhem ensues. Fun, often laugh out loud story. Being made into a movie I just read… with good casting: Jason Bateman, Tina Fey and Adam Driver (Hannah’s creepy yet lovable boyfriend on Girls) – should be good.
Two teenagers, one in late stage cancer and another in remission, meet at a support group and become boyfriend/girlfriend. They end up traveling to Amsterdam together to visit the author of a book that brought them together. A good book about teenagers, friendship and death. Lost some steam in the end… becoming a bit too sappy. A quick, fulfilling read though – I read it straight through on Wednesday 6:00 PM in the bathtub until 11:30 at night.
Historical fiction account of abolitionist James Brown who led the attack on Harper’s Ferry that spurred the start of the Civil War. Told from the view point of “Onion”, a 14 year old boy slave who ends up dressing up as a girl during his years with Brown. The novel was the 2013 winner of the National Book Award for fiction and on many top 10 lists for the year. While I found it a bit lengthy and hard to get through at times, it is very original, well written and a good read.
A Psychologist and his wife raise their newborn daughter and a newborn chimpanzee at the same time as a psychological experiment. The novel is told from the viewpoint of the daughter looking back at her childhood and how her “twin sister” affected her and her relationship with her parents and her brother. Interesting tale. Very original.
Our 17 year old protagonist wakes up in the house from the previous night’s house party to find all the other teenagers dead and several hungry vampires trying to get her. The world has developed “Coldtowns” in each big city where all the vampires are exiled to live out their un-lives. The girl finds herself in one of these and the typical vampire teenage hi jinx ensue. Not sure how this one got in my queue but it was sort of fun to read – pretty gory for AYA fiction.
As her mother is on her death bed and not able to communicate, a woman learns that her father is not her real father. She investigates and learns nothing in her family is what she believed it was as her mother was involved in the mob in Chicago a long time ago. Just ok… a bit long winded with an unsatisfying ending.
A woman looks back at her summer when she was 17 and working at an old amusement park with one of her old friends. I didn’t get into this short novel as much as the one I read earlier from Moore. I enjoy her style and quirky characters though.
Eat On Edgecliff 