Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach

What the whatting what. This is like the tiniest of tiny books — 123 very small pages, wide margins, lots of pages dedicated to pictures of seagulls, read it in an hour — and yet I still wouldn't have finished it were it not on my TBR Challenge list. I rue the day I decided against alternates!

I knew pretty much nothing about this book going in. It ended up on my challenge list because a few years ago my sister-in-law said something was "like Jonathan Livingston Seagull" and I was like, who? And she and some random other person were like, how have you not read this book? And then they probably explained it to me, though I don't remember, and I was like, okay, fine, I'll read it.

And what it is, is a tiny little book about a seagull (the eponymous JLS) who really likes flying. He's all about flying to the detriment of everything else including learning how to find food, but apparently he still eats because he continues flying through the rest of the book. He learns how to fly real fast and real fancy, but then he irks the Head Seagull or whatever and gets shunned, and then he goes off to live a life of fast- and fancy-flying solitude. Until some other birds show up and are like, let's go to the afterlife, where you can fly totally faster! And then they're like, but it's not really heaven, just a further world on your way to nirvana, and also you can learn to fly through space and time without flapping your wings! And then JLS goes back to his original flock and teaches some other birds to fly real cool-like, and he gets mistaken for Jesus or something, and then he brings a bird back from the dead, maybe, and then he's like, I'm outta here you guys can take care of yourselves. The end.

Soooooooooo yeah! Obviously there are a lot of religious themes here, with the heaven/nirvana/Jesus business, and I noticed them and I think they could have been interesting but then they just got kind of thrown off to the side? And I really can't figure out just what I'm meant to take away from this book — is it that having a very one-track mind is awesome and somehow leads you to a Higher Power and also keeps you fed? Is it that you should completely ignore your seagull heritage so that you can fly like a falcon and encourage others to do the same? I have no idea. None.

Also, seagulls. I don't really like them. And there were lots of pictures of them. Yay.

Have any of you guys read this? What am I missing?

Recommendation: I have no idea why anyone would read this, but if you have a reason you might as well.

Rating: 3/10
(TBR Challenge)

The Shining, by Stephen King

Here's another entry from my TBR Challenge... I saw this movie a while back and thought it was terrible, so I got it into my head that I should read the book because maybe it was better? And then my mother said, "No, really, the book is way better," and then I found the book at the used bookstore for cheap and THEN I totally didn't read it. Hence its addition to the challenge.

So! Now I've read it. Well, okay, I listened to it. And, in fact, it is way better than the movie, or at least what I remember of the movie — the problem with the movie is that it's just so middling that there's nothing to remember. Even after reading the book, my memory of the movie is this: Dude gets a job at a hotel. He goes all Jack Nicholson (see what I did there). He says, "Heeeeere's Johnny!" There is snow and possibly a snowmobile. The end.

The book, on the other hand, goes like this: Dude gets a job at a hotel, the only job he might even remotely get as a recovering alcoholic who, while sober beat the crap out of one of his students. His plan is to lay off the booze (which will be easy with no booze in the hotel), do some writing that will make him awesome and employable, and fix the problems with his family that are not all related to his alcoholism. This is a good plan. His wife and son come with him to take care of this hotel, which is closed for the winter, but the son has "the shining" which makes him a little bit psychic and a little too attuned to the horrors that have taken place in the hotel and that threaten to take place again. Dude is not attuned to these horrors, even as they start seeping into him, ruining his plan a little at a time until he goes all Jack Nicholson. He does not say "Heeeeere's Johnny!" There is lots and lots of snow and one too few snowmobiles.

I didn't exactly like the book, but compared to the movie it is downright wonderful. There's so much more backstory in the book that makes things make sense, and that also makes things more interesting and creepy. Like, the dad was an alcoholic until one night he and his bud ran over a bicycle in the middle of the road that may or may not have had a child on it; they can't find a kid but also can't figure out why there would be a tiny bicycle without a tiny human. And the psychic kid sees a lot more than just REDRUM; he sees what his dad has been and will be capable of and somehow does not pee his pants in fear. And the hotel is dang creepy with its dead people and midnight parties and moving shrubbery and I really don't think I'll be able to look at an animal topiary the same way again. Like, ever.

There's a lot more depth to the novel, is what I'm saying, and it allows King to be more subtle with the creepy and the psychological, which is just the way I like it. It didn't hurt that the audiobook narrator channeled a little Jack Nicholson into his reading — just enough to be fairly terrifying without going all Witches of Eastwick.

Unfortunately, the depth also comes with a lot of long boring bits, which made me not like this book so much. Also, an epilogue. I have been reading an inordinate number of epilogued books lately. Someday I will find a good one. Today is not that day.

Recommendation: Read this if you didn't like or don't remember the movie; it'll make you feel a little better. Not sure I would recommend it on its own strength.

Rating: 7/10
(TBR Challenge)

The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier (1 October — 5 October)

This book took a little while to really get going for me, and then just as soon as it did, it ended! Sadness.

The Chocolate War is a story about power and conformity and how even when you win, you still lose. Depressing, right? So right. The chocolate part comes from a private high school's chocolate sale (oh, memories) for which each student has to sell 50 boxes. The war part comes from Jerry Renault, who is assigned by the school's secret society to refuse to sell the chocolates for ten days, you know, keep the teachers on their toes. He does this, but then after ten days, when he's supposed to start selling again, he doesn't, and some of the other students follow in his path. The teachers don't like this, the secret society doesn't like this... and bad things happen.

I wasn't sure last night whether or not I liked this book, and... I'm still not sure. It was a very honest account of high school and how hard it is to navigate the social dynamics there, but I'm not really sold on the story itself. The story jumps back and forth between points of view and tries to use that to let you learn more about the characters, but I just never felt terribly involved in any of their lives. Perhaps I'll ponder this some more.

Rating: 6/10
(My Year of Reading Dangerously Challenge)

See also:
an adventure in reading

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams (11 August)

I read this series of books for the first time in my senior year of high school (about five and a half years ago), after meeting a person who carried a towel around with him and asking him just why that was. He explained it was a Hitchhiker's Guide thing, to which I said, approximately, "A who in the what now?" Well. I promptly purchased the full five-book trilogy (um, yes) and devoured it within a couple weeks. Maybe just one. Maybe it was a few days. I don't remember, but it was rather quickly.

When I mentioned to my friend Nick (not the towel-carrier, in case that's not clear) a few weeks ago that I was going to re-read them, he warned me that they wouldn't hold up well to a second reading. I doubted him, but he was mostly right, at least with this first one. We'll see how the rest go, I suppose.

For those still going, "A who in the what now?", The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a British humor novel about travelling the galaxy. Sort of. The story starts off with our main protagonist, Arthur Dent, finding out that his house is going to be demolished by the local planning commission to make room for a bypass. He is understandably displeased, and has a lie-down in front the bulldozers to protect his house, at least until his friend Ford Prefect shows up to lead him off to the pub and inform him that the world is going to end in about twenty minutes. Then the Earth is vaporized. Meanwhile, we meet Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Imperial Galactic Government, who, at the unveiling of a fancy new spaceship that he then steals. Then Ford and Arthur have a series of improbable adventures, having managed to hitch a ride on the spaceship that eliminated the Earth, and eventually meet up with Zaphod and have more improbable adventures.

There's not much of a plot, and the humor really depends on its unexpectedness, which is where the book falls apart on a second read. It's still funny, but not nearly as much so as it was five years ago. Alas.

Rating: 8/10
(Summer Lovin' Challenge)

See also:
Book Nut

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card (7 August — 8 August)

I found this book in the adult sci-fi section of my library, even though the back of the book clearly states "for ages 10 and up." I'm not sure what the librarians are trying to say here. :) Also, the back of the book totally spoiled the end for me, so I suggest not reading that if you can help it.

So. In this story our hero is a young boy, whom we meet when he is six and selected to go to something called Battle School. This turns out to be a place where other small children battle each other in preparation for joining armies and fighting bad guys in the future. The people in charge think that Ender's going to be their savior in fighting some aliens called buggers, so they isolate him from making friends and push him ridiculously hard. He takes it as much in stride as he can and becomes a pretty good fighter-type.

You'd think that would be the story, really, considering how many pages are spent on it, but the actual story happens after that, and in the span of not very many pages. But if I sum up the actual story, I'll give it away.

That's pretty much why I'm giving this book a low score; I was interested in the beginning of the book but all of that plot doesn't really matter to the end except that it gives Ender some experiences to draw on. And then after that, everything happens really quickly and it's all kind of weird. I didn't like the bugger fight, I didn't care for the side plot with Ender's siblings, and I was incredibly confused by the Giant's Drink part at the end. Very very confused. I still don't get it, though I guess I understand what happened now, after consulting the internets. Meh.

Rating: 6/10

See also:
Library Queue
Trish's Reading Nook

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

The Princess Bride, by William Goldman (1 November — 5 November)

Finally! I've been meaning to read this book ever since I bought it a couple of years ago, but I've always been reading something else instead. A lull in my library book stream led me to pick it up, and I'm really glad I did.

If you've seen the movie, you pretty much know how the book goes, interruptions and all. If not...

The Princess Bride is a "classic tale of true love and high adventure" featuring the titular Buttercup, who falls in love with her farm boy, Westley. Westley leaves for America to make his fortune but his ship is taken over by the Dread Pirate Roberts, who takes no prisoners. Disconsolate, Buttercup — who also happens to be one of the most beautiful women in the world — allows herself to be engaged to the prince of Florin so long as she doesn't have to love him.

Unfortunately, that whole not-loving thing is pretty real and the new Princess finds herself kidnapped by a Sicilian, a giant Turk, and a wizard Spanish swordsman. She is also being followed by a man in black who wants to kidnap her from her kidnappers...

The greatest part of the book is its really tongue-in-cheek feel. Goldman wrote it as an abridgement of a great Florinese novel (which, of course, it's not) and there's an entire chapter devoted to talking about why he loves the book and how he ended up abridging it. He also cuts in throughout the novel to talk about why he cut 15 pages here and 87 pages there. Of course, Goldman leaves in all of the "original author's" asides, which are equally ridiculous.

I read the 25th anniversary edition, so there's also a bit in the back about Goldman abridging the sequel, Buttercup's Baby, and how Stephen King was going to do it but he said Goldman could abridge the first chapter, and then there's the first chapter, but at that point I was really just done with the conceit. Part of that first chapter is really engaging, but most of it just doesn't make any sense and I'm not sure where Goldman was going with it. Alas.

Rating: 8/10

The Stepford Wives, by Ira Levin (25 August)

I needed to take a break from Calamity Physics − it's pretty long and even though I'm halfway through I'm still not entirely sure what the book is about − so I decided to take a quick romp through the 1970s. This book, at only 145 pages, didn't take very long to read and was pretty entertaining.

I've seen both of the Stepford Wives movies and they're pretty different, so I wanted to know just what the book was about. If you haven't seen them, what we have here is a town called Stepford wherein all of the wives are subservient and domestic, convinced that their only purpose in life is to keep the house clean for their husbands. New arrivals Joanna and Walter Eberhart are part of the women's-lib movement and, once they realize the dominance of the men's club in town, plan to convert the husbands over to their side and open up the association to women as well. Joanna makes friends with a couple of other independent women, Bobbie and Charmaine, and they try to gather the wives of the town into a women's club, with no luck.

Soon after Charmaine spends a weekend alone with her husband, she becomes one of the Stepford wives herself and Bobbie and Joanna worry for their safety. Their husbands reassure them that nothing's wrong, but something very clearly is.

The book is really a lot more vague than I thought it would be − I ended up filling in a lot of blanks with scenes I remembered from the movies. It probably would have been better had I read this first and filled those blanks in on my own. The ending of the book is much more open-ended than those of the movies, but it's still quite sinister. I like the fact that Levin leaves these things open to interpretation, but I wish I didn't already have some interpretations in my head.

Rating: 7/10