More Summer Reading

9.5 down, 5.5 to go

A Visit from The Goon Squad: Really? This is an acclaimed book? It just made me annoyed. In theory, it tells the stories of about a dozen quasi-connected people. But really, it starts to tell the stories of these people, gets you interested, then moves on to someone else without a satisfying conclusion to any of the characters' stories. The characters come back later, but how did they get married!? What happened to their dreams!? Where did this kid come from!? You never find out. Plus, all the people are at some sad, unfulfilled point in their life without any sincere efforts to improve. Maybe, along with movies, I'm just not cut out for serious intellectual-ism anymore in my life. But from the second chapter on, I just felt like this book was written for the purpose of everyone talking about how unusual and innovative (aka pretentious) it was rather than actually being a good story. Second disappointing Pulitzer winning book this summer!

The Hunger Games: so far so good. Much more up my alley. Quick read, not totally predictable.

Nothing Daunted The story of two wealthy women in the early 1900s teaching in Colorado. Most people would think this sounded boring. I thought it sounded interesting. It's boring. It's just way too much detail about tangential characters without really getting to know them. I'll give it a little more skimming time, but after today I'm done.

The Memory of All That: I liked this book. I like stories about the early 20th century, and I like George Gershwin, and this was well told.


The Carrie Diaries: Meh. Nice quick beach read, but nothing special. Much better than Trading Up, which I'm currently reading/not enjoying, but a lot of continuity issues with Sex and The City considering it's supposed to be a prequel.