50 Books // The Passage // # 7

This book is a whale. Almost a thousand pages! With my Generation Y symptom, the 'low attention span', this took a while to read. There's also a lot of characters and I'm not good with names. The book's timeline spans decades and of course, the world is in peril.

All of this spells out one thing. The Passage by Justin Cronin is an epic. With a capital E. Epic. Actually no, in caps lock. EPIC. Add an exclamation.

EPIC!

It's also a vampire novel. I can hear you groaning. I can assure you this is no Twilight. The vampires here aren't covered in pretty sparkles. They're covered in human viscera. Actually, the 'virals' I pictured more as a zombie/vampire hybrid and they're more vicious and more horrifying than any vampire or zombie I've come across in a novel. These things are ruthless. 

It's quite hard to describe the plot because there's a lot going on here but all you need to know is that there's a central character. She's a little girl named Amy. The reason she's so special I won't give away here but in the first part of the book we read about where she came from and how the virus spread throughout the world. 

It then becomes a post-apocalyptic story and the story shifts and focuses on what's called the first colony. We don't exactly know what has happened with the rest of the world because the colonies have isolated themselves as a form of protection from the virals. The problem is they can't isolate themselves for much long. 

The first part of the book is outstanding. Cronin sets up the characters and the story really well here. Even though the premise is familiar (it reminded me of I Am Legend) and certainly not new (virus outbreak) it was still very electrifying and I was eager to know what was going to happen next.

All of a sudden the story is fast-forwarded by almost a century. The thrill of the previous part quickly wanes because of we're suddenly introduced to a different world and new characters. I hated that. I felt like I was just getting to know the previous characters and here I am suddenly being introduced to new people. It was like becoming popular at school then all of a sudden you're moved to another one.

The middle is the weakest for me. I can't even remember what happened for the most part because it was so uninteresting. I was ready to give up halfway through until I started to warm up to the newer characters. The story then starts to really get exciting. That was what I wanted from this novel all along: the thrill of a post-apocalyptic story with vampires. I was reading more literary books before this one and I was craving for lots of action and I was finally getting it. 

The Passage ends in a cliffhanger (or rather, CLIFFHANGER!) and I don't care if the next instalment is the size of War and Peace, I'm itching to read it. I'm just hoping we don't get introduced to a million new characters.

Links:

About the 50 Books Challenge

Goodreads account

List of the books I've read so far

Book 'poster' was created and edited by me. Book cover from here.

50 Books // The Magicians // # 5

You know that post-Harry Potter depression you went through after you saw the last Harry Potter movie? 

I may have found a fix. The Magicians by Lev Grossman is like a mish mash of the worlds of Hogwarts, Narnia and Middle Earth. It's like postmodern fantasy novel with actual references from famous fantasy stories. 

It starts when our main character, Quentin, stumbles into a magical school and is forced to take a bizarre examination before being allowed entry. THe difference between Hogwarts and Brakebills is that in the latter, magic learning is extremely serious. I don't want to explain the whole process with how the magic works there but it's a lot more complicated than a simple swish and flick! It's more realistic and the entire novel examines the real psychological and emotional impact of being a wizard within the context of the real non-magical world.

Despite going to a magical college most of the characters are depressed and unsatisfied. I would recommend this to any undergraduate students because that feeling of having absolutely no idea what you're going to do with your life is probably the primary theme of the novel and it is so familiar. The thrill and anxiety of an unknown future ahead.

Unlike the Harry Potter books with a whole school year dedicated to one book. Grossman only uses half of the novel to narrate their entire magical education. It instead focuses on what happens after, which the Harry Potter books didn't. 

I'm reading the second novel now, The Magician King and I can't wait until he writes a third one.

Links:

About the 50 Books Challenge

Goodreads account

List of the books I've read so far

Image edited by me from this original image. Second image from my Instagram @jesuevalle.

50 Books // The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle // # 2

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Murakami's masterpiece (I seem to always say this about every Murakami I read) is about a young married man named Toru. Toru loses a number of things. First his cat, then his wife and then slowly his sense of reality. In search of these things he encounters characters both bizarre and amusing ranging from war veterans, a politician, an introspective sixteen-year-old girl and even mind prostitutes. Yes, prostitutes who pleasure you in your dreams. 

To describe the plot of the novel is near impossible. At more than 600 pages this is an epic that crosses various time periods, various character viewpoints while managing to weave in and out (and sometimes in between) the real and the imagined. It sounds confusing and complex but it's actually deceptively simple. The way Murakami writes allows the surreal nature of the narrative as well as the layered plot to be as digestible as a children's fairytale. There are so many things going on but somehow Murakami never leaves you behind. This is probably because he never embellishes his sentences more than he needs to. At one point there is even a story within a story within another story. As one character tells Toru one of her stories Toru observes:

"Without explanation, she would

reverse chronological order or suddenly

introduces as a major character

someone she had never mentioned 

to me before...

She would narrate events she had

witnessed with her own eyes, as 

well as events that she had never

witnessed."

 Upon reading this I realised Murakami was describing how he tells his own stories.

I would read this before I go to bed and I remember how strange my own dreams end up becoming. It was as if Murakami's prose somehow rearranged my brain to allow it to gaze at the world in a distorted, convoluted and even a perverse kind of way.

I tend to read fast and usually whizz through books but this one made me slow down and cherish every sentence, every moment and every chapter. I gave it time and it deserved it without question.

Links:

About the 50 Books Challenge

Goodreads account

List of the books I've read so far

Image was edited by me from this original image.

50 Books // Bonjour Tristesse // #1

Hurray for the first book I completed for the 2012 Fifty Books Challenge! It wasn't that difficult since Bonjour Tristesse is only over a hundred pages long.

I'm thankful that it was very brief because I found the main character, Cecile, extremely irritating, selfish and arrogant. If I wanted to witness the lives of privileged people living colourless lives then I would have turned on an episode of a Kardashian TV show.

This was written by an eighteen-year old about a seventeen-year old and you can pretty much sniff out the teenage angst and boredom right from the very first page.

Although she does provide small glimpses of introspection and an occasional acute observance of a character's behaviour, most of the time her words aren't very penetrating and lacks a bit of depth.

This was set in the South of France, arguably the country's most glamourous area, during the most elegant of all decades but Sagan never really took me there. Again, I had brief glimpses of it but the language is so restrained I felt like I was witnessing the story with a cloak thrown over me. I was reading a Murakami and Bronte novel at the same time I was reading this and every lacklustre sentence I read in Bonjour Tristesse made me long for the rich, vibrant and complex storytelling from those accomplished writers.

However, I don't really regret reading this. It was a quick and easy read and I actually had fun mocking and despising the characters in the novel.

Links:

About the 50 Books Challenge

Goodreads account

List of the books I've read so far

Images are owned by me and cannot be reused without permission or crediting the original source.

50 Books Challenge

In 2012, I've decided to take part in the 50 books challenge.

It's simple enough, finish 50 books from the 1st of January to 31st of December. After I finish a book I will write a post with thoughts, criticisms, and my general experience reading the book. I will also be posting a 'book poster' which will add a visual touch to the blog post, as well as an Instagram of the book cover. 

I may succeed, I may fail or the world may end (see Mayan calendar apocalypse).

Now I must confess I've kind of cheated already.

Bad start, I know, but technically it's not cheating. I think.

The books I'm reading this month (December 2011) I'm going to hold off finishing until January next year and since I'm over halfway through about seven books already, I'll be able to get a massive head start during January. 

So, it's not cheating. Just very cunning.

Have a Merry Christmas and a safe, wonderful New Year.

Links:

Most recent blog posts 

Goodreads account

List of the books I've read so far

Image edited by me. Original image here.

READING CHALLENGE: Moby Dick

This is my Penguin Classics challenge. It's very simple, I just pick up a book included in the classics list from Penguin and..well..read it. First up is Moby Dick by Herman Mellville.

It's big. It's fat. It's a whale of a book. Pun intended.

And it's intimidating.

Some people absolutely love it. Some surrender halfway through. Some think it's a complete waste of time.

But I am going to bravely tackle Moby Dick. If I manage to finish, that could be my excuse for cracking open War and Peace and Les Miserables. But we'll get to that later on.

For those who don't know what the book is about, it's basically the story of a whaleman who goes out to sea to pursue a whale. Yeah I know, it sounds really boring. It's full of whale/sea talk but thankfully there is a glossary of terms in the back.

So, I'm currently on page 50, chapter 9. So far so good. The central character is compelling enough for me to keep turning the pages and it's actually quite funny. But it's still the beginning, he's not even out at sea yet, so I guess the most challenging bits are still ahead of me. Wish me luck.