The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler's Wife was a quick read, though it was a lengthy book. I really enjoyed it! While I didn't particularly care for Niffenegger's writing style, I enjoyed the idea of time traveling and the deeper questions that it brought up. I am glad that I picked it up! My one qualm with this book is the ending. I felt that it just didn't quite tie up for being The Time Traveler's Wife. I felt that Clare's ending was incomplete, and I longed to know more about what happened to her after Henry's death. All in all, however, I loved the book!

It referenced Byatt's Possession a few times, so I believe that I will try it again sometime, just to see what it's really like.

4/5 stars

Dolores Claiborne - Stephen King

I read this already. I forgot that I read it, but about 5 pages in, it all came back to me. I can't believe that I forgot that I read it! In any case, I skimmed over it. It wasn't a hard or a long read. It was enjoyable and much lighter than some of King's works. While it will never rank in the top 10 of my favorite of King's novels, it was much better than some of the other ones that I've read (Cujo and Christine come to mind.) All-in-all, it was a nice "study break," but not much more (and I don't think my opinion would have been different if I hadn't read it before).

3.5/5 stars

Vagabond - Bernard Cornwell

The second in Cornwell's "Grail Series" has pretty much lost my interest. I'll probably read the third one when I have nothing better to do, but I won't hurry my way towards it. Vagabond was slow paced and nothing much happened in it. I believed that I figured out what the grail was, but a classmate of mine who has read the series has informed me that I was wrong about that, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. (Meaning: If I know what the grail is, then it was revealed too soon. If I'm mistaken, then a large portion of the book was even more useless than I'm assuming it to be.) Overall, I liked Cornwell's "Warlord Chronicles" (about King Arthur) a lot better than his "Grail Series." It's kind of disppointing because I usually enjoy this sort of Arthurian legend story, and this series just feels like a waste of time.

2/5 stars

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - Bill Bryson

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I found it to be laugh-out-loud hilarious at many points and it never lost my interest. Bryson's combination of exaggeration and tales of the idealized 50's was so enjoyable to read. There's nothing much else to say - it was an easy but completely pleasant to read (it would have made a great "beach read," too). I will definitely be picking up more of Bryson's memoirs!

4.5/5 stars

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

This is one of the "classics" that I can understand why it's considered a classic. In some respects, it is simply glorified 18th century "chick lit," but the fact that it's still relevant and interesting centuries later makes it worthy of the "classic" label. Austen is a simplistic writer, with easy-to-understand themes and likable (for the most part) but believable characters. The end also leaves you with an appropriate amount of wondering, because the reader is left to contemplate whether the characters have really found happiness or if it's just their "pride and prejudice[s]" that has lead them to make the decisions that they did. (In some ways, it's almost as if Austen was intentionally leaving her book open for the dozens of spin-offs and "sequels" that have been written in the last few decades.) My final word - a worthwhile read.

4/5 stars

The Stand - Stephen King

I love this book! This was my second time reading The Stand, and because I read it so quickly the first time, I didn't remember a lot of it. This time, however, it's sticking with me. This book epitomizes what King does (did?) best (I qualify that because his more recent books seem to lack this spark). He makes a whole world that draws the reader in. His character development is superb and you really care about what happens to these people. The plot, in it's way, was a twist on two of the oldest tales of all - the struggle between "good" and "evil" mixed with the apocalypse. Definitely one of my favorite of King's books.

5/5 stars

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski

Ugh. This one was not a particularly enjoyable book. It seemed to plod along uselessly without much happening. It also bordered on "magical realism," which is a genre that I think the world would be much better off without.

While doing some research on this book, I found a tie that I should have spotted myself, but missed: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle as Hamlet. I don't think it improves the story much. I think it was a loooong, slow "retelling" of Hamlet, and even that seems like a tenuous link made by people who are looking for something in the book. Though there are several parallels, 90% of the book has nothing to do with Hamlet at all. The ending is wrong, and not in a happy way; the plot is disconnected; and the writing is not good. This was such a big "selling point" of the book that I thought I should address that.

On top of all of that, Wroblewski leaves many plot points out. The "ghost" is never explained, Forte the dog is never explained or incorporated, Edgar gets halfway to Canada and inexplicably turns back, the old lady at the drug store is random and not incorporated, the list goes on and on. And the ending is just bad. Bad bad bad, no matter which was you slice it. An amazon.com reviewer said it best: "Of all the ways this story could have ended, the worst of all possible worlds was chosen. The good guys lose, the bad guys lose, the marginal characters lose, the dogs lose, and ultimately the reader is the biggest loser of them all. The reader is left to resent the time spent getting to the conclusion. A refund of the cost of the book would not repay time wasted reading it." I could not have said it better myself.

1/5 stars