While in China, I didn't exactly have much time to read, so despite being there a month, I only made it through two books: The Secret History by Donna Tartt and The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell.
The Secret History is an extremely beautiful and complex novel centered around a group of six classics students at a small New Hampshire college. One of the six, Richard, is the narrator and he is reflecting on the events that led to the murder of another member of the group. The author uses a format in which she introduces the murder and the murderers in the prologue, then the rest of the novel recounts how the characters actually came to commit the crime, kind a murder mystery in reverse. Other than tell the story of these six characters, the book also has, thanks to lots of literary and classic references and allusions, wider reaching themes and ideas about beauty: literary beauty versus the beauty of reality, social constraints and one's desire to be free, and the relationships between people. All in all, it's an AMAZING book, one that I want to go back and read again, because even though I understood it, I feel like it is a book that I can learn something from additional readings.
The next book is The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell, which is a prequel to Sex and the City, following the life of Carrie Bradshaw during her senior year of high school in a small New England town. It's a young adult novel and it was okay. I don't know, I've read a few of Candace Bushnell's books, and I really want to like them because I love Sex and the City, but I never do. Maybe it's because I didn't read it, I listened to it on my iPod, and whoever was reading it had an annoying voice and made ALL the characters sounds so, well, annoying. And the Carrie in the book did not seem like the Carrie of the show that I love. I don't recommend it.
For good young adult, John Green all the way. I already recommended Looking for Alaska, and I just read An Abundance of Katherines. So funny and real. To explain the plot is confusing: washed up child prodigy, pudgy Judge Judy loving best friend, a road trip, and 19 ex girlfriends all named Katherine. Oh and somehow they end up in Tennessee hunting feral hogs at one point. Totally off the wall yet totally real at the same time. A great read!
Now I'm attempting to read Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. One of my favorite stories on film, so I owe it to Miss Mitchell to read her epic novel. I'm 300 pages into the 1000 page monster and I do love it. Especially the scenes between Scarlett and Rhett Butler. Utterly gripping. Also, there is sooooooooooooo much description I really honestly feel like I am in Civil War Atlanta. More updates as I work my way through.
